So is the cell spe's "downgrade" confirmed ?
- Thread starter supervegeta
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supervegeta
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Titanio said:
Well, an area where sony could offer more than Ms is the media functionality, if Sony allow the ps3 to play all the video formats like divx from the hdd or from the disc this can make a nice additional value over the xbox360.
Barnaby Jones
Newcomer
Wow so, how about those core downgrades?
Looks like the zoo crew hijacked the thread.
Looks like the zoo crew hijacked the thread.
Barnaby Jones
Newcomer
gofreak doens't scare me
Just to remember that at the begining (at least the first 2 years) they will lost money it the PS3 so each time they sell one console tat will not play games they loss a ot of money, althought for possible major market like the BR it may worth but for little markets it dont, so the driving model of PS3 should be games and BR, at least for the first years, at least IMO.
DiGuru said:
I seriously doubt these kind of tasks are suitable for a SPE. I know for a fact Sony were pushing to reduce the amount of GUI work that was typically done by developers so far (things like memory card GUIs, options screens etc). Writing this to run on the SPE would be a serious overkill, a very simple PPE layer would be more than sufficient.
Audio mixing sounds like a good SPE workload, but recenlty I've been hearing this will also be done on the PPE.
So honestly I have no idea what they want to put on the SPE. It's not like an OS needs to crunch numbers all the time.
You guys need to get a grip!
PS3 already has pretty much everything but the kitchen sink integrated already when it comes to I/O (dual digital video outs, digital audio out, 6 USB, 3 flashcard slots, 3-port gigabit ethernet switch, wifi, bluetooth). Add to this, digital (dual) tuner for simultaneous recording and playback... FORGET IT! Not gonna happen!
Naturally it wouldn't, as it doesn't have a tuner of any kind built into it. There's also been no connector shown for an antenna signal on the back of the machine, and while I'm sure some crazy person might say it's been held back as a surprise feature to be announced later, I think reasonable people will agree that it would simply be too good to be true.Diamond.G said:
PS3 already has pretty much everything but the kitchen sink integrated already when it comes to I/O (dual digital video outs, digital audio out, 6 USB, 3 flashcard slots, 3-port gigabit ethernet switch, wifi, bluetooth). Add to this, digital (dual) tuner for simultaneous recording and playback... FORGET IT! Not gonna happen!
No. Theoretically speaking, just to the consortium that controls the digital format that TV signals are broadcast in, and as that is MPEG2, I'm sure the existing DVD playback ability would cover much of any such extent (DVDs also use MPEG2).
Tivo offers extra subscription services such as automatically updated TV listings and such for extra revenue. That doesn't have anything to do with the ability to watch TV per se through the device. Anyway, this is a pointless discussion since PS3 isn't going to have a TV tuner of any kind built into it.
oxygen_again
Newcomer
I can't believe this DVR/PVR discussion has even gone on this long. There is ZERO chance of it happening on the PS3. Any type of media would either be ripped for playback or downloaded via a Sony service.
Barbarian said:
I am not sure the SPE can handle interrupts. Also it would be bad at handling things like buffering i/o data into main memory, because it will not be good at handling large stacks and pointers pointing to main memory. However the PPE can offload work onto it by treating it like a hardware accelerator. The SPE can do things like sound generation, compression/decompression, encryption/decryption, and background DMA block transfers very efficiently.
I'm with Titanio that video-chatting would appeal to many, having a second screen for that while gaming or watching a movie or whatever, may be quite handy. The second HDMI-port will finally find some useful work.
One SPE would be ideal for decoding high resolution video and audio streams and scaling the pictures in neat boxes.
One SPE would be ideal for decoding high resolution video and audio streams and scaling the pictures in neat boxes.
Don't you think that allocating such an amount amount of memory (considerable to say the least) will undermine the possibilities of the console when it comes to running what it is supposed to run in the first place : Games. Developpers already hinted at the memory constraints (since no Edram is used), so doesn't cutting the already preciously required 512M by a healthy margin affect the potential of the machine ? :smile:
Lycan said:
Personally, and i'm totally speculating, i was thinking that by the time it comes out, PS3 might just get that slight little bump in memory to forget about all this. Say less than 100Mb of slower RAM in there somewhere to take care of all OS related tasks. really, one chip of 96MB RAM is dirt cheap these days, especially if it's old slow RAM.
But i'm just speculating. It does sound strange that the console is coming out a whole year the X360 and has less total RAM than it.
"But i'm just speculating. It does sound strange that the console is coming out a whole year the X360 and has less total RAM than it."
To be honest, I considered a comparable scenario...Until I found out that Deano mentionned on his blog that "the OS will require a coniderable chunk..." referring to a total of 512 MB. One thing is sure though, they'd better have some sophisticated routine for bandwidth saving in order to stay competitive...
pS : I was also surprised to read that developpers of Warhawk used a nice AA*4 on top of the impresive suff they've included. I don't know what to think anymore : Too much conflicting information here and there.
To be honest, I considered a comparable scenario...Until I found out that Deano mentionned on his blog that "the OS will require a coniderable chunk..." referring to a total of 512 MB. One thing is sure though, they'd better have some sophisticated routine for bandwidth saving in order to stay competitive...
pS : I was also surprised to read that developpers of Warhawk used a nice AA*4 on top of the impresive suff they've included. I don't know what to think anymore : Too much conflicting information here and there.
Sorry to continue the offtopic PVR discussion, but I just thought it should be noted a digital terrestial TV tuner would be possible via USB.
Separate add-on usb connected DVB tuners are aalready available for PC's.
This function is just another of those "possible future functions" Sony especially has been keen on "promising" for their consoles.
There is a history of such add-ons and extra functionalities that never materialised though, all the way from the original Playstation. The PS even had a dedicated connector for future upgrades, but it was never ever used for anything.
The PS2 also was visionaired to have many extra functions in the future, but for a reason or another few of them were ever realised.
With PSP, Sony has also hinted at future "upgrades" and extra functions.
With PSP, it seems this time they actually deliver those features. This gives hope they've got their act together with PS3 too.
So, I do believe there'll be a PVR functionality for PS3.
It most likely won't be there at launch, or even a year after launch, but if Sony has hinted at a PS3 PVR, it might materialise in a form of an usb addon.
Edit: Someone earlier said that there'll be a separate 96 MB flash memory for OS. What are the chances for that?
Separate add-on usb connected DVB tuners are aalready available for PC's.
This function is just another of those "possible future functions" Sony especially has been keen on "promising" for their consoles.
There is a history of such add-ons and extra functionalities that never materialised though, all the way from the original Playstation. The PS even had a dedicated connector for future upgrades, but it was never ever used for anything.
The PS2 also was visionaired to have many extra functions in the future, but for a reason or another few of them were ever realised.
With PSP, Sony has also hinted at future "upgrades" and extra functions.
With PSP, it seems this time they actually deliver those features. This gives hope they've got their act together with PS3 too.
So, I do believe there'll be a PVR functionality for PS3.
It most likely won't be there at launch, or even a year after launch, but if Sony has hinted at a PS3 PVR, it might materialise in a form of an usb addon.
Edit: Someone earlier said that there'll be a separate 96 MB flash memory for OS. What are the chances for that?
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I find that scenario very unlikely after they kept repeating the original memory configuration at GDC, even though I would like it to happen.london-boy said:
Mixing memory types is not that easy, it's probably more likely they increase some of the present RAM types if they would go that route.
This PVR talk has dropped the discussion. The reason it came about was it was given as an example of a feature that, if implemented, should be multitasked with gameplay. The discussion is (supposed to be) about consuming resources for non-gaming and OS tasks. Some people were arguing that non-gaming tasks should be optionally disabled by game devs if they want the resources for themselves. The counter argument was the PVR example.
Following that, certain parties started arguing that multitasking wasn't an issue worth wasting resources on because no-one cares for those tasks, then followed by arguments about why it can be trusted some tasks (particularly PVR) would be desirable, and with varying degrees of rationality this point has become the topic of the thread.
The capabilities of PS3's (as yet fictional) PVR functions don't really belong here. The question here is 'how much PS3 hardware is being spent on non-gaming, and can that be avoided.' I did attempt to keep my questions about PVR on the point of proving that some features need to be multitasked and you can't just let devs switch them off, but that didn't work. If the original topic is to be discussed any further, talk of PVR pros and cons ought to be moved to another thread 'PVR on PS3 : Pros and cons' or somesuch.
Following that, certain parties started arguing that multitasking wasn't an issue worth wasting resources on because no-one cares for those tasks, then followed by arguments about why it can be trusted some tasks (particularly PVR) would be desirable, and with varying degrees of rationality this point has become the topic of the thread.
The capabilities of PS3's (as yet fictional) PVR functions don't really belong here. The question here is 'how much PS3 hardware is being spent on non-gaming, and can that be avoided.' I did attempt to keep my questions about PVR on the point of proving that some features need to be multitasked and you can't just let devs switch them off, but that didn't work. If the original topic is to be discussed any further, talk of PVR pros and cons ought to be moved to another thread 'PVR on PS3 : Pros and cons' or somesuch.
Perhaps if the HDD becomes standard, as not originally planned for, virtual memory could alleviate the memory-constraints a little while also satisfying Deano's problems with the RAM because at that point he didn't have an HDD to use?Lycan said:
Think 'I really don't care how much RAM the OS is using, these games look great!" Results are all that matter in the end.
Lycan said:
Maybe you're confusing bandwidth with physical memory size? eDram buys you <10MB "extra".
Lycan said:
It's less than 15% compared to its competitor, for starters - significant? I don't really think so, at least relatively speaking compared to differences elsewhere. There are differences elsewhere related to memory management to start with (pros and cons). For example, IF Blu-ray allowed you to get more data into memory (by virtue of a better seek time with data replication, i'm assuming) or there was a standard HDD present, it all helps (although I'm sceptical the latter will happen).
