Another week, another PS3 rumor fire quickly decimating rational thought on the internet. We should start billing Sony for putting these things out. This time, British computing tabloid, The Inquirer, is running a piece titled, "PS3 hardware slow and broken." It's full of the usual Inquirer stuff: bad spelling, horrible grammar, and (most importantly) specious arguments. So, before we even get to what they're claiming, understand that their story could be considered entertainment, much the way the Enquirer is. Here goes:An Inquirer writer had the good fortune to sit next to Anonymous Guy on a recent flight to Japan who dished about the PS3's new Cell and RSX chips. "Oh my God, did you hear? Cell is like, totally broken and junk. It's MBs are all, like, messed up where the GBs should be ... and stuff." Alright, that's not a direct quote, but a decent approximation. It isn't worth going through and breaking down the arguments since a little common sense would go much further.
Alright, internet, I know we're all still upset about "The Price." I know sometimes Sony says funny stuff that we all laugh at. (Too cheap? You kill me Kutaragi!) There are some kinds of rumors we're willing to believe. Yields are low? Alright, that happens. One of the largest and most well respected chip developers in the world, whose new, custom-built, ground breaking chip architecture has a huge design flaw that we extrapolated from a slide and a single-serving airplane buddy? See, it just doesn't seem as plausible.
In regards to a system as unique -- and uniquely complex -- as the PS3, this level of "journalism" seems woefully inadequate to tackle what may or may not be actual design problems with the processor. Places to look, if you're so inclined: Sony's Cell page. Too biased? How about one of Ars Technica's famously exhaustive looks at the thing ... in two parts. The Ars guys are part processor, it appears, and they didn't manage to identify some singular shortcoming that will doom the PlayStation 3 as an also-ran.
So go ahead. Read it, enjoy it, but please don't take it as Truth. The console wars are already ugly enough without the rumors.
See also:
Clearing up some PS3 confusion
Rumor: no pre-owned games for PS3?
[Thanks, I guess, to everyone that sent this in]
(Update: The misunderstanding evident in the linked story relates to the distinction between local video memory and local system memory. The slow read speed under discussion is indicative of the feature's lack of utility. This is even reflected on the slide's statement: "No, this isn't a typo ..." A contact at Sony confirmed this telling me, "Again I cannot imagine a situation where you have any SPU reading from the RSX local memory." Nothing to see here, folks.)
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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False alarm.
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But thanks for sharing.
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360 and Wii are geared towards performance, not raw number-crunching ability, therefore (in most cases) you'll see better performance (on the cpu side) from those two consoles compared to the sluggish Ps3.
Anandtech covered all three systems and their cpus a long time ago.
Cell having 1 PPE (primary processing engine) and 7 SPE's (synergistic processing engines) versus 360 having 3 dual core PPEs versus Wii having either 1 single core or dual core PPE (don't recall which it is at this time). Eliminating the technogeek babble - Ps3 can handle more with its 7 SPEs but the 360 having 3 dual core PPEs does a better job at managing all that data, therefore it performs faster (read: better).
The above article might throw in some fanboy euphemisms but the fact remains - the Ps3 is the slowest and least performance friendly processor in the next gen consoles.
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Also, The Inquirer is reliable, I don't know where you got that from, did you pull it out of your ass? The Inquirer is not The National Enquirer, and is actually reliable. Its a UK tech news publication, not the tabloid Inquirer, you got mixed up. So I don't know how this is debunked.
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Joystiq crew - future suggestion (if possible): the ability to edit posts =)
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"How's that working out for you?"
"What?"
"Being Clever"
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The same thing could easily happen for the PS3, although I personally believe the field will be slightly more evenly split this time around.
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It is cool to attack the Inquirer crap like that needs to be gone, but seriously on a whole gaming journalist need to step up and actually be considered an asset to the gaming industry rather than a mouth piece for the popular consoles of the moment. Nothing against joystiq, but a site that post blogs, and is free shouldn't be giving better, and more reliably neutral news than that of the current game magazines and actual new papers. Not that I agree with every comment on the site but the fact that, there is not one happy group on this site means something.
The Worst example of video game journalism in past was Dan Hsu's taking apart Peter Moore like a Hungry dog on a chicken bone. It wasn't bad cause Hsu's approach and thoughts were invalid, hell no they were right on the money. It was sad cause the industry stood at a stand still shocked and amamzed that a gaming jounralist actually asked hard hitting questions. I mean really what does that say for the rest of the industry and the expectations the readers have from the print, and televised media they see from the journalist.
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Typical sensationalist exaggeration.
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Well, if by "doing fine" you strictly mean "not a danger to destroy property or cause fires," then I'm willing to agree with you.
While I personally doubt the veracity of this story (as Joystiq obviously does too), keep in mind that the E3 demos shown were at best aroun 30% complete (judging by the little "complete" placards Sony puts in front of games at the show). So it may be premature to say that a full game, requiring much more processing power than a game only a quarter finished, won't cause interesting pyrotechnics with the architecture as it currently stands.
We may yet see interesting issues with the system, but I don't think this story is anything more than a blatant grab for readership by spreading gossip.
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That was easy.
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Why stop with 108 angry Sony fanboys? Why not 1080 "pee"d off Sony fanboys instead?
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zsavior: Thanks for the compliment. That's a key part of the reason I think blogs like ours have become so popular.
And Meatstick: I know the Inquirer and Enquirer are two different things, but if you don't think it's a tabloid and is, instead, a "reliable tech news publication," I got a bridge you might be interested in buying.
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From what I've researched, local memory is memory that is used exclusively by a single processor, so in the case of the PS3, only by the SPE and the main processor. The specs show that half of the 512 megs is being used as local memory.
So, I am under the impression that the local memory is completely useless for anything else other than what that specific SPE is doing, so the SPE cannot write to the RAM and the RSX graphics chip cannot read it while it is in there. That tells me that the SPE will have to read it back then put it into system memory before it could be of any use. So, I am under the impression that this will cause significant problems because the SPE has to pull the information at 16 megs/second.
I'm guessing this won't cause issues in early PS3 development, but will bottleneck the Cell's full potential since the SPE's are eating up half the system RAM and cannot read at the same speed as the rest of the system.
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As a long term sufferer of the IT industry I find it an enjoyable read, if taken with a big pinch of salt at times.
Bit of an unfair bashing by Christopher Grant in my opinion. I wonder how many people who have posted the 'INQ sucks' equivalents have actually visited the site?
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We'll see in November :)
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The Cell processor seems to me that it would be better for servers than for a multifunctional media device. But isn't that its intention? For a multi-processor server, the cell would seem to perform at it's best.
"From a technical standpoint, the PS2 was the hardest to develop for, but it still dominated."
Will devs want to put up with Sony's overly-proprietary and overly-difficult hardware forever? I wouldn't think so personally. Programming is time-consuming enough without adding in a processor that works against you. If the provided tools are sub par, then that amplifies the headaches.
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Your confusing the SPE memory with video memory as well. This presentation deal squarely with the RSX processor and the "Local" memory is akin to the video memory in your PC. The Cell doesn't need to access this memory. In the slide Local Memory is the video memory and Main is the system memory.
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I'm an Xbox 360 fan all the way, but 'printing' this even as a rumour is unworthy of even an amateur blogging site.
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It's really very simple. Look at the chart. "Local memory" is GDDR3, because the slide is coming from the point of view of RSX. The interconnect between Cell and RSX has been optimised totally for RSX access - and rightly so, because it needs a lot of bandwidth. This means it has full, clear access to XDR, but Cell has very limited access to GDDR3. This is a bit a lot of people seem to be missing - Cell still has full, clear access to its own XDR memory, it simply has very limited access to GDDR3.
The upshot of this is actually good news, for people like me who were sceptical about the bandwidth going into and out of RSX. The memory system design is clearly very GPU-centric, and this is how it should be! Cell is fine with just its access to XDR, but RSX really needs more, and thankfully it has got it. The only implication of this is that if you want Cell to access data from GDDR3, then really you should be getting RSX to write it out to Cell or XDR, rather than Cell reading it from GDDR3 itself, since RSX has much higher bandwidth going in that direction.
Basically it boils down to which chip was prioritised in the FlexIO (interconnect) design, and they prioritised RSX as they should have!
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KEEP READING: The problem with this article is that the local memory being referenced is the half that the GPU is using to store textures and all its other data. The GPU can access its 256MB quickly, and the CPU can access its 256MB quickly, but the CPU can't read the GPU's memory very well. WHO CARES! It can send information to the GPU just fine.
The Inquirer is just trying to get attention, and guess what... it worked! They are doing what tabloids frequently do and taking an image, twisting what it really means, and shouting that the world will end!
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Obviously there's an added latency for the GPU accessing the CPU's memory, but if you're not bound by texturing, texturing from XDR should be no different than texturing from GDDR3. And that's a big win.
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http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/14733980.htm
The writer Johnathan Last wrote very valid points, so I will conceed to some of your argument. The problem I have is, does this sort of intergrity go to every article at the Inquirer. I think if we were to examine various stories that answer would be seen quite clearly.
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learn something
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I always thought you guys crusied INQ yourself to find stories to write about (BEacuse of how slow joystiq usually is).
As far as calling them unreliable I've never actually read anything that wasn't specified as a rumor or speculation that was unreliable.
Maybe someday I'll think of Joystiq as a news site like INQ but for now I come here to kill time and watch the trolls.
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27. damn the ps3 really does suck...............bummer
point right there proven.
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Thanks for the thought SHagi. Don't think we're really trying to match them. Sort of a different focus, don'cha think?
zsavior: The Philadelphia Inquirer and TheInquirer.net are two very different animals. The Philadelphia Inquirer is our paper of record in this here city. See here for more on TheInquirer.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inquirer
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If all we wanted was page hits, we'd be running a porno site. We write about video games and we write about the cultural zeitgeist of gaming. If a dubious story hits digg and slashdot, currently two of the largest influencers of online tech hubbub, you don't think it's worhty of discussion (or dismissal) at the largest video game blog? Do we do it for hits? Sure. That's why we're here. We write about video games for people to come read us. If we do a good job, more people read us. If you're going to play the "corporate" bloggers card, go ahead and play it, but don't hurl accusations you aren't willing to back up.
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2. The "triangle" comparison is referring to vertices. While it's true that the X360 can render millions of vertices more than PS3, this only holds if the X360 is not rendering pixels or textures. In other words, it's a meaningless comparison, since nobody makes a game with just triangles. The reason for all this is because X360 has 48 unified pipes that can handle either pixels, textures or vertices, while the PS3 has dedicated pipes to each of those tasks. So, yes, I guess the X360 could render more triangles if they didn't save any of the pipes for pixels or textures.
Basically, the author of the article either is completely clueless about the hardware, or he is intentionally distorting it. I should mention that a lot of the technical analysis is not my own, hit up Hypn0sis on the GameFAQs PS3 board -- he's the local expert.
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Speaking as a developer (not PS3 though) I can say that there is nothing wrong with this. It's similar to the situation with AGP on PCs.
For the CPU, it's fast to write to VRAM, slow to read from it.
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http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=396644
I don't think it's a rumor at all. The fact that the enquirer reported it doesn't mean it's false, it doesn't matter who reported it, it's where that picture of the slide came from.
if that's real, there's nothing do it besides the Cell Processor sucks.
as GameDev.net says:
"There was another console which was released with buggy CPUs in the past. Its name? The Atari Jaguar"
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This is a BLOG site. How many times do you people need to be reminded of that? Blogging is about conversation, not news. We want to talk about this article and what it actually means. And, btw...SUCCESS! We're all talking. And some of us now have a better idea of what these numbers imply.
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I visit it frequently and I don't remember it posting terrible biased or unreliable things in the past, they wouldn't of posted this without proof, and it seems so, although its not much of a problem in my eyes.
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The question is... Is the CELL a good processor for gaming? Well like all other things Sony... NO it is not the best processor they could have used... but then again Blu-Ray isn't the best drive they could have used either...
The PS3 is hear for Sony to launch Blu-Ray... the sooner GAMERS understand that the better... There WILL be some GREAT games for it I am sure, but bickering about the flow of memory from GPU to CPU is stupid... Sony said themselves it is NOT just a game machine... so you should expect there to be some things that don't make perfect sense for GAMING.
Developers don't care about that kind of stuff... they care about how many games they can sell... If there are lots of people WHO BUY GAMES for the PS3 then the developers will support it... no matter how much harder it is to program for... we will see though how many GAMERS buy the PS3... when it costs more than a 360 and Wii combined you may see a lot of gamers go that route... they will only be missing out on a few first party exclusives... there will be LOTS of people buying PS3s that may NEVER buy a game for it.
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