The whole point of bringing out a new generation of hardware is to make it work in much better ways of operation than the last one. By default it is not going to run the older generation of games because it doesn’t work in the same way. Now they could spend a lot of effort in making it able to play the old games and work in the old way, but what is their incentive to do that, compared say in starting work on the next generation or releasing the console earlier?
Honest question, can't they just ask a chip foundry to make a new batch of the components, with even better miniaturization today? The original used 90nm processes, while the later versions of the console used 45nm, nowadays I think even if they opted for 20-25nm for cost saving, it'd still work fine.
I always wondered about the legacy of the Cell architecture, which seems to have gone nowhere. I've never seen a developer praise it, and you can find devs who love just about every silly weird computer thing. Like, surely someone out there (emu devs?) have respect for what Cell was doing, right?
I've never understood it. Multicore processors already existed (the X360 had a triple-core processor, oddly) so I'm not clear what going back to multiple CPUs accomplished. Cell cores could act as FPUs also, right? PS3 didn't have dedicated GPU, right?
Such a strange little system, I'm still amazed it ever existed. Especially the OG ones that had PS2 chips in them for backwards compatability! Ah, I miss my old PS3.
I knew a Datacenter that had hundreds of ps3s for rendering fluid simulation and other such things that at the time were absolutely cutting edge tech. I believe F1 and some early 3d pixar stuff was rendered on those farms. But like all things, technology marched on. fpgpas and cuda have taken that space.
Cell definitely was heavily used by specialist/nichr industry though.
I wonder if I can find you some link to explain it better than the rumours I heard from staff that used to work in those datacentres.
Hmm hard to find commercial applications, probably individuals might have blogged otherwise here's what I'm talking about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
I think the application of it was wrong.
You basically had game devs that wanted to build cross platform easily. PC, Xbox, and Nintendo used standard architecture while ps3 was unique.
That basically meant you had to develop for ps3 as an entirely separate game than the other major systems.
PS3 most certainly had a separate GPU - was based on the GeForce 7800GTX. Console GPUs tend to be a little faster than their desktop equivalents, as they share the same memory. Rather than the CPU having to send eg. model updates across a bus to update what the GPU is going to draw in the next frame, it can change the values directly in the GPU memory. And of course, the CPU can read the GPU framebuffer and make tweaks to it - that's incredibly slow on desktop PCs, but console games can do things like tone mapping whenever they like, and it's been a big problem for the RPCS3 developers to make that kind of thing run quickly.
The cell cores are a bit more like the 'tensor' cores that you'd get on an AI CPU than a full-blown CPU core. They can't speak to the RAM directly, just exchange data between themselves - the CPU needs to copy data in and out of them in order to get things in and out, and also to schedule any jobs that must run on them, they can't do it themselves. They're also a lot more limited in what they can do than a main CPU core, but they are very very fast at what they can do.
If you are doing the kind of calculations where you've a small amount of data that needs a lot of repetitive maths done on it, they're ideal. Bitcoin mining or crypto breaking for instance - set them up, let them go, check in on them occasionally. The main CPU acts as an orchestrator, keeping all the cell cores filled up with work to do and processing the end results. But if that's not what you're trying to do, then they're borderline useless, and that's a problem for the PS3, because most of its processing power is tied up in those cores.
Some games have a somewhat predictable workload where offloading makes sense. Got some particle effects - some smoke where you need to do some complicated fluid-and-gravity simulations before copying the end result to the GPU? Maybe your main villain has a very dramatic cape that they like to twirl, and you need to run the simulation on that separately from everything else that you're doing? Problem is, working out what you can and can't offload is a massive pain in the ass; it requires a lot of developer time to optimise, when really you'd want the design team implementing that kind of thing; and slightly newer GPUs are a lot more programmable and can do the simpler versions of that kind of calculation both faster and much more in parallel.
The Cell processor turned out to be an evolutionary dead end. The resources needed to work on it (expensive developer time) just didn't really make sense for a gaming machine. The things that it was better at, are things that it just wasn't quite good enough at - modern GPUs are Bitcoin monsters, far exceeding what the cell can do, and if you're really serious about crypto breaking then you probably have your own ASICs. Lots of identical, fast CPU cores are what developers want to work on - it's much easier to reason about.
So what you're saying is that Cell 2 is gonna bring back cool fluid and cloth simulation 🙏
It was very experimental, that’s really the reason Sony went with it and it was at the genesis of multi threaded processing, so the jury was still out on which way things would go.
Your description of it is a little wrong though, it wasn’t multiple CPUs, at least not gore would be traditionally thought. It was a single dual core CPU, with 6 “supporting cores” so not full on CPUs. Kind of like an early stab at octocore processors when dual core was becoming popular and quad core was still being developed.
I remember that the ability to boot Linux was a big deal too and a university racked 8 PS3s together into basically a 64 core super computer. I’m actually sad that didn’t go further, the raw computing power was there, we just didn’t really know what to do with it besides experiment.
Honestly I think someone had a major breakthrough in multi-core single-unit processors shortly after the PS3 launch that killed this. Cell was just a more expensive way to get true multi threaded processing and a couple years later it was cheaper to buy a 32 core processor.
Maybe in a different timeline we’re all running Cell processors in our daily lives.
Ah, that sounded familiar as you described it! Thanks for the correction and context! I'd forgotten how early into multicore we still were. Well that also explains why it doesn't have specific fans then, it's "basically" "just" parallel programming (which people still don't understand!)
Yeah the university running a PS3 cluster was fun news! I recall there being a brief run on the devices as people thought there'd be sudden academic demand for them as supercomputers. I think you could run "folding at home" on them as a screensaver? Which (if I remember right) kind of would make ps3 the biggest research computing cluster around for a while!
I remember how some PS3 models have like the entire PS2 hardware inside them and it could run both ps1 and ps2 games.
Yeah this was such a bait and switch tactic on Sonys part. I remember a few years after they stopped producing backwards compatible models getting in arguments with people who still thought the ps3 could play ps2 games. Yes the first model (and maybe more) could but then they took the chips out to do it in order to save money. Really lame Sony. I had a friend even buy one without realizing this till he was trying to play his old games
I think the other models would emulate the ps2 games. But most of the time the emulation was really bad. I think GTA LCS is almost unplayable on the ps3 because of it.
We had a backwards compatible ps3 and I was incredibly sad when I discovered I couldn't play Um Jammer Lammy on it, something in the software fucked up the timing and you just couldn't press the buttons at the correct time and it sucked
We gave away the ps3 at some point but I still have Um Jammer Lammy. I've considered buying a ps2 for it but haven't bothered so far. The disc is probably in horrible shape by now anyway, it's just semi sentimental so I keep it.
Why don’t you just emulate it. I can run ps2 games on a potato.
I think theres a special arcade version full of bonus stuff.
This is why PS3 is the last PlayStation that I owned, and I didn't even buy it retail.
After they discontinued the backwards compatible model I sought out and bought one secondhand, and swore never again to buy a PlayStation product unless they release one on which I can play all my PlayStation games all the way back to 1.
What PlayStation 1 games did you particularly enjoy? I have a small handheld that I'm looking for games for.
That model in the picture is one of them. I don't think all the fat PS3s could. But nearly all of them. Was why they were chonky.
Some of them did it partly in software, though - and they were less compatible. The European FAT models all worked like that.
Sadly, the fully-backwards compatible models are all ticking timebombs, unless you get the RSX chip replaced with a later model. It's a problem with the underfill on the chip which resulted in the YLOD, which is basically Sony's variant of the red ring of death.
I have an early FAT model and it still runs stable, but I'm afraid to use it because I know it will fail eventually if I do. It does look sexy asf though!
Thanks for the heads up. Recently took mine out of storage. Setting up a game room now that my kids are old enough to trust them. Did an SSD upgrade the other day. Will look into the chip issue.