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Sony, IBM Announce Cell Workstation For PS3 Dev
Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for its article discussing the little-heralded Sony announcement of a Sony and IBM co-developed, Cell-based workstation for PlayStation 3 (and other) content creation. The article explains: "The workstation, which will ship before the end of the year, will feature an architecture based on the parallel processing Cell chip [also to be used in the PlayStation 3], and will be designed to power digital content creation for movies, television and videogames." GI.Biz also quotes an un-named industry figure as suggesting: "Microsoft should be really worried by this... They've been touting Xbox 2 to their partners and talking about the kind of content they want to see created on the platform - more polygons, higher resolutions, more effects - and our response has been that the tools to create this stuff for games don't really exist yet. Now Sony has effectively created those tools."
Better technology does not always translate to better video games. I'm sure what ever Nintendo or Microsoft use for their next gen architecture will be comparable to the PS3. As for home media centers, I bet Sony will eventually wipe the floor with Microsoft.
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They're telling everyone to get G5s! Brillant!
Wow. I have to say I am so amazed. Get this: Sony has released DEV KITS for their new console. I've never heard of this before! This must be that new-fangled, next generation game development stuff here. Personally, I found it MUCH more interesting when M$ started sending out G5's as Dev Kits. I tried to tell them I'm writing up a great Xbox 2 game, but alas, no Dev Kit to my door.
Don't buy WoW Gold! Make it yourself!
this seems to me just to be the dev station like SONY gave out for the PS2
(they call it something like PS2Tool)
big deal or not ?
o BIG deal at least the hardware is sort of final (can be changed but not likely) that means they taped out and just need to do mass production
o NOT does not say anything about the device or that it includes silicon from the PS3 or just running an emulator
o lets face it you can use all of the tools to do graphics like they do in the movies and games at the moment Maya, 3DS Max and games engines are pretty good about seperating out the display from the AI, sound, physics
now can someone actually give details like a block diagram of the chip ?
regards
John Jones
Building an engine around being able to do x,y & z doesnt nesesarily mean needing to have the equipment to do it all in front of you. Build your engine to be able to do it all, use a high end machine, and downsample your textures and such untill you get a machine that can handle the high rez copies.
Given the choice its always nicer to have the platform be available to you, but you can do a lot before you get to that point (assuming the specs are set in clay).
paul reinheimer
Hmm, IBM, Sony, new chip , not wanting to give M$ a lead ... I wonder what OS this thing will be running..
Could potentially be very very tasty.
nick...
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
The race to get next gen machines to market begins now!
will it run Linux?
I could see it being a good choice but I can't find any mention on what OS it'll run. I wonder if it'll work as a Linux desktop for things other than "content creation"? I did find this press release at IBM though:
Cell-based workstations to be readied for entertainment applications
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Sony has released a dev kit, MS has got XNA in the works. The real company that should be worried is Nintendo... not Microsoft.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
They're announcing the dev kits that should ship 'sometime' before the end of the year.
Personally I see it as the Sony PR FUD machien is running again: "no no, our machine will be much more powerful than theirs".
It worked the last time they were going to show up a year late to the next hardware generation. Why not go back to the well?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
"...digital content from the Cell workstations (whose proposed role reminds us of the market position occupied by Silicon Graphics workstations in the early nineties, before their performance was overtaken by x86 PC systems and PowerPC Macintosh systems)"
And why is modelling your business strategy after a defunct market segment (e.g. Silicon Graphics workstations) a good thing? There is a reason why SG went out of business, people! Because it eventually became cheaper to buy plain old PCs! As much as I like Sony, I think Microsoft has the right tack here, by focusing on the software tools side with XNA, not trying to re-create a specialized hardware market segment for graphics development. With the pace of PC chip development, this will always be a losing game.
IBM seems to be playing both sides this time around. Anyone know any juicy details?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The article is quite amusing PR propaganda. Does the anonymous developer quoted work for Sony? How can Sony releasing vague details about an upcoming devkit result in MS having problems with content transfer? Besides, that's a software issue which can be quite easily resolved. If you want high quality content, you need software to create it as well as hardware.
The workstation will come about after that.
"...will feature an architecture based on the parallel processing Cell chip [also to be used in the PlayStation 3], and will be designed to power digital content creation for movies, television and videogames."
Sounds like a G5 to me. Maybe Microsoft should...hang on, they already did.
The GI.biz article tried to make out having same OS on DevKit is a big deal. It aint. As a console programmer, I've found DevKit OS makes very little difference to host OS. Any embedded systems programmer will tell you this is called "cross-compiling". The PS2 dev kit is actually running Linux, but most folks use Windows to develop the software.
Its kinda cool to have a new player in the workstation market however. Should give Apple a run for their money...
"My cat's breath smells like cat food." - The Tao of Ralph Wiggum.
I'm sure there are some 'beta' XBOX2 dev kits already in developers hands... running on dual G5s...
XBOX has development tools (DIRECT X) already... And isn't dot-net easily cross-compiled?
Perspective is to Science what Interpretation is to Religion. Obama + Paul FTW
No matter what, IBM wins, no, pwns.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Here are rumored specs for Nintendo's next system, from n-sider.com, where you can read a great analysis of them. Apparently Nintendo is passing around 2 different models for the system, and they'll pick one when it gets closer to production. Personally, I like system 1 better, but both are good.
System 1:
2.7 Ghz PowerPC G5 Processor
512 Megs total Ram (128 for video, 64 for sound)
600 Mhz graphics chip
System 2:
Dual 1.8 Ghz IBM G5 PowerPC processors
256 Megs DDR Main memory (64 dedicated to sound, using a 7.1 sound system at 196 Khz)
128 Megs GDDR3 Video memory
500 Mhz graphics chip (ATI developed, 16 Pixel Pipe, 220 Million transistors)
Shared Information:
Built in 15 Gigabyte harddrive
Blue-laser disk technology
Potential DVD playback
Case design philosophy more like the N64, less like the GameCube
Windows market share continues to decline, thanks to Microsoft's failure to port Longhorn to the the PowerPC. By sticking with its legacy Intel platform, instead of migrating to the industry standard RISC chips, Microsoft relegated Windows to a commodity office equipment OS whose sales thunder was rapidly stolen by open source initiatives. A SonyAppleIBMTendo spokesman commented, "serves them bloody well right".
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---