Taking GPU power to run CPU code. What is the point of that in gaming? Unless the cpu cannot keep up with the gpu but again that wouldnt be a good design.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Rumor: Wii U final specs
- Thread starter EatChildren
- Start date
Taking GPU power to run CPU code. What is the point of that in gaming? Unless the cpu cannot keep up with the gpu but again that wouldnt be a good design.
Before it even launched? Before knowing if their boss would choose to heavily support the Wii?
I hope it's clear what I'm trying to say.
if the GPU can run the code better than the CPU it's no longer CPU code.
Because the GPU is better at running that code perhaps.....?
EDIT: beaten
Man, I forgot I was on the internet where everything is black and white. My bad.
I'm pretty sure there were. But I'll have to find some quotes.
EDIT: So far I found one quote from Mark Rein, will keep looking for more:
"Don't kid yourself - you're going to see more gimmicky, crappy, cheap, I-wish-I-hadn't-bought-it gimmick games based around that controller than you can ever possibly imagine."
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Compute shader code? Like, any of it? Or you have an example in mind?
What did havok guys say?
Nahh. I was just making yet another stupid non-car analogy. I was lending you a hand, since I saw you stuck in stupid car analogies territory.
Uh, at least lherre seems to have a different opinion.
How about stuff that's normally done by the CELL processor on the PS3, gets done by the GPU on Xbox 360 in most multi-platform games? In other words developers have to adapt their code to the hardware.
I dont know what you are fishing for since we have been down this road before....
Havok was showing a demo of is physics engine running on a gpu. The reporter ask if this would be like the wiiu, he stated that no because the wiiu would be running the code on the cpu. It was talk about in one of the wiiu thread but i couldnt find it on a google search.
Sure but that is not an advantages for the PS3... They have to on the ps3 because of its weaker gpu. This code is design to run on a gpu since its gfx related. You have it backwards. Cell is a weird cpu that can run some gpu code well.
stupidvillager
Neo Member
There area several GPUs out there that are low power but still deliver between 600-800 glops, and those arent even customized. I seems that you are still thinking its just a desktop part put into the Wii U. So yeah, it is possible for it to be between 600-800 glops and still fit within the power envelope of the Wii U.
Canis lupus
Member
I really hope WiiU has optical out. That is a must for me.
I think there is a thread just for you on the front page
Thanks I will look for their posts. I wish those folks would write a summary up for us that would be grand.
Always-honest
Banned
link? The part of course cannot be bin.
stupidvillager
Neo Member
So, Havoks engine is designed to run on CPU, Havok says that the Wii U will be able to do things that the current gen cant and has advantages that no other platform does, and since he says they dont do anything with the dual screens and he is just talking about the engine we can rightly assume that he is talking about the CPU/GPU when he talks about the advantages. So just maybe the CPU is as weak as people seem to think. Obviously its more powerful than current gen, he pretty much says it.
If you want i can also tell you who NOT to listen to... lol
stupidvillager
Neo Member
It can be whatever it wants to be. It can be made of tomatoes. The point is, its possible to design and build a low power-high performance GPU.
Dialectics is garbage. It makes you gullible and manipulable and gives you the illusion that you can form a reasonable conclusion on a subject you know absolutely nothing about.
I take offense at the automatic assumption that whatever I said about the Wii U should be equally extreme and equally distorted to the bullshit Wii U "prophets" have been spewing for the past few months. It isn't. I've been basing my statements on physical and economic limitations. I don't want to be "balanced out" by crazy wishful thinking.
If I wanted to game dialectics victims like you I would've just cut all my predictions for the Wii U down to a third of what they have actually been. Then now you'd faithfully compute the midpoint between two opposing purposeful bullshit position, and maybe by accident reach at what I was actually wanting to state.
But that's not who I am. I don't make statements to "pull" people in directions as far as I can. I make statements I find reasonable with whatever precision I can manage and can believe in personally. If you don't understand a subject, be honest with yourself and stop calculating fallible midpoints. Just file the subject under "I don't understand this and I can't draw a conclusion".
Also, the sky is green with pink vertical stripes.
snowdog1971
Banned
I don't mind people having different opinions as long as they're talking sense ;oP
I'd forgotten how entertaining USC-fan was lol, I'm surprised that Van Owen isn't here too tbh. Shame cyberheater got banned otherwise we'd have the whole set of three! XoD
LOL doesnt work like that.
Fourth Storm
Member
Come on, dude. 640 spus at 480 Mhz is very doable. At 32 nm, as I expect it to be, especially.
Bg gave us those dev kit specs long ago and has proven reliable.
DragonSworne
Banned
CPU is not good for brute force rudiementry tasks. It's not even designed for that.
CPU is designed for multitasking and being flexible. It needs to be able to response to all types of instructions and repsond fast. It needs to be able to change what it is doing and focus on another task all together. In doing so, it loses it's ability to do brute force calculations.
GPU > CPU when it comes to brute force processing, this is FACT. A CPU will have 1 Algorthim Unit per core, a GPU has hundreds. When you apply how many cycles a CPU has versus a GPU, the GPU will able to do BILLIONS of more calculations per second than the CPU, even with the lower hertz than a CPU.
No matter how good a CPU is, it will never be as good as the GPU in brute force calculations.
It's a damn good thing Gaming requires brute force calcuating for some of it newer techniques. WiiU will be able to keep up with PS4 and Xbox720 in ways PS3 and Xbox360 will NEVER be able to because of the GPGPU.
What the hell dude? All I was trying to say is that when you have comments from developers that are polar opposites ("The CPU is great!", "The CPU is weak"), that the truth is likely somewhere in between. Not in the exact middle, but just somewhere from one extreme to the other. I have no idea why you are going off on me because of that.
You're exactly right, it's impossible to make a CPU out of a tomato.
MadeInBeats
Banned
How about a potato (or potatoes) connected with to a grid of metal wires with on/off switches
He can probably figure that out for himself... haha
How about a potato (or potatoes) connected with to a grid of metal wires with on/off switches
Not a bad idea. It would probably run pretty cool as well.
lmao!
DragonSworne
Banned
How about a potato (or potatoes) connected with to a grid of metal wires with on/off switches
I do believe that is how lays makes their chips. Lol pun
There were better AMD GPU designs out in 2008 (when GPU7 development started) than r700? No that was the new top of the line design from AMD at the time and most newer AMD GPUs are based off that "bad design". Look at the end of the day you've been told all this before. You either haven't got the capacity to understand it or you deliberately ignore it so you can continue with the same thing over and over again.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
Damn.gif
stupidvillager
Neo Member
Why not? If they have a target on both power and performance, why couldnt they make it.
Arkam
Llherre
IdeaMan
John Harker
Edit: Forgot about antonz & z0m3le. And I'm half tempted to throw myself up there because I guessed/reasoned everything right. :lol
I think he meant that you can't make a CPU out of a tomato, which is true. At least until someone perfects the SOF (silicon on fruit) technique.
Same here. Which reminds me I should really get back to work (but I probably won't).
Funny enough. this thread exists only because someone arkam was talking with ran with what they heard to vgleaks. Which makes the thread hilariously entertaining as people keep debating it even though Arkam came in and said woah this info isn't even fully correct
Are you serious?.. All graphic were rendered on CPUs at one point, then came graphics chips. Geometry transformation and lighting was "CPU code" until it was moved to the graphics chip and we had the first real GPU. Did you ask back then "what's the point"?. I suppose theres no point in newer PC games moving physics to the GPU? More and more tasks are moving away from CPUs, that will continue, PS4 and Xbox3 will be designed around the same concept, there CPUs won't be designed with physics tasks in mind, threre GPUs will be. Same as WIIU and totally the opposite of 360 or PS3.
you gotta be careful who you talk to especially when the information in question is second-hand.
Fourth Storm
Member
Does Havok run on the cpu? The wording was tricky in that quote but I always read it the other way. Mind the parenthesis and you should follow...
Edit: Nevermind. It had been a while since I read it and it does seem to say it runs on the cpu.
Base on all the info we have of the ps4 and xbox 720. You are wrong. None of them are going with a weak cpu compared to the gpu. xbox in fact seem to be going cpu heavy...
PS4 could be going with a apu with another gpu and that would be amazing. In the battle of physics or gfx, gfx is always going to win in games.
I Stalk Alone
Member
So a weak cpu doesnt matter since grafix will always win in gaemez?
DragonSworne
Banned
XtremeXpider
Member
But not all codes are good for "parallelization", the GPU is better if code can be parallelized, if no, the CPU is better.
The reason i didn't include Ideaman, is because he stays too vague too often, leaving to much to interpretation. Even though his info checks out, and i've always believed him to tell the truth. More context than actual facts. Somewhat frustrating. Now again, he knows what i'm talking about
Also, he's not a techie himself, just a messenger.Why i didn't include Arkam, is because he does't really seem to know what he's talking about. Even though he works for a dev, his info seems to be second hand and void of any form of context (basically the exact opposite of Ideaman in that regard), has admitted to not being a techie.
Same for Lherre. Confirmed as working for a dev. He has some factual info, but never elaborates or provides context. Often hit & run. Has given some shady responses in the past that make me wonder just how much hands on knowledge he actually has.
John Harker, haven't seen him post too much to begin with so not really an issue.
Guys like Zomle/fourth storm/... seem to be a notch or two below the likes of Blu, Wsippel, BG... but make for interesting conversations nevertheless. I know Atonz is somewhat in the know, but i've never really seen him dish something up (or maybe just missed it). Donnie... i don't know how much he knows, and maybe a couple of others i forgot.
DragonSworne
Banned
True, but there is a lot of code that can be parallelized and shouldn't be bottlenecked by the CPU.
No matter how fast your CPU, the GPU will be able to process that code faster.
WiiU would smoke PS3 and Xbox360 games if the GPGPU is utilized. Having the graphics card render screens and some logic is faster than having the graphics card just render the screen and the CPU doing all te logic.
TAS
Member
Unless of course the competition borrows/steals Nintendo's gamepad idea. Which btw I'm betting they will in some form or another.
Fourth Storm
Member
The reason i didn't include Ideaman, is because he stays too vague too often, leaving to much to interpretation. Even though his info checks out, and i've always believed him to tell the truth. More context than actual facts. Somewhat frustrating. Now again, he knows what i'm talking about
Why i didn't include Arkam, is because he does't really seem to know what he's talking about. Even though he works for a dev, his info seems to be second hand and void of any form of context (basically the exact opposite of Ideaman in that regard), has admitted to not being a techie.
Same for Lherre. Confirmed as working for a dev. He has some factual info, but never elaborates or provides context. Often hit & run. Has given some shady responses in the past that make me wonder just how much hands on knowledge he actually has.
John Harker, haven't seen him post too much to begin with so not really an issue.
Guys like Zomle/fourth storm/... seem to be a notch or two below the likes of Blu, Wsippel, BG... but make for interesting conversations nevertheless. I know Atonz is somewhat in the know, but i've never really seen him dish something up (or maybe just missed it). Donnie... i don't know how much he knows, and maybe a couple of others i forgot.
A notch below? Why's there gotta be a hierarchy? Haha.
wat ? we're talking of a next gen secret hardware and food ! It's like the best combination (well, it lacks sex) eva !
Really? Both PS4 and Xbox3 have gone from Bulldozer CPUs to Jaguar CPUs (the Bulldozers low end brother). Not that it even matters since this isn't about weak anything. I'm talking about the way the system is balanced. Consoles are going to follow the trend set by newer PC games and move physics processing away from the CPU to the GPU. You'll see the same design with all next gen consoles. If you interpret a CPU that isn't designed for heavy physics processing as weak then that's a misguided view IMO.
Oh and physics are actually a big part of a games overall visual package.