A Sony fanboy gone mad

Hell hath no fury like a fanboy scorned. Lately, Sony's fan base has taken nuclear bomb-like hits to the gut for the PlayStation 3, so it's no surprise that some are ready to snap. Immortalized in YTMND form, a GameSpot caller who goes by the name of jason16888 pretty much sums up every frustration each Sony sheep has been feeling lately.

[TheMART]

Hahaaa it's fun and it's even the right info

Games up to max 100 dollars. Sony is crazy.

You're paying for raw potential. Yep peak power. One doesn't need peak power. Peak power are specs on paper to blabla around like Fony always does. Give a good gamesystem, no hyped up CPU that can simultane can work on different so called 'cores' but then get stuck on only 2 threads for the main core...

At least the 360 has 3 cores, with 2 threads per core, makes 6 threads in total. For the use of the different CPU's watch this video

http://www.g4tv.com/pile_pl...

[joemutt]

You definately arent fooling any of us. Twice as powerful in every aspect, lol. Thats a good one, did you make that up all by yourself?

Sony isnt even claiming twice as powerful in any aspect, and you know why? Because it isnt.

And dont get me started on the games, the PS3 doesnt even stand in the same ballpark.

Speaking of ballpark, go get yourself a hotdog little boy, and enjoy watching the big boys game.

[TheMART]

Achira proof me wrong. Tell me how the Cell 'cores' work, how many threads it has.

Then go look at the 360 CPU cores and threads.

Please, I dare you. The Cell can get more calculating on same time, but if you cut it all up in pieces and have only two threads to use you're screwed big time. It's like having a Ferrari motor in a Lada

[shotty]

Archira where do you get your BS from. You sound retarded with your so called facts.

[tatical]

Hideo Kojima, the designer of MGS4, says that MGS4 is posible on the 360.

Hideo Kojima:
"Maybe some nuance or a small details here and there might be different, but I feel that hardware is no longer a matter. I'm just talking about PS3, 360 and PC. Revolution is totally different, but there are really no differences among the other three."

There you have it, no difference...

http://www.1up.com/do/featu...

[ACE]

lol this sums up fony lol thats some funny $hit

DEATH TO FONY LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pRo loGic II]

You got mental problems. You say you're 24 but you think like you're 12, im sorry but no adult behavs like you do. Maybe it's because you're from some back po-dunk country in Europe.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

lol

that is all.

its not news that all the sony fans are depressed and unhappy!

[pRo loGic II]

Now you Sony fanboy's know why the X***'s love to visit all industry news(PS3)news. Sony fanboyism is entertaining, it's like watching Beaves & Butt-head in their fantasy world...

[Islandkiwi]

First off, dude needs to discover girls.

Second, dude sounds like Sony is his girl. Wtf is that line, "Sony, I should have abandoned you long ago." Abandoned you?

Loyalty to a game console is like hugging a toaster...get some perspective.

[pRo loGic II]

Dis-connected PS fans with their hundreds of PS1-2 games laying all over their rooms/house, make-believing in lala land that their some big titted round eye blue haired 16 year old chick riding a pig lizard. game trolls playing a non social gollum console. Achira's Avatar is an prime example.

[Shadow Flare]

Haha, i haven't even read the article, its the picture that caught my attention. Fanboy, Freakazoids wanna-be sidekick. Haha, love it. For those of you that dont know who Freakazoid is, its a cartoon i grew up with and its freakin funny. And the fanboy episode is the best episode of all

"Super-teen extraordinaire, Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
Runs around in underwear, Freakazoid! Freakazoid!"

You need a picture of 'Hero Boy' aswell dude

[Aflac]

seriously, this guy looks fact in the eye and denies it-pathetic. ANYTHING negative that is posted about ps3 is false according to this guy- even things that are PROVEN true.

[M1K3]

Im sick of sony...argh

[FreeMonk]

The kid sounded like John Travolta when he said "oh my gad" Hilarious!

As for PS3 vs X360...I'm getting bored of it. PS3 and X360 are about the same when it comes to power. The PS3 probably has the upper edge, but the problem with the PS3 is that it's going to take years before programmers are abot to utilise that extra bit of power.

By which time MS will be planning there new Next-Gen console that will surpass the PS3.

My suggestion, get a 360 now, wait until 2007 for the PS3 when FF13 and MGS4 arrives, and enjoy both. Also, don't forget to buy a Wii!

SNASH BROTHERS BRAWL BABY...YEAH!

[Islandkiwi]

Arguments about which has more power are worthless. When choosing a console really only two questions are necessary:

1) Do you like the games on the console?
2) Is the controller comfortable in your hands?

If answer is yes to both, buy said console. If unsure of either answer, wait until sure. World will not end if you choose not to purchase a console.

[TheMART]

Third should be:

- is there a mature online service available?

[Siesser]

I may be in the minority, but online still isn't important to me yet.

This was so hilarious though. But why are those guys recording phone calls?

[Watapata]

You need to keep in mind that Sony has been involved in online gaming for longer than Microsoft has. There is nothing to say right now that Sony's online service will not be better than Live

[pRo loGic II]

I have Chrome Hounds payed in full" if anybody wants to join up; after people get their mechs built Im at (habren PL II)...

[M1K3]

Yeah and while im at it i'll buy a new car

[pRo loGic II]

I'll believe it when i see it, PS has never lived up to it's hype, NEVER!!!.

[specialguest]

hahhahah very amusing rant.

[Marriot VP]

hey they finally got gametime on a radio broadcast

[da 36]

it is gaytime

[MissAubrey]

Competition is good It's the psycotic Sony fanboys that makes me sick.

[Aflac]

maybe it was achira. who knows...

[The BS Police]

Maybe it was either "NJ", or "Gametime"!

[NJ1307RS]

Sorry but it wasn't me.

[The BS Police]

Well if it wasn't you that leaves iter Achira, or Gametime.

[da 36]

its gaytime for sure

[pumped_gamer]

So is chromehounds good...have you checked out the online war game type? If so is it cool...?
It sounded like it was gonna be awesome!

[PS360PCROCKS]

I thought the demo was boring, their TOO slow, and yeah lol this is hilarious

[soccerstar]

That was hilarious but that kid just explained exactly how i feel about sony right now. I was going to buy a ps3 when they announced it at e3 2005 the day it came out but now im unsure if i will get one at all. i will barely be able to afford a $600 console but if games are higher than $80 there is no way in hell i will get a ps3.

[specialguest]

wait till it gets close to the end of its life cycle and buy it. that's what i did with the PS2. by that time, it'll be cheap.

[pRo loGic II]

I heard a lot of people like the britts saying it was to slow and boring but the servers where not fully operational/buggy/laggggy and now that there fixed they say the game kicks ass and all the ChromeHound forums are saying it's off the hook/Awesome. These Hounds are walking battle ships and were made as real; as an real Mech would move thats the way they made it. Personally i think it's cool. Many will find it slow still, these machines will not be moving like the way Tommy does in Prey running at full sprint sidways and backwards sliding all over the place. It's all about taste.

[pumped_gamer]

Thanks for the feed back...I've been thinking about pickin this game up. The online persistant war is gettin me Pumped...whoooo

[pumped_gamer]

This gos out to all the Sony fans...sorry guys were feelin for u...:(

[da 36]

hell no!!

[pRo loGic II]

http://boards.sega.com/chro... the game kicks ass; the 360 will shine with this tittle. Build that mech and give me a buzz when it comes out on the 12th.

[The Real Deal]

That the Microsoft handheld thats coming out will be able to fully interact with Live anywhere? Thats going to be sick...Movies, live arcade, text messaging, picture messaging, data sharing from xbox 360 to pc to hand held with the same gamer tag for live anywhere. Its going to be huge....Anyone with windows vista will want one. Microsoft will dominate this next gen with the moves they are making with live anywhere, windows vista, and the portable device that interacts with both and plays music , video , and games. WOW....

[The Real Deal]

On Teamxbox.com . They said its next gen graphics and stategic team gameplay is perfect for that type of game. Its more sim than arcady like Mech assault games. I have read the graphics are spectacular and scary real. They definatley show what the 360 is capable of. PC ports don't do that. But 360 exclusives do. 3 cores with 6 threads makes a big difference that PC's and Ps3's can't match. But the game has to be made to take advantage of that and not be a port. But On the Prey game it states that the 360 is the only next gen system that can run Prey. Ps3 isn't capable because of the lack of memory bandwith. Thats straight from the developers of Prey. And Prey got a 9 on Ign xbox 360. Prey on a cutting edge computer system is slighly sharper. But not due to the system itself but to the limitation of the tv/monitor you are using. On my hd tv it looks as good and to me a little better than my computer version. But it all depends on the hd display you are using. Not the system itself. So if you have a regular tv of course it won't look as good as prey on a computer monitor. Now if you have a hd tv that only displays 720p, of course prey won't be as sharp as a computer monitor running 1200 by 1600 on a cutting edge computer. But thats the tv you are using not the 360. Now when I run it on my 1080 p television it upscales the 1080i for Prey. And its spectacular...its a tad better than my computer monitor running prey at 1600 by 1200. Because on my hd tv its running at 1920 by 1080. But its just a tad better looking. Most people likely won't see a difference. But when reviewers compare the 360 version against the pc versions they review the 360 version at 720 p. So thats why they tend to say the pc versions are a tad better graphically or about the same. So there you have it.

[The Real Deal]

The web site Curmudgeon Gamer posted up a graph of all the game consoles released in the US since the 1970’s and clearly showed that the PS3 will have the third highest launch price for a console ever, behind the NeoGeo and the 3D0 (both notorious failures). Sony CEO Howard Stringer recently admitted during a press conference that the “price of the PS3 is high” He also admitted that such a price for the console was a “higher-risk strategy” but defended the console by saying, “'you're paying for potential”. A recent survey of Japanese game developers don’t feel that way, however, with over 90 percent saying they are upset about the high price of the console at launch. Just this past Monday, UbiSoft CEO Yves Guillemot was quoted in a Bloomberg story as saying that Sony must lower their price of the PS3 in 2007 in order to compete with the Xbox 360 and Wii. Another interview at GameDaily with Sega of America exec Scott Steinberg (conducted at E3 last May but only posted last week) said that “Definitely, the [price] is a concern.” Much like Guillemot, Steinberg felt that a price cut for the PS3 will be needed relatively soon after the console’s launch, saying “For a lot of families [the launch price is] too expensive."

The conclusion is pretty simple; the PS3 is going to be pricey. The logical forecast is for the console to most likely sell well when it is first launched to the early adopter crowd but that once that market is finished buying their PS3s the general public will be very wary of picking up a $600 game machine.

[The Real Deal]

Playstation 2 had a reputation of being hard to program for and it looks like the PS3 is following in its footsteps. John Carmack, the head programmer for id Software, has been quoted numerous times as saying that while the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are fairly close in tech, the actual making of games is in the Xbox 360 corner thanks to better development software tools for Microsoft’s console. The Nintendo Wii, because of its lower tech specs, is also considered to be easy and cheap to develop for. The technology of the PS3 is high but only time will tell if game developers will be able to get the console’s Cell processor to do all the things that Sony claims it will be able to do.

[The Real Deal]

Sony is taking a huge gamble with launching their next-gen console with a next-gen disk format only a few months after Blu-Ray itself was introduced to the public. Early reviews from movie and tech web sites have not been kind to the Samsung Blu-Ray player with TheDigitalBits.com saying that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have launched a year too early to the consumer market. They recommended that people stay away from Blu-Ray until all of the bugs and kinks in the format have been ironed out. One has to wonder if such problems might affect the PS3 when it launches this November.

[The Real Deal]

the motion sensing features of the PS3 controller were only shown on Warhawk during E3. When asked, many developers had not yet decided if they were going to use those features in their PS3 games, leading some to speculate that Sony cooked up the motion sensing features at the last minute. However of bigger concern to some gamers was the announcement of the lack of rumble support for the PS3 controller. Officially, Sony said that the rumble feature had to be removed to add the motion sensing features. However, many speculate that the real reason was Sony’s ongoing legal battle with force feedback technology company Immersion who claimed Sony violated their trademarks when they put rumble features in the PS2 controller.

[The Real Deal]

When the PS2 was launched, Sony promised the moon when it came to the console’s online features. It was supposed to be able to download movies and music, access the Internet and in short be more than just a game machine but rather a full entertainment system. They showed pictures of the PS2 with a PC style monitor, keyboard and mouse and touted the deals with AOL, Netscape and others to bring the Internet to gamers.

It’s now 2006 and many of those previous claims for the PS2 never came out. No Internet email or browser access. No music or movie downloads.

[The Real Deal]

Sony has plans for its own online network for the PS3 console that on the surface sound a lot like what Microsoft has done for Xbox Live. Like the PS2 it will be free to use but Sony has yet to give a lot of details about the service itself, including pricing for things like add-ons for games and downloadable titles similar to Xbox Live Arcade. At E3 Sony execs were once again claiming that the PS3 is more than just a game machine. Unlike Microsoft Sony doesn’t seem to have learned that it’s not good to promise what you can’t deliver. Sony tried and failed with a similar plan for a iTunes music download service and until more details are learned about the PS3’s online plans it pays to be skeptical about what Sony might bring to the table (we are not going to even mention the Nintendo Wii’s promised online support because there is even less info about it than the PS3).

[The Real Deal]

With several months to go before the launch of the PS3, there are still enough questions and possibilities that we can’t close the door on the console’s chances in the marketplace. However, the fact that there are concerns and questions about the PS3’s chances when there were almost none before E3 has to be troubling to Sony. In interview after interview, Sony execs seem to be on the defensive about the price, the technology and other issues of the PS3 and the research firm DFC Intelligence stated just last week that Sony coming in third in the next-gen console war was a real possibility. Sony has a lot riding on this console’s success and indeed the entire game industry could be adversely affected if the PS3 does not perform up to expectations sales wise.

The truth is at this stage it’s actually a little fun to speculate about the PS3 but the fun is due to be over in a few months when the console actually is in stores. Will it be a big success like the PS2 or will it be a disappointment like Sony’s portable console the PSP? Things could still swing in Sony’s favor but for now its looking like, for the first time in Sony’s 11 year history of being in the console game space, they could be the underdog.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

i'm sorry

i keep seeing that little fat fanboy cartoon

and its just

its exactly how i imagine gametime.

i cant help it. it keeps making me laugh.

[kingboy]

The news just keeps repeating ,the [email protected] keep posting same arguements ,while sony is still selling well..lol how stupid..If only ur bUllsh*t comments could boost xbox sales then ..lol!

[TheMART]

They still haven't sold one PSZero

Selling well, but earning big loss? That's really something ain't it? 600 million dollars every quarter and a multimillion dollar loan.

Then you're doing real good as a company don't you think so? Spending money is easy, but earning it...

[TheMART]

When one delays the console, there is more time to produce games so that's no real great thing if you ask me.

If they delayed the 360 the games in the launch window would have been launch games (and much exclusives). Like GRAW, Oblivion, FNR3, Moto GP '06, Prey, Lords of the Rings II (according to IGN the best in it's genre ever on a console), Topspin 2, Table Tennis, Chromehounds etc.

So it's all bull. Furthermore, the most important thing is: these are all crossplatform games. For me that doesn't help a launch line up. Especially not when the competition has it's console on the market also.

It's all about the exclusives. The 360 has more NEW and EXCITING exclusives then the PS period. Most of them are sequels and not very original. MGS4, Whipout x (?), Tekken 6 (damn that's looking bad), FF XIII (makes the Japanese buy it that's for sure)

Ofcourse, 360 has it's own large sequel Halo, but still. When you look at Lost World, Too Human, Viva Piniata, GRAW, Forza (only the second game coming now, that format can grow), Fable (dito), and most important for this Christmas head to head with other consoles:

Gears of War

Most awards on E3, highest awaited game around then, imagine two demopods besides each other and a person wants to buy a console.

One plays Tekken 6 or Warhawk and cost 600 dollars(no taxes yet...) and then 90 dollars for the game, maybe another controller...

One plays Gears of War, costs 400 dollar (excl. tax), 60 dollar for Gears and maybe an extra controller.

I'm sure that person will buy the last one, also seen the wall will be filled with 160 games. Even though the PS will have some games with launch line up, don't forget one thing. The consumer only sees it on that moment in time. Where the 360 has a larger, wider, and better line up just because of the 2nd generation of games competing with PS's 1st gen

[THE TRUTH]

Fanboy pay close attention!!!

1.3 -
TheMART - 12 Hours ago
Achira proof me wrong. Tell me how the Cell 'cores' work, how many threads it has.

Then go look at the 360 CPU cores and threads.

Please, I dare you. The Cell can get more calculating on same time, but if you cut it all up in pieces and have only two threads to use you're screwed big time. It's like having a Ferrari motor in a Lada
............................. ..............

let me prove to you about the PS3's value so we can end this debate and move-on.

Playstation 3 and Xbox360 – Comparing and Contrasting:
Before I compare and contrast with the Xbox360 hardware, here are some quick facts about the Xbox360 hardware:
Xbox360 Quick Hardware Summary:
The Xbox360 has a tri-symmetrical core CPU. Each one of the cores is based on the POWER architecture like the PPE inside the Cell, and is clocked at 3.2GHz. Each core has 32kb L1 instruction and 32kb LI data cache, and has a 1MB shared L2 cache. Each chip also sports an enhanced version of the VMX-128 instruction set and execution units. This enhanced version expands the register file from 32 128-bit registers, to a pair of 128 128-bit registers – with one execution unit per core. Each of these cores can also dual-issue instruction and handles two hardware threads, bringing the Xbox360 thread total to 6 hardware threads. The CPU and GPU share 512MB of GDDR3 RAM. Xbox360’s GPU, codenamed “Xenos” is designed by ATI and sports 48 shader pipelines using a unified shader architecture. The Xbox360 GPU also has 10MB of eDRAM for the frame buffer and over 200GB/s of bandwidth between this eDRAM and a simple logic uni, for a limited set of 3D processing effects such as anti-aliasing and z-buffering.

The system sports a DVD9 optical media drive from which games are loaded, a controller with rumble features, and 100mbps Ethernet.

Head To Head:
General Architecture Differences:
One thing I think is important when looking at CPU architecture is visuals. In the world of computing, physical distance between parts of a computer system generally corresponds with the speed (latency-wise) of their communication,

Bandwidth Assessment:
I recall an article IGN released short after or during E3 2005 comparing Playstation 3 and Xbox360. Microsoft analyzed their total system bandwidth in the Xbox360 and came up with some outrageous numbers compared to the Playstation 3. One of the big reasons for this total number being higher is the 256GB/s bandwidth between the daughter die and parent die in the Xenos(graphics chip). I will explain the use of the eDRAM memory later, but it is important to know that the logic performed between those two components with 256GB/s bandwidth hardly constitutes a system component where considering game processing takes place. Additionally, Microsoft added up bandwidths that weren’t relevant to major component destinations such as “to CPU” or “to GPU.” Context like that matters a lot, because bandwidth between any two elements is only as fast as the slowest memory bus in-between. The only bandwidth figures that make sense to add together are those on separate buses to the end destination.

The biggest ugly (and this really is a big one) in the Xbox360 diagram should be the location of the CPU relative to the main system memory. It has to be accessed through the GPU’s memory controller. The Xbox360 GPU’s memory has 22.4GB/s bandwidth to the system’s unified memory, and this bandwidth is split between the GPU’s needs and the CPU’s. A simple investigation would show that if the Xenon(Xbox360 CPU) was using its full 21.6GB/s bandwidth to system memory, there would be 800MB/s left for the GPU. If the GPU was using it’s full bandwidth to this memory, none would be left for anything else. Additionally, the southbridge(I/O devices) is connected through the GPU also, and all of these devices are actually destined to go to the CPU unless sound for the Xbox360 is done on the Xenos. The impact of this is considerably less since I/O devices probably won’t exceed more than a few hundred MB/s during a game, and isn’t shared by GPUs 22.4GB/s access to main memory. This bandwidth is still going through the same bus that the CPU uses to access RAM though.

Looking at the diagram of the Playstation 3, you can see that the RSX has a dedicated 22.4 GB/s to its video memory, and the Cell has a dedicated 25.6GB/s to its main memory. Additionally, if you wanted to find the bandwidth the RSX could use from the Cell’s main memory, it go through the 35GB/s link between the Cell and itself, and then go through the Cell processor’s FlexIO controller, on the EIB, to the Cells memory controller which is the gatekeeper to RAM. The slowest link in the line is the bandwidth the XDR memory controller provides which is 25.6GB/s. If the RSX uses this extra bandwidth it is being shared with the Cell. In general though, the major components in the Playstation 3 have their own memory to work with which provides maximum bandwidth.

In terms of peak performance, if both the GPU and CPU for both consoles were pushing the maximum bandwidths from their respective memory banks, the total for Xbox360 would be 22.4GB/s, and the total for the Playstation 3 would be 48GB/s. I believe this to be the most important bandwidth measure as both of these elements are the major programmable elements of a gaming machine. They will be processing game data or graphics data independently, and need fast access and high bandwidth to what they are working on.

While the Xbox360 shared bandwidth is a big downside on the grand scheme of things considering potential, Microsoft probably allowed this due to the nature of a game loops often not involving both the CPU and GPU needing high bandwidth simultaneously. Overall, during a game loop, Xbox360 will probably use its 22.4GB/s bandwidth almost constantly due to the CPU using it heavily for a part of the game loop, and the GPU using extreme bandwidth during another part of the game loop. While a Playstation 3 game, if it uses a typical game loop design, would show half of the frame time, the CPU is using high bandwidth to its memory, the other half being mostly unused; and the same thing for the GPU’s use of video RAM. That isn’t a disadvantage of the Playstation 3’s part, but it is a lack of using its full potential. A modified game loop that kept both rendering and CPU processing high would fare far better on the Playstation 3’s bandwidth and design than the Xbox360.

In the worst case scenario for the Playstation 3, if the GPU literally only used bandwidth for half of the game loop, overtime, you could consider it’s bandwidth to be half of its peak. Same thing applied to the Cell and XDR RAM would yield 12.8GB/s bandwidth if it only used XDR half of the time. Although Playstaiton 3 not to be outdone - if the situation of a game loop is like this, the RSX might as well take the XDR RAM bandwidth while the CPU is idling and increase its total bandwidth to 48GB/s.

Xbox360 “Xenon” compared to Playstation 3’s “Cell” – the CPUs:
Inter-core communication speed:
Another mystery with the Xbox360 (at least in my view) exists with the inter-core communication on the Xenos CPU between its cores. IBM clearly documents the Cell’s inter-core communication mechanism physically and how it is implemented in hardware and software. This bandwidth needs to be extremely high if separate cores need to communicate and share data effectively. The EIB on the Cell is documented at a peak performance of 204GB/s with an observed rate at 197GB/s. The major factor that affects this rate is the direction, source, and destination of data flow between the SPE and PPEs on the Cell. I tried to find out the equivalent piece of hardware inside the Xenon CPU and haven’t found a direct answer.

Looking at the second architectural diagram of the Xenon, it seems that the fastest method the cores can use to talk to each other is through the L2 cache. Granted, the Xenon only has 3 cores, game modules are usually highly dependent and will need to talk to each other frequently. I might be a jumping the gun a bit, but given the L2 cache and FSB are running at half of the core speed, as opposed to the Playstation 3’s EIB which runs at the same clock speed as the cores, I’m pretty positive using L2 cache to communicate is not going to be very fast. It seems that independent threads are really what Microsoft was aiming for with the Xbox360 CPU design, and games are not optimally implemented if they have massive streaming transfers to hand off to other cores. What would suggest that the Xbox360 cores can communicate quickly and with high bandwidth, would be evidence that the reading and writing to the L2 cache are in larger segments than the writes to the EIB, compensating for the lower clock speed. Additionally, just writing to memory isn’t enough as the receiver needs some sort of notification that it has new data unless it is a permanent buffer. If anyone wants to do research on the topic, please add it to the discussion and include links to your sources.

Enhanced VMX-128 instruction set:
This is one of the features Microsoft boasts to claim they have a better gaming machine than Sony. They focus on the fact that their enhancements support a single cycle dot product instruction, and the larger register file. The problem with this boast over the Playstation 3 is that it compares it to the PPE’s VMX-128 unit which comparably only has 1 set of 32 128-bit registers and presumably less instructions. If the code requires 128 128-bit registers, or more complex instructions, then the code is most definitely vector processing heavy and should be run on an SPE which sports the exact same register file size, and includes a superset of the VMX instructions in terms of functionality(it is not a superset in terms of being binary compatible).

While each core in the Xbox360 also has two VMX-128 register sets, this is done to support the dual threaded nature of the cores better. It doesn’t actually have two vector execution units. Each core only has one VMX-128 execution unit meaning that even though there are two sets of registers per core, two threads that are using vector code have to share this single execution unit.

Comparably, the Cell’s PPE has the limited 32 128-bit register file with a single VMX vector unit on the PPE. This is what Microsoft usually singles out when they compare Playstation 3 to the Xbox360’s CPU. They forget(purposefully) that the Cell has 7 SPEs running at 3.2 GHZ, which is far greater SIMD performance than their 3 enhanced VMX-128 execution units. For vector based computations, the Playstation 3 undeniably outdoes the Xbox360 by an order of magnitude.

The dot product instruction claim is matched at least on the SPEs on the Playstation 3 though a simple multiply-add instruction. For those of you that aren’t mathematically inclined, a dot product is basically a measure of how parallel or perpendicular two lines are. The calculation of a dot product is basically multiplying each corresponding dimension value together, and then taking those products and adding them all together. Take two vectors <2, 3, 4> and <6, 7, 8>. The dot product would be: 2*6 + 3*7 + 4*8 = 65. If you read the earlier section in this post covering the SPES and SIMD architectures, you should remember that at the very least, an SPE can do all of the multiplying in one cycle, and all that needs to be done is a follow up add between the elements in the result vector. I do know that the SPEs have a few multiply-add instructions, but the bit of haziness is if the multiply can be an intra-vector(between two separate vectors) operation, while the add instruction is an inter-vector(between elements in the same vector) instruction from the result of the multiply. Sony claims that the dot product can be done in one cycle on an SPE, and it is very reasonable that this is the case as there are vector permute/shuffles/shift instructions in the SPE instruction set. There just isn’t a labeled dot product instruction in the SPE instruction set – but an intelligent programmer should find what he needs.

I found the multiply-add instruction in the Cell BE Handbook. It takes 4 vectors, one is definitely the result vector and two are operands, but the third parameter named ‘rc’, which I think represents a control register that dictates how to perform inter and intra vector operations. That means the multiply-add instruction has to operate on only two vectors, and the control vector is able to dictate an add between the result components of the multiply.

Symmetrical Cores?:
Symmetrical cores means identical cores. The appeal to this setup is entirely for developers. It represents no actual horsepower advantage over asymmetric cores since code running on any of the cores, will run exactly the same as it would run if it were on another core. Relocating code to different cores has absolutely no performance gain or loss unless it means something with respect to how the 3 cores talk to each other. It should be noted though, that thread relocation does matter between the cores, as a thread might not co-exist well with another thread that is trying to use the same hardware that isn’t duplicated on the core. In that case, the thread would be better located on a core that has that execution resource free or less used. The only case of this I can think of is the VMX-128 execution unit. I think most other hardware is duplicated on the cores in the 360 to allow for two threads to co-exist with almost no problem.

The Cell chip has asymmetrical cores, which means they are not all identical. That being said, the SPEs are all symmetrical with each other and the code that runs on an SPE could be relocated to any other SPE in the Cell. While the execution speed local to the SPEs are the same, there are performance issues related to the bandwidth the SPE is using and who it’s talking to on the EIB. Developers should look at where their SPE code is executing to ensure optimal bandwidth is being observed on the EIB, but once they find an optimal location to execute the code on, they can just put it there without rewriting anything. If a task was running on the PPE or PPE’s VMX unit, then it would have to be recompiled with C, and probably rewritten if hardware specific instructions are in the code(C or ASM) before it moves to an SPE, and the same applies in reverse. Good design and architecture should immediately let developers know what should run on the PPE and what should run on the SPEs, eliminating the chance of rewriting code if they see something better fit to run on an SPE later in development.

Is general purpose needed?:
Another one of Microsoft’s claims for the Xbox360’s superiority in gaming is the general purpose processing advantage since they have 3 general purpose cores instead of 1.

To say “most of the code is general purpose” probably refers to code size, not execution time. First, it should be clarified that “general purpose code” is only a label for the garden variety of instructions that may be given to hardware. On the hardware end, this code fits into various classifications such as arithmetic, load/store, SIMD, floating point, and possibly more. General purpose applications are programs made up of general purpose code on the scale that one function might be arithmetically heavy, and another might be memory bound. Good examples of this are MS Word, a web browser, or an entire operating system. With MS Word there is a lot of string processing which involves some arithmetic, comparison, a lot of branching, and memory operations. When you click import or export and save to various file formats, it is an I/O heavy operation. Applications like these tend to not execute the same code over an over, and have many different functions that can occur on relatively a small set of data depending on what the user does. These functions can vary from being very I/O device bound (saving to disk), to string processing intensive (spelling/grammar check), to floating point intensive(embedded Flash media game or resizing an image). Ultimately, there is a large amount of code written to handle the small set of data and most of it never gets executed.

Games are not general purpose programs. Any basic game programming book will introduce you to the concept of a game loop. This loop contains all of the functionality a game performs each frame. This loop handles all of the events that can occur in the game. An important principle in a game loop is to avoid branches when unnecessary as it slows down execution and makes the code on screen extremely and unnecessarily long. A good example of this is the Cohen-Sutherland line clipping algorithm. Instead of writing lengthy and complicated branches to check the 9 regions a point lies in, the code performs 4 simpler checks, and computes a region code which can be easily be used.

This automatic and repetitive processing has to occur for many game objects which represents a massive amount of data, with a relatively small code size. This is opposite of the general purpose paradigm, which typically has a small set of data (word document or html) and performs many various functions on it representing a large code size. Games processing has a large data size, but much smaller code size. Game objects also tend to be very parallel in nature as game objects are typically independent until they interact (collision) – which means they can be processed well on SIMD architectures if they are well thought out..

The whole integer advantage claim for the Xbox360 CPU is pretty stupid considering the SIMD architectures can operate on 4 32-bit integers at the same time, and integer processing abilities of games are not the bottleneck of 3D games processing.

What this general purpose power does grant Xbox360 owners over Playstation 3 is the ability to run general purpose applications faster. If the Xbox360 had a web browser(official or not), the design for such an application would work better on a general purpose CPU(s). That being said, it’s too bad Xbox360 doesn’t come with one, and web browsers don’t put the highest demand on general purpose processors to begin with. Most general purpose applications remain idle until the user gives actually input. The application will then process the task and complete before sitting idle again.

AI routines that navigate through large game trees are probably another area where general purpose processing power might be better utilized since this code tends to be more branch laden and varying depending on the task the AI is actually trying to accomplish. The plus side for the Playstation 3 is generating of these game trees, which is also time consuming. Generating a game tree is a more computational oriented task, and is likely to be executed faster by SIMD architectures. I am largely speaking speculatively under my Computer Science knowledge in this area. Anyone who knows more or has done more research on AI algorithms is welcome to add to discussion in this area.

The only case I can really see the general purpose computing power of the Xbox360 cores manifesting itself as a true advantage over the Playstation 3, is if Windows or similar OS was put on an Xbox360, having multiple applications running simultaneously along with some background services. Again, it is funny that Playstation 3 i...

[Bluemayhem]

Hello Mate

Thanks for the nice article, however, not to burst your bubble but this article is utterly biased towards the PS3.

Firstly this person compares an existing 360 with a non existent PS3. If you think some geek reporter from IGN was allowed to see what is under the hood of the PS3 then you are sadly mistaken and naive at that.
Although I do not doubt that the PS3 has its advantages but it certainly is not the "Knight in Shining Armour" as is praised in this article. To conlude the article in short is "The 360 is crap and PS3 is gods gift".
That is definately not the case.

And to prove you evenmore wrong:
I've just been on IGN and checked May and June news sections for both consoles and guess what, Nothing about your so called "article in IGN".
To be quite honest, there is not even any website on the interweb claiming to have such stupendous comparisons.

I am sorry to be so negative in my first post but I am actually starting to believe what others are saying, that you may be a liar.

[ACE]

i have read the good the bad and the ugly concerning the ps3/360 mate ,,,,, over like 2 years and can safly say that your write up or if it is ??? or did it come from a sony fan boy site ps3 better this and that .... try that with some one else mate lol!!!

lattterrrrr lol lol !!!!!!!!

[TheMART]

Truth you're a lying dude and your posts are indeed to long. Could you try to sum up some things because no one will read this.