NEW GAMECUBE & Xbox INTERVIEW!!!!! AS OF WED. DEC. 28!!!!!!

Reality check, EA did some benchmark test. These are not game situations and they are not fully optimized for the systemm, thats like saying they can maximize the system in a week even though it takes the most skilled developers years. When EA got 5 million polygons that was with 8 light sources on every polygon. In an actual game very few polygons are going to have more than one or two light sources acting on them, even if there are 8 or more lights in a sceene. So when Ea got 5 million thats pretty good, considering thats full supported effects with unrealisticly high light sources effecting all polygons on unoptimized code.

I really don\'t give a crap anymore. I\'ll say it.

Gamecube & Xbox both beat the PS2 in the graphics department. But thats only half the battle.

Nintendo needs to get some major 3rd party support. I\'m talking big exclusives, kind of like Resident Evil 0. Those kind of big exclusives. So far, we only know that Konami & Capcom are supporting Gamecube.

Xbox, it has the games, the hardware, and strong 3rd party support, but not the image like Sony and Nintendo. Thats where the 500million marketing comes in. Hopefully that will boost their image.

Everybody needs to face the fact that PS2 is not more powerful then Xbox or Gamecube. But, they also should realize that so far PS2 has the hype, popularity, and somewhat descent games thats making it #1 right now.

Originally posted by Jumpman
LOL,so you think the X-Box will do better than GameCube?

Yes, myself, most gamers and most game developers including EA (who believe the real battle is between XBox and PS2).

I beg to differ,take these points into consideration:
1.X-Box will come out last.Giving NGC an early head start. Head starts are an advantage,look at the Genesis vs SNES scenario.[/B]

Head starts are an advantage, but they are NOT a guarentee of success (look at the Dreamcast, despite some superb games). The battle betweeen these consoles will rage on until atleast 2005 Jumpman! Yes head starts help, but within a couple of years, such a start wouldn\'t matter anymore.

2.Its graphics won\'t be much better than GameCube,if not at all better.So why would people chose a new name over a veteran company if they have the same graphics?[/B]

Oh come on, that same arguement was used when Sony announced the PSX, yet gamers choose Sony over both Sega and Nintendo!

3.X-Box is aimed at the older generation,right?Doesn\'t Sony already own those people?[/B]

They once \'owned\' the developers who targetted the older generation, but not anymore. The XBox will be host to games from developers who once only targetted the Playstation/PS2. Gamers go where the games are!!!

Most of those people are casual gamers,they already know what console there gonna buy-PS2.The\'ll have their console by the time X-Box comes out,what makes you think they will buy X-Box too?

[/b]

Prior to the Playstation, most casual gamers knew they were going to buy a new console from Nintendo or Sega. What did they know about Sony?

And as I said before, this battle will rage on until atleast 2005 (when we should see a new generation of consoles). Do you really believe gamers who have purchased a PS2 now have no intention of purchasing a new console for the next 4 years!!!

4.PEOPLE DON\'T LIKE MICROSOFT, this will effect them.[/B]

When rumours first suggested Microsoft had intentions to enter the console market, you couldn\'t find a console developer who had anything good or positive to say about Microsoft and their console\'s chances of success. Well look how times have changed, these same developers are now falling over each other to develope games on the XBox (Square may be next!). Most now expect it to be a great machine and feel that MS are doing a great job.

5.N64 sold over 35 million units,most of those people will be coming back.NGC will sell somewhere near or over that mark I imagine,MS doesn\'t have a userbase like NIntendo does, they don\'t have one at all for that matter.[/B]

Neither did Sony before the Playstation, yet look at them today! So your point is?

6.Price.X-Box will have the largest price by the time it is released...[/B]

We\'ll have to wait and see first!

7.Not as many exclusives games as NGC and PS2.X-Box is getting a lot of ports,thats why some people call it the port-box.[/B]

Only people like yourself. Less biased gamers are able to use reason as realise that we have only know a fraction of the games to appear on the XBox. Even with the PS2, we only know a fraction of the games currently in developement.

Why would someone want one game if they already have it on another system?

Ports of the best games exists on EVERY system, including the PS2, and gamers want to play them.

So in conclusion,I don\'t see how it is possible for NGC to lag behind X-Box.It just wouldn\'t make sense to me, unless you can show me other wise then my opinion on this stands. [/B]

It doesn\'t make sense to you, but it makes sence for most others!

I\'ve read numerous interviews where developers (such as EA) expect the XBox and PS2 to be the leading consoles. I\'m sure with a bit of searching I can find these links, however I doubt you could find many who would say the same about the GC (except GC only developers that is )!

[Edited by Dr Yassam on 01-03-2001 at 07:36 AM]

Yes, myself, most gamers and most game developers including EA (who believe the real battle is between XBox and PS2).

The casual gamer doesn\'t even know what the X-Box is yet, and when did EA state this?I think they meant X-Box will be PS2 biggest competition since there both aimed at a mature audience.

 

Head starts are an advantage, but they are NOT a guarentee of success (look at the Dreamcast, despite some superb games). The battle betweeen these consoles will rage on until atleast 2005 Jumpman! Yes head starts help, but within a couple of years, such a start wouldn\'t matter anymore.

A NGC headstart will still be an advantage.People these days have no patience,they won\'t wait for very long.( Since PS2 wasn\'t at stores this holiday season some people bought DC instead,that was the case here.)

 

Oh come on, that same arguement was used when Sony announced the PSX, yet gamers choose Sony over both Sega and Nintendo!

This isn\'t the same argument.What does X-Box have over other consoles?NOTHING.HD-big deal,a built in modem would of been better.

 

They once \'owned\' the developers who targetted the older generation, but not anymore. The XBox will be host to games from developers who once only targetted the Playstation/PS2. Gamers go where the games are!!!

And you know this,how?Gamers tend to stand by their system, Micorsoft doesn\'t have any of those gamers.Gamers are fools they don\'t see what the other console has to offer, how many Sony and NIntendo fans would fall into that catagorie? A lot.They won\'t just see the X-Box and buy it,no.

Do you really believe gamers who have purchased a PS2 now have no intention of purchasing a new console for the next 4 years!!!

HELL YEAH!Like I said,those gamers are idiots,they stand by their console,they don\'t want anything else.Plus,why would people want X-Box when they are already satisfied with their system?

When rumours first suggested Microsoft had intentions to enter the console market, you couldn\'t find a console developer who had anything good or positive to say about Microsoft and their console\'s chances of success. Well look how times have changed, these same developers are now falling over each other to develope games on the XBox (Square may be next!). Most now expect it to be a great machine and feel that MS are doing a great job.

Yeah but developers and gamers have totally different views.Also,you didn\'t bother to quote the rest of that paragraph,why?It just explains how it seems that peope don\'t want an X-Box.

 

Neither did Sony before the Playstation, yet look at them today! So your point is?

Oh shut up.You and I perfectly know that that was a completly different scenario.Sony had it easy,MS doesn\'t, they have their work cut out for them as you can see.

We\'ll have to wait and see first!

No we don\'t,its a common fact.The lowest price objects sell better.

 

Only people like yourself.

Fool.I call it the Glitch-Box because it operates under Windows.I NEVER CALLED IT PORT-BOX you gimp.

 

Less biased gamers are able to use reason as realise that we have only know a fraction of the games to appear on the XBox. Even with the PS2, we only know a fraction of the games currently in developement.

LOL,they don\'t get any less biased than me.

 

Ports of the best games exists on EVERY system, including the PS2, and gamers want to play them.

Whats your point?PS2 has the big developers,they make games on PS2 before they do on X-Box.If people already have them on one system then why the **** would they want them on another system?

 

It doesn\'t make sense to you, but it makes sence for most others!

No just to you.

I\'ve read numerous interviews where developers (such as EA) expect the XBox and PS2 to be the leading consoles. I\'m sure with a bit of searching I can find these links, however I doubt you could find many who would say the same about the GC (except GC only developers that is )!

Go ahead,find where they say PS2 and X-Box will be the leading consoles.I doubt that would be true anyway.

Originally posted by drcrumble
lol, this is getting quite annoying.

he said he would eat a broom if xbox could do something that only utilizes 50% of gc\'s power. That is the same as saying xbox is less than 50% as powerful as gc (unless he likes eating brooms...).

he did not say "I will eat a broom if a geforce 2 can do our demo", he said "I will eat a broom if xbox can do our demo"

So what! Let me say it AGAIN, he indicated he would be surprised if XBox (yes final hardware) could do the Rouge Squadron 2 demo, he done this with his \'eat a broom\' comment. He never once said XBox couldn\'t do it, but he indicated he would be surprised if it could, does it sink in now, sheeeesh.

Originally posted by drcrumble
lol, he didn\'t even wait till the end of his post to make a judgment! he said he would eat a damn broom if xbox could do it! I\'d call that a judgment.

I\'d call that opinion, BTW do you even know what the comment is supposed to mean?

Originally posted by drcrumble
and if he was judging xbox based on what a geforce 2 can do, then he is just being ignorant and shortsighted, which gives us a window into his character.

He used the GeForce 2 GTS equipped XDK as an EXAMPLE to make a preliminary comparison between the two consoles, however he said he was waiting for final XBox Hardware to make a final judgment.

Originally posted by drcrumble
I love how complicated you make it sound.

as long as they know opengl, all they would have to learn are a few gamecube specific opengl functions. Couldn\'t take more than a day to learn (assuming they are experienced programmers, as they should be working for EA), and a week to implement into a simple benchmark.

I love how you say simple benchmark, you’ve proved my point entirely. Why do you assume it would only take a week to, as I said, "receive, learn, understand and max out the Gamecube Hardware", that is exactly what you\'re assuming. I agree that some minor optimizations can be made in a short period of time to such a benchmark for increased performance. However pushing the console to it\'s absolute limits in a week (which is barely time to understand how the hardware works) is absolutely idiotic. It may only a simple Benchmark program but given more time with the Hardware means more of an understanding and improved optimizations can be made to the benchmark source code. The fact that the Gamecube uses the OpenGL API, doesn\'t mean sh[/i]it, the Hardware is still completely new and foreign, getting max performance in a week is preposterous.

Originally posted by drcrumble[/b]
Not a very foreign and unknown platform. A new platform that uses opengl and has a few platform-specific functions to take advantage of its few unique features.

oh yeah, not a "pc benchmark", either. An opengl benchmark.

You think Gamecube (with a very different and unusual architecture) can be maxed out in a week because you can port then optimize (PC Based, i.e - designed to run on PC Hardware) OpenGL benchmark programs on the console. Furthermore to suggest Gamecube has \'a few platform-specific functions\' is ridiculous, just look at it\'s architectural design while simple it is nothing like a PC.

BTW, what\'s OpenGL anyway...by golly a PC API.

Originally posted by drcrumble
Unless developers are going to code in assembly (suuuuuurrre), there is no alternative to opengl. It is gamecube\'s API.

No I said a custom API designed specifically for the Hardware, whether this is based upon OpenGL or not who knows.

Originally posted by drcrumble
severely bandwidth limited?

thats what vertex, texture, and Z compression are for.

If you can handle the truth I suggest you check out this article:

http://www.ddj.com/articles/2000/0008/0008a/0008as1.htm

in which abrash explains how xbox has sufficient bandwidth to handle 100 mpps...

...even while the cpu is using its full bandwidth allocation (1gb/sec), bandwidth is reduced by 1.3 gb/sec to account for the natural innefficiencies or memory, 4x anti-aliasing is used.

He also didn\'t take into HSR, nor did he take into account vertex compression (which he explains at then end of the article could\'ve freed up more than 1 gb/sec of bandwidth).

You can do your own calculations if you want to check his work....

I hope that clears up the whole bandwidth issue

So what about the requirement to store Frame Buffers/Z-Buffer in Main memory, what about memory latency issues with the CPU, GPU, MPU accessing the same bank of memory at the same time or how about the bandwidth required for the media processor (sound).

Also vertex data is not very Bandwidth consuming so the 100 MPPS is meaningless when discussing Bandwidth.

Originally posted by drcrumble
bottom line:

Despite the fact that the p3 in xbox will have half the cache of gekko, if gekko\'s cache is running slower than the core, or is inferior in other ways (say 4 way associative as opposed to 8 way associative), it could still be slower! size doesn\'t matter!

Size does matter, in the XBox\'s case more CPU Cache is extremely important due to the consoles UMA architecture, therefore the less it has to access Main RAM for data the better. More Cache simply means less Cache misses and since Cache is obviously embedded Cache Hits means more workload for the CPU, grabbing data from Main RAM is much slower and is more likely if you have less Cache. The severe lack of Cache is why the EE and it\'s Vector units in Playstation 2 will not and can not ever be fully maxed out.


BTW Common sense suggests that the CPU Cache speed in Gamecube would be equal to the CPU core speed.

Originally posted by drcrumble
it\'s really more or less equal....

here\'s an unfair comparison. Keep in mind that the ps2\'s effective fillrate will decrese whenever polys are less than 16 pixels in size. But, I am assuming that xbox\'s memory bandwidth will limit it to 350 mp/sec (conservative), but the Z compression and HSR will bring it back up to 700 mp/sec (also conservative IMO). BTW, I know you will probably banter something like "now we see the problems with xbox\'s UMA", but if you know anything you will know that. Oh yes, you may have also seen a figure of 2.4 gb/sec for ps2, but that\'s with no texture.


                XBox       Playstation 2
1 texture:   700 mp/sec     1.2 gp/sec
2 textures:  700 mp/sec     600 mp/sec
3 textures:  350 mp/sec     300 mp/sec
4 textures:  350 mp/sec     150 mp/sec

this really gives xbox the advantage. Yes, ps2 has a substantial lead when only texture is used, but at 640X480 all of that extra fillrate just goes to waste. There would have to be more than 50x overdraw to actually put all of that extra fillrate to use. The main thing to look at is that xbox could handle 4 textures, while GS would probably be fillrate limited.

It\'s irrelevant whether Playstation 2 uses 16 pixels per poly or 1, a 640 x 480 resolution will always require the same fill rate. Playstation 2\'s raw fill rate is 2.4 Gigapixels per second compared to XBox\'s 1 Gigapixel per second. Now since the NV2A has 4 TMU\'s per pixel pipeline it can apply 2 texture maps per pixel in one cycle (or 4 textures per pixel through each geometry pass), so if a polygon consists of 10 pixels the first TMU can use the first 10 pixels for the first texture map, and the second TMU can apply the second 10 pixel texture map all with no hit in fill rate. Playstation 2\'s fill rate is cut in half for every successive texture map applied so 1 texture map is 1.2 Gigapixels, 2 texture maps is 600 Megapixels and so on. XBox takes a hit if applying more then two textures per pixel, so for 3 or 4 textures per pixel XBox would require two cycles and take a 50% fill rate hit whereas Gamecube can do 4 textures per pixel without a fill rate hit.

Vertex compression (Z-Compression) has nothing to do with fill rates and HSR is certainly not true HSR in the Power VR sense, it could simply use an early Z-Check algorithm like Gamecube for all we know.

My initial point though was that Playstation 2\'s raw 2.4 Gigapixel fill rate is more then twice as high as XBox\'s 1 Gigapixel fill rate, that was not meant to be implied as in real world situations, we both know XBox kills Playstation 2 there.

Originally posted by drcrumble
hehe...

care to explain how EA got gc to use 8 local lights with only 4 light maps...that\'s kind of ummm....impossible...

and oh yeah, that xbox spec is with 8 texture effect layers...unless xbox can use 8 local lights with only 2 light maps...yes, that\'s impossible too.

What are you talking about, I said  "14 million PPS with four texture effect layers + all other effects on", texture effect layers (such as gloss, bump, environment) have nothing to do with hardware lights, where you got light maps from or why you even brought them up is anybody’s guess.

Originally posted by drcrumble
lol...

not only were the ping pong and butterfly demos not pre-rendered, they were running on a geforce 2! hahahhhahahahah!!

about the raven demo, it depends on which you are talking about. There were pre-rendered and real-time versions. The real-time one of course looked worse, but it was also running on a geforce 2.

That\'s funny, why do the EGM released XBox pics (running on a GeForce 2 GTS equipped XDK) look nothing like those demos.

Originally posted by drcrumble
I would expect the gamecube demos to destroy the xbox one\'s at this point. They are running on a geforce 2...get over it...

Speaking of GeForce 2 GTS, well I can\'t help but bring this point up -

First look at this picture. -

http://www.geocities.com/drcruzumble/xboxhi2.jpg

Notice the fine print in the top right hand corner (next to the X), it basically says that any picture marked with an X is an actual XBox screen shot running off of the current XDK (1st gen XBox dev kit), the final product will look 50% better.

If im not mistaken a 1st generation XBox dev kit consists of a GeForce 2 GTS, does this mean that NV2A is only twice as powerful as these folowing in game pics -

http://www.geocities.com/drcruzumble/xboxhi1.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/drcruzumble/xboxhi3.jpg

A picture does speak 1000 words, and if that\'s not proof that Microsoft will have their work cut out for them in competing with Gamecube then I don\'t know what is.

Oh BTW, wasn\'t the Raven Demo only using 5% of XBox\'s power, compared to the pictures of the games I know what looks better.

Originally posted by drcrumble
oh yeah, not to mention that they were made by pipeworks software, a small, new dev house made up of about 20 guys, in a very short amount of time.

Who know\'s how long Nintendo\'s massive, legendary dev house EAD had been perfecting those gc demos, and Julian recently confimed that rs2 demo took factor 5 more like 6 months than two weeks to make.

19 days using actual Hardware yes, projects like the Rouge Squadron 2 Demo (that will become a fully fledged game) need preparation time, how do we know for sure Pipeworks didn\'t take months in developing the XBox demo\'s, it\'s exactly the same scenario from both angles so don\'t be a hypocrite.

Originally posted by drcrumble
The wait won\'t be long now. The console and controller are going to be shown at CES on jan 6-9, and actual games are going to be shown at microsoft\'s gamestock, which will be sometime around feb/mar, then of course there\'s GDC and E3....

From what i\'ve seen so far im far from impressed, maybe it\'s just me but an overhyped hybrid Saturn/3DO with a hybrid Dreamcast/Gamecube controller with crappy looking games and multitudes of potential PC ports doesn\'t exactly appeal to me, maybe my standards are too high, then again maybe yours are too low. I suggest the later.

[Edited by Trintius on 01-03-2001 at 11:30 PM]

Originally posted by Jumpman
The casual gamer doesn\'t even know what the X-Box is yet, and when did EA state this?I think they meant X-Box will be PS2 biggest competition since there both aimed at a mature audience.

I think casual gamers are more aware than you give them credit for, and after MS\'s marketing campaign kicks in this year, everyone will know about the XBox whether they want to or not.

And yes, I think the EA comments were along those lines, including reference to the fact that Nintendo targets a different (i.e. younger) audience. Because of this, he expected the GC to be very successful, but NOT as successful as the PS2 or XBox, which he believes will be fighting for first and second place.

Now I know this all sounds a bit vague without the link, but it was from an interview I read on a website or a magazine. However, since EA announced their XBox support less than a month ago, it shouldn\'t take me long to find that interview.

A NGC headstart will still be an advantage.People these days have no patience, they won\'t wait for very long.( Since PS2 wasn\'t at stores this holiday season some people bought DC instead,that was the case here.)[/B]

Yes JM, they bought a DC, but do you now expect none of them to buy a PS2? Those who bought a DC will enjoy the games it has to offer, but as more and more games are realised on the PS2, and as the price drops, together with the arrival of the GC and XBox, many of these gamers will eventually buy a new console.

Hence I\'m not saying gamers will not buy a PS2 because they\'re waiting on the XBox (although some will). What I\'m saying is that gamers buy consoles for games, and if a console has the games they want to play and mindblowing graphics, then they will want to buy it EVEN if they already own a console.

This isn\'t the same argument.What does X-Box have over other consoles?NOTHING.HD-big deal,a built in modem would of been better.

[/b]

A built in 33k/56k modem compared to a built in broadband adapter (ethernet) and HD?

Yeh, that modem sure made the Dreamcast a massive success didn\'t it?

And you know this,how?Gamers tend to stand by their system, Micorsoft doesn\'t have any of those gamers.Gamers are fools they don\'t see what the other console has to offer, how many Sony and NIntendo fans would fall into that catagorie? A lot.They won\'t just see the X-Box and buy it,no.[/b]

Ms doesn\'t have many of those gamers YET, but as I said, gamers go where the games are. Sure, many gamers stand by their systems and are often dismissive of exclusive titles on other systems, but this loyality only lasts as long as their chosen console provides the games they want to play.

MS are not stupid, they know they have a tough battle ahead against the likes of Sony and Nintendo, therefore they recognise the need for having the BEST developers creating the BEST games. So far, they appear to have done everything right, and if Square confirm they\'re supporting the XBox also, then better still.

HELL YEAH!Like I said,those gamers are idiots,they stand by their console,they don\'t want anything else.Plus,why would people want X-Box when they are already satisfied with their system?[/b]

Your arguement seems to be based on the premise that most gamers are fools. I don\'t share your views.

And as for your XBox question. Well why would a DC owner want a PS2 when he\'s already satisfied with his system? The DC has had some awesome games this year, and continues to do so, yet there are numerous DC gamers who have NOW purchased a PS2!

Yeah but developers and gamers have totally different views.Also,you didn\'t bother to quote the rest of that paragraph,why?It just explains how it seems that peope don\'t want an X-Box.[/b]

Developers create the games we want to play (or didn\'t you realise that! ). So even if you have objections against a certain console, your views WILL change as you see more and more of the games you want to play appear on that machine.

Gamers views are NOT fixed. Even the most biased gamer may switch allegence if he feels another console is getting the games he wants to play. Just look at some of the posts in this forum following the EA XBox announcement, and look for the same to happen again if Square announce XBox support too.

As for the rest of that paragraph on polls. It explains nothing, most polls are laughable as best and are easily mis-interpreted.

Sony\'s PSX had the SAME rating amounst gamers when compared to Nintendo and Sega prior to 1995 (since MOST console gamers had either a SNES or a MegaDrive). However, the closer we got to the PSX launch, the more we learnt about the console and it\'s games, such that gamers soon had no doubt that the PSX would be an awesome machine.

Therefore the polls we see today show an XBox rating MUCH improved compared to just 9 months ago when MS offically announced the machine. So expect that rating to increase as the year progresses!

Oh shut up.You and I perfectly know that that was a completly different scenario.Sony had it easy,MS doesn\'t, they have their work cut out for them as you can see.

That\'s nonsence based on nothing more than hindsight. It amuses me how people like yourself can now look back and say Sony had it easy when at the time neither you or I could have predicted it!. Sure, Sega and Nintendo made big mistakes which gave Sony the opportunity, however if the PSX was not a great machine, then Sony would not have been able to take advantage of their mistakes!

IMO, saying Sony had it easy does a GREAT disservice to the brilliance of their efforts towards making the PSX a success. Sony turned gaming from being viewed by many as an activity for kids and geeks, to being cool and accepatable. Hence Sony won fair and square, they EARNED their success, it was NOT given to them on a plate!

As I\'ve said already, I\'m not saying it\'s going to be easy for the XBox, of course it isn\'t, but looking at what MS have done so far, they have done almost everything right so far. Like Sony before them, MS will also have to earn their success in the console market.

Fool.I call it the Glitch-Box because it operates under Windows.I NEVER CALLED IT PORT-BOX you gimp.
[/b]

Stop playing with words JM. You made the \'some call it the port-box\' reference and immediately followed that comment by asking why anyone would want to play ports! Therefore you support that \'port-box\' claim, even if you didn\'t directly say it.

And why do you feel the need to get personal?

Whats your point?PS2 has the big developers,they make games on PS2 before they do on X-Box.[/b]

The PS2 is OUT NOW, so of course many games are going to appear on the PS2 first. However, many games in developement now which are destined for both PS2 and XBox are being developed for BOTH PS2 and XBox simulataneously. Therefore, once the XBox is launched, you will start to see games which appear on the XBox first, followed by the PS2 version (and vice-versa). So will you ignore an awesome game on the PS2 just because it\'s a port of the XBox version? I doubt it.

As the years go on, each format will have it\'s fair share of exclusive games and ports.

Go ahead,find where they say PS2 and X-Box will be the leading consoles.I doubt that would be true anyway.
[/B]

See my reply a the beginning.


[Edited by Dr Yassam on 01-04-2001 at 01:11 PM]

soulgrind
"Really its up and down. The ps2 does more polygons with full effects..
But the Gamecube does more effects with less polygons."

what does this mean? First, you said the gcn is more powerful with 4 hwd lights ect producing 14 pps then you said " the ps2 does more polygons with full effects.. but the gamecube does more effects with less polygons."

Tell me if i\'m wrong, r you trying to say that ps2 does less effects than gamecube but produces more polygons? that the gcn does more effects but produces less polygons?

As far as benchmarking from ea, the 14pps with 4 hwd light and rendering, that\'s quite alot of pps.  Could you say the same thing to ps2?

So what! Let me say it AGAIN, he indicated he would be surprised if XBox (yes final hardware) could do the Rouge Squadron 2 demo, he done this with his \'eat a broom\' comment. He never once said XBox couldn\'t do it, but he indicated he would be surprised if it could, does it sink in now, sheeeesh.

he said he would be surprised if xbox could do something that he himself said only requires around 50% of gc\'s power. Wouldn\'t you call that bad judgement, especially considering now he has changed his tune and is saying they are equal to each other (which we have no reason to believe, considering how obviously off he was on his previous comment).

Are we going in circles, or is it just me?

Just admit that he made a bad call on the power of the xbox before, and that there is no reason he couldn\'t have done it again in this ign cube interview.

I\'d call that opinion, BTW do you even know what the comment is supposed to mean?

opinion? sorry, but he is not talking about why he likes flowers, or why his favorite color is green, he is talking about a very finite fact.

Whether or not the xbox will be able to do the star wars demo. He says no.

Yes, I know what that expression means. It means you are so damn sure of something that if it ends up not being so you will "eat a broom" (usually a hat here in the states).

Aparently he was very sure that xbox would not be able to do the star wars demo, and aparently he now realizes he was very wrong.

he better get to work on that broom...

He used the GeForce 2 GTS equipped XDK as an EXAMPLE to make a preliminary comparison between the two consoles, however he said he was waiting for final XBox Hardware to make a final judgment.

he made his judgement, he was wrong. Now he makes another judgement, in which he essentially states xbox is twice as powerful as he used to think it was.

the man doesnt seem to be the best judge of things....

ok, moving on

I\'m not even going to bother with the stuff about "maxing out" gc. It\'s obvious you don\'t understand the concept of portable code, or will ever admit that gc is only unique enough to only have a few unique opengl functions, or will ever realize that developers don\'t have to completely understand hardware unless they are programming in assembly (which will never happen), so it\'s not worth my time.

No I said a custom API designed specifically for the Hardware, whether this is based upon OpenGL or not who knows.

It does have something of a custom API. It\'s simply opengl with a few functions unique to gc.

So what about the requirement to store Frame Buffers/Z-Buffer in Main memory

hmph looks like you didn\'t read the article...here\'s a little quote:

Finally, there\'s 900 MBps for the z-buffer (again assuming z rejection three-quarters of the time), putting us pretty close to our bandwidth budget.

I guess thinking you might actual read something carefully without jumping to conclusions was expecting too much of you.

what about memory latency issues with the CPU, GPU, MPU accessing the same bank of memory at the same time

Abrash cut bandwidth by 1.3 gb/sec at the beginning of the article to address concerns like these.

or how about the bandwidth required for the media processor (sound).

I\'ll answer with another quote:

We\'ll allocate 25 MBps for audio

sound barely consumes any bandwidth, you should know that.

Also vertex data is not very Bandwidth consuming so the 100 MPPS is meaningless when discussing Bandwidth.

How very wrong you are. 100 mpps consumes about 2.6 gb/sec of bandwidth. That\'s quite a hefty chunk.

Also keep in mind that Abrash used 4x anti-aliasing in his numbers and didn\'t take into account vertex compression, which he says at the end of the article could free up 1 gb/sec more of bandwidth.

Size does matter, in the XBox\'s case more CPU Cache is extremely important due to the consoles UMA architecture, therefore the less it has to access Main RAM for data the better. More Cache simply means less Cache misses and since Cache is obviously embedded Cache Hits means more workload for the CPU, grabbing data from Main RAM is much slower and is more likely if you have less Cache. The severe lack of Cache is why the EE and it\'s Vector units in Playstation 2 will not and can not ever be fully maxed out.


BTW Common sense suggests that the CPU Cache speed in Gamecube would be equal to the CPU core speed.

yes, but cache speed and architecture matters more. Even assuming we the cache in gekko is equal to core speed, we still don\'t know its architecture.

nice to see you are still rambling on about memory. GC only has 600 mb/sec more bandwidth on the frontside bus than xbox, and neither of them will need close to their full allocations of memory, considering their gpu-centric architectures.

XBox takes a hit if applying more then two textures per pixel, so for 3 or 4 textures per pixel XBox would require two cycles and take a 50% fill rate hit whereas Gamecube can do 4 textures per pixel without a fill rate hit.

actually, most speculation on the net (specifically b3d)right now points to gc having only 2 TMUs, but you are free to your own speculations...

Vertex compression (Z-Compression) has nothing to do with fill rates

ummm...no...

z compression is automatic z-buffer compression, which would free up bandwidth for rendering and therefore increase xbox\'s memory bandwidth limited fillrate.

and HSR is certainly not true HSR in the Power VR sense, it could simply use an early Z-Check algorithm like Gamecube for all we know.

It\'s pretty safe to say it\'s not true tile-based rendering, but it\'s not safe to pass judgement on it the way you do.

My initial point though was that Playstation 2\'s raw 2.4 Gigapixel fill rate is more then twice as high as XBox\'s 1 Gigapixel fill rate, that was not meant to be implied as in real world situations, we both know XBox kills Playstation 2 there.

lol. Then what was even the point of bringing it up?

I can\'t wait for all these great ps2 games with no texture

What are you talking about, I said "14 million PPS with four texture effect layers + all other effects on", texture effect layers (such as gloss, bump, environment) have nothing to do with hardware lights, where you got light maps from or why you even brought them up is anybody’s guess.

Each light requires a light map, simple as that. Having 4 textures and only 8 light maps is kinda impossible...

That\'s funny, why do the EGM released XBox pics (running on a GeForce 2 GTS equipped XDK) look nothing like those demos.

yeah, i know!

malice puts those demos to shame! weird, eh?

Notice the fine print in the top right hand corner (next to the X), it basically says that any picture marked with an X is an actual XBox screen shot running off of the current XDK (1st gen XBox dev kit), the final product will look 50% better.

If im not mistaken a 1st generation XBox dev kit consists of a GeForce 2 GTS, does this mean that NV2A is only twice as powerful as these folowing in game pics -

Use your head for a second, please.

geforce 2 - 25 mpps
nv2a      - 125 mpps

this is an obvious error on the part of EGM, and it was cleared up at CES when bill and friends repeatedly pointed out that the demos they showed were using only 1/5 the power of final xbox hardware.

I love how people will blindly believe anything they read as long as it supports their beliefs.

A picture does speak 1000 words, and if that\'s not proof that Microsoft will have their work cut out for them in competing with Gamecube then I don\'t know what is.

only two of the games shown in these tiny pics are even running on xbox dev kits, the rest are taken from pc games. Remember, the green x thing.

Allow me compare a full controllable, functional game for xbox, running on hardware which is 1/5 of what final xbox hardware will do, to a gc tech demo cut scene running on final hardware:









Of course there is really no point. I expect you to just blindly proclaim superiority in the gc pics...sigh...

19 days using actual Hardware yes, projects like the Rouge Squadron 2 Demo (that will become a fully fledged game) need preparation time, how do we know for sure Pipeworks didn\'t take months in developing the XBox demo\'s, it\'s exactly the same scenario from both angles so don\'t be a hypocrite.

19 days on final hardware after 6 months on emulation kits...:rolleyes:

I remember a pipeworks interview where they say how long the demos took them (it wasn\'t long,and they only have 20 people working there), but I don\'t feel like searching so I\'ll drop it...

From what i\'ve seen so far im far from impressed, maybe it\'s just me but an overhyped hybrid Saturn/3DO with a hybrid Dreamcast/Gamecube controller with crappy looking games and multitudes of potential PC ports doesn\'t exactly appeal to me, maybe my standards are too high, then again maybe yours are too low. I suggest the later.

Spoken like a true Nintendo fanboy.

My Gosh... No wonder they call this the console debating forum. I thought this topic was long dead, and I come back and... BAM - theres 15 more long posts (haha - I\'ll let you debate it).


 Anyways, on those pics, the things that really pop out at me are the details and the textures (the NGC\'s pics are dark... you can\'t really see the wall\'s textures which were great)



 

Originally posted by Gohan

Originally posted by know-it-all-wanna-be
while ps2 power is 2 years ahead of any top of the line pc graphic chips.....

but they high end graphic chips still couldn\'t beat ps2 in polygons.....

see, most graphic chips have high meg of ram for texture and high resolution while ps2 have low vram but high polygon counts.....

 so far, no graphic chips have outperform ps2 polygons count but only outperform mb of vram...meaning its harder to makes more polygons than adding more vram.....

I beg to differ. Read this:

Introducing the game accelerator that breaks the one billion pixel per second barrier - the 3D Blaster® Annihilator™ 2 Ultra. Powered by the GeForce2 Ultra™, this incredible accelerator delivers massive fill rates of up to one billion pixels and two billion texels per second. Featuring the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR), the 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 Ultra includes advanced per-pixel shading capabilities for realistic visual effects. Plus 2nd-generation Transform and Lighting (T&L) engines render more than 31 million sustained triangles per second. And with 64MB of ultra-high-speed Double Data Rate (DDR) memory effectively operating at 460MHz with 7.36 GB/sec of dedicated graphics memory bandwidth, you have the power you need for the next-generation of 3D games! Best of all, the 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 Ultra includes everything you\'d expect from a cutting-edge 3D accelerator: 256-bit graphics architecture, AGP 4X with Fast Writes support, true color 32-bit 3D rendering, 32-bit Z/stencil buffer, DXTC and S3TC texture compression for Direct3D® and OpenGL® and superior video capabilities including MPEG1 and MPEG2 playback.

Taken from Buy.com

What was that you were saying about high-end graphics cards? Never say that a console is better than PC graphics cards let alone high-end graphics cards. That is unless you want to face the wrath of the PC Gaming 1337 [/B]

Whats wrong know-it-all? Did I call your bluff?

Originally posted by thy_toothpick
My Gosh... No wonder they call this the console debating forum. I thought this topic was long dead, and I come back and... BAM - theres 15 more long posts (haha - I\'ll let you debate it).


 Anyways, on those pics, the things that really pop out at me are the details and the textures (the NGC\'s pics are dark... you can\'t really see the wall\'s textures which were great)



   

Not really. The background was generally weak, save for one bump-mapped wall and some flasks and stuff on a table.

BTW, with all that power instore within the X Box and GC, will it surpass the power of PS2\'s Emotion Engine to create natural 3D motion and emotions?
When I look at those screenshots taken from the X Box and GC, I can only say, does this screenshot of Rinoa dancing with Squall in real time in PS2 change your mind?



Oooohh.... Yeah....!

sorry to burst your bubble but the rhinoa dancing scene was not using the actual ps2 hardware, was done on a supercomputer to simulate what the ps2 \'can\' do.