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PS3 Real-time Ray-tracing

Quote:

"IBM Interactive Ray-tracer (iRT) using three Sony Playstation3s (PS3) to render a model that is 75x more complex then those used in today's games. Ray-tracing is the rendering technique used by the film industry and is considered to complex for today's game systems. The code was written using IBM Cell SDK 2.0 on Linux. The iRT is totally scalable and only requires one Cell SPE to run. More PS3s = More SPEs = Higher client frame rates. All images are at least 720p 4x multi-sampled, with dynamic light sources, procedurally generated atmosphere, and dynamic shadows"

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N4G-GaMr - contributor
Published: 520 days 1 hour ago | Video | PlayStation 3

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CyberSentinel - 520 days 1 hour ago

1 - WoW

That was impressive.

/end sarcasm.

@Sashy: Go back to your boyfriend, and play with his Wii.

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fenderputty - 520 days 1 hour ago

1.1 - Much more impressive

then your rather a-typical responce. Get out of here. It's not even remotly xbox related.

Can this tech actually be used in games? Also ... can someone link me to a version that isn't on youtube? I can't get that while I'm at work.

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Ps3007 - 520 days ago

1.2 - lol yea it was impressive funny you dont know why

FORZA set up just got beat badly... I mean BADLY....

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deep - 520 days 1 hour ago

2 -

NO RSX. ALL SPE's. PS3 can employ all ps3's on network...imagine.

"using three Sony Playstation3s (PS3) to render a model that is 75x more complex then those used in today's games. "

Ray tracing to enhance reflections and refraction will be seen this generation in games. And I will look forward to it.

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SlippyMadFrog - 519 days 10 hours ago

2.1 -

@DeepBrown: Are you a next gen technical expert? Are you an experienced game developer? Can you maybe explain why you think so?

Hats off to this guy programming this graphical display, I bet it took a lot of effort and skill but I see no practical use for his creation.
Maybe he could have added more objects in the environment to show the reflections but that car alone doesn't realy wow me. It also doesn't prove that PS3 is powerfull or not since he used 3 to do it. Actualy, this is just a useless coding experiment but kudos to this guy for coding it.

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deep - 519 days 7 hours ago

2.2 -

Nice little spin there. No I'm not a developer but I Have contacts my friend. Contacts. :)

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SimmoUK - 520 days 1 hour ago

3 - Raytracing...

Raytracing is possible on one PS3, this is happening in games that are coming out over this year and next. IBM has also demonstrated this at a convention on one single PS3.

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SmokeyMcBear - 520 days 1 hour ago

4 - ...

I like how cyber is all up on ps3's jock. Just simply cannot let any ps3 article out of his site.. must be envy and jealousy. Don't worry cyber, one day mommy and daddy will make enough money, or maybe you can save your allowance for about a year to get it. Just think positive.

The cell processer is an amazing thing, we are just beginning to see its potential, although I'm not sure I can afford to have 3 ps3s conneceted to eachother, but im sure things will get more stream line. Impressive video none the less

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Superman17 - 519 days 21 hours ago

4.1 - i dont see nothing wrong wit cyber...

Yo yo yo...cyber did good thx for tha article, It shows how sick ps3 really is lika "shy beast" scared to release its "gunz". It really has potential. And cyber ur not the only one without a ps3... i am too, im waiting till fall when mgs4 comes out..Anyways ps3 pwns right now

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Ludwig - 520 days 1 hour ago

5 -

Not game related news.

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ARCHAIC - 520 days 1 hour ago

6 - Was it just me, or did that not "look" 75x more impressive than current car models in games??

I'm not trying to be negative here, but that didn't really impress me at all. Games have been offering real-time reflections, dynamic lighting etc. for a while now, and even when they got the camera closer, it didn't look any more realistic (I may even say LESS realistic) than the car models featured in Project GOtham racing 3, or F1 Championship. The wheels weren't grabbing a ton of reflections or lighting, and the car had a flat finish for the most part. there were a few reflections, but nothing worth drooling over.
Ray tracing is an inefficient way to get complex effects on screen. I'd be happy with some developer trickery that may not be as "realistic" but produces nearly the same quality graphics.

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Killer Cop - 520 days ago

6.1 -

There is a major difference in graphics looking better and more realistic graphics. But Project Gotham Racing 3 doesn't mirror reflect I can tell you, which is a VERY much complicated process.

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Torch - 520 days ago

6.2 - @Archaic: You're right

But in their defence, you're watching a recording of a monitor, not a direct feed. And it's a low-quality youtube video to boot. I remember wanting to show my cousin a video showcasing F1, and he had a really hard time understanding my enthusiasm because the video looked like crap...until he came over and saw the demo in action.

Also, I think that the car automatically loses realism because it's not set in a realistic scenery, and your brain automatically picks up on that right away. Furthermore, the envoronment reflections are limited, because there appear to be few or no objects in the scenery (other than the floor) to cast a reflection. (it's common to "cheat" reflections via the use of an image applied as a reflection map, partly as to avoid raytracing.)

But take a careful look at the car around the one minute mark...at least to me, the car itself looks pretty real.

(Question: how does one measure visual appearance as "75x" anyway??? Personally, a multiple of 75 is a pretty big and arguable number; developers do a fine job at creating plausibly realistic in-game vehicles these days.)

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Retro-Virus - 520 days ago

6.3 - what ?

"Ray tracing is an inefficient way to get complex effects on screen"

If that's what you know about ray-tracing then so be it.

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Torch - 519 days 23 hours ago

6.4 - @Retro-Virus: I'm just guessing

but I think what he's referring to is that raytracing is very cpu-intensive, and that plausible/passable results can be obtained by alternate, more efficient (albeit less accurate) means.

He's right about the "inefficient" part, for these particular intents and purposes.

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ARCHAIC - 519 days 22 hours ago

6.5 - Don't get me wrong... I'm all for "realistic" graphics...

I think I've been misunderstood. All I'm saying, is that for the amount of processing power that is required to implement ray tracing and other "realism enhancing" methods, the payout just isn't worth it IMHO. I've seen fantastic effects in games (as stated above) and although they may not be complying with real-world physics and lighting, they do give a near photo-realistic look to games.
And yes, I understand it is a video of a monitor, and maybe the lack of objects and scenery is to blame for the lack of realism and detail on the Lambo, but as many develpers have stated before in regards to ray tracing, it requires so much, for not that HUGE of a difference in visuals, that it's not really worth implementing.
I'm all for advancement in graphics, but there are always more efficient methods to reach an end. The Unreal Engine 3 proves that.

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Xi - 520 days 1 hour ago

7 - this is still a long ways off.

you wont be seeing raytracing on consoles till next generation, it's great to see it being done but, it just wont happen for a long time.

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JOLLY1 - 520 days 1 hour ago

8 - Ray tracing is fine

IBM's raytracer sucks though! It's a system resource hog. Autodesk's Mental Ray is a much more efficient Ray Tracer and it produced more realistic outputs

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Torch - 520 days 1 hour ago

9 - Actually, it IS impressive

Anyone's who's tinkered in 3D modelling/animation knows full well that ray-tracing is one of (if not the) most cpu-intensive rendering procedures...We're talking minutes to bust out a single frame for a moderately complex rendering.

So if the PS3 (granted three of them, in this case) is able to calculate raytracing (in 720 HD!) in REAL time (30fps?), the Playstation 3 (or the Cell processor, at least) is a behemoth of a machine indeed.

I have a hard time seeing raytracing being implemented in full-blown games any time soon...as it's way too CPU intensive. Although the spectacular lighting displayed in the LittleBig Planet showcase unveiled at GDC has kept me wondering whether it was raytracing.

Hmmm...you never know!

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Aeroglyphics - 520 days ago

9.1 - Extremely Impressive if true

I'd like to run maya on my PS3. If three can give you real time raytracing on a complex model like that, then I can significantly reduce the time it takes to preview my models. Too often do I do a quick preview of something and think it's fine, only to have a major problem when I actually render in raytracing. Just as reference for people who don't really understand this, I use a Mac Pro(Not the new one announced today) the one before that with 2 Intel Xeon Dual-Core Processors @2.66Ghz and it takes me about 10 minutes+ per frame with a complex model. To be honest I'm having trouble imagining how the Cell can do this, It's kind of blowing my mind.

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Apocalypse Shadow - 520 days ago

10 - this is what i have been thinking since 2000-2001

sony is probally going to make a computer generated online game that is run by how many ps3's are linked together.creating that cyberworld that ken kutaragi was talking about.the more systems linked,the more graphically impressive the game will get.(check out GS CUBE-siggraph)

it's why cell is so powerful.it can work together with other ps3s that have cell in it.truthfully, any product with cell in it.it's why sony made it.distributed computing.cell makes other chips look inferior.same with the cpu in 360.not to bag on it.but it's the truth.

another example is folding home.ps3 makes other systems look like a joke at number crunching.it's only a matter of time when companies start realizing what cell can do.i would say the surface of cell hasn't even been scratched.

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sloth4urluv - 519 days 21 hours ago

10.1 - ?

Are you 5?
Seriously not to bash on the ps3 but anytime I hear the phrase "harnising the power of the cell" or anything equivalent it just gets under my skin.

To my point the cyber world powered by all the networked ps3 is pretty much out of the question.
Networking is very very slow for sharing data between systems.
Render farms like for movies run on a LAN (gigabit connection)(1028bit/8(bit/Byte ) = 128MB/s) and each computer will render a portion of the full image.

Having PS3s around the world computing a cyberworld isnt feasible with todays technology. Not only is communication between units slow factor in latency since all the ps3s arent in the same room and that makes the connection even slower.
Dont forget that even if you have a 8mbit cable modem your upload rate is prolly 45KB/s max.

So unless you plan on playing this absolutely stunning 1080p cyberworld at around like 1fps I dont tink its going to happen.

Conclusion:
Cell is cool, but not a miracle cpu.
PS3 WAN based cyber reality is not possible.

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SmokeyMcBear - 519 days 20 hours ago

10.2 - ...

I don't think all the ps3s around the world connected to make this cyber world. I think he means sony having a farm of these consoles creating this world, and the other ps3s around the world would be able to access it, but hey, I really don't know how computers work and how it gets transmitted, but i think it'll be a cool idea. I mean just think, if sony put a couple hundered of these bad boys networked, just imagine what it could do. pretty sweet eh.

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sloth4urluv - 519 days 18 hours ago

10.3 - OK

Even if it was a sony farm with a bunch of linked ps3 (seems kinda stupid. Why not build a server with a couple of cells in it?), its not like that adding more cells is going to make the game look any better.

And the thing I dont get about this story is that each ps3 is only using 1 spe? How is that showing off the power of the cell? linking 3 ps3s together is basically like the 3 cores in the 360 with a bunch of spes not being used.

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12Volt - 519 days 4 hours ago

10.4 - well there are cell blade servers...

also, about the bandwidth issue. It may be an untapped resource now, but fiber is on the rise and the demand is high for it. New Hard drive technologies are slowly gaining steam. Bush will be out of the white house soon, we're looking at the 2nd Digital revolution. My point is, that until these technologies establish themselves, the PS3 will have a technology it can't use. I mean they don't call it the "broadband engine" for no reason. It would be awesome if we got into a game, and the more people logged on the better it became. While the fewer the players the more the servers worked" (of couse they'd have to be Cell Blades)

Cool stuff. But I'd say 3 years down the road.

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