On 4/20/2010 10:01 PM, Benjamin Gawert wrote:
> Am 20.04.2010 20:47, * Werner Punz:
>
>>>> but on the other hand only the PS3 has hardware which allows similar
>>>> things (thanks to the cell)
>>>
>>> Well, not exactly. The PS3 has a GPU which is basically an ancient
>>> Geforce 7, and while the Cell is indeed quite capable in lots of areas
>>> it is simply a PITA to develop for it.
>>>
>> Actually there is only one real area where the Cell is capable and that
>> is the same area where CUDA, OpenCL and others are in :-)
>
> CUDA and OpenCL are just APIs, nothing more. Cell supports neither of
> those (and very likely won't in the future because outside the PS3
> market Cell is dead). And yes, Cell has its strength in the same area as
> GPUs have, however since it also is the main processor in the PS3 this
> means offloading tasks like physics calculations to it results in a
> performance penalty on other processes, especially since the SPEs are
> often already needed to overcome some of the limitations of the PS3's
> weak gfx hardware.
>
> The XBox 360s Xenos GPU could in theory be used for GPGPU applications
> since it is a derivate of the Radeon 2000 series with unified shaders,
> but as far as I know there is no such support from MS.
>
> Next-gen consoles very likely will come with more capable GPUs that can
> be used for GPGPU applications via OpenCL or DX11 compute shaders.
>
> Benjamin

I totally agree with everything you have posted. The sad reality is that
from what I've read, the 360 still has another 5 years left in it. I
though that was bull the first time I read it, but I've now heard, read
that this is what MS is saying. Project Natal is their next big deal and
they plan to milk that for every ounce of cash. MS hasn't so far made a
huge pile of cash off the 360. The fact that so many units die from the
"red ring of death", must have taken a big bite out of whatever profit
MS might have been getting off the SW side.
I just heard today that things are really grim for the PC gaming crowd
because sure, Nvidia is launching their new cards, but do we really need
them? We are mostly stuck with console ports that don't tax even last
gen cards. The guy on the podcast I was listening to (TWICH #63)said the
only game out right now and looking down the road a long ways is Metro
2033. He said this game runs DX11 and will really push even the new high
end cards (Crysis was compared to it)
This podcast is really worth the listen because the whole show was
about the new Nvidia cards,DX10-11, the open api's and the future of PC
gaming.
The main thing that came out of the show was that ATI and Nvidia need to
get it together and come up with a reason for gamers to get excited
about PC gaming again. I've been saying this for a long time. If only
console players could see new games or tech that is only for the PC and
is fantastic, then maybe they would think about trying gaming on the PC.

JLC

On Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:55:20 -0700, JLC <jlc_38@spam.com> wrote:

.....
.....
> I just heard today that things are really grim for the PC gaming crowd
>because sure, Nvidia is launching their new cards, but do we really need
>them? We are mostly stuck with console ports that don't tax even last
>gen cards. The guy on the podcast I was listening to (TWICH #63)said the
>only game out right now and looking down the road a long ways is Metro
>2033. He said this game runs DX11 and will really push even the new high
>end cards (Crysis was compared to it)
> This podcast is really worth the listen because the whole show was
>about the new Nvidia cards,DX10-11, the open api's and the future of PC
>gaming.
>The main thing that came out of the show was that ATI and Nvidia need to
>get it together and come up with a reason for gamers to get excited
>about PC gaming again. I've been saying this for a long time. If only
>console players could see new games or tech that is only for the PC and
>is fantastic, then maybe they would think about trying gaming on the PC.
>
>JLC

A question is "why? At this point why should we want games that task
the next gen cards? ATI 5870 w. eyefinity and etc. supports 6
monitors so
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqSo7...layer_embedded
As the comments say, "they've [hardware makers] got to work on
frameless screens". Or a 90" LED, or whatever. That's some
&&peripheral$$ to go with a new kickass card.

I've been thinking about upgrading my asus 1950 pro to a HD 5770,
since the price point looks pretty good. Then I think "why?", since
my 1950 runs all the games I've got at native resolutions and decent
framerates on my 24" widescreen -- and do I really want to follow this
push to upgrade my cpu, gpu, OS, and everything else that's there to
sell, just to get e.g. a more pleasant fog effect?

I don't think tasking nextgen hardware is where PC game developers
need to concentrate on - tho' sure, make use of it, without absolutely
requiring insane investments on equipment just to play. PC game
developers just need to make good games - and really, a lot of them
are doing a damn good job.

Am 21.04.2010 06:32, * Ross Ridge:

>> CUDA and OpenCL are just APIs, nothing more. Cell supports neither
>> of those (and very likely won't in the future because outside the
>> PS3 market Cell is dead).
>
> No, Wernet Punz is spot on. OpenCL was designed with the Cell in
> mind, in addition to GPUs, and there are OpenCL implementations for
> the Cell processor.

Werner wasn't spot on because Sony doesn't support OpenCL on the PS3
(you could of course run the old OpenCL SDK on Linux but this was neither
official supported nor useful for games, and now with the removal of the
Linux capability is history anyways). For Cell itself there is *some*
OpenCL support, but it is far from comparable to what is available for
GPUs and won't be developed any further.

>> And yes, Cell has its strength in the same area as GPUs have,
>> however since it also is the main processor in the PS3 this means
>> offloading tasks like physics calculations to it results in a
>> performance penalty on other processes, especially since the SPEs
>> are often already needed to overcome some of the limitations of the
>> PS3's weak gfx hardware.
>
> That's the exact same trade off GPUs have to make. Resources used
> for physics calculations aren't available for graphics caclulations.

Right, but unlike GPUs using the Cell SPEs means you have to go over the
same internal bus (EIB) as the CPU, which can quickly become a bandwidth
limit, especially since the memory bandwidth is very limited (25.8GB/s
on the PS3 vs. >100GB/s on modern GPUs). And memory bandwidth is
critical for these applications

>> Next-gen consoles very likely will come with more capable GPUs that
>> can be used for GPGPU applications via OpenCL or DX11 compute
>> shaders.
>
> Which few games will use.

Maybe, maybe not. At the moment, nobody really knows, so everything is
pure speculation.

> GPGPUs aren't fundamentally any easier to program than the Cell
> SPEs,

Well, they are, because GPUs are massive parallel while the Cell isn't
(its an asymmetric architecture), and massive parallel programming isn't
exactly something new. A there is much better developer support for
CUDA/STREAM (and OpenCL, too) than IBM does for Cell (in fact, now IBM
recommends all remaining developers
on Cell to move to GPGPU). The Cell does have a reputation of being a very
difficult beast to make use from, and that is for a reason.

> and game programmers are having a hard enough time with the much
> easier task of fully exploting Xbox 360's three cores (or three or
> more cores on a PC).

Well, considering that it has more games and less complaints from game
developers I doubt they have that a hard time as they do on the PS3.

Benjamin

Am 22.04.2010 03:55, * JLC:

> I totally agree with everything you have posted. The sad reality is that
> from what I've read, the 360 still has another 5 years left in it. I
> though that was bull the first time I read it, but I've now heard, read
> that this is what MS is saying. Project Natal is their next big deal and
> they plan to milk that for every ounce of cash. MS hasn't so far made a
> huge pile of cash off the 360. The fact that so many units die from the
> "red ring of death", must have taken a big bite out of whatever profit
> MS might have been getting off the SW side.

Well, from what I know they made quite a lot of cash, in fact the XBox
platform is probably one of their bigger cash cows.

But you're right when saying that they want to squeeze every buck out of
Natal.

> I just heard today that things are really grim for the PC gaming crowd
> because sure, Nvidia is launching their new cards, but do we really need
> them? We are mostly stuck with console ports that don't tax even last
> gen cards. The guy on the podcast I was listening to (TWICH #63)said the
> only game out right now and looking down the road a long ways is Metro
> 2033. He said this game runs DX11 and will really push even the new high
> end cards (Crysis was compared to it)
> This podcast is really worth the listen because the whole show was about
> the new Nvidia cards,DX10-11, the open api's and the future of PC gaming.
> The main thing that came out of the show was that ATI and Nvidia need to
> get it together and come up with a reason for gamers to get excited
> about PC gaming again. I've been saying this for a long time. If only
> console players could see new games or tech that is only for the PC and
> is fantastic, then maybe they would think about trying gaming on the PC.

I think the main issue is how developers treat the PC as a platform.
First they came up with disk copy protection like Starforce that ran
havok on your system, then they checked for disk copy utilities (which
didn't necessarily had to be used to copy games) and refused to let
their games run unless these utilities were removed, then there came
online activation (which already is bad) with very low activation limits
(8 or less, which is even worse), and now we are already into the
requirement to have a constant internet connection to the publisher just
to be able to play single player games. And it looks that the future
only gets worse (splitting up games in DLC, charging for demos etc).

I loved PC gaming, I really do. But to be honest I buy less and less
games for the PC any more, simply due to the riddiculous ideas
publishers come up for the PC. Reality is, today I can choose between a
PC version with often still better gfx vs. the console version with
inferior gfx and controls but which just can be popped in the box and
played, without constant online requirement, online activation,
registration requirement for Windows Live, Rockstar Social Club or any
other retarded crap scheme etc.

PC gamers traditionally invested a lot of money in keeping their
hardware updated, but as you say there is less and less reason to do so.
Most games are cross-platform ports anyways, and not all of them provide
really better gfx on PC. With publishers treating PC gamers like
criminals, it is not surprising that the PC gaming market is in demise.

Benjamin

Am 22.04.2010 03:55, * JLC:

> I totally agree with everything you have posted. The sad reality is that
> from what I've read, the 360 still has another 5 years left in it. I
> though that was bull the first time I read it, but I've now heard, read
> that this is what MS is saying. Project Natal is their next big deal and
> they plan to milk that for every ounce of cash. MS hasn't so far made a
> huge pile of cash off the 360. The fact that so many units die from the
> "red ring of death", must have taken a big bite out of whatever profit
> MS might have been getting off the SW side.

Well, from what I know they made quite a lot of cash, in fact the XBox
platform is probably one of their bigger cash cows.

But you're right when saying that they want to squeeze every buck out of
Natal.

> I just heard today that things are really grim for the PC gaming crowd
> because sure, Nvidia is launching their new cards, but do we really need
> them? We are mostly stuck with console ports that don't tax even last
> gen cards. The guy on the podcast I was listening to (TWICH #63)said the
> only game out right now and looking down the road a long ways is Metro
> 2033. He said this game runs DX11 and will really push even the new high
> end cards (Crysis was compared to it)
> This podcast is really worth the listen because the whole show was about
> the new Nvidia cards,DX10-11, the open api's and the future of PC gaming.
> The main thing that came out of the show was that ATI and Nvidia need to
> get it together and come up with a reason for gamers to get excited
> about PC gaming again. I've been saying this for a long time. If only
> console players could see new games or tech that is only for the PC and
> is fantastic, then maybe they would think about trying gaming on the PC.

I think the main issue is how developers treat the PC as a platform.
First they came up with disk copy protection like Starforce that ran
havok on your system, then they checked for disk copy utilities (which
didn't necessarily had to be used to copy games) and refused to let
their games run unless these utilities were removed, then there came
online activation (which already is bad) with very low activation limits
(8 or less, which is even worse), and now we are already into the
requirement to have a constant internet connection to the publisher just
to be able to play single player games. And it looks that the future
only gets worse (splitting up games in DLC, charging for demos etc).

I loved PC gaming, I really did (and to some extend still do). But to be
honest I buy less and less games for the PC any more, simply due to the
riddiculous ideas publishers come up for the PC. Reality is, today I can
choose between a PC version which rarely has some better gfx vs. the
console version with inferior gfx and controls but which just can be
popped in the box and played, without constant online requirement,
online activation, registration requirement for Windows Live, Rockstar
Social Club or any other retarded crap scheme etc. To be honest, I'm fed
up with the crap I have to go through on the PC.

PC gamers traditionally invested a lot of money in keeping their
hardware updated, but as you say there is less and less reason to do so.
Most games are cross-platform ports anyways, and not all of them provide
really better gfx on PC. With publishers treating PC gamers like
criminals, it is not surprising that the PC gaming market is in demise.

Benjamin

Am 22.04.10 07:00, schrieb Benjamin Gawert:
ores on a PC).
>
> Well, considering that it has more games and less complaints from game
> developers I doubt they have that a hard time as they do on the PS3.
>
I doubt they really have a hard time, the biggest problem they face is
just what they can push into the next thread, which is an issue every
programmer faces and has for the last 10 years or so.
The biggest problem they face is the severe memory constraints on both
the PS3 and the xbox given modern games. And on the PS3 the Cell beast
generally.

Am 22.04.10 07:22, schrieb Benjamin Gawert:

> I loved PC gaming, I really did (and to some extend still do). But to be
> honest I buy less and less games for the PC any more, simply due to the
> riddiculous ideas publishers come up for the PC. Reality is, today I can
> choose between a PC version which rarely has some better gfx vs. the
> console version with inferior gfx and controls but which just can be
> popped in the box and played, without constant online requirement,
> online activation, registration requirement for Windows Live, Rockstar
> Social Club or any other retarded crap scheme etc. To be honest, I'm fed
> up with the crap I have to go through on the PC.
>
Actually I reverted back to PC gaming a year ago the reason simply was
the price of games, here in Europe Sony charges 70 Euros (which is about
100$) for a new game the XBOX situation is not better only Nintendo is
slightly cheaper.
The PC game prices simply are more moderate and also
usually they become cheaper within a short period of time.
But lately I reverted to steam mostly for my purchases.
Most of the time the games nowadays have somewhat moderate DRM,
with the exception of Ubisoft which I simply boykott now on all
platforms I own.


> PC gamers traditionally invested a lot of money in keeping their
> hardware updated, but as you say there is less and less reason to do so.
> Most games are cross-platform ports anyways, and not all of them provide
> really better gfx on PC. With publishers treating PC gamers like
> criminals, it is not surprising that the PC gaming market is in demise.
>
Well I personally think the hardware treadmill has come to a griniding
halt thanks
to the consoles, actually in the long run it has become even cheaper to
have a PC than a console.

Benjamin Gawert <bgawert@gmx.de> wrote:
> CUDA and OpenCL are just APIs, nothing more. Cell supports neither of
> those (and very likely won't in the future because outside the PS3
> market Cell is dead).

Ross Ridge writes:
> No, Wernet Punz is spot on. OpenCL was designed with the Cell in mind,
> in addition to GPUs, and there are OpenCL implementations for the Cell
> processor.

Benjamin Gawert <bgawert@gmx.de> wrote:
>You should really read more carefully! I said that the *PS3* does not
>support OpenCL, not that *Cell* does not support OpenCL!

Are you mentally retarded? You clearly said, as I quote again above, that
the Cell doesn't OpenCL. In any case, the PlayStation 3 does OpenCL.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //

Werner Punz <werpu@gmx.at> wrote:
>I doubt they really have a hard time, the biggest problem they face is
>just what they can push into the next thread, which is an issue every
>programmer faces and has for the last 10 years or so.

Actually, it's this sort of thinking that prevents most game programmers
from exploting multi-core CPUs effectively. You can't just "push" stuff
to another thread and expect to get anywhere near full utilization of
all the cores. Most developers don't even bother trying. If the Xbox
360 had two cores, most games would be completely unaffected. Even with
if it had only one core there would be little difference in most games.

This why the single PowerPC core PlayStation 3 can compete with the
triple PowerPC core Xbox 360. Not because of the Cell's SPEs can make
up the difference, but because extra cores in the Xbox 360 aren't being
used to their full potential.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //

Am 22.04.10 08:38, schrieb Ross Ridge:
> Werner Punz<werpu@gmx.at> wrote:
>> I doubt they really have a hard time, the biggest problem they face is
>> just what they can push into the next thread, which is an issue every
>> programmer faces and has for the last 10 years or so.
>
> Actually, it's this sort of thinking that prevents most game programmers
> from exploting multi-core CPUs effectively. You can't just "push" stuff
> to another thread and expect to get anywhere near full utilization of
> all the cores. Most developers don't even bother trying. If the Xbox
> 360 had two cores, most games would be completely unaffected. Even with
> if it had only one core there would be little difference in most games.
>
Actually the problem is more along the lines on how to parallelize your
games to the extent that you have all three cores fully covered.
In classical business programming this task is mostly delegated to the
server where the 1 thread per request model utilizes that very well.
Add to that that a business program usually has several long running
background task and you have a good load.

The main issue here how you do use parallelism for games programming.
The Xbox processor is not a number cruncher, it might have simd units,
but we are talking about the classical process / request model here
where you need to split parts of your engine to be able to handle
a better parallelism within the classical thread/process model.
It is hard to work on those things if you have a game to program and a
publisher on your neck, that is task of the engine providers.
And partially it is done anyway, it is not like games engines suddenly
have threads and requests available now that multiple cores are
available, those things have been around for ages.


> This why the single PowerPC core PlayStation 3 can compete with the
> triple PowerPC core Xbox 360. Not because of the Cell's SPEs can make
> up the difference, but because extra cores in the Xbox 360 aren't being
> used to their full potential.
>
Actually I rather doubht the conclusion here, I dont think that the xbox
could really run circles around the ps3, both consoles are too limited
in their potential one way or the other (mostly memory), that even if
you use the hardware better on one you will get similar results by
utilizing different aspects of the other.

"Juarez" <jua@rez.invalid> wrote in message
news:hqnhsa$s19$1@news.eternal-september.org...

>>
>> When more games utilise DX11, I'll make the jump myself - but there is
>> DX11 is not current a 'must-have'.
>
> Dirt2 is a console port and yet they still took the time to add DX11
> graphics for the PC version. I would think other developers would do the
> same but not all of course. I have a 5870 and have had one since the 2nd

DX11 Games:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ctX_11_support

Not many... even though DX11 has been on the cards for a couple of years,
and has been 'live' for over 6 months...

Obviously, this will improve over the next year, but when you consider that
chart-topping blockbusters like CoD: Modern Combat 2 doesn't even support
DX10, you know there ain't any rush...

> If buying a gaming video card now I would shoot for at least 5850.

A great card by all accounts. What would you buy with a budget of say £130?

On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:38:58 +0100, "CJM"
<cjmuk2008@gmail.removethis.com> wrote:

>
>
>"Juarez" <jua@rez.invalid> wrote in message
>news:hqnhsa$s19$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>>>
>>> When more games utilise DX11, I'll make the jump myself - but there is
>>> DX11 is not current a 'must-have'.
>>
>> Dirt2 is a console port and yet they still took the time to add DX11
>> graphics for the PC version. I would think other developers would do the
>> same but not all of course. I have a 5870 and have had one since the 2nd
>
>DX11 Games:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ctX_11_support
>
>Not many... even though DX11 has been on the cards for a couple of years,
>and has been 'live' for over 6 months...
>
>Obviously, this will improve over the next year, but when you consider that
>chart-topping blockbusters like CoD: Modern Combat 2 doesn't even support
>DX10, you know there ain't any rush...
>
>> If buying a gaming video card now I would shoot for at least 5850.
>
>A great card by all accounts. What would you buy with a budget of say £130?

5770