PS3 Linux Performs Real Time Ray Tracing

fistfullast33l writes "A video posted on You Tube shows three PS3s networked together to perform Real Time Ray Tracing. Keep in mind that PS3 Linux runs in a hypervisor, so the RSX graphics chip is not being used at all. Even more impressive, PS3 Fanboy is reporting that Linux also limits the number of SPEs to 6 at once, so not all the horsepower on each of the PS3s is being utilized. According to the You Tube Summary, IBM Cell SDK 2.0 is being used for the IBM Interactive Ray-tracer (iRT). This apparently was done by the same team that presented a tech demo at GDC 2007 of a Linux PS3 rendering a 3 million polygon scene in real time at 1080p resolution."

Comments

Linux doesn't limit the SPEs

[Anonymous Coward]

PS3 Fanboy is reporting that Linux also limits the number of SPEs to 6 at once

That is incorrect - Linux does not limit the SPEs - Out of the 8 available SPEs, the PS3 hardware disables 1 and one is reserved for the hypervisor leaving 6 for Linux running atop the hypervisor.

Graphics applications

[fistfullast33l]

Umm, let's take a look at what you're saying there...

know there's been some limited applications of realtime raytracing in gaming. IIRC your temple in Black & White had some in the ceiling

Umm, I think you have Radiosity confused with ray tracing.

I don't think this is very exciting, however. It's not like it has gaming applications; you need three PS3s to get it done. Wake me up when one PS3 can do realtime raytracing in-game.

Then you must not know much about computer graphics. I doubt you could have done this with the PS2 or the XBox. The fact that a next gen machine can do this is very interesting, especially in a distributed fashion over the network. Distributed computing really is the future, and may someday take place inside game consoles as well. IF you have a spare processor and your buddy doesn't, is it efficient for him to borrow your CPU time? This is definitely a discussion that is occurring in normal computing space, let alone console gaming.

Not to mention, this isn't being done with the Sony SDK. This is done using free tools available via the internet. A college student could build this for a research project if they wished. This is proving that Sony allowing people access to Linux on the machine really is working. It counters the argument of XBLA's framework being the best thing ever. In fact, they could release this code as part of the GPL for free and it wouldn't be encombered by any Microsoft system or Sony system whatsoever.

Re:Graphics applications

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, he probably knows more than you. If you truly knew much about ray-tracing, you would understand why phrases like "real-time raytracing" are a big yawn for anyone with some experience. Ray-tracing can be arbitrarily scaled in complexity (given proper constraints). Heck, there was a game for the Atari Jaguar that claimed to do "real-time raytracing". If I gave you a scene of a thousand diffuse-shaded spheres, I could raytrace that in realtime on a PS2. If I gave you a scene of a thousand semi-transclucent marbles contained in a glass vase on a glass table in a hall of mirrors, I don't care how many PS3s you throw at it, it won't be able to raytrace something that looks good in realtime. If you limit the number of ray bounces and ray transmissions for the Cell to finish it in "realtime", it will look like ass. So "real-time raytracing" is just some amorphous term that sounds cool, but is meaningless as a performance metric. I was using a 3D package in 1992 that did "realtime interactive raytracing" on a machine with 1/100th the CPU power of a PS3. Sometimes it was realtime, sometimes it wasn't. It is all dependent on the scene complexity. Plus, you can get to photorealism (the ultimate goal, right) much more efficiently than via ray-tracing so what's the point?