Ps3 = Madness

I\'ve just read this article: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=528&e=9&cid=528&u=/ap/20020506/ap_on_hi_te/japan_sony_4 , and I must say that Sony comes close to madness. Especially this part:

The new PlayStation would work over super-fast fiber-optics connections and would be Sony\'s first console to run games without a digital video disc, Kyodo said.

First, how many people you know has a optic cable hook-up? Approximately zero. And I\'d doubt enough people will get anything close to a optic cable til 2015+ to warrant a system like this. Hell, even T1\'s are probably over decade off. Second, without a DVD, there will be almost no games for this thing at all. My bet is that Sony will pack a DVD or something at the last moment, and the "super-fast fiber-optics connections" online plan will be abandon just after launch. Otherwise, the PS3 has no chance of success.

Also,

The new game console will run on a computer chip expected to be around 200 times faster than those currently installed in personal computers and game units, Kyodo News agency said.

Yeah, sure. Remind me again how this won\'t break Moore\'s Law.:rolleyes:

Who cares about PS3 right now, let Sony spout out whatever that want to say.  As long as they back some of their **** up I couldn\'t care less what they say now.

Originally posted by nonamer
I\'ve just read this article: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=528&e=9&cid=528&u=/ap/20020506/ap_on_hi_te/japan_sony_4 , and I must say that Sony comes close to madness. Especially this part:



Yeah, sure. Remind me again how this won\'t break Moore\'s Law.:rolleyes:

Already posted like last week pal sorry.:rolleyes:

Gordon Moore made his famous observation in 1965, just four years after the first planar integrated circuit was discovered. The press called it "Moore\'s Law" and the name has stuck. In his original paper, Moore predicted that the number of transistors per integrated circuit would double every couple of years. He forecast that this trend would continue through 1975. Through Intel\'s technology, Moore\'s Law has been maintained for far longer, and still holds true as we enter the new century. The mission of Intel\'s technology development team is to continue to break down barriers to Moore\'s Law.

Seen by this quote from Intel\'s site, Moore made his prediction in 1965. We\'ll see if this chip will be 200x more powerful - and I certainly hope so. I\'m asuming this the article is refering to CPU\'s such as Pentiums in todays PCs and they do run on quite an old architecture and are seriously limited therefore. I do expect it to be quite a bit more powerful.. after all, the chip is being backed by 3 big companies (most noticably IBM) and over 1 billion US dolars.

First, how many people you know has a optic cable hook-up? Approximately zero. And I\'d doubt enough people will get anything close to a optic cable til 2015+ to warrant a system like this. Hell, even T1\'s are probably over decade off. Second, without a DVD, there will be almost no games for this thing at all. My bet is that Sony will pack a DVD or something at the last moment, and the "super-fast fiber-optics connections" online plan will be abandon just after launch. Otherwise, the PS3 has no chance of success.

I pretty much doubt that it will just work over a highspeed network. Other articles indicated that a DVD medium will remain as the standard - eventhough the chip will be used as interface to a fast network. And don\'t question Sony - their not stupid. With competition such as Microsoft, Nintendo and many others, they won\'t bring out something that people can\'t afford or use. Anyway, we\'ll see how it shapes up - after all it\'s still a view years off and a lot can change and those articles are based upon rumours and not backed up by any official press release. Therefore, no reason to get excited.

Until Sony anounces their next console will only play games online, any talk of such a premature concept needs to be flaty ignored.

Morre\'s law applies to number of transistors and costs to manufacture them, not to the efficiency with which they are used to produce 3D graphics. Yeah I agree, the number 200 was probably pulled out of a grab bag, just like last year the PS3\'s cell was projected to be ‘1000 to 500\' times more powerful than PS2\'s EE. Doesn\'t mean those figures can\'t turn out be roughly close though.

Seen by this quote from Intel\'s site, Moore made his prediction in 1965. We\'ll see if this chip will be 200x more powerful - and I certainly hope so. I\'m asuming this the article is refering to CPU\'s such as Pentiums in todays PCs and they do run on quite an old architecture and are seriously limited therefore. I do expect it to be quite a bit more powerful.. after all, the chip is being backed by 3 big companies (most noticably IBM) and over 1 billion US dolars.

In your dreams seven, in your dreams.

Morre\'s law applies to number of transistors and costs to manufacture them, not to the efficiency with which they are used to produce 3D graphics. Yeah I agree, the number 200 was probably pulled out of a grab bag, just like last year the PS3\'s cell was projected to be ‘1000 to 500\' times more powerful than PS2\'s EE. Doesn\'t mean those figures can\'t turn out be roughly close though.

No. At best we can hope a 4-6 times increase in power, but 200? Not even close. Unless Sony somehow manages a 200 times power increase using only about 4 times the transistors, that\'s not going to happen.

Talking about numbers: you do know that the original PSX launched in 1994 could process roughly about 360\'000 polygons per second. That is the raw number of polygons mind you. PS2 launched in 2000 with a performance of 66\'000\'000 polygons. Taken by these numbers, that would mean PS2 is roughly 183 times more powerful. And 66 million polygons is the number on 1 vector unit chip dedicated only to perspective calculations. If you pull in the second VU for the same tasks, you\'re number will turn out much higher, letting assume that there could be well over a 200 times increase between PSX and PS2.

I\'d say it\'s possible, especially since IBM is taking a big role in designing this chip. Heretic is right though, it still is far too early and nothing is official yet. And he\'s also right on the transistor numbers. Transistors aren\'t everything when comparing performance.

also another thing about transistors:
The CPU of the Xbox has over 20 million transistors in there, the EE however almost half the amount. Which is more powerful? Ironically, not the Pentium/Celeron with more than double the amount of transistors.

[Bobs_Hardware]

Sony Corp has started work on developing a successor to its popular PlayStation 2 game console by 2005 with a view to putting it on the market after use of fiber-optic networks becomes widespread, according to Sony sources.
The third-generation PlayStation will feature a powerful micro processing unit (MPU), roughly 200 times faster than those currently used for video game consoles and personal computers, they said.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc, a unit of Sony, Toshiba Corp and International Business Machines Corp (IBM) plan to spend a total of $400 million on developing the MPU, they said.

The next-generation PlayStation is designed for online use on high-speed fiber-optic networks, making it likely it will be free of memory devices such as DVDs, they said.

Connection to the Internet will place no limits on memory capacity for the envisioned game console, making it possible to play an "endless" game, the sources said.

The newly developed MPU will be capable of processing data at the same speed as supercomputers, enabling users to download video and music data on the Internet and edit and save on a server with specially designed software, they said.

Sony intends to make the new product free of any peripherals, other than a monitor screen and a game control unit, and has yet to decide whether to use the PlayStation brand name for it, they said.

Sony is considering providing the new MPU to other companies as the MPU is designed for use in TVs and audio equipment as well, they said.

Sony Corp. said last month that shipments of the PlayStation 2 game console doubled in fiscal 2001 ended March 31 from the year before to 18.07 million units.

Shipments of the console since March 2000 totaled more than 28 million units, according to Sony.

Source: http://www.japantoday.com

i hate this idea..

in that case...

I LIKE IT!!

just not sure of its practicality though...I can see widespread availability of traditional broadband ie ADSL and Cable, but Fibre Optic Connections r wayyy off. Other than that, it\'ll be just like Vavle\'s new on-line distribution initiative.... which I like.

[GmanJoe]

By 2006, there will be enough broadband customers to merit Sony\'s decision. But I\'m sure they\'ll have plenty of games for single players like me.

Sounds like a plan.

May Xbox2 be crushed!

Originally posted by GmanJoe

May Xbox2 be crushed!

if they decide to make a second one

//me says that after looking at the latest sales figures

Floppyy doooo daaaa DAyyyyyyyyy

Originally posted by seven
Talking about numbers: you do know that the original PSX launched in 1994 could process roughly about 360\'000 polygons per second. That is the raw number of polygons mind you. PS2 launched in 2000 with a performance of 66\'000\'000 polygons. Taken by these numbers, that would mean PS2 is roughly 183 times more powerful.

But of course, PS1 wasn\'t close to the maximum power graphics systems could achieve then, while PS2 comes a lot closer to max when it came out. In short, it started greatly behind and got to the front, which is a huge lead, but going from the cutting edge to the cutting edge 3 years from now isn\'t going to be 183 times greater or anything close to that. Plus polygons don\'t mean everything.

And 66 million polygons is the number on 1 vector unit chip dedicated only to perspective calculations. If you pull in the second VU for the same tasks, you\'re number will turn out much higher, letting assume that there could be well over a 200 times increase between PSX and PS2.

And you know this, how? And pulling a few numbers from Sony\'s PR division and rumors here and there don\'t count.

I\'d say it\'s possible, especially since IBM is taking a big role in designing this chip. Heretic is right though, it still is far too early and nothing is official yet. And he\'s also right on the transistor numbers. Transistors aren\'t everything when comparing performance.

Nothing is certain now, but you can\'t say 200x out of a 10x increase in transistors. That\'s like asking a V4 to put out 1000+ hp, so it\'s a no go.

also another thing about transistors:
The CPU of the Xbox has over 20 million transistors in there, the EE however almost half the amount. Which is more powerful? Ironically, not the Pentium/Celeron with more than double the amount of transistors. [/B]

Ironically, you have no idea what you\'re talking about.

P.S.

Originally posted by nonamer


Ironically, you have no idea what you\'re talking about.

P.S.

Ops.. You shouldn’t have said that..
Go get him Phil

But of course, PS1 wasn\'t close to the maximum power graphics systems could achieve then, while PS2 comes a lot closer to max when it came out. In short, it started greatly behind and got to the front, which is a huge lead, but going from the cutting edge to the cutting edge 3 years from now isn\'t going to be 183 times greater or anything close to that. Plus polygons don\'t mean everything.

PSX was more powerful than PC\'s at the time when it launched. Plus, what else do you want to compare?
 Polygons => geometry => very relevant to 3d graphics rendering.

And you know this, how? And pulling a few numbers from Sony\'s PR division and rumors here and there don\'t count.

No, actually it\'s quite logical. You just need to look at the internal layout of the Emotion Engine. VU1 is dedicated for geometry and holds a few more FMACs while being connected directly to the GIF. VU0 is for AI, phyiscs etc - although a developer can choose what tasks he wants to give away. Theoretically he can use both for geometry which would result in more polygons.
And another thing; this has been said by PS2 developers (most noticably Square). Talk to any Software engineer who understands the complex layout of the EE and he\'ll tell you this.

Ironically, you have no idea what you\'re talking about.

Got to love that comment. Come on buddy, prove me wrong, if you can.

BTW: I think you\'re missing one important thing here: you\'re forgeting what the PC architecture was concepted for? Certainly not for 3d gaming and this factor will remain a limiting factor until they manage to change the architecture of todays PCs.