RSX and PR bull?

[Carl B]

Why would you assume march?

I'm assuming March because that's what SCE themselves have indicated. I mean, it could be July, October, of XBD-day for all I know or care. But if I'm going to talk about dates, might as well talk about the dates that have come straight from the horse's mouth.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I'm assuming March because that's what SCE themselves have indicated. I mean, it could be July, October, of XBD-day for all I know or care. But if I'm going to talk about dates, might as well talk about the dates that have come straight from the horse's mouth.

I must have missed that press release.

 

[Carl B]

I remember reading years ago about NVidia approaching Sony abotu graphics collaboration for their PS3, and I read this on cbsmarketwatch.com. Now - in the past year I have not been able to find that article, and back then I don't recall anything ever coming of it. Either Sony and NVidia went stealth right then and there, or Sony crawled back to NVidia after the fact.

In reference to the paragraph above from my previous post, I just did another search and found this: NVidia Eyes PS3

Now, this is *not* the original article I read back in the day, but I believe it's from the same time frame as the other one I read. It was a sort of short-lived investor mini-frenzy back then over NVidia's future console prospects, and I remember it well. Anyway, it's my honest opinion that one company or the other *did* make contact in the summer of 2003. Whether the collaboration began then or later, I don't know. But I think some will find this article I just searched for of interest.

 

[EpicZero]

Yes that's the interview. I read it of course so I'm not arguing your logic, I'm just saying that it's not hard to believe that provisions for the RSX development could have begun those eighteen months ago (from Jan). I remember reading years ago about NVidia approaching Sony abotu graphics collaboration for their PS3, and I read this on cbsmarketwatch.com. Now - in the past year I have not been able to find that article, and back then I don't recall anything ever coming of it. Either Sony and NVidia went stealth right then and there, or Sony crawled back to NVidia after the fact.

Here's the deal - if I'm wrong I could care less. This isn't directed at you either Scooby - rather at Powderkeg - but I really have to make clear that RSX's development is not some emotional topic for me. If it's the best ever great; if it sucks beyond belief, hey I still have a job and a girlfriend, right?

I was simply waxing philisophical on memory bit-width issues, not actually trying to make some prognosis of what form I thought the final RSX would take.

@Robofunk: G72 will be 90nm, so I'm sure that there were engineering provisions available to Sony for the 90nm G70--->RSX transition, and that it didn't have to be a 'from scratch' proposition.

I read the same article, NVIDIA approached SONY. I'll see if I can find it again. I'm not sure how much help it is, but according to NVIDIA's CEO, the RSX was developed in parallel to the G70.

According to Nvidia president and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, the two companies' collaboration has been going on for some time. "Over the past two years Nvidia has worked closely with Sony Computer Entertainment on their next-generation computer entertainment system," he said. "In parallel, we have been designing our next-generation GeForce GPU. The combination of the revolutionary Cell processor and Nvidia's graphics technologies will enable the creation of breathtaking imagery that will surprise and captivate consumers."

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-15015-1278-4-4-x

 

[Carl B]

Awesome EpicZero, there we go.

So now let the call go out throughout the land - between Epic Zero's article:

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-15015-1278-4-4-x

and mine:

http://money.cnn.com/2003/08/27/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/?cnn=yes

we can all start to put this 'how long in development' stuff behind us.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Come on now, those are articles covering the Dec 7th announcement that Nvidia was designing the PS3 GPU.

It's a carefully worded PR statement, "we have been working closely with..." kind of statement. It could mean literally anything, and is purposefully vague.

The XBit article is much more insightful than the Dec PR announcement, he also touches on this "2 year relationship"

" What we developed was to come up with content and quickly and efficiently. In fact we engaged with them quite some time ago, so we‘ve been working with them for quite some time on the development platform overall for the new technology. The thing that we like about this partnership is not only the fact is that it’s Sony and it’s big and there is strong volume involved."

It seems Nvidia began customizing the upcoming G70 sometime around Q4 2004 for PS3, based on the G70 that had already been in development for 18 months. In addition, they had been "collaborating" whatever that means, for a couple of years...

 

[EpicZero]

Come on now, those are articles covering the Dec 7th announcement that Nvidia was designing the PS3 GPU.

It's a carefully worded PR statement, "we have been working closely with..." kind of statement. It could mean literally anything, and is purposefully vague.

The XBit article is much more insightful than the Dec PR announcement, he also touches on this "2 year relationship"

" What we developed was to come up with content and quickly and efficiently. In fact we engaged with them quite some time ago, so we‘ve been working with them for quite some time on the development platform overall for the new technology. The thing that we like about this partnership is not only the fact is that it’s Sony and it’s big and there is strong volume involved."

It seems Nvidia began customizing the upcoming G70 sometime around Q4 2004 for PS3, based on the G70 that had already been in development for 18 months. In addition, they had been "collaborating" whatever that means, for a couple of years...

It doesn't seem that way at all. You haven't shown anything that hints that NVIDIA began customizing the G70 around Q4 2004.
Your quote doesn't help your argument that the RSX hasn't been in development on the side of the G70. SONY and NVIDIAhave been working together on the PS3/RSX for a while now. Both sides have said it, and to be honest, I think I'll take their word over yours.

 

[Carl B]

Wait a minute, Scooby did you even read my article? Because it didn't have anything to do with that December 7th press release; in fact it's from August 27th, 2003.

And I really feel NVidia's CEO claiming two years of collaboration with Sony clarifies Dave Roman's quote, and not the other way around.

Some quotes from the article:

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – It might have lost the fight for Xbox 2, but don't count nVidia out of the console business just yet.

ATI (ATYT: Research, Estimates) beat out nVidia earlier this month for the right to provide the graphics chip for Microsoft's (MSFT: Research, Estimates) next game machine. That followed ATI's March announcement that it had struck a technology development deal with Nintendo, presumably to supply the graphics technology for the successor to the GameCube.

The king of the console industry hasn't made any commitments yet, though. And while Sony (SNE: Research, Estimates) has preferred to own the technology components in past PlayStations, it might be mulling some changes this time around.

"The reality is nVidia is not sitting in a vacuum," said Erach Desai, an analyst with American Technology Research. "They are in discussions with Sony for the PS3."

"They realize, I think, that they cannot do it all," said Desai. "I have checked with a couple of very seasoned executives ... and the strong impression is that there is interest from Sony and interest from nVidia."

Article

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This interview??

It's a custom version of G70, they've been working on G70 for 18 months at the time of the interview, it didn't make economical sense to design a custom PS3 gpu when they were designing their new chip anyways.

What exactly does 'custom' mean? G70 with extra pipes? G70 with extra logic? G70 with a different memory interface? G70 who's pipes have extra functionality?

Custom could mean anything. We believe there's been 50 nVidia staff and who knows how many Sony staff, with nVidia knowing the part was also destined for PS3 and the RSX hasn't been finialized yet by all accounts so work has been ongoing. From deciding to include a customised G70 in PS3 to now, a period of 2+ years, why couldn't nVidia work out an XDR interface? Seems to me they've had plenty of time, but I've no idea what's involved with designing memory interfaces so can't say whether 2 years is enough time or not.

 

[hugo]

If 2 years is not enough how the hell could ATi work on 2 platforms concurrently(Xbox360's Xenos and Rev.'s Hollywood) and released their R520 recently?Nvidia may be a smaller company but it's sick to think that they are that slow.

 

[London Geezer]

If 2 years is not enough how the hell could ATi work on 2 platforms concurrently(Xbox360's Xenos and Rev.'s Hollywood) and released their R520 recently?Nvidia may be a smaller company but it's sick to think that they are that slow.

And i don't even think NVIDIA are smaller anyway!

 

[scificube]

Didn't RSX tape out already? If work is still onging wouldn't it be just to smooth out any bumps one may find?

 

[Carl B]

Didn't RSX tape out already? If work is still onging wouldn't it be just to smooth out any bumps one may find?

No real idea if RSX has taped out yet, and as far as I know confirmation of such has never been posted here. It was supposedly to tape-out at the end of the summer, but summer's come and gone and still no word.

 

[pipo]

If they want to ship final kits in December they'd better, right?

 

[Carl B]

One would think, definitely. So assuming it has taped out - or is about to - all the more frustrating that they still haven't given us the details.

 

[Powderkeg]

If 2 years is not enough how the hell could ATi work on 2 platforms concurrently(Xbox360's Xenos and Rev.'s Hollywood) and released their R520 recently?Nvidia may be a smaller company but it's sick to think that they are that slow.

ATI used the same basic core GPU design for almost 3 years with only minor tweaks to it. ATI's PC GPU development suffered heavily. That's how they managed to work on 2 console GPU's in such a short timespan.

And for all we know the Revolutions chip may just be a minor tweak of an existing PC GPU.

 

[London Geezer]

ATI used the same basic core GPU design for almost 3 years with only minor tweaks to it. ATI's PC GPU development suffered heavily. That's how they managed to work on 2 console GPU's in such a short timespan.

And for all we know the Revolutions chip may just be a minor tweak of an existing PC GPU.

... Or a minor tweak of Xenos

 

[Powderkeg]

... Or a minor tweak of Xenos

Possible, but doubtful, and definitely not with the edram w/logic that the 360 has. MS owns the patent to that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Possible, but doubtful, and definitely not with the edram w/logic that the 360 has. MS owns the patent to that.

Do they? Do we have evidence of this, like the patent number or link to a site that has such info? Seems odd to me for MS to patent a graphics hardware technology invented (presumably, unless MS engineers designed the concept) by ATi.

 

[Carl B]

MS and/or ATI might own the patent to *the* eDRAM, but not eDRAM in general. And since Revolution isn't targeting 720p or anything, no need for the exotic tiling scheme.