Codeshop: Making the Most of Cell

With programmers finding it difficult to take full advantage of PS3, tools company Codeplay hopes its new parallelism system will ease the pain.

In many respects, PlayStation 3 is an anachronism. The pinnacle of Sony Computer Entertainment's decade-old philosophy that focuses on proprietary chip design to gain performance and long-term production efficiencies, it's been outflanked by Microsoft's off-the-shelf approach and Nintendo's control-is-everything attitude. And with its main architect, one-time CEO and the father of the PlayStation Ken Kutaragi, no longer in charge, it's likely that PlayStation 4 will be a very different beast.

Of course, in terms of the current console war, it's still early days. PlayStation 3 remains the most powerful gaming device, as well as providing the best future-proofed option in terms of consumer electronics, although cynics might say that at its original launch price it should've made the tea, too.

[bluebrad1974]

Simply use it for what it was engineered for, to be a video imaging decoder. Like sony is doing with the ps3's blu-ray player.

In terms of the Cell and how it applies to game development- You know, you can climb a building with a rope, but it would be alot easier just to use the elevator.

[AllanWakker]

What a moron. Another generation, another set of idiotic fanboys babbling about 'hard teh program' crap.

Losers.

[thereapersson]

How's it feel being one of the biggest Microsoft fanboy on this website? You're more biased than Power of Green, and TheMart. You NEVER have anything positive to add to PS3-based articles, but you somehow love to find the time to come into many of them and spew your 360-biased rhetoric. WHY?

[bluebrad1974]

I see that the Sony Gestapo has shown up. Hey it's not my fault that you sony douchebags won't let anything but sony related news onto the front page of this website.

[thereapersson]

You want me to show you my wii, 360, PS3 and Cable Box media center, all displayed on my 50" 1080p television? What about my 5.1 XBOX Surround sound system that everything is hooked up to? Hey, it's not my fault you take a piece of machinery so seriously that you have to get all butthurt about it... ;-)

Just callin' it like I see it!

I did LOL @ "Gestapo". Now console owners can be Nazi troopers too!

Edit: Yeah, you're right. I'll just put you on ignore and then I won't have to see your fanboy BS anymore. Thanks N4G!

[bluebrad1974]

Your the one who started crying over my post braintrust.

[mithril]

Before programmers work on 8 bits processor, and 16 and 32 and now 64 bits.
old programmers do linear programming now OO programming.
past 3 years, many programmers don't know about multi-core processor now it's there.

it's evolution and progress.

And now programmers have cell processor to learning.

but many programmers don't want to learning like many old programmers continue to do linear programming. Your in the wave or stay in place it's a choice.

[marinelife9]

I'm just waiting for someone to finish that 360 emulator for Linux.

[popup]

Without a history of rope, there would be no elevator.

I like the underdog nature of the PS3 and the fact that it will require a lot of thinking outside of the box to allow its on-paper performance to start to become a reality in producing results. It makes owning it a constant revelation as new ideas and innovations continually make it perform beyond its previous iterations.

Of course, the fact that the 360 is easy to develop for means that its potential has been realized quicker than most and that too deserves kudos as afterall, they are 'games machines' and I have one of those myself for that reason but noone can deny that within a year, there will be great games to play on both (or all 3 really) and the only way to play them is to own the hardware.

[mighty_douche]

anything that can help developers understand the CELL better has got to be a good thing.

[Ju]

I didn't really read much out of it. Yes, they want to provide some tools which will help you to parallelize (is that a word?) your code, but how ? Also, what's wrong with arrays ? Just because its a datastructure doesn't necessarily contradict the usage of arrays. Flatten a tree and how to use parallel partitioning would have been a hint. An iterator can still use distance offsets instead of linear increments, so ?
Well, there's a lot going on to hide the different ISA (the opcodes) between PPU and SPU thru a virtual compiler which generates either PPU or SPU code dynamically. AFAIS OpenMP (which even hides parallel code paths) is on the way to the CELL.
I also do not agree, that a future PS(4+) will not be based on CELL. The architecture leaves a lot open for future improvements and is perfectly scalable for things to come. More so then conservative multicores, which complexity explodes with each core added.

And, BTW, bluebrad, you are a douche. (you asked for that, sorry).

[thereapersson]

Every time I see you post, you always have something intelligent and constructive to say. Thanks for the continual technical education!

[Einherjaren]

It is a proven fact from the days of PSOne that games and graphics improve even after the console is dead!
The PS2 has games light years ahead of what it was released with..

Now the PS3 is facing hard challenges from m$, but in the past Sony's consoles have vanquished it's opponents after a few years.

The 360 IS nearly at it's peak and m$ are working on a new console..
Sony's investment for the next decade still stands ground..
Cause we haven't even scratched it's surface of power!

[bluebrad1974]

360 is still the graphics leader, and it hasn't peaked yet. That's just a security blanket ps3 minions like to wrap themselves in. The process for making games for the 360 is still in it's adolescence.

[peksi]

360 is a lot easier to program for so with common sense we all know it is not in it's adolescence. A child can tell that hundreds of millions spent to programming with a straightforward console produces optimized results. Most likely PS3 also is going through a lot steeper utilization curve thanks to competition. This is good for us all.

[SmokeyMcBear]

haha blueballs.. i mean bluebrad.. the 360 peaked with gears.. and that was a year ago.. what game has gotten even close to those graphics???? nothing.. in a year... oh man, its all downhill buddy.

[shelbygt33]

While the ps1/2/3's graphics will all improve over their lifespan, the 360's has already peaked and won't improve? Do you honestly believe that?

[goodganja]

Everybody, please dont forget to report bluebrad's comment as offensive/and or spam. There's no reason for him to be trolling PS3 related news.

P L A Y B 3 Y O N D

[shelbygt33]

That's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, ain't it?

[Judge Mental]

See the size of that chip? Wow! I am please to see companies realize the potential in the Cell. Whether people accept it or not, the cell is a huge technological advancement in electronics field.

As an Electronic Tech and novice programmer, the future of this chip has me very excited.

I once read somewhere that the cell was like going from a tube to transistor when compared to a conventional processor.

[HarryEtTubMan]

HAHA 360 is notthe graphics... last time I checked... isn't their flagship title, Halo 3 only able to run at 640p resolution? Didn't I also hear COD4 will be running on PS3 at 1080p? Look at uncharterd,ratchet, lAIR, Heavenly Sword....no 360 game can ever touch those games.