Could be more RSX info...

Leechan you don't have info, you have a patent. I'm not saying you shouldn't believe what you believe, but almost everyone here has seen those patents before, and for some reason we're not all thinking RSX will have SPE's attached to it, y'know?

That article is not new information.

 

Hey I agree - anything can happen. I look forward to RSX information as much as anyone else, to be sure.

 

'Based on' is a loose term. Could mean G70 with a few bells and whistles, and could mean a new architecture with nVidia style shader ALU's combined into SPEs. From the info we have and the fact the nVidia toolchain is in use, which suggests very strongly they're not rewriting it for a totally new architecture, I think RSX follows the nVidia archtecture of separate vertex shaders and pixel shaders, and there will be no SPE's on RSX.

There's no official word beyond what we've already heard that points to something traditional and conservative. But by the same token there's nothing to support strongly a view of something radically different, plus a history of patents filed that never amount to anything to show a patent isn't reason to expect anything. If you want to discuss the patent, it's been discussed before and so isn't anything new. If you want to propose this is a patent and patents are strong indicators of likely products, I say otherwise and that a patent is nothing more substantial than the recording of an idea someone had. I'm not really sure where you want this discussion to go. If you want ideas on how good or bad this architecture might be, do a search. I'm sure that discussion's here somewhere. Checking back I see XBD's linked to the probable discussion. But I doubt you'll find many people who'll believe this represents what RSX is. We may all end up being very surprised, but the logic behind believing in something exotic isn't there. If you want to make a case for this technology, do it by discussing the merits of using SPE's over Vertex Shaders, cost effectiveness, portability of nVidia's existing toolchain etc. For me, not being a low-level GPU programmer, I don't know where you'd want SPE's instead of Vertex Shaders, especially if you can't clock them high. Seems to me a lot of research to come up with a part that'll do the job of nVidia's existing part and cost more to do it. The whole idea of the Cell GPU was a unified architecture for scalability IMO, a one architecture fits all solution that can handle anything thrown at it. Performance and cost effectiveness and developer friendliness probably isn't there ready in time for PS3. So I don't know that this architecture would be better than a G70 varient, which would explain why it may have been dropped (if it was ever considered, and if it indeed has been dropped!)

 

No, it doesn't definitively mean you're wrong, but given how educated and well-informed most of community here is at B3D, I rate the likelihood as 'very high'.

Remember Occam's Razor, which is (literally): "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything". In other words, it's far more likely that Sony used (or started with) a pre-existing part than that they invented a new one. If all signs point at that, then that's probably the case.

Furthermore, if Sony had come up with a totally new GPU architecture, wouldn't they be pimping it a lot more (a la Cell)? Why would they want to keep that a secret? It would only get people more excited - which is exactly why people won't let the rumor die.

 

What exactly do you all mean when you say "SPE in RSX"? I am not sure I understand the distinction made here and elsewhere between this and shader processors. In my way of looking at it GPUs have had "SPEs" for a very long time now. Are you making a distinction in that you theorize that the shader units will have Local Store memory, be completely decoupled and use something like the Cell's EIB for communication or is it something else?

BTW, without having looked much into these rumors, but having seen that diagram twice now, I am starting to think it more likely that this is the legacy RSX, the one purportedly developed by Toshiba and then scrapped. I cannot back that up at all. Just saying.

On another note, and I think I have said this before elsewhere, I don't understand why it's expected that there is something hidden with RSX. Everything Jen-Hsun Huang said at the unveiling and the numbers provided hint at it being a G70 derivative. Of course there will be some modifications to support FlexIO and to better suit certain aspects of Cell cooperation, but I get the feeling that people are looking for "magic" because they worry that a G70 derivative is not good enough. I think they get this feeling from Microsoft/ATI PR and the very real existence of the Xenos. But...just because Xenos exists and is DX 10+++ (blah blah blah) doesn't mean that a G70 derivative cannot be an excellent processor in PS 3. What makes this most ironic and bizarre is that Nvidia supplied a very "generic" NV25 derivative for the original Xbox and that console is often praised as having the best graphics of its generation. Why does everyone seem so worried that RSX "is nothing special and magical"? Sure, things may have changed. But more so than ever, graphics are becoming a specialist field and there are two main players who know how to do real time 3D: Nvidia and ATI. So what are you so worried about? I get the feeling people would worry less if it were NV30 based as long as it had some eDRAM.

 

this article was wrote before G70 launch , that information on RSX is wrong .

According the NVIDIA's G70 Editor day paper, The RSX will be a 90nm G70-like GPU, with 128-bit MC and the PCIE bus interface will be replace by the FlexIO , no eDRAM inside.

 

I don't think this is a game of Poker and especially not about a bluffing game unless you want to see it that way. It's about execution, cost management and talent/contract management. I'd liken it more to a game of Risk or Monopoly

 

gild the lily.

 

5 people can keep a secret. 10 people can keep a secret. Sometimes even a whole company can keep a secret - look at Apple! But a company along with several thousands partner ISV developers cannot keep a secret. There's no massive secret GPU coming down the pipe from Sony, because if there was, 3rd party developers would have to be looped in and we would have heard about it by now. And if they aren't looped in somehow and it is still a secret, then boy are they going to be really pissed when they do. Stop grasping at straws that aren't even there.

And yes, I agree, let's play poker together. While I'm playing the correct odds and getting +EV on every hand, you'll keep calling me telling yourself that I'm bluffing, because that's what you really want to believe and noone can dissuade you otherwise.

 

Wireframe get it together man - SPE's on RSX means exactly that - four SPE's on RSX.

As for the images, yeah they're the ones from the supposed Toshiba project, because they come from the Visualizer patent. There's no secrets here. You don't have to back it up because we're all working under that same assumption.

@Sethamin: Well, to be fair Sony is excellent at keeping secrets. If they weren't, we wouldn't be having these RSX speculation threads two times a week, that's for sure. No Taiwanese partner leaks going down in *this* house!

Still though, I think the Visualizer stuff is best set aside for the moment. Not that I don't love the patent of course for what it represented.

 

I'm trying to remember if I thought RSX had a 256-bit bus, b/c a 128-bit bus feeding 32 G70 pipes sounds a bit wee. Doesn't it? I'm thinking 32 potential TMUs competing for 128 actual bits.

Sorry I'm so out of the console loop.

And what would SPEs in RSX running @ Cell speed mean? Would they be memory speed/bandwidth limited?

 

But you have to concider that the xbox came out way later than PS2, what ever top of the line GPU at that time would have done a better job than the PS2, not to mention that PS2 didn't even have a GPU...

 

So, you know if any developers recieved the final dev kits?

Didn't think so

 

Geez, you really are beating that dead horse arent you.. Have you not read the public information about what RSX is, or do you just choose to ignore it?

 

Finally, something we can agree on!

Nope. Or at least I haven't heard of any. So yes, there's definitely some ambiguity there. But I'd bet really, really suprised if Sony hasn't given guidance and an API for devs to code against, so devs should have a decent idea what's coming down the pipe. You can't keep the people who are writing your launch titles completely in the dark for the sake of PR, or else you'll get burned by it in the end.