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YDL supports it but doesnt have special version. Its just uses general PPC64 Cell part. Linux PPC Kernels since 2.x officially fully supports Cell.

If anyone is more then a sceptic, tools of trade are here
http://cell.scei.co.jp/e_download.html

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Well, that is what he wrote. Cell is PPC ISA compilant (and PPC64 my bad) as general CPU, not slower then G4 I believe at higher clocks. However, using remaining UBER power requires use of other units brings EXTREME performance to any other PPC based CPU and many uses.

http://www.pcinpact.com/archive/28742-Le-Cell-35-fois-plus-rapide-quun-G5-pour-la-.htm

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Yes, you dismiss complex next gen CPU, just because its not fully utilized.
PS3 is limited only in RAM.

If only PPC64 part is used, Cell is slower then G5, faster then G5.
If multimedia parts are used, it blows away any CPU I have heard so far.
Surely, units are not PPC, but hey, there is a way to code streams for it.
http://www.yellowdog-board.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4844
http://www.psu.com/forums/showthread.php/18448-New-IBM-CELL-benchmark-may-2006-vs-G5

In short: Cell can do much even with weak GPU.
> And would run [...] PS3

Just because a board has a Cell chip doesn't mean it can run PS3 games. There's more to the PS3 than just the Cell.

Not much really, just nVIA GPU. And there is already an emulator, but having at least same CPU could make just other components emulated.
http://playstation3emulator.net/

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

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Open Office now Libre is more then words processor. VLC, Blender, Lame and others could fly. Also using both Altivec based PPEs and GPU magnificent visual effects could be achieved without slowing down the system. Potential for parallel efects in games and almost real time render is enourmous.

ANYWAY, GIMP, Libre and Blender should be ported to MorphOS, if they arent.

Check how faster we could go with SOFTWARE RENDERING
http://beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=39606

For brave ones
https://www-01.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/44DA30A1555CBB73872570B20057D5C8/$file/CBE_LINUX_ABI_1.2.pdf
http://www.bsc.es/computer-sciences/programming-models/linux-cell/cell-be-sdks/sdk-31
http://llvm.org/devmtg/2013-04/weigand-slides.pdf

And do remember beside Freescale, IBM is our last PPC friend.

If this is not attractive enough, think of Power7
http://llvm.org/devmtg/2013-04/weigand-slides.pdf

As far as I see IBM discountinued the Cell based blades but they used to cost $10 000. I wonder how low such great board would be today. And would special Linux qualify for IBM Linux support programme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_BladeCenter
http://www.pcsuperstore.com/products/Q54530-IBM-079338U.html

Overall, Cell is still underestimated and not fully used.
But early 2015, I still expect to show some great games and Linux, even on limited PS3.

Anyway, move away nothing interesting to read here, but how great ideas die.
Even if its still existing and usable tech.

Also, there seems to be technique to use slim PS3 for Linux and ALL PS3 features
https://marcansoft.com/blog/2010/10/asbestos-running-linux-as-gameos/

EDIT: Had to fix quotes YET AGAIN because the poster is unable to properly use them.

[ Edited by ASiegel 19.01.2014 - 19:05 ]

> Linux PPC Kernels since 2.x officially fully supports Cell.

It fully supports the Cell PPE but merely supports the SPEs, as in not going beyond initializing them for apps to use them. The Linux kernel doesn't make real use of the SPEs, I bet.

> that is what he wrote.

He wrote about using "the full potential", which on Cell implies leveraging the SPEs, not just the PPE.

> Cell is PPC ISA compilant (and PPC64 my bad) as general CPU, not slower
> then G4 I believe at higher clocks.

You were already given a link to a Cell PPE vs. G4 performance comparison there:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=9787&start=5

> you dismiss complex next gen CPU

The Cell is yesterday's gen CPU. And looking at Sony/Toshiba/IBM's current stance on Cell they seem to hold the same opinion.

> just because its not fully utilized.

It's not about whether it *is* fully utilized but more about whether it *can be* fully utilized and for which tasks exactly (in a desktop computing context) and whether it would be feasible and worthwhile to undertake this huge programming effort given that unlike AltiVec/VMX, Cell SPE code is neither reusable on other platforms (only Cell has the SPEs) nor future-proof (development of the Cell has been abandoned and Cell production will most likely cease as soon as PS3 production halts).

> PS3 is limited only in RAM.

I think it has been established in this thread that the PS3 would be of limited use for MorphOS in more ways than just the amount of RAM. You will most likely continue to be ignorant of this, though.

> If only PPC64 part is used, Cell is slower then G5

True.

> faster then G5.

False, and also contradicting what you just wrote some words before.

> just nVIA GPU. And there is already an emulator, but having at least same
> CPU could make just other components emulated.
> http://playstation3emulator.net/

Yes, this could work, but you'd need a faster Cell (i.e. higher clocked) than what's in the PS3 to make up for the virtualization overhead.

> using both Altivec based PPEs and GPU magnificent visual effects could be achieved
> without slowing down the system.

This wouldn't be "cell only ports" anymore, which is what you were talking about at this point.

> GIMP, Libre and Blender should be ported to MorphOS, if they arent.

Blender is on MorphOS since 2005. Regarding LibreOffice, there's been an effort last year, but I don't know its status:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9060&forum=3
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9163&forum=9

> beside Freescale, IBM is our last PPC friend.

Outside of the server-oriented POWER series, IBM seems to become unfaithful to PPC:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=490

> If this is not attractive enough

If *what* is not attractive enough?

> think of Power7

POWER7 as a potential platform for MorphOS is certainly very unattractive in terms of both power consumption and price.

@vox
None of the "new" PS3s you can buy today will have OtterOS enabled, and as such they would only leave "cracking" as an option -> bad idea.

Porting from one general purpose CPU (68k,PPC,386++,MIPS,Sparc....) to another is indeed just a matter of a recompile (assuming you have the same tools and APIs on each of them and no unresolved endian issues)

Porting it to some weird and heavly parallel as the SPEs requires a whole different way of doing things (unless your o.k. with only harnessing a tiny fraction of the potential).

If someone in the team really wants to go into "massive parallel execution that can't run generic code" I'd rather have them looking at those Radeon-chips, shaders, OpenCL etc etc than some closedup endoftheroad game-console.

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Seconded.
If we are going to support some kind of parallel computing scheme, GPU computing makes more sense.
We can all use that, rather than just one machine.

The PPE is a 64bit PPC with G4-ish performance (slower on some things, faster on others).
The interesting part of Cell is the SPEs which are DSP like cores. These things are absolute processing monsters.
If you remember when Cell was first announced there was a demo of flying around a mountain. That ran 50x faster than the 2GHz G5s!
It was so fast even the Cell developers were shocked.
If you're not using the SPEs there's really not much point even looking at Cell.

However, while STI don't seem interested in Cell these days there are similar architectures around.

TI do processors with Cortex-A15s combined with a set of DSPs. IIRC Freescale do something similar with PPC cores.

You can also use GPUs of course but they're actually more complex to program than Cell.

> The PPE is a 64bit PPC with G4-ish performance

What is "G4-ish performance"? Keep in mind that the fastest G4 is about 6 times as fast as the slowest G4 (based on clock rate).

> TI do processors with Cortex-A15s combined with a set of DSPs. IIRC Freescale
> do something similar with PPC cores.

Indeed.

Are we still discussing this? Seems like a waste of time since I can't see it happen, ever. There is simply not enough good arguments for such a port.

[ Edited by Yasu 20.01.2014 - 00:10 ]

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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?

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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!

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What are you talking about? I haven't seen any.

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

Actually, it's me who wrote this. Vox just quoted it.

> 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

Wouldn't there be some kind of multitasking on the SPEs, managed by the PPE?

> Why didn't [...] Nintendo [...] switch to Cell?

"Why a PPC750? Well, first of all, the Espresso has to be fully compatible with the Broadway to run Wii software. Several people have pointed out that many PowerPC cores are essentially fully backwards compatible for user software. However, Wii games run on the bare metal, without any OS. This means that the CPU needs to be 100% compatible at the system/OS level too, down to the smallest detail of the highly model-specific special-purpose registers. Wii software regularly messes with registers such as HID0-HID4, which are Hardware-Implementation Dependent registers. Additionally, the PPC750 line is the only range of PowerPC processors that implement Paired Singles, an (outdated) SIMD implementation that was introduced with the Gekko on the GameCube and which is not compatible with modern PowerPC SIMD, such as AltiVec. These processors also implement other GameCube/Wii-specific features, such as the Write-Gather Pipe (used to send commands to the GX) and the locked L1 cache and DMA that were discussed in the talk. On top of that, because the Espresso runs at the clock rate of the Wii in vWii mode (and no faster), instruction timings must be identical (or possibly better) in all cases, lest some Wii games run slower on vWii mode than on a real Wii."
http://fail0verflow.com/blog/2014/console-hacking-2013-omake.html

> ask nVidia to do graphics drivers for Amiga [...]. But THIS (getting license from Sony)
> easily makes the top of the crazy ideas list!

Well, according to Bill McEwen, Amiga Inc. had a "co-marketing and development Agreement with nvidia" and Sony wanted "to have Amiga [referring to OS4 here] available on" the PS3 ;-)

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2007cv00631/143245/35/4.pdf (page 7)

But then we all know Bill McEwen is chronically full of shit.

https://www.psx-place.com/threads/update-june-27th-20-hw-acceleration-rsx-project-update-by-renerebetm.21370/page-9

Yes, development of Linux PS3 support has been picked up (again) recently. Sure, it got an impressive CPU & GPU combo but it still only got 256 MiB system RAM and the GPU is an NVIDIA one (klick). IMHO not exactly the best prerequisites for porting MorphOS to it.

Where would one get a working PS3 these days? Museum?

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Probably, Just the display case next beside the iMac G5 (IIRC both are from ~2005).

MorphOS could be ported to the latest consumer PPC machine - WiiU but its cpu isn't faster than G5.

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Interesting thought! I had not paid attention to the Wii U being PPC. Also it comes with 2 GiB DDR3 RAM and an AMD GPU. Can't find any reference if it got Altivec/VMX. Probably not as it seems to be PPC750 based.

Xenon, the Xbox 360s CPU would be more powerful with it's 3-core (+ SMT) 3,2 GHz + VMX. The downside is the Xbox360 having only 512 MiB RAM...

> Where would one get a working PS3 these days? Museum?

The PS3 can still be bought new, even the original, OtherOS-compatible version:

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B000WV0WZK
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B001QTXCAY
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B001RTS532

(These are just a few units total, but this means that the MorphOS team as well as everyone who'd want to run MorphOS on a PS3 could get one ;-)

Can the same be said about PPC Macs?

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On PS3, you can use VRAM and virtual memory on a SSD SATA 150 MB/s
https://github.com/intel/edison-linux/blob/master/drivers/block/ps3vram.c

Using VRAM would be very useful for EFIKA, moreove reading from VRAM on EFIKA is faster than read from IDE that would be great, but unfortunately this is not possible under MorphOS.

My EFIKA has 128 MB RAM and IDE ~6,3 MB/s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJMm-Toi6Hc

EFIKA:> cpu
System: bplan,EFIKA5K2
Machine: 0x1
PageSize: 4096 Bytes
CPUCount: 1
CPU0: 5200LE (G2) Version 32898 Revision 8212
CPU0: CPUClock 396000000 BusClock 132000000
CPU0: FPU Unit exists
CPU0: ReservationSize 4
CPU0: Ticks 4
CPU0: CacheL1Type 0x0
CPU0: CacheL1Flags 0x1000F
CPU0: ICacheL1Size 16384
CPU0: ICacheL1Lines 512
CPU0: ICacheL1LineSize 32
CPU0: DCacheL1Size 16384
CPU0: DCacheL1Lines 512
CPU0: DCacheL1LineSize 32

EFIKA:> drivespeed ide.device 0
Drive information:
Type: DISK
Manufacturer Name: ATA-HD
Drive Name: ST96812A
Drive Revision:
Raw read: 6368780 bytes/sec

> I had not paid attention to the Wii U being PPC. [...] Can't find any reference
> if it got Altivec/VMX. Probably not as it seems to be PPC750 based.

Yes, see the large quote in comment #110 :-)

> Xenon, the Xbox 360s CPU would be more powerful with it's 3-core (+ SMT)
> 3,2 GHz + VMX. The downside is the Xbox360 having only 512 MiB RAM...

...and the CPU cores just doing in-order execution, so you can't really do a simple comparison with out-of-order Espresso based on clock frequency.

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Good thing for Linux! But the link you posted states this VRAM is only used as MTD block device. So it can't be used to increase main RAM. It's simply some sort of RAM disk.
Still the PS3 got an Nvidia GPU which makes it less-than-ideal for MorphOS.

Watched some PS3 Linux videos now. These guys seem to have a lot of fun playing around in the console, but not so much on the desktop.

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Ah yes! Thanks for the hint.

So it's 3,2 GHz + Altivec In-order Xenon
vs. 1,24 GHz Out-of-order Espresso
vs. 0,35 - 1,67 GHz + Altivec Out-of-order G4 7400-7455
vs. 1,6 - 2,7 GHz + Altivec Out-of-order G5 970.

I guess the Wii U would at least be a perfect replacement/improvement of the G4 Mac Minis having more CPU power, more/faster RAM and a more capable GPU.

[ Editiert durch ernsteiswuerfel 29.06.2020 - 00:29 ]

> 0,35 - 1,67 GHz + Altivec In-Order G4 7400-7455

G4, which started as G3+AltiVec, is out-of-order just like the G3.

> 1,8 - 2,5 GHz + Altivec Out-of-order G5 970.

1.6 - 2.7 GHz :-)

> I guess the Wii U would at least be a perfect replacement/improvement
> of the G4 Mac Minis having more CPU power

The Espresso cores are slightly slower, but there are 3 of them :-)

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it works like a removable disk, for Linux there are better platforms.

@Andreas_Wolf: Thanks for the exact numbers! I will update my post accordingly.