Sony Claims PS3 Javascript Performance Is Better Than IE7's

Scorpinox writes "According to Sony Online Entertainment, the latest 2.50 update to the Playstation 3, which added Flash 9 support, is 'not up to the level of Google Chrome,' but 'beats Internet Explorer 7' in Javascript performance. The article goes on to say 'Sony has actually been working on Flash 9 support for quite some time — as far back as late last year. To get it running on the PS3, Sony ended up customizing a separate Flash implementation that was provided to it by Adobe.'"

Comments

WTF?

[AKAImBatman]

Let me get this straight. The console that actually uses the Flash plugin for console-style games is stuck at Flash 7 because "Adobe doesn't have an SDK for Flash 9", but somehow Sony manages to get an SDK for Flash 9?

WHISKEY
TANGO
FOXTROT

I demand a recount! Or a refund! Or something.

Re:WTF?

[pembo13]

Is that more an Opera issue than a Nintendo issue?

Re:WTF?

[dreemernj]

That would be a Nintendo issue. Opera developers will basically put whatever features Nintendo wants to pay for. Nintendo seems to have some tight control over anything involving Opera on the Wii. Some very interesting documents posted by Opera developers about the Wii version got quickly removed at the request of Nintendo a while back. Most unfortunate.

Re:WTF?

[moosesocks]

To get it running on the PS3, Sony ended up customizing a separate Flash implementation that was provided to it by Adobe.'"

Most users of Linux on non-x86 platforms should be twitching violently from reading that quote.

Adobe have consistently refused to give their code to anyone. They wouldn't even give it to Apple for use on the iPhone.

I wonder what changed. Are Adobe and Sony both members of the Evil League of Evil?

Re:WTF?

[AKAImBatman]

Sony's access to Adobe's software proves it once and for all: They are in league to create a new Access of Evil!

Re:WTF?

[skaet]

Sony was more than likely willing to pay premium moolah for the implementation. Something that other vendors probably can't justify for the licensing costs.

Either that or Sony had some serious dirt held over Adobe's head...

Re:WTF?

[marsu_k]

Adobe have consistently refused to give their code to anyone. They wouldn't even give it to Apple for use on the iPhone.

Code, perhaps, but it seems they're happy to port the software for some $$$. At least I have Flash 9 out of the box on my Nokia N800 (Linux/ARM). I think it's Apple that doesn't want Flash...

Re:WTF?

[notrandomly]

Adobe didn't have an SDK for anything newer than Flash 7 when the Internet Channel was launched, no.

Re:WTF?

[rugatero]

They are in league to create a new Access of Evil!

Please tell me that was a pun, and I've missed the joke. (Pre-emptive self-whooshing)

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nintendo uses the Flash Lite SDK (3.x) which provides Flash 7 support (ActionScript 2). When you go ask Adobe for an SDK for a 650MHz PowerPC they generally tell you to go talk to a partner for a Flash Lite port. They don't consider that performance level good enough to run the desktop Flash plugin (Apple have made the same comment you made :)

We've been negotiating a port but we need ActionScript 3 - so we asked for the desktop plugin for PowerPC Linux, and the official line from Adobe is Flash 8 and 9 SDKs for Linux do not exist - their schedule puts the SDK in line with Flash 10 and now they released it, they will be providing this SDK to partners.

Flash Lite will move right from Flash 7 support to the codebase for Flash 10 too and the SDK will be available shortly so that Flash Lite gets ActionScript 3 and all the other neat features (video, hardware scaling support) to get a reasonable Flash Lite plugin for embedded systems.

Sony are either using the desktop Flash plugin (this is more reasonable since they run a 3GHz console) or pulled some strings.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

>They are in league to create a new Access of Evil!

Maybe it's a parody of 'Axis of Evil'.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing changed. What makes you think Adobe *gave* the code to Sony?

It's a commercial world. Sony offered to pay what Adobe were asking, while Apple / Nintendo didn't. Simple as that.

As for Linux ... we'll have to wait for the reverse-engineering to be finished.

Re:WTF?

[HiVizDiver]

It's a pun, and you've missed the joke.

Re:WTF?

[X0563511]

So, they can port flash to PPC and ARM, but they won't port it to x86_64.

Something seems funny to me...

Re:WTF?

[moosesocks]

So, they can port flash to PPC and ARM, but they won't port it to x86_64.

Something seems funny to me...

Whoa there. The PS3 is definitely *not* a PPC. One of its cores is architecturally *similar* to a PowerPC, which makes it easy to support PPC code. However, calling it a PowerPC is a misnomer.

I say this, as there has never been a Linux_PPC port of Flash. x86-64 users have had the "luxury" of being able to use a wrapper to get 64-bit flash by using the 32-bit legacy version. It's not particularly elegant, but it works.

Re:WTF?

[tixxit]

Well... they never actually said Adobe gave them the source. "Customization" could mean just about anything, including a wrapper or something. They also say it was a "seperate flash implementation," which I don't really understand. Does Adobe have another version of Flash laying around?

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Flash 7 SDK is the Flash 7 SDK. That's what was available when Opera first developed the Internet Channel. Flash Lite 3 SDK is a completely different SDK based on the Flash 9 codebase. It's a stripped down plugin intended for mobile devices. (For some reason Adobe thinks that cell phone developers REALLY want to target a subset of the Flash APIs.) Opera wisely decided that Flash Lite was not what they wanted.

Since then there has been non-stop demand for Flash 8 or Flash 9. Opera's response has always been that Adobe won't license it. Now that the PS3 has Flash 9, there's a big WTF going on in the Wii community.

Re:WTF?

[FireIron]

Did they find hoofprints near the Sony HQ?

Re:WTF?

[rugatero]

I got that he was referring to the Axis of Evil - it was the use of 'Access' that had me stumped.
That's what I get for posting before my first coffee of the day.

Re:WTF?

[mollymoo]

Most users of Linux on non-x86 platforms should be twitching violently from reading that quote.

Worse than that, I suspect both of them will be twitching violently.

Actually, I do run Linux on ARM, but not on a desktop machine. Linux is a tiny market and desktop Linux on anything but x86 is so vanishingly small a market that no big company is going to give a shit. The only exceptions are likely to be platforms like the Nokia Internet Tablets, smartphones and set-top-boxes where big cash up front and the promise of millions of units shipped makes it worthwhile. If you're running Linux on an old iBook I wouldn't hold your breath.

Re:WTF?

[X0563511]

It has a PPC core along with 8 (7/6 usable, depending on if you count their OS) RISC-esque cores.

This tells me that their IS a PPC port of flash, as Sony is spouting off about it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it's due to Adobe Open Screen Project.

Re:WTF?

[ardor]

Linux is a tiny market

Not in the embedded devices world. It was tiny, but now more and more of them are using Linux kernels. I've seen it often on internet radios, music players, STBs, even picture frames. And not just on 10% of them - I'd say more like 40%.

Re:WTF?

[mollymoo]

I guess that's why I wrote "The only exceptions are likely to be platforms like the Nokia Internet Tablets, smartphones and set-top-boxes [...]".

Re:WTF?

[Tubal-Cain]

Either that or Sony had some serious dirt held over Adobe's head...

Patent warchests ftw!

Sweet!

[InlawBiker]

Two proprietary platforms have teamed up to bring us the Internet! They would never steer us wrong, would they?

Re:Sweet!

[powerspike]

absolutely not, what is best for their shareholders is best for everyone.

Way to lower the goalposts

[Mad Merlin]

IE7's Javascript is painfully slow, it'd be an embarrassment if Sony couldn't do better than IE7.

Wake me up when they're on par with some useful browsers.

Re:Way to lower the goalposts

[Enderandrew]

Bingo.

Re:Way to lower the goalposts

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It might also be instructive to see what computer IE7 was running on. Most of the IE/FF/Opera performance shootouts have been conducted on a given PC(and, while I'm sure that their could be complexities there as well) comparing IE7 running on something to something running on PS3 seems slightly underspecified.

PS3 javascript better than IE7 on a screaming rig? Moderately interesting, if largely a sign of IE's suckitude. PS3 javascript faster than IE7 on an elderly Celeron? boring and irrelevant.

Re:Way to lower the goalposts

[Ant P.]

It might also be instructive to see what computer IE7 was running on.

They wanted a fair comparison, so they used Bochs to run IE7 on the PS3

nonsense

[inzy]

ps3 is hardware, ie7 is software. how can one be faster than the other?

if they want to compare browser with browser, they need to do it on the same platform (hardware). if they want to compare hardware, they need to do it with the same software. too many variables, this means nothing.

Re:nonsense

[Enderandrew]

The comparison is the PS3 browser.

Re:nonsense

[LSD-OBS]

Let's test the PS3 browser & IE7 head-to-head on my laptop!

Re:nonsense

[NothingMore]

I want to know how they compared it to IE7 fairly... Does Windows Vista/XP run on a cell processor? does the PS3's browser also run on a windows machine? because i see no way you can compare an browser on a console to one on a computer. Not only does the console (most likely) have less crap running in the background, it can be highly optimized for the machine since all the machines have identical (or close) specifications. Im not trying to defend IE7 but this is a total non-story.

Re:nonsense

[jonaskoelker]

if they want to compare browser with browser, they need to do it on the same platform (hardware). if they want to compare hardware, they need to do it with the same software.

True.

too many variables, this means nothing.

False.

Comparing PS3 + Sony Software to Dell box + Microsoft software doesn't tell you how each individual component performs, comparatively. That much is true. But it does tell you something about how each system as a whole performs, compared to the other.

As a typical end-user of those systems, is there anything that's more relevant? Great, so I can know how well IE performs on a PS3, or how well the PS3 browser performs on windows. But I'm not going to install one platform's browser on the other platform; remember, typical end-user.

Re:nonsense

[Enderandrew]

I'm going to go on a limb and say that the devs who wrote the source code didn't initially write that browser on the Cell, given that the Cell was late and held up the PS3 launch. I'm sure internally, they developed initially on a more standard architecture. Given that they didn't have the Cell, they had to.

Re:nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTFLCOPTER

Re:nonsense

[setagllib]

I highly doubt the browser uses the streaming units on the Cell, so it's basically just PPC that was available for many years before the Cell.

Re:nonsense

[CronoCloud]

It is possible to compare FireFox, Opera (via a Linux install on the PS3) and the PS3's Netfront. I'll get around to doing it sooner or later.

Re:nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

does the PS3's browser also run on a windows machine?

No but you should be able to run it on a Linux box.

Or you could load a Windows emulator on the PS3.

If I spend $350 on a computer that has Windows and IE7 on it, how does it compare to running flash on a PS3? As an end-user it is the amount of money I have to spend vs. performance that is going to actually matter.

Re:nonsense

[tixxit]

Someone gives you 2 blackboxes. They both perform the same task, but one does a much better job of it. Now someone asks you to do that task, which box will you use? Well, obviously the one that does it better. To you (the end user), it doesn't matter what's under the plastic, but what the end results are. So, it certainly means something. It doesn't speak to how well the implementation was coded, but certainly to the merits of using the PS3 as your web-browser vs. your desktop computer.

Re:nonsense

[_xeno_]

Comparing PS3 + Sony Software to Dell box + Microsoft software doesn't tell you how each individual component performs, comparatively. That much is true. But it does tell you something about how each system as a whole performs, compared to the other.

And even then, the PS3 loses to IE7. Badly.

I ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark on my PS3 and on a work laptop that was purchased before the PS3 was released.

The full results are here, but the overall times are 98 seconds for the PS3 and 35.5 seconds for IE7.

And that's ignoring the fact that the IE7 time includes 12 seconds worth of tests that the PS3 couldn't run. Two of the tests triggered a JavaScript error on the PS3, and one actually crashed it!

I don't know how far back you'd have to go to find a PC slow enough to tip the scales in the favor of the PS3, but you'd have to be looking at a pretty slow PC.

Anything Can Beat IE7

[rsmith-mac]

Is the fact that something is beating IE7 really news? IE7 is not known for its stellar Javascript performance, it's basically a generation-old browser that pre-dates the modern push for high-performance Javascript execution. I would certainly hope that the PS3's browser is faster than IE7, or Firefox 2, or any other browser that old. It's like touting the PS3 is faster than the PS2 - good for you Sony, but it's supposed to be faster in the first place.

Now if they could beat the Firefox/Safari nightlies, or what the final version of IE8 can do, then that would be noteworthy, as they'd be very near the top.

Re:Anything Can Beat IE7

[Ash Vince]

In your post you make IE7 sound like it was created in the dark ages and therefore no longer relevant, that is plainly untrue.

Ok, it is now more than a year old. It is also however the predominant browser so it is fair play to compare against. Most comparisons are made with the market leader in a field.

You mention in your post about beating IE8 final being a neat trick. Damn right it would be as IE8 is not yet final so the only way to get a copy is to use a time machine and go forward a couple of months.

Better?

[Yvan256]

The PS3 is a platform with fixed hardware specifications. Unless they got IE7 running on a PS3, well... what's the point of reference?

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

A similarly clocked PC (3.2GHz)?

Re:Better?

[hairyfeet]

That they can brag that they beat somebody. The fact that the somebody is old,wasn't good in the first place,and is about as quick as a dead opossum lying on the side of the road now,apparently doesn't matter. This is like bragging "Hey! We beat Netscape 4!". Kinda pointless except for sticking an extra bullet on somebody's PPT presentation.

Re:Better?

[_xeno_]

Very good question. I was going to post the SunSpider benchmark results off my PS3 and compare them to a run on IE7 on my Vista machine, but after removing a benchmark that the PS3 couldn't handle (apparently bitwise-and several times in a row is a bit much for it - no joke), the benchmark crashed the PS3 browser.

So, uh, I'm going to have to give the edge to IE7.

Re:Better?

[Yvan256]

Most PCs would be running an intel or AMD x86-type processor while the PS3 uses a PowerPC.

CPU clock doesn't mean much these days unless you're comparing the exact same CPU clocked at different speeds.

Re:Better?

[poot_rootbeer]

That they can brag that they beat somebody. The fact that the somebody is old,wasn't good in the first place,and is about as quick as a dead opossum lying on the side of the road now,apparently doesn't matter.

I'd get what you're saying, except that in your metaphor something like sixty percent of the world uses a dead opossum to browse the web.

Re:Better?

[hairyfeet]

They use it because they don't know there IS anything else. I have actually had customers come in and had them get upset when I had to explain to them you have to have an ISP for Internet service. They honestly thought if you had "the blue e" you had the Internet. I have even gone so far as replacing the icon for Firefox or Seamonkey with "the blue e" (with permission of the boyfriend/husband/boss) and told them it is the newest version because trying to convince them that the Internet worked without "the blue e" was like pissing in the wind. So it doesn't really matter if Internet Exploiter has the most viruses,is slow as hell,and overall just sucks like a hoover upright,because the simple fact is many out there simply don't think it is even possible to get to the Internet without the blue e.

PPC-Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

They should release it as a plugin for ppc linux firefox... it would make linux on PS-3 much more useful.

Heck, dontcha know that

[Anonymous Coward]

My dog has better javascript performance than IE7.

Optimized?

[cgenman]

So a piece of software optimized for a very specific, limited platform can run faster than software written for a very general and not very well defined platform. This ought to be a no-brainer.

Re:Optimized?

[aliquis]

Like running on x86 in Windows wouldn't be specific enough?

How would you optimize it better? Code redrawal in assembler for the graphics card instead of using direct draw or whatever?

Re:Optimized?

[Anonymous Coward]

retard much?

Re:Optimized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh. That's the point.

Sony's browser (and the javascript engine, whatever it may be) runs on a single machine with known components, and the software can be written to exploit the hell out of it.

Sony built the machine, and the wrote the software. It should run balls-fast, such a lame task as executing javascript doesn't pose much of a challenge for a machine specially designed to run much more complicated code as fast as fucking possible.

Re:Optimized?

[cgenman]

How would you optimize it better? Code redrawal in assembler for the graphics card instead of using direct draw or whatever?

Why the vitrol? Windows is a platform that encompasses everything from 100hz 386's to AMD 64's. You can have 128 MB of RAM or 4GB, running on hardware from 10 years ago or more. There's greater than a 10 fold change of capacity between the lowest computers rated to run IE7 and the highest on the market. There is no guarantee of a graphics card or what type of bus it would use, there isn't even a guarantee tha the system isn't running virtually. You're going to have quite a few layers of abstraction before you actually hit metal.

Additionally, any code that has survived approximately 10 years of development on the Windows platform can be assumed to have gathered a bit of... kruft.

By comparison, you know exactly how many fractions of a millisecond it takes the PS3's main processor to communicate with all of the various subprocessors. You know you can have several threads crunching simultaneously, and they're likely to get a more commanding share fo the processors. You don't have to consider low-ram situations, pagefiling, a lot of the normal security concerns, etc. If you wanted to, you could write more or less directly to the metal on the PS3. Your code is being written from scratch on a very specific piece of hardware, so why not draw to the screen using the graphics co-processor?

That was in no way intended as a slight against windows. But rather that a single-use device should always be able to beat a very general purpose device at specific applications, given the same amount of developer investment.

Re:Optimized?

[powerspike]

How would you optimize it better? Code redrawal in assembler for the graphics card instead of using direct draw or whatever?

For starters, you could strip out alot code, start hard coding software to do certain things where needed, ie you don't need to ca tore for different hardware, you don't need to allocate for conditions that *might* occur if your running on one cpu type instead of another, every one of these adds in things that will slow down the main program. If you can't out preform a general use application (which is what MSIE is) with something that is custom built for a purpose then you have serious issues.

Re:Optimized?

[Bert64]

But their point was, they outperform IE7 but not google chrome (presumably running on the same hardware as ie7 was), google chrome is also a general use application.

Re:Optimized?

[Haeleth]

So a piece of software optimized for a very specific, limited platform can run faster than software written for a very general and not very well defined platform. This ought to be a no-brainer.

I eagerly await your implementation of Crysis for the Atari 2600. I'm sure that developing for such a very specific, limited platform will easily enable you to make it run faster than the version written for the very genereal, not very well defined PC platform.

Re:Optimized?

[aliquis]

Learn to read.

If you want to say that I missed the point, that he was joking how Sony got better chances to optimize the software the rest of your comment doesn't make sense.

If you want to argue that he had the same point as me, that Microsoft could easily optimize good enough on x86, well, then we didn't had the same point.

So, uhm, ... Fuck you AC which won't read this.

Feel free to tell me how Microsoft can't optimize Windows and IE7 as good on a PC, it's not like the CPUs differ a lot or that they don't know all the details of them.

such a lame task as executing javascript doesn't pose much of a challenge for a machine specially designed to run much more complicated code as fast as fucking possible.

Doesn't make any sense whatsoever either. A frickin' PC is supposed to run much more advanced stuff to, and obviously javascript do pose a challenge since they are optimizing it (or well, it would make sense to do that even if it didn't.)

So uhm, you're a total failure, too bad you couldn't stand for it with a name.

Re:Optimized?

[aliquis]

Yeah, lots of 100 Hz (wtf?) 386s will run IE ...

And even if the machine has 256 MB ram or 8 GB it will matter a lot for how to code the parts of the browser handling javascript!?!

I doubt even things like newer SSE would matter, and there is nothing stopping you from checking which version of SSE is available and optimize for that one.

What the fuck does busses have to do with javascript performance? Or even graphic cards for that matter...

The PS3 have low ram... But I guess you meant less ram because it only run one task at the time, which I don't even know if it's true for it? I have no idea how the PS3 runs the browser.

Windows will obviously use the GPU for drawing to..

But it's a useless comparison anyway since I doubt IE7 runs on the PS3... Or the PS3 browser runs on a PC. And I wouldn't be to sure they even use the SPEs either, who knows.

Does the developer time include the amount of actually making Windows and so on as well? Because I would believe it's easier to code a browser for Windows than for the PS3 ... If you want to include the development time for all the frameworks and OSes in the equation, well then MICROSOFT HAVE HAD A FUCKING HUGE PIECE OF EXTRA TIME.

But, you get same offer as the retarded AC, come with suggestions on how you would optimize browser code for a PS3 compared to a PC ..

That you can optimize games for a specific well known restriction in hardware and know exactly what you can put at it and not? Yes. But a browser? It's not like they will look it to 4x AA because they would get to few FPSes at 8x but more than 60 at 0x...

Re:Optimized?

[aliquis]

And how likely is it that Sony have coded the browser to run without any other libs, "os" or whatever? Does it really execute along and is written from scratch with no generic parts to handle screen draws and such?

Re:Optimized?

[aliquis]

lol, funny thing to mention :D

Yeah, makes a lot of sense how the general application in that case can beat the crap out of the special purpose built omg-it'- a-sony!-browser.

Especially with comments like:

If you can't out preform a general use application (which is what MSIE is) with something that is custom built for a purpose then you have serious issues.

My first though/joke was to answer any of the posts with how this was compared with a claim of them running IE7 on some machine on the top500-list and how the PS3s browser was faster than that.

Super computing from Sony ftw!

Re:Optimized?

[tepples]

It's not like they will look it to 4x AA because they would get to few FPSes at 8x but more than 60 at 0x...

Except that's exactly what a lot of SWFs do. There's an option in Flash Player's right-click menu called "Quality" that pretty much controls the FSAA level, and SWFs can override the option and remove it from the menu.

Re:Optimized?

[tepples]

I eagerly await your implementation of Crysis for the Atari 2600. I'm sure that developing for such a very specific, limited platform will easily enable you to make it run faster than the version written for the very genereal, not very well defined PC platform.

Perhaps not the Atari 2600, but if I had a budget, a team, and a license from EA, I could make a Crysis-inspired shooter for the NES.

Re:Optimized?

[aliquis]

But when it comes to flash content you will never know how demanding it will be in advance, and that won't affect java-script performance, and you could always turn off cleartype / whatever.

Re:Optimized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Calm down children.

There's no such thing as a "single-use device" in this context. The PS3 is just a computer. It has a 3.2GHz processor with no OOOE so it's real-world performance is lower than a typical 1.6GHz x86. It has 256MB of RAM, which is a lot lower than a typical 2GB PC. It has to consider low-RAM situations HARDER than a PC does. Any GPU acceleration the PS3 can do, the typical PC can also do. And Javascript is not something you can just distribute over the SPUs, so that won't help you either.

If the PS3 can run JS faster than a typical PC can run IE7 then that's actually quite remarkable.

Re:Optimized?

[CronoCloud]

The browser isn't Sony code, it's Netfront, why sony just didn't use some kind of embedded Firefox or something is beyond me, they just seem to loooove Netfront. Perhaps because Netfront is produced by a Japanese company.

Re:Optimized?

[somersault]

I was going to reply to you, but cgenman pretty much nailed everything anyway. I'm sure he probably meant 100Mhz, but there are x86 processors down to at least 10Mhz that could technically run IE if they had enough RAM.

Yes, knowing how much RAM your system is going to have could make a big difference in how you design and code your operating system and applications.

What does stuff like bus speed have to do with performance? Are you serious? Oh well. As for talking about graphics cards, he was just trying to illustrate simply how you can't rely on a Windows machine having any capabilities beyond the basic x86 instruction set, so Windows programs (or perhaps just the APIs they use) have to take that into account. If they do have different code for different extensions, that adds a bit of bloat to the executables or libraries, which is never going to be a boon for performance, though it won't necessarily slow things down much either beyond the initial startup time.

Windows doesn't draw using the GPU, it draws using Direct X/OpenGL/whatever, which then talks to the driver, which then interfaces with the GPU.

He also suggested a whole paragraph of how to optimise an application on PS3 as opposed to Windows:

you know exactly how many fractions of a millisecond it takes the PS3's main processor to communicate with all of the various subprocessors. You know you can have several threads crunching simultaneously, and they're likely to get a more commanding share fo the processors. You don't have to consider low-ram situations, pagefiling, a lot of the normal security concerns, etc. If you wanted to, you could write more or less directly to the metal on the PS3. Your code is being written from scratch on a very specific piece of hardware, so why not draw to the screen using the graphics co-processor?

If you don't understand how that paragraph relates to optimising code (knowing timings is useful for making efficient use of multithreading for example), then you probably shouldn't be making comments about software optimisation on different platforms.

BTW yes, the PS3 can run tasks in the background while browsing, like downloads, recording TV with PlayTV and running games (well, some games open the browser, but I can't remember if they're completely suspended while that is being done, or whether they keep running).

Re:Optimized?

[Bert64]

On the other hand, the Cell isn't designed for javascript processing, it won't perform spectacularly... It has the benefit of not needing abstraction layers between the browser and the hardware, but the hardware isn't especially suited to this kind of thing...

Re:Optimized?

[poot_rootbeer]

I eagerly await your implementation of Crysis for the Atari 2600.

There was an implicit condition of "assuming that the maximum theoretical performance of the limited and general platforms are identical", but you knew that, didn't you?

Ask yourself why all the games made for the Atari 2600 (excluding some recent homebrew titles) written in 6507 assembly code, rather than in a higher-level language? The principles of good software design were not unknown in the late 1970's; even home computers gave programmers a BASIC interpreter in ROM.

So why did 2600 coders write their own custom kernel for each game? Because if there were any more layers of abstraction involved, the most complex game possible on the hardware would have been simple Pong clones. Direct unfettered access to the crude graphics hardware and whopping 128 bytes of RAM was a necessity to coax any performance out of it.

Re:Optimized?

[SharpFang]

Actually, a piece of software optimized for a very specific, limited platform like Amiga 500, running faster than software written for a very general and not very well defined platform like >2GHZ x86, well, that's way too common.

Re:Optimized?

[aliquis]

Or rather, it's fucking hard to optimize the browser to take full advantage of the PS3 due to its complex hardware over the general purpose processors.

Oh well, my point still stands, I don't buy this "omg it's so much easier to write efficient code for a console (then it's the PS3 in this case) than a PC so of course it will run faster"-bullshit in this scenario. I do accept that when it comes to wide arrange of graphic cards and sound cards and such, especially in the days before DirectX where the developers would had to write the support themself for specific hardware.

firefox plug

[nellahj]

They should release it as a firefox plugin to make firefox on PPC linux - firefox on the PS-3 - more useful.

Re:firefox plug

[Brad1138]

Is there an echo in here?

Whoa..

[NovaHorizon]

Sony Claims PS3 Javascript Performance Is Better Than IE7's

Their shootin' high, aren't they..

Still needs some work

[flerchin]

Anybody else notice that cnn.com has never worked on the ps3 browser? It used to give me an out of memory error after browsing cnn for a while. Now, with the 2.50 update, it the browser stops responding to input and you have to exit to the XMB.

That kind of thing happens a little less on IE, or so I hear.

Re:Still needs some work

[lowlymarine]

Actually, I noticed something similar the other day on my PC. I was reading several major news sites and I left CNN.com open in a tab in FF3. After about 20 minutes of reading other sites (with CNN just sitting open, unused), all of my bandwidth disappeared, the browser got really sluggish, FF's memory usage jumped to over 400 MB, and it began using 25% of my CPU (or an entire core of my Phenom 9850). It took me a minute to figure out what was going on, but after closing the CNN tab everything reverted to normal. And this was on XP x64, so I can't attribute it to FF on Linux sucking like I usually do.

Long story short, you may actually be running out of RAM on CNN. It seems they have some major issues,

Umm the PS3 can actually run IE7????

[Anonymous Coward]

How are they comparing this on the same hardware????????

And yet....

[TimothyDavis]

Nobody fucking cares.

Really - I would love to go buy a PS3 so that I can use java faster. Maybe I could also use a TV tuner card in my PC so I can multitask while using my PS3 on my PC to surf the web so much faster.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to go buy a PS3 so that I can use java faster.

Technology FAIL

Re:And yet....

[gbjbaanb]

The xbox was partly developed as a way to become the 'home centre' computing hub - ie when everybody in the world has a PC running Windows, what do you do to sell more copies? You become a set top box provider, and then bring the value of windows to people's homes through their multimedia centre.

So, Sony saw, thought 'oh yeah, games are just so 80s, we can have a bit of that pie too' and now you see news fluff like this as part of their competitive stance against each other. They both care, they both want you to have a console as your main PC (for MS: want you to have a console as well as a PC) as this is where they see lots of sales coming from.

You and I may not care, but you can see a suggestion here where these companies want you to go in the future.

Re:And yet....

[CronoCloud]

So, Sony saw, thought 'oh yeah, games are just so 80s, we can have a bit of that pie too' and now you see news fluff like this as part of their competitive stance against each other.

Wrong, because in Japan, the PS2 had multimedia features before the Xbox did. The stuff that we can do now on the PS3, download video and demos, rip CD's, browse the net, etc; Japanese PS2 owners could do with the BBN.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

shhh let him think that the xbox he bought is way better and more advanced and way ahead of everyone.

When in reality the xbox was a reaction to the announcements that sony was making about what ps2 and ps3 were going to become. MS did not want to be cut out of the loop but still wanted that PC bit. That is why the xbox is an 'extender' and not the central hub.

I also have told many without gamerscore xbox live would be the same pay service they had before. Now you have a way to see how well you are doing. Sony has essentially the same service for free.

I would also argue that the xbox has a better 'entertainment hub' edge currently. It is a better experience. They did something Sony should have done ages ago. They brought people in and tested it and did study groups. They watched people use it. They figured out what people struggled with and what they didnt. It is a very well done experience. The only down side is to use it properly you MUST have a PC with media center. Sony on the other hand currently feels like it is tacked on, but is a 1 box solution. Sony is getting there. However by the time they get there will anyone still be interested?

Re:And yet....

[gbjbaanb]

sorry.. of course, Sony had these things, then MS came along said "look at this great new innovation we've created" and the rest is as I said :)

Re:And yet....

[CronoCloud]

I would also argue that the xbox has a better 'entertainment hub' edge currently. It is a better experience. They did something Sony should have done ages ago. They brought people in and tested it and did study groups. They watched people use it. They figured out what people struggled with and what they didnt. It is a very well done experience. The only down side is to use it properly you MUST have a PC with media center. Sony on the other hand currently feels like it is tacked on, but is a 1 box solution. Sony is getting there. However by the time they get there will anyone still be interested?

That was very insightful Anonymous Coward, I'm surprised you posted this anonymously, and as much as I like my PS3, I agree. SCEA couldn't market their way out of a paper bag.

Faster than IE7?

[shutdown -p now]

Well, and I can outrun a snail. Should I be so proud of that, too?

Re:Faster than IE7?

[Nerdfest]

I'm not sure .... are you a multi-billion dollar corporation with an image problem?

Re:Faster than IE7?

[jones_supa]

Is that you, Steve?

Re:Faster than IE7?

[222]

If you're the typical Slashdot reader, yes.

Stability of PS3 browser

[Anonymous Coward]

When I'm streaming flash content on the PS3 pre-2.5 the browser crashes after about 5 minutes, complaining it's out of memory. This make using the PS3 as an Internet radio practically useless.

I'm more interested in fixing this than other browser "enhancements". Here's hoping...

Re:Stability of PS3 browser

[beluv]

All aspects of the PS3 internet browser are stupid slow in my experience. It has also crashed several times on me.

Re:Stability of PS3 browser

[CronoCloud]

I've watched entire TV episodes and movies on Hulu with my 2.50 firmware PS3

Re:Stability of PS3 browser

[mkraft]

The PS3 browser now uses the hard drive for virtual memory so out of memory crashes should be much less frequent. I did still have the PS3 lockup on a flash page though.

javascript/flash run well on PS3 on 384MB! LOL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

PS3 is Hardwired for just a few hundred MB of RAM. Everything else is through USB. PS3 seems to be a toy if they don't permit their users to expand some decent amount of RAM that regular PC's have these days. i.e. 2GB + RAM. Anything less is so "Passé".
They must be doing their tests on SDK HARDWARE BOXES which allow extra memory.

Funny

[beansprouts]

Sony has actually been working on Flash 9 support for quite some time â" as far back as late last year.

Well do they expect their JS engine to be fast?

But Flash 10 is out!

[BcNexus]

What good is great Javascript performance and Flash 9 when sites detect I have Flash 9 and refuse to run unless I have Flash 10?!?

Re:Why?

[wamerocity]

Sure, I can now watch stuff on hulu and the shows on nbc.com and fox.com. It's actually kind of nice, especially since circumstances have required me to get rid of cable, and I REALLY miss watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report at home, and now I watch them through my PS3 and it's really easy to do.

BTW, people complain that you can't fullscreen anything, which is true, but you can get around that by ZOOMING in, which makes it full screen, just FYI.

oh...now I get it

[GweeDo]

Faster JavaScript than IE7? That will sell a console!

PS3 becoming a nice media center

[tgibbs]

I don't buy many PS3 games, but I use the system a lot. In addition to its Blu-Ray capability, Sony has steadily improved its upscaling of regular DVDs until it is on a par with many top dedicated upscaling players. It also does a good job of streaming video from my PC to my TV screen, with good quality and compatibility with a wide range of formats. And its simple hierarchical interface is fast, clear, and easy to navigate. The ability to show Hulu video in its web browser is a nice step up, although I'd like to see support for the TV network web sites as well. I'd like to see Sony add Netflix support. The XBox 360 will soon have the ability to play my Netflix streaming queue, but not edit it; the PS3 with its integrated web browser could do both. And I hate dealing with the XBox 360's awkward user interface which sacrifices usability for flash, and from the pictures that I've seen of the new one, it looks even worse.

Here's my own report

[Yvan256]

According to a test I did myself, Safari on my iPod touch is faster than Opera on my Nintendo DS Lite.

Yeah, that's as pointless as what Sony just did here.

Would you like to run the plugin?

[alazor]

Yes/No

Admittedly...

[cthellis]

...it's kind of like bragging "my car gets better gas mileage than a Hummer," but I suppose for the overall wonkiness that has been the PS3 browser so far, even that is an accomplishment. ;-)

Comparing hw with sw..?

[CoolCat]

How can PS3 (as in hardware) be compared on IE7? Run IE7 on ps3 on compare fairly.

Silverlight

[J-1000]

With poor Adobe support like this, how can Silverlight *not* soon supplant it?

Re:Why?

[DinDaddy]

++ Having Hulu available though our TV put me this much closer to dumping Dish.