C# applications able to run on PS3?

[Koichi Senada]

Hello, guys!
Does CellDotNet let to compile C# projects into PS3 compatible ones?

My general idea is to research on ability to create a cross-platform
3D game engine.
There is XNA (compatible with C#) for PC (Windows) and Xbox 360.
Also, there's MonoProject (compatible with C#) for PC (Linux).
So, the last question is whether is there something compatible with C#
for PS3 Cell architecture?

What would you recommend me to investigate on this subject?

Thanks in advance!
Koichi Senada, Russia.

[Rasmus Halland]

Hi Koichi

Mon, May 19, 2008 at 8:07 AM, Koichi Senada <Koichi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello, guys!
> Does CellDotNet let to compile C# projects into PS3 compatible ones?

That depends on exactly what you mean. The ps3 cpu consists of two
kinds of processors, a powerpc and some vector processors. Mono runs
on the powerpc, and celldotnet runs on top of mono and makes it
possible to run c#/.net code on the vector processors, under some
restrictions which may seem harsh.

You might want to take a look at one of the many Cell articles on the
net, and check the CellDotNet introduction
(http://code.google.com/p/celldotnet/wiki/Introduction) and perhaps
also a blog entry about CellDotNet for a little background
(http://rhalland.blogspot.com/2008/05/cell-and-net-part-1.html).

>
> My general idea is to research on ability to create a cross-platform
> 3D game engine.
> There is XNA (compatible with C#) for PC (Windows) and Xbox 360.
> Also, there's MonoProject (compatible with C#) for PC (Linux).
> So, the last question is whether is there something compatible with C#
> for PS3 Cell architecture?
>
> What would you recommend me to investigate on this subject?

I don't know much about game development, but there are some .net
projects doing something like that:
http://taoframework.com/
http://www.google.dk/search?q=mono+game+engine&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Rasmus

[Koichi Senada]

Rasmus, hello there! Thank you for your reply.

I've read your blog http://rhalland.blogspot.com/2008/05/cell-and-net-part-1.html
which says that you've managed to build a compilator which makes PS3
SPU ready code.
Is it possible to do that for the whole PPU/SPU architecture, which
seems to be related to CPU/GPU?
Do you have an idea on how to create such a compiler?

There was a thread on http://www.mono-project.com forum about running
Mono on PS3, though it wasn't updated since 2005.
http://www.nabble.com/Will-Mono-run-on-Playstation-3-tt270259ef1367.html#a17333297

[Rasmus Halland]

Hi Koichi

It would indeed be possible to make it support the PPU in addition to
the SPUs. However, I'm not sure what the point would be, since mono
supports the PPU today, and we're running on top of mono. Also,
CellDotNet supports far from the entire .net CIL instruction set and
doesn't support things like exceptions, because most code which
benefits from running on a SPU can live without fancy stuff like that.
Mono, on the other hand, does support it.
I hope this answers your questions.

rasmus