Sony and IBM take on digital content creation with Cell work
- Thread starter pc999
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Actually there was a plan for a sort of super Tool that would do the same thing in the PS2 era.
Never happened.
I think these new workstations will be built, because they will be the only dev environment available for PS3 for at least some period.
I think trying to do an SGI like workstation for game content creation is a dead loss. PC's are just ubiquitous and I can't see a company shelling out 20K+ for individual workstations + how ever much Alias/Wavefront want to rip you off for the Cell version of Maya. How many times will I have to upgrade the workstation over the liketime of PS3?
Art teams run in the 30-100 person size on high end game teams, that's a pretty damn big investment Sony/IBM are asking to be made.
Never happened.
I think these new workstations will be built, because they will be the only dev environment available for PS3 for at least some period.
I think trying to do an SGI like workstation for game content creation is a dead loss. PC's are just ubiquitous and I can't see a company shelling out 20K+ for individual workstations + how ever much Alias/Wavefront want to rip you off for the Cell version of Maya. How many times will I have to upgrade the workstation over the liketime of PS3?
Art teams run in the 30-100 person size on high end game teams, that's a pretty damn big investment Sony/IBM are asking to be made.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
there were going to be a progressing line of Creative Workstations, first based on PS2 chipsets, like GScube, then new processors, then totally new processors which would also form the basis of PS3.
Spidermate
Regular
Re: Sony and IBM take on digital content creation with Cell
Well,unlike last time,IBM is now involved with both Sony and Toshiba this time.Microsoft was also not a competitor back then.We can clearly see that Sony has invested way more into the PS3 than what was done to the PS2 (500 mill if I'm correct).So,last gen is pretty much a moot example.
GwymWeepa said:
Well,unlike last time,IBM is now involved with both Sony and Toshiba this time.Microsoft was also not a competitor back then.We can clearly see that Sony has invested way more into the PS3 than what was done to the PS2 (500 mill if I'm correct).So,last gen is pretty much a moot example.
Spidermate
Regular
ERP said:
I'm not really sure how Sony plans on extending the PS3's hardware to that of the workstation,but I'm more than positive that if the workstation is priced at a suitable tag,developers will come running.
Spidermate said:
That's the thing, Maya and most other 3D apps will have to be converted to "Cell". And once they're done, they won't be cheap. At all. the whole thing, hardware and software will never be cheap.
passerby said:
Will we? :|
Oh man the only thing that gets me going like this is brittany spears !!!!!!!!
WHAT U DOING!?!?!
WHAT U DOING!?!?!
Please don't comment on his posts, which are getting deleted before you can even say "PEE-ES-FREE"...
Dont want this thread to be locked...
Dont want this thread to be locked...
This is too funny, please jvd don't lock this, its like the time I thought I snuck into brittanys room but it was really justian'sI WISH!!!!!!!
Spidermate
Regular
london-boy said:
OK.
I didn't know this guy had such a bad rep in this forum.I was wondering why he seemed so negative.
Anyway,I'll stay to on top here...
If it does what Sony expects it to do,I don't see why developers wouldn't tackle the opportunity.This is something NEW the the gaming industry,you forget.
Spidermate said:
It all depends on how much this thing can really help developers considering the budget those devs have. I mean i see these workstations being used probably within Sony's internal studios and first party studios, cause they would get it from "upstairs" for free. But i don't think anyone else will put their hands on it unless for some strange reason it's very cheap...
ERP said:
probably not, unless the rise in performance is that drastic that it could save money in the long run. Think of a CELL network, each workstation fetching power from the other as it's idle... if Sony/Tosh/IBM pulls it off, is of course, open, but think of the potential benefits. Upgrading to CELL in favour of much much much more performance would be quite worth it.
Of course, it all depends on how much of an increase in performance we're looking at here..
Yeah, at the end of the day even GScube's existed, but they were nothing more than "LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO!!" material from Sony... Nothing really useful, as impressive as those things were.
london-boy:
A few PS2's in parallel (GSCube) is something different than what CELL is supposed to be. CELL's whole purpous as a network processor allows it to share resources and fetch performance from various CELL processors within a CELL based network.
If a game company has multiple CELL workstations hooked up over a CELL broadband network, performance could be shared over the network when rendering is done etc. It won't just be the workstation alone that will be powerful - I am refering to the advantage of sharing performance over a network. You could have something similar to a renderfarm in each and every CELL workstation over the network. True, upgrading software always costs money - if you could drastically improve performance 10s oder 100 fold, I'm sure you could see the benefit, especially now that the complexity in geometry and art-assets are conitunuesly rising.
I was just pointing out reasons to why a software company may upgrade, *if* CELL lives up to its potential.
A few PS2's in parallel (GSCube) is something different than what CELL is supposed to be. CELL's whole purpous as a network processor allows it to share resources and fetch performance from various CELL processors within a CELL based network.
If a game company has multiple CELL workstations hooked up over a CELL broadband network, performance could be shared over the network when rendering is done etc. It won't just be the workstation alone that will be powerful - I am refering to the advantage of sharing performance over a network. You could have something similar to a renderfarm in each and every CELL workstation over the network. True, upgrading software always costs money - if you could drastically improve performance 10s oder 100 fold, I'm sure you could see the benefit, especially now that the complexity in geometry and art-assets are conitunuesly rising.
I was just pointing out reasons to why a software company may upgrade, *if* CELL lives up to its potential.
Phil said:
Oh I totally agree, now we just have to see how serious Sony takes this, and how much they will push this. When/If Alias|Wavefront converts Maya to Cell, then i think that will be one huge step forward.
More I think about a CELL workstation..more I fear it will be a flop.
At this time I can't see how IBM and Sony can make a CELL-workstation a success story in the DCC hw market.
As it's clear IBM and Sony can't be that stupid, imho, there is something we don't know about this story. We don't have the full picture at the moment..at least that's my hope.
What about CELL worstation running OS-X?
Ok..that's just a dream..
ciao,
Marco
At this time I can't see how IBM and Sony can make a CELL-workstation a success story in the DCC hw market.
As it's clear IBM and Sony can't be that stupid, imho, there is something we don't know about this story. We don't have the full picture at the moment..at least that's my hope.
What about CELL worstation running OS-X?
Ok..that's just a dream..
ciao,
Marco
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