Harness the PS3 Power

CoolColJ · Post by **CoolColJ** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:41 am

there was some disscussion from some Maxwell folks about this - since someone posted a Maxwell benchmark for the PS3

Probbaly fake as it topped the charts

i think this entry should be removed.
If "pinkSky" really managed to install maxwell for linux on a ps3 and it's really that fast and usable with bigger scenes too - then he could/would post this in this forum.
For me it looks more like he wanted to place this name on top of the list. and maybe confuse some users... which obviously worked

but maybe it could be interesting to set up a ps3 with linux and memory sticks as pagefile (maybe 2-3 as raid) and install maxwell on it to test if it's really working and if yes - how fast it really is. i think it could work but i'm not shure about the load speeds with flash ram.
so if someone owns a ps3 and would be willing to try this it would be great

Here are the specs of the ps3:

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

so the 3GHz is definitely wrong, ps3 has 7(8)x3,2 GHz

installing linux on ps3:

http://www.ps3grid.net/install_linux.php

and here is a guide to set up an usb stick raid for the swap file - but only in german
http://ps3hack.medical-point.org/board/ ... readid=981

would be great to see this working! ...ps3 renderfarm

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8278

The Cell Broadband Engine chip alone is capable of outputting 230 GFLOPS, and Sony believes that the incorporation of RSX “realizes arithmetic operation speeds beyond” that speed.

The Cell Computing Board is designed to handle industrial applications. According to Sony is expected to demonstrate the technology’s use in real-time processing of 4K images, or extremely high-resolution pictures. The Cell Computing Board is also expected to be used for computer graphics rendering and various physics simulations that take advantage of “multi-thread processing ability” of the Cell/B.E.

The Board will be able to be embedded in a 1U (unit) sized server and mounted on a 19-inch rack, and will consume 400W or less, said Sony.

The Cell Broadband Engine has already been tested with non-gaming applications. Even on the PlayStation 3, the Cell is able to run protein-folding simulations for Folding@home. Other scientific-related applications include medical imaging at Mayo. The processor is also being used for the sake of national security in surveillance technology .

Gog · Post by **Gog** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:36 pm

The Cell Processor is extremely powerful and is actually being used along side opterons in a new range of super computers by IBM, called Roadrunner.

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

As to games machines, the Wii is awesome, my wife bought me one for my birthday, playing tennis after a couple of beers with friends is hilarious. Much as I will sound about a quarter of my age - the transformers game on it is really cool too...

kadajawi · Post by **kadajawi** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:05 am

It's really a lot of fun to play on the Wii, but the actual hardware is pretty weak. I think the PS3 should be the best there, but it would mean quite some work to port the code I think. Same goes to the PowerPC (isn't it?) 360. Though some scientists buy lots of PS3 to build supercomputers with it, and the Folding@Home performance is pretty good.
I think GPU support for Indigo makes more sense however.

deltaepsylon · Post by **deltaepsylon** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:37 am

one of the features of the 360 GPU:

teamxbox.com wrote:48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines

Sounds pretty powerful to me, although i dont know what the status of linux on 360 is...

Gog · Post by **Gog** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 8:49 pm

kadajawi wrote:It's really a lot of fun to play on the Wii, but the actual hardware is pretty weak.

I'm not arguing with you there! hope I didn't imply that I thought the hard ware was powerful. It's a classic thing though - the best hardware (the PS3) is the worst seller, Sony messed up big style with price and time to market....

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:13 am

I thought, Xbox360 is the worst seller!?

deltaepsylon · Post by **deltaepsylon** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:49 am

omfg kram you must be smoking something. 360 is NOT the worst seller, i beleive it was one of the better sellers.

Gog · Post by **Gog** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:01 am

Well one fo the UK mags showed figures that in the last 1/4 Wii then 360 then ps3, 360 and wii rate of sale are pretty close and ps3 is a dead duck. it's not true globally and if you want to talk total sales (rembering that 360 has been out much longer ) the 360 has sold many more units then the other two.

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:29 am

there was a site, Arne sent me a link to, that tried to approx the sale for the three, with included calc, that xBox is a year older.
There, Wii was the clear winner and the PS3 was 2nd...

No idea, how it looks, now, though - The last time, I visited it some months ago...

andras85 · Post by **andras85** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:46 am

hey...and What about:?
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=12097

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:20 pm

lol, nice, but that doesn't change ANYthing about the fact, that indigo wouldn't work

andras85 · Post by **andras85** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:29 pm

Whyyyyy?

I am unhappy?

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:32 pm

suvakas wrote: http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/fo ... hlight=ps3

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/fo ... hlight=ps3

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/fo ... hlight=ps3

and etc..
Old idea..can't be done

psor · Post by **psor** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:40 pm

Hmm, ... I dunno ... what do you want with less then 1024Mb Ram with a
running OS and a renderer that starts to crawl like a turtle when it has to
swap?!

But maybe I'm missing an important part ...

take care
psor

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:43 pm

xD I run Indigo on 768MB Ram

it's quite fine, most times (at least at reses up to 1000²)

Harness the PS3 Power

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