Jadestone contact and PS3 JVM

Troubleshooting General Help
21
Alric said:

The first question I would ask would be, can we see some Java games that are beyond the capabilities of a PS2, before we start talking about doing work to unlock the potential of the PS3?


I do, that strategy game we saw at the javaone, the icehockeygame, and many more. dont forget that the PS2 is a pretty crappy machine nowadays.
22

i was the lead client programmer on spirits and the hockeygame, but quit about a year and a half ago. i think that they put 3d games in general "on ice" a year ago. they might want to take it up again offcourse…

23

And another interesting thing is that some people seem to know how Sony would react. And for the Java VM for the Cell architecture: Yes, it might be a tough job, but its a job for IBM or Sony or both, not the job of the java community.

As far as i remember, Sony has always been somewhat open to indie developers. There has been a special PSOne for developers back in the 90's.



I hope, you keep us informed about the progress of your "Sony adventure". It may be difficult, and you might fail, but if you don't try, you fail from the beginning.

24
Vardamir said:

And another interesting thing is that some people seem to know how Sony would react.


I feel spoken to  ;). well I had a bad day and sounded harsh, sorry fo that. still, it's sony  :|

However i would love to be surprised here and to play my games on the ps3
25

Wow, such cynical and harsh statements here.  I know that no one wants to play the naive, dreamy eyed noob here, especially since we've been led on about the possibility of having a commercially viable Java implementation on a Playstation for two generations now.  Still, no reason to dig in on technical aspects or understanding.  I would be willing to bet that almost no one on this board is a PS3 expert.  The OP was simply making the statement (on this board) that he felt the jMonkeyEngine currently has the best chance of selling Sony on the idea of Java on the PS3 and that he'd like some contact info for people who have done nice things with the engine.  As the jME community, shouldn't we simply cheer him on in that and save the other points for the javagaming.org thread?

26
kaffiene said:

Wow. 

Thanks, I am a complete idiot.  Thanks for that.  I'll give up now.  Of course, I wasn't ASKING about HOW to make a JVM for the PS3, but you're right - If I ask for an address and some market information, I really should be up with cell processor details.


Sorry, wasn't really trying to add to the negativity, just trying to make a point of how your argument comes across.

BTW, I've actually done some basic development on the PS3 utilizing the Cell processors (not Java) as well as run Java on the PS3 (through Linux via the "Other OS" features).  When I first ran Java I was optimistic for some serious performance as I was writing a heavy-duty number crunching application but the performance was about par with the low-end machine I had at the time which was pretty depressing.  It's possible that is due to the way that the Other OS works, but I think it is more likely that it is because Java was not able to take advantage of anything to do with the Cell processor.

It would be awesome if Sony made a push for Java, but to be honest I'm quite skeptical it makes any sense at all for them to make that move. However, it's already running Java on it....look at the box the next time you go to a store, you'll notice the happy Java logo. ;)  Unfortunately, I think that's only due to Blu-ray using Java.  I guess you could argue that Java is already available if you don't mind using Blu-ray's API set (which NetBeans has a really awesome plugin for btw).  :P
27

There is already a Java VM for the cell architecture. There you can read about the problems with such a Java VM: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/Site/pubs-pdf/ICS-TR-06-17.pdf

28
Alric said:

Good luck, you dont get if you dont ask.
I would echo that sentiment.
But also, Llama's point that (just with any pitch to a large organisation)  in order to progress, hard questions are going to be ask and harsh criticism made. Better it be on here or Javagaming.


Llama's point is well made - I'm not a cell expert, and talking tech details will make me look like a dick.  BUT I'm not actually intending to.  Never said I was, and have no intention to.  I made it very clear in the thread that I referred to that I'm intending to make an argument about the Indy / Casual market and the current Java games market.  That's all.

So yeah, if I were going to talk tech, I'd get someone else to do it... but can I underline this yet another time : I AM NOT planning to talk to Sony about technical cell issues, so I'm NOT asking for feedback about that. 


Alric said:

I am just wanting to have a discussion with Sony about the Java Indy / Casual market.  That is all I'm looking for feedback on

The first question I would ask would be, can we see some Java games that are beyond the capabilities of a PS2, before we start talking about doing work to unlock the potential of the PS3?


I'm talking about Indy / Casual games, not AAA games which stretch the capacities of the machine.  Flow and Everyday Shooter do not stretch the consoles they run on, yet they're still popular. 
29
Vardamir said:

There is already a Java VM for the cell architecture. There you can read about the problems with such a Java VM: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/Site/pubs-pdf/ICS-TR-06-17.pdf



Interesting read.
30

I'm not a cell expert, and talking tech details will make me look like a dick.  BUT I'm not actually intending to.


Yet you were doing just that, a few posts into the JavaGaming thread.. and quite incorrectly. So that's contrary to your own goals then right? You're welcome....  :mrgreen:

And vardamir, thanks for that link.. intresting to see how their Cell (SPE) based VM doesn't even outperform a regular VM on just the PPC (PPE) core (which will be slower than an original XBox probably, being in-order). I guess with a regular VM all the extra memory bandwith you have you may just be able to do "casual games" in HD.. but I still think Sony won't like the idea that all the games on XBL that also get to be on their platform will have to be scaled down compared to the xbox.
31

Think we have identified ambition or resignation issues per community members





Fight the cause and make it happen … find a reason for it to fail - convert it to a reason to make it win







DONT be a loser










32

You said you want to sign a petition to ask SONY to allow a JVM to be created for the PS3. I agree that SONY, no matter how much you petition, will never allow you nor anybody else to write a JVM for their console. The problem is money… Sony likes being in control of the full power of their beast (the PS3) and they would rather write the games themselves and make the money themselves.

33
Trussell said:

You said you want to sign a petition to ask SONY to allow a JVM to be created for the PS3. I agree that SONY, no matter how much you petition, will never allow you nor anybody else to write a JVM for their console.
[/quote]

I have no intention of writing or porting the JVM.  Ideally I'd like Sony and Sun to manage it between them.  I'm happy to pay for the tool when written and to pay to release games on the platform as per other developers.

I'm not asking for any kind of free lunch.

34

Regardless of who writes the JVM, SONY will most likely be losing money and losing the control they have over their console.



They MAY consider it, but not because of a petition. You need to be a big business kind of person to be able to get in touch with the guys at SONY and convince them.

35

OK - so I'm joining this conversation really late…but I wanted to give my 2 cents about performance - as worthless as that may be now  :lol:



Yes, the SPE's on the cell chip are probably not ideal for the the high level processing of the JVM.  Lets face it, the JVM is large and uses a lot of heap.  Without 'proper' memory management, staying within the confines of the Cells limits are basically impossible.  You'd be thrashing almost all the time.



That said, say your JVM ran on the PPC core of the chip…  That may not actually be a bad option.  Who says the JVM needs to be super fast?  Couldn't the JVM actually be kinda slow? 



Open GL rendering is on the video card…just like in a PC.  We can probably use OpenAL to put the sound processing on one of the SPE's.  NVidia has a PhysX implementation that runs physics calculations on the SPE's…so you would only need a utility that uses that to get your fast physics calculations.  With those two, you'd utilize the SPE's power (at least to a degree).



So I guess to wrap up what I'm trying to say is - if it were me, I'd completely forget about the 'performance' questions of the JVM because at the end of the day - a lot of the 'hard' processing can be done on either the video card or the SPE's (via a wrapper).



Yeah - it won't run as well as your PC, but you'd open up a whole market for your games…one that is much popular than PC gaming now…

36

I guess my only input would be to agree with ThePrism and elaborate a little on my stance.


Fight the cause and make it happen ...... find a reason for it to fail - convert it to a reason to make it win


Try to take positive comments as encouragement and direction, and negative comments as "potential risks" - manage your risks and find concrete answers to as many as you can to help your cause.  I wouldn't say to immediately counter each of the posts here, or the other forum, but keep track of the negativity.  Solve what you can and document it, for ones you can't solve make sure you at least keep them documented.

Good luck!
37

Wow… I fully support this fellow's initiative and I am surprised by all of the resistence generated by his request.  While understanding some of the issues regarding Sony/Sun and a JVM implementation to PS3, I would think that there would be a god-awful cacaphony of support by all the monkeys around here as this idea should look to them like one big bannana!  And, if it ever came to pass, I could see how some here would find it advantageous to band together like the good primates they are and unify an effort to bring something to market on PSN – a very worthwhile cause, imo, and it may be just the structure that allows some of us here to take the "next step" in this crazy and crowded market.