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[James Sawyer Ford]

So far from the actual truth and anyone who has actually played with the system knows this.

Nope.

There are some issues with logging in/out, which is more than likely due to some battery considerations that won't be present for consoles and will probably inevitably get ironed out shortly anyhow.

Otherwise, does everything the 360 can, but better and faster, and it has so many more social features such as comments / live area for games / and genuine multi-tasking.

 

[EricDiesel]

Logic would dictate that a console manufacturer would go for a strong GPU above all else, given how GPUs have advance in recent times. Entry level GPUs from 2010 simply do not make any sense whatsoever.

Because keeping power consumption, heat, and costs down by using less than cutting edge GPUs makes "zero sense whatsoever", huh?

Every time I see some half-baked post spout off about how powerful hardware will be the death of the industry I have to drown a kitten. I've drowned a lot of kittens.

Every time I see someone use a cliche like "makes me want to drown a kitten" or "die in a fire" I want to make a post about how this industry is in trouble if it doesn't change its ways drastically. (Am I doing this right??)

 

[FlutterPuffs]

So far from the actual truth and anyone who has actually played with the system knows this.

Played it, and they have. They're still below Microsoft of course but from the looks of it, they're getting there.

 

[Yjynx]

So far from the actual truth and anyone who has actually played with the system knows this.

And have you actually own a Vita? Since Sony really getting there with Vita.

 

[specialguy]

Edited my previous post

Edit: So all told you're looking at 400 SP's on the 3850 and another 480 SP's on the GPU, or 880 SP's, which is not a bad number at all....assuming they can use them together like SLI. If any of this is true of course.

It sounds like something Sony would do LOL, kind of a convoluted setup with a lot of power on the CPU SP's...sound familiar?

880 SP's is not bad. It's more than my AMD 4890 is (800 SP's), which runs most PC games even today at high, I run BF3 on mostly ultra in campaign at ~30 FPS 1080P! I run Crysis close to maxed, etc. You could do amazing things in a console with 880 SP's.

 

[EagleEyes]

Nope.

There are some issues with logging in/out, which is more than likely due to some battery considerations that won't be present for consoles and will probably inevitably get ironed out shortly anyhow.

Otherwise, does everything the 360 can, but better and faster, and it has so many more social features such as comments / live area for games / and genuine multi-tasking.

Do you think Microsoft is just gonna sit there and release the exact same Xbox live that we have currently. Other companies dont live in a bubble while only Sony advances forward. I suspect we will see many new features added to Xbox Live so it can easily stay ahead of the competition. Xbox Live has been Microsofts trump card this gen and I dont see that changing next gen either.

 

[specialguy]

AMD A-3850

Also tucked under the APU’s integrated heatspreader is a Radeon HD 6550D GPU, which runs at 600MHz. This sounds pretty pedestrian compared to the 850MHz frequency at which the HD Graphics 2000 processor in the i3-2100 runs, but the HD 6550D has a whopping 400 stream processors and 20 texture units, compared to the meagre six execution units of Intel's HD Graphics 2000 processor. The A8-3850 also has the edge over the i3-2100 in terms of features, as the former’s GPU is fully DirectX 11-capable, whereas Intel's graphics processor is only compatible with DirectX 10.

The APU also boasts a number of proprietary AMD features, including the company's Dual Graphics technology. Similar to AMD’s CrossFire technology, this enables the on-board GPU to team up with a discrete AMD GPU to provide extra graphical horsepower.

So it looks like an ability to work with a discrete GPU is built in to this thing. Nice.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

They've already done that, and then some, with the Vita. So, I'd expect that the PS4 will continue that trend. They've learned from their PS3 mistake.

What portable system did MS make that Sony matched it in features? Beating Nintendo in the OS game is like pushing a little kid down on the playground, Beating MS in the OS game is like a UFC fight.

Otherwise, does everything the 360 can, but better and faster, and it has so many more social features such as comments / live area for games / and genuine multi-tasking.

The 360 came out almost 7 years ago........ Can the Vita even load YouTube videos? We are talking systems coming out at the same time and matching features. Why you are comparing a system that came out in 2011 to a system that came out in 2005 is beyond me.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

The 360 came out almost 7 years ago........

Yes, and not only does Vita match the 360's features, but it exceeds them with an abundance of social features and multi-tasking, as I described above. Vita is the best OS for a console or handheld device presently.

I honestly wouldn't be worried about PS4 after playing the Vita, as Sony is now being quite progressive when it comes to social features.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Yes, and not only does Vita match the 360's features, but it exceeds them with an abundance of social features and multi-tasking, as I described above. Vita is the best OS for a console or handheld device presently.

I honestly wouldn't be worried about PS4 after playing the Vita.

You make it sound like it's a good thing that it took Sony over 6 years to match the 360's features it had at launch like cross game chat.... Wait, if the Vita can't keep you signed in online then how can you do cross game chat?

Also, the Vita can't do simple things like youtube. The Wii can do youtube.

 

[AndyD]

The 360 came out almost 7 years ago........ Can the Vita even load YouTube videos? We are talking systems coming out at the same time and matching features. Why you are comparing a system that came out in 2011 to a system that came out in 2005 is beyond me.

Systems evolve. You can't honestly say that the 360 came out 7 years ago with Live the way it is now.

 

[CLEEK]

What portable system did MS make that Sony matched it in features? Beating Nintendo in the OS game is like pushing a little kid down on the playground, Beating MS in the OS game is like a UFC fight.

A fight that XMB, let alone LiveArea wins easily with a TKO, after the 360 dash just prances around the ring, show-boating with it's pretty, yet anti-user Metro guff.

The 360 dash has committed more UX crimes with each revision. At least it's a very safe bet that the Xbox3 will have a Metro based front end, so no big departure from the current 360. Unless the Xbox3 does come with a tablet controller, in which can I'm sure the main use for it will be to show more ads.

 

[Lord Error]

What portable system did MS make that Sony matched it in features? Beating Nintendo in the OS game is like pushing a little kid down on the playground, Beating MS in the OS game is like a UFC fight.

Portable? Vita OS beats out any console OS released so far. They matched features of latest revisions of every console OS on a handheld, and exceeded it in terms of multitasking and several other things. The fact that machines came out six years ago means nothing when they have stronger hardware, and their OS updates all the time (especially with big revamps in case of X360)

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

You make it sound like it's a good thing that it took Sony over 6 years to match the 360's features it had at launch like cross game chat.... Wait, if the Vita can't keep you signed in online then how can you do cross game chat?

Also, the Vita can't do simple things like youtube. The Wii can do youtube.

No, what I'm clearly saying is that it's a good thing that the Vita runs faster, better, and has more abundance of social features than the 360, which launched and evolved over the years.

This isn't a case of 'matching', it's a case of 'matching and expanding'. That's what you would naturally expect from a company that is no longer playing catch up and actually now has the best OS when it comes to connected interfaces.

Cross-game chat works across any game unless that title explicitly disallows being connected. It's an annoyance, but it's generally the exception rather than the rule as most titles allow being connected to PSN. I've only personally noticed it in Uncharted, but that's a single player only game.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Cross-game chat works across any game unless that title explicitly disallows being connected. It's an annoyance, but it's generally the exception rather than the rule as most titles allow being connected to PSN. I've only personally noticed it in Uncharted, but that's a single player only game.

If the cross game chat is limited on a game by game title then how did they match and surpass the 360's features if cross game chat was a staple of every game since the day the 360 launched? You can't talk in absolutes and allow for exceptions.

Systems evolve. You can't honestly say that the 360 came out 7 years ago with Live the way it is now.

No but basic features like cross game chat and achievements were there from day one. One feature Sony copied and another the system couldn't handle. What new features is MS going to come up with that we don't know yet? Again, look at the PS3 OS day one and look at the 360 OS day one.

Sony's OS is ok now but they are only competing with Nintendo which isn't too hard to spank in the OS department. The true test comes next gen when they have to match all MS's new features... and do it totally for free or risk alienating their core audience.

 

[Arklite]

Systems evolve. You can't honestly say that the 360 came out 7 years ago with Live the way it is now.

Likewise many things could change next gen. For all anyone knows Nintendo may end up with the best OS as far as content/social/media features go.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

If the cross game chat is limited on a game by game title then how did they match and surpass the 360's features if cross game chat was a staple of every game since the day the 360 launched?

Because Cross-Game Chat isn't the only feature that the Vita has?

Do you live in some world where Cross-Game Chat is the only thing that matters, and where the occasional software mandated break is some sort of deal breaker?

 

[Arklite]

Sony's OS is ok now but they are only competing with Nintendo which isn't too hard to spank in the OS department. The true test comes next gen when they have to match all MS's new features... and do it totally for free or risk alienating their core audience.

Not really true, if they were competing with Nintendo they wouldn't have bothered with trophies. They've come a long way especially considering they had to adapt the OS to match features. Outside of cross game chat they've managed to stay competitive without the revenue stream from something like Live.

 

[MrCunningham]

so basically if this is true, DirectX wins

Direct X api's in a Sony console? Hmm.... Wouldn't they have to pay royalties to Microsoft, if that's true? Or some sort of licensing fees?

 

[RoboPlato]

AMD A-3850



So it looks like an ability to work with a discrete GPU is built in to this thing. Nice.

This is actually starting to sounds like a pretty interesting set up, as long as it isn't too pricey or hot/energy hungry. Still, the main GPU could be a bit better. I was hoping for something Pictairn based myself. A few steps up of a main GPU paired with this could be nice.

 

[USC-fan]

One cool thing about this would be the APU could do everything from running the dash board and HD movies, bluray... etc. Would cut down of power usage/heat. Watching movie would be really nice without the gpu fan running.

The discrete would only turn on when you start running games. Then you have a sli/crossfire set up in game.

Really is pretty smart set up.

 

[see5harp]

Nope.

There are some issues with logging in/out, which is more than likely due to some battery considerations that won't be present for consoles and will probably inevitably get ironed out shortly anyhow.

Otherwise, does everything the 360 can, but better and faster, and it has so many more social features such as comments / live area for games / and genuine multi-tasking.

Live area is a good step forward for tracking your friends' progress with each game agreed. You cannot accept a party request if you are in an online game without getting losing connection to PSN. As a rule, you will never accept a game request via the message system in place. Better and faster? No. If you're sitting in a Hot Shots Lobby chatting you can't even check your friends list. That's terrible.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Do you think Microsoft is just gonna sit there and release the exact same Xbox live that we have currently. Other companies dont live in a bubble while only Sony advances forward. I suspect we will see many new features added to Xbox Live so it can easily stay ahead of the competition. Xbox Live has been Microsofts trump card this gen and I dont see that changing next gen either.

Of course I don't think they're just going to sit there. I envision that they will probably add cross-game video chat (ala tiny chat) for games, and a whole host of other social features and real multi-tasking.

I expect both Sony and Microsoft to offer new features, but the difference is that this time I don't expect one to have a substantial edge over the other. The main differentiating factor this time will be price; PSN being free, Xbox Live not being free.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

The main differentiating factor this time will be price; PSN being free, Xbox Live not being free.

No one knows this yet so lets not count our chickens before they hatch. New gens always have new rules. Remember, Sony charged for online gaming in some regions for the PS2. Nothing is set in stone yet. While everyone hopes they won't charge nothing 100% says they won't. We won't know till the system is released.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

No one knows this yet so lets not count our chickens before they hatch. New gens always have new rules. Remember, Sony charged for online gaming in some regions for the PS2. Nothing is set in stone yet. While everyone hopes they won't charge nothing 100% says they won't. We won't know till the system is released.

They aren't charging on the PS3, they aren't charging on the Vita.

I think it's safe to say they won't charge on the PS4. The odds are more in favor of them not charging. Like you said, it's not 100%, but there's a pretty good precedent we have here to believe they won't charge.

Conversely, Microsoft could decide to NOT charge for Xbox Live, but given their revenue stream that has a fat chance in hell of happening.

 

[iceatcs]

Do you think Microsoft is just gonna sit there and release the exact same Xbox live that we have currently. Other companies dont live in a bubble while only Sony advances forward. I suspect we will see many new features added to Xbox Live so it can easily stay ahead of the competition. Xbox Live has been Microsofts trump card this gen and I dont see that changing next gen either.

Nintendo and Sony too. No-one going to sit there.

Hopefully, next-gen Live will be more opening platform. I want more cross-platform with PC or iOS.

 

[RoboPlato]

They aren't charging on the PS3, they aren't charging on the Vita.

I think it's safe to say they won't charge on the PS4. The odds are more in favor of them not charging. Like you said, it's not 100%, but there's a pretty good precedent we have here to believe they won't charge.

Conversely, Microsoft could decide to NOT charge for Xbox Live, but given their revenue stream that has a fat chance in hell of happening.

I have a feeling that they won't charge and will try to expand PSN features a bit to use that as a selling point. That said, I can also see them putting more of an emphasis on expanding the PS+ service at the same time.

 

[EagleEyes]

Of course I don't think they're just going to sit there. I envision that they will probably add cross-game video chat (ala tiny chat) for games, and a whole host of other social features and real multi-tasking.

I expect both Sony and Microsoft to offer new features, but the difference is that this time I don't expect one to have a substantial edge over the other. The main differentiating factor this time will be price; PSN being free, Xbox Live not being free.

Do you honestly think if both online services are very similar that one is still gonna be free while the other still charges for it? I see both of them charging for services as next gen expenses rise.

 

[see5harp]

And have you actually own a Vita? Since Sony really getting there with Vita.

Of course. I've even played the thing online with games like Hot Shots which is why I understand that checking a box for a feature is not the same thing as actually implementing something that works. True multitasking is nice and all (even though it's doing the same thing as iOS which many Android users would say is NOT), but when it's at the sacrifice of game related functions like messaging/party/trophies/friends then no, I don't care about it.

 

[Cake Boss]

I don't care what it has, just give me a new console, love the smell of a new hardware generation in the air, it been too long and I am tired of this generation already, been playing the same games since COD4 came out because all of the devs this gen decided they need to copy COD4.

I am guessing both companies will make an announcement this E3?

 

[RoboPlato]

I don't care what it has, just give me a new console, love the smell of a new hardware generation in the air.

I am guessing both companies will make an announcement this E3?

I'm pretty sure they won't. Both have recently said that they won't be making announcements within the near future. Of course, things change. If not E3 I'm sure we'll hear some things at Gamescom or TGS. E3 is going to be more about building up hype for fall releases while the other shows are more focused on things coming down the line.

 

[iceatcs]

Of course. I've even played the thing online with games like Hot Shots which is why I understand that checking a box for a feature is not the same thing as actually implementing something that works. True multitasking is nice and all (even though it's doing the same thing as iOS which many Android users would say is NOT), but when it's at the sacrifice of game related functions like messaging/party/trophies/friends then no, I don't care about it.

But the messaging/party/trophies/friends are still in Vita, nothing sacrifice completely off.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Do you honestly think if both online services are very similar that one is still gonna be free while the other still charges for it? I see both of them charging for services as next gen expenses rise.

Yes, I do.

Steam has surpassed Xbox Live's features and it's free, as long as Microsoft has a substantial userbase of subscribing customers they will continue to charge.

And with many people "invested" into the Xbox Live eco system, plenty of folks will be forced to stay with them for next-gen, so there's not a whole lot of risk of them losing most of their customers.

 

[Averon]

One cool thing about this would be the APU could do everything from running the dash board and HD movies, bluray... etc. Would cut down of power usage/heat. Watching movie would be really nice without the gpu fan running.

The discrete would only turn on when you start running games. Then you have a sli/crossfire set up in game.

Really is pretty smart set up.

That sounds pretty clever actually.

 

[CLEEK]

The stories I've heard around the growing pains of PSN are that SCEA and SCEE were pushing for all the social networking integration that is a big part of Live, but SCEI held the reigns and didn't see the worth. So the roadmap to get these implemented was prolonged and the back end infrastructure and support was a mess.

The biggest hurdle that Sony face with the success of the Playstation platform, and even their entire organisation, is getting the various departments to work in harmony. Howard Singer failed in this, despite some gains, but the signs from Kaz have been positive.

As long as the next gen PSN has been planned out in tandem with PS4 and Vita for service integration, they should be able to match Live 2.0. If they have to play catch up and have to shoe-horn in services and features post launch (as they did with PSN), we're in for another bumpy ride.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Regarding the APU w/ a dedicated GPU -

Is this a matter of Sony not needing bleeding edge CPU power, but needing as much GPU power as possible?

 

[bigtroyjon]

Yes, I do.

Steam has surpassed Xbox Live's features and it's free, as long as Microsoft has a substantial userbase of subscribing customers they will continue to charge.

And with many people "invested" into the Xbox Live eco system, plenty of folks will be forced to stay with them for next-gen, so there's not a whole lot of risk of them losing most of their customers.

Steam is able to be free because Valve isn't selling loss leading hardware. If Sony doesn't charge for PSN, then they are either going to have to cut costs on R&D, cut costs on hardware manufacturing(i.e. less powerful hardware) or charge more for their console up front to not sell their hardware at as much of a loss as MS who can make up for it on the back end with subscription money.

When one company loses billions and billions of dollars and the other profits billions of dollars on a console, the company who made the billions of dollars is probably going to be the example for how business is done in the future.

 

[Glorified G]

They aren't charging on the PS3, they aren't charging on the Vita.

I think it's safe to say they won't charge on the PS4. The odds are more in favor of them not charging. Like you said, it's not 100%, but there's a pretty good precedent we have here to believe they won't charge.

Conversely, Microsoft could decide to NOT charge for Xbox Live, but given their revenue stream that has a fat chance in hell of happening.

If Sony feels with enough improvement they can get away with charging for online gameplay, they would do it. It's not either 0 or $50 a year, they can charge half of xbox live gold.

I can't imagine Sony seeing all that revenue ms is getting from gold, and not wanting atleast to be in the same situation one day. ms proven that with a quality service, you can get away with charging online for consoles.

 

[see5harp]

But the messaging/party/trophies/friends are still in Vita, nothing sacrifice completely off.

You can't get to any of that stuff without leaving a lobby though....that's my whole point. If that is your definition of true multitasking then I hope to God the future of PS4 isn't multitasking.

 

[Fafalada]

The APU will work in tandem with the system's dedicated GPU, the HD 7670, a DirectX 11-enabled card clocked to 1GHz with up to 1GB of dedicated VRAM.

But but that other rumor that had all the facts right said it had an OpenGL GPU. How can this BE?

 

[CLEEK]

Yep, you're right.

The AMD APU is just a modern integrate graphics set-up, as found in laptops and low end desktops. The benefit is that the CPU and GPU are on the same chip which removed bandwidth bottlenecks.

This APU is designed to work with an additional GPU. Again, you can do this with PCs if you have integrated graphics and a GPU - you can leverage the weaker on-board GPU to offload tasks from the main GPU for moderate improvements.

Seeing at the whole CPGPU + GPU will be integrated, maybe on the same SoC, they should all work together better than in a PC.

 

[Respawn]

Why? The rumored GPU is in the same ballpark as the GPU that the Wii U is based of, or even a little slower and the CPU is far from a speed demon as well. Those integrated graphics won't make that big a difference.

I love seeing post such as these. Makes the evening that much easier to relax...

 

[Arklite]

When one company loses billions and billions of dollars and the other profits billions of dollars on a console, the company who made the billions of dollars is probably going to be the example for how business is done in the future.

This is true, but PSN also has the 'plus' subscribers to factor in, which may or may not have had a substantial impact for the future of the service.

Worst case scenario is 'plus' accounts become the new "Gold" with full access, while regular users are barred from even demos, like Silver subscribers. Best case scenario is plus subscriptions proved to be enough to sustain the service for regular users and its current state remains viable. Having free mutliplayer would remain a nice bullet point in that case.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

When one company loses billions and billions of dollars and the other profits billions of dollars on a console, the company who made the billions of dollars is probably going to be the example for how business is done in the future.

And as of their last financial statements, they stated they still haven't made any profit from PSN so far. Sony has already returned to expensive and required propitiatory memory cards so who knows. Again, new gens have totally new rules.

Worst case scenario is 'plus' accounts become the new "Gold" with full access, while regular users are barred from even demos, like Silver subscribers.

Silver users aren't barred from demos, they just have to wait a week. Sony has started this as well as none paying Plus members had to wait for Journey.

 

[Arklite]

Silver users aren't barred from demos, they just have to wait a week. Sony has started this as well as none paying Plus members had to wait for Journey.

Yeah, that's what I mean, worst case scenario is it becomes the "Silver" norm rather than the exception, although that was a full game promo, not a demo.

 

[iceatcs]

You can't get to any of that stuff without leaving a lobby though....that's my whole point. If that is your definition of true multitasking then I hope to God the future of PS4 isn't multitasking.

But there is nothing sacrifice/removed from because of multitasking, still there work or not. Yes it could have better. Nothing can stop Sony to improve this feature.
It might have a reason of that like hardware limitation or legal problem such as patient or publisher want drop it.

We should see no less communication feature on PS4 than Vita. That's the point. So of course we hope it will more better, (but pretty overwhelm for me)

 

[SwimmingwithChickenz]

Because keeping power consumption, heat, and costs down by using less than cutting edge GPUs makes "zero sense whatsoever", huh?

There are much better cards that could have been used than a 6670/7670 to fit your criteria. I don't think these will be the final GPUs anyway. We'll just have to wait and see until something more concrete surfaces.

 

[jeff_rigby]

I looked at just the specs and it's like (400 Radon cores at 600 mhz) SPUs for physics, Codecs, OpenCL and could work like SPUs for graphics. Is it possible that it's fast enough to emulate SPUs, with a little work?

Radeon Cores on Die: 400

Parallelized emulation is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. You need to have as many cores in the host system as there are discrete threads in the emulated system. If you have fewer, then one emulated thread has to sit and wait for the core it's running on to feed it results from another, related thread. If you have more cores, the extra core can't do anything until it gets results from the on-going thread, so it might as well just keep running on the same core.

Extra cores come in handy when you have to do things like emulate sound processors and vector units, but in the case of going from 6 SPUs to 400 shader units... that just doesn't work. I can't think of any way to make it work, even if devs went back to the source code they'd probably have to completely rewrite everything unless they used something like OpenCL.

I suggest that people do a slightly better work at documenting themselves...moving beyond "omagad it's deep magicTM" would be good. CELL is old, cute but not exactly cutting edge, it doesn't have an awesome memory pipe, it doesn't have hardware caching, the ISA is not exactly from another galaxy, IPC is pretty gimpy. As long as the emulator writers are actually aware about prefetching to cater to the DMA work (albeit modern prefetchers should do a reasonably good job anyways), you'd probably end up doing the bulk of work from L2.

A reasonably modern core like NHLM or SB is considerably ahead of CELL in terms of execution prowess, and now it's working from a cache that's quite fast. You also have HT to help fill in some bubbles. More importantly, people have done work behind the scenes on this and it's reasonable, to say the least.

Bluegene/Q maybe?. There are rumours of it being modified in the Marenostrum supercomputer of Barcelona to be used in PS4.

Mindful of the information comes from a trusted source: apparently, the Cell chip's successor is already being designed. Is not particularly surprise us, but it also makes two details that we have arrived, is being developed by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and its most immediate application will be PlayStation 4.

Barcelona Supercomputing Center It makes more sense for the rumor to be about emulation of cell in a PS4 than designing Cell2.

If you consider that a CPU + APU + GPU together have to emulate Cell in between frames rather than real time and we have 400 cores that can perform streaming and array tasks roughly 10 times faster than 7 SPUs and 4 CPUs that can perform a small single thread task (This is the big issue if critical timing ) at roughly 1/3 the speed of a SPU and Sony might be doing some custom work on memory performance ..... it might be possible.

Confirmed, Cellsim Cell emulation or modeling work being done. Certainly it looks like they are doing work that would allow them to design an emulator using the hardware rumored to be in the PS4.

From 2007 IBM Cell BE Software Development Kit 2.0

Barcelona supercomputing center: open source packages – the GCC-based tool chain, the Linux kernel and support libraries, and system support for the Cell BE Full System Simulator.

The SDK allows the development of Cell BE applications on the following hosting platforms:

•The SD
•x86
•x86-64
•64-bit PowerPC (PPC64)
•Cell BE-based blade server
The SDK includes both PPU and SPU compilers for all the supported platforms. A Cell BE application can be executed either natively on a Cell BE-based blade server or using the Cell BE full system simulator which is supported on all of the hosting platforms. The full system simulator on the Cell BE-based blade server is useful for debugging or verifying a problem. For example it is possible to build on an x86 system, test under the simulator on the same system, and then later execute the same binary natively on a Cell BE-based blade server.

The SDK includes both PPU and SPU compilers for all the supported platforms. A Cell BE application can be executed either natively on a Cell BE-based blade server or using the Cell BE full system simulator which is supported on all of the hosting platforms. The full system simulator on the Cell BE-based blade server is useful for debugging or verifying a problem. For example it is possible to build on an x86 system, test under the simulator on the same system, and then later execute the same binary natively on a Cell BE-based blade server.

A simulator may not be real time, as fast, as native. BSC could be designing an EMULATOR that would use X86-64 APU (includes 400 Radon cores) that might equal PS3 Cell performance.

 

[pottuvoi]

But but that other rumor that had all the facts right said it had an OpenGL GPU. How can this BE?

Indeed, OpenGL is going to dominate as graphics API of choice, just like it did with ps3...

If you consider that a CPU + APU + GPU together have to emulate Cell in between frames rather than real time and we have 400 cores that can perform streaming and array tasks roughly 10 times faster than 7 SPUs and 4 CPUs that can perform a small single thread task (This is the big issue if critical timing ) at roughly 1/3 the speed of a SPU and Sony might be doing some custom work on memory performance ..... it might be possible.

Untill you notice that SPUs do not do single task for a whole frame, actually often they change tasks quite frequently.

I do agree that having a CPU with APUs or any 'proper' heavy lifting processing units is a very nice thing though..

 

[phosphor112]

Why? I've said this for more than a year now, but next gen is going to be more about services and experiences you provide to the customer. First party studios and the user experience on the platform are the differentiators more than anything else.

Software software software.

How is dropping everything that's currently on PSN a service?

See definition of markets that matter.

Surely you jest... right?

Barcelona Supercomputing Center It makes more sense for the rumor to be about emulation of cell in a PS4 than designing Cell2.

[...]

Confirmed, Cellsim Cell emulation or modeling work being done. Certainly it looks like they are doing work that would allow them to design an emulator using the hardware rumored to be in the PS4.

From 2007 IBM Cell BE Software Development Kit 2.0

Interesting find. It's interesting.. and odd that this is from 07. Have they been looking for a solution that far ahead?