Hacked linux on PS3 performance?

[n_K]

I know that originally the PS3 supported linux in a limited mode but had read about people being able to effectively 'hack' the console and unlock linux on all cores of the processor, but what is the performance of the system like when running it like this?

Does the 512MB of RAM limit it badly or what? Or are you able to solder in more RAM and get better performance? Or possibly use a dev kit?

I'm interested specifically in server and compiling workloads, not a desktop.

[+John Teacake MVC]

How weird, I was thinking of exactly this Yesterday. There is Yellow Dog Linux. I would be interested in doing these two things on a PS3 but I dont have the hardware...

http://www.neowin.ne...-optimizations/

http://www.neowin.ne...-optimizations/

As for enabling all the CPU/Cores you could just easily change that in the kernel option files and have all the cores unlocked ;-)

[0nyX]

With my limited knowledge and as far as i can remember,Linux was very slow on PS3 due to lack of GPU (RSX) acceleration.

That was the main problem.

There was some efforts of writing a driver for the RSX but i dont whats going on with that (if it stopped,if it iscompleted etc) since i dont use my PS3 for linux anymore.

[Gerowen]

How weird, I was thinking of exactly this Yesterday. There is Yellow Dog Linux. I would be interested in doing these two things on a PS3 but I dont have the hardware...

http://www.neowin.ne...-optimizations/

http://www.neowin.ne...-optimizations/

As for enabling all the CPU/Cores you could just easily change that in the kernel option files and have all the cores unlocked ;-)

The way I understand it, the console's hardware was not available to Linux because it ran inside a virtual machine with virtual hardware, locking out access to all the CPU cores and the graphics card.

[Biohead]

Day to day performance? Terrible. The main issue is that is a highly specific CPU design, and that code needs to be optimised to take full advantage of the Cell. If not, you'll get roughly the performance of a G4-G5 era PowerMac (which gets dwarfed by even an entry level PC today).

Even if you could get all the cores working properly (which isn't as simple as enabling them in the kernel), you're still limited to 256mb of RAM (or 512 if you can utilise the VRAM) and it will seriously hamper performance. Less RAM intensive tasks may fair better though, and again they need to be optimised for Cell.

At the end of the day, the CPU design itself is over 8 years old - which is an awfully long time in computing terms.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

The PS3 uses the Cell microprocessor, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and six accessible Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_hardware

[n_K]

As for enabling all the CPU/Cores you could just easily change that in the kernel option files and have all the cores unlocked ;-)

See no, you can't unfortunately.

I'm not referring to using the official OS method, I mean using a method like this;

Likewise I don't own a PS3 but with the details of the PS4 coming soon and whatnot I'll be keeping an eye on PS3 prices!