The RSX Conspiracy - RSX <-> G80 Connection ?

[Chaotic_King]

You are all setting yourself up for a fall.
The 7900 is based on the 7800, but the RSX has many differences, more relating it to a 7600GT. You do know that what your saying makes no sense whatsoever, right? The 7600 series is based on the G70, it's actually newer; simply down scaled (lower clock and less pipes) as compared to its older brother, the 7800. Unless you're trying to say that an old design like the RSX is somehow the same as a NEW GPU design; which wouldn't make any sense either since it would have as much chance of being a 7900 series card as a 7600 series :?.
I'm saying that like the 7900 it is based on the G70, but it has more in common with the 7600GT.

[jlippone]

Shouldn't we just say that it is based on the NV40 architecture with some changes, just like G70 series, which is basically slightly boosted NV40.

This way we can cover our hinds and actually start to wonder if theres something actually different from the all the 6xxx and 7xxx chips. :)

[PlaystationArt]

OKK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lets just leave it at, we dont know, and we will find out likely at TGS.

[RavenLord]

It will be definitely G70...G80 is just a dream of Sony fans...Logically, if there will be an improvement, sony would yell it everywhere but they remain silent, so i am expecting a downgrade..Let's see on november or TGS whatever

[PS3 rocks]

will they release the specs at TGS?

They have to it's basically the last event untill launch (i think) after TGS it's almost launch we will find out very soon, the reasoni'm still believing this thread is because i find it strange that we still after all this don't have the specs.

[renegadevikingPS3]

Unless you're trying to say that an old design like the RSX is somehow the same as a NEW GPU design; which wouldn't make any sense either since it would have as much chance of being a 7900 series card as a 7600 series


I wholeheartenly agree. It better be a Geforce 7900 before people start bitching it was a Geforce 7600. Knowing I'll have another game machine with lots of titles for it is better then a graphically superior PC any day. I mean I bought my last PS2 game 20 days ago, and my last Xbox game 10 days ago.

PC gamers have too much money to spend on hardware and for what? The hardcore ones will update teh GPU 4 times in PS3's life time and a 19" monitor isn't a 25" LCD TV! That's true.


Its possible to put a DUAL Cell processor

A dual-core Cell with 16 SPEs really would be something in 2011. We know 3.2 GHz is the boundry due to heat issues. Yea, the PS4 will at least have 16 SPEs.

[Jugix]

A dual-core Cell with 16 SPEs really would be something in 2011. We know 3.2 GHz is the boundry due to heat issues. Yea, the PS4 will at least have 16 SPEs.

If PS4 is only Cell with 16SPEs the debate would be the same as with nintendo Wii now. "Why release marginally faster console than <previous console> and just add <something fancy>."

What I am saying is if PS4 is only twice the PS3 you wouldn't see the difference in GFX.

[/offtopic]

[bahomet]

There was a picture around here, i can't find it right now, but it showed the evolution of the cell processor. In 5-6 years, due to better fabrication technologies, right now they are using 60nm for the cell? Anyway getting smaller and smaller to 30nm, 20? don't know the limit they could make multi-core cells up to 64 spe's (even more, don't remember exactly the picture). Maybe someone can find that picture for us?

[janenba352]

I could see whats in the PS4 now. Quad Core with 64 SPEs. 1 off and 1 for the OS. All at 11nm.

[PS3 rocks]

I think the PS4 will have a different processor all together.

[archy141]

MORE FUEL FOR THE FIRE

One of the pioneers of "Light Field Mapping" is one of the chief designers of the RSX.

"Light Field Mapping" is related to 4D texture maping & Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) which were discussed earlier in the thread in relation to patent finds that seem to belong to G80.

Here is the CV of the chap highlighting his contribution to PS3 RSX



Wei-Chao Chen, Ph.D.

08/2002 - Current
3D Graphics Architect
Architecture Group
nVidia Corporation, Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.

High-level design and testing of next-generation graphics processors (GPU):

- Architect, NV34 (GeForce 5200)
- Shader Architecture Lead, NV41/NV43 (GeForce 6600 series).
- Shader Architecture Lead, G70 (GeForce 7800 series)
- Shader/Texture Architecutre Lead, Sony Playstation 3 Rendering Subsystem.
- Next-generation GPU designs (project undisclosed).

Consultant
Visual Interactivity Group, Microprocessor Research Lab
Intel Corp., Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.
Work on Open-Source Light Field Mapping and its MPEG4 Standardization.
Course Instructor: “COMP14-91: Introduction to Programming”
Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Prepared and taught a full-semester undergraduate summer course.
Internship on Photorealistic 3D Modeling
Visual Interactivity Group, Microprocessor Research Lab
Intel Corp., Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.
Started development of Light Field Mapping technology, an efficient representation for image-based models. My dissertation topic is partly based on the research started here.
Research Assistant
Office of the Future/Teleimmersion Project (under Dr. Henry Fuchs)
Department of Computer Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Research on Immersive Displays, Augmented Reality and Teleimmersion. I am the primary UNC-CH contributor to the “National Teleimmersion Initiative”, a joint effort by UNC-CH, Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, and Advanced Network Services. This work is featured in department recruit poster and “Scientific American”, among others.
Army Infantry (Obligatory Army Service), Taiwan
Research Assistant
Archi Group (under Dr. Feipei Lai)
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~ciao/resume-weichaochen.html

"Shader/Texture Architecutre Lead, Sony Playstation 3 Rendering Subsystem"


The above clearly indicates the RSX is VERY MUCH a custom solution. It would seem that the PS3 rendering Subsystem was custom built with this chaps involvement. If it was a standard implementation of the G70 feature than there would be no need to put this seperate highlight on his CV. Very interesting .. :shock:



"Next-generation GPU designs (project undisclosed)"

Doesn't it make you wonder if his work on RSX could have overlaped the undisclosed NextGen GPU design project ?


Have a look for yourself at his full CV & notice the extensive journals & patents he has in regards to "Light Field Mapping".

*EDIT added from post below to make this update more complete


Lucas Arts VP
Look, God bless anyone who shipped a title with the 360 launch and who's gearing up to do the same thing with the PlayStation 3. I mean, getting a game done is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse. It's incredibly tough.

So I think it's real easy for people to sit back and go, "Aw that was just a current-gen game, I'm not impressed." Well, you know. You want to try making it yourself?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6155491.html


Archy

[nick²]

I think you are looking too far into things..

[jinxk]

I think you are looking too far into things..

isn't that what speculation is all about? ^_^

everyone on this thread knows that everything on here is, or should be, speculation. none of these are real facts, we're just here trying to fill up the time from now until release with whatever makes us happy.

which happens to include speculating on what the RSX really is.

[GunTeng]

But the point is ( and as it was the point of the thread in the 1st place) ...its very possible.
And I think that is the issue everyone seems to have been voicing their opinions on.:)

[PlaystationArt]

Sony has a lot to do at TGS, if they want to sell that system the way the wanted to.

[PlaystationArt]

If I were you, I would stop while I was ahead. You are finding out to much information on this GPU, dont cause yourself a migrane. Just let Sony tell you in September.

[Guilty Bystander]

Some alternate fuel because I've been thinking about RSX and it's ability to do 384Flops per clock.
A GeForce 6800 does 384Flops per clock.
What if RSX is a GeForce 6800 in terms of RAW power with 24 Texture units and Pixel Shaders like the GeForce 7800/7900.
So basicly a GeForce 6800 with 24 Texture units and Pixel Shaders but with 6 Vertex Shaders.

All signs seem to point in this direction.

It could also be a unified shader architecture with 48 Shader ALU's each with 8 instructions as this also comes to 384Flops per clock and with 24 Texture units.

[archy141]

Interesting read - especially about the hardware still eveloving.
Could this be pointing to things like changes to RSX as whole or maybe partial tweaks such as memory & cache upgrades ?


Lucas Arts VP
Look, God bless anyone who shipped a title with the 360 launch and who's gearing up to do the same thing with the PlayStation 3. I mean, getting a game done is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse. It's incredibly tough.

So I think it's real easy for people to sit back and go, "Aw that was just a current-gen game, I'm not impressed." Well, you know. You want to try making it yourself?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6155491.html

[Guilty Bystander]

Interesting read - especially about the hardware still eveloving.
Could this be pointing to things like changes to RSX as whole or maybe partial tweaks such as memory & cache upgrades ?


Pfff.... man do you really think nVidia is really making a new GPU in 3 months?
RSX has been completed for over 6 months it was just clockspeeds that weren't running to final spec.

[mrboo]

Interesting read - especially about the hardware still eveloving.
Could this be pointing to things like changes to RSX as whole or maybe partial tweaks such as memory & cache upgrades ?


Pfff.... man do you really think nVidia is really making a new GPU in 3 months?
RSX has been completed for over 6 months it was just clockspeeds that weren't running to final spec.

6 months ? are you sure? i know its complete but do you have a link to say it was completed that long ago?

[archy141]

Pfff.... man do you really think nVidia is really making a new GPU in 3 months?
RSX has been completed for over 6 months it was just clockspeeds that weren't running to final spec.

Come on.. whats wrong with you ??

Are you a PLEB ??

or you just up for flaming this thread continuously ? ?


I shouldn't have to explain this but.. obviously you are not able to reason facts on your own.

If Lucas Arts VP commented in an interview only yesterday - 9th August 2006:


"to finish a game is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse"

To me it clearly means the dev-kits have been changing to a large enough degree to have effect on completion dates for games. One of the only key components that we still don't have finalised spec's for is the RSX.
So i think it would be fair to summise that either the RSX as a whole or parts of it such as memory/Cache have been changed to a degree that will effect game completion schedules. One could also summise that the specs's of the RSX have decreased & this is the reasoning- but i belive this to be highly unlikely in light of the arguements already discussed in this thread.

Now where did I imply a brand NEW GPU created by Nvidia in last 3 months ?

It's just possible that the dev-kits were not final hardware as we or the developers are led to belive. Sony could hold back the final RSX even from developers if they wanted to till very late. It would assure them the marketing propaganda they would want for PS3 launch.



6 months ? are you sure? i know its complete but do you have a link to say it was completed that long ago?

Looks like your sidekick 'bullet' has turned up too..



Archy

[Guilty Bystander]

"to finish a game done is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse"


What makes you think he's talking about RSX in the first place he might aswell be talking about Cell's continuous changing clockspeeds.
Or Blue-Rays slow development process.
If he's talking RSX he will mean the changing clockspeeds in the devkits just like with Cell.

The RSX architecture was finished in January of this year.

[WelshBluebird]

"to finish a game done is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse"


What makes you think he's talking about RSX in the first place he might aswell be talking about Cell's continuous changing clockspeeds.
Or Blue-Rays slow development process.
If he's talking RSX he will mean the changing clockspeeds in the devkits just like with Cell.

The RSX architecture was finished in January of this year.
"continuous changing clockspeeds"??
The cell has only ever had one clockspeed - 3.2Ghz. So thats a non issue

[archy141]

"to finish a game done is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse"


What makes you think he's talking about RSX in the first place he might aswell be talking about Cell's continuous changing clockspeeds.
Or Blue-Rays slow development process.
If he's talking RSX he will mean the changing clockspeeds in the devkits just like with Cell.

The RSX architecture was finished in January of this year.


-Cell has always been confirmed 3.2G from the start to date
-Blu-Ray has always been confirmed x2 drive from the start to date

Only thing that seems to have gone miss is the RSX spec's.
Cell or BluRay drive specs have not been changing - stop using lies to create an argument.

This thread is NOT arguing when the RSX was completed. We are speculating what the final RSX might be like.

Unlike everyone else you still don't get it - PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS THREAD IS BASED ON SPECULATIONS.

If you can't grasp that than please do us all a favour & stop reading & posting in this thread.


Archy.

[The_One]

"continuous changing clockspeeds"??
The cell has only ever had one clockspeed - 3.2Ghz. So thats a non issue That's not completely true. The beta dev kits had a CELL with lower clock speed and it didn't even have the RSX in it. That guy in the interview was probably implying that the dev kits were constantly changing; saying anything otherwise would most likely be an infringement of NDA.

[MikeAaronB]

"continuous changing clockspeeds"??
The cell has only ever had one clockspeed - 3.2Ghz. So thats a non issueThe beta dev kits had a CELL with lower clock speed and it didn't even have the RSX in it.

Hm, they didn't have a RSX in them. That gives me the impression that they were changing the RSX, and therefore couldn't put it in the Developer kits.

[Col. Peck3r]

Is there a reason there is 18 pages of pointless speculation here? We can all keep guessing, but I thinkall these threads (speculative) need to be closed, with a notice saying "Hey, just stfu and wait 2 months"...

[MikeAaronB]

Is there a reason there is 18 pages of pointless speculation here? We can all keep guessing, but I thinkall these threads (speculative) need to be closed, with a notice saying "Hey, just stfu and wait 2 months"...

Amen. You're preaching to the Choir, man.

[Guilty Bystander]

-Cell has always been confirmed 3.2G from the start to date
-Blu-Ray has always been confirmed x2 drive from the start to date



Cell's clockspeeds in devkits still haven't reached 3,2GHz.
This would give developers problems like these:



"to finish a game done is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse"




Only thing that seems to have gone miss is the RSX spec's.


Has it ever crossed your mind Sony hasn't talked big on RSX because there maybe isn't anything to talk big about.



Cell or BluRay drive specs have not been changing - stop using lies to create an argument.


What lies am I using exactly?
I have never said Blue-Ray or Cell's specs have changed maybe you should read someones post carefully before posting nonsense.



This thread is NOT arguing when the RSX was completed. We are speculating what the final RSX might be like.


Everyone here is speculating because no one here knows the RSX specs.
Just because I'm speculating on RSX with facts we already know and I'm going loony tunes on specs like you doesn't mean I'm not speculating.



Unlike everyone else you still don't get it - PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS THREAD IS BASED ON SPECULATIONS.

If you can't grasp that than please do us all a favour & stop reading & posting in this thread.


Archy.


Maybe you don't understand people can speculate in different ways.
I sure as hell don't like your tone and think that if you can't take on criticism from other forum users and only want your own nagg to be rule you shouldn't post on a public forum.
People have their own opinions and you should respect them for what they are like myself and plenty of other forum users here do.
Besides I'm pretty sure you can't judge on my posts for other forum users.

[MikeAaronB]

They are not using lies to justify arguments. It's called SPECULATION people!

[The_One]

"continuous changing clockspeeds"??
The cell has only ever had one clockspeed - 3.2Ghz. So thats a non issueThe beta dev kits had a CELL with lower clock speed and it didn't even have the RSX in it.

Hm, they didn't have a RSX in them. That gives me the impression that they were changing the RSX, and therefore couldn't put it in the Developer kits. No... When the beta kits where shipped, the RSX simply wasn't tapped out yet. That does not mean that the RSX was being "changed" for the better--or worse.

[Hezz]

I personally think that the RSX had an initial final spec that Sony thought was good enough for the PS3 but when they found out that the Xbox360 GPU was very strong and they knew the PS3 would be more expensive they decided to enhance it somewhat. Also, I remember the dev who said the dev kit was fill rate bound. But that was a time when they would not have had an RSX dev kit.

So this dev probably had a 6800SLI or a 7800 SLI dev kit and with that they were fill rate bound. However, it may have been the hacked CPU to GPU bus that was the problem and not the GPU's at all. I do not remember if they stated they thought the GPU bus was the problem or it was the GPU's

I still think that there is some intellectual property protection going on with Nvidia regarding the RSX. Both Sony and Nvidia may have a dual binding agreement not to release anything on this GPU until a certain time.

I still stand by my speculation that what they have done is taken a G71 technology era GPU and and subdivided the pipelines into multi cores that can talk to each other via the flex I/O bus. And added a high end audio codec into the mix. My speculation is what they have done is turned a 7900 into a streaming processor with cell like properties.

[MikeAaronB]

"continuous changing clockspeeds"??
The cell has only ever had one clockspeed - 3.2Ghz. So thats a non issueThe beta dev kits had a CELL with lower clock speed and it didn't even have the RSX in it.

Hm, they didn't have a RSX in them. That gives me the impression that they were changing the RSX, and therefore couldn't put it in the Developer kits. No... When the beta kits where shipped, the RSX simply wasn't tapped out yet. That does not mean that the RSX was being "changed" for the better--or worse.

Meh, oh well. The RSX is fine the way it is anyway.

[spoiler:21288cbdb2]I don't like my theories being shot down :lol: [/spoiler:21288cbdb2]

[archy141]

@Guilty Bystander


-Cell has always been confirmed 3.2G from the start to date
-Blu-Ray has always been confirmed x2 drive from the start to date

Only thing that seems to have gone miss is the RSX spec's.

Sorry - a misunderstanding. I was referring the spec's of final hardware as laid down by Sony not having changed, where as you was referring to the spec's of the dev kits which have been changing along the way.

I acknowledge the fact that the RSX could be as spec'd or even have less clock speed than what was spec'd at E3 2005 -rumours suggesting bad yields. But this thread was created to speculate whether the RSX was more than we were all led to belive thats why i have always put efforts in that direction. I have searched hard for what little evidence & reasoning that is out there to present the case well as i could. Its not about trying to speculate if the RSX is same or less than it was spec'd.

I find that it is only you & 'mr boo's' postings that continuously try to derail the thread rather than discussing what the thread is about. You tend to blast everything I write without any given reasoning or valid arguements.

You are welcome to give solid reasons against what THE THREAD topic speculates. I have not been rude to anyone or prohibited there opinions in anyway. I would love to hear everyones ideas in regards to the thread topic & reasoning's put forward.

Just to make it clear to other readers, this type of bad exchange has occured few times through this thread but it has always involved the same two other parties. @Guilty Bystander has already served a warning for his behaviour towards others in this thread. I apologise to all the readers that come to read this thread for genuine reasons of interest & maybe even fun to pass time whilst we wait for the final hardware.




I still stand by my speculation that what they have done is taken a G71 technology era GPU and and subdivided the pipelines into multi cores that can talk to each other via the flex I/O bus. And added a high end audio codec into the mix. My speculation is what they have done is turned a 7900 into a streaming processor with cell like properties.

Interesting posting. So are you speculating RSX is like that block diagram presented earlier in this thread with multiple 'Synergetic Media Elements' ?


Archy

[Redrider]

@Guilty Bystander


-Cell has always been confirmed 3.2G from the start to date
-Blu-Ray has always been confirmed x2 drive from the start to date

Only thing that seems to have gone miss is the RSX spec's.

Sorry - a misunderstanding. I was referring the spec's of final hardware as laid down by Sony not having changed, where as you was referring to the spec's of the dev kits which have been changing along the way.

I acknowledge the fact that the RSX could be as spec'd or even have less clock speed than what was spec'd at E3 2005 -rumours suggesting bad yields. But this thread was created to speculate whether the RSX was more than we were all led to belive thats why i have always put efforts in that direction. I have searched hard for what little evidence & reasoning that is out there to present the case well as i could. Its not about trying to speculate if the RSX is same or less than it was spec'd.

I find that it is only you & 'mr boo's' postings that continuously try to derail the thread rather than discussing what the thread is about. You tend to blast everything I write without any given reasoning or valid arguements.

You are welcome to give solid reasons against what THE THREAD topic speculates. I have not been rude to anyone or prohibited there opinions in anyway. I would love to hear everyones ideas in regards to the thread topic & reasoning's put forward.

Just to make it clear to other readers, this type of bad exchange has occured few times through this thread but it has always involved the same two other parties. @Guilty Bystander has already served a warning for his behaviour towards others in this thread. I apologise to all the readers that come to read this thread for genuine reasons of interest & maybe even fun to pass time whilst we wait for the final hardware.




I still stand by my speculation that what they have done is taken a G71 technology era GPU and and subdivided the pipelines into multi cores that can talk to each other via the flex I/O bus. And added a high end audio codec into the mix. My speculation is what they have done is turned a 7900 into a streaming processor with cell like properties.

Interesting posting. So are you speculating RSX is like that block diagram presented earlier in this thread with multiple 'Synergetic Media Elements' ?


Archyarchy141: I took a few days off on this thread, but I like some of the new speculation posted since then (good reading). My view is still unchanged:

1). G80 not likely, but you can't say no yet.

2). G7?.? possible (custom configuration).

3). G70: Many in this thread are not taking into account flex I/O connectivity. :wink:

Sony / Nvidia DNA:

1).They have made some spec changes that they want to announce later.

2). They have not made any spec changes and it could be perceived as “weak”.

[archy141]

archy141: I took a few days off on this thread, but I like some of the new speculation posted since then (good reading). My view is still unchanged:

1). G80 not likely, but you can't say no yet.

2). G7?.? possible (custom configuration).

3). G70: Many in this thread are not taking into account flex I/O connectivity. :wink:


Thanks & good to see you visit back.

I just like to throw something at you in case you missed it earlier in the thread:



"The other thing we heard is that the G80 is going to be mostly G70/G71 with DirectX 10.0 stapled on. Meaning, that since the architecture is basically G70, it has not been built from the ground up, keeping DX10 in mind."


http://www.cooltechzone.com/Departme..._200604092276

So it could be possible that we view the G80 as a G7x GPU with bells & whistles attached. The G80 seems to be a large sized GPU but a custom PS3 solution would not have to be big as the GPU for the PC market.

Would also be a great dual marketing opportunity for Nvidia/Sony as they both are coincidentally looking to come out about same time.

*EDIT would like to add G80 has one key feature that would REALLY benifit PS3's console architecture: Hardware 4D Texture mapping which is very useful for reflectance in games & more importantly reduces texture memory footprint.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=3&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Papakipos&OS=Papakipos


Archy

[Guilty Bystander]

I find that it is only you & 'mr boo's' postings that continuously try to derail the thread rather than discussing what the thread is about. You tend to blast everything I write without any given reasoning or valid arguements.


So wait a minute here facts can't be seen as reasoning or a valid argument but making things up based on nothing is?
The world upside down anyone?



You are welcome to give solid reasons against what THE THREAD topic speculates. I have not been rude to anyone or prohibited there opinions in anyway. I would love to hear everyones ideas in regards to the thread topic & reasoning's put forward.


Calling people names IMO is being rude but what the...



Just to make it clear to other readers, this type of bad exchange has occured few times through this thread but it has always involved the same two other parties. @Guilty Bystander has already served a warning for his behaviour towards others in this thread. I apologise to all the readers that come to read this thread for genuine reasons of interest & maybe even fun to pass time whilst we wait for the final hardware


Just to make it clear to you do some reading up before running your mouth because Ebony got warned not me.
You don't even know your own thread well that's hilarious.

[Deldwen]

wtf 18 pgs shut up already u techy hippy- ppl :lol: u know with the glasses

RSX...
is it good?

how good?
i no little to noting about RSX but this word that may ring in ur head. *TRANSITORS*

[Lefein]

This is ridiculous. The RSX is the same spec as last year, or slightly decreased for yield reasons. It is NOT a G80. It's based on the NV47, which is a G70.

7900 is also NV47.. Just in case you were wondering..
Yes but all the 7900 is over the 7800 series is increased memory and core clockspeeds and a shrunk die to 90nm.

It's the 90nm part that has me the most intrigued.

But, in all honesty, I predict the RSX will be made out of dirty socks from sweat shops in Cambodia.

[GunTeng]

WTF? People seem to be getting offended by a harmless thread?

Grow up people & use that intelligence I see much of in these forums. If you are sick & tired of the thread, then don't read or post in it.

I have actually learned a couple of things from this thread & I also found it very interesting to read even though my participation was minimal.

STFU & wait 2 months? How about you just pass on by without comment. ;)

For any admin thinking of closing this thread...please think twice. Only when the discussion dies out in a thread like this, should it be closed.
Thanx.:)

[Kaako]

WTF? People seem to be getting offended by a harmless thread?

Grow up people & use that intelligence I see much of in these forums. If you are sick & tired of the thread, then don't read or post in it.

I have actually learned a couple of things from this thread & I also found it very interesting to read even though my participation was minimal.

STFU & wait 2 months? How about you just pass on by without comment. ;)

For any admin thinking of closing this thread...please think twice. Only when the discussion dies out in a thread like this, should it be closed.
Thanx.:)

I agree 100%...please do not close this thread, because its freaking awsome. I love all this speculation going on and I also have learned more than a couple of things from reading this thread. Keep it up guys... :D

[Hezz]

OK, I am going out on a limb with this speculation and I'm sure that some will strongly disagree but here goes.

I don't know if I think that block diagram is exactly how it is but it sure is a good idea. And I think it originated from some hardware engineers in Taiwain or something that were speculating on how a GPU might be designed to work with and like the cell.

But from what I understand from rumors I've heard on the net combined with speculations on the patients that were filed by Sony and Nvidia. Sony originally wanted to use two cell's in the PS3 to reduce costs and because the cell was very good at certain types of graphics. Like drawing geometry. But one thing that Sony realized is that as good as the cell was it couldn't perform high level realism as fast as pixel shaders could and that pixel shaders would be necessary or they would not be able to compete with PC or Xbox graphic quality.

Now in my opinion the RSX technology is meant to be more than just a GPU for the PS3. It is meant to be a forerunner for what Sony and Nvidia are trying to do in bringing real time ray tracing to the PC or PC like components. This is motivated as much by the motion picture market as the gaming market. In fact, down the road a few years it is expected that these two media sources will be so closely tied that movies will borrow huge amounts of technology from gaming and gaming engines.

How about a game in the future with real movie cut scenes from a real movie and then game play that is nearly indistinguishable from the movie in terms of physics and graphic rendering of the characters.

If you think about the performance abilities of modern GPU's they are simply amazing. But they are also not very flexible. So Sony realizes that Nvidia and ATI have the most GPU knowledge and the best GPU technology and the best shaders.

They choose Nvidia for various reasons. Perhaps because Nvidia also has had good high quality audio experience. And Nvidia is interested in bringing photo realism and real time ray traced quality graphics to the PC.

So if we look at the current high end GPU's they can push pixels like crazy. In fact they are so fast now that for standard HD they don't really need a lot of more pixel pushing power. What they need is increased flexibility and programability without any speed loss.

Now this is my idea following the cell's basic idea of a streaming multicore processor.

Many of the GPU hardware guru's have stated that the pipelines are really kind of like cores. So current GPU's are really kind of multi-core already but not in an absolute sense. The big weakness of pipelines is that once you sent something down it it can't interact with anything in another pipe. So advanced interactivity is not served. And programming flexibility is nearly non existent.

Now, say you were to rework a pipeline or small group of piplines into a small sub core with some communication logic and fast I/O and some small amount of dedicated local memory like the SPE's on the cell. And each core can talk to the others and to main GPU memory. You could program various pipes to do very specific and rather complex actions and stream the results of say half of the pipes to the inputs of the other half for some very complex renderings at incredible speed. You could do a lot more than you could with just textures. And of course, they could behave like standard pipelines also. Most likely if such an architecture was initiated a few pipes would be grouped together to reduce the number of cores down to a more managable number.

That in my opinion is the step towards real time ray tracing. And is my grand speculation however misinformed I may be.

[The /)octo/2]

I've got a conspiracy theory for you. :wink:
I think they secretly scrapped RSX and went with 3 Cell chips.
:lol:

[Guilty Bystander]

I'm hoping for more VRAM and 4x Blu-Ray as the big anouncement.

[bahomet]

As hezz said, i also think that the RSX is none from the options in the vote. Remember all those incredible target renders at E3 2005? How come all of those companyes set so high target renders? They couldn't have reached that even with a G80, right? I think the RSX is really something very CELL like and the problem now is companyes found the problem developing with so many cores in mind. It's very little left 'till TGS, hope they finaly tell us what the RSX is.

[archy141]

..
Now this is my idea following the cell's basic idea of a streaming multicore processor.

Many of the GPU hardware guru's have stated that the pipelines are really kind of like cores. So current GPU's are really kind of multi-core already but not in an absolute sense. The big weakness of pipelines is that once you sent something down it it can't interact with anything in another pipe. So advanced interactivity is not served. And programming flexibility is nearly non existent.

Now, say you were to rework a pipeline or small group of piplines into a small sub core with some communication logic and fast I/O and some small amount of dedicated local memory like the SPE's on the cell. And each core can talk to the others and to main GPU memory. You could program various pipes to do very specific and rather complex actions and stream the results of say half of the pipes to the inputs of the other half for some very complex renderings at incredible speed. You could do a lot more than you could with just textures. And of course, they could behave like standard pipelines also. Most likely if such an architecture was initiated a few pipes would be grouped together to reduce the number of cores down to a more managable number.

That in my opinion is the step towards real time ray tracing. And is my grand speculation however misinformed I may be.


Good stuff ! Sounds like a great idea.

It certainly fits in with my thinking that RSX has to be more than we have been led to belive & it will be a nextgen component like all other PS3 bits.
I only specualted at G80 as it has the latest nextgen technology that Nvidia could have shared with Sony. Also easier for me to speculate on than how a NV47 might have been tweaked & modified to create the RSX. Best i can think of it is a modified NV47 core that has technology elements borrowed from G80 design.

What you say is a lot more radical like the Cell design & there is nothing to say it couldn't happen. Also the Nvidia boffin's CV i posted earlier possibly indicates some very custom work was done on the GPU in the area of rendering.


Shader/Texture Architecutre Lead, Sony Playstation 3 Rendering Subsystem

Do you have any links to patents ? & also any chance you could draw a diagram for your idea ? That would be really useful to many readers to better visualise what you are saying.


Thanks


Archy

[EvilEyez]

First of all: nice thread archy, it certainly got my attention since like you im also very curious about why the GPU of the PS3 hasn't been mentioned at all lately. Although i also consider the possibilty that the GPU aint all that much next-gen and therefore nothing is mentioned about it, on the other hand i cannot imagine that sony would include a rather 'crappy' GPU compared to the other compnents inside the PS3.

To add another possible nvidia card that is derived/based on the RSX:
couldn't it be that the RSX is something like the XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX Edition?

I found a review on this card here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/xfx-7600gt-xxx_2.html

why do i think this card is related to the RSX:
-It also uses a 128-bit interface to GDDR3 memory
-The clock frequency is said to be 560MHz (almost 550)
-It has a G73 core (which adds up to the theory of a hybrid G70/G80 core)
-It has only 177 million transisitors (which leaves room for more additional transistors needed for other RSX-specicifc features)
-The memory bandwith for this card is approx. 22.4 GB/S, the same RSX would have

funny extract:

A curious fact, the GeForce 7600 GT is declared to have 12 pixel processors, but RivaTuner reports there are 16 of them in the G73, but one quad is disabled on the hardware level.

<picture of rivatuner results>

As you see, Pixel Unit 2 is disabled, i.e. only 12 out of the 16 pixel shader processors are active. We are not sure if the extra pixel processors are an error of the program, or a means to increase the chip yield by increasing the number of execution subunits, or a strategic reserve against future opponents

^^or maybe the other four are only enabled for the RSX inside the ps3, but simply disabled in cheaper cards b/c removing them would require a different manufacturing process

another extract:


The G73’s memory interface is 128 bits wide, so four GDDR3 chips from Samsung (K4J52324QC, 16Mx32 organization) are used to provide 256 megabytes of graphics memory. With only four memory chips on board, the wiring of the PCB is made much simpler and, accordingly, cheaper. The BC14-suffixed chips have an access time of 1.4 nanoseconds and can work at frequencies up to 700 (1400) MHz. This is the standard memory frequency for the GeForce 7600 GT, but the memory of the XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX Edition is pre-overclocked by the manufacturer to 800 (1600) MHz.

So, the peak memory bandwidth of this graphics card is 25.6GB/s as opposed to the standard GeForce 7600 GT’s 22.4GB/s, which is, however, still lower than the Radeon X1800 GTO’s 32GB/s. Note that the memory chip work at a higher frequency than they are rated for, so it is possible XFX had ensured its stability by increasing its voltage.

The G73 chip installed on our sample of the XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX Edition is revision A2 and was manufactured at the beginning of 2006

^^ more indications of this card being RSX-related, if the G73 was manufactured at the beginning of 2006 this could be in time to make it to the PS3

Anyway, just my 2 cents, although i understand quite alot about computers and hardware in general, im quite a noob when it comes to GPU design and videogame console hardware, so please correct me if this post makes no sense at all :)

[nickworks]

Not sure, is the RSX capable of rendering AA with HDR? If not, so it has to be a modified GPU. Be aware of the timespan of the PS3 or we won´t have HDR with AA in the next 6-10 years!

[archy141]

@EvilEyez First of all welcome to the thread !
You make some valid points. The 7600 spec's certainly do fit with the original RSX spec's given E3 2005. But since than those spec's have disappeared & a number of developers have hinted that the RSX is like a 7900 & even 7900+. Accepting it is a 7600 is not so easy when you take into account the preconceived nextgen ideas that Sony sold for the PS3. Also the first wave of games look too demanding for such a GPU to handel especially when we know that developers are not in the position yet to leverage & take proper advantage of the Cell.

Maybe some design elements of the 7600 have been used in the RSX such as 128bit bus integration. Just a few posts back i pointed at a new version of the 7900 GPU (G73-B1) that also supports HDCP natively & its transistor count is close to RSX. Nvidia says over 300Mil transistors for RSX & 278Mil for G71 from which G73-B1 arises.

EDIT* Rather than commit to the 7600 idea i would like to think RSX is more of a 8600 GPU. An equivalent version to the 7600 but derived from the G80 technology with lower overheads e.g. lower transistor count (< full 500Mil).

I have also become quite interested in the idea put forward by Hezz. As it seems a regular GPU will never be good as radically designed & especially architected for for the PS3. A combination of a cheaper & more efficient 7600/8600 type GPU with special customisations to suite the PS3 might just fill the bill@EvilEyez First of all welcome to the thread !
You make some valid points. The 7600 spec's certainly do fit with the original RSX spec's given E3 2005. But since than those spec's have disappeared & a number of developers have hinted that the RSX is like a 7900 & even 7900+. Accepting it is a 7600 is not so easy when you take into account the preconceived nextgen ideas that Sony sold for the PS3. Also the first wave of games look too demanding for such a GPU to handle especially when we know that developers are not in the position yet to leverage & take proper advantage of the Cell.

Maybe some design elements of the 7600 have been used in the RSX such as 128bit bus integration. Just a few posts back i pointed at a new version of the 7900 GPU (G73-B1) that also supports HDCP natively & its transistor count is close to RSX. NVIDIA says over 300Mil transistors for RSX & 278Mil for G71 from which G73-B1 arises.

*POST EDIT*

Rather than commit to the 7600 idea I would like to think RSX is more of a 8600 GPU. An equivalent version to the 7600 but derived from the G80 technology with lower overheads e.g. lower transistor count (< full 500Mil).

I have also become quite interested in the idea put forward by Hezz. As it seems a regular GPU will never be good as radically designed & especially architected for the PS3. A combination of a cheaper & more efficient 7600/8600 type GPU with special customisations to suite the PS3 might just fill the bill. This would fit well with Sony's philosophy of nextgen components & match the exoticness of the Cell & Flexio. God its frustrating not knowing.


Archy. This would fit well with Sony's philosophy of nextgen components & match the exoticness of the Cell & Flexio. God its frustrating not knowing.


Archy

[keller]

Wow, I'm happy that archy141 created this thread relating to my post on another thread. I've been coming back 2-3 times a day to view, this thread is great. It's interesting what you all think on the subject.

[EvilEyez]

Well, i really hope that Sony has upgraded the RSX specs, it just seems unlikely that they will upgrade the RSX by a huge amount. Although devs have hinted at an upgrade, it seems unlikely that in a year time (since E3 2005) they (Sony/Nvidia) have managed to upgrade the RSX specs very much. I don't know how much time it normally costs to develop or upgrade a GPU, but i can imagine this is a process that normally takes more than one year.

Anyway, the article i mentioned also does several benchmark tests, and though the XFX 7600 GT XXX card cannot outperform a 7900GT, but in some cases it does come very close:


The GeForce 7600 GT enjoys a certain initial advantage over the Radeon X1800 GTO here because it supports UltraShadow II technology and can process up to 16 Z-values per clock cycle against the Radeon’s 12. Added to that, the engine of The Chronicles of Riddick uses the OpenGL API. As a result, even the standard GeForce 7600 GT goes abreast to the Radeon X1900 GT, a solution of a higher class, in the “pure speed” mode, while the XFX card is only second to the GeForce 7900 GT. The G73-based solutions make the resolution of 1600x1200 playable whereas the Radeon X1800 GTO provides a comfortable average frame rate only in resolutions no higher than 1280x1024.

To me the XFX 7600 GT XXX (not the default 7600 of course) does have quite some power under the hood, although it has only 12 active pixel shaders. Imagine the other 'hidden' 4 pixel processors (see my earlier post) being active on the RSX, wouldn't that boost its power to apprximately a 7900?

I could of course be wrong, but the article states several times that the main reason the XFX 7600 GT XXX falls behind with certain games is because the number of pixel processors is only 12 as opposed to the Ati cards. What if the RSX is the XFX 7600 GT, but with a custom instruction set and some more pixel/vertex shaders? wouldn't that compare to a 7900? If not, what would be the reason it would still fall behind?

This could all be possible since there are still some transistors left, the mentioned card only has 177 mil...

[nick²]

There are two types of speculation:

1) logical, rational speculation - where people speculate the most likely scenario

and

2) Crazy speculation - where people take excerpts out of context and use them to support wild and highly unlikely scenarios.

Crazy speculation is not what anyone wants to do...

That being said, I think its crazy speculation to say:

1) Those pre-rendered movies were made so high quality because the RSX is so massively powerful. Actually, its most likely done to hype the console. Pre-rendered movies hook all the stupid people who can't tell the difference, and think the real game looks like that. Same goes with game "art", or fake screenshot looking type pictures rendered well beyond the capability of any systems gameplay.

2) Those home made drawings with the RSX surrounded by SME's must indicate a suprise cell design. Once again, no. GPU's are already the equivalent of multithreaded processors. Their "extra cores" are actually called "pipelines", all working independantly and processing simultaneously.

3) The only way the RSX could possibly live up to what XXXXX at Sony said is if its built on G80 technology!. No. Which is more likely? Sony's hype is caused by the fact that the RSX is a super GPU based on technology that was never inteneded to be finished by now... Or that Sony is just playing up their product for marketing pruposes?

Lets look at the evidence to get a realistic picture of what it can and can't be.

If they haven't upgraded the memory bandwidth, they can't use too fast a GPU. It would be a waste of money for absolutely no gains. If it does max out around 30 GB/s mem bandwidth (in ideal conditions), a 7900 will get a bit starved at times.

Their original time tables were screwed up by the production of cell and blue ray. Otherwise, they would have released in Spring. It was supposed to be showcased in contrast to a 7800 GTX, which would have been inferior to it. However, it was delayed 8 months... but I don't think anyone should expect they redesigned anything because of this delay. The damned thing was finished (supposedly) in the Spring.

I think it would be safe to assume that the GPU itself will have G70 (not even G71 technology) in it, at a higher clock rate - due to the smaller fab process.

[EvilEyez]

@nick2 thats also assuming that Sony actually planned the release for spring 06. If this is indeed the case, then i think your theory is most likely.

However, if archy's hunch was right and they always intended a fall 06 release, then his scenario's and (wild) speculation definately could hold some truth

[uri voltme]

long time reader, first time poster....excellent read this is turning out to be....now was reading the ninja theory forums the other day and there is some guy on there endlessly begging the devs to tell him about the rsx which of course they wont because of the NDA's, however one of the devs said -the only thing i can tell you is that it kicks some serious butt- . I would have linked that quote but didnt have the time to search through 20 pages looking for it but its there for all to see. Now surely that would/could suggest that the specs for the original rsx (e3 2005) have changed as by all popular opinions the e3 2005 specced gpu at the time of the ps3's release would not be considered a serious butt kicking gpu???? more fuel to the fire.

[archy141]

To me the XFX 7600 GT XXX (not the default 7600 of course) does have quite some power under the hood, although it has only 12 active pixel shaders. Imagine the other 'hidden' 4 pixel processors (see my earlier post) being active on the RSX, wouldn't that boost its power to apprximately a 7900?

I could of course be wrong, but the article states several times that the main reason the XFX 7600 GT XXX falls behind with certain games is because the number of pixel processors is only 12 as opposed to the Ati cards. What if the RSX is the XFX 7600 GT, but with a custom instruction set and some more pixel/vertex shaders? wouldn't that compare to a 7900? If not, what would be the reason it would still fall behind?

This could all be possible since there are still some transistors left, the mentioned card only has 177 mil...

Well if the additional 4 pixel procesors were enabled maybe we would just end up with a fully fledged 7900 as they both share the same NV47 core.

The transistor count you have quoted is far short of the 300Mil that RSX is supposed to have -almost 50% less. It would seem fairly substantial amount of customisation would be required on top to bring up the count to the 300Mil count of RSX. Did you catch my edit of earlier post - 8600 GPU ? What you think of that possibility ?

Archy

[NOVAA]

Hey, I'm back, after I took a little while off from this thread.

Some of you here really don't want to admit that archy and the rest bring some very valid points to the table. You guys have to remember, it is just speculation, and no moderator would lock this thread for us speculating. Maybe were entirely wrong, and the PS3 will be EXACTLY as specced at E305. At this point, with the first generation titles the PS3 has shown, I really don't care either way.

I personally think that we are going to see a custom G80 core. You see, I still think that it will be dual core based, but I think it will be scaled down in some places and jacked in others. For example, if the Cell is so good at drawing vertices, why make the RSX good at it too? Why not drop most of the vertex processors, and add in a few more pixel shaders with the saved money? That would be a true custimization that would fit the system its in.

[nick²]

@nick2 thats also assuming that Sony actually planned the release for spring 06. If this is indeed the case, then i think your theory is most likely.

However, if archy's hunch was right and they always intended a fall 06 release, then his scenario's and (wild) speculation definately could hold some truth

So that would be saying they are intentionally lying about the release date, the specs of the RSX, and its abilities. None of this benefits them. I think, for the most part, they have been hyping the console so that they don't lose business to the 360. It is to their benefit to make the system sound as great as possible (true or not). I wouldn't really expect them to underplay such a major attribute, especially at a time where rumors of xenos' superiority are floating around.

Now I wouldn't be suprised at all if the RSX was clocked a little higher, have something similar to EDRAM, or something like that. However, they straight out said it was a G7x derivative. What would be the motivation of saying your part is vastly inferior compared to what it would be? Every company almost always does the opposite (and Sony is no exception)

[NOVAA]

So that would be saying they are intentionally lying about the release date, the specs of the RSX, and its abilities. None of this benefits them. I think, for the most part, they have been hyping the console so that they don't lose business to the 360. It is to their benefit to make the system sound as great as possible (true or not). I wouldn't really expect them to underplay such a major attribute, especially at a time where rumors of xenos' superiority are floating around.

It absolutely would benifit them. At E305, they needed to counteract the X360 so that their fanbase knows that PS3 is coming, and they hype it so that it seems it will completely desimate the 360. They show off some kick@$$ "Games" also to get the hype rolling. They continue to tinker with the hardware a bit more, and finalise it sometime around January 06. Developers get these final specs then, and between their PC's and development kits, start to really make their games. But at E306, people have realised that the "games" were just videos. Then they see the new playable games, which look like $hit do to their early development showings, and start to lose faith. But over the next few months, the games really start to look good, and then at TGS they drop the bomb about the RSX, which generates a titalwave of hype heading towards launch.

That is a likely scenario, and does benifit them alot. It explains everything that has taken place.

[nick²]

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one... Making it a suprise only means lost business.

You can damn well bet that a lot of people wouldn't be buying a 360 if they knew the PS3 was leagues ahead in graphical power. As it currently stands, with the E3 2005 specs, it really isn't much better GPU wise. Most people know that they a PS3 will cost more for games (all that multimedia garbage aside), and that the graphics won't be that different. Its a losing proposition.

[archy141]

@nick²


Which is more likely? Sony's hype is caused by the fact that the RSX is a super GPU based on technology that was never inteneded to be finished by now... Or that Sony is just playing up their product for marketing pruposes ?

I understand what you are saying about the speculations & it makes some sense.
But to be fair to Sony, I don't think they have been all hype & marketing bull as you imply. If I believed that than none of my speculation would have existed. They are partially extrapolated from my understanding of Sony’s behaviours to date.

If anything they have kept too tight lipped & we still are waiting for the PS3 marketing propaganda to start. Sure they used target render videos to illustrate something that couldn't on a hardware that didn't exist. If you look how well Motorstorm has improved & got close to the original rendered demo, its not hard to imagine that in time those render demos will become gaming reality on PS3.

Also to date I believe Sony have delivered on all fronts of PS3. They said they would deliver a truly nextgen console & all components of PS3 that we know of are nextgen.

-Cell
-Flexio
-BluRay
-HDMI 1.3
-XDRAM
-6 way Motion Controller (I know it was done years back before. but it is still progressive to include it now after such a gap)

The only thing missing is the RSX. Maybe it was never meant to be super GPU as it was to heavily leverage on the Cell. But I believe it was meant to be something special like all of the other components that fit the jigsaw to make the PS3 truly nextgen. It doesn’t have to be a G80 but something that has uniqueness to it like the other components.

Sony have also shown that they are prepared to counteract there competitors strengths. We have seen them introduce a motion sensing controller, free online gaming & community services & standardise HDD after weighing up the competition. Why wouldn’t they do the same when comparing there GPU to XBOX360’s?

If what you say is true about Sony delaying PS3 launch because of Blu-Ray being incomplete or something miniscule as HDMI connector than I can’t see them compromising on something major as a GPU. It doesn’t follow there behaviour pattern or makes sense. I personally don’t fall for the RSX was a last minute tack on from the PC shelf. It might well be a 7600 GPU but I would expect it to be specifically customised to make it streamlined & efficient for the PS3 Cell & Flexio architecture.

Instead of this scenario it could be that the PS3 was always comming out Fall06 as Sony had a strong enough hand in BluRay & HDMI to know pretty much when they would be readily available. Spring06 was presumed by the media & everyone else even before Sony spoke. So why not let people hold on to this belief & buy more time to ready the PS3. It would stall fans from going to XBOX360 by making them think PS3 was comming sooner than it was in reality. In this scenario the RSX could be completly different. It could than possibly be a derivative of the G80.. a smaller customised 8600 GPU equivalent of the 7600 G73 GPU.

[GunTeng]

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one... Making it a suprise only means lost business.

You can damn well bet that a lot of people wouldn't be buying a 360 if they knew the PS3 was leagues ahead in graphical power. As it currently stands, with the E3 2005 specs, it really isn't much better GPU wise. Most people know that they a PS3 will cost more for games (all that multimedia garbage aside), and that the graphics won't be that different. Its a losing proposition.

I don't think keeping it as a surprise would cost them anything in the long term.
The fact is, because so little is know about some crucial factors in the PS3, people will be keeping tabs on any info released or speculated at.
The one thng SONY has achieved very well to date with the PS3 is advertising. Advertising is drawing attention to a product & the fact that SONY has kept very quiet has kept attention on the PS3.

Also the fact that they advertise the hell out of CELL & say nothing about the RSX means nothing. CELL is their buisness venture & they stand to make quite a profit from it. The RSX is a one off, specifically re-designed/made for the PS3. It will not likely be used on anything else, so why the need to advertise it?

From my experience, those that will not buy a SONY product will refrain from doing so, reguardless of capabilities. Most XboX fans I know are avid SONY haters & most of them were Dreamcast fans.
Those that have an XboX360 already & were intending to buy a PS3 will still do so, unless the PS3 is woefully inferior to the 360 in gameing terms.

[NOVAA]

AH, Gunteng, your forgetting about those people who are on the fence between the two. There are alot of them, trust me.

[archy141]

One thing i have learnt from this thread is how marketing BUZZ works.

When i first created this thread there was lot of attention, excitement & buzz in the air & than half way down i saw it start to dwindle. It dwindled even though i was adding additional specualtions & evidence to support reasonings.
It was as if the life went out of the thread & some people were even asking for the thread to be closed. It didn't dwindle because the specualtions had been undone but because it was old news.

This taught me one thing. BUZZ DOES NOT LAST however great.

I expect Sony to understand this psychology & realise it would be pointless to release all fireworks too soon. There value will undoubtly depleat with time. If they had something special about the RSX it would make more sense to release the information close as possible to the release date. There are some very techy peple here that are absoutly great at adding up numbers etc but not so good when it come to applying the business sense to the equation.




Archy

[nick²]

Well, everything up until now has been speculation, because no one truly knows. Of course that won't preclude some people from being right and others from being wrong.

Personally, I think everyone should naturally believe the most probable scenario. Can everyone here say they think that a G80 is the most probable scenario? I don't think anyone could.. and that's really the point I am trying to make.

Could the RSX potentially be a G80? Sure, anything is technically possible... and while I don't think this is the most probable scenario, its certainly not in the outer space realm os possibilities. With that being said, I think there are better odds that the RSX would potentially be something completely different like Xenos... Maybe not in the unified shader way, but maybe in the EDRAM type way...

Still, I think the most likely scenario is that its just a briefly modified.

As I said, I do think a lot of people are indeed on the fence. People see the high price tag, and they hear of lackluster performance... This is not the time to keep quiet. A lead in consoles sold may irrevocably change the market... Every time, the brand that hit 10 million consoles sold FIRST, won market share.

The way it looks is that the 360 will definitely hit this mark first, and with the PS3's pricing.. its a big jump. In the end, I think market share will be split very close, with a small lead to Sony... but they could easily switch a lot of gamers with just some indication they will have a leading platform.... and no one really cares about the CPU, they want to know about the graphics.

[archy141]

The way it looks is that the 360 will definitely hit this mark first, and with the PS3's pricing.. its a big jump. In the end, I think market share will be split very close, with a small lead to Sony... but they could easily switch a lot of gamers with just some indication they will have a leading platform.... and no one really cares about the CPU, they want to know about the graphics.

I agree with you on this possibility & have discussed it earlier.

I believe Sony have only 2 strategy's but only one in reality to succeed in winning the market share:

1. Have major Exclusive on games. We know this is no longer the case with his generation as both consoles have unique exclusives & right now XBOX360 has the lead. XBOX360 might not scream all Nextgen but microsoft have been extremly shrewed & instead of throwing all money at the hardware they have thrown it at buying out EXCLUSIVES. Definately one winning formula.

2. Have major hardware advantage i.e Awesome graphics power over competitors. This will warrant people buying it purely on the knowledge it is SUPERIOR. We know all consumers love to have the BEST gadgets whatever it takes. We live in a fickle world.


Sony can only succeed using the second strategy else they will not have the market share anywhere like they had with PS2.
The mass consumer buyers are going to be buying a gaming console foremost. Combination of graphics & price will be a key deciding factor. If Sony cannot clearly differentiate its PS3 graphics capability over the XBOX360 than the price point will not be justified to the mass majority. Sony will remain behind XBOX360 pretty much all the way until the next XBOX360 comes out. The tide will have turned.

I'm no business strategist. But If I can see this i'm sure Sony have seen it too & long time back before me.

This is one of the KEY reasons why i feel RSX has to be more than we are thinking. Otherwise Sony already knows they are entering a battle that they will loose. They have had plenty of time to weigh up the competition & rectify matters like they did with the controller , HDD & Online services. If the RSX showed weaknesses i expect them to have dealt with them. Whether its simple matter of adding more ram, increasing GPU cache, increasing clock speeds or something bigger altogther like a new GPU.

I cannot accept that Sony will walk into the battle arena so ill prepared.
There behaviour pattern to me suggests they will not do this.
They still have one wild card to play - RSX.




Archy

[Scribe]

I don't think it will be the G80, however, may have a few custom nVidia features (just as in openGL you get some nVidia or ATI only extentions).

In the Untold Legends blog, the guy goes on a lot about just how well the SPEs can generate water in their game. This means the SPE is working like a vertex processor.

I think the CELL will do ALL the vertex processing (hense the high bw between the XDR and rsx). The extra space in the RSX could then be used for more pixel shaders.

I would like to see an extra 256mb memory in either the the XDR or GDDR. This is because there needs to be more room for textures for a 1080p output. I know it's odd to hope for it in XDR but it's possibly a better choise if there is enough turbo cache on the RSX.

This is because textures are BIG, and so provided you can cache enough at a time, the XDR will be fine for them, as although it has a slow response time, can move a LOT of data around (high bw). This would also take a lot of stress off the GDDR memory. Another big reason for me wanting this is, if the ps3 can apparently run linux, it's going to perform a lot better with 512mb of system memory, rather than 512mb of graphics memory.

Likely reasons it would be XDR are that many textures in modern games are procedural, and thus would be done by the cell.

[MikeAaronB]

I think that the Playstation 3 needs 512 Megabytes of Random Access Memory, because when 1080p is in it's prime, 256 MBs won't be enough, in my opinion.

[Jugix]

I'm hoping for more VRAM and 4x Blu-Ray as the big anouncement.

And if those happen, then I quarantee there is going to be third announcement after those two!






new PS3 price: 1400€ :lol:

[NOVAA]

I don't think it will be the G80, however, may have a few custom nVidia features (just as in openGL you get some nVidia or ATI only extentions).

In the Untold Legends blog, the guy goes on a lot about just how well the SPEs can generate water in their game. This means the SPE is working like a vertex processor.

I think the CELL will do ALL the vertex processing (hense the high bw between the XDR and rsx). The extra space in the RSX could then be used for more pixel shaders.

That has been a sneaking susicion of mine for a long time, and I did say something similar earlier. It would make sense, and produce some monster visuals.

[GunTeng]

AH, Gunteng, your forgetting about those people who are on the fence between the two. There are alot of them, trust me.

One thing you didn't know though.
Im also on the fence.;)
Im waiting for the PS3 to prove itself before I commit to buying it. Although as I said in another post ( oh so long ago:)), I am still slightly leaning towards the PS3 because of the games & controller.

As for Archy's marketing theory, I totally agree. Its what I wanted to say, but couldn't think on how to express the view ( I would only lose myself anyway..lol).

[Guilty Bystander]

Also to date I believe Sony have delivered on all fronts of PS3. They said they would deliver a truly nextgen console & all components of PS3 that we know of are nextgen.

-Cell (is next gen)
-Flexio (is just a bus not much faster than the Xenos to Xenon bus)
-BluRay (is next gen)
-HDMI 1.3 (is next gen but it has never been confirmed the PS3 has v1.3)
-XDRAM (is next gen but so are GDDR3/4)
-6 way Motion Controller (Microsoft FreeStyle controller anyone?)


-Cell (is next gen)
-Flexio (is just a bus not much faster than the Xenos to Xenon bus)
-BluRay (is next gen)
-HDMI 1.3 (is next gen but it has never been confirmed the PS3 has v1.3)
-XDRAM (is next gen but so are GDDR3/4)
-6 way Motion Controller (Microsoft FreeStyle controller anyone?)



The only thing missing is the RSX. Maybe it was never meant to be super GPU as it was to heavily leverage on the Cell. But I believe it was meant to be something special like all of the other components that fit the jigsaw to make the PS3 truly nextgen. It doesn’t have to be a G80 but something that has uniqueness to it like the other components.


Sony could have shown RSX for almost 9 months now as Microsoft can't do anything about it anymore.

I don't get that highlighted part are you implying the Xbox 360 isn't next gen?
Because if it isn't then why isn't the PS3 doing better graphics?

[Lefein]

Actually it has been confirmed that the PS3 will be the first consumer electronic device to feature HDMI 1.3. Its too bad google news search scraps results after a while. But yes, it will certainly have 1.3

[Shred0r]

i stumbled upon some interesting graphics technique called "HDRI" which seems to be the hot topic right now in the graphics world...

definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging

An now this:



HDRI, or High Dynamic Range Imagery, is the buzz in CG circles of late. c|net has a small article discussing HDRI and how it applies to photography, though if you read between the lines you’ll see how it can be good for video games as well.

The problem with most imagery is that the dynamic range is too low. You can’t have a photo that shows off nice details in the shadows, as well as nice details in the bright areas. You can only do one or the other. HDRI helps to solve that.

The only problem for us future PS3 gamers is that the RSX in the PS3 won’t support both HDRI and anti-aliasing at the same time, or so I’ve heard. We’ll have to see once the games start coming out.

http://www.ps3blog.net/2006/08/11/hdri-whats-the-fuss/
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=24849891
http://www.ps3blog.net/2006/06/26/ninja-theory-hdri-interview/

Although he is not quite sure what he has actually heard (lol) there is a bitter fact that may stay in relation with this probable "RSX wont do HDRI+AA"-issue:

NVIDIA's latest graphics incarnation, the 7950 GX2 apparently can NOT do "true HDR" & anti-aliasing in a simultaneous manner! What the latest ATI card, the X1950 XTX can! Now that's imho a real blow for NVIDIA, besides the shame that the X1950 XTX beats the 7950 GX2 in every benchmark without having a dual-gpu concept...guess the 1GHz GDDR4 helps out alot...



Our testing shows that the X1950XTX is significantly faster than NVIDIA's 7950GX2 at rather common enthusiast in-game setting. This is definitely very appealing for the gamers, especially when you factor in the ability of the card to run true HDR with Anti-Aliasing compared to the 7950GX2 which can't do that, and the fact that the X1950XTX offers dual display without compromising performance while the 7950GX2 has to sacrifice dual GPU performance for dual display.
Add the best performing and best looking default cooler found in the market and it really seems ATi has come up with quite a winner this time.
It is rather shocking however, to discover that the card actually draws more power than a multi-GPU 7950GX2. Other than that this card seems to have almost everything going for it, even though 3D Mark performance boost is not catching up to the 7950GX2 at 650MHz Core clock.
Now it's much of a question of the availability of the cards at launch, and this may be partly affected by the production quantity of the rather new GDDR4 Memory.
For gaming enthusiasts, if this card really retails at the USD$399 it is slated to, this is THE loveboat as you won't be able to get the performance for that price looking at any other card than this.
It seems that ATi has delivered quite an uppercut to NVIDIA with this!

http://www.ggmania.com/pics//06/aug/1950/1950.jpg

http://www.ggmania.com/#22073

SO, if NVIDIA isnt even able to make HDR + AA working simultaneously on their cards then i guess there is a reason to believe that the RSX might not be able to perform HDRI+AA at one time...

Let's hope all this speculation is wrong but seeing how NVIDIA is struggling with the HDR+AA issue is see not much hope for a HDRI+AA compatible RSX...
BUT please, NVIDIA, at least make the RSX handle true HDR+AA flawlessly !!!!!!!!!!

[Ricokillercon]

But so far alot of ps3 games have been using both HDRI and AA....

[The_One]

But so far alot of ps3 games have been using both HDRI and AA.... Uh-huh. Name some. The only game that I can think of off the top of my head that's using HDR is Heavenly Sword, and even then, it's not using true HDR, it's using a less memory intensive nAo 32 algorithm that takes 3 bytes of info per pixel instead of 4 bytes for normal FP16 HDR.

I'm actually pretty sure Warhawk is also using it--to a much smaller extent, but I can't be certain about that.

Either way, I don't think 2 games qualifies for "a lot" ;).

[Jugix]

Sony PS3 will be the first device to utilise newly-approved HDMI 1.3 (http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=3735)

[The_One]

Sony PS3 will be the first device to utilise newly-approved HDMI 1.3 (http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=3735) Yes, we already know that... Your point is?

[jlippone]

NVIDIA's latest graphics incarnation, the 7950 GX2 apparently can NOT do "true HDR" & anti-aliasing in a simultaneous manner! What the latest ATI card, the X1950 XTX can! Now that's imho a real blow for NVIDIA, besides the shame that the X1950 XTX beats the 7950 GX2 in every benchmark without having a dual-gpu concept...guess the 1GHz GDDR4 helps out alot...
FP16 cannot be used on any NV40-G70 based boards with MSAA, FP16 is no more tru-HRD than any other way to store your data.
If FP16 is the 'only' way, I'm pretty sure FP10 wouldn't fit the bill, and still we see lot of the people saying this game has 'HDR and AA' when game is using it.

FP16 is just a method of how image is stored during high dynamic range rendering, it's not what defines HDR.
NAO32 stores the image in different fashion in CIE colorspace, but it still keeps dynamic range similar to FP16 and consumes less memory.
Each time pixel is read from NAO32, it is converted to RBG colorspace and all calculations are done in same way as they would be in FP16 or FP32. When its time to write back to NAO32 it is converted from RGB to NAO32.



But so far alot of ps3 games have been using both HDRI and AA.... Uh-huh. Name some. The only game that I can think of off the top of my head that's using HDR is Heavenly Sword, and even then, it's not using true HDR, it's using a less memory intensive nAo 32 algorithm that takes 3 bytes of info per pixel instead of 4 bytes for normal FP16 HDR.
NAO32 version used in HS is the 4byte version, 8C,8I,16E.
He has tested the 'low' 3byte version, but apparently they won't use it in any scene becouse of lowered precision.
FP16 in RGBA mode is 8bytes.

[archy141]

Sony PS3 will be the first device to utilise newly-approved HDMI 1.3 (http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=3735) Yes, we already know that... Your point is?

His point is Guilty Bystander as always is trying to derail the THREAD !
The guy is a nuisance.


-Flexio (is just a bus not much faster than the Xenos to Xenon bus)
-HDMI 1.3 (is next gen but it has never been confirmed the PS3 has v1.3)
-XDRAM (is next gen but so are GDDR3/4)
-6 way Motion Controller (Microsoft FreeStyle controller anyone?)

Why in the hell is rubbishing everything i write & making Versus comparisons to Microsoft ?!! !!

I have wasted enough time entertaining this Pleb & i will no longer respond directly to him.

I wish i could kick him off the thread so that members with genuine interest in the thread do not have to put up with his misdemeanours.


Archy

[NOVAA]

Shredor, your forgetting one thing when you speak of HDR+AA on Nvidia chips. Even if the RSX is just a G71 based core and cannot perform both at the same time, the Cell can also perform Anti-Analysing on one of its SPE's, so that should not be a problem if it really comes down to it. And I'm pretty sure that if the developers wanted to write the code for it, they could do HDR on an SPE too.

You people need to remember to factor the cell into all your idea's before you come to conclusions about the RSX's graphical capabilities, as it will have a huge impact on the end product.

[Scribe]

Provided you don't use the OpenEXR method of HDR with AA then true HDR + AA are happily possible.

[The_One]

But so far alot of ps3 games have been using both HDRI and AA.... Uh-huh. Name some. The only game that I can think of off the top of my head that's using HDR is Heavenly Sword, and even then, it's not using true HDR, it's using a less memory intensive nAo 32 algorithm that takes 3 bytes of info per pixel instead of 4 bytes for normal FP16 HDR.
NAO32 version used in HS is the 4byte version, 8C,8I,16E.
He has tested the 'low' 3byte version, but apparently they won't use it in any scene becouse of lowered precision.
FP16 in RGBA mode is 8bytes. Ah, okay. My mistake ;). The 3byte version was called nAo 24, was it not? I guess I got them a bit confused.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Shredor, your forgetting one thing when you speak of HDR+AA on Nvidia chips. Even if the RSX is just a G71 based core and cannot perform both at the same time, the Cell can also perform Anti-Analysing on one of its SPE's, so that should not be a problem if it really comes down to it. And I'm pretty sure that if the developers wanted to write the code for it, they could do HDR on an SPE too.

You people need to remember to factor the cell into all your idea's before you come to conclusions about the RSX's graphical capabilities, as it will have a huge impact on the end product.

Indeed.

I've been reading these posts lately about how good or poorly the RSX is going to perform (speculation thereof in anycase) and with only a few exceptions, they almost never mention the fact that the CELL and RSX work together to render graphics. Whatever horsepower of the CELL that isn't dedicated to physics and AI and sound, will in all likelyhood be used to implement AA and other tasks to free up the RSX to do what it does best...

You simply can't take only the RSX into consideration when comparing it to other GPU's. It rolls with a posse of an SPE and 7 of his little brothers.

[jlippone]

But so far alot of ps3 games have been using both HDRI and AA.... Uh-huh. Name some. The only game that I can think of off the top of my head that's using HDR is Heavenly Sword, and even then, it's not using true HDR, it's using a less memory intensive nAo 32 algorithm that takes 3 bytes of info per pixel instead of 4 bytes for normal FP16 HDR.
NAO32 version used in HS is the 4byte version, 8C,8I,16E.
He has tested the 'low' 3byte version, but apparently they won't use it in any scene becouse of lowered precision.
FP16 in RGBA mode is 8bytes. Ah, okay. My mistake ;). The 3byte version was called nAo 24, was it not? I guess I got them a bit confused.
I had already forgotten the naming of that one, but yes it was called nAo24. :D

[archy141]

Let's hope all this speculation is wrong but seeing how NVIDIA is struggling with the HDR+AA issue is see not much hope for a HDRI+AA compatible RSX...
BUT please, NVIDIA, at least make the RSX handle true HDR+AA flawlessly !!!!!!!!!!


For all concerned by Shred0r's quote from the Blogger, I have an answer from a highly very talented Dev in the know..


You're a little confused. First of all, HDR and HDRI are not two different things. Second of all, What RSX cannot do is FP32 HDR framebuffer + MSAA. It can still use SSAA all the same, and the biggest reason for that, IIRC, is simply that nVidia hardware doesn't like 32-bit floats and instead prefers 16-bit halfs (which I personally despise, but I don't mind it for a framebuffer format).

Heavenly Sword is an example where people are cheating the hardware with their own HDR format. I'm not really sure what Warhawk is doing, but my first guess would be that they're using FP16, which is still fine for MSAA, I believe.


I hope that removes everyones concerns in the particular RSX feature.



Archy

[NOVAA]

Indeed.

I've been reading these posts lately about how good or poorly the RSX is going to perform (speculation thereof in anycase) and with only a few exceptions, they almost never mention the fact that the CELL and RSX work together to render graphics. Whatever horsepower of the CELL that isn't dedicated to physics and AI and sound, will in all likelyhood be used to implement AA and other tasks to free up the RSX to do what it does best...

You simply can't take only the RSX into consideration when comparing it to other GPU's. It rolls with a posse of an SPE and 7 of his little brothers.


Your very right in saying that, I have spoken to more than one developer who says the RSX+Cell is expodentially more powerful than either seperated, I have heard atleast one or two saying that the Cell could perform all geometry related graphics opperations. The SPE's are supposed to be fantastic with floating point algorithms.

[matjet]

if some one could tell me exactly how much memory anti aliasing actually uses it would be very useful.
assuming you can fit 256*256 tiling into the cell spe 256kb local store, then you can just get it to do it. 4*antialiasing is where you repeat it 4 times right. then get an spe to antialiase a tile, or if it fits, the whole scene, then pass it onto the next spe which does it again and so on.
since it is mostly being transferred along the element interconnect bus with what 200gB/s transfers between spe's, there shouldn't be any latency problems whatsoever.
it should only take a few processing cycles to complete, so problem solved:-)

[archy141]

Looks like the Poll & its results have gone with the upgrade :confused:

@MOD'S

Can you please see if you can reinstate the old Poll with results or worst case get a fresh one added to this thread ?

Also the EDIT button at the bottom of my postings is not visible both in I.E & Firefox. Anyone having this trouble ?


Archy

[Guilty Bystander]

You're a little confused. First of all, HDR and HDRI are not two different things. Second of all, What RSX cannot do is FP32 HDR framebuffer + MSAA. It can still use SSAA all the same, and the biggest reason for that, IIRC, is simply that nVidia hardware doesn't like 32-bit floats and instead prefers 16-bit halfs (which I personally despise, but I don't mind it for a framebuffer format).

Heavenly Sword is an example where people are cheating the hardware with their own HDR format. I'm not really sure what Warhawk is doing, but my first guess would be that they're using FP16, which is still fine for MSAA, I believe.

HDR and HDRL are one and the same.
HDR however is always rendered at 16bit Floating Point or at a lower bitrate.
There is a differents between the main rendering engine which with current desktop PC's and the Xbox 360 render at 32bit Floating Point and any HDR rendering engine which MAX renders at 16bit Floating Point Blend rendering targets.
There is no 32bit Floating Point HDR now available on any GPU's now available (not even on Xenos) or in the making.
By the way current nVidia desktop CPU's (GeForce 6200-7950) don't have any problem doing 32bit Floating Point rendering at all I think you might be confused as the GeForce FX series had problems doing Full precision (32bit FP) with good framerates compared to their direct competitors the Radeon 9500-9800 series and nVidia had to resort to doing Half precision (16bit FP) which always gave much worse results than the Radeon's (9500-X850) which were doing Standard precision (24bit FP).

nVidia cards (GeForce 6200-7950 series) can't do 16bit Floating Point Blend rendering targets with MSAA at once without giving graphical glitches which can't be avoided.
For this reason nAo32 uses 16bit Floating Point HDR (not Blended) to enable HDR with MSAA at once.
However since nAo32 doesn't use Floating Point Blended HDR it doesn't fit the profile of being true HDR like with current desktop PC's and Xenos it's 10bit Floating Point Blend HDR but who cares it looks about the same so I don't mind (I'm just saying from a technical standard).

However remember the Cell has good potentional Pre and Post processing capabilities so one could argue nAo32 and rendering engines like it are pretty ***n useless as with Cell you could just do either HDR or MSAA on one or more SPE's.
I would prefer doing MSAA on Cell as it otherwise takes a pretty big chunck out of the VRAM of RSX which otherwise could be used for textures.

[archy141]

More Fuel For the Fire !

Just when you thought this thread was going to sink into murky depths...


Thanks Heinrich4 for pointing me to the Japanese PC Watch site.

I have spent quite a while trolling through "Hiroshige's Goto Weekly overseas news".

Unfortunately even with Babelfish translation the articles are very interesting but difficult to understand easy to misinterpret due to poo translation.

One thing that did catch my eye is a diagram that was repeated a few times.

And as they say Pictures paint a thousand words.



http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/0727/kaigai05l.gif
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fpc.watch.impress.co.jp%2fdocs%2 f2006%2f0727%2fkaigai291.htm


Take A Good Look At Where The RSX Sits ON The Diagram :eek:



The RSX mostly sits in the DirectX 9 set but is also partially in the DirectX10 set overlapped by the G80 !


Notice on the diagram the RSX is distinguished from NVIDIA 7900 & 7600 by having its own seperate position.

I don't know how accurate this diagram is but there are a few variations of it on the site -each time RSX positioned in same place. I believe the PC watch site is pretty reliable & is often quoted by many other news sites.

I have tried to find out why they postion it in that particular order on the diagram but no luck so far.

Is this diagram telling us something ? Or is it just a specualtion on PC Watch's behalf ? And why should they speculate this ?




ANOTHER COINCEDANCE ?



ArchV

[Ludde]

Throw me some links Archy, and I'll check it out when I have some time.

[G_H_G]

Oh, I think its only because of the timespan between 2006 / 2007 rather than the DX10 or Shader 4.0 capabilities. Look at the color instead which indicates that the chip is only DX 9.c


I believe we have to realize, that we won´t get an upgrade of the RSX.
It´s a pitty.

Sorry for my bad english...

Regards from Germany..

Its not about that, but more about the position it has been placed on the chart. It has been placed so that it overlaps the G80 which wouyld suggest that they share some features. And DX doesn't matter anyway seen as the PS3 is OpenGL compliant.

[nickworks]

But the G80 overlaps the R600 as well. I don´t think that the two different chips share any features :-)

[janenba352]

I dont see the 7950 on that list...

[archy141]

But the G80 overlaps the R600 as well. I don´t think that the two different chips share any features :-)

Maybe the fact they both are DX10 & SS4 ?


Archy

[janenba352]

Maybe the fact they both are DX10 & SS4 ?


Archy

Yea that makes sence. Since they both have thoughs features.

[archy141]

Guys, i think this find might not be what i thought.. red herring : (

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/0727/kaigai06l.gif

This is taken from same article & shows no G80 overlap. It does still show DX9/DX10 overlap but that may just be because of release time..
Seems the diagram is little more complex than i thought.

GC & TGS cannot come fast enough !


Sorry.. Back into the murky depths for this thread..





Archy

[janenba352]

even sexier chart. very nice.

[Aeryal]

um, 360 chips is pink like DX10 and RSX is all blue like DX9?

BtW, I have no idea what that means lmao.

[G_H_G]

The Xenos has some DX10 compliant features (although it is not a DX10 card so will not be able to do everything DX10 through hardware), that is why it is coloued Pink.

[vdo]

If you look at the vertical postion, the RSX is about the same transistor count as the 7800, but with a blue outline that indicates 90mm. So one possibility is that it could be a 7800 but at a 90mm process.

But then if you look at the three thick blue arrows that go diagonally the length of the chart, the RSX is on the same arrow as the 7900, but further to the right (time) and more transistors. So then another possibility is that the RSX was made after the 7900 with more transistors because of more features.

Archy, I wonder if the website owners know the source of this graph and could get clarification from the creator as to how to really interpret it (if they will even respond to these types of questions).

[GunTeng]

Is it all possible that the diagram is a speculative possibility of where they would position the RSX etc?
They may not know exactly what the RSX is capable of, so they attempt to place it where they expect it would be & not because of any hard facts?

They may even know/quess that it is better than the Radeon 7900, yet not as good as the G80, so they compromise?
Or they may even overlap it because they don't know which area it truly belongs to?

To me this diagram is not the best laid out in the world, but even if it was, it still really proves nothing.
Is it based on knowledge or educated guesswork, or pure assumption without any education on the RSX?

Just questions for you if they can be answered.
I can't provide any factual details on any of this, so all you are likely to get from me are questions ( to set my own mind straight). I can be very hard to convince as I sit on a very high fence.....lol. :)

[archy141]

If you look at the vertical postion, the RSX is about the same transistor count as the 7800, but with a blue outline that indicates 90mm. So one possibility is that it could be a 7800 but at a 90mm process.

But then if you look at the three thick blue arrows that go diagonally the length of the chart, the RSX is on the same arrow as the 7900, but further to the right (time) and more transistors. So then another possibility is that the RSX was made after the 7900 with more transistors because of more features.

Archy, I wonder if the website owners know the source of this graph and could get clarification from the creator as to how to really interpret it (if they will even respond to these types of questions).

Glad to see you pick up something useful from those graphs.
I also noticed that but didn't bother adding it in after realising my intial error.

The 7900 is basically a refined version of the 7800. It is a more efficient design with a lower transistor count allowing for higher clock speeds & smaller 90nm die.

One would assume if the RSX was a 7800 (as suggested by many) shrunk to 90nm die than it should probably have the same transistor count as 7900.. i.e it might as well be a 7900.

Most obvious way to explain this is that the RSX is a NV47 core (7800/7900) but has additional customisations that are hidden from us still.
We were given the truth but only some of the truth. Someone suggested to me:


Perhaps Sony and nvidia have added some kind cache optimization or hardwired similar to eDRAM Xenos Gpu (but not with the same numbers of 10MB -> 100 million transistors) for tiles or textures 1024x1024 in DXTC 8:1 and pixel shader pipe of "some flops free" for Fixed Function (in G70/71 has 16 flops per pixel shader pipe = 4 ops + 11 = fixed function totalizing 27 flops per pixel shader pipe).

Trying to speak to the source of the graphs is pointless as they are taken from the Japanese PC Watch site.


Archy

[janenba352]

On the 360 GPU question. Its using a unified shader setup so figure its different then any other DX9 card so thats why its in pink.

The RSX on the line makes me wonder what its true build is.. could it be a fusion of the G71 and G80? Im leaning towards sometihng like this. Would be sick if its is.

[Tetsu]

It would be interesting if the RSX isn't as ultranew and sexy as a G80 or hybrid, and yet delivers some G80-like performance. Because all the components are close to the metal and custom integrated as was stated previously, maybe the PS3 doesn't need as much ferocious GPU horsepower as it does ram. I've been saying the same thing that some of the others have said, that the PS3 would be a lot happier with 512megs of system ram. I'm hopeful that we learn a few more hard facts about the PS3 by the Tokyo Game Show at the latest. There are at least two bombshells coming, supposedly, maybe that's one of them.

The developers spoke out bit by bit about how horrible the design of the PS2 was, and Sony spokesmen have gone to great lengths to assure the community that coding software for the PS3 would be a pain free proposition. I really want to know what the final specs of the PS3 and its chipset are, and if the developers begin to talk about their "drothers" any time soon, if they see any shortcomings that Sony pinched pennies on.

[sepe]

The 7900 is basically a refined version of the 7800. It is a more efficient design with a lower transistor count allowing for higher clock speeds & smaller 90nm die.

One would assume if the RSX was a 7800 (as suggested by many) shrunk to 90nm die than it should probably have the same transistor count as 7900.. i.e it might as well be a 7900.


You've got it all wrong here. 90nm is not the size of the die, it refers to the scale of features (wire width) on the die. The number of transistors does not decrease in a die shrink unless there are architectural changes.

[archy141]

You've got it all wrong here. 90nm is not the size of the die, it refers to the scale of features (wire width) on the die. The number of transistors does not decrease in a die shrink unless there are architectural changes.

I think this mihght help clear things up.


GeForce 7900 Drives Down the Cost of Speed
Not Different, Just Smaller
The GeForce 7900 and 7600 are new GPUs from Nvidia, finally transitioning that company's performance graphics products to a 90nm manufacturing process. So what's new?
In short, nothing much. Both the GTX and GT versions of the 7900 still have 8 vertex shader units, 24 texture fetch units, 24 pixel shader units (6 "quads"), and 16 raster operator units. These are the same specs as the GeForce 7800. ........

...The transistor count has dropped from 302M in the case of the GeForce 7800 GTX to 278M for the GeForce 7900 GTX and 7900 GT. ...

......With G71, we re-architected a number of units and we actually reduced chip area (and transistor count) while at the same time increasing frequency and performance. Simply put, with more time, our engineers are able to optimize the architecture, and that's what they did with G71.".....

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1935808,00.asp

[NOVAA]

Thats a very interesting chart you dug up there Arch, if it is infact true, and not based on specualtion, that would atleast in essence prove the fact that the RSX has G80 components in it. And remember people, the G80 isn't some radically new card, it is essentially a G71 core with DX10 support slapped on. Of course, it also uses a unified shader approach, and has a smaller die size to push 800+mhz core clocks, but it is not dramatically far from the G71. I think the RSX being based on some G80 components is very realistic.

[nickworks]

Thats a very interesting chart you dug up there Arch, if it is infact true, and not based on specualtion, that would atleast in essence prove the fact that the RSX has G80 components in it. And remember people, the G80 isn't some radically new card, it is essentially a G71 core with DX10 support slapped on. Of course, it also uses a unified shader approach, and has a smaller die size to push 800+mhz core clocks, but it is not dramatically far from the G71. I think the RSX being based on some G80 components is very realistic.

I don´t think that Sony improved the RSX. First the HDD, second the new controller and now the gpu? Sony don´t want to loose more money on each ps3. Maybe we´ll be able to upgrade the memory sometimes in the future but it seems sony´s priority is blueray...

[NOVAA]

I don´t think that Sony improved the RSX. First the HDD, second the new controller and now the gpu? Sony don´t want to loose more money on each ps3. Maybe we´ll be able to upgrade the memory sometimes in the future but it seems sony´s priority is blueray...


After spending $400 Million on the Cell, twice the normal amount on the RSX, and taking a $300+ hit on each console, I think that money is a bit of a non-issue.

[changing]

if it is an unmodified 7800/7900 to fit with cell i'm sure such information could have been revealed many many months ago

I can reassure your its not an unmodified any gfx chipset.

[Shaolin Monk]

http://www.it.com.cn/f/diy/068/14/060814_nv795079gs_05.jpg
http://www.it.com.cn/f/diy/068/14/060814_nv795079gs_07.jpg
http://www.it.com.cn/f/diy/068/14/060814_nv795079gs_02.jpg
http://www.it.com.cn/f/diy/068/14/310973_1.htm

What If the RSX is a 7950GT?

[Lefein]

So, it looks like I was right months ago :) 7950 based would be so killer!

[Angelcurio]

Well, according to the Ubisoft team that is developing Assassin´s Creed.......


OPM: What do you think about the performance of the graphics chip, the Nvidia RSX?

M.M.: The RSX-chip is also a beast. Not only is it incredibly fast, but just like in the PS2 you can have each Cell-core cooperate with the RSX independently. Other graphics chips also have decent Normal Mapping- and Shader-capabilities, but RSX adds a lot of additional specialized filters and possibilities, leading to fabulous results in the graphics department. And what is really convenient is that Nvidia has been a market-leader for years, and everyone knows the technology and way of thinking through-and-through. This decreases the learning process considerably.

[The_One]

Angelcurio, link please.
This statement:

M.M.: The RSX-chip is also a beast.
leads me to believe that he was comparing it to something else ;).

I want to see for myself what he was comparing it to, heh.

[Grym]

Angelcurio, link please.
This statement:

leads me to believe that he was comparing it to something else ;).

I want to see for myself what he was comparing it to, heh.


My guess is that they talked about Cell before that question. I have read that interview a long time ago but I am pretty sure that's it.

[Tetsu]

This is the source as far as I can find:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29579&page=6

Posted by ROG27:

From the latest edition of OPM...
This is an excerpt of an interview OPM did with Assassin's Creed developer Ubisoft:

Quote:
OPM: What do you think about the performance of the graphics chip, the Nvidea RSX?

M.M.: The RSX-chip is also a beast. Not only is it incredibly fast, but just like in the PS2 you can have each Cell-core cooperate with the RSX independently. Other graphics chips also have decent Noraml Mapping- and Shader-capabilities, but RSX adds a lot of additional specialised filters and possibilities, leading to fabulous results in the graphics department. And what is really convenient is that Nvidia has been a market-leader for years, and everyone knows the technology and way of thinking through-and-through. This decreases the learning process considerably.

It seems like there is extensive use of that wide bandwidth FlexIO bus and sharing of data on the local SPE store level. I imagine cooperation between individual SPEs and RSX will be the way to make PS3 sing.
-----------------------------

And like Grym says, I'm pretty sure the Ubisoft spokesperson is referencing the Cell from a previous remark.

[wotter]

Nice find Shaolin Monk, quite a lot of similarities between RSX and a 7950GT :).

- Pixel pipelines (24)
- Core (550)
- Memory (700)
- HDCP standard
- Both have acces to 512mb ram

[Tetsu]

That does indeed look very tantalizing. We've seen the preliminary game betas running and know the Cell and RSX are something special, but this would be sweetness indeed. Now, will the PS3 be capable of adding ram to make it even more future proof?

Are some of these secret specs of the PS3 going to be revealled at Leipzig? Or do you think they're going to save the juicy tidbits to give all the thunder to Karai-san's presentation at TGS?

[PS3 rocks]

I'm more than convinced now that it's more than the specs at E3 05. The_one i agree, he wouldn't say it was a beast if it was the same as the Xbox 360 GPU would he? I think RSX is most likely a 7800.

[archy141]

If the RSX is like 7950, it will be that & more !

It will have extensions & customisations not found on the equivalent PC part.

I would like also lke to clear a point that peole have been incorrectly making for a while.
Final Development Kits are just out now & not months back as some people have argued in this thread.



A bunch of these "final" PS3 dev kits were sent to developers in the last two or three weeks. PS3's getting closer!
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152911

[changing]

Yes archy, final devkits in the last month or so.

Regarding "also a beast", i presume he was talking about aswell as Cell.

[ddaryl]

Final Dev kits have been out since just after E3, however only launch devleopers and Sony 1st parties had most of them. Now a few months later all devs making games for Sony have them.


That does indeed look very tantalizing. We've seen the preliminary game betas running and know the Cell and RSX are something special, but this would be sweetness indeed. Now, will the PS3 be capable of adding ram to make it even more future proof?


No there will never be a game console that has the ability to add extra ram IMO, becuase that would create multiple consoiles with different specs that would effect games differently.

the whole point to a game console is to have the exact same architexture from console to console so devs can design games that are optomized for all of the consoles owners, not those who have extra RAM.

[changing]

Even SCEE only received the latest devkits closer to now than at E3.

[archy141]

No there will never be a game console that has the ability to add extra ram IMO, becuase that would create multiple consoiles with different specs that would effect games differently.

the whole point to a game console is to have the exact same architexture from console to console so devs can design games that are optomized for all of the consoles owners, not those who have extra RAM.


Recall that Sony are NOT just creating a console. They have been trying to sell it as a COMPUTER. More memory for a computer would help a great deal. Games developers could be restricted to just code for the basic console spec's & not any additional upgrades.

Archy

[Mbbest]

What If the RSX is a 7950GT?

What if RSX is GOD?

Please wait litlle more, soon we will know what is rsx, and than we can talk about it :)

[burgniel]

I really think that what sony was trying to say regarding the "Computer" and "upgradable" comments is this:

We will be selling home computers with the configuration of the PS3 which will also be upgradable if needed. These home computers will be running Linux and be used just as a normal computer, however they will also be compatable with PS3 games and hardware.

That makes the most sense dosen't it?

[Shaolin Monk]

What if RSX is GOD?

Then It'll be better than a G∞, awesome! Much more than perfect graphics! You know, It's just speculation. They're similar (specs), that's why I posted. :D

[Lefein]

If RSX is 7950 based, then this console could very well go the distance for a lot of people. If I added the cost of a 7950 to my gaming machine, it would get close to the $1200 range.

I hear people crying about $600 for the PS3 but they obviously don't have a clue what they're getting.

[archy141]

I would like to remind people that 7950 is just another NV47 core implementation just like 7800 & 7900 are.

The RSX will also be another NV47 implementation & if history holds it will be more than all other NV47 implementations.

Nvidia's last console GPU was NV2A for the XBOX. It was derived from the PC GPU NV20 through customisation that gave it the edge. It had 2 vertex shaders and 2 ALUS per shader pipe - features only found in next generataion NVIDIA NV30 GPU that was still to come. The NV20 of the time had only 1 vertex shader pipe. After the NV20 & NV2A the NV25 was released but even that was not quite on par with the older NV2A design. It was only superceded much later by arrival of NV30 - a new GPU generation architecture for NVIDIA. The NV2A as a result was loosely reffered to as NV27 as it's featureset set somewhere between the NV25 & NV30.

Throughout this thread i have given many reasons to why i believe that the RSX cannot simply be a PC GPU off the shelf solution. NOT for a second do I buy the Sony went to NVIDIA last minute & its the best they could do.

In the same way as the NV2A I belive the RSX will sit somewhere between the last NV47 variation (7950) & NV50 (G80 family).
It will have the base design of NV47 core but have customisations that share features of NV50(G80).


Archy ;)

[Aleman]

I hear people crying about $600 for the PS3 but they obviously don't have a clue what they're getting.

That's entirely beside the point. Console have always been cheaper relative to PC's for the hardware you get. Many people have a legitimate complaint, which is simply that the PS3 is very expensive relative to past console pricing.

[archy141]

That's entirely beside the point. Console have always been cheaper relative to PC's for the hardware you get. Many people have a legitimate complaint, which is simply that the PS3 is very expensive relative to past console pricing.

Firstly if you take inflation into account it is not the case.

Secondly you are getting a lot more than a console. Also for instance the jump from PS1 to PS2 was not as HUGE as PS2 to PS3.

For gods sake there are stupid little teenagers with pairs of £150+ trainers..
School kids with mobiles..

Just too much unneccessary moaning in the industry by people who clearly do not know what they are buying. Cheapskates that are just interested in price foremost should stick to Wii - this is the fickle masses & why PS3 will see a drop in market share.

The well researched & knowledged individual will know:

-What The PS3 Represents
-Why He Is Buying It &
-Understand Why Its A Bargain.


Most of this price point moaning comes about from people misunderstanding what the PS3 represents & as a result missinformation prevails across the internet. MS & Co are obviously not helping the matters.


Archy ;)

[NOVAA]

The pieces are really starting to fall together now, aren't they?

I hardly doubt its just coincidence that Nvidia's new card is clocked exactly the same as the RSX, with the same pipeline counts, pixel shaders, ect...


I think that the RSX is a 7950 based core with some NV50 assets such as the 4D texture lookup.

[vdo]

Also, the specs talk about dual output. Is this new to the 7950, or did previous cards have it? When Sony saw those specs, that may have been why they got excited and wanted to say PS3 would have dual outputs. Then of course things changed and they switched to having one output.

But if dual outputs is new as of the 7950, then the fact that Sony was going to potentially have dual outputs would point to the RSX having features of the 7950.

[Aleman]

Also, the specs talk about dual output. Is this new to the 7950, or did previous cards have it? When Sony saw those specs, that may have been why they got excited and wanted to say PS3 would have dual outputs. Then of course things changed and they switched to having one output.

But if dual outputs is new as of the 7950, then the fact that Sony was going to potentially have dual outputs would point to the RSX having features of the 7950.

Dual output has been around for many years.

[Aleman]

Firstly if you take inflation into account it is not the case.

Secondly you are getting a lot more than a console. Also for instance the jump from PS1 to PS2 was not as HUGE as PS2 to PS3.

For gods sake there are stupid little teenagers with pairs of £150+ trainers..
School kids with mobiles..

Just too much unneccessary moaning in the industry by people who clearly do not know what they are buying. Cheapskates that are just interested in price foremost should stick to Wii - this is the fickle masses & why PS3 will see a drop in market share.

The well researched & knowledged individual will know:

-What The PS3 Represents
-Why He Is Buying It &
-Understand Why Its A Bargain.


Most of this price point moaning comes about from people misunderstanding what the PS3 represents & as a result missinformation prevails across the internet. MS & Co are obviously not helping the matters.


Archy ;)

I'm sorry but $500-600 isn't chump change for the vast majority of gamers.

[Angelcurio]

Angelcurio, link please.
This statement:

leads me to believe that he was comparing it to something else ;).

I want to see for myself what he was comparing it to, heh.

There is no link for that since its an interview from Official Playstation Magazine.

[Solaris]

Nice find Shaolin Monk, quite a lot of similarities between RSX and a 7950GT :).

- Pixel pipelines (24)
- Core (550)
- Memory (700)
- HDCP standard
- Both have acces to 512mb ram

What's the difference between the 7950GT and a 512mb 7900GT?? Is the only difference that the 7950GT is an official 512mb 7900GT?

[bwogowly]

Here's a new point in PCs vs. PS3 in regards to consoles getting outdated shortly after release because of ununified PCs out there. Even if you get a PC, you are probably a person that will wait another 5 years before you upgrade the whole thing, so consoles aren't realistically outdated like that at all. I also wanted to point out that both M$ and Sony are touting their products (Vista and PS3 respectively) to have a decade life. Does this mean that PS3 might actually pull a decade before PS4? I doubt it, but it's possible. If the next X-Box coming out in a few years doesn't add up to the PS3, then we might finally see M$ stop competing in the console wars; yay.

[bwogowly]

What's the difference between the 7950GT and a 512mb 7900GT?? Is the only difference that the 7950GT is an official 512mb 7900GT?

I thought that the 7950GT was a dual 7900GT, which would mean that PS3 isn't '50 because the RSX is single core. Is RSX supposed to be a step above 7900GT, which is 8000? Isn't every step up in whatever changes it has (whether it be architecture, marchitecture, software) just ways to increase speed anyway? So would that mean that the RSX could be that G80 thing. Doesn't the 80 in G80 signify the 8000 number/model name? The reason being that I've heard Sony and Nvidia touting their man hours and Sony's money into the RSX project to simply be more no more than a slightly modified PC GPU would be a valid tout if it were that the G80 came from that work. We'll find out in 5 days with one of the two anouncements Sony is planning at the Leipzig GC.

[archy141]

The 7950GT is NOT a dual card, that's the 7950 GX2.

From what little we know the MAIN difference is going to be the integrated HDCP support which is essential for viewing future HD movies. I think this is the card i mentioned in earlier postings as being G73-B1.


I'm sorry but $500-600 isn't chump change for the vast majority of gamers.

It might be the case that an extra $100 over the premium XBOX360 or more over Wii is not worth to some that just want a plain vanilla games console. Thats why i admittedly said Sony will lose some market share.
Anyone who only wants the best will do what is neccessary to buy the PS3.

"I would love to have a Ferrari instead of my BMW but I don't moan it's over priced just because I can't afford it"

People with sense should apply the same logic to PS3 price point.



Archy

[Redrider]

So we are back moaning about price (again)? Well………maybe in 2008 this will be a dead issue!

[Lefein]

The 6150 on my MoBo also supports HDCP. But as far as the 7950 is concerned, it seems to have a higher clock speed on its memory over the 7900 and a core clock speed at 550MHZ (which was the spec for RSX coincidentally, or not)

[archy141]

The 6150 on my MoBo also supports HDCP. But as far as the 7950 is concerned, it seems to have a higher clock speed on its memory over the 7900 and a core clock speed at 550MHZ (which was the spec for RSX coincidentally, or not)


Your 6150 does NOT use NVIDIA's INTEGRATED HDCP solution like the 7950.

Even the current builds of 7800 & 7900 use a seperate third party chip by Silicon Images to do HDCP decoding. Thats why i put INTEGRATED in BOLD.


Archy

[Lefein]

Your 6150 does NOT use NVIDIA's INTEGRATED HDCP solution like the 7950.

Even the current builds of 7800 & 7900 use a seperate third party chip by Silicon Images to do HDCP decoding. Thats why i put INTEGRATED in BOLD.
Archy

I'd like a link for that information (not that I dont believe you its just that I really want to know) but my point was the **50 seems to be NVidias naming scheme for HDCP support on their graphical solutions.

[Tetsu]

Recall that Sony are NOT just creating a console. They have been trying to sell it as a COMPUTER. More memory for a computer would help a great deal. Games developers could be restricted to just code for the basic console spec's & not any additional upgrades.
This is what I'm curious about. Sony spokespeople have mentioned that the PS3 is an upgradeable system, designed like a multimedia gaming computer. They mentioned the hard drive, but were coy about being able to add ram.

But look at what it is. It uses a super computer multicore/processor CPU. It uses an NVidia graphics chipset. It uses a Linux OS. It uses the hard drive to assist in loading content like a computer. It's being sold to developers as a PC-like architecture that's easy to program for.

If they want a future proof system, eventually the developers will want more ram, more than likely, system ram. PCs work fine with many different amounts of system ram, though they like as much as possible. Is this the direction Sony is going, where game designers will be able to code for a flexible amount of system ram, but a reasonable 256meg minimum? Maybe not, but I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility.

[archy141]

I'd like a link for that information (not that I dont believe you its just that I really want to know) but my point was the **50 seems to be NVidias naming scheme for HDCP support on their graphical solutions.


Nvidia said to be readying HDCP-native GPU updates


4th July 2006 09:42 GMT
.....Nvidia will soon ship versions of its GeForce 7900 GT and GTX GPUs with integrated HDCP support, it has been claimed. If true, the move will position the company's chips as a cheaper option than adding a separate chip to add-in boards with HDMI ports....
.....So far, almost all graphics cards with HD output don't support HDCP, partly because it's not entirely necessary but mostly because it requires an extra chip on the board. That's going to change, and building HDCP into the GPU ensures the technology will be present no matter what and should reduce a board's manufacturing cost.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/07/04/nvidia_geforce_hdcp_update/


Nvidia going HDCP compliant with a 7900-series graphics card

Posted Jul 5th 2006 11:57AM by Matt Burns
Filed under: Industry, News, Manufacturers
This went under the radar 'till TG Daily picked it up. Nvidia is prepping a version of their 7900 graphics card to be HDCP compliant and should be out sometime in July or August. The cards will be based on the 7900 GTX and GT flavors but will include everyones favorite content protection on the card. They do have plans to include HDCP in entry-level to mid-range level cards in the near future as well. There isn't any word on price yet but lets hope that it isn't any near their current HDCP card, the 7950 GX2. http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/07/05/nvidia-getting-hdcp-compliant-with-a-7900-series-graphics-card/



Archy

[tsunami]

I wish the RSX were more than Sony had already stated, but that leaves me with one question.......

What happens to the 10 thousand dev kits out there ?

Surely a dev kit that is not the correct spec would not be worth ****.

Do not bypass the curse filter. - The_One

[archy141]

I wish the RSX were more than Sony had already stated, but that leaves me with one question.......

What happens to the 10 thousand dev kits out there ?

Surely a dev kit that is not the correct spec would not be worth ****.

The under spec'd ones might have an upgrade path.
Or developers could take into account for the under spec when developing the games.

Archy

[changing]

Yep most likely upgrade path.

[Guilty Bystander]

In the same way as the NV2A I belive the RSX will sit somewhere between the last NV47 variation (7950) & NV50 (G80 family).
It will have the base design of NV47 core but have customisations that share features of NV50(G80).

Well the NV2A was only a GeForce 3 (NV20) with 2 Vertex Shaders instead of 1 because Microsoft felt 1 Vertex Shader would be a limiting factor.
For the rest the NV2A had nothing the same as a GeForce 4 TI (NV25).
The NV25 had Pixel Shader 1.3 and Vertex Shader 1.1 whereas the NV2A only had Vertex and Pixel Shader 1.1 on top of that the NV25 could do more instructions per clock with a higher corespeed on top of that.

[vdo]

Kaz Hirai: We haven't started manufacturing yet.

source: http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6156046.html

Wow, they are sure pushing it until the end. Maybe because some RSX changes pushed things out? I know final devs were shipped, but those are much easier to change right to the end than the production lines for the actual PS3. May mean nothing, but at least it leaves open the possibility that there were RSX changes between the E3 specs and the final hardware.

[nickworks]

source: http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6156046.html

Wow, they are sure pushing it until the end. Maybe because some RSX changes pushed things out? I know final devs were shipped, but those are much easier to change right to the end than the production lines for the actual PS3. May mean nothing, but at least it leaves open the possibility that there were RSX changes between the E3 specs and the final hardware.


Maybe the final devkits have an improved rsx and developers will get a patch soon after GDC to unleash the full power ;-)

.....but I don´t think though..

[drunkenmonkey]

I didn't have a console for many years and was looking into the 360 because of all the negative press about the PS3. But the games from the 360 are not interresting to me. So I checked the PS3 out and the games are much better.

Looking at the technical side the PS3 is great, but only the GPU is dissapointing (for me because its Nvidia whose current graphic cards are weaker than ATI at the same price).

Well, I found this thread and it was really entertaining and interresting. Thanks to everyone who contributed to it!

The 7950GT seems the most possible solution but who knows... Sony might still have a joker left. From a marketing point of view, it wouldn't be a surprise that they didn't brag about changes they made with the GPU.

Microsoft will probably make some big announcements shortly before the PS3 launch to distract Sony customers and 360 owners. Sony will need some major things to announce then to overshadow Microsoft and to increase the hype just before the PS3 reaches the stores.

It might not be related to the graphic card, but it is still possible.

[Lefein]

I didn't have a console for many years and was looking into the 360 because of all the negative press about the PS3. But the games from the 360 are not interresting to me. So I checked the PS3 out and the games are much better.

Looking at the technical side the PS3 is great, but only the GPU is dissapointing (for me because its Nvidia whose current graphic cards are weaker than ATI at the same price).

Well, I found this thread and it was really entertaining and interresting. Thanks to everyone who contributed to it!

The 7950GT seems the most possible solution but who knows... Sony might still have a joker left. From a marketing point of view, it wouldn't be a surprise that they didn't brag about changes they made with the GPU.

Microsoft will probably make some big announcements shortly before the PS3 launch to distract Sony customers and 360 owners. Sony will need some major things to announce then to overshadow Microsoft and to increase the hype just before the PS3 reaches the stores.

It might not be related to the graphic card, but it is still possible.

There's really not a whole lot MS can announce at this point other than drop some Halo3 news. But even that wont make a dent in the PS3 onslaught and may even be looked upon as a desperation move by MS.

The only game that has panned out well for the 360 is Oblivion. PD:0 was a total debacle, then came DOA4, then Full Auto, and Prey was only five hours long and has seriously messed up Live online play right now.

I check the 360 forums out a lot, I just never post in them. Don't think for a second that the 360 has a lot going on for it because even their own fanbase is not hyped up even half as much for the games that are already out. If Gears of War doesnt catch on or is a four hour game, expect nothing short of a Halo3 announcement sometime during the holiday season. Not so much to ruin Sonys parade, but more to keep their own fanbase in line and have the effect of looking like a Playstation spoiler.

[Tetsu]

Looking at the technical side the PS3 is great, but only the GPU is dissapointing (for me because its Nvidia whose current graphic cards are weaker than ATI at the same price).
Err... I don't get this. For one thing, unless ATi dropped their prices recently a lot, NVidia's cards perform better. For another thing, the RSX is probably at least four times as powerful as what you're using.

But let's say for the sake of argument that the ATi GPUs are "way" outperforming NVidia's. On benchmarks, that's usually a matter of a difference of 190fps vs 175fps at 1280x960. So, like who cares? Would you notice? Would you be able to tell that a scene has ONLY 100 million polygons in it? ;)

I'm a geek and I love tech specs and all, but seriously. The 360 and PS3 both seriously outperform my gaming rig, and it's no slouch, and the games are going to make me forget about using my PC for games for a good wlong while except at lan parties.

[drunkenmonkey]

There's really not a whole lot MS can announce at this point other than drop some Halo3 news. But even that wont make a dent in the PS3 onslaught and may even be looked upon as a desperation move by MS.

The only game that has panned out well for the 360 is Oblivion. PD:0 was a total debacle, then came DOA4, then Full Auto, and Prey was only five hours long and has seriously messed up Live online play right now.

I check the 360 forums out a lot, I just never post in them. Don't think for a second that the 360 has a lot going on for it because even their own fanbase is not hyped up even half as much for the games that are already out. If Gears of War doesnt catch on or is a four hour game, expect nothing short of a Halo3 announcement sometime during the holiday season. Not so much to ruin Sonys parade, but more to keep their own fanbase in line and have the effect of looking like a Playstation spoiler.

Could Microsoft release an Xbox 360 HDMI and a bigger HD maybe?
http://www.news4gamers.com/xbox360/News-6747.aspx
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/08/hdmi-port-coming-to-the-xbox-360/

Or a price drop? Or both?

If I would own an Xbox 360 I'd be pissed :) But maybe they can make an HDMI output which you can plug on the butt of the 360 and add an external usb harddrive to put on top of the HD-DVD drive for people which own an Xbox 360 already :twisted: jk

Here is something else:
http://www.news4gamers.com/xbox360/News-6714.aspx

Maybe they won't have anything big to announce though but if they have, Sony will have something ready too.

And parents which don't know what to choose would buy a WII instead of an Xbox 360 for Christmas anyway. And gamers which care about technology (and good games) choose the PS3.

[archy141]

The only thing XBOX360 could do to hurt PS3 is a price drop.

Nothing else would help in the same way.. Doesn't matter what else they decide duck tape on to there console.. will not stop the sinking feeling.. khee


Archy

[GunTeng]

The only thing XBOX360 could do to hurt PS3 is a price drop.

Nothing else would help in the same way.. Doesn't matter what else they decide duck tape on to there console.. will not stop the sinking feeling.. khee


Archy


I donno.
I very recently heard on the news (BBC 24) that MS are releasing Open GL ( or whatever it is)for the 360 so that ordinary-Joe can have a whack on programming for it.
I haven't any links right now ( I saw it on TV) but when I find a link I will post it.
You guys will obviously know what it is more than I would.
So, its trade for trade. They use each other to better their consoles & we all win :)

[Itaintrite]

I donno.
I very recently heard on the news (BBC 24) that MS are releasing Open GL ( or whatever it is)for the 360 so that ordinary-Joe can have a whack on programming for it.
I haven't any links right now ( I saw it on TV) but when I find a link I will post it.
You guys will obviously know what it is more than I would.
So, its trade for trade. They use each other to better their consoles & we all win :)
There's no such thing as an ordinary Joe who can program (well).

[DarkChild]

Nvidia remains tight lipped on G80

Almost cyanose


By Fuad Abazovic: Friday 18 August 2006, 19:23

WE tried to find more details about Nvidia's G80 but no one knows a lot about the chip. Possibly not even Nvidia, because it's telling its partners nada.
We know it's a 90 nanometre chip and that it is taped out but a release date is an enigma caught in a graphics processor engine dilemma.

One single source suggested that the chip might show up later than expected, by the end of ammo domini 2006. We found out that the chip will actually alight on the face of the earth a little bit later than we expected. Nvidia wants to fight the upcoming Radeon 1950 XTX with its Geforce 1950 GX2 double chip card. It won't have G80 out at least by the end of September. And it is more tight lipped than a tight lipped Tightlip.

G80 now looks like a late 2006 chip and it will fight the R600 beast also scheduled for a very late 2006, when even the mice slumber.

Another source claimed that it's all on schedule. We reported that G80 is a 90 nanometre chip with GDDR 4 support and that it is diss-unified marchitecture. We guess Nvidia is now paranoid about AMD, Intel, S3 and everyone else.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33739

why are they so tight lipped, and even more interesting is the fact that the G80 card was never fully unified. on a 90nm build...meh it's probably nothing...

[drunkenmonkey]

Err... I don't get this. For one thing, unless ATi dropped their prices recently a lot, NVidia's cards perform better. For another thing, the RSX is probably at least four times as powerful as what you're using.

But let's say for the sake of argument that the ATi GPUs are "way" outperforming NVidia's. On benchmarks, that's usually a matter of a difference of 190fps vs 175fps at 1280x960. So, like who cares? Would you notice? Would you be able to tell that a scene has ONLY 100 million polygons in it? ;)

I'm a geek and I love tech specs and all, but seriously. The 360 and PS3 both seriously outperform my gaming rig, and it's no slouch, and the games are going to make me forget about using my PC for games for a good wlong while except at lan parties.

you are right that the PS3 will be a hell of a system and outperforming my current PC for sure :) It will be great, no matter what GPU will be inside.

I was following the prices of graphic cards for some months and the relation between ATI and Nvidia cards stayed pretty much the same.

Look at the chart in example:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2769&p=8

I can get an ATI X1900XTX which is a little faster than the tested ATI X1900XT for 260 Euro.
The 7900 GT costs about 220 Euro.
The 7900 GTX costs about 360 Euro.

The Radeon x1900XT is often on par with the 7900 GTX and outperforms it sometimes too.
The 7900 GT is often 15-20 frames slower than the X1900XT. So with the XTX the difference would even be bigger.

So for a few Euro more, I can get a fantastic value for the price. And for 100 Euro more than the ATI card I can get the same performance from Nvidia.

Games are becoming more and more complex and then those 10 or 15 frames will make a difference. Things could look differently once the G80 is out and thats why I have some hopes like Archy that the RSX will have at least a few features of it.
It is unlikely though and like I said, I believe that it will be close to the 7950GT. But one can always hope :)

[motorstormsthegame]

hi,
in my opinion, we are at the doorstep of the golden age of 3d graphics. nvidia and sony have been talking a pretty bold talk. even the name "reality synthesizer" is promising alot. well folks, this video and a little imagination will explain everything you need to know about what the next generation from sony and nvidia is all about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdY52AOTO0
still unclear who is behind this stuff, nvidia, sony or this secretive company called prime sense. have you ever noticed how all the drivers in motorstorm are the same helmeted figure? (like they didn't bother making other personalities or whatever cuz they have something else in mind?) this device can build a 3d shape from whatever it sees in front of it and then can incorporate it into a game. so take motorstorm , for example: you turn your 3d vision cam thingy on , go online , get into a race and once the race begins, you look over at other drivers and they are all accurate depictions of the other 15 ppl you're playing against with every blink of their eye and movement of their bodies in real life being mimicked by their 3d model, just as you are. this camera thing can even put your head on a different body or add a helmet or different clothes to complete the look of a dirt lovin motor freak.
make someone mad? just sit back and watch as they give you the finger in all too real virtual double of the real people they represent. anyways, think about this folks. i truly believe this is coming and fast.

[GunTeng]

There's no such thing as an ordinary Joe who can program (well).


OoooKay...let me rephrase that.

An ordinary-programming-Joe..;) lol.

[renegadevikingPS3]

If PS4 is only Cell with 16SPEs the debate would be the same as with nintendo Wii now. "Why release marginally faster console than <previous console


Wait, Cell is a "super computer on a chip" (quote from Mercury Systems) so two cell broadband engines are almost twice as fast.



Has it ever crossed your mind Sony hasn't talked big on RSX because there maybe isn't anything to talk big about.


I hope it's based on Geforce 7900, but I'll live with teh current Geforce 7800 spec because that's still awefully good. Better then Xbox 360 and developers have yet to meet Xbox 360's hardware limits such as running Unreal Engine 3.5 on it. It'll be like the difference between Unreal Champtionship and Unreal Champtionship 2 on Xbox.



"to finish a game done is hard enough under the best circumstances, and to finish a game on hardware that's evolving is even worse"


I had no idea that they lowered the clock speed to be able to complete games. I found out that Suse Linux 10 lowers clock speed to 1 GHz on Athlon 64s because the other 1.6 GHz would be totally wasted.



I still think that there is some intellectual property protection going on with Nvidia regarding the RSX. Both Sony and Nvidia may have a dual binding agreement not to release anything on this GPU until a certain time.


I read somewhere that the Geforce 7900 is cheaper to manufacture then the Geforce 7800 because the G80 core is using 0.11 micron process instead of 0.13 micron process and that reduces heat issues. The fansink is the same size on the PCI-e version.
Plus it's using 230 million transistors instead of 270 million transisters that suprass the GB/s on the Geforce 7800.



direct competitors the Radeon 9500-9800 series and nVidia had to resort to doing Half precision (16bit FP)


I have a Radeon 9800 XT and it plays 90% of my PC titles fine at 1280x1024 which is good on a 17" CRT monitor.



Nvidia's last console GPU was NV2A for the XBOX. It was derived from the PC GPU NV20 through customisation that gave it the edge. It had 2 vertex shaders and 2 ALUS per shader pipe - features only found in next generataion NVIDIA NV30 GPU that was still to come. The NV20 of the time had only 1 vertex shader pipe


I know it runs games at 800x600. Please don't say it's really, really obsolete. It's not even old school yet like 16-bit consoles. Forza Motorsport and Far Cry Instincts came out only last year and i thought it was decent looking on my TV. Not to mention devaluing my 66 Xbox game collection.

[sepe]

Wait, Cell is a "super computer on a chip" (quote from Mercury Systems) so two cell broadband engines are almost twice as fast. If PS4 had 1024 MB GDDR4 and 1024 MB XDR at 3.2 GHz than you might have 7.2 Teraflops performance. [1.8 x 4 = 7.2 TF] By 2011, this kind of hardware would cost you at least $500. I am just staying in realms of reality because I know dual core cell was announced by STI, and teh ATI Crossfire 1 GB GDDR3 GPU is out. I refuse to get bizzare with tech specs of the PS4 based on it having 7.2 TF performance.


So basically you're saying that quadrupling memory capacity quadruples performance? I'm sorry but you just lost all credibility in my eyes. Btw, I'm expecting at least tenfold, and possibly much larger, increase in performance between generations, as has been the case PSX->PS2 and PS2->PS3. I don't see a tenfold increase in clockspeed PS3->PS4 like in previous transitions, so a lot of performance gains must be due to increased complexity, i.e, more PPEs and SPEs. In 2011 manufacturing has probably moved into the 32nm node, allowing 8 times more transistors in the same area than on the current 90nm process, so around 60 SPEs would be a reasonable guess.

[Jabjabs]

The traditional performance gap per generation is about a 30 to 100 times the performance + additional features at the very least. That setup described (ignoring the memory thing) would be possible by the end next year at current Ps3 prices.

[NOVAA]

I was thinking about this a little while back as a upgrade to the cell archetecture would be to give the SPE's, SPE's. Like, say the next generation PS4 cell is a dual core with 16 SPE's. Each of those SPE's would have 3 little tiny SPE's of their own that they could offload information too. I'm not even sure if this would work, but its an idea.

[Jabjabs]

I was thinking about this a little while back as a upgrade to the cell archetecture would be to give the SPE's, SPE's. Like, say the next generation PS4 cell is a dual core with 16 SPE's. Each of those SPE's would have 3 little tiny SPE's of their own that they could offload information too. I'm not even sure if this would work, but its an idea.

And right there you have one of the biggest programming nightmares that could ever be conceived until Ps5!

[EbonySeraphim]

And right there you have one of the biggest programming nightmares that could ever be conceived until Ps5!
LOL. Agreed. The industry isn't growing fast enough to support such a huge architectural change for the PS4 unless maybe it's released very close to or after 2015. And that's assuming this industry continues to grow at the rate it's going or faster. I guess another possibility for the feasibility of such expansion is if compiler technology drastically improves and allows hardware to change drastically and compilers to intelligently optimize without recoding anything or much at all.

[Aleman]

The Cell architecture should scale nicely for the PS4. Throw in the latest Nvidia GPU and they'd be set and the same programming practices used for the PS3 could be used for the PS4.

[ishanz]

The only thing XBOX360 could do to hurt PS3 is a price drop.

Nothing else would help in the same way.. Doesn't matter what else they decide duck tape on to there console.. will not stop the sinking feeling.. khee


Archy

It would hurt quite a bit. If the price of the Premium were to drop below $300, it would begin to stir some people... including me :p

[Hydra_Hobo]

I'm am going to go with the G80 crowd because I want to. If it isn't, meh. As long as Lair looks that good, how can I complain?

On another note, Aleman, how is your new Sammy looking? I am getting mine tomorrow :).

[Ricokillercon]

But it wont...the most you'll see thsi chrismas if it happens would be 50 on eahc sku...cuase to be honest they dont need to this chrismas

[renegadevikingPS3]

So basically you're saying that quadrupling memory capacity quadruples performance


Hell no! The IBM Rochester (Blue Gene prototype) does 36.01 TFLOPS in Sept 29, 2004 and that was the fastest computer on Earth at that time so it can't be more then 7.2 Teraflops. I can say anything here I want I thought. Feel free to ignore me.

Wouldn't it be great if PS4 had 2 GB of futuristic RAM though....half XDR/half GDDR4

[Lefein]

The Cell architecture should scale nicely for the PS4. Throw in the latest Nvidia GPU and they'd be set and the same programming practices used for the PS3 could be used for the PS4.

I agree. A multicore Cell with larger LSRam dumps amd a unified cache between PPE cores would murder just about anything I could even think of short of BioProcessing or electron deflection (neither of which would be commercially viable in the next decade)

[razorblade416]

Wow, alot of people have voted the "G80" selection in the poll now. It's dominating the rest of the choices. Have we gotten more info? Or do we just have more hopeful voters? ;)

So, if the Cell is so much more powerful, what could the 720 do to counter it next gen? Will they make something that looks remarkably like the Cell? ;)

[EbonySeraphim]

So, if the Cell is so much more powerful, what could the 720 do to counter it next gen? Will they make something that looks remarkably like the Cell? ;)
No, but you may see a CPU that is a lot more specalized to the type of processing that games require instead of an approach that is aimed to be compatible with the PC market. Microsoft has already learned their lesson somewhat and have strayed away from using an Intel CPU in a gaming console. But they still only minorly improved on the floating point/SIMD performance of the base PowerPC architecture this time around. They also took the PC safe symmetric multiprocessing approach which is what PCs are doing to allow the operating system to run programs on different cores without variance in performance. Similar to how Microsoft only improved the SSE2 instruction set and hardware with the XBox original, all Microsoft did with the PowerPC architecture was enhance the VMX-128 instruction set and hardware a bit. The power gap of last generation was mostly in the graphics department. Graphics are the most obvious gap in terms of games, and it is what leads to the general consensus that XBox is more powerful than PS2. It's true that most gamers don't see the difference between games that have real physics vs faked physics. It's hard to tell unless the difference is so obvious, it smacks them in the face with unprecendented realism such as a move like Half Life 2. PS2's Graphics Syntesizer(GS) last generation was definitely a weak point where the CPU had to pick up a lot of the processing slack. It's actually slightly incorrect for me to phrase it that way as Sony intended for the Emotion Engine to handle a lot of graphics work from the beginning. This prevented dominating physics or other simulation related work from shining on the Emotion Engine. Otherwise, putting the Pentium 3 modified CPU in the XBox original against the Emotion Engine in the PS2 - I do thoroughly believe that the Emotion Engine would have performed considerably better for a lot of SIMD/math/simulation type code.

This era, since the PS3 does have a comparable GPU at least, developers don't have to use the power of the CPU to compensate and are free to use it fully for physics, sound, or they could still even lean towards graphics if they wanted to. If the Cell doesn't hit pretty hard this generation for gaming, maybe Sony should reassess the importance of a powerful CPU in a gaming console. Then again, the Cell is used for so much more than gaming anyways, so they might as well use it for their game console.

[pepe]

Is the ps3 capable of doing raytracing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV_95-rmYNo

[lordmadjack]

Check out the game Warhawk for your answer :D

Volumetric ray traced clouds :D

[pepe]

What about a third person or first person shooter. Are we going to see those kind of games using raytracing.

[The_One]

Is the ps3 capable of doing raytracing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV_95-rmYNo Read this thread:
http://www.ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=24808

Short answer: Yes, it's capable of ray-tracing--very primitive ones, that is.

[baten]

This is my first post on this forum so please go easy on me - I just state my 2 cents :)

On last generation, the PS2 had a processor - the EE - that was a lot more powerfull than the 700 Mhz Celeron from the Xbox, however it was much harder to program for. The grafic card from Xbox, being of a newer generation since it was released more than a year later, although not more powerfull in terms of polygons, was "smarter" as it could do things like bump mapping etc - which PS2 could also do through software (not as easy). I think in the end the only real difference that made the Xbox look more powerfull was the double amount of RAM that it had - should the PS2 had the same 64 Mb I am convinced it would have produced better loking games than the Xbox.

Now, if we look at the realease time of PS3 (actually I remember that the first release date I heard from Sony for PS3 three years ago, was 2007 - they only had to release earlyer due to MS coming up in 2005) I find hard to believe that Sony is not using this extra year they had in order to give the PS3 a grafic card that is more evolved than the one in 360. As for as I know the grafic card in a console is the last to be finalized in the process, to me it does not make any sense to think that PS3 will be using a card that is more than one year old by the time the console launches. I took the time and read this whole thread, and I am rather inclined to go for a G80 core - one optimised to work with the CELL, not necessarly the one which we will see in PCs.

I do not think they will increase the size of RAM however, since what they have now is anyway utilised better that on the 360 due to the FlexIO and the sinergy expected between the CELL and the new grafic card.

[ddaryl]

good 1st post baten... I think most of us can concur with your hypothesis

[archy141]

This is my first post on this forum so please go easy on me - I just state my 2 cents :)

Welcome to the forums ! !

Glad to see you actually took the time to read through the whole thread & its no suprise that you came to the same conclusion that most rational individuals would.

If a person takes a step back to look at the whole big picture, it only makes logical sense to expect Sony to have something similar to G80 in the PS3.
But all our logic & reasoning can still fail as there is nothing to ensure Sony will follow the same logic all the way as we have speculated.

One thing we are all becoming to appreciate more & more recently is all the good news on how the first generation games are suddenly begining to really polish up well. Games such as Motorostorm that were laughed for there earlier bulids are now looking very close to the target render videos. Judging by this progress it is not hard to belive that the PS3 will exceed the original target renders in the 2nd or otherwise 3rd generation. I'm certainly starting to beileve that Killzone3 renders are very possible on the PS3 given time.

Whatever form the RSX has taken in the final development kits we sure can be proud of it !


http://playstation3.gaming-universe.de//screengalerie/1233.jpg


Archy

:rolleyes:

[baten]

Well, Archy, I had these ideeas for quite some time, and this is the reason that I ENJOYED reading this thread. I only found this forum last week, but now I am glad that I did.

For me it's more a question of common business sense - I do not understand too much of the technical aspects presented here (although I read them with interest). I have no ideea what G80 is - apart for the fact that it seems to be the latest and greatest in grafics from Nvidia, and it makes no sense for Sony not to have it in PS3. In fact, this is what they paid Nvidia for - the best there is, not just something that they already have in their portofolio since last year. That's what MS did five years ago - why should it be different with Sony?

[CardboardGun]

Hey there everyone! This is my first post on the forums, but I've been a long time reader of your posts, so this thread is nowhere near new to me. Well, I just found something over at the fantastically stupid site spong.com, where I came over something claimed by someone who had seen the new trailers probably shown tomorrow at Leipzig, and they claimed the RSX is a modified version of the G71. Wheather or not this is reliable, is a completely different question. Well, see for yourselves at: http://news.spong.com/article/10637

As much as I hope the RSX is based of the G80, this kinda killed my hope. Even though the G71 probably will do a fantastic job if that's what we're getting.

[baten]

Hey there everyone! This is my first post on the forums, but I've been a long time reader of your posts, so this thread is nowhere near new to me. Well, I just found something over at the fantastically stupid site spong.com, where I came over something claimed by someone who had seen the new trailers probably shown tomorrow at Leipzig, and they claimed the RSX is a modified version of the G71. Wheather or not this is reliable, is a completely different question. Well, see for yourselves at: http://news.spong.com/article/10637

As much as I hope the RSX is based of the G80, this kinda killed my hope. Even though the G71 probably will do a fantastic job if that's what we're getting.

Spong is quoting The Inquierer. Now that's reliable.

[nickworks]

"...Nvidia is using existing G71 renamed to RSX as the graphic core of choice for Playstation 3 and even it can not technologically match ATI's Xenos it still offers a lot of potential if used wisely..."

What?? Hey Sony..go back to developing!!!!

So we´ll see only amazing gfx for ps3 exclusiv titles? I guess you also get a lot of potential if you use the xenos wisely!!
No, no no..I hope thats a rumor!!

[wotter]

"...Nvidia is using existing G71 renamed to RSX as the graphic core of choice for Playstation 3 and even it can not technologically match ATI's Xenos it still offers a lot of potential if used wisely..."

What?? Hey Sony..go back to developing!!!!


They probably think unified > non-unified. Imo, I don't know, ATI thinks unified is the way to go, Nvidia thinks otherwise.

[Aleman]

They probably think unified > non-unified. Imo, I don't know, ATI thinks unified is the way to go, Nvidia thinks otherwise.

As far as I know, Nvidia is planning on eventually moving to unified shaders.

[Grym]

As far as I know, Nvidia is planning on eventually moving to unified shaders.

Yes, in a year or two they should.

G80 and the gen after that I don't think they will. They seem to think it isn't worth it atm.

[CardboardGun]

Spong is quoting The Inquierer. Now that's reliable.

Haha, just what I was thinking too..

[archy141]

Yup - Its stright from the biggest Rumour Mill -Inquirer *cough, cough


Playstation 3 demos look great

Claims Nvidian insider

By Fuad Abazovic: Tuesday 22 August 2006, 10:30
NVIDIAN INSIDERS reckon we will all be impressed with Playstation 3's graphics capabilities. Someone from the team that saw the demos developed in house could not keep their mouth shout.

Nvidia is using existing G71 renamed to RSX as the graphic core of choice for Playstation 3 and even it can not technologically match ATI's Xenos it still offers a lot of potential if used wisely.

Our source says the demos look astonishing.

Sony is super secretive about the demos but we reckon it won't be long before we see some of them. We expect to see some at the Games Convention that starts tomorrow in Leipzig, Germany.

We can confirm that Nvidia doesn’t have any troubles producing as many RSX chips as it wants. It's not that hard to make this chip running at 550MHz, developed on the proven 90 nanometre marchitecture.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33838


There was a time when people were not prepared to accept that RSX was a G70 7800 -They procalaimed it to be more of 7600. Now it seems people are more ready to speculate it being a G71 aka 7900/7950GT.

The way i see it, this speculation only takes RSX closer to G80. The G80 is taped out for a while but still all information on it is hidden like that of Nvidias other GPU -RSX.

I belive that the G80 is potentially a G7x core with DX10 stapled on so there is plenty that can be in common with the two cores. The RSX could be G80 minus certain baggage such as DX10 i.e not quite a G80 but neither a regular G7x GPU.

I certainly hope this is the case with the RSX design. Even if it is not we are ceratinly seeing amazing & very satisfying firstgen games whatever the RSX may be.


Archy

[nickworks]

Big announcement here and there and everytime its a disappointment. I hoped sony improved the RSX but it seems they didn´t. Games look similar on both platforms (xbox360, Ps3) although sony hits the market a year later. Oh I know, ...look at this game, here you have five polys more...- and wait for the next gen of games where we have a little bit more HDR.
But in the end there is no great difference!

I believe the announcements on wednesday are in terms of games not in hardware. Maybe we´ll see a trailer of killzone or something like that.
Maybe we´ll never get the final specs of the rsx and maybe we hear: Hey, we started to develop the ps4 and i can tell you it won´t be cheap!!...

[changing]

I belive that the G80 is potentially a G7x core with DX10 stapled on so there is plenty that can be in common with the two cores. The RSX could be G80 minus certain baggage such as DX10 i.e not quite a G80 but neither a regular G7x GPU.

People should stop mentioning DX10 when talking about the RSX. Its nothing to do with the thing. DX is an API. I presume people use it to describe its feature set, but even then its pointless, because its about die size, piplelines, bus speeds etc.

Its like talking about a CPU having XP stapled on to it.

[archy141]

I presume people use it to describe its feature set

Yes that is what i was referring to. The specific extra hardware features that make it DX10 compliant.



Archy

[Aleman]

A 7950 is just two 7900 cores slapped together on the same PCB. I doubt the RSX has more than one core, especially since SLI is not very efficient.

[archy141]

A 7950 is just two 7900 cores slapped together on the same PCB. I doubt the RSX has more than one core, especially since SLI is not very efficient.


You are mistakenly refferring to 7950 GX2.

I made references to 7950 GT.


http://resources.vr-zone.com.sg/Shamino/news/7950gt2.jpg

http://resources.vr-zone.com.sg/Shamino/news/7950gt3.jpg


This GPU has already been discussed earlier in this thread.


Archy

[Aleman]

Oh my bad, I hadn't heard of the 7950GT.

http://resources.vr-zone.com.sg/Shamino/news/7950gt3.jpg

That's a really funny picture... check out the advantage column heh.

[wonders1982]

Oh my bad, I hadn't heard of the 7950GT.

http://resources.vr-zone.com.sg/Shamino/news/7950gt3.jpg

That's a really funny picture... check out the advantage column heh.

so with 2x as much memory and pipes..it only outperforms the other card by 187 points? thought it would of been a few more than that.

[ninja]

Well I was gonna make my own topic on RSX but here I just type all of my toughts here.


Hopefully RSX is a g80 and totally owns and prove all those na sayers dead wrong at tgs 2006, lol. I have tons of reasons to beileve RSX is g80 and then there some reasons to beileve it not tho... lol.
But then again PS3 got hdmi 1.3 and all these other next gen new tech added that they did'nt even talk about back in spring 06.

So for the mosh part... I beileve 100% it will be a mix of g70 with some of g80 mix in it or totally g80. My reason for saying that is only because PS3 uses open gl and not dx and how it use a custom some short of sm3.

But yeah... PS3 gave us some surpises already so just maybe they will show full specs of RSX at tgs and showing that it is the g80.
I mean everything in PS3 is next gen and there show many hints at it being g80. Like when ken said 4d graphics and all the ken/nvidia interviews hinting at it.

Besides RSX have 4d texture :). Everything in PS3 is next gen so I dont see any reason why RSX wont be 110% g80 because that would go perfect with all the other next gen stuff in the PS3 already. Also seeing how rsx is already done and they have'nt shown it full specs or talked about RSX since e32005 so I say e32005 specs are all wrong and there all new specs for RSX.

On top of all that... when Cell was 100% done they shown all it specs... and RSX is all done... right? If it not but being close to done DUH it gonna be the g80.
Guess Sony just want everyone eyes on them and they want to save this big surpise at tgs 2006 :). I would'nt even be surpise if the controller gets a rumbler in it.

I just had to say this because PS3 was ment to come out in late 2006 because they keep adding next gen stuff in the PS3 that was not out or ocmeing out anywhere near spring 06. I mean if they was ready by spring 06 and seeing how g70 was totally done back then... then RSX would have been g70 and come out in spring 06.

And back in spring 06 RSX would have been the newest and next gen at that time... but not now. With g80 comeing out the same time... or right around PS3... and RSX stll in the works? Then I have no reason not to beileve it is the g80.

We got surpises where they added stuff to PS3 this yr. that no one knew that they would add like hdmi 1.3, 120fps, and everything else.
Yes diff from what they said at e32005. They added all next gen stuff in PS3 leading up to it comeing out date and the only next gen thing in the world that I see that is the only thing that is and needed to be added to make the console 100% next gen is g80 RSX that haves sm4 and dx10.

That would also lead us to beileve that that will make it last for 10 yrs. like Sony have said. And we all sould know Ken is nuts and only wants the best of the best and newest next gen in the PS3 and this would fit right in the other parts of PS3 110%.
It kinda like how they had the first PS3 controller shown at e32005 and back then it did'nt even have or said anything about motion senerding?

Did it? And sorry if spelled wrong, lol. Anyways... then after they made the final and new PS3 controller they added some new stuff to it.
Like the little lights on top to yet you know what controller you are and how for the controller to know what PS3 it belongs to. And how it have motion sender (sorry again if I spelled wrong lol). And the tilt thing... lol.

Also how they made the r2 l2 buttions bigger and the two sticks easyer to move. There also smaller anit they? And they added a home buttion or whatever it is, lol.
And whatever else they did to it, lol. There more reasons then just these to beileve it is the g80... but one more that I will say is how the g80 supports hdcp... seems g70 would'nt supprot hdmi 1.3 to me.

So I have reason to beileve RSX is g80 and g80 supports hdmi 1.3 or maybe just because of Sony, lol. Then even seeing some of the specs at e32005 for RSX they all was way better then the specs for g70... they seemed high for a g70.

But I bet the specs are all totally diff now and that why they anit saying anything about RSX and it all a surpise that Sony dose not want to give away till tgs 2006 and because it closer to when PS3 comes out and seeing how it is there last surpise for PS3 unless the controller gets a rumbler, lol.

I mean really g80/sm4/dx10 for RSX is the only thing I see that PS3 needs to be the first ever truely nextgen console and I beileve this have been what Ken wanted all along the whole time and planed ever since the very start of PS3.

And if Cell was a out of order cpu, hehe and maybe had 3 to 5 ppes, lol. But no biggy on Cell being out of order cpu... I mean... I think I read somewhere be4 where out of order for Cell is better for PS3... but in order Cell would be better for pcs only and bad for PS3 or something, I dont know, lol.

Then again no biggy on more then 1 ppe but stll... but anyways the spes make up alot for only haveing 1 ppe, lol.
Makeing everything better. Maybe better haveing 1 ppe with 8 spes instead of more then 1 ppes and no spes, lol.

Also a + is that all the spes run at 3.2 ghz :). Seeing how Cell is the best cpu and newest/real next gen just like hdmi 1.3 and everything else truely next gen in the PS3 give me more reason to beileve the RSX is g80 110%.

By the way if PS3 wants to be the first ever and truely next gen console then it would,nt have a custom g70 RSX or a g70 mix with some g80 stuff but totally g80 for RSX would make the PS3 have the newest, latest, and best next gen for when it comes out and for a long time to come.

I say that because of hdmi 1.3, 120fps, 128 bit color,flexio,xdr, and other stuff in the PS3 and how Cell is and what it is and how it works with RSX. Also if RSX is totally g80 like I beileve it is then that would mean it memory would be gddr4 and other stuff changed too.

Well that why I said the RSX specs got to be totally diff (g80) or some diff now if it a mix of g70 with some g80 stuff or like I said already how I beileve it totally g80 the specs would all changed I think and that why I said that in the first place, lol.

And does g70 even have 4d texture? Or does g80 only have that?:) Lol. Edited. If anyone in the world have reason to beileve that RSX is not g80... it would have to do with PS3 only haveing open gl and if RSX is really useing some short of sm3 mosh likely a custom one with better new maybe next gen maybe (lol) added stuff on it.

Also since RSX have gddr3 memory and that's it or if there anything else but if so at all I dont know what that would be, lol. But that just specs from e3 2005. And like I said alread in this post how they have not said a world about RSX or if any new specs or final specs... they just have not tould us because when Cell when stll in the works they was telling us everything about it and when it got done and had it final specs they tould us Cell final specs.

So the only thing Sony/Nvidia have shown us is the specs at e3 2005 and not anything after it about RSX.
So that more reason to beileve it one way or the other a g70 with g80 stuff RSX or totally g80 RSX.

That would and totally sould make ppl think RSX is g70 but have some stuff the g80 does since everything in PS3 is next gen and the newest, latest, best stuff. But that does'nt make PS3 the first ever truely next gen console.

Well what it sould make you think is it is totally g80 for RSX or a g70 with some g80 stuff RSX. So really it sould'nt make you think RSX not g80 but one or the other of what I have said above. But like I said many times already, lol, seeing how PS3 have the newest, latest, and best next gen stuff in it that they did not tell us about that would be in PS3 be4 and around spring 06. Then when they tell us some of the new next gen stuff going in the PS3 it was alittle later then when we found out that stuff not even out yet like hdmi 1.3 and the other new next gen stuff they tould us that will be in PS3 it all leaves for late 06.

The only thing that would make PS3 the first ever truely next gen console is if RSX, Sony, Ken surpises is that RSX is g80 and have sm4, dx10, and gddr4 etc.. Besides like I said already I beileve the big surpise is RSX gonnda be g80 with sm4, dx10, gddr4 etc, and I say this because there alot of hints to it like some that I have said in this post + more.

And how I already said look at all the other stuff in PS3 that is next gen and are the newest/latest and some of the stuff in PS3 not even out yet. And how I said already also in this post there been surpises that stuff like hdmi 1.3 etc. got in PS3 amoung other stuff they never tould us about or would be in PS3 and did'nt say a world about be4 or around spring 06.

And also I forgot to say blu-ray... yeah how could I forget that, lol, sorry. I think RSX is g80 and a Multi (spelled wrong? sorry if I did lol) core gpu. I think now we sould all wait till more hints, interviews, and events come up.

But for the mosh part... wait till tgs 2006 to know 110% for sure, lol. We'll know everything about PS3 there I think and what the RSX final specs and what RSX really is.

So yeah and know how Ken is he always want the best and newest next gen latest stuff and I beileve his whole plan from the very start of PS3 was to make it the first ever best and real true next gen console. And he wanted it to be the best next gen console anyways, lol. Sorry I already said mosh of that somewhere in this post but oh well, lol.

I bet he wants it to be the best for gameing, movies, net, and everything that the PS3 can do, lol. He wants it to beat super computers, pcs, gameing comeputers, and all the other next gen consoles, lol.

Also sorry for repeating my self... some times I type alot, sorry, lol.

[archy141]

Ninja, Welcome to the forums & thanks for your opinion !

[ninja]

Ninja, Welcome to the forums & thanks for your opinion !

Thank you:) and your welcome.

[Tetsu]

Apparently the PS3 architecture is freaking everyone out, so chances are Archy is right.

[D0nni3]

well there are a huge amount of NDA's floating around the PS3 hardware at the moment at this late stage in the consoles 'birth' (didn't know how else to put that!) the devs are keeping quiet and nothing has been said by Nvidia about there babe the RSX either they don't feel that it's that much of a stand out peice of hardware or they have a dark secret there keeping close to there chest and im hopin were in for a very pleasent suprise before it's released

[ninja]

Apparently the PS3 architecture is freaking everyone out, so chances are Archy is right.

Lol yeah and Sony and Ken dont wanna give away the true RSX and it's final specs till the last sec they got right be4 the PS3 comes out.

[razorblade416]

Well, maybe the big TGS surprise is that the Cell is back up to 4.6ghz :twisted:

Which do you guys think would be better? a 4.6ghz cell and no RSX upgrade, or qa G80 RSX and a 3.2ghz cell??

[ninja]

well there are a huge amount of NDA's floating around the PS3 hardware at the moment at this late stage in the consoles 'birth' (didn't know how else to put that!) the devs are keeping quiet and nothing has been said by Nvidia about there babe the RSX either they don't feel that it's that much of a stand out peice of hardware or they have a dark secret there keeping close to there chest and im hopin were in for a very pleasent suprise before it's released

Well this also makes me start to beileve since RSX been getting made at Sony place that yeah they added there own stuff? And just made it over all better. But seeing how RSX works closely with Cell and how RSX being made at Sony... it looks like maybe Ken came up with this idea to add 7 or 8 spes or so to RSX that will read/write to Cell just how Cell spes can read/write to RSX or maybe a bigger surpise and even bigger then that... lol... it is useing smes in RSX and I only said even bigger then that if smes are better for RSX then spes, lol.

This would also give the main core in RSX a load off hope it can do more of what it is good at and suppose to do and run fine even more so. I say even more so because Cell can do alot of graphics stuff and a.i, physics (sorry if spelled wrong), polygons, vertexes, and ever stuff.

Besides Cell is better for some to alot of stuff that a gpu/video card can do.

[ninja]

Well, maybe the big TGS surprise is that the Cell is back up to 4.6ghz :twisted:

Which do you guys think would be better? a 4.6ghz cell and no RSX upgrade, or qa G80 RSX and a 3.2ghz cell??

Well mosh likey not and the PS3 did get bigger in size... but that just happen for some reason or maybe for more room for less heat or and because they put the power supply (if spelled right lol) in the PS3. Hopefully in the future they will take out the power supply but leave the console the same size for more less heat and anyways sometime in 2007 the 60mm Cell will be in the PS3.

And that just means less heat, less power use because less heat. Also if it had more heat the more power it would have to use. That also makes 60mm Cell more powerful (in that way).

Also makes it faster since less heat and less power use. Also means more speed to be use. I kinda confuse my self sometimes on why it would make Cell faster but it means it running how it suppose to and not useing as much speed as the 90mm Cell because it haves more heat and more power use.

So 60mm Cell would have more power, less heat, running at the right rate it suppose to, and have more speed to use or when needed. I confused my self, lol. And if I had to pick from 4.6 ghz or qa g80 RSX... duh qa g80 RSX, lol. Because 4.6 ghz for Cell anit gonna give you better graphics... maybe better speed for graphics and other stuff that the Cell can do but qa g80 RSX would be the best pick, lol.

[Tetsu]

Frankly, I'd rather see 512 megs or more of system ram, but maybe the specs on something will have changed this week. Or maybe we'll get the full specs at Tokyo. But there are some technical developer's conferences at Leipzig, so if the specifications aren't released, that would be really odd.

[ninja]

Frankly, I'd rather see 512 megs or more of system ram, but maybe the specs on something will have changed this week. Or maybe we'll get the full specs at Tokyo. But there are some technical developer's conferences at Leipzig, so if the specifications aren't released, that would be really odd.

Not really... NDAs. But yeah I wanna see more ram and 512mb for RSX.
But to think to much into it... lol, I would like to see more ram, 512 mb for RSX or 1024mb and 512mb or 1024mb for Cell. That would own, lol.

But stll... RSX does sound like totally g80 since Ken said 4d graphics and all the hints and other stuff Ken and other interviews (I think) about PS3 and it mosh powerful graphics. I hope he did'nt mean just because of Cell and how it works with RSX and RSX is just a custom g70 core some g80 stuff. But how Ken is and for all what PS3 got in it... it's all newest, latest, and best next gen stuff in it. So I say RSX is totally g80.

Because g80 is the latest, newest, and best next gen from Nvidia and Ken had to know this and I bet that what RSX really is. Seeing how they have not said a world about RSX or little bits about it or it final specs if it is done now... but I think it getting close to done. Make ya beileve way more into it totally g80 and not a g70 with some g80 stuff.

And seeing how this is Sony, Ken last big surpise for PS3 he wants to wait till the last sec and that mosh likely will be at tgs 2006 when he gives us the final specs of RSX and shows what it really is.

Also Sony even said it is the mosh powerful gpu ever built. Right? I know that what they mean but is that world by word they said because I kinda forget because it was so long ago, lol.

[Guilty Bystander]

Well, maybe the big TGS surprise is that the Cell is back up to 4.6ghz

Which do you guys think would be better? a 4.6ghz cell and no RSX upgrade, or qa G80 RSX and a 3.2ghz cell??

Well a GPU would be better than a CPU upgrade as graphics would progress by quite a bit going from a G70/71 to a G80.
A 3,2GHz Cell will be enough power well I can tell you one better even the Xenon has plenty of power.
This generation of hardware really has an overload of processing power and a lack of graphical power to go with it.
Look I'm not saying RSX and Xenos are not powerfull but what I'm saying the Cell and Xenon really need better GPU's to go with it.
We've got these two consoles both driven by next generation CPU's while they're only using current generation GPU's.
Cell and Xenon are leaps ahead of the Intel Core 2 Quad and Amd 64 4x4 competition while the RSX and Xenos are only about as powerfull overall as current generation high-end desktop GPU's GeForce 7900GTX-7950GTX and Radeon X1900XT-X1950XTX.

Furthermore I think people have to stop dreaming RSX is really a G80 is the huge anouncement Sony is planning.
It problably has got something to do with some game, a new Eye-toy, maybe a lower price or something similair.

Also I don't think people can expect the RSX to be a G80 GPU as the G80 will have 500+ million transistors on 90nm which will be impossible to cool inside a console case like the PS3.
Also costs will prevent the PS3 to have a G80 GPU.
People you have to remember you're already getting a Cell processor, Blu-Ray drive and lot's of other very high-end stuff for just $500-600 I mean Sony has to make a profit somewhere in the future you know!
If you want to most possible high-end stuff you'll have to open your wallet much more and buy a standalone Blu-Ray player or a PC with a Quad core CPU, Dual/Quad high-end GPU's of the next generation with 2-4GB's of memory.

Just be glad with what you will receive already.
RSX won't be more than a G70/71 with some small features from the G80 at best!

[razorblade416]

Well mosh likey not and the PS3 did get bigger in size... but that just happen for some reason or maybe for more room for less heat or and because they put the power supply (if spelled right lol) in the PS3. Hopefully in the future they will take out the power supply but leave the console the same size for more less heat and anyways sometime in 2007 the 60mm Cell will be in the PS3.

And that just means less heat, less power use because less heat. Also if it had more heat the more power it would have to use. That also makes 60mm Cell more powerful (in that way).

Also makes it faster since less heat and less power use. Also means more speed to be use. I kinda confuse my self sometimes on why it would make Cell faster but it means it running how it suppose to and not useing as much speed as the 90mm Cell because it haves more heat and more power use.

So 60mm Cell would have more power, less heat, running at the right rate it suppose to, and have more speed to use or when needed. I confused my self, lol. And if I had to pick from 4.6 ghz or qa g80 RSX... duh qa g80 RSX, lol. Because 4.6 ghz for Cell anit gonna give you better graphics... maybe better speed for graphics and other stuff that the Cell can do but qa g80 RSX would be the best pick, lol.


Wow, your posts really are confusing to read, but the 60nm Cell being "faster" dosen't do anything for you since all games will be made to run perfectly off of the 90nm cell. The 65nm looks good, I just can't wait that long. I'll probably end up getting one at launch with a warranty and then "breaking" it the day the 65nm cells come one :twisted:

But yeah, 512MB RSX would be THE BEST announcement EVER!

[Guilty Bystander]

But yeah, 512MB RSX would be THE BEST announcement EVER!

Yeah man I hear you and that really would be the best move Sony can make hardware wise.
Unfortunately I think it won't happen as I think in Sony's rage to equip the PS3 a card reader, HDMI 1.3 and other useless stuff Sony blew the option to add another 256MB GDDR3 memory to the RSX.
Let's hope I'm wrong though.
Not adding more VRAM to the PS3 will for the rest of the PS3 it's lifecycle result in the PS3 having the worse texture quality compared to the Xbox 360.
This is a bad thing as Sony will have a hard time to explain their console is really better than the Xbox 360 while it will have worse and less textures.

[Redrider]

When this thread first started I thought it was wishful thinking and a good way to pass the time. Since then several members that I hold in high regard (They know their Tech stuff) have really started to come around from their first posts about this subject. I thought that Sony was not saying anything because they did not want to add to the fuel of the “PS3 bashing” this summer (the RSX was “weak” and we already know everything about it). Now I’m beginning to wonder if Archie may have stumbled onto something we all overlooked? Recent interviews by both Sony and Nvidia are hinting that the RSX could be something more that we expect. I’m staring to believe this could be “trump card” that they are still holding. Damn thing is this is making the wait for TSG that much longer!

Thanks Archie!

[HighPs3]

Since we are all dreaming here is what I wish they would do!

Not modify the original RSX just simply add another one! Sli in a Ps3, I think Nvidia could have come up with a great way for the 7 SPE's and 2 RSX's to work together.

If only dreams came true :(

I really think its the original RSX... Hoping im wrong though :P

[Nu Soard Graphite]

A 3,2GHz Cell will be enough power well I can tell you one better even the Xenon has plenty of power.
This generation of hardware really has an overload of processing power and a lack of graphical power to go with it.
Look I'm not saying RSX and Xenos are not powerfull but what I'm saying the Cell and Xenon really need better GPU's to go with it.
We've got these two consoles both driven by next generation CPU's while they're only using current generation GPU's.
Cell and Xenon are leaps ahead of the Intel Core 2 Quad and Amd 64 4x4 competition while the RSX and Xenos are only about as powerfull overall as current generation high-end desktop GPU's GeForce 7900GTX-7950GTX and Radeon X1900XT-X1950XTX.

lack of graphical prowess? How so? Compared to PC's maybe, but PC's have to use the Brute-Force approach because PC games have to be made to run on a wide variety of hardware, where Consoles are a close environment and a game can be made specifically for the Hardware within the console and thus be far more efficient than a typical PC game.

Lets not forget (as everyone here seems to be) that the CELL can help the RSX render graphics...heck, the CELL can render graphics all on its own (at the cost of other processes of course) but with the CELL and the RSX together, the sum will likely be greater than its individual parts.

[MiThRaZoR]

If they SLI it's not really two times the power of one RSX. Just look at the SLI of 6800. It's only about a 40% increase. I don't know why, but that's just it.

They should have added a PPU (Physics card) instead. They should have had more RAM though other than that. RAM is all you really need right now. SLI RSX would be useless without as much RAM.

[Guilty Bystander]

When this thread first started I thought it was wishful thinking and a good way to pass the time. Since then several members that I hold in high regard (They know their Tech stuff) have really started to come around from their first posts about this subject. I thought that Sony was not saying anything because they did not want to add to the fuel of the “PS3 bashing” this summer (the RSX was “weak” and we already know everything about it). Now I’m beginning to wonder if Archie may have stumbled onto something we all overlooked? Recent interviews by both Sony and Nvidia are hinting that the RSX could be something more that we expect. I’m staring to believe this could be “trump card” that they are still holding. Damn thing is this is making the wait for TSG that much longer!

Thanks Archie!

It really is wishfull thinking and for two reasons.
1. A G80 will run too hot with it's 500+ million transistors on 90nm inside a small case like that of the PS3 I don't even know how they want to cool it inside a big PC case.
2. A G80 will drive up the costs by too much for Sony to ever make a profit in the PS3 it's lifecycle this would be Xbox 1 stupid.

Nobody said RSX is weak and if people said that then they're stupid.
RSX is little weaker than the Xenos but then again Cell is more powerfull than the Xenon.
Which ever is the best in the end we don't know yet.

[THEREALNEXTGEN]

I do believe the RSX will be a little more powerfull, probably between a 7900 and G80. I am pretty sure they would probably add more RAM to the system, it's needed with the monster of Cell+RSX. This may seem funny, but Ken Kutargi keeps saying a 4D gaming expierence, could this possibly mean that games could be played with 3D glasses? Instead of just traditional 3D gaming, we could have the game popping out of the TV. Maybe they are upgrading RSX and have an additional idea for this. That's just what I think.

[Tetsu]

Not adding more VRAM to the PS3 will for the rest of the PS3 it's lifecycle result in the PS3 having the worse texture quality compared to the Xbox 360. This is a bad thing as Sony will have a hard time to explain their console is really better than the Xbox 360 while it will have worse and less textures.
Er...... where do you get that idea??

Anyway, because of developer gloating, I'm not too worried about how much horsepower the RSX has on paper. Apparenly it has way more than enough to do the job. I'm really looking forward to this holiday season. :D

[Guilty Bystander]

Er...... where do you get that idea??

Well from developer response found throughout the web and the fact multiplatform games have better textures on the Xbox 360.


Anyway, because of developer gloating, I'm not too worried about how much horsepower the RSX has on paper. Apparenly it has way more than enough to do the job. I'm really looking forward to this holiday season.

November 17th, 2006... I will be there

You and me both my man, you and me both! :)

[LexLuthor]

Lol yeah and Sony and Ken dont wanna give away the true RSX and it's final specs till the last sec they got right be4 the PS3 comes out.

Yeah,cause you wouldn't want Microsoft CHANGING thier part after being in FULL production for a year!

This part was in the bag at least a FULL year ago, No it isn't going to be top of the line.

[ps3isawesome]

on ign.com they have the sony press con. it takes about it and how it is 2 * stroger than the worlds best gpu

[archy141]

on ign.com they have the sony press con. it takes about it and how it is 2 * stroger than the worlds best gpu

Are you referring to the E3 2005 conference ?

Link plse


Archy

[wotter]

It's from 2005 alright, the Nvidia spokesman said it and I think they showed it on a slide too. That is why I don't get it when people said that RSX is comparable to a 7600gt. A 7600gt is comparable to a 6800gt, and a 6800U is better than a 6800gt. And RSX is even faster than 2*6800U in SLI!

[Guilty Bystander]

It's from 2005 alright, the Nvidia spokesman said it and I think they showed it on a slide too. That is why I don't get it when people said that RSX is comparable to a 7600gt. A 7600gt is comparable to a 6800gt, and a 6800U is better than a 6800gt. And RSX is even faster than 2*6800U in SLI!

Actually the 7600GT is about 10-20% quicker than the 6800Ultra.
Also beating 2 6800Ultra's in power isn't that difficult a 7900GTX beats 2 6800Ultra's by about the same 10-20% a 7600GT beats a 6800Ultra.

[code_x]

Here a quote from IGN in regards to Virtua Tennis 3

"Sega also placed the PS3 version directly next to the Xbox 360 build allowing us to see the slight differences between the two.
Plainly put, the PS3 looked a little better with sharper textures and incredibly detailed player models. It was almost eerie when we noticed the veins sticking out in our character's forehead."

Source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/727/727917p1.html

The same is true of Full Auto...the PS3 version has better textures! This is the first and only side by side! Proof the PS3 has better textures!

[Guilty Bystander]

Here a quote from IGN in regards to Virtua Tennis 3

"Sega also placed the PS3 version directly next to the Xbox 360 build allowing us to see the slight differences between the two.
Plainly put, the PS3 looked a little better with sharper textures and incredibly detailed player models. It was almost eerie when we noticed the veins sticking out in our character's forehead."

Source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/727/727917p1.html

The same is true of Full Auto...the PS3 version has better textures! This is the first and only side by side! Proof the PS3 has better textures!

Wow wow you're getting ahead of yourself.

Virtua Tennis 3 looks better because both the PS3 and Lindbergh are powered by nVidia graphics.
I'm not suprised Full Auto 2 looks better than Full Auto 1 because Sega has some experience after Full Auto 1 which they can use with Full Auto 2.
It has nothing to do with hardware however.

[Tetsu]

Virtua Tennis 3 looks better because both the PS3 and Lindbergh are powered by nVidia graphics.
I'm not suprised Full Auto 2 looks better than Full Auto 1 because Sega has some experience after Full Auto 1 which they can use with Full Auto 2. It has nothing to do with hardware however.

Err.... what are you Talking about?? If you put two separate pieces of hardware side by side, how is this not about the hardware?

[Guilty Bystander]

Err.... what are you Talking about?? If you put two separate pieces of hardware side by side, how is this not about the hardware?

I think my post is quite clear stating that Full Auto 2 being better than Full Auto 1 has nothing to do with hardware.

[Tetsu]

Well, okay I figured out the arcade board Lindberg having an NVidia connection, it's been a while since I dug into the arcade world. But there's a couple of things.

Sega AM2 and Sumo Digital may be different companies, but Sega and the other PS3 developers (and then mostly the big ones) have only recently received the full 1.0 development kits. So Sega has been building the game using partial development tools. Sumo has mature 360 development kits, so their game is actually a second generation game. I think this speaks more loudly to how easy it is to develop for the PS3 than people think.

Plus many games like Sonic which have been mentioned by others have looked better on the PS3 at E3, which again are demos built with subversion dev kits.

This is mostly a small tech gloat deal, seeing as the PS3 has had so much unnecessarily bad press thrown at it. All three consoles are going to have awesome games with terrific graphics. Just give us PS3 fans a chance to enjoy a small success story here and there. ;)

And there's another thing. I'm wondering how many of these better looking PS3 games hint at interesting things being revealled at Tokyo in a month?

[archy141]

I think my post is quite clear stating that Full Auto 2 being better than Full Auto 1 has nothing to do with hardware.

Lolz... funny how you missed out Virtua Tennis.. khee khe..

Low texture's on PS3 is a myth.

If the rumours on PS3 Oblivion are anything to go by you will be hiding somewhere very deep.


Archy

[ninja]

Well, okay I figured out the arcade board Lindberg having an NVidia connection, it's been a while since I dug into the arcade world. But there's a couple of things.

Sega AM2 and Sumo Digital may be different companies, but Sega and the other PS3 developers (and then mostly the big ones) have only recently received the full 1.0 development kits. So Sega has been building the game using partial development tools. Sumo has mature 360 development kits, so their game is actually a second generation game. I think this speaks more loudly to how easy it is to develop for the PS3 than people think.

Plus many games like Sonic which have been mentioned by others have looked better on the PS3 at E3, which again are demos built with subversion dev kits.

This is mostly a small tech gloat deal, seeing as the PS3 has had so much unnecessarily bad press thrown at it. All three consoles are going to have awesome games with terrific graphics. Just give us PS3 fans a chance to enjoy a small success story here and there. ;)

And there's another thing. I'm wondering how many of these better looking PS3 games hint at interesting things being revealled at Tokyo in a month?

Yeah that totally true. All the games that are on PS3 but also on xbox360 or and pc looks way better on PS3 by far. Like fight night round 3 for PS3 kicks the crap out of xbox 360 verison that already out.

All games will look better on PS3, lol. Then the games for only PS3 will look insanely really outstanding and mind blowing. Even ut 2007 dever. said ut 2007 runs smooher on PS3.

Also about you thinking theres a big surpise for tgs... your totally right. But dont forget the games also look better do to Cell and how Cell works with RSX. But for the other part... I beileve RSX is 110% totally the g80:-D.

But also dont forget the other parts in PS3 like hdmi 1.3, 128 bit color, 120 fps, and all the other newest, latest, next gen, best stuff, lol.

[Lefein]

I'm sure the PS3 games looking better has NOTHING to do with the fact that all of the same people who slaved on making code on the emotion engine have basically traded in a pistol for an Aircraft Carrier....

[code_x]

The PS3's first gen games look at very worst as good as 2nd gen 360 games (most people say they look better), and the flagship PS3 titles look better than anything the 360 has done to date. Check out the latest PSM for the new Final Fantasy XIII screens...the 360 will never in its product life cycle achieve those graphics! I have yet to see any 360 game inculding GOW that could stand next to FF XIII and not look plain stupid. The RSX is going to be a beast...throw in a little cell and...game over!

[SuperSJ-PS3]

I got a feeling that G80 and RSX might have something in common after all.

[ninja]

I got a feeling that G80 and RSX might have something in common after all.

Very very very much in common, lol. And code_x... little Cell!!!:shock:, lol.

[panson feo]

The PS3's first gen games look at very worst as good as 2nd gen 360 games (most people say they look better), and the flagship PS3 titles look better than anything the 360 has done to date. Check out the latest PSM for the new Final Fantasy XIII screens...the 360 will never in its product life cycle achieve those graphics! I have yet to see any 360 game inculding GOW that could stand next to FF XIII and not look plain stupid. The RSX is going to be a beast...throw in a little cell and...game over!

Mass Effect has the best graphics so far, imo.

[SuperSJ-PS3]

Mass Effect has the best graphics so far, imo.

Wrong, Crysis is the one.

[panson feo]

Wrong, Crysis is the one.
I meant consoles only. But yeah, Crysis b*tchslaps every game so far.

[Guilty Bystander]

Lolz... funny how you missed out Virtua Tennis.. khee khe..

Low texture's on PS3 is a myth.

If the rumours on PS3 Oblivion are anything to go by you will be hiding somewhere very deep.


Archy

You just force me into this but either you can't read or you can't sustain a memory for longer than a few seconds.
I clearly say:

Virtua Tennis 3 looks better because both the PS3 and Lindbergh are powered by nVidia graphics.


if you can get your head out of your own reality and return to reality you would have noticed multiple developers stated the PS3 has less memory available because of Cell's XDRAM consumption and RSX it's framebuffer consumption (for HDR, FSAA etc.) which also takes a bit of memory.
Less memory available means less textures it's as simple as that.
No myths but reality!


Yeah that totally true. All the games that are on PS3 but also on xbox360 or and pc looks way better on PS3 by far. Like fight night round 3 for PS3 kicks the crap out of xbox 360 verison that already out.


So wait a second here you're a comparing target video to a real game?
Remember the target video of Assasin's Creed?
The real game doesn't look that good now does it!
Besides there's no way the PC is ever going to lose of either the PS3 or Xbox 360 because all you do to get the better graphics is upgrade or put in another high-end videocard.


All games will look better on PS3, lol. Then the games for only PS3 will look insanely really outstanding and mind blowing. Even ut 2007 dever. said ut 2007 runs smooher on PS3.

Waky waky eggs and bacy!
UT2007 runs better on the PS3 than on a high-end PC?
That's about the funniest thing I've ever heard.

If you're comparing it with the Xbox 360 then you are comparing Gears of War's framerate with that of UT2007 which is a very big mistake as Gears of War has much more graphical fidelity and on top of that is also 3rd person which is much more complex.


Also about you thinking theres a big surpise for tgs... your totally right. But dont forget the games also look better do to Cell and how Cell works with RSX. But for the other part... I beileve RSX is 110% totally the g80.

After hearing your dreams let's do mine.
I believe the PS3 specs are all a smoke screen because these are the real specs delivered by Santa Claus Ken Kutaragi:
Dual Cell with all 16 SPE's running @6,4GHz
512MB XDRAM Redwood clocked to 6,4GHz delivering 51,2GB/s
RSX really an enhanced R680 made by nVidia (ROTF ;)) 65nm clocked to 1250MHz with 96 ALU's Unified Shader Architecture, 24 texture units, a SM4.0++ featureset and a 512bit memory interface
2GB GDDR4 clocked to 1,25GHz (2,5GHz effective) delivering 160GB/s
Ultra Blu-Ray 16x Eight Layer delivering 200GB of capacity
HDMI 2.0 for 1600p 120hz display with eXtreme Reality True Dolby Digital 7.1/DTS 7.1/THX++ 7.1 Ultra sound
500GB S-ATAII 15000rpm Harddrive built in
All of this hardware for just $299 or €250 available 31 september 2006 with 5 million for each territory.

Oke now back to reality a G80 would drive the PS3 it's cost up to about $1000-1600 for each PS3 manufactured within the first year.
Prices will come down after that with the manufacturing on smaller processes but it will still remain too expensive for Sony to ever make a profit on the hardware.

A G71 with some small G80 features may be possible but a real life G80 on the PS3 motherboard, no freaking way!
Hoping for a real G80 is just empty pipedreams.


But also dont forget the other parts in PS3 like hdmi 1.3, 128 bit color, 120 fps, and all the other newest, latest, next gen, best stuff, lol.

HDMI 1.3 IMO is only featured with the PS3 for Blu-Ray movies and the high-end audio layers it has to transmit.
No PS3 games shown todate have framebuffer videos or screenshots with a nattive resolution higher than that of 720p.
Every game is in 720p!

120fps with a game means you only have 25% the amount of detail on screen compared to a game running on 30fps and 50% the amount of detail on screen compared to a game running on 60fps.
All this is is Kutaragi's wet dream just like the fact he said Sony invented 3D graphics.
It's all PR bs!
Sony uses it, Microsoft uses it, Nintendo uses it everybody uses it and it's intended for the weak minded that can't make up their own mind or are just too stupid to see through obvious bs.
Think of these people like the people that buy a knife which can cut through a shoe from Tell Sell or some other piece of junk from those infomercials.
128bit Floating Point Color precision was first introduced on desktop PC's with the GeForce FX5800+ and later all the other GeForce FX series ranging from the FX5100 al the way upto the FX5950 Ultra so nothing new about that.

Now let's let reality hit in!
The PS3 and the Xbox 360 have about the same power and are pretty evenly matched with the odds problably favoring the PS3 with 5-20% which won't squized out of the hardware when it's atleast in it's 3rd year of it's lifecycle.

You guys really need to let go of all these silly pipedreams before you'll ruïn your own PS3 experience because of your too high expectations.

[SuperSJ-PS3]

I meant consoles only. But yeah, Crysis b*tchslaps every game so far.

Consoles would be Lair. forsho

[Tetsu]

Man... somebody needs a hug. :lol:

Anyway, Guilty B, unless you're Bill Gates' little brother, don't fret about what is and isn't in the PS3. You know as much as we do, unless you're inside Sony somewhere on the verge of busting some NDAs. We'll all know soon enough, so just sit back and enjoy the infosurf. Or get out and do something if this kind of talk riles you up.

[baten]

It's funny to hear all the time from MS and their friends that 360 and PS3 are a wash.
Now, if this were true, I am pretty sure they would have stated that the 360 is more powerfull - that's what a PR or a supporter would do.
If they claim the PS3 is SLIGHTLY more powerfull - I am inclined to believe that actually PS3 is quite more powefull. AND they know nothing about the new grafic card that will be in the PS3.

[invisible_on_ice]

It's funny to hear all the time from MS and their friends that 360 and PS3 are a wash.
Now, if this were true, I am pretty sure they would have stated that the 360 is more powerfull - that's what a PR or a supporter would do.
If they claim the PS3 is SLIGHTLY more powerfull - I am inclined to believe that actually PS3 is quite more powefull. AND they know nothing about the new grafic card that will be in the PS3.

No one knows anything about the Ps3. So how can you say we know nothing, than give a positive assertion it is more powerful? Sounds like a contradiction.

I seriously doubt the PS3 will have a G80. The only argument I here for it is "Sony should do it", or "It would be cool", These arent any intelligent arguments for G80 actually being in the PS3. I could say "it would be cool for 2 cell processors", that Doesn't mean it will happen. Lets try to keep our expectations realistic. As someone stated Earlier, G80 would drive the Ps3's price up alot, and making it impossible for Sony to make a profit.

[Tetsu]

I seriously doubt the PS3 will have a G80. The only argument I here for it is "Sony should do it", or "It would be cool"
Well, that's not really true. Some of us are giving discreet spec founded reasons and remarks from Sony and developers, as well as indications that even with preliminary dev kits, developers are getting as good as or better results than game makers with full 360 dev kits a year or more old.

However, most of the tech saavy among us in the field are thinking that the RSX is more likely a G71 with some of G80's feature set, as well as possibly some DX10 compatibility. Of course they're not ruling out the G80 either. That's part of the fun of being a detective as well as a fan. :D

[Grym]

Actually the 7600GT is about 10-20% quicker than the 6800Ultra.
Also beating 2 6800Ultra's in power isn't that difficult a 7900GTX beats 2 6800Ultra's by about the same 10-20% a 7600GT beats a 6800Ultra.

2 6800 ultra cards are superior to 1 7800GTX in 99.9% of the cases. Try to find a review comparing them.

[changing]

as well as possibly some DX10 compatibility.

Stop mentioning DX10 compatibility! It has nothing to do with DX10. DX10 is only the API. The only slight reason to mention it is to say same/similar/diff feature set.

Sony do not use direct X - they are not Microsoft. Playstation is also a console, not windows.