will PS3's GPU be more modern than PS2's GS for its time?

[Megadrive1988]

I was just realizing something, but correct me if you feel my thinking on this is wrong. okay, Playstation2's Graphics Synthesizer was locked-down, feature-wise, in 1997, according to what some of people on this board who are PS2 developers have said. by late 1998, I am pretty sure GS was totally completed, regardless of any final clockspeed increases like EE got in early 1999. It seems to me that PS2 chipset, the GS in particular, sat around for while until Sony was ready to release PS2 in early 2000 in Japan and late 2000 in the western world.

With Playstation3, the GPU is still being worked on by at least Nvidia if not Sony-Nvidia. Jen-Hsun said that they expect to see it in production by the end or near the end of 2005. I assume that meant calendar-year 2005. Now if PS3 launches in Japan in the first half of 2006, that would probably mean PS3's GPU is still fairly new, at least compared to PS2's GS. I also realize that the underlying architecture of PS3's GPU, which is Nvidia's nextgen architecture, has been in development for several years by several hundred Nvidia architects. which is pretty normal for graphics architecture development. but it also seems to me that PS3 GPU is being worked on up until a much closer point to PS3's release to the public, or am I not seeing something?

so the way I am seeing things (and again correct me if im mistaken) is that PS3's GPU is probably going to end up being more modern than PS2's GS.

of course, I am not saying that PS3 GPU is much newer than PS2's GS, as that is a given, obviously. what I am saying is, PS3's GPU seems to be much newer for its intended release relative to PS2's GS and the release of PS2.

PS2's GS was probably in development from 1995 to 1997-98. feature-wise it sits around for awhile, locked down. PS2 released in 2000.

Nvidia's overall nextgen architecture (beyond NV40) was probably in development from maybe early 2002, then maybe it gets finished in late 2004 or early 2005. the actual PS3 GPU is still in development, until say early to mid 2005. goes into production in late 2005. PS3 releases in 2006.

the Xbox GPU was also fairly new when Xbox released in Nov 2001. the NV2A had only just been completed in early 2001, if I recall. it seems to me that PS3 GPU is going to get finished up much closer to PS3's release compared to PS2's GS. ...opps, sorry for repeating myself. hehe.

anyone agree or disagree?


have a peacful end of the year everyone

 

[version]

only speed is important
what is modern? (3 gigapolygon is modern?)

 

[Megadrive1988]

speed & raw performance is not the only thing that matters anymore. Sony already had that in 1994 with the Playstation and in 2000 with the PS2.

if speed & raw performance were the only things that mattered, Sony would've probably gone it alone again. but instead, they've partnered with Nvidia. obviously Sony likes Nvidia's rendering technologies,

 

[version]

speed & raw performance is not the only thing that matters anymore. Sony already had that in 1994 with the Playstation and in 2000 with the PS2.

if speed & raw performance were the only things that mattered, Sony would've probably gone it alone again. but instead, they've partnered with Nvidia. obviously Sony likes Nvidia's rendering technologies,

ps3' gpu is a nvidia-sony-rambus gpu , not pc gpu

nvidia to bring pixelshader technology, sony to add the embended memory , and rambus 's RedWood connection

 

[version]

gs is very fast but simple, pc's gpu was modern but slow in 2000


what is a modern gpu? pixelshader is modern? dont believe
raytracing,reyes? possible

 

[Megadrive1988]

well, i am hoping that PS3 GPU combines the best aspects of Graphics Synthesizer (very high speed thanks to parallalism and high bandwidth thanks to eDRAM) with the best aspects of PC GPUs (many hardwired features, pixel shaders) to make an awesome GPU.

 

[version]

well, i am hoping that PS3 GPU combines the best aspects of Graphics Synthesizer (very high speed thanks to parallalism and high bandwidth thanks to eDRAM) with the best aspects of PC GPUs (many hardwired features, pixel shaders) to make an awesome GPU.

in ps3' gpu:

eDram 100%
pixelshaders 100%
redwood 100%

but where and how is the vertexprocessing? cell?

 

[Megadrive1988]

vertex / geometry / lighting processing is probably done on the Cell-based CPU. I don't know what else hundreds of Gflops would be for other than game physics & a.i. processing.

but...

the PS3 GPU should be flexible enough to do its own vertex / geometry / lighting processing in addition to pixel processing & rasterizing.

or, accept v / g / l processing assistance from the CPU, then the GPU can devote all its resouces toward pixel processing & rasterizing.

 

[Qroach]

modern without nvidia tech? I wouldn't think so.

 

[version]

vertex / geometry / lighting processing is probably done on the Cell-based CPU. I don't know what else hundreds of Gflops would be for other than game physics & a.i. processing.

but...

the PS3 GPU should be flexible enough to do its own vertex / geometry / lighting processing in addition to pixel processing & rasterizing.

or, accept v / g / l processing assistance from the CPU, then the GPU can devote all its resouces toward pixel processing & rasterizing.

my aspect:

CELL do vertex,lighting processing , but only nurbs
send it to gpu, GPU do triangle from nurbs, and clipping and rasterizing and pixel process

if in ps3' gpu would be pixeshaders +vertexshaders+eDram then it is too slow(less pipeline)

 

[version]

now, nvidia use 200 million transistors on own gpu(6800) on 0.13 micron process
sony use 0.65 with 500+ million transistor, possible 64 pixelpipeline and 32 MB eDram

 

[London Geezer]

modern without nvidia tech? I wouldn't think so.

Errr, care to explain why? Is NVIDIA the only company in the whole universe capable to produce a "modern" GPU (Whatever that means)...?

Besides, the GS was considered "modern" in a very "abstract" kind of way, because whoever designed it decided to go full-on with the polygon pushing, which at the time was several times even the most powerful GPU or processor around. Sadly it had to do away with simple features that would have made everyone's life much easier.
That's how it was romantically "modern".

 

[Almasy]

So, if I understand this well, Sony had the GS completed, with everything mayor locked down, in 1998? And sat on it for more than a year?? If that´s the truth then:

1. Wow, the GS really is one heck of a great graphics chip if it was really completed back then.

2. Wasn´t this kind of dumb?? To sit on a chip, no matter how good it is, for more than a year is not a very smart thing to do, IMO.

I´m not very knowledgable on this topic, but didn´t Sony had enough time to further upgrade the GS?? How difficult is it to do that??

 

[version]

GS is a very good and fast chip ,
with present-day technology such as 200M transistor and 500MHZ may make faster GS ,
5 GS on one chip = 20MB eDram , 500MHZ , 80 pixelunits , 600 GB/sec , 1 GigaPoly/s , 40 Gigapixel/s !!!!

if use sony 0,65 process(400M trans 800 MHZ) ,10 GS in one chip = 40MB eDram , 800MHZ , 160 pixelunits , 2 TERAByte/sec , 3.5 GigaPoly/s , 120 Gigapixel/s !!!!


ps3's GPU will be faster ?

 

[overclocked]

Megadrive1988 wrote

well, i am hoping that PS3 GPU combines the best aspects of Graphics Synthesizer (very high speed thanks to parallalism and high bandwidth thanks to eDRAM) with the best aspects of PC GPUs (many hardwired features, pixel shaders) to make an awesome GPU.

I think that´s a good "overall-view" of the collaboration.
You expressed earlier your thought´s of how "modern" in relation this GPU
will be versus the GS.
The thing that comes to my mind is the visual progress we have seen with the PS2`s second/third gen games. As said many times before that was because of the unfriendly software-tools that was/is the system´s "mainproblem".
I belive besides that nVidia will have a great Gpu the most important role is that they bring the software tools there and that´s great, many was afraid Sony was too "proud" i think, but they learned there lesson from
the PS2.

Qroach wrote

modern without nvidia tech? I wouldn't think so.

I would rather say "stronger" with nVidia.


version wrote

now, nvidia use 200 million transistors on own gpu(6800) on 0.13 micron process

On 90nm they can in theory atleast double that amount while still having the same diesize, as Sony will be manufacturing the chip and we still don´t know if they will fab the chip at 65nm or planning too do a quick transition from 90nm too 65nm it´s hard to guess the complexity of it.


london-boy wrote

Besides, the GS was considered "modern" in a very "abstract" kind of way, because whoever designed it decided to go full-on with the polygon pushing, which at the time was several times even the most powerful GPU or processor around. Sadly it had to do away with simple features that would have made everyone's life much easier.
That's how it was romantically "modern".

I like that description, i think there was a great vision and passion from the people designing it.

 

[Megadrive1988]

to re-clarify what I was trying to say/ask in my original post: I was thinking that maybe, the PS3 GPU will be newer/fresher by the time PS3 comes out, compared to the somewhat aging-though-powerful Graphics Synthesizer when PS2 came out. in otherwords: GS was getting old in 2000, whereas the PS3 GPU will be fairly fresh in 2006.

 

[Inane_Dork]

will PS3's GPU be more modern than PS2's GS for its time?

Not exactly. The PS3's GPU will be the firs postmodern GPU: it's whatever you make of it.

 

[jvd]

Megadrive1988 if you mean , will the ps3 gpu follow the popular trends of its age where as the gs went another way.


I'd have to say yes and no .


In 1999 when the ps2 was release the other consoles like the dreamcast and the pc sector were all about better filtering and hardwired features.

Now it looks like ati will be going with unified shaders and it seems from beyond3ds news post that nvidia doesn't like that route . But it will be as feature rich as the gpus of the time in both xenon and pc sector.

 

[one]

GS is a very good and fast chip ,
with present-day technology such as 200M transistor and 500MHZ may make faster GS ,
5 GS on one chip = 20MB eDram , 500MHZ , 80 pixelunits , 600 GB/sec , 1 GigaPoly/s , 40 Gigapixel/s !!!!

if use sony 0,65 process(400M trans 800 MHZ) ,10 GS in one chip = 40MB eDram , 800MHZ , 160 pixelunits , 2 TERAByte/sec , 3.5 GigaPoly/s , 120 Gigapixel/s !!!!

ps3's GPU will be faster ?

In my very rough overview:

Sony's 250nm GPU = GS > RIVA TNT2 family = nVIDIA's 250nm GPU

nVIDIA-Sony 65nm GPU > 10 GS in 65nm one chip

But I'm not sure how nVIDIA-Sony PS3 GPU is better than 10 GS in one chip, at least one thing is sure that Sony determined it's better than a bunch of GS on steroids which they demonstrated in GSCube. Though you can expect there's a trade-off in exchange of raw power, it may be better in cost, in thermal design, in game-related fixed-function efficiency, in developer-friendlyness, I don't know.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Megadrive1988 if you mean , will the ps3 gpu follow the popular trends of its age where as the gs went another way.


I'd have to say yes and no .


In 1999 when the ps2 was release the other consoles like the dreamcast and the pc sector were all about better filtering and hardwired features.

Now it looks like ati will be going with unified shaders and it seems from beyond3ds news post that nvidia doesn't like that route . But it will be as feature rich as the gpus of the time in both xenon and pc sector.

jvd, that is not really what i meant. what i meant was, the GPU for PS3 seems to be in development right up until almost the last minute, before PS3 is released. whereas GS was finished long before PS2 was released.