The next-generation console wars

[Nerve-Damage]

By Jon "Hannibal" Stokes

Monday, October 31, 2005 (http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/revolution.ars/1)

[speed stick]

Nice find. I enjoyed reading that and comparing. I would be surpsrised if the Revolution had a GPU as was stated because they are expected to sell at a lower price. I think that would be funny if the Revolution came out as some amazing new console that was far superior to the other 2. That would give me a laugh.

[Nerve-Damage]

I wish he would have touch upon possible GPU configurations & performance from all systems, even if it was from a guessing/hypothetical standpoint. Other than that, a worth while read.

[Danji]

Pretty bad article for Hannibal..now that I know a lot more about hardware I criticize his work which is pretty bad considering he was the person who first introduced me to hardware/programming concepts.

In any case, he should've clarified between the 6 software threads on the XeCPU and the 8 hardware threads and 9 software of the Cell. It makes a major difference from a programming perspective. He also has no mention of flops or anything else really..

The theorizing on the topic of the Rev. should appease the Nintendo board though. Too bad I'm too lazy to post this there.

[speed stick]

I wish he would have touch upon possible GPU configurations & performance from all systems, even if it was from a guessing/hypothetical standpoint. Other than that, a worth while read.


Yeah, I know what you mean. It was mostly about the Rev and some 360 and really no PS3. But I really liked the comparasins and how he explained how the Revolution may work. So Nintendo does not want to be far behind in the horsepower aspect obviously.

[xbdestroya]

I agree Danji, for Hannibal this article was not that good. He doesn't even have any real Rev information - he's just straight guessing. The fact that he's relying on quotes given to other websites to come up with his suppositions is just all the more the indicator of the poor form on his part.

This quote was quite telling of the whole article I thought:

If you've read any of my work on CPU architecture, you know that I'm a big fan of drawing conclusions about "overall approach and design philosophy" based on a close look at a processor's architecture. So what I'll do here is run that process in reverse, and draw some conclusions about the Revolution's hardware from the more general guidance that Nintendo has given.

[Danji]

Yea, he must be under some severe pressure by fans or otherwise to post such a bad article..or even think to make one. I loved his article explaining the difference between the emotion engine and the PC architecture. Ahh, good times.

[archash]

It sounds to me like he's really hyping about the Nintendo Revolution really, especially the part about the controller(read the link about it). :spiny: Still a great read though

[cliffbo]

[B]I`m not sure why he thinks the Ps3 won`t be able to link with a pc surely the fact that you will be able to connect through a router would at least make file transfers possible. also if sony`s recent comments about media sharing through various formats stated by the sony vp are true then pc connections are surely inevitable. i also got the feeling from the article that he is hoping nintendo win the console war this time as he seemed to lean heavily in the direction of revolution.

[Domination]

wrong place.....

[Red_Eyes]

[B]I`m not sure why he thinks the Ps3 won`t be able to link with a pc surely the fact that you will be able to connect through a router would at least make file transfers possible. also if sony`s recent comments about media sharing through various formats stated by the sony vp are true then pc connections are surely inevitable. i also got the feeling from the article that he is hoping nintendo win the console war this time as he seemed to lean heavily in the direction of revolution.

And PS3 will be able to run Linux, and has USB port, which makes it possible to connect to a computer.

[Danji]

He also didn't mention the PSP which is a major thing now that it has shipped 10 million in 10 months. Majorly popular product for it's first year on the market.

[rpgamer_2k5]

And PS3 will be able to run Linux, and has USB port, which makes it possible to connect to a computer. Keep in mind tha the Cell is going to be used in other computers rather than just the PS3. This means more software will be available to the PS3. The Cell is not in the same position as the EE. We should be expecting many to turn their PS3s into a home computer.

PS3 - 299.99 US
Keyboard and Mouse - $50US (Top-Notch Bluetooth)
Monitor - It's to purchase a Acer 19" LCD for $240 US.
---------------
349.99 - Without Monitor
589.99 - Full PC
Throw in some All-in-One Printer for $79.99. Now you got a low-cost home computer that is a capable of laying the smackdown on any Dell pc. In fact, even PC bundles could be prepared by retailers. The PS3 looks like a very promising device, maybe it could become a general-purpose technology.

[venomv]

and that's buying a good monitor, you can get a decent monitor for under $100, not top-of-the-line by any sence of the word but good enough for most people.

[ded5850]

"Speaking of the Sony vs. Microsoft graphics horse race, the most common criticism that developers have leveled at Sony's and Microsoft's next-generation consoles is that their PPE-based designs perform poorly on physics, AI, and game control code. These allegations are borne out by my own analysis of the actual console hardware, which lacks dynamic execution and is relatively short on branch-prediction resources (compared to something like the PPC 970) and cache. The PPE is ill-equipped for the kind of branchy integer codes that make up the physics, AI, and control portions of a game. The emerging, prelaunch consensus is therefore that these two next-generation consoles will give us a raft of games that are visually stunning to look at but lacking in the very areas that Nintendo claims that their own next-generation console will revolutionize."

This just surprised me, for i thought that since the PS3 and the 360 would be better at AI, Physics, since they have mulple CPU's (additional PPE's in 360's case. 7 SPE's for PS3). Is it to say that next gen WONT have great physics/AI, and all the goods? Say it aint so!

[Domination]

"Speaking of the Sony vs. Microsoft graphics horse race, the most common criticism that developers have leveled at Sony's and Microsoft's next-generation consoles is that their PPE-based designs perform poorly on physics, AI, and game control code. These allegations are borne out by my own analysis of the actual console hardware, which lacks dynamic execution and is relatively short on branch-prediction resources (compared to something like the PPC 970) and cache. The PPE is ill-equipped for the kind of branchy integer codes that make up the physics, AI, and control portions of a game. The emerging, prelaunch consensus is therefore that these two next-generation consoles will give us a raft of games that are visually stunning to look at but lacking in the very areas that Nintendo claims that their own next-generation console will revolutionize."

This just surprised me, for i thought that since the PS3 and the 360 would be better at AI, Physics, since they have mulple CPU's (additional PPE's in 360's case. 7 SPE's for PS3). Is it to say that next gen WONT have great physics/AI, and all the goods? Say it aint so!

I would wait since I heard something completely different from other developers and software providers.

[Z]

I can't imagine what the homebrew comunity will cook up for PS3!
This just surprised me, for i thought that since the PS3 and the 360 would be better at AI, Physics, since they have mulple CPU's (additional PPE's in 360's case. 7 SPE's for PS3). Is it to say that next gen WONT have great physics/AI, and all the goods? Say it aint so!
it ain't so. ;)
check with the Cell thread to learn how much PS3's CPU is capable in physics, sound, etc. it is so powerful, it can handel the latest Havok and AGIEA physics without the need of any extra hardware. it can also produce 5.1 surround sound on the fly. and PS3 is the only system able to produce real-time physics simulation. you think all those SPEs are left idle? :)

[Danji]

...maybe?

In any case, this article is trash. Wonder why Hannibal is falling behind now-a-days..perhaps he can't keep up with other tech sites?

[Z]

I think it's due to lack of info. X2 is prity much known, but PS3 RSX is still a mystery. sure we can speculate, bot not much solid info. also, no one can really speak about Rev at length at this moment.
I think PS3 news will stay this way till Feb. and Rev will be anybody's guess untill Ninty tells us something. Ninty said all will be revieled before year's end. I find that a bit hard to concieve if they are going to launch around 6 months.

[jjokcca]

Cell might have power to do all the thing SONY is promising, but developers can they deliver all the bells and whistles in the final product? PC is capable of producing awesome graphics and has power to do lots thing too, but problem is developer are unable to utilize the capabilities in full force. It will be big learning curve for them to use multi-thread multi-core CPU. Also I am hearing some rumors they are having hard time developing for the PS3. We might see the full power of cell until 2nd or 3rd gen PS3 games.

[Z]

yes, that is what everybody is asking on all comming systems: how accessable are they? that can only be answered after the systems are launched and devs get to know them more closely.

to note: consoles, unlike PCs, are closed systems. that is why less is more in their case.

development ease really have to be combined with the first part; only time will tell. PSM reports some devs saying PS3 is easier than X2, which is the opposite of things this gen. but you can't really tell untill devs of both systems get to work on final SDKs and get atleast one title out for both.

[Red_Eyes]

"Speaking of the Sony vs. Microsoft graphics horse race, the most common criticism that developers have leveled at Sony's and Microsoft's next-generation consoles is that their PPE-based designs perform poorly on physics, AI, and game control code. These allegations are borne out by my own analysis of the actual console hardware, which lacks dynamic execution and is relatively short on branch-prediction resources (compared to something like the PPC 970) and cache. The PPE is ill-equipped for the kind of branchy integer codes that make up the physics, AI, and control portions of a game. The emerging, prelaunch consensus is therefore that these two next-generation consoles will give us a raft of games that are visually stunning to look at but lacking in the very areas that Nintendo claims that their own next-generation console will revolutionize."

This just surprised me, for i thought that since the PS3 and the 360 would be better at AI, Physics, since they have mulple CPU's (additional PPE's in 360's case. 7 SPE's for PS3). Is it to say that next gen WONT have great physics/AI, and all the goods? Say it aint so!

Xbox 360 may be ill-equiped to deal with AI due to lack of branch prediction, but at least PS3 has something to help it.

"The SPU is an in-order dual-issue statically scheduled architecture. Two SIMD instructions can be issued per cycle: one compute instruction and one memory operation. The SPU branch architecture does not include dynamic branch prediction, but instead relies on compiler-generated branch prediction using "prepare-to-branch" instructions to redirect instruction prefetch to branch targets."

[rpgamer_2k5]

The XeCPU has weak hardware branch predictors, because it doesn't seem to help in-order CPUs in pipelining. The SPEs are very quick, simple, and hence will be able to deal with branch prediction. To use branch predictions on the SPEs will be costly, nor will there be much of a gain, so it's absent. This is why the Cell is going to be a low-cost CPU, even when compared to the XeCPU.

[Crossbar]

The XeCPU has weak hardware branch predictors, because it doesn't seem to help in-order CPUs in pipelining.
Good hardware branch prediction is always helpful independent of if it is an OOO or in-order CPU. The point is that both OOO and branch prediction is very good if you want to build a blazingly fast single threaded CPU, but as you say very costly transistor wise. But if you want to have most IPC/transistor it is better to reduce those features and go for multiple simpler CPU cores. Which is the route of both cell and Xenon.

[Z]

just to add; Cell can have 9 threads and XeCPU 6. I don't know how significant the real-life impact of this but 3 more threads on a faster CPU with huge throughput doesn't look like a little be any means.

[Danji]

I said that. Also important to add is that Cell has 8 physical-hardware threads and 9 in-software threads meaning that 8 will always have access to resources which is much better than the 3 on the 360 that will always have resources.

That is to say that the 360 has 3 hardware threads and the PS3 has 8, making it about 3 times as many. That is a huge difference in game.