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Playstation 3 and Mac OS X
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LimeiBook86
macrumors G3
This is sort of cool. So if Mac OS X can run on the cell via the Playstation 3, what is stopping it from running on the Xbox 360's modified IBM 'G5' chips? 🙄
pubwvj
macrumors 68000
LimeiBook86 said:
There is a lot more to a computer than just the processor. The OS must know how to communicate with all of the sub-systems. Lots of drivers and low level abstraction. You can't simply load an OS onto another hardware even if it uses the same central processing unit (CPU). e.g., a Cell PlayStation is not a Cell Mac and a G5 Xbox is not a G5 Mac.
That said, if Apple and Sony want to work together then they will create all that low level stuff to make it work and probably standardize on a lot of the hardware design to make the whole process easier.
What about for a render farm?
I wouldn't see much point to any game console trying to act as a full-blown computer. If Sony wanted your PS3 to serve as a computer, they'd just sell small form-factor computers and release a slew of game titles for them - promising you they had "the best gaming PCs around!" or something....
What I *could* possibly envision is a way to use an idle PS3 or other console as additional processor power for your main computer. You know, an extension of something like Apple's "XGrid" technology.
Wouldn't interest everybody, since apps have to actually make good use of it... but could speed up times for Photoshop plug-ins or MP3 and video encoding/transcoding jobs... that type of thing.
I wouldn't see much point to any game console trying to act as a full-blown computer. If Sony wanted your PS3 to serve as a computer, they'd just sell small form-factor computers and release a slew of game titles for them - promising you they had "the best gaming PCs around!" or something....
What I *could* possibly envision is a way to use an idle PS3 or other console as additional processor power for your main computer. You know, an extension of something like Apple's "XGrid" technology.
Wouldn't interest everybody, since apps have to actually make good use of it... but could speed up times for Photoshop plug-ins or MP3 and video encoding/transcoding jobs... that type of thing.
LimeiBook86
macrumors G3
For those of you who are asking why you would want to do this:
BECAUSE you could use it as a media centre. Like a super-duper Mac mini. You could have all your iTunes music, HD videos and whatever all seamlessly connected to your home entertainment system and easily accessible through Tiger. It would cost a lot less than most Macs and you will also be able to play the greatest games on it.
That is why you would want to do it.
BECAUSE you could use it as a media centre. Like a super-duper Mac mini. You could have all your iTunes music, HD videos and whatever all seamlessly connected to your home entertainment system and easily accessible through Tiger. It would cost a lot less than most Macs and you will also be able to play the greatest games on it.
That is why you would want to do it.
The PS3's probably won't have OS X Tiger come with it, but you may have the option to install it on it e.g. from a retail copy.
Doesn't say that it comes with OS X, but that it supports it, including Linux.
Doesn't say that it comes with OS X, but that it supports it, including Linux.
stephenli
macrumors 6502
I doubt.
First of all, in the case of PSP
Sony just keep updating firmware to prevent others to run emulator (SNES, PCE, Genesis, MAME, etc...) and other softwares on it.
xbox360 is something more close to reality...M$ IS USING G5 TO RUN 360 DEMO IN E3!!!!!
But what is the point to run OSX or Windows in PS3. You can build a PC cheaper than the initial price of a PS3 (i suppose PS3 would not be cheap...), or you can simply buy a Mac Mini...If PS3 games can run on Mac, I would be far impressed.
First of all, in the case of PSP
Sony just keep updating firmware to prevent others to run emulator (SNES, PCE, Genesis, MAME, etc...) and other softwares on it.
xbox360 is something more close to reality...M$ IS USING G5 TO RUN 360 DEMO IN E3!!!!!
But what is the point to run OSX or Windows in PS3. You can build a PC cheaper than the initial price of a PS3 (i suppose PS3 would not be cheap...), or you can simply buy a Mac Mini...If PS3 games can run on Mac, I would be far impressed.
bigandy
macrumors G3
greatdevourer said:
have you read any of your license agreement? if you take a quick look, you'll see that, as with all software, you do not buy it, you license it (not the same as owning - the OS is still the property of the manufacturer - you're just taking out a lease on it.. a little like a leashold property). secondly it mentions that you may only install the software on one Apple Macintosh computer at once...
I think we live really exciting time.
Intel pentium Mac in 2006, twobutton mouse, Possibility to run windows on future mac (no excuse not to buy a mac now for the one who needs compatibility sometimes for certain software)
And recently I read on this forum that Sony engineers are moving to Mac dvt unit. Now Sony themselves stipulates PS3 can run Linux and OSX !!!
Mac now are selling a million songs in 4 days in Japan !
The Mac mini is an interesting product and it will certainly even more interesting with an intel inside ( for the sheer power) but as I said in few thread here, it will never beat a PS3 as the media center because of the lack of gaming. I could see easily an OSX PS3 sold in the Apple store and around the world. Millions of box will increase the market share of Apple as a standard operating system. Dominance in the home.
With a PS3 you will have a super mac for 400 $ !!! and playing incredible games.
Every home with a mac is only possible via a gaming platform such as PS3. Parents wont object to buy it to their kids as they will use it as well as a home computer and also for the itunes store and Ipods !!!
Check MATE Gates and Dell who now ask Jobs if he could include OSX in his computers !!!
In 10 years time MAC will have a dominance in the most important part of the entertainment with Music, movies and home entertainment center.
It is inevitable
Intel pentium Mac in 2006, twobutton mouse, Possibility to run windows on future mac (no excuse not to buy a mac now for the one who needs compatibility sometimes for certain software)
And recently I read on this forum that Sony engineers are moving to Mac dvt unit. Now Sony themselves stipulates PS3 can run Linux and OSX !!!
Mac now are selling a million songs in 4 days in Japan !
The Mac mini is an interesting product and it will certainly even more interesting with an intel inside ( for the sheer power) but as I said in few thread here, it will never beat a PS3 as the media center because of the lack of gaming. I could see easily an OSX PS3 sold in the Apple store and around the world. Millions of box will increase the market share of Apple as a standard operating system. Dominance in the home.
With a PS3 you will have a super mac for 400 $ !!! and playing incredible games.
Every home with a mac is only possible via a gaming platform such as PS3. Parents wont object to buy it to their kids as they will use it as well as a home computer and also for the itunes store and Ipods !!!
Check MATE Gates and Dell who now ask Jobs if he could include OSX in his computers !!!
In 10 years time MAC will have a dominance in the most important part of the entertainment with Music, movies and home entertainment center.
It is inevitable
ibook30
macrumors 6502a
impact to the home computer market
Right on- To add to this- if you can do all of this from your gaming unit in the living room (including email and web surfing) a lot of folks would no longer need to buy a home computer.
The living room is the home market, right now. Generally people buy computers for their offices and for their living rooms (until the iFlush comes out....) and by living room - I mean "personal space" , I like to keep mine in the bedroom...
Anyways- the next gen of playstations and xboxes have the potential to impact the computer market in a big way. I imagine Sony and M$ will try to put limitations on what can be done- but the mods people are making on xboxes right now allow those little devices to do everything but make breakfast.
I don't see Sony using OSX - I think it more likely Sony is name dropping to generate buzz, and emphasizing the power of their new system (in hopes consumers will not buy an xbox and wait for playstation).
The Truth said:
Right on- To add to this- if you can do all of this from your gaming unit in the living room (including email and web surfing) a lot of folks would no longer need to buy a home computer.
The living room is the home market, right now. Generally people buy computers for their offices and for their living rooms (until the iFlush comes out....) and by living room - I mean "personal space" , I like to keep mine in the bedroom...
Anyways- the next gen of playstations and xboxes have the potential to impact the computer market in a big way. I imagine Sony and M$ will try to put limitations on what can be done- but the mods people are making on xboxes right now allow those little devices to do everything but make breakfast.
I don't see Sony using OSX - I think it more likely Sony is name dropping to generate buzz, and emphasizing the power of their new system (in hopes consumers will not buy an xbox and wait for playstation).
The PS3 has a theoretical max performance of 2 Terra FLOPS
The Theoretical Max Performance of a Dual 2.7 Ghz G5 is I think (someone correct me on this) is somewhere around 21.1 Giga FLOPS. how exactly is that going to make anything run slower? I mean it does have 1 Genreal Purpose CPU and Seven SPE processors in it (SPE's do mathematical calculations very well but don't handle graphical data very well) if the PS3 really does perform up to its theoretical limit or even near its theoretical limit its going to be the fastest personal computer on the planet.
The Theoretical Max Performance of a Dual 2.7 Ghz G5 is I think (someone correct me on this) is somewhere around 21.1 Giga FLOPS. how exactly is that going to make anything run slower? I mean it does have 1 Genreal Purpose CPU and Seven SPE processors in it (SPE's do mathematical calculations very well but don't handle graphical data very well) if the PS3 really does perform up to its theoretical limit or even near its theoretical limit its going to be the fastest personal computer on the planet.
ITR 81 said:
You're putting way too much thought behind that statement.
Look at this:
http://www.infoblox.com/partners/alliances.cfm
They're a Microsoft Certified Partner; care to guess what the kernel is?
shyataroo said:
Performance like this?
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home...on/cell-processor-demos-mpeg2-x-48-100853.php
"Earlier this week, IBM agreed to lisence Cell to Mercury Computer Systems Inc. Mercury says they expect Cell to be three to four times faster than rival chips that are scheduled to be released in the next few years. Mercury produces medical and military equipment, and they plan to use Cell for a wide variety of applications, from missile radar systems to magnetic resonance image (MRI) scanners."
"The world’s 500th fastest computer (registered on http://www.top500.org) is a SuperDome by Hewlett-Packard. Most supercomputers use arrays of many machines, and the SuperDome array only reaches 850 GFLOPS. A handful of Cells could put it to shame. Of course, to make a balanced comparison, the fastest supercomputer is currently IBM’s BlueGene/L running at 70720 GFLOPS. Supercomputers should eventually make use of Cell architecture, stacking these processors to blow away old processing records. In fact, Cell is specially engineered to work cooperatively with other machines."
"The companies have announced no plans to put the processor in mainstream consumer or business computers, though the idea wouldn't seem beyond Cell's scope. Once Cells are developed to be fully cooperative, the possibilities for the hardware are limitless. When buying a new computer, you won’t be replacing your old one; you’ll be supplementing it. Instead of computers being completely separate (and often useless after you replace one), old computers could still be very useful for donating extra processing cycles to the new system. Actually, with Cells going into TVs and game consoles, you could ideally network all your Cell-powered electronics and they could share and balance the workload between them."
Toe
macrumors 65816
You're not thinking like a marketer...rockthecasbah said:
Howabout:
- Buy a relatively cheap PS3.
- Plug it into your TV.
- Launch iTMS (iTV Media Store)
- Use the PS3 controller to browse through movies
- Select a movie.
- Rent it (one week of view rights) for $4.99 or buy it (unlimited viewing rights) for $9.99.
- Watch it immediately on the same screen... your big ol TV.
Wouldnt the PS3 with its massive graphics card from NVIDIA be a helluva lot quicker in rendering stuff from Final Cut Pro, etc? That would be the biggest advantage in my mind.
Cool but Unrealistic
Even if the Play Station 3 had all the hardware required to run Mac OSX the odd this will happen is low. But it's never bad to dream ! 🙂
Even if the Play Station 3 had all the hardware required to run Mac OSX the odd this will happen is low. But it's never bad to dream ! 🙂
shyataroo said:
You can't just compare the theoretical gigaflop ratings and assume that it will tell you what the real world performance of a processor will be. The cell may be fast as hell at calculating pi but it doesn't have the architecture or instruction set to do the things that desktop and server processors do with operating system tasks. Or at least it seems that way from the documentation.
Intel based Macs
I reckon they've been bought out or threatened by Microsoft and Intel to become part of the monopoly in computers. This will ensure that all computers will be the same. Macs will just be expencive PCs in a fancy allinone case. I bought my Mac because I know they are better than Windows based PCs with the intel architecture. I had two widows PCs one with windows 3.11 and the other with XP. They were both crap. Every PC i used seemed to be a constant blue screener.
I would never buy another apple computer if they changed to Intel's crappy processors.
MAC OSX Tiger RULES!!!
(as does 10.2 Jaguar)
As for PS3? someone used OSX on an XBOX
I reckon they've been bought out or threatened by Microsoft and Intel to become part of the monopoly in computers. This will ensure that all computers will be the same. Macs will just be expencive PCs in a fancy allinone case. I bought my Mac because I know they are better than Windows based PCs with the intel architecture. I had two widows PCs one with windows 3.11 and the other with XP. They were both crap. Every PC i used seemed to be a constant blue screener.
I would never buy another apple computer if they changed to Intel's crappy processors.
MAC OSX Tiger RULES!!!
(as does 10.2 Jaguar)
As for PS3? someone used OSX on an XBOX
Wow. THe lack of knowledge of how hardware and software work together in this thread is apalling.
For one, Windows will NEVER in 312954639847 years run on either the PoS3 or Xbox360. It is not possible. Windows would have to be completely, and I mean COMPLETELY rewritten from the ground up. The last and only windows OS to be able to run on any other architecture other than x86 was NT. I have 3 DEC Alpha's that run NT4.0 quite nicely, but that's the only version of Windows that will run.
Now, onto the PowerPC side of things. Don't expect linux or OS X to run on either of these consoles. They are both In Order Execution processors, so even if those OS's could run, it would be incredibly slow compared to even a G3 system. Not to mention the fact, that you are banking on the fact that Xenon and Cell are using the same instruction set as the G3 through G5. They are both custom CPU's. They each will have specific instructions (think SSE or AltiVec) to optimize performance.
Next, lets take into consideration that the PoS3 could run linux. Even if it could you would only be using the PPE. Why you ask, I mean Linux IS a multi threaded OS is it not? Right you are, but the SPE's are designed to be specifically coded for and will not just work like if you buy a server motherboard and throw 2 processors in or use a dual core processor.
Now, believe it or not, but the X360 could be even more difficult because it has 3 cores. Not only are the In Order, but that's a weird number for cores, and multithreaded OS's require processors to be in a certain config. 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. 3 would not work right. Plus, the shared L2 Cache would throw everything for a loop as well, not to mention as someone mentioned earlier drivers. The GPU in the X360 acts as a northbridge as well.
With the original Xbox drivers weren't such an issue. My xbox runs linux fine, and linux sees the NB as a Nforce.
Also, here is a link to a picture of the cpu and gpu on the X360 motherboard, to show you the GPU as a NB.
Click me.
EDIT: I'd also like to add the Xenon is NOT a G5. It never was.
EDIT2: Didn't notice the post above mine. No one has gotten OS X to run on the Xbox. They have gotten darwin to run. The Xbox would be next to incapable of running OS X due to memory restraints. Also, the X360 has 512 MB's of shared memory, similar to the way the Xbox has 64 MB of shared memory. The PS3 will have 256MB system memory and 256MB video memory.
For one, Windows will NEVER in 312954639847 years run on either the PoS3 or Xbox360. It is not possible. Windows would have to be completely, and I mean COMPLETELY rewritten from the ground up. The last and only windows OS to be able to run on any other architecture other than x86 was NT. I have 3 DEC Alpha's that run NT4.0 quite nicely, but that's the only version of Windows that will run.
Now, onto the PowerPC side of things. Don't expect linux or OS X to run on either of these consoles. They are both In Order Execution processors, so even if those OS's could run, it would be incredibly slow compared to even a G3 system. Not to mention the fact, that you are banking on the fact that Xenon and Cell are using the same instruction set as the G3 through G5. They are both custom CPU's. They each will have specific instructions (think SSE or AltiVec) to optimize performance.
Next, lets take into consideration that the PoS3 could run linux. Even if it could you would only be using the PPE. Why you ask, I mean Linux IS a multi threaded OS is it not? Right you are, but the SPE's are designed to be specifically coded for and will not just work like if you buy a server motherboard and throw 2 processors in or use a dual core processor.
Now, believe it or not, but the X360 could be even more difficult because it has 3 cores. Not only are the In Order, but that's a weird number for cores, and multithreaded OS's require processors to be in a certain config. 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. 3 would not work right. Plus, the shared L2 Cache would throw everything for a loop as well, not to mention as someone mentioned earlier drivers. The GPU in the X360 acts as a northbridge as well.
With the original Xbox drivers weren't such an issue. My xbox runs linux fine, and linux sees the NB as a Nforce.
Also, here is a link to a picture of the cpu and gpu on the X360 motherboard, to show you the GPU as a NB.
Click me.
EDIT: I'd also like to add the Xenon is NOT a G5. It never was.
EDIT2: Didn't notice the post above mine. No one has gotten OS X to run on the Xbox. They have gotten darwin to run. The Xbox would be next to incapable of running OS X due to memory restraints. Also, the X360 has 512 MB's of shared memory, similar to the way the Xbox has 64 MB of shared memory. The PS3 will have 256MB system memory and 256MB video memory.
Instead of editing again, I'd like to comment again on the post before mine. I agree that Intel, compared to AMD, has horrible processors, but they are both better than a G5. I love PowerPC, and I want to buy a PPC Mac before they goa way, but to say that the Intel architecture is crap is ludicrous. Especially when your main argument is blue screens.
I hate to break it to you, but the processor has nothing to do with a blue screen. This would be another case of ignorance of how a computer works. All a processor does is take the instruction it's given and puts it through what is basically an assembly line. But it can't cause a blue screen. That would be, usually anyway if it's XP because I've never gotten one, a case of PEBKAC or poorly written software. Which, I will agree Windows isn't great software, but it's far from the worst. Also, Windows 3.11 didn't blue screen on you. Want to know how I know? Because the blue screen didn't get invented until Windows 95. Thank you for playing.
I really can't believe I just defended windows, but I can't stand stupidity. There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity I believe. Ignorance is not knowing, but taking the time to learn about it. Stupidity would be Arnold's post. He doesn't know what he's talking about, and then blames it on what he thinks caused it. In this case being the processor and in one case an OS that can't even get a blue screen.
Arnold, do yourself a favor and let people think you are stupid instead of opening your mouth and removing all doubt.
And for those that don't know already, PEBKAC = Problem Exist Between Keyboard And Chair.
I hate to break it to you, but the processor has nothing to do with a blue screen. This would be another case of ignorance of how a computer works. All a processor does is take the instruction it's given and puts it through what is basically an assembly line. But it can't cause a blue screen. That would be, usually anyway if it's XP because I've never gotten one, a case of PEBKAC or poorly written software. Which, I will agree Windows isn't great software, but it's far from the worst. Also, Windows 3.11 didn't blue screen on you. Want to know how I know? Because the blue screen didn't get invented until Windows 95. Thank you for playing.
I really can't believe I just defended windows, but I can't stand stupidity. There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity I believe. Ignorance is not knowing, but taking the time to learn about it. Stupidity would be Arnold's post. He doesn't know what he's talking about, and then blames it on what he thinks caused it. In this case being the processor and in one case an OS that can't even get a blue screen.
Arnold, do yourself a favor and let people think you are stupid instead of opening your mouth and removing all doubt.
And for those that don't know already, PEBKAC = Problem Exist Between Keyboard And Chair.
Moxiemike
macrumors 68020
What if the big event on the 7th is Apple annoucing a partnership with Sony, ala HP, to license iTunes to the PS3, so you can plug in your iPod, pick, for example, the Gran Turismo 4 playlist, and have those songs appear in your game.
I'd shell out for a PS3 if it did that....
I'd shell out for a PS3 if it did that....
They couldn't do that with the PS2. Once again, the software, in this case GT4, would have to be rewritten. THe PS3 could do it, as far as music is concerned, but you will NEVER see OS X on it.