> All this flailing around in the dark isn't terribly productive.

Agreed, and it's everyone's own decision if he wishes to take part in it or just ignores it :-)

> I believe its safe to assume that all the replacements for the leading
> game consoles will remain PPC based.

Sure? The latest rumours on the PS4 (Orbis) say x86(-64).

Quote:

Sure?
- Characters can be updated separately.
- Physics can be done largely in parallel, collision detection might complicate things but even that can be divided up.
- Audio is separate.
- You can work on separate frames in parallel.


Desktop developers have been programming on serial machines for the last 30 years so apps including games reflect this. Now they have to be written in a different way.
This means looking at different ways to solve problems with different data structures and different algorithms.

All processors are heading this way so get used to it!

What'll be real fun is when people discover that cache coherence will hit a scaling limit so you'll have to do message passing between processors and this means relearning yet more.

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

I'd bet a kidney on it.
Sony has invested too heavily in the Cell to abandon it at this point.
Besides, what's the real advantage to 64bit X86 except memory addressing?
Does a game console need more then 4GB of memory?


[ Edited by Jim 12.04.2012 - 17:54 ]

>>> I believe its safe to assume that all the replacements for the leading
>>> game consoles will remain PPC based.

>> Sure? The latest rumours on the PS4 (Orbis) say x86(-64).

> I'd bet a kidney on it.

From "flailing around in the dark" to betting a kidney, that went pretty fast ;-)

> what's the real advantage to 64bit X86 except memory addressing?
> Does a game console need more then 4GB of memory?

I don't know, but the reason for 64-bit in hypothetical x86 consoles could be the same as for 64-bit in existing PPC consoles like the PS3 and the XBox360, don't you think?

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

Call it SIMD ... You name it ...

Remember GPul ...

> Remember GPul ...

I purposely ignored this reference the first time you gave it, but as you keep coming back with it, I'll react:
It's actually a good example, as the cut-down POWER4 with added AltiVec was not the server chip POWER4 anymore, but the desktop/workstation chip PPC970. So why do you think a cut-down PowerEN with added AltiVec or VMX128 would still be a PowerEN (remember, "EN" means "Edge of Network") and not something else with a new name, especially since what makes the PowerEN a PowerEN and differentiates it from other chips with the very same cores is what's on the chip *besides* the PPC cores, i.e. the on-chip peripherals that make the PowerEN a hybrid networking/server chip? And that's not even taking into account that adding AltiVec or VMX128 to what's currently the A2 core would make it something else than the A2 core.
To summarize: If you remove most of the on-chip peripherals from the PowerEN chip, you have no PowerEN chip anymore, but a new chip that happens to be based on the same A2 cores (refer to Power BQC for another chip that is based on A2 cores but is no PowerEN). And if you went even further adding AltiVec or VMX128 to what's known as the A2 core, it wouldn't be the A2 core anymore.
And all that removing and adding things from/to chips and cores wouldn't change anything in the devkits that had already been shipped before with, say, a PowerEN chip with AltiVec-less A2 cores, same way existing POWER4 machines didn't magically turn into PPC970 machines.
It may be, as minator suggests, that the Durango devkits have the existing PowerEN chip with AltiVec-less A2 cores (I don't believe that though). And it may very well be that IBM is about to take the A2 core, add an AltiVec or VMX128 unit to it, put several of those new cores together with some glue logic and on-chip peripherals suited for gaming consoles and voila, have the chip for Microsoft's new console. However, calling such new chip a 'PowerEN chip with added AltiVec/VMX128' is pure nonsense.

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

I like risk. ;)

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

Andreas, when did I said it is a PowerEN chip and when did I said it will be still called PowerEN?????

Yes, it could be a "variant of PowerEN" or a PowerPC chip with A2 core.

Mit dir zu diskutieren ist echt verschwendete Zeit ... Welcher Idiot wird auf die Idee kommen zwei verschiedene CPUs den selben Namen zu geben ....

> Andreas, when did I said it is a PowerEN chip and when did I said it will be
> still called PowerEN?????

Okay, you were not talking about calling it "PowerEN". Sorry for that, my bad. But as you just confirmed, you'd still call it a "variant of PowerEN", which I consider nonsense (see below).

> Yes, it could be a "variant of PowerEN"

No, if you strip off the on-chip peripherals that make the PowerEN the PowerEN (ignoring for once that this is not how chip development works anyway), i.e. a chip that is targeted at hybrid networking/server applications (that's what "EN" stands for after all), you do have neither a PowerEN nor a "variant of PowerEN" but just a bunch of A2 cores (which is what they really would start with btw). And if you then add AltiVec to those cores and some on-chip peripherals which make sense in a gaming console, you end up with a new chip that is as much a "variant of PowerEN" as it is a variant of Power BQC, i.e. not at all. Or do you really believe Microsoft would have any use for most of PowerEN's on-chip peripherals in a gaming console?

> or a PowerPC chip with A2 core.

Exactly, that's what it would be, as I've been saying all along. Whether A2 with AltiVec included would still be A2 is debatable, though, and would largely depend on how it was classified by IBM.

> Welcher Idiot wird auf die Idee kommen zwei verschiedene CPUs den selben
> Namen zu geben ....

Theoretisch wäre es doch kein Problem, einen neuen Chip zum Beispiel "PowerEN 720" (für XBox720) o.ä. zu nennen. Warum es aber Blödsinn ist, für einen Chip, dem mangels entsprechender On-Chip-Peripherie inhaltlich das "EN" fehlt, "PowerEN" auch nur als Namens-*Bestandteil* zu verwenden, oder ihn eine "Variante des PowerEN" zu nennen, nur weil er identische (A2) oder verwandte (A2+AltiVec) CPU-Kerne verwendet, habe ich schon mehrfach zu erklären versucht. Es käme doch auch keiner ernsthaft auf die Idee, einen solchen Konsolen-Chip nur wegen der Kernverwandtschaft als Variante des Supercomputer-Chips Power BQC zu bezeichnen, oder?

Interesting comments from the CTO of Sony's console division:

“We are looking at an architecture where the bulk of processing will still sit on the main board, with CPU and graphics added to by more digital signal processing and some configurable logic.”

Looks like it's going to be even more exotic than the PS3.

Sounds like a CPU + GPU combo surrounded by SPEs and an FPGA thrown in for good measure!

Full interview here.

For those of you thinking that SPUs are the answer for PS4 or whatever it's called, Apple's patent on Interleaved memory should be expired in late November 2016 thus making faster memories available for cheap. That's what I'm betting on: Unlimited burst lengths.

Samurai_Crow,
Quote:

Ah Ha! That must be the reason the AmigaOne X1000 First Contact computers are so expensive. It is that damn Sony Apple patent on interleaved memory that is to blame. A-Eon must be paying a huge royalty to Sony because the Nemo2 motherboard uses interleaved memory design, so when matched pairs of memory dimms are used in the RAM sockets, the memory runs faster in Interleaved mode.

Edit: I have no idea how I misquoted Samurai Crow's statement about who owned the patent, it was right there in front of me?

[ Edited by amigadave 17.04.2012 - 13:18 ]

>> Apple's patent on Interleaved memory

> It is that damn Sony patent on interleaved memory that is to blame.
> A-Eon must be paying a huge royalty to Sony

Did Sony buy Apple overnight? ;-)

> Wow!
> http://investor.appliedmicro.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=78121&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1622781&highlight=
> Hard to believe they have the resources to create this.

It's been revealed that Applied Micro's development of X-Gene went similar to how they had the Titan core developed before, i.e. they commissioned another company to do the actual development, only that for X-Gene it's been Veloce instead of Intrinsity.
In the process, Applied Micro has decided to acquire Veloce including its development team. Details:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312512164604/d334600dex992.htm

Btw, funny statement by Applied Micro's CEO:

"32-bit ARM has been around for 10 years."

(truth: ARM went 32-bit with ARMv3 in 1992, so 20 years ago.)

That does look like a significant shift in the company's focus.
I hope it doesn't backfire on them.

> That does look like a significant shift in the company's focus.

Indeed. I'm eager to know if they plan on abandoning Power Architecture completely, and I'm inclined to believe that Mamba will stay their "fastest" (if you can even say that for 1.2 GHz) Power Architecture chip.

> I hope it doesn't backfire on them.

They're probably aware of the risk, and it seems it's not been all roses so far with X-Gene:

"As of September 30, 2011, the performance milestones and delivery schedules set forth under the merger and other agreements are not considered probable of being achieved. [...] Our arrangement with Veloce may not result in the development of any new technologies or products. Moreover, products we have recently developed and which we are currently developing may not achieve market acceptance. If these products fail to achieve market acceptance, or if we fail to timely develop new products that achieve market acceptance, our business, financial condition and operating results will be materially and adversely affected."
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312511298029/d236770d10q.htm

I'd have to say that i completely agree with your assessment Andreas.
Since their failure to bring Gemini to market, they have been struggling to develop an advanced PPC.
So far they have not fared well.

Hopefully they will have more luck with this.

Applied Micro have been chips for servers for years so it's more of an extension to their market than a completely new one. That said changing from a HD or I/O controller to a main application processor with a different and completely new architecture is quite a jump.


OTOH here's something new for you:

Hard macro for quad core A15 @ 2GHz

I would hardly call low end PPC designs licensed from IBM to be server components.

> low end PPC designs licensed from IBM

To be fair, in Applied Micro's Power Architecture chips the only things licensed from IBM are the main cores and the processor local bus. Everything else (and there's much more to a SoC than the main cores and their local bus) is either Applied Micro's own IP or licensed from others than IBM. For instance, there's some significant ARM IP already inside their Power Architecture chips, starting with the PPC460EX, and even more so in the PacketPro family:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=199
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=210

Fair enough Andreas, but "server components".
Maybe network controllers, and I/O components, but that's pretty removed from the strong CPU design.

> Fair enough Andreas, but "server components".

That's not my claim but minator's, and I purposely didn't refer to that as I don't know whether or not Applied Micro's chips find use in servers as "HD or I/O controller".

Quote:

The main CPU is not the only component in a server.
Any component in a server is by definition a server component.

I went to a talk by then AMCC at Power.org back in 2005 and they were talking about RAID controllers or suchlike. Not the main processor, but still a server component nonetheless.

My point is they are already active in the server market. It's not completely new to them.

Valid point.
I don't think I've paid much attention to the products they make outside of their PPC processors.
Obviously, if they can manage to invest about half a billion dollars into ARM product development, they've been more successful then I was aware of.

> if they can manage to invest about half a billion dollars into
> ARM product development

That is not quite what is happening in this particular case:

----------
Christian Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group - Analyst
We spent $59 million so far. We are going to spend $60 million more, we’re going to spend $120 million. If they hit their milestones, we’re going to spend another $75 million. Which is $195 million. Is that right?

Bob Gargus - Applied Micro Circuits Corporation - SVP, CFO
Yes. [...] Also to put it in perspective, all of the research that we have done of outside functions have indicated that to develop a core from scratch would be a $400 million to $500 million type of investment, minimally, and we are doing that for significantly less.
----------
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312512164604/d334600dex992.htm