Sony "helped design" 360 processor

[Allnatural]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/sony-helped-design-360-processor

[dmaul1114]

Ok, so now next generation partner up on one console so we don't have to buy 2 expensive consoles to play all the good HD games! :D

[FloodsAreUponUS]

Sony helped design a PowerPC processor.
News at 6.

[Maklershed]

Ok, so now next generation partner up on one console so we don't have to buy 2 expensive consoles to play all the good HD games! :D


Dennis Dyack :whee:

[sleepy180]

no wonder it gives the 3 red rings so much to people. IT WAS SABOTAGE!!!!

[dmaul1114]

Dennis Dyack :whee:

No he wants a one console future. I don't thing that would be a good thing there needs to be some competition.

But I think we'd be fine with one high tech console and whatever Nintendo has out. It's hard to justify owning both a 360 and PS3 when so many of the games are on both--especially when it still costs $700 to own both (factoring in getting a 360 with a hard drive).

[Maklershed]

What Dyack means by one console future is that there's only one format of video game. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft can still make consoles (hell, Toshiba or whoever else can get in on the fun) but all video games play on any of the consoles. He likens it to DVDs in that any dvd you buy, no matter what studio produces it, can play on any dvd player. It makes perfect sense and I could easily imagine it happening.

[Chase]

I assume Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft would be against the idea of one format because they feel exclusivity is more profitable. Plus, what if Wal-Mart created a console that is terrible but sold well and hurt the industry? I would not want that to happen.

[Dr Mario Kart]

Nintendo has a close relationship between hardware development and software development. They arent going to give it up, and they arent going to license their software for use outside their system, nor would it be possible from a control standpoint.

The one console future is one without Nintendo. That is to say, it is fiction of the highest order.

[dmaul1114]

Nintendo is not going anywhere. They'll always be around unless they somehow tank and go bankrupt which is unlikely as they've been strong for years. Struggled a bit with the N64 and GC, but always had the portables raking in the cash.

I think we just need them and a Sony/MS partnership or one of them to die off. There's just no need for two machines on the market trying to do pretty much the same exact thing. With major 3rd party exclusives becoming rarer and rarer as time goes on, there's just not enoug exclusives to justify buying multiple consoles that do the same things and play pretty much the same games with the same graphics and online features.

Personally, I don't care that much as none of Sony's first party stuff or third party exclusives are must plays for me anyway. There's several I'd like to play, but nothing I can't stand missing out on. But it would still be nice to not have to buy two expensive machines to play all the HD/online games, and it would make business sense as they could split costs since high powered consoles lose money on hardware sales. But it will never happen. They'll both stick around unless one fails miserably in a future gen and has to go out of the game business.

[Paco]

I prefer Sony's exclusives over Microsofts. It doesn't help that EPIC is going down the shitter with Gears of War and that they royally boned their flagship Unreal series for it. Thanks to Gears, we'll never see an Unreal 3. Though people who said that Epic recently turned graphics whores are on something. EPIC has ALWAYS been graphics whores since Jazz Jackrabbit.

[dmaul1114]

Yeah, it's just what you prefer among the few worthwhile exclusives.really. I love Gears, Halo and Mass Effect so those drew me to the 360--that and I had friends with 360s and Live and no one with a PS3 (still don't know anyone personally with one other than my brother and he only plays sports games).

I don't care much about MGS, Uncharted, Gran Turismo, Ratchet and Clank etc. Would play a couple of them if they were multiplatform, but nothing that has me itching to buy a PS3. But others love them and the PS3 is the better choice for them.

[seanr1221]

It doesn't help that EPIC is going down the shitter with Gears of War .

False

[SuxoR]

Kinda off-topic but kinda relevant :P

Is it true Gears pushes the 360 to the limit? Friend told me a developer said it in an interview

[tortch]

What Dyack means by one console future is that there's only one format of video game. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft can still make consoles (hell, Toshiba or whoever else can get in on the fun) but all video games play on any of the consoles. He likens it to DVDs in that any dvd you buy, no matter what studio produces it, can play on any dvd player. It makes perfect sense and I could easily imagine it happening.


Yeah, they have already developed that. its called a Personal Computer. lol, no offense dude

[Maklershed]

A) Doesn't bother me .. it's not my theory. :)

B) It's not a computer because it would be a pre built thing. Maybe an Alienware computer. But not a pc.

[DarkKenpachi]

funny stuff actually. and honestly it is the circle of life coming back on sony. Microsoft actually took the blueprint for the ps2 and stepped it up a notch.

1: stole all the ps2 games for the next gen
2: made a faulty system which would cause owners to buy more like the ps2( i know several people who have 2 or 3 360's in case one breaks down)

can't blame them honestly, the only problem that i see with what microsoft is doing is not allowing for innovation in gaming like the wii or the ps3 does. sure it may sell more systems and more games in the long run, but mark my words the closer m$ gets to controling the video game industry to less innovative and creative games we will get.

[Maklershed]

:rofl:

lawdy

[zewone]

funny stuff actually. and honestly it is the circle of life coming back on sony. Microsoft actually took the blueprint for the ps2 and stepped it up a notch.

1: stole all the ps2 games for the next gen
2: made a faulty system which would cause owners to buy more like the ps2( i know several people who have 2 or 3 360's in case one breaks down)

can't blame them honestly, the only problem that i see with what microsoft is doing is not allowing for innovation in gaming like the wii or the ps3 does. sure it may sell more systems and more games in the long run, but mark my words the closer m$ gets to controling the video game industry to less innovative and creative games we will get.

I can see that you are a very intelligent person who bases his opinion on facts.

[georox]

funny stuff actually. and honestly it is the circle of life coming back on sony. Microsoft actually took the blueprint for the ps2 and stepped it up a notch.

1: stole all the ps2 games for the next gen
2: made a faulty system which would cause owners to buy more like the ps2( i know several people who have 2 or 3 360's in case one breaks down)

can't blame them honestly, the only problem that i see with what microsoft is doing is not allowing for innovation in gaming like the wii or the ps3 does. sure it may sell more systems and more games in the long run, but mark my words the closer m$ gets to controling the video game industry to less innovative and creative games we will get.

Innovation? How does the PS3 allow innovation? Oh, and motion control bullshit has been done before, so the Wii isn't exactly new ground, just mainstream.

[HowStern]

^I'd say the ps3 allows innovation by allowing the use of 50gb discs for one.

Another funny thing I read the other day is that M$ is using Home for conferencing.

[crystalklear64]

Jack Kilby helped design all consoles!!1

And lol at the article.

New technology looked good, Sony was not in an exclusive deal for the individual parts, why not use what seems to be the best at the time?

IBM made em' both.

[zewone]

^I'd say the ps3 allows innovation by allowing the use of 50gb discs for one.

Another funny thing I read the other day is that M$ is using Home for conferencing.

Name one 50GB disc game.

MS isn't using Home for conferencing.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=205194

[eddieismail]

I don't mind having 2 consoles to buy, as long as they keep the tradition of releasing them 1 year apart.

Having competition forces the console makers to reduce prices.

case in point, at launch the ps3 cost $600 for the 60gb model. due to the competition and the price war, you could pick both a ps3 and a 360 right now for $700, with further price cuts for the PS3 rumored. so YES, I freakin' love competition.

[HowStern]

Name one 50GB disc game.

MS isn't using Home for conferencing.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=205194


MGS4 is a BD50
(it's 46.6 GB)
Granted a lot of the games are still only 23gb (resistance 1 is 22gb, resistance 2 is 24gb i know off the top of my head.) But, think about that...That's 3 times the size of most PC and 360 games.
The switch to blu ray is like the switch from cartridge to CD. They even have a 400gb blu-ray disc ready to go that is compatible with current BD players. That's innovation.

[crystalklear64]

So the extra space lets them get away with sloptimization.

[epobirs]

A) Doesn't bother me .. it's not my theory. :)

B) It's not a computer because it would be a pre built thing. Maybe an Alienware computer. But not a pc.

It was called 3DO.

When Microsoft started the Xbox project, one of the ideas they considered was a platform design that any manufacturer could sell. Microsoft would handle the software side. This made sense in that it would be very similar to the PC business model. But companies like Dell were aware of how badly this sort of thing had fared for Panasonic and LG with the 3DO platform.

[epobirs]

MGS4 is a BD50
(it's 46.6 GB)
Granted a lot of the games are still only 23gb (resistance 1 is 22gb, resistance 2 is 24gb i know off the top of my head.) But, think about that...That's 3 times the size of most PC and 360 games.
The switch to blu ray is like the switch from cartridge to CD. They even have a 400gb blu-ray disc ready to go that is compatible with current BD players. That's innovation.

Over time it will be but most games to date not using the capacity in a way that delviers more to any one region. Having a single disc that includes localized content for a large number of regions doesn't improve things for individual gamers.

It was pretty much the same in the early days of CD-ROM. The games that really needed the space tended to FMV exercises that were painful once the novelty wore off. The rest were games that could just easily be on a cartridge if the FMV bits were dropped, and many were. And lets face it, the interminable non-interactive sequences in MGS4 are very reminiscent of those awful FMV games.

Don't hold your breath waiting for 400 GB BDs to appear. Laboratory demos do not necessarily become products. The yield issues on such a disc would be nightmarish and the market generally lacking. Researchers are already working at producing laser using a narrower spectrum to enable higher capacity media without resorting to troublesome massive multi-layering. It isn't a new concept. Back when DVD was new, more than one company demonstrated disc with four or more layers to put much more content on a single disc. No product ever reached the stores because no likely OEM could be convinced the product was attractive enough to overcome the cost of significantly lower yields.

[epobirs]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/sony-helped-design-360-processor

The book behind the article tries to create scandal where none existed. It helps to drum up sales for something that would otherwise have a very small audience.

In the beginning, when Sony first announced Cell, they tried to claim it would be an entirely new architecture. This was regarded as dubious by those who understood the expense of doing this instead of building on an existing structure. So it was no surprise when IBM's primary contribution was customizing their (and Motorola/Freescale's) PowerPC IP for the specific applications Sony had in mind. IBM was in the business of producing PowerPC variants for different companies. Intel had too much work from the PC market to make custom chips worth their time.

IBM long had the policy of retaining the right to sell their own version of chips they manufactured for others. Their Blue Lightning 486 processor was the same item as the 486 clone they manufactured for Cyrix. (I had a prototype review unit using their 133 MHz version that shipped with Win3.11 and was my first Win95 install.) Reselling customized IP was just a variation on this policy.

The idea that Sony didn't think anybody else would have use for this design is just silly. Sony knew nobody could clone the Cell. The PowerPC portion wasn't a problem in a non-Sony product anymore than any other PowerPC variant.

[rickonker]

The book behind the article tries to create scandal where none existed. It helps to drum up sales for something that would otherwise have a very small audience.

In the beginning, when Sony first announced Cell, they tried to claim it would be an entirely new architecture. This was regarded as dubious by those who understood the expense of doing this instead of building on an existing structure. So it was no surprise when IBM's primary contribution was customizing their (and Motorola/Freescale's) PowerPC IP for the specific applications Sony had in mind. IBM was in the business of producing PowerPC variants for different companies. Intel had too much work from the PC market to make custom chips worth their time.

IBM long had the policy of retaining the right to sell their own version of chips they manufactured for others. Their Blue Lightning 486 processor was the same item as the 486 clone they manufactured for Cyrix. (I had a prototype review unit using their 133 MHz version that shipped with Win3.11 and was my first Win95 install.) Reselling customized IP was just a variation on this policy.

The idea that Sony didn't think anybody else would have use for this design is just silly. Sony knew nobody could clone the Cell. The PowerPC portion wasn't a problem in a non-Sony product anymore than any other PowerPC variant.
It looks to me like Sony really screwed up with the Cell anyway, what with the 360 being about as powerful. If I remember right, the Cell concept was supposed to handle the graphics as well, and when this didn't work out they went with a typical GPU from NVIDIA instead. Do you know any more about this epobirs?

[rickonker]

I prefer Sony's exclusives over Microsofts. It doesn't help that EPIC is going down the shitter with Gears of War and that they royally boned their flagship Unreal series for it. Thanks to Gears, we'll never see an Unreal 3. Though people who said that Epic recently turned graphics whores are on something. EPIC has ALWAYS been graphics whores since Jazz Jackrabbit.

What? The Unreal series hasn't been doing that well recently. My theory is that the people who played Quake 3 and the original UT are still there, but there are so many new gamers that as a percentage the twitch shooter fans are smaller now.

[Genocidal]

What? The Unreal series hasn't been doing that well recently. My theory is that the people who played Quake 3 and the original UT are still there, but there are so many new gamers that as a percentage the twitch shooter fans are smaller now.
I assume by "recently" you mean UT3 since UT2K4 was successful. It's pretty easy to make numbers say what you want with a sample size of 1, espcially when the game was just average.

[rickonker]

I assume by "recently" you mean UT3 since UT2K4 was successful. It's pretty easy to make numbers say what you want with a sample size of 1, espcially when the game was just average.
I just mean the overall trend in the last 10 years, but yes UT3 is a good example. The single player series is dead with Unreal 2. Unreal Championship 2 was a great game but it didn't sell too well so it doesn't look like it's getting a sequel. UT2K3, UT2K4, and UT3 might all have made money but none of them reached the kind of levels the original UT did. Definitely nowhere near Gears of War. Epic is doing fine thanks to engine licensing and GoW, and they'll probably keep putting out UT games once in a while out of nostalgia if nothing else, but I don't see it being their primary series anymore.

Oh and a new UT was supposed to be released every year like a sports series. We know that didn't work out.

[epobirs]

It looks to me like Sony really screwed up with the Cell anyway, what with the 360 being about as powerful. If I remember right, the Cell concept was supposed to handle the graphics as well, and when this didn't work out they went with a typical GPU from NVIDIA instead. Do you know any more about this epobirs?

The original concept for the Cell was that they would scale with great efficiency as more Cells were added. Some of the early Sony claims, long before there was any real silicon, was that the PS3 or other Cell based device would be able to enlist Cells in other household devices for supplemental processing power. The idea that this could be used for games, especially on a console where homogeneity is critical, is completely absurd. It might be useful for lengthy non-interactive tasks like transcoding HD video but the cost of dedicated silicon for that purpose has always been more cost effective.

The 'box full of Cells' concept kept going for a few years of development but two problems kept it from becoming a reality. Just as with most existing CPUs, scaling past two sockets had a big efficency hit. Anyone with a quad-core PC has seen this in how most apps not specifically designed for it don't make much better use of four cores compared to two. The gains for most use is that most systems are doing more than one big app these days. In servers, techniques like virtualization allow the resources to be allocated so that no one app is really seeing all of the processing elements.

The Cell really isn't a multicore processor in the same sense as a Core 2 Quad or a Phenom. It is a single PowerPC core with a bunch of specialized execution units bolted on. It has a lot of power but this is used in a very different way than something like system with multiple x86 processors.

So putting a bunch of Cells in a box wasn't going to deliver as planned. This was just as well because the Cell was proving to be a bitch to manufacture. Much as when the PS2's Emotion Engine was first produced, a smaller process node was badly needed for good yields and pricing. Putting multiple Cells in a product would have made it so expenisve as to make the eventual losses from the actual launch PS3s seem minor. So they went shopping for a GPU to use in a more conventional design.

If you look at videos from the first E3 where Sony demoed the PS3, even though no actual PS3 boards yet existed, you'll see two different sets of demos. Some are Cell demos and others are Nvidia GPU demos running on a PC. This is because there were no systems integrating the two then and certainly no time to do any programming on it.

If you were starting from scratch today with the available parts, the original PS3 concept could be implemented. It would still have the scaling issues but compiler support for genuine multi-processor systems is a lot better now than just a few years ago. But in general it's unlikely anyone would see it as a good design to pursue for an entertainment system. For other apps it makes more sense to put Cells on bladesto be installed in a server rack rather than make a standalone system.

[H.Cornerstone]

It looks to me like Sony really screwed up with the Cell anyway, what with the 360 being about as powerful. If I remember right, the Cell concept was supposed to handle the graphics as well, and when this didn't work out they went with a typical GPU from NVIDIA instead. Do you know any more about this epobirs?


Sony screwed up in many ways, the cell is not one of them and saying the 360 is "as powerful" is generalizing. The Cell is much much more powerful than the 360's processor. Where as the 360 gpu is slightly better than he PS3 gpu. Therefore, it has taken time for people to unleash the power of the cell. And they are starting to this year. Look at Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2. They look better than anything on the 360. Yes even Gears 2, which has pushed the 360 to it's limit. We don't even know if we have with the PS3. And the thing to keep in mind with the cell is that it is not limited to the direct x 9 technology the 360 gpu is. The cell can perform Direct x 10 functions and does so in games like Killzone 2.

If you still are not a believer of the cell, read the Killzone 2 forum on Neogaf, and you will be.

[zewone]

That's one game.

[H.Cornerstone]

That's one game.

And your point? It took 5 years and one game (God of War) to showcase what the PS2 could fully do. Remember ps2 games looked like crap, and then games like Twisted Metal, Onimusha, Ratchet showcased what it could do. I believe Killzone 2 will be the beginning of many great looking ps3 games to come.

[zewone]

No, you're wrong.

FFX and MGS2 showed what the PS2 could do very early on.

And you said that Gears 2 pushed the 360 to it's full potential, again another naive statement.

In years to follow (at least 2 more years for the 360), people will get more familiar with the architecture and find ways to do more with less.

It's great to see a game being utilized like KZ2, but just because one game is on the right track doesn't mean everything else will follow suit.

[H.Cornerstone]

No, you're wrong.

FFX and MGS2 showed what the PS2 could do very early on.

And you said that Gears 2 pushed the 360 to it's full potential, again another naive statement.

In years to follow (at least 2 more years for the 360), people will get more familiar with the architecture and find ways to do more with less.

It's great to see a game being utilized like KZ2, but just because one game is on the right track doesn't mean everything else will follow suit.

Both those games came out essentially 1 year and a half after ps2 came out. Just like Uncharted and Ratchet and Clank.

I am just telling you what CliffyB said about the 360. He essentially said the same thing, sure they can optimize more and stuff, but they have already reached the limit of the 360.

One game? Have you seen the screenshots to Uncharted 2? How about Uncharted 1? Infamous looks really good too and we still haven't seen God of War III in it's entirety or Ratchet and Clank. Wait till E3 and then you can tell me It's "one game."

[zewone]

Ok, wait until E3 and tell me the 360 has reached it's potential.

It works both ways.

[H.Cornerstone]

Ok, wait until E3 and tell me the 360 has reached it's potential.

It works both ways.


What exactly do we have to look forward to on the 360? Alan Wake and Splinter cell Conviction, both games that have been in development hell for years? Mass Effect? A game also made for the PC which makes it harder for them to focus solely on the 360? (and we don't even know it if's exclusive anymore). Halo 3 Recon, made by Bungie who have never been known has graphical powerhouses?

What do we have on the PS3? Gran Turismo, God of War III, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank. Ton of games that you will see using the cell.
And I didn't say the PS3 had reached it's potential. I said with Killzone 2 your really starting to see the power of the cell utilized and how great games can look with that. Your starting to see it in other games as well in Uncharted 2 and Infamous. Which, it's hard to argue against that.

Back to the point of the thread, The Wii uses a form of the PowerPC as well, so pretty much you could say Sony funded it's development as well /sarcasm.

[zewone]

I'm only interested in God of War III out of those titles. As far as the games on the 360, who knows?

[H.Cornerstone]

I'm only interested in God of War III out of those titles. As far as the games on the 360, who knows?

We aren't talking about games that look interesting, we are talking about games that look great graphically.

And it's harder for the 360 to pull that off because they don't have as many 1st party studios who can solely focus on getting the most out of the 360.

I believe they only have one left in the guys who make Forza.....

[zewone]

Well, it's not always the first party guys who make great looking games.

Look at Gears of War 2, Lost Odyssey, FFXIII.

Plus, Alan Wake blows all the games you mentioned out of the water so far.

[H.Cornerstone]

Well, it's not always the first party guys who make great looking games.

Look at Gears of War 2, Lost Odyssey, FFXIII.

Plus, Alan Wake blows all the games you mentioned out of the water so far.


How does Alan Wake, a game that we haven't seen or heard of much of at all in a long time, blow them all out of the water?
Believe me, I am excited for it as well, as I have had nothing to entice me to turn on my 360 in a long time, so I have been dieing to hear more about that game and haven't.

And Mistwalker only made games for the 360, so they were essentially a first party.

Plus, Everything we have seen on FF XIII so far is the PS3 alone, which proves my point that the cell is starting to be used more and more, even by third parties.

But, generally speaking, first parties get more out of a system than third parties.

[zewone]

In Sony's case that's true. Most 3rd parties don't know how to code for the machine.

[H.Cornerstone]

In Sony's case that's true. Most 3rd parties don't know how to code for the machine.

This was true in the beginning but I think you are starting to see a shift in that at least they can make it look as good as the 360. Look at Burnout, Prince of Persia, and COD 4, pretty much identical on all systems. You have the same thing with Ghostbusters too.

And it's hard to compare the two because the third parties you see with the most success are guys who have been pc developers for a long time, such as Bethesda and Epic (although Oblivion ran better on the PS3...), and the 360 is extremely similar to the PC, where as the PS3 is radically different. Valkyria Chronicles is a really good looking game developed by Sega for the PS3.

I think you will no longer see any difference graphically between third party games on the 360 and PS3, as you are already seeing this. But, PS3 first party exclusives will start to overtake 360 exclusives in the graphic realm real shortly. And this becomes vital as third party exclusives become rarer and rarer.

[zewone]

I'm not sure if that's the case. RE5 is already looking better on the 360 than PS3.

http://www.the-horror.com/index.php?id=features&s=bh5demo

Valkryia Chronicles is a gorgeous game because of the art style, not a GPU powerhouse.

[crystalklear64]

Personally, I don't think Killzone 2 looks all that good. Take away (or at least turn down) the obnoxiously high motion blur and filters and I bet you'd have an average looking game.

[H.Cornerstone]

I'm not sure if that's the case. RE5 is already looking better on the 360 than PS3.

http://www.the-horror.com/index.php?id=features&s=bh5demo

Valkryia Chronicles is a gorgeous game because of the art style, not a GPU powerhouse.


I saw some comparison clips of a guy who played both demos (with mouse overs), wish I could remember where I saw it, but they looked different but pretty much the same. Kind of like GTA IV in that which one is better is dependent on who is playing.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44237.html

And Really, Killzone 2 is an average looking game?

[SL4IN]

And Really, Killzone 2 is an average looking game?

It's a good looking game, but nothing jaw-dropping or eye opening.

[H.Cornerstone]

It's a good looking game, but nothing jaw-dropping or eye opening.

I said the same thing about Uncharted and then I actually played it, and my jaw did drop. Sometimes, you just need to play a game yourself to appreciate it.

Either way, I am done as I do not want to take this thread anymore off topic.

[crystalklear64]

And Really, Killzone 2 is an average looking game?
I don't own a PS3 nor do I know anyone who does, so I don't know what games typically look like. Maybe it looks good for a PS3 game, but after Crysis and various other shooters with texture replacement packs on the PC, it just looks average to me.

[epobirs]

Back to the point of the thread, The Wii uses a form of the PowerPC as well, so pretty much you could say Sony funded it's development as well /sarcasm.

Actually, that would be Ford. The Gecko chip used in the GameCube and revised for the Wii, most closely resembles the PowerPC chip used in automotive controllers. The other big user of that version of the PowerPC architecture is, of course, Apple but that was Motorola (now Freescale) doing the design work. Moto and IBM ran a shared design center with both companies getting access to the IP. Much of the vector ops in the Cell are derived from work done for Apple under the marketing name AltiVec.

[rickonker]

The original concept for the Cell was that they would scale with great efficiency as more Cells were added. Some of the early Sony claims, long before there was any real silicon, was that the PS3 or other Cell based device would be able to enlist Cells in other household devices for supplemental processing power. The idea that this could be used for games, especially on a console where homogeneity is critical, is completely absurd. It might be useful for lengthy non-interactive tasks like transcoding HD video but the cost of dedicated silicon for that purpose has always been more cost effective.

The 'box full of Cells' concept kept going for a few years of development but two problems kept it from becoming a reality. Just as with most existing CPUs, scaling past two sockets had a big efficency hit. Anyone with a quad-core PC has seen this in how most apps not specifically designed for it don't make much better use of four cores compared to two. The gains for most use is that most systems are doing more than one big app these days. In servers, techniques like virtualization allow the resources to be allocated so that no one app is really seeing all of the processing elements.

The Cell really isn't a multicore processor in the same sense as a Core 2 Quad or a Phenom. It is a single PowerPC core with a bunch of specialized execution units bolted on. It has a lot of power but this is used in a very different way than something like system with multiple x86 processors.

So putting a bunch of Cells in a box wasn't going to deliver as planned. This was just as well because the Cell was proving to be a bitch to manufacture. Much as when the PS2's Emotion Engine was first produced, a smaller process node was badly needed for good yields and pricing. Putting multiple Cells in a product would have made it so expenisve as to make the eventual losses from the actual launch PS3s seem minor. So they went shopping for a GPU to use in a more conventional design.

If you look at videos from the first E3 where Sony demoed the PS3, even though no actual PS3 boards yet existed, you'll see two different sets of demos. Some are Cell demos and others are Nvidia GPU demos running on a PC. This is because there were no systems integrating the two then and certainly no time to do any programming on it.

If you were starting from scratch today with the available parts, the original PS3 concept could be implemented. It would still have the scaling issues but compiler support for genuine multi-processor systems is a lot better now than just a few years ago. But in general it's unlikely anyone would see it as a good design to pursue for an entertainment system. For other apps it makes more sense to put Cells on bladesto be installed in a server rack rather than make a standalone system.

Thanks for the info epobirs. Would you say similar graphical performance could have been achieved if the PS3 had 2 or 3 cells instead of 1 cell + the nvidia GPU?

[Thomas96]

Can a game that looks as good as Killzone 2 be produced on the 360, or will MS need a new console to get a game that's comprable graphically?

[Maklershed]

Hey Thomas, I see you have an xbl name linked to your account now. Did you get in on that XBL deal from Amazon/Walmart?

[Thomas96]

Hey Thomas, I see you have an xbl name linked to your account now. Did you get in on that XBL deal from Amazon/Walmart?

no I'm broke, my XBL is Thomaticus 305, I need to get Gears 2 and an one year online, If I had an extra 30 I would have bit one it. [when I created Thomaticus 305, Thomaticus had been taken, but I think it was me who created it, but there's no way to find out, at least not from MS] I linked it to my cag account to see is Thomaticus was actually being used by someone, but I don't think it is, now I need link Thomaticus 305 to my account.

[epobirs]

Thanks for the info epobirs. Would you say similar graphical performance could have been achieved if the PS3 had 2 or 3 cells instead of 1 cell + the nvidia GPU?

Hard to say. The demos were pretty good for their era but not really graphic splendors. They were more concerned with getting the graphics to do interesting stuff. This is largely the same path the big GPU companies are pursuing, putting more and more general purpose logic in their products and improving the tool set for exploiting it. Similarly, Intel is developing their new graphics product will inherently be very easily programmable for other tasks because it is a collection of modified 90s era Pentiums. At today's manufacturing sizes for chip features, what was once a big CPU can be tiny and one of many on the same die. Intel doesn't seem to be in any great rush to make this a product, though. I didn't see any reference to it in their CES booth yesterday but I didn't have as much time as I would have liked before I got horribly ill and had to go back to my car. (I paid ten bucks to take a cab a distance I'd have normally walked.)

I regard the original PS3 concept as an example of what I call '7th Guest' Syndrome. For those who don't remember, 7thGuest was a PC game that was first announced during the 386 era and promised to do extraordinary things for that day. They had some remarkable tech demos to back up their claims but getting from there to a releasable game took far too long. By the time the game shipped, the average machine owned by PC gamers had increased in power considerably. This made the accomplishments of the software much less impressive. Also, other developers had been working toward the same goals but had done so quietly so that weren't committed to a release date they could never hope to make.

Unless you're trolling for investors, it's a bad idea to talk up technology you don't really have yet.

[rickonker]

Since they went with a regular GPU for the PS3 anyway, I wonder if they would have been better off with a more conventional CPU design instead of those execution units. If those were intended to help with the graphics, doesn't the nvidia GPU make them less useful and just harder to use regularly? Maybe it was too late to change?

[Paco]

I heard that Alan Wake is Duke Nukem's younger brother.

[epobirs]

Since they went with a regular GPU for the PS3 anyway, I wonder if they would have been better off with a more conventional CPU design instead of those execution units. If those were intended to help with the graphics, doesn't the nvidia GPU make them less useful and just harder to use regularly? Maybe it was too late to change?

Power is power. Only a few areas of the Cell are done with graphics as the target. This is no different in the Xbox or in x86 CPUs since MMX was introduced. A SIMD instruction may be best applied to processing graphics but aren't so specific as to eliminate their value in other algorithms.

The problem with the Cell is that it uses a structure that is most common to 80s supercomputers. Those generally used a LOT of highly optimized custom programming and were rarely applied to interactive operations. This meant there was very little precedent in the game development world for how to apply such a beast. The benchmarks are real but not an accurate measure of how readily the power can be harnessed to the needs of a game.

In the long run, the PS3 will almost certainly have a higher performance ceiling than the Xbox 360 but the value of this is questionable. Microsoft had the highest performance ceiling of the previous generation and by a considerable amount. But it was the least powerful machine of that generation that held the top position and by a considerable margin. The PS2 is still selling units while the original Xbox ended production and new game development years ago.

By the time the PS3 achieves a position of dominance it will be simple for Microsoft to release a new, backward compatible Xbox that will jump ahead in performance. By 2010 the premium for using a Blu-ray drive instead of DVD will be only about $40. Possibly less, depending on how sales of Blu-ray decks go. (Distribution by download will grow but it will be many years before the need for a cheap high capacity retail medium goes away.)

On the chipset front, 32 nm manufacturing will be available, allowing the new silicon to have over twice the transistor count while still launching at a lower price than the original 90 nm 360 chip set. The upgrade path on the GPU side is pretty straightforward since ATI has continued developing much of the concepts first demonstrated in the 360 GPU. The CPU will be more of a problem if big performance gains are desired. Clock rates just haven't gone up at all for a few years now. The simplest thing would be to just double the number of cores and expanding the caches all around. This puts a lot more potential power in the box but scaling is always a problem if all of that power is to be used by a single app like a game.

OTOH, extra cores can be put aside for non-games functions like background downloading and DVR functions. (Selling an add-on package that enable the Xbox to also be a DVR can be a good way of offsetting the hit from selling the newly launch system for below cost. In the past this wasn't practical because game systems didn't have the power to spare for recording and playing simultaneously but future machine will need additional functions to justify all of that power in one box.)

So the PS3 may enjoy a longer lifespan for early adopters but for the majority of the market, will it matter?

[rickonker]

Thanks again epobirs. I think MS demonstrated IPTV DVR software for the 360 but I don't know if it could record while a game was being played. I guess it would have to.

[Thomas96]

I heard that Alan Wake is Duke Nukem's younger brother.

I saw a clip of Alan Wake on XBL, and the game doesn't look as good as Left 4 Dead. Also, If "Light" is going to be a main weapon in the game, I would hope that they improve the lighting from what saw in the trailer. Alan Wake looks like an N64 game.

[Thomas96]

Killzone 2 is about the 3rd generation of PS3 game, if you were to compare 3rd generation PS3 games to the 3rd (or 4th) generation of 360 games, there's a difference there, in terms of graphical quality.

[Maklershed]

Look at Resistance 2 and then look at Gears of War ... 1 ... and get back to me.

[H.Cornerstone]

Look at Resistance 2 and then look at Gears of War ... 1 ... and get back to me.

They both have their plusses and minuses that make them look great. It's hard to compare Third person and first person shooters like that. I would say Resistance 2 looks better than Gears of War due to the fact it has color and has much bigger scale. I would say Gears of War 2 looks a little better, but again, that is only because it doesn't have near the scale Resistance 2 has.

Gears of War 2 is a third generation Xbox 360 game, where as Resistance 2 is 2nd. :)

Let's compare Uncharted 2 and Gears of War 2 at the end of the year. They are much more similar and will make for a better comparison.

[Maklershed]

I was saying Gears of War 1 looks better graphically than Resistance 2.

[H.Cornerstone]

I was saying Gears of War 1 looks better graphically than Resistance 2.

I would disagree, and again it's all about opinion. I would go with Resistance just due to the sheer scale they are able to pull off in the game, and still make it look great. But they are close, and I think you could attribute that to Insomniac overreaching for the MP and SP.

But again, it's hard to compare a FPS and a third person shooter. Gears of War doesn't really have as much on screen at once as Resistance.
Now, if you wanted to compare Uncharted and Gears of War 1, that would be a much better comparison, and I think most people would go with Uncharted.

[elwood731]

I agree that Uncharted is a much prettier game than Gears of War. What's interesting about graphics is just how much design comes into play when we discuss "good" graphics. For example, I think Mario Galaxy is still one of the best looking games this console generation despite the Wii's obvious lack of power comparatively. Best looking? Not quite, but certainly ranks up there.

[Thomas96]

I was saying Gears of War 1 looks better graphically than Resistance 2.

Gears 1 looks better than Resistance 2? you know what for the sake of argument, don't use Resistance 2 use MGS4... Gears(1 and 2) is the best that the 360 has to offer(graphically), and MGS4 is the best that PS3 has to offer. Looking at the consoles best there are two things I can say; 1. PS3 games in their 2nd generation look better than 360 games that are in their 3rd generation. 360 programming is as easy as its going to get... where do the 360 games go after 3rd generation? I think its obvious that PS3 games have improved tremendously over the past few years, Warhawk, to Uncharted, then to MGS4, and on to Killzone.

[Thomas96]

I agree that Uncharted is a much prettier game than Gears of War. What's interesting about graphics is just how much design comes into play when we discuss "good" graphics. For example, I think Mario Galaxy is still one of the best looking games this console generation despite the Wii's obvious lack of power comparatively. Best looking? Not quite, but certainly ranks up there.

All the marios have been so well done that their graphics still look good. Obviously, you can see the limitations of the console, but the design of the graphics still look good. I may be behind the times on this thought, but I feel that Waverace 64 still has the best looking water, and water physics, of any game.

[FloodsAreUponUS]

Alan Wake looks like a N64 game?
:rofl:
This thread is priceless.

[H.Cornerstone]

I agree that Uncharted is a much prettier game than Gears of War. What's interesting about graphics is just how much design comes into play when we discuss "good" graphics. For example, I think Mario Galaxy is still one of the best looking games this console generation despite the Wii's obvious lack of power comparatively. Best looking? Not quite, but certainly ranks up there.

You are correct, when it comes to making a pretty looking game, there is much more than just graphical prowess (which is what we are talking about here), and that has more to do with art style and design choices and what not. Which is one of the reasons God of War is the best looking game on PS2. It had both, great art style and graphical prowess. Another game we mentioned in this was Valkryia Chronicles. Doesn't use a lot of power, but looks great due to art style, but it still uses enough to pull off the art style.

Which goes back to why many think Uncharted looks better. What is going to look better, a black and gray planet or a beautiful jungle with lush plants and giant waterfalls? (which still to this date is the first time I ever dropped my jaw due to how awesome a game looked).

I think Mario Galaxy looks great for a Wii game, but it's hard to compare it to other games on PS3/360.

[dmaul1114]

Uncharted looked nicer, but Gears really nails the post apocalyptic look, as well as the underground. Especially Gears 2 since it's more varied and has levels in Forrest etc.

The graphics in Uncharted and the Gears series are great and both do what they should for the type of game IMO.

Essentially the 360 and PS3 are nearly identical graphics wise--or at least close enough that graphics power shouldn't factor into a decision on which to buy. Just get whichever has the games you want to play and if both have a lot of games you want to play and you have the time to play them all the the money to buy them then buy both.

No sense arguing about which is better at this or that on the internet. Just buy a console (or both) and enjoy the games on it.

[Thomas96]

I just was thinking about some months ago, Crytek (or some company) was showing that they got the Crysis engine to work on the PS3 and 360. Has there been any games that has utilized the Crysis engine on PS3 and/or 360, if not are their some game in development that will?

[epobirs]

Thanks again epobirs. I think MS demonstrated IPTV DVR software for the 360 but I don't know if it could record while a game was being played. I guess it would have to.

There is a really important difference between IPTV and a full standalone DVR capability. If you ever used an integrated DVR with a satellite/cable TV setup, you may have noticed that the quality of the recording s was higher than when using a standalone device added to a TV reception system. This is because the integrated DVR is seeing the compressed data stream from the sender and is simply recording the bits unaltered as they go by. A standalone box, such as an original TiVo or Media Center PC, has to take the decompressed video stream and encode it to whatever codec is being used. (MPEG-2 in older gear and an MPEG-4 variant in newer machines.)

Obviously, just capturing a data stream without having to perform much work on it takes far less horsepower than having to encode video while capturing. A game console that can continue running content downloads in the background while playing a game won't have much trouble including IPTV content in those downloads. It's just another file. Doing the full standalone DVR recording task while allowing games to be played would be far more demanding.

This would requirement a fair amount of processing power to be dedicated to the task and never available for game developers to exploit. Otherwise, the game developers are going to use it and break the DVR functionaility while their game is engaged. It's their job to get as much as possible out of the machine.

The alternative is a console with hardware features usable solely for a non-gaming function. Not a problem if you feel assured tens of millions of people will want to buy such a unit but in real life you'll get a lot of people saying they already have a device for DVR stuff or just don't care about it, so why can't they have a cheaper model without it?

So having a generational upgrade that doesn't apply to game developers is an iffy thing. Background downloading during gameplay would be nice and that would encompass IPTV material. Beyond that, things get very speculative. This is why just throwing more cores in the new system is not a slam dunk solution. The GPU upgrade path is pretty clear cut since almost everything happening in that business can be applied to gaming, while CPU needs are far more narrow than for a full on PC or server.

[rickonker]

There is a really important difference between IPTV and a full standalone DVR capability. If you ever used an integrated DVR with a satellite/cable TV setup, you may have noticed that the quality of the recording s was higher than when using a standalone device added to a TV reception system. This is because the integrated DVR is seeing the compressed data stream from the sender and is simply recording the bits unaltered as they go by. A standalone box, such as an original TiVo or Media Center PC, has to take the decompressed video stream and encode it to whatever codec is being used. (MPEG-2 in older gear and an MPEG-4 variant in newer machines.)

Obviously, just capturing a data stream without having to perform much work on it takes far less horsepower than having to encode video while capturing. A game console that can continue running content downloads in the background while playing a game won't have much trouble including IPTV content in those downloads. It's just another file. Doing the full standalone DVR recording task while allowing games to be played would be far more demanding.

This would requirement a fair amount of processing power to be dedicated to the task and never available for game developers to exploit. Otherwise, the game developers are going to use it and break the DVR functionaility while their game is engaged. It's their job to get as much as possible out of the machine.

The alternative is a console with hardware features usable solely for a non-gaming function. Not a problem if you feel assured tens of millions of people will want to buy such a unit but in real life you'll get a lot of people saying they already have a device for DVR stuff or just don't care about it, so why can't they have a cheaper model without it?

So having a generational upgrade that doesn't apply to game developers is an iffy thing. Background downloading during gameplay would be nice and that would encompass IPTV material. Beyond that, things get very speculative. This is why just throwing more cores in the new system is not a slam dunk solution. The GPU upgrade path is pretty clear cut since almost everything happening in that business can be applied to gaming, while CPU needs are far more narrow than for a full on PC or server.
I guess Sony has tried some things along those lines. An SPE in the PS3 is reserved for the OS so games can't use it. They also tried the PSX, a PS2 with a DVR, but I think it was a flop. In that case, you could say the regular PS2 was the cheaper model without DVR and it was obviously much more popular. On the other hand I think the PSX was really overpriced, like a luxury item.

[epobirs]

I guess Sony has tried some things along those lines. An SPE in the PS3 is reserved for the OS so games can't use it. They also tried the PSX, a PS2 with a DVR, but I think it was a flop. In that case, you could say the regular PS2 was the cheaper model without DVR and it was obviously much more popular. On the other hand I think the PSX was really overpriced, like a luxury item.

The reason the PSX was so costly was that you were buying an entire DVR with complete functionality independent of the PS2 portion. They just happened to be stuffed in the same box. The PS2 alone was far from capable of handling the encoding in real time without completely tying up the system, meaning no games or watching other recordings at the same time. The PS2 had a complete MPEG-2 decode solution in hardware but as games tended to use that it wasn't enlisting for the DVR stuff. Back then, the makings of a DVR were a lot more expensive.

Sony could do this for a much lesser premium than was needed then but now they'd be up against hardware offered directly by the satellite and cable companies which deliver better quality by directly recording the compressed data stream. Far better for console companies to offer video downloads and VOD stuff which only require software support on the existing consoles.

The reservation of the SPE in the PS3 is largely for OS overhead. There is a thread reserved on the Xbox 360 CPU for largely the same reasons. This is why you can pause a game to go out to the system menu and come back to where you left off. This also deals with stuff like handling the communications for online gaming, downloads, etc. This makes supporting this stuff much easier on developers than the previous generation and in turn making developers more willing to do this stuff, even in games that don't really demand it.