[Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3
Peter De Jager
peterdj at telkomsa.net
Sat Jun 25 08:24:04 EDT 2005
The cell processor is supposed to be quite flexible (and it is *very* fast)
so I think even the normal computing power of PS3 will be impressive (same
goes for PowerPC CPU used in Xbox 360 and Nintendo revolution). Enabling an
OS to run on PS3 (IMHO) makes a lot of sense.
True, the consoles are heavily optimised for graphics, but that's really
where the GPU's come in, and the absolutely staggering (teraflops!) floating
point numbers. To put it into perspective, Blue Gene/L is currently the
world's fastest supercomputer
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4379261.stm) capable of 135.5
teraflops by using 32,768 processors. At 1.8 teraflops, the PS3 floating
point performance is 1/75 that of Blue Gene/L's, or equivalent to a Blue
Gene with 435 processors (for $400!). One cannot fail to be impressed. Many
modern day computing tasks (3D image rendering, video editing, and many
forms of simulation and number crunching) can be done on GPU's, using their
highly parallel processing engines. E.g. there have been (for years now)
experimental ray-tracing and global-illumination implementations which run
on nVidia's GPU's. So in addition to the (very capable) cell processor, many
tasks can be offloaded to the GPU, and clustering (as you mentioned) may be
a very real possibility.
I hope you are right about Xbox's (semi) native CLI support. Right now I
think that Mono has evolved to a point where what is good for .NET is good
for Mono. By marketing .NET, MS is also making Mono more attractive. A
unified platform (.NET/Mono) across OS's is good news for everyone. And if
MS is gaining an advantage via native CLI support then others are bound to
reap the same rewards since the CPU's of all three (new) consoles are basic
IBM (PowerPC) designs. Well, who knows, at the moment it's mostly
speculation, but the future for Mono is looking bright.
Pete.
_____
From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com
[mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Bas
Westerbaan
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 13:45
To: Mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3
I wonder what the price and the effective 'normal' computing power of the
Ps3 will be. I guess it will be optimised for graphics which would render it
useless for normal server usage, although clustering for a big supercomputer
would be great, as I guess Sony will intend to use their Cell processor for
too.
It is rumored that the XBox 360 Cpu contains (semi)native support for the
CLI (.net). It wouldn't supprise me, for there are processors running Java.
And it would also fit in the marketing strategy of microsoft to let .net
gain more ground.
On 6/25/05, Peter De Jager <peterdj at telkomsa.net> wrote:
My understanding is similar. PS3 is a platform on which other OS's can run,
including Linux, but Linux is not the native OS of PS3. Sony said that there
is no reason why Windows or OS X won't run on it (if the vendors wanted it
to), but they (Sony) will only supply Linux (because they can). They also
said that perhaps a new OS may be developed for it. I don't know if this
means that they are looking at doing it, or whether they are just
speculating. Either way, it will be good for Mono if apps run on PS3 in
addition to Windows, Linux, and OS X. I think it's fairly certain that MS's
.NET won't run on any of the consoles.
Pete.
_____
From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com
<mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com>
[mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Bas
Westerbaan
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 13:00
To: Mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3
If I understood it properly, sony is going to let you have linux on the PS3
on an additional harddisk, which could mean that they don't use it as their
main OS for the Ps3 (or not at least the specific linux you install). It
would be great if Sony used linux as main Os for Ps3, but that would also
mean that it would be very possible to use Sony games on your own Pc. They
can prevent it by making the Linux installation limited, which would go
against the whole linux thing (and could prevent installing to exotic stuff
like maybe mono).
I guess time will tell once again
On 6/25/05, Peter De Jager <peterdj at telkomsa.net> wrote:
That's it. By far the fastest hardware for the price, both PS3 and Xbox are
heavily subsidised with money being made from games. The upside for Sony is
that even if people use it as a computer, they will probably end up buying
the games as well (having the console) so they still make money and get a
larger market share. Everyone is happy.
Pete.
_____
From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com
[mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Bas
Westerbaan
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 12:13
To: Mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3
I guess that the main benefit of using a PS3 would be the low price of the
hardware.
It seems they make money by selling games and loose a bit by selling the
consoles.
Try to buy the equivelent of the Xbox360 for the 400 dollars it will
probably cost at most.
On 6/25/05, Peter De Jager < <mailto:peterdj at telkomsa.net>
peterdj at telkomsa.net> wrote:
That's really good news. With these kinds of workstations being released I
think it's inevitable that Mono will be ported, which will mean that it will
also run on PS3. Thanks for the info.
Pete.
-----Original Message-----
From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com
<mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com>
[mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Harry Holt
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 03:12
To: Mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
<mailto:Mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com>
Subject: Re: [Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3
This http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20040512033325.html
<http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20040512033325.html>
may be a little more interesting to work with that the PS3.
On 6/24/05, Bas Westerbaan <bas.westerbaan at gmail.com
<mailto:bas.westerbaan at gmail.com> > wrote:
> I think that the gaming platforms is all about hype. That they use the
> capability of floating point calculation as the power of the platform
> is an example of the supervisialness of the whole marketing campaign.
>
> A good while after they are released there should be decent tests,
> which will show exactly which of the platforms is best (for a purpose).
>
> Even though linux will run on the PS3 I wonder whether it will be
> very customizable. And I also wonder whether Microsoft will ever be
> able to stop people from cracking their protections. It may be harder
> and take more time, but if their marketing campaign is right they
> provide one of the cheapest amount of processing power per dollar.
>
> Time will tell.
>
>
> On 6/24/05, Peter De Jager <peterdj at telkomsa.net
<mailto:peterdj at telkomsa.net> > wrote:
> > Well, I won't quite say "orders of magnitude". In floating point
> > Xbox 360 provides (approx.) 1 teraflops while PS3 does 1.8. The cell
> > processor does have multiple cores, but so does the PPC in Xbox.
> > They should both be fantastic platforms but my pref would also be
> > with PS3 ;-) and I don't see MS enabling Linux on Xbox anyway.
> >
> > Still, with Linux running on PS3, my question is whether Mono will
> > run
> too.
> >
> > Pete.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com
<mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com>
> > [mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com ] On
> Behalf Of Harry Holt
> > Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 22:07
> > To: Mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
> > Subject: Re: [Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Harry Holt <harryholt at gmail.com>
> > Date: Jun 24, 2005 1:18 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Mono-devel-list] Will Mono run on Playstation 3
> > To: Bram Westerbaan < bram.westerbaan at gmail.com>
> >
> >
> > But I *do* want to use a PS3, because it will have *cell*
> > processors,
> which
> > should bring cooperative computing to a whole new level. You can
> > send off threads for processing to the SPUs for processing, and even
> > utilize SPUs
> on
> > other networked processors for ad-hoc distributed processing.
> >
> > I don't know what you mean about the Xbox2 being "just as fast".
> > The
> > PS3 should be orders of magnitude faster, given some careful
> > consideration to OS optimization.
> >
> > ... HH
> >
> > On 6/24/05, Bram Westerbaan < bram.westerbaan at gmail.com > wrote:
> > > On 6/24/05, Peter De Jager <peterdj at telkomsa.net> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Is the Playstation 3 architecture (Power PC) similar enough to
> > > > current Mac
> > > CPU's to allow Mono to run on PS3? With 2 teraflops (!) and sony
> > > announcing support for Linux, it will be great to be able to run
> > > Mono on a supercomputer :-)
> > > >
> > > > Are there any plans for Mono on PS3?
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > > I do not know how it should be done. But I do know you don't want
> > > to use a
> > > PS3 when the Xbox 2 will have about the same speed but will run on
> > > MSIL processors :|. I really hope there will be a linux .net one day.
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > Mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
> > >
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ====================================================
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> > "Only YOU can prevent gray goo
> > (NEVER release nanobot assemblers without replication limiting code)"
> > http://lizardslounge.org
> >
> >
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>
> --
> Bas Westerbaan
> Bas.Westerbaan at gmail.com
> GPG Public Keys: http://w-nz.com/keys/bas.westerbaan.asc
> _______________________________________________
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(NEVER release nanobot assemblers without replication limiting code)"
http://lizardslounge.org
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