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Hi all.
Has there been any discussion on the potential performance of running
POV-Ray on the Playstation 3 when it is finally released? From what I
read, with its "seemingly obscene computing capabilities", the Cell
processor could likely perform very well for rendering.
I'm not familar with programming for cell or SMP architectures, so
maybe someone can answer (in layman's terms) if POV-Ray 3.7, which
will support SMP, will be able to utilize the cellular multiple
processing power of the Cell, or if it is a much larger programming
task to tackle?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this...
Kyle
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Kyle <hob### [at] gate net> wrote:
> I'm not familar with programming for cell or SMP architectures, so
> maybe someone can answer (in layman's terms) if POV-Ray 3.7, which
> will support SMP, will be able to utilize the cellular multiple
> processing power of the Cell, or if it is a much larger programming
> task to tackle?
It's not a question of whether povray can do it or not, but whether
the operating system can run threads in parallel.
--
- Warp
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On 6 Jul 2005 01:38:52 -0400, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> It's not a question of whether povray can do it or not, but whether
>the operating system can run threads in parallel.
From what I've read, Linux will be available on the PS3. I don't
think its just an OS issue though. Doesn't the application have to be
somehow aware that it is working in a cell environment, similar to
SMP?
Kyle
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Kyle <hob### [at] gatenet> wrote:
> Doesn't the application have to be
> somehow aware that it is working in a cell environment, similar to
> SMP?
Basically POV-Ray 3.7 is not aware of whether it is running on an SMP
environment or not: It just runs on several threads.
(The only exception is that, at least the Windows version, asks the OS
how many processors there are and decides the default number of threads
from that, but there's nothing mandatory about that: It could perfectly
run in any number of threads without any knowledge on the number of
processors in the system.)
--
- Warp
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Kyle wrote:
> Doesn't the application have to be somehow aware that it is working in a
> cell environment, similar to SMP?
From everything I've read, the "cell environment" is a SIMD
environment. (That's "Single Instruction Multiple Data", which is the
kind of thing the MMX extensions do, only on a large scale.) I don't
imagine it'll be any time soon before a language like C or C++ (or
Fortran or Ada or ...) will be able to easily take advantage of this
without special programming. Something like SQL or APL or Prolog or
something where you don't really have a high-resolution "program
counter" concept built into the language would work better; that is,
something where each instruction in the language could take several
compute seconds could be rearranged more easily by the compiler to take
advantage of parallelism. I imagine bits of POV-Ray could be
special-cased to take advantage of the Cell stuff, like matrix
multiplies or something, but I don't think you'll get any sort of large
speed-up just by recompiling the same C code that runs efficiently on a
SISD machine. Just my opinion.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
The samba was clearly inspired
by the margarita.
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I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things develop (no pun
intended), once the PS3 is released.
You know you've been raytracing too long when... you can't wait for a
high-end game console to be released to see if it can run POV-Ray.
Kyle
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Linux on PS3? if that takes off, then Microsoft will have problems...
On the plus side, that also suggests the PS3 would need some kind of hard
drive...
I can't wait to get a ps3 if P-Ray is arriving - but I don't know if it will
go down well. I recall two other attempts to put programming-like software
on a games console net yaroze (PS1) and yabasic (PS2).
Both died out before the console got replaced... :(
on the plus side, this would be a silent admission that games consoles are
crap compared to PCs. the fact that Sony is trying to blur the dividing
line is fun :D
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On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 22:03:09 EDT, "Ghost_Dog"
<gho### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>Linux on PS3? if that takes off, then Microsoft will have problems...
>On the plus side, that also suggests the PS3 would need some kind of hard
>drive...
Here's a brief article on it...
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/09/news_6127219.html
>I can't wait to get a ps3 if P-Ray is arriving - but I don't know if it will
>go down well. I recall two other attempts to put programming-like software
>on a games console net yaroze (PS1) and yabasic (PS2).
>Both died out before the console got replaced... :(
>on the plus side, this would be a silent admission that games consoles are
>crap compared to PCs. the fact that Sony is trying to blur the dividing
>line is fun :D
>
I would think that Linux on the PS3 should fare a little better.
Linux is already widely distributed, well know and runs solid on many
hardware platforms. If the PS3 is the powerhouse that it is designed
to be, then it would seem that certain applications (POV-Ray?) would
perform very well on this machine. Maybe so well that it becomes a
viable workstation for users of these applications.
Here's an interesting quote:
"Though sold as a game console, what will in fact enter the home is a
Cell-based computer." - Ken Kutaragi (Father of the PlayStation -
Sony)
The PS3 is in a stage now where it is hard to realize how much you
hear is reality and how much is hype. As with the introduction of any
new game console, there is *much* hype. However, the capabilities of
this system seem very promising, to the point where it may blur the
line between the game console and PC quite a bit. I'm anxious to see
what develops...
Kyle
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Kyle <hob### [at] gatenet> wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 22:03:09 EDT, "Ghost_Dog"
> <gho### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>
> >Linux on PS3? if that takes off, then Microsoft will have problems...
> >On the plus side, that also suggests the PS3 would need some kind of hard
> >drive...
>
> Here's a brief article on it...
>
> http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/09/news_6127219.html
Inreesting article. I think it would be suicidal for sony not make HDD's
available for us designers. The power of the PS3 for graphics would be
immense.
Here's a screenie:
http://z.about.com/d/playstation/1/5/R/3/kz3.jpg
> I would think that Linux on the PS3 should fare a little better.
I don't know about that-besides you can bet that if Linux is made available,
Microsoft and maybe Apple will dive in...
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see Linux get the recognition it
deserves, but MS and Apple won't let this oppertunity slip away. Besides
some people might not appreciate paying for Linux, and no retailer gives
away full software for free...
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Ghost_Dog wrote:
>
> I don't know about that-besides you can bet that if Linux is made
> available, Microsoft and maybe Apple will dive in...
> Don't get me wrong, I would love to see Linux get the recognition it
> deserves, but MS and Apple won't let this oppertunity slip away. Besides
> some people might not appreciate paying for Linux, and no retailer gives
> away full software for free...
No retailer *can* charge for Linux, They can charge for the manuals or the
media they distribute it on but not the software itself. And on top of that
they have to publish all the sources they change in order to get it running
on whatever hardware. Read the licensing
--
Ger
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