@MikeB

Quote:

"Cell MD is currently 16 time faster than this reference machine [Opteron 2 GHz] on the PS3 [6 SPEs and PPE], therefore we will credit 155.9 Cobblestone/hour on the PS3 for Cell MD."

Bit of a strange measure there. They define Cobblestone/hour as an average of MIPS + MFLOPS?
1 Cobblestone/hour is ~241 averaged MIPS + MFLOPS according to this page

AMD Phenom Quad Core is a modern processor, came out last fall.
MIPS = 34902
MFLOPS = 33708
Averaged = 34305
Cobblestone/hour = 142
According to them the Cell should be ahead at 155 Cobblestone/hour.

Thanks for the info. Can I infer from your example the frame of reference for IBM's 10x statement was compared to the best x86 CPU from 2005? If so they seemed to have accomplished it. But, Moore's law is going to make them an average performer by end of 2008.

Something seems strange. Their mainpage CellMD. They claim 30GFlops. But, what happened to the 2 Teraflop claims by Sony before launch and the 1 Teraflop claims after launch?

CellMD is but one measured software but things here seem a bit handwavy. What % of the integer (MIPS) vs floating point (MFLOPS) does the software use. I can't imagine it's equally based on either platform. As it's a molecular simluation wouldn't floating point be favored and not equally weighed? They used an average weighing for Cobblestone something seems a bit hand wavy there.

Last edited by BrianK on 22-Apr-2008 at 09:16 PM.
Last edited by BrianK on 22-Apr-2008 at 09:16 PM.

@BrianK

Performance depends on program design, peak performance for the PS3's Cell processor is 218 GFlops. But for double-precision arithmetic the Cell will perform much weaker than max potential.

The 2 Teraflop comments take into account the RSX. Current GPUs are of course far more limited with regard to the kind of operations they can perform compared to the Cell.

The program also runs on top of Linux, so this should impact Cell efficiency.

Last edited by MikeB on 22-Apr-2008 at 09:41 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Performance depends on program design,

I agree so it's interesting that CellMD calculates performance as an average (read equally balanced) of integer and floating points math performance. I don't know their code but that representation seems to be a bit off. But, if they're getting ~30GFLops out of a theoretical top end of 218GFlops there's a problem with something here. I'd think they can do better then a 80% loss. Of course it may simply be the PS3 has more power then their application needs.

Quote:

The 2 Teraflop comments take into account the RSX.

Do you know if it made this theoretical top end for the whole system? Does the RSX make 1.8TFlops on it's own? AMD's Firestream 9170 is only ranked up to 500GFlops for single precision and of course close to half that in double precision.

Seemingly interesting comparision but there seems to be some unknowns or ill defined analyses in that page and what we've seen as of the current discussion.

IBM's performance for the Cell. I think we talked about this before. 155.5 GFlops w/ 8 SPEs was at a 76% efficency. I'm sure they've improved coding methods and subsequently efficencies have improved. But extrapolating from the 76% efficency it turns out the 8 SPE Cell has a 204GFlops theoretical top end. Sony says they use 7 so the PS3 Cell would be around a 178.5GFlops there's a few more from the core and of course losses while the OS is running. (Supposedly PS3 OS needs/takes more CPU power then the modified Win2K running on the 360).

So getting back to the 10x figure. We have a ~180GFlop CPU, in the Cell. It surely isn't 10x the 115GFlop in the Xenon. Quad Core Xeon is ~81GFlop. So we see the Cell doing well on Floating points. But again where did IBM derive the 10x figure? It must have been a comparision to a single Intel chip circa 2004/2005. Now comparing MIPS the Cell definitely doesn't hit the 10x mark. ~10,000 MIPS on the Cell vs a 2005 Pentium IV at ~9,700 MIPS. The Intel Dual Core Extreme eats the Cell in MIPS at ~60,000. The Xenon bests the Cell at ~19,000 MIPS. Looks to be integer performance at no where near the 10x mark.

Now before anyone says it in the thread MIPS or MFLOPS between architectures really aren't comparable. CPUs themselves differ in instruction sets between generation but not as much as different architectures differ. So direct MIPS or MFLOPS isn't necessary a great measure.

@MikeB

Quote:

"Cell MD is currently 16 time faster than this reference machine [Opteron 2 GHz] on the PS3 [6 SPEs and PPE], therefore we will credit 155.9 Cobblestone/hour on the PS3 for Cell MD."

For streaming computation, AMD has Radeon HD co-processors e.g.Fold@Home GP2 client,

Fold@Home GP2 client "matches the advanced water models in the PS3 client and adds a new one".

Last edited by Hammer on 23-Apr-2008 at 12:33 PM.

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@MikeB

Quote:

The 2 Teraflop comments take into account the RSX.

RSX (with 8 ROPS) is based on G71 and it's a known quanity i.e. G71 is estimated between 211.2 GFLOPS and 228.8 GFLOPS via stream processors. Unlike RSX, Geforce 7900GS has 16 ROPS.

But there’s a catch with G7x family i.e. the pixel shader operations has concurrent issues while processing textures operations. Almost by default, this architecture issue will reduce the programmable shading performance for G7x. Refer to Geforce 8600GT vs Geforce 7900GS benchmarks.

I can run Assassins Creed (using G7x DX9 mode) at max details @1280x720p with smooth frame rates on my Geforce 8600M GT GDDR3 (~22Watts).

Quote:

Current GPUs are of course far more limited with regard to the kind of operations they can perform compared to the Cell.

Not against AMD's R6x0 e.g. Fold@Home GPU2 client (AMD/ATI R6x0) vs Fold@Home PS3 client.

Last edited by Hammer on 23-Apr-2008 at 01:12 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 23-Apr-2008 at 12:59 PM.

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@BrianK

Quote:

Do you know if it made this theoretical top end for the whole system? Does the RSX make 1.8TFlops on it's own?

That includes fix function FP units.

Quote:

AMD's Firestream 9170 is only ranked up to 500GFlops for single precision and of course close to half that in double precision.

RV670's ~500GFlops value refers to just the programmable stream processors.

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@Hammer

The Teraflop announcement by NVidea should be viewed as a counter to the Teraflop announcement made by Microsoft regarding the 360, this using equal measures.

The RSX can produce produce more shader ops per cycle than the Xenos (96 vs 136) and the Cell is much more powerful than the Xenon.

An ACTUAL GAMEPLAY screenshot from Star Wars:RS3 - Rebel Strike. A game that boasted 20 million polygons on the lowly Gamecube...

Ah yes, the lowly GameCube...



Welcome home, Factor 5...

@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: @Hammer Quote: Hammer wrote: @Lou What do you think of The Conduit Nintendo Wii Trailer - High Voltage Quantum3 Tech Demo? http://au.wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/hightechwii.html I posted about that a page ago. I am impressed that they achieved 30fps as every stage you use on the TEV tends to cut the framerate in half unless the TEV received improvements that are undocumented. Just like with GT5 Prologue, I'll wait to see the final game. The demo looks too impressive, if you ask me, and was running on actual Wii hardware. The only moving objects in the came were some flames, lights and a fish. I have know that better graphics are possible on the Wii, I hope that High Octane and Factor 5 make engines that other developers can license and use to create great games on the Wii. Sadly the resolution of the Wii is restricted via the VI (Video Interface) Hardware... These are the Maximum Values... Default is 640*480... 720*480 for NTSC, EURGB60, and M/PAL... 720*574 for PAL... The VI handles rendering the FrameBuffer to the Display Device such as a Monitor or TV... I guess what they are trying to achieve is the quality of 360/PS3 graphics when played in 480p....which is an achievement worth doing... Here's what was possible on the lowly Gamecube on launch day in 2001:

Why post a GC game?

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@Hammer

That GPU works on a smaller subset of simulations and is therefore not as useful in a broad sense. The Folding project still needs genuine CPUs to participate.

Also that GPU can't compete with regard to many of the tasks the Cell is good at. You won't be running an entire game engine on that GPU, like Insonmiac ported the bulk of their gaming engine onto the Cell's SPUs.

Last edited by MikeB on 23-Apr-2008 at 01:58 PM.

@Lou

Quote:

A game that boasted 20 million polygons on the lowly Gamecube...

Maybe a breakthrough for a GameCube game, but nowadays a single car in a racing game like Gran Turismo 5: Prologue is made up out of over 10 times as many polygons. IMO these pictures you're posting don't look that great...

@Hammer

Quote:

That includes fix function FP units.

Thanks for the info.

Gotta love that theoretical top end pushing companies do. There's seemingly no way for the PS3 to return a useful game result w/ 2TFlop calculation time. MikeB's given example of the CellMD even was 'poor' enough to return 30GFlops or 1.5% of that 2TFlop #.

Side comment:
People we've been talking about processing ability of CPUs in these systems. The comments above shouldn't be taken with a mypotic vision or thought of some anti-Sony cabal in action. Clearly not only Sony pushes top end theoretical performance for their system other companies, Microsoft, Intel, Apple, etc. do this sort of thing all the time. What's important to us as users is how much power can we actually end up using for our needs.

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @Lou Quote: Lou wrote: @Hammer [quote] Hammer wrote: @Lou What do you think of The Conduit Nintendo Wii Trailer - High Voltage Quantum3 Tech Demo? http://au.wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/hightechwii.html I posted about that a page ago. I am impressed that they achieved 30fps as every stage you use on the TEV tends to cut the framerate in half unless the TEV received improvements that are undocumented. Just like with GT5 Prologue, I'll wait to see the final game. The demo looks too impressive, if you ask me, and was running on actual Wii hardware. The only moving objects in the came were some flames, lights and a fish. I have know that better graphics are possible on the Wii, I hope that High Octane and Factor 5 make engines that other developers can license and use to create great games on the Wii. Sadly the resolution of the Wii is restricted via the VI (Video Interface) Hardware... These are the Maximum Values... Default is 640*480... 720*480 for NTSC, EURGB60, and M/PAL... 720*574 for PAL... The VI handles rendering the FrameBuffer to the Display Device such as a Monitor or TV... I guess what they are trying to achieve is the quality of 360/PS3 graphics when played in 480p....which is an achievement worth doing... Here's what was possible on the lowly Gamecube on launch day in 2001:

Why post a GC game?[/quote]

and

Quote:

@Lou Quote: Maybe a breakthrough for a GameCube game, but nowadays a single car in a racing game like Gran Turismo 5: Prologue is made up out of over 10 times as many polygons. IMO these pictures you're posting don't look that great...

Well, it's all relative. The first was a Gamecube launch title that launched pushing 15M polygons, though Nintendo's stated estimate was 12 million. The second came out 2 years later pushing 20M and looked more photo-realistic, yet we have seen few signs of even this capability on the Wii with the exception of Resident Evil 4:Wii Edition. It all related back to High Octane's Conduit demo mentioned earlier. No original Xbox game looked as good as SW:RG3-Rebel Strike did on the Gamecube.

Mike, ofcourse you would say they are not that good, not only are they not on a PS3, they are not 1080p.

...

anyway, now we have the Wii with it's gpu 300% internally faster that the GC's and faster access to memory (24MB moved on-die, in addition to 64MB of GDDR3) and yet no game has visually surpassed GameCube graphics.

This IS one situation where I do blame lazy developers...
I can't wait to see what Factor 5 does with the Wii hardware now that they've ported their Lair engine to it...

@Lou

Quote:

I can't wait to see what Factor 5 does with the Wii hardware now that they've ported their Lair engine to it...

I agree that SW III was better then Lair. Also I have high hopes for Factor5 on the Wii.

I am saddened.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/869/869021p1.html
Retro was founded by developers with an Amiga background...

EDIT:
Also, Nintendo reported a record operating profit and according to Nintendo, the number of Wii titles to sell over a million copies increased from five last fiscal year to 26. Clearly some 3rd parties are making money on the Wi...

Re-Edit:
Japanese top 10 last week:
01. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) - 202,000 / 795,000
02. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (Capcom) - 124,000 / 1,714,000
03. We're Fossil Diggers (Nintendo) - 35,000 / NEW
04. Wii Fit (Nintendo) - 32,000 / 1,897,000
05. Musou Orochi: The Evil King Returns (Koei) - 24,000 / 308,000
06. Pokémon Ranger: Batonnage (Pokémon) - 21,000 / 457,000
07. DS Beautiful Letter Training (Nintendo) - 15,000 / 149,000
08. Deca Sporta (Hudson) - 14,000 / 148,000
09. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo) - 13,000 / 1,575,000
10. Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 12,000 / 2,924,000

Last edited by Lou on 24-Apr-2008 at 12:08 PM.
Last edited by Lou on 24-Apr-2008 at 12:05 PM.

@jtsiren

Quote:

Now, on to more important things, where is my Dual Shock 3 so I can enjoy yesteryear's technology on my PS3! Local stores still report no suppl

http://www.play-asia.com - you'll have it within a week, or I did at least.

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@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: MikeB wrote: Quote: BTW a new patch, including analog stick support is available for those who prefer this I prefer the Sixaxis controls, feels far more organic to me. BTW an English languaged demo is available on the Hong Kong Playstation store.

Why did you reply to yourself on this? Besides losing context (I just re-read past few pages I hadn't, so was fresh in my mind), no one has any idea what you're talking about in casual reading.

@thread
Mike was talking about a Lair patch (which was clear in his first post).

Get the demo if you can, I wouldn't buy this game at retail, but maybe someone else will like it.

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@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: An ACTUAL GAMEPLAY screenshot from Star Wars:RS3 - Rebel Strike. A game that boasted 20 million polygons on the lowly Gamecube... Ah yes, the lowly GameCube... Welcome home, Factor 5...

Looks decent, especially for now such old hardware. I'd buy it, if it were for a platform I owned, and the gameplay was good.

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@wegster

Quote:

wegster wrote: @MikeB Quote: MikeB wrote: MikeB wrote: [quote]BTW a new patch, including analog stick support is available for those who prefer this I prefer the Sixaxis controls, feels far more organic to me. BTW an English languaged demo is available on the Hong Kong Playstation store.

Why did you reply to yourself on this? Besides losing context (I just re-read past few pages I hadn't, so was fresh in my mind), no one has any idea what you're talking about in casual reading.

@thread
Mike was talking about a Lair patch (which was clear in his first post).

Get the demo if you can, I wouldn't buy this game at retail, but maybe someone else will like it.

[/quote]
I posted about that some pages ago, it went unnoticed...

@wegster

Star Wars:Rogue Squadron 3:Rebel Strike was a wonder of nature on the GC and proved that it could do anything the Xbox could only load faster...
Rumor has it, they may Wii-make it.

Screens:
http://media.cube.ign.com/media/546/546759/imgs_1.html

Last edited by Lou on 24-Apr-2008 at 05:31 PM.