makeitlookreal
07-04-2006, 05:46 AM
Recently on GAF the following was posted.
A glimpse at future higher-end rendering on PS3? Cell/RSX hybrid rendering evolving.. #1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Techie stuff, but potentially quite exciting..
The 1st International Symposium on Cell Computing at Siggraph is hosting a paper from Alan Heirich who's been working at SCEA for some time now on "PS3's graphics architecture". He published a paper earlier, but it seems he's since turned his attention to hybrid Cell/RSX rendering and he seems ready to start presenting some results.
From the link: http://www.aurorasoft.net/symposiums/ccs06/presentations.php
Quote:
This paper studies a deferred pixel shading algorithm implemented on a Cell-based computer entertainment system. The pixel shader runs on the Synergistic Processing Units (SPUs) of the Cell and works concurrently with the GPU to render images. The system's unified memory architecture allows the Cell and GPU to exchange data through shared textures. The SPUs use the Cell DMA list capability to gather irregular fine-grained fragments of texture data generated by the GPU. They return resultant shadow textures the same way. The shading computation ran at up to 85 Hz at HDTV 720p resolution on 5 SPUs and generated 30.72 gigaops of performance. This is comparable to the performance of the algorithm running on a state of the art high end GPU. These results indicate that a hybrid solution in which the Cell and GPU work together can produce higher performance than either device working alone.
Of course, we're short on specifics - what exactly is being done on Cell, performance on Cell+GPU versus GPU alone or Cell alone (although the bolded bit above may give some indication..). But this definitely seems like something worth keeping an eye out for later in the month. If anyone wants to venture some guesses as to the detail, I guess speculate away in the meantime
BTW, according to a mod on B3D, at least one other big game developer is working on similar stuff (i.e. deferred pixel shading on Cell).
The paper is due to be presented on July 28.
If you go the the link you will see this paper is no longer posted, the quote, or any mention of the paper.
To me, if this paper does indeed exist, it could be significant if the RSX/CELL combination has been optimized to interact optimally enough to allow for the Cell to help with Pixel Shading and other tasks that would normally be reserved for the GPU alone.
This paper could have been posted and than pulled due to being to close to an NDA of the Sony type (Never Disclosing Anything).
This could be significant. I have posted asking the person who saw the site to post everything he found.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
A glimpse at future higher-end rendering on PS3? Cell/RSX hybrid rendering evolving.. #1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Techie stuff, but potentially quite exciting..
The 1st International Symposium on Cell Computing at Siggraph is hosting a paper from Alan Heirich who's been working at SCEA for some time now on "PS3's graphics architecture". He published a paper earlier, but it seems he's since turned his attention to hybrid Cell/RSX rendering and he seems ready to start presenting some results.
From the link: http://www.aurorasoft.net/symposiums/ccs06/presentations.php
Quote:
This paper studies a deferred pixel shading algorithm implemented on a Cell-based computer entertainment system. The pixel shader runs on the Synergistic Processing Units (SPUs) of the Cell and works concurrently with the GPU to render images. The system's unified memory architecture allows the Cell and GPU to exchange data through shared textures. The SPUs use the Cell DMA list capability to gather irregular fine-grained fragments of texture data generated by the GPU. They return resultant shadow textures the same way. The shading computation ran at up to 85 Hz at HDTV 720p resolution on 5 SPUs and generated 30.72 gigaops of performance. This is comparable to the performance of the algorithm running on a state of the art high end GPU. These results indicate that a hybrid solution in which the Cell and GPU work together can produce higher performance than either device working alone.
Of course, we're short on specifics - what exactly is being done on Cell, performance on Cell+GPU versus GPU alone or Cell alone (although the bolded bit above may give some indication..). But this definitely seems like something worth keeping an eye out for later in the month. If anyone wants to venture some guesses as to the detail, I guess speculate away in the meantime
BTW, according to a mod on B3D, at least one other big game developer is working on similar stuff (i.e. deferred pixel shading on Cell).
The paper is due to be presented on July 28.
If you go the the link you will see this paper is no longer posted, the quote, or any mention of the paper.
To me, if this paper does indeed exist, it could be significant if the RSX/CELL combination has been optimized to interact optimally enough to allow for the Cell to help with Pixel Shading and other tasks that would normally be reserved for the GPU alone.
This paper could have been posted and than pulled due to being to close to an NDA of the Sony type (Never Disclosing Anything).
This could be significant. I have posted asking the person who saw the site to post everything he found.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.