Pages: 1 [2] 
|
 |
|
 Author
|
Topic: PS3 Linux / Open Platform (Read 16723 times)
|
stray
Terracotta Army
Posts: 16818
has an iMac.
|
Why would Sony want to publish a game that can only run under Linux? That would force people to have to install Linux on their boxes to play that game. Microsoft's strategy is a much better one for indie developers.
Presumably you would just download "something" from their version of xbox live, call it a "application enabler" and package it right in. You don't need to call it linux. That "application enabler" would still be an OS other than the PS3 one that would require a reboot every time you wanted to play a game. Or am I missing something here? [edit] Err..Then again, that's no more inconvenient than changing discs for regular games. |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: November 20, 2006, 07:26:21 PM by Stray »
|
|
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
|
Why would Sony want to publish a game that can only run under Linux? That would force people to have to install Linux on their boxes to play that game. Microsoft's strategy is a much better one for indie developers.
Presumably you would just download "something" from their version of xbox live, call it a "application enabler" and package it right in. You don't need to call it linux. I don't believe the PS3 OS supports OS virtualzation but I could be wrong. |
|
|
|
|
Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
|
My theory was this was their opening for indie gamesdev -- let people show their chops on the open and unsupported platform and then Sony can approach anyone who does something really stunning about publishing. Lack of GPU access does put a bit of damper on this theory, though maybe they'll fix that.
Why would Sony want to publish a game that can only run under Linux? That would force people to have to install Linux on their boxes to play that game. Microsoft's strategy is a much better one for indie developers. No, no, my thought was that part of publishing would be "port it to the PS3 Game OS". I certainly don't think that Sony would want typical end users to ever have to experience Linux in any way, directly or indirectly. More of a "show your chops doing some cool stuff on the hardware and maybe they'd be interested in adopting something really clever and getting it cleaned up for release" sorta deal. I totally agree that Microsoft's XNA stuff has a clearer path for development on their platform, though managed C# only seems potentially a little restrictive to me. The Sony approach with Linux does provide a way to do projects that would never be shippable, ever, though -- "here's how you run whatever you like on the hardware, enjoy", which has some upsides but if your main goal is "build a shippable game" doesn't buy you nearly as much. - Q |
|
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
|
|
|
|
|
|
stray
Terracotta Army
Posts: 16818
has an iMac.
|
Naturally, the FSF crowd isn't happy because Sony didn't release anything significant for the GPU. Picky bastards. Sony didn't even have to embrace Linux at all.
|
|
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
|
Naturally, the FSF crowd isn't happy because Sony didn't release anything significant for the GPU. Picky bastards. Sony didn't even have to embrace Linux at all.
Well, you know, it's kind of hard to do 3D graphics without access to the GPU. On the PS3 you could of course fake it by using the SPEs and creating a software 3D renderer but that would be a fricking lot of work. |
|
|
|
|
stray
Terracotta Army
Posts: 16818
has an iMac.
|
There are nvidia kernel drivers though, right? Wouldn't it be possible for them to just reverse engineer to at least get some 3d functionality out of it?
If one thing is true, Linux coders are a resourceful bunch. I've just never liked FSF advocates very much though. They do nothing but bitch.
|
|
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
|
There are nvidia kernel drivers though, right? Wouldn't it be possible for them to just reverse engineer to at least get some 3d functionality out of it?
Umm, yeah sure, go right ahead, even though those are compiled for the Intel x86 architecture which is totally different than the PowerPC. Oh and don't try distributing anything you hack together or NVIDIA's going to come after you: No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code.
If one thing is true, Linux coders are a resourceful bunch. I've just never liked FSF advocates very much though. They do nothing but bitch.
Except that without the FSF there would be no Linux. |
|
|
|
|
stray
Terracotta Army
Posts: 16818
has an iMac.
|
There are nvidia kernel drivers though, right? Wouldn't it be possible for them to just reverse engineer to at least get some 3d functionality out of it?
Umm, yeah sure, go right ahead, even though those are compiled for the Intel x86 architecture which is totally different than the PowerPC. Oh and don't try distributing anything you hack together or NVIDIA's going to come after you: No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code.
If one thing is true, Linux coders are a resourceful bunch. I've just never liked FSF advocates very much though. They do nothing but bitch.
Except that without the FSF there would be no Linux. No, I meant the hacked-from-ground up nvidia drivers built in to the kernel (the source based ones). By reverse engineering, I meant....Well, I fucked up. Scratch the "reverse engineering" bit. I meant doing the best they could to get at least FX functionality out of the PS3 by using that code. I wasn't referencing Nividia's own binary drivers. |
|
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
|
No, I meant the hacked-from-ground up nvidia drivers built in to the kernel (the source based ones). By reverse engineering, I meant....Well, I fucked up. Scratch the "reverse engineering" bit. I meant doing the best they could to get at least FX functionality out of the PS3 by using that code. I wasn't referencing Nividia's own binary drivers.
The open source NVIDIA drivers don't do any acceleration -- i.e. they treat NVIDIA cards like dumb V/SV/XGA frame buffers. |
|
|
|
|
|
squirrel
|
Naturally, the FSF crowd isn't happy because Sony didn't release anything significant for the GPU. Picky bastards. Sony didn't even have to embrace Linux at all.
Well, you know, it's kind of hard to do 3D graphics without access to the GPU. On the PS3 you could of course fake it by using the SPEs and creating a software 3D renderer but that would be a fricking lot of work. Not really being a hardware guy so I may be way off base - but even without the GPU / 3D capabiilities doesn't this still provide PS3/Linux users with a FSF alternative to Windows Media Center/Extenders ala 360? |
Speaking of marketing, we're out of milk.
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
|
Not really being a hardware guy so I may be way off base - but even without the GPU / 3D capabiilities doesn't this still provide PS3/Linux users with a FSF alternative to Windows Media Center/Extenders ala 360?
I don't know enough about video playback on Linux to say if video playback works better if you can use the GPU to the fullest for things like video/hardware overlaying and hardware decoding of video streams and stuff like that (I only use it a server OS). The overlay stuff isn't 3D-specific so its possible it might be suported in a "generic" Linux video driver. Other typically 3D-card specific video features like hardware decoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 can be rewritten to use the SPEs. You might even be able to just use the PPE though I would worry that the UI might get a little sluggish (particularly with H.264). |
|
|
|
|
Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
|
No, I meant the hacked-from-ground up nvidia drivers built in to the kernel (the source based ones). By reverse engineering, I meant....Well, I fucked up. Scratch the "reverse engineering" bit. I meant doing the best they could to get at least FX functionality out of the PS3 by using that code. I wasn't referencing Nividia's own binary drivers.
Unfortunately it looks like the current hypervisor design doesn't provide any way to touch the GPU's registers directly from linux (unless there are undocumented hypervisor traps for that). Currently there's a mechanism to request a video mode change, to request a DMA from a main ram framebuffer to the GPU's framebuffer memory, wait for vsync, etc: #define L1GPU_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE_DISPLAY_MODE_SET 0x100 #define L1GPU_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE_DISPLAY_SYNC 0x101 #define L1GPU_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE_DISPLAY_FLIP 0x102 #define L1GPU_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE_FB_SETUP 0x600 #define L1GPU_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE_FB_BLIT 0x601 #define L1GPU_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE_FB_BLIT_SYNC 0x602 -Q |
|
|
|
|
bhodi
Moderator
Posts: 6817
No lie.
|
I guess they don't want you to, you know, USE any of that graphics hardware.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: 1 [2] 
|
|
|
 |
