| NVIDEA to work on ps3
December 07, 2004 - Last night around midnight NVIDIA announced that it
has
been working with Sony on the GPU for Sony's forthcoming computer
entertainment system. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that
they're
talking about PlayStation 3 here. Note that the PlayStation 3 name
isn't
actually official yet, though we'll continue to use it as it's
basically
guaranteed that's what Sony will call its PlayStation 2 successor.
The press release basically states that NVIDIA is and has been working
on a
GPU for Sony's system for some time now, and unfortunately not a whole
hell
of a lot more than that. This sort of came from left field as it
sounded
like Sony's Cell processor was going to be doing all of the work in its
upcoming console, including the graphical duties. Still though, it
would
have seemed a bit odd for NVIDIA to leave ATI as the sole third-party
GPU
supplier for the upcoming console generation, as ATI is (unofficially
and
yet officially) supplying the GPU for the successor to Xbox and
Nintendo's
next as well.
While this does bring about a bit of confusion, there have also likely
been
a few sighs of relief around the industry. The PS2's obvious weak
points are
low texture memory and poor image quality. Coupling with NVIDIA
practically
guarantees the second part won't be a problem. The first is obviously
still
up in the air, but we don't assume Sony will drop the ball on this one
again.
We had a chance to fire off a handful of questions to David Roman over
at
NVIDIA about the partnership. He wasn't able to answer some of our more
probing questions obviously, but a few interesting things were
mentioned:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Firstly, how long has NVIDIA been working with Sony on this
collaboration?
David Roman: NVIDIA has been working on aspects of Sony Computer
Entertainment Inc.'s next generation system for the past 2 years.
How did NVIDIA become involved with working with Sony? Which party
approached whom?
David Roman: Difficult to say. We have been talking to Sony about very
many
different projects from the early days of starting NVIDIA.
The Xbox GPU is essentially a beefy version of the GeForce 3. Will the
PS3
(or whatever it will be called) GPU be based on forthcoming desktop GPU
architecture or will it be its own entity entirely?
David Roman: It is a custom version of our next generation GPU
Up to this point, due to its proclaimed power, we had assumed that the
Cell
processor would be doing all of the processing in the PS3, both the
generalized (AI, physics, etc.) and all of the graphical work. Will
NVIDIA's
GPU work in the terms that we're currently used to and handle the
graphics
entirely, or will it work with Cell in ways that current GPUs don't and
let
Cell handle some of the work (say, vertex transformation, for example)?
David Roman: I don't have that information. I know that this is a
custom
chip and we are working on its development with Sony Computer
Entertainment
Will NVIDIA's GPU work be tied into the Cell architecture, or will it
be a
separate chip in the PS3?
David Roman: It will be a separate chip
S-Mart or Quickie Mart?
David Roman: …
what the hell does the bolded... even mean?
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