PlayStation 3 To Go Distro?
Distributed computing is being used for everything from finding a cure for cancer to calculating massive prime numbers for encription, but can it be used for games too?
Published: March 22, 2002
Sony has always been a fan of embracing new technology, something that's helped the company be at the forefront of emerging products like the CD and digital cameras, but with the next generation PlayStation, the company is thinking globally.
During a speech at this year's Game Developer Conference in San Jose, Sony Computer Entertainment Shinichi Okamoto said researchers are looking into the possibility of incorporating elements of distributed computing into the PlayStation 3's design, according to a report on News.com.
"Moore's Law is too slow for us," Okamoto explained. "We can't wait 20 years" for technology to reach the point where Sony's idea of a system 1000 times faster than the PlayStation 2 will can become reality.
Moore's Law says that semiconductor power will double roughly every year and a half, something that has happened consistantly since Moore observed the phenomenon back in the 60's. For the PlayStation 3 to buck this law and increase speed 1000-fold, it's going to take more than just processor advances. This is where distributed computing comes in.
Distributed computing has been used for a couple years now on the consumer level to help move along processes like unravel protien structures or find an anti-virus for anthrax, and even longer for tasks like serious medical research. Essentially tapping multiple computers' processing power for a singluar task, the technique allows for exponential growth in calculation speed. Animation companies like Pixar and the now-defunct Square Pictures linked together entire farms of rendering stations to crunch numbers faster than even the biggest supercomputer in order to render their computer-generated movies.
Long-time parter IBM is currently working with Sony on researching "grid computing," the computer giant's take on distributed computing, though specifics were left to the imagination. The recently released Linux kit did play a part in piquing interest in Sony's reaserch team about introducing a distributed solution, Okamoto said.
Concrete info on the PlayStation 3 is still quite a long way off, as SCE has said time and again that their focus right now is on the PS2. Still, the prospect of using hundreds of PS3s to render a game is exciting to say the least.
During a speech at this year's Game Developer Conference in San Jose, Sony Computer Entertainment Shinichi Okamoto said researchers are looking into the possibility of incorporating elements of distributed computing into the PlayStation 3's design, according to a report on News.com.
"Moore's Law is too slow for us," Okamoto explained. "We can't wait 20 years" for technology to reach the point where Sony's idea of a system 1000 times faster than the PlayStation 2 will can become reality.
Moore's Law says that semiconductor power will double roughly every year and a half, something that has happened consistantly since Moore observed the phenomenon back in the 60's. For the PlayStation 3 to buck this law and increase speed 1000-fold, it's going to take more than just processor advances. This is where distributed computing comes in.
Distributed computing has been used for a couple years now on the consumer level to help move along processes like unravel protien structures or find an anti-virus for anthrax, and even longer for tasks like serious medical research. Essentially tapping multiple computers' processing power for a singluar task, the technique allows for exponential growth in calculation speed. Animation companies like Pixar and the now-defunct Square Pictures linked together entire farms of rendering stations to crunch numbers faster than even the biggest supercomputer in order to render their computer-generated movies.
Long-time parter IBM is currently working with Sony on researching "grid computing," the computer giant's take on distributed computing, though specifics were left to the imagination. The recently released Linux kit did play a part in piquing interest in Sony's reaserch team about introducing a distributed solution, Okamoto said.
Concrete info on the PlayStation 3 is still quite a long way off, as SCE has said time and again that their focus right now is on the PS2. Still, the prospect of using hundreds of PS3s to render a game is exciting to say the least.
