Linux on PS3? What are the possibilities?

[Rolf N]

I know, and so should most people (looks to post above), that Sony intends to deliver PS2 software emulation.

To clarify, if the 3D graphics are done on RSX, that's hardware acceleration. I don't think hw accel was supposed to refer to the EE+GS chipset, because there's no equivalent for Gamecube emulation (that was part of the question).
Whatever Sony is going to do for PS2 emulation, they will not be bound to Linux and the existance/quality of OpenGL/ES drivers like third-party emulators.

 

[Arwin]

To clarify, if the 3D graphics are done on RSX, that's hardware acceleration. I don't think hw accel was supposed to refer to the EE+GS chipset, because there's no equivalent for Gamecube emulation (that was part of the question).

Ah, I see. But doesn't the Cell confuse this matter a little though? Aren't the Cell SPEs not actually closer to PS3's hardware even? Take 2 SPEs for the VPUs, etc. I don't know about the Cube of course, though what I heard that hardware is relatively straightforward (is that even possible in a Nintendo console? ).

And the Cell still has 4Gb/s to the framebuffer, doesn't it? I know it's not much, but at the same time it's maybe closer to how the PS2 does its work than others - you just assign a framebuffer in XDR memory and have that constantly sent to the RSX. Maybe the RSX can even have its framebuffer in XDR?

Whatever Sony is going to do for PS2 emulation, they will not be bound to Linux and the existance/quality of OpenGL/ES drivers like third-party emulators.

True enough. I misunderstood the question. That said, the SPEs might be more suitable to emulation than the RSX, because they are more programmable. Then again, some parts of the PS2 do resemble shader architecture, right? (admits himself to relative n00bishness)

 

[PeterT]

You think they could manage PS2/GC emulation without hardware acceleration?

As others said, no way. As long as there's no OpenGL support at all you won't even see PSX and N64 emulators run at full speed I'd wager. (Not necessarily because it's impossible, but because no one will write an optimized general software rasterizer for the SPUs) However, I'm still somewhat hopeful about getting some form of RSX support rather soon. The wording was that there is currently no hardware acceleration.