> the super computer apps often featured AMD Opterons mixed with Cell BE processors.

Were there others than the IBM Roadrunner built this way? An interesting (and Opteron-lacking) application has been this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster

Those are some interesting applications, and I think the US navy was using the PS3 too.
If the Cell's development had continued, it could have proved promising.
And all those processors now available on the used market with documentation (unlike the XBOX360 CPU)...

But then we get back to XDR memory, and its just not a practical part to work with.
But then, we hashed all this over repeatedly in the past.

I'll take an X5000 please.

Quote:

I mean with all SPEs, point is that you can programme better task in parallells.
Similar SPE concept could be resused, as I find it quite revolutionary.

[ Edited by Kronos 11.01.2014 - 05:04 ]

Most revolutions turn out to be crap ideas.......k

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They eat they own children, don`t get marketed well like 3DO,
or inventors give up. Nothing out of it with PS3.

Can MOS use it since its PPC? For now answers is NO.

But in year or two it will be 100e power station
that can do more then most of Mac IF programmed well.

It could be nice gaming platform (PS+PS2+PS games)
and workstation with Linux and MOS.

Grrr ... why, oh why Jah, they have put fastest RAM but just 256MB?


[ Edited by vox 11.01.2014 - 09:14 ]

@vox:

Maybe because the PS3 wasn't intended as a full-features desktop computer but a gaming station?

Quote:
I guess you realize that this "programmed well" extends to every single program you would be using? (I assume you mean SPU support)

Also, f.ex. webkit would have to be "(re)programmed really well" to leak WAY less memory, to be at least "somewhat usable" with only 256MB of ram. Apple can't do it. Google can't do it. Should be absolutely no problem at all for us.

Also, we would still be restricted to 2D-only due to nvidia.

Just answer this: WHY should the MorphOS team waste ANY time on this, instead of extending PowerPC mac support?

And would it be REALLY worth the risk of getting sued by Sony?

So the only upside with this port would be to get getter games? Is MorphOS famous for it's demanding games? And does anyone know who would do this programming? Or could?

I agree, this makes next to no sense. I wouldn't get a PS3 for this purpouse.

OMG Bouma lives!

Actually, I've kind of been talking out my ass, as I get a minor rise out of tweaking Andreas' rigid sensibilities.

We really explored the avenue as far as it needed to be.

The processor in the PS3 would be really boon to Morphos, as its ASMP nature would fit in well with our lack of SMP support.
The SPEs add an immeasurable amount of power to this or any other CPU (literary, its quite hard to quantify).
I wouldn't have spent time looking at Toshiba's Spur Engine if I didn't think so.

But the memory requirements of the Cell make it impractical to use.
I can get a boat load of Cell BE processors now, and the documentation is there to use them, but I can not justify the pricing of XDR memory (even when it is salvaged from a PS3).

Its a pity IBM did not share its latest advances in SPE design with Toshiba, as the PowerXCell 8i's SPEs are even more remarkable.

AND, if the PowerXCell 8i (which uses conventional memory) or a related processor was still in production, I would still be pushing for the Cell.

So our future in PPCs, if there is one, rests with the Qorlq family, just as Paul Gentle predicted several years ago.

And while its always fun to re-hash old topics, we have beat this one to death already.

All of you, if you have been paying attention, should be satisfied that the focus for new hardware went right where this forum's train of thought said it ought to.

I didn't see the OS4 crowd talking about the e5500 core several years ago, but we were.

And now that we are getting so psyched about an ISA change, its only fair to mention that our OS remains one of the best solutions for PPC platform (in particular for what both could evolve into).

So...the Cell is dead, but we have already moved to 64bit processors, and the OS4 community is about to adopt the same. We need to focus on the future, not past developments (and software, not hardware).



[ Edited by Jim 11.01.2014 - 21:11 ]

Quote:
No. Considering this would be software rendering only (due to nvidia) and 256MB ram (at least Wesnoth and MAME can need more), I'd say only Classic Amigas would be worse MorphOS platforms (even if supported by 3.x). I'd say even Efika is better, as you can get 3D acceleration.

On the other hand, you would get access to "native" PS3 games, but what's the point of MorphOS then? Run PS3 games on PS3, and MorphOS on better hardware!

I used to support this idea but then Sony killed off the OtherOS option...

However the PS3 has long since been completely hacked, so the Hypervisor is no longer a problem and there are no limitations to accessing all its hardware. It could be supported fully but it would be legally dubious to say the least.

The PPE is limited by being in-order and having a slow cache. Performance is good for some apps but it's not so good on heavily branchy stuff. OTOH it's apparently very good at ray-tracing which is very branchy. Don't expect G5 performance.

BTW the PPE core is the very same core that is used in the XBox360 Waternoose processor. The difference is that the XBox360 has 3 of them and they have a souped up version of AltiVec with 128 registers - not entirely unlike the SPEs...

The "difficult to program (TM)" SPEs are really just souped up AltiVec units with their own memory. If you know about threading, double buffering and AltiVec, you can program an SPE. Most people who have actually programmed them did *not* say they were difficult to program - I spent a year working with people who wanted to sell Cell workstations so I know exactly what people said about it. I suspect the whole "difficult to program" is really just FUD from a certain large semiconductor company who had nothing to complete with it!

As for the amount of memory in the PS3. It's probably due to price and especially power.
Cell could access 32GB or something like that - but the XDR chips were relatively low capacity and 32GB would take something like 700 Watts!

Quote:

In year or two, you can probably still buy a G5 Mac for less-than-100e, that will run circles around Playstation 3 (would run even more, if there was SMP support)

Of course, PS3 still might be able to do "certain small things" faster due to SPU (assuming it was supported at all), but as mentioned before, unlike SMP, that would need to be specifically supported by programs.

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OR, you can live in the US and buy them for $100 right now (no I am not kidding).
It makes buying other hardware to run our OS a hard sell.

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G5 is rare beast to find. Thanks everyone for VERY INFORMATIVE LESSON ON CELL.

I still do believe files can be merely compoled for cell and Altivec units (SPEs?) and great multimedia results coupled with nVIDIA could do the magic. It would be about time that one Amiga like OS starts to support at least one nVIDIA chip.

If 256MB XDRAM limit could be overbridged, Blue Ray support introduced and virtual memory as SWAP partition introduced (why do I smell linux) end result could be both great console and great multimedia showoff for MorphOS.

Not that I am forcing anyone, can aid it only via donations and hope.

ARM and x64 route mus be long and its far better idea then PVR Semi and Freescale support that will be just in hundreds. Or you wish power, so quad core X5000 as I hear these days, should be target that MIGHT overrun the famous or infamous G5

Cell actualy is newer and more modern design then G5.

> I didn't see the OS4 crowd talking about the e5500 core several years ago

That's because you didn't look :-)

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=31890&forum=33&start=140#567042
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=31907&forum=33
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=31896&forum=33&start=160#569642
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=32910&forum=33&start=40#593765

> we have already moved to 64bit processors, and the OS4 community is about
> to adopt the same.

OS4 was on the PA6T way before MorphOS was on the PPC970.

> G5 is rare beast to find.

Maybe where you live. Other parts of the world seem to have better availability of used G5 Macs.

> I still do believe files can be merely compoled for cell and Altivec units (SPEs?)

Auto-vectorization (AltiVec, Cell SPEs) and auto-parallelization (Cell SPEs) doesn't really work well with most compilers (including GCC 4). The programmer still has to use his own grey matter for this and write the optimized code himself.

> It would be about time that one Amiga like OS starts to support at least one nVIDIA chip.

AROS has 3D support for several Nvidia GPUs since 2010:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Platforms/x86_support#nouveau.hidd_.28nvidia.29

> If 256MB XDRAM limit could be overbridged

It can't.

Yep, completely forgot about the PA6T.
64 bit, thanks Andreas.

And I never really thought to look at AmigaWorld.

As to Vox's contention that the Cell is more "modern" than the G5, well it is newer.

Its in order pipeline is a lower performing legacy of older devices, and many of the other features reflect ideas that didn't pan out (XDR ram, SPEs, etc).

And we are not really comparing processors, we are comparing whole systems 9where the pS3 really loses out).

BTW - why is this discussion continuing?
We know that a port to this platform is "never going to happen".

Quote:
nvidia won't be supported (fully). That statement has been continuously given by the team. Or at least there are no current plans to support it, of course there are some SENSIBLE reasons (aka "Not PS3") to support it, such as some iBook & PowerBook models having it built-in.

Quote:
Yep. Better buy a G5 with supported gfx card instead, and expect (single core) G5 performance
Quote:
Yes, I know Altivec is easy to program for (I got the official documentation books from Freescale) and SPE shouldn't be much different.

MorphOS has supported Altivec for a long time, and the majority of userbase has Altivec-enabled system. That means that every program out there supports Altivec by now, right?

What, no? Why?

No matter how "easy" it would be, it would have to be done. It's always easier to just compile the code (mostly) as-it-is for MorphOS, and release.

Nowadays most code is coming from "outside" (open source linux projects), and there higher end(G4+) PowerPC has really been going out-of-fashion lately... So not many projects bother adding any support, and neither do people who port them to MorphOS.

Also, Altivec is good for very specific tasks, if the program doesn't do much of that, there's no point of adding support.

And now, if there was also SPE support in the OS, and very small minority of userbase would have capable systems (as most would want a better system, such as Efika), how much less point would there be to waste time optimizing?

>>> I didn't see the OS4 crowd talking about the e5500 core several years ago

>> That's because you didn't look :-)

> I never really thought to look at AmigaWorld.

Where did you look for discussions by the OS4 crowd then? When it comes to English-speaking sites, Amigaworld.net is one of the 2 top sites (the other being amigans.net) for OS4-centric discussion.

> why is this discussion continuing?

Because there're still debatable arguments being presented, I guess :-)

>> why is this discussion continuing?

>Because there're still debatable arguments being presented, I guess

Same debate, no real new arguments.

>When it comes to English-speaking sites, Amigaworld.net is one of the 2 top sites (the other being amigans.net) for OS4-centric discussion.

I knew there was a reason I avoided that site!

>> When it comes to English-speaking sites, Amigaworld.net is one of the 2 top sites
>> (the other being amigans.net) for OS4-centric discussion.

> I knew there was a reason I avoided that site!

If you avoid OS4-centric sites, you surely can't know what the "OS4 crowd" has or hasn't been talking about, can you? This renders any statement that you didn't see them talking about this or that completely pointless.

>If you avoid OS4-centric sites, you surely can't know what the "OS4 crowd" is or isn't talking about, can you? This renders any statement that you didn't see them talking about this or that completely pointless.

I don't avoid ALL sites that discuss OS4.
I still hang out on Amiga.org frequently (even if that can get painful).
But the posters on AmigaWorld are just too confrontational (this coming from the very soul of contention).

>> If you avoid OS4-centric sites, you surely can't know what the "OS4 crowd" is or
>> isn't talking about, can you? This renders any statement that you didn't see them
>> talking about this or that completely pointless.

> I don't avoid ALL sites that discuss OS4. I still hang out on Amiga.org frequently

Visiting sites that also "discuss OS4" in passing isn't enough to see what the "OS4 crowd" is or isn't talking about. For this you need to visit OS4-centric sites like amigans.net and amigaworld.net.