@MikeB

Quote:

The SPEs aren't DSPs, if that's what you are referring to.

If the 2 choices are only CPU or DSP then the SPE is much closer to a programmable DSP.

Quote:

pretending I stated something I didn't

While you want to blame others you wrote the sentence. Since there are a number of us that seem to agree on what you wrote yet you don't perhaps the error is really in the delivery. Why not rephrase what you meant for better clarity?

@BrianK

Quote:

If the 2 choices are only CPU or DSP then the SPE is much closer to a programmable DSP.

The choice would then clearly be CPU, each SPE includes a genuine CPU.

Quote:

While you want to blame others you wrote the sentence.

Quote me. I really don't understand you.

@MikeB

Quote:

The choice would then clearly be CPU, each SPE includes a genuine CPU.

I agree it does blur the line but it's closer to an expanded SPE. I suppose if you want to argue it's a cut down CPU you can. It's definitely not a pure set of either but it's construct is more DPS like then CPU like.

Quote:

Quote me. I really don't understand you.

This means? Quote:

I hope some IMO misinformed hatred and scepticism amongst parts of the Amiga community towards the PS3 and thus Cell technology will eventually vanish.

@BrianK

Quote:

I agree it does blur the line but it's closer to an expanded SPE. I suppose if you want to argue it's a cut down CPU you can. It's definitely not a pure set of either but it's construct is more DPS like then CPU like.

Each SPE includes a full RISC CPU, the SPEs are good at SIMD and FP operations as well, but that doesn't negate it them being genuine processors.

Mike Acton:
"It's a lot of little things, right. I mean, we had an idea of what to expect with the Cell before, but there were definitely some hard-learnt lessons. One that I can think of is to not treat the SPU as a co-processor."

"SPUs are the core of the Cell, the PPU is a minor player."

"Whatever the PPU can do, the SPUs can do better."

Deano:

"I’ll make a prediction for how PS3 games will evolve.
1st Gen: PPU used for most things with the SPUs just doing some heavy lifting
2nd Gen: PPU still dominant but SPUs doing a lot more tasks.
3rd Gen: SPU completely dominant with PPU now more of a game coprocessor.

I expect the third generation of PS3 titles will really shine, the first engine that is really SPU centric and just treats the PPU as a coprocessor is going to kick ####. The SPUs are fast like greased lightning but just require a different paradigm thats not going to be fully incorporated for a few generations"

So I wrote:
Quote:

I hope some IMO misinformed hatred and scepticism amongst parts of the Amiga community

You wrote:
Quote:

Amiga community all hates us some Cell!

Clearly what you wrote is far more extreme, aboslute and generalizing than what I wrote.

@MikeB

Quote:

Whatever the PPU can do, the SPUs can do better.

Not true. PPE acts as a controller for the 8 SPEs. The SPEs can't do this. Your other statement shows another example : the PPE is better suited to the current paradigm and a shift to a new paradigm is needed to make the SPEs shine. So the SPE's can't do the current paradigm better. Also if the SPE could do everything better logically wouldn't IBM have removed the PPE and added a 9th SPE? Clearly the SPE can't do everything better as your included statement would lead one to believe.

Quote:

Clearly what you wrote is far more extreme, aboslute and generalizing than what I wrote.

I'll include the sarcasm flag next time.

Last edited by BrianK on 29-May-2008 at 10:11 PM.
Last edited by BrianK on 29-May-2008 at 02:57 PM.

European GTA IV and consoles...

"Chart-Track has now told Eurogamer that the game also heavily boosted sales of the Xbox 360 console. Since Grand Theft Auto IV's launch last month, sales of the Xbox 360 are up 18% over the Playstation 3 in Europe. ChartTrack also notes that sales of the Xbox 360 have increased 47% over the month prior to GTAIV's launch, whereas PS3 sales have seen an increase of only 8%. "

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: European GTA IV and consoles... "Chart-Track has now told Eurogamer that the game also heavily boosted sales of the Xbox 360 console. Since Grand Theft Auto IV's launch last month, sales of the Xbox 360 are up 18% over the Playstation 3 in Europe. ChartTrack also notes that sales of the Xbox 360 have increased 47% over the month prior to GTAIV's launch, whereas PS3 sales have seen an increase of only 8%. "

In the US, since GTA4 released, the 360 narrowed the gap in this year's sales compared to the PS3. It seems GTA4 led to more new 360 owners than it did new PS3 owners...

...meanwhile last week in Japan:
PSP 64,449
Wii 49,047
DS Lite 37,404
PS3 9,071
PS2 7,189
Xbox 360 1,947

Edit: Software:
01. Let's Make a Pro Baseball Team! (Sega, DS) - 59,000 / NEW
02. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (Capcom, PSP) - 51,000 / 2,096,000
03. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 48,000 / 1,317,000
04. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 36,000 / 2,110,000
05. Glory of Hercules: Proof of Spirit (Nintendo, DS) - 23,000 / NEW
06. DS Beautiful Letter Training (Nintendo, DS) - 15,000 / 233,000
07. Scarlet Fragment DS (Idea Factory, DS) - 15,000 / NEW
08. Battalion Wars 2 (Nintendo, Wii) - 15,000 / 39,000
09. Taiko Drum Master DS: Seven Island Adventure (Bandai-Namco, DS) - 14,000 / 161,000
10. Link's Crossbow Training (Nintendo, Wii) - 12,000 / 168,000
11. Bleach: Heat the Soul 5 (Sony, PSP)
12. Wii Sports (Nintendo, Wii)
13. We're Fossil Diggers (Nintendo, DS)
14. Luminous Arc 2: Will (Marvelous Entertainment, DS)
15. The Orange Box (EA, Xbox 360)
16. Pokémon Ranger: Batonnage (Pokémon, DS)
17. Tea Dog's Room DS 3 (MTO, DS)
18. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, DS)
19. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii)
20. Musou Orochi: The Evil King Returns (Koei, PS2)
21. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo, Wii)
22. Deca Sporta (Hudson, Wii)
23. Haze (Spike, PS3)
24. Valkyria Chronicles (Sega, PS3)
25. Tottado! Yowiko's Deserted Island Life (Bandai-Namco, DS)
26. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, DS)
27. SimCity DS 2: From the Past to the Future (EA, DS)
28. Kanji Brain Test 2.5M (IE Institute, DS)
29. Prof. Layton and the Curious Village (Level 5, DS)
30. Princess Nightmare (Views, PS2)

Last edited by Lou on 30-May-2008 at 01:56 PM.

@Lou

Quote:

In the US, since GTA4 released, the 360 narrowed the gap in this year's sales compared to the PS3. It seems GTA4 led to more new 360 owners than it did new PS3 owners...

Yup the same is also true in Europe. Now I fully expect the PS3 to regain it's 'losses' when MGS4 comes out.

Though in related news the Wii surpassed the 360 in the USA for sales and is now the most sold console on 3 continents.

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @Lou Quote: In the US, since GTA4 released, the 360 narrowed the gap in this year's sales compared to the PS3. It seems GTA4 led to more new 360 owners than it did new PS3 owners... Yup the same is also true in Europe. Now I fully expect the PS3 to regain it's 'losses' when MGS4 comes out. Though in related news the Wii surpassed the 360 in the USA for sales and is now the most sold console on 3 continents.

Lately, some editors have been critisizing the Wii for not having an online experience like the 360 where things download in the background...and also for not having enough storage. This may be where the Wii never quite matches up, but like the older IPOD(s), it's not about features but about mass-market appeal.

The storage issue is still "fixable" and I expect an announcement at E3 about it. As for background downloading, this is probably not fixable as the Wii doesn't have enough RAM and processing power to run games and an OS at the same time.

@MikeB

Quote:

The choice would then clearly be CPU, each SPE includes a genuine CPU.

SPUs falls between CPU and GPU (reference to AMD's RV570). Fold@Home GPU2 client for RV670 already exceeds PS3’s Fold@Home client in terms of the types of work being done.

Last edited by Hammer on 30-May-2008 at 07:17 PM.

_________________
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Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

@MikeB


Quote:

"I’ll make a prediction for how PS3 games will evolve. 1st Gen: PPU used for most things with the SPUs just doing some heavy lifting 2nd Gen: PPU still dominant but SPUs doing a lot more tasks. 3rd Gen: SPU completely dominant with PPU now more of a game coprocessor. I expect the third generation of PS3 titles will really shine, the first engine that is really SPU centric and just treats the PPU as a coprocessor is going to kick ####. The SPUs are fast like greased lightning but just require a different paradigm thats not going to be fully incorporated for a few generations"

There are other specialised middleware that targets SPUs e.g. Ageia/NVIDIA's PhysX middleware already runs on SPUs. PhysX for G8x GPUs almost finished btw.

RSX (and the rest of Geforce 7 family) doesn’t compare well against low-mid Radeon HD 36x0 and Geforce 8600GT(DDR3)/9500GS. The results speak for themselves.

Last edited by Hammer on 30-May-2008 at 07:36 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 30-May-2008 at 07:33 PM.

_________________
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Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

@MikeB

Quote:

"Whatever the PPU can do, the SPUs can do better."

Why the Linux kernel code running on PPE instead of SPU?

Compared to NVIDIA and ATI, it seems Sony Corp doesn’t have skill set to write a proper GPU driver for their SIMD co-processor array. It’s 3DLabs WildCat VP870 (~200GFLOPs from programmable VLIW co-processors**) all over again…

**In theory, it should able to match yet another VLIW based Radeon HD 36x0.

http://www.dvhardware.net/article27407.html
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 folds 3x faster than Radeon HD 3870
Scores
PlayStation 3; 100 mol/day
Radeon HD 3870; ~170 mol/day
GeForce GTX 280 (10th gen); 500 mol/day

In reference to http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7598043&postcount=1
"4) Motorstorm" and occlusion culling

Compared to unified shader architecture, the RSX and the rest of DX9 class GPUs has limited number of vertex shaders.

http://www.umbra.fi/index.php?products&faq
Umbra's (another Unreal3's middleware) occlusion culling middleware uses hierarchical occlusion queries accelerated by the GPU.

http://www.umbra.fi/index.php?videoreel
This video demos Umbra's (another Unreal3's middleware) occlusion culling middleware. Notice vertex occlusion culling.

The problem would be RSX(and Geforce 7 family)’s hierarchical occlusion support.

Quote:

19) Ninja Gaiden Sigma Source: Next-Gen Gamer "One important thing about the PS3 is the seven SPUs in addition to the main processor, and using those is what allows you to get the best graphic quality

Make that 6 SPUs available for user applications.

For point 24,
ATI R6x0 and Xenos GPUs includes hardware global illumination.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-Jun-2008 at 08:02 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Jun-2008 at 07:42 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Jun-2008 at 04:04 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Jun-2008 at 04:03 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Jun-2008 at 02:54 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 31-May-2008 at 11:35 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 31-May-2008 at 11:25 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 31-May-2008 at 11:15 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 31-May-2008 at 11:14 PM.

_________________
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Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

@Hammer

Quote:

Make that 6 SPUs available for user applications.

At one time it was discussed that really 5 SPUs are fully commited to user applications. As the OS itself not only relies on 1 SPU it could grab a 2nd SPU if the OS demanded extra processing ability. Not sure if/how this has panned out.

I think the pro-PS3 camp argues it's okay the Cell has so much power if the OS needs the power then it's available. I think the pro-360 camp argues that the 360 OS is much more efficent and due to this better design more power isn't needed.

Supposedly the PS3 OS used 64MB of Main Memory but updates have improved it to use about 52MB with the latest patches. In addition about 32MB of graphics memory is needed for the OS Summary for the PS3 is about 84MB of memory is needed for the OS. 360? 32MB total memory used.

@Hammer

Quote:

Why the Linux kernel code running on PPE instead of SPU?

Linux would require a huge redesign. Doing so would involve a fully dedicated (IMO thus commercially paid for) programming team, lots of time and effort.

It may involve so much rewritting it may be better to write a new OS from scratch. IMO BeOS would have been far more suitable for a rewrite, even down towards kernel level this efficient OS has a multi-threaded design.

It sucks a bit that Linux just runs on the PPE, but at least applications running on the SPUs have these additional processors all to themselves. (a minor pro compared to a major con, as there's plenty of resources to tap into)

Last edited by MikeB on 02-Jun-2008 at 05:44 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

@Hammer Quote: Why the Linux kernel code running on PPE instead of SPU? Linux would require a huge redesign. Doing so would involve a fully dedicated (IMO thus commercially paid for) programming team, lots of time and effort.

I think this refers back to your included point of 'Whatever the PPU can do, the SPUs can do better." Since the PPU can run Linux but SPU can't then 'whatever' cannot be true.

@BrianK

Quote:

I think this refers back to your included point of 'Whatever the PPU can do, the SPUs can do better." Since the PPU can run Linux but SPU can't then 'whatever' cannot be true.

Well 68k assembly code can't run on a x86 CPU without emulation (extreme example), etc, etc. But you could rewrite the app for x86 and then the app with identical functionality may run better if the CPU is faster. I think you understand what he meant.

Last edited by MikeB on 02-Jun-2008 at 08:27 PM.

@Thread

Anyone played Sega Rally? It looks fierce

Loved 'Outrun 2006' so would probably like it!

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

@MikeB

Quote:

Linux would require a huge redesign. Doing so would involve a fully dedicated (IMO thus commercially paid for) programming team, lots of time and effort.

Linux already runs on HPC platforms; refer to http://linuxhpc.org/

Quote:

It may involve so much rewritting it may be better to write a new OS from scratch. IMO BeOS would have been far more suitable for a rewrite, even down towards kernel level this efficient OS has a multi-threaded design.

You do know the difference between symmetric multi-processors vs asymmetric multi-processors?

Quote:

It sucks a bit that Linux just runs on the PPE,

PPE sucks as an out-of-order code stream processor.

Quote:

So? That still doesn't make UT3 engine based games a 3rd generation PS3 game engine.

UT3 engine includes specialized middleware which are provided by specialized middleware ISV ("one trick pony").

AGEIA PhysX PS3 is provided by Sony. Are you claiming SPUs are stupidly hard to program compared to yet-another-stream processor like Ageia’s PhysX Accelerator?

Quote:

Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm were optimised for the Cell, but they have made great gains by moving far more stuff over from the Cell's PPE towards the SPEs.

They are not unique in that department.

Last edited by Hammer on 03-Jun-2008 at 12:20 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Jun-2008 at 11:40 AM.

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@BrianK

Quote:

At one time it was discussed that really 5 SPUs are fully commited to user applications. As the OS itself not only relies on 1 SPU it could grab a 2nd SPU if the OS demanded extra processing ability. Not sure if/how this has panned out.

Depends on the situation.

Quote:

I think the pro-PS3 camp argues it's okay the Cell has so much power if the OS needs the power then it's available. .

If CELL has "so much power" then there's no need for RSX.

Quote:

I think the pro-360 camp argues that the 360 OS is much more efficent and due to this better design more power isn't needed.

Xenos GPU doesn’t require extensive “fixes” from the CPU. RSX (G71 based) has issues with limited vertex shader resource(1), lack of Early-Z hardware** (refer to G8x improvements), concurrent pixel shader and texture operation issues(2) (refer to G8x improvements).

Notes
1. Use SPUs for vertex culling and/or vertex support.
2. Use SPUs for pixel shader support.

Note that Xenos has it's own other issues i.e. note why Radeon HD 36x0 didn't include some of Xenos GPU's design e.g. UT3 on Radeon HD 36x0 plays better than Xenos.

It would interesting to see SwiftShader 2.0 ported to Ageia PhysX accelerator or Toshiba's Spurs Engine (mobility quad-SPUs).

_________________
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@Hammer

Quote:

@BrianKQuote: At one time it was discussed that really 5 SPUs are fully commited to user applications. As the OS itself not only relies on 1 SPU it could grab a 2nd SPU if the OS demanded extra processing ability. Not sure if/how this has panned out. Depends on the situation.

Thanks.

Quote:

If CELL has "so much power" then there's no need for RSX.

This is related to one of Sony's early quotes that the Cell will do it all because it was so powerful. It turned out they had to augement the all powerful Cell with the RSX and drop the 2nd HDMI.

Quote:

Xenos GPU doesn’t require extensive “fixes” from the CPU. RSX (G71 based) has issues with limited vertex shader resource(1), lack of Early-Z hardware** (refer to G8x improvements), concurrent pixel shader and texture operation issues(2) (refer to G8x improvements).

Obviously it's good the Cell has so much power as it's relied about to 'fix' deficiencies I wonder if Sony working with Nvidia cut back on the vertex shader on GPU on purpose expecting the Cell would do it. This would make a decent console and save on costs.