PS4 graphics to be PowerVR Series 6 ?

On Nov 25, 9:53*pm, "First of One" wrote:
According to John Carmack, at least one of the next-gen consoles won't have
an optical drive. Who's up for 25GB game downloads? :-)

Well, Nintendo used to do fine with cartridges in the olden days.
Perhaps they're going back to the modern equivalent of cartridges,
flash memory thumb drives? Most modern SD flash cards are 8 to 16GB,
meaning that they're already larger than or equal to DVD drives in
capacity, and they are still growing. Blu-Ray disk don't seem like
they offer enough of a cost advantage over flash drives.

Comparing video RAM between the Dreamcast and PS2 is a bit like comparing
apples and oranges.

The Dreamcast has 16 MB of 100 MHz system RAM on a 64-bit interface; and 8
MB of 100 MHz video RAM on a 64-bit interface. Memory bandwidth is thus 100
x 64 /8 = 800 MB/s, slight more than a Voodoo2. The architecture is pretty
straightforward, similar to a PC's.

The PS2 had 32 MB of Rambus-type system RAM with 3.2 GB/s of memory
bandwidth. The 4 MB of video RAM was embedded into the GPU's chip package
and had 9.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, so it functioned more like a large cache.
The PS2's GPU could stream textures off system RAM faster than the Dreamcast
could off local video RAM, provided the game developer exploited this
capability.

According to this document:
http://www.technology.scee.net/files...PowerOfPS2.pdf
The PS2 could also do both edge AA and even FSAA (with both supersampling
and multisampling), but early games evidently didn't use them. Sony's early
developments tools may have been crappy.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Jim" wrote in message
...
"First of One" wrote
Yep, ahead by about a year, until the PS2 came along.
Dreamcast games looked better than early PS2 games. Dreamcast had double
the VRAM so it didn't have use 640x480 and could do AA so it didn't have
nasty jaggies.

"First of One" writes:
The PS2 could also do both edge AA and even FSAA (with both supersampling
and multisampling), but early games evidently didn't use them. Sony's early
developments tools may have been crappy.

Perhaps it's just the laziness of developers, but as far as I've seen,
the vast majority of PS2 games looked awful right up to the end.

-Miles

--
x
y
Z!

* YKhan:

Well, Nintendo used to do fine with cartridges in the olden days.
Perhaps they're going back to the modern equivalent of cartridges,
flash memory thumb drives? Most modern SD flash cards are 8 to 16GB,
meaning that they're already larger than or equal to DVD drives in
capacity, and they are still growing. Blu-Ray disk don't seem like
they offer enough of a cost advantage over flash drives.

A 50GB flash drive still costs many times (magnitudes) more than a 50GB
Bluray disk, so it is highly unlikely that next consoles will use flash
as medium.

Besides that, game publishers clearly aim to move from physical
distribution to electronic distribution, not only because it is cheaper,
but also because it allows them to kill the 2nd hand market (games are
locked to a console/user and can't be sold) and makes other licensing
models (like time-based licensing where you buy playtime) possible.

Benjamin

* Bill Cable:

Based on what I Googled, one division of IBM is off the Cell... not
the whole of IBM.

You didn't google very well then:
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/end-of-the-line-for-ibms-cell.ars

Benjamin

On Nov 28, 2:11*am, Benjamin Gawert wrote:
A 50GB flash drive still costs many times (magnitudes) more than a 50GB
Bluray disk, so it is highly unlikely that next consoles will use flash
as medium.

I picked up a 16GB Class 6 (highest speed class) SDHC card for $20
including shipping on Ebay. I'm sure it cost whoever was selling it
much less for him to buy it.

Besides that, game publishers clearly aim to move from physical
distribution to electronic distribution, not only because it is cheaper,
but also because it allows them to kill the 2nd hand market (games are
locked to a console/user and can't be sold) and makes other licensing
models (like time-based licensing where you buy playtime) possible.

That's entirely possible, and that's the reason they'd want to get rid
of the optical drive. A small flash drive slot would be a much more
cost effective non-permanent storage medium than a disk drive.
Physical distribution isn't going away, just the optical disk physical
distribution. And you can't rely on the Internet to download your
games when you need them.

Yousuf Khan

I play my trap card.
http://www.driverheaven.net/news.php?newsid=344

"First of One" wrote
The PS2 had 32 MB of Rambus-type system RAM with 3.2 GB/s of memory
bandwidth. The 4 MB of video RAM was embedded into the GPU's chip package
and had 9.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, so it functioned more like a large
cache. The PS2's GPU could stream textures off system RAM faster than the
Dreamcast could off local video RAM, provided the game developer exploited
this capability.
You need the eDRAM's bandwidth to keep the pixel pipelines full. 3.2GB/s
wont give you 2.4Gigatexels so its use for gfx is limited. RDRAM's high
latency is another problem. So if you wanted to use any of the PS2's
potential you had to use 8bit textures and sub SD res. Dreamcast used TBDR
so it made better use of its bandwidth than a Voodoo2. Apples&Oranges
According to this document:
http://www.technology.scee.net/files...PowerOfPS2.pdf
The PS2 could also do both edge AA and even FSAA (with both supersampling
and multisampling), but early games evidently didn't use them. Sony's
early developments tools may have been crappy.
The AA page was vague. Multisampling didn't come until next year with the
GeForce3 and with the GS's bandwidth it would be cheap to use. Jaggies are
usually the #1 complaint about PS2 gfx.

* YKhan:

I picked up a 16GB Class 6 (highest speed class) SDHC card for $20
including shipping on Ebay. I'm sure it cost whoever was selling it
much less for him to buy it.

See my answer to GMAN for that. 50GB Bluray disks can be produced for
way less than $1 *today*.

That's entirely possible, and that's the reason they'd want to get rid
of the optical drive. A small flash drive slot would be a much more
cost effective non-permanent storage medium than a disk drive.

The flash drive slot indedd is cheaper than a BD drive, but at the end
of the day the cheapest solution is no removable media at all.

Physical distribution isn't going away, just the optical disk physical
distribution. And you can't rely on the Internet to download your
games when you need them.

Sorry, but you must be really naive if you think physical distribution
is not going away in the long term, especially since the publishers more
than once expressed that this is what they are aiming for. On the PC,
there already is STEAM which in fact is very successful and does
completely rely on the internet to download your games, and this for
several years now (and often enough, the STEAM version means less hazzle
than the version on DVD which requires online activation with limited
activations and other intrusive copy protection schemes). Sony and MS
are constantly expanding their online stores, and this for a reason.
Digital distribution means that more profit goes to the publisher, the
second hand market can be dried out (by locking game titles to a certain
console), much better control over pricing (single source means no
pricing competition), and cost savings because mass production of media
is not necessary any more. Also, only digital distribution allows new
licensing models like time-based licensing.

Physical media might not disappear completely, but with the next
consoles we very likely will see that digital distribution plays an
equal role as physical distribution, if not more (Current consoles are
used as test beds for the concept).

You have to be very naive to not see the writing on the wall IMHO.

Benjamin

Bill Cable wrote:
On Nov 27, 3:15 pm, Yousuf Khan wrote:
You missed the other part of this thread that said otherwise.

Yousuf Khan

Based on what I Googled, one division of IBM is off the Cell... not
the whole of IBM.

There's more he

Cell is no longer hpc material - The Inquirer
"According to the IBM executive's crystal ball, Cell is now no longer
the right platform on which to develop HPC computing and so IBM will be
shifting its focus from Cell-based co-processing to OpenCL-based
co-processing - AMD's GPU stuff, in not so many words. This means that
while Cell served its purpose in proving parallel processing was the way
to go, development costs of further Cell based products become pointless
as GPGPU computing becomes more widespread. Considering AMD is one of
IBM's closest research partners this hardly comes as a surprise."
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...l-hpc-material

So it looks like IBM will be moving towards AMD's solutions for at least
HPC stuff from now on. Other than HPC and Playstation stuff, what else
is there left for Cell? It looks pretty dead to me.

Yousuf Khan