SONY to present the PLAYSTATION 3 platform

[Geo]

Have you guy heard any new details on PS3 GPU from this show?

What he said. . . .it was supposed to be yesterday right? I thought we had spies everywhere darn it!

 

[Fafalada]

And since WHEN is "you just use OpenGL", and just trowing it inside it, and just wishing for nice graphics, actually a good idea?

Well good idea or not, it's been more or less standard practice for PC game development for many years now
Target the API not the hardware - with drivers in between you're never really in control anyhow
Anyway who knows, maybe Sony will be nice again and open the platform documentation like they did with PS2, you can always hope.

 

[PeterT]

Kimg, I don't get your point. How are you coding in the dark when targetting a specific OpenGL implementation? That's even easier than on PCs where you have to support fallbacks for older hardware, or sometimes (though that's been getting better lately) even different paths for different IHV extensions!

Why would you need to know the cache layout or assembly-level detail of the pixel shaders of RSX to write a homebrew game/app? From personal experience with OS project games I'd say there's enough performance there that you're art-bound anyway

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why would you need to know the cache layout or assembly-level detail of the pixel shaders of RSX to write a homebrew game/app? From personal experience with OS project games I'd say there's enough performance there that you're art-bound anyway

From what I know, homebrew is all about the tech and the art can go hang! I'm sure some people want to get to low-level coding, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was off limits. Given the incredible power vaialble though, in a closed box system, what homebrew could achieve even through high-level APIs will be more than pretty much any home crew will be able to max out.

 

[PeterT]

Given the incredible power vaialble though, in a closed box system, what homebrew could achieve even through high-level APIs will be more than pretty much any home crew will be able to max out.

That's what I wanted to say, basically. Though it's not completely correct - it is always easy to "max out" anything by being unreasonable. Poly budget left? If my art assets are HOS, just use a more fine-grained tesselation. Bandwidth? Add some more alpha blended particles. Etc. The question is, will there be enough computational resources to fulfill all real needs? If we get access to RSX via a good OpenGL implementation, and access to some number of SPUs (I'm still sceptical on that one) then I believe there will.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Even a simple PPC like CPU and RSX in a closed box ought to be pretty impressive, compared to what homebrew manages on the PC. How many homebrew developers can target a G70?! And I'm sure some SPE's will be avaialble as Sony want to promote the Cell architecture which needs a strong experience base for developers. Opening Cell up to homebrew means the more technical will experiement, develop coding techniques and algorithms, and go on to grow the Cell software industry if it progresses into embedded apps, servers, or whatever. Locking SPE's out prevents low-level experience which is going to be vital to the architecture.

 

[PeterT]

Yes, but they'll have to put some performance limiters in there somewhere, or do you expect them to completely abstain from profiting via license fees? In other words, if I get all (or very nearly all) access to the system via open source, why pay Sony?

Then again, that may not be much of a problem, because starting from some project size the added value of the dev kits (both hardware and software) and Sony support will probably be far higher than the cost.

Just for the record, I'll be very happy if all this bears out, I'm just trying to keep my expectations in check

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, but they'll have to put some performance limiters in there somewhere, or do you expect them to completely abstain from profiting via license fees? In other words, if I get all (or very nearly all) access to the system via open source, why pay Sony?

How many homebrew games manage to wrestle prime funds away from major game developers? Pretty much none AFAIK. That's because even though you have the same access to PC hardware as big developers, you don't have the time or resources (and often, not the management skills nor perseverance to actually keep at a project when it's old and you're just ironing out bugs. Many a software idea dies the moment homebrew developers are confronted with the hard graft of quality control, and the releases are normally buggy and low quality, depending on the field and software complexity - utilities tend to be very good).

There's no way people will stop buying MGS4 and R:FoM because of homebrew games, and pointers are even towards Sony picking up top quality homebrew and turning it into 'Live' style downloadable games. Now that Linux is confirmed, these suggestions may not be too far fetched.

Just for the record, I'll be very happy if all this bears out, I'm just trying to keep my expectations in check

My expectations are for a PC like Linux box with system APIs and some low-level Cell coding, where homebrew can experiment and produce whatever they want (applications as well as games). Sony might snatch up the best projects to make profit on, and even if they don't, the added value of Linux and PS3 will help shift PS3's and thus promot BRD (license fees for Sony), PS3 owners are still likely to buy games (license fees for Sony) and they'll strengthen the Cell platform (Cell technology fees for Sony). Thus Sony's interest in Linux isn't to directly profit from it, but to profit from the stronger markets PS3 helps to promote in BRD, Cell, and all things PlayStation.

 

[babcat]

I've been searching like crazy for additional information on the "Developing for the Playstation 3" presentation that was given at the Digital Scarborough conference last week. However, I have not been able to find anything. Can anyone here let us know if the event turned out to be covered by NDAs or if those who attended are allowed to speak freely about what they heard and saw?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If it's not public, it's covered by NDAs, always. If you can't find any info on it, then it wasn't a public event, which means there won't be any info to be had. Either that or there wasn't anything shown of interest, which is quite possible. I imagine they were just covering old ground but for a new audience.

 

[babcat]

The fact that I found wierd was that there was no mention about NDAs on the sign-up website where you could get a booking to attend the event. Also, it did not say one single thing about needing to be a game developer to attend. Your right, it very well could have been covered by NDAs. But I looked as carefully as I could and as far as I could tell it was open to the public.