GScube

Does anyone know of any practical uses of this Ps2 monstrosity? Or was it always just a concept show-off piece?

By the way, this wikipedia link about the GScube is obviously writen by children under the age of 5. Someone with proper knowledge do them a favour and edit it if you can be bothered.

This article has some interesting info, but I don't know if they ever made production versions of it for studios etc

 

I thought it was just for animation like when they made that FF movie? I'm pretty sure it used Emotion Engine. Maybe I'm thinking of something else...

 

Didn't it have 10-25 blades with the PS2 EE GPU?

 

Any chance that someone would bump onto one of those and get it for their collection?

Since they aren't currently used and are probably stacked in some old basement, it wouldn't be too hard to find a willing seller from within right? Although I guess the price would hover about the 10.000+ US greens.

ASSEMbler, any info/ideas on how to obtain one?

 

I don't think they actually looked like that... i always thought they were just rack mounted servers... I could be wrong tho.

 

So, who's the one who edited the wikepedia? I wanted to see that casualish post

 

Click the history button on the top... you'll see it was liquitt. Thanks dude, much better.

 

There's a decent-sized article about the GScube in the Year 2000 EDGE hardware guide. I have it at home, and will post specs etc later today if people are interested.

 

my very first wikipedia entry...and the last one, lol

:110:

 

A scan of the article would be nice, if you can do it.

I have found these informations about the gscube:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/20000726/gscube.htm

You can find its specs and pictures, it's a pretty impressive machine...

• CPU

128bit EmotionEngine×16
System clock frequency249.912MHzMain memoryDirect RDRAM
Memory capacity2GB (128MB×16)
Memory bus band width50.3GB/ second (3.1GB/ second ×16)
Floating point arithmetic ability97.5GFLOPS (6.1GFLOPS×16)
Three dimensional CG coordinate operational ability10.4 hundred million polygons/second (6,500 ten thousand
polygons/second ×16)

• GraphicsGRAPHICS SYNTHESIZER1-32×16

Clock frequency147.456MHz
VRAM capacity512MB (32MB mixed loading ×16)
VRAM band width755GB/ second (47.2GB/ second ×16)
Pixel filling rate37.7GB/ second (2.36GB/ second ×16)
Largest polygon drawing efficiency12 hundred million polygons/second (7,370 ten thousand
polygons/second ×16)
Largest indicatory color number32 bits (RGBA: Each 8 bits)
Z buffer32 bits
Largest indicatory resolution1,080/60p (1,920×1,080 and 60fps, progressive)
Image synthetic functionScissoring/alpha test /Z sorting/alpha blending

• SoundEmotionEngine native audio

Number the of installed capacity channels16
Sampling frequency48KHz
Output data length16 bits
Output data formatAES/EBU digital audio format

• In addition

Host interfaceFor data 1024bit/control 32bit parallel bus
Peak transfer rateApproximately 2.4GB/ second
External size424×424×424mm (width × depth × height)
MassApproximately 48Kg
Power source100-240V 50/60Hz


The pictures from siggraph2000:




The color of the display reflects the processor state, blue for the Graphics Synthetizer at idle state, green for the MX マージャー (sorry i can't find a translation for this) processor idle too, red for the processors warming up, and white for the processors working near peak levels.



It seems that the gscube is not a standalone machine, it needs to be connected to a SGI Origin 3000 as a host.



This picture come from the website of a SCEA employee.

 

Wow, many thanks for that article and pictures!

These kits must cost at least $10,000...

 

If you read the article I ve linked in the starting post, there's mention of a 64 processor system, as the 16processored system was deemed underperforming.

 

The Sony employee told me that there were about 15 GSCube produced, but they were all being sent back to Japan for dismantling.

He has updated the wikipedia, thanks to him for that.

 

Wording from EDGE Essential Hardware Guide 2000:

GScube: How it works.

Like PlayStation2, the GScube's highly flexible architecture is designed to enable content creators to use its processing power in whatever way they see fit.

The different chip-pairs can be used to tile-render, by breaking the whole screen down into 16 different parts, each of which are drawn by a separate Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesiser pair. But pipeline rendering is also a possibility. The key to the unit's overall performance is strict load-balancing to ensure each chipset is used as efficiently as possible.

This is one of the reasons why, despite the fact that, in theory, the GScube prototype is more than 16 times more powerful than a standard PlayStation2, in practice the performance boost is limited to a factor of ten.

The production version of GScube is rumoured to feature up to 64 chips running in parallel, with Sony predicting a staggering hundred-fold power improvement with this configuration.

 

OMG - they are feckin' huge!!!!

 

They're big, but the one picture has a perspective issue making it seem HUGEEEE

 

Correct.

In a way it reminds me of how I used to think the PC-Engine Hu7D Dev system was huge but wasn't in real.

 

It is safe to say that at 48 Kilograms it's not exactly a gamecube (which weighs about 1Kg more or less)

EDIT: You might notice the grabbing handles located at the sides of the monster, similar to those found on professional concert speakers - not that I would take it to a punk rock show

 

Well the cubish design makes sense if you have to connect it to a SGI Origin.
But compared to SGIs design
the Cube looks like it has been stolen from an old StarTrek EP!

If you fit LEDs + plastic cards onto a newer Dell server you could m/f-ake your own ;-)