IBM show how Cell can render real-time without RSX

Torch7018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

I can attest to that, as I was precisely trying to convey a few nights ago, after watching that absolutely stunning Littlebigworld demo.

That seemingly-simple game is real-time CGI in action, folks. With physics to boot.

Good times ahead!

happygamer7018d ago

At the link you can download a video of the demo (not full resolution). The full 1080p output which when H.264 compresssed results in a 600MB file that most machines can’t even decode at 30 frames/sec.

To put this into perspective, if this render job was performed through 3dsMax's default ray-tracer on a Centrino Duo (dual core x86) it would take one hour and eight minutes to render one frame, something that takes the Cell and the iRt software less than one half of a second.

wow i didnt know it could do all that i dont know much about whats inside of my 360 or ps3 but can my 360 do that also?

techie7018d ago

Well I don't know, but I believe the architecture of the 360 relies on it's "better" GPU. Whereas the Cell is almost a GPU in itself...as we can see here.

360 fans...that was a MAYBE, I DON@'T KNOW...

Torch7018d ago

Just a guess, but I would bet my money on "absolutely not." Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the 360 nothing more than a specialized PC (similar to the original XBox, of which the primary guts were comprised of a PIII-700, and a GeForce 2 GTS card?) If this is indeed the case, I'd have to deduce that the Cell is in an entirely different league of its own; I've yet to use a PC that can accurately render raytracing anywhere close to real-time.

From the spectacular stuff I've seen so far, my humble opinion is that the PS3 hasn't even begun to stretch its legs yet.

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Aeroglyphics7018d ago

If one PS3 could render raytracing real time then we would have life like graphics already. What they describe in the article is rendering through networks, where in the cell divides the tasks and assigns them to blades or other PS3 to render. Then the PS3 pulls the info back in rendered completely. This will probably have some kind of use with online games in the PS3's future, but as much as i wish it could, it won't affect games being run locally.

Killer Cop7018d ago

We are only seeing the very first beginning of the power behind PS3. This video on stand-alone PS3 or not, it shows us the raw power behind Cell.

Xi7018d ago

Remeber it requires all cells to do this, it breaks the image apart into 7 parts, renders each part and puts the image back together. though strong this isn't very useful in gaming as you'd not be able to run much of anything else. The 360 can do this in a simular way but relies on the gpu, the fact it did this without the rsx is the amazing part.

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Bunnyslippers7018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

...this was news I was waiting for. I remember a year ago, IBM was talking about the potential of connecting multiple PS3's through a network. Ech PS3 could render a part of a GIGANTIC online gameworld.

This is great news for online gaming on the PS3.

FINALLY conformation and 'proof'from IBM.

shotty7018d ago

Basically the xbox 360 and ps3 cpus are stripped down cpus and alot of the higher order functions are removed to a) cut costs b) boast frequecies (Ghz). It also allows for more raw calculations per seconds. The Cell therectically has more peak power than the Xenon CPU but the xbox 360's Xenos GPU is atleast 1 GPU ahead of the RSX. The xenos can do this like Anti alaisng, Z senciling without ever affecting the main GPU while on the RSX it would take a pretty significant hit which is somewhat offset by the Cell. All in All the powers are neck and neck. The xbox 360 has the added advantage of the unified memery where a majority can be allocated on the fly to system memerory and the memory hog of the GPU can use the EDRAM thats allow present for the xbox 360.

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D3acon7018d ago

This how I thought the original PSN was going to work, it was going to be more peer to peer, with each PS3 sharing a portion of power to create a near lag free gaming enviornement.

This will probably benefit more from the home service and MMORPGS could be on the horizon. It maybe cheaper and more efficient to create a persistant world using connected PS3s. The reasons why I bought a ps3 :)

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weekapaugh7018d ago

360 was built for today, the ps3 was built for tomorrow...

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cuco337018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

which is why i bought my 360 today (2 months ago) and will get a ps3 tomorrow (1-2 years from now)
even though the ps3 or ps3's cell isn't capable of what was mentioned in the article it still is good news in my eyes. if the ps3 is capable of doing anything similar to this in the long run years out, i'll be happy with a ps3 purchase when i make one. i would love to see what this means in terms of gaming in the near future for the ps3, not multiple cell chips running a graphical demo

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dragunrising7017d ago

It seems to me that the PS3 is a glorified blu-ray player with a few big name exclusives. You should say, buy an Xbox 360 now and buy a blu-ray player later. Once the players drop down to $300 in a year or so there might not be too many reasons to buy a PS3.

OldSchoolGamer7018d ago

Its a multiple Cell's in a Blade Network Server configuration running linux. No stand alone PS3, or even single cell based motherboard could do the decoding. Interesting for high end servers though, but can't even begin to imagine the cost.

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Syko7018d ago

*Wildly applauds the reading comprehension no one else seems to have!*

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Anerythristic267018d ago

Is one of my favorite people on this site. Unbiased , just stating facts FTW !

BIadestarX7018d ago

Is funny how Sony fanboys start jumping of joy and imediately bring up the PS3 beats the crap out of the 360 when in reality it has nothing to do with the PS3. As indicated above it's talking about another cell processor not the one shipped with the PS3. (Bubble bursted).
Unless you work for a company that makes CGI movies or content look away this is not for you.

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sak5007018d ago

Good one, i was getting amused by the naiveté or rather idiocy of these feeble minded sony fanboys. They just jumped on some article about cell processor used in some sort of server farm to render something. And already imagining games in CGI quality on a single machine.

I remember sony touting ps2 as having the capability to produce toy story level graphics. Their ps3 till date cannot even do that.

Neutral Gamer7018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

I agree with OldSchoolGamer - most of the comments for this article seemed to have conveniently ignored the start of the second paragraph:

"...smart little system will reach out across the network and leverage multiple IBM QS20 blades to render the complex model..."

I hate fan boy comments for ANY console because they always give a skewed version of the truth, ignoring facts that contradict their views - much like religious fanatics hey!

Deepbrown mate, I respect the comments you normally make and articles you contribute, but I think here you were an (involuntary) catalyst for all the fanboy comments. If you had just changed the title to:

"IBM show how the Cell can render real-time without RSX by using networked computers / PS3's"

Or anything mentioning distributed processing of some kind would have portrayed a more accurate representation of the article. Again I don't think you deliberately did this, you just missed it out.

It just goes to show how changing an article's title by just a little bit can make such a big implied difference and when done incorrectly can start the usual (annoying) flame wars.

techie7018d ago

Neutral Gamer. After realising that the title may have been misleading, I went to change the title but NewsBot had already approved it...it didn't get any approvements from seperate people...so if the comments were raised I would have changed it. Hopefully this thread has finished and it's just another article fading into the background.

Neutral Gamer7018d ago

Wow - you replied very quicky to my comment!

Yeah, I had a feeling that you wouldn't have deliberately written a title appealing to fanboys.

All is forgiven mate and to all the fanboys: see what just happened here; reasonable criticism and constructive reply. That's the way to comment!

xDaveManx7017d ago

I came here to say exactly what OLD SCHOOL GAMER said. This has absolutely nothing to do with the rendering power of the PS3 alone. It does, however, have everything to do with the computational power of the cell processor. It can piece together one heckuva tech demo.

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Booneral7018d ago

Any CPU is capable of doing graphical calculations, wouldn't have cutting edge effects like HDR, of DX10 capabilities, but still ANY CPU can do such calculations and reflect it to the screen if it has direct access output.

Cell is a great CPU, and deepbrown is right there, Xbox 360 relies more on GPU, whereas Cell and RSX work together as a whole, RSX is supposed to complete the task started by cell. At least that's what Sony and IBM said long time ago, and if they are not doing that right now, I hope they will.

Cell has a great Tflop performance, and could be amazing if it could fully support RSX in graphical calculations. I am talking about incredible polygon numbers. Of course you can never dedicate whole Cell to graphics, and that's part of the problem, people looking at some tech demos around these days and "WOW" but never forget, games need, physics, AI, a fine running game engine and has all other requirements.

It's easy to develop a real-time non-playable scene, but same quality cannot be applied to games without some compromise in quality.

OldSchoolGamer7018d ago

Wonderful response, lol. Well let me respond to your "very basic" understanding of computer interface. All computer can interact CPU and GPU. The 360 is actually designed to have them work more closely together than almost anything out there, with a shared pool or RAM, using more for CPU or GPU depending on the task (with a small amount on the GPU allocated solely for anti aliasing, which means making jaggy lines appear smooth in laymans terms). The ATI based card is actually one of the most advanced out there in that it uses unified shader architecture, this means pipelines which are normally dedicated to one task or another, are able to do multiple functions as needed and together. I won't get into frontside busses and backside busses, but basically operations are preformed in the CPU (after or before RAM & cache storage if needed) and sent out to your GPU to be display on screen. The cell was supposed to theoretically handle the graphics for PS3, but whether due to a poor compiler, difficulty in programming, or shear inability to do so; a last minute, unreleased, 7800 nvidia card was added to be tasked with graphics. This 2 year old graphics card is woefully underpowered compared to the 360's GPU built ground up by ATI for the 360. Now where the cell to be updated, whether in the form of better compiler, or better interface, maybe the cell could take on more of the graphics workload. Mainly where it excels is for heavy repetitive calculations, which if broken in small parts the cell will be woefully more powerful than the 360 at. The cell is interesting and has some high theoretical capabilities, but these are simple task perfect world situations, much like the 360's capabilities. It will depend on programmers to efficiently use the power of the two machines. For both we haven't seen anything yet. Great for us gamers. But please do a little research before posting flame-bait comments.

BIadestarX7018d ago

Booneral, you just got served. Stop repeating everything that DJ is saying.

Booneral7018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

Comparing me to who? Well I don't directly comment about anyone on this site, but I pretty much know that DJ is on the side of PlayStation 3, yet I think it's his choice. If I think that someone is beyond reality and into the portal of fanboyism, I click Ignore. I am on neither side, I am a Xbox 360 owner right now, you can check my gamertag from my profile, I guess I have played 360 alot, and I am not getting a PS3 until price goes down and MGS4 is up.

Seriously, I scored 18000+ over live, still kicking too. I am a PS3 fanboy now? It's actually called "Learning to be objective 101".

Oldschoolgamers, I know about what you typed up there, I just didn't have the time to type it all that long, thanks in advance for that. I know that Xenos is superior to RSX, yet I wouldn't actually put it into words directly since it would be more "flame-ready". I made my comment merely based on PS3, trying to keep Xbox360 outside as much as possible.

hfaze7018d ago

Don't forget how the last generation of game systems did everything with a single (non multi-threaded) core.

Also, each of the SPU's in the PS3's Cell CPU is running at 3.2Ghz, with the Power5 core being a multi-threaded 3.2Ghz CPU.

There will be some AMAZING work coming out of the PS3 in the next couple of years... I think you'll start seeing the advantages of the PS3 hardware sometime in late 2008/early 2009.

Not to mention, this is HUGE news for the PS3 homebrew scene. With the RSX chipset being locked out in Linux, opensource/homebrew developers can use techniques like this to get 3D acceleration out of the Cell CPU alone.

I can't wait to see what comes out of this.

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Syko7018d ago

If they could figure out how to "Leverage" multiple IBM QS20 blades to render in-game or something that would be something to write home about. Even though the RSX can't be accessed under Linux im sure Sony could find a way to put that ability to some use. But again that is pure speculation and I personally have no way of knowing if that is even possible.

shotty7018d ago

Its so people can't start creating full games and sell them without giving sony a cut.

shotty7018d ago

Its so people can't start creating full games and sell them without giving sony a cut.

SimmoUK7018d ago

Some people are saying this has nothing to do with PS3:

This week at Game Developers Conference IBM will show a Linux based PS3 real-time rendering a complex (3 million triangle) urban landscape, at 1080p resolution, using only software rendering techniques (iRT).

Repeat:

This week at Game Developers Conference IBM will show a Linux based PS3 real-time rendering a complex (3 million triangle) urban landscape, at 1080p resolution, using only software rendering techniques (iRT).

The very fist sentence in the artile... so yeah it does...

calderra7018d ago

Next sentence:
"Even though the PS3’s RSX is inaccessible under Linux the smart little system will reach out across the network and leverage multiple IBM QS20 blades to render the complex model, in real-time, with software based ray-tracing."

^^^Reading is FUNdamental.

blackmagic7018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

"Even though the PS3’s RSX is inaccessible under Linux the smart little system will reach out across the network and leverage >multiple IBM QS20 blades< to render the complex model, in real-time, with software based ray-tracing."

The PS3 doesn't appear to be doing any of the grunt work, the blade servers are. The PS3 is just overseeing it. This is a demonstration on how you can scale processing power by adding more blade servers to a network, a feature which would be useful in research fields for instance.

I have no doubt that multiple PS3s could be used to create a 'super scene' especially since it's already being done with the 360 in the forza 2 engine.

*edit - beat me to it calderra :)

nambo7018d ago

"Even though the PS3’s RSX is inaccessible under Linux the smart little system will reach out across the network and leverage multiple IBM QS20 blades to render the complex model, in real-time"

So unless your PS3 is running Linux and connected to multiple IBM QS20 blades, this demo doesn't mean all that much to the average gamer. And as stated above by shotty, the Cell in the PS3 is a stripped down version.

Edit-they beat me to it.

D3acon7018d ago

The ps3's cell chip was meant to be the graphics chip, until Nvidia stepped in with their RSX. So the cell is esentially an extra graphics chip. Something most people didnt know. I believe that nearly all of the demos at E3 were running from the cell chip without help from the RSX.

gsquad7018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

I don’t know what the big huff is about though. Just be happy, “everyone”, that we can do these types of graphics. It doesn’t matter that it came from Sony. Does it? It just a proof of concept.

I believe that we will see this type of detail and more in the next couple of years on both the PS3 and X360 but its nice to know that its possible now with the current hardware that is on the market. I read the article, and yea it did reach out but we don't know how far/to how many other blades. Only that it reached out and had other “Cell chip sets” doing some of the work. That means that the PS3 did some of the work too. We just don’t know how much of the work. Also the article says and I quote

“Using IBM’s scalable iRT rendering technology, the PS3 is able to decompose each frame into manageable work regions and dynamically distribute them to blades or other PS3s for rendering. End quote”

“other PS3s!!!” so please on be so quick to say that it’s only the faster Cell blades that did the work and that the Cell chip in the PS3 is so striped down that all it did was put it back together. We really don’t know. It could have been “other PS3s” doing most of the work or only PS3s. We really don't know.

Well I digress, its outstanding news anyways and this is the reason I have so much faith in the PS3 not cause of “Sony” but because of the tech, “the Cell is a bad chip” no one can deny that.

“Jump in” and “Welcom3 chang3”

grifter0247018d ago

You "Beleive that nearly all of the demos at E3 were running from the cell chip without help from teh RSX" you do know that was a long time ago e3 right? When E3 was still going strong.... From what ive been hearing the CELL cant really do a whole lot of the gruntwork when it comes to Graphics... But Im not saying I know all about this stuff.. *Newbie* but you should read some more comments about you D3acon cause some people address what you say that not a whole lot of people know it was an extra graphics chip... Plus your statment that I quoted is your opinion so until we get word from someone that worked on a game its just your opinion and holds no outstanding ground.. Soo yeah..

ChickeyCantor7018d ago

sony stept up to Nvidia becozz they had problems using the Cell as a GPU.
(yep sonyboys on the last moment they whent to nvidia so they could make a video card for their PS3)

but this is about the CELL not really about the Ps3.......in some kinda way.

ChickeyCantor7018d ago

i hope, they will put this "processor" on GFX cards for PC's and on motherboards for normal CPU.

then ill be sure i dont have to get a new video card every freaking MONTH!.( fVucking money thiefes! bring out something good for a good price and dont bring out stuff for 500 euros and the next day it will be out dated! there for i hate PC gaming!)

achira7018d ago

lol, some xbots are crazzy. if you are so crazzy to compare the cell cpu with the cpu of the xbox360 than you should go to a doc. its like comparing a geforce 6800 with a geforce 8800. and about RSX you cant say anything, i wouldnt be surprised if it would kick ass the xbox360 gpu. i am sure games will proove my point.

Syko7018d ago

"i wouldnt be surprised if it would kick ass the xbox360 gpu. i am sure games will proove my point."

Thanks for proving my point, Jackass...

Funky Town_TX7018d ago

and still more demos. I play games not tech demos. Viva la Killzone PS3 (E3-05 version).

techie7018d ago

three words "Game Developers Conference"

ALso to everyone...I hope the article title wasn't misleading...I felt it stated what was going on, I didn't know how else to put it.

Takumi867018d ago

wow i can't believe this PPL talking about Cell when you guys have no Idea what Cell is CAPABLE of.
IBM and SONY are working together to find how will it be easy to program on Cell. Yes Cell is a Beast but programing on cell is not that simple it will take some time to unlock its Beyond True Power.

Im Only Going To Say This Once -PATIENT- time will tell how Cell what is CAPABLE of . Period now end of Discussion.

sak5007018d ago

back to your bed, tomorrow is your first day in your 3rd grade. They will teach you something about grammer.

Armyless7018d ago

Sak500 quote = "back to your bed, tomorrow is your first day in your 3rd grade. They will teach you something about grammer."

I just thought I'd mention the irony of ridiculing someone's "grammer" when you can't spell the very word "grammAr".

Takumi867018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

you think i care about your stupid grammer? or grammar ?sh^t stf^ i bet i have better grades than you. im off

Bullseye7018d ago

This story is absolute nonsense

lil bush7018d ago

some of thse coments have not 1 thing about this article but oh well.

XxZxX7018d ago

WOW MS Fan will try to put this as low as possible. That's a techinque being use by Sony 1st Party developer already, I believe it's F1 CE developer which is Offloading RSX GPU calculation by having one of the SPE do it. A combination on software/hardware rendering is certainly better than using hardware render alone. Keep attacking it, fanboy. That's right, whatever to comfort your too insecure soul.

Scrumptious7018d ago

Many of the PS3 games have the CPU aid the GPU. The CELL was primarily designed for video and rendering. Once Sony took a look at the 360, they desperately needed more power and slapped the 7600-7800GT chip in. This chip was released in 2005 for the PC market, so it is not even close to the performance of the 360 GPU. That is why the CELL helps out.

What the article was referring to was the CELL unit using other CELLS on a network to render collectively. This has no practical application for real world consumer use, at least for now. Even if it did, it would not be practical for the masses.

FeralPhoenix7018d ago (Edited 7018d ago )

Yeah I think people do need to remember that this is a Game Developers Conference so the focus is mostly about the "tech" for games but anytime, "game developers" show off anything people always expect to see "some games" too, which we have seen somewhat.

Also I don't think there's anything wrong with your title because the article's does discuss how the Cell renders without RSX, but I can see how it may be easily misleading because my first thought was that they were referring to how the PS3's Cell will render games all by itself....either way its still some good info about the Cell and network IBM Blades.

[Edit]vvvvv, Neutral Gamer, hey thanks for your comments, I just noticed that you and deepbrown just posted new comments discussing the same issue^^^above.....I think if people take the time to be objective while they may have a difference of opinion there is still COMMON GROUND that they can AGREE on. deepbrown is cool and while we both have different "preferences" I do believe we are both GAMERS that see the good and even some bad of (both) consoles. -Damm, and if you keep talking like that you "might" just end up with more bubbles then you know what to do with. -LOL, still bubbles are over-rated because sometimes no matter what you say the "extremists" on both sides have "thin" skin, -if you know what I mean.

Neutral Gamer7018d ago

I agree and I can see now why you have an impressive EIGHT speech bubbles as you just made a very valid and unbiased comment.

Same to Deepbrown's SEVEN comments.

Keep on speaking me old mates ... !

o277018d ago

HI GUYS(:
why is it always a war between the box360 and the ps3? i just want to know which graffic's card is better for a change-and how big the difference is accualy? is the ps3 rsx is much lower then the 360's card? will we see a huge difference in the graffic's area between these two consoles as time goes by?

deadeyes997018d ago

Because we all know how sony told the *TRUTH* about how superior it's console would be and *DIDN'T* exagurrate the graphics.... NOTTTT.

IPlayGames7017d ago

to me its good news. cause we are always hearing "once developers learn how to unlock the power of the cell then games and graphics and so forth well get better" this looks like a step in the right direction hope it translates into games.

DJ7017d ago (Edited 7017d ago )

is beyond me. IBM simply showed what the Cell processor is capable of, and this information is relevant to the PS3 since it uses Cell as its CPU. Why people are hating on RSX is beyond me, especially since it has some really neat custom architecture.

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o277017d ago

so what is so neat about the rsx's architecure? how it can araise above the box360's graffic card? we dont even know what are the specific psecifications of this rsx since sony or nvidia never teold us aside of some basic information unlike microsoft which had revealed its full specifications on its xbox360's graffic card.i think the box will always have better performances comparing the ps3 games.though i am a ps3 fan.

CaliGamer7017d ago

And your making this assertion after the PS3 has been out how long? You want Sony to run before it can walk, makes no sense. As I have said in my previous post Sony has not failed to deliver in 2 generations of gaming, let's give them the benefit of the doubt now.
We live in a "now" society, if PS3 came out with the best graphics right now you would probably be complaining 6 months from now. You along with many people just need to chill and let Sony do their thing, just like Rome games aren't made in a day, the showed off the new tools and at E3 we will see if it payed off.

THE TERMINATOR7017d ago

why do people keep thinking the 360 gpu is better than the rsx. Look at motorstorm a 1st generation game better looking than ANYTHING on 360. Ps3 games are just gonna get better and better.

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Dreyals7017d ago

a comment, but with this news wouldn't be possible to base a game were the server handles most of the calculations like most MMORPG's? Wouldn't this be nice leap for gamers all around for large online game worlds and lag free.

neeharb7017d ago

It looks like the clip from the movie Incredibles!!
wow its cool its an amazing piece of technology....Hats off!!!
I love my 360... well now i love the Ps3 also ....
I wonder when i would proudly own both of them....
Have you seen the latest screens from Mass effect they are stunning cant wait for that game!!

JoeCH7017d ago (Edited 7017d ago )

Maybe I have read this wrong, but isn't this article about the graphical capabilites of the CELL CPU? It states that the CELL without the RSX can 'reach out' to other CELL CPUs comprised of other PS3s and/or other SERVERS and render 1080p graphics in a split second?

And this is the same CELL CPU that is in the PS3? The same CELL CPU every anti-SONY fan has been smacking around? Does this article make anyone here think of how the new 'PS3 HOME' enviroment might work without much lag?

This is something SONY stated the PS3 could do before the launch. It must hurt to see the PS3 and its supposedly bad CELL CPU get good news?

TheMART7017d ago

And now cut the crap

And start showing the games!!!

techie7017d ago

Who IBM? They don't make games...

Bullseye7017d ago

To match this silly article. Fanboys....

Gears7016d ago

chris1515, yes it took 68 minutes not 68 seconds to render one frame. A lot of this has to do with the differences between the iRT and the default 3dsMax renderer. The iRT is designed around exploiting coherent rays using SIMD and speed is the number one goal. The 3dsMax ray-tracer is a very generalized renderer designed for image quality and while the output iRT and 3dsMax images were nearly identical in this test the 3dsMax renderer is capable of much higher image quality. Autodesk is paying a huge price for their processor agnostic coding style.