PS3 Cell Processor 'Broken'? 417
D-Fly writes "Charlie Demerijian at the Inquirer got a look at some insider specs on the PS3, and says, Sony screwed up big time with the Cell processor; the memory read speed on the current Devkits is something like 3 orders of magnitude slower than the write speed; and is unlikely to improve much before the ship date. The slide from Sony pictured in the article is priceless: 'Local Memory Read Speed ~16Mbps, No this isn't a Typo.' Demerjian says when the PS3 comes out a full year after the XBox360, it's still going to be inferior: 'Someone screwed up so badly it looks like it will relegate the console to second place behind the 360.'" This is the Inquirer, so take with a grain of salt. Just the same, doesn't sound too good for Sony or IBM.
dev kits (Score:4, Insightful)
Inquirer, yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
main memories read speed is 25GB/s (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume the local memory is not going to be used much for 'reading' and only main memory is going to be used.
Hehe, oops. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Inquirer, yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, I'm not discounting that it could be real - it's got me curious enough to look on the web for the last 10 mins for some documentation to back up the claims in the story.. I couldn't find anything though.
Anyone got any real documentation or anything to back up the claim?
Why... (Score:2, Insightful)
Errm, they are dev kits, and it's The Inquirer... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Inquirer, yes, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
For the same reason Pons and Fleishman shouldn't have popped champagne corks over cold fusion. A single source is often wrong.
I'll wait for the equivalent of scientific concensus.
TW
Re:This is the Inquirer, so take with a grain of s (Score:4, Insightful)
Why ./ is bashing Sony so much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Article completely misses the point (Score:5, Insightful)
That the read performance for the Cell from this memory is dreadful is no surprise. This is exactly the same architecture that has been traditionally used in PCs. Reading graphics memory from the main processor is usually really really slow.
This memory is where you store textures and other graphics data. The main processor will usually have little need to read from this memory. If it does, then, as apparently Sony says, you just get the RSX to write to main memory instead.
This is a non-story. People have dealt with this for PC games for a long time.
History Repeats Itself (Score:5, Insightful)
I think being too connected to the online debates about this stuff can make you lose sight of what the more average public thinks and bases their purchase decisions on. That's why the only real argument for the PS3's failure so far is the high price, not questions about performance or developer issues.
Re:Inquirer, yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The picture says that the read speed for the Cell from "Local Memory" is 16Mb a second. Assuming it is true (I've got no reason to doubt it), then it still doesn't matter.
The "Local Memory" is the RSX graphics memory. The Cell shouldn't need to read this. The PS3 would still work even if the Cell couldn't read this memory at all. This memory is where you store textures and other graphics data.
Re:For goodness sake... (Score:3, Insightful)
PC graphics cards have worked this way for years. Reading from graphics memory has always been slow as it isn't optimised for this.
Re:Go Sony, go! (Score:4, Insightful)
That tends to happen when your basically the ONLY console. Not discounting Nintendo but its targeted a very different group of people than the PS3.
Not the National Enquirer (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't the online IT arm of the National Enquirer, you know.
The Inq isn't always right, but what the do tend to have is a lot of news-breaking stuff that they're (well, Mike) is willing to publish regardless of the consequences when the corporate heads find out there's a leak. Thats' why Mike got eased out of The Register when it went more corporate to form the Inq in the first place.
Those who have been following it for a while will remember all the appearances of leaked memos from Compaq (ex-DEC) insiders who were willing to leak happily to someone of the old school who was interested in seeing how the whole fiasco was turning out. Compaq/HP even started internal witchhunts looking for the leakers.
Regardless, the only real problem people might have with the Inq is they can't distinguish between an opinion piece and direct reporting, or can't accept that while the information as presented might be correct, it doesn't ensure that interpretive parts also follow.
You don't read the inq very much then. (Score:1, Insightful)
- root kit debacle,
- DRM lobbying
- I think they covered when SONY had fake movie reviewers for their crap movies.
- the screwed up blurayp-hddvde forum.
- and laughable 'mini-movie' format they had for the psp.
But xbox fanboys? hardly. They slag on 'the vole' 'the beast' from redmond pretty hard too.
In conclusion, "you are teh suk"
Thank you.
Re:16MB/s = CPU reading GPU memory directly (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Insightful)
This time around Nintendo is, IMO, in perfect position to nail it. Cost, size, standard/mature development, and the perfect tie in with the TV's remote control.
This is a topic not really touched on in the public, and one I like to get out there and in the consumers mind as often as possible because it has great potential. It will happen, it is just a matter of when and who manages to get it right. For years now this has been one of the hottest inside topics, and one I have a lot of interest in. We would all win. Shelf space and development costs are high, standardizing has major implications and a lot of proponents. Retail stores, rental chains, support, and developers would all win and are very behind setting a standard that would have some longevity and provide a stable platform that will be around for some yeas and to a very wide audience. The days of marketing solely to the relatively small geeky, "hardcore" gamers are numbered. Gamers (and I myself am included) like to think of themselves as this huge force, we aren't. More profit was made from Barbie dolls than the entire videogame industry last year. The audience needs to widen substantially, and this is the golden ticket for one lucky company... and of those the only long-time, ubiquitous, stable and mature company in gaming is Nintendo.
That is my prediction, I could be totally wrong, but in a few years I hope to be pointing folks to this post and saying I called it.
Re:Go Sony, go! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sony has a handful of good first party IP, but nothing nearly good enough to make me buy a console just for their games (nothing like a Zelda). And from what I've been hearing about the second part, they don't have the a clear superiority in anything but market share at the moment. My hope is that MS or Nintendo (preferrably both--as a monopoly in the game industry is a bad thing) will eat up good chunks of Sony's market share and force the loyal 3rd parties to develop for somebody other than Sony--thus exposing Sony/PlayStation for the joke it is...
Ha ha ha, not likely. (Score:3, Insightful)
i'd bet on MS. making a kick ass CPU for the 360 would make easier for IBM to extract sweeter deals from MS in other areas and to placate bill's wrath in what concerns IBM's linux business. if this means screwing up sony, so be it.
The reason IBM's relationship with MS was bitter was because IBM was simultaneously a competitor and a customer of Microsoft. It was a bitter relationship because IBM did have to do things to make MS happy that IBM would have rather not done. This is the kind of control MS has over every company that depends on their OS for sales, and IBM doesn't like it. They don't want to have to try to extract sweet deals from MS by dancing to their -- a competitor's -- tune.
IBM has for years been trying to extricate themselves from this situation. In recent years these efforts have become even more pronounced. They sold off their PC division, making all of MS's influence on the desktop irrelevent to them. That leaves MS in the server, and a major reason for IBM's investment in Linux is to fend off the advance of Windows into that space (proprietary Unix having proven ineffective at doing so).
So IBM really has no reason to make peace with MS, in so much as it doesn't stop MS from being IBM's customer. This is an arrangement I'm sure they much prefer -- MS is now buying from IBM instead of the other way around, and all they have to do to keep MS happy is provide the processors they want in the quantity they want just like every other customer.
Sony and MS are both just revenue streams as far as IBM's processor division is concerned. If there was any customer they were going to sabotage in order to benefit themselves in another space, it'd be Microsoft.
Re:main memories read speed is 25GB/s (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go Sony, go! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Inquirer, yes, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think people confuse the Inq with the similar site The Register -- they're both british, both have similar looks, and similar writing styles. Except The Register prints all sorts of garbage, while the Inqurier tends to be right on the money with their rumors.
Most of their info is not especially interesting chip production details, but IIRC The Inqurier correctly predicted that Intel was dumping the P4 Netburst core in favor the Pentium-M design months before Intel made any announcements.
IGNORE MY COMMENT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go Sony, go! (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, of the reasons the PS2 was successful, its graphical performance isn't relevant. It's successful because:
1) When it came out, it had (basically) no competition. The Nintendo 64 was way past its prime, and the Dreamcast was pretty much already dead by that point. PS2's coming out was a death-blow to Dreamcast, and everyone knew it.
2) Because of backwards-compatibility, it had a huge selection of games at release.
The PS2's graphics performance *is* disappointing. It barely beats out the Dreamcast, and it can't hold a candle to the Gamecube or Xbox. Has nothing to do with success.
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Insightful)
Barbie has seen a slowdown in sales, mainly due to Bratz and other competitors. But even by your numbers, you can see that Barbie sales were almost double that of EA. I will dig through my 2005 files and if I can find the data I will be glad to reply with the real facts. There are many more makers of dolls and I gurantee that all doll sales would easily eclipse game sales. And for the most part dolls are sold to very young females, only 50% of that age range. Sure, action figures hit the other 50%... but not what I'm getting at.
The thing is videogames have the ability to hit ALL demographics, which is unique. A single console can have children, teens, adults, and seniors titles. Educational, online/multiplayer, handheld, standard genre's, and new titles. Most consoles cater to only one or two of those areas, and then only subsets of those. They target a very small audience comparatively and there is so much lost market share it is staggering. Gaming has changed. No longer can games be marketed to the 15-28 male demographic, no longer can they be exclusionary, require complex controls, or cost a fortune.
There are only two options. Games become homogenized to the point that they are like hollywood movies (not too far removed from where they are), or they widen their appeal and selection while beginning to change those above listed issues. Sony and MS are going the Hollywood direction, Nintendo is going the other. Regardless of your love/hatred for Nintendo... which way would you rather see it go?
I know my personal answer, and it is the best for all gamers... whether they are capable of understanding it or not. The PS3 and Xbox 360 will most certainly be the last narrowly targeted game consoles to release, and they may even be very popular and hold up for 2-3 years, but that old way of thinking and marketing will fall through. The numbers already are showing a large decrease in the interest and number of young-to-teen gamers. There are too many other diversions to compete with.
Sorry for being lazy with my initial comparison and not having the stats right with me when I was citing them, I will honestly try to get the numbers on here because it does illustrate my point. And my point is that games need to become mainstream and not just seen as a kids toy or for angry, unsociable teen males to blow heads off and spatter blood everywhere. That's getting old now anyhow, even the most dedicated hoe slapping gangsta simulator or yet-another-FPS wears thin eventually.
Re:Go Sony, go! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually it is a good question, Does it really run Linux?
Is it a REAL linux distro that Sony has made for the PS3 or is it a completly locked down worthless peice of crap that just happens to be running the linux kernal?
I haven't been able to find much of anything about the linux OS that will be used for the PS3, I've heard sony talk about their browser but will it be the only browser we can use? or can we install Firefox, Opera, Konquerer or any other number of Linux browsers?
The one interview a sony exec gave said they want the PS3 to replace the PC in the home (yeah, Microsoft said this about the 360 aswell before quickly changing their stance & Sony said the samething about the PS2) yet if the PS3 OS is locked down to the point you can't install ANYTHING at all then I don't see how that will work out to well for them.
Re:Errm, they are dev kits, and it's The Inquirer. (Score:2, Insightful)
Can you provide examples of them "confirming" allegiance to the Xbox? Can you provide a single example?
Because I read The Inquirer quite often and I have never seen anything like that. Is it at all possible that you're just a lying little shit who didn't have any interesting points to make and so decided to make some stuff up?
Actually those are rhetorical questions. The Inquirer is very much anti-MS. Of course it's also anti-Sony, which may be what's confusing you. Try only reading websites which show the proper level of sycophancy towards large multi-national corporations - they may not upset you so much.
Why do you care if Sony are unfairly maligned anyway? If you worked for them or had stock in them it would be understandable, although then your opinions would be null and void. But you don't do you? You don't have any stake at all in Sony and yet here you are bullshitting on their behalf. What the fuck is going on in your mind? Do we even want to know?
Re:Nice post, but not relevant to the (FUD) articl (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahh, so this is the rate at which the Cell can read RSX's local memory? That I'll believe. And I will equally agree "BFD!" The Cell does its work and dumps everything to main memory or the RSX's memory. RSX does its work and if it needs to communicate anything major back to the Cell, it does so through main memory. Makes perfect sense then.
I thought something seemed awful fishy. I thought the slide was summarizing performance of the Cell SPE and RSX, not the Cell's and RSX's ability to communicate with the RSX's local memory. If your statement's true, then this paragraph in TFA is full of it: (Emphasis mine.)
It all begins to make a lot more sense, though, if this is about accesses from Cell or RSX to memory local to RSX. I admit ignorance on the RSX's architecture. I just know in my bones that those numbers aren't for a Cell SPE talking to its local memory.
--Joe