slightly ot: arcade varients of PS3 down the road?

[megadrive0088]

Panajev - since PS3 technology, Cell, PEs, APUs, Visualizers, etc, are modular and scalable, wouldn't it be relatively simple for costom arcade boards to be produced with significantly more performance than the PS3 console?

I envision low-end arcade boards to be made with the same performance level of PS3, like the PS2-based System 246, but also high-end varients that are still inexpensive compared to completely proprietary arcade technology such as Model 3 of the mid-to-late 1990s.

I imagine arcade boards with more CELLs/BroadBand Engines/PEs/APUs
and more Visualizers. perhaps with more memory on each BE & Visualizer
or perhaps just the same amount of memory as the PS3 console chips but more processors per board.
Actually, any combination of CELLs/BEs/PEs/APUs should be possible. even down to the FPU/Integer Unit level and clock speed, perhaps.

AFAIK, Sony/Namco have NOT done this with PS2 technology yet. the System 246 board is more or less identical to the PS2. The EE and GS in the 246 board are the same as in the PS2, with the same 32 MB of system memory and 4 MB eDRAM on GS. there were rumors that the GS in System246 had 32 MB eDRAM, like the GSCube version of GS, but this proved to be false. the only difference, naturally, is that System 246 games are all on instant loading ROMs, unlike PS2 DVDs/CDs. if the above is indeed the case, System 246 is closer to PS2 than System 11
was to PS1. the System11 board that ran Tekken, Tekken2 and Soul Edge
among others, had 2 MB VRAM, where as the PS1 had only 1 MB VRAM.


your thoughts?

 

[DeadmeatGA]

...

Why bother, arcade is dead. Namco helped to kill it by releasing all the arcade games that were identical to PSX1/2 versions and releasing them around the same time.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Quick answer: if the board can use multiple chips I do not see why not... once you know how to code for one BE you should be able to scale it higher...

You could also have a BE with more PEs, but that would involve asking Sony, IBM, Toshiba or whoever can manufacture a Cell chip for a faster BE...

 

[megadrive0088]

yes, that is why I thought the simplest, least expensive way to increase performance for arcade games, is, to have a board with more BEs and more Visualizers, rather than a board with customized BEs/Visualizers.

 

[London Geezer]

you could have a uber-ps3 arcade board.. but why bother? how much money would they make out of it? and who would want to develop a game to fully utilise its power? might as well stick to Ps3 architecture to make the games easily portable. as Deadmeat said (and i hate agreeing with him) arcade is kinda dead at the moment...

 

[Evil_Cloud]

In japan it's struggeling
But in Taiwan, South Korea, even china there is more and more intrest in arcades

 

[cthellis42]

Arcades aren't quite dead, but they certainly need something more "fresh" to be valid.

Amusing, CELL _could_ make for lots of interesting goings-on... I mean, imagine all the cabinets linked so ones not actively being played enhance the ones that are? Easily networkable games across the arcade, or networked with others around the country? (Japan still does well with certain linked games which offer competition on a national scale.)

I'm sure people COULD play around with some fantastic things, should CELL work as well as it's saying. Problem is, since arcades are risky ventures at this point, WOULD any company bother? That, sadly, will be one humongous limiting factor...

 

[London Geezer]

if they do, it will probably be a "PS3 in a big bulky box with a coin thingy in it" so that porting a game between that and PS3 will take "putting the disc in a case" and sell it like that...

still, those ps3 based arcade machines will probably spend most of their time calculating 4 other people's games since no one really does play arcades anymore, and if they do they go to the old Daytona machines... they always have fun with those...

 

[cthellis42]

You mean... Daytona?