PS3s used to simulate black hole collisions

by Scott Jon Siegel on Mar 5th 2008 9:00AM

It's like our favorite old-school commercial: "Mr. Owl, how many Playstation 3s does it take to simulate a collision between two black holes?" Apparently, the answer is 16.

A group at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth hopes to use a cluster of 16 PS3s to run the simulation, specifically looking at the properties of the gravity waves emitted by the collision. The cluster -- nicknamed the PS3 Gravity Grid -- was built with a partial donation from Sony, who must like watching really big stuff collide as much as we do.

Similar simulations have been run before (most notably by NASA), but this marks the first time the super-calculation has been performed using a game console. Like our colleagues as PS3 Fanboy, we admit that most of the technical jargon presented here is way over our heads. We're sure some of you will "get it," though, and not just resort to Tootsie Roll references.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Source

Tags: black-holes, education, PS3, research, sony, space

Reader Comments (95)

This shows just how fraking fast the Cell BE really is.
http://www.mc.com/mercury.aspx?langtype=1033&id=10045

So, if the PS3 can do this...how is it that so many on here say that it is NOT good for graphics/physics for gaming?

skip to 2:40 seconds if you dont want to watch the whole thing.

I won't deny it has plenty of potential... But right now I'm seeing maybe Metal Gear and FF 13... And Drake's being games worth getting but I'm not spending 400 dollars on a system to play 4 games. All of which are mostly single player meaning I can easily borrow the games and system from someone...

Sorry that was supposed to be a reply to my comment as a reply to you......

If the 360 tried this it might collapse in on itself from a massive meltdown and the wii? It would run as fast as it could back to its mommy. Right now it is the wii's time as well as the 360's...but that time is coming to an end and the future belongs once again to Playstation.

One can only wonder what kind of games we will see on the PS3 two years from now.

No wait right the first time....

Anyway... The only thing that has me right now is it is going to be the only BluRay player guarenteed to work with all future versions of bluray. Also its the only bluray with the potential for gameing as well...

"NOT good for graphics/physics for gaming?"

Because a simulation that does not occur in real time is vastly different than computing physics on the fly. Sure, cell is awesome for server and workhorse applications, but gaming doesn't fall into either of those categories.

You're confusing a very specific type of application (simulations) with a completely different type (real time calculation and rendering).

Let me put it another way. The difference in simulation and gaming would be the difference between folding@home now (which takes hours/days to complete a single protein) and making folding@home work in real time at actual speed.

Intentless, I could have taken the same opinion of my 360, most of its games are on PC, making what exclusives still remaining on the 360 either worth paying half price or not at all, but I wanted 360 anyway.

Well Maverick Saturn, I prefer a cosole because I buy one every 5 years and pretty much get "state of the art" and consistant gameplay during that time window... With a PC I would be buying a new vid card at least once every 2-3 years if not every year. And most vid cards start at the cost of a console. Not to mention speakers mice keyboards monitors audio cards mother boards hard drives and all that sh'bang...

Even if you don't think this is a good example of the PS3's power, I don't really get this popular belief that PS3 just doesn't work and doesn't have the power to run games. We all know about how difficult it's been for developers to get used to the Cell, but so far, all the PS3 games have been on par with the 360's. One can only assume that once they really get accustomed to it, the games will be amazing. Just look at how much the quality of games progressed on the PS2. The PS3 is doing well now, despite the opinions of many microsoft fanboys, and promises to be incredible in the future.

Crono. WTF are you talking about? Did you WATCH what I pasted? If you did you would see that a SINGLE PS3 did in REALTIME in less than 3 seconds what a massive SEVER can do in 15+ minutes. That was a demonstration of the AWESOME realtime graphics capabilities of the CELL.

Get your head out of the sand and stop being in denial.

"Because a simulation that does not occur in real time is vastly different than computing physics on the fly."

Thank you Captain Obvious. However, while I don't fall into the "Cell can do 4D games" crowd, it is a processor well suited to the physics calculations that games demand. But it's difficult to program for.

Unless you're claiming another console out there actually can do these black hole calculations better...then the fact that it can't do them in real time doesn't mean that it can't do smaller scale efforts in games in real-time.

Its unbelievable to me. Here I post absolute proof of the realtime graphics capabilities of the CELL (w/o the RSX) yet Crono is still in denial. Seriously, how can you live a rational life if you deny what you have just saw? The FACT that we are seeing more and more uses for a VIDEOGAME machine in realword computation intensive graphics and physics just blows my mind. We are privy to a game console that is being compared to a super computer.

Just fracking wow man.
All of those that have bashed Sony and the PS3 for over a year feel pretty stupid now dont you.

Jesus Christ. Why the fuck does everything you say have to fucking involve the 360 in some way. No one even mentions the 360 and here you go once again comparing it again. Yes we fucking get it already, the ps3 has a superior hardware that allows it to do stuff other than gaming. That's nice, but there's no reason to pull microsoft in the conversation especially when it has nothing to do with this.

"If you did you would see that a SINGLE PS3 did in REALTIME in less than 3 seconds what a massive SEVER can do in 15+ minutes."

Um, if its the same task that takes different amount of time on 2 different systems, then its not a real time rendering, but a simulation.

And i'm behind a firewall right now, video unavailable. And like I said, no one is doubting the Cell is a capable processor, its just not capable for all the OTHER things that gaming requires.

Here's a clue: There's more to gaming than graphics and physics.

Well good for you intentless, as for me, I'm just one customer that is rather pissed all my games are going to PC on 360, my Wii and PS3 games aren't why the hell are my 360 games?

Sorry, but that's calculations- not gaming. It can break up branched code efficiently, but can't handle the "uber-long" strands that games consist mostly of, because it only has one core. If the Cell in the PS3 had 2 cores, then there would be no comparison. It would have been able to rape from the start, but it's not much more powerful in the way of gaming, just complex calculations.

Wow... this is pointless.

They have done this numerous times, they have even showed it on an episode of "The Universe". I think all this is saying is the PS3 isn't powerful at all if it needs 16 of them to do this.

Do you have any idea how complicated and processor intensive those simulations are?

I'll give you a hint, they're pretty damned complicated.

"Do you have any idea how complicated and processor intensive those simulations are?"

He doesn't; he knows only what he sees on TV. =p

The Cell has a ridiculous amount of potential. Each one has a lot of power, but more importantly, they're designed to work together. You'll see a lot more of this kind of application in the future for the Cell.

The cell hasn't really shone well on PS3, but outside of it, its a major success :O

Amazing isnt it. You can spend millions of dollars on a supercomputer or you can network a limitless amount of PS3's UNALTERED and have MORE power at a fraction of the cost.

The CELL is the future and one can only imagine how many other uses it will have and how many breakthrus it will be responsible for.

Sony, IBM, and Toshiba created a beast that will not be surpassed until Quantum Computers become reality (about 3-5 years off) then, the CELL will be put to rest as Quantum Computers will absoulutely dwarf anything else out there. It is a good time to be alive as humanity is finally inventing the kind of technology that will allow us to find out how the universe really works.

Everyone who is actually paying attention is excited about the Cell. I was pretty excited when HP made their Moore's Law breakthrough, but the Cell really dwarfs that. I don't know that the Cell will make it all the way to the Quantum age, but I do believe it's basic design will. Console fanboyism aside, it's exciting stuff.

Cell is not better, just different, nuff said.

Sir, I bow to your powers of debate. May I humbly condense your wisdom even further?

Cell is different, not better.

See? Now that's a catch phrase to end all ruminations on the subject.

And how many PS3s you requiere to simulate the Crysis 3'000 barrel explosions demo? :P

My guess? One. The SPE's would barely break a sweat.

"My guess? One. The SPE's would barely break a sweat."

Not for the mathematics perhaps, but the RSX GPU would like a word with you about hazard pay.

Nah. If you program it well, the SPE's can take on a lot of the work that the GPU ususally has to slog through itself. Stuff like removing polygons you can't see, performing per pixel shading, etc. It's not *easy* but once you have a framework set up to handle it, the GPU has much less to do than on your typical PC setup, and therefore can produce a quality picture that wouldn't be possible if you just left the CPU idling while the GPU pounds out the pixels.

Wow you only need 16 PS3 to unlock the mystries of the universe.
Personally all I can see this doing is creating more pointless data.

The theory of blackholes is not nearly fleshed out enough to make computer simulations based on it. The problem with all black hole theory is how it works on an atomic level with the matter surronding it as atoms do not conform to the rules of gravity we have to come to accept.

This thing does everything!

Except play games...

The Swiss Army knife without an actual knife?

That pretty much sums it up huh?

Wouldn't it had been cheaper to just use 16 cell processors instead of the 16 PS3s, which include BluRay drives, HDDs, wifi adaptors, etc etc...?

Yes, but then Sony wouldn't have their press release, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

All in all, probably cheap advertising for them.

And connect them to what motherboard exactly?

The PS3 is by far the cheapest option to get a CBE cluster up and running. I mean really cheap compared to other CBE supportive hardware.

Can they use them to simulate any decent games?

The cell really has paved a way to better technologies and systems, if it goes as far as to cure people of health problems, Sony might just even pull out of the game market and enter the much more significant health market.

Bad, but also good, bad gaming wise, but great for my future life.

I personally feel this is a gimmick, and some of the statements made in the article show Sony had something to do with their thoughts.

They sit there and say that one PS3 is more powerful than any highest-end PC and more powerful that 25 nodes of the Bluegene supercomputer... That is obviously not true. It may be faster than a high-end computer for physics calculations, but I can guarantee you not by much.

They had to buy that many of them just to match the frame rates that the 360 puts out. Enjoy that Madden BTW.

"All of those that have bashed Sony and the PS3 for over a year feel pretty stupid now dont you."

Not really, you see we like to play games, not simulate Black Hole collisions but bu no means stop. It's always a pleasure watching an assclown shove his foot in his mouth.

'who must like watching really big stuff collide as much as we do.'

lol, black holes... big... good one.

Exactly.

Black holes don't need to be big.

actually, they are surprisingly small (in theory, as they are pretty much theoretical....but I bet they exist)

They are super massive in a small space meaning they are super dense.

in b4 doesn't work. Besides being a self-fulfilling prophecy of mentioning it with even less argument or backing than an actual flame post, on Joystiq you're usually not nearly fast enough to actually post it before someone else already has. That said black holes are cool.

Previous 50 Comments

PS3s used to simulate black hole collisions

Reader Comments (95)

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:39AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:44AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:46AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:49AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:50AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:51AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:53AM Crono141 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:58AM Spunky Monkey 190906 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:03AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:04AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:05AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:10AM borland502 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:18AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:24AM Vegeta has a ps3 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:51AM Crono141 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 3:27PM Spunky Monkey 190906 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 4:13PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:47AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:55AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:00AM borland502 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:54AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 10:59AM Spunky Monkey 190906 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:11AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:23AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:37AM borland502 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:34AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:37AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 11:41AM borland502 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 2:58PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 12:10PM b3ntleg said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 12:18PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 12:36PM ThornedVenom said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 12:51PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 12:37PM ThornedVenom said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 1:02PM Ordeith said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 1:08PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 1:53PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 3:25PM Spunky Monkey 190906 said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 4:19PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 5:21PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 5:24PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 5th 2008 8:12PM phizzyphizzy said

Posted: Mar 6th 2008 12:06AM DerickDBrown said

Posted: Mar 9th 2008 10:08PM hvnlysoldr said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Super Joystiq Podcast 004: 38 Studios meltdown, Gravity Rush, Civilization 5: Gods & Kings, Dragon's Dogma

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW