So is the cell spe's "downgrade" confirmed ?

[supervegeta]

From the GDC there was a slide that said only 6 spe are availbe for the developers, and
this is a very bad news to me expecially considering the xbox360 reserve only 5% of one core for all the Os functions.

It would be different if at least that one spe is reserved for some game functions like sound , do anyone have more
detailed information about this ?

 

[speng]

Search around this has always been the case:

1 SPE for OS
6 for developers
1 for redundancy

Speng.

 

[supervegeta]

Search around this has always been the case:

1 SPE for OS
6 for developers
1 for redundancy

Speng.

well seeing by this comment it seems that even the devs doesn't know what is the final deal :

Yes, the OS uses some main memory and PPU processing resources.
These things are not final, and hopefully the 1 SPU won't be fully reserved the whole time.

 

[Bad_Boy]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148951&did=1

With the visual demonstrations complete, the subject of the PS3's online gaming service came next. The PlayStation Network Platform is simply the company's internal name and shouldn't be thought of as what to call it. The driving principles behind the service are content, communication, community and commerce, and all of it from a "basic service free of charge," Harrison added.

The service, co-developed with SOE has infrastructure by Sony, but allows third-party servers to be connected independently. This they see as "key." All of the big features should be in there, including: video chat, voice chat, friends lists, stores to sell content online, micropayments, transactions, subscriptions, etc.... Video Chat windows will be able to overlay in-game while you're playing, and you'll also be able to send email and requests from in the game. Developers will be receiving the first roll-out of the system next week.

^taken march 22nd

barbarian's quote is from march 30th i beleive. Maybe its possible that barbarian's company did not receive the "roll-out" yet. It could be several different things. It also seems from that 1up description, 1 SPE might be doing alot of needed background work while you are playing a game to make things run smoothly. I would hate for me to be playing a game, and all of a sudden a video chat window pops up and the framerates drop horribly.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I wonder if the one SPU that is reserved for the OS will also handle many game interface functions.
At least the game save/load handling and many online related functions are likely to be handled by that one "OS SPU". Like in the PSP, many games "fall back" to the underlying PSP OS in game save and load screens (Tales Of Eternia comes to mind as one which has the load/save screen the same as the PSP OS).
Other functions that are sort of "Inbuilt" to the OS might be the EyeToy2 processing, voice recognition, some functions related to Blu-ray, DRM...

What I mean, that doesn't games already have tons of functions that require the OS to be present, or functions that can be handled by the underlying hardwares' OS instead of running some game specific OS'es to handle things like online interfaces etc... with skins the interfaces can however be made to look integrated in the game universes.
I think something like this had already been confirmed by Phil Harrison in some of the GDC presentations, where he demonstrated the marketplace interface inside the game Motorstorm. So it's like the xbox360 generic "Blade" interface that is run by the OS, but can be customized per game.

 

[Frank]

We've discussed this quite a bit here already. It's almost certain, that the PPU will do the basic housekeeping, like switching processes, managing page tables (virtual memory) and interrupts. That's very little work, and will at most use a few kilobytes of memory.

All other OS-related tasks are almost certainly done by that SPE, like copying stuff around, drawing the user interface, handling disk access and other IO. That's the large bulk of the work.

 

[mckmas8808]

Yeah playing Blu-ray movies while playing a PS3 game must take alot of resources.

 

[dubyateeeff]

From the GDC there was a slide that said only 6 spe are availbe for the developers, and
this is a very bad news to me expecially considering the xbox360 reserve only 5% of one core for all the Os functions.

Just out of curiosity, why is this bad news for you?

Yeah playing Blu-ray movies while playing a PS3 game must take alot of resources.

A lot indeed, like two BR-disc players*

One SPU for just OS functions seems like a waste to me.

*emulation and downloaded games a part, which are cases that I dont think will use the whole PPE and all 6 SPUs to warrant the reservation of the 7th SPU anyway

 

[Quaz51]

1 SPE for downscale in realtime a PS3 game in 480x272, compress in AVC and send to PSP screen via WiFi and play every PS3 game with PSP (with FSAAx14-28)

 

[MBDF]

1 SPE so you can be downloading things and playing a game or watching a movie while you wait.

 

[Guden Oden]

Yeah playing Blu-ray movies while playing a PS3 game must take alot of resources.

I seriously doubt that will be possible. Or even desireable as a feature I might add.

 

[Bad_Boy]

1 SPE so you can be downloading things and playing a game or watching a movie while you wait.

Yeah that puts up a good point, multitasking is something id like to see done well on the ps3. Downloading something but watching a movie while you wait. web browsing while listening to music. playing a game while voice chatting. video chatting while copying game saves, etc.

of course a pc can do most if not, all of the above, but it would be nice to have all that potential on the big screen in the living room on a next gen console.

/* prays for mouse + keyboard support out of the box */

 

[Titanio]

I seriously doubt that will be possible. Or even desireable as a feature I might add.

They've said you'll be able to, and I see no reason why not. Managed copy of the Blu-ray movie to HDD or a downloaded movie would let you do this. A SPU has enough power to decode a HD signal. As for why? Well, if you had a second screen attached to your PS3, it could let another person browse the movies on it, and watch them while you're playing a game or whatever.

 

[Hardknock]

They've said you'll be able to, and I see no reason why not. Managed copy of the Blu-ray movie to HDD or a downloaded movie would let you do this. A SPU has enough power to decode a HD signal. As for why? Well, if you had a second screen attached to your PS3, it could let another person browse the movies on it, and watch them while you're playing a game or whatever.

What's the likely hood of someone having 2 TVs right next to each other like that?

I guess it's nice to have, but doesn't seem very practical.

 

[Gholbine]

What's the likely hood of someone having 2 TVs right next to each other like that?

I guess it's nice to have, but doesn't seem very practical.

It does not have to be 2 televisions. The second screen can be any DVI-equipped computer monitor. You can usually pick one of those up for 100-150 dollars, and most everyone as at least one of them at home.

 

[Titanio]

What's the likely hood of someone having 2 TVs right next to each other like that?

I guess it's nice to have, but doesn't seem very practical.

Well, the limit is cable length..which wouldn't necessarily require them being right beside one another

Lots of people keep computers and TVs close enough to one another (well, I know lots of people I know keep both in their living room, or in adjoining rooms), such that connecting both displays to your PS3 might be possible.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What's the likely hood of someone having 2 TVs right next to each other like that?

I'm sure everyone awaiting 1080p sets is planning on getting two the moment they can...

 

[Npl]

I'm sure everyone awaiting 1080p sets is planning on getting two the moment they can...

Assuming they dont throw the old TV out of the window, well that makes 2 TVs the moment they buy 1 HDTV.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Assuming they dont throw the old TV out of the window, well that makes 2 TVs the moment they buy 1 HDTV.

Which means either PS3 gaming on the old SD set, or watching the HD movie on the SD set (which would you choose), and also having two TVs in the living room occupying that much more the space of the one TV, which makes a mockery of wanting a flat panel to save on the space of the CRT in the first place, plus having the distraction of the sounds and sights of the game alongside the sounds and sights of the film.

I seriously doubt anyone is going to be in a postion to, and want to, have BRD movies playing on PS3 alongside PS3 games being played on the same console at the same time. I mean, who here is keen on the idea of having a computer game on one screen blaring away on the speakers and a movie right next to it on the 5.1 sound system?

 

[mckmas8808]

Which means either PS3 gaming on the old SD set, or watching the HD movie on the SD set (which would you choose), and also having two TVs in the living room occupying that much more the space of the one TV, which makes a mockery of wanting a flat panel to save on the space of the CRT in the first place, plus having the distraction of the sounds and sights of the game alongside the sounds and sights of the film.

I seriously doubt anyone is going to be in a postion to, and want to, have BRD movies playing on PS3 alongside PS3 games being played on the same console at the same time. I mean, who here is keen on the idea of having a computer game on one screen blaring away on the speakers and a movie right next to it on the 5.1 sound system?

If they make a long enough cable I would do it. 50 feet is all I need.