RWA
L20: Enlightened
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- 1 März 2005
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Recht interessante infos zur PS3.
Slow updates on the PS3 SDK
The article goes into some hurdles PS3 developers had to go through. SDK 1.00 was supposed to be released by TGS, but the latest release before TGS is 0.93. What is shown at TGS is still developed with SDKs that are not final.
This situation is similar to Sonys PSP launch with slow SDK updates, however the situation may be worse. According to Sonys Spring schedule SDK 1.0 was planned on being released in June.
The SDK version number is relative to hardware maturity and 1.0 release may take awhile. The developers will have to debug using non-final SDK. This may indicate that SCE software development has not caught up to schedule in regard and previously may have been over optimistic. Several PS3 DebugStations are finally starting to reach the hands of developers, with about 2-months till launch were concerns on schedule before TGS.
Hurdles involving the Performance of the Cell:
There are some challenges involving the architecture of the Cell, the cell consists of PPE and SPE cores. A developer states, "It is impossible to extract the full performance of the Cell on launch titles, it will take time get familiar with it". Another developer states that they are having difficulties with the 256KB memory of each SPE core. The actual useable area of the 256KB is closer to 128KB when buffering is considered with accessing external DRAM. "It would have been much different situation if there was 1MB of local memory. There is however a benefit for these restrictions on local memory, since latency can be reduced, and latency cycles are more easily read. This is an advantage for real-time gaming applications.
Till now, developers were stingy with programming and memory usage, and this will not change with the PS3, in fact, the Cell will reward developers that put more effort into programming. While that may not be a negative, it is a hurdle that will take larger developer resources and time. For the Cell it has changed from extracting performance from the hardware, but more towards multi-threaded performance and takes a different skill set then the previously.
RSX Memory Bottleneck
Developers were using 7800GTX for development, The RSX uses Nvidias G70 and performance programmable shader performance is very high. But the memory interface is 128-bit, in addition 8 ROP (Rasterizing Operation). It can be said that the RSX has a shader equivalent of a high-end PC with mid-range memory bandwidth. For that reason, due to the GPU high shader performance there is a bottleneck to the ROP memory and is causing a bottleneck. For lower resolutions it is a fantastic GPU, but it gets difficult for high end HDTV resolutions, says a developer.
The biggest impact is the HDR and FSAA, the memory bottleneck becomes hard for PC levels of HDR and FSAA, to overcome this hurdle developers are using memory from the Cell for textures, and using FlexIO as a texture lead to reduce GPU bandwidth issues.
Developers are having exactly opposite problems then that of the PS3 and 360 as far as GPU performance is concerned. While there memory bandwidth issues with the PS3, they have great shader performance. For the 360, they have little memory bandwidth issues with the 10MB eDRAM, and less FSAA issues. But some developers are having issues with a lack of shader ALU performance and threading resources, however performance will increase as developers get more familiar with unified shader architecture.
However, all hardware has its limitations, and the real difference should be felt as the two systems get mature. For the PS3, developers are having concern if they can truly exhibit the difference in power between the PS3 & Xbox 360 due to technical hurdles.
TGS: Progress in game development
Many of the concerns and criticisms for the PS3 including price, technical difficulties are similar to the PS2 when it was first released. Many in the industry had expected the PS2 to fail before its release, but the contrary became true. A lot of the concerns have been reduced due to the change in spec and reduction in price of the PS3. It is unclear if price reduction and its impact on long term success.
After PS3, developers are more aware how other PS3 games are shaping up. Before TGS developers were largely unaware of how other PS3 software was in terms of development and quality. One developers says we were surprised that the hurdles we had in development were also overcome by other developers, others had praises and complaints on where their rivals were along on PS3 titles. At this pre-launch stage there were high and low points especially with the new hardware.
The PS3 technical issues are growing pains that all hardware goes through. The complexity of next-gen hardware means that time for developers to get used to the hardware would be much longer then previous generation. Even looking at the Xbox 360, one is able to see improvements in development in first-gen and upcoming second-gen games after a year since its release. In other words, for this generation, it will be more evident the difference in games with more work put into them due to the complexity of the architecture. It has become harder to judge a system by its launch titles.
SCE: goal of creating an entertainment computing platform
SCE is planning on making the PS3 into a wide ranged entertainment computing platform. SCE wants the PS3 to not only do games but also host a wide range of entertainment applications. For that reason, the HDD will be standard on the PS3 and will adopt and open programming environment. The Cell OS, which runs games will be security locked, but for other applications the Linux OS will be free to turn any application. Unlike the situation with the PSP, Sonys attitude will be creating an environment for applications to be developed for the PS3.
However, this new SCE tactic will mean that the business structure will need to change dramatically. The reason is to develop a platform there needs to be proper funding by licensing fees to make it viable. What SCE is aiming for is a computing platform, akin to Intel/Microsoft or Intel/Apple. Sony is aiming for entertainment applications for the living room.
Kutaragi has previously stated that they will not take an OEM approach to this business and do not plan on charging for the OS such as Windows. It is in his belief that the OS should not be charged separately. However, financially, Sony will need to succeed on the PS3 sales and profitability to make this open platform financially feasible.
Evolving PS3 platform
Hitherto, game systems have made a profit based on royalties from game sales and were based on a license model. However, in a PC-style business model, Microsoft does not profit from license model with their Windows platform. Application development is free and open as a platform. For this reason, Sony cannot charge licensing fees outside of gaming. The current business model does not fit this new evolving platform.
For the PS3 to succeed as a computing platform, Sony will need to succeed as a gaming platform first. The PS3 platform is a much larger undertaking for Sony then before, Sony will need to develop and support middleware and tools for the PS3 Linux. Sony themselves will also need to develop attractive applications and services for the platform as well. Part of the PS3 high retail value can be attributed to this factor as well.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121307
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