Rumor: new specs on the PS3 OS
The folks at PlayStation 3 Portal have been gathering news from a few of their trusty (yet anonymous) sources regarding the hardware of the PlayStation 3. The following, they claim, have been "validated by multiple sources that are involved in early PS3 development." Nothing is confirmed and Sony had definitely had time to alter these statistics, if true, but in the meantime here is what the Portal has learned:
A "'Blade' like pane that can appear on the right hand side of the screen" that represents the PS3's always-running OS (similar to the Xbox 360's Dashboard).
One will be able to use voice chat "across all games, even outside of the gamers own UI."
The OS will always utilize 1 of 7 SPEs on the Cell chip, and the option to "take" another when needed -- "games have to give it up if requested." In terms of RAM, the OS will use 18.75% of all available RAM (32mb of GDDR3 memory from the RSX chip, 64mb of the XDR memory from the Cell).
The information presented is interesting, to say the least. The new trend in consoles having a constantly running operating system is blurring the line between console and PC gaming. Fortunately, it seems the PlayStation 3 should be more than powerful enough to run both the OS and a game simultaneously.
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/12/ru...on-the-ps3-os/
