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IEEE Spectrum On The PS3 Learning Curve
An anonymous reader writes "The Insomniacs is the cover article in the December issue of IEEE Spectrum, discussing developers ramping up to the PS3 hardware. The article features Insomniac Games, who developed the PS3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man. Despite mixed reports in the press, the Insomniac folks are delighted to be working with Sony's technology, and describe the process of helping to make or break a console launch." From the article: "Despite the delays, there's something inside the PS3 that burnished Sony's reputation as a hardware company. The heart of the machine is the powerful new Cell Broadband Engine microprocessor. Developed over the last five years by Sony, IBM, and Toshiba on a reported budget of $400 million, the Cell is not just another chip: it is a giant leap beyond the current generation of computer processors into a nextgen muscle machine optimized for multimedia tasks."
Last I checked, both systems had the same amount of memory. 512 MB. The Xbox 360 cpu and gpu have to share it, while in the ps3 the Cell gets 256 MB, and the gpu gets 256 MB. As simple as the math here is, this is the second time today I've seen someone post the "fact" that the 360 has twice the memory. Where is the 360 supposed to store geometry and textures? The ps3 nvidia chip really isn't anything special compared to the 360's ATI chip... the only really interesting thing is that the Cell has easily twice the vector processing capabilities of the three-core xbox cpu. That probably won't translate into better graphics for at least a year, if ever. It could make for some interesting background applications, like enhanced physics processing or doing something interesting (read: Wii-like) with the HD eyetoy. We won't know for a while though. I agree Sony needs the competition, but it's not as if Microsoft doesn't need to be taken down a couple notches also.