Would PS3 have been better with a 2nd Cell instead of the RSX?

[mrcorbo]

I would personally would have loved that the PS3 would haved used 2 Cell processors without any GPU as that was the original design. But that would have been a programming mess when porting games among different hardware.

Pulled this out of the locked thread. Why? It would have been less capable. That's why they *didn't* do that. The RSX was much better at the things it ended up being tasked to do in the PS3 than a 2nd Cell would have been. If anything, I would think people would be wishing Sony could have added a GPU that was more comparable to Xenos so Cell didn't have to assist the GPU as often and could focus on the things it was uniquely suited for.

 

[jlippo]

Really doubt it.

In the end it would have depended on how different it would have been from current Cell.
It would have needed good ROPs and TEX units to be any way feasible.

As it is it would have been nightmare.

 

[Nesh]

I d love to see how consoles would have evolved if the manufacturers were still relying on custom hardware
The console industry was quite interesting back then, and graphics technology might have taken various paths.
Consoles could have become a new type of computing eventually competing with PCs. This is what MS feared and entered the console market.
Consoles literally competed with the PC gaming space. Now it is like a coexistence and someone might even say that they support the PC gaming.

 

[liolio]

THe PS3 would have been better of with a 2nd RSX

 

[Gubbi]

If PS3 hadn't had a GPU, there wouldn't be a PS4, because the 360 would have annihilated the Playstation brand.

Cheers

 

[Allandor]

Well, cell helps the GPU but it doesn't replace a GPU at all.
Also as far as I recall it, the cell get's really really hot. This would have melted the PS3. It would have been much better (CPU-wise) if the cell had more power-pc cores. The one it had was ... well, way to complicated to get general purpose cpu-power out of the SPUs. The PS3 was way to complicated for a console. Really exotic cpu+SPUs + two memory interfaces and even memory-types. Far to many variables for a "simple" console. Engines needed far to much time to get adapted to that.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Would've been more interesting, I think.

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a3/0b/22/82a0aba0622177/US20020138637A1.pdf

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20020138637

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Well, cell helps the GPU but it doesn't replace a GPU at all.
Also as far as I recall it, the cell get's really really hot. This would have melted the PS3. It would have been much better (CPU-wise) if the cell had more power-pc cores. The one it had was ... well, way to complicated to get general purpose cpu-power out of the SPUs. The PS3 was way to complicated for a console. Really exotic cpu+SPUs + two memory interfaces and even memory-types. Far to many variables for a "simple" console. Engines needed far to much time to get adapted to that.

Well if it only had Cells then it wouldn't need two memory interfaces.

It seems like Cell would have been a good replacement for pixel and vertex shaders, so I wonder if a hypothetical console PS3 with two Cells and a third custom chip with only fixed-function back-end units (like Xenos' daughter chip) would be feasible and better performing than the RSX which was rather mediocre at launch time (compared to Xenos).

 

[Mobius1aic]

Well, cell helps the GPU but it doesn't replace a GPU at all.
Also as far as I recall it, the cell get's really really hot. This would have melted the PS3. It would have been much better (CPU-wise) if the cell had more power-pc cores. The one it had was ... well, way to complicated to get general purpose cpu-power out of the SPUs. The PS3 was way to complicated for a console. Really exotic cpu+SPUs + two memory interfaces and even memory-types. Far to many variables for a "simple" console. Engines needed far to much time to get adapted to that.

The PS3 is in a way a Frankenstein's monster. The RSX was only there because of the failed dual-Cell approach. The Flex I/O while useful for the Cell - RSX setup I think was more there for the dual Cell approach and the original intent to only be using XDR DRAM. And of course the PS3 like the 360 was originally intended for only 256 MB so adding another 256 MB, and making it GDDR3 was not only cheaper but I'm going to guess did not require going through the Flex I/O directly and therefore better suited for being accessed by the RSX. At least, I think.

Sony's failed bid on dual-Cell reared it's ugly head too close to launch to make a ground up redesign possible.

 

[Urian]

The myth of a pure CBEA as a Graphics Processor was a myth invented by the media, Taking in consideration the infamous Suzuoki Patent I believe that the idea of the Cell GPU different than the Cell CPU.

• PowerPC Core would be absent, instead of this we would see a Command Processor.
• It would have some multimedia accelerators for video decoding connected to the EIB.
• SPE cores would remain unchanged.
• Fixed Function part would derive from the Graphics Synthetizer and PSP GPU.
• It would have eDRAM... making it a large Chip.
• 1 GS++ (16 Texture Units) and 4 SPE

 

[milk]

The real question is what would the XBO have looked like if it went with two Shape Audio Chips and a Blitter instead of the GPU. That was the real vision.

 

[Grall]

That was the real vision.

Surely you be trolin us, yes?

 

[eastmen]

I think it would have been underpowered and a mess to program for. I think MS would have taken even more market share at that point. The 360 would have been a breeze to develop for in comparison and would have had an even larger performance gap compared to the ps3 that was released.

Now a ps3 without a bluray drive and 256 megs more of gdr ram for the rsx would have been interesting

 

[Theeoo]

I think it would have been underpowered and a mess to program for. I think MS would have taken even more market share at that point. The 360 would have been a breeze to develop for in comparison and would have had an even larger performance gap compared to the ps3 that was released.

Now a ps3 without a bluray drive and 256 megs more of gdr ram for the rsx would have been interesting

No way, blu ray saved the PS3 when it was getting nothing negative press for shoddy ports. In fact Sony really dropped the ball with PS4 Pro by not including a UHD Blu ray drive in my opinion.

 

[Grall]

No way, blu ray saved the PS3 when it was getting nothing negative press for shoddy ports. In fact Sony really dropped the ball with PS4 Pro by not including a UHD Blu ray drive in my opinion.

Yeah, bluray was a strong advantage for PS3. It would have been very interesting to see RSX with a full 256-bit memory bus (and twice the RAM as @eastmen mentioned), but it would have made an already crazy expensive system even more so of course. Sony may well have experimented with this idea internally and rejected it for being too costly...

They were already hit badly by the high price of the hardware and the downturn of the world economy right around when the console launched, but if wishes were horses...

HD BR was an absolute GIVEN for me in PS4 Pro and then Sony went and mucked it up. Booo. BOOOO! What a genuine screwup!

 

[AlNom]

There probably wouldn't have been space for another 128-bit GDDR3 I/O on top of the existing 128-bit GDDR3 + 64-bit XDR interfaces (differential bus = double wires as well).

They also designed it so that the GDDR3 would be on-package with RSX, so...

 

[Grall]

There probably wouldn't have been space for another 128-bit GDDR3 I/O

Possibly. However, I haven't seen any claims that the unoccupied memory controllers from the Nvidia genome which RSX was built out of (GF7800 something-or-other? Can't remember) were actually cut out of the die.

Also, XDR memory controller was in Cell, not RSX.

They also designed it so that the GDDR3 would be on-package with RSX, so...

This detail could surely have been changed.

 

[AlNom]

Possibly. However, I haven't seen any claims that the unoccupied memory controllers from the Nvidia genome which RSX was built out of (GF7800 something-or-other? Can't remember) were actually cut out of the die.

Also, XDR memory controller was in Cell, not RSX.

RSX can read/write to XDR at near full bandwidth, so it has to have some wide enough connection, which is what I meant.

 

[Grall]

@AlNets
Righto, yeah. It's the Redstone thing or whatsitscalled. Not sure I've seen any detailed technical specs on the physical aspect of the interface though, just some general stuff that it is indeed using differential signalling, and is quad-pumped IIRC.

 

[eastmen]

No way, blu ray saved the PS3 when it was getting nothing negative press for shoddy ports. In fact Sony really dropped the ball with PS4 Pro by not including a UHD Blu ray drive in my opinion.

Yeah, bluray was a strong advantage for PS3. It would have been very interesting to see RSX with a full 256-bit memory bus (and twice the RAM as @eastmen mentioned), but it would have made an already crazy expensive system even more so of course. Sony may well have experimented with this idea internally and rejected it for being too costly...

They were already hit badly by the high price of the hardware and the downturn of the world economy right around when the console launched, but if wishes were horses...

HD BR was an absolute GIVEN for me in PS4 Pro and then Sony went and mucked it up. Booo. BOOOO! What a genuine screwup!

was it , or was the price difference between the xbox 360 and ps3 ($100-$300) what sank it at the start. They might have even been able to launch in 2005 with a 256meg /512 meg set up with cell and rsx and matched the high end of the xbox 360 pricing at $400 matching the top sku of the xbox 360. I think it would have done way better than being a year late and at least $100 to $300 more expensive . I don't believe bluray was worth that much to gamers in 2005 or 6