RSX still in development, no silicon produced yet.

[jvd]

Do you guys think the way CELL is made that its going to take a little bit longer for PCs to past consoles than in the past?

for what ? some of the effects sure yea . But in alot of other areas the gpus will be pasing by much faster than before .

On the gpu side we will have 512 megs of dedicated ram just for the gpu and the ram will be much faster . I'm sure the high end cards for x mass this year will have 256 bit bus with 700mhz ddr giving you twice the bandwidth of the rsx . You will have gpus with many more pipelines and shader units along with other enhancments .

The xenos is already tapped out and starting to come out in large quanitys and the rsx sounds like its tapped out too which means by the time the ps3 hits the rsx will be a year old and gpus will have had a year to get better feautures at higher speeds and more ram bandwidth

 

[Vennt]

Do you guys think the way CELL is made that its going to take a little bit longer for PCs to past consoles than in the past?

for what ? some of the effects sure yea . But in alot of other areas the gpus will be pasing by much faster than before .

On the gpu side we will have 512 megs of dedicated ram just for the gpu and the ram will be much faster . I'm sure the high end cards for x mass this year will have 256 bit bus with 700mhz ddr giving you twice the bandwidth of the rsx . You will have gpus with many more pipelines and shader units along with other enhancments .

The xenos is already tapped out and starting to come out in large quanitys and the rsx sounds like its tapped out too which means by the time the ps3 hits the rsx will be a year old and gpus will have had a year to get better feautures at higher speeds and more ram bandwidth

The question is though, how long before there is enough adoption of these GPU's to justify actually developing software that makes use of these whizzbang features?

Whilst the hardware utilising these GPUs may well be available around the time of the consoles respective releases I think it would be disingenious to ignore the fact that these GPUs features and capabilities are unlikely to be be implemented and pushed in any software for a good couple of years yet.

I thought most PC developers target the currently accepted "lowest common denominator" rather than the latest piece of super-hot-off-the-fabs hardware?

 

[Farid]

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

It's running with two Cell at 2+GHz, IIRC.

 

[Acert93]

Do you guys think the way CELL is made that its going to take a little bit longer for PCs to past consoles than in the past?

This is asked every generation (e.g. the EE had a bit of an advantage in FP and I think memory bandwidth) and every generation the PC proves to be flexible and surpasses.

I do think the PC is going to be tested this time around, and it will struggle imo. Beyond piracy, PCs are going to be seriously challenged by the consoles in online content and in resolution. Games that were not really feasible on consoles before due to the lack of resolution are now just waiting to be published. And having GOOD VoIP chat in games, mods/updates that are easy to get at, game messaging, video chat, etc... basically everything Live is offering, those features will really push the PC to normalize those features to a degree and make them more common and EASY to use. The casual user just is not using Xfire and TeamSpeak/Ventrillo. Having that service standard on the consoles will pull in a LOT of PC gamers who are clan oriented and the like. (This is one reason MS is bringing Live to the PC!)

But technologically, I already see the PC passing the PS3, Xbox 360, etc... quite quickly. It will be a few years (as in at least 2!) before we see games begin to even THINK about taking advantage of the extra power PCs will have, but I do see PCs coming along quickly. The technology MS and Sony is offering is not some private stash. Others can take similar concepts and bring them to market, and indeed, in PC gaming this very often happens.

We are at the beginning of dual core PCs right now, so on a top end PC CPU that would double the FP from mid-twenties to 50ish. We should see quad-core PCs in the next couple years I would guess. And nothing is stopping Intel/AMD from releasing yet another vector/FP intense unit(s) like MMX, SE, 3DNow!. And while it may be a while before PC CPUs pass a CELL in floating point, CPUs do more than just FP. The FP heavy design is the CELLs strength, whereas a P4/AMD64 is a much better general processor. And to go back to the EE example, while it took a while before the PCs past the EE in FP performance, they were by all means better processors before they past the EE in that single metric. Chips just do more than FP, and PCs are require to do more than just game.

The PCs flexiblity also has to do with it is expandible. This year we will see the Ageias PPU hit the market for $250-$300. That is a 130nm chip. Whether or not it survives is not a big issue but my guess is the concept will be around for a while (I could see NV/ATI picking up the concept, or Intel/AMD... Intel's roadmap does show specialized chips being incorperated into future designs... who knows, maybe a sound company will make it a combo sound/physics card?). Anyhow, a PPU with 90nm or even 65nm fabing in the next 12-18 months will be a lot cheaper, plus as GDDR3 memory will continue to drop in price. So a PPU could eventually become a relatively cheap chip.

Also, NV has already stated they will have a GPU faster than the RSX by the time the PS3 launches. If GPUs continue to follow the path of 2x performance every 18-24 months we will be looking at PC GPUs performing 2x as fast within 2 years of its launch. 4x in four years, and 8x by the time the PS4 is ready--and that is not really looking at the new features (e.g. look at how features like HDR, AA, programmable shaders, etc... can increase the IQ).

And of course PCs have advantages like free user created content. I love mods... and the great thing about mods is that they are FREE. And PCs are a pinnacle of innovation because there are no royalties. I write small scripts/apps and I pay no one. Sony, Nintendo, MS, etc... are not beating down my door asking for money. I can create anything I want and it is available to whoever I want, whenever I want, at whatever price I dictate.

PCs also have an advantage in input device. Mice and Keyboards have weathers the test of time. And PCs allow you to use controllers, etc... but also a host of other tools.

Actually, one of the worse things that could happen to consoles would be the death of PC gaming. If all those 3D video cards go away the year-to-year developments that push the industry forward would become stagnant imo. There would be progress, but nothing like we have seen. And the PC is in many ways a test market. When a feature underperforms in the way DEVELOPERS USE IT they go back and refine it to make it more usable. Losing PC gaming would be horrible for next gen consoles.

 

[jvd]

The question is though, how long before there is enough adoption of these GPU's to justify actually developing software that makes use of these whizzbang features?

which is what i said a few posts before what you quoted

I thought most PC developers target the currently accepted "lowest common denominator" rather than the latest piece of super-hot-off-the-fabs hardware

that isn't fully true . They also drive the purchases too. THe lowest common denominator is still intergrated intel video which is dx 7 hardware . But you will see them targeting more and more dx 8 cards as the base line and next year dx 9 cards will most likely be the sweet spot if not the base line after all they will have been out for 4 years by then and the dx 9 feature set is what the rsx and xenos are based on . Then we will start to get the effects for the next generation of cards with the wgf 2.0 features .

 

[Acert93]

I thought most PC developers target the currently accepted "lowest common denominator" rather than the latest piece of super-hot-off-the-fabs hardware?

They do to a degree, but there is no denying that the PC versions often look much MUCH better. First is that while developers will TARGETS the lowest common demoninator for the lowest specs, they will put in the bells and whistles for the high end cards. The quality of PC D3, HL2, FarCry, NFS, etc... on a top end PC is far and away better than the current consoles. So for the first couple years the consoles really excell beacause they are closed system designs, after that top end GPUs will start showing their stuff. The games will be comparable to the consoles when you tick off a few features, but you have a high end GPU + a game that uses some new features it usually looks much better.

And with SLI/AMR I think we may see MORE of this. I think some developers will use the extra performance in those setups as a way to test new features and to try pushing the games in new ways.

So while yes the consoles will hold PC gaming back because they will represent a minimum "standard" (i.e. you have to keep them in mind if you want to port!!), that does not mean PC games wont look better. The last 2 gens have kind of shown that. And even right now I can think of a game (BF2) that REQUIRES a PS 1.4 card. It wont run on GF4 cards. So developers are moving away from that old standard.

Similarly, the consoles are getting a version of BF2, but it is not the same. The memory limitations are too big on the PS2 and Xbox. Same thing went with D3 and HL2. They cut things down, shrink levels, cut them in half, scale back the textures, etc... just to make it fit.

The 512MB consoles sound great now... but 512MB video cards are appearing now. R520/G70 will both be out before the Xbox 360, so there will be quite a few 512MB cards running around. And 2 years from now we will see 1024MB cards, and eventually (4 or 5 years?) see 2048MB cards. If the next consoles follow the 8x path on memory that all 3 3D generations have followed, we should expect our next consoles to have ~4GB of RAM.

So while consoles will be used as the "minimum" spec, PC games will eventually look better AND PCs will surpass consoles in power (as an answer to the original question).

 

[MechanizedDeath]

First of all, are you guys sure there'll be an NVidia part faster than the RSX when the PS3 launches next Spring? I thought I specifically heard different Sony reps state that RSX will be the most powerful GPU on the market when the PS3 releases. I have a hard time believing it with the current GPU timeline, but that's what was said.

In any case, what will continue to keep consoles ahead of the PC is the art assets. Most PC devs won't be able to compete with the likes of the inhouse teams like Polyphony Digital or Naughty Dog or Bungie, so their products will shine at least for the first two years IMO. There might be some PC games in the first year that set a highwater mark, but I expect they'll also be all but unplayable at those settings in 95% of the setups out there, and even on the ones that can handle it, chugging along. Just my opinion.

But in short order, an RSX-class card should be pretty standard, and we'll see the PC pull ahead again. But you'll still see more console games outshine their PC counterparts simply b/c the console devs will be able to more easily bankroll the multimillion dollar budgets they're gonna need to produce the visuals on the level of a KZ2, GT5, etc.... PEACE.

 

[jvd]

First of all, are you guys sure there'll be an NVidia part faster than the RSX when the PS3 launches next Spring? I thought I specifically heard different Sony reps state that RSX will be the most powerful GPU on the market when the PS3 releases. I have a hard time believing it with the current GPU timeline, but that's what was said.

No i believe they said there will be faster gpus out this year .


Then factor in sli on the pcs and mvp or whatever ati calls it

 

[zidane1strife]

Has the heat/power problem been solved? I mean if it hasn't(or if it's only intel and the like), then I'd see a slight bump on the road that'll slow'em down.

PS

MODS PM me I've decided to change my name

 

[jvd]

na the heat / power problem hasn't been solved anymore than it has in the past with smaller processes . But thats why they are going multi gpu set ups and adding in a ppu to help

 

[Tacitblue]

na the heat / power problem hasn't been solved anymore than it has in the past with smaller processes . But thats why they are going multi gpu set ups and adding in a ppu to help

Cell I guess is a natural consolidation of both of those ideas, the capacity of multicore increasing threading, though not symmetic, plus enough floating point surplus to do PPU functions in software.

 

[DemoCoder]

THe bandwidth is there so the rsx can acess the xdr ram. But the xdr ram is limited to another speed in comunications and has to travel through the cell chip and then to the rsx core . So comparing the numbes is meaning less esp when we don't know how much of the bandwidth to the ram the cell chip will require .

To many unknown factors to make a sugestion like that .

The XDR CELL interface will be used by the RSX to do texturing, just like the R500/Xenos on the XBox360 must texture from memory shared by the 3 CPU cores. If the CELL eating up bandwidth subtracts too much from texture bandwidth for the RSX, it's a similar problem for the XB360, moreso, because the RSX has 256gb on two separate buses for accessing textures.


The CELL processor isn't likely to eat up a huge amount of bandwidth unless it is doing rendering itself. And if RSX requests have to go through the CELL before they hit memory, they merely adds latency, it doesn't neccessary subtract from bandwidth. And if its one thing that GPUs are engineered for, its hiding texture fetch latency.

 

[jvd]

The XDR CELL interface will be used by the RSX to do texturing, just like the R500/Xenos on the XBox360 must texture from memory shared by the 3 CPU cores. If the CELL eating up bandwidth subtracts too much from texture bandwidth for the RSX, it's a similar problem for the XB360, moreso, because the RSX has 256gb on two separate buses for accessing textures

Thats great but who is talking about the r500 ? I'm talking specificly about the ps3 vs the pcs of the time .

 

[MechanizedDeath]

No i believe they said there will be faster gpus out this year .


Then factor in sli on the pcs and mvp or whatever ati calls it

I'm curious. Where exactly did they say this? I hope you're not talking about the G70. the G70 is a 430MHz part to begin with (according to Anantech), and it's still not the RSX. I'm asking if NVidia will be making a part that's faster than the RSX. Not bandwidth, I'm talking about performance. Bandwidth alone doesn't tell the full picture since the setup for the PS3 is different from that of a PC. The G70 should have more bandwidth (1.1GHz DDR3?) but only being clocked at 430MHz, I don't see how it'll match the RSX. Not sure if a 120MHz step is a normal thing for Ultra versions of cards. Also, AFAIK, it's still a .11um part. Anyway, you got a link? I'd like to see this for myself. PEACE.

 

[jvd]

We don't know what the rsx is like . But anyway the g70 should have at least qdr 600-650mhz and the g70 can have more pipelines .


I will look around for where i heard it . I may be recallign it wrong . But i'm pretty sure that is whats said

 

[DemoCoder]

The XDR CELL interface will be used by the RSX to do texturing, just like the R500/Xenos on the XBox360 must texture from memory shared by the 3 CPU cores. If the CELL eating up bandwidth subtracts too much from texture bandwidth for the RSX, it's a similar problem for the XB360, moreso, because the RSX has 256gb on two separate buses for accessing textures

Thats great but who is talking about the r500 ? I'm talking specificly about the ps3 vs the pcs of the time .

Well on those grounds, your comparison is even more ludicrous. PCs have hideously poor system bandwidth, and AGP is terribly slow in comparison, ditto for PCIE. Moreover, the RSX has a 256-bus, it's just split into two components 128-bit for GDDR3 and 128-bit for XDR. It's a segmented bus. Comparing the FlexIO bus to the PC AGP/PCI bus is apples to oranges. For the PC, AGP texturing is a no-no, and two-way bus transfers are a turtle. You just don't do them. For CELL, the system memory IS a GPU resource for textures, and moreover, the CPU can access the GPU memory at more than enough speed. A split bus has advantages over a unified bus, and letting the GPU spread and overlap memory accesses over multiple buses has its advantages. This is one reason why NVidia divides their 128-bit bus into 4 32-bit buses and 256-bit bus into 4 64-bit buses with Lightspeed Memory Architecture.


A 256-bit 700Mhz G70 will be inferior to an RSX+CELL, since it will have about the same total bandwidth, but many algorithms are enabled on CELL+RSX which are simply impossible to do on AGP.

And finally, even if WGF2.0 capable cards were here tommorow, you won't see any games that fully leverage WGF2.0 for 3 years, if that, since what developer would be insane enough to develop content for something which 0.1% of the market will have? Developers are still trying to support DX8 cards.

Consoles have enormous advantages over PCs. A console with a Radeon 9700 class GPU will have better graphics than a PC with a more powerful part, because developers just aren't going to try and squeeze maximum performance out of a PC due to the wide range of PCs that must support.

 

[jvd]

A 256-bit 700Mhz G70 will be inferior to an RSX+CELL, since it will have about the same total bandwidth, but many algorithms are enabled on CELL+RSX which are simply impossible to do on AGP.

yet u forget about the ppu with its own memory pool and the cpu . not to mention that the rsx will not have the same total badnwidth unless you predict the cell chip not using any of the system ram at all while doing its sound , physics and other processes and then the post process effects . Where as the gpu in a pc has its bandwidth all to itself .

And finally, even if WGF2.0 capable cards were here tommorow, you won't see any games that fully leverage WGF2.0 for 3 years, if that, since what developer would be insane enough to develop content for something which 0.1% of the market will have? Developers are still trying to support DX8 cards.

wow really ? wow good thing you read other peoples posts before trolling them

 

[MechanizedDeath]

yet u forget about the ppu with its own memory pool and the cpu . not to mention that the rsx will not have the same total badnwidth unless you predict the cell chip not using any of the system ram at all while doing its sound , physics and other processes and then the post process effects . Where as the gpu in a pc has its bandwidth all to itself .

A PPU too? Jesus, you really want to stack the deck against the PS3, don't you? And how would the 360 fair against such a beast? Chances are, that fanciful PC still wouldn't catch the console for a year or so. But regardless, if you throw enough money at a solution, you can produce results. What you're talking about is a gaming rig well in excess of $2000. A 600% advantage in price and you're not even guaranteed to get better game performance. I don't see the point of the comparison.

That said, Cell + RSX will be better integrated than any CPU and GPU on the PC. So while the PC may have more bandwidth, in theory, it won't use it as effectively as the Cell+RSX combo. Not to mention, if you actually wanted to factor in Cell, the massive FLOPS advantage won't be matched by a PC CPU for some time, and at some cost. I don't know when those tri-core x86 chips are coming out, but are they gonna hit 200GFLOPS by next year?

PCs really aren't gaming machines. The only reason they ever surpass consoles is b/c consoles are a 5-year spec. Not sure if you can make a fair comparison here. PEACE.

 

[jvd]

[

PCs really aren't gaming machines. The only reason they ever surpass consoles is b/c consoles are a 5-year spec. Not sure if you can make a fair comparison here. PEACE.

Thats great . Read the thread next time . Don't just post to throw mud at me when you aren't reading the whole conversation . I was pointing out that the power of the pcs will move past the ps3 most likely before the ps3 is even out. There is no shame in that . I find it rediculous that your even trying to defend it . Pcs scale high in price and your right its silly to compare . But that is what the thread asked and that is what was answered. I didn't bring up the x360 because it wasn't asked in the topic. Why you and democoder had to bring it up i dunno . Trying to put down the x360 mabye ?

The fact is by its very nature the pc will leap past them esp at this point in time when alot of big increases are coming and things that never existed in pcs are coming .

This wont simply be a a faster cpu and faster gpu.

IN the next year to a year and a half tihs will happen

dual core cpus

x86-64 compiled games will start to come about (not big but the extra registers should increase performance)

512 megs of ram graphic cards

second generation of sm 3.0 cards and third generation

Possibly wgf 2.0 cards


The ppu add in card

This is alot of stuff and yes it will be awhile for the games to catch up. But there are alot of games that will use that power for better iq (fsaa , aniso) and will use the new features in cards as icing on the cake for those that own them . Heck this is the first time that a major pc engine is going to be used on both of the big consoles which will most likely improve the uptake of new gpu features in the new video cards coming in the next year or two

 

[ralexand]

So where those demos running on dual g70s? I don't see the RSX equaling that performance.