nordlead on 29 December 2009
| MikeB said: @ nordland As for the Cell, I feel it is a wash. They could have made a system just as powerful using a simpler architecture Which processor would you been thinking of? The reason the Cell is harder to develop for is: 1) Reduction of manufacturing cost, chip size and power consumption. Thus non-essentials which do however simplify the need of expertise were removed. IMO this is mainly an issue for inefficient non-expert coders and 3rd developers who rely on their legacy game engines. 2) IMO having to deal with 8 processors will always be harder to code for than a dual or quad core system, just like it's harder to utilize thousands of colors in a game vs on a system which can only have 16 colors max, or single tasking system vs multi-tasking system, or a system supporting surround sound vs mono sound, etc. IMO developers which had enough foresight of where technology is moving towards will today not need to worry about obsolete gaming engines (IMO Crytek for example is a company with foresight) The aim of the Cell was to make a processor with an insane amount of processing power at minimal costs. I think for the long run this approach will prove itself beneficial to the consumer. |
well, MikeG, maybe something with similar design style as the X360, only more powerful? I know what makes programming on the Cell hard, as I'm a developer myself, and even venturing into 2 cores is a chore in and of itself compared to 1 core. Right now, the increased difficulty in development has lead to two things. Some crappy ports/multiplatform games, and some really good exclusives. Has the Cell's good exclusives outweighted the other harm it has caused? Are said exclusives really that much better than X360 or PC exclusives? That is up to the end user to decide, which is why I stated I feel it is a wash.
