CryTek looking for PS3 developer

[scooby_dooby]

jesus - ever though of the possibility they already have a 360 lead programmer on staff?

???

 

[Tap In]

Well i guess the PS3 needs special treatment by a "specialist". They said in taht interview (gamestar.de) some month ago that the PS3 will get a proprietary engine and i guess that's why they need special guys for this job...

so ... do you think that's because PS3 is so much more difficult to program for? Poor tools? difficult environment? hmmm? *whistles*

seriously... this is such a non story that I'm embarrassed to be addressing it... again

 

[trinibwoy]

???

Don't worry - it's just the time honored tradition of ignoring the post(s) that totally demolishes your argument .

 

[Jesus2006]

so ... do you think that's because PS3 is so much more difficult to program for? Poor tools? difficult environment? hmmm? *whistles*

seriously... this is such a non story that I'm embarrassed to be addressing it... again

I guess it's because the SPU programming require a total restructurization of their data structures and algorithms. On the 360 you can get it running relatively easy because the cores can execute GP code (though not as fast...).

@scooby: that's also possible yes

 

[TheChefO]

Well i guess the PS3 needs special treatment by a "specialist". They said in taht interview (gamestar.de) some month ago that the PS3 will get a proprietary engine and i guess that's why they need special guys for this job...

Have you sent in your app yet?

 

[Jesus2006]

Have you sent in your app yet?

No thanks, im already developing "other" software but i can give you the original quote:

GameStar/dev: So you are optimizing your engine for the cell spu's?

Cevat Yerli: Sure. We have to, because we want to utilize PS3's power in full. Accordingly the PS3 will get it's own engine architecture, kind of a sub-architecture of CryEngine 2.

/GameStar/dev: ... the graphics interfaces are requiring an extra effort?

Cevat Yerli: Yeah, because of OpenGL ES for the PS3 we have to recode our whole rendering. If you look at it closely, CryEngine 2 will have 2 solutions for each system in total. If a developer abstracts that, the technology is optimized very specifically. Otherwise you cannot utilize the whole power. Alternatively you can abstract it in a way that it is not running on all system, then the strongest platform is losing out the most ...

http://www.ps3forums.com/viewtopic.php?p=109830&sid=6866f08f15c05b801d8ac97724ea09e1

 

[scooby_dooby]

I guess it's because the SPU programming require a total restructurization of their data structures and algorithms. On the 360 you can get it running relatively easy because the cores can execute GP code (though not as fast...).

@scooby: that's also possible yes

I didn't know that multi-threading a game engine across 3 cores using only 1mb of cache was relatively easy...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I didn't know that multi-threading a game engine across 3 cores using only 1mb of cache was relatively easy...

No, but if you've got a multi-core PC engine already in the works, porting that across to a similar architecture isn't so hard, whereas you'd need a rewrite for the SPUs just to run anything, without worrying about efficiency. I expect the know-how for XB360 is already there in the company and they want to add some PS3 know-how. I'm not quite sure how anyone qualifies for that though. How much experience can anyone have? I guess they want something of an old-skool hardcore coder

 

[Qroach]

From what I understand the problem in general is concurency, spreading tasks across multiple CPU's in an organized manner. The issue of dealing with the shared cache on the 360 is related but still another problem to solve.

 

[Jesus2006]

No, but if you've got a multi-core PC engine already in the works, porting that across to a similar architecture isn't so hard, whereas you'd need a rewrite for the SPUs just to run anything, without worrying about efficiency. I expect the know-how for XB360 is already there in the company and they want to add some PS3 know-how. I'm not quite sure how anyone qualifies for that though. How much experience can anyone have? I guess they want something of an old-skool hardcore coder

Yes, that's exactly my thoughts againg. And of course the knowhow is there, because it's like programming a celeron with lttle cache and trying to get the best out of it. Seriouslyy i don't understand the comments here, seems kinda flame to me. PS3 developers clearly state that the SPUs are the most powerful things in PS3 , much more powerful than the PPU. And since the PPU in the PS3 = a Xenon Core i don't see much of a discripancy. It's definately SPUs all the way.

Edit: And btw: Very nice that almost nobody seems to go in to what the actual developers say, because that's an exact confirmation of what i said eariler (and got flamed for).

 

[mckmas8808]

Yes, that's exactly my thoughts againg. And of course the knowhow is there, because it's like programming a celeron with lttle cache and trying to get the best out of it. Seriouslyy i don't understand the comments here, seems kinda flame to me. PS3 developers clearly state that the SPUs are the most powerful things in PS3 , much more powerful than the PPU. And since the PPU in the PS3 = a Xenon Core i don't see much of a discripancy. It's definately SPUs all the way.

Edit: And btw: Very nice that almost nobody seems to go in to what the actual developers say, because that's an exact confirmation of what i said eariler (and got flamed for).

I personally just wanted a better explanation from you. I didn't understand where you were coming from. But now I do and agree.

 

[scooby_dooby]

No, but if you've got a multi-core PC engine already in the works, porting that across to a similar architecture isn't so hard, whereas you'd need a rewrite for the SPUs just to run anything, without worrying about efficiency. I expect the know-how for XB360 is already there in the company and they want to add some PS3 know-how. I'm not quite sure how anyone qualifies for that though. How much experience can anyone have? I guess they want something of an old-skool hardcore coder

Why would a PC developer have a good multicore engine when they mainly develop for big out of order single core CPU's? They might have some multithreading, but I doubt it's anywhere near what is needed to take advantage of the 360. From what I understand, multi-threaded game engines are still very much in their infancy, be 3 cores, or 8.

 

[zed]

Cevat Yerli: Yeah, because of OpenGL ES for the PS3 we have to recode our whole rendering.

i assume thats just meaning adding ogl support as well as d3d ( + not really cell etc though that is a factor )

then the strongest platform is losing out the most ...

that can be taken 2 ways ie it doesnt necessary mean the most powerful it can also mean the largest userbase (in a years time)

perhaps i should apply for the job?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why would a PC developer have a good multicore engine when they mainly develop for big out of order single core CPU's?.

Because, in this case, CryEngine are said to be optimising for multicore with a multithreaded engine. From an interview with Cevat Yerli

Cevat Yerli: We're scaling the individual modules , like animation, physics and parts of the graphics with the cpu, depending how many threads the hardware has to offer. We're going to support both multi-cpu systems and multithreading and multicore. With 3 cpu's with 2 hardware threads each (dual core cpu's) it's possible that we are going to scale for 6 threads. Maybe we're not gonna do it though, depending how fast the individual cores or the cpu-threads are running respectively. We're developing a system that's analyzing how much threading power is available and we are going to scale accordingly.

Even then, if the engine weren't transposable as is, the whole point of XNA and MS's development environment is to aid cross-portability. If Crytek are using those tools to write the PC version, those same tools can be brought to bare on a different architecture with different design, which is still easier than what they'll have to do to port to PS3.

It'll be interesting how much they optimize for XB360 I think. Will they (and other devs) treat it as a console and optimise to the nines with low-level hardware management and different algorithms where possible, or will they treat it like a multicore PC and leave it to the hardware to manage all the code? On PS3 you don't have that option if you want to use a SPU, so devs have to write for the platform to a degree, though may cut-and-paste PC-derived algorithms that aren't very effective.

 

[one]

Why would a PC developer have a good multicore engine when they mainly develop for big out of order single core CPU's? They might have some multithreading, but I doubt it's anywhere near what is needed to take advantage of the 360. From what I understand, multi-threaded game engines are still very much in their infancy, be 3 cores, or 8.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~110132,00.html

Software Industry Embraces AMD’s Upcoming PC Enthusiast Platform

— PC Games Joining Digital Media Software in Transition to Multi-Threaded Applications —

SUNNYVALE, CALIF. -- June 26, 2006 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced today broad software developer support for its upcoming four-core, multi-socket enthusiast platform, codenamed 4x4. Leading software developers including Bioware, Cakewalk, Crytek, Havok, Irrational Games, Midway, NERO and Sony have been working on software applications and games to take advantage of multi-core processors and benefit from AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture.

 

[scooby_dooby]

And what is the install base on these processors? as I said they develop mainly for big single core out of order CPU's. Sure they are 'optimizing', but I don't think the inherent difficulties of multi-threading have been solved just yet.