PS3 GRAPHICS CHIP 'UNFINISHED'

Admission from nVidia executive casts further doubt on last week's PS3 tech demos

10:46 The chip that will power the PS3's graphics is not even finished yet, according to an executive from the company working on the technology for Sony.

The admission further fuels accusations that the demos shown at Sony's pre-E3 press conference last week were not running on actual hardware.

Whether you were present at Sony's pre-E3 conference in LA last week or not, you will probably have heard the loud 'whump' as several hundred jaws hit the floor at the same time.

But Marv Burkett, nVidia's chief financial officer, revealed that the PS3's graphical processing unit (GPU), currently codenamed the RSX, is still in development and could not have been used to power the demos.

Speaking at the JP Morgan Technology Conference in San Francisco - which runs at the same time as E3 - Burkett spoke of how no actual RSX silicon would be available until around September. That means no RSX chip exists, and that means the demos shown at the Sony press conference could not have been created with the chip.

However, when challenged on the validity of the PS3 demos Burkett explained that nVidia had used other chips (possibly GeForce 6800 Ultra SLI combinations, according to tech website bit-tech.net) with similar grunt to what the RSX will have.

So while the PS3 demos were not running on the actual PS3 GPU, according to nVidia there's no reason to believe the final product won't look just as good - or even better.

The real question is whether the demos were running in real-time or were merely pre-rendered in the same way that a cutscene is - but that question is unlikely to be answered until we see playable versions of PS3 games.

Graeme Boyd

Monday 22nd August 2005

GT5 STARTS ITS ENGINES IN 2007?

17:58 It's not often you get to cite a Croatian car magazine as your source for exciting videogame news, but hey, here we go!

According to internet reports, Kazunori Yamauchi, director of the Gran Turismo series has given an interview in Croatian car magazine Auto Car. Although much of the chat was presumably more car-focused than game-orientated (funnily enough our local newsagent is currently out of Auto Car so it's difficult to confirm for sure), Yamauchi did drop off a few oily black nuggets of GT5 information, which may or may not flick your gear sticks into first.

Most significantly, the game is apparently scheduled to hit the PS3 sometime in 2007. Futhermore, Yamauchi is promising that the title will have one hundred times the level of detail as GT4 on PS2, in line with his previous thoughts on the comparative power of Sony's next-gen machine. (ed: )

Although Yamauchi has speculated on the implementation of GT4's elusive online play and a proper damage model for the series' next iteration in the past, no further details appear to be forthcoming from the Auto Car interview.

We'll have more information on the game just as soon as we pack our bags and all move to Croatia, apparently.

Matt Wales