The Nuts and Bolts of PlayStation 3D

The Digital Foundry blog took an in-depth look at how Sony is introducing 3D technology to PlayStation 3 games. They give a step-by-step description of how the system generates a 3D frame (or rather, a pair of frames), and the graphical hurdles that need be to overcome to ensure the games look good. The article also discusses some of the subtle effects 3D technology can have on gameplay: "'One interesting thing came through in the immersion aspect was that in the first-person camera view, it felt so much more like being there. Typically when most people play MotorStorm, something like 90 per cent play in the third-person view,' Benson explains. 'As soon as we put the 3D settings in place, the first-person view became a lot more popular, a lot more people were using that view. This could indicate that 3D could perhaps change the standards, if you like.' ... 'We found that in the first-person view the game is giving you all the sorts of cues that you're used to in normal driving: speed perception, the ability to judge distances, things like that. It's far easier to avoid track objects.' The insertion of true stereoscopic 3D into MotorStorm also brings about a new sense of appreciation of the scale and size of the game world and the objects within it."

Comments

first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

But seriously, 1080p60 games downscaled to 720p30 in order to get 3D.

Hope the 3D is worth it!

Re:first post!

[ShadowRangerRIT]

There's a reason 120 Hz TVs have been pushed lately. That solves the frame rate issue. As for resolution, you shouldn't need to use much more processing power to get 3D from most games; after all, modern graphics are modeled in 3D then flattened. All 3D requires is that you flatten it from two slightly different perspectives; the incremental cost should be small, on the order of 10% or 20%, not enough to require you to drop from 1080p to 720p. One of the few things those extra processors on the PS3 can be used for without requiring a lot of work on the part of the game programmer is "free" stereoscopic 3D.

Re:first post!

[__aardcx5948]

If you read the article, you would know that many games requires going from 1080p to 720p because the PS3 can't push enough pixels in 3D to maintain 30 FPS in a 1080p resolution.

Re:first post!

[Aladrin]

The new Samsung TVs are 240Hz, too.

As for the rendering, it's not 20% of the processing time. It's a lot more than that, especially when you work in all the reflections and other eye-candy that PS3 games are expected to have. I would guess it's pretty close to 90% of the time is spent rendering. (And that's an educated guess, as I've fooled around with 3d game programming on the PC for a while now.)

Of course, it also depends on that game. A game with thousands of AI opponents takes a lot more CPU between renders than a game with just 5.

Re:first post!

[Aladrin]

Well, technically, Wipeout's creators couldn't make the PS3 do it. That doesn't mean it's impossible.

Also, Wipeout went from 60FPS at 1080p to 30FPS at 720p for the 3D upgrade. From the article, it sounds like they did it because they were lazy and didn't want to spend time optimizing their code any further to keep the FPS up.

All the hype I heard about Wipeout mentioned the 60FPS specifically, so I think that's a mistake.

Re:first post!

[drinkypoo]

As for the rendering, it's not 20% of the processing time. It's a lot more than that, especially when you work in all the reflections and other eye-candy that PS3 games are expected to have. I would guess it's pretty close to 90% of the time is spent rendering.

The PS3 has a dedicated graphics chip. It can be running graphics at 100% and still not use up 100% of the CPU, which only hands data off to other components to be rendered.

Of course, it also depends on that game. A game with thousands of AI opponents takes a lot more CPU between renders than a game with just 5.

There is no "between renders". The GPU is working on rendering while the CPU is doing something else.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a few PS3 games. Modern Warfare 2 is the only one that plays in 1080p. I wonder how many others there are.

Re:first post!

[Alphathon]

That actually depends on the game. The PS3 doesn't have a traditional CPU, and most of the really nice looking PS3 games use various parts of the cell for graphics (be it texture processing, or physics, or whatever). The cell isn't used for actual rendering, but it does affect many games graphics.

That said, some of those functions will be irrelevent, as the calculations will apply to both frames (or both views of the same frame if you want to look at it like that). Physics for example is, if I'm understanding it correctly, is related to object position per frame (and effects like motion blur) so would apply largely, if not completely, to both frames. Texture processing on the other hand may not, depending on the game. Your point certainly holds up for AI, in the same way as physics, but you can't say for every game that the CPU has no effect.

Re:first post!

[PopeRatzo]

Hope the 3D is worth it!

It doesn't matter to me because I won't buy anything with a Sony brand on it, ever again. Or if the platform is hacked. Whichever comes first.

I'll switch to (gasp) Microsoft xbox before I buy another Playstation.

Apparently, Sony didn't learn anything from their rootkit experience and needs to be taught another lesson in manners when it comes to dealing with customers.

Re:first post!

[minasoko]

A good list here.

You'll be disappointed about MW2.

Re:first post!

[Sockatume]

120Hz doesn't solve the framerate issue, it just allows you to actually deliver those frames to the user. You still have to run at double the framerate of a 2D game, which is non-trivial.

Re:first post!

[Vanderhoth]

Despite the fact that 3D is just a fad, I completely agree with you. Too bad Sony completely disrespected the early adopter tech geeks with the other OS removal. They're the ones who would have or will be buying in to this technology and will make or break the technology in the first few years it's available. Hopefully people remember how Sony treats their customers.

Re:first post!

[Amarantine]

modern graphics are modeled in 3D then flattened. All 3D requires is that you flatten it from two slightly different perspectives; the incremental cost should be small, on the order of 10% or 20%, not enough to require you to drop from 1080p to 720p.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but this "flattening" you speak of, isn't that the actual rendering? I always thought that this was the bit where the biggest part of numbercrunching is done. This is were for each pixel in the 2D plane of the screen is calculated, based on the position of objects, textures and light sources. Doubling this task would probably mean more than a 10-20% increase in load.

Re:first post!

[bemenaker]

The cell does have a standard cpu, and then it has speciality spu's also. There is 1 PPC in the cell and 6 spu's.

Re:first post!

[AHuxley]

For the price at the time something had to give on the MS and Sony side. It was any real hope of computing at 1080p.
Both consoles have lists of epic PR BS trying to get the end losers into thinking they where gaming in the future.
The only thing that has changed is the 3rd party dev teams can get a bit more out of the units.
Next gen will solve all they promise - they understand 1080p at MS and Sony now and the 3d chips for your 2d 1080p displays are so cheap now.
This new 3d glasses fad and 3d games with 3d glasses might take a while ... start saving up for all your old favs in Carl Zeiss 3d quality glass ...

Re:first post!

[Targon]

Rendering when you have a powerful graphics chip should not take all that much CPU power, since the rendering is offloaded. Now, keep in mind that since 3D displays with the glasses are a new technology, the current hardware is not really designed for it, so you are putting a huge burden on the system to make it work. With a new graphics chip that is designed with 3D output in mind, that additional processing drain will disappear with proper hardware support for 3D displays.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't 240 Hz panels. Just some light tricks and 120 Hz panels.

Re:first post!

[drinkypoo]

That actually depends on the game. The PS3 doesn't have a traditional CPU, and most of the really nice looking PS3 games use various parts of the cell for graphics (be it texture processing, or physics, or whatever). The cell isn't used for actual rendering, but it does affect many games graphics.

The PS3's CPU has one PPE and eight SPEs, one of which is disabled, and one of which is used by the operating system, leaving six for game development. The PPE is a PowerPC and its main job is to shovel data to the SPEs... if they are being used. Some of the weaker titles use the PPE for almost everything (except graphics, being handled by the GPU) and use one or two SPEs as if they were a math coprocessor... which I guess they are.

Physics for example is, if I'm understanding it correctly, is related to object position per frame (and effects like motion blur) so would apply largely, if not completely, to both frames. Texture processing on the other hand may not, depending on the game.

There's certainly games with procedural texturing. Creating these textures is going to be more or less done with the SPEs by anyone competent. It involves shoveling code and data at them and then standing back and waiting for the results to come back, then once they have returned, retrieving them and shoving them into a buffer in graphics memory, which unlike on the Xbox is a distinct and physically separate region/block of memory. So yes, the PPE will have something to do in this context, but it's just acting as a switchboard operator.

Your point certainly holds up for AI, in the same way as physics, but you can't say for every game that the CPU has no effect.

If the PPE is doing much with the graphics, then what you've got is a bad port to the PS3 that underutilizes the SPEs.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought it was because you need the exact hdcp numbers to actually get it to work.
mgs4, demon's souls, wipeout, mw2, rock band, and fat princess all work in 1080p on my setup.
the ones that were supposed to run in 1080 put don't are dead space
folklore and oblivion were just 720p
haven't tried out final fantasy or star ocean so I don't know what to say from the square side

Re:first post!

[Malc]

Don't forget that the PS3 only has an HDMI 1.3 connector, not an HDMI 1.4. That means that at best, the 3D experience will have 1080i to each eye. Maybe 720p was a good compromise.

Re:first post!

[drinkypoo]

It doesn't matter to me because I won't buy anything with a Sony brand on it, ever again. Or if the platform is hacked. Whichever comes first.

To those who modded this troll: I bought a Playstation. Then it died, and I bought a PSOne. Later, I bought a fat PS2. It died, and I bought a slim one. I still have it. I also bought an Xbox 360, and a Wii. And though I can afford it, and though there are actually more games I would like to play on the PS3, I have not bought one, and will not buy one. I thought I might buy one someday down the road, to run Linux on it, if the Hypervisor were ever compromised such that you could actually use the GPU... But now even that is off the table. Buying one used removes it from the used channel and increases the odds that Sony will make a new sale, and I don't want that to happen. Personally, I decided Sony must be destroyed during the Lik-Sang debacle, but the rootkit and disabling Linux on PS3 pretty much make a perfect triangle of hate.

Re:first post!

[mdwh2]

Where are these numbers pulled from? To describe the whole 3D graphics rendering pipeline as merely "flattening" is rather an understatement. It also makes no sense to compare that with "modern graphics are modeled in 3D" - modelling is not part of rendering, and doesn't factor into the performance.

"Flattening", i.e., vertex processing; as well as rendering every pixel, has to be repeated for each viewpoint (unless someone knows they're using some kind of shortcut?). Depending on the game, this can be far more than 20% of the time. Other things don't have to be repeated - for example, some kinds of hidden surface removal, as well as obviously non-rendering things like AI. But you can't make any kind of blanket statement of the bottlenecks of 3D games in general.

Re:first post!

[mdwh2]

The PS3 has a dedicated graphics chip. It can be running graphics at 100% and still not use up 100% of the CPU, which only hands data off to other components to be rendered.

That doesn't change his argument - PCs have had "dedicated graphics chips" for 3D for 10-15 years. This is hardly new information.

Yes, so the GPU does most of the rendering. So if it's running at 100% running a normal game, how exactly do you magically make it render twice as much information, with only a 10-20% slowdown as the OP claimed?

There is no "between renders". The GPU is working on rendering while the CPU is doing something else.

You're being overly pedantic. Firstly, it's still correct to say "between the rendering calls that the CPU makes", which is what he presumably meant. Secondly, yes you could run the CPU rendering calls in a separate thread, but that doesn't really change his point - yes, a game with large amounts of AI might be CPU bound rather than GPU bound, thus you could get extra fill rate with little noticable slowdown. But this doesn't apply to all games, is the point.

Re:first post!

[mdwh2]

Rendering when you have a powerful graphics chip should not take all that much CPU power

Yes, but it takes more GPU power. I'm confused by this argument - that because the CPU isn't being used much, the GPU can suddenly do twice as much work for free? That's backwards. The only thing you can do for free is more stuff on the CPU.

Re:first post!

[sznupi]

3D gfx doesn't work by constructing the scene and then simply taking a snapshot of what "camera" sees (so no big overhead if you add second "camera", moved a little to the side, right?)

It goes "backwards", draws each frame from the point of view of the camera. If you have two cameras, that means doing it two times. Sure, it's not complete doubling of work done by GPU - for example the same assets in VRAM or local caches can be used at the same time, if done smartly. Or the far background and skybox probably could be made to render only once. But it's still very considerable overhead.

Re:first post!

[BoogeyOfTheMan]

I was assuming the same thing as well, but when the 3D Samsung display was set up at the store I work at, the cable was 1.3a.

When I hit info on the tv, it said 1080p@60. So I am wondering if its maybe just a lower bitrate on the picture quality or something.

Re:first post!

[sznupi]

OK, I can imagine a chip built to do "3D 3D" more efficiently (for example, two essentially independant renderpaths in the style of hyperthreading, with some logic between them that allows using roughly the same graphical assets from VRAM & caches at the same time (since they use nearly the same assets)). But you still want raw processing power to be roughly two times more than if you'd just render the same image once. There's still drain.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the OP means rendering yes. As for what would happen when you double this, it's not as easy as simply saying it'll be X% slower (It will however be significantly slower i must admit!).

The simplest way would be to update the game once, then render render a frame for each eye. This will wont quite halve your framerate, but it will be as near to that as makes no difference.

I'm guessing one option would be to use a transform feedback mechanism to try and pre-process the vertex and geometry shaders for a single frame and cache the results in a vertex buffer (i.e. compute skinning deformation once, and compute the lighting vectors for both eye points). This would add a slight overhead to the rendering pass, but probably closer to 20% -> 30% extra in most cases. The fragment shaders will still have to be run for both rendered images though. That will be an immediate 100% overhead for the fragment shaders. The C++ execution time wouldn't have to change.... At a complete guess, each update step for the game may take approx 50% more time to complete.

There is however one downside to the above. Memory, or rather the lack of it. The PS3 just doesn't have the memory resources available for that, so forget about it.

The only viable option left for the PS3 then is to take a game that runs in 1080p. Set it to 720p. Knock the texture resolution down a little bit.

1. Render the right eye.

2. Update the game.

3. Render the left eye

4. Update the game

repeat.

If you pray to the gods of graphics programming, you might have enough fillrate left to give each eye something that isn't jerking too much. The only problem is that I have yet to see a PS3 or 360 title that manages more than 30fps.....

Re:first post!

[supssa]

But samsung are gooks. Thats like suggesting people buy a Hyundai or Kia car...

Re:first post!

[Malc]

Do HDMI 1.4 cables have different connectors/pins, or is it just that one is guaranteed to work at a higher rate? If the latter, then I don't doubt that shorter HDMI 1.3 cables will suffice.

What was your source of the 3D content? Were you actually showing 3D content at the time? Is it a passive or active screen? Active 3D content is actually going at 120Hz (60Hz to each eye) for 1080p@60 (i.e. the display's info might have been accurate in a sense.)

Re:first post!

[feepness]

Personally, I decided Sony must be destroyed during the Lik-Sang debacle, but the rootkit and disabling Linux on PS3 pretty much make a perfect triangle of hate^H^H^H^Hcrazy.

FTFY.

Really, it's just a corporation. An entertainment one at that. Expending any energy beyond deciding whether the products contain value for you or not is highly irrational.

Re:first post!

[sznupi]

I'd guess it's effectivelly indeed doing 60, but since each of your eye only sees half of those...

Re:first post!

[Vanderhoth]

IMHO, I think the parent might be being a bit dramatic, but they're not too off the mark. Sure this is an entertainment company, but when they get away with treating customers like garbage other companies follow suit.

Re:first post!

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

And Most PS3 games arent even 720p. Many of the graphically intense ones run at a odd resolutions that are scaled to 720p.

There are very few if any 1080p PS3 games. The GPU really cant handle it.

But looking at God of War 3... they have finally managed to pull off a nice post processing anti aliasing filter that really improves image quality at 720p. It looks like 4xFSAA but has absolutely no impact on framerate.

If they can pull that off... They might be able to pull of 3D :)

Re:first post!

[feepness]

It's not up to the OP to determine how the customers are being treated. It's up to the customers. The OP can only decide for themselves.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

excellent, so I can use my existing plasma TV that can do only 60Hz..
what, no?
thieves..

Re:first post!

[Hurricane78]

Yeah, because you can just magically “optimize” any program endlessly forever...

Games already are on the very limits of a platform. They already are optimized to the breaking point. There’s nothing left.
You can only make the textures and models crappier and remove some physics and collision detection.

Also 30 fps from 60 fps sounds like no change at all, but simply rendering every second frame from the second pov. Which is exactly what I would have done, considering all resources already being used up, and countless months already being used up for optimization.

Re:first post!

[Hurricane78]

It’s way more complicated than that.

There are the streaming cores, where you have to define one simple algorithm, and then you can pass massive loads of data trough it. Which is good for rendering, and any other stream processing. But not for any event handling. The rest you do with the single full CPU core. And that one is very very weak, compared to the amount of stuff you can process in the streaming cores. But it has no limitations in flexibility.

So you can have 90% of your main core unused, but still not have much power left, since that part is so weak in comparison.

Re:first post!

[drinkypoo]

It's not up to the OP to determine how the customers are being treated. It's up to the customers. The OP can only decide for themselves.

Quite true. And I have decided not to be a customer because of the way Sony treats 'em. When even Microsoft treats its customers better than you do, you know you're fucking up. But the very point of my post is that it's not a troll to say you're avoiding buying product from Sony because of the way they treat their customers... MANY of us have made the same decision. If it says Sony on it, I'm not buying it.

Re:first post!

[Vanderhoth]

It's not up to the OP to determine how the customers are being treated. It's up to the customers. The OP can only decide for themselves.

I'm a customer. I feel pretty mistreated.

I could be wrong, but what I'm getting from your statement is you feel people shouldn't be going around describing how Sony has screwed them over. So, who do you work for again?

Re:first post!

[Sam H]

Games already are on the very limits of a platform. They already are optimized to the breaking point. There’s nothing left.
You can only make the textures and models crappier and remove some physics and collision detection.

And your point is that eg. Uncharted was optimised to the breaking point, and there was no way Uncharted 2 would look better, with better textures, models, physics and collisions?

The PS3 hardware is very complicated. Very few programmers can claim to master both the PS3 hardware and video game related algorithms. And most of them probably work at Naughty Dog or Insomniac Games.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, the GPU in the PS3 is weaker than the one in the Xbox360, especially at vertex processing (it doesn't have unified vertex+pixel pipes like the 360 does). So modern games do a lot of vertex processing, and sometimes pixel post-processing too, is done on the SPUs.

Re:first post!

[hattig]

Makes sense to me to do both frame renderings in parallel, so you're generating both eyes' views for each vertex in a scene at the same time, applying the same texture at the same time, and so on. This could reduce the bandwidth required because you would be utilising at the same time in rendering the same vertexes, textures, etc, when rendering both views. Especially when you have something like render-to-texture which is then applied elsewhere (e.g., a TV screen) - it makes no sense to re-render that for each viewpoint, when the eyes are seeing the same scene.

But it would double the time to render each view, require twice the video memory for rendering, etc.

I think this will really take off in the next generation. When the PS4 comes with a HD6870 equivalent graphics card, and 4GB RAM.

Re:first post!

[English French Man]

Games already are on the very limits of a platform. They already are optimized to the breaking point. There’s nothing left.

That may be true for a very small number of games actually... Games use whatever resources they need, and sometimes, it is not everything. If that were the case, all games would have mind-blowing graphics. No game would ever have a memleak, no games would have any bugs. This is very far from reality, as some gaming companies release games that are not optimized correctly, with poor graphics.

Re:first post!

[feepness]

I'm a customer. I feel pretty mistreated.

Were you running Linux?

Re:first post!

[feepness]

When even Microsoft treats its customers better than you do, you know you're fucking up.

This is entirely subjective. Removing the ability to run another OS and simultaneously play new games is worse than never having it? RROD is irrelevant? HD-DVD fiasco? Overpriced peripherals? Charging for online multiplayer?

I'm not interested in a pissing match. Simply to point out the experience is subjective and Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Apple all have their good and bad points. I'm a Sony customer (among others). I never touched the OtherOS option. The vast majority never did, hell, most probably never even knew it existed. My experience has been nothing but good and I own two PS3s and a couple dozen games I use for around an hour a day.

Saying "I haven't bought a PS3 in four years but now I'm REALLY never going to buy one." just sounds like a petulant child to me.

Re:first post!

[feepness]

I could be wrong, but what I'm getting from your statement is you feel people shouldn't be going around describing how Sony has screwed them over.

No, what I'm saying is that doing so in the style in which he did sounds a bit nutty.

Re:first post!

[V!NCENT]

Lolwut? 'Just' flattening 'it'? Do you know anything about rendering? Two different angles means two different non-fixed pipes. You don't have the slightest clue...

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone who's never programmed a day in his life and has no concept of the technical requirements and limitations of the hardware involved. Good job at back seat programming. You are now fully qualified to be an engineering manager.

Re:first post!

[Vanderhoth]

Yes, I'm running Ubuntu. I use my PS3 as an additional Testing and development platform when I'm developing and testing applications at home. I also use it as a 3D rendering node for hardware design.

I also play the occasional game on it, but mostly use it as a DVD/BD player. Sorry, I meant I did use it to play the occasional game and watch BDs on it. Still works as a DVD player and I can play the BD I already own, but I'm afraid of buying new BD or games that require the firmware update and disable my BD drive if I'm not willing to update.

Before you come out with, "Sony wouldn't disable your BD player", it's well documented that the CEO also said they wouldn't get ride of the Other OS support when the slim was released without the Other OS. I'd like to be able to say I'll believe it when I don't see it, but Sony let me use the Other OS for three years before it was disabled, so it might not happen today or tomorrow, but it COULD happen. So I can't trust them period and that's all I need to know to not buy anymore Sony products.

Re:first post!

[drinkypoo]

When even Microsoft treats its customers better than you do, you know you're fucking up.

This is entirely subjective. Removing the ability to run another OS and simultaneously play new games is worse than never having it? RROD is irrelevant? HD-DVD fiasco? Overpriced peripherals? Charging for online multiplayer?

Sure, I'd like free multiplayer, but at least there's no bait and switch. The latest 360 patch lets you use [most] USB storage devices, which is the opposite of overpriced peripherals, although I guess Sony's done that for a while. RROD is most certainly relevant, but it's pretty easy to get a RROD replacement these days (by most accounts, though I admit, not all) so it's a risk I was obviously willing to take. I keep the system on the top of a table where it can ventilate. HD-DVD was not a fiasco; it was clear all along that there was a format war, and that only one format could win. Early adopters knew what they were getting into, or were idiots you can't help regardless.

I'm not saying Microsoft isn't evil, or even abusive to customers. I'm arguing that they're less so than Sony... especially when you restrict your consideration to the game market.. Otherwise, I'd say Microsoft has done more evil, but I don't know that it's for lack of trying on Sony's part. Perhaps it's more than Microsoft is more competent, or merely that they are in a sector where doing evil is easier. But Sony is even more dedicated to proprietary formats than is Microsoft, and worse, they feel free to create them in hardware where they can do the most damage. After creating the compact disc with Philips, I get the feeling they realized what kind of control a single company could exert if they owned a leading media format. Thank goodness they have always failed to do it on their own.

Betamax, Memory Stick, MiniDisc and ATRAC3 and the copyright bit evil, crippled Linux in a hypervisor on two platforms, Rootkit, destruction of Lik-Sang to enforce region lockouts and protect their expensive peripheral (*ahem*) market... I'm not forgiving Microsoft. I buy everything used or third-party where it's at all reasonable, the primary exception being controllers. And I don't actually have a Live Gold account, though it's hard to say if I would get one if my internet connection had lower latency.

Re:first post!

[feepness]

I'm not saying Microsoft isn't evil, or even abusive to customers. I'm arguing that they're less so than Sony...

And I'm arguing that your perception is entirely subjective.

especially when you restrict your consideration to the game market..

Betamax, Memory Stick, MiniDisc and ATRAC3 and the copyright bit evil, crippled Linux in a hypervisor on two platforms, Rootkit, destruction of Lik-Sang to enforce region lockouts and protect their expensive peripheral (*ahem*) market...

You are contradicting yourself.

Re:first post!

[Alphathon]

The PS3's CPU has one PPE and eight SPEs, one of which is disabled, and one of which is used by the operating system, leaving six for game development. The PPE is a PowerPC and its main job is to shovel data to the SPEs... if they are being used. Some of the weaker titles use the PPE for almost everything (except graphics, being handled by the GPU) and use one or two SPEs as if they were a math coprocessor... which I guess they are.

That's pretty much what I meant by it not having a conventional CPU. The PPE may be a conventional CPU more or less, but as a whole the cell is not.

There's certainly games with procedural texturing. Creating these textures is going to be more or less done with the SPEs by anyone competent. It involves shoveling code and data at them and then standing back and waiting for the results to come back, then once they have returned, retrieving them and shoving them into a buffer in graphics memory, which unlike on the Xbox is a distinct and physically separate region/block of memory. So yes, the PPE will have something to do in this context, but it's just acting as a switchboard operator.

True, but I was more talking about anisotropic filtering etc. I'm fairly sure Uncharted, and probably ofther games to, uses one of the SPEs for texture filtering (probably among other things, I can't imagine it hakes THAT much processing time...of course I'm not a graphics programmer, so I may well be mistaken). Given what I know of anisotropic filtering, it would have to be done for each viewpoint separatelly no? As I said though, I'm no graphics programmer (or a programmer at all really - I do some web stuff but thats about it).

Bear in mind that when I say "the CPU", I mean the whole Cell rather than the PPE, like a kind of multi-core CPU if you will, albeit one which has a main core and sub-cores. By the way you described it "The GPU is working on rendering while the CPU is doing something else", I thought you were as well. Regardless, All I really meant by it was that it isn't always the GPUs task to do every graphics related task. Also, as the AC who also replied to this said:

...modern games do a lot of vertex processing, and sometimes pixel post-processing too, is done on the SPUs

That's the kind of thing I meant (although I wan't aware those specifc things). Of course that will not be effected by AI calculations if distributed properly, but it may have some ramifications.

Re:first post!

[Toasterboy]

Sorry, not quite... sort of on the 120hz, no on the "free" stereo 3d from the console. Most "120hz" TV's actually just interpolate the intermediate frames in their processing chip. They can't actually display real incoming data at 120hz, they just fake it.

"All it requires" for free stereo 3d as described above is about 2x the work. Game console hardware already has to drop resolution to 720p to maintain 30fps for the usual level of detail in games these days. Make the graphics subsystem render 2x frames in the same time, and at best it's going to manage 15fps. Sure, you get to re-use some of the setup work (mostly moving data into the graphics subsystem) from the first angle, but the graphics subsystem still has to do the matrix transforms to render the scene, as well as run the shaders, which are likely not designed to look good from multiple angles, and may involve destructive calculations.

Usually in games there are distinct tasks that are parallel in nature, but within a given task there is an inherent degree of serialization. Most games have a simulation thread to update the game world state, and a seperate render thread that periodically draws a frame of the current state at say 30fps or so, depending on system load. But the render thread doesn't actually do the drawing; instead it gathers up the required 3d models, textures, scene data and whatever else, and feeds them to the GPU to draw. Rendering is embarrassingly parallel. Unfortunately, snapshotting the game world state to determine what to draw in a given frame is inherently serial. Recently, shaders have added the capability to do additional manipulation of the data on the GPU itself, which is faster because of the i/o bandwidth bottleneck. (talking to the slower main system bus). Anyway, a free core on the system does precisely nothing for you unless the game architecture is designed to parallelize the render thread to some degree, which most engines do not do. Instead, that core should be used for better AI or whatever. While game consoles are designed to have more bandwidth between the graphics subsystem, main memory, and the cpu, it's still the bottleneck, just not as bad as on PC hardware.

There are other engine differences you would have to build to do this as well, so it's hardly free, and that's not even thinking about memory constraints in the graphics subsystem, and whatever requirements there are for a 3d signal to the 3d TVs (presumably some sort of alternating frame format at a higher framerate; I haven't really looked in to it lately).

Gonna be a couple generations of the 3d display technology before the kinks are worked out, too. Probably the next generation of consoles will source it reasonably well. That's still 5-7+ years out though. Which is about the same timeframe that the no-glasses 3d TV tech is anticipated to appear. That means several years of crappy rapidly changing tech are in store.

Re:first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need to be modded super troll for taking things out of context. You haven't made or supported an argument just egged people on with, "You're being subjective". IMHO, everyone you've argued with has provided evidence to support their arguments and if you weren't being such a Sony-fan-funboy you'd see that. Besides that you're a dick.

Re:first post!

[Toonol]

And your point is that eg. Uncharted was optimised to the breaking point, and there was no way Uncharted 2 would look better, with better textures, models, physics and collisions?

It obviously could have been optimized more. With months of effort and a huge increase in their development costs, they probably could have squeezed out another 5-10% in performance.

It's a case of diminishing returns. You'll never get anything completely optimized; but you get to where it is more and more work for less and less returns. 3d basically requires a 100% increase in performance in order to not degrade the framerate. Very rarely will they be able to take an otherwise nearly finished game, and double its performance.

Re:first post!

[feepness]

Still works as a DVD player and I can play the BD I already own, but I'm afraid of buying new BD or games that require the firmware update and disable my BD drive if I'm not willing to update.

Hmmm, I am curious if the BD spec allows forced firmware updates like it would for a PS3 game. You're probably safe there from a technical standpoint rather than a company stance.

I can't say for sure though. Would be interesting if someone who knew BD had an idea.

Re:first post!

[billcopc]

I'm sorry for being a dick, but from which ass did you pull that 10% or 20% number ? If you're rendering the same scene from two angles, the GPU still has to do twice the work. Shaders, occlusion, stenciling, all that stuff has to be re-run because the frame has changed. Rending left/right frames is no different than rendering one frame, moving right three inches then rendering the next frame. The reason they have to drop to 720p isn't so much because of CPU/GPU power but fill rate. There is only so much memory bandwidth available, doubling the number of frames means you need to halve the number of pixels in order to maintain the same fill rate. This is partly why GPU manufacturers have been putting a lot of emphasis on AA/AF and image quality, rather than high resolutions. It is easier to throw more processing at one pixel, than it is to throw more pixels through the pipe. The Cell processor is no exception to this rule. They could build a 64-core Cell, it would still be bottlenecked at the memory controller.

Re:first post!

[AmberBlackCat]

It is my understanding that the reason for 120hz is because both the 24fps of a movie and 60fps of HDTV divide evenly into 120fps.

Re:first post!

[CarpetShark]

The new Samsung TVs are 240Hz, too.

That's nothing. Wait 'til you hear my CD player.

Re:first post!

[BoogeyOfTheMan]

We are running the Samsung un55c7000 tv, Samsung BD-C6900 BR player, as for the glasses.. I have no idea. All three in-store 3D displays I have seen in town use the same glasses, but they arent the same as the ones that are sold with the tv.

Yes it was actual 3D content, the "Monsters vs Aleins" demo disc they sent with the display.

I'm 90% sure its Active 3D.

As far as I'm aware, 1.4 and 1.3 have the same connectors, but I'm not sure pin-wise.

As to the hz question, I dunno. Samsung's hz rating in the info has always confused me. (I manually set it to 120 (Automotion-plus or whatever they're calling it today), but it displays "1080i@60" when watching OTA or our stores loop. It also displays "1080p@24" when a BD is playing, no matter what I set the hz to)

Re:first post!

[BoogeyOfTheMan]

That should read "1080i@30"

I even edited my post first too. /doh

Re:first post!

[Malc]

You know whether you have active 3D or not because the for active, the glasses need a power supply (i.e. they need to be recharged occasionally, and turned on/off). Active 3D generally means shuttering (the glasses are synced with the video display and alternatively block the view through to each eye. Passive 3D generally uses polarisation or displays that require you to be in one of several very specific viewing positions. You probably know this if you work in a store.

You don't get to specify the screen's parameters too much when you're playing back a BD. You might specify 60Hz, but if the content is 23.976Hz (or even true 24p), then that's what you'll get. This is better than the player's decoder faffing around doing 3:2 pull down, etc, or trying to change the speed of the audio. Your settings will presumably be used for the player's setup menus, etc, but not during playback. If you only have a 720p screen, then I guess there will be some scaling and maybe de-interlacing applied, but that is different to trying to change the frequency.

Re:first post!

[sowth]

You won't buy from Sony because they used a rootkit and disabled linux on their machines, yet you have no problem with Microsoft? Microsoft also disables Linux on their machines.

Microsoft has put most of their effort into making sure you won't be able to use linux or any other alternative OS. The antitrust trials where just the tip of the iceburg. If it wasn't for MS, we'd probably have OS/2, BeOS and many others on the market today.

Their OS is a rootkit on the entire software market. It is designed with so much cruft and has so many bugs which application developers tune their products to use, it is nearly impossible to reliably run a program designed for MSWin on a different OS. Defective by design.

I'm not saying sony is a good company, but at least they allowed people to run linux on their console. Yeah, it is probably because they don't have a competing OS like MS, but how does this make them worse?

Goofy glasses

[BadAnalogyGuy]

3D will never really take off until they can figure out a way to implement it comfortably without requiring the ridiculous glasses.

This fad will pass soon, hopefully, and we'll stop thinking about how cool the technology is and be back to thinking about making playable games.

Re:Goofy glasses

[anarche]

3D will never really take off until they can figure out a way to implement it comfortably without requiring the ridiculous glasses.

I dunno, I think we're seeing a new market emerging for designer 3D glasses for this specific purpose..

Re:Goofy glasses

[Vylen]

But there are a few companies/places/whatever that have gone about developing 3D technology without the need for 3D glasses.

Nintendo is supposedly doing it with the 3DS, with two companies lined up that are suspected of providing the screens that allow it. IIRC, Sharp was one of them.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Aladrin]

Yes, people like you said the same thing about the theatres as well.

Turns out that all you need to do is convince people it's good enough. Avatar was the 'killer app' for theatre 3d for many, many people. (I was hooked long ago.)

And now that there are TVs that support it natively, home adoption will spread as well. The cheapest Samsung 3D LCD TV is $1800 MSRP and it's 46". I bought a Samsung 46" 2 years ago for $2500. (MRSP was $2800, I believe.) So anyone who could afford a 46" TV 2 years ago can now afford a 46" 3D TV and a few pairs of glasses.

And the 'killer app' for home 3D TV seems not to even be movies or games. Everyone I've talked to about it says something like 'I don't care much about the movies, but have you seen football in 3D? It's just like being there! I don't want to buy stadium tickets anymore, I'll just watch from my house!' I'm not a sports fan, but the video I saw of volleyball in 3D made it pretty clear how cool sports look in 3D.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Malard]

The thing is, designer 3D glasses are still avoiding the underlying issue that its a hack on the eye. The real issue is not stereoscopic picture but accomodation of the eye. The eye is not being strained to adjust to the varying depth and that causes headaches as your brain is not used to it. While some autostereoscopic displays are emerging such as the Ninentdo 3DS, displaying the source content on a 2D service will always leave you with the issue of accomodation

Re:Goofy glasses

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Having seen such 3D screens that don't require glasses, I'm not sure those are going to sell well either. They will cause some people to have epileptic fits and others to have migraines, though, so that might be good for a laugh.

Then again, who knows? Those screens may actually not be vertigo-inducing by the time they get to market.

But I doubt it.

Re:Goofy glasses

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Gerardo made a song had one really catchy lyric. Even today, just saying the word "Rico" will get people to at least think "Suave", even if they don't know *any* of the other song lyrics.

Avatar is the Rico Suave of 3D technology.

Re:Goofy glasses

[SimonTheSoundMan]

They will cause some people to have epileptic fits and others to have migraines, though, so that might be good for a laugh.

It never really affected the sale of cheap, single chip DLP projectors with 4x or slower colour wheels.

Re:Goofy glasses

[KDR_11k]

Nintendo is planning on glasses-free 3D on the next DS. Apparently that's more feasible for small, single user screens.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

Avatar may have been the killer movie to generate 3D excitement in the movies, but that excite is long gone. Clash of the Titans may be the nail in the coffin.

The large hurdle facing 3D at home is that you need to replace your equipment. Maybe your blu-ray player will be lucky and get an update, maybe you have a screen that will handle the dual signals, but your receiver will need scrapping because you need HDMI 1.4. Almost every HDMI implementation in the home is 1.3. Most people aren't going to replace their 2 or 3 year old HDTVs.

Re:Goofy glasses

[GNious]

And the 'killer app' for home 3D TV seems not to even be movies or games.

PlayboyTV in 3D?

Re:Goofy glasses

[karnal]

See, that's part of the problem. I wouldn't mind buying into a plasma at today's prices - but I think for your typical household, anything at or above the $1000 mark is a little tough right now.

Of course, I'm always on the look out for a good deal - I'm almost thinking that saving $500 and going with a 720p over a 1080p plasma model would be a better financial decision (1300 - Panasonic 50" g25 vs a u2 or c2 model) as I probably won't see the difference at 12' away.

Back on point, for true adoption you're still spending a lot of money for what is probably seen in most eyes as a gimmick. If it comes with the TV as a "freebie" - or every TV automatically has it built in - then you'll see adoption rates soar.

Re:Goofy glasses

[TheLink]

I bet it affects different groups of people differently.

For me, the eyestrain issues are more due to movies (3D or 2D) having scenes where some parts of the scene is blurry, and my eyes trying to focus on something that can never be in focus. I had that unpleasant experience when I watched Avatar in both 3D and 2D recently. It's fine as long as I looked at the nonblurry bits of the scene.

I doubt I'll have problems as long as everything is in focus - "far" or "near". No blurring especially artificial blurring (often the motion blur is too much).

Re:Goofy glasses

[bemenaker]

Until we have holographic displays, I don't see how you're going to get past the glasses.

Re:Goofy glasses

[misexistentialist]

volleyball in 3D

Sold!

Re:Goofy glasses

[sznupi]

Still a gimmick, even if it generated some publicity lately. Where is the stream of big, good releases? Oh, could it be that we just had another "must see" 3D movie, just like it happens once every few years?

To see better what it is...where's the huge uptake of 3D photographs? I mean, "3D photography" (stereography) is here only slightly shorter than "normal" one - over 150 years. Surely it would be more by now than gimmick of novelty, gimmick for trade shows, gimmick for world expo, or Yugoslav-made toy that collects dust on top of bookshelf? Heck, with cheap CMOS sensors some P&S 3D digicam should take over the world by now...after all it would be only slightly more expensive in production, but so much better...

Re:Goofy glasses

[Bakkster]

Don't you think it's a little early to be saying that? You might end up being 100% correct, and Avatar could be the only movie in the history of 3D movies to do it 'right'. But it could also be like claiming the generation 1 Prius in 1997 was the one-hit wonder of hybrid vehicles. Ten years later, that's definitely not the case.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Animaether]

The real issue is not stereoscopic picture but accomodation of the eye.

Although you are correct when it comes to physical (and in some aspects, psychological) aspects of glasses, I'd like to point out that GP suggested designer glasses to deal with a -very real issue- in adoption of 3D that requires glasses... "goofy glasses", "ridiculous glasses", "Can you imagine sitting in your living room with friends all wearing those stupid glasses?", etc.

There will always be people who have issues with things like stereoscopic 3D, just as some people can't handle rapid bright flashes and some people are color blind. But for those who have no physical nor true psychological issues where the only barrier is the "goofy glasses", some nice design glasses could go a long way.
( Though the vast majority of people who complain about the glasses complain about glasses no matter how good they'd look. Circular polarized contacts for that lot, I say ;) )

Re:Goofy glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

Beach volleyball is available in 3D? Well that nearly sells it for me. If only they could get rid of those crazy glasses.

Why, if I was found masturbating while wearing them, I'd just die of embarrassment.

Re:Goofy glasses

[GameMaster]

Yes, it only works if you keep your eyes in a specific position relative to the screen. This is much easier for people playing a hand-held gaming system.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I disagree. I think the time for 3D glasses are now. I wear a comfortable over the ear high quality headset with a mic while i play Modern Warfare 2 on the PC... So why not throw 3D glasses into the mix? Hell make it a nice headset where the glasses slide up and down like a visor. I dont care.

I'm alreadyd wearing a headset.

So headgear really isnt a problem. Many of us are already wearing headphones and mics.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

So what your saying is that - like many other now home-entertainment staples - 3DTV's killer app will be Porn.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Re:Goofy glasses

[vegiVamp]

You may have a very good point, there: the player most likely to have the deciding vote on what 3D tech is "good enough" may well be the porn industry.

Re:Goofy glasses

[It's the tripnaut!]

Everyone I've talked to about it says something like 'I don't care much about the movies, but have you seen football in 3D? It's just like being there! I don't want to buy stadium tickets anymore, I'll just watch from my house!' I'm not a sports fan, but the video I saw of volleyball in 3D made it pretty clear how cool sports look in 3D.

The "killer app" for home 3D will most probably be porn.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't even have to go that high to get a 3D TV. Last month, I purchased a 60" Mitsubishi 3D HDTV from Dell for $800, free shipping. It's about a foot thick (DLP), but if you don't care about having your TV on a wall-mount, you can get off the ground without a 4-figure investment.
 
Personally, I don't even care about 3D. It doesn't seem to add much to the cost, though, so it may possibly become ubiquitous on newer televisions either way.

Re:Goofy glasses

[religious freak]

I call BS. 3D goes in and out of fashion every couple decades. Maybe this time is different, but if history is any indication, my guess is no

Re:Goofy glasses

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

3D will never really take off until they can figure out a way to implement it comfortably without requiring the ridiculous glasses.

This fad will pass soon, hopefully, and we'll stop thinking about how cool the technology is and be back to thinking about making playable games.

I disagree. It's just part of the evolution towards neurally connected computing. Realizing that each eye is a distinct input is an important step.

Re:Goofy glasses

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Even today, just saying the word "Rico" will get people to at least think "Suave

Not me. I think... "[Ric]ooolllaa..." Damn you, our advertising corporate overlords. Damn you.

Re:Goofy glasses

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it mean that it's good for pr0n? Sold * 2!

Re:Goofy glasses

[sowth]

What does psychology have to do with 3D glasses? Unless you are talking about people being afraid of glasses (ocuphobia?), you probably meant to say neurological.

Neurological means a physical or chemical problem with the brain (among other things). You can have a neurological problem which causes psychological issues, but they are different things. Something which causes seizures is most certainly neurological.

To use a crappy computer analogy, think of psychological as a problem with the software, and neurological as a problem with the hardware. Flashing lights triggering a wave pattern of data in the eye, which in turn triggers a defect in the brain is most certainly hardware.

Re:Goofy glasses

[kirkcam]

Yeah, Its true. A friend of mine showed me a pair of designer 3D glasses he was given in a gift bag at some wrap party. Illusion Eyewear. They're a pretty cool product. Much better than the standard issue, plus apparently they double as sunglasses. www.illusioneyewear.com if you're interested.

Need to ween people on to it

[angularbanjo]

Any chance they might implement a colour anaglyphic option for the 100% of PS3 owners who won't be owning 3DTVs for some time? At least then we can get a feel for the extra value path to 3DTV.

3D Glasses That Don't Look Like Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we'll see 3d glasses made like regular eye glasses. I for one, would not be able to game in 3d UNLESS I had prescription 3d glasses because I would not be able to see the text clearly on the screen, even from a modest distance. And I sure as hell am not going to start wearing contacts for a gimmick like 3d.

Re:3D Glasses That Don't Look Like Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

You can wear most 3D glasses on top of prescription ones.

Re:3D Glasses That Don't Look Like Shit

[GameMaster]

I have glasses (relatively large frames too) and have never had a problem getting the 3d glasses to fit over my normal frames. For home use, you could also get clip-ons.

Re:3D Glasses That Don't Look Like Shit

[CarpetShark]

Modern 3D glasses for cinemas etc. are actually half decent. They're a little big and bulky (to fit over your prescription glasses), but otherwise reasonably solid and well made. Certainly not cardboard and flimsy plastic, like you might be expecting.

What ever happened with VR?

[spxZA]

It was the "next best thing" back in the mid-90's. But, it almost completely died out. I would think with the incredibly more powerful consoles we have nowadays, someone would re-look at VR again. It's be a whole helova lot cheaper than buying a new TV, etc.

Re:What ever happened with VR?

[l0stmage]

It was the "next best thing" back in the mid-90's. But, it almost completely died out. I would think with the incredibly more powerful consoles we have nowadays, someone would re-look at VR again. It's be a whole helova lot cheaper than buying a new TV, etc.

Didn't the Nintendo Gameboy VR system give people seizures, besides being amazingly bulky and requiring its own tripod?

Re:What ever happened with VR?

[AHuxley]

Bungie was looking at the Cybermaxx Virtual Reality Helmet for its early Marathon work
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/blastfromthepast.html#31
More info at http://home.gwi.net/~pstewart/lcdneeds.html

Re:What ever happened with VR?

[Anonymous Coward]

VirtualBoy was not virtual reality. It was a bulky headset with a small red screen in it.

Re:What ever happened with VR?

[elrous0]

The problem with VR was hardware *power*, it was the *amount* of physical hardware needed. Even a basic VR setup requires a headset with two small widescreen monitors (and the price of those never really scales down, since resolutions are ever increasing) and headphones. And don't even THINK about what it would cost to build a walking rig if you wanted to go that far. VR started out expensive and it would still be just as expensive today. It just never really came down in price enough for anyone to try to market it for consumers.

And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

Seems to me the PS3 has been in a constant spiral of removing features since the PS3 Launch, and I'm not just talking about the recent Other OS removal. So how long does anyone think Sony is going to let a novelty feature, i.e. 3D, fly before they pull the plug on who knows how many thousands of people who buy into this.

1) people are wowed by it right now. The only reason Sony's trying to get this in the PS3 is to capitalize on the fad before it disappears.

2) I've been to several 3D movies, Avatar being the most recent, and think it's a nice trick for a once in a while show. That being said, I know several people who have gone to 3D movies and complain about headaches, motion sickness, the 3D glasses are uncomfortable and they don't fit well over regular prescription glasses and some people can't see the 3D at all or find it just plan not impressive.

3) It's just another way the movie industry is going to get people to re-buy stuff they already own. Pretty soon you're going to be able to by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings digitally remastered for 3D.

I can't tell others what to do, but I recommend avoiding 3D for home theater and especially on the PS3 for gaming.

Re:And how long?

[Barny]

How long do you think this feature will last on PS3 once PS4 comes out? :)

Re:And how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Proper 3D required HDMI 1.4, the PS3 is 1.3 on the original models and 1.3a on the newer ones. I.e. the PS3 will never do proper 3D in home-theaters. Check the table at the bottom of this page.

Re:And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

You should have stated that as an answer not a question.

E.G. "Once the PS4 comes out, the feature will no longer be supported on the PS3."

After all how is Sony going to get people to buy the PS4 at launch? Everyone already knows what they've done with the PS3. So offering fancy features probably won't work as well as it did last time. The other option is to completely obliterate the PS3 so people that have money vested in PS3 3D games and movies will have to buy a PS4. Disable the feature, brick a few machines basically force consumers to buy new product.

Re:And how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long do you think this feature will last on PS3 once PS4 comes out? :)

LoL PS4 that is a long way off. How long till another generation of consoles is required to keep up with developers?

Re:And how long?

[Sockatume]

You're right, the last thing Sony wants to do with 3D is use it to actually sell some consoles. They're going to want to get that lucrative trade-show and press-junket dime instead.

Re:And how long?

[HoppQ]

It's my understanding that Sony can update the HDMI capabilities through firmware updates.

Re:And how long?

[Animaether]

Correct. Nothing in the HDMI 1.4(a) specification precludes the ability to send 3D content from an HDMI 1.3 device. There is no form-factor or cabling change related to 3D in the HDMI 1.4(a) specification. The only cabling change is for Ethernet-over-HDMI, which is not a requirement for 3D.

The only requirements are:
1. the HDMI device must be able to send the correct signal. This is typically a firmware thing but it depends on the device whether it can handle e.g. framepacking/etc. Shouldn't be a problem for the PS3.
2. the HDMI cable must be able to (reliably) carry that signal. Not a problem there either as there's no relevant cabling change.
3. the receiving device must be able to decode that signal. This is separate from the transmitting device altogether.

Similar information is in the HDMI spec.

However... that doesn't mean that SONY wouldn't say "too bad, so sad" and reserve the feature for the PS4. Similarly, there isn't really anything technically (agreements aren't 'technical') stopping a receiving device (TV, motnitor) from checking for the Ethernet lines in the cabling and if it hasn't been detected, disable all HDMI 1.4(a) features.. including 3D.

Re:And how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be suicide. otherOS loss was infuriating but touched so few users to be a statistical anomaly. remotely bricking the console would be action for lawsuits.

EULAs be damned that would be suicide for the platform. Sony may be arrogant bastards but they are not suicidal

Re:And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

/Tinfoil hat on

There is no real proof the 3.21 update is bricking PS3s; however, tons of users are reporting their machines aren't working after they do the update. According to post in the PS3 forums, PS3s 1) aren't playing games (FF XIII is a big one), 2) disks are getting stuck in the drives and 3) for a lucky few the consoles won't start at all.

Sony's solution, buy an new PS3 Slim or pay them $160 + shipping and handling to fix it for you

EULA "protects" them from being sued for damaging a console during a firmware update. So unless a court rules the EULA isn't legal there isn't a lot the "small minority" of people having these issues can do, except not to buy Sony products.

/Tinfoil hat off

Re:And how long?

[Barny]

Well, we are using consoles with 4-5 year old video hardware.

Re:And how long?

[icebraining]

Pretty soon you're going to be able to by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings digitally remastered for 3D.

How? Seeing as they (probably) weren't recorded by 3D cameras in the first place, how can they simply take the frames and render new viewpoints? I think we're a long way from being able to do that.

Re:And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

Already covered

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/09/1512259/Software-Converts-2D-Images-To-3D?from=rss

Re:And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

Didn't mean to submit that. I was going to say, It's only a matter of time before they can use lighting effects and shadows to create a 3D model from a 2D image, with a single image.

Re:And how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this much, about that console from those lying cheat bastards : I'll choose Linux on it, over 3D bluray on it, any day of the week.

Re:And how long?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

"Constant spiral of removing features since launch"

huh?

What features have they removed?

They removed ONE feature. The Other OS feature. Every firmware update has ADDED features since launch.

Re:And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

On top of the Linux support removal, I know at least the PS3 Slim doesn't have the Backward Compatibility with PS2 games and no card readers; The PS3 fat did. The PS3 Slim is slower when starting up and loading movies although it is slightly faster with game loading (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/PS3-Slim-Slower-Faster-phat,news-4539.html).

Re:And how long?

[tlhIngan]

It's my understanding that Sony can update the HDMI capabilities through firmware updates.

If that's so, why can't my PS3 phat bitstream DTS-MA or DD-TrueHD on HDMI? It only can output DTS or DD streams, and not the "high def" streams encoded on blu-ray today.

BTW, PS3 slim can bitstream, as can every blu-ray player out there.

Re:And how long?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

ah. I have an early 60GB fat PS3.

Forgot about the backwards compatibility removal.

I'm sure they wouldnt have removed it, if the PS3 had actually sold well. Unfortuantely it was terrible for 2 years. Sony lost a too much money on the damn thing.

Re:And how long?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

eems to me the PS3 has been in a constant spiral of removing features since the PS3 Launch, and I'm not just talking about the recent Other OS removal. So how long does anyone think Sony is going to let a novelty feature, i.e. 3D, fly before they pull the plug on who knows how many thousands of people who buy into this.

Right.

Re:And how long?

[IrquiM]

And now they're removing 2d!!! :/

Re:And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

The loss of the BC is tragic and I don't see it's loss as big of an issue as the other os, because I still have access to BC on my PS3. People buying a new PS3, if they were informed, would know the new product didn't come with it. That being said I know several people who bought the PS3 on my recommendation and found out after the fact the BC was removed. I found out from them and originally thought it was just a defective system, but after looking it up I found out what had really happened. The difference with the Other OS feature is I bought the PS3 for that feature and used it for three years only to now have Sony come back and take it away AFTER I've paid for it. The next thing you know they'll be disabling the BC feature in older models so people have to re-buy their PS2 games from the PSN.

Re:And how long?

[Vanderhoth]

If I wasn't commenting in this thread and had some points, I'd mod you funny for that.

What I was trying to get at is Sony will update the PS3s and allow 3D, then in the future they could, and given their track record probably will, remove the functionality in order to force people to buy the next latest and greatest thing.

Why do I need a special TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't the game just render an anaglyphic red/blue image?

Re:Why do I need a special TV?

[AHuxley]

The Sony 3d on your new display with have to match the Sony 3d logo on your new console and on the 3d glasses for the best gaming experience.
Dont forget the new HDMI 3d ready cable with extra quad-layer shielding and new gas-injected dieletric for the extended 3d frequency response.
For every 20 back yard "anaglyphic red/blue" 2d hacks sold, the terrorists fund a new "Omar" IED.
Cable news also warns grandparents that the 2d anaglyphic red/blue hack allows socialism to enter the home, the gateway ideology to incurable communism or national socialism.

And what about...

[CornflakeJustice]

Those of us who wear glasses as part of our day to day vision requirements? Wearing a pair of glasses over top of our regular frames is not only bulkier, but significantly more uncomfortable, annoying, and even difficult as a result of only having so much viable nose space to properly hold them on. Sure contacts are great and wonderful for the people that want them, but for some of us, they are neither a viable option, or comfortable, not to mention that I for one don't really want to pay for more eyewear than I need. 3D is great and all, but a huge chunk of gamers wear glasses. I've enjoyed the three movies I saw in 3D in spite of the glasses, and to be frank, that has been almost enough to warrant avoiding the 3D films. (And that's not even getting into the asinine pricing scheme...)

Re:And what about...

[drinkypoo]

Those of us who wear glasses as part of our day to day vision requirements? Wearing a pair of glasses over top of our regular frames is not only bulkier, but significantly more uncomfortable, annoying, and even difficult as a result of only having so much viable nose space to properly hold them on.

Maybe someone will make clip-on 3d glasses. Er, wait...

Re:And what about...

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

ot to mention that I for one don't really want to pay for more eyewear than I need. 3D is great and all, but a huge chunk of gamers wear glasses

This is another case of "I can't use X, so there's no market for it". In case you hadn't noticed, gaming hasn't been just for geeks in quite a number of years... and while the stereotypical geek must wear glasses, in real life the majority of people don't. Not to mention that for a portion of that subset... it's not a hurdle, just an annoyance.

It's weird to think

[NotSoHeavyD3]

That the Sega Master System had 3D games using those same liquid crystal shutter glasses and it had them over 20 years ago. Oh, and you didn't need a special TV to use the glasses. (Although the frame rate was 30FPS and not 60FPS like this thing.)

Re:It's weird to think

[raddan]

And, as a person who had a pair, they gave me terrible headaches/nausea after long periods of playing. Also, there were very few 3D games, and the Master System in general really started to suffer when the original Nintendo became the de facto console-- I remember that the one place I could get Master System games (KB Toys), stopped carrying them. I had to mail-order them after that, and at the very end, when the Genesis came out, a couple mail-order vendors took my money, but never sent me a game. It sucked, especially since I was buying this stuff with paper route money.

That said, the Master System was awesome. I still have mine, and the built-in game ("Hang On") still works. The location of my controllers, though... who knows...

Re:It's weird to think

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Really? I had them too but it didn't give me headaches/nausea or anything like that. (I got that from Doom and Wolf 3d.) It did work better for some games than others didn't it? (I mean Missle Defense 3-d looked nice but I didn't think it added much to Space Harrier 3d)

Lower frame rate for 3D?

[MobyDisk]

he 3D version of WipEout HD is locked to 720p, but due to geometry issues, frame-rate is halved to 30FPS. Note that all screenshots in this feature are derived from the 2D versions of the games.

Other posts have alluded to this, but let me state it explicitly. You cannot get away with lowering the frame rate when adding 3D. The additional parallax effects will make it look stuttery. 30fps is not great for a high-speed game, but 30fps with 3D will look like 15FPS with 2D. For some people, I bet the two images won't even converge. Headache city.

Drop the geometry, but don't drop the frame rate!

Will this delay Gran Turismo 5

[ndavis]

My only question is will the makers of Gran Turismo 5 go back to the drawing board to make the game 3D?? I have been waiting for year for this game to come out in its full form and I can see them delaying it longer to add 3D. If this is the case please wait until the game is released before the update. I don't want this to be a repeat of Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:Will this delay Gran Turismo 5

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Its possible that the 3D could be added as a feature via DLC.

of course i prefer on disc.. but.. if they didnt want to delay the game further.. they could do it as DLC

Chicken, meet egg

[Animaether]

To see better what it is...where's the huge uptake of 3D photographs?
As a stereophotography amateur (using a custom dual-camera rig so I can create exaggerated depth perception - much like binoculars), I would have to say it's very much a chicken-and-egg problem.

I can shoot a hundred stereo photos today and have them all be.. well I wouldn't say awesome as I don't take notice of composition, lighting, etc. much ..fairly good. But in the end, how am I going to display them to people?
Right now I use a cross-eye side-by-side presentation. That works for most people, but not all. Some of them I get printed at a lenticular 3D lab. That works OK for a lot of people, but only those that hold the print.

Now if 3D TVs and monitors are going to be more ubiquitous, I could run a little program that would send the correct signals to the 3D display to have the photos displayed properly on those. HTML 5.something or HTML 6 might even add support for 3D displays.

But right now those displays aren't ubiquitous.. so why would anybody who isn't already mildly enthusiastic about the prospects be convinced to buy a 3D P&S like the Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W1?

Rad Racer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet, now they can finally make that "Rad Racer" game I've been hearing about for the last 20 years!

opening tag, meet closi... hey where'd it go!?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah I botched the closing blockquote tag, apparently. mea culpa

We had many chickens and many eggs already here

[sznupi]

People don't have much means to see 3D photos "correctly" because they just don't care much beyond short amusement value, a gimmick. Take this 3D Yugoslav toy that I mentioned; I can't quickly find it via google, but it was essentially a cardboard disk with dozen or so pairs of small cliches (photos of various landmarks), which you put into small handheld viewer. From the 70's.

It worked really good, the effect was very convincing (of course minus usual inability to focus naturally and natural paralax...). No obvious faults with it. It would be trivial even back then to give people the opportunity of making disks with their own set of photos; making those photos would be a bit of a problem of course. Now making such viewer + disks is even more trivial, and 3D digicam could cheaply and easily provide source photos. Nobody has done it; perhaps because such technology can't work as a one time gimmick (returning every few years), but must be sustainable in photolabs around the world. Which it can't really do, people are perfectly satisfied with boring 2D photos.

Re:We had many chickens and many eggs already here

[bws111]

I think you're thinking of View-Master. Not sure what it has to do with Yugoslavia though.

Re:We had many chickens and many eggs already here

[Animaether]

Take this 3D Yugoslav toy that I mentioned; I can't quickly find it via google, but it was essentially a cardboard disk with dozen or so pairs of small cliches (photos of various landmarks), which you put into small handheld viewer. From the 70's.

Might have been a View-Master like device?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master

You can't really compare it to a 3D display, though. Only one viewer at a time, and it's a device you have to store away / get out all the time. You also can't look at the images 'as is' (well you can if you hold them up to a light and look real closely).

Think e.g. of the lenticular prints. I can store those in any photo album the same way I do regular 2D photos. The only reason I don't print many of those is because it is such a small audience (myself, family, friends) as opposed to any viewer with an internet connection.

That said - I absolutely don't contend that people are satisfied with 'boring' 2D photos - and movies. On the up side - any 3D photo can easily be a 2D photo (just take left or right.. done.) going the other way yields Clash-of-the-Titans muck ;)

I think it's rather akin to HD video cameras. There's plenty of HD video cameras, from 720i to 1080p. There's also certainly people purchasing these and enjoying the HD quality. But for most people, the upload to YouTube in 360p with artifacts up the wazoo is good enough. But that doesn't mean there isn't an HD market for consumers.. same thing applies to 3D.. though there is that chicken-and-egg thing :)

Put differently... 3D is a niche - undoubtedly - but I don't think it will be a short-lived 'fad' as it has been in previous pushes. Future events may prove me wrong - and I wouldn't have any problems with that :)

Re:We had many chickens and many eggs already here

[sznupi]

Yes, it was very close. A copy essentially (Yugoslav-made, I'm sure of that)

Re:We had many chickens and many eggs already here

[sznupi]

Yes, it seems it was essentially a copy of View-Master.

And c'mon, only one person at a time usage shouldn't be much of a showstopper in the area of typical personal photos...certainly not when you want to remember something all by yourself ("relive your memories like you're again there!") or showing them to somebody. Upcoming 3D screens have similar limitations - you need to have 3D glasses for everybody ("a device you have to store away / get out all the time"; quite delicate to boot; and how weird will be sitting with your relatives all in those clunky glasses?) or...the area with properly visible 3D effect is quite narrow.

People really don't seem to care. Since you mentioned HD - look at certain consumer reports. In the UK around half of the people who think they are getting HD signal on their nice, new TV...in reality have only standard digital SD. And in case of SD -> HD there is actually an improvement across the spectrum. With 3D - sure, you have an added depth of field (plus even more than with HD inconveniences of setting it all up). But you have to get used to another unnatural "lack of focusing" scenario, much more irritating than in the case of "2D" IMHO. Plus totally wrong parallax.

FUCK SONY

[Anonymous Coward]

I wont take it up the ass. Im staying on 3.15 and wont update unless a CFW comes out. I was buying and actually enjoying some of the latest games and it makes me sad that the least BAD system was killed by the dumbasses at sony.
No more support or recommendations from me. I wasn't even interested on playing backups or native homebrew as having the PSN cheat free was worth it. Now I can only hope the PS3 goes the way of the PSP and we get to use to the fullest extent what we paid for. Once the PS3 dies remembers it was Sony who killed the PS3, not hackers,modders or cheaters

It's NOT 3D!

[Hurricane78]

The insertion of true stereoscopic 3D

Sorry, but it’s stereoscopic 2D!
Stereoscopic 3D would be two cubes.
This is just two fixed 2D planes in 3D space. The same thing as two flat panel displays in front of you.
That the images on it are ortographically projected, does not make it 3D. The rest of the 3D volume still is out of focus for that very reason. (= It all lying on the same plane.)

Frame rate depends on the TV to a degree...

[Garwulf]

"Also, Wipeout went from 60FPS at 1080p to 30FPS at 720p for the 3D upgrade. From the article, it sounds like they did it because they were lazy and didn't want to spend time optimizing their code any further to keep the FPS up."

It's not quite like that. I was doing research on 3D TVs recently out of interest (I had just upgraded to an HD TV), and 30 FPS is about the most you will likely get out of a 3D game to a standard modern non-3D capable television set.

Here's why - you have three refresh rates on TVs these days - 60 Hz, 120 Hz, and 240 Hz. Those refresh rates are effectively frame rates. If you have the money, and you care about it, you have every reason to go with 120 or 240 Hz if you can...but there's a reason for that. The reason is that video signals are transmitted at around 30 FPS, while movies are 24 FPS. The TV or DVD player brings the picture up to the refresh rate of the TV by adding frames. With a 60 Hz set, video is upgraded easier than film, since 30 FPS divides evenly into 60 Hz, while 24 doesn't. 24 FPS does, however, divide evenly into 120 and 240 Hz - this means that frame duplication is nice and even, and there is no chance of extra "judder."

So, what does this have to do with the PS3 and 3D games?

Well, this is the thing about modern non-3D televisions - if you buy a good non 3D-capable LCD television that can do 240 Hz, this means that it is displaying 240 Hz...but NOT receiving it. It's actually only receiving up to 60 Hz (remember, the entire thing about the higher refresh rates is all about adding frames in playback). Now, a 3D game works by having two slightly offset images per frame - one for each eye. The glasses ensure that each eye is only seeing the frames designated for it. So, for every 3D frame per second, there must be two images instead of one. That brings it down to basic math - the PS3 is transmitting at 60 Hz, and has to double up the images. Hence, no more than 30 FPS for a 3D game.

I THINK I've explained that properly...

Re:Frame rate depends on the TV to a degree...

[MobyDisk]

you have every reason to go with 120 or 240 Hz if you can...

Some blu-ray players do attempt to send frames at 120Hz using frame interpolation. But frame interpolation actually degrades the image - there's no good algorithms for it yet.

this means that it is displaying 240 Hz

A 240hz TV doesn't actually display anything at 240hz. They just flicker the back light quickly to create the illusion of a higher frame rate. Subjective comparisons don't actually show it looking any better, and the TV reviews I've seen tell you to turn the feature off.

So the only valid reason for a 120Hz or 240Hz TV is future 3D capability.

Re:Frame rate depends on the TV to a degree...

[Garwulf]

"A 240hz TV doesn't actually display anything at 240hz. They just flicker the back light quickly to create the illusion of a higher frame rate. Subjective comparisons don't actually show it looking any better, and the TV reviews I've seen tell you to turn the feature off."

Well, THAT can't be good for the life of the backlight. I didn't realize that it did that, though. Huh.

"So the only valid reason for a 120Hz or 240Hz TV is future 3D capability."

Well, I can see 120 Hz being good for 24 frame mode for movies, and getting rid of judder.

For the record, my TV is a 60Hz 40" 1080p LCD TV.

This exact same thing...

[bhxob]

...happened 10-15 years ago with CRT monitors, and Nvidia pushing shutter lenses and 3d capable technology, and then fell off the face of the planet from lack of genuine consumer interest.

What is different this time? Has the head gear changed? Not the home use version. Still the same stupid shutter lense technology that halves frame-rate and increases GPU workload.

For home use, the only thing that has changed is the display medium, from CRT to LCD. There really is nothing new to see here.