Talk:PlayStation 3/Archive 11

PLAYSTATION 3 versus Xbox 360 versus Nintendo Revolution

I thinking that there must be a section for:

PLAYSTATION 3 versus Xbox 360 versus Nintendo Revolution

or at least:

PLAYSTATION 3 versus Xbox 360 (wait for Nintendo Revolution spec)!!

No, this is not factual and belongs in a consumer review article, not a Wikipedia article. Anything you can come up with at this point is pure speculation anyway. -- uberpenguin 12:54, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

The competition between the systems is covered in the Console wars article. It's a series of factual comparisons of systems, their marketplace success, PR, marketing etc. Socka tume 20:29, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Name

it's PLAYSTATION 3(all caps) not PlayStation 3 (プレイステーション3)

Sony's press release and phrasing in the US always uses the "PlayStation" capitalization. I assume you are gathering the all caps from a direct romanization/translation of the Japanese kana, but Sony has themselves branded the PlayStation in the manner they wish it to be spelled in English. -- uberpenguin 12:56, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

PS3 specs?

You guys'll probably want to edit the parts of this article related to the system's specs, as they've been unveiled (according to PlayStation 3 announced for 2006, at least).

Released specs(source: outerspace.com.br):

Name: PlayStation 3

Release year: 2006

CPU

Cell Processor

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz

1 VMX vector unit per core

512KB L2 cache

7 x SPE @3.2GHz

7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs

7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE

1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy

total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU

RSX @550MHz

1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance

Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels

Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound

Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)

Memory

256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz

256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth

Main RAM 25.6GB/s

VRAM 22.4GB/s

RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)

SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance

2 TFLOPS

Storage

Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1

I/O

USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)

Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1

SD standard/mini x 1

CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication

Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)

Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g

Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller

Bluetooth (up to 7)

USB 2.0 (wired)

Wi-Fi (PSP)

Network (over IP)

AV Output

Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p

HDMI: HDMI out x 2

Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1

Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media

CD: PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer)

SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)

DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW

Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

ren 01:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Images

I uploaded this image, and placed it under fair use. Can someone advise me if this is ok? I won't add it to the article yet as I don't want to get Wikipedia into any legal trouble. What with companies like apple sueing the hell out of rumor sites. Can we use this under fair use? Should it be deleted? Jacoplane 14:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What is the source of the picture? Wikipedia isn't a rumour site, so unless we have good reason to believe it is genuine we shouldn't use it. Thue | talk 15:01, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well this is most likely not the real design. I found it on the playstation 3 forum site. I guess we won't use it then. Jacoplane 15:29, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Added the delete template Jacoplane 15:49, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

After careful examination, I've concluded that these are merely very elaberate photo-manipuations, probably put together in Photoshop. If you look closely, all three images have the same reflection super-imposed on top of them, mentally strip that reflection. I doubt that there would be a need for such things if these were photo's of a machine that actually existed. Plus, this image is missing things like, controller slots, a power butten and has the words, while it's theoretically possible that these are located on the back of the machine, I somehow doubt it, considering how much fans complained about the power butten on the back of the PS2 and all. WolvenOne

Well, for the sake of argument, it's reasonably likely that the controllers could be wireless. As for the power button, it could be a touch-sensitive thing like on Apple monitors (also, the actual power switch for the PS2 *is* on the back of the machine). That being said, I don't think it's a real photo either. Kairos 07:42, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC) EDIT: On a closer examination, I'd say the red light is indeed meant to be touch sensitive power button in this image. The blue light is labeled "EJECT", and I don't see much reason for there to be an indicator light for that.

Odd how the reflection is a trolly or subway train

I removed a statement that seemed to suggest the new processor for the PS3 will cost $3Billion to produce, but the $3Billion refers to the cost of building the new manufacturing plant in East Fishkill. At least this is what I deduce from reading the article on the BBC website [1]
-- Camster342

Anybody notice parallels between the Fifth generation computer systems project and the massively-parallel Cell chip used in the PS3? — ChrisErbach

I uploaded up-to-date PS3 rumor on Internet. --Mateusc 01:19, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Elpida Memory tapped to make PS3 chips 512MB XDR DRAM

Ram Wars -- Gamespot article above asserts that PS3 has 512 Megabytes of RAM; they claim this is from a Reuters article. I wasn't able to find a Reuters article that gives a figure for the total amount of RAM, although there are Reuters articles in English mentioning that Elpida will make XDR RAM for PS3 (specifying neither the size of the chips nor the total), and in Japanese mentioning the 512 megabit chip size but not the total. pc.watch.impress.co.jp quotes unnamed sources as expecting that the box will contain 4 512 Megabit chips for a total of 256 Megabytes, and goes on to say that Elpida, Samsung, and Toshiba all have limited capacity to produce 512Mb chips and Sony may be forced to use 256Mb chips for a total of 128 MB. I am more inclined to trust the PCWatch article since it is much more detailed, and since I can't find any Reuters article backing the gamespot interpretation. Willhsmit 21:14, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It is INDEED, the 512 Megabit XDRAM memory, 64 Megabytes per unit, with up to 4 per Cell Chip, for a maximum of 256 MB. The schematics are readily available for that. Gamespot doesn't know what they're doing. Terrapin 05:37, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good clarify, I didn't get what the user was trying to state ("PS3 has 512 megabit RAM" parses as "PS3 has 64 megabytes of RAM" in my head), and that Gamespot article was dodgy. Socka tume 18:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Strange, when I translate that page with Google they seem to suggest that the console will use 128MB of Ram, not 256. Of course I may just be reading it incorrectly. Anyhow, after poking around at the website for awhile, and translating a few different pages, I've noticed that PCwatch appears to speculate alot on future products. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but because they speculate alot, I think everyone should just assume that we won't know for certain how much RAM is on the thing until Sony makes an official announcment concerning the inner workings of the Playstation 3. WolvenOne

Nothing is known about the configuration of PS3, not even the number of SPEs per Cell Chip, so PC Watch is off its rocker. Terrapin 05:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My interpretation of the article is that PCWatch speculates that XDR RAM shortages will make Sony reduce the amount. Personally I'd bet that Sony would delay the console a few months rather than ship with less than 256...but my main point was that the Gamespot article has no confirmation, conflicts with what is known about XDR manufacturing, and could easily be a misprint. I actually got a live person there who promised to get back to me. IMHO, the main article could either present competing rumors or just skip over the issue for now. Willhsmit 21:14, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, PC Watch is using TODAY'S shortages of XDR Ram as its source, and not the new processes coming out by Toshiba for 512MB, which they're testing now, and will be available two years hence. Listen up, guys, IGNORE anything from PCWatch or Spong, or Gamespot. Terrapin 05:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Sony would probably delay the release a few months rather then go with less the 256MB's of RAM. Considering that both Microsoft and Nintendo are likely to throw at least 256 in thier machines, and considering that the PS3 is likely to be the last of the 3 next generation consoles to be released on the market, it'd simply be inconcievable to me that Sony would allow itself to be beat out on RAM. Of course, they may not delay it, they might just launch the system and allow there to be massive shortages, much like they were for the Playstation 2 during it's initial release. Of course though, this is just more speculation and has no barring on the article. WolvenOne

It's concievable that the PS3 could have more than one Cell chip (that's what they're designed for, after all, shoving as many as you need in a consumer device instead of using different powers of chips in each one) with more RAM available to it. If it does have only one Cell, 256MB would be fairly slim. I'd like to know how much VRAM it would have before making judgements, though. Socka tume 23:32, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, it has been widely speculated that as many as four Cell proccesers could power the PS3, though I feel that a full four would be unlikely considering the increased cost and the the fact four Cell's could be considered overkill. If there are multiple Cell processers, my logic tells me that it'd be limited to two, based on what I feel to be the likely cost of each processer. I should point out though, that this is merely more speculation on my part. Speaking of speculation, perhapes somebody should create an area in the article purely for speculation about Playstation 3 components that do not yet have solidly confirmed specs. After all, there is quite alot about this console that we don't have solid information on yet, and much of what we do take as facts are merely rumors or came from unconfirmed sources. WolvenOne

Agreed -- the presence or absence of a hard drive, the number of Cell chips, the resemblance as far as speed and number of SPE's between the Cell demonstrated and the shipping Cell, and the density and number of RAM chips are all speculative. Is the width of the memory bus at 64 bits hard info? I believe the maximum of 4 RAM chips is based on a 64 bit bus, 16 per chip. Gamespot has corrected their article to read 512 Megabit, by the way. Willhsmit 00:18, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, the specs for the X-Box 360 came out today, and they list the amount of RAM as 512MB's. Now of course, this isn't Sony, however I very much doubt that Sony is going to allow themselves to come out a year later and have less RAM then thier competitor. So I expect Sony to up the density of thier RAM from 64MB to 128MB per chip. WolvenOne

---

nVidia has stated recently that the GPU for the PS3 wouldn't use either Direct X or Open GL, and would instead use Sony's own API. With this in mind the section marked PS3 standards, at least needs to be edited and may need to be deleted altogether.

Source? Socka tume 14:32, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20041228125957.html

It should be noted though that Nvidia was trying to cover for one of it's employee's claiming that the PS3 would use Direct X and also have a few other features typically only seen in Windows machines. We really don't know what features Sony's API will utilize so there may indeed be some open standards within it.

Nvidia has said that the GPU will support basically the feature set of NV40 with some more advanced features. Supporting DirectX and OpenGL or not is basically an issue of the drivers -- I doubt that Sony could port DirectX to the Cell without Microsoft's support even if they wanted to. I'm sure the underlying GPU hardware will support most or all of the DirectX 9 features that NV40 does for the PC, but I doubt there will be software support for calling DirectX 9 APIs.

What Nvidia said exactly is that the GPU would feature technalogy from thier current generation of GPU's known as NV40, as well as technalogy found in the NV50 architecture. However because these are rather vague statements we do not know exactly what architecture will be used as the basis of this GPU. So stating that it'll be a NV40 with a few tweaks taken from the NV50 lineup is mere speculation. It's just as likely that the GPU architecture will be customized to take advantage of the Cell processer, though that'd be speculation as well.WolvenOne

PS3 will not use DirectX. While OpenGL is strictly an API, this is not true of DirectX. DirectX is also incorporates hardware abstraction and software implementation of various aspects of 3d rendering. It's also highly unlikely that DirectX could be used without a windows kernel. Even if it were techincally possible, it wouldn't make any sense for PS3 to license technology from MS when there are perfectly reasonable alternatives. Timbagas 07:41, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The PS3 will use the OpenGL ES API.

Some adjustments

I altered the page to accomodate some confirmations on the PS3 using OpenGL ES 2.0 as well as Nvidia's Cg shading language. Both of these were confirmed by PlayStation 3 to be easy on developers, Sony vows, and the headline at [2] "Sony announces support for OpenGL ES 2.0 in Playstation 3".

--Mateusc 03:50, 17 May 2005 (UTC)== PlayStation 300 ==

Someone moved this to "PlayStation 300". That doesn't appear to be the system's name, so I moved it back. Please check your facts carefully. From a marketing standpoint it would be pretty dumb for Sony to number their system 300 when Microsoft's is numbered 360.. people will buy the higher number :)

Vandalism.. the oficial name is PlayStation 3. --Mateusc 01:12, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Sony's reveiled the design and build of the PlayStation3 controller and console.

Got these from Gamespot. Pretty sure everyone knows of them and therefore can trust their information. Here are some links to the pics from the forums.

Console and Controller http://img191.echo.cx/img191/3848/e32005ps3official2005051605324.jpg Guy holding the PS3 http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050517/capt.ksd10105170114.video_game_expo_ksd101.jpg The controller. http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2005/news/05/16/ps3_screen008.jpg

On a side note; look at how big that thing is!! The controller looks like it wants to come alive and muder me. It also looks like it has handlebars.

Looks like a banana to me. A big grey banana. I think Sony's crazy for changing a good thing. Rhobite 02:59, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

looks like a boomerang and the console seem a barbecue grill. I sincerelly wait for DualShock 2 support. --Mateusc 03:50, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Kind of offtopic abit about the Playstation 3 logo

I just notice that Sony was too lazy to come up a new font for their Playstation 3 logo that they just borrowed the font used in their Spider-man movie logos. Just want to point out that because I found it kinda interesting. --Chill Pill Bill 03:01, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Watch the conference in gamespot, Spiderman appears many times to demostrate PS3 capabilities --Mateusc 06:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Heh... we were watching the conference thinking the same thing ^_^ It's not even changed to appear unique. --131.7.251.200 19:24, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

And font forget that you can get Spiderman2 on the PSP if your one of the lucky ones who pre order. Ablaze 08:58, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I was told by several people at E3 that the font is a placeholder. And since they own the Spidey font, they used that to tie in with the spidey demo. Terrapin 17:09, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Ethernet

What does this mean?

Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)

One-way Ethernet (either in, or out) sounds rather futile, by the very nature of Ethernet: is this a way of saying that the PS3 can act as a firewall/router/switch, with one "outside" and two "inside" ports? -- Karada 12:22, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

According to E3 conference the PS3 is going to be some kind of switch maybe to connect 2 together at a future date? 1 imput means thats where the ethernet cable goes in and the other two ports are for where you would connect the device that you would use, maybe a external hard drive, or another PS3, or some other goofy ethernet device.-- mattrb

I updated the phrasing to reflect this. Saying "input" and "output" ports is fairly misleading, since each 1000BASE-T port is bi-directional anyway. -- uberpenguin 20:42, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

No idea whether this sheds any light on things, but Phil Harrison, when asked about why the PS3 has three network ports says:

Because it can be a hub, rather than just being a terminal at the end of a network. Also, we want to be able to have a Gigabit port for an IP camera. So one of the ports is an 'in', and two of them are 'through'. It can be a server as well as a terminal. Socka tume 20:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

uberpenguin edits - wrong !

"12:32, 17 May 2005 Uberpenguin m (→System Bandwidth - cleanup, I have no idea what "SB" is, and the press release doesn't make that clear)"

If I didn't understand something, I'd be a bit cautious in just removing references to it. Also, changing 7*SPE 3.2Ghz to 7*SPE 1.2Ghz seems wrong

Suggest someone reverts these changes, and the other ones by Uberpenguin at 12:32. --Sgkay 12:47, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm referring to Sony's own press release [3] for this information. If you have a better source, please post it. Also, I did NOT change the SPE clock speed to 1.2 GHz or PowerPC to PC, User:204.9.144.52 did that. Please check the edit history before you go pointing fingers at people. Furthermore, I suspect "SB" refers to System Bandwidth, which is a marketing term more than any useful metric. Without knowing exactly what this means, it isn't useful to include it in the article. -- uberpenguin 12:51, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Additionally, please forgive any typos I make while cleaning up, I will triple-check my work and correct any mistakes that I make. Someone just copied in the entire hardware section of the press release without formatting or properly clarifying it at all, and I'm trying to fix it. Please bear with me for a few minutes... -- uberpenguin 12:54, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Read the Binary prefixes article first. When someone lists a specification like "256 MB" they assuredly mean Mebibyte, not Megabyte. There is a lot of confusion on this issue, which is why I changed the measurements to the correct binary prefixes. 256 MB is supposed to mean 256*2^20 bytes, not 256*10^6 bytes. Using the binary prefixes removes ambiguity and is starting to become the standard with other storage and computer articles (see the hard drive article). If you seriously object to using the correct binary prefixes, please explain why. -- uberpenguin 13:02, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry... I see that you were reverting User:204.9.144.52's edits, not mine. Well, it's still useful to explain why I changed to binary prefixes. -- uberpenguin 13:04, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Incidentally, I would like to rewrite parts of this article to make it slightly more than a big list. Few people want to read a list of specifications that they may or may not understand, and it is certainly against Wikipedia stylistic guidelines. I realize that there isn't terribly much to say about the PlayStation 3 as of yet, but the format and flow of the article still can stand for some improvement. -- uberpenguin 13:08, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Okay, let me explain why I removed the "Overall System Floating-Point Performance" section. There is no way of telling how this number was arrived at, and likely it is a creative concatenation of the theoretical floating point performance of the CPU and the graphics processor. This sort of thing is nothing more than a marketing figure that is designed to make people drool over without knowing what it is they are looking at. Furthermore, the text "twice that of the XBox" is very misleading in that it suggests that FP performance is the only metric by which computers (of any kind) can be measured against one another. Do integer and DSP performance account for nothing? For the time being I'll leave it, but unless someone provides compelling reason to leave it, I'll remove it again. Let's keep in mind that it's not the purpose of Wikipedia to mirror press releases that contain a healthy dose of marketing. -- uberpenguin 13:29, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Fair comments. At the moment, Sony's details of the server are pretty much all we've got to go on. Lot of interest in what the specs are though (people will be comparing specs with the Xbox 360). Hadn't realised the MB/MiB thing, point taken. --Sgkay 15:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the understanding, I'll do my best to tread carefully and justify anything I do with this article. -- uberpenguin 15:49, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

2.18 Teraflops

Based on slideshow Sony E3 Conference, with comparisson Xbox 360, A64... I will back with information, and uberpenguim, watch the conference in Gamespot It's free before doubt.. It's oficial slideshow from Sony presented by Ken Kutaragi. --Mateusc 16:38, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not questioning the fact that it's an official Sony claim, I'm saying its a worthless measure of system performance. Knowing that Cell can perform some constant times the number of FLOPS of the XBox 360's processors doesn't indicate whatsoever how one console will end up stacking up against each other. Furthermore, as I already said, this number seems largely a marketing fabrication since we have no indication of how they came up with "overall system floating point performance." Being that we can't verify how that number was arrived at, and it is theoretical at best, I don't believe it should be included. I certainly believe that drawing the comparison between two single-dimensional and questionable metrics to compare two yet-unreleased game consoles is inappropriate. So for now, I'm going to remove only the XBox 360-related phrasing, and we can continue to discuss whether or not it's appropriate to leave the TeraFLOPS metric. My argument against it follows in nice, fun bullet point format:

We don't know how that number was derived, and it is theoretical at best. I already have some qualms listing theoretical maximum memory rates since they will NEVER be attained, but I figure that's a small nit to pick.
The metric is no kind of indication of system performance, it only is impressive if you are running something like LINPACK on your game console. This is the same reason you can't definitively say that Blue Gene/L or Earth Simulator, for example, are X times as fast as your x86 desktop PC because said computers are ranked on only one metric: their peak and average floating point capability.
Having it there is confusing and misleading to the average reader, and is realized as worthless by the more advanced reader. While the advanced reader will give it little regard, the average reader might take it to be an important benchmark and then we are back at my previous point.

Your input is much appreciated! -- uberpenguin 17:11, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

See the section directly below this one for an example of how this measurement can confuse the lay man. -- uberpenguin 17:48, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Overall System Floating Point Performance

I noticed that this has been temporarily changed, but it doesn't seem feasible that the PlayStation 3 would have more TFLOP performance than the Xbox 360. The Cell Processor is only a third of Xbox 360's custom IBM, which runs at 9.6GHz (3.2GHz per core, at three symmetrical cores), while the Cell runs at 3.2GHz.

Once again, I noticed that this was fixed, but unless I missed something, Xbox 360's page doesn't have an overall performance section, so it is unfair to compair when no specs are given.

I've already written a good bit about this, read above. Suffice to say that your thinking is quite a bit flawed. Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz are not equivalent to a single 9.6 GHz processor. There is a very large software factor here; read the SMP article. Furthermore, the number Sony provides is probably not soley due to the vector processing capabilities of Cell (to which one MIGHT be able to compare to the XBox 360 AltiVec-bearing CPU cores), but also to the highly SIMD graphics processor as well. You are correct that these sort of comparisons are unfair, because estimated floating point measurement is largely a creative guess, and because FP doesn't indicate all that much about the final performance in any given application. Really, who buys a game console based on how many shader pipelines the graphics processor has or what the theoretical peak memory bandwidth is? A lot of these specs are irrelevant to the average reader, and should be condensed some. Right now I'm trying to clean this article up a bit, but there are so many edits and vandalism on it currently that it's hard to get much done.... Bit by bit... -- uberpenguin 17:40, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Also realize that Cell is a very different design from a triple-core PowerPC 970. The model used in the PlayStation 3 has seven used vector processing units that are very agressively timed. In other words, Cell is designed to be a very fast vector processor, which partially accounts for its expected high floating point performance. -- uberpenguin 17:45, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

On the Xbox 360 page, it says that the IBM custom processor has three symmetrical cores, with each core running at 3.2 gigahertz. 3.2 x 3 = 9.6. Therefore, it seems logical that 9.6GHz is the final processing speed. I could be wrong, but that's my two cents. Anyway, I'm sticking to helping out with the Xbox 360 page.

You're wrong, sorry. The three processors are independent of each other, they are just manufactured on the same IC. Threading apps rarely if ever creates a perfectly additive performance boost, and since all three processors are in contention for system resources (mostly memory access), real-world performance is degraded even further. -- uberpenguin 18:03, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Okay. Honestly, I don't know much about PCs and technology, I only know the basics. So, if anything, I'll thank you for basically teaching me something new. -- Apadilla80

Hey, no problem, I work with this sort of stuff so I'm expected to know it. Not everyone in the world is an electrical engineer! -- uberpenguin 01:13, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

Ok, it's good now. --Mateusc 11:42, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Great, I'm glad we got that resolved. On to bigger and better things! -- uberpenguin 13:12, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

Ok, but is important after all keep this information here, because Microsoft and Sony had divulged in its fact-sheet's and conferences (respectively). --Mateusc 00:11, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey Uberpenguin obviously your electrical sockets from your job have got to you because your addition to the floating point capability is wayyyy to wordy. Lighten it up buzz.Mattrb

Not my choice; my first preference would be to remove it alltogether. Read down a bit for a very long discussion with Mateusc that explains why I felt the need to add all that. Mateusc insists on keeping the marketing info, so the compromise is to add an unnecessarily wordy blurb justifying its existence. Somewhat silly, but I don't mind all that much since there is very little to be said about this console at this point in time. -- uberpenguin 03:34, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

Regarding FP perfomance

It's more or less meaningless to add up the FP performance of the PPC core, the SPEs and the GPU: they do three different things. The PPC core is a completely general-purpose CPU; the SPEs are DSP-like vector accelerator units, which will be programmed in a DSP style, and probably accessed through library APIs from the main CPU (build a processing graph, make a pipeline, initialize, run, sync, stop... that sort of thing), or even be completely transparent as part of the sound / OpenGL APIs; finally the GPU is more-or-less a completely dumb I/O device that is fed command streams from the rest of the system. I think the interesting thing about the PS3 is its much greater support for DSP-like grunt-power programmability upstream from the GPU.

Whilst the PS3 has less general-purpose CPU power than the Xbox 360, it has more GPU power, with much, much, more DSP-like vector processing power behind it. This has interesting implications for physics modelling and very complex scenes, where this is exactly the kind of processing power needed: I confidently expect the PS3 to overwhelm the Xbox 360 in terms of game realism if this processing power is brought to bear in the right way. -- The Anome 10:21, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Though I do agree with your ideas, I think we must be careful of letting our own estimations and predictions creep into the article. While I personally agree with the new wording added regarding the PlayStation 3's architecture, it seems to contain some weasel words and I think we would be best served if we can find concrete examples of speculation by "trade press reports." Again, I'm not against the information that was added (far from it), but I think it needs to be backed up by some external resources to avoid problems in the future. -- uberpenguin 10:40, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

What is SPE?

Where the specs say:

7 x SPE @3.2GHz

What does the SPE stand for? The PSP has 8 SPE@3.2GHz, how does this relate to XBox 360's triple core at 3.2GHz?

I agree, can someone define SPE and perhaps even link it to the Cell processor where this info belongs?

"Synergistic Processing Element" -- called SPU by IBM. -- The Anome 10:08, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

I've seen IBM call it by both names in various whitepapers; SPE and SPU ("Streaming Processing Unit," I think) depending on what suits them best at the time. -- uberpenguin 10:36, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

Missing 162 GFLOPS

Expected total Cell processing power is stated to be 218 GFLOPS, and the GPU is said to have 1.8 TFLOPS. On the other hand, the article claims the overall performance is 2.18 TFLOPS. But 0.218 + 1.8 = 2.018 and certainly not 2.18. Is this simply a calculation error, or where does the number 2.18 come from?

If noone can give good arguments for why it should say 2.18 TFLOPS, I shall change the overall performance to 2 TFLOPS, which is also what Sony says it is.

Grahn 14:52, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Sony said in the press release linked on the article that it is 2.18 TFLOPS total. Frankly I have no idea where this number comes from and it seems like a creative marketing fabrication. I tried to remove it before, but other users want it to stay for now. See the discussion about that up the talk page a bit. -- uberpenguin 15:29, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

From what I can read, it says "System Floating Point Performance 2 TFLOPS" in the linked press release. I only skimmed it very quickly, though, so it may be that is says 2.18 elsewhere in the text. However, when I searched for the string "18", only a date and the the value "218 GFLOPS" came up. Anyhow, assuming this contradictory information exists, it still seems wiser to me to go for the more logical value of 2 TFLOPS. Especially since is has only one significant digit, and doesn't rule out the possibility that it actually is 2.18. Grahn 16:00, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Weird, I swear it did say 2.18 a day ago... Perhaps they ammended the PR? Oh well, it now accurately reflects Sony's current magic number. -- uberpenguin 18:13, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

I just can't understand why people in Wikipedia don't read talk page and don't check the sources making irresponsible changes; Watch the press conference (placed and explained for second time here) [4] and see slide show presented by Ken Kutaragi, with a direct comparisson with the Xbox 360. I will back with information and wait that the author check the sources, an official information of Sony. --Mateusc 00:04, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... Well, by the very link you provided, [5] the number is said to be "2 teraflops of overall performance." The press release linked in the article also states " System Floating Point Performance: 2 TFLOPS." [6] We all realize these are preliminary and probably marketing-touched numbers, but before you point fingers at people for "irresponsible changes" and failing to "check the sources," perhaps I might suggest you check your own sources first. -- uberpenguin 00:10, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

Man.. you saw the slideshow? it has a decimal number. 2.18 check the source correctly please, I ask for this. --Mateusc 00:15, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

So you are saying that the slide show is magically less prone to typographical error than Sony's press release? Look, this is EXACTLY why I suggested earlier that we remove this number entirely because it is a MARKETING FABRICATION and not any kind of useful performance metric. However, you and others INSISTED on keeping it, so now you are going to have to deal with the ambiguity that this sort of thing causes. The fact is that right now we have two equally reputable sources in contention; the Sony press release and their slide show, so perhaps the phrasing should be "over 2 TFLOPS" to err on the side of generality rather than inaccuracy. Would that suit you? -- uberpenguin 00:19, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

Err.. I know about this, but this is a number divulged by Sony and we can't hide. If it will be fulfilled, and it has controversies, this is substance for another article or section.. (why you don't write one? ;)) --Mateusc 01:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Because it's all speculation at this point; I will not write a section based on pure speculation. It's expected that a demo at a game conference will contain a healthy dose of marketing, and here we are. A lot of folks are just a little too interested in the internals of these game consoles for their own good, so we get situations in which a certain marketing number (*ahem*) is agonized over. Right now the article suffers from list overload, but this is tolerable until we know enough to flesh out a bit more. If you do not object, I will change the phrasing to say "Over 2 TFLOPS" since this is correct by both sources and deals with the ambiguity. -- uberpenguin 01:18, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

It's a oficial and final tech information exposed by Sony and compared in the media. Not a rumor, not a speculation, just a tech and divulged oficial info. --Mateusc 01:27, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

*sigh* Yes, but it is totally unclear how Sony arrived at that number, the number isn't really a useful metric in the first place, and even Sony itself has released two different numbers. I am changing the phrasing because it is not clear what is correct, and being a marketing number it probably matters very little. -- uberpenguin 01:55, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

It's important to Keep, because Sony it made question to show exactly numbers in your conference comparing with Xbox 360 (1.15 Tflops) You understand me? For future, I'm certain this hype number but Sony says that... --Mateusc 03:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

It's a marketing number that doesn't translate to real-world performance in any useful way. I'm agreeing to keep it because there is little hard factual information on the console right now and it makes several other people happy for this page to echo Sony press releases. -- uberpenguin 03:43, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

If it's a market number or not, Sony divulged! We can't hide a number that divulged, Jesus, You can't understand this? I'm not question what this number is, if is real and practical or isn't, that number was divulged Here in Wikipedia we not can't hide this. Wrong or not, this a information divulged by Sony. --Mateusc 17:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Sony ALSO provided the number 2 TFLOPS in their press release, meaning that even they haven't got their numbers straight yet. Have you been reading anything I've been saying? Would you like me to request mediation on this since you either seem to misunderstand or ignore everything I've been typing? -- uberpenguin 18:58, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

Look, to show the loopyness of your reasoning, shall I also place another number in that section that reads 2 TFLOPS? Sony divulged the number 2 TFLOPS in their press release, I suppose that means the information should be included on Wikipedia. Hell, why not just go ahead and copy their entire body of press releases and marketing slides here? -- uberpenguin 19:01, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

The number it's on Sony E3 Press Conference slideshow, look in this talk page, I'm not post for third time. I will back with 2.18 number - because it's presented by Sony on E3 Press Conference. --Mateusc 20:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

And the number 2 is in their press release, as I have said at least three times now. Which is more reputable? Do you suggest one to be less prone to error than the other? Please share with me your reasoning here. So far all you have said is "one source from Sony says 2.18" but have completely ignored the fact that another source from Sony gives a different figure. I feel as if perhaps something is being lost in translation here... -- uberpenguin 02:18, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

You're can't understand-me. I'm not disagree with you, I found only expose an crucial information that Sony shown in your press conference. I know (We Know) Sony hypes and strategies. We need information for people what Sony says, to promote your product. I ask for you expand the section, writing a thing like this: "Sony in your E3-Press Conference shown that PS3 have 2.18 Teraflops of overal system performance, disclosing unreal number not-practical performance". You understand-me now? People that access Wikipedia need to know this, because same thing has made with Emotion Engine in 2000. -- --Mateusc 02:46, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Fine, will do... Hopefully changing the phrasing won't cause a thousand anonymous users to jump all over it... -- uberpenguin 02:51, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

Wonderfull, it's perfect now. --Mateusc 20:21, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

GPU

300M transistors in RSX, source: Sony E3 2005 Press Conference

PC performs at .08 TFLOPS?

Who added this information and what justification do you have for it? Considering the SIMD units in big desktop microprocessors, this seems like a very pessimistic estimate. Why are we even trying to compare the vector capabilities of a game console to those of a PC? Most PC users have very little need of high vector performance, and thus a SIMD unit or two is sufficient. If you wanted to make a FAIR comparison, compare the PlayStation 3's esimated FLOPS to that of a vector architecture, like the NEC SX-6. I'll probably remove this phrasing unless someone can think of a really good reason to leave it. As a point of comparison it is questionable and definitely misleading. -- uberpenguin 06:11, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

Presumably it came from Sony's press conference, where they showed off that not-very-convincing statistical analysis. Should probably be noted in the article that it's Sony's estimate and may be unrealistic. Socka tume 14:18, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

We don't know the specs and the Sony criteria shown on the slideshow, but it was presented of this form on Press Conference (16 may). --Mateusc 17:45, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Maybe so, but it isn't the job of Wikipedia to simply copy and paste one company's marketing information. The number for the PC is highly questionable, there is no indication of what kind of PC they used for the number, what sort of code was running on it, whether or not it used SIMD optimized instructions, etc. I think we should remove the PC comparison for clarity's sake, because it only adds to confusion and suggests that floating point performance is the end-all measure by which we compare computers. -- uberpenguin 12:20, 2005 May 23 (UTC)