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Next-Gen Console CPUs Not Up to Hype
rAiNsT0rm writes "Anandtech follows up their initial in-depth coverage of the Xbox 360 and PS3 CPU with the real truth about the next-gen consoles' Poor CPU Performance. From the article: "Speaking under conditions of anonymity with real world game developers who have had first hand experience writing code for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hardware (and dev kits where applicable), we asked them for nothing more than their brutal honesty. What did they think of these new consoles? Are they really outfitted with the PC-eclipsing performance we've been lead to believe they have? The answer is actually quite frequently found in history; as with anything, you get what you pay for."" Update: 06/30 21:11 GMT by Z : The original article disappeared from Anandtech, so I've changed the link to point to the story as hosted by Google Groups.
The revolution is for you. Not only are nintendo games known for being popular around kids, but the Revolution will have downloadable classics that ran on old systems.
It is true that they have no released a MRSP for the next-gen consoles however Merrill Lynch business analysts have placed their estimate for the PS3 at $399USD. What makes this interesting is that it has been expected that each system will cost Sony $494 to build. The full article can be read here.
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No shit. 2-issue and in-order requires hand tuned coding. Yes there is a whollop for a "cache miss" (fetching out to main mem) on the SPE's of the Cell processor. But there are ways to code around that. Split the local store up into smaller chunks and fetch data to fill the smaller chunks while the SPE plugs away on the chunks filled with data. That's why the SPE has TWO pipes. One pipe is for memory loads, the other pipe is for data processing.
t echdocs/E815CC047A60914687256FC000734156/$file/ISS CC-07.4-Cell_SPU.PDF
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http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/
http://research.scea.com/research/html/CellGDC05/
http://research.scea.com/research/html/CellGDC05/
If you don't split up the local store, you're going to incurr a 500 cycle penalty while waiting for memory. If you split up the local store, you can fetch to half the mem and process on the other half. This amortizes, if not completely masks the cost of main memory access.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's up to the developer to optimize their code and ensure that it is being scheduled properly.
I'd love to hear from a developer that is actually doing everything they can at the low level to optimize data flow. What's their experience with keeping the processors fed with data?
Sony never claimed 160 million polygons per second. These numbers have become fabricated over time. They did claim 70M polygons per second, but nobody ever quotes the context. It was 70M unshaded polygons per second. The number for shaded/textured polygons (in the PS2 datasheet) is 20-30M, and the most recent games are indeed in the (lower end) of that range.
I'd also point out the "Toy Story in Real Time" thing was never a Sony claim either. As far as I've been able to track it down, it was some idiot journalist that made the claim, not a Sony spokesperson or any Sony marketing literature.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
"It is accurate that at this time we will not support high-definition [on Revolution]," Kaplan told IGN.com.
It's really hard to tell what will happen by the time it's released. The Gamecube is theoretically capable of 720p output, though the games only utilize 480p. Considering the video hardware that is being used, it's safe to assume that the Revolution is at least as capable as the Gamecube It's not going to matter all that much, because we're still going to be stuck with 480p DVD movies for a while. 480p is a form of SDTV. Even if it's not "HD", it's still much higher quality than any analog television. Your comment about the RCA analog television is grossly exaggerated.And let's be honest... All three systems will have hardware that's paractically the same, regardless of these cracked out specs and numbers (ironic isn't it that all three are using what is essentiall a next-gen Gamecube with PowerPC and ATI graphics). What it will really boil down to is the games.