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Kung Fu Grip · May 30, 2011

So apparently SmartHouse sucks, but this debate is interesting, and thus, new topic:

Do you think Sony should use an upgraded Cell in the PlayStation 4? Why or why not?

Dedication Through Light · May 30, 2011

Kung Fu Grip said:
Posted?

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Gaming/Industry/F5C6F8A6?page=1

PS4 will be twice as powerful as PS3? Thats just mind blowing already!

Nirolak · May 30, 2011

Dedication Through Light said:
PS4 will be twice as powerful as PS3? Thats just mind blowing already!

If the processor alone has 16 SPUs, it's going to be a hell of a lot more powerful than that.

V_Ben · May 30, 2011

If they're going to continue using Cell, then that means that developers won't have such a hard time moving to the new console, right? Because they'll be working with architecture they already know their way around? That seems smart. But 16 SPUs... crikey.

StudioTan · May 30, 2011

Dedication Through Light said:
PS4 will be twice as powerful as PS3? Thats just mind blowing already!

Not sure if Moore's Law applies here but if we follow that then if the next PS released in 2012 it should be approx 8x as powerful.

Nirolak · May 30, 2011

V_Ben said:
If they're going to continue using Cell, then that means that developers won't have such a hard time moving to the new console, right? Because they'll be working with architecture they already know their way around? That seems smart. But 16 SPUs... crikey.

Essentially the code you write for compute shaders is conceptually similar to the code you would write for Cell SPUs, so anyone who wants to make a higher end game next generation would pretty much have to have an engine design that would work well with the Cell anyway.

StudioTan said:
Not sure if Moore's Law applies here but if we follow that then if the next PS released in 2012 it should be approx 8x as powerful.

As a whole, processor compute over the Cell is the thing that would scale the least due to the exponentiation factors involved.

A 16 SPU Cell would on paper only be twice or three times as fast, which is quite small, but it would point to much higher multiplication factors in terms of the RAM and GPU using parts in the same cost range.

LiquidMetal14 · May 30, 2011

16 GATDAM SPU's!?? The Witcher 2 at 1080p uber 60fps incoming!

ghst · May 30, 2011

Dedication Through Light said:
PS4 will be twice as powerful as PS3? Thats just mind blowing already!

"twice as powerful" in architecture terms is actually really small. a typical generational leap is usually more in the realm of 10x.

Go_Ly_Dow · May 30, 2011

If this is true then PS3 backwards compatibility wouldn't be an issue would it?

JWong · May 30, 2011

V_Ben said:
If they're going to continue using Cell, then that means that developers won't have such a hard time moving to the new console, right? Because they'll be working with architecture they already know their way around? That seems smart. But 16 SPUs... crikey.

I've heard 3 IT Professors saying the Cell is the future, or rather, multithreading, which the Cell is the best at.

Devs need to step out of their comfort zone and push it for multithreading processors.

W1SSY · May 30, 2011

Wouldn't this also allow backwards compatibility more easily or am I wrong?

V_Ben · May 30, 2011

Nirolak said:
Essentially the code you write for compute shaders is conceptually similar to the code you would write for Cell SPUs, so anyone who wants to make a higher end game next generation would pretty much have to have an engine design that would work well with the Cell anyway.

Ah, right!

Power wise... this would be insane. Just mental.

clav · May 30, 2011

In before PS4 has to be less than $599 US Dollars.

So first it was emotion engine and then Cell.

Any guesses on what this new tech will be called? Kinesis?

LiquidMetal14 · May 30, 2011

ghst said:
"twice as powerful" in architecture terms is actually really small.

That's also not accounting for the potentially potent GPU.

V_Ben · May 30, 2011

claviertekky said:
In before PS4 has to be less than $599 US Dollars.

So first it was emotion engine and then Cell.

Any guesses on what this new tech will be called? Kinesis?

Cell 2.

reKon · May 30, 2011

damn, gamespot beat GAF to this

DMeisterJ · May 30, 2011

Hopefully we'll have every game native 1280x720 60fps.

I know, it's nice to dream.

Pirabear · May 30, 2011

claviertekky said:
In before PS4 has to be less than $599 US Dollars.

So first it was emotion engine and then Cell.

Any guesses on what this new tech will be called? Kinesis?

Perfect Cell.

Massa · May 30, 2011

So many factual errors in the story it's hard to take it seriously.

antonz · May 30, 2011

I really dont buy it. IBM has openly said they have killed all Cell development. The remanents of cell technology will show up in future CPUs but Cell itself is dead.

Cell was a total failure as far as what it was originally planned for.

chaosblade · May 30, 2011

I don't know much about the Cell, but I do know there were at least a couple of areas where there was room for improvement. Put a better PPC core in there. And I know there was something about the SPUs that made things more difficult than they should have been, but I forgot what it was. I think it was cache related.

Anyway, I think most people expected something like this. Sony has already proven that the processor works well for game consoles, it's easily expandable, and it will make for very easy backward compatibility.

polyh3dron · May 30, 2011

I dunno, I think Apple made the right move switching over to Intel...

Nirolak · May 30, 2011

antonz said:
I really dont buy it. IBM has openly said they have killed all Cell development. The remanents of cell technology will show up in future CPUs but Cell itself is dead.

Cell was a total failure as far as what it was originally planned for.

Actually, they killed off a different Cell line than the one the PS3 was following.

They integrated the remaining line into the PowerPC line-up, and made the integration announcement at the same time they reaffirmed they were staying in gaming: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=409714

Deadly Joker · May 30, 2011

So this thing is going to be a beast.

Vespene · May 30, 2011

DMeisterJ said:
Hopefully we'll have every game native 1280x720 60fps.

I know, it's nice to dream.

We should actually be aiming for 1920x1080.

Elios83 · May 30, 2011

Nah, this was just one of the processors in the old 'Cell roadmap'.
They were considering doing a quad Cell at 32nm and a new version with 16 SPUs and a more efficient memory access system.
Probably both have been canned at this point.
No one wants to invest in Cel anymore, the project has ben killed.

SRG01 · May 30, 2011

antonz said:
I really dont buy it. IBM has openly said they have killed all Cell development. The remanents of cell technology will show up in future CPUs but Cell itself is dead.

Cell was a total failure as far as what it was originally planned for.

No, they canceled the 32 SPU Cell but Cell development is still ongoing.

Nirolak said:
Actually, they killed off a different Cell line than the one the PS3 was following.

They integrated the remaining line into the PowerPC line-up, and made the integration announcement at the same time they reaffirmed they were staying in gaming: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=409714

Ahhh, beaten.

At any rate, Cell is pretty much a "separate but distinct" line of PowerPCs. I attended an IBM talk once, and almost all of the low-level code is the same... aside from the Cell-specific ones, of course.

radioheadrule83 · May 30, 2011

JWong said:
I've heard 3 IT Professors saying the Cell is the future, or rather, multithreading, which the Cell is the best at.

Devs need to step out of their comfort zone and push it for multithreading processors.

Don't they already on both 360 and PS3? I'm not a programmer but from what little I understand it sounds like greater multi-threading capability will be great for multitasking and stuff, but there is probably a limit to which you can intelligently carve your game into parallel instructions before you create debug hell and start running into dependency problems. My guess is that a lot of software will just let some intermediary (hardware / software) handle the instruction processing... why would they want to break their balls remaking the wheel to take advantage of so many cores?

polyh3dron · May 30, 2011

W1SSY said:
Wouldn't this also allow backwards compatibility more easily or am I wrong?

This would get them halfway there... They'd also need something to emulate the Nvidia RSX GPU

disappeared · May 30, 2011

PS4 = BEAST MODE

Curufinwe · May 30, 2011

DMeisterJ said:
Hopefully we'll have every game native 1280x720 60fps.

I know, it's nice to dream.

Most of us are dreaming of 1920 x 1080 and 60 fps for games on the next consoles from MS and Sony.

Mindlog · May 30, 2011

What we have been told is that Sony is working on a very fast processor which is being developed with IBM, who was the original architect with Sony and Toshiba of the Cell processor, which has been used by both Sony and Microsoft to power their gaming processors for nearly 10 years.

Is this poor sentence structure or am I reading it incorrectly. Maybe they mean to say IBM is used by both which is correct.

I was also led to believe that the Nagasaki plant was put to other use.

JohnnytheFuture · May 30, 2011

For anyone curious enough to ask what an SPE is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Synergistic_Processing_Elements_.28SPE.29

Y2Kev · May 30, 2011

polyh3dron said:
This would get them halfway there... They'd also need something to emulate the Nvidia RSX GPU

they could just plug a ti-89 in there if they had to

SRG01 · May 30, 2011

polyh3dron said:
This would get them halfway there... They'd also need something to emulate the Nvidia RSX GPU

Depending on how the game was coded, it may not matter (ie. OpenGL).

Metalmurphy · May 30, 2011

Would be the smart thing to do. Some developers are just now getting with the Cell, and offloading stuff to the SPUs, wouldn't make sense to let all that work go to waste in the next generation.

BY2K · May 30, 2011

Didn't Sony just told us they wouldn't repeat the same overpricing mistake they did with the PS3? This sounds expensive.

Or I'm just an idiot.

obonicus · May 30, 2011

Isn't smarthouse, well, bad?

Dr. Malik · May 30, 2011

Just hook it to my veins
If only we can see the PS4 this year at E3.

M3d10n · May 30, 2011

chaosblade said:
I don't know much about the Cell, but I do know there were at least a couple of areas where there was room for improvement. Put a better PPC core in there. And I know there was something about the SPUs that made things more difficult than they should have been, but I forgot what it was. I think it was cache related.

The problem is that the Cell used on the PS3 was terrible for "general purpose computing" (aka: code with lots of branching and non-sequential memory accesses). The same is true for the X360 CPU. This means games must use lots and lots of SIMD-style data-streaming-oriented code even for menial tasks if they don't want to run like shit.

Jin34 · May 30, 2011

Curufinwe said:
Most of us are dreaming of 1920 x 1080 and 60 fps for games on the next consoles from MS and Sony.

Dreaming is more accurate than you think because that won't happen.

Metalmurphy · May 30, 2011

BY2K said:
Didn't Sony just told us they wouldn't repeat the same overpricing mistake they did with the PS3? This sounds expensive.

Or I'm just an idiot.

Bluray was the killer part on the PS3.

Pimpbaa · May 30, 2011

Just don't pair it with a shitty gpu this time.

Deleted member 80556 · May 30, 2011

BY2K said:
Didn't Sony just told us they wouldn't repeat the same overpricing mistake they did with the PS3? This sounds expensive.

Or I'm just an idiot.

I'm pretty sure that the prices of Cell production have gone down.

lord pie · May 30, 2011

Come on, with quotes like this:

the Cell processor, which has been used by both Sony and Microsoft to power their gaming processors for nearly 10 years.

How can this possibly be taken seriously?

LiquidMetal14 · May 30, 2011

You can just imagine the costs to startup with blu-ray and how hopefully that means that it will be significantly cheaper then five hundred and ninety nine US dollah.

chaosblade · May 30, 2011

Pimpbaa said:
Just don't pair it with a shitty gpu this time.

But it's tradition, they can't break tradition! (even if it's one that needs to be broken)

Bad_Boy · May 30, 2011

Every unit Backwards compatible with PS3 games, thats all i ask. Running at 60fps would be nice.

Dedication Through Light · May 30, 2011

Marius_ said:
Just hook it to my veins
If only we can see the PS4 this year at E3.

I dont want to see it that fast, not until definitive games are developed and showcased on it for reveal, not CGI trailers...

alphaNoid · May 30, 2011

Massa said:
So many factual errors in the story it's hard to take it seriously.

My thoughts exactly.

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