TGS impressions from people there

[Crusher]

? I got confused in that last bit. What is 2x the final product?

The ram, I would infer (512 vs. 256).

 

[avaya]

It's NOT, I mean NOT beta hardware. Why do people keep saying that? Is it because it looks nice? Its alpha hardware. Alpha. Lets say it together, A-L-P-H-A. Thank you. The betakits come out this December with the real RSX chip, the full CELL, more bandwidth, plus more.

Remember it's the alpha kits. Probably around what 50% of what the total PS3 can do? What do you guys think the current alpha kit percentage wise is around?

First post here.


From the slides at PS Meeting in August, off the top of my head:

Alpha (Early Spring/E3): Cell Evalutation System (Shreck)
2.4GHz CELL, "GeForce", 256MB XDR

Beta(Spring/Summer 05): PS3 Evaluation Systme (Cytology)
2.4GHz CELL, "GeForce", 512MB XDR, FlexIO for CELL-RSX = 2GB/s

Final: PS3 Reference Tool
3.2GHz CELL, RSX, 512MB XDR, FlexIO for CELL-RSX = 35GB/s

These are beta kits. They simply gotta be.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

I think he's talking specifically about dev kits. The final dev kits have more ram than console will -- more than likely to help speed along work on a title.

 

[onetimeposter]

First post here.


From the slides at PS Meeting in August, off the top of my head:

Alpha (Early Spring/E3): Cell Evalutation System (Shreck)
2.4GHz CELL, "GeForce", 256MB XDR

Beta(Spring/Summer 05): PS3 Evaluation Systme (Cytology)
2.4GHz CELL, "GeForce", 512MB XDR, FlexIO for CELL-RSX = 2GB/s

Final: PS3 Reference Tool
3.2GHz CELL, RSX, 512MB XDR, FlexIO for CELL-RSX = 35GB/s

These are beta kits. They simply gotta be.

looks like i was wrong on 2 accounts, the Speed of Cell is 0.4 less but the memory is 512 now, which is suprising, i thought it would be 512 when the final reference tool comes out. seeing that it seems its around between 75 and 80% of final hardware. also when you take into account the fact that the 7800 has 2 times the bandwidth that RSX will have the 35 GB/s and 2 GB/s is not too much in end result

 

[mckmas8808]

So I guess this game could be using the alpha kit or beta kit. Thanks for the information. I pulled 50% out of my hole yes, that's why I ask you guys what you thought because I knew I didn't know overall percentage.


I always thought that the difference between 2GB/s and 35GB/s was something really special. I always thought it was important. Isn't that one reason why Kojima said that the game will look better. And doesn't 6% of the total bandwidth actually mean something. I would that (correct me if I'm wrong) would be a HUGE bottleneck. And I thought bottlenecks mattered.

 

[expletive]

I would guess most of these games are going to be GPU limited and the 7800 GTX is very good approximation of the RSX. I dont think the clock speed of the cell figures in nearly as much as the GPU hardware. Until we know what the RSX is for sure, i'm going on the assumption its a overlcocked 7800 gtx, which proabbly will add about 15% in real world performance?

J

 

[mckmas8808]

I would guess most of these games are going to be GPU limited and the 7800 GTX is very good approximation of the RSX. I dont think the clock speed of the cell figures in nearly as much as the GPU hardware. Until we know what the RSX is for sure, i'm going on the assumption its a overlcocked 7800 gtx, which proabbly will add about 15% in real world performance?

J

But you can't deny the fact the PS3 will not use a PCIe bus which will mean tons of more BW. Compared to the real PS3, these kits have a HUGE bottleneck.

 

[Inane_Dork]

But you can't deny the fact the PS3 will not use a PCIe bus which will mean tons of more BW. Compared to the real PS3, these kits have a HUGE bottleneck.

If you depend on shuffling huge amounts of data over the bus, yeah. But considering the "HUGE" bottleneck is just like it is on the PC (worse if you include AGP), I don't see how it's that bad.

 

[mckmas8808]

If you depend on shuffling huge amounts of data over the bus, yeah. But considering the "HUGE" bottleneck is just like it is on the PC (worse if you include AGP), I don't see how it's that bad.

Respectfully saying Inane I thought that was one of the bigger features of the PS3? Shuffling and moving huge amounts of data over the bus. I thought that's what was supposed to make the PS3 tick. You know working with the RSX like brother and sister. That's the way I've always interpreted convos here.

 

[Inane_Dork]

Well, it seems clear to me that the bus traffic must not be too much as of now or everyone's lying about having real time footage. Yes, the big pipe is a key feature of the hardware, but if people were depending on it like they were depending on a GPU, the framerate would be in the toilet for every game. But that just isn't the case.

It seems, to me anyway, that PS3 games are being made roughly like PC games, so the Flex I/O demand is very low. 'Course, that will likely change as the PS3 matures.

 

[scooby_dooby]

We don't know what the frame rate of tehse games are, because Sony has never shown anyone playing any of them.

For all we know they could be running at 5FPS and sped up, just like HS.

So the fact these games/trailers seem to have perfect framerates isn't indicitive of anything, they've showed they have no problem pre-rendering scenes and making them appear to be runnign at full speed.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Didn't Kojima and crew show MGS running in realtime? They PROVED it was running in realtime. So, that can't be the case can it?

 

[Powderkeg]

I know but that trailer was made with the actual (beta) hardware. The final PS3 hardware is going to be ALOT more powerfull

It's still a trailer, not a game. Like tech demos, trailers can do things no game can do because you can use 100% of the systems power just for rendering a predefined trailer. With games, you have a whole host of other considerations which all use up system power.

Never compare trailers (Even real-time) to actual gameplay.

 

[Powderkeg]

Respectfully saying Inane I thought that was one of the bigger features of the PS3? Shuffling and moving huge amounts of data over the bus. I thought that's what was supposed to make the PS3 tick. You know working with the RSX like brother and sister. That's the way I've always interpreted convos here.

What it can do, and what you need it to do are two entirely different things though.

It can move massive amounts of data between the two. The question is, does it need to? As Inane pointed out, you can get similar graphics quality from a top end gaming PC right now, and that has a fraction of the bandwidth. Do developers really need that much bandwidth, or is it simply overkill, the by-product of having originally designed the system to use Cell processors exclusively for rendering?

It's not a bottleneck, which is a very good thing, but is it way more than necessary?

 

[3roxor]

It's still a trailer, not a game. Like tech demos, trailers can do things no game can do because you can use 100% of the systems power just for rendering a predefined trailer. With games, you have a whole host of other considerations which all use up system power.

Never compare trailers (Even real-time) to actual gameplay.

True but again since the PS3 is going to be alot more powerfull than current devkits it isn't hard to imagine these type of visuals being possible in "real" games too.