[Beowulf] El Reg: AMD reveals potent parallel processing breakthrough

Wed May 8 08:47:30 PDT 2013

On May 8, 2013, at 3:41 PM, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote:

>
> The game console business is a strange one, and I don't know that  
> it has
> much to bring to the HPC world (whoa, that will provoke some comment).
> Sure, razzle dazzle graphics engines wind up in game consoles, but  
> those
> same engines wind up in other form factors.   People DO build
> supercomputers with special purpose processors (physics engines),  
> but the
> lack of availability of people to program them probably makes the  
> original
> Beowulf concept of "commodity PC with fast interconnect" very, very
> attractive.  Ultimately, you need to get useful work done, and that  
> takes
> fast hardware and people to program that hardware.
>
> For every person skilled at programming nVidia, or Cell, or
> whoosiewhatsit, you can probably hire 1000 people to grind out C  
> code on a
> x86.

No no no Jim, that's not how it works at game companies.

Even the largest game companies, especially the largest ones.
They SELL games.

They are professional in MARKETING.

they have ARTISTS producing the graphics which is 99% of the product.

The game engine usually you just buy in from a small company which is  
overhappy and overjoyed
they can get that deal from you. No royalties for them. Just $250k or  
in that order you have to think of.

No nothing C/C++ programmers there in that game company. The salaries  
they offer for programmers are too low.
About 50% lower than what the average IT guy gets over here.

You cannot produce good game engines with such programmers. You need  
top programmers for that.
As the big game companies simply are not prepared to pay a good  
salary, their only option there is to buy in
that game engine therefore.

If you speak about games, it's all about the graphics design and the  
script/scenario anyway.

Kind Regards,
Vincent

>  (anyone looking for a job programming SPARC V8 or doing verilog on  
> FPGA
> or, even better, both at the same time, and interested in working  
> at JPL
> in sunny southern California, send me your resume instantly)
>
> On 5/8/13 2:29 AM, "Vincent Diepeveen" <diep at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>>
>> On May 6, 2013, at 3:17 AM, Christopher Samuel wrote:
>>
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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>>>
>>> On 04/05/13 16:32, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>>>
>>>> Purportedly, there will be something resembling the PS4  
>>>> architecture
>>>> for the PC market. That would be an APU with 8 cores and stacked
>>>> memory.
>>>
>>> Also interesting that Microsofts next XBox (720) will also be AMD,
>>> with similar specs to the PS4.
>>
>> Seems like a lifeline for AMD. Question is why they can deliver it
>> that cheap knowing they're a full generation behind intel.
>> The first ps3 incarnation had a max power usage of around a 380 watt.
>> Maybe that's why Sony doesn't care?
>
> Nobody cares how much power a game console draws, as long as it's  
> not more
> than you can pull from a standard socket. Figure, for the US  
> market, 7Amps
> at 110V, or 770 W.
> The TV you're displaying the game on draws several hundred watts.  The
> not-very-efficient sound system draws several hundred watts.
>
> The only issue with power dissipation is keeping the internal  
> temperatures
> reasonable without needing a noisy fan. (quiet fan is ok)
>
>
>>
>> In itself the total number of customers that potentially can buy from
>> you has increased dramatically, meanwhile they sold
>> less playstations than their first incarnations.
>
>
> I don't know about the market size.. It's growing, certainly, but  
> people
> eking out an existence at $30/month in a factory in Bangaladesh aren't
> likely to be buying game consoles. I suspect that the total number of
> people able to buy a console, of any brand, isn't rising all that  
> fast.
> (Hard to know about China's growing middle class.. Certainly a growing
> market)
>
> I think it's more about software availability, etc.
> A sampling of my kids' friends seems to rate Xbox/360 better than  
> PS/3 for
> a variety of reasons. Could be just marketing and not technical
> superiority (not that Sony would know anything about that..)
>
>>
>> I see a report of 77 million were sold by januari 2013. That's a lot
>> less if we take into account sales of PS1 and PS2,
>> and especially fact that market has grown significantly.
>
> I don't think anyone is still using their PS/1, or even the PS/2.   
> Ours is
> gathering dust on the shelf, long since supplanted by the Wii and  
> Xbox/360.
>
>
>
>>
>> Sony CEO maybe still living in past times? I bet he could get a chip
>> from AMD dirt cheap - yet it'll eat massive power.
>
> Who cares how much power it draws..  Certainly not the user, except
> insofar as more power means more expensive power supply which  
> raises the
> price of the overall box (slightly).
>>
>
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