Offload™ Technology
Offload™ is a set of tools incorporating a compiler, runtime and set of libraries which allow developers to maximize performance in their games by offloading as much code as possible to SPUs on PlayStation®3.
The Offload™ compiler is unique in that it enables non-specialist programmers to develop and optimize code for the SPUs. The single-source C++ compiler contains ground-breaking technology developed by Codeplay which allows virtually unmodified PPU code to be compiled for SPU. Incorporating a fully-featured vectorizing optimization engine, Offload allows bespoke SPU optimizations to be quickly added by senior developers to complement existing work where needed.
Advice messages output during compilation help identify performance bottlenecks, such as slow memory reads from PPU, unaligned data, and data fragmentation. Productivity is enhanced by performance options tailored to SPU requirements, and a suite of utility libraries which can be seamlessly integrated into existing codebases to exploit raw hardware performance on PS3, and operate on other platforms as expected.
Offload easily integrates into existing development environments including Microsoft Visual Studio .Offload™ Applied
Click here to view how Offload™ technology supported the optimization and development of NASCAR The Game 2011 developed by Eutechnyx.
Learn More
We have compiled a list of articles and documents that may better help you understand how Offload™ works or even to simply learn more.
