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The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

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Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#141

Post by mewse »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #125
IAmEveryone wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

> And even if everyone were a super smart 10x-developer like you surely are That's not called for. They never implied they were even above average. Just that a bunch of game devs were somewhat lazy.

> Just that a bunch of game devs were somewhat lazy.

That's not called for. You don't know those developers, you don't know what work was on their plate or what constraints they were toiling under.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#142

Post by llampx »

wmf wrote: post #132
Narishma wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't they have to kill it only a couple of years in because it wasn't cost-effective? IIRC it was sold at a huge loss that they never managed to get back.

The original Xbox had some contractual problems that prevented it from being cost-reduced. I don't think MS cared if they broke even since they were in it for the long haul. Everybody knows Xbox 3.11 for Workgroups was the first good Xbox anyway.

Very different from the Windows Phone philosophy, then.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#143

Post by moonbug »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #124
moonbug wrote: post #26

It was a cute way to get a Cell processor running Linux for an order of magnitude less than any other option, during the brief window where that processor looked like it was going to be future of high performance CPUs. (Anyone else here have the misfortune to work with LLNL's Roadrunner?). But then IBM killed it, and Nvidia came along and ate the market.

LANL had the Roadrunner. LLNL had BlueGene/L at the time.

quite so. time and autocorrect.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#144

Post by masklinn »

close04 wrote: post #69
masklinn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PS3's CPU was a single general-purpose core and 6 SIMD coprocessors. It was crap for creating games (and a pain in the ass to develop for), but it was great for pure compute. By comparison the 360 used a trio of a similar general-purpose core without the SIMD processors on the side[1] had significantly less pure compute power. [1] but with better built-in SIMD: the PS3's general-purpose core had a single internal…

> The PS3's CPU was a single general-purpose core and 6 SIMD coprocessors 6 usable for games but 8 physically in the silicon, with one disabled and one reserved for the OS. So a dual thread PPU and 6 game usable SPEs for the advertised "9 thread" (sometimes just referred to as 9-core) CPU.

> 6 usable for games but 8 physically in the silicon, with one disabled and one reserved for the OS.

Indeed, I initially put in the disabled one (for yield) and one reserved (especially as IBM's server version had all 8 enabled) but I figured that was of low enough interest I could just list the actually usable ones.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#145

Post by masklinn »

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.

TBF until the early aughts bespoke hardware was the only way to hit a suitable price target and get the performances and graphics snazz you wanted.

The first "consumer" PCs which were competitive with consoles in terms of gaming (late 90s, starting with the Voodoo 2 or so) had the graphics adapter alone costing as much as a current-gen console.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#146

Post by masklinn »

dehrmann wrote: post #106
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?

"Revolutionary" is probably not the right term, at this point it was pretty much inevitable given the progress of PC hardware, but it was ahead of the curve by necessity.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#147

Post by masklinn »

p1necone wrote: post #99
DCKing wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree any of them were underpowered. The PS1 and PS3 arguably produced the nicest graphics of their generations - the PS1 because its competition was compromised in their own way, and the PS3 due to sheer brute force. The PS2 for sure was less powerful than the more conventional architectures of the GameCube and Xbox, but it was released 18 months before either of them in a time when Moore's law was still extrem…

Compared to PCs of the same era they were very underpowered. And that only got worse as the generation went on. The PS3 and 360 only had 512mb of ram shared between the cpu and gpu which was a pretty serious handicap. (The lack of ram was definitely the biggest issue, and the thing that held back PC games the most as levels had to be made a lot smaller than they could have been otherwise - Destiny and Final Fantasy X…

> Compared to PCs of the same era they were very underpowered.

Compared to top-of-the-line PCs of the same era yes. But the GPU alone of "PCs of the same era" would set you back as much as a 6th gen console, and you'd have a shiny graphics adapter sitting in a box.

The 7th gen is where consoles started really falling behind (though somewhat ironically also where MS decided to go with somewhat more bespoke hardware than the "PC in a box" Xbox).

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#148

Post by monksy »

grogenaut wrote: post #18
rvz wrote: post #8

This was the moment that Sony could have made something useful out of themselves here for allowing Linux to be used on a popular games console at the time, as in improving the accessibility of installing Linux on a computing machine. (Or even basing GameOS on Linux). Instead they cowardly remove it due to a 'hack' by Geohot and locked it down for 'security purposes' and potential researchers, scientists and those wit…

(I'm sure I'll lose karma for explaining Sonys side, since some people just want to be mad) Linux support was not removed due to Geohot. It was a driver and business priority issue. Geohot just sealed the deal. Having worked there during the kerfuffle, I can confirm their reason was valid for not supporting Linux going forward. It was a non trivial effort and they wanted those engineers to make it support the new har…

> And then a bunch of the community responded as petulant children and attacked sonys main business and released products that allowed others to infringe Sony and other game studios property with impunity. These actions killed any chance Sony would engage with this community for the next decade or so.

Which sony regulary acts with impunity of being toxic towards it's users. (One thing to note: you can never get a refund on something you "bought" or something that was fraudulently bought on your PSN account. Do a charge back on a psn purchase, you loose all of your entitlements you purchased before)

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#149

Post by monksy »

grogenaut wrote: post #138
hyperman1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am taken aback a bit by this characterisation: And then a bunch of the community responded as petulant children and Sony supported linux in public, people bought their hardware for it, and then, without warning, sony janked the rug from under them. Of course people tried to take back their hardware, for which they paid. The blame here is 100% on Sony. Sony has a massive internal conflict of interest by being both a…

When you have a legitimate beef or problem with someone, you don't take illegitimate and illegal actions against them. I'm all for reverse engineering. That's fine. Extorting a company by threatening them with release of an exploit if you don't get your way is not legitimate, that's blackmail or extortion. All of the hackers attacking Sony for months, disabling PSN, is not legitimate, and should never have been suppo…

> illegal actions against them

What's illegal about reverse engineering a physical product you sell to someone?

> Disabling psn

Are you kidding me? The PSN was notriously insecure. Sony didn't give a crap until they were embarassed.

Re: The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers

#150

Post by lmm »

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.

No, its' tragic that blaming developers is even considered an option. Developers are human and can be expected to behave as such. The value of developer time is well known, and if anything developers undervalue their own time, and are far too willing to waste their time microoptimising for a gratuitously difficult CPU design rather than getting on with more valuable work.
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