You are confused with some of your figures. Each SPU has access to 256K of local cache. This is very very fast memory... no misses. They can't directly access main memory, so there isn't really contention. However, the programming model is more complicated. Nothing console devs can't handle;)
The 16MB/s figure (if that's correct, don't remember exactly...) is related to reading VRAM (sony confusingly calls this local memory) from the Cell, something you don't generally have any reason to do. The GPU has fast access (~20GB/s) to the Cell's memory (called Main Memory) which is much more useful. You can split up your texture usage between the two memory pools and cut down on memory contention.
Anyhow, too many winter brews, so I'll stop rambling.
There's already a device like this on the market called the lemur. It's not as big and grand, but you can buy it now and there's no need for surgery.
http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_overview.php
There is a certain charm that those old, all-in-one macs have.
Would you beleive that I actually use one fairly regularly?
I initially picked up my 8mhz, 1-bit display powerhouse down at the local goodwill
as a kind of novelty. I thought it might be cool to bring back childhood memories.
When I got it home and turned it on, the happy little mac face on the 9" black and white display was somehow pleasing. I got to rummaging around and the thing had a whole slew of software on it. Word, Pagemaker, Eudora... you name it. The version of word that shipped back then is sweet (can't remember the version number).
And then I found the games. The games they made back then were perfect. Simple, fun, and addicting. If you have never played the game Crystal Quest, you have not lived.
Eventually I became obsessed with getting the thing on the internet. I searched on e-bay for a network card that would work with the thing (well... actually i needed an external scsi box). I finally found one that would work, but the next day at work, i stumbled acroos the same box in storage. Some hours later, the mac classic was on net! Problem is, only mosaic www 1 ran on the thing (it runs system 6), and it's unusably unstable. So my good friend lynx came to rescue. I simply telnet to my linux box (sorry, no ssh for this puppy) and surf away. I actually use it to code on when I'm getting really distracted by other more full-featured computers.
At any rate, I highly suggest even the most hardened anti-apple among you to pick up a mac classic, an SE/30, or any of the compact models and see what you can do with it.
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You are confused with some of your figures. Each SPU has access to 256K of local cache. This is very very fast memory... no misses. They can't directly access main memory, so there isn't really contention. However, the programming model is more complicated. Nothing console devs can't handle ;)
The 16MB/s figure (if that's correct, don't remember exactly...) is related to reading VRAM (sony confusingly calls this local memory) from the Cell, something you don't generally have any reason to do. The GPU has fast access (~20GB/s) to the Cell's memory (called Main Memory) which is much more useful. You can split up your texture usage between the two memory pools and cut down on memory contention.
Anyhow, too many winter brews, so I'll stop rambling.
Google understands this and created an Enterprise version that allows you control this... http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2006/02/searc h-across-enterprise-desktop.html
There's already a device like this on the market called the lemur. It's not as big and grand, but you can buy it now and there's no need for surgery. http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_overview.php
come on, they had this in myst way before that
I initially picked up my 8mhz, 1-bit display powerhouse down at the local goodwill as a kind of novelty. I thought it might be cool to bring back childhood memories. When I got it home and turned it on, the happy little mac face on the 9" black and white display was somehow pleasing. I got to rummaging around and the thing had a whole slew of software on it. Word, Pagemaker, Eudora... you name it. The version of word that shipped back then is sweet (can't remember the version number).
And then I found the games. The games they made back then were perfect. Simple, fun, and addicting. If you have never played the game Crystal Quest, you have not lived.
Eventually I became obsessed with getting the thing on the internet. I searched on e-bay for a network card that would work with the thing (well... actually i needed an external scsi box). I finally found one that would work, but the next day at work, i stumbled acroos the same box in storage. Some hours later, the mac classic was on net! Problem is, only mosaic www 1 ran on the thing (it runs system 6), and it's unusably unstable. So my good friend lynx came to rescue. I simply telnet to my linux box (sorry, no ssh for this puppy) and surf away. I actually use it to code on when I'm getting really distracted by other more full-featured computers.
At any rate, I highly suggest even the most hardened anti-apple among you to pick up a mac classic, an SE/30, or any of the compact models and see what you can do with it.
wiki = _[^o^]_Unfortunatly for us music-makin, osx-using folk audio software just isn't there yet on Apple's latest offering.
I am happy to say that the osx verion of macsound just came out yesterday, though it seems to be rather buggy at this point.
Excuse me while I reboot to do some music work...