The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#101

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 1:47 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #76

forrestthewoods wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PS1 didn't hold back PC or other consoles so I bear it no ill will. PS2 dominated sixth gen sales. By being the winning console but releasing 18 months earlier it held back everyone. And since, like you said, Moore's law was very much alive this represented a significant reduction in overall quality for an entire generation. :( PS3 at it's peak was great. But it took waaaay too much effort to get there making it a ve…

> But it took waaaay too much effort to get there making it a very poor value proposition for developers. It’s funny that this is always a criticism levelled at the CPU and not the developers.

This reminds me so much of the discussions around the Amiga back in the 80s.

Powerful custom hardware can be great for the developers that invest in it, until it isn't anymore and now you've got a bunch of sunk R&D. And then there's the need to ship on more than one platform...

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#102

Post by Jasper_ » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 1:57 AM UTC

DCKing wrote: post #49

The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) in the CPU , and not the GPU. As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high p…

The weird PS1/PS2/PS3 were because of Japan's heavy arcade culture, where quirky hardware/software designs were the standard. Xbox was approached from the "let's make a DirectX Box" angle, from commodity PC hardware, and it wasn't until the PS3's initial huge cost blunder that Sony realized they needed to go the commodity angle.

> There's a persistent rumor that the Cell was so powerful that Sony had intended for the Playstation 3 to be equipped with two Cell chips, and no true GPU at all. But it seems Sony realized during development that their philosophy had no future.

The original plan was for no GPU at all, relying on the SPUs as pixel processor units. When they realized that that wasn't feasible for a few reasons, they quickly partnered with Toshiba to make a custom GPU, and that ended poorly too, so Toshiba scrambled and licensed an NVIDIA core. The final "RSX" chip was still a Toshiba design, but with NVIDIA at the center.

As games got more and more complicated, the amount of developer support & tooling did as well. The Xbox 360 had incredibly strong tooling (ask someone who worked on the device about 360's PIX, and they'll gush for days), and the PS3 had very little. The PS3 shader compiler infamously had a random search for an optimizer, and Sony's recommendation was to just run it continually with different random seed inputs in hopes it found a better optimization for your shader.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#103

Post by IAmEveryone » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #76

forrestthewoods wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PS1 didn't hold back PC or other consoles so I bear it no ill will. PS2 dominated sixth gen sales. By being the winning console but releasing 18 months earlier it held back everyone. And since, like you said, Moore's law was very much alive this represented a significant reduction in overall quality for an entire generation. :( PS3 at it's peak was great. But it took waaaay too much effort to get there making it a ve…

> But it took waaaay too much effort to get there making it a very poor value proposition for developers. It’s funny that this is always a criticism levelled at the CPU and not the developers.

You kinda have to work with the people existing, while there were other CPUs available at the time.

And even if everyone were a super smart 10x-developer like you surely are, their time would still be better spent on a platform that is more productive. The idea that some technology is difficult but rewards proficiency with incredible productivity is almost entirely wrong, which is why nobody does web development in Assembly. LaTeX vs Word would be the only example I would have agreed with in the past, but if you search you'll find a study showing even the most proficient practitioners are slower and make more typesetting mistakes using the former.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#104

Post by anthk » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:15 AM UTC

Jasper_ wrote: post #102

DCKing wrote: post #49

The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) in the CPU , and not the GPU. As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high p…

The weird PS1/PS2/PS3 were because of Japan's heavy arcade culture, where quirky hardware/software designs were the standard. Xbox was approached from the "let's make a DirectX Box" angle, from commodity PC hardware, and it wasn't until the PS3's initial huge cost blunder that Sony realized they needed to go the commodity angle. > There's a persistent rumor that the Cell was so powerful that Sony had intended for the…

>The weird PS1/PS2/PS3 were because of Japan's heavy arcade culture, where quirky hardware/software designs were the standard.

MSX, PC98. The Nintendo uses a standard 6502 CPU with a PPU and the Mega Drive used the uberknown M68k.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#105

Post by rolltiide » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:16 AM UTC

DCKing wrote: post #49

The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) in the CPU , and not the GPU. As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high p…

> Console hardware is not really interesting anymore if you ask me.

and Hallelujah to that

Praise Talos

We really do not need a Wakanda with an independent history of processor technology. Maybe 50 years ago the Cambrian explosion of possibilities was relevant, but this century?

Consoles had to compromise based on heating and costs while being competitive in graphical capabilities, those things haven't been issues that the market actually cares about in 15-20 years. For the market, the graphics pale to the actual experience, they're good enough and would never attract enthusiasts that are willing to use more electrical energy for bragging rights.

General processors and off the shelf graphics processors are good enough.

Interchangeable parts wins again.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#106

Post by dehrmann » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:35 AM UTC

DCKing wrote: post #49

The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) in the CPU , and not the GPU. As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high p…

> As a result, the PS4 and Xbox One have PC hardware.

Does this mean the Xbox was pretty revolutionary for showing that you really can make a console with commodity hardware?

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#107

Post by menzoic » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:51 AM UTC

Jasper_ wrote: post #102

DCKing wrote: post #49

The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) in the CPU , and not the GPU. As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high p…

The weird PS1/PS2/PS3 were because of Japan's heavy arcade culture, where quirky hardware/software designs were the standard. Xbox was approached from the "let's make a DirectX Box" angle, from commodity PC hardware, and it wasn't until the PS3's initial huge cost blunder that Sony realized they needed to go the commodity angle. > There's a persistent rumor that the Cell was so powerful that Sony had intended for the…

> The PS3 shader compiler infamously had a random search for an optimizer, and Sony's recommendation was to just run it continually with different random seed inputs in hopes it found a better optimization for your shader.

Sounds like machine learning with linear regression.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#108

Post by duxup » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:05 AM UTC

DCKing wrote: post #49

The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) in the CPU , and not the GPU. As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high p…

I remember them pushing the idea the Cell would be used everywhere. At a game conference the brought out an engineer talking about how the Cell would be used in everything...like refrigerators...and then the price for the PS3 was $600 USD...

Meanwhile off the shelf hardware is cheap and has support from developers. And any kind of enhancement to consumer products involves cheap hardware to keep costs down.

I couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't a functional and yet a bit of a corporate vanity project that had missed the boat and had nonsensical ambitions.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#109

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:05 AM UTC

ljm wrote: post #95

DCKing wrote: post #49

The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) in the CPU , and not the GPU. As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high p…

It's a shame in a way. I remember the reports about the Cell architecture for the PS3. By all accounts it wasn't easy to program for, but that was a hell of an innovation only to fall back to the standard PC arch. Impressive as hell but it took game devs a long time to make the most of it; and then they did in spades. You only have to track the trajectory of Uncharted in the space of a console generation to see what…

I prototyped some physics modeling on the Cell BE. Having Linux on it was a huge help, but it definitely was an odd beast to program for.

One thing that made it practical to work with was that we could install Linux on a PS3.

When Sony retroactively killed the ability to install Linux, they did more than make PS3 irrelevant to supercomputing. They made me deeply skeptical of relying on a technology with a single-vendor gatekeeper.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#110

Post by ljm » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:09 AM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #109

ljm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame in a way. I remember the reports about the Cell architecture for the PS3. By all accounts it wasn't easy to program for, but that was a hell of an innovation only to fall back to the standard PC arch. Impressive as hell but it took game devs a long time to make the most of it; and then they did in spades. You only have to track the trajectory of Uncharted in the space of a console generation to see what…

I prototyped some physics modeling on the Cell BE. Having Linux on it was a huge help, but it definitely was an odd beast to program for. One thing that made it practical to work with was that we could install Linux on a PS3. When Sony retroactively killed the ability to install Linux, they did more than make PS3 irrelevant to supercomputing. They made me deeply skeptical of relying on a technology with a single-vend…

For the sake of the environment and not throwing away hundreds of thousands of perfectly functional computers I hope they will change that situation. If nothing else, it's going to be a hacker's dream to play with such a unique chipset. It shouldn't die out.

I'd love to poke into it myself. The only barrier is the language you have to use to speak with it.