[naikku]

I have a PS3 at home, I know it has a extremely fast CPU and I can install Linux on it (legally, it is not a hack).

If I would install linux on it and buy a network node-license, could I use the
PS3 Cell-CPU for rendering with Maxwell Render?

(another crazy idea would be to create a PS3-Maxwell-group, hundreds of PS3-machines linked across the world. kind of a renderfarm, but free for all maxwell users.
just like the "folding@home"-system, hundreds of PS3s calculating at the same time. sounds a bit sci-fi, but remember that bill gates said: "640kb of ram will be enough for every computer.")

[Maximus3D]

I think this been suggested in the past, and one of the problems is that PS3 has way to little ram to be useful for large highpoly Maxwell renderings with lots of textures in them. PS3's are more useful for numbercrunching like SETI and stuff like that. Unfortunately..

/ Max

[Bogdan Coroi]

Not really. Maxwell is compiled for x86 CPUs. To run in on a Cell CPU one would have to compile it for Cell.

[Tim Ellis]

It's not going to happen, we have been down this route before.

I've successfully installed Helios Linux for the PS3, on my PS3 and tried to run Maxwell, but the Maxwell executables will not run.

Unfortunately, Next Limit have told me there is no compile and will not be, for the PS3 Cell.

Only way at present that Maxwell can possibly be run at all on a PS3, is by installing Linux, then running a Window XP pro/vista via an emulator.

However, as the Cell is at the heart of the PS3, it probably won't work.

I am more than willing to try and compile a version on my PS3, but don't even know where to start.

Tim.

[polynurb]

doesn't the first generation of cell processors also have a floating point precision problem / which makes them too "inaccurate" for some calculations... afaik the next gen. Cell will be fully double precision.

*this thread gives some clues:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/for ... 6002691931

reading till the page end:

"The SPUs processors in PS3s aren't fully pipelined for double-precision floating point. The newer IBM Cells going into the blades are. The DP performance of these is collectively pretty impressive."