Cell Explained

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-01-21 05:57am

Someone on the net has collected all the information on the new Cell processors from Sony, and organized it, very intresting information.

Possible SETI unit in 5 minutes.

http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell1.html

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-21 09:52am

Biological thinking wins again!

Uh, yeah. It looks promising. If it's going to surpass the Emotion Engine well, it better be something special.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2005-01-21 09:59am

The Emotion Engine was nothing special itself. Way underpowered compared to Sony's claims of how good it was going to be. FFVIII cut scenes in real time my ass.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-21 10:09am

Hamel wrote:The Emotion Engine was nothing special itself. Way underpowered compared to Sony's claims of how good it was going to be. FFVIII cut scenes in real time my ass.

Yeah, I meant to beat the Emotion Engine's hype really, because if it could deliver what Sony says, then it may well be amazing technology.

The Emotion Engine was a let down, only at trade shows did it show any real power if only because specific apps. were made for show.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2005-01-21 10:25am

I wonder why the article didn't talk about Sony going to Nvidia for their graphics processing solution. All the hype seems to be along the lines of the Cell being the ultimate and capable of anything. So why did Sony go to Nvidia for the NV50 when, according to the article, GPUs for the foreseeable future won't hold a candle to Cell?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-21 11:06am

I'm sure there's a reason for it. Maybe Nvidia have a deal going with Sony or a technology that the Cell system hasn't implemented as it'd be cheaper to use a third party GPU.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-01-21 11:10am

Back up a bit.

http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.html

Very interesting Especially the Cell vs PC section.

I wonder if Apple will brand this the G6 and use it?

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2005-01-21 11:26am

Okay, the PS3 sounds like a bitch to program for, using multiple CPUs in
a single console? This is what killed the Sega Saturn vs PSX, even though
Saturn was more technically promising than PSX.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-21 11:33am

The Emotion Engine was powerful on paper but in execution the thing was crippled by a few external issues. Maybe in tests they hooked an EE up to massive amounts of bandwidth but the PS2 didn't have anywhere near the amount neccessary to feed it.

Remember that most of the Cell's strength is likely from its SIMD cores. While good, we'll see how powerful they'll be once out in the real world. Vector processing is hard enough, nevermind if Sony wants to use four of those things (concurrency is a bitch).

NVidia will be making the GPU probable because the Cell isn't really optimized for that sort of thing. I mean, the NV40 is capable of an astonishing level of performance ... for a limited set of instructions. You don't see GPUs replacing the CPU, do you?

MKSheppard wrote:Okay, the PS3 sounds like a bitch to program for, using multiple CPUs in
a single console? This is what killed the Sega Saturn vs PSX, even though
Saturn was more technically promising than PSX.

This is indeed going to be a cast-iron bitch to program for but there is some more experience now in programming for multiple CPUs and such.

Saturn's multiple-processor design was a problem but that's also because its 3D abilities were kind of grafted on at the last minute--Saturn was supposed to be a mighty 2D machine, not a 3D powerhouse.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2005-01-21 11:45am

Meanwhile, Microsquish will probably make XBOX2 absurdly easy to program for, and we'll see who wins, the technically more advanced, but difficult to program for box, or the idiot box.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-21 11:50am

MKSheppard wrote:Meanwhile, Microsquish will probably make XBOX2 absurdly easy to program for, and we'll see who wins, the technically more advanced, but difficult to program for box, or the idiot box.

Xbox2 will be using some PowerPC-derived chip, possibly multiple ones. Whether it'll be harder or easier is as of yet unknown.

HyperionX · Post by **HyperionX** » 2005-01-21 12:42pm

While greatly indepth, much of this is nonsense. The part about Cell replacing PC's is one of those things, because in the end Cell is just a standard microprocessor with vector units attached. You can do the same with any x86 chip. In the end, Cell will be nothing more than the PS3 CPU and that's it.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-21 01:36pm

HyperionX wrote:While greatly indepth, much of this is nonsense. The part about Cell replacing PC's is one of those things, because in the end Cell is just a standard microprocessor with vector units attached. You can do the same with any x86 chip. In the end, Cell will be nothing more than the PS3 CPU and that's it.

Nobody shifted products by telling it as it is.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-21 02:11pm

Yes, but Sony does an exceptional job at BSing performance.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-21 02:16pm

phongn wrote:Yes, but Sony does an exceptional job at BSing performance.

And that is why they're one of the world's leading console companies.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2005-01-21 02:46pm

phongn wrote:Yes, but Sony does an exceptional job at BSing performance.

Sega is better. "Blast processing," anyone? ROFL!

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-01-21 02:57pm

Chardok wrote:
phongn wrote:Yes, but Sony does an exceptional job at BSing performance.
Sega is better. "Blast processing," anyone? ROFL!

if sega really was better they might still be making consoles.

Damaramu · Post by **Damaramu** » 2005-01-21 03:00pm

Genesis does what Nintendon't, suckaaaahs!!!

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-21 03:01pm

Alright, back on topic.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-01-21 03:45pm

Meanwhile, Microsquish will probably make XBOX2 absurdly easy to program for, and we'll see who wins, the technically more advanced, but difficult to program for box, or the idiot box.

That was the situation with PS2 vs. Xbox... the former being more difficult to program for than the latter. Didn't have much effect, did it?

Anyway, who cares? I fear the day when there's only one major console to buy, because that's when games will start to suck ass. Competition is a GOOD thing for us consumers.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-01-21 03:57pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:I'm sure there's a reason for it. Maybe Nvidia have a deal going with Sony or a technology that the Cell system hasn't implemented as it'd be cheaper to use a third party GPU.

I'm also sure there's a reason for it, but I think the reason is that the guy who wrote that is full of shit. Cell-based desktops supplanting PCs? Puh-lease.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2005-01-21 04:10pm

MKSheppard wrote:Meanwhile, Microsquish will probably make XBOX2 absurdly easy to program for, and we'll see who wins, the technically more advanced, but difficult to program for box, or the idiot box.

Microsoft have already laid out the programming toolset for the X-Box Next.

It's called XNA, and is designed to be a crossplatform development toolset for both Xbox and PC (it will apparently incorporate DirectX 10). It is, apparently, very easy to program with indeed, especially for graphics.

They were even boasting, when they announced it, about supporting XNA on the PS3 or Revolution, if Sony or Nintendo were interested.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-01-21 04:20pm

Hamel wrote:I wonder why the article didn't talk about Sony going to Nvidia for their graphics processing solution. All the hype seems to be along the lines of the Cell being the ultimate and capable of anything. So why did Sony go to Nvidia for the NV50 when, according to the article, GPUs for the foreseeable future won't hold a candle to Cell?

Actully it did mention, and as I see it(and IIRC) nVidia is providing the chip, and some technical help, leaving implementation to Sony.

Whats intresting is what happens when someone reprogramms the PS3 into a PC or linux box, think of the power?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-21 04:55pm

Ace Pace wrote:Actully it did mention, and as I see it(and IIRC) nVidia is providing the chip, and some technical help, leaving implementation to Sony.

Whats intresting is what happens when someone reprogramms the PS3 into a PC or linux box, think of the power?

Methinks you need to start learning about how a computer actually works. Sure, the Cell will probably have a huge number of vector units but most work on the PC side is done by integer and floating point operations. SIMD/vector operations are not as common, especially because such things are hard to do.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-01-21 05:04pm

phongn wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Actully it did mention, and as I see it(and IIRC) nVidia is providing the chip, and some technical help, leaving implementation to Sony.

Whats intresting is what happens when someone reprogramms the PS3 into a PC or linux box, think of the power?
Methinks you need to start learning about how a computer actually works. Sure, the Cell will probably have a huge number of vector units but most work on the PC side is done by integer and floating point operations. SIMD/vector operations are not as common, especially because such things are hard to do.

Okey, my mistake

Then not using a PC, I would still be intrested in seeing how fast this thing runs some of the more complex stuff in the PC side, big media stuff, games maybe.