3 ms·

"Programming for the PS3 is no easy task given the strange design of the cell processor and short comings of Sony's SDKs and frameworks." Isn't the Xbox 360 pr

by newsio 17y ago

"Programming for the PS3 is no easy task given the strange design of the cell processor and short comings of Sony's SDKs and frameworks." Isn't the Xbox 360 processor based on the Cell design?

vollmond 17y ago
looks like it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Xenon_in_Xbox_360 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Xenon_in_...
wmf 17y ago
The 360's processor is based on the good part of Cell, not the impossible-to-program parts.
chaostheory 17y ago
yeah all of the cpu's for this gen of consoles are from IBM including the Wii Someone can correct me, but to me the main difference between the 360's cpu and PS3's cpu, besides the number of cores, is that the 360's cpu cores are more general purpose while not all of the Cell's cores are equal... The Cell has one main core (PPE) and 8 Synergistic Processor Elements (SPEs). These SPEs are not as powerful as a normal core (and I think one of them is reserved for the OS), and (I think) they're main purpose is solely for graphics (well mainly good at dealing with floating point nums). If I remember correctly, the 360 has three general purpose, equally powerful cores (PPEs) in its version of the IBM cpu. I can imagine someone from IBM probably selling a Sony exec on how the Cell processor can save money by having Cell do both general processing and handling all the video rendering without a separate GPU... which we all know didn't quite work as well as Sony had hoped, since PS3's had an NVidia chip plopped in last min (this probably explains why programming for a PS3 really sucks since Sony wasn't planning on having a separate GPU)
- Retric 17y ago
  The PS3 has a graphics card. SPE's can be used to preprocess some information to increase graphics quality or to crunch numbers for AI code, or do any number of things. The problem is you can either code for the lowest common denominator between the systems and mostly ignore SPE's or build a game focusing on the PS3. PS3 has: Cell@3.2Ghz, yada yada RSX 550 MHz, 300+ million transistors, ~200 GFLOPs PS: The RSX has a higher GFLOPs than the Cell but it's only really usefull for specific graphics operations.
  - chaostheory 17y ago
    "The PS3 has a graphics card" I mentioned that. The problem is PS3 wasn't meant to have a graphics card. The Cell was envisioned to do everything from the start. Years of planning went by before something inexplicably changed (maybe what they saw in real life didn't match what IBM promised?). The graphics card was added in at the last minute (which essentially resulted in a quick hack for release) or Sony's SDK/frameworks would have made it easier to use everything. In Sony's defense, MS and Nintendo had some planning snafus too. Wii has that weird system for OS updates / new features and 360 will always be associated with red rings.

by newsio 17y ago

"Programming for the PS3 is no easy task given the strange design of the cell processor and short comings of Sony's SDKs and frameworks." Isn't the Xbox 360 processor based on the Cell design?

vollmond 17y ago

looks like it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Xenon_in_Xbox_360 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Xenon_in_...

wmf 17y ago

The 360's processor is based on the good part of Cell, not the impossible-to-program parts.

chaostheory 17y ago

yeah all of the cpu's for this gen of consoles are from IBM including the Wii Someone can correct me, but to me the main difference between the 360's cpu and PS3's cpu, besides the number of cores, is that the 360's cpu cores are more general purpose while not all of the Cell's cores are equal... The Cell has one main core (PPE) and 8 Synergistic Processor Elements (SPEs). These SPEs are not as powerful as a normal core (and I think one of them is reserved for the OS), and (I think) they're main purpose is solely for graphics (well mainly good at dealing with floating point nums). If I remember correctly, the 360 has three general purpose, equally powerful cores (PPEs) in its version of the IBM cpu. I can imagine someone from IBM probably selling a Sony exec on how the Cell processor can save money by having Cell do both general processing and handling all the video rendering without a separate GPU... which we all know didn't quite work as well as Sony had hoped, since PS3's had an NVidia chip plopped in last min (this probably explains why programming for a PS3 really sucks since Sony wasn't planning on having a separate GPU)

Retric 17y ago
The PS3 has a graphics card. SPE's can be used to preprocess some information to increase graphics quality or to crunch numbers for AI code, or do any number of things. The problem is you can either code for the lowest common denominator between the systems and mostly ignore SPE's or build a game focusing on the PS3. PS3 has: Cell@3.2Ghz, yada yada RSX 550 MHz, 300+ million transistors, ~200 GFLOPs PS: The RSX has a higher GFLOPs than the Cell but it's only really usefull for specific graphics operations.
- chaostheory 17y ago
  "The PS3 has a graphics card" I mentioned that. The problem is PS3 wasn't meant to have a graphics card. The Cell was envisioned to do everything from the start. Years of planning went by before something inexplicably changed (maybe what they saw in real life didn't match what IBM promised?). The graphics card was added in at the last minute (which essentially resulted in a quick hack for release) or Sony's SDK/frameworks would have made it easier to use everything. In Sony's defense, MS and Nintendo had some planning snafus too. Wii has that weird system for OS updates / new features and 360 will always be associated with red rings.