Soundstorm 2 in PS3?

[zurich]

SAN JOSE — Here at NVIDIA's Editor's Day event today, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang addressed questions about the company's plans for a possible second spin of its popular but ill-fated SoundStorm audio solution. Apparently, a reprise of SoundStorm will happen. Huang told the assembled press types, "We're gonna build SoundStorm 2. It's gonna be awesome." He was less clear on what form the next SoundStorm would take, saying that NVIDIA was still trying to figure out how to deliver SoundStorm as a product. Huang said, cryptically, that the new SoundStorm "will come in a way that you won't expect."

http://www.techreport.com/redir_comments.x?id=7706

At this point I'll believe anything

SoundStorm 2 in PS3 would also be a huge win, as yes, Cell will have massive computational power to do Dolby Digital and DTS encoding, but could it be better spent elsewhere? Hmmm... at this point it looks like PS3 could be backwards compatible with Xbox 1 LOL (just kidding)

 

[DopeyFish]

MCPS3

 

[Sabastian]

SAN JOSE — Here at NVIDIA's Editor's Day event today, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang addressed questions about the company's plans for a possible second spin of its popular but ill-fated SoundStorm audio solution. Apparently, a reprise of SoundStorm will happen. Huang told the assembled press types, "We're gonna build SoundStorm 2. It's gonna be awesome." He was less clear on what form the next SoundStorm would take, saying that NVIDIA was still trying to figure out how to deliver SoundStorm as a product. Huang said, cryptically, that the new SoundStorm "will come in a way that you won't expect."

http://www.techreport.com/redir_comments.x?id=7706

At this point I'll believe anything

SoundStorm 2 in PS3 would also be a huge win, as yes, Cell will have massive computational power to do Dolby Digital and DTS encoding, but could it be better spent elsewhere? Hmmm... at this point it looks like PS3 could be backwards compatible with Xbox 1 LOL (just kidding)

That's perfect. They will get licencing through hardware support for the PS3. Just like they did with the xbox. Some nForce version in the future will have soundstorm 2.. in the future.

 

[mozmo]

I straight away thought the same thing, chances are we will probably see soundstorm in ps3 now, I can't think of any other sound based solution that does realtime dolby digital encoding and so god damn good with cpu usuage.

 

[pc999]

If Cell is that powerfull why would they wast more money?

 

[Guden Oden]

Why would it be a waste?

 

[hey69]

it would be a waste if the cell cpu could use 0.0001% of it's power to do the stuff soundstorm would do. why pay for an extra component.

that is what he meant i think.. and probably right but then again, sony and nvidia have maybe a deal larger then only the gpu

 

[Guden Oden]

IF cell can do sound using only that much power, pretty big if. Also, a sound processor doesn't really occupy all that much chip real-estate, it needn't be particulary costly and it would also look better. Consoles with no dedicated sound hardware (like N64 for example) always get dissed for that. It's not uncommon for cheap-ass PC sound solutions to use up 20-30% CPU for 3D sound in games, and while cell would be much faster than a P4 or athlon, it would still be another task for the CPU to juggle.

The current soundstorm does voices, 3D positioning/obstruction/occlusion, plus equalization and dolby digital encoding all in hardware, and that design is several years old now. Who can say what they'd be able to come up with for next generation, and how much CPU that would need if done in software.

 

[jvd]

Well if they add a sound storm u have to figure thats another few dollars to nvidia a system plus the cost of each chip.

THat can get expensive quickly , unless its covered in the current deal with nvidia but i believe from my reading that iis only 3d ip .

 

[Guden Oden]

They'd have to pay for sound anyway in one way or another you know, even if it was done completely in-house. What's most cost effective isn't possible for us to decide, not having access to all pertinent infos.

 

[jvd]

They'd have to pay for sound anyway in one way or another you know, even if it was done completely in-house. What's most cost effective isn't possible for us to decide, not having access to all pertinent infos.

I would think that an in house chip would be cheaper wouldn't u ? Not only that but i'd think sony would have sound chips from other segments of thier operation or even a simple cell chip for sound would be enough i'd think

 

[London Geezer]

They'd have to pay for sound anyway in one way or another you know, even if it was done completely in-house. What's most cost effective isn't possible for us to decide, not having access to all pertinent infos.

I would think that an in house chip would be cheaper wouldn't u ? Not only that but i'd think sony would have sound chips from other segments of thier operation or even a simple cell chip for sound would be enough i'd think

Weren't you the one saying that just because a chip is fabbed in-house, it doesn't mean that it's cheaper, and used that argument to debate the fact that PS3 will be more expensive to fab than the competition, even if it's all done in-house?

Just thought i'd ask...

My view on this is, $5 on top of the total bill per system won't change much. The thing already is very expensive, they might as well go the whole nine yards. Or whatever you say in these situations...

 

[Guden Oden]

Weren't you the one saying that just because a chip is fabbed in-house, it doesn't mean that it's cheaper

Nail + head...

 

[London Geezer]

Weren't you the one saying that just because a chip is fabbed in-house, it doesn't mean that it's cheaper

Nail + head...

OUCH! My head!

 

[PC-Engine]

Weren't you the one saying that just because a chip is fabbed in-house, it doesn't mean that it's cheaper

Nail + head...

Yes it doesn't mean that it's cheaper. It doesn't mean that it's more expensive either. I think YOU were the one that said in house = cheaper or was that Phil or both of you guys? Anyhow going by that logic, outsourcing wouldn't exist.

 

[jvd]

Weren't you the one saying that just because a chip is fabbed in-house, it doesn't mean that it's cheaper, and used that argument to debate the fact that PS3 will be more expensive to fab than the competition, even if it's all done in-house?

Out of context yes .


WHat I said was that the cost of the fabs + developement of the cell processer can make it more expensive to produce than ms licesning tech and manufacturing it at another fab .

But a sound chip doesn't need a 65nm process fab that costs a few billion to make . THey could actually use the older fabs for it .

Secondly i believe that sony already procduces sound chips (They do have a music hardware department for thier mp3 players , disc mans dvd players ) which means they could already have a chip to use .

Or as i said use a small simple cell chip dedicated to sound .



To sum it up . Billion for fab plus hundreds of millions for reserach can make a chip more expensive than liscensing it and producing it at a 3rd party fab.

Using an old fab with an existing chip you own can be cheaper htan liscensing said chip .


Now if it would cost htem hundreds of millions to develop it and they needed another 65nm plant to make them , it might be cheaper to go with nvidia .

But do any of us know that ?

 

[London Geezer]

I think YOU were the one that said in house = cheaper or was that Phil or both of you guys? Anyhow going by that logic, outsourcing wouldn't exist.

Don't shout at me.
By the way, i don't remember ever taking any sides on this discussion, i was simply putting the dots on the i's.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Could Sony just use their existing sound chips from HiFi and AV products?
Would they need too much modifications to suit an interactive device like a games console to be cost-effective?
An MP3 player or a DD/dts receiver just needs to do simple decoding, I think a console sound chip needs to do a bit more (interoperability with CPU, Input/Output, GPU etc...?)

...after all, this is still a rumour with very loose foundations, so there's little to get exited about.

A Cell SPU might not be effective for same reasons a Cell GPU would not be a better solution than a dedicated design (as discussed in that other thread by people much more knowing than I (I would have thought an all "Cell" PS3 would have been "sexy" )

 

[Phil]

I think YOU were the one that said in house = cheaper or was that Phil or both of you guys?

Of course under certain circumstances. I don't recall anyone saying in-house beats outsourcing anytime. (I brought this up in a PSP / NGC portable discussion).

 

[Guden Oden]

Could Sony just use their existing sound chips from HiFi and AV products?

No, of course not. The DSP and/or ASIC used in their MD/MP3 range of players isn't equipped to handle the hundreds of voices we'd expect of a next-gen sound processing system. Heck, they couldn't handle the dozens of voices in the games hardware of today!

That stuff is low-power, low-performance crap that only needs to be able to do a few specific tasks, the major being decompress and play audio, then read the buttons and update the display of the device. That's it.

A small auxiliary cell processor for I/O and sound is an idea I've already presented in this forum btw, I think it would be a neat idea if it had like 1PU, 4 APUs and ran at perhaps 500-1000MHz or some such, but of course nobody listens to me... I still think it's more likely with a custom-designed, DSP-based solution rather than a cell device for the sound, that would be the traditional way of going about things rather than trying something new, unproven.