PS3 to run at 120fps? ken said yes...

**Sklaar** · 10-28-2005, 05:59 PM

PS3 to run at 120 fps?
It's possible, says Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi; all that's needed is a TV capable of displaying it.
Coming soon to an Internet message board near you: waves of more-hardcore-than-thou posters referring to any game running at 60 frames per second (fps) as "a slideshow."

Appearing at the Tokyo International Digital Conference on Thursday to talk about the technological capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and the Cell processor, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi said he expects the PS3 to be capable of running games at a stunning 120 fps, according to a report in The Nikkei BP.

Never mind that even newer TVs aren't capable of refreshing the screen 120 times in a single second. Kutaragi said that when new technology comes to market, he hopes to have the PS3 ready to take advantage of it.

As for the Cell chip at the heart of the PS3, Kutaragi also had high hopes for its future beyond gaming. Taking High Definition TV as an example, he said that the Cell chip could take advantage of the technology in many ways, such as displaying newspapers in their actual size, showing multiple high definition channels on the screen at once, and video conferencing. He emphasized that the Cell can be used to decode more than 10 HDTV channels simultaneously, and it can also be used to apply effects such as rotating and zooming.

Later, he introduced the idea of a Cell cluster server that operates with 16 units, each consisting of eight Cell chips running at 2.5Ghz. That would total a processing power of 25.6 teraflops. Kutaragi also outlined plans to shrink the chip from the current 90 nanometer process to a 65 nanometer process in the future, and eventually down to a 45 nanometer process.

By Staff -- GameSpot
Posted Oct 28, 2005 10:27 am PT

**O.D.S** · 10-28-2005, 06:04 PM

Finally some news...some relly good news

great find Sklaar!

mmmm 120 fps? and here we were talking about "if Killzone could reach 60fps it would be awesone"

**xbdestroya** · 10-28-2005, 06:12 PM

Well... it's certainly an - extreme! - comment by KK.

**venomv** · 10-28-2005, 06:57 PM

Isn't 60 fps all the human eye can pick up anyone, whats the point of going faster?

**Coded-Dude** · 10-28-2005, 07:01 PM

subliminal messages.......

**Danji** · 10-28-2005, 07:15 PM

The human eye has trouble detecting the differences in framerates higher than that. That doesn't mean it doesn't notice it. It would smooth things out when your character turns, for sure.

I really want a monitor on this thing because I know some awesome types of monitors could do that. At what res. I have no idea.

**mmilinski** · 10-28-2005, 07:29 PM

Well, it's not only about refreshing the screen - however it counts, try any FPS on PC (100 fps is incredibly smooth and responsive when compared to 30 fps) - the number of inputs from controller the game engine is reading is important as well. Which makes a huge difference. I've read somewhere that 85 fps is the limit for the human eye, but it's even more when it comes to feeling the difference in responsiveness of a game.

**Domination** · 10-28-2005, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by Sklaar

PS3 to run at 120 fps?
It's possible, says Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi; all that's needed is a TV capable of displaying it.
Coming soon to an Internet message board near you: waves of more-hardcore-than-thou posters referring to any game running at 60 frames per second (fps) as "a slideshow."

Appearing at the Tokyo International Digital Conference on Thursday to talk about the technological capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and the Cell processor, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi said he expects the PS3 to be capable of running games at a stunning 120 fps, according to a report in The Nikkei BP.

Never mind that even newer TVs aren't capable of refreshing the screen 120 times in a single second. Kutaragi said that when new technology comes to market, he hopes to have the PS3 ready to take advantage of it.

As for the Cell chip at the heart of the PS3, Kutaragi also had high hopes for its future beyond gaming. Taking High Definition TV as an example, he said that the Cell chip could take advantage of the technology in many ways, such as displaying newspapers in their actual size, showing multiple high definition channels on the screen at once, and video conferencing. He emphasized that the Cell can be used to decode more than 10 HDTV channels simultaneously, and it can also be used to apply effects such as rotating and zooming.

Later, he introduced the idea of a Cell cluster server that operates with 16 units, each consisting of eight Cell chips running at 2.5Ghz. That would total a processing power of 25.6 teraflops. Kutaragi also outlined plans to shrink the chip from the current 90 nanometer process to a 65 nanometer process in the future, and eventually down to a 45 nanometer process.

By Staff -- GameSpot
Posted Oct 28, 2005 10:27 am PT

WOW!

If that's true, then that blew my expectations off the chart. The Most I was expecting was 70fps, and I was basing that on a very short game. But with this news, that means 30fps could be obsolete for PlayStation 3 titles next-gen.

Moreover, notice the shrinking of the Cell processor in the future. It goes from a 90nm all the way to a 45nm processor. Notice he wasn't talking about the newer 45nm processor they are working on. I'm wondering what will be the purpose for the Cell processor having to be shranken a second time.

Anyhow, I guess that confirms no 65nm Cell at launch.

**xbdestroya** · 10-28-2005, 08:11 PM

When chips get smaller, they get cheaper.

The chips in PS2 have gone through about five process shrinks to get where they are now from the size they were when the console launched. Without those shrinks, the slimline PSTwo would not have been possible.

Also, with TV refresh rates, I really don't think we'll ever be seeing games targeted at either 30fps or 60fps; he's talking future support possibilities there.

**woundingchaney** · 10-28-2005, 08:17 PM

To say as much is kind of vague. It would really depend on the software your running right. Essentially if we are talking about running a simplistic game (or something along those lines) then running at 120 fps isnt really any indication of the systems power. Does Kutaragi ever state what could be ran at 120 fps (as in what game in particular)??

I think its overly utopian to expect to play games on the PS3 at anything other than 30 or 60 fps.

**xbdestroya** · 10-28-2005, 08:20 PM

By the way GameSpot kind of sensationalizes the quote. This is the original article they took it from, translated through Google:

Article

**Hawk** · 10-28-2005, 08:43 PM

120 fps means that your TVs response time should be 1000ms/120=8,333 ms. Monitors are capable of that time but I haven't seen 1080p TVs with that response times.

**CrumCon** · 10-28-2005, 09:21 PM

Why does ken even bother mention this possibility?
There arent even any TV with this response time.
Why even bother mention it?

Most people dont even own HDTV.. let alone HDTV with this kind of response time lol..

really silly ken.. we know they had to say something cause X360 almost arrives lol

**cpiasminc** · 10-28-2005, 09:58 PM

Isn't 60 fps all the human eye can pick up anyone, whats the point of going faster?

One of the old tricks I used to do in my PC demoscening days to do something similar to Amiga's HAM mode was to tweak the VGA CRTC registers to get the refresh rate up to 120 Hz. When you did this, and say, flashed blue and red screens alternating on every vretrace, the end result would run together and look to be a purple screen. As you can guess, the common thing to use this for was to draw red and blue pixels in one buffer and green pixels in another buffer and swap them back and forth thereby manage to fake high color modes even though the screen was really 256 colors.

As you can probably guess, the end result was flickery as hell (most likely due to the nature of what we're doing than anything else), and I can guarantee you the same trick wouldn't work at 60 Hz.

Human eye latency is measured ~85 ms, but that doesn't mean the eye doesn't keep gathering information in between that time scale. It's just that that's the minimum amount before your brain will actually perceive a series of images as motion (12 fps). But even a pretty poor eye can still collect information beyond 170 fps.

Z · 10-28-2005, 09:58 PM

well, they are always talking about the future. that os why they always mention things hat are yet to come.

Does Kutaragi ever state what could be ran at 120 fps (as in what game in particular)??

well, he is talking about the technicall posibility. if devs don't use it, it doesn't mean the capability isn't there.
but to agree with you, this is kind of vague since we want 'real world performances' and not 'possible' specs. but this is the clever part. this way, if it doesn't happen, Ken will still be technically correct. if it does happen, he can say "I told you so".

I think its overly utopian to expect to play games on the PS3 at anything other than 30 or 60 fps.

why the gloomy view? be optimistic! I am not saying we will see games that fast, but I certainly do expect new things to come- now and forever.

**Domination** · 10-28-2005, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by xbdestroya

When chips get smaller, they get cheaper.

The chips in PS2 have gone through about five process shrinks to get where they are now from the size they were when the console launched. Without those shrinks, the slimline PSTwo would not have been possible.

Also, with TV refresh rates, I really don't think we'll ever be seeing games targeted at either 30fps or 60fps; he's talking future support possibilities there.

Cost was one of the first to spring to mind, but I had my finger on something other than that. Future devices was mainly what I was thinking about.

Oh and can you clarify yourself on the last sentence. I wasn't sure if you were saying something different from what I was saying or not.

**Sendok** · 10-28-2005, 10:33 PM

idk where i read this, but i thought i once read that over 60fps and our eyes can't catch all that

**Krad** · 10-28-2005, 10:36 PM

120FPS... WoW.

I would love to see a game run at 120FPS. Although, if these are raw numbers we aren't going to see 120FPS... maybe 70 - 90FPS? That's still very impressive.

**xbdestroya** · 10-28-2005, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Domination

Oh and can you clarify yourself on the last sentence. I wasn't sure if you were saying something different from what I was saying or not.

Well, I was just saying that if you took the framerate above 60 fps, most TV's wouldn't even be able to display that. 60 is kind of an artifical cap that exists for the majority of TVs out there.

**Domination** · 10-28-2005, 10:41 PM

Originally Posted by woundingchaney

To say as much is kind of vague. It would really depend on the software your running right. Essentially if we are talking about running a simplistic game (or something along those lines) then running at 120 fps isnt really any indication of the systems power. Does Kutaragi ever state what could be ran at 120 fps (as in what game in particular)??

I think its overly utopian to expect to play games on the PS3 at anything other than 30 or 60 fps.

Wounding, not even with a simple game of this gen could a console ever dream of hitting this mark. I think that's what I find to be the most impressive about the 120fps even if it is for the simplest titles. The point is, it doubled what we already had, which makes 30fps a little...well, unimpressive.

Why does ken even bother mention this possibility?
There arent even any TV with this response time.
Why even bother mention it?

Most people dont even own HDTV.. let alone HDTV with this kind of response time lol..

really silly ken.. we know they had to say something cause X360 almost arrives lol

To show how capable the console can be.