its amazeing how a video game is faster then a pc

i mean check out the stats here for folding at home please note the ps3 is doing more with less machines
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats

still trying to load linux on the PS3:shakehead

raggie33 said:

i mean check out the stats here for folding at home please note the ps3 is doing more with less machines
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats

Click to expand...

You've got to clarify the "faster", as it's not just a blanket characterization.

It's much more appropriate to ask "faster at WHAT?", since a high-end PC would destroy the PS3 in any linear calculation benchmark. It's just that the PS3 is so highly parallel, so that it can do certain types of calculations faster.

i mean it folds faster and and can crack passwords faster i don't crack passwords i just read that on a tech site.i build pcs but im not really sure what kinda calculations there is but i assume ya are right a pc will do some faster .but not for the price it amazes me how fast it is for the price

meuge said:

You've got to clarify the "faster", as it's not just a blanket characterization.

It's much more appropriate to ask "faster at WHAT?", since a high-end PC would destroy the PS3 in any linear calculation benchmark. It's just that the PS3 is so highly parallel, so that it can do certain types of calculations faster.

Click to expand...

Almost. The PS3 has great vector processing capability - this means that it's good at certain types of mathematical calculations that require "swerves" in their logic. The price it pays for this architecture is that it is poor at "swervy" calculations. Most experts actually consider this an unsuccessful trade-off for the machine's role.

Yeah, some ATI video cards are also real good at folding with the right software package. Nvidia still doesn't do the double precision math that well on their 8800 line IIRC.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/FAQ-ATI.html

Here's the PS3 FAQ too
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/FAQ-PS3.html

Probably the fact that the game console usually doesn't have a huge bloated OS on it will help a bit too.

It's fairly easy to make a specific purpose machine really fly at it's special purpose But a PC is a general purpose device that needs to do a lot of more different things. Add to that the tremendous burden of being backwards compatible with so much old software that it's amazing windows manages to do anything at all!

When you get an opportunity to optimize a small subset of work in an entirely new system and new platform without any legacy concerns that only needs to push a single set of abilities (rendering 3D stuff) then it would be criminal if you weren't able to make it do much better than a similar PC.

James beat me to it.

Single purpose = FAST

Closed environment = less error checking = FAST

Video games usually require that the developers use their development kit, thus minimizing the mistakes that the OS has to look for.

The more variables involved ( 3rd party software, 3rd party compilers, 3rd party components) etc) the more error checking you need for a stable system.

Daniel

It's just a matter of having a bad *** hardware math co-processor, no matter what you name it or how it's disguised.

GPUs are generally limited to single-precision (32-bit) arithmetic. When it comes to double-precision (64-bit) applications, a high-end PC will usually outperform a gaming console.