Multi-Core: More Context
Maury stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest with a recent post on his blog entitled 'PS3 Programming Problems A Sure Early Roadblock' (and he was right, I thought IEEE Spectrum was way too easy on the PS3). To some degree, the issues he raised are common to any multi-core system configuration. However, in my well-researched opinion, an efficient code aspiration is much more challenging to realize with an asymmetrical core setup (measured in numbers, functions, or both), such as Cell's (PS3) blending of one main PowerPC core and eight SPEs (synergistic processor elements), versus with a symmetrical approach such as Xenon's (Xbox 360) three identical PowerPC cores or the multi-core x86 path that AMD and Intel are pursuing in the PC space. Perhaps this is what Sony's Phil Harrison meant when he recently quipped, speaking of the PS3, that 'nobody will ever use 100 percent of its capacity' (editor note: that's supposed to be a good thing?)
For more on multi-core, both game console-specific and more application-generic, Maury's writeup is a perfect lead-in for me to point you towards a pile of references I've been assembling for a while now. They're in chronologically published order:
- Let the Games Begin and The Fast Track, a two-part series from Computer Graphics World Magazine (January and February 2006) describing the Xbox 360 and developer Bizarre Creations' efforts to birth Project Gotham Racing 3 on the console.
- The Inner Product, a tutorial on multi-core processing (in all of its different manifestations) from the co-founder of developer Neversoft Entertainment, in the February 2006 issue of Game Developer Magazine.
- IEEE Micro's March/April 2006 issue reprints papers presented at the 2005 Hot Chips Conference and notably contains writeups from the Cell development team (IBM, Sony and Toshiba) and from Microsoft.
- Performance Analysis and Multicore Processors, an article written by two Intel engineers that appeared in Dr. Dobbs Journal's May 2006 issue.
- Embedded System Design's June 2006 issue contains two pieces on Cell; Programming the Cell Broadband Engine by one of the CPU's architects at IBM, and A Glimpse Inside the Cell Processor by former editor-in-chief Jim Turley.
- Unlocking Concurrency, a writeup on multicore programming with transactional memory authored by Intel that recently popped up on the ACM Queue site.
Admittedly, I've been a bit hard on Sony these past few months. To show you I'm not the Cell-hater you might think I am, I'll close with some upbeat coverage from Ars Technica and Slashdot (along with some mind-blowing imagery) on a free downloadable demo called Grand Turismo HD which developer Polyphony released to lucky console owners on Christmas Eve. Wow. This shows the console's potential, absolutely and (perhaps) relative to the Xbox 360. Now, who else can pull off such a feat, and (all importantly) with what headcount budget and in what schedule timeframe?
