PS3 Cell Processor Announcement Today.

[fwacce]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/technology/07chip.html?ex=1265518800&en=611fbe26014693c6&ei=5 088&partner=rssnyt

Will be used for many applications, but the PS3 is getting the most headlines.

[fwacce]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=aK6AsNXpGT1Y&refer=japan

[epobirs]

It would be nice to see some details on what a running Cell at 4+ GHZ requires in terms of cooling. It's no big deal to get the current 3.6 GHz P4 to such speeds if you use active liquid cooling and other techniques that are beyond the cost range of a typical PC and far beyond the allowable expenses for such in a game console.

[ArchangelOfWar]

I'm always intrigued during this part of any console's pre-launch, but don't get genuinely fired up until I see a final unit running a playable game. Ah, well, I guess a few more months of decreasingly vague hoopla to go.

As long as *THE* tech demo displaying PS3's "graphical prowless" isn't an old man compiled of 90 million polygons weeping like he was just diagnosed with cancer or smiling like he just soothed his 'roids with Preparation H, I'm game.

[Dr Mario Kart]

the problem with having games that are so graphically advanced, is that its going to take a long ass time to make the games. Its like how long it takes people to make scenes in CGish movies like Final Fantasy: The Spirits within or Advent Children.

and with these massive capacity next-gen media, the smaller companies arent gonna have the resources to take full advantage of the next generation hardware.

Maybe in the future there will only be a handful of 3d engines which various people work on and then everyone can use. Consolidation in the industry in general, only leaving a handful of compaines (EA ::gasp:: )

[MorPhiend]

the problem with having games that are so graphically advanced, is that its going to take a long ass time to make the games. Its like how long it takes people to make scenes in CGish movies like Final Fantasy: The Spirits within or Advent Children.

and with these massive capacity next-gen media, the smaller companies arent gonna have the resources to take full advantage of the next generation hardware.

Maybe in the future there will only be a handful of 3d engines which various people work on and then everyone can use. Consolidation in the industry in general, only leaving a handful of compaines (EA ::gasp:: )

That's what they said about the PS2 when this was as far along as it had come. Yes, the PS2 was a pain in the butt for companies to learn, but they were able to do it.


On a completely different topic (well, sort of):
I read this article this morning as well. And I immediately thought of the thread a while back that spoke of the rumored specs of the chip and so many people were so adamant that such a speed (4+ Ghz) was impossible. Isn't it amazing that no matter how much others fail at advancing technology, someone seems to always come up with a way to make it work? I like speculation about the industry, but it gets a little annoying for people to be so pessimistic and think they know everything, only to be proven wrong.

I'm not naming names of people who did this because I really don't mean to sound like a jerk. But this goes to prove that new technology is inevitable. That said, can people stop being so down on new ideas and speculation they don't like? I, for one, am very excited to see how the DS continues to do, how the PSP release goes, and would like to see what the Xbox 360, PS3 and (most of all) Revolution has to offer. Why the hate and being down on things when none of us know anything about the next generation yet?

[epobirs]

the problem with having games that are so graphically advanced, is that its going to take a long ass time to make the games. Its like how long it takes people to make scenes in CGish movies like Final Fantasy: The Spirits within or Advent Children.

and with these massive capacity next-gen media, the smaller companies arent gonna have the resources to take full advantage of the next generation hardware.

Maybe in the future there will only be a handful of 3d engines which various people work on and then everyone can use. Consolidation in the industry in general, only leaving a handful of compaines (EA ::gasp:: )

The graphics in the FF movie took so long becuase the project started at a time when each frame took hours or even days to render. Keep in mind the project took nearly six years with actual footage produced across the final four. In the meantime real-time rendering was moving along at a significant pace.

There is plenty of past precedent. An issue of Cinefex magazine devoted to the FX work in Terminator 2 had an interesting comment from the guy in charge of the film's innovative CGI. A huge amount of the time and cost went into creating new software to do thing which had never been achieved previously, along with the amount of time it took on the equipment available when production started. He said if he had to do the entire production over again from scratch he could make it happen for one-fifth the cost in one-fifth the time.

Likewise, on Shrek 2 the minor background characters had a vastly higher level of detail, comparable to the central characters in the first Shrek. (The level of detail on Princess Fiona was actually reduced in the first movie because they decided she was a little creepy if she was too photorealistic, much like the animated mannequins of the FF movie. Humans can easily distinguish a fake human but will quickly accept a cartoon character's emoting.) Even with this additional load the second movie took less time to produce than the first. Improvements in commodity CPUs had allowed them to assemble a renderfarm that had several times the throughput of their previous array but cost no more.

The quality of real-time scenes in PS3 games will depend on the throughput delivered to the engine. The FF X engine can ramp up the detail considerably without much additional labor by the developers since the maximum level of detail is reserved for the FMV sequences. Real-time interactive sections use cut-down versions of those models.

In recent demos Nvidia and ATI have demonstrated the ability to replicate the level of detail in CGI movie in near real-time. The framerate is only about 3 or 4 a minutes but compared to hours for the same scene in the original movie it's nothing short of amazing. This is why TV shows now commonly feature FX that were first seen just a few years earlier in very expensive movies.

[epobirs]

the problem with having games that are so graphically advanced, is that its going to take a long ass time to make the games. Its like how long it takes people to make scenes in CGish movies like Final Fantasy: The Spirits within or Advent Children.

and with these massive capacity next-gen media, the smaller companies arent gonna have the resources to take full advantage of the next generation hardware.

Maybe in the future there will only be a handful of 3d engines which various people work on and then everyone can use. Consolidation in the industry in general, only leaving a handful of compaines (EA ::gasp:: )

That's what they said about the PS2 when this was as far along as it had come. Yes, the PS2 was a pain in the butt for companies to learn, but they were able to do it.


On a completely different topic (well, sort of):
I read this article this morning as well. And I immediately thought of the thread a while back that spoke of the rumored specs of the chip and so many people were so adamant that such a speed (4+ Ghz) was impossible. Isn't it amazing that no matter how much others fail at advancing technology, someone seems to always come up with a way to make it work? I like speculation about the industry, but it gets a little annoying for people to be so pessimistic and think they know everything, only to be proven wrong.

I'm not naming names of people who did this because I really don't mean to sound like a jerk. But this goes to prove that new technology is inevitable. That said, can people stop being so down on new ideas and speculation they don't like? I, for one, am very excited to see how the DS continues to do, how the PSP release goes, and would like to see what the Xbox 360, PS3 and (most of all) Revolution has to offer. Why the hate and being down on things when none of us know anything about the next generation yet?

Feel free to name the names. I already raised my objections above. Before you mention the Transmeta Longrun2 license, you should realize it doesn't mean what a lot of people have assumed. The Longrun stuff makes it more practical to switch off portions of a processor on the fly so that those portions not in use can stop drawing power and producing heat. This great for a CPU doing something like running a word processor that doesn't much or at all on the SIMD functions of the chip. This has little bearing on something like a game system that is expected to run at the fullest possible utilization for prolonged periods.

I never said it was impossible to run at such high speeds. People already run Intel chips at 6 GHz and higher with refrigeration systems for cooling. The question is what speed can you realistically expect to run at for a game console where the cost and acoustic properties of a cooling system are major concerns.

[Wet Ninja]

It would be nice to see some details on what a running Cell at 4+ GHZ requires in terms of cooling.

For what it's worth, an article at Spong claims to show a slide from the presentation today, which mentions 85°C with a heatsink. Here's the link: http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8305

[epobirs]

It would be nice to see some details on what a running Cell at 4+ GHZ requires in terms of cooling.

For what it's worth, an article at Spong claims to show a slide from the presentation today, which mentions 85°C with a heatsink. Here's the link: http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8305

THat is meaningless without any load statistics. An idle processor is of course much cooler than an active one. A PC that has a cooling system that sounds like a 747 taking off when the PC is working hard can be nearly silent just displaying the Windows desktop. While running a simple puzzle game may produce less load than the latest blockbuster, it is the blockbuster that sells consoles.

[dpatel]

Have the other two systems said anything about their systems? I surprised we don't know more about xbox2.

[epobirs]

The initial version of the chip (but not necessarily the generation to find itself in PS3) will require a cooling fan at the very least, as admitted by an IBM Fellow:
http://news.com.com/PlayStation+3+chip+has+split+personality/2100-1043_3-5566340.html?tag=nl

As I recall, Sony is intent on getting 65 nm production capacity up and running. After the early hassles they had with the PS2 chipset at .25 it's likely they really want to be sure they can produce the second generation version of the Cell before committing themselves to a PS3 delivery date. So long as they don't push the rate beyond that of the first generation chip, they can expect a much cooler operation froma 65 nm version.

[Wet Ninja]

It would be nice to see some details on what a running Cell at 4+ GHZ requires in terms of cooling.

For what it's worth, an article at Spong claims to show a slide from the presentation today, which mentions 85°C with a heatsink. Here's the link: http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8305

THat is meaningless without any load statistics. An idle processor is of course much cooler than an active one. A PC that has a cooling system that sounds like a 747 taking off when the PC is working hard can be nearly silent just displaying the Windows desktop. While running a simple puzzle game may produce less load than the latest blockbuster, it is the blockbuster that sells consoles.

Very true. If Sony quotes their CPU temperature like they do their PSP battery life though, expect 85°C to be best-case and generous.

[Nematode]

Can someone explain to me the advantage of running mulitple operating systems at once? They were also talking about 4 different sub-cells (I forget the word they used) that developers can use at their own discretion for designing games? (I can't find the one bloody article I was reading, I will look and edit later).

[Scrubking]

If this chip can do all of the things it says (I greatly doubt it), don't expect the PS3 to sell for less than $500. After all it "leap frogs" all current technology.

[MorPhiend]

If this chip can do all of the things it says (I greatly doubt it), don't expect the PS3 to sell for less than $500. After all it "leap frogs" all current technology.

I wouldn't be surprised...