AMD and the big 3

[tbone8ty]

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/...nsole_hardware

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/21274

Even today, AMD enjoys a rather privileged position in the console world, with its graphics processors powering two of the three current-gen consoles—Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. As it turns out, AMD might end up with fingers in even more pies come the next generation. We already know the Wii U will be Radeon-based; HardOCP now reports that Microsoft's and Sony's next consoles will also feature AMD graphics.

interesting

[G.Foyle]

Last I heard about Cell is that the development of next gen Cell cores has been cancelled. Where did [H] get the rumour of Cell in PS4 and next Xbox?

[Manicdan]

after what the Cell did for PS3, why would they want to repeat that for PS4, and why would microsft want it too?

i think an APU would be perfect, a few fast cores, and a small gpu for physics or other super mulithreaded calculations

EDIT, with AMD being the gpu for all 3, that could be a major hit for physx and boost for bullet physics

[MrMojoZ]

I wonder how much $$$ AMD actually makes off these chip designs. Place to check that?

[cold2010]

EDIT, with AMD being the gpu for all 3, that could be a major hit for physx and boost for bullet physics

When we see a bullet physics games on the pc, then at that time talking about other

[Russian]

In all honesty... I don't believe that AMD has secured graphics designs with all 3 companies.

[trn]

I wonder how much $$$ AMD actually makes off these chip designs. Place to check that?

AMD SEC fillings would be my best guess

[TheBreezyBB]

Last I heard about Cell is that the development of next gen Cell cores has been cancelled. Where did [H] get the rumour of Cell in PS4 and next Xbox?

As far as i know they (Sony) have opened a new factory for Cell development, I don't remember when exactly and also there is this
http://imageshack.us/f/411/roadmap1kh0.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...admap2wx8.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...admap4qw8.png/

[zalbard]

In all honesty... I don't believe that AMD has secured graphics designs with all 3 companies.

That would make sense for companies, though. That way porting games from one console to another is easier, optimisation doesn't take quite as long.
And that could help console ports on PC as well since they would run on familiar hardware in ~50% of cases.
I believe Nvidia chips are too power-hungry and computing optimised for consoles at the moment. Plus Nvidia is more expensive, as usually, at least the top end stuff. Not to mention they are very busy with Tegra and phones... So yeah, I see a lot of reasons for console makers to pick AMD.

[El Mano]

This might change the gaming scene.
What will happen to PhysX once the best selling gaming platforms abandon Nvidia?

If this comes true, games will indeed be programmed to work for AMD GPUs and then we'll have to see what is the way they are meant to be played lol

[LordEC911]

I wonder how much $$$ AMD actually makes off these chip designs. Place to check that?

Most recently they have sold the design/manufacturing rights to the company and then get royalties for each console sold.
Specifics aren't broken down in the SEC filings though I think I remember reading some estimates in their old filings, about their future.

[Power5]

I see no reason to ditch cell. They have been running that for 4 years now and devs are finally starting to utilize its power. So giving them a more powerful version could prompt even more impressive products. I am still not sure why they do not go with x86 CPUs. Then there is no porting. Everything is written the same and just needs interaction changes and a simple graphics slider to go from PC to console. Would save everyone involved lots of money.

[PatRaceTin]

interesting

[Darakian]

There's no reason to kill cell, but there's little reason to keep it onboard. The cell engine was designed for parallel processing and for it's time it was quite nice. The air force and a number of scientific bodies employed ps3s for this reason. However, GPUs are now much more arbitrarily programmable and have a number of advantages: They're more powerful, they're cheaper, and they're easier to program. So, good by cell. Sleep tight sweet prince.

[nn_step]

I wonder how much $$$ AMD actually makes off these chip designs. Place to check that?

far less than you would expect. However it provides other advantages that don't exactly fit on a balance sheet.

[mattkosem]

I am still not sure why they do not go with x86 CPUs. Then there is no porting. Everything is written the same and just needs interaction changes and a simple graphics slider to go from PC to console. Would save everyone involved lots of money.

If I were a console manufacturer, I wouldn't go with x86 either. Why bother with all of those legacy instructions and added cost? In most cases, "porting" is simply a recompile for the alternate cpu arch.

--Matt

[MrMojoZ]

If I were a console manufacturer, I wouldn't go with x86 either. Why bother with all of those legacy instructions and added cost? In most cases, "porting" is simply a recompile for the alternate cpu arch.

--Matt

Also, it has been done before (See original Xbox). They learned their lesson for the sequel.

[Bodkin]

Correct me if I am wrong, but do console designers not buy a design of the gpu compony then fab it themselves? I.e. AMD or whoever gets a one of payment, not a slice of console price?

[mattkosem]

Also, it has been done before (See original Xbox). They learned their lesson for the sequel.

Yup. Crappy celeron powered Xbox 1.

--Matt

[Vardant]

Why not go with NVIDIA and GPU PhysX? That would blow the first party games of your competitor out of the water.

IIRC correctly, the only reason MS switched to ATI was, that NV wouldn't let MS screw them out of royalties. The weak GPU in PS3 falls on Sony, because they wanted the whole thing only powered by the Cell.

[zalbard]

Why not go with NVIDIA and GPU PhysX? That would blow the first party games of your competitor out of the water.

Compatibility issues. And AFAIK PhysX SDK is pretty limited and locked down compared to, for example, Bullet or totally custom OpenCL implementations.

[Manicdan]

i could only see exclusive titles really taking full advantage of phsyx. its either added as pretty effects, or its compatibility will be very limited, but exclusive titles wouldnt have to be scared of the compatibility part.

edit, creepy cat beat me too it.

[Vardant]

Compatibility issues. And AFAIK PhysX SDK is pretty limited and locked down compared to, for example, Bullet or totally custom OpenCL implementations.

Compatibility issues are not a problem with your first party games and PhysX tools are far ahead of the competition. Definitely better then writing the whole thing from scratch in OpenCL. Dunno about Bullet, but their GPU accelerated stuff is nowhere to be seen.

[zerazax]

You ever think that these companies don't want to be tied down to propietary hardware? Nvidia has commanded some royalties from people before but AMD is much more willing to play with MS and Sony and whoever. Not to mention that Nvidia's hardware failures in the mobility sector might have left some of them a sour taste

Also, Nvidia's current offerings are too compute focus. That said, I doubt they've secured all 3 already - then again, the consoles are in development so it would be soon when we find out, one way or another.

[crash5s]

PhysX already works on the xbox360 which has an ATi card, pretty sure on the Wii which is also ATi. It's plastered all over the games boxes and initial load screens anyways. So it's not like the console developers couldn't use it, the restrictions on ATi hardware seem more about nvidia screwing with the PC platform than something that actually affects consoles one bit.

I'm pretty sure the Wii and the next Xbox are already confirmed to be using ATi hardware, it's the PS3 that is in doubt.