As a former PS2 programmer, I agree that on the surface the design seems similar. I believe it will be similar enough that anyone who has already made games for the PS2 will know how to best utilize the Cell architecture. But VU's were horrible to code for and were just about as flexible as hardware pixel or vertex shaders are on PC video cards.
These SPE's in the Cell are more like mini 32-bit RISC cpu's that happen to have powerful SIMD instructions as well. I believe this combined with the multiple numbers of them will enable a lot more than a simple 'next step' from the PS2's Emotion Engine.
Its a Dual Cell BE Processor blade, and if you wanna count the SPE's as processors this would give you 9x2x14 = 252 cpu's in a blade center enclosure.:)
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As a former PS2 programmer, I agree that on the surface the design seems similar. I believe it will be similar enough that anyone who has already made games for the PS2 will know how to best utilize the Cell architecture. But VU's were horrible to code for and were just about as flexible as hardware pixel or vertex shaders are on PC video cards. These SPE's in the Cell are more like mini 32-bit RISC cpu's that happen to have powerful SIMD instructions as well. I believe this combined with the multiple numbers of them will enable a lot more than a simple 'next step' from the PS2's Emotion Engine.
"Meet me back in the boardroom, where someone WILL get fired."
Check this bad boy out: http://www.mc.com/products/view/index.cfm?id=64&ty pe=boards
:)
Its a Dual Cell BE Processor blade, and if you wanna count the SPE's as processors this would give you 9x2x14 = 252 cpu's in a blade center enclosure.