When we play games, we often encounter some inexplicable bugs. Generally speaking, everyone thinks that this must be the game developer's pot, either the programmer is not strong enough, or the tester is not careful enough! So, if a game bug can only be encountered by you and no one else can touch it, what would be the reason? This may be a problem with your own hardware equipment. If your computer (or host) is completely fine, where does the game bug come from?
The overseas UP master "Veritasium" recently shared a popular science video with fans. Among them, Dr. Leif Scheick, a radiation effects engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: cosmic rays can affect The electronic devices on the earth cause a series of problems! In other words, the culprit behind some incredible game bugs encountered by players may be cosmic rays!
"Veritasium" also cited a classic case: As early as 2013, "Super Mario 64" speed master "Teabag" was accidentally letting him challenge the "Tick Tock Clock" level. Mario flew to the upper level of the map! This is obviously a game bug. When other players see it, they naturally want to imitate, but they all end in failure. Even "Teabag" doesn't know how it was triggered! In order to find the answer, some local tyrants even offered a reward of $1,000 to reward players who can reproduce the bug!
Many years have passed, and the $1,000 has never been taken away. Until 2019, the local player did not know where to get the "answer" and announced the method: players only need to "bit flip" the Mario vertical position coordinate parameter to change it from 1 to 0 ,Then Mario can "flip" to the upper level of the game space, so who did the "bit flip"?
Of course, related hardware failures and software failures can cause the "bit flip" of electronic devices, and cosmic rays are very likely to be the cause. As early as 1978, Intel had encountered the problem of spontaneous bit flipping of its devices. At that time, the alpha particles in the cosmic rays entered the device chip and passed through the silicon to produce "electron hole pairs" (electron hole pairs). ) Phenomenon, and liberate charge carriers, causing the accumulation of electrons in the semiconductor well, which in turn causes the bit parameter to change from 1 to 0.
After people understand the above phenomenon, subsequent measures have been taken in semiconductor manufacturing to prevent accidents. Therefore, modern computers (or mainframes) are not affected by cosmic rays in most cases. malfunction. However, modern technology cannot completely eliminate "bit flip", so cosmic rays cause the "bit flip" of the "Teabag" hardware devices, and it is entirely possible to trigger the bizarre bug in "Super Mario 64".
It is worth mentioning that the above-mentioned "bit flip" will not only affect personal computers or game consoles, even airplanes or cars can't be avoided. In 2008, an airplane flying from Singapore to Australia caused a short-term problem with the autopilot mode due to the above phenomenon, which caused the airplane to dive for a certain distance in the air, causing many people to be injured. Therefore, the chips used in related industries have designed protection measures specifically for "bit flip".
Our average player’s computer or game equipment does not have layers of protection against cosmic rays.So it is entirely possible to encounter "bit flip". However, "Teabag" is very fortunate. The "bit flip" he encountered happens to occur in Mario's vertical position coordinate parameters, so that it can trigger a rare bug.
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