1000°

Guerrilla dev: PS3's Cell CPU is by far stronger than new Intel CPUs

The PS3's cell CPU is still more powerful than any of today's modern Intel desktop chips, Guerrilla Games co-director and technical director Michiel van der Leeuw says.

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tweaktown.com
Jin_Sakai1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

“Even desktop chips nowadays, the fastest Intel stuff you can buy is not by far as powerful as the Cell CPU, but it's very difficult to get power out of the Cell. I think it was ahead of its age, because it was a little bit more like how GPUs work nowadays, but it was maybe not balanced nicely and it was too hard to use. It overshot a little bit in power and undershot in usability, but it was definitely visionary”

Sony Worldwide Studios pushed what the Cell CPU was capable of and it showed. It’s too bad it was such a pain to develop for and wasn’t used to it’s full potential by 3rd party developers.

Can’t imagine what the Cell CPU would be like today if it were standardized and developers learned how to develop for it.

Jaguar CPUs in current generation consoles are garbage and a huge bottleneck. So happy we’re getting powerful Ryzen desktop CPUs next generation.

UltraNova1632d ago

True.

I remember the ps3 launch days like yesterday. The weird -out of this world adds, the discussions, the benchmarks... it was everything a new console gen had to be to make that period magic. Unfortunately, we wont get to live that "magic" again as Sony and MS will never risk making such revolutionary tech as the Cell.

That said, AMD and their Ryzen 2 architecture are beasts in their own right. Every tech blog/site praises it for its efficiency, IPS and multicore performance. The current RDNA GPU architecture is not top tier yet but I have high hopes in Sony's and MS's customization abilities so that means we will get significantly improved Navi chips with the next gen consoles with Ray tracing to boot. Add the fact that next gen will be designed around SSDs and yeah the advancements over current gen are evident.

All in all the wait for next gen full spec reveal and their launch is still exciting and I'm happy for that.

1632d ago
frostypants1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

Just to be clear, the Cell was primarily developed by IBM (one of the few truly interesting things IBM has done in recent years, IMO...far more interesting than their overhyped Watson nonsense), with Sony and Toshiba attached. They actually sold servers using it as well, but even in that market it's pretty much dead now. The software side of things just never caught up...be it gaming, business, or science applications, it was too much manual effort for devs to take advantage of the architecture and the community never got the critical mass to address that (because developing those tools would have been a massive task itself, and there wasn't enough adoption to justify the effort).

It's a bummer because it was pretty amazing. But future CPUs will have more and more in common with the Cell.

milohighclub1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

Leave it to ducktard to think he knows better than the technical director and studio veteran Michiel van der Leeuw
who had 20yrs @ guerilla under his belt.

Zeref1632d ago

It's not revolutionary if it's a pain in the butt to develop for 😂

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1632d ago
sprinterboy1632d ago

Agreed, imagine the games today on ps4 if they went with the cell and 8gb ram? Instead of the jaguar? Great talented studios got the best out of the cell but because 360 was the lead console at the time it never got the love it deserved from 3rd party (lazy devs and cell being hard to use contributed)

JG101632d ago

I wouldn't say lazy, my guess would be not wanting to spend the money for the extra man hours it would take

Minute Man 7211632d ago

So what happened when EA made that Burnout game on the PS3 first and ported it to the 360?? The Xbox ran the game just fine. No downgrade, no framerate problems.

ApocalypseShadow1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

I still wonder to this day what the Cell was capable of if all 8 SPEs were turned on and was towards games and not worrying about all the other features people expected the system to have based on Xbox launching first. Not one journalist has asked about 8 SPEs turned on.

I think first party games would have been even better. Just think what Killzone 2 or Motorstorm would have been like.

Not only that, but based on Folding at Home, I think if two or three PlayStations or Cell pack expansions were connected, the power would have been ridiculous. GT would have looked even more real than it did.

UltraNova1632d ago

I'm still wondering what a Cell v2.0 with 2 or 4 PPEcores + 16 SPEs could do today that devs are finally accustomed to parallel/multicore coding...

DarXyde1632d ago

One SPE was always disabled for yield defect purposes; the other ran in reverse for the operating system.

It was a strange architecture, for sure.

frostypants1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

To this day, tools do not exist to make developing an application that takes full advantage of the Cell an efficient process. Yes, more could have been done, but even developing for a slightly gimped Cell was difficult (we're only talking about one SPE here though...I'd argue nobody ever took full advantage of even the available ones). The software development infrastructure available to efficiently develop for that sort of architecture was, and remains, SO far behind the hardware capability. Somebody needs to develop the tools for the developers, and even if the community pushing for that was larger it is still a highly difficult task. If it's extremely difficult (not simply time consuming) for devs to manually figure out the best way to balance/distribute the processing burden, that makes automating it well even more insanely tough. It's hard to automate complex trial and error.

ApocalypseShadow1631d ago (Edited 1631d ago )

Darxyde, I'm aware about redundancy and one for applications. It still doesn't answer the question on what 8 SPEs could have done.

Would 2 more working have created even better physics or explosions or helped with A.I., etc. It would be an interesting interview to hear it from a Sony developer. Or from someone on the Ice Team. But no one has asked.

When I mention looks, it's about that extra that makes something more real. I doubt the graphics would have changed much. But physics and A.I. could have looked amazing with more help. Motorstorm already had great mud. But crashes would have looked even better. Maybe even more frame rate speed. I don't know. But would like to know. When Sony showed that gas station explosion tech demo, I expected more. Same with that Getaway demo of all the people and vehicles. Or the car being shot in the desert and the bullet holes tech demo. I wanted more of that in games on PS3.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1631d ago
PlayableGamez-1632d ago ShowReplies(6)
fatbastard111632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

Where’s the source on desktop CPUs? They’re most likely custom downscaled versions and not even close to the clock speeds of desktop Ryzens. Do people really think they’re getting a RTX 2070+Desktop Ryzen+2Tb SSD for $500? That’s the definition of delusion.

milohighclub1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

Dont forget sony will be shifting at least 60 million of all the components. They will be purchasing them in the 10s of millions and will get them at a fraction of a price.

Seems they have a very good relationship with AMD at the moment so expect they're getting good deals.

Whatever's In the box you can expect performance gains above what a 2070 can do.
It doesnt even launch for another year, dont expect it to be outdated on launch this time.
Then wait til the likes of naughty dog max it out.
100% there'll be nothing that comes close to what it'll be doing, on xbox or pc.

PC and X will mostly be held back by the xbox one x thanks to their forward compat. xbox family.

Loktai1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

The CELL continued to be used in IBM enterprise level equipment and where the base OS is capable of distributing use of cores across LPARs(logical partitions, like a virtual machine instance that can be IPLd separately as needed) it's quite efficient . It's really a PPC style RISC core ...

Rude-ro1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

It was controlled..
not about how hard it was to develop for..
Anything new is hard to wrap your head around..
But there are higher powers that did not want Sony creating a better pathway in computing.
To say it came down to developing video games and the eventual tools that got released is a total lack of reality.

To take on how computing works is to take on Microsoft, google, Apple etc... Apple has their own game plan, but Microsoft could have been put in a huge pickle at the time.

Nineball21121631d ago

Does anyone else remember being able to use the function on your PS3 that allowed colleges or research teams to use your PS3 in a network? I think they were using the CELL to run different research programs or something like that.

+ Show (6) more repliesLast reply 1631d ago
phoenixwing1632d ago

almost makes you wonder what it would have been like if they'd kept making cell based consoles for ps4 and 5. However, i think sony made the right move as a business. People just aren't willing to spend a lot and cheaper off the shelf cpu's cut costs significantly.

DarXyde1632d ago

I would not exactly call the next generation hardware off the shelf. It is based on familiar architecture, but that's it—both are custom built and will very likely synergize well with the other components far better than any off the shelf parts could. Sony and Microsoft really did great in simplifying development for their partners by both going with x86 because it helps cut costs and time with ports and multiplatform titles. This continuation into next generation is a solid move, for sure.

It is true that CELL was something else, but also true that it was pretty difficult to utilize.

1632d ago
DarXyde1632d ago

Cloud computing is certainly possible, but I am still highly skeptical about its application. If you ask me, we have yet to see anything genuinely impressive but Microsoft using the technology yet. I am sure it is possible, but I simply do not believe in Microsoft. No need to tell. Just show.

Kaze881631d ago

@cigi have you been playing on pc with DX12? If you had, you would know that it's utter trash. more than half the time DX12 is worse performer than DX11. Even some games are unable to function on DX12 mode. Even the games that run better on DX12 have like 5-10fps edge on DX11. Another thing raytracing, shure a nice graphical look but a real fps killer. even on 10XX nvidia series raytracing totally bogs down your fps. You can have it though you must love that sweet 30fps. As for could compute, I hope you remember crackdown 3 mp. Do not forget that it was reviewed as of one of the worst mp in the whole year.

stuckNhere4Good1628d ago (Edited 1628d ago )

PD gave the world an early glimpse of what a CELL-based PS4 would've been like when it connected four PS3's together to run GT5 in native 4K at 60fps/2K at 240fps... https://www.gtplanet.net/gr... , https://www.gtplanet.net/gr...

Its fair to say had things gone Ken Kutaragi's way, native 4K/60fps for most if not all PS4 games, PS3 backwards compatibility, native 4K rendering of all PS3 games and PS VR games rendered at up to 120fps per eye (240fps in total) would've been just a few features ready to go out of the box courtesy of 'Quad Cell/B.E'... https://image.slidesharecdn... , https://image.slidesharecdn... (it had four times the number of PPEs and SPEs compared to CELL... https://forum.beyond3d.com/... ) and whatever Geforce-based GPU it would've been hitched to.

Shame people aren't willing to spend more for top-end consoles. The market is becoming a race to the bottom. We'll see how good that turns out for the industry/community in the long run.

MrVux0001632d ago

Yup, which is why i was kinda dissapointed SONY went to a more safer route with PS4.They could have achieved much more if they sticked with CELL.

GTgamer1632d ago

it would of been a unnecessary cost tbh but i hear you, if they had put more time into upgrading Cell to make easier to develop for this gen who knows what they could of done with it.

Loktai1632d ago

More potential performance but a whole new generation of bad ports and with the popularity of PC gaming you're much better off making it easy for games to be brought to your system.

That being said the first party titles of course they would be spectacular .... but you'd end up with issues like xbox360 where some games run better even though it's weaker on paper ... and that's factoring in that they both used a PPC architecture

bluebenjamin1631d ago

Me too I really expected them to use cell Since they said they would use it in Ps4 but they didn’t just imagine Horizon Zero Dawn would have benn 70 fps lol

Stanjara1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

On paper yes, and they had the idea of running gpu calculations on it. Reality was that they had to call Nvidia for a gpu chip and had to split memory and over engineered it.
I'm am so glad that Sony moved on from it.
Maybe Jaguar cores are inferior, but games never looked better, and also can be backwards compatible (running on ps5). They are also easier to port to other platforms, or to port other platforms on it.

Cell never again.

stuckNhere4Good1631d ago (Edited 1631d ago )

Never say never.

Stanjara1631d ago

Go to PS store, click on ps3, and see the number of total games in upper left corner.
Then click on PS4 and see the same number.
It isn't a fair comparison, cause there are multiple iterations of the same game, and also pre orders, but still ps3 had longer generation.
Cell was not good for developers, for Sony (expensive) and it wasn't good for the end consumer cause he got less content.
Cell was also planed for Sony's other products like TVs and laptops- nope.
I actually can compare it to Kinect-
fantastic tech that was too expansive and never implement as intended.

343_Guilty_Spark1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

Powerful in what way? Floating point operations, single threaded operations, multi-threaded applications, physics, graphics processing?

1632d ago Replies(1)
sinspirit1632d ago (Edited 1632d ago )

Versatility. PowerPC architecture which are beast for number crunching. Obviously, this versatility requires tons of effort on the developers part. Some of the lighting in KillZone 2 was rendered by the CPU rather than the GPU. The game had a ridiculous amount of light sources and effects on screen especially for its time. This is why they had a ray-tracing demo with the Cell. A CPU that is efficient enough to be used to do work normally done by the GPU if need be. And, simply being very powerful for the time and a number crunching machine.

I don't get the single/multi-threaded questions. Cause only the PPE had two threads. If I understand it right. The Cell would assign tasks to the SPU's onto local memory for each one and they would solve it and send it back completely rather than feeding it bits at a time for it to send back here and there. And, they could work in parallel very efficiently. So, it would end up being able to do some complex stuff. Its theoretical performance ended up having more real world results especially in calculations, simulations, and scientific types of applications. It's one of the stepping stones to APU's that we have today. Basically, it was far more smart to focus on the GPU with the PS4. Luckily, next gen will have a Ryzen CPU that won't be such a bottleneck and the GPU will only hold itself back at that point.

Bluemaster771632d ago

These are appropriate questions left unanswered by the article.

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150°

Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica Remakes are reportedly in the works, not Resident Evil 1

Industry insider Dusk Golem reveals that there is no Resident Evil 1 Remake in the works. Instead, Capcom are reportedly in active development of Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica.

-Foxtrot1d 4h ago

RE Zero would be better to do first over RE1 because they can tie the story into RE1 more.

The original RE Remake was weird because Rebecca never mentioned anything about what happened in Zero and it felt so disjointed because Zero was developed during the Remake and they clearly didn't share any notes with one another.

Cacabunga2h ago

Wise decision. 2 of my favorites!

Knightofelemia1d 1h ago

Give me Dino Crisis dammit Capcom

TGG_overlord7h ago

And all it took was +24 years + a phone call from me lol.

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130°

Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks Was Working On 2 Games Before Studio Closure

Tango Gameworks, the developer behind rhythm-based action game Hi-Fi Rush, had been working on 2 games prior to studio closure.

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twistedvoxel.com
H98h ago

That's for people who said that Ninja Theory would not get closed because they are working on a new game

1Victor2h ago

Well Microsoft have to plug the holes somehow to appease their investors 🤷🏿

darthv722h ago

Tango was part of Bethesda, that was their call. Ninja is their own thing, and MS lets them do their own thing. MS may own Bethesda, but they let them make their own decisions.

porkChop2h ago(Edited 2h ago)

That is technically true. I do think Xbox can still come in and make those kinds of decisions if they want to though, but it's true that Bethesda has been running themselves. That's how we ended up with Redfall in the first place.

I wouldn't let Xbox off the hook though because they obviously would have known that Bethesda were shutting them down and let them do it. Xbox could have just moved Tango directly under Xbox Game Studios instead.

darthv722h ago

We can only assume as much since we dont fully know the conditions of their partnership. It may be that Bethesda agreed to the merger under the conditions that they still be allowed some autonomy like making decisions for game releases and studio management. Again, that's just a guess but when i see people try and convey that Ninja Theory is in the same boat as Tango... this is what comes to mind. NT is their own entity, under direct management of MS. Tango was not.

250°

Metal: Hellsinger dev says he is against Game Pass after seeing how it affects sales

Founder of Metal: Hellsinger studio says he wasn't against Game Pass until their game launched on Microsoft's service, which affected game sales.

TheProfessional12h ago(Edited 12h ago)

Why did PS copy gamepass if it's so terrible and unprofitable? PS Now was before gamepass but it was streaming trash that no one had any interest in.

And honestly the way the industry releases overpriced and broken games with day one season passes and dlc who wouldn't want to just pay for a subscription instead of $70 per game?

Only biased PS fans would defend paying more to a corporation rather than an option that's cheaper for the consumer overall. If it's from an indie studio that needs the sales that's different but games published by larger companies are fine on a subscription model. Also any of these devs who complain did decide to put their games on gamepass in thr first place.

ocelot0711h ago

Ahhh yes the typical but but but Sony in a Microsoft article.

When did Sony copy Microsoft? I havent seen Sony's big day one titles such as God of war Ragnarok or GT7? Do you want to know why they are not on the service? Because people are still willing to PAY for the games. Sony has already admitted they lost millions putting Horizon Forbidden West and Ratchet & Clank on PS+ Extra.

"larger companies are fine on a subscription model" Oh really? So why is all the cod games yet to be on it? Where is elden ring? Resident Evil 4 Remake? Street Fighter 6? Boulders Gate 3? Alan Wake 2? Where are they of gamepass is great and big publishers are fine putting newer games on it?

I'll tell you where they are. They are currently still selling for their respected publisher's. You know actually making them money. That money they can use to fund the next project.

who wouldn't want to just pay for a subscription instead of $70 per game?

I'm one of the millions who much rather pay $70 so fully support the publisher. Why do we do this? Well for starters I rather just pay for it rather than keep renting it each month. If we all just kept renting years ago blockbuster would still be around. Secondly, I rather we have AAA titles in 10 years time to enjoy. Rather than play mobile quality crap from a subscription.

Tell me how this is a good thing for gaming going forward. The last time I subbed to Gamepass was October 2023. During that one month subscription I played the newly released Starfield, Forza and a few other titles. All for the cost of about $7. Since then Microsoft have not released anything I want to try out or put anything on GP I want to try. So they last made $7 from me 8 months ago.

In the last 3 months. I have bought Sea of Thieves on PS5 (earning MS more money on that than my 1 month subscription to gamepass). Resident Evil 4 for £20 and Diablo 4 for £25 (again earning MS more buying this than buying a sub). Tell me how it's best for gaming I pay $7 and play the latest and greatest for a month. Rather than just buying what I want even if it means waiting a few months and getting it cheaper than full price yet earning the publisher more than renting said games of a monthly sub.

darthv723h ago

...but didn't this game leave GP and then join PS+?

If a sub service is so bad, why get into another one right away?

Cacabunga2h ago(Edited 2h ago)

Finally devs waking up! More will follow .. reminds me of capcom during PS3,360 era almost going bankrupt they released extremely poor games because Xbox gave them paychecks not to release them on PS3 for as period. Sales were terrible and they went away from that.

Hofstaderman10h ago

Sony has never released new titles day one. They experimented with Forbidden West which was fairly new and quickly discovered that it cannabalized sales. XBOX gamepass was always an act of desperation to remain relevant and in their desperation they effectively dug their grave where today everybody is biding their time for their formerly exclusive titles. In a nutshell GamePass made XBOX not relevant.

Plague-Doctor273h ago

It wasn't desperation. Subscription Models had a very different outlook in 2017 and then with the gaming surge during COVID reaching critical mass seemed more and more possible.

Phil convinced Satya to chase a trend and it hasn't worked out

lellkay9h ago

Literally dev who put game on gamepass:
It's not good

TheProfessional: but but sony but sony

S2Killinit8h ago(Edited 8h ago)

Sony didnt copy MS. MS copied Sony, then MS went on to make xbox a subscription device. Remember that part? Yeah.

MrNinosan8h ago

You're not too bright, right?

First of all, Sony didn't copy Microsoft regarding PS+ and GamePass, which you admit to early in your comment, but with some faults. PSNow was not only streaming.
The mentality at Xbox gamers, is to NOT buy games, because they are used to get it on GamePass, preferbly day 1 like with all Xbox Studios games.

This is not a thing at PS+ and never was.
Sure there was plenty day 1 games on PS+ like, Rocket League, Stray, Sea of Stars, Tchia, Operation Tango etc, but those didn't take away from gamers that it was more like a "bonus" than a "thing".

Playstation gamers buy games, a lot of games and PS+ has been proving to be way better for business than GamePass, both by actually having more subscribers but also no eating up sales.

dveio8h ago(Edited 8h ago)

"Only biased PS fans would defend paying more to a corporation rather than an option that's cheaper for the consumer overall.“

How can you possibly come to this conclusion?

First, you pay for a subscription.

Then download games. But games will eventually leave the service. You will again need to buy them if you want to play them ever again. Or if you cancel your subscription. Right?

Eventhough this may NOT have an effect on every subscriber, this IS in fact the economical motiviation behind the service like GP.

If you are not already paying "double" this way, you pay at a 1.2 or maybe even at a 1.5 ratio eventually than opposed to simply buying the game in the first place.

As I said, this maybe doesn't apply to every subscriber. But this doesn't erase the fact of this business model existing. And possibly keep growing.

It's driving me nuts at times that especially the die hard Xboxers seem not to understand what they are actually cheering for foolishly.

The Wood7h ago

xbots always tryna group...

..they'll never understand or refuse to acknowledge why these two console brands are miles apart. Gamespass isn't the golden egg some would have you believe. Its hit its peak and is nowhere near the demanded target of subs by the purse holders

The Wood7h ago(Edited 7h ago)

xbots always tryna group...

..they'll never understand or refuse to acknowledge why these two console brands are miles apart. Gamespass isn't the golden egg some would have you believe. Its hit its peak and is nowhere near the demanded target of subs by the purse holders. on top of that it seems more devs on top of the devs that have shunned the service are not seeing the value of subs vs actual sales. Sell first, sub later works better than sub off the bat. MSGaming has a major sea change decision to make regarding COD. Do they release it dod and lose a high portion of up front revenue or either up the price of gp on the whole or create an even higher sub tier to cushion the blow or don't release it on gp at all and potentially damage the good will gesture reiterated not too long ago. The acquisition money wasn't free money....they'll have to pick their poison

anast5h ago

"Why did PS copy gamepass if it's so terrible and unprofitable?"

They didn't copy GP. They aren't dumb enough to put their exclusives day 1.

"Who wouldn't want to just pay for a subscription instead of $70 per game?"

People who don't like to rent things.

outsider16243h ago

It's funny when he says who wouldn't pay for a subscription instead of paying 70$. Well no shit...if MS keeps releasing average titles who wouldnt..🤣

Cockney1h ago(Edited 1h ago)

The reason is playstation didn't copy anybody and they don't release broken games, their games are still not day 1 and Ps players still buy games so ps+ is just an option for those that want a subscription service, the fact playstation doesn’t push it front and centre should tell you a lot.
On xbox gamepass IS front and centre with an option to buy games on the side, look how that is panning out for them!
Xbox fans are the only ones trumpeting this from the rooftops

shinoff21831h ago

Weren't we able to download ps3 on ps3 and ps4 on ps4 systems back then I really don't remember.

Truth is Ms still copied Sony and made a couple adjustments. One adjustment being day one games which clearly has been xboxs issue hence the ps5 releases, and they groomed the base to not buy games.

+ Show (9) more repliesLast reply 1h ago
Skuletor12h ago

I feel no sympathy for the guy, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that putting your game on gamepass would affect sales.

JEECE6h ago

Seriously, how is it that devs need one of their games to bomb in sales due to Gamepass for them to realize what so many people could easily predict? Like people joke about "armchair CEOs" on here, but at least with respect to the effect of Gamepass, we keep seeing that the armchair CEOs are actually smarter than the real heads of these indie studios.

dveio10h ago(Edited 10h ago)

The 'day-one' feature is the breaker or maker with GP, business-wise.

GP is no Netflix.

Because, from all the Marvel's Avengers to Sicarios, illustratively speaking, they all had their box office money. Before they had entered Netflix.

This concept shows you what Microsoft have actually put themselves into.

And what situation studios put themselves into if they go day-one into GP.

solideagle5h ago

GP/PS Extra day one is best suited for GAAS or free to play games

truthBombs10h ago

Why not sell your game the traditional way first? Then after about 6 months to a year put it on a sub service.

Day one on gamepass is a gamble. It works for some (Pal world) and not for others.

anast5h ago

It's the old psych. experiment. Set out some candy and tell the person they can have it all now, or if they wait, they can have double the amount. Most choose the first option, then complain when it doesn't work out for them.

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