@ Deneidez

Was this intended for me? I don't see myself referring to screenshots within this thread.

@MikeB

No, bullshot comment wasn't for you, sorry. :)

Well, you can load stuff real fast from mass storage(as procedural stuff takes much less space), but memory bandwidth and lack of memory just makes it unusable with large amount of data real time.

Most of procedural functions rely heavily on floating point calculations so, yes CELL is nice when it comes to generate those real time.

Theoretically yes, but in use the problem is bandwidth.

(2x powerful word(one even with word extremely!) every time theres CELL next to it and your post wasn't even that big. Just some statistic. :D)

Deneidez said: the problem is bandwidth.

IIRC, The Cell uses some pretty fast memory with quite a bit of bandwidth.  25.6GB/s CPU ... 22.4GB/s GPU compared to PC2-6400 800MHz memory in my Core2duo system pushing a whopping(!) 12.8GB/s ;)  Granted, you'd only be able to process smaller textures in memory, but considering the screens for their artistic style, it doesn't look like the game uses a lot of large complex textures to me.  It looks to me like they might use a lot of small textures with some effects grafted on.

While they said it allowed larger texture resolution (as in pixels, or in texture generation/creation/resolution?) they don't specifically state why so I'm assuming they do post processing on the textures.  With the SPEs, they can do more, which makes me curious to his meaning of resolution.  If they mean pixel count, I'd agree with MikeB in that the BD-ROM would be the greatest benefit to this.  If they mean they can resolve a texture's appearance for post processing, then I can see why the Cell means so much.

 

Kyros said: Nice to know that PS3 owners are now feeling what it was like to be a GC owner. You mean like getting all the good games for your system and having too much to play? Or do you mean having only Nintendo franchises to play Ah yes that was the GC.

 

 And the Wii.

@ Deneidez

The memory bandwidth situation within the PS3 is very good, actually much better than on the 360 for stuff like this. Just like 7.1 quality audio is well suited for streaming, texture data is very suitable for this as well.

Procedural approaches can actually provide memory usage advantages.

Potential advantages include reuse & modify content, placement of texture taking into account shape, better 3D Mapping, resolution independent, visually accurate shading, less storage, less texture memory requirements and bandwidth advantages.

Potential disadvantages include aliasing issues, speed and most importantly difficulty.

I am not saying procedural methods are to the end be all with regard to games development, just that the PS3 is much more powerful for procedural synthesis than the 360 can be.

Didn't anyone bother downloading the film of this from psn? Yes it does look amazing but whether it can sustain interest after a certain amount of game time is my worry for it

It dont matter what the "cell" is capable of, devs are not gonna waste their time and money getting extra performance out of the the ps3 because of its small user base and high development cost.

The only exception is maybe a few 1st party titles and even Nintendo could nt stay on top with just 1st party games with the n64 and gc. Nintendo have much much stronger first party ip and talent than sony.

All the tech arguments dont mean shit if the economics are not there to make them happen.

@Andir & MikeB

1/30 * 22.4GB/s = ?

or even

1/60 * 22.4GB/s = ?

@MikeB (Only)

Urgh... If I remember correctly, I didn't mention 360 at all, or did I? Are we still talking about real time procedural textures on PS3 or do you just want to fight which one is better? :)

And we really don't know do they even use procedural textures. I am willing to bet that with game engine running you really can't sacrifice as much ram is it would be needed to make those textures also I am quite sure that RSX can't really handle more than one full set up(different kind of) in 1/30 second with procedural textures. Theoretically it can handle ~3 full set ups, if you look bandwidth only, but you know even CELL will have its time with procedural textures also it takes time to render and while you render something you really shouldn't change anything that is used in render not to mention shaders too.

So my question for you is "Can you tell me how would you do this miracle of yours on limited hardware like PS3.". Go as deep as you like, I am quite sure that I will understand.

That one sounds like ad-speech. Btw, youre good with those. Tell me about bandwidth advantages and texture memory requirements.

 

Lets see this is how regular textures goes in the system.

First texture will be loaded into ram, (slower than procedural one)

then it will be uploaded to video memory. (equal speed compared to procedural one)

Then procedural texture.

First texture will be loaded into ram(this task will be faster).

Cell will cruch some numbers and here we have similar texture to the one that was in first case. Its as large as in first case. (Theres no such a task in regular textures.)

So next step is to upload it to video memory. (equal speed compared to regular one)

 

Btw, you can reuse and modify regular textures too. Actually they do it quite much in games today.

Deneidez said: Urgh... If I remember correctly, I didn't mention 360 at all, or did I?

Comparing to the 360 is implied with the OP.  Better resolution compared to ... what?  The other console.

And as far as editing textures every frame... you and I both know that's not needed but we also both know none of us have enough information as to what they actually mean, how the game is made, or any of the finer details to argue this.

edit: for the record... 22.4GB/s / 60 fps = roughly 382 MB per frame.

@Andir

Urgh, that would be the case with this thread. But wasn't this nearly offtopic about creating procedural textures on the fly using CELL.

That means 'one setup' per frame. :)

 

And yes, we really don't know what they are going to make. Or are they going to make anything better on PS3 and is that just some marketing speech. :)