@Zylesea

Quote:

It's official now: Cell is a dead end. IBM discontinues further development of the Cell.

Sony divested itself from STI and Cell manufacturing about a year ago. Toshiba has been playing with the Cell and their TVs. Though the pricing for an external Cell box isn't compelling for the general home user. Perhaps some mega kiosks or such it might be a good idea.

IBM discontinuing makes sense. We have IBM itself going a different way with the Power7 series. They are following the marketplace where the GPU is taking over Cell functions, not the CPU. Cell uptake that Sony dreamed of has not occurred, and with IBM pulling out will not occur. The all powerful Cell has been eclipsed -- see the recent gains on the Jaguar supercomputer by using 6 core AMD CPUs.

Sony, if they make a next gen with the losses it may be a hard sell, will learn Cell future is gone. Sheer core count wins. The CPU roadmap over the next couple years is laid out. 2010 is bringing hexacore to desktops and octocores if not dodecacores to servers. 2011 is bringing dodcacores, for sure, and likely hexadecacores to servers. And these do not have to be slow clockers -- the overclocked Quad Core AMD hit 7.1Ghz. OUCH!

Perhaps Sony will somehow get IBM to make a lower cost Power7 chip in a couple of years. Seems realistic as the PowerSeries moves along. But, I too doubt we'll see an SPE rebirth. Do it in GPU power.

@BrianK

Better English version of the Cell Development News

Link

Quote:

Will this change with IBM pulling out of their own development? Not necessarily. Sony can still hire IBM to create a Cell Processor for their next console, without IBM being involved in their own internal development outside of the PS4. So don’t start counting Sony’s chickens just yet.

I suppose Sony will now have to put up more devolpment money themselves but seriously would the PoweXCell 8i need that much development for a CPU contender for the PS4?

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@BigD

Intel Larrabee and NVIDIA GT300/Fermi renders SPEs redundant. Also, most of the current Sony Vaio entertainment/gaming laptops are powered by AMD ATI Radeon HD 4000 series GPUs e.g. Sony Vaio FW5x-xx includes AMD ATI Radeon HD 4650 (rated at 432 GigaFLOPS @25watts, 320 stream processors) 1GB VRAM GDDR3.

PS; I use Sony Vaio FW45GJ as my gaming laptop, which is powered by ATI Radeon HD 4650.

Last edited by Hammer on 20-Nov-2009 at 07:32 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 20-Nov-2009 at 07:28 PM.

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@BrianK

One of the top five supercomputers includes AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. They could easily upgrade to Radeon HD 5870("tick") or Radeon HD 5970. Sometime in Q2/Q3 2010, "tock"/refined version 5870 will be released.

AMD, NVIDIA seems to follow Intel’s tick-tock release schedule.

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@BigD

Quote:

I suppose Sony will now have to put up more devolpment money themselves but seriously would the PoweXCell 8i need that much development for a CPU contender for the PS4?

CPU market has changed in the last decade. Why would a business need a specialized CPU? The commodity CPU's have large amounts of power. By the time of the PS4 (assuming at earliest a 2012 launch) it would make even less sense to invest in a specialized CPU instead of using what will likely be cost effective 8-core options on the market.

The GPU has become specialized in the way an SPE is on a Cell. Adding 16 or even 32 more SPEs to do what hundreds of these on the SPE is won't add to power. Instead it'll make more investment. I'd read that as increase the chances of further loss.

Apple figured out going the special order CPU route, as IBM was not going past the G5, was not economically feasible. Sony failed to capture the market #1 spot this generation. Would the Sony Board approve a repeat performance? I'd hope they are smarter than that.

IMO hardware is inexpensive and powerful. It'll become more so. The difference is in the software. Out of the 3 it seems Sony is the most in need of work with their interface and in tools allowing developers to leverage the potential of the machine. Even Sony's been quoting that having a machine hard to program is good. Bullocks.

@BrianK

Uncharted 2 is the exception rather than the rule I guess Is the bottom line that it is easier to program for identical CPU cores than SPE or stream processors? Or is it a case that AI and complex environment/physics is processed on multi-core CPUs, whereas textures/pologons and HD graphics are better left to multi stream GPU units?

Last edited by BigD on 23-Nov-2009 at 03:27 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @BrianK Uncharted 2 is the exception rather than the rule I guess Is the bottom line that it is easier to program for identical CPU cores that SPE or stream processors? Or is it a case that AI and complex environment/physics is processed on multi-core CPUs, whereas textures/pologons and HD graphics are better left to multi stream GPU units?

You'll find that across consoles and generations, the best looking games of their time all had linear gameplay.

No different than racing games where you know the player can only take 1 path so you can throw lots of visuals at them.

@Lou

Quote:

You'll find that across consoles and generations, the best looking games of their time all had linear gameplay.

Therefore the sandbox idea is out, right? Sandbox games like GTAIV could never look as good as Uncharted 2.

Q!

"i am home"

@BigD

Quote:

Is the bottom line that it is easier to program for identical CPU cores than SPE or stream processors? Or is it a case that AI and complex environment/physics is processed on multi-core CPUs, whereas textures/pologons and HD graphics are better left to multi stream GPU units?

I think the answer is it depends.

If I was using assembly I'd prefer the Cell solution. Hitting hardware directly had/has been the thing for Demo coding and game companies. The reason for this is they wanted to pull the power out and not have the OS or other layers get in their way. The future is the GPGPU approach. No one is going to want to track the hundreds of stream processing in assembly. Instead one will want a complied language.

Any system is a series of trade offs. It appears the acceptance of compiled languages and/or overhead is the future. The positive is the hardware is a high performing low cost option.

The Cell seems to be a few fast cores. IBM in Power7, AMD/Intel seem to be going the way of large number of slower cores. (Though as I think about it even that might not be totally fair if one considers overclockers were able to get a stable 7.1Ghz Quad Core AMD.)

@QuBe

Quote:

QuBe wrote: @Lou Quote: You'll find that across consoles and generations, the best looking games of their time all had linear gameplay. Therefore the sandbox idea is out, right? Sandbox games like GTAIV could never look as good as Uncharted 2. Q! "i am home"

Correct.

@Lou

But at least these 'linear' games are not as limiting as 'Dragon's Lair' back in the Amiga Classic days!

_________________
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John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

Nintendo stated the Wii and DS combined sold at roughly 1.5 Million units in the US on Black Friday. This works out to be a Nintendo Gaming device sold in the USA every 2.5 seconds. About 1million were DS and 1/2 million were WIis.

With the price cuts on the 360 and PS3 some predicted the Wii to fall to the wayside. This appeared to be a premature prediction.

Black Friday, for our European friends, is the busiest shopping day of the year at stores. So named Black Friday because it's the day when businesses finally get out of the red (losses) and into the black (profits).

Black Friday in the US saw an 11% growth over 2008. So consumers, while being wise about their spending, were spending.

(EDIT: Corrected Figures)

Last edited by BrianK on 02-Dec-2009 at 02:11 PM.

Software houses are finally managing to get something out of the complexily powerful PS3 Hardware.
new Last Guardian and Heavy Rain videos are rather impressive.

Heavy Rain: http://buddhagaming.it/la-demo-di-heavy-rain-sara-al-supermercato-26015/

Last Guardian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHzHoMT5eRg

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@ErikBauer

New trailer for Wii's Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/02/silent-hill-shattered-memories-trailer-rocks-out/

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Check my Amiga gameplays (ITA)!

Sony has been hemmoraging for a while. The downturned economy isn't a huge help. They have unveiled ther All - in - One plan Sony owns lots of enteraintment. They're going to bring it online.

This isn't anything different than what Sony said in the late 90s. It appears the content is for Sony TVs, Media Players, and Gaming devices. These are well established markets. Can Sony really be the 'upstart' that takes down the iPod?

The problem is Sony is silos. Product lines are their own encapsulated units. Walls must be destroyed internally for these groups to work successfully together. A unified vision of media across all devices makes sense but the road for Sony will be long. Again they've talked this for the last decade but tailed to make it happen. The PS3 or PSP redesign would have been great products to do this on. They didn't make it happen.

Best of luck to Sony. I think we'll see Sony stock drop today as people bet against this ambitious plan.

@BrianK

Creating an effective software ecosystem is not one of Sony’s strong points.

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@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: (SNIP for space) The Cell seems to be a few fast cores. IBM in Power7, AMD/Intel seem to be going the way of large number of slower cores. (Though as I think about it even that might not be totally fair if one considers overclockers were able to get a stable 7.1Ghz Quad Core AMD.)

Intel/AMD/NVIDIA has the advantage of economic of scale for +1 billion transistors product.

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@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @BrianK Uncharted 2 is the exception rather than the rule I guess Is the bottom line that it is easier to program for identical CPU cores than SPE or stream processors? Or is it a case that AI and complex environment/physics is processed on multi-core CPUs, whereas textures/pologons and HD graphics are better left to multi stream GPU units?

Depends on the software model. On the PC, complex environment/physics can be moved to GpGPUs i.e. CUDA PhysX or OpenCL Havok.

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@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote:Quote: BrianK wrote: The Cell seems to be a few fast cores. IBM in Power7, AMD/Intel seem to be going the way of large number of slower cores. (Though as I think about it even that might not be totally fair if one considers overclockers were able to get a stable 7.1Ghz Quad Core AMD.) Intel/AMD/NVIDIA has the advantage of economic of scale for +1 billion transistors product.

Economics of scale can also be enjoyed by IBM and the PowerPC. The Power series are in AIX/Linux, and I Series government and banking industries. PowerPC derviatives are in all 3 consoles. What's that about 20-25 Million per year. Not sure AMD sales numbers but I'd bet it's below 20 Million CPUs per year.

@Hammer

Quote:

Creating an effective software ecosystem is not one of Sony’s strong points.

I agree to the point that I believe Sony as a company would need a huge philosophical shift to this model. Giant's are neither swift nor agile.