Re: RFC: Sony Playstation-3 the next IBM PC?

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:03:51 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>On a sunny day (Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:30:56 +0100) it happened Grumble
><devnull@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in <43d012c1$0$3909$626a14ce@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>>Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>> The issue is, you can easily record these HDTV streams, it is only
>>> 12Mbits / second here, but the H264 encoded movies will not playback
>>> on a simple PC, you would need either a (currently) high end graphics
>>> card with H264 acceleration (ATI 600$ and up), and then upgrade to
>>> PCI express for these cards...
>>
>>AFAIU, the GeForce 7300 is supposed to support hardware H.264 decode,
>>for less than $100. Will an AGP version be available? I don't know.
>>
>>http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2674
>
>Yes, just did a google search for 'GeForce 7300 GS H264' and
>got >40000 hits ....
>To the source:
>http://www.nvidia.com/object/7_series_techspecs.html
>Chip seems to support AGP, but board?

All the recent video chips have a native PCI-E x16 interface - the AGP is
done with a bridge chip. Whether the video card mfrs implement depends on
the market: with GeForce 6800 it was a no-brainer, then the mfrs saw that
6600 was an upgrade target too. Finally we had 6200 AGP but I'm still not
sure why, since that would not appear to be an upgrade for many folks.

As the number of PCI-E PCs rises, obviously the AGP cards will die but does
it really matter here?

>They mention Linux, Nvidia always had closed source drivers for Linux...
>Cannot get a list of connectors, does it have HDMI? Dunno.
>
>I want the play station 3.... already made a decision for myself.
>
>Think of all the things those SPE will give you, an example:
>Long time ago (DR DOS) I had this IR LED on a par port pin.
>It did send IR codes to start the VCR.. to make it change channels and record.
>I jumped from DR DOS (and win 3.10) to Linux, but the multi task switching
>caused delays in the on / off sequence of the LED and it became
>unreliable.
>Open sourced it, but no longer used.
>
>With those Cell SPEs running free from interrupts and task-switches, lots
>of real time stuff should be possible (if you can find some IO pin :-) ).
>It is like having 8 (or 7) embedded processors as assistance.

Good luck with the parallel code - a hard nut to crack. Oh it's
happening... but slowly.

>And those graphics cards are power hungry....

They get unhungry when they're on the same board as the CPU/memory?

>In my view (as electronics designer) we have seen the following trend over
>the last 50 years.
>Tubes
>transistors
>chips
>LSI (more chips integrated into one)
>microcomputers (plus IO integrated).
>
>The IBM PC system with its plugin boards is reaching its physical limits.
>It is nice to be able to 'plug in' but the connector of today is Ethernet
>(maybe 1Gbit).
>The system to plug in of today is the LAN, connected to the Internet.
>
>So it is a 'natural' to make a box with no slots to plug in, but a simple
>ethernet connector, and put and much on one chip as possible.
>In the case of Cell, 9 processor cores! plus some shared memory.
>
>The consequences will be enormous.
>Not only will the whole 'PCI card' industry have to change to RJ45..., MS
>Windows will be out.

A single 1Gb Ethernet instead of in-the-box PCI-e? That's an awful big
leap to a narrow pipe... and people hate cables.

So who and what is going to take the place of M$ Windows?...
Sony?<splutter>... the people who brought us the non-red book audio CD.Ô_ô

>It may lead to a huge drop in sales for MS, and, as that is a major export
>and source of income for the US, to a major dive on the world exchanges.

Ah your little obsession with predicting the destruction of the U.S.
economy.:-)

--
Rgds, George Macdonald
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: HDTV stuttering
    ... Which is what happens in the "lower end" or LE cards. ... For the AGP GeForce 6600 graphics card ... > | versions Nvidia use a PCI Express to AGP bridge chip. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
  • Re: HDTV stuttering
    ... again, is a Celeron D 2.8GHz, but if anyone has numbers for any chip, I'd be ... > The chips were native PCI-x but they released the initial version as AGP so ... > as not to repeat the mistakes of the previous line of cards. ... the "light" or 128MB models have the fixed video engine. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
  • Re: fglrx driver problems
    ... cards. ... My Radeon 9600 has an RV350 chip. ... but your 9550 should have a R300 chip and should be supported. ... Radeon 9600 AS (AGP)" and DRI cannot be activated because AGP is not ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: RFC: Sony Playstation-3 the next IBM PC?
    ... >> The issue is, you can easily record these HDTV streams, it is only ... Chip seems to support AGP, ... It is nice to be able to 'plug in' but the connector of today is Ethernet ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips)
  • Re: For Americans, Plastic Buys Less Abroad [Telecom]
    ... European banks developed cards ... limit in the chip so it knows when it's overdrawn. ... Chip and PIN has almost eliminated these frauds but unfortunately has ... Some banks also issue hand-held devices like pocket calculators which you ...
    (comp.dcom.telecom)