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Squilliam on 22 May 2008

MikeB said:
@ reask

why is everything going to happen in the future for the ps3. that;s all I ever read I mean it was launched november 2006 thats over 18 months ago and yet we still hear about the untapped potential of it.


A lot of it is happening right now, top launch games like Motorstorm and Resistance tapped only 10-15% of the performance what can be delivered by the Cell's SPUs (this could even have been dragged down further through extensive optimisation though). Motorstorm 2 and Resistance 2 will tap a lot more of this performance.

This transition is happening because the PS3's design is based on radically more modern and different technology. Things which run on the Cell's PPE nowadays will have to be split and moved over to the SPUs (which results into huge performance gains), once that's accomplished there are endless oppertunities for optimisations and enhancements.

performance so great that even now they still can't run GTAIV at the same framerate or resolution as the Xbox360. That was a game with millions of dollars spent on both ports to get it right.

if I was a sceptic I would be wondering how much of this is just spin


There's no spin with regard to SPU potential, there are enough research documents to back up games developer claims. However these research studies are able to concentrate on specific tasks. The amount of code and functions within a game engine are huge, devs just can't do it all at once assuming their game engine is suitable for extensive multi-threading at all (if not it's better to start over from scratch, as future PCs will also see more and more cores added). The first multi-CPU consumer desktop computer was released in 1995, called the BeBox (inspired by how the very asynchronously operating Amiga computer handled multimedia back in the 80s). Sadly PC technology took until 2005 to advance towards similar technology advancements (and Windows, MacOS and Linux all handle this far less efficiently than BeOS did even back then).

Dude smoke the crack less please? Seriously do I doubt that a pc in 1995 with multiple cpus is more efficient than a multicore cpu today with billions spent on optimization?

For instance a research team can solely concentrate on Artificial Intelligence and show the Cell is suitable for this use like no other consumer CPU currently available, however AI is just one part of a game engine and it may make more sense to first get the physics engine onto the SPUs, which is very beneficial for many games or have audio processing done by the Cell's SPUs which is relatively an easy thing to do, etc.

This is doubtful. The SPUs are fast but they lack branch prediction and a good AI script has a lot of branches. A multicore X86 cpu would be faster and for a bonus they do out of order execution as well.


 



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MikeB on 22 May 2008

@ Squilliam

That was a game with millions of dollars spent on both ports to get it right.


It's an assets and game engine wise 360 orientated game. Like I said it runs more steady and looks better on the PS3, so they did not do a bad job overall (although IMO they should have done more testing considering some issues people were experiencing with versions).

Rockstar's Sam Houser:

"Getting things running on the PS3 initially was challenging. I think it was challenging for a lot of companies, but it's also a machine where, now that we've got comfortable with it—I don't want to say we've cracked it, but we've got comfortable with it"

"I think that's to do with really low-level technical stuff that I'm not the guy to explain. The 360 games have a certain look to them; PS3 games have a certain look to them. I like the way [the PS3] renders."

The low level stuff he talks about regards the Cell's SPUs, which are easy to take advantage of while designing a game engine from scratch. But can be hard work to move over improperly written legacy code.

Dude smoke the crack less please? Seriously do I doubt that a pc in 1995 with multiple cpus is more efficient than a multicore cpu today with billions spent on optimization?


Look if you don't understand the stuff being talked about, why resort to such comments. I was speaking about BeOS. Windows and x86 CPUs carry around lots of legacy bagage which affects efficiency.

This is doubtful. The SPUs are fast but they lack branch prediction and a good AI script has a lot of branches. A multicore X86 cpu would be faster and for a bonus they do out of order execution as well.


Depends upon how you write your code, the SPEs do support branch hints to increase performance (and there's of course the PPE). Reseachers aren't mimicing parts of the human brain on the Cell for nothing.



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

Squilliam on 22 May 2008

MikeB said:
@ Squilliam

That was a game with millions of dollars spent on both ports to get it right.


It's an assets and game engine wise 360 orientated game. Like I said it runs more steady and looks better on the PS3, so they did not do a bad job overall (although IMO they should have done more testing considering some issues people were experiencing with versions).

Higher FPS = runs more steady. The Xbox360 does that, not the PS3.

Rockstar's Sam Houser:

"Getting things running on the PS3 initially was challenging. I think it was challenging for a lot of companies, but it's also a machine where, now that we've got comfortable with it—I don't want to say we've cracked it, but we've got comfortable with it"

"I think that's to do with really low-level technical stuff that I'm not the guy to explain. The 360 games have a certain look to them; PS3 games have a certain look to them. I like the way [the PS3] renders."

Subjective opinion.

The low level stuff he talks about regards the Cell's SPUs, which are easy to take advantage of while designing a game engine from scratch. But be hard work to move over improperly written legacy code.

Dude smoke the crack less please? Seriously do I doubt that a pc in 1995 with multiple cpus is more efficient than a multicore cpu today with billions spent on optimization?


Look if you don't understand the stuff being talked about, why resort to such comments. I was speaking about BeOS. Windows and x86 CPUs carry around lots of legacy bagage which affects efficiency.

Im sure any inherant CPU advantages would be swallowed up by the inefficiencies of multi cpu design.

This is doubtful. The SPUs are fast but they lack branch prediction and a good AI script has a lot of branches. A multicore X86 cpu would be faster and for a bonus they do out of order execution as well.


Depends upon how you write your code, the SPEs do support branch hints to increase performance (and there's of course the PPE). Reseachers aren't mimicing parts of the human brain on the Cell for nothing.

I did take that into account when I considered them. 


 



Tease.

MikeB on 22 May 2008

@ Squilliam

Higher FPS = runs more steady. The Xbox360 does that, not the PS3.


No, a more constant framerate means more steady. Less fluctuations in framerate. The 360 version has more noticable and significant framerate drops.

Subjective opinion


The end result is what matters the most. Worse graphics will still look worse in a slightly higher rendering resolution. It hasn't even been confirmed both versions render in different resolutions. Looking for patterns this suggests the PS3 version renders in 640p before upscaling to the output resolution (something impossible to determine by just looking at a HDTV screen), having difficulty finding the same patterns on the 360 version does not per se imply the game is rendering natively in a higher resolution.

Even the guy who claims resolution differences between the two versions said:

"regardless PS3 media look better for me, the light and atmosphere is more real (maybe HDR vs X360 MDR, post-process...), i agree with global reviews feeling"

Im sure any inherant CPU advantages would be swallowed up by the inefficiencies of multi cpu design.


The design is very efficient, that's why a radically new design was chosen. Unlike for other processors the Cell is able to achieve near its peak potential, also performance results go up near linear by utilizing additional SPEs (also less the case for current top multi-core CPUs).

I did take that into account when I considered them.


Some pointers:

IBM: "Game applications feature highly parallel code for functions such as game physics, which have high computation and memory requirements, and scalar code for functions such as game artificial intelligence, for which fast response times and a full-featured programming environment are critical. The Cell Broadband Engine[TM] architecture targets such applications, providing both flexibility and high performance"

Sony (PR speak): "The Cell Broadband Engine has the muscle and horsepower to move beyond artificial intelligence."

The way AI has been implemented in many legacy game engines is not the best approach.



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

Squilliam on 22 May 2008

MikeB said:
@ Squilliam

Higher FPS = runs more steady. The Xbox360 does that, not the PS3.


No, a more constant framerate means more steady. Less fluctuations in framerate. The 360 version has more noticable and significant framerate drops.

Actually the most noticable difference is the fact that the Xbox360 has screen tear whilst the PS3 does not.

Subjective opinion


The end result is what matters the most. Worse graphics will still look worse in a slightly higher rendering resolution. It hasn't even been confirmed both versions render in different resolutions. Looking for patterns this suggests the PS3 version renders in 640p before upscaling to the output resolution (something impossible to determine by just looking at a HDTV screen), having difficulty finding the same patterns on the 360 version does not per se imply the game is rendering natively in a higher resolution.

Even the guy who claims resolution differences between the two versions said:

"regardless PS3 media look better for me, the light and atmosphere is more real (maybe HDR vs X360 MDR, post-process...), i agree with global reviews feeling"

The same guy that said that Haze was 576P and this was later confirmed by the developers Free radical. That guy? The guy that also confirmed that GTAIV rendered at 640p?

Im sure any inherant CPU advantages would be swallowed up by the inefficiencies of multi cpu design.


The design is very efficient, that's why a radically new design was chosen. Unlike for other processors the Cell is able to achieve near its peak potential, also performance results go up near linear by utilizing additional SPEs (also less the case for current top multi-core CPUs).

The Cell is extremely fast, but you can't take advantage of that performance in the PS3 environment so easily. For example a search program for a P4 CPU did 28 million operations per second while the Cell (Blade not PS3) did 530ish. The difference? The P4 had 60 lines of code and the Cell had 1200. Game developers are not going to optimize to that extent and you run into a ram wall as well having programs that big.

I did take that into account when I considered them.


Some pointers:

IBM: "Game applications feature highly parallel code for functions such as game physics, which have high computation and memory requirements, and scalar code for functions such as game artificial intelligence, for which fast response times and a full-featured programming environment are critical. The Cell Broadband Engine[TM] architecture targets such applications, providing both flexibility and high performance"

Sony (PR speak): "The Cell Broadband Engine has the muscle and horsepower to move beyond artificial intelligence."

The way AI has been implemented in many legacy game engines is not the best approach.

Funny that most game code is actually quite serial in nature. Game developers would have preferred much faster serial processors but since that wasn't going to happen they were forced to develop multithreaded designs. We can move back to say that  memory topic... But hey when I hear things like the killzone 2 developers talking about how their AI scales with distance... Why did they scale it? Are they lacking Ram? Power? Both? In any case whilst the above is probably true, to achieve the cells full crippled potential inside the PS3 you would have to spend a lot of money optimizing. Probably not worth it, and they may never bother.


 



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TheBigFatJ on 22 May 2008
soccerdrew17 said:
i cant imagine sony is still losing 120 on every console.

 

They're definitely losing a lot. Consider that they just posted a huge loss despite consistent and formiddable profits from the PS2 and PSP.

For instance a research team can solely concentrate on Artificial Intelligence and show the Cell is suitable for this use like no other consumer CPU currently available,

A 'research team' can tell you whatever you pay them to tell you.  But that doesn't change the fact that the SPEs are not suited toward AI searches. Did you ever even take a class in AI programming? I'm beginning to think that wasn't part of your study.



MikeB on 22 May 2008

@ Squilliam

The same guy that said that Haze was 576P


Yes.

Game developers are not going to optimize to that extent


Games developers are eventually going to optimise the hell out of the Cell for gaming purposes, because it's a console, the basic specs remain the same for a decade and the userbase will only increase in course of time, making it more interesting to do so.

Do you have a link with regard to this test? If it was a Linux app it was probably running solely on the PPE (which also runs Linux as the host OS of course).

game code is actually quite serial in nature


Depends upon the origin of the games (target technology). It makes sense to perform tasks as asynchronous and parrallel as possible.

Are they lacking Ram?


More RAM is always better, but each SPE has 256K of RAM which is actually huge, especially compared to the much smaller amounts of L1 cache per core the 360's Xenon processor has to work with.



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

Skeeuk on 22 May 2008
Munkeh111 said:
I just think they are spreding titles out. However, they should be doing all they can to get FF XIII out, even if it means paying SE tons, because without that, PS3 sales in Japan are just going to get less and less

i agree with above^



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Squilliam on 22 May 2008

MikeB said:
@ Squilliam


Game developers are not going to optimize to that extent


Games developers are eventually going to optimise the hell out of the Cell for gaming purposes, because it's a console, the basic specs remain the same for a decade and the userbase will only increase in course of time, making it more interesting to do so.

you have to understand there is a hard limit for cell optimization due to ram.

Do you have a link with regard to this test? If it was a Linux app it was probably running solely on the PPE (which also runs Linux as the host OS of course).

Sorry no I don't and it wasn't run on linux it was a Cell Blade - I.E server part not the PS3 minicell.


Are they lacking Ram?


More RAM is always better, but each SPE has 256K of RAM which is actually huge, especially compared to the much smaller amounts of L1 cache per core the 360's Xenon processor has to work with.

Yes the local store is very important for the high throughput of the SPE.


 



Tease.

MikeB on 23 May 2008

@ Squilliam

you have to understand there is a hard limit for cell optimization due to ram.


There are bottlenecks and limitations involved with any current system, but this amount of RAM imposes no hard limit for cell optimizations for the very long run. Limited RAM will actually push developers more towards optimisation (meaning finding the best ways to get the most out of limited resources).

Unlike on the PC companies cannot demand users to upgrade their RAM, CPU, GPU, etc. This is easier to do instead of full optimisation, getting the most of out of the hardware. On the PS3 it makes sense to do low-level optimisation and write the best designed game engine and as properly written code as possible. On the PC there's the problem of so many different configurations and options, and components being discontinued and replaced far more quickly, so devs stick to more abstractive approaches.



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales