J Allard Interview: Xbox 360 has 3 times integer performance

[gosh]

most games are about 80 percent integer and about 20 percent floating point.

That man is just funny.

Why is that funny? He's talking about a traditical CPU/GPU setup where the CPU doesn't do much in the form of TnL.

It's funny to think that someone would go into a game code and quantify "how much it is integer and how much it is floating point"...
and then come up with a 80%-20% figure.

All the while, knowing that he needs to find a way to downplay Cell superiority in floating point performance. So now floating point doesnt matter!! What next?!

I think J A meant to say Teraflops do not account for performance as much as Sony wants you to think. Let the developers comment on that

 

[PC-Engine]

most games are about 80 percent integer and about 20 percent floating point.

That man is just funny.

Why is that funny? He's talking about a traditical CPU/GPU setup where the CPU doesn't do much in the form of TnL.

It's funny to think that someone would go into a game code and quantify "how much it is integer and how much it is floating point"...
and then come up with a 80%-20% figure.

All the while, knowing that he needs to find a way to downplay Cell superiority in floating point performance. So now floating point doesnt matter!! What next?!

Well according to JA XeCPU has 3 times the integer and half the floating point capabilty of CELL. I think his statement about most game code makes sense and giving a percentage also makes sense. It's the exact same thing with frame buffer bandwidth where most of the high bandwidth consuming tasks takes place.

 

[London Geezer]

I think J A meant to say Teraflops do not account for performance as much as Sony wants you to think. Let the developers comment on that

The Teraflops figures are for the GPUs, where everything has moved to floating point anyway. Can't you see what he's doing?

 

[Farid]

This claim, from J.Allard, of the XeCPU having 3x times the integer performance of Cell, has already been discussed in this very forum.

It's not because a random website decide to publish an article about this subject that we need another thread about it.
Especially a subject, this simple, Cell's SPE have the same peak performance in int and float, therefore 210GFlops and 210Gops.

 

[PC-Engine]

Especially a subject, this simple, Cell's SPE have the same peak performance in int and float, therefore 210GFlops and 210Gops.

Sure but can it do both at the same time?

 

[London Geezer]

Especially a subject, this simple, Cell's SPE have the same peak performance in int and float, therefore 210GFlops and 210Gops.

Sure but can it do both at the same time?

No IIRC. Can the X360 CPU?

 

[PC-Engine]

Especially a subject, this simple, Cell's SPE have the same peak performance in int and float, therefore 210GFlops and 210Gops.

Sure but can it do both at the same time?

No IIRC. Can the X360 CPU?

AFAIK yes because XeCPU has separate integer and fp units.

 

[London Geezer]

Especially a subject, this simple, Cell's SPE have the same peak performance in int and float, therefore 210GFlops and 210Gops.

Sure but can it do both at the same time?

No IIRC. Can the X360 CPU?

AFAIK yes because XeCPU has separate integer and fp units.

Interesting. We still don't have numbers though, he just came out with the 3x integer performance. Much like the 256GB total system bandwidth claim.

Till we see the real facts, all this PR crap is useless.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think J A meant to say Teraflops do not account for performance as much as Sony wants you to think. Let the developers comment on that

You seem to be of the opinion that only the developers who visit these forums have anything of worth to say. You don't have to currently be working in the industry to have an informed opinion.

As for my opinions on the matter (which you'll ignore because a) I'm not currently working in a software studio on games and b) I'm disagreeing with Allard)...

1) Allard is comparing EXISTING games on new techs. Existing games use a lot of 'integer performance' as that's where existing CPU's were designed to be strong. The next-gen consoles will see a shift in coding practises and new algorithms to take advantage of their (floating point, stream processing) strengths.

2) Allard hasn't explained what 'integer performance' is. Is it the ability to crunch integer numbers instead of floats? Cell's just as good at that as it is float crunching. Is it ability to work with random memory fetches and heavily branched code? If so I'm sorry to say XeCPU isn't so peachy in that department either. It's and out-of-order CPU with strengths in stream processing, like Cell. They both took the same strategy as they both saw that's what's needed for future gaming.

Look up the old debate we had on the original Major Nelson/IGN article. All points were raised there, fors and againsts. And this is why a SINGLE PR thread is useful, as the Mods specified (though of course you don't care for the mod's opinions because they're not devs ) as newcomers can read through that and cover the same ground again.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Especially a subject, this simple, Cell's SPE have the same peak performance in int and float, therefore 210GFlops and 210Gops.

Sure but can it do both at the same time?

No IIRC. Can the X360 CPU?

AFAIK yes because XeCPU has separate integer and fp units.

IIRC SPE's have two pipelines, one for float and one for integer. The integer also handles memory mangement, Apulet control, etc. Per clock it can issue one float instruction and one int instruction. If I were supposed to be doing other things I'd go look it up, but I'm fairly confident that's the state of play.

 

[London Geezer]

I think J A meant to say Teraflops do not account for performance as much as Sony wants you to think. Let the developers comment on that

You seem to be of the opinion that only the developers who visit these forums have anything of worth to say. You don't have to currently be working in the industry to have an informed opinion.

As for my opinions on the matter (which you'll ignore because a) I'm not currently working in a software studio on games and b) I'm disagreeing with Allard)...

1) Allard is comparing EXISTING games on new techs. Existing games use a lot of 'integer performance' as that's where existing CPU's were designed to be strong. The next-gen consoles will see a shift in coding practises and new algorithms to take advantage of their (floating point, stream processing) strengths.

2) Allard hasn't explained what 'integer performance' is. Is it the ability to crunch integer numbers instead of floats? Cell's just as good at that as it is float crunching. Is it ability to work with random memory fetches and heavily branched code? If so I'm sorry to say XeCPU isn't so peachy in that department either. It's and out-of-order CPU with strengths in stream processing, like Cell. They both took the same strategy as they both saw that's what's needed for future gaming.

Look up the old debate we had on the original Major Nelson/IGN article. All points were raised there, fors and againsts. And this is why a SINGLE PR thread is useful, as the Mods specified (though of course you don't care for the mod's opinions because they're not devs ) as newcomers can read through that and cover the same ground again.

Agreed, apart from the fact that neither is Out Of Order.
Though i could be wrong.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sorry, typo. NEITHER Cell or XeCPU is out-of-order. (does that mean they work? )

 

[_phil_]

gosh , you should make a thread on an exclusive feature ps3 probably wont' have or be able to compete with:

Integrated fluid dynamics unit.

(yep :straight in the water cooling unit )