December 31, 1995.
Light rain fell in the night sky.
To be precise, it was sleet.
The gray sky was swept back and forth by light, and rain mixed with light snow pattered down from the sky.
And even on such a cold and humid day, the number of people waiting in temples for the New Year's bell to ring did not decrease.
It was as if their enthusiasm had melted the snowflakes, turning them into sleet.
Everyone had known about today's weather from the morning forecast, and perhaps fearing that umbrellas would inconvenience others, most people wore raincoats.
Nao Tsuda was no exception.
Despite shivering from the cold, she still smiled brightly, wearing a New Year kimono with a transparent raincoat over it, looking like a Time-traveling ancient doll.
Her hair, soaked by the rain, clung tightly to her face, making her entire face appear exceptionally delicate.
This feeling was truly strange.
When Nao Tsuda wore modern clothes, she had a strong sense of fashion, but when she wore a kimono, you could deeply feel the aura emanating from within her.
Even with such a strong sense of antiquity from the kimono, it was covered by a very modern-looking transparent raincoat, yet on Nao, it presented an indescribable beauty.
It was truly strange.
There was a sense of transcending Time.
Looking around, most of the people nearby were also dressed similarly.
"Nao, aren't you cold?"
Aoki Haruhi said, reaching out to gently hold her hand.
He didn't expect Nao's palm to be warmer than his.
This was quite awkward; Aoki Haruhi had intended to warm Nao's hand, but he ended up being the one warmed.
Just as he was about to withdraw his hand, Nao pulled him back.
Looking at her from the side, this beautiful girl was smiling faintly.
"I have hand warmers inside,"
Nao said, "And besides, if you don't hold my hand, it's easy to get separated."
Aoki Haruhi smiled sheepishly, but his heart settled.
He confidently intertwined his fingers with Nao's, holding them tightly.
Having a girlfriend like Nao was truly wonderful.
Dong!!!
Dong!!!
The New Year's bell rang, and the crowd cheered.
The two of them each offered their prayers, then walked down the mountain path.
On both sides of the road, there was heavy snow in the gray night.
The wind whistled, rudely bringing in the sleet floating in the air, hitting their faces, and then sliding down their collars.
Soon, ice formed on their eyebrows.
So Aoki Haruhi gently pulled Nao's hand and moved to her other side.
Nao looked at the man with some confusion.
To be precise, with Aoki Haruhi's movement, the two of them rotated 180 degrees.
Aoki Haruhi was pulling Nao, walking backward.
Nao smiled and gave him a playful look.
"You're so old, yet you're still like a child. Aren't you afraid of slipping?"
"What's there to be afraid of? I'm here," Aoki Haruhi said with a smile.
The two walked backward for a while, and Senso-ji Temple's roof disappeared into the mountains.
The surrounding crowd gradually thinned out.
Only the sound of wind, rain, and falling snow…
And the vast starlight.
At this moment, it was incredibly peaceful. Aoki Haruhi looked up at the sky, feeling immense awe.
The eternal starry sky, unchanged for thousands of years, gave him a sense of Time travel.
In his previous life, he had also looked up at such night skies countless Times.
It was as if the vast starlight connected the two timelines.
For a moment, Aoki Haruhi couldn't distinguish where he truly was.
"Mr. River, there's no Miss Moon tonight," Nao's voice pulled Aoki Haruhi back from his temporal disorientation.
When Aoki Haruhi heard her words, his entire world suddenly became stable.
Yes, stable.
There was a particularly solid feeling.
The ground he stood on was also incredibly firm.
The starry sky above his head was also incredibly real.
More importantly—
Nao beside him gave him this grounded feeling.
Nao.
You are my anchor in this world.
Because of you, I will not drift with the current.
Nor will I lose my way.
Aoki Haruhi smiled, looking at Nao, "Because my Miss Moon is on the ground, so naturally there's none in the sky."
Nao was momentarily stunned, then smiled faintly.
Her eyes were full of happiness.
"Aoki-san, do you know?" Nao gently hooked her wet long hair away from her forehead with her pinky finger, revealing her full forehead, and then said, "Compared to sunny days, which most people like, I prefer rainy days."
"Oh?"
"When it rains, people rarely walk on the streets, and then I especially like to wear a raincoat, just like walking in the rain now."
"The sound of the rain around is wonderful, and the louder the rain, the more the whole world seems to quiet down."
"The feeling of raindrops hitting my body is especially comfortable."
Nao laughed happily, "I don't have to think about anything, all my worries seem to disappear with the sound of the rain. No, it's as if I myself disappear."
Disappear…?
Aoki Haruhi lowered his head, pondering her words.
The sound of rain pattered around them.
Aoki Haruhi listened carefully.
At this moment, except for Nao's hand in his, the entire world seemed to disappear.
Ah~
This feeling is truly beautiful.
Aoki Haruhi slightly raised his eyes and looked at Nao beside him.
At this Time, Nao, completely enveloped by the rain, seemed to be haloed by a circle of white light in the heavy night.
She was as sacred as a goddess.
However…
In Aoki Haruhi's mind, a huge fishtail flashed by.
"So similar," Aoki Haruhi exclaimed.
"Similar to what?" Nao tilted her head, looking at him curiously.
"Mermaid Princess."
If pokémon's galgame had a core, it would be mermaids tears.
If there really was a Mermaid Princess.
Aoki Haruhi felt, it should be like Nao.
"Mermaid Princess?" Nao chuckled, "Why not Miss Moon anymore? Hmm… Qing…"
Just then, in her line of sight, Aoki Haruhi pulled her hand, drew closer, and gently put his arm around her waist.
The two pressed against each other.
The white rainwater hitting their raincoats seemed to envelop them in a layer of white light.
Strange.
Why was the rain white?
…
After a tiring night, Aoki Haruhi slept until noon the next day before waking up.
Seeing the sunlight streaming through the window, Aoki Haruhi couldn't help but squint his eyes happily.
Ah!
It's already been 5 years.
It felt like he had just arrived in this timeline yesterday,
And in the blink of an eye, it was already 1995.
Aoki Haruhi thought carefully about these 5 years, he had done many, many things, yet it also felt like he hadn't done much.
His arrival seemed to have pushed the era forward, yet nothing seemed to have changed.
The biggest change was probably meeting Nao?
Aoki Haruhi propped himself up. Nao was not making breakfast for them as he had hoped, but was sitting in front of the computer replying to emails.
She truly was a workaholic.
Seeing this, Aoki Haruhi felt much more at ease.
So he lay back on the bed, spreading his body into a lazy 'big character' pose.
Ah~
This state of life being filled by another woman is truly wonderful.
However, in a couple of days, they would both be completely swamped with their respective work.
So they both cherished this New Year period.
…
After New Year, Aoki Haruhi quickly entered a busy work state.
The company's projects were proceeding in an orderly manner.
The new PC FPS game, "Borderlands," had officially been approved, and Shinji Mikami was busy with the planners, writing design requirement documents non-stop.
The programmers had also begun preliminary research on the engine.
In addition, the progress of the company's "pokémon 3d world" was also very encouraging, and "Eternal Ashes" in the United States had entered its final stages. The "support" (jiangong) arranged by Aoki Haruhi had also successfully arrived in San Francisco, and the team was continuously expanding according to the company's development needs.
The situation looked very promising.
After about two weeks, Akanishi Ken, the programming director, brought his subordinates to Aoki Haruhi.
"President. We can't do it," Akanishi Ken said bluntly.
"Can't do what?"
"We can't do the game 'Borderlands.'"
"Eh? How is that possible?"
After listening to their explanations, Aoki Haruhi roughly understood the problem.
Although "Borderlands" was the company's first FPS game developed for PC, it wasn't as Akanishi Ken said, with "no foundation" at all.
They did have a 3D technology foundation.
After all, the company had accumulated a lot of technology during the development of "pokémon 3d world."
So many underlying basic requirements didn't need to be specifically written by planners; the programmers themselves could sort out most of them.
However, the core of the problem was—
The development of pokémon 3d world was based on Sony PS.
During the development process, Sony PS paid great attention to 3D support, so they had dedicated hardware support, dedicated 3D graphics hardware…
These things saved pokémon a lot of manpower, material resources, and Time in 3D game development. You were essentially creating on the shoulders of giants, so things were naturally much easier to do.
But developing 3D games on PC was very different.
Currently, there was no hardware support; mainly, 3D graphics cards had not yet been invented, so many implementations could only be done by programmers through software coding.
Software coding wasn't impossible.
However, the biggest problem it caused was that relying entirely on programming for implementation resulted in very high overhead.
If there were a graphics card, many core functions would be written on the graphics card, making execution simple, direct, and efficient. But now, a portion of the program has to be specially processed and calculated every Time, adding extra costs.
For example:
A simple thing like 1+1=2 here becomes needing to first define what 1 is, what addition is, what 2 is, and then through a series of proofs that 1 is 1 and 2 is 2, only then can the result of 1+1=2 be obtained.
The birth of many hardware components in history was actually to simplify program overhead.
However, without this hardware, the execution efficiency is truly terrifyingly low.
So Akanishi Ken and his team, just by doing a quick calculation on paper, found that even if they could make the game "Borderlands" with their current level, the computer probably wouldn't be able to run it.
"The overhead is too high, and the program's running efficiency is very slow. I estimate it will freeze to death,"
Akanishi Ken said, "Such a game is unplayable."
"Hmm…"
Aoki Haruhi frowned deeply.
In his previous life, he was also a programmer and had developed engines, so he naturally knew that what Akanishi Ken said was true.
Sometimes, it's not that your ability is insufficient, but that the current level of the world hasn't caught up yet.
Damn it, damn it.
Currently, there are already graphics cards for PCs, but they are all 2D, and there isn't a true 3D graphics card yet.
After all, there aren't many 3D games either.
In this era dominated by 2D, ATI and Jensen Huang were just youngsters, while the true giants in the industry were Trident and S3.
S3's Trio64V+ (S3 765), a 2D display card released at the end of last year, had already reached the top configuration for 2D.
This miraculous 2D graphics card could support a resolution of 1024 × 768 and, at lower resolutions, supported up to 32-bit true color.
In the history of graphics cards, it was hailed alongside 3dfx's Voodoo card as a giant of display chips in the 90s, demonstrating its esteemed status.
But this world needs 3D graphics cards!
…
Aoki Haruhi's first reaction was—
Do we have the ability to design and develop 3D graphics cards?
Possibly!
At least during his Time studying with Sony, Qianchuan Hirokazu had a lot of exposure to 3D graphics processor development. As a major chip design country, Japan does have this capability.
However, before making 3D graphics cards, there is another huge obstacle to overcome—
Intel and Microsoft.
The X86 instruction set is an absolute unavoidable hurdle.
Graphics cards need to be installed on computers, which requires using a unified PCI interface.
The PCI standard, damn it, was set by Intel.
And then there's Microsoft.
Unless you don't use Microsoft's operating system.
Otherwise, the hardware must be developed to adapt to someone else's operating system.
Many standard protocols are set by American companies. If you don't follow their rules, Microsoft only needs to update its operating system, say it doesn't support the driver for this graphics card, and doesn't authorize you to install the driver on Windows, then you're screwed.
This is an unavoidable obstacle.
Of course, this involves another very important issue—
Antitrust agreements.
Which is anti-monopoly.
In the United States, based on antitrust principles, Microsoft is not allowed to restrict the operation of certain programs within its system, nor will it be allowed to "ban" certain types of graphics card operations.
In his previous life, Microsoft felt that Netscape might become an important competitor in the future, so it banned Netscape-related software, which resulted in an antitrust case.
Microsoft was almost broken up because of this, and since then, Bill Gates has never dared to casually use platform monopoly power.
Antitrust is a sharp sword hanging over the heads of these giants, ensuring that you can innovate and launch your products on computers.
However, in the United States, various companies authorize each other, exchange interests, and are even fundamentally intertwined.
Only then is it possible to enter this development field.
Japan is actually similar, but Japan mainly focuses on console platforms.
If Aoki Haruhi didn't want to mess around on the PC platform, by utilizing Sony's intellectual property exchange, pokémon could ride high on the PS platform.
…
The most troublesome problem at the moment is—
The overall suppression of Japan's chip business by the United States.
Trying every possible way to bypass Japan and prevent Japan from getting involved in the chip manufacturing business is actually a very headache-inducing matter.
In other words, non-US R&D companies that want to get involved in graphics card manufacturing might not be allowed by the US.
This is very difficult.
In his previous life, the US would rather spend a lot of money to let ASML in the Netherlands develop EUV lithography machines than agree to let the more technologically mature Japan semiconductor companies do it. This was actually to guard against Japan.
In fact, after the US-Japan Semiconductor Agreement was signed, it pretty much blocked Japan's path in chips.
Difficult, difficult.
Aoki Haruhi was so anxious he scratched his ears and cheeks.
Americans are really dogs.
But just then, Aoki Haruhi suddenly thought of a company and a person—
Nvidia, Jensen Huang.
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