PS3 Real-time Ray-tracing

IBM Interactive Ray-tracer (iRT) using three Sony Playstation3s (PS3) to render a model that is 75x more complex then those used in today's games. Ray-tracing is the rendering technique used by the film industry and is considered to complex for today's game systems. The code was written using IBM Cell SDK 2.0 on Linux. The iRT is totally scalable and only requires one Cell SPE to run. More PS3s = More SPEs = Higher client frame rates. All images are at least 720p 4x multi-sampled, with dynamic light sources, procedurally generated atmosphere, and dynamic shadows.

Sorry about the bad camera microphone.

Download raytracer at:

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/irt

Here's a link to the model we used:

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/249122

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Playstation3
• PS3
• Raytracing
• Raycasting
• Cell
• graphics
• SPE
• Linux
• rendering

[jpviegas]

Hey that is really impressive stuff! Sorry the newb questions, but how many FPS are you running the application? And are you fully accessing the graphics card here?

[barryminor2]

@jpviegas Just using the dumb frame buffer available via Linux (no GPU assist). The frame rate was in the 10-15 fps range during these early days. You can down load the iRT via alphaWorks and measure it yourself.

[hardkoregamer1981]

Thank you for taking time out of your job to respond to my message & keep up the excellent work you & everyone else dose at ibm thank you!

[barryminor2]

@hardkoregamer1981 np - thanks for posting

[hardkoregamer1981]

hey barry do you know what the reason was for sony down clocking the cell processor's clock speed inside playstation 3 because im carious to know the reason why?

[barryminor2]

The Cell in the PS3 runs at 3.2 GHz which is full speed for the part. In the lab however with "special" liquid cooling we have run them at over 6.0 GHz.

[PhotoShopChannel]

@GuyFromNewark88 because it uses the traditional multi-core style processor instead of multi single cores processors (Cell Broadband Engine), this program is made for Linux/Ubuntu wich you don't get of the xbox. the Xbox architecture is better for games and the games developers which is why cross platform games look slightly better / run better on Xbox.

[Arri411]

(cont'd) LOTS of memory and/or extra memory slots. and just call that the PS4. They wouldn't have to add any media player, no wireless, no bluetooth, SD slots...none of that. Hell, if they would transition their tools to a customized version of OSX they could even probably add an inexpensive Intel multicore processor along side the Cells.

[Arri411]

I know the demo is old at this point, but I'm curious about whether one PS3s was actually acting as a controller for the rest and whether that was a major performance hit? Real-time ray tracing for full crowded scenes is fairly heavy lifting even for modern processing solution hardware, but it would be kind of nice if Sony could/would make an accessory appliance for the PS3 that had 3-4 Cell processor assemblies, some basic processor for task managing and a gigabit ethernet controller with RAM

[Mr220king]

3 PS3's can do real time ray tracing wow, but still the PS3 can't do more than 720p with very little AA.

I'd like to see them do real time ray tracing in game with more than 1 model and decent back grounds.

A bit pointless realy.

[Amyloves123]

this was cool.. back in 2007. But we now have affordable multicore processors for standard computers that can do more

[danix30001]

for rendering CGI movies is REALLY usefull

[MenkoDany]

How do you make clusters out of those ps3's?

[MrHamzaAsghar]

So does this mean, a single ps3 cant handle all this ???

[GuyFromNewark88]

i dont see anyone doing this type of stuff on the 360

[TKGB2006]

I just saw a short CGI movie made in 1985 that didn't even look as close to this and in the credits, it said that it required 150 computers to do what you just did with 3 PS3's.