• Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    Jupp3
    Posts: 1193 from 2003/2/24
    From: Helsinki, Finland
    Quote:

    vox wrote:
    There's more to the PS3 than just the Cell.


    There sure is.

    There, however, isn't much more to Cell than PS3. It was an experiment. Didn't turn out to be as good idea as it was thought to be. End of story.

    What's common with PS3, Sega Saturn and Atari Jaguar?

    Yes, they were all quite powerful systems, yet all of them were "somewhat difficult to program for", which killed the earlier systems, but PS3 survived thanks to Sony being "big enough", and leading the way with well programmed exclusive games.

    Yes, I know what you are thinking of saying, "Coding for SPE isn't that difficult", right?

    But you still HAVE to do it, if you want to support it at all. Code, that will be of absolutely NO use on Xbox360, Wii, Windows systems, mobile phones, well EVERYWHERE else.

    Because of that, many games companies simply wrote more cross platform code, and compiled it for all the systems (probaly making it sound WAY easier than it really is). If the PS3 port was too slow, rather lower the details than delay release by extensive PS3-specific optimizations.

    Many big companies don't support Cell properly. Why would our small community do, especially considering that major part of the user base probably prefers better suited systems, such as Efika?

    Also, considering there's limited amount of SPE's available for use, if they're all reserved, you probably would still want your program to run, so you have to write this alternative "less optimized" code path EVEN FOR CELL (and also for >99% of the userbase with better systems)

    And regarding games console manufacturers, if Cell (and PowerPC in general) are so great:
    -Why did both Microsoft and Sony switch to a completely different CPU architecture, when "staying PowerPC" would have also offered proper backwards compatibility?
    -Why didn't the only major games console manufacturer (Nintendo) still using PowerPC switch to Cell?

    Quote:

    Surely, PS3 compatibility would be easier to do on same CPU, similar to WINE under Linux with license from Sony if needed.

    During the years I have followed Amiga forums, I have seen lots of crazy ideas thrown around... You know, "ask Electronic Arts to do AmigaOS4 version of Deluxe Paint" (and be certain it would be Photoshop killer "Because it's Deluxe Paint"), ask nVidia to do graphics drivers for Amiga etc... You know, you have seen it too.

    But THIS (getting license from Sony) easily makes the top of the crazy ideas list!
  • »20.01.14 - 00:07
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