What's the point of cell?

[ssj12]

Deneidez said:

ssj12 said:
There is a difference between what the CELL is able to process and what a general Intel processor (including Nahalem) can process.

The CELL is a media processor, its ability is to be able to process, decode, and encode the many forms of file types but it can also act as a GPU in terms of processing games graphically and texturally. The CELL is insanely fast at processing number equations needed to run many different AI streams at once.

A general CPU is stronger at general physics based tasks like Physics engines and running the code behind the scenes, this is why you need a GPU. The newer Core i7 processors fair better then the Core 2 against the CELL at crunching numbers for multiple streams.

I think this is as general as I can make it.. there really isnt much major difference between a general processor and the CELL other than how they are architecturally made to handle different tasks.

Wtf? You just don't make any sense at all. :D

Why developers use only PPU for AI when they can "...run many different AI streams at once..."?

(Hint: Branches...)

Good example is killzone 2:

 

Also general CPU isn't stronger at physics. Usually CELL can do it better as its nothing but playing around with floating points. And there are some big differences between general PC processor and CELL. :P

 

Oh, I get it. You are just trying to confuse us? (I hope you are...)

I guess I jumbled things together and failed to make my post really understandable. Though it has been a few years since I read that giant 200 page tech manual for the CELL IBM put out.

It's really a touch call. Its a matter of programming versus hardware. nVidia's cuda based physx offloads physics based processes to the processor. Grant it to get a really decent physx performance you need an GTX 280 or stand alone PPU. I have seen demos from Intel, ATI, and nVidia that show way better particle effects on PC versus what the PS3 has shown to date (sorry Killzone 2). Physics without particles equals just a flash of damaging orange and black light.

Also yes I know the term is branches, just didn't want to confuse OP. Look at Valve's AI Director, I'm pretty sure that shows that you don't need a processor that can crunch numbers five times faster, guessing since the Core 2 Quad Extreme was like 20 times faster and the 965 four times then the C2QE 9770, then the Core i7.

As for the KZ2 diagram, they are only using 3 SPEs? That doesnt make much sense considering that the game has everything it has going for it. Was expecting the full 6 running at about 50% of their abilities and not 3 running at full steam.