Comment on AMD and Sony’s PS6 chipset aims to rethink the current graphics pipeline

• redshadowhero@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It’s my understanding that the ps4 (and presumably the ps5) use bsd as a base operating system. BIOS or no, it’s a Unix system running on an x86_64 architecture.

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  • DacoTaco@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Sure, but the wii’s coprocessor’s os was also unix/bsd based and that was nowhere near pc hardware. Actually, a few embedded devices (cheap routers, cheap toys,… ) use bsd (while they should run linux hehe) and are nowhere near pc architecture :p.

    What makes a pc a pc is the actual hardware layout, hardware connections internally and how it boots. Im looking deep into ps4 and i can see why people call it a pc, but its a huge misnomer. If a ps4 is a pc, a raspberry pi( or any random sbc ) is also a pc because it has a usb or sata controller, cpu and pci bus while it has no pch/fch, no pc bios (which i can accept to not be relevant) or any of the pc hardware you cant think off ( spoiler, its a lot more ).

    Hell, pc’s dont even have a southbridge anymore. We have the pch which is directly connected to the cpu over a bus that is nowhere near the old northbridge/southbridge design…

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    • redshadowhero@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If this is the case, then we can throw out many things that actually are computers as well, including anything that isn’t strictly a desktop matching very specific parameters - systems like Fugaku (arm with a hybrid os) or Frontier don’t count because of their slingshot network etc etc.

      It just feels like a slippery slope to start discounting things like this.

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      • DacoTaco@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Fugaku is not a pc. Its a computer, but not a pc. Its a supercomputer :)

        Its a slippery slope, yes, but its one that separates a personal computer from any other device that just happens to compute something.
        I get the point though, what makes the arm ampere system a pc and the phone in your hand not? It both has a arm cpu :)
        Same arguments count towards the playstation or other consoles

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• thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Every modern bootable device has a BIOS, as they are required for hardware initialisation before handover to an OS - which for the PS4 is called Orbis OS, and is based off FreeBSD 9. Which is a UNIX OS for desktop PCs.

  While the PS4 does have a unified memory interface, which is very rare for common desktop PCs - they do exist, such as every single Apple Silicon Mac.

  The PS4 and PS5 are just a very heavily locked down PCs, featuring AMD APUs not too dissimilar to what can be found in Ryzen notebooks, Steam Deck or ROG Ally, running proprietary operating systems with heavy encryption to try and prevent 1:1 emulation (think Hackintosh).

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  • DacoTaco@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Youre thinking of bootrom. Embedded devices use bootroms because they dont need the flexability of a bios. It means that on power on, the cpu is powered on and its bootrom starts running code thats burned inside the cpu.
    This is different from a bios, that is code separate from the cpu and tells the cpu what to execute and where in memory it is.
    The os has nothing to do with bios too. Bios has to do with how the system powers up and starts the cpu, not the os and related stuff.

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    • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Literal dictionary definition of a BIOS:

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      Note the part regarding enabling a computer to start the OS. But regardless, this point is largely moot as we are just arguing semantics.

      No the PS4 doesn’t run a PC-style AMI/Phoenix BIOS, but instead a secure chain of Boot ROM to bootloaders - however, so do Macs, which are PCs.

      Dumps of these console boot ROMs and loaders - at least in emulation circles - tend to be colloquially referred to as a BIOS, as it constitutes a System that handles Basic Input and Output.

      It even putting this one point aside, it runs an AMD-designed x86-64 APU, that was available to purchase for PCs (AM1 socket) albeit with a reduced power GPU.

      It runs GDDR5 unified memory like a modern iMac, or Steam Deck.

      It natively runs a UNIX-derived OS, again like an iMac, or Linux on the Steam Deck.

      Let’s just face facts, the PS4 & 5 are just iMacs in drag 😉

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