By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Michelasso on 09 September 2015
Edit Thread
walsufnir said:
sergiodaly said:

the SPUs in the CELL are closer to GPU cores than CPU cores. CELL CPU was used to help the GPU and this time around we have GPGPU helping the CPU. The multitasking and adressing the instrutions to the best place to be quily processed is what is similar between last generation and this generation of playstation consoles.


But in which way exactly? I mean the CELL already has an emulator for the SPUs because they were indeed CPUs itself but not really conventional ones. I know CELL helped the GPU but that is too abstract to me. Go on and tell us how exactly CELL is similar to the PS4 GPU and where it's not :)

No, that's mean. I know what you are trying to say but seriously, they are not that similar, in my opinion. Yes, if you have a coarse look, they are similar but at a finer look they really are different and not much can be used in terms of written code.

He is right, somehow. This is an interesting summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Synergistic_Processing_Elements_.28SPE.29

The SPEs are specialized on floating point operations. From a point of view they are in the middle between the CPU and a GPU. For example a matrix operation can be performed on the GPU. But it would be more efficent to run it on the CPU. Where it runs the best is on Cell SPE. The GPU obviously has the advantage of the extreme power available, so although not efficient it can still run many more matrix operations per second.

I think the most important real example has been Folding @ Home. After it launched on PS3 the PS3 took the first spot in computing power furnished. Then they eventually implemented it for the always more powerful GPUs and the PS3 position obviously dropped. Eventually it has been discontinued (on PS3. Now it runs even on mobile).

Once in an article about the old PS3 I've read a developer saying that he didn't have any issue with the Cell. When a thread was too taxing he simply moved it to an SPE. Which means the power was there. It was just difficult to profile it efficiently. But it doesn't seem it has been a problem for Naughty Dog or Square Enix. Nor for many developers on the second half of the generation.