Criterion software announced today that Sony Online Entertainment has licensed its dynamic PVS middleware program for use in its online games. Sony will initially use the program for the PC games Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin. No announcements regarding Sony using the dynamic PVS for PlayStation 2 games have been made.

　　Dynamic PVS is powered by Hybrid's Umbra technology, which allows for richer 3D environments for online games. Umbra performs similarly to culling in that it tells the CPU which elements of the graphics need to be drawn at any given time. This keeps the computer from being bogged down with rendering polygons that cannot be seen by the player. The dPVS can also be used to thwart player-side cheating once installed on the game's server. Dynamic PVS can be used as a stand-alone product or as a plug-in for Criterion's RenderWare middleware tools.

　　"We recognize that the massively multiplayer online gaming market is rapidly expanding," said Kelly Flock, president, Sony Online Entertainment. "Compelling gameplay coupled with next-generation graphics will help us maintain our position as a world leader in multiplayer gaming. Criterion understands our goals, and we're extremely pleased to be using dPVS for upcoming projects and as part of our development process, as it will release our developers from the constraints of preprocessed visibility. This will help create 3D massively multiplayer worlds of unimaginable scale and scope, and both titles will benefit from the ability to build totally dynamic environments."