RSX still in development, no silicon produced yet.

[Joe DeFuria]

Related note:

The first shareholder conference call that nVidia had after it was announced they were doing the PS3 GPU, the CEO indicated that the "plan" was to have actual silicon produced by the end of this calendar year.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As far as I know, only the terrain demo was Cell only, and even that used two Cells. I just watched the Press conference, and there is nothing that hints otherwise.

As I understood it, Ducks was all Cell, Leaves, Explosion, Doc Oc, and Getaway. These were supposed to all be realtime and on Cell ('mostly' in the case of 'the Getaway', which doesn't really explain how much of those visuals were rendered on Cell or not).

 

[mckmas8808]

So when do you think devs will get beta kits?
________
Prius

 

[Joe DeFuria]

4Q '05 / 1Q '06

 

[creon100]

In the press conference Harrison clearly states that the Explosion demo was a demonstration of the "power of Cell and RSX", and mentions the RSX specifically in reference to the heat haze.

I don't really see where people are getting the idea that the Getaway demo was supposed to be only Cell either, there is nothing to indicate that, and before you pull out the interview where Harrison says something like, "That's mainly a Cell demo" he's talking in relation to the fact that the impressive thing about the demo isn't the graphics but the simulation of the city with the traffic and the pedestrians and how the Cell can handle all that "AI" kind of stuff, he never says the demo only uses Cell.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

As far as I know, only the terrain demo was Cell only, and even that used two Cells. I just watched the Press conference, and there is nothing that hints otherwise.

As I understood it, Ducks was all Cell, Leaves, Explosion, Doc Oc, and Getaway. These were supposed to all be realtime and on Cell ('mostly' in the case of 'the Getaway', which doesn't really explain how much of those visuals were rendered on Cell or not).

Well Like I said nothing really hints to that direction, I'm sure the ducks demo was to show the power of PS3 and not just Cell, and only time Harrison mentions that what we see is only Cell is that Terrain Demo.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, you're right about Cell and the Getaway, except that a later interview said something suggesting it was prety much rendered in Cell too. Can't think where. I remember understanding from the conference that the Getaway was demoing a living world as the power of Cell, but this other interview made we think maybe the rendering was on Cell too. Can't think where/what that article is though.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I understood that the complex enviroments and physics were because of Cell's power, but I don't see any hints that it actually renreded something.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This from interview with Harrison

The assumption is that Cell is there for complex physics and AI...

You're right; obviously Cell allows you to do complex collisions, physics, dynamics, simulations, all of those things. Though, the Getaway demo was a good example of how you can have a living city brought to life as a result. Although it was pretty graphics, most of that power was actually Cell-based.

Not really clear. As an example of Cell's power, if Cell wasn't rendering anything that demo was useless as it showed a few people walking around! Didn't look overly demanding. Having just watched it again from IGN, I think that yeah, the rendering isn't Cell.

 

[DemoCoder]

The RSX is > 2x 6800Ultra when you consider shading power, not real world fillrate. And just remember, 2 6800Ultras aren't 2x a single 6800 Ultra, so the RSX is really more than 3x faster than a 6800 Ultra in shader limited scenarios.

 

[mckmas8808]

As an example of Cell's power, if Cell wasn't rendering anything that demo was useless as it showed a few people walking around!

Thats exactly why I think the CELL did do most of the work. Why so it and talk about CELL if it didn't do anything.
________
Medical Cannabis Seeds

 

[markvaid]

are you guys sure the terrain demo was running of two cells not one. Is there any confirmation on that?

 

[blakjedi]

are you guys sure the terrain demo was running of two cells not one. Is there any confirmation on that?

Heres some background on the most impressive one.. the terrain building demo

Taken from http://gear.ign.com/articles/615/615521p1.html?fromint=1

"The key to this demo was that the imagery was ray-traced in realtime solely via a _ pair of Cell processors_. Instead of using a video card to display the graphics (thereby limiting the "wow" factor), the Cell processors rendered the image to a series of JPG images, which were then streamed to a standard G5 tower over the network. Each image was rendered at 1280x720, creating a 720p high-definition scene of the area."

A "pair of cells" that render to jpgs then streamed together... hmmmmmm...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

As an example of Cell's power, if Cell wasn't rendering anything that demo was useless as it showed a few people walking around!

Thats exactly why I think the CELL did do most of the work. Why so it and talk about CELL if it didn't do anything.

Well I think the scene was quite complex with lot's of people and cars, and it was craphically quite impressive too.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

I don't really see where people are getting the idea that the Getaway demo was supposed to be only Cell either, there is nothing to indicate that, and before you pull out the interview where Harrison says something like, "That's mainly a Cell demo" he's talking in relation to the fact that the impressive thing about the demo isn't the graphics but the simulation of the city with the traffic and the pedestrians and how the Cell can handle all that "AI" kind of stuff, he never says the demo only uses Cell.

Maybe you should give this a look.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's the one I read! Thanks for the link SedantaryJourney

For example we showed the demo that renders London City, it's not rendered in the GPU but the CELL does lighting and texture processing then outputs it to the frame buffer. Even without GPU, only CELL can create good enough 3D graphics.

 

[London Geezer]

That's the one I read! Thanks for the link SedantaryJourney

For example we showed the demo that renders London City, it's not rendered in the GPU but the CELL does lighting and texture processing then outputs it to the frame buffer. Even without GPU, only CELL can create good enough 3D graphics.

Well but to then come out of whatever they're using to run that demo, eventually it will have to go through the GPU so it's not like there's nothing there.
I'd think that if the GPU didn't have enough fillrate, things would be slower than expected since Cell has no direct connection to a video output.

But yeah, for the intent and purpose of the demo, i understand how the GPU "is not used".

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That's the one I read! Thanks for the link SedantaryJourney

For example we showed the demo that renders London City, it's not rendered in the GPU but the CELL does lighting and texture processing then outputs it to the frame buffer. Even without GPU, only CELL can create good enough 3D graphics.

Ok. It's just strange that they didn't make big fuss about that.

 

[talyn99]

The ducks was just CEll, and the explosion and the getaway

 

[DuckThor Evil]

The ducks was just CEll, and the explosion and the getaway

The explosion wasn't and I don't believe the ducks was either, they say very clearly that RSX is involved in the explosion.