Sony Claims PS3 Javascript Performance Is Better Than IE7's 112
Scorpinox writes "According to Sony Online Entertainment, the latest 2.50 update to the Playstation 3, which added Flash 9 support, is 'not up to the level of Google Chrome,' but 'beats Internet Explorer 7' in Javascript performance. The article goes on to say 'Sony has actually been working on Flash 9 support for quite some time — as far back as late last year. To get it running on the PS3, Sony ended up customizing a separate Flash implementation that was provided to it by Adobe.'"
WTF? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Let me get this straight. The console that actually uses [wiicade.com] the Flash plugin for console-style games is stuck at Flash 7 because "Adobe doesn't have an SDK for Flash 9", but somehow Sony manages to get an SDK for Flash 9?
WHISKEY
TANGO
FOXTROT
I demand a recount! Or a refund! Or something.
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Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
To get it running on the PS3, Sony ended up customizing a separate Flash implementation that was provided to it by Adobe.'"
Most users of Linux on non-x86 platforms should be twitching violently from reading that quote.
Adobe have consistently refused to give their code to anyone. They wouldn't even give it to Apple for use on the iPhone.
I wonder what changed. Are Adobe and Sony both members of the Evil League of Evil?
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Funny)
Sony's access to Adobe's software proves it once and for all: They are in league to create a new Access of Evil!
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They are in league to create a new Access of Evil!
Please tell me that was a pun, and I've missed the joke. (Pre-emptive self-whooshing)
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That's what I get for posting before my first coffee of the day.
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Sony was more than likely willing to pay premium moolah for the implementation. Something that other vendors probably can't justify for the licensing costs.
Either that or Sony had some serious dirt held over Adobe's head...
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Either that or Sony had some serious dirt held over Adobe's head...
Patent warchests ftw!
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Adobe have consistently refused to give their code to anyone. They wouldn't even give it to Apple for use on the iPhone.
Code, perhaps, but it seems they're happy to port the software for some $$$. At least I have Flash 9 out of the box on my Nokia N800 (Linux/ARM). I think it's Apple that doesn't want Flash...
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So, they can port flash to PPC and ARM, but they won't port it to x86_64.
Something seems funny to me...
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So, they can port flash to PPC and ARM, but they won't port it to x86_64.
Something seems funny to me...
Whoa there. The PS3 is definitely *not* a PPC. One of its cores is architecturally *similar* to a PowerPC, which makes it easy to support PPC code. However, calling it a PowerPC is a misnomer.
I say this, as there has never been a Linux_PPC port of Flash. x86-64 users have had the "luxury" of being able to use a wrapper to get 64-bit flash by using the 32-bit legacy version. It's not particularly elegant, but it works.
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It has a PPC core along with 8 (7/6 usable, depending on if you count their OS) RISC-esque cores.
This tells me that their IS a PPC port of flash, as Sony is spouting off about it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor) [wikipedia.org]
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Worse than that, I suspect both of them will be twitching violently.
Actually, I do run Linux on ARM, but not on a desktop machine. Linux is a tiny market and desktop Linux on anything but x86 is so vanishingly small a market that no big company is going to give a shit. The only exceptions are likely to be platforms like the Nokia Internet Tablets, smartphones and set-top-boxes where big cash up front and the promi
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Linux is a tiny market
Not in the embedded devices world. It was tiny, but now more and more of them are using Linux kernels. I've seen it often on internet radios, music players, STBs, even picture frames. And not just on 10% of them - I'd say more like 40%.
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I guess that's why I wrote "The only exceptions are likely to be platforms like the Nokia Internet Tablets, smartphones and set-top-boxes [...]".
Silverlight (Score:1)
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Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)
Two proprietary platforms have teamed up to bring us the Internet! They would never steer us wrong, would they?
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Way to lower the goalposts (Score:4, Insightful)
IE7's Javascript is painfully slow, it'd be an embarrassment if Sony couldn't do better than IE7.
Wake me up when they're on par with some useful browsers.
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Bingo.
Re:Way to lower the goalposts (Score:4, Insightful)
PS3 javascript better than IE7 on a screaming rig? Moderately interesting, if largely a sign of IE's suckitude. PS3 javascript faster than IE7 on an elderly Celeron? boring and irrelevant.
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It might also be instructive to see what computer IE7 was running on.
They wanted a fair comparison, so they used Bochs to run IE7 on the PS3
nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
ps3 is hardware, ie7 is software. how can one be faster than the other?
if they want to compare browser with browser, they need to do it on the same platform (hardware). if they want to compare hardware, they need to do it with the same software. too many variables, this means nothing.
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Let's test the PS3 browser & IE7 head-to-head on my laptop!
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I'm going to go on a limb and say that the devs who wrote the source code didn't initially write that browser on the Cell, given that the Cell was late and held up the PS3 launch. I'm sure internally, they developed initially on a more standard architecture. Given that they didn't have the Cell, they had to.
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I highly doubt the browser uses the streaming units on the Cell, so it's basically just PPC that was available for many years before the Cell.
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if they want to compare browser with browser, they need to do it on the same platform (hardware). if they want to compare hardware, they need to do it with the same software.
True.
too many variables, this means nothing.
False.
Comparing PS3 + Sony Software to Dell box + Microsoft software doesn't tell you how each individual component performs, comparatively. That much is true. But it does tell you something about how each system as a whole performs, compared to the other.
As a typical end-user of those systems, is there anything that's more relevant? Great, so I can know how well IE performs on a PS3, or how well the PS3 browser performs on windows. But I'm not going to install one platform's browser on the other p
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Comparing PS3 + Sony Software to Dell box + Microsoft software doesn't tell you how each individual component performs, comparatively. That much is true. But it does tell you something about how each system as a whole performs, compared to the other.
And even then, the PS3 loses to IE7. Badly.
I ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark on my PS3 and on a work laptop that was purchased before the PS3 was released.
The full results are here [xenoveritas.org], but the overall times are 98 seconds for the PS3 and 35.5 seconds for IE7.
And that's ignoring the fact that the IE7 time includes 12 seconds worth of tests that the PS3 couldn't run. Two of the tests triggered a JavaScript error on the PS3, and one actually crashed it!
I don't know how far back you'd have to go to find a
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It is possible to compare FireFox, Opera (via a Linux install on the PS3) and the PS3's Netfront. I'll get around to doing it sooner or later.
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Anything Can Beat IE7 (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the fact that something is beating IE7 really news? IE7 is not known for its stellar Javascript performance, it's basically a generation-old browser that pre-dates the modern push for high-performance Javascript execution. I would certainly hope that the PS3's browser is faster than IE7, or Firefox 2, or any other browser that old. It's like touting the PS3 is faster than the PS2 - good for you Sony, but it's supposed to be faster in the first place.
Now if they could beat the Firefox/Safari nightlies, or what the final version of IE8 can do, then that would be noteworthy, as they'd be very near the top.
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In your post you make IE7 sound like it was created in the dark ages and therefore no longer relevant, that is plainly untrue.
Ok, it is now more than a year old. It is also however the predominant browser so it is fair play to compare against. Most comparisons are made with the market leader in a field.
You mention in your post about beating IE8 final being a neat trick. Damn right it would be as IE8 is not yet final so the only way to get a copy is to use a time machine and go forward a couple of months.
Better? (Score:2, Insightful)
The PS3 is a platform with fixed hardware specifications. Unless they got IE7 running on a PS3, well... what's the point of reference?
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Most PCs would be running an intel or AMD x86-type processor while the PS3 uses a PowerPC.
CPU clock doesn't mean much these days unless you're comparing the exact same CPU clocked at different speeds.
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That they can brag that they beat somebody. The fact that the somebody is old,wasn't good in the first place,and is about as quick as a dead opossum lying on the side of the road now,apparently doesn't matter.
I'd get what you're saying, except that in your metaphor something like sixty percent of the world uses a dead opossum to browse the web.
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Very good question. I was going to post the SunSpider benchmark results off my PS3 and compare them to a run on IE7 on my Vista machine, but after removing a benchmark that the PS3 couldn't handle (apparently bitwise-and several times in a row is a bit much for it - no joke), the benchmark crashed the PS3 browser.
So, uh, I'm going to have to give the edge to IE7.
Optimized? (Score:5, Insightful)
So a piece of software optimized for a very specific, limited platform can run faster than software written for a very general and not very well defined platform. This ought to be a no-brainer.
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Like running on x86 in Windows wouldn't be specific enough?
How would you optimize it better? Code redrawal in assembler for the graphics card instead of using direct draw or whatever?
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Learn to read.
If you want to say that I missed the point, that he was joking how Sony got better chances to optimize the software the rest of your comment doesn't make sense.
If you want to argue that he had the same point as me, that Microsoft could easily optimize good enough on x86, well, then we didn't had the same point.
So, uhm, ... Fuck you AC which won't read this.
Feel free to tell me how Microsoft can't optimize Windows and IE7 as good on a PC, it's not like the CPUs differ a lot or that they don't k
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How would you optimize it better? Code redrawal in assembler for the graphics card instead of using direct draw or whatever?
Why the vitrol? Windows is a platform that encompasses everything from 100hz 386's to AMD 64's. You can have 128 MB of RAM or 4GB, running on hardware from 10 years ago or more. There's greater than a 10 fold change of capacity between the lowest computers rated to run IE7 and the highest on the market. There is no guarantee of a graphics card or what type of bus it would use, ther
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Yeah, lots of 100 Hz (wtf?) 386s will run IE ...
And even if the machine has 256 MB ram or 8 GB it will matter a lot for how to code the parts of the browser handling javascript!?!
I doubt even things like newer SSE would matter, and there is nothing stopping you from checking which version of SSE is available and optimize for that one.
What the fuck does busses have to do with javascript performance? Or even graphic cards for that matter...
The PS3 have low ram... But I guess you meant less ram because it only
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It's not like they will look it to 4x AA because they would get to few FPSes at 8x but more than 60 at 0x...
Except that's exactly what a lot of SWFs do. There's an option in Flash Player's right-click menu called "Quality" that pretty much controls the FSAA level, and SWFs can override the option and remove it from the menu.
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But when it comes to flash content you will never know how demanding it will be in advance, and that won't affect java-script performance, and you could always turn off cleartype / whatever.
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I was going to reply to you, but cgenman pretty much nailed everything anyway. I'm sure he probably meant 100Mhz, but there are x86 processors down to at least 10Mhz that could technically run IE if they had enough RAM.
Yes, knowing how much RAM your system is going to have could make a big difference in how you design and code your operating system and applications.
What does stuff like bus speed have to do with performance? Are you serious? Oh well. As for talking about graphics cards, he was just trying to
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How would you optimize it better? Code redrawal in assembler for the graphics card instead of using direct draw or whatever?
For starters, you could strip out alot code, start hard coding software to do certain things where needed, ie you don't need to ca tore for different hardware, you don't need to allocate for conditions that *might* occur if your running on one cpu type instead of another, every one of these adds in things that will slow down the main program. If you can't out preform a general use application (which is what MSIE is) with something that is custom built for a purpose then you have serious issues.
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But their point was, they outperform IE7 but not google chrome (presumably running on the same hardware as ie7 was), google chrome is also a general use application.
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lol, funny thing to mention :D
Yeah, makes a lot of sense how the general application in that case can beat the crap out of the special purpose built omg-it'- a-sony!-browser.
Especially with comments like:
If you can't out preform a general use application (which is what MSIE is) with something that is custom built for a purpose then you have serious issues.
My first though/joke was to answer any of the posts with how this was compared with a claim of them running IE7 on some machine on the top500-list and how the PS3s browser was faster than that.
Super computing from Sony ftw!
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On the other hand, the Cell isn't designed for javascript processing, it won't perform spectacularly... It has the benefit of not needing abstraction layers between the browser and the hardware, but the hardware isn't especially suited to this kind of thing...
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Or rather, it's fucking hard to optimize the browser to take full advantage of the PS3 due to its complex hardware over the general purpose processors.
Oh well, my point still stands, I don't buy this "omg it's so much easier to write efficient code for a console (then it's the PS3 in this case) than a PC so of course it will run faster"-bullshit in this scenario. I do accept that when it comes to wide arrange of graphic cards and sound cards and such, especially in the days before DirectX where the develope
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And how likely is it that Sony have coded the browser to run without any other libs, "os" or whatever? Does it really execute along and is written from scratch with no generic parts to handle screen draws and such?
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I eagerly await your implementation of Crysis for the Atari 2600. I'm sure that developing for such a very specific, limited platform will easily enable you to make it run faster than the version written for the very genereal, not very well defined PC platform.
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I eagerly await your implementation of Crysis for the Atari 2600. I'm sure that developing for such a very specific, limited platform will easily enable you to make it run faster than the version written for the very genereal, not very well defined PC platform.
Perhaps not the Atari 2600, but if I had a budget, a team, and a license from EA, I could make a Crysis-inspired shooter for the NES.
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I eagerly await your implementation of Crysis for the Atari 2600.
There was an implicit condition of "assuming that the maximum theoretical performance of the limited and general platforms are identical", but you knew that, didn't you?
Ask yourself why all the games made for the Atari 2600 (excluding some recent homebrew titles) written in 6507 assembly code, rather than in a higher-level language? The principles of good software design were not unknown in the late 1970's; even home computers gave programmer
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The browser isn't Sony code, it's Netfront, why sony just didn't use some kind of embedded Firefox or something is beyond me, they just seem to loooove Netfront. Perhaps because Netfront is produced by a Japanese company.
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Actually, a piece of software optimized for a very specific, limited platform like Amiga 500, running faster than software written for a very general and not very well defined platform like >2GHZ x86, well, that's way too common.
firefox plug (Score:1)
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Whoa.. (Score:1)
Sony Claims PS3 Javascript Performance Is Better Than IE7's
Their shootin' high, aren't they..
Still needs some work (Score:1)
Anybody else notice that cnn.com has never worked on the ps3 browser? It used to give me an out of memory error after browsing cnn for a while. Now, with the 2.50 update, it the browser stops responding to input and you have to exit to the XMB.
That kind of thing happens a little less on IE, or so I hear.
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Actually, I noticed something similar the other day on my PC. I was reading several major news sites and I left CNN.com open in a tab in FF3. After about 20 minutes of reading other sites (with CNN just sitting open, unused), all of my bandwidth disappeared, the browser got really sluggish, FF's memory usage jumped to over 400 MB, and it began using 25% of my CPU (or an entire core of my Phenom 9850). It took me a minute to figure out what was going on, but after closing the CNN tab everything reverted t
And yet.... (Score:1)
Really - I would love to go buy a PS3 so that I can use java faster. Maybe I could also use a TV tuner card in my PC so I can multitask while using my PS3 on my PC to surf the web so much faster.
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The xbox was partly developed as a way to become the 'home centre' computing hub - ie when everybody in the world has a PC running Windows, what do you do to sell more copies? You become a set top box provider, and then bring the value of windows to people's homes through their multimedia centre.
So, Sony saw, thought 'oh yeah, games are just so 80s, we can have a bit of that pie too' and now you see news fluff like this as part of their competitive stance against each other. They both care, they both want y
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Wrong, because in Japan, the PS2 had multimedia features before the Xbox did. The stuff that we can do now on the PS3, download video and demos, rip CD's, browse the net, etc; Japanese PS2 owners could do with the BBN.
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sorry.. of course, Sony had these things, then MS came along said "look at this great new innovation we've created" and the rest is as I said :)
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Faster than IE7? (Score:5, Funny)
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I've watched entire TV episodes and movies on Hulu with my 2.50 firmware PS3
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But Flash 10 is out! (Score:2)
oh...now I get it (Score:2)
Faster JavaScript than IE7? That will sell a console!
PS3 becoming a nice media center (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't buy many PS3 games, but I use the system a lot. In addition to its Blu-Ray capability, Sony has steadily improved its upscaling of regular DVDs until it is on a par with many top dedicated upscaling players. It also does a good job of streaming video from my PC to my TV screen, with good quality and compatibility with a wide range of formats. And its simple hierarchical interface is fast, clear, and easy to navigate. The ability to show Hulu video in its web browser is a nice step up, although I'd like to see support for the TV network web sites as well. I'd like to see Sony add Netflix support. The XBox 360 will soon have the ability to play my Netflix streaming queue, but not edit it; the PS3 with its integrated web browser could do both. And I hate dealing with the XBox 360's awkward user interface which sacrifices usability for flash, and from the pictures that I've seen of the new one, it looks even worse.
Here's my own report (Score:2)
According to a test I did myself, Safari on my iPod touch is faster than Opera on my Nintendo DS Lite.
Yeah, that's as pointless as what Sony just did here.
Would you like to run the plugin? (Score:1)
Yes/No
Admittedly... (Score:1)
Comparing hw with sw..? (Score:1)
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BTW, people complain that you can't fullscreen anything, which is true, but you can get around that by ZOOMING in, which makes it full screen, just FYI.
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