Yamauchi on the PS3: "...beginning of a new world..."

[Farid]

Yes you could but we were talking about Sony. Don't be an idiot.

I bolded the uncalled for remark in your reply.
It as uncalled for as telling people to take the word of a giant faceless company with a grain of salt.
Especially when we're talking about a demo shown to (probably) clueless, about all what's rendering technology, journalists.

Of course that whatever has been said in such a press conference is not to be considered, on a technological level, has being exact. It's just stupid marketing talk using big catch words.

BTW, I still don't understand why people still want Cell to do specialized framebuffer job such as AA or HDR...

 

[Diesel2]

7800GTX can only do HDR or AA, not both. Hence it is possible that RSX will do HDR and, if developer chooses it is needed, MSAA done on CELL.

But that's the thing I don't understand, there are currently people playing DoD:Source with both HDR and AA running 7800's.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

BTW, I still don't understand why people still want Cell to do specialized framebuffer job such as AA or HDR...

I think the concern is RSX can't do these things, and expectatations are for HDR images without AA, so there's hope Cell can jump in and add antialiasing. TBH looking at some XB360 pics the amount 2x MSAA contributes to eliminating jaggies is fairly negligable. On the places you really need it, high contrast near vertical and horizontal lines, 2x adds next to no difference. Compare a MSAA'd line with a drawn 2D antialised line and it's a totally different quality. Just draw a near horizontal line in something like Photoshop and downsample the image, even with 16x supersampling the quality doesn't match that of an antialiased line. I used to be a big proponent of AA in games (and still am in wanting no jaggies!) but the more I see the less difference it seems to make where it's needed.

Ultimately I'm sure a different approach to AA would be more successful in elliminating jaggies. Lets say the scene is rendered per object. Each obeject is then 'flatened' with respect to the camera to produce a series of 2D position for vetices and lines between them. An anialised line (using something like Xiaolin Wu's algorithm or whatever works best) is drawn to create antialised mask outlines. Then the object can be composited using the AA'd outlines. I think something like this has been explored before but nothing seems to have come of it, yet the results for edge AA should be far better than MS and SS. Of course it wouldn't AA surface detail which is one of the plusses to MS/SS AA rather than jaggie reduction which they're not too hot at.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But that's the thing I don't understand, there are currently people playing DoD:Source with both HDR and AA running 7800's.

ihamoitc2005 is incorrect AFAIK. It's not that 7800 can't do AA and HDR, it's that it can't do MSAA and HDR. It can do SSAA and HDR, which is much more costly (but looks better).

 

[Black Dragon37]

Thats the worry for sony. Splinter Cell 4 will be as good on both consoles, possibly better playing on live. How long can sony play the most powerful card in the same contxt as Xbox?

if i am sony, i will stop internal fueding and put everything behind PS3.
360 killing sony's cash cow is scary. how many spiderman movies left?

Sony's still got the PS2 and PSP as their cash cows, and I don't see that stopping anytime soon, especially when the PSP launched last month in the PAL regions.

 

[pixelbox]

It's not that much of a shock tha cell renders the getaway demo. I've noticed some shadows missing in the demo. That is, not all objects haves shadows. I'll do more research on cell but im sure after the disaster that was ps2, not having hardware AA, sony made a way to produce them both without a hardcore sacrifice.

 

[Carl B]

AI is the Cell's weakest point, being that it lacks dynamic branching.

I'm not taking part in this HDR/Cell/RSX discussion, but this point on AI I disagree with. AI as it is generally done now in games, yes - one would imagine a hit be taken with the in-order nature of Cell. But the fact is the potential to use floating-point power in AI (as demonstrated frequently on the academic level) and the SPE's ability to communicate with each other leads me to believe that PS3 might actually excel in AI down the line this gen.

There were a number of people who used to say that Cell would be a terrible physics performer as well, but that camp has been more or less quashed out.

That's not to say that physics isn't *more* obviously suited to Cell than is AI, because it clearly is, but it is to say that AI on Cell is hardly an open and shut case.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'll do more research on cell but im sure after the disaster that was ps2, not having hardware AA,

I don't know that I'd call that a disaster. As I understand it most games on all consoles don't have AA, even when it's supported in hardware. And some games do manage AA in PS2 too.

For most users viewing on SDTV AA isn't needed if the machine can render to 1080p, as SSAA is available 'free'. I think the main concern is IQ, and if XB360 looks smoother/cleaner that'll make the difference. But even without AA on PS3 the difference between XB360 at 2xMSAA and PS3 won't be obvious to most casuals I imagine. I don't think lack of AA at higher resolutions would be a disaster.

 

[pixelbox]

I don't think lack of AA at higher resolutions would be a disaster.

I know. But there's some people that would look into this and claim xbox360 is more powerful just because of this, you know those type of people... btw, what games on ps2 used "REAL" AA?

 

[London Geezer]

AA isn't only for jaggies you know. Although 2X AA won't really be much of a preblem solver for usual IQ problems.
So i expect both consoles to have their fair share of IQ-problemy games.

 

[Black Dragon37]

I know. But there's some people that would look into this and claim xbox360 is more powerful just because of this, you know those type of people... btw, what games on ps2 used "REAL" AA?

Tekken Tag Tournament, I think.

 

[ERP]

Huh? What? And are you serious. You make it sound like some form of HDR and/or can be done with the CELL help. This has been debunked by the smartest people here. Can you please explain a little more.

Thanks.

What he was referring to was using the GPU to lay down basic pixel parameters like say normal, position ond other bits and pieces.

Then use cell to post process the buffer applying lighting to the rendered pixels.

It's an interesting idea, and it's unclear how well it would work or whether it would be a performance win.

The problem with deferred rendering in general is the bandwidth cost of laying down the buffer, generally your going to want more than just 3 channels of data and some of them are going to require significant precision. Personally I think this is playing to the architectures weakness rather than it's strength, your going to want to use all those pixel shader ALU's and not just have them waiting around while you bash the bus with simple polygons.

I think where Cell will make it's presence felt graphically is in the simple procedural stuff that can easilly be moved to SPU's. Cloth, some animation, seperable physics problems etc etc.

It's a nice idea to have Cell help out RSX, but I'm not sure it's the best use of the resoirces.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

ERP, are you going to be working on PS3 that you know of? It'll be interesting to see how things develop from experience and I'd like to know if you'll get the chance to investigate possibilities further firsthand.

Of course it'll help a lot to understand what Cell can contribute to RSX when we actually know what RSX is!

 

[mckmas8808]

What he was referring to was using the GPU to lay down basic pixel parameters like say normal, position ond other bits and pieces.

Then use cell to post process the buffer applying lighting to the rendered pixels.

It's an interesting idea, and it's unclear how well it would work or whether it would be a performance win.

I think where Cell will make it's presence felt graphically is in the simple procedural stuff that can easilly be moved to SPU's. Cloth, some animation, seperable physics problems etc etc.

It's a nice idea to have Cell help out RSX, but I'm not sure it's the best use of the resoirces.

Thanks ERP. Can't wait for that show in a week.

 

[pixelbox]

Tekken Tag Tournament, I think.

really? are you sure it wasn't a post-fliter effect?

 

[London Geezer]

really? are you sure it wasn't a post-fliter effect?

What is AA afterall if not a post processing routine?

 

[pixelbox]

What is AA afterall if not a post processing routine?

well, i remember at that other site it was at, they said the AA in ps2 was useless and the software AA wasn't really doing anything but bluring the image. they also said that dev were just using lighter colors because the ps2 wasn't able to do "REAL" software AA. oK, so is it "REAL" software/hardware AA or are devs using lighter colors?

 

[London Geezer]

well, i remember at that other site it was at, they said the AA in ps2 was useless and the software AA wasn't really doing anything but bluring the image. they also said that dev were just using lighter colors because the ps2 wasn't able to do "REAL" software AA. oK, so is it "REAL" software/hardware AA or are devs using lighter colors?

I have no idea what you mean with all that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can confirm myself one PS2 game that uses true AA. I own it and the superior image quality is undeniable. There may be other titile that take a different approach and use a blurred frame in combination to try to improve things, but that's not AA at all. And such a method would mess up texture quality even if it had a positive effect on hiding jaggies (which is doesn't really).

 

[pixelbox]

I have no idea what you mean with all that.

Sorry, what i meant was is there a game on ps2 that uses true AA and not some cheap post-processed filter done in software. I was under the impression ps2 could never do ture AA in hardware or software. I always thought devs used a lighter palet to prevent contrast from causing jaggies.

And Shifty Geezer, mind telling me what uses true AA? Kinda left me hanging there.