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Sony Says Nobody Will Ever Use All the Power of a PS3
Tighthead Prop writes "Sony executive Phil Harrison has made some brash comments about the Cell processor and the PlayStation 3. Harrison says that the current PS3 game lineup is using less than half of the machines power, adding that 'nobody will ever use 100 percent of its capacity.' Is he right? 'The major reason Harrison wants to hype up the "unlimited" potential of the PS3's architecture is to downplay comparisons between games running on Sony's console and Microsoft's Xbox 360. The two systems are not completely dissimilar: they both contain a PowerPC core running at 3.2 GHz, both have similarly-clocked GPUs, and both come with 512 MB of RAM.'"
Hold on. Why sell a product with something the consumer will never use? Unless this is a rallying cry, why make consumers pay hundreds of dollars for something they aren't going to use?!
But Harrison could be correct depending on how he defines 'capacity.' In the world of computer science, one must be careful with the absolute of "never ever" but he hasn't defined capacity sufficiently. Now if he means there will never be a PS3 game capable of using it to the full capacity then he's probably right.
My work here is dung.
Ubisoft says Assassins Creed will have more intelligent AI in the 360 version simply because the three dedicated cores offer more raw horsepower that the PS3 doesn't have. You can also tell that the PS3 has run into some issues regarding the limit of 256MB of texture memory compared to the 360, most textures are all blurry and low res compared to their 360 counterparts. It's the PS2 hype all over again.
Or there is another reason, far less flamebait than my GP post: since the PS3 and the 360 are somehow similar, game developpers will be tempted to build their games on the common ground between those tho systems, therefore, even with a superior PS3, the game will be exactly as it is on the 360.
Not being able to utilize 100% of the computing power is inherent in the design of the Cell processor. Don't get me wrong, its a powerful chip, but its like any multi/distributed/multithreaded-processor. With the Cell it takes time to set up and tear down the configuration between the processors, and if there is no data to work on this very nanosecond then that processor is starved and is essentially spinning and waiting for something to do. The cell has some unique capabilities to configure its processor units in parallel or in a serial data flow through shared memory, but if the task can not be broken down into appropriate computational algorithms that keep every processor unit busy then you are simply not running at 100%.
Having said that, for such a nerd-oriented site, I can't believe some of the parsing going on here, and it must come down at least partially to latent Sony-hate (for whatever reason).
Let's just put the word 'Sony' aside, for ONE second. Just bear with me here.
The PS3's 3.2 GHz Cell processor, developed jointly by Sony, Toshiba and IBM ("STI"), is an implementation to dynamically assign physical processor cores to do different types of work independently. It has a PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and six accessible 3.2 GHz Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs), a seventh runs in a special mode and is dedicated to OS security, and an eighth disabled to improve production yields. The PPE, SPE's and other elements ("units") are connected via an Element Interconnect Bus which serves to connect all of the units in a ring-style bus. The PPE has a 512 KiB level 2 cache and one VMX vector unit. Each SPE is a RISC processor with 128 128-bit SIMD GPRs and superscalar functions. Each SPE contains 256 KiB of non-cached memory (local storage, "LS") that is shared by program code and work data. SPEs may access more data in the main memory using DMA. The floating point performance of the whole system (CPU + GPU) is reported to be 2 TFLOPS[74]. PlayStation 3's Cell CPU achieves 204 GFLOPS single precision float and 15 GFLOPS double precision. The PS3 will ship with 256 MiB of Rambus XDR DRAM, clocked at CPU die speed.
That is one deeply weird hunk of hardware. And its pretty fucking cool. Or at least, IBM seems to think so.
Someone has tried to dumb down an explanation like this to our boy Phil and he shat out this 'will never use the full potential' idiocy, which in turn riles all the nerds because its just such a lame thing to say, you can poke holes in it all day (such as, 'why build such a complicated beast if we will never be able to program it - equally idiotic).
So the statement is 100% true, and 100% meaningless.
Like the hamburger truck at the end of my street that claims Greatest Burgers in the Universe.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I thought the PS3 had an all-new processor called the Cell, nothing to do with PPC but designed from scratch to be massively parellisable and distributed - a cluster in a box in fact. Was I dreaming? Or could it be that the story submitter took a bit of a knock in the maul or a ruck, or had a scrum come down on him, with consequent massive brain trauma and oxygen starvation? That's what happened to me - tighthead in the hardest postion on the damn pitch IMO, you can't even punch your oppo back... mind you this is Welsh borders school rugby I'm talking about. Much more important than just a came.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Sure you could use all of the memory fairly easily, but could you soak up every single CPU cycle available to you, especially during the H Blanks? Even if you did that, could you soak up all of the cycles during the (relatively long) V Blank? Remember, even a cycle or two of "slack" would mean you're not using 100% of the machine, and worse, even if you did use up every single cycle of CPU time, you can bet that some marginal machines with slightly marginal processors will roll the screen if you do that.
Even if you managed that, your game would require two joysticks to play and require constant input on both of them, otherwise you'd be wasting a joystick port. I'm not even going to get into the mode switches and whatnot. It's basically impossible to use 100% of any machine like that.
I read the internet for the articles.
You don't have to be a pro driver to get the most out of a Ferrari on a race track. I've taken my Porsche on several tracks, as part of the PCA Driver Education program (basically a racing school without the high cost). I'd further argue that anybody who drives a Ferrari and slams on the brakes to avoid an accident is using it to the fullest, but I doubt that limiting "performance" to braking performance would sway much opinion...
Just junk food for thought...
Remember, when the NES came out, the video game market was just recovering from a horrendous crash. (that, for a couple years, prevented Nintendo from gaining ground in America) No one knew how long the console would "last," so there was no reason not to try to squeeze everything out of it possible. (resulting in games like Battletoads which, to this day, look closer to the 16-bit games than 8-bit) Same even held true for the next generation. The future was fuzzy. Better to use incredible programming tricks to give the Genesis "Mode 7" effects or hack math coprocessors onto the cart than bet on something better being around the corner.
If you disagree with this, just ask yourself - would Starfox, with its horribly expensive hardware hacks, have EVER have been made if people were certain a polygon-based console was less than two years away?
But after the Saturn and Playstation came out, and the PSX became huge, suddenly the next generation started to be a sure thing. Why squeeze every drop of power when you can just wait a little longer and release a game on a superior system? I refer you, for example, to Shenmue - began development on the Saturn (as a Virtua Fighter spinoff), finally released on the Dreamcast. Or Dinosaur Planet / Starfox Adventures - first for N64, finally released on Gamecube. Ditto for Eternal Darkness. There are innumerable examples these days.
And SPEAKING of Shenmue, there's also a cautionary tale there. The Dreamcast was 2 years into its life. The PS2 was on the horizon, and Sony was fudding endlessly to try to get people to save their money for the PS2. Sega decided (unwisely) to try to have their actions speak louder than their words and poured *$80 Million Dollars* into a supergame which was going to be so incredibly good that no one who saw it would even see the NEED for a PS2.
That game, of course, was Shenmue. And it was probably better looking and playing than the first wave of PS2 games. None the less, it didn't save the console. And, in fact, its huge expense likely contributed greatly to Sega's rapid crumble afterwards. (and AM2's followup effort, Propeller Arena, looked better than PS2 flight sims for a couple years following... except that it was dumped by Sega and was never even officially released)
So, combined, what we have here is a very clear message - DON'T TRY TO PRESERVE A DYING CONSOLE. There is no easily-seen reason to do so any more. It sucks, but it's true. You (the developer) can make just as much money delaying the game's release for a year or two, and you risk sinking your entire company if you try too hard to hold onto the past.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
2K Games/Take-Two/Rockstar * Red Dead Revolver 2 ~Rockstar North, TBA~ (i'm betting not exclusive by the time it comes out. Atlus * Shin Megami Tensei 4 ~Atlus R&D1, TBA~ Capcom * Devil May Cry 4 ~Capcom Studio 1, Q4 2007~ * Monster Hunter 3 ~Capcom Studio 1, 2008~ Eidos * Age of Conan ~Funcom, Q3 2007~ (not exclusive, coming to PC if i'm not mistaken) * Untitled ~Action~ ~TBD, TBA~ (not a game, stupid) Koei * Blade Storm: Hundred Years War ~Omega Force, 2007~ * Fatal Inertia ~Koei Canada, 2007~ * Mahjong Taikai IV ~In-house, Nov. 22~ (who cares?) * Ni-Oh ~In-house, 2007~ Konami * Bomberman ~Hudson, TBA~ (if it's as awesome as the last bomberman for x360...) * Coded Arms: Assault ~KCET, 2007~ (another psp port?) * Gradius VI ~TBD, TBA~ * Mahjong Fight Club ~TBD, Launch~ (who cares!) * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots ~Kojima Productions, Q4 2007~ * Rengoku: The End of the Century ~Hudson, TBA~ * Untitled ~RPG~ ~TBD, TBA~ (not a game) * Untitled ~RPG~ ~Hudson, TBA~ (not a game) Midway * Unreal Tournament 2007 ~Epic, 2007~ (coming to pc, if you were a betting man) Namco Bandai * Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire ~BEC, Launch~ * Ridge Racer 7 ~In-house, Launch~ (isn't this ridge racer 6?) * Tekken 6 ~In-house, 2007~ * Untitled ~Anime Project~ ~TBD, TBA~ (not a game) * Untitled ~Mech Action~ ~TBD, TBA~ (duh) * Untitled ~RPG~ ~TBD, TBA~ (duh) * Untitled ~Shooter~ ~TBD, TBA~ (duh) * Untitled ~Sports~ ~TBD, TBA~ (shutup) Nippon Ichi Software * Makai Wars ~In-house, TBA~ (probably not american released) Sega Sammy * Fifth Phantom Saga ~Sonic Team, TBA~ * Full Auto 2: Battlelines ~Pseudo, Launch~ (full auto port) * Guilty Gear BB ~Arc System Works, TBA~ * Miyazato Sega Golf Club ~AM1, Launch~ (not american launch?) * Virtua Fighter 5 ~AM2, Q1 2007~ * Untitled ~RPG~ ~Obsidian, TBA~ (not a game, yet)
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
"Sony has convinced you that you *need* blu-ray..and it's just not true."
:-)
That depends... I actually bought a PS3 almost solely for watching Blu-Ray movies. If you look around, the 20G PS3 is actually the best high definition DVD player for the money. It's even cheaper than standalone players that won't do a fraction of what the PS3 can do. I know the 360 has an add-on but the lack of HDMI output was a deal-breaker for me. For someone who doesn't need/want HDMI then the 360 + add-on is also a very attractive option.
Now I just need to sit tight and hope Sony's format wins...
The hardest thing would be figure out which parts of the program should go on SPUs. But that's a problem that all multi-threaded apps face, and it's not specific to the PS3. A 360 which intends to use its 3 cores to their full potential has similar issues. If there is something "hard" about it, it is that so few games need the full potential of the system that it's hard to know what it is.
Just look at the games appearing for the PS2. I doubt anyone would have imagined when the PS2 launched that you'd see games like Shadow of the Colossus, Bully or God of War by the end. I expect Harrison is just alluding to that.
The amount of RAM is a different issue from being bottlenecked on the memory subsystem. Long ago a cpu running 1mhz had memory running at the same rate - you could effectively manage a memory access per instruction. Over time CPUs got faster faster than memory got faster. So caches showed up to try to mask it. On a PS2 a cache miss wound up costing 40-60 cycles. Ouch. And the trend has continued, but now it's worse: on the PS3 a cache miss is something ludicrous like 400-600 cycles. Think of it: 500 instructions possible in the time it takes to fetch from memory. Without getting clever, you wind up spending a lot of time stalled waiting for memory. And that's without piles of contention from lots of different threads and processors trying to use the same bus. That's what's meant by being bottlenecked on memory.
IMO, the problem is not the memory latency, it is the CELL-PPE in-order execution the point that kills performance: the CPU instruction pipe becomes blocked waiting for memory load after cache miss. Most modern CPUs that deal with high latency RAMs are usually out-of-order, for increasing IPC, however, the CELL-PPE in-order CPU has to be programmed with explicit prefetch in mind for avoiding pipe stalls. Don't expect great performance from C/C++ code until the compiler gets decent loop unrolling, pipe stall control optimizations, etc. (explicit prefetch will be still necessary for streaming processing).