Sony "helped design" 360 processor Comments by Oli Welsh

@Calgon

I doubt much of the 360's CPU is based off the G5 at all. It's the same ISA, but that doesn't mean it's the same architecture.

The G5 is a complex general purpose, out-of-order execution CPU designed for general desktop/server workloads. The cores in the 360's CPU are simpler: no out-of-order, simpler branch prediction, they're designed for streaming media workloads like games. If Arstechnica's article is correct, the Cell's PPE and the Xenon's three cores are basically the same thing, so presumably that's the part of the Cell's design that MS got so cheap.

dizzy and Garulon, it's common knowledge that 360 is easy to develop for because it shares similar assets to the pc. that's fundamentally my point. so while 360 certainly has innovated on numerous fronts, hardware design is a dubious claim, and frankly judging by accusations of bad investment not one that MS would care much for.

"dizzy and Garulon, it's common knowledge that 360 is easy to develop for because it shares similar assets to the pc. "

But it doesn't though - fundamental XBoxey things like predicated tiling and unified shaders don't really have any analogue to the PC. I think I know what you're getting at - that they're familiar from a developer's standpoint - but that's mainly because the same company makes the development kit for both. You can develop using Visual Studio on the PS3 these days, though, surely? You're not stuck on that horrible Collabra shit still?

"Are u serious? "

Yeah, first console with wireless controllers as standard, first console with cross-game-gaming features like GamerScore and acheivements (or indeed the whole GamerCard concept where you, for example, set your Y-axis inversion settings once and every game respects it) frst console you can buy games online for, first console to be sold at a range of SKUs rather than one box, first console you can rent movies on, first console to allow additional game content to be added online, there's probably hundreds more I've forgotten but yeah, I can't think of a console with as many innovations in as the 360. I honestly can't. Can you?

"So why are they called power PCs, huh? HUH?"

Boring mode on!

PowerPC is a specification standing for POWER Performance Computing, based on the POWER risc chipset designed by IBM way back, POWER is also an acronym standing for Performance Optimised With Enhanced Risc.

Boring mode off!

Garulon, i'm just talking about the bigger pic. i'm sure there are differences, but fundamentally the architecture is known. the gpu is derived from dx 10 pc gpus, the cpu is an in order variant of the powerpc and the unified ram are all exponents of pc design. the 10mb of edram is the only unique design choice i know of.

Garulon, come now. don't you think you're slightly sugar coating it. some of those "firsts" are by virtue of default i.e. because they were first to market rather than real innovation in forward thinking ideas.

Hey - has nobody said it yet??!?!?!?!?!?

PS3LOL

Read the following Tom Kalinske interview about Sega:

http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?...

Sony had invested a lot of money in Mega CD games development, and Sega of America had begun discussing collaborating with Sony on a games console in the early 90s (before the Nintendo Playstation).

Sega of Japan wouldn't go for it and the rest is history...

...except that Sony appears to have taken the Mega CD blueprint and used it to make the PS3.

- new optical medium

- slow access and seek times

- underperforming gfx hardware

- lack of RAM

- lack of unique or outstanding games

- embarrassed by the 'inferior' competition

- expensive hardware

- no need to purchase this, as the games are on the 'other' console

- predecessor was a runaway success (Mega Drive)

Shame they forgot the backwards compatibility bit - infact - Sony should try releasing a model of the PS3 that can sit on top of the slim PS2, allowing the PS3 play the PS2 games with the DS3 pads and 1080p HDMI.

Maybe....not.

"dizzy and Garulon, it's common knowledge that 360 is easy to develop for because it shares similar assets to the pc."

That is just because MS managed to make an SDK and tools that are the same on PC. That is smart thinking and, for MS, rather necessary since they get a nice cross pollination between PC devs and console devs.

The hardware of the 360 is just as much a PC as is the PS3.

Or are you somehow suggesting that hardware that seems to perform well according to specs is PC-like and totally unknown, under performing and complex hardware is "not-PC-like".?

dizzy, no i'm suggesting that Garulon's claim that 360 hardware is innovative is a dubious one. the similarities in their architecture i've outlined in my other posts above. i've not made any comparative claims.

Dizzy, we can get into comparative claims if that floats your boat. i think design philosophy also ties 360 and PC together. both are memory reliant architectures, while PS3 is about speed of data management. not surprising really considering MS's pc heritage and kutaragi's similar engineering on PS2.

Garulon none of those things are innovations except for the achievements, the rest are just improvements on other peoples ideas and catching up with whats already available on a PC. Putting the "first console" in front of something dosn't make it innovative.

i really thought you were joking but now i see you are just deluded

Conclusion: EG full of morons, and IBM the real winner of the console wars (having tech in all three of them)

I've never seen so much speculation in a comments thread.

Zelos there is a little confusion on this... what is said is that both 360 and the G5(970) were based on the Power4 but both 360 and PS3 are in-order variants(before 360 was released they had dev kits running on G5s IIRC so we know G5s came first, so its pretty much a given that 360 will be atleast partially based on the G5 too, along with whatever the IBM/360 team did with it), the PPU in the PS3 is based around the G5-Power4 too(which came the latest... are they trying to tell us G5 is what Sony's money helped design?), you are correct about them being in-order, a descision which you'll find pretty much every dev thinks was the wrong decision.

Lets not be silly here though this doesnt mean the two are exactly the same because they arent, obvious differences anyone whos bothered to take a glance at them will have seen are; 360 has a custom version of VMX128(PS3 has the older version ie not 128 IIRC) for example(from what I've read no two versions of these have been the same... and it sounds like theyve had this even further customised than normal for gaming/360), dot product computation is also a feature of the 360 core(there will be plenty more differences that arent so well documented too I'd wager)... please dont just argue for the sake of arguing, they are similar since they are based(this doesnt mean they are the same... like the SPEs are based off toshibas DSPs for example with IBMs VMX influence) off the PPC architecture or more specifically Power4-G5.

Either way... 1) Sony didnt design anything to do with PPC, they arent chip vendors they paid for IBMs expertise to get the SPUs in a useable state never mind redesigned the PPC core with them. 2) MS paid for their own R&D and had their own input too, it just looks like MS had the better timing and made the smarter choices.

What is Rash' talking about? Any graphics will be memory reliant, bandwidth and footprint is an area where MS showed they know what works better than Sony do this gen. Also if either GPU is closer to an off the shelf PC part its the RSX.

>What is Rash' talking about?

I have no idea. I lost most of his trains of thoughts years ago. Basically he is always saying the same.

"its just a shame they didn't factor in the lead-time coders would need to adapt to an architecture that isn't at all tolerant of scrappy code and sloppy data-design."

Aha! I think you might have hit a very interesting point - namely instead of making code tighter and more efficient, programmers tend to rely on the hardware's muscle and bandwidth to push the instructions faster through a fatter pipe.

In my day, people commented and wrote code properly, all this was fields etc. [/whinge, moan] :E

Dizzy, "no i'm suggesting that Garulon's claim that 360 hardware is innovative is a dubious one."

What don't you understand? I've been as simple and explicite as I can be. You've just sat there with your paranoia assuming I have some deep rooted agenda.

^ tRash' guy chats shit

OMG now that is some delicious industrial intrigue.

This book is creating sensationalism in a ploy to sell !!

MS (after having a "bad" experience with intel on xbox 1) approached ibm ... they wanted a core which was simple to produce, gave a high yeild and could be clocked high (past 3Ghz). Removing the OOP from a powerpc gives you higher yeilds (hence cheaper prices) and makes way for better clocking!

Now - IBM being in the business of making money simply reused a design (or part) from another project! This happens in all the businesses. You don't reinvent the wheel! Had MS been first to approch IBM, then ppl would be saying that Sony "stole" their design - which would be completely STUPID!

All in all the real pity is the removal of the OOP - had x360 retained that it would be a monster!!

Ryze, and you're a moron. opinions, huh?

OOP is prime for general purpose processing though, so it's application in a device used primarily for media content would've been a waste.

By media I hope he means movie playback and not games... because otherwise he's an idiot OOP is exactly what the devs will tell you they should have done with PS3 and 360(Carmack for example said this from day one), sounds like he thinks general purpose = "word processing and PC type stuff" (it is as equally important as floating point for games and always will be) and it equates to more than just "general purpose" it would mean more acheivable performance out of both chips in pretty much every regard.