http://www.develop-online.net/news/ambition-to-ship-gpu-less-console-delayed-ps3/0184281
And the ICE team convince Sony to use a GPU
And the ICE team convince Sony to use a GPU
new rumor about a PS3 without GPU
- Thread starter chris1515
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I don't know why you didn't link to the IGN story, its the better article.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/08/playstation-3-was-delayed-originally-planned-for-2005
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/08/playstation-3-was-delayed-originally-planned-for-2005
That's the story I heard back then from an EA source only that the Cell+Rasterizer chip was dropped because the solution wasn't competitive. IMHO the NVidia GPU and dual DDR3/Rambus memory bus was an expensive kludge to rescue the whole project with the millions invested into Cell with Toshiba and IBM. If they had made the smart decision to start fresh management might have lost their faces but Sony wouldn't have lost so much money in the end.
Really speaks poorly about Sony's competence...
I always tended to believe this story but some people had said it was bunk in the following years. But seems it was true after all.
If Cerny hadn't designed PS4 and they had let SCEJ handle it, it could have looked really ugly based on Sony's history imo.
I always tended to believe this story but some people had said it was bunk in the following years. But seems it was true after all.
If Cerny hadn't designed PS4 and they had let SCEJ handle it, it could have looked really ugly based on Sony's history imo.
False! Sony was just ahead of it's time with a heterogeneous computing system, 1st with the PS2 then with the PS3.
but look around now & everyone is moving to heterogeneous computing.
They would have to find another Blu-ray run-time if they had gone with something else. The early Blu-ray chipset were not as great as Cell. They also had to deal with 3D Blu-ray and stereoscopic games according to their vision later.
In addition, they would need an alternate security system for PS3 too.
Instead of one GPU problem, they may end up with other issues given the limited reaction time.
As someone mentioned, they manage to unfail the PS3. It was an eye opening journey to see the devs overcome the inherent PS3 programming challenges, especially the limited split pool memory. ^_^
We'll half of the decision came because they wanted ps3 to be the springboard to kickstart the cell processor. Sony had great success both financially and design wise with its previous silicon designs; ps1 and ps2 were great and way better profit wise and performance wise than what they could have gotten if they'd gone to amd/3dfx/nvidia/powervr/intel/motorola/matrox/s3 on a $300 BOM.
Only the blisteringly fast $2500 PCs in march 2000 with top of the line voodoo5500 or Geforce256 could achieve GT4/MGS3/GOW2 level graphics.
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Wow finally we learn the ugly truth, Gates was right.
I can only imagine how the negotiation went when Sony came to knock on Nvidia door in desperation... ouch.
The issue with the Cell is that it was lacking direction, on contrary to Larrabee with its tex units and the matching software effort during the development.
Now I like exotic hardware (for the sake of it
) and I find it a bit sad that the project was mismanaged and Sony were not both more realistic and conservative with its plan for the ps3.
I can only imagine how the negotiation went when Sony came to knock on Nvidia door in desperation... ouch.
The issue with the Cell is that it was lacking direction, on contrary to Larrabee with its tex units and the matching software effort during the development.
Now I like exotic hardware (for the sake of it
) and I find it a bit sad that the project was mismanaged and Sony were not both more realistic and conservative with its plan for the ps3.
D
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How is this a new rumour?
It's a confirmation of an old rumour from a new source about decade old decision. It's anything but news!
Cell was a venture to the unknown aimed to have a wide use. We begun hearing about the plan in 2000 or 2001 if I recall.The issue with the Cell is that it was lacking direction, on contrary to Larrabee with its tex units and the matching software effort during the development.
Now I like exotic hardware (for the sake of it
It was either a fail or win project, It was difficult to form a specific direction and predict the shortcomings when similar technology in consumer products havent been designed and used when Sony, IBM and Toshiba begun working on it. There was no technological progress or use in similar products to track from other efforts. Feedback and observation was almost non existent.
Back in 2000-2001 the Cell probably sounded like a superb idea. Sony's plan looked viable especially after their experience with the PS2 success. But times when exotic and unique hardware used to be a valid plan have changed as time passed. GPU manufacturers have evolved from years of experience and the market have adapted to their line of evolution. Sony was caught off guard when they saw that exotic and proprietary owned hardware was no longer up to the task to produce competitive results like in previous decades. It was a way of thinking that could no longer work due to the dedicated manufacturers in the market that have been steadily producing products every year when Sony was just producing PS2's and waited 5 years to release a new hardware
Eric lengyel who was working in the ICE team at this time challenged the accuracy of this article. From what I've gathered though it seems that there were a lot of designs evaluated but some were scrapped pretty early in the concept stage : two Cell design, Toshiba Cell-ish GPU, Toshiba VLIW GPU (Reality Synthetizer ?)...
The only people knowing the truth are not willing to share it due to NDA probably, that's a pity since nowadays it's not that important for Sony to keep it a secret but it would be interesting to learn more about it. I would love to read a book like "Xbox 360 Uncloaked" about the PS3 hardware design process.
The only people knowing the truth are not willing to share it due to NDA probably, that's a pity since nowadays it's not that important for Sony to keep it a secret but it would be interesting to learn more about it. I would love to read a book like "Xbox 360 Uncloaked" about the PS3 hardware design process.
Wow finally we learn the ugly truth, Gates was right.
I can only imagine how the negotiation went when Sony came to knock on Nvidia door in desperation... ouch.
The issue with the Cell is that it was lacking direction, on contrary to Larrabee with its tex units and the matching software effort during the development.
Now I like exotic hardware (for the sake of it
Cell didn't lack direction. They were too ambitious: consumer devices (Toshiba), Sony (Playstation), and IBM (HPC). It went much further than intel's Itanium and LRB efforts.
Yeah that's what I heard too. They should not have explored too many options. They would have more resources and time to work with nVidia alone, like with AMD in PS4.
