81,981 research outputs found
Random Numbers and Gaming
In Counter Strike: Global Offensive spray pattern control becomes a muscle memory to a player after long periods of playing. It’s a design choice that makes the gunplay between players more about instant crosshair placement with the faster player usually winning. This is very different from the gunplay of the current popular shooter Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Player Unknown’s Battleground’s spray pattern for the guns are random. So how does this affect the player experience? Well as opposed to Counter Strike: Global Offensive, the design choice makes gunplay between two players more about how a person can adapt faster when encountering another. So why does the change from a set pattern to random make for such a different experience in gameplay. Did the usage of randomness make for such a different experience? Random numbers in video games are utilized frequently and have been used for a long time, whether it was better for the player experience is often hard to tell. So just what is this “randomness”? What games use random numbers and why? Are random numbers a bad practice? The usage of random numbers in games is nothing new, but poor implementations and bad business practices have given random numbers a smudge mark on their reputation
Algorithm for normal random numbers
We propose a simple algorithm for generating normally distributed pseudo
random numbers. The algorithm simulates N molecules that exchange energy among
themselves following a simple stochastic rule. We prove that the system is
ergodic, and that a Maxwell like distribution that may be used as a source of
normally distributed random deviates follows when N tends to infinity. The
algorithm passes various performance tests, including Monte Carlo simulation of
a finite 2D Ising model using Wolff's algorithm. It only requires four simple
lines of computer code, and is approximately ten times faster than the
Box-Muller algorithm.Comment: 5 pages, 3 encapsulated Postscript Figures. Submitted to
Phys.Rev.Letters. For related work, see http://pipe.unizar.es/~jf
PRNG Random Numbers on GPU
Limited numerical precision of nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX and other GPUs requires careful implementation of PRNGs. The
Park-Miller PRNG is programmed using G80’s native Value4f floating point in RapidMind C++. Speed up is more than 40.
Code is available via ftp ftp://cs.ucl.ac.uk/genetic/gp-code/random-numbers/gpu park-miller.tar.g
Random Numbers Certified by Bell's Theorem
Randomness is a fundamental feature in nature and a valuable resource for
applications ranging from cryptography and gambling to numerical simulation of
physical and biological systems. Random numbers, however, are difficult to
characterize mathematically, and their generation must rely on an unpredictable
physical process. Inaccuracies in the theoretical modelling of such processes
or failures of the devices, possibly due to adversarial attacks, limit the
reliability of random number generators in ways that are difficult to control
and detect. Here, inspired by earlier work on nonlocality based and device
independent quantum information processing, we show that the nonlocal
correlations of entangled quantum particles can be used to certify the presence
of genuine randomness. It is thereby possible to design of a new type of
cryptographically secure random number generator which does not require any
assumption on the internal working of the devices. This strong form of
randomness generation is impossible classically and possible in quantum systems
only if certified by a Bell inequality violation. We carry out a
proof-of-concept demonstration of this proposal in a system of two entangled
atoms separated by approximately 1 meter. The observed Bell inequality
violation, featuring near-perfect detection efficiency, guarantees that 42 new
random numbers are generated with 99% confidence. Our results lay the
groundwork for future device-independent quantum information experiments and
for addressing fundamental issues raised by the intrinsic randomness of quantum
theory.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 16 page appendix. Version as close as possible
to the published version following the terms of the journa
Quasi-random numbers for copula models
The present work addresses the question how sampling algorithms for commonly
applied copula models can be adapted to account for quasi-random numbers.
Besides sampling methods such as the conditional distribution method (based on
a one-to-one transformation), it is also shown that typically faster sampling
methods (based on stochastic representations) can be used to improve upon
classical Monte Carlo methods when pseudo-random number generators are replaced
by quasi-random number generators. This opens the door to quasi-random numbers
for models well beyond independent margins or the multivariate normal
distribution. Detailed examples (in the context of finance and insurance),
illustrations and simulations are given and software has been developed and
provided in the R packages copula and qrng
Generation of pseudo-random numbers
Practical methods for generating acceptable random numbers from a variety of probability distributions which are frequently encountered in engineering applications are described. The speed, accuracy, and guarantee of statistical randomness of the various methods are discussed
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