Any idea how come the PS3 and 360 can run such great looking/performing 
games with such seemingly piffling amounts of system RAM and graphics RAM? 
AFAIK the PS3 has 256MB of system RAM and the same of gfx RAM, and the 360 
has 512MB of system RAM (not sure how much gfx RAM the 360 has).

AFAIK folk won't even buy a basic desktop these days without 2GB of RAM.

In article , marco@zoom.co.uk 
says...
> Any idea how come the PS3 and 360 can run such great looking/performing 
> games with such seemingly piffling amounts of system RAM and graphics RAM? 
> AFAIK the PS3 has 256MB of system RAM and the same of gfx RAM, and the 360 
> has 512MB of system RAM (not sure how much gfx RAM the 360 has).
> 
> AFAIK folk won't even buy a basic desktop these days without 2GB of RAM. 

Because the games consoles don't have to run bloatware like XP or Vista 
alongside the games software.

Jim  
-- 
Remove `spamtrapped` to reply off-list

http://jim-mason.fotopic.net/

"Moody Marco"  wrote in message 
news:m-ednX-j9cz99eDanZ2dnUVZ8vSdnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Any idea how come the PS3 and 360 can run such great looking/performing 
> games with such seemingly piffling amounts of system RAM and graphics RAM? 
> AFAIK the PS3 has 256MB of system RAM and the same of gfx RAM, and the 360 
> has 512MB of system RAM (not sure how much gfx RAM the 360 has).
>
> AFAIK folk won't even buy a basic desktop these days without 2GB of RAM.

becasue the images that play such as the background are part of a surround 
movie.
If you spend the price of a PS3 on a GFX card you will see much better gfx.
Just now i run a quad core 6600, 4GB of ram and an 8800 ultra, it cannot be 
better

Moody Marco wrote:
> Any idea how come the PS3 and 360 can run such great looking/performing 
> games with such seemingly piffling amounts of system RAM and graphics 
> RAM? AFAIK the PS3 has 256MB of system RAM and the same of gfx RAM, and 
> the 360 has 512MB of system RAM (not sure how much gfx RAM the 360 has).
> 
> AFAIK folk won't even buy a basic desktop these days without 2GB of RAM.

Don't know about the 360's architecture but the PS3 has 8 spe 
(Synergistic Processing Elements) on the Cell processor (6 are available 
for Games, 2 are locked for the system and media) each with 256mb of 
Local Store Memory (a bit like cache but not quite). On top of that it 
has an additional 256mb system ram and 256mb dedicated Graphics Ram. The 
Cell processor is a complete bitch to develop for apparantly and so far 
nothing uses more than 2 spe, in alot of cases only 1. In a recent 
benchmark toshiba tested the Cell against the nvidia 8800 series and the 
Cell without a GPU creamed it on graphics benchmarks (allegedly). So in 
a nutshell, the Cell processor has 256mb x 8 + 256mb System Memory + 
256mb Dedicated Graphics.

When someone eventually utilises the thing in it's entirety I shudder to 
think what the result will be. Btw according to the guy developing MGS 
he hasn't even scratched the surface of the Cell's available processing 
power. Sure I read somewhere he's using around 40% of what's available. 
Same stuff happened for the PS2 though with the Emotion Chip, look at a 
year 1 title for the PS2 and then compare it to say, God of War 2. They 
are miles apart.

As for the 360 it's a similar story only it's got two cores instead of 8 
and no windows to deal with. Also a lot of titles on the 360 aren't true 
HD and are upscaled by the GPU at runtime. Also the 360 uses a custom 
version of DirectX which has less impact on the hardware.

"Psychobudgie"  wrote in message 
news:5u8vnaF1gvlouU1@mid.individual.net...
> Moody Marco wrote:
>> Any idea how come the PS3 and 360 can run such great looking/performing 
>> games with such seemingly piffling amounts of system RAM and graphics 
>> RAM? AFAIK the PS3 has 256MB of system RAM and the same of gfx RAM, and 
>> the 360 has 512MB of system RAM (not sure how much gfx RAM the 360 has).
>>
>> AFAIK folk won't even buy a basic desktop these days without 2GB of RAM.
>
> Don't know about the 360's architecture but the PS3 has 8 spe (Synergistic 
> Processing Elements) on the Cell processor (6 are available for Games, 2 
> are locked for the system and media) each with 256mb of Local Store Memory 
> (a bit like cache but not quite). On top of that it has an additional 
> 256mb system ram and 256mb dedicated Graphics Ram. The Cell processor is a 
> complete bitch to develop for apparantly and so far nothing uses more than 
> 2 spe, in alot of cases only 1. In a recent benchmark toshiba tested the 
> Cell against the nvidia 8800 series and the Cell without a GPU creamed it 
> on graphics benchmarks (allegedly). So in a nutshell, the Cell processor 
> has 256mb x 8 + 256mb System Memory + 256mb Dedicated Graphics.
>
> When someone eventually utilises the thing in it's entirety I shudder to 
> think what the result will be. Btw according to the guy developing MGS he 
> hasn't even scratched the surface of the Cell's available processing 
> power. Sure I read somewhere he's using around 40% of what's available. 
> Same stuff happened for the PS2 though with the Emotion Chip, look at a 
> year 1 title for the PS2 and then compare it to say, God of War 2. They 
> are miles apart.
>
> As for the 360 it's a similar story only it's got two cores instead of 8

3 actually AFAIK, it's a tri-core customised PowerPC processor

Moody Marco wrote:
> 
> "Psychobudgie"  wrote in message 
> news:5u8vnaF1gvlouU1@mid.individual.net...
>> Moody Marco wrote:
>>> Any idea how come the PS3 and 360 can run such great 
>>> looking/performing games with such seemingly piffling amounts of 
>>> system RAM and graphics RAM? AFAIK the PS3 has 256MB of system RAM 
>>> and the same of gfx RAM, and the 360 has 512MB of system RAM (not 
>>> sure how much gfx RAM the 360 has).
>>>
>>> AFAIK folk won't even buy a basic desktop these days without 2GB of RAM.
>>
>> Don't know about the 360's architecture but the PS3 has 8 spe 
>> (Synergistic Processing Elements) on the Cell processor (6 are 
>> available for Games, 2 are locked for the system and media) each with 
>> 256mb of Local Store Memory (a bit like cache but not quite). On top 
>> of that it has an additional 256mb system ram and 256mb dedicated 
>> Graphics Ram. The Cell processor is a complete bitch to develop for 
>> apparantly and so far nothing uses more than 2 spe, in alot of cases 
>> only 1. In a recent benchmark toshiba tested the Cell against the 
>> nvidia 8800 series and the Cell without a GPU creamed it on graphics 
>> benchmarks (allegedly). So in a nutshell, the Cell processor has 256mb 
>> x 8 + 256mb System Memory + 256mb Dedicated Graphics.
>>
>> When someone eventually utilises the thing in it's entirety I shudder 
>> to think what the result will be. Btw according to the guy developing 
>> MGS he hasn't even scratched the surface of the Cell's available 
>> processing power. Sure I read somewhere he's using around 40% of 
>> what's available. Same stuff happened for the PS2 though with the 
>> Emotion Chip, look at a year 1 title for the PS2 and then compare it 
>> to say, God of War 2. They are miles apart.
>>
>> As for the 360 it's a similar story only it's got two cores instead of 8
> 
> 3 actually AFAIK, it's a tri-core customised PowerPC processor

of course, it's the IBM Xenon is it not ?

regards,

pb

"Psychobudgie"  wrote in message 
news:5u990mF1fgq1dU1@mid.individual.net...
> Moody Marco wrote:
>>
>> "Psychobudgie"  wrote in message 
>> news:5u8vnaF1gvlouU1@mid.individual.net...
>>> Moody Marco wrote:
>>>> Any idea how come the PS3 and 360 can run such great looking/performing 
>>>> games with such seemingly piffling amounts of system RAM and graphics 
>>>> RAM? AFAIK the PS3 has 256MB of system RAM and the same of gfx RAM, and 
>>>> the 360 has 512MB of system RAM (not sure how much gfx RAM the 360 
>>>> has).
>>>>
>>>> AFAIK folk won't even buy a basic desktop these days without 2GB of 
>>>> RAM.
>>>
>>> Don't know about the 360's architecture but the PS3 has 8 spe 
>>> (Synergistic Processing Elements) on the Cell processor (6 are available 
>>> for Games, 2 are locked for the system and media) each with 256mb of 
>>> Local Store Memory (a bit like cache but not quite). On top of that it 
>>> has an additional 256mb system ram and 256mb dedicated Graphics Ram. The 
>>> Cell processor is a complete bitch to develop for apparantly and so far 
>>> nothing uses more than 2 spe, in alot of cases only 1. In a recent 
>>> benchmark toshiba tested the Cell against the nvidia 8800 series and the 
>>> Cell without a GPU creamed it on graphics benchmarks (allegedly). So in 
>>> a nutshell, the Cell processor has 256mb x 8 + 256mb System Memory + 
>>> 256mb Dedicated Graphics.
>>>
>>> When someone eventually utilises the thing in it's entirety I shudder to 
>>> think what the result will be. Btw according to the guy developing MGS 
>>> he hasn't even scratched the surface of the Cell's available processing 
>>> power. Sure I read somewhere he's using around 40% of what's available. 
>>> Same stuff happened for the PS2 though with the Emotion Chip, look at a 
>>> year 1 title for the PS2 and then compare it to say, God of War 2. They 
>>> are miles apart.
>>>
>>> As for the 360 it's a similar story only it's got two cores instead of 8
>>
>> 3 actually AFAIK, it's a tri-core customised PowerPC processor
>
> of course, it's the IBM Xenon is it not ?
>

Yep.

As an aside I believe this mega processing power of the Cell is actually 
being used in clusters by the medical research industry now?

Moody Marco wrote:

>>>>
>>>> When someone eventually utilises the thing in it's entirety I 
>>>> shudder to think what the result will be. Btw according to the guy 
>>>> developing MGS he hasn't even scratched the surface of the Cell's 
>>>> available processing power. Sure I read somewhere he's using around 
>>>> 40% of what's available. Same stuff happened for the PS2 though with 
>>>> the Emotion Chip, look at a year 1 title for the PS2 and then 
>>>> compare it to say, God of War 2. They are miles apart.
>>>>
>>>> As for the 360 it's a similar story only it's got two cores instead 
>>>> of 8
>>>
>>> 3 actually AFAIK, it's a tri-core customised PowerPC processor
>>
>> of course, it's the IBM Xenon is it not ?
>>
> 
> Yep.
> 
> As an aside I believe this mega processing power of the Cell is actually 
> being used in clusters by the medical research industry now?

Amongst others, MIT in the States have built a super computer using a 
cluster of PS3s running Yellow Dog.

regards,

pb