[ydl-gen] PS3 Linux and Controller

[Kai Staats]

All,

> The CELL has one "Power Processor Element" ("PPE"), and several
> "Synergistic Processing Elements" ("SPE").  While the PPE is "a two-way SMT
> multithreaded Power 970 architecture compliant core", the SPEs are not, and
> would not run PPC-based code.  The PPE would have to load each SPE with
> SPE-specific code in a coprocessor fashion, so I would doubt that it would
> perform as a 8-way SMP machine.

Plain and simple --the vast majority of Linux apps will not take advantage of 
the SPEs. The Cell is neither a traditional multi-core nor a collection of 
DSPs. Special compile time libraries and some pretty serious re-coding are 
required to take advantage of the 6 available SPEs.

At boot, YDL shows 2 PPUs (one real, one a hyperthread) and 6 SPEs ... but to 
take advantage of them is another story.

kai