CONFIRMED: PS3 to use "Nvidia-based Graphics processor&
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TheMightyPuck said:zurich said:Two words... "Poor" and "Microsoft"
???? I thought people were pretty optimistic about the PS3 already. How does this hurt Microsoft? Was the general position that SONY was going to screw up the graphics part of the PS3 and with NVDA on board people are relieved?
I'm not all that clued in to next gen stuff and frankly I haven't seen much information out there yet. I did, however, think the PS3 was going to kick major butt. How does this make it better than what people thought it was going to be?
I seem to be in much the same situation as yourself then. I more interested in the affect hardware has on game developemnt than hardware for the sake of hardware, so I'm probably not the best person to be analysing this announcement.
However, it appears that Sony has turned to one of the two companies MS was looking to source Xenon tech from, presumeably because they were the best company to provide it. Unless it was taken for granted that Sony were screwing up by not doing this, I fail to see why this has provided some kind of killer blow to MS that they were previously deemed unable to make.
Infact it - shock(?) - makes it look like Sony are ony human (so to speak) by dipping into the pool of talent that has collected around PC graphics card vendors.
And there's nothing to indicate in the graphics world of the last few years that Nvidia are better at providing solutions than Ati are. The tools and middleware that Sony also seem keen to get their hands on do not autoamatically seem to be better than (or even necesserily as good as) anything MS/ATI have access to either, so once again I can't see the killer blow that many people are alluding to, but not actually defining.
Sony have the advantages of brand awareness, image, marketing clout and being firmly entrenched in the number one spot this generation. But that's with or without this announcement.
It seems I'm missing something big.
function said:
A full tera of CPU flops maybe.
I think many people thought that PS3 again will have a damn strong CPU with a not so good GPU (image quality), but now they know that the GPU will most likely be very good as well, so of course it looks very good for Sony right now with an extremly strong CPU paired with a very good GPU.
Fredi
Megadrive1988
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a 1000x more 'powerful' than PS2 just became a whole lot more plausable. powerful in that, PS3's output could be 1000x 'better' than PS2.
if Sony and Nvidia do their very best, and if PS3 gets utilized better/more than PS2, we could see frames on PS3 that would run 1000x slower on PS2 (think of all the IP that Nvidia brings in that Sony would not otherwise have) like Panajev has said in the past: remember what he said like, a PS3 game @ 60fps and it running at 0.006 or 0.006 fps on PS2, or something to that effect.
if Sony and Nvidia do their very best, and if PS3 gets utilized better/more than PS2, we could see frames on PS3 that would run 1000x slower on PS2 (think of all the IP that Nvidia brings in that Sony would not otherwise have) like Panajev has said in the past: remember what he said like, a PS3 game @ 60fps and it running at 0.006 or 0.006 fps on PS2, or something to that effect.
McFly said:function said:
A full tera of CPU flops maybe.
I think many people thought that PS3 again will have a damn strong CPU with a not so good GPU (image quality), but now they know that the GPU will most likely be very good as well, so of course it looks very good for Sony right now with an extremly strong CPU paired with a very good GPU.
That's been my belief. It definitely raises the graphical bar. It will definitely be interesting to see how they implement it.
One thing that makes me wonder, is what led Sony to go this route instead of going at it alone?
Tommy McClain
The people were expecting the PS3 to be like the PS2 in that it would have the strongest cpu of the bunch and a strong gpu but just like the PS2 they were expecting that the PS3's gpu would be sorely lacking in features when compared to Xenon ans Revolution. Thus with Nvidia on the Gpu they feel assured it will have a modern feature set if not a very advanced never seen before feature set.
I fail to understand this sudden outburst of speculation that Sony will rule the world just because Nvidia is making them a GPU for the PS3. Nvidia and ATI are fairly equal in graphical expertise and no one is even certain exactly what Nvidia is supplying to Sony. At least with XBox2 we have some leaked specs and plans. Can anyone here say they know the actual realworld performance of the Cell chips which are based on a completely new and unproven architecture? Sony has a tendency to use theoretical numbers that aren't always indicitive of the actual throughput. Don't take this the wrong way, it really may turn out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I choose cautious optimism instead of blind zeal.
Tysan said:wow wow!! Calm down a bit, it was only a funny coment
Dont take it too serious, but its a fact that Sony has had to switch from a internal only graphic chip development to a joint venture with one of todays Graphic power houses and IMHO its a very wise decision, GS has some very good specs that makes up for its flaws but this kind of joint development with Nvidia can help Sony make a better balanced chip with less effort and probably better results than working alone.
And they should have done it earlier, I would have loved to see PSP Gpu designed with some Nvidias Ips to achieve good pixel shaders performance for example instead of the actual GS portable that even if its more balanced than Ps2 GS could have been better with this kind of colaboration.
So Sony needs lessons from NVIDIA who's only experience in the console market was the ridiculously costly desktop computer GPU bolted on to the xbox? Right...
Megadrive1988
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Nvidia also tried to develop a quads-based graphics chip for Sega, the failed NV2 chip, in the roughly 2 years between NV1 used in the Diamond Edge 3D card and the sucessful Riva128.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
While this is a very good move for Sony, I don't think it changes Microsoft's prospects all that much. Xenon was already thought to be less powerful hardware than PS3. The crux of MS' strategy revolves around ease of development and software. They might be wrong in this, in which case they would have lost anyway regardless of NVidia involvement. On the other hand, they may be right that hardware power is not that important, in which case this announcement also deoesn't mean much to Xenon.
I'll quote Vince from 9/30/02 - "Nobody gives a damn about graphics, we're well into a point of diminishing returns with respect to current TV limitations, and even with HDTV, the average consumer won't notice a diffrence between PS3 and XBX2."
If Vince is correct, then PS3 better be cheap to produce if they want to compete with Xenon. Power isn't necessarily going to win Sony anything. It'll boil down to software, marketing, and branding like it always does.
I'll quote Vince from 9/30/02 - "Nobody gives a damn about graphics, we're well into a point of diminishing returns with respect to current TV limitations, and even with HDTV, the average consumer won't notice a diffrence between PS3 and XBX2."
If Vince is correct, then PS3 better be cheap to produce if they want to compete with Xenon. Power isn't necessarily going to win Sony anything. It'll boil down to software, marketing, and branding like it always does.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
Sony won't rule the console industry because they have a GPU co-developed with Nvidia. the Nvidia deal simply insures that PS3 won't have awful graphics/image quality, texture mapping, etc. Sony could dominate with or without Nvidia. developers now have more reason to stick with Sony, than before.
PS3 has just become a more stable, friendly graphics platform.
Xenus:
yeah.
PS3 has just become a more stable, friendly graphics platform.
Xenus:
yeah.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I can agree with that, but today's announcement doesn't really do much to change anything on the consumer/sales side of the equation IMO.
I think you'll be hard pressed to find a developer on these boards that thinks that the news of NVidia providing a GPU to Sony is bad news.
when it comes to GPU design I'll take NVidia over Sony any day of the week.
It'll be interesting to see how they distribute the workload CPU/GPU given the massive stream/fp resources the processor has, my guess, is that the CPU will still be responsible for "Vertex shading" or the equivalent.
I don't know if a stronger brand than Playstation (except maybe GameBoy) exists in the videogame industry. And marketing, nobody beats SONY at marketing and hype. I also don't see all devs going to MS all of a sudden. Ease of development is nice, but the possibilty of selling shitloads of games on the next gens market leader is a lot nicer. And the hype really is with PS3 now, developers won't be immune to it.Johnny Awesome said:
Megadrive1988
Veteran
as would I. especially when one conciders what/who Nvidia really is. SGI, 3Dfx (SGI again) GigaPixel, as well as portions of other graphics companies, all of which or most of which were much more specifically experienced in the field of 3D rendering compared to Sony. i hope that made sense.
Tommy:
pretty simple IMO. because Sony knows it graphics engineering capability is no where near that of Nvidia, at least in certain areas, so, best to get Nvidia on board. it makes perfect sense. match Sony's strong areas (computational power, bandwidth, manufacturing/fab process tech) with Nvidia's strong areas (texture mapping, features, shaders, image quality)
McFly said:
I see. I'd always assumed MS would have a small early advantage with developer familiarlity with their tools and hardware, but that the PS3 wouldn't be weak relative to Xenon in any particular area. Perhaps the opposite infact, with the PS3 set to come a little later.
Perhaps my lack of obsession with PS3 specualtion has led to my lack of suprise at this announcement.
So anyway, it's looking like a separate CPU and GPU, with the nature of the GPU (whether it's an upcoming PC chip variant or a totally new Cell based chip) being unclear at the moment? Right?
I find it interesting that the GeForce GPU he mentions is their "next generation" GPU. Could it be that he literally means the generation after the Nv4XX? Is that expected to be a particularly revolutionary architecture? Would separate vertex shaders in a console with a CPU as fast as Cell even be necessary?
Tuttle said:Tysan said:wow wow!! Calm down a bit, it was only a funny coment
Dont take it too serious, but its a fact that Sony has had to switch from a internal only graphic chip development to a joint venture with one of todays Graphic power houses and IMHO its a very wise decision, GS has some very good specs that makes up for its flaws but this kind of joint development with Nvidia can help Sony make a better balanced chip with less effort and probably better results than working alone.
And they should have done it earlier, I would have loved to see PSP Gpu designed with some Nvidias Ips to achieve good pixel shaders performance for example instead of the actual GS portable that even if its more balanced than Ps2 GS could have been better with this kind of colaboration.
So Sony needs lessons from NVIDIA who's only experience in the console market was the ridiculously costly desktop computer GPU bolted on to the xbox? Right...
So now you need experience in the console market to make good GPUs?
Thats new to me
[And btw ATI has never done a console graphic chip!! And is designing the Gpu for bot Rev and Xenon!!! Shocker news!!!]
Ugh... some of you are so fickle. Let's wait for actual specs before giving PS3 the performance crown. This deal changes nothing. If Sony had gone with an internally designed GPU I'm sure in it's own way it would have been quite competitive just like the GS was. Certainly the PSP has shown that they are not unwilling to learn.
It's quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Xbox 2 will be less powerful than PS3. It also looks like it will launch quite a bit ahead of the PS3.
However, ultimately, the quality of next gen visuals won't be determined by the power of the hardware but rather the budget of the individual game. And keep this in mind, when PS3 launches with rushed 1. gen software the more polished 2. gen software will begin to come out for Xbox 2.
It's quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Xbox 2 will be less powerful than PS3. It also looks like it will launch quite a bit ahead of the PS3.
However, ultimately, the quality of next gen visuals won't be determined by the power of the hardware but rather the budget of the individual game. And keep this in mind, when PS3 launches with rushed 1. gen software the more polished 2. gen software will begin to come out for Xbox 2.
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