At launch, the PS3 had a total of 12 launch titles.
Regardless of the exact number.
Even with these 12 escorts, none of them were able to fully utilize the capabilities of the Cell processor.
The incredibly high development difficulty and the deadly complex architecture made the PS3, despite its powerful capabilities, a nightmare for developers.
How can we fully unleash the potential of a cell?
Simply put, programmers need to do everything they can to make the main and coprocessors work together cleverly to process large amounts of data streams separately, constantly exchanging them through its pitiful bandwidth.
This is a nightmare experience for developers.
Even towards the end of the PS3's lifespan, this situation remained unchanged.
Many developers worked themselves to the bone, only to find that their creations not only failed to achieve the groundbreaking performance they envisioned, but might even fall short of the PS2.
Only a few major tech companies like Naughty Dog can truly master the Cell processor, a powerful yet difficult-to-use chip.
So Mark Cerny took action. The first thing he did after taking office as architect was to abandon the damned Cell processor and embrace the mature x86 architecture.
"... Before Athena, our game consoles were all too cumbersome in terms of architecture."
Lin Lixin explained,
"To achieve considerable performance, Gerald and I initially built those machines with a completely resource-intensive approach."
NP, NB, NX, every single machine is like this.
When they were first introduced, their functionality was absolutely the best in the entire industry.
However, the development difficulty is also frighteningly high.
Without natively compatible tool libraries like the N Language development kit, the entire development process would be much more difficult than using Cell.
This peculiar ecosystem resulted in a very limited roster of characters in the early days of NB.
It was only Gamenova's own first-party blockbusters that kept it afloat.
"No wonder..."
Vivian nodded thoughtfully.
When designing Athena, Lin Lixin repeatedly emphasized the concept of "heterogeneity" to her: precision, multithreading, heterogeneity, performance, and connectivity.
This is Athena's design philosophy.
The "heterogeneity" aspect is the most difficult to understand, yet it is also the most important.
It advocates for highly heterogeneous computing while streamlining the architecture.
This is not a "coprocessor" concept like 3do or cell.
Instead, it is a more complete and modern model.
Control is no longer concentrated in the processor itself, but is delegated as much as possible to peripherals such as GPUs and DSPs, sharing caches, memory, and virtual addresses.
Instead of making a single CPU perfect and increasingly complex, it's better to let different processors perform their respective functions and cooperate with each other.
Lin Lixin emphasized a "cooperative relationship," not a "subservient relationship."
This greatly simplifies the originally complex development process, making the entire hardware architecture extremely easy to understand.
Different tasks can be directly assigned to the corresponding departments through program scheduling, without needing to consider more low-level issues such as data exchange.
This is also what Cerny was aiming for on the PS4. "So 3do doing this... isn't good?"
"Well... you can't say that. At least 3DO's performance is absolutely unbeatable."
Lin Lixin laughed heartily, then turned his gaze back to the television.
"That's what I meant when I said 3DO is a bunch of amateurs who don't understand games at all."
"Okay..."
Regardless of Lin Lixin's attitude of watching the spectacle.
Trip on stage was now completely absorbed in his own world.
"To accommodate these two powerful processors, we decided to equip them with... 4MB of RAM and a full 2MB of video memory!"
"Supports a maximum resolution of 640x480, 16.7 million colors, and 44.1kHz-CD level audio output!"
As the parameters of 3do are revealed one by one.
As he had expected and anticipated, the expressions of all the reporters in the audience grew increasingly solemn. All the reporters present today were industry insiders familiar with the digital world.
Anyone can see that 3do is really planning to make a big splash this time.
This is a big job!
With 4MB of memory, developers can be completely freed from constraints and perform many operations that were previously unthinkable.
While 2MB of video memory can't compare to Gamenova's flagship models, it's still among the best in the industry.
More importantly... they didn't use Gamenova memory chips!
Instead, DRAM manufactured by NEC and VRAM manufactured by Toshiba were used.
This is enough to demonstrate 3do's stance.
After all, as an United States company, the fact that you don't use Micro-Nova Semiconductor's products and instead prefer to collaborate with Toshiba in Japan speaks Japan, doesn't it?
"I think everyone's probably thinking the same thing right now: 'Oh, 2MB of video memory, that doesn't sound so bad, our competitors are already using 4MB.'"
This is clearly a provocative remark.
In an instant, many people's eyes lit up, and they instructed the photographer to quickly prepare to record the event. They didn't care about the ultimate battle between Gamenova and 3DO; as long as they could get views, they didn't care about anything else.
In my opinion, video memory doesn't determine everything.
Trip glanced around the audience, a hint of pride in his eyes.
What I'm about to tell you is 3DO's real hidden killer move.
"Real-3Do does not use a traditional GPU architecture."
He deliberately emphasized the word "tradition".
"Click"
The image on the projector changed again.
This time it's completely clean; you can only see three capital letters.
[cel]
"Cel Engine, a brand-new 3D solution for the future."
"As everyone knows, in a 3D environment, the most computationally intensive tasks are often the complex triangle and vertex transformations." "They consume a significant amount of processor resources, both instructions and cache."
"So I started thinking... does 3D have to be like this?"
The scene on the screen changed again.
[cpu]
[madam][cilo]
This is a simple tree architecture diagram, where the processor is connected to two odd things via pipelines.
"We convert a single 3D frame into layers of images, which are then composited using the 'madam' chipset."
This concept originated in the field of animation.
It actually refers to the technique of layering and painting on celluloid.
That is, Cel animation.
Unlike Gamenova's approach of using triangular rendering to depict 3D space, it transforms everything into true 2D.
Madam renders layer by layer, compositing everything together and calculating its perspective to distort it.
This is used to create incredibly realistic 3D visuals.
At this point, Trip clearly understood that it was difficult for those present to grasp its beauty simply by talking about it.
So, a pre-prepared roll of film was inserted into the projector.
This is a pre-recorded clip of actual gameplay footage.
It's hard to tell what kind of work it is; it's probably some kind of demo that EA created themselves.
This is a first-person shooter (FPS) game.
The picture quality is... very good.
While it still lags behind the newly released Quake 2, it has already caught up with or even surpassed the graphics of Quake.
More importantly, its frame rate is surprisingly stable, consistently running at 30 frames per second.
If it could be further improved and optimized... the experience might not be worse than Quake 2.
"Oh ho?"
Upon seeing this, Lin Lixin raised an eyebrow.
Despite its vigorous promotion of GPUs, Trip still chose to develop its own graphics architecture entirely in-house.
Madam + Cilo, in this respect, is not much different from the Real-3do he remembers.
Madam is in charge of drawing, and Cilo manages all the peripheral devices.
The CPU only needs to handle the logic and calculations.
This idea is somewhat similar to modern 2D mobile GUI rendering, which uses images as the basic unit.
Trip's choice is not hard to understand.
Whether the triangle is the correct route or not, no one in this day and age can say for sure.
With the rapid popularization of CDs, more and more people realize that massive amounts of textures, images, and videos will definitely be the mainstream trend in the future.
In this environment, 3do's pursuit of "interactive multimedia" seems more futuristic. The hardware should be better suited for processing large amounts of images, rather than real-time 3D geometry.
Trip believed that the path Gamenova was taking was completely pointless and unnecessary.
"Alright, now I don't have to worry at all."
Lin Lixin shook his head, having completely lost interest in 3do.
At this point, 3do's defeat can be said to be completely sealed.
"Huh? But their plan does seem pretty good."
"It's pointless. 3DO might be able to run Quake, but it definitely can't run Need for Need for Speed or G-LOC."
The CEL system is a sweet trap.
As 3D models become more complex and spatial changes more rapid, Trip will understand why Gamenova is so determined to bet on the triangle route.
As for now?
Let Trip dream his dreams a little longer.
This was EA's final dance. Faced with the subsequent introduction of the disc drive, controller, and other specifications, Lin Lixin simply lost interest.
Until the very end, Trip couldn't come up with anything more that would surprise him.
" Panasonic Electric manufactured this Real-3Do for us."
Trip gently patted the machine.
"However, more companies will join in the future."
"From now on, software developers will no longer have to worry about rewriting or porting their work for different machines."
Consumers don't need to worry about the platform being eliminated.
"In the future, the entire gaming industry will continue to grow around the open standard of '3do'."
"Audio video... 3do!"
His voice suddenly rose several decibels, and he opened his arms to face everyone in the audience and all the cameras.
"It's not just a game console, but the starting point of a new era, the starting point of interactive entertainment!"
"Click, click, click..." All the stage lights finally lit up at this moment, making him look like a king bathed in glory.
Then, the projector showed the last, and most important, image.
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