PS3: Phil Harrison addresses the real-time vs CGI issue
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
- Start date
- Status
Josh378 said:
There was a rumour running around about there being a 3rd chip dedicated to "reflections and shadows". Just a rumour though.
Luminescent
Veteran
When IGN said the desert demo was running on 2 cells, did they mean 2 entire cell processers (PPU+7/8SPUs) or did they mean it used only 2 SPUs?
Hopefully it's the later.
Hopefully it's the later.
Raytracing is a processor intensive way of rendering. Demonstrating Cell's maths ability, raytracing is a good visual demo. Just because there's no obvious advantage (no visible reflections for example) doesn't mean it wasn't ray-traced.
AFAIK a ray-tracing engine is also fairly simple to write, far simpler than alternative approaches.
AFAIK a ray-tracing engine is also fairly simple to write, far simpler than alternative approaches.
There were no triangle
so it was probably not a rasterization..
Raytracing is not all about reflections, anyway.
This image is raytraced (with photon mapping), but where are the reflections
?
http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/images/imgs/hogum3pm_clouds.jpg
so it was probably not a rasterization..
Raytracing is not all about reflections, anyway.
This image is raytraced (with photon mapping), but where are the reflections
?http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/images/imgs/hogum3pm_clouds.jpg
All the server blades of CELL have 2 CELLs, but it's unclear if the workload of the demo really required 2 of them or notDr Evil said:Interesting article, I think that he was dodging the real time issue a bit, but still that was encouraging. He didn't say anything about that terrain demo running on 2 cells though
DudeMiester
Regular
The main advantage of raytracing is that is scales O(log n) with scene complexity (e.g. poly count), rather then O with rasterisation. Not because you can do pretty reflections, even though that's another great feature.
with rasterisation. Not because you can do pretty reflections, even though that's another great feature.I found this stuff to be more interesting. So there may be a closer link between cell and the gpu for graphics tasks? Or at least, Cell could help compute some things dynamically that usually the GPU would access as precomputed maps etc, because they're so computationally expensive?
In games, you'd use the RSX to color skin, not the Cell.
So I'm not sure what the point of that was.
So I'm not sure what the point of that was.
On hearing that, I thought this stuff wouldn't happen on RSX. But then the nVidia guy took the stage and showed SSS running off the RSX with translucent hand things. I don't know what level of HDR-image derived the shading is possible on RSX, and whether the Cell could provide a measure of this. I would assume Cell was running close to the metal on that Doc Oc demo - tech demo's usually push the hardware to make the demo as impressive as possible, so I wouldn't have thought in a game situation Cell wuld offering much support, depending on the game. I huess in something like Tekken, two characters, Cell could do the lighting if needed.
mckmas8808
Legend
So are you guys saying that the cell will do little to help the graphics in a normal game? I find that hard to believe. I think the reason that they showed the Doc Ock demo, Getaway demo, terrian demo, and exploding gas station demo was to show gamers and really developers what the cell can do with helping graphics.
I think the normal everyday developer way of thinking would be like this....
See I think Sony was trying to open the minds and give developers an idea of what the cell can do. They want devs to think outside the box. Thats why the games that look the best at the conference were in house. The Sony developers are already know what the cell is capable of doing.
I think the normal everyday developer way of thinking would be like this....
See I think Sony was trying to open the minds and give developers an idea of what the cell can do. They want devs to think outside the box. Thats why the games that look the best at the conference were in house. The Sony developers are already know what the cell is capable of doing.
Inane_Dork said:
I mean, using Cell to feed the pixel shaders more dynamic data. Often with many more complex effects you'd feed it static, precomputed data because it's too much to calculate every frame. But if Cell can handle some of those harder calculations and pass the results to the GPU for final rendering, it could open some interesting doors. With the Doc Oc demo, they seemed to be doing some "heavy" lighting calculations on the CPU and passing that data to the GPU for its use there - that data was probably input for the pixel shaders.
There's a lot of headroom on Cell for "extra" stuff like that I think. Not sure why you couldn't do stuff like this in games (?) (I don't mean specfically the techniques used in the Doc Oc demo etc. but just generally leveraging some CPU power for "better" data input to the GPU, be it for lighting, procedural stuff, whatever)
Shifty Geezer said:
SSS?
I think the Cell demos were to show how powerful the Cell is ina way that can be communicated and be impressive. They could say 'we calculated Pi to 140,000 decimal places in one second' or something but that doesn't have oomph. By showing a software renderer, things devs know are complicated, running in realtime, they exhibit in a visual communication its capabilities.mckmas8808 said:
Though I don't deny Cell will have it's uses (there's only so much physics and AI you can add!) primarily I don't imagine it'll be a graphics helper. If it IS, and can ray-trace in real time, this begs the question why Sony didn't just go with a dual Cell config and leave nVidia out of the picture? Obviously RSX is bringing something to the grapihcs table that Cell can't compete with.
Rsx ? anistropic filtering , fsaa , texture compresion , framebuffer compresion , hidden surface removal . alot of hardwired features , pixel and vertex shaders .
Basicly all of nvidia's insight into the market of gpus since they were formed. Which is alot more than sony has . A cell would be nice but even a dual cell set up would be stomped by a x360 in graphics
Basicly all of nvidia's insight into the market of gpus since they were formed. Which is alot more than sony has . A cell would be nice but even a dual cell set up would be stomped by a x360 in graphics
-NakedZ- said:
or the teamxbox video interview
http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox/1957/J-Allard-Video-Interview/
mckmas8808
Legend
Perfect answer. I couldn't have said it better myself. Shifty you seemed to have answered your own question.
Your question
Your answer
It not a direct answer, but you get the point.
That's what I was saying Cell, although showing good visuals, surely can't be as good as nVidia's offering. By which we can conclude that it's worth in contributing to PS3 visuals must be somewhat marginalised. As such, the visuals demos of Cell were to provide a representation of it's capabilities that could be communicated in a way the audience would understand, not necessarily as a demo of how it would be used in PS3.
Cell, although showing good visuals, surely can't be as good as nVidia's offering. By which we can conclude that it's worth in contributing to PS3 visuals must be somewhat marginalised. As such, the visuals demos of Cell were to provide a representation of it's capabilities that could be communicated in a way the audience would understand, not necessarily as a demo of how it would be used in PS3.
- Status
