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[j^aws]

http://www.research.scea.com/research/pdfs/la-siggraph-panel_2001_DOM.pdf

Sorry if old...but with the PS3 announcements drawing closer, this pdf seems like an agenda that was set at SIGGRAPH 2001 from SCEA for next generation games i.e. for the forthcoming PS3? Whaddya tink...it seems like a reasonable target to acheive?

 

[Kleegamefan]

Well, with CELL, it may be possible to hit some of that "beyond phong lighting" stuff....I am hoping for radiosity and a limited amount of (but not holding my breath for) ray tracing.

1080p/60....well, that is beyond ATSC (which only specifies, 1080i/60, 1080p24, 1080p30 and 1080PsF24) but, then again...this is not broadcast video *AND* HDMI *CAN* pass a 1080 progressive signal at 60 frames per second...so there is some hope for that....

Furthermore, Redwood has UBER bandwidth so it might be possible for PS3 to have the kind of fillrate to make 1080p/60 possible, if not practical

Of coure, TVs are just beginning to trickle out that can support 1080 progressive signals at 60 frame per second(JVC HD2K and the Faroudja 1080p D-ILA) with more coming (Epson D5, eLCOS, Toshiba SED) 60FPS @ 1080p will be a reality someday...

Most 1080 stuff we have now only displays ATSC video (30FPS max) but in the future, this will be a different story...

Hopefully, if there is any eDRAM in the nVIDIA PS3 GPU, it will have or be configured in a way to allow more than 720p video...

 

[ThirdEye]

1080p/60....well, that is beyond ATSC (which only specifies, 1080i/60, 1080p24, 1080p30 and 1080PsF24) but, then again...this is not broadcast video *AND* HDMI *CAN* pass a 1080 progressive signal at 60 frame per second...so there is some hope for that....

I want a GScube-in-a-box


CPU: 128-bit "Emotion Engine" x 16
System clock frequency: 294.912MHz
Main memory: Direct RDRAM
Memory size: 2GB (128MB x 16)
Memory bus bandwidth: 50.3GB/s (3.1GB/s x 16)
Floating point performance: 97.5GFLOPS (6.1GFLOPS x 16)
3D CG geometric transformation: 1.04Gpolygons/s (65Mpolygons/s x 16)

Graphics: Graphics Synthesizer I-32 x 16
Clock frequency: 147.456MHz
VRAM size: 512MB (embedded 32MB x 16)
VRAM bandwidth: 755GB/s (47.2GB/s x 16)
Pixel fill rate: 37.7GB/s (2.36GB/s x 16)
Maximum polygon drawing rate: 1.2 Gpolygons/s (73.7Mpolygons/s x 16)
Display color depth: 32-bit (RGBA: 8 bits each)
Z depth: 32-bit
Maximum resolutions: 1080/60p (1920x1080, 60FPS, progressive)
Merging functions: Scissoring, alpha test, Z sorting, alpha blending

Sound: Emotion Engine native audio
Maximum output channel: 16
Sampling frequency: 48kHz
Output data length: 16-bit
Output data format: AES/EBU digital audio format

 

[Kleegamefan]

Yeah....but look at how much fucking VRAM there is.....512MB!!111 @_@

And that VRAM has 755 GB/sec bandwidth......jesus...

 

[doncale]

since you're talking GSCube specs, do you know how much FILLRATE that thing has ?

38,400 gigapixels/sec - no texture (2400 * 16 )
19,200 gigapixels/sec - with texture + bilinear filtering (1200 * 16)

my figures differ slightly from the official GSCube spec because I am going on the estimated spec of PS2's GS, times 16. the discrpency comes from the *slightly* different core clockspeeds of PS2's GS vs GSCube's GS I-32s.



2048 MB ( 2 GB) main memory
512 MB eDRAM


and this is just for the 16-board GSCube

the 64-board GSCube, obviously everything is 4x

I don't think PS3 will match that in pure fillrate. although the fillrate PS3 will have will be from much much higher quality pixels. then again maybe PS3 will because a Sony patent that showed up last year seemed to indicate that PS3 might have a fillrate in the tens of billions of pixels. so who knows. Nvidia's best GPU available to consumers does not yet even reach 10 gigapixels.

PS3 CPU should easily surpass GSCube's CPUs (~97 Gflops) in floating point performance though. even if PS3 only has 8 APUs | SPEs
(for about 256 Gflops not counting PU/PPE and not counting the GPU)

the floating point performance of GSCube (~97 Gflops) looks like it is in the range of what is expected for Xenon's CPU (84-100 Gflops)

 

[Kleegamefan]

I think some aspects of GSCube will met or exceeded by PS3 and then, of course, some aspects will fall short...

Stuff like the amount of GFlops (97) and polygons (1.2B) will probably be exceeded by PS3...

512MBs VRAM in PS3???

I would just be happy if there was 512MB >total< in PS3....that XRDRAM stuff is EXPENSIVE, so I am not holding my breath for this one...

I think 10-15 Gigapixels should be possible with PS3 so the question (in my mind) is:

Will there be enough VRAM to hold a 1080p frame buffer+Z check in there??

Maybe/Maybe not?

 

[j^aws]

Well, with CELL, it may be possible to hit some of that "beyond phong lighting" stuff....I am hoping for radiosity and a limited amount of (but not holding my breath for) ray tracing.
...

This IBM presentation by Hofstee on CELL suggests a more physics based lighting environment,

1080p/60....well, that is beyond ATSC (which only specifies, 1080i/60, 1080p24, 1080p30 and 1080PsF24) but, then again...this is not broadcast video *AND* HDMI *CAN* pass a 1080 progressive signal at 60 frames per second...so there is some hope for that....

If possible that would be sweet but I wouldn't expect anything until 2nd gen games at the earliest. And possibly only from the top studious i.e. the Polyphony and Naughty dogs of this world...

Furthermore, Redwood has UBER bandwidth so it might be possible for PS3 to have the kind of fillrate to make 1080p/60 possible, if not practical

eDRAM would help even more!

Of coure, TVs are just beginning to trickle out that can support 1080 progressive signals at 60 frame per second(JVC HD2K and the Faroudja 1080p D-ILA) with more coming (Epson D5, eLCOS, Toshiba SED) 60FPS @ 1080p will be a reality someday...

Better start saving now I suppose...

Hopefully, if there is any eDRAM in the nVIDIA PS3 GPU, it will have or be configured in a way to allow more than 720p video...

Well that pdf says 1080p is the target so it strongly suggests eDRAM, especially if they go with UMA, IMO.

Prolly 32MB eDRAM, which would be a sweet spot but that's 1/4 billion transistors just for the eDRAM and would be the equivalent to a GF6800/ NV40 graphics core!

...
PS3 CPU should easily surpass GSCube's CPUs (~97 Gflops) in floating point performance though. even if PS3 only has 8 APUs | SPEs
(for about 256 Gflops not counting PU/PPE and not counting the GPU)

the floating point performance of GSCube (~97 Gflops) looks like it is in the range of what is expected for Xenon's CPU (84-100 Gflops)

Your comparing the GScube in the wrong way with PS3/ Xe CPUs. The GSCube was basically a rasterizer/ graphics sub-system and it wouldn't operate on it's own. It needed a CPU equivalent in the form of a SGI origin server, IIRC, 32 chip Mips R1400's. This server (i.e. CPU) fed the GScube with rendering data.

OT

Forgot to thank whoever that let me create new threads...TA!