How much will the PS3’s RSX processor be like the upcoming G70 chip from nVidia?

Over the last several days it has spread that G70 should be a 302 million transistor part; this would make it not only the single largest chip (transistor-wise) in all of computing, but would put it in the exact same range as the ~300 million transistors indicated at E3 to be inside of RSX. What does this mean? No one can know for sure - but it certainly lends credence to the belief that RSX is more or less a tweaked G70 chip for the Playstation 3. Still, with the RSX not expected to tape-out until mid or late summer, one wonders why it would be taking so long to finish if it were really just a modified G70 set up to work with PS3’s FlexIO bus.

Good question.

Link: psinext - More G70 (RSX?) information

It’s looking like the Cell processor is quite a powerful one, powering the PS3 to the top. IBM’s Alex Chow gave a presentation about the Cell at the Power.org conference in Barcelona.

For the large FFT test, an algorithm designed by David H. Bailey in 1986 for communication between supercomputer banks was used as the starting point, since the model fit especially well with what the IBM team was trying to accomplish. Tasked with working through a 16.7 million (2^24) element data set filling 128 MB of memory, the program designed by Dr. Chow and his team worked by breaking the data set down into ‘mega-blocks,’ allowing the SPE’s to process 2^13 (256×32) points per iteration. The end result being that for the large FFT test, the Cell working with it’s 8 SPE’s was able to achieve a FLOPS rating of ~42 GFLOPS to the Xeon’s half-a-GFLOPS. Dr. Chow went on to state that in the proper environments, Cell should be able to approach it’s theoretical performance limit.

Now this is for highly optimized code that suites the Cell well. But the numbers are still impressive. But how easy will it be to program the Cell?

Lastly, a member from the audience asked how difficult Chow felt it would be to program for Cell, something that has been discussed extensively around the Internet, especially as it applies to Sony’s upcoming Playstation 3. The answer Dr. Chow gave was in the form of an analogy, stating that when programming for Cell, it might be best to approach it in the same fashion as one might approach dividing a workload between nine seperate workstations, with each of the workstations in the analogy representing an SPE (plus PE). What he was trying to emphasize was that in as much as a task could be threaded or seperated to run on different CPU’s, so too could it be divided to run on the SPE’s. The audience member felt his question was misunderstood though, and revised it to ask specifically what tools IBM might be able to provide to programmers interested in programming for Cell but feeling daunted by the task. During the course of Chow’s response he revealed that a compiler is currently in the prototyping stages at IBM that would dynamically chop-up code and thread it such that it would automatically make use of the SPE’s. One has to wonder just how efficient such a compiler can be, but it will come as a much welcomed tool for developers should the project see fruition.

Link: psinext - Power.org Barcelona retrospective: Programming for Cell

It’s all over the place. Yup, Sony won’t be released the PS3 in the spring of 2006 as promised. Rather, it’ll be fall. A whole years head start for the Xbox 360. … Yeah, right.

I find it funny that everyone is jumping on this story that Ubisoft thinks that the PS3 will be released in the fall of 2006. Even if the console is released a year from today it is still within the release window stated by Sony. Ubisoft really knows enough to say that it’ll be released three months (or up to six) after that?

First of all, Sony promised that the PS3 would be released in the spring of 2006. Sony’s face will be a nice shade of crimson should they miss the date. Sony’s no Microsoft, where people expect them to miss their dates. This is Sony’s profit center, the Playstation brand, being put on the line here. Sony will try everything to save face.

Also, they can’t afford to miss the date. Not only do they have to hit the date to save face, they have to meet the target to do well in the market. We all know that being first to market isn’t everything (Microsoft’s assertions to the contrary). Sony was second to market with the PS2, behind the Dreamcast. Yet the PS2 overtook the Dreamcast and went on to become the dominant platform of its generation. Even so, it’s easily understood that the sooner Sony puts its platform on the market, the better its chances are. So Sony will try to release its platform as soon as possible.

Link: PUNCHJUMP - Ubisoft estimates U.S. Playstation 3 in late 2006

PGR and PGR2 are two of my favourite games on the Xbox. I’m really looking forward to what Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360 will be like. So I avidly read the latest details of the game, which were recently release. Here they are.

Link: XBOX Advanced - Project Gotham Racing 3 Fact Sheet
Link: Project Gotham Racing 3

As an early adopter of the PS2, one of the first games I got was Dead or Alive 2. Now that the Xbox 360 is coming out, one of the first games for that platform is Dead or Alive 4. It’s a amazing that this franchise is still alive, but there you go.

Link: Gameplanet - Dead or Alive 4

The how stuff works website has an article about the PS3 and how it works. There’s not much really new here, but it summarizes the PS3 pretty well.

Link: how stuff works - How the Playstation 3 Works

My friends and I play a lot of four player games. Last night we played Monkey Ball, X-Men Legends, and Tetris (yup, multiplayer), for example. So whenever I see that a game is four player, my ears perk up. Monster Madness for the Xbox 360 is one such game.

The game is a 3D top down shooter and you will be able to shoot in all directions; you’re not limited to traditional overhead constraints. The game also includes fully customisable weapons which can be built up from parts you find throughout the game. You will also be able to drive vehicles and equip them with weaponry you find in the game. Monster Madness uses the Reality Engine and takes advantage of Shader Model 3.0 features such as High Dynamic Range Rendering and fully dynamically lit and shadowed worlds.

Monster Madness is yet to be picked up by a publisher, but is scheduled to be finished quarter one 2006.

Link: Prodigious Gaming - Monster Madness

According to GAMING horizon, the PS3 will be playable at September’s Tokyo Game Show, from the 16th to 18th.

This is great news, because at the E3 Expo all we got to see were technology demonstrations and games using nVidia’s “approximately equivalent” hardware. Hmmm. Speaking of which, I don’t know if the RSX will be available by September. That’s a few short months away, and the RSX hasn’t even been taped out yet.

Link: GAMING horizon - PlayStation 3 Playable At Tokyo Game Show

According to the WSJ, Microsoft is thinking that maybe the Xbox 360 can be the digital music hub of your home. Microsoft will be putting the Xbox division’s head Robbie Bach in charge of the company’s digital music business.

The appointment, not yet officially announced, will see the 16-year Microsoft veteran on a “mission to make Microsoft’s new Xbox a hub for handling digital music.”

The Xbox 360 is a capable machine, and with its disc drive, network connection, hard drive, and multimedia outputs, it can acquire, store, and play music just fine. It could stream music to other devices in your home, or get streamed music from them. But one thing it won’t be is the music controller. Why? Because if I want to listen to music, I don’t want to turn on my TV! Say I want to listen to a song by Rhapsody. I turn on my stereo…. then what? Turn on my television to navigate and choose “Knightrider of Doom”, and hit play? I don’t think so. I like to leave my TV off when I’m not using it, and I don’t want to turn it on and off constantly for small tasks like this. Other digital music devices have their own ways to handle this. An iPod has a little screen on it. If I want to listen at my computer, I already have my monitor on. But if I want to listen to music in my kitchen or family room, I’m not going to turn on my TV, so what kind of device will they use to interface to the Xbox 360? I can’t wait to see.

Link: Gamespot - Microsoft music biz bolstered by Bach

If you’re a big fan of Law & Order, then you know one thing: it’s all in the details. And if you’re a big fan of details, and you’re a big fan of the Xbox 360 (or even just curious), then you’re about to be given a plate of lawful goodness.

The Xbox 360 uses ATI’s Xenos graphics chip design for its GPU. Beyond 3D has an article that is eleven pages long, intricately dissecting each and every piece of evidence brought forth by the Xenos design.

Link: Beyond 3D - ATI Xenos: XBOX 360 Graphics Demystified

Project Gotham Racing 1 & 2 were my favourite racing games over all the platforms, and we still play #2 at Todd’s place. Great game. The upcoming PGR3 is going to be a release title for the Xbox 360.

There’s a short video for the game and it looks great. None of the shots are in-car, so I have to wonder if this is pre-rendered or not. It looks really good.

Link: CVG - Project Gotham Racing 3 Rips up the Tarmac! Hot Movie!

Gamasutra is reporting that the release date for the Xbox 360 in Japan is being narrowed down.

The Xbox 360 has received a more concrete release date in Japan, according to comments made by Microsoft Japan’s Yoshihiro Maruyama. Maruyama says that December is the target month for a Japanese launch, which would bring it out in time for the Christmas season there. The console still has no set release date in the U.S.: though representatives have said that the system is due for a “holiday” release, there are only unofficial reports tying the 360’s American launch to a November date. Maruyama’s comments on the 360’s Japanese launch stemmed from his statement on the system’s chances in Japan, where he said he thought it could do well: “We will release our console earlier [than the PlayStation 3], and we have significantly focused on game software and a design targeted towards Japan.”

Link: Gamasutra - Round Up: Japanese 360 Date, etc

He also revealed that there once considered using one Cell processor as the main processor, and another for the graphics GPU. But that idea was tossed.

Link: US Playstation - More PS3 With Kutaragi

Ken Kutaragi is really getting around these days. He’s talking to a lot of people but only revealing new stuff a little bit at a time. In an interview with Impress PC Watch he talks of the GPU.

The Cell’s seven Synergistic Processor Elements (SPE) can be used for graphics. In fact, some of the demos at E3 were running without a graphics processor, with all the renderings done with just the Cell. However, that kind of usage is a real waste. There are a lot of other things that should be done with the Cell. One of our ideas was to equip two Cell chips and to use one as a GPU, but we concluded that there were differences between the Cell to be used as a computer chip and as a shader, since a shader should be graphics-specific.

Link: neo seeker - Sony Gets Technical with PlayStation 3 GPU

Sony will be making the PS3 as compatible as possible with the PS2, even if it means that certain PS2 components would make their way to the PS3.

Ken Kutaragi President Sony Computer Entertainment, has recently gone on record to the Impress Corporation to speak about backwards compatibility on the Playstation3.

Utilising a combination of hardware and software emulation, Kutaragi-san claimed that there would be no issues with playing older titles on the PS3, claiming that certain PS2 components are needed to ensure maximum compatibility but refused to elaborate on exactly what has been carried across to the PS3.

Link: Total Video Games - Kutaragi-san Talks PS3 Backwards Compatibility