PS3-XBOX 360 as Linux Graphics workstations

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Oct 21, 2005 at 11:02:34PM -0400, lfeder wrote:
> The graphic engines on the PS3 and Xbox 360 is simply state of the art.
> 
> The RSX on the PS3 is like, wow. 
> The RSX graphic performance is greater than two NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultras. 

So slightly less powerful than a current nvidia 7800GTX then?

> A single GeForce 6800 Ultra alone, is a truly state of the art card for the PC. 
> Having better than 2 of these cards???that???s some true serious graphics power.

No the 7800GTX is state of the art.  The 6800 was state of the art a
year ago.  The chip in the PS3 is very much related to the 7800GTX.
Remember you pay about as much for a top of the line nvidia cards as you
are likely to have to pay for a PS3.  You better be getting something
for the money and/or sony is loosing some serious money on each unit.

> So I was thinking, of using PS3???s as Linux graphic workstations. 
> Is any work being done on this when the PS3 is available?

Well if things are going to be anything like the PS2, then sony will
actually offer a linux version for it.  One can always hope at least.
At least some support for Cell processors appears to be coming in to the
linux kernel.

> I figure for the price, and you avoid any major bottlenecks, you???d end up with a 
> Near-supercomputer level graphic workstation for less than an average PC. 

Super computers generally don't have displays.  They crunch numbers, and
then some other system displays them for people to look at.  SGIs used
to be popular for such tasks on many supercomputers.

Lennart Sorensen
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