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Sony Announces GScube Development System
A reader writes: "At the SIGGRAPH 2000 computer graphics conference this week, Sony Computer Entertainment announced its 'strategic vision for the evolution of computer entertainment in the broadband network era.' At the core of this vision is a piece of hardware which is composed of the same building blocks as the PlayStation2, but multiplied many times. The GScube development system, as it is called, will be used in the development of 'e-cinema,' computer graphics movies and other new digital content.
The GScube prototypes are powered by 16 Emotion Engines and 16 Graphics Synthesizers. Yes, this is 16 PlayStation2s rolled into one. It is NOT a game system, though, so don't write into Q&A asking about what games will be released for it. It's a computer graphics workstation, comparable to the systems created by Silicon Graphics and other companies to produce high-quality CG movies. It'll be a bit too expensive for you to pick up at your local Toys R Us." So, the going theories about Emotion Engine as general purpose CPU seem to pan out.
Yes, the export restrictions on the PS2 got plenty of media attention, yes, there were plenty of authortative sources cited telling you exactly how many PS2s you could take home.
But about a month ago, a friend of mine traveled to Japan, and brought back eight PS2s. Yes, eight (8) of them.
With no problem. In fact, he asked customs about it when he arrived, and again, just before he bought them, and they laughed and told him that they had seen the news, but that there had never been any official hold on PS2s. In fact, one of them actually said something along the lines of "it's just for publicity".
Now, this is one person, and I have no idea where he came in/went out of Japan (other than by air between the US and Japan), but I would think that such a loose attitude would not exist in customs officials unless it really was just a PR stunt.
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Evan (YMMV, IANAJ)
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Okay, here's a press release we released today - basically it means that Renderware and Rendervision will be avaliable on the GSCube - Renderware is a middleware cross-platform graphics library, and RenderVision is this cool system that allows you to preview your scene (and walk through) your scene that you are designing in your 3D package instantly on your target platform (like PS2, for instance...)
(Actually, I work for the Fiendish Games part of Criterion...)
Criterion Software delivers RenderWare on Sony Computer Entertainment's GScube Development System
RenderWare ushers in the future of real-time digital creation in the broadband era
NEW ORLEANS, July 25th, 2000 - Criterion Software today announced a major milestone in its mission to provide a seamless digital content development path from concept to delivery, with the demonstration of its market leading Renderware3 interactive 3D graphics middleware driving Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s GScube visualizer prototype for e-cinema and real-time digital content creation.
A subsidiary of Canon, headquartered in Guildford, UK, Criterion Software Ltd. is the leading developer of multimedia middleware for convergence platforms, including next generation videogame consoles, digital televisions and web terminals.
"We reshaped the world of 3D middleware with the invention of our Renderware3 Powerpipe architecture." said David Lau-Kee, President, Criterion Software, "Powerpipe is a uniquely flexible graphics software architecture that allows unprecedented control over content-specific processing, special effects and acceleration. Now, driving the GScube development system, the benefits of this flexibility towards the creation of insanely inventive digital content by studios across all forms of visual entertainment become startling clear."
Subject to agreement, Criterion Software expects to provide its 3D middleware and tools, including Renderware for 3D programmers and RenderVisionTM for 3D artists, to GScube application and content developers in the near future.
"Criterion Software is a valued partner for our PlayStation2 middleware program," said Makoto Hatakenaka, Vice President, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "and we are pleased that they are providing the same high level of commitment and support to GScube, our next step in pioneering the creation of real-time digital entertainment.
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
Recognized as the undisputed global leader and company responsible for the progression of consumer-based computer entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) manufacturers, distributes and markets the PlayStation game console and PlayStation2 computer entertainment system. SCEI, along with its subsidiary divisions Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd., develops, publishes, markets and distributes software, and manages the third party licensing programs for these two platforms in the respective markets worldwide. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is an independent business unit of Sony Corporation.
Criterion Software
Criterion Software develops and distributes the market leading 3D middleware tools for convergence platforms, including RenderWare3 for 3D programmers and RenderVision for 3D artists, and distributes complementary 3rd party tools, such as Metrowerks CodeWarrior® game development tools for PlayStation2 computer entertainment system in Europe and North America.
RenderWare is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. RenderVision is a trademark of Criterion Software Ltd. PlayStation is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other company and product names may be registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies/holders, and are hereby recognized.
Face it the best systems for games are the really expensive cutting edge ones.
Heh, yep. About two decades ago when I was working at Concordia University we got in a brand spanking new VAX 11/780, complete with a Norpak graphics unit for some mechanical engineering project, and an A/D - D/A converter for some speech recognition project.
Starting from a simple program to put a shape on the graphics screen and move it around, it wasn't long before I had multi-player "Vaxteroids" running on it: input was by keyboard from the various VT-52 terminals in the room, display was on the central large monitor connected to the graphics box (not card!), and sound was via an amp and speaker I'd rigged up to the D/A outputs. The whole thing written in Fortran, running under VMS no less.
Not quite up to the likes of Galaxian that was hitting the arcades about that time, but better (IMHO) than original Asteroids and multi (up to 4) players (kind of a cross between Asteroids and Space War).
-- Alastair
This is simply not finely grained enough for professional use. Do some calculations- first, you know what 8 bit audio sounds like? Familiarize yourself with how bad that sounds and how grungy it is. In 16 bit linear encoding, 8 bit sound is present at a volume level of 0.39 percent of the total volume of the recording (less than a hundredth of full volume). This does not sound significant, but check that out in _db_- volume is _logarithmic_. In decibels, that 'grunge zone' with eight bit resolution is not 96 db down, not 80, but around _50_ db down. 50 db and 96 db are pretty damn different, aren't they? 50 db is within the range of any junky thing with speakers on it.
When you say that 16 bit is 96 db and 96 db down is 'the quietest sounds you can hear' you are conveniently overlooking the fact that those 'sounds' 96 db down are _one_ _bit_. One bit is not 'sound'. One bit is old PC speakers or music played over the one-bit tone generator on old Apple IIs. I would argue that 8 bits is not sound either, but cheap noise to send over the web or something- and if you listened to 8 bit audio even at 44.1K you'd likely agree. Yet that 8 bit zone is in _all_ 16 bit recordings, a mere 50 db down. Anything around 50 db down is being represented by merely 8 bits... hell, 12 bits is still noticably compromised and that is a mere 20 db down. This sort of thing is not acceptable for professional work- hence the amazing and deeply needed proliferation of 20 and 24 bit devices, and of internal busses of DSPs running at 24 or 32 or even 48 bits or more, for doing calculations without losing everything to rapidly accumulating bit error.
20 bits, 24 bits are not perfect, but they are a hell of a lot better. A 20 bit unit like my ADAT is running around 12 bits where a CD would be down to 8- which is enough better (it's 50 db down after all) to leave little room to gripe. 20 db down, the 20 bit unit is at 16 bits. If you have a fully 24 bit unit, it's going to have 16 bits available a whole 50 db down, and get very close in practice to what you mistakenly believe for 16 bit digital audio- that you'll get infinitesimally faint sounds recorded and sounding convincing and believable. There's no way you're going to do that with 50 db down having all the resolution of a Sun .au file, but it doesn't take all that many more bits to fix matters.
I should thank you for inspiring me to hunt down these various formulas and tables and to work this out mathematically- I didn't realise it was quite as bad as it is! :) It's a piss-poor engineer who can't get 50 db of dynamic range out of his recordings if he tries :)
When you are looking at your specs, use these numbers for a reference of what the maximum signal quality is for various bit depths (given linear encoding these are the SAME NUMBERS as Matt gives- but ouch, when you get a sense of what it actually means in practice!)
The difference between GScube and some of its predecessors in this field of computer equipment seems to be that GScube is being created with real-time content generation in mind. The overall plan seems to involve generating content with this development system, which is then streamed from a powerful server to viewers downloading it via broadband Internet connections.
What do they mean by real time content generation? Is the article just throwing out buzzwords or do they think that someone is going to be creating something on one of these boxes and simultaneously uploading it so that it can be streamed from a "powerful server?" That would seem a little hard to swallow. Are they trying to say that these things can render so quickly that they will practically (or actually) be able to pull off real-time raytracing as a developer is creating something, so once he has finished he can send it to the server to be downloaded to everyone lucky enough to have a high-bandwidth connection?
mmm...real-time raytracing. that would be something.
Moller
>Carmack gives a good explanation on why wee need more than jsut 32 bit color.
That's a good pointer. Thank you.
What he's talking about is basically roundoff error that occurs when multiple operations are applied to a pixel. He may have a point. OTOH, there's a little voice in my head that says the accumulation of roundoff errors is not really inevitable but is really an artifact of exactly how and in which order those operations are done in a "traditional" rendering scheme. Obviously it's going to be even worse with something like 3dfx's fractional-pixel FSAA scheme. Maintaining higher-precision color information, at least in some parts in the rendering process, may be the easiest solution, but I think we also need to consider whether this accumulation of roundoff errors is a sign that traditional rendering methods are headed down the wrong path entirely.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
It is believed by many that Sony had in fact asked it's government to do this in order to:
- Create enormous media hype. This of course happened very successfully and even had its own Slashdot story!
- Prevent people from legally exporting amounts (larger than 2?) of PS2 from Japan and into a foreign market where Sony hadn't officially launched the product. Most notably, the United States.
On the other hand, considering that:and thus has considerable processing muscle, wouldn't it be extremely ironic if the GScube is placed under strict export laws by the Japanese government because it is a mini-supercomputer that can become a "threat to world peace by 'rogue states'." Now wouldn't that be a hilarious thought?
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
So what software is available for it? This is going to be about useless unless there is some useful software ported to it. I doubt that we are going to see Maya, SoftImage, or any Discreet Logic tools on it anytime soon. Granted, big companies like Digital Domain and ILM can dedicate some programmers to porting in house tools, but why would they want to? For the same amount that it would cost them to pay for the developers time, they can buy a couple more SGIs. I'll be curious to see what the future brings for this product.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
First things first. They probably won't run Linux on this thing. Even if they do, it will be either /.) and to get full performance out of it, its going to take specialized software. Not only are most off the shelf apps just not designed for 16 way operation, but none are designed with the peculiarities of the PS2 hardware in mind. More likely than not, Sony will probably get some companies to port special versions of their software and more likely than not will use a custom OS for the machine. (Though the choice of OS really doesn't matter.) As for performance, specially designed software will scream on this machine. 3D is a very easy task to split up between multiple processors and thus, the 16 way architecture will result in at least 10X the performance of a PS2. To put that into perspective, a PS2 is a good deal more powerful than a GeForce2 GTS, probably on par (or exceeding) Intergraph's Wildcat 4210 (the fastest PC based OpenGL accelerator.) Now at 10x that performance, you've got a machine easily capable of trashing most SGIs. Its not a Reality Engine, but if Sony can pull this off in a sane price it should be quite a machine. Secondly, has anybody notice the amount of embedded RAM on this thing? 32MB per chip! Not only is that one hell of a jump from 4MB on the PS2, but I'm wondering how they got a manufacturing process to handle all those transistors without having 1% yields.
A) Heavily tweeked or
B) Simply serve as a host for some special access libraries. This is a very parallel machine with a lot of quirks (graphics RAM divided into 16 32MB chunks for example) (read the article about the difficulty of programming the Playstation 2 earlier on
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Rami James
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