An exclusive look inside the PlayStation 3
by Adams Briscoe 
{ Apr 13th 2006 at 10:00AM }
PS3 portal has some juicy information that has come to them by way of some anonymous, yet informative sources. You know what that means:
At any rate, these guys have some in-depth facts about the upcoming next-gen console. The details start out like any good diagnosis would: with a comparison! Giving you a rundown of the Xbox 360 system sets the reader up for what to expect when talking about the PS3. Some of the information regarding the behind-the-scenes processing is laid out below:
- 32MB of the 256MB of available GDDR3 memory off the RSX chip
- 64MB of the 256MB of available XDR memory off the Cell CPU
- 1 SPE of 7 constantly reserved
- 1 SPE of 7 able to be "taken" by the OS at a moments notice (games have to give it up if requested)
This is about 23% of the total system power for the PS3, which is a far cry from the 4% set aside for the Xbox 360's OS. Of course we still don't know what kind of applications Sony has in mind for this nearly-quarter allotment, or if that's even going to be the final specification! Even so, we'd like to believe they have a lot in store for gamers when it comes to the operating system's functionality.
[Thanks, Joe]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Microdot @ Apr 13th 2006 11:23AM
que angry retort from 360 toting open mouth breathers in 5.....4.....3....
SuicideNinja @ Apr 13th 2006 11:56AM
These kinds of articles are bad. Most people don't understand what all of this means. This gives the impression that %20+ of the PS3's power is worthless, where that isn't necessarily the case.
This also gets those people spouting "7 CORES!" like they always do, even though an SPE is NOT A CORE (it's more like half a core). With 1 SPE reserved for the OS with the ability to take another one away at any time...does mean a little bit for game performance but it's not cataclysmic.
Since an SPE is more like half a core, you could say the PS3 with the OS using 2 SPEs has 1 core + (.5 cores x 6) = 4 cores. Don't take this "math" literally, because it's not entirely correct, but this is just for the sake of explanation. This is where the "less of a power advantage" of the PS3 comes from. Not because of some supposed "resource-hogging" OS.
Anyway, this information really isn't that important. Naturally, we care about the games. Besides that, what I really want to know, is how many of these "planned" features Sony intends to actually implement. Most of the PS2 features never happened or didn't survive (HDD, Linux, versatile online abilities), so I want to see if they can improve over their previous blunders.
Scott @ Apr 13th 2006 1:55PM
Why would 360 fanboys be angry over this? All the rumor is is that almost a quarter of the PS3's power is eaten up by the OS.
It could be a source of ridicule (if accurate) but I don't think it is anything to get angry over.
To go along with this though, another rumor is that that innards of the PS3 are too big for the case that Sony has been showing off.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/04/13/ps3_currently_too_big_and_too_clever.html
the Inquirer reckons the next-gen machine is still far from complete. Apparently, the innards are too big to fit into the casing and Sony is still bidding on components for the end product - two aspects which are usually ironed out at this stage in a console's pre-launch gestation.
Deluxe @ Apr 13th 2006 7:19PM
Any moron with a keyboard and a blog comments system can make up rumors.
I heard it will snap-freeze a bag of peas in 1.8 seconds.
me kizza @ Apr 14th 2006 11:15AM
"Any moron with a keyboard and a blog comments system can make up rumors.
I heard it will snap-freeze a bag of peas in 1.8 seconds."
Exactly what you said. Once again when people are not hearing what they want to hear or not want to hear about something, it just starts getting made up & fabriacted from then air. I love how these stories always seem to mention that some anonymous developer, or cousins, brothers, uncles, sisters, mothers, fathers, grandmother, caretakers, cleaning ladies, best friends, next door neighbor has a 22nd cousin that works for sony & he said...... Theres always some reference to someone who is supposed to be credible to me......... These stories & the people who write them are as reliable & truthful as fox news. It's probably that retard cage who writes this crap.
Oh, sorry, thats right, he's not intelligent enough to come up with this.
Cage @ Apr 14th 2006 2:14PM
me kizza...you wrote an essay on absolutely nothing. Play some 360 or somethin...
me kizza @ Apr 14th 2006 10:35PM
"me kizza...you wrote an essay on absolutely nothing. Play some 360 or somethin..."
This is coming form someone that says nothing every post. What a retard you are cage. Don't worry champ, the spastic bus will pick you up in the morning to take you to the sheltered workshop. You can lick the windows clean for the driver as you usually do....... window licker. When your balls drop, your voice breaks, you get your 1st pube & you decide to post something mildly intelligent, then someone may post something thought provoking back.... But seeing as your under the age of 12, pre-pubescent & most of all american, there is no chance of a stimulating arguement coming out of your intellectually disabled american mind. Now go play on the main highway, take your brother.s sisters & cousins with you too.... We don't need inbreds littereing the world.
Write to your gay lover bill gay-tes & get them to release some worthwhile games on 360 cage you retard. hahhhahahahahahaha
360 ain't worth playing...... PS3 will be here to fix that problem soon though.
boots (former bd) @ Apr 14th 2006 11:15PM
Cage is a troll. Somebody just ban him off the site. Why the hell are 360 fanboys trying to be convinced of buying a PS3?
If you people are going to say "my argument isn't entirely reliable" or "don't take my math too seriously because it's not correct", then better save it.
Anyway, somebody care to address this "problem"? It has already been cleared up (at arstechnica and Beyond3D) that 2 SPEs aren't required for the OS, only one. The info about the second SPE was merely speculation taken seriously by Beyond3D users, as concluded by themselves, and as rectified by arstechnica.
So officially, only 1 SPE will be used for the OS. What is surprising is that a Linux based OS is suposedly ending up less efficient than a Microsoft OS (which to me, sounds like bullshit). Remember that Sony hasn't even finalized the PS3, and that the OS could get more efficient with time, especially with updates. This also sound bogus to me as the 360 doesn't mandatorily have an HDD, but the PS3 has been confirmed to have one (right?). Shouldn't it help by using it as some sort of virtual memory?
Sony should add a little bit more RAM to PS3 if they really want to unleash a product that is better (to the untrained and uninformed eye) than the 360. At least 128MB or 256MB more.
boots (former bd) @ Apr 15th 2006 1:03AM
Oh and Kizza, you don't need your problem fixed by PS3. You have a PS2, don't you? ;) There are still many good games coming out for PS2 (God Hand, God of War 2, FFXII, Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Street Fighter Alpha Compilation, among others), with a ton that came out that you probably haven't played yet (the library of good games is so big, that I doubt I'll ever play, let alone know about every good game; Suikoden 5, Drakengaard 2, Kingdom Hearts 2 barely came out a little while ago, and not much longer ago came Soul Calibur 3). All better than anything on the 360.
By the way Kizza, I feel sorry for you living in Australia where Xbox is more popular. I live in a land where also Xbox is more popular and it makes me sick. Everything this people play is either multiplatform games (like Prince of Persia, or FIFA), or Halo 2 (most of the time offline, which is worse). Hype, marketing and publicity... yeah, PlayStation always wins thanks *solely* to that, as opposed to Microsoft, am I right 360 fans? I guess not.
me kizza @ Apr 15th 2006 7:06AM
Actually bd, I don't think the xbox is more popular in australia, or any other country for that matter. The thing that has been sprouted around (which is probably true) is that xbox had the highest adoption rate of any country for our population. But on saying that, most people tha bought a xbox 1, would have previously had a ps2 &ps1, & probably still do.
I do agree with you about the great games on PS2 still, as I have just got Tomb Raider Legend & it rocks, still playing Black, Shadow of the Collossus, Outrun, Prince of persia, etc,etc. But fact is, I want ps3 now......It sucks that ms released 360 so soon & abondoned the old xbox, as it had only a 4yr life & I'm sure most smart gamers do not want console lifespans cut down to any less than 5yrs. People are quick to slam sony for any shortcomings (especially MS fanbitch retards like cage), but fact is sony have done all the right things for consumers....eg's, I hear you ask...ok, they have always given their consoles healthy lifespans, so both gamers & developers can get the best from the hardware (or close to best), they always deliver the best & bifggest lineup of quality software by their 3rd party support & 1st party developers, they always come up with little ingenius forms of ingenuity to further our gameplay experience & broaden gaming to a bigger audience (games like buzz, singstar & peripherals like eyetoy are best examples of this, they single handedly shattered the misconception that games are strictly for kids as nintendo had failed to do for so many years & they smashed all previous console sales with ps1 selling the 100million mark. I think nintendo's best effort before that was the 15-20million mark.
I just love to harass morons like johnny cage with my trademark humouress posts. I mean, unless your dead from the neck up bd, you must have laughed out loud on numerous occasions at the crap I spew out. Jeez, I remember the good ol' days with you & that homosexual, bottomraping, kumgargling, anal felching, dog fondling, brother molesting, father carressing, cousin dating arse tonguer m3mnoch. Tell me my antics failed to provoke a belly laugh from you then & I will know you lie for the sake of it.
On a lighter note, I must say that I personally think cage has had more cock than elton john, julian cleary, carson daily, robbie williams, freddy mercury, george michael, boy george, rock hudson & a henhouse up his arse in the last week than all these people had combined in their lives.
boots (former bd) @ Apr 15th 2006 12:44PM
Kizza, I'm not going to lie on the fact that I've laughed at some of your comments, but honestly sometimes they are excessive to the point where one forgets what the hell were you talking about... just as an advice, ignore Cage. He thinks that "serious gamers" only play FPS, as opposed to action, adventure, RPGs, Puzzle, Music, and Fighting games, among others.
For the record, NES sold 60 million, SNES sold 49 million, N64 32 million, and GC will reach the 20 million mark. In comparison, Sony broke NES records by selling 100 million PSOnes, and broke theirs again by reaching 100 million with PS2 even faster. It's stupid to think Xbox 360 will gain favor so much faster than PS3, considering this is a much different scenario than it was back in the PS1-N64 releases. Nintendo lost ground thanks to Sega, so there was no reason to believe they would increase their marketshare. On the other hand, Sony beat its own record set the generation before, so that, along the Xbox 1.0 flop, combined with Backwards compatibility and a new HD movie player, let alone Japanese support for PS3 (and lack for support on 360 part) show that it's near impossible for Sony to fall as hard as Nintendo did 10 years ago.
For Xbox 360 to win, Blu-ray games will have to be 20 dollars more expensive, PS3 games have to suck too much, Online PS3 gaming has to blow, PS3 has to hit the 600 dollar mark, PS3 has to get no support from the Japanese while the 360 gathering all the support from the Japanese, High Definition movies not picking up, and content on demand picking up too fast. Translation: It's near impossible for Xbox 360 to have a gross advantage on PS3 and for Sony to hit Rock Bottom, as all of that has to happen.
me kizza @ Apr 15th 2006 11:48PM
Agreed in total...... Although the online point is not a factor as I previously mentioned that this only counts for 5million of over 150million console owners... Most people don't buy consoles for online attributes. I will say I enjoy it, but I'll add that if sony start adding k/board & mouse support for online gameplay.... I will be bitterly dissapointed & will stick to playing offline. I know plenty of people who got the online bug & don't buy or play any games that aren't online. I, on the other hand, don't think I could ever sacrifice games like God of War, Ico, Resident Evil & others simply to play games only online.
Stewart @ Apr 16th 2006 12:24PM
Have any of you thought, that PS/3 does more than a game system.
Also if you think about. PS/3 has 7 spes which 1 is use for OS and a PowerPC core ( similar to one of 3 cores in the 360 ). Interesting thing to thing that came to my mind when reading the article is Sony is really intending to use the SPE's as primary processing units. This is really exiting because this means that they must be powerful. The PowerPC core is probably just a controller between the 7 units.
On the Blu-Ray price, I think Sony has stated the price of movies and same as HD-DVD. Also price of unit they stated the rumor 600 os wrong, that was the price of Blu-Ray player at time of PS/3 launch.
This article may be consfusing for some, but ones that are technical - its can be exiting. Can wait to see what the PS/3 can really do.
Master X 24 @ Apr 16th 2006 1:48PM
http://www.gamepro.com/sony/ps3/games/news/53432.shtml
http://www.gamepro.com/sony/ps3/games/news/53432.shtml
Backlin @ Apr 16th 2006 10:23PM
This is what I figured would happen. As the consoles become more powerful, the wars become more ridiculous. I'm all for progression and innovation, but when I see a bunch of n00bs in a forum debating whether the minimal difference between 1080i and 1080p is important enough in console development dictate whether they buy one or not, I go to a different forum. Now these n00bs are debating on what system's OS takes up more resources?! To me, it will all boil down to two things, the games and backwards compatibility. I know Sony will roll out with both. One of my friends brought over his 360 and we played Oblivion. My jaw hit the floor when I started running through the fields. The 360 is also a very powerful system. Me personally, I will buy a PS3, only because I know that Sony will roll out with good games. So, all you 360 fans, play your 360s. All the PS3 fans, wait for your product. Both will not be disappointed.
Chris @ Apr 17th 2006 11:32AM
Interesting news.
http://www.ps3assistant.com/news
The Guru @ Apr 20th 2006 4:31PM
Ok, first off, shooting out random facts like 6 billion dollar loss isn't going to get you anywhere. It was 4 billion. Still alot of money, but just shows how stupid you really are.
Microdot-"you mean like when i sent in my 360 for repair"
YEAH...you expect anyone of us to believe you got a 360?!? I have a sixth sense and can tell when someone is bullshiting. The only person your fooling is yourself.
Fan2- "Sony started these ideas but decided not to put them in the PS2"
Could that statement be any stupider?? Anyone can think of anything and not do them, just as apparently you say sony did. Sony and Nintendo both said, and I quote "People do not want to play [their] games online". Yeah, it was really a genious idea.
Also you talk about full game downloading. Why would you need that when you have blu-ray? And wait, wasn't it MS that said digital distrobution will be the future?and this would be the last format war? Why, yes...I believe it was. So what your saying is blu-ray is useless b/c the ps3 will be able to dowload full games. Nice to have confermation that blu-ray is a waste from a pos3 fanboy as yourself.
Fan-"They are not even in the same league. Please face reality."
Right now, the ps3 is vapor ware. you face reality. Your dreams of gaming euphoria are going to drop you hard when you realze the ps3 isn't what Sony got you to believe it was with their fancy CGI videos. They did look perdy though.
Fan, I'm not entirely sure you put one thing write in your enitire rant. The ps3 cpu (cell) will be slightley more powerful than the 360 cpu (Xenon). Not to mention, that if this article is true, then 23% of the cpu power will be used for the OS!! So there goes what little advantage it had.
The 360 GPU will be much better and more effectient than the ps3 GPU. The ps3 GPU is slightely more powerful than an RSX. The 360 gpu will basically (in simple language for you people) do whatever the ps3 gpu can do and then some.
me kizza @ Apr 21st 2006 8:39PM
"The 360 GPU will be much better and more effectient than the ps3 GPU. The ps3 GPU is slightely more powerful than an RSX. The 360 gpu will basically (in simple language for you people) do whatever the ps3 gpu can do and then some."
My random facts will get me further than you & this kind of random bullshit. If it's vapourware as you said above, you have just shot yourself in the foot with this typically dumb, american retard comment of 360's higher capabilities & functions.
Ohh' & by the way, it was 6billion, you even admitted it by saying random facts you moron. Look up the words random & facts in your hillbilly dictionary before trying to be a smartarse MS fanbitch.