PS4 graphics to be PowerVR Series 6 ?
parallax-scroll
yet, rumored news continues to pop up everywhere.
The latest is big, if it proves true: according to European source
PS3Clan, it seems SCEI "has officially chosen" the technical setup for
their next PlayStation iteration, which supposedly - depending on if
you believe the translation - will launch in 2012. The choice? The
PowerVR Series 6 by Imagination Technologies that utilizes a
technology known as "TBDR," which is "3-5 times better than a
competitive level nVidia/ATI Graphics card." Evidently, Sega used TBDR
to help power the old Sega Dreamcast and if you remember, that console
was definitely ahead of its time in the visual department. But perhaps
the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will retain
the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of advanced
technology from Imagination will work with the Cell. The quote in
question is as follows, although you may wish to take it with a grain
of salt without any official information:
"The PlayStation 4 shall use a high end variant of the 6 Series line.
Performance, specifications and features are at this time unknown. The
Series 6 shall receive an official announcement from IMGTEC sometime
in 2010, with initial models targeting the smartphone and netbook
sector."
On top of which, the rumor gets bigger by saying that SCEI has
furthered opted to work with IMGTEC for the next iteration of the PSP;
the new handheld will get the benefit of the Series 5XT. All of this
may sound like complete gibberish unless you're really into hardware
or programming but if it's all true, this is the first solid piece of
technical information we've seen concerning the PS4. The only doubt we
have is whether or not it'll be available by 2012... However, if you
think about it, the time frame would be in line with the last
generation; the PS2 launched in late October and the PS3 launched in
November of 2006. So you never know.
http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/6173.html
http://playstationlifestyle.net/2009/11/24/ps4-to-use-superior-graphics-card/
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/11/18/gpu-chosen-for-ps4-out-in-2012/
Sounds like 1997-1998 all over again, I mean, Sega Dreamcast...It was,
at first, rumored to use a high-end variant of PowerVR Series 2, then
it really happened. Now supposedly PS4 in 2012 with PowerVR Series 6
(and apparently PSP2 with Series 5) ?? Amusing if true. The more
things change, the more they stay the same.
Benjamin Gawert
> The choice? The
> PowerVR Series 6 by Imagination Technologies that utilizes a
> technology known as "TBDR," which is "3-5 times better than a
> competitive level nVidia/ATI Graphics card." Evidently, Sega used TBDR
> to help power the old Sega Dreamcast and if you remember, that console
> was definitely ahead of its time in the visual department.
Yes, at a time when the 3Dfx Voodoo2 was a top-of-the line 3D graphics
card for PCs. However, it is not 1998 any more, and while AMD and Nvidia
invested lots of ressources into advances in the performance and
capabilities of their GPUs, the PowerVR today is merely a low-power GPU
for handheld devices as their "grownup" versions never left the
prototype stage.
Sony would be mad if they choosed PowerVR for the PS4.
> But perhaps
> the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will retain
> the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of advanced
> technology from Imagination will work with the Cell.
The PS4 is very unlikely to be Cell based as IBM as stopped all
development for this architecture. Cell is dead.
Benjamin
Yousuf Khan
>> But perhaps
>> the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will retain
>> the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of advanced
>> technology from Imagination will work with the Cell.
>
> The PS4 is very unlikely to be Cell based as IBM as stopped all
> development for this architecture. Cell is dead.
Yup, Cell is definitely not going to go any further, however, the
current Cell chip might still be sufficiently powerful for the next
generation of PS console. Most of the computing is coming out of the GPU
nowadays anyways.
IBM Cans Next-Generation Cell Processor, Plans to Change Cell Concept -
X-bit labs
"Current PowerXCell 8i chip aimed at servers and supercomputers features
radically improved double-precision floating-point performance (compared
to typical Cell processor found inside Sony PlayStation 3) on the SPEs
from a peak of about 12.8Glops to 102.4Gflops total for eight SPEs.
Potentially, the PowerXCell 8iv could achieve about 500Gflops
double-precision floating-point performance. However, it might make
little sense for IBM to release such a chip since, for example, modern
graphics processing units (GPUs) are already achieving such speed levels
at lower cost: IBM has said numerous times that Cell chip had
insufficient yield."
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20091123233555_IBM_Cans_Next_Generation_Cell_Processor_Plans_to_Change_Cell_Concept.html
Yousuf Khan
Miles Bader
> Sony would be mad if they choosed PowerVR for the PS4.
Sony hasn't exactly shown a whole lot of good judgement in designing
their past systems either...
-Miles
--
((lambda (x) (list x x)) (lambda (x) (list x x)))
First of One
news:1fbd0fbf-a94c-4eac...@d10g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
> The latest is big, if it proves true: according to European source
> PS3Clan, it seems SCEI "has officially chosen" the technical setup for
> their next PlayStation iteration, which supposedly - depending on if
> you believe the translation - will launch in 2012. The choice? The
> PowerVR Series 6 by Imagination Technologies that utilizes a
> technology known as "TBDR," which is "3-5 times better than a
> competitive level nVidia/ATI Graphics card."
Either the rumor is false, or Sony had lost its mind again. TBDR became
irrelevant as soon as the Geforce3 and Radeon came along and did a simpler
form of hierarchical-Z culling that required far less video memory. Besides,
the nVidia and ATi GPUs nowadays have fill rate to spare, to such an extent
it's no longer heavily advertised. For example, my year-old GTX 285 does 56
Gtexels/sec, 4x that of the PS3, 7x that of the X360.
> Evidently, Sega used TBDR to help power the old Sega Dreamcast and if you
> remember, that console was definitely ahead of its time in the visual
> department.
Yep, ahead by about a year, until the PS2 came along. And the derivative
Neon250 graphics card was simply forgotten in the PC market.
> But perhaps the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will
> retain the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of
> advanced technology from Imagination will work with the Cell. The quote in
> question is as follows, although you may wish to take it with a grain of
> salt without any official information:
Whatever. CPU speed is simply not as relevant in today's games. For the PS4,
it would actually be sensible to shrink the existing PS3 CPU to something
like 28 nm and increase the clock speed. Keeping the same CPU architecture
definitely makes backward compatibility easier.
According to John Carmack, at least one of the next-gen consoles won't have
an optical drive. Who's up for 25GB game downloads? :-)
--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
Jim
> Yep, ahead by about a year, until the PS2 came along.
the VRAM so it didn't have use <640x480 and could do AA so it didn't have
nasty jaggies.
Jim
offer Sony can't refuse.
Yousuf Khan
> With IBM out x86+Larrabee looks more likely than PoweVR. Intel can make an
> offer Sony can't refuse.
Except that Larrabee isn't proven yet. PS4 can still go to a more
traditional regular PowerPC processor along with a traditional GPU,
making it more like the Xbox360.
Yousuf Khan
Jim
news:4b0ee987$1...@news.bnb-lp.com...
> Except that Larrabee isn't proven yet.
moon we can expect a "cheap" PS4. I'm not expecting much from Larrabee (its
just a supercharged PentiumMMX afterall) but with Intel's fab capacity it
should be cheap.
IBM is still on board the Cell train afterall so we can expect Cell to stay.
Benjamin Gawert
> IBM is still on board the Cell train afterall so we can expect Cell to stay.
Nope, it isn't. IBM discontinues all Cell development. Cell is dead.
Benjamin
Yousuf Khan
> "Yousuf Khan" <bbb...@spammenot.yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:4b0ee987$1...@news.bnb-lp.com...
>> Except that Larrabee isn't proven yet.
> The same could have been said of Cell. Without crazy Ken shooting for the
> moon we can expect a "cheap" PS4. I'm not expecting much from Larrabee (its
> just a supercharged PentiumMMX afterall) but with Intel's fab capacity it
> should be cheap.
Cheapness has nothing to do with fab capacity, it has everything to do
with die sizes: the smaller the better. Current estimates are that
Larrabee will be *big*.
> IBM is still on board the Cell train afterall so we can expect Cell to stay.
You missed the other part of this thread that said otherwise.
Yousuf Khan
Bill Cable
>
> You missed the other part of this thread that said otherwise.
>
> Yousuf Khan
Based on what I Googled, one division of IBM is off the Cell... not
the whole of IBM.
--
Bill Cable - Steelers Fan & Star Wars Collector
http://CreatureCantina.com <----- funny!
ca...@creaturecantina.com
YKhan
> On Nov 27, 3:15 pm, Yousuf Khan <bbb...@spammenot.yahoo.com> wrote:
> > You missed the other part of this thread that said otherwise.
>
> the whole of IBM.
The link has already been posted in another part of the thread. Here
it is again.
YKhan
> According to John Carmack, at least one of the next-gen consoles won't have
> an optical drive. Who's up for 25GB game downloads? :-)
Well, Nintendo used to do fine with cartridges in the olden days.
Perhaps they're going back to the modern equivalent of cartridges,
flash memory thumb drives? Most modern SD flash cards are 8 to 16GB,
meaning that they're already larger than or equal to DVD drives in
capacity, and they are still growing. Blu-Ray disk don't seem like
they offer enough of a cost advantage over flash drives.
First of One
apples and oranges.
The Dreamcast has 16 MB of 100 MHz system RAM on a 64-bit interface; and 8
MB of 100 MHz video RAM on a 64-bit interface. Memory bandwidth is thus 100
x 64 /8 = 800 MB/s, slight more than a Voodoo2. The architecture is pretty
straightforward, similar to a PC's.
The PS2 had 32 MB of Rambus-type system RAM with 3.2 GB/s of memory
bandwidth. The 4 MB of video RAM was embedded into the GPU's chip package
and had 9.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, so it functioned more like a large cache.
The PS2's GPU could stream textures off system RAM faster than the Dreamcast
could off local video RAM, provided the game developer exploited this
capability.
According to this document:
http://www.technology.scee.net/files/presentations/agdc2000/ThePowerOfPS2.pdf
The PS2 could also do both edge AA and even FSAA (with both supersampling
and multisampling), but early games evidently didn't use them. Sony's early
developments tools may have been crappy.
--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
"Jim" <j...@wtf.invalid> wrote in message
news:3Iadnd3SQZZ9uJPW...@giganews.com...
Miles Bader
> The PS2 could also do both edge AA and even FSAA (with both supersampling
> and multisampling), but early games evidently didn't use them. Sony's early
> developments tools may have been crappy.
Perhaps it's just the laziness of developers, but as far as I've seen,
the vast majority of PS2 games looked awful right up to the end.
-Miles
--
x
y
Z!
Benjamin Gawert
> Well, Nintendo used to do fine with cartridges in the olden days.
> Perhaps they're going back to the modern equivalent of cartridges,
> flash memory thumb drives? Most modern SD flash cards are 8 to 16GB,
> meaning that they're already larger than or equal to DVD drives in
> capacity, and they are still growing. Blu-Ray disk don't seem like
> they offer enough of a cost advantage over flash drives.
A 50GB flash drive still costs many times (magnitudes) more than a 50GB
Bluray disk, so it is highly unlikely that next consoles will use flash
as medium.
Besides that, game publishers clearly aim to move from physical
distribution to electronic distribution, not only because it is cheaper,
but also because it allows them to kill the 2nd hand market (games are
locked to a console/user and can't be sold) and makes other licensing
models (like time-based licensing where you buy playtime) possible.
Benjamin
Benjamin Gawert
> Based on what I Googled, one division of IBM is off the Cell... not
> the whole of IBM.
You didn't google very well then:
<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/end-of-the-line-for-ibms-cell.ars>
Benjamin
GMAN
So in a few years, its very possible youll see 50GB thumb drives or memory
cards for retail at that price. You already can get 16 GB for under $10 at
best buy all the time
YKhan
> A 50GB flash drive still costs many times (magnitudes) more than a 50GB
> Bluray disk, so it is highly unlikely that next consoles will use flash
> as medium.
I picked up a 16GB Class 6 (highest speed class) SDHC card for $20
including shipping on Ebay. I'm sure it cost whoever was selling it
much less for him to buy it.
> Besides that, game publishers clearly aim to move from physical
> distribution to electronic distribution, not only because it is cheaper,
> but also because it allows them to kill the 2nd hand market (games are
> locked to a console/user and can't be sold) and makes other licensing
> models (like time-based licensing where you buy playtime) possible.
That's entirely possible, and that's the reason they'd want to get rid
of the optical drive. A small flash drive slot would be a much more
cost effective non-permanent storage medium than a disk drive.
Physical distribution isn't going away, just the optical disk physical
distribution. And you can't rely on the Internet to download your
games when you need them.
Yousuf Khan
Jim
Jim
> bandwidth. The 4 MB of video RAM was embedded into the GPU's chip package
> and had 9.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, so it functioned more like a large
> cache. The PS2's GPU could stream textures off system RAM faster than the
> Dreamcast could off local video RAM, provided the game developer exploited
> this capability.
wont give you 2.4Gigatexels so its use for gfx is limited. RDRAM's high
latency is another problem. So if you wanted to use any of the PS2's
potential you had to use 8bit textures and sub SD res. Dreamcast used TBDR
so it made better use of its bandwidth than a Voodoo2. Apples&Oranges
> According to this document:
> http://www.technology.scee.net/files/presentations/agdc2000/ThePowerOfPS2.pdf
> The PS2 could also do both edge AA and even FSAA (with both supersampling
> and multisampling), but early games evidently didn't use them. Sony's
> early developments tools may have been crappy.
GeForce3 and with the GS's bandwidth it would be cheap to use. Jaggies are
usually the #1 complaint about PS2 gfx.
Benjamin Gawert
> Oh please, I picked up 6 32Gb SDHC cards off of ebay for $8 a piece.
Yeah, great. I can have 50GB Bluray disks mass produced for less than
$0.50 to $0.70 per disk, depending on how many I need.
> So in a few years, its very possible youll see 50GB thumb drives or memory
> cards for retail at that price. You already can get 16 GB for under $10 at
> best buy all the time
Maybe. But it still means higher costs than optical media, no matter how
you turn it, and doesn't change the fact that the game industry wants to
get away from physical distribution.
Benjamin
Benjamin Gawert
> I picked up a 16GB Class 6 (highest speed class) SDHC card for $20
> including shipping on Ebay. I'm sure it cost whoever was selling it
> much less for him to buy it.
See my answer to GMAN for that. 50GB Bluray disks can be produced for
way less than $1 *today*.
> That's entirely possible, and that's the reason they'd want to get rid
> of the optical drive. A small flash drive slot would be a much more
> cost effective non-permanent storage medium than a disk drive.
The flash drive slot indedd is cheaper than a BD drive, but at the end
of the day the cheapest solution is no removable media at all.
> Physical distribution isn't going away, just the optical disk physical
> distribution. And you can't rely on the Internet to download your
> games when you need them.
Sorry, but you must be really naive if you think physical distribution
is not going away in the long term, especially since the publishers more
than once expressed that this is what they are aiming for. On the PC,
there already is STEAM which in fact is very successful and does
completely rely on the internet to download your games, and this for
several years now (and often enough, the STEAM version means less hazzle
than the version on DVD which requires online activation with limited
activations and other intrusive copy protection schemes). Sony and MS
are constantly expanding their online stores, and this for a reason.
Digital distribution means that more profit goes to the publisher, the
second hand market can be dried out (by locking game titles to a certain
console), much better control over pricing (single source means no
pricing competition), and cost savings because mass production of media
is not necessary any more. Also, only digital distribution allows new
licensing models like time-based licensing.
Physical media might not disappear completely, but with the next
consoles we very likely will see that digital distribution plays an
equal role as physical distribution, if not more (Current consoles are
used as test beds for the concept).
You have to be very naive to not see the writing on the wall IMHO.
Benjamin
Yousuf Khan
> On Nov 27, 3:15 pm, Yousuf Khan <bbb...@spammenot.yahoo.com> wrote:
>> You missed the other part of this thread that said otherwise.
>>
>> Yousuf Khan
>
> Based on what I Googled, one division of IBM is off the Cell... not
> the whole of IBM.
There's more here:
Cell is no longer hpc material - The Inquirer
"According to the IBM executive's crystal ball, Cell is now no longer
the right platform on which to develop HPC computing and so IBM will be
shifting its focus from Cell-based co-processing to OpenCL-based
co-processing - AMD's GPU stuff, in not so many words. This means that
while Cell served its purpose in proving parallel processing was the way
to go, development costs of further Cell based products become pointless
as GPGPU computing becomes more widespread. Considering AMD is one of
IBM's closest research partners this hardly comes as a surprise."
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1563659/cell-hpc-material
So it looks like IBM will be moving towards AMD's solutions for at least
HPC stuff from now on. Other than HPC and Playstation stuff, what else
is there left for Cell? It looks pretty dead to me.
Yousuf Khan
The alMIGHTY N
Wow. I hadn't read that. So much for Blig Merk's constant yabbering
about how great Cell is.
On the other hand, isn't it still possible that they'd use some
current variant of Cell to power their next console? There must have
been developments to the processor since the launch of the PS3 3 years
ago and it would allow them to not have to worry about forcing
developers to learn yet another brand new architecture for the next
generation...
> Benjamin
The alMIGHTY N
I'd love to read comments from the fanboys on BOTH sides of the fences
on this one, haha...
> Yousuf Khan
The alMIGHTY N
> In article <7nc0o1F3k5fl...@mid.individual.net>, Benjamin Gawert <bgaw...@gmx.de> wrote:
> >* YKhan:
>
> >> Well, Nintendo used to do fine with cartridges in the olden days.
> >> Perhaps they're going back to the modern equivalent of cartridges,
> >> flash memory thumb drives? Most modern SD flash cards are 8 to 16GB,
> >> meaning that they're already larger than or equal to DVD drives in
> >> capacity, and they are still growing. Blu-Ray disk don't seem like
> >> they offer enough of a cost advantage over flash drives.
>
> >A 50GB flash drive still costs many times (magnitudes) more than a 50GB
> >Bluray disk, so it is highly unlikely that next consoles will use flash
> >as medium.
>
> >Besides that, game publishers clearly aim to move from physical
> >distribution to electronic distribution, not only because it is cheaper,
> >but also because it allows them to kill the 2nd hand market (games are
> >locked to a console/user and can't be sold) and makes other licensing
> >models (like time-based licensing where you buy playtime) possible.
>
> >Benjamin
>
> Oh please, I picked up 6 32Gb SDHC cards off of ebay for $8 a piece.
That's definitely not what those cards were going for when they first
came out. You couldn't walk into any retail store and get such an item
for anywhere near that price so that's got to be getting pretty close
to the actual cost of manufacture at the time those particular cards
were produced.
It will cost Sony a LOT less than that, on the order of a dollar or
even less per piece, to mass produce Blu-ray discs...
The alMIGHTY N
I'm quite certain there would be a huge backlash from consumers if
they were to take this route. Many people bank on the ability to
resell games once they've finished them.
Further, the network bandwidth required to handle massive downloads of
even games that only take up half a Blu-ray disc won't be here even in
the next decade. The U.S. is by far the most important market so the
video game industry will make sure that anything they choose to do
will be viable in this territory.
> Benjamin
The alMIGHTY N
> On Nov 28, 2:11 am, Benjamin Gawert <bgaw...@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> > A 50GB flash drive still costs many times (magnitudes) more than a 50GB
> > Bluray disk, so it is highly unlikely that next consoles will use flash
> > as medium.
>
> I picked up a 16GB Class 6 (highest speed class) SDHC card for $20
> including shipping on Ebay. I'm sure it cost whoever was selling it
> much less for him to buy it.
An equally likely scenario is that they purchased them earlier and
were not able to turn them around and so settled for making very
little to no profit just unloading them on eBay.
> > Besides that, game publishers clearly aim to move from physical
> > distribution to electronic distribution, not only because it is cheaper,
> > but also because it allows them to kill the 2nd hand market (games are
> > locked to a console/user and can't be sold) and makes other licensing
> > models (like time-based licensing where you buy playtime) possible.
>
> That's entirely possible, and that's the reason they'd want to get rid
> of the optical drive. A small flash drive slot would be a much more
> cost effective non-permanent storage medium than a disk drive.
> Physical distribution isn't going away, just the optical disk physical
> distribution. And you can't rely on the Internet to download your
> games when you need them.
Optical discs are not going away anytime soon. Maybe for the
generation after next but we're definitely going to have some sort of
optical medium for the coming generation. It's just not cost effective
enough to use anything else right now.
The alMIGHTY N
> * YKhan:
>
> > I picked up a 16GB Class 6 (highest speed class) SDHC card for $20
> > including shipping on Ebay. I'm sure it cost whoever was selling it
> > much less for him to buy it.
>
> See my answer to GMAN for that. 50GB Bluray disks can be produced for
> way less than $1 *today*.
>
> > That's entirely possible, and that's the reason they'd want to get rid
> > of the optical drive. A small flash drive slot would be a much more
> > cost effective non-permanent storage medium than a disk drive.
>
> The flash drive slot indedd is cheaper than a BD drive, but at the end
> of the day the cheapest solution is no removable media at all.
>
> > Physical distribution isn't going away, just the optical disk physical
> > distribution. And you can't rely on the Internet to download your
> > games when you need them.
>
> Sorry, but you must be really naive if you think physical distribution
> is not going away in the long term, especially since the publishers more
> than once expressed that this is what they are aiming for.
In the long term, of course - long term being the generation after
next *earliest.*
> On the PC,
> there already is STEAM which in fact is very successful and does
> completely rely on the internet to download your games, and this for
> several years now (and often enough, the STEAM version means less hazzle
> than the version on DVD which requires online activation with limited
> activations and other intrusive copy protection schemes).
You can't really compare the markets.
STEAM caters to PC gamers who well before the service came out were
already accustomed to long wait times for the download of large files.
This was nothing new to them *and* they were able to save some money
because some of the cost savings were passed along to them.
Console gamers only just this generation had online services and
gaming (yes, I know there were online games on the Xbox and PS2 but
they were not nearly as popular and widespread) and most people only
download the smaller Arcade games which are relatively quick downloads
even for people with slower DSL connections. It's a HUGE leap to a
25GB download.
Plus, Microsoft and Sony aren't going to pass shit along to the
customers - they'll keep all those savings for themselves and we'll be
paying $60 for a freakin' download. They're not dumb enough to try
that anytime soon.
> Sony and MS
> are constantly expanding their online stores, and this for a reason.
> Digital distribution means that more profit goes to the publisher, the
> second hand market can be dried out (by locking game titles to a certain
> console), much better control over pricing (single source means no
> pricing competition), and cost savings because mass production of media
> is not necessary any more. Also, only digital distribution allows new
> licensing models like time-based licensing.
If customers had to pay full shelf price for games on STEAM, it would
not have been nearly as successful and we wouldn't even be talking
about it right now.
Sony and MS are expanding their online stores but not taking any real
big chances there. We see some of the older Xbox 360 games available
but how big were those really? Maybe 6GB? 7GB? That's still a BIG
difference from even a 25GB game, let alone a 50GB game.
One thing is for sure, we won't be seeing anything like Metal Gear
Solid 4 in download-only form for at least a couple of generations.
> Physical media might not disappear completely, but with the next
> consoles we very likely will see that digital distribution plays an
> equal role as physical distribution, if not more (Current consoles are
> used as test beds for the concept).
Equal role? Unlikely. I'd say the next generation will be the "test
bed" and the generation after that will see digital distribution
playing a bigger role assuming that U.S. network bandwidth has
sufficiently increased within the next decade (not so confident about
that, though).
I'm quite sure both MS and Sony are going to be looking at how well
the PSP GO's software performs in the market. If Patapon 2's sales
performance is any indication, not well at all...
First of One
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Power_Processor_Element_.28PPE.29
Put three of the "PPE" cores together and you end up with something very
similar to the X360's Xenon CPU. So if Sony kept the current architecture (1
PPE + 6 SPE) and simply added two more PPEs, it can probably double the
real-world CPU performance over the PS3.
--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
"The alMIGHTY N" <natl...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:651dc884-9865-4f17...@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
First of One
> You need the eDRAM's bandwidth to keep the pixel pipelines full. 3.2GB/s
> wont give you 2.4Gigatexels so its use for gfx is limited.
3.2 GB/s is still *4x* the Dreamcast's bandwidth to local video RAM. And
that's just for streaming textures to the GPU. The framebuffer is in eDRAM
with its 9.6 GB/s bandwidth. Even with TBDR's claimed efficiencies back in
the day (3x according to PowerVR), the PS2's architecture still had more
memory bandwidth available.
Going back to the original topic, the biggest problem with TBDR is its
larger memory footprint, which can balloon out of control with today's
polygon counts. See this Beyond3D interview with Tim Sweeney back in 2001
(when the PowerVR Kyro was making rounds), accessible through the Web
Archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010423140453/http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/noncgi/Forum1/HTML/002596.html
> RDRAM's high latency is another problem.
RAM latency isn't as big a problem with graphics as it is with
general-purpose CPU work.
> So if you wanted to use any of the PS2's potential you had to use 8bit
> textures and sub SD res.
That's a fanboy urban legend turned into "truth" after it got quoted and
requoted a few times. Probably what happened was that PS2 development tools
weren't good, and many developers couldn't stream textures from system RAM
with acceptable performance. The Dreamcast had an architecture closer to
PCs, so it was easier to program and to port games over.
> The AA page was vague. Multisampling didn't come until next year with the
> GeForce3 and with the GS's bandwidth it would be cheap to use. Jaggies
> are usually the #1 complaint about PS2 gfx.
Actually multisample AA was made popular on the Voodoo5, which came out in
July 2000. The Geforce3 came out in March 2001.
Yousuf Khan
Fanboys of what? Larrabee or PowerPC?
Yousuf Khan
Yousuf Khan
> Wow. I hadn't read that. So much for Blig Merk's constant yabbering
> about how great Cell is.
>
> On the other hand, isn't it still possible that they'd use some
> current variant of Cell to power their next console? There must have
> been developments to the processor since the launch of the PS3 3 years
> ago and it would allow them to not have to worry about forcing
> developers to learn yet another brand new architecture for the next
> generation...
There was a small but significant revision to the core, where they
increased the double-precision floating point efficiency of the
processor. However, this was done to help out in the supercomputing
arena, not really relevant for gaming. Nor does it provide much
performance increase for gaming, since most gaming is done using
single-precision floating point.
One has to wonder how long Sony would be interested in using a core
that's never going to be revised anymore?
Yousuf Khan
The alMIGHTY N
LOL
Xbox and PlayStation
The alMIGHTY N
I suppose they would have to weight that against using another brand
new architecture that will have developers confounded for the first
three years of the console's life.
Even now many developers have problems utilizing the PlayStation 3
architecture properly. Essentially, the good games are being pumped
out by first and second party studios who had a good year head start
on everyone else with the architecture (and have direct access to the
folks at Sony who worked on the architecture).
It would be disastrous for Sony if they repeated that mistake next
generation. If they're going to go with a new architecture, I for one
hope that they go Microsoft's route and utilize one that's much more
familiar with developers.
Miles Bader
> It would be disastrous for Sony if they repeated that mistake next
> generation. If they're going to go with a new architecture, I for one
> hope that they go Microsoft's route and utilize one that's much more
> familiar with developers.
The problem with the PS2 and PS3 was that top-level decisions about
development directions were largely made by _marketing_ people, with
limited understanding of the technical realities.
But since Kutaragi has been kicked out, maybe they'll be a bit more
level-headed with the PS4.
-Miles
--
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
The alMIGHTY N
> The alMIGHTY N <natle...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > It would be disastrous for Sony if they repeated that mistake next
> > generation. If they're going to go with a new architecture, I for one
> > hope that they go Microsoft's route and utilize one that's much more
> > familiar with developers.
>
> The problem with the PS2 and PS3 was that top-level decisions about
> development directions were largely made by _marketing_ people, with
> limited understanding of the technical realities.
>
> But since Kutaragi has been kicked out, maybe they'll be a bit more
> level-headed with the PS4.
One can certainly dream...
Yousuf Khan
>> One has to wonder how long Sony would be interested in using a core
>> that's never going to be revised anymore?
>
> I suppose they would have to weight that against using another brand
> new architecture that will have developers confounded for the first
> three years of the console's life.
Well if they head towards a regular PowerPC chip, they can still
maintain some level of compatibility with the Cell's PPE component, if
not its SPE's.
However, I was surprised by how well Microsoft was able to maintain
compatibility between Xbox (x86) and Xbox 360 (PowerPC). I think Sony
should be able to create an emulation layer for the Cell's SPEs somehow.
Yousuf Khan
Jim
news:4b174884$1...@news.bnb-lp.com...
> However, I was surprised by how well Microsoft was able to maintain
> compatibility between Xbox (x86) and Xbox 360 (PowerPC). I think Sony
> should be able to create an emulation layer for the Cell's SPEs somehow.
already done. The tricky part was emulating the NV2A. IIRC Nvidia said
they would sue if they used their IP or some lame reason like that.
Yousuf Khan
I think MS was helped immensely because they actually used their own
DirectX API layer in their original Xbox. The DirectX made Nvidia
proprietary calls more generic so that once ATI replaced Nvidia, it was
easy.
Sometimes Microsoft bypasses its own standards just to get things done a
bit faster. It always gets itself into trouble that way, when a new
security hole or bug is revealed.
Yousuf Khan
Ross Ridge
>I think MS was helped immensely because they actually used their own
>DirectX API layer in their original Xbox. The DirectX made Nvidia
>proprietary calls more generic so that once ATI replaced Nvidia, it was
>easy.
It mainly worked because Microsoft never created a emulator that could
fully emulate the original Xbox. Instead they created a custom version
of the emulator for each game that they decided to provide backwards
compatibility for. Each version of the emulator only had to emulate
CPU and GPU functionaliy each game actually used.
The next generation of Xbox and PlayStation consoles won't be able
emulate the current Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles in software
because CPU power isn't going to jump an order of magnitude like it did
with the previous generation. If the next generation of consoles have
backwards compatibility it'll be because they have CPUs and GPUs that are
the same or similar to the currention generation. I would't be suprised
if the next Xbox has a slightly faster PowerPC CPU with 4 or 6 cores,
and the next PlayStation has the exact same Cell BE, similar to how the
PlayStation 3 had, at least originally, an "Emotion Engine" CPU.
Ross Ridge
--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //