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Cell processor designed to run multiple OS's |
Listed in: PS3 Tags: playstation 3 updates
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According to a recent interview with Ken Kutaragi conducted by EETimes Asia, the Cell processor was originally designed from the ground up as a computer processor and not specifically for gaming. The Cell processor was created in a way to allow the running of muliple operating systems concurently using the different cells.- The lowest-level Cell kernel, called Level 0, is a proprietary layer implemented mainly for security reasons, Kutaragi says -- Playstation game developers will no longer be able to directly control the hardware.
- A Level 1 OS will include device drivers and a real-time kernel and scheduler, and will provide all the APIs needed by real-time game developers, according to the interview.
- A Level 2 OS -- also called a guest OS layer -- might be Linux, a PC OS, or a Playstation OS, depending on how the user wishes to apply the device. Sony and its ISV (independent software vendor) and gaming content partners will sell guest OSes on interchangeable, removable hard drives pre-installed with task-based operating systems of various kinds.
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What you wrote doesn't mean that Cell is designed to run multiple OSs, it just describes PS3's levels of coding.
1st "OS" is security level
2nd "OS" is engine that runs the game.
3rd "OS" is either Linux, Windows or PS3's OS.
Level 0 OS is running all the time, level 2 OS is running when you play the game, and then level 3 isn't used, and level 3 is running when you start OS, but then Game Engine is turned off.
And Vecha - Emotion Engine is still one of the most innovative processors on earth, don't start another discussion, because you don't know crap about things you touch.
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What you wrote doesn't mean that Cell is designed to run multiple OSs, it just describes PS3's levels of coding.
1st "OS" is security level
2nd "OS" is engine that runs the game.
3rd "OS" is either Linux, Windows or PS3's OS.
Level 0 OS is running all the time, level 2 OS is running when you play the game, and then level 3 isn't used, and level 3 is running when you start OS, but then Game Engine is turned off.
And Vecha - Emotion Engine is still one of the most innovative processors on earth, don't start another discussion, because you don't know crap about things you touch.
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What you wrote doesn't mean that Cell is designed to run multiple OSs, it just describes PS3's levels of coding.
1st "OS" is security level
2nd "OS" is engine that runs the game.
3rd "OS" is either Linux, Windows or PS3's OS.
Level 0 OS is running all the time, level 2 OS is running when you play the game, and then level 3 isn't used, and level 3 is running when you start OS, but then Game Engine is turned off.
And Vecha - Emotion Engine is still one of the most innovative processors on earth, don't start another discussion, because you don't know crap about things you touch.
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Oh...you think so do you?
and exactly what did it allow us to do? Play games(since this was gaming console) that did not match up to xbox quality until later in its life?
It was complicated. Hard to dev with(but they got the hang of it...eventually)
You really do surprise me knowledge. I suppose you will defend anything about sony.
Want to try to defend 4d?
How about trying toy story graphics that we were promised?
Don't forget the ability to launch an atomic bomb!
Maybe you were the only one to jack into the matrix? How is it knowledge?
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Emotion Engine is a 128 bit processor, it's the most powerful processor architecture EVER.
Only that the price for all that power was lack of development tools and hard developing.
EE in PS2 is clocked at 233 MHz, you seen what it can do? With only 32 MB RAM it renders graphics, physics, AI, mechanics - it's responsible for EVERYTHING on PS2.
Why XBox has some better looking games? Because it uses SM which was invented AFTER PS2's launch.
If EE would run at 3.2 GHz, then it would compete with Cell in terms of power, and probably outperform it.
If you want more detailed info about EE, then just ask, I won't produce too much text cause even if I would you'd come back with something like "oh noez you're a fanboy".
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The n64 had 64...it wasn't the most powerful.
"f EE would run at 3.2 GHz, then it would compete with Cell in terms of power, and probably outperform it."
Then why isn't sony using it now?
"I won't produce too much text cause even if I would you'd come back with something like "oh noez you're a fanboy"."
Have I ever said that? Seems like you can pull about anything out of your ass.
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"Have I ever said that? Seems like you can pull about anything out of your ass."
Did you forget what you wrote in your other post?
"You really do surprise me knowledge. I suppose you will defend anything about sony."
You just called KnowLedge a fanboy and don't even know it.... and you're the one pulling this **** out of your ass cause your last post makes me feel like i'm in kindergarden again! You make no sense man!!
You seem to like bashing Sony which is pretty clear. Best thing to do is find a Sony bashing forum and relieve your frustrations there.
Geez, I gotta go see my therapist now, see what you did?
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kindergarden? Keeps getting better and better.
"you make no sense man!!" You could have just ignored the nonsense in my post(the flamatory part) and focused on the sensible part)
Like...knowledges claim that the EE was the bestes most fastest processor out there and that it rivals the Cell.
That is what I'm talking about pulling out of his ass.
I may be a madman...but I think knowledge is no less a madman.
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That is what I'm talking about pulling out of his ass."
"Emotion Engine is a 128 bit processor, it's the most powerful *processor architecture* EVER."
@Vecha: Learn to read.
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That is what I'm talking about pulling out of his ass."
"Emotion Engine is a 128 bit processor, it's the most powerful *processor architecture* EVER."
@Vecha: Learn to read.
Reply
That is what I'm talking about pulling out of his ass."
"Emotion Engine is a 128 bit processor, it's the most powerful *processor architecture* EVER."
@Vecha: Learn to read.
Reply
That is what I'm talking about pulling out of his ass."
"Emotion Engine is a 128 bit processor, it's the most powerful *processor architecture* EVER."
@Vecha: Learn to read.
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If it can outperform it at that speed?
why are they using the cell?
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While i heartly agree to the point that the Emotion Engine is far from being a bad design or even a flop, your technical explanations are utterly wrong. It starts with the 128bit-processor-term, which is misleading. Unlike the ancient jumps from 8 to 16 and then to 32 bit architecture, no modern cpu has the same bandwidth in all its aspects. Pro sites like ars carefully avoid terms like 128-bit-processor, because internally it is always a mix of different bandwidths. And EE is surely not the most powerfull architecture on earth, in which aspect does it best Power5 for example?
Then there clock speed, which is around 295 MHz, not 233. You continue to predict that an EE running at 3.2 GHz would outperform Cell. Let's do some math: at the very best, the performance of the EE could raise by the same factor as the clock speed, and in reality even that is by far not attainable, even if you managed to clock it that high unchanged. 3200 divided by 295 is a little under 11, the official theoretical peak performance value of the EE is 6.4 GFLOP/s, so it would (in our naive fallacy) reach around 70 GFLOP/s. A Cell got 240 GFLOP/s theoretical peak performance without naive fallacy AND is proven to have better percentual efficiency in real world numbers than most of the other existing processors.
I urge you: please don't agressivly spread wisdom without obtaining some first. If you were planning on improving the EEs reputation, you achieved the exact opposite.
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It's by all means 128 bit and it uses multicore architecture (or rather multielemental) .
And your calculations about performance are wrong: you don't devide clock speed, but performance of CPU at 1 cycle, and with this certain processor performance and efficiency grows differently when it comes to speed (especially the performance of VU0 - which isn't used by most developers, since it can cause major bottlenecks when used in a wrong way).
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Once again.
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You are basically saying you are an experienced PS2 developer that doesn't even know its clock speed? And you are trying to sell me that doubling the clock speed might improve performance by a factor of more than 2, without architectural changes? Please do a reality check now and then...
For information on the EE, i recommend you read the ars technica overview (). Here is a short excerpt:
"Finally, the Emotion Engine contains a 10-channel DMA controller (DMAC) to manage up to 10 simultaneous transfers on the Emotion Engine's internal 128-bit, 64-bit, and 16-bit buses."
The question is, how do you define a 128-bit-processor? By saying "every register, operation and data path is 128 bit wide"? Then i completely doubt the existance of a pure 128 bit cpu. Surely, most everything in EE is 128 bit wide, but then again: Cell got 1024 bit data paths, is it a 1024 bit processor? Just get rid of the habbit of stuffing processors into drawers labeled XYZ-bit-cpu.
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