Chark said:
Staude said: One one hand, I'd prefere they keep it, so you'll be able to play ps3 games on the machine.. And because I think the structure, when used properly, is badass. On the other hand. A lot of people who are not sony, have problems using the structure properly, and a more common structure, will likely allow developers to invest less into making games on the machine.. Since they wont have to figure out how it works first :P
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Would the lack of Cell prevent ps3 games from playing?
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That is a good question.
The Cell processor is structured uniquely, in that it has 1 main core, and 8 sub cores. Of these subcores 1 is disabled for a higher yield in production.
The way the subcores are structured, means the processor is very good at some things, but very bad at others.
The things it's very good at however, it does far better than ordenary processors and even some powerful GPUs (which is the reason their original plan was to use the cell as a GPU aswell as the CPU, instead of including a standalone GPU component.)
Now, while you would assume that you would theoretically be able to multithread emulate the playstation 3, the fact that it moved things so uniquely, and so fast between it's cores would mean that you would have to have a much much more powerful system capable of not only moving more since it would be running software designed to make the processor emulate a different processor, it would also have to be much faster, as it would need to know that it had to emulate, while emulating, at the same speed.
I really like the concept of the CPU, I think that they could have had a machine with 4 main CPUs and an additional 16 sub CPUs (SPUs) for a powerful next generation system :P .. With larger L2 cache, and more XDR ram.. Well, or XDR 2.. It probably wouldn't be very cost effective though.
The biggest issue with the Cell was that most multiplatform game developers, used to working on X86 systems (32bit pc architecture) decided to simply use only the main CPU, or at best, very little of the additional CPUs. It's a shame though, because when used properly, you could have the CPU do a lot of the GPU work, which is why sony has produced better looking games on the machine compared to the competition, despite the slightly inferior GPU in the ps3.