Ps3 linux: RSX 3d chip situation

[MrCarrefour]

Hi friend, is something going on with the 3d support for ps3 linux?
Forgetting the hack, do you think sony will open the 3d access as the ps3 hardware sales turn in profit, or do you think sony will ever?
I think sony don't want you to buy a ps3 just to use as a pc, but to use it first for games, and if you want .. as a pc .. but .. not so much as a pc !!!
So I think sony will never open 3d support for ps3

 

[rpg.314]

So I think sony will never open 3d support for ps3

Me too.

 

[manux]

The speculation is that it's more of an issue with platform integrity(i.e. prevent piracy) that makes it not possible/difficult to open rsx to third parties in linux. Perhaps RSX can access memory in a way that could potentially circumvent hypervisor...

I doubt Sony is afraid of someone making games to linux platform that would be able to compete even remotely with licensed developers and their resources. It's not as if some random guy can just go and develop a game that competes with killzones and uncharted territories... Also even if there was open source driver who says that it would perform as well as what's available in Sony's private sdk...

edit. Another good reason to not exposing RSX can be related to deal with nvidia and the licensing model/nda. Does sony have the *right* to give access to rsx and expose how it works?

 

[rpg.314]

edit. Another good reason to not exposing RSX can be related to deal with nvidia and the licensing model/nda. Does sony have the *right* to give access to rsx and expose how it works?

I think this is the case.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The speculation is that it's more of an issue with platform integrity(i.e. prevent piracy) that makes it not possible/difficult to open rsx to third parties in linux. Perhaps RSX can access memory in a way that could potentially circumvent hypervisor...

The same as there probably are ways to break-in SPU Isolation mode and the Hypervisor's security from the CPU side (and people working on it I am sure...)... RSX's DMA accesses are checked for validity (by a HW component on the other side of the FlexIO bus IIRC), i.e. you try to access a protected region from RSX --> DMA denied.

PS3 Linux is a monumental failure as far as homebrew gaming is concerned (and that is the tip of the iceberg, the whole content creation and content tools->game engine pipeline issue is yet another HUGE problem you'd have to face, even worse than not having RSX)... especially considering PS2 Linux and XNA on the Xbox 360.

I have no words...

I doubt they will ever figure out how to make PS3 Linux more appealing to those trying to don both high quality 3D graphics and use CELL to the max in non-graphics related tasks, especially when they are so far away from allowing even a JAVA+LUA/LUA+some_OpenGL_3D_graphics_support mini-SDK in HOME for user created arcade games.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I think this is the case.

An OpenGL driver would not expose RSX's inner workings to users...

 

[patsu]

especially when they are so far away from allowing even a JAVA+LUA/LUA+some_OpenGL_3D_graphics_support mini-SDK in HOME for user created arcade games.

Yo ! Any news on this ? The Develop article in October/Nov 2008 implied that they have submitted something for approval. Do you have any more details ?

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yo ! Any news on this ? The Develop article in October/Nov 2008 implied that they have submitted something for approval. Do you have any more details ?

No, sorry... I do not know anything about that more than that article revealed and I know that because I read it in the article... so... sigh...

 

[rpg.314]

An OpenGL driver would not expose RSX's inner workings to users...

Yup. But there are two issues.

1) GPL for the linux kernel.
Look here, post 75 in this thread.

2) Why would anyone bother paying sony licensing fees when they can develop games for linux w/o that. I heard they are about $10 a pop.

PS: How do you link to a specific post in a particular thread?

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yup. But there are two issues.

1) GPL for the linux kernel.
Look here, post 75 in this thread

Just like how nVIDIA is forced to GPL its official Linux drivers now?!? Binary blobs are fine... Referring to that post you made and Arun's followup, I do not think PS3 Linux and Android are similar situations, if Sony and nVIDIA wanted to make a PS3 Linux RSX driver available they could do so just like they make a common Linux GeForce driver available. Release it in the same way, add a PS3 Linux menu entry in the choose your OS menu... there is the will not to release such a driver, not any kind of legal issues barring it...

2) Why would anyone bother paying sony licensing fees when they can develop games for linux w/o that. I heard they are about $10 a pop.

Just like PS2 Linux killed PS2 gaming releases (or like XNA is just destroying game sales on the Xbox 360)? Not to count they would have considerably less HW resources available due to the fact they would be running Linux on top of the Game OS/HyperVisor...

I am fine with Sony saying "F U people, we do not want homebrew game makers either under Linux or HOME, so just piss off!", I just find counterproductive to make excuses for them though...

PS3 Linux == cheap CELL SDK to prototype CELL code... fine, just allow me to be pissed off expecting a little bit more... .



P.S.:

to link a specific post you copy and paste the link of the post through the "post #" link on the top right of the post you want to link to... like so (circled in green) --> see attachment...

 

[patsu]

Hi friend, is something going on with the 3d support for ps3 linux?
Forgetting the hack, do you think sony will open the 3d access as the ps3 hardware sales turn in profit, or do you think sony will ever?
I think sony don't want you to buy a ps3 just to use as a pc, but to use it first for games, and if you want .. as a pc .. but .. not so much as a pc !!!
So I think sony will never open 3d support for ps3

OpenGL implementation:
http://www.mesa3d.org/cell.html

The Mesa Cell driver is part of the Gallium3D architecture.

Tungsten Graphics is leading the project. Two phases are planned. First, to implement the framework for parallel rasterization using the Cell SPEs, including texture mapping. Second, to implement a full-featured OpenGL driver with support for GLSL, etc. The second phase is now underway.

EDIT:
In the book "Programming the Cell Processor", Ogre3D is highlighted as a framework for building games on PS3 Linux: www.ogre3d.org
It's supposed to run on top of the above OpenGL implementation. I have not tried it myself but I think it's running on the PPU and hence, could be (very, very) slow.

 

[rpg.314]

Just like how nVIDIA is forced to GPL its official Linux drivers now?!? Binary blobs are fine... Referring to that post you made and Arun's followup, I do not think PS3 Linux and Android are similar situations, if Sony and nVIDIA wanted to make a PS3 Linux RSX driver available they could do so just like they make a common Linux GeForce driver available. Release it in the same way, add a PS3 Linux menu entry in the choose your OS menu... there is the will not to release such a driver, not any kind of legal issues barring it...

That could be a way for distributing linux drivers, if there was will to do it.

Just like PS2 Linux killed PS2 gaming releases (or like XNA is just destroying game sales on the Xbox 360)? Not to count they would have considerably less HW resources available due to the fact they would be running Linux on top of the Game OS/HyperVisor...

You are right, XNA/PS2 linux didn't harm gaming. But may be, that's not what Sony is thinking. I was only speculating what might be their potential reasons for blocking rsx. Personally, PS3 linux with RSX would have been a great thing for me and I would have definitely bought one for homebrew purposes. Perhaps right now they are losing money per console that's why they are doing this. They released a PS2 kit a few years later. One can hope for it to become profitable sometime in the future, maybe then they would release one. Hope springs eternal.

I am fine with Sony saying "F U people, we do not want homebrew game makers either under Linux or HOME, so just piss off!", I just find counterproductive to make excuses for them though...

PS3 Linux == cheap CELL SDK to prototype CELL code... fine, just allow me to be pissed off expecting a little bit more... .

P.S.:

to link a specific post you copy and paste the link of the post through the "post #" link on the top right of the post you want to link to... like so (circled in green) --> see attachment...

Thanks for that.

 

[patsu]

Oh and 2D gaming via Python for PS3: http://python-ps3.sourceforge.net/

You might wonder why I didn't try to get pygame working on the PS3 instead of writing my own library. Well, actually, I thougt of that (and actually, it does work... just painfully slowly!) The main problem is that pygame is built upon SDL which in turn uses libraries such as OpenGL, and so there was a lot of work to achieve that goal, and in all likelihood some games would work and others wouldn't. I decided to start from scratch, and this has allowed for some unique features that pygame doesn't support - realtime mixing of as many sound effects as you like, for example.

What features does python-ps3 have?

Fast SPU-based alpha-blended blitting
Support for the PS3 controllers
Sprite support - no need to draw every item yourself in the main loop
Flexible sound support - multiple sound effects and music can be played simultaneously
Integration with PIL for image manipulation and text rendering

On the LUA side, back in April 2008... http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2008-04/msg00452.html

I just finished porting lua 5.1 to the Playstation 3. Overall, it was very
easy; the port only took an hour or so.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wow, an actual simple graphics frontend! At least things are moving forwards. Ireally wish Sony were investing in this. The actual fiscal investment would be small, but the potential benefits large IMO. Otherwise it seems like the whole idea of allowing Linux on PS3 has gone to waste.

 

[patsu]

Ogre3D ? I think it's not optimized for Cell at all. It seems like a "hype" app on top of Mesa for Cell only.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No, Python. You could create a simple UI with that for testing apps, although I've no idea how you'd then integrate that with custom Cell code. Linking back to the audio-on-Cell question, if I wanted to experiment with audio synthesis, could I create a knbs-and-switches frontend in Python and run a final-tuned SPU-based audio app in cahoots with it? Or would the audio application need its own frontend created from scratch?

 

[patsu]

Ah yes, I am more confident of the Python-for-PS3 project than Ogre3D. Would be nice if Sony can throw us a LUA player though, *if* they are working on Home SDK for users.

 

[rpg.314]

It's interesting to note that they allow the use of 256 MB GDDR ram as extra RAM (around 252MB is usable) for swapping, but not use of RSX for 3D acceleration.

 

[Npl]

The same as there probably are ways to break-in SPU Isolation mode and the Hypervisor's security from the CPU side (and people working on it I am sure...)... RSX's DMA accesses are checked for validity (by a HW component on the other side of the FlexIO bus IIRC), i.e. you try to access a protected region from RSX --> DMA denied.

The DDR-Ram has no such elaborate way of protection. So hyptothetically speaking you could modify a shader from the Sony-OS in DDR-Ram from Linux, have the shader copy contents back and forth between XDR and DDR Ram when the Sony-OS is running. Then from Linux read/write the DDR-Ram.
It might be far fetched, but Im sure the main problem is that RSX is not capable of seperating multiple OSes which would be required to ensure there is no access to the wrong resources.

I was hoping for a long time that Sony would provide a driver for RSX at a later time (when the hardware would be sold at revenue), maybe even one that doesnt allow use of shaders to ensure security, but hearing nothing moving on the linux-side, Im pretty sure thats never gonna happen.

 

[one]

From the Sony ZEGO whitepaper
http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/ext/ZEGO/ZEGO.shtml
http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/ext/ZEGO/files/Cell_Computing_Whitepaper.pdf

Software development
Applications running on the main system of the Cell Computing Unit can be developed under Linux on Intel architecture (x86). A cross-platform toolchain (binutils, compilers, etc.), debuggers, performance analysis tools, and integrated development environments are used. The SPE runtime management library for the Cell/B.E. and the graphics library for RSX hardware acceleration are currently being prepared.

Of course these are for the commercial platform with UMA, but hey having something working with Linux is very different from having nothing at all.