An interesting article

A non-biased in-depth XBox/PS2 hardware comparision
We all know about Microsoft\'s announcement of the incredible XBox specifications.  It looks as if the XBox will be alot more powerful than any other next-gen console.
But is this really true? Let\'s take a closer look at the hardware of the XBox and PS2.


The CPU

Ofcourse, the Central Processing Unit, the heart of every computer or console. Most of the calculations take place here. The XBox has a Intel Pentium(3?) processor which runs
at a clockspeed of 733MHz. That\'s alot higher than the 300MHz at which the PS2 CPU is running. But does that make the CPU better? Nope.

Here\'s why the PS2 CPU (Emotion Engine) is alot more powerful:

-Data bus, cache memory as well as all registers are 128 bits on the PS2 CPU while the XBox CPU is 32 bits.
-The 32MB of Direct Rambus DRAM are implemented on the CPU itself.
-It has a max. performance of 6.2GFLOPS while the XBox CPU can only do a bit over 3 GFLOPS.
-It incorporates two 64-bit integer units (IU) with a 128-bit SIMD multi-media command unit, two independent floating point vector calculation units (VU0, VU1), an MPEG 2
decoder circuit (Image Processing Unit/IPU) and high performance DMA controllers.

Okay now what does this mean? It means that the PS2 can handle heavier physics and 3D engines (and can do more accurate realistic visual effects like splashing water and
explosions). It also means that the PS2 can handle alot more sophisticated Artificial Intelligence programming so that you have intelligent human-like opponents. The CPU also
has direct access to the main memory which speeds everything up quite a bit. And with a floating point calculation performance of 6.2GFLOPS/second, the overall calculation performance of this new CPU matches that of a super computer. This is a completely new CPU architecture especially designed for sophisticated graphics and physics while the architecture of the XBox CPU is pretty old and simple.


The Graphics Chip and VRAM

This is where the images are rendered. The XBox uses an Nvidia Graphics Processing Unit running at 250MHz and the PS2 uses the Graphics Synthesizer running at 150MHz.
Again, judging by these specs the XBox looks better.
The XBox GPU has a few advantages over the PS2 GS, for example:

-The XBox GPU can do 125 million polygons while the PS2 GS can only do 75million polygons
-The XBox GPU has a max. resolution of 1920x1080 and the PS2 GS can do 1280x1024
The rest of the graphics chip will be comparable to NV-20 chip.

But the catch is that these advantages don\'t make alot of difference on a TV screen, evenon an HDTV screen the difference would be barely noticeable (when the console\'s hardware is used properly).  So, is the XBox Graphics Processing Unit better than the PS2 GS? It doesn\'t look like it, the architecture of the PS2 GS looks far more advanced. For example, PS2 has a parallel rendering engine that contains a 2,560 bit wide data bus that is 20 times the size of leading PC-based graphics accelerators. The Graphics Synthesizer architecture can execute recursive multi-pass rendering processing and filter operations at a very fast speed without the assistance of the main CPU or main bus access. In the past, this level of real-time performance was only achieved when using very expensive,
high performance, dedicated graphics workstations. There is a 48-Gigabyte memory access bandwidth achieved via the integration of the pixel logic and the video memory on a
single high performance chip.The quality of the resulting screen image is comparable to high quality pre-rendered 3D graphics. (that is once the game developers have learned
how to use it properly) There has also been a misunderstanding about the VideoRAM on the PS2. The VRAM is included in the 32MB of main RAM on the CPU (the developer chooses how much of it he wants to dedicate to VRAM). Everyone thought the 4MB of memory on the GS was the VRAM while that is just a buffer in which all the rendering is done so no external bandwidth is needed (only for texture streaming). Another rumour that\'s been spread by several gaming sites is that the XBox is capable of texture compression and full scene anti-aliasing while the PS2 isn\'t. This is simply not true. The PS2 can compress/decompress textures and do full scene anti-aliasing without causing as much slow-down as on the XBox. And although the XBox GPU can do alot of effects that are
not \'built-in\' in the PS2 GS, the PS2 can do all these effects and more in software mode (but atleast at the same quality) through the Emotion Engine.

I can understand that this is all a bit confusing if you\'re not a real tech-freak. It comes down to this: when developers have learned how to use the power of the PS2
GS properly they\'ll get alot more out of it than XBox developers will get out of the XBox GPU. The PS2 GS can\'t do as much polygons as the XBox but this difference won\'t
be noticeable on a TV screen. The PS2 GS can do alot more advanced visual effects than the XBox GPU.


The RAM

This is the main memory of a console or computer system. There isn\'t much to say about the RAM. XBox has twice as much RAM as the PS2. Will this give the XBox a huge
advantage? Not at all, let\'s take a look at how the PS2 accesses the RAM:

-32MB Direct RDRAM 2 channels at 800MHz implemented on the CPU itself.

This means that the PS2\'s powerful Emotion Engine can manipulate the data stored in the RAM atleast twice as fast as the XBox can access its memory. This is very important
cause all data is stored there (even the graphics because the VRAM is included in those
32MB of RAM). Judging by the information that Microsoft has released it looks like the
PS2 can also compress and decompress images faster than the XBox because of the
implementation of the MPEG2 decoder on the CPU. Even if they increase the RAM on the
XBox to 128MB, PS2 still has the advantage here.


The Sound Chip

This is where the XBox does beat the PS2. The XBox has 64 sound channels while the PS2
has 48. This won\'t make the noticeable difference though. What will is that the XBox
sound chip is designed for interactive and variable CD quality music which means that
the music in games can (if the developers use the feature) change and adapt itself to
the gameplay. The PS2 sound chip is simply designed for \'precalculated\' CD music.
It\'s possible to do interactive music on the PS2, it\'s just a bit harder to program
(but certainly not impossible, just listen carefully to SSX) than on the XBox which
is why you\'ll probably see more XBox games with interactive music.


Backwards Compatibility and PC ports

As you probably already know, the PS2 can play all old Playstation games and even enhance
the graphics and speed up loading times. This gives the PS2 a huge advantage ofcourse. But the XBox has another advantage over the PS2: PC ports. It\'s very easy for a PC game developer to create an XBox version of his game because the XBox hardware design looks alot like that of a PC. And while the PS2\'s hardware architecture is superior to that of the XBox, it\'s alot more difficult to make a PS2 version of a PC game because of the huge difference in hardware designs. If a PC developer wants to port a PC game to the XBox he just has to make some modifications in the programming code. But if a PC developer wants to port a PC game to the PS2 he has to rewrite most of the programming
code. Ofcourse, in time the developers will get used to the PS2 hardware and they\'ll be able to make great PC to PS2 ports.


Conclusion

Microsoft did a great job at making the XBox look alot better than the PS2 while in reality the PS2 is alot more powerful. Specifications are just there for marketing
purposes. Like they probably made you believe that a 128bits console is always 4 times better than a 32 bits console, which is total bull****. Ofcourse 128bits is better but it doesn\'t make alot of difference. And now Microsoft is trying to make you believe that the XBox is better cause the CPU clockspeed (733MHz) is alot higher than that of all the other consoles. In the end it\'s the architecture of the hardware that makes the difference. And the PS2\'s architecture is simply revolutionary. The graphics of the launch titles were great but they\'ll get alot better next year because the developers are still getting used to the PS2 hardware. Developers like Square (just look at The Bouncer) and Konami (MGS2? Zone Of Enders?) already learned how to do some cool tricks on the PS2, and this is just the beginning. The PS2\'s hardware has alot more depth to it and so you\'ll see a huge evolution in graphics while the XBox hardware is alot simpler and the developers will have pushed it to the max pretty soon.
Yes, XBox is easier to program for but by the time it comes out developers will already know how to use the power of the PS2. The overall PS2 hardware architecture is alot more
innovative and powerful than that of the XBox.

I\'m not so sure if he\'s right about the GPU\'s, but he seems to know what he\'s talking about. :cool:

I can guarantee you that this generation will not be decided on which machine can render a more accurate splash of water.

Im not sure the article is entirely accurate - the RDRAM on the PS2 is not embedded on the EE, the VRAM is embedded on the GS (which accounts for the huge bandwidth). As I understand it, in simple terms, the PS2 favours flexibility in how you achieve a result (programmable VUs), while the X-Box has a large array of nice rendering features & effects available from the word go.

Also Im pretty sure the way the scene is rendered on the PS2 and X-Box differs somewhat, graphics on the X-Box is solely down to the GPU where the world is constructed and rendered. The PS2 has this split over two components (the EE & GS) - the EE handles the geometery before the information is piped to the GS where it draws the scene.

Of course I might be horribly wrong, if thats the case, please put me right.

-bd

Wow, didn\'t know that the Emotion Engine and the Grapics-syntesizer are that innovative. Seems like future PS2-games will look as good as the X-Box\'s games.
But the X-Box still has an advantage when it comes to textures and effects (Per-pixel-shading, Dot3-Bump-mapping etc.).

Great article.

Because this article has harware comparison between PS2 and XBOX I think this belongs to the console debating.

Could you put up a link to this article because this person has no clue what they are talking about?  Go read about the Geforce3 at Anandtech or Tom\'s Hardware.

Anandtech article-
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1426

Tom\'s Hardware article-
http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q1/010227/index.html

It has a bunch of features that no other GPU has.