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[Hournda]

Playing old games on Revolution is awesome but they better not charge anything meaningful. Why pay money if you can just get them all for free off the web and play them on emulators?

 

[AniHawk]

I'd like to remind people, that while the GC figures were modest, they still gave the impression that the machine was in the same ballpark as its competitors.

Hardly. Remember that scorecard MS sent out that had the Xbox at 125 million pps max and the PS2 at 75 million pps? The GC was at like 12 million pps.

 

[Sho Nuff]

i worked for Got-Next for about....2 days. i can assure you, every single last contact i have, was done through mingling, not from working.

You're a freelance photog? What cameras you use?

 

[pringles]

So far, I'm very underwhelmed by the next generation. The last couple of days has made me realize that I want something more than just better graphics out of the new consoles.

I hope that Nintendo will have atleast something to show at their conference that isn't just sequels with better graphics.

And if that is indeed the final design, Rev easily wins the design war for me.

 

[mrklaw]

We haven't seen any Revolution games, and most of what we've seen of 360 and PS3 is not running on proper hardware, yet here everyone is saying "OMG Nintendo is doomed". I'm not surprised, but come on Gaffers... you're one of the smartest forums around, what's with all this stupidity late at night?

I think most of the posts on here are people wanting Nintendo to step up to the plate. To fight toe to toe with the big guns. They need to stop being modest and bloody some noses.

however you spin it, conservative figures or not, 2-3 times more than Gamecube is shit. That just about gets you Gamecube level graphics in 720p.

If they are not at least in the same ballpark as the other two, multiplatform publishers will start to drop them because it'll cost too much to develop for.


We just want some joy in our sad little lives, is that too much to ask for?

 

[ziran]

if revolution is graphically comparable to ps3, with new innovative ways to play it has a good chance of becoming the major console.

if it isn't, and has new innovative ways to play, revolution will be more niche than gc.

i just don't see how revolution stands a chance if the numbers kent quotes are relative to each other.

 

[Sho Nuff]

You'll be eating crow shortly my friend.

Source yourself or suffer mockery!

 

[Deleted member 284]

Hardly. Remember that scorecard MS sent out that had the Xbox at 125 million pps max and the PS2 at 75 million pps? The GC was at like 12 million pps.

Thats true. And then Star Wars RS came out at launch and (graphically) bitch slapped every other launch title.

 

[Merlin]

God you guys are stupid! Nintendo's the only one being honest about their specs. Microsoft says there system is 16 times powerful or something stupid yet most of the games look like shit or only very slightly better than Xbox! Nintendo said all this stuff before the GameCube's launch too yet most of the exclusives are comparable to Xbox. You should know by now that Nintendo downplays things just before E3 to surprise people at their conferences. They did exactly the same at the DS one with Iwata making all kinds of 'negative' comments.

 

[Timen]

i don't care how powerfull it is, i'm buying it anyway

 

[MrPing1000]

new sexy! the next gen is over nintendo wins for the fact it can stack with stuff!

i wudn't worry about the 2x-3x comment Nintendo ALWAYS gives cosnervative figures ALWAYS

 

[Deleted member 1235]

Wrong.


edit: Better yet. Source?

you are upset about what? 56k is old. what do you want, the machines to be held back by catering to a useless connections? sucks to be at the obsolete end of evolution, but thats where you are, it's progress after all. I mean the ps3 includes Gig ports. how insensitive to us 10Mbs dudes!!!

 

[Operations]

As soon as we now how much RAM it's going to have, we'll know if Nintendo will actually try to compete power-wise or not.

 

[The Gaming Gamer]

Their is a reason the controller has yet to been revealed...

 

[Virgin Wii]

Hardly. Remember that scorecard MS sent out that had the Xbox at 125 million pps max and the PS2 at 75 million pps? The GC was at like 12 million pps.

Who really believed that, anyway? It was the subject of mockery the internet over. :lol

'kay, I'll shut up now.

 

[Lindsay]

I doubt the numbers of people still using 56k outnumber those using Cable/DSL/T/broadband.

Sorry, but doubts /=/ proof.

I live in Wyoming, and have cable, and DSL is an option. Where the HELL do you live to not have them if I do?

It's not about where you live. It is about cost and relative usefulness of it. I've no intention of more then doubling or tripling what I pay for the 'net to play maybe one or two online games and in the Rev's case possibly downloading some when 56k works perfectly well for all of my PC needs.

btw Sega needs to revive the Dreamcast. It's online play was 56k perfection & it was the last good looking console (cause the Rev currently looks like the s-h-i-t word).

 

[Red Scarlet]

Because it's a DS, and to play 2-player you must buy another DS! FIGHT THE PSP or something.

Ok, so it's a choice then for you. You have no right to bitch then. You CHOOSE to stay slow.

Where's your proof? I'm talking about the ABILITY to have broadband. And because of where I live and have it, that's my source. I'm retarded trying to use search engines for 'sources'.

 

[Sho Nuff]

But Perrin actually said "you don't have to be turbo-powered," admitting that the box's emphasis isn't on power. Stop trying to twist what she's saying, you blinder-wearing lunatics!

I'm sure they'll reveal a proper "gimmick" or "hook" tomorrow morning which will blow us away.

 

[ziran]

you will not be disappointed by the Rev tomorrow. (err, in 7.5 hrs or so)

Li Mu Bai is trusted! so my faith is restored somewhat.

Nighttrain has been right on the money so far, so maybe...

6ish hrs to go.

 

[Spencerr]

Okay, I'm going to bed, leak anything else and I'll kill you all.

 

[Lindsay]

So all of you rich guys want to pay for me to get and remain broadband-enabled? If that's the case I'd best hurry and set up a Paypal account.

 

[Axiom]

I am again compelled to break years of lurking to say that this is exactly how I expected the PS3 to look, and it has now made me like the designs of the PS3, 360 and every console since the Dreamcast a lot less in comparison.

Now granted it's only one tiny picture, but it's a rather nice picture.

I don't expect Little Mac to beat Mike Tyson, but damn if I ain't pulling for him anyway.

 

[Shogmaster]

Proof?



http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

it says nothing about complex polygons

I had this saved on my HD so I don't remember where I got it from, but the same info was at number of different places:

Xenon Hardware Overview

By Pete Isensee, Development Lead, Xbox Advanced Technology Group

This documentation is an early release of the final documentation, which may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release, and is confidential and proprietary information of MS Corporation. It is disclosed pursuant to a nondisclosure agreement between the recipient and MS.
“Xenon” is the code name for the successor to the Xbox® game console from MS. Xenon is expected to launch in 2005. This white paper is designed to provide a brief overview of the primary hardware features of the console from a game developer’s standpoint.

Caveats
In some cases, sizes, speeds, and other details of the Xenon console have not been finalized. Values not yet finalized are identified with a “+” sign, indicating that the numbers may be larger than indicated here. At the time of this writing, the final console is many months from entering production. Based on our experience with Xbox, it’s likely that some of this information will change slightly for the final console.

For additional information on various hardware components, see the other relevant white papers.

Hardware Goals
Xenon was designed with the following goals in mind:

•Focus on innovation in silicon, particularly features that game developers need. Although all Xenon hardware components are technologically advanced, the hardware engineering effort has concentrated on digital performance in the CPU and GPU.

•Maximize general purpose processing performance rather than fixed-function hardware. This focus on general purpose processing puts the power into the Xenon software libraries and tools. Rather than being hamstrung by particular hardware designs, software libraries can support the latest and most efficient techniques.

•Eliminate the performance issues of the past. On Xbox, the primary bottlenecks were memory and CPU bandwidth. Xenon does not have these limitations.

Basic Hardware Specifications

Xenon is powered by a 3.5+ GHz IBM PowerPC processor and a 500+ MHz ATI graphics processor. Xenon has 256+ MB of unified memory. Xenon runs a custom operating system based on MS® Windows NT®, similar to the Xbox operating system. The graphics interface is a superset of MS® Direct3D® version 9.0.
CPU

The Xenon CPU is a custom processor based on PowerPC technology. The CPU includes three independent processors (cores) on a single die. Each core runs at 3.5+ GHz. The Xenon CPU can issue two instructions per clock cycle per core. At peak performance, Xenon can issue 21 billion instructions per second.

The Xenon CPU was designed by IBM in close consultation with the Xbox team, leading to a number of revolutionary additions, including a dot product instruction for extremely fast vector math and custom security features built directly into the silicon to prevent piracy and hacking.

Each core has two symmetric hardware threads (SMT), for a total of six hardware threads available to games. Not only does the Xenon CPU include the standard set of PowerPC integer and floating-point registers (one set per hardware thread), the Xenon CPU also includes 128 vector (VMX) registers per hardware thread. This astounding number of registers can drastically improve the speed of common mathematical operations.

Each of the three cores includes a 32-KB L1 instruction cache and a 32-KB L1 data cache. The three cores share a 1-MB L2 cache. The L2 cache can be locked down in segments to improve performance. The L2 cache also has the very unusual feature of being directly readable from the GPU, which allows the GPU to consume geometry and texture data from L2 and main memory simultaneously.
Xenon CPU instructions are exposed to games through compiler intrinsics, allowing developers to access the power of the chip using C language notation.
GPU

The Xenon GPU is a custom 500+ MHz graphics processor from ATI. The shader core has 48 Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) that can execute 64 simultaneous threads on groups of 64 vertices or pixels. ALUs are automatically and dynamically assigned to either pixel or vertex processing depending on load. The ALUs can each perform one vector and one scalar operation per clock cycle, for a total of 96 shader operations per clock cycle. Texture loads can be done in parallel to ALU operations. At peak performance, the GPU can issue 48 billion shader operations per second.

The GPU has a peak pixel fill rate of 4+ gigapixels/sec (16 gigasamples/sec with 4× antialiasing). The peak vertex rate is 500+ million vertices/sec. The peak triangle rate is 500+ million triangles/sec. The interesting point about all of these values is that they’re not just theoretical—they are attainable with nontrivial shaders.

Xenon is designed for high-definition output. Included directly on the GPU die is 10+ MB of fast embedded dynamic RAM (EDRAM). A 720p frame buffer fits very nicely here. Larger frame buffers are also possible because of hardware-accelerated partitioning and predicated rendering that has little cost other than additional vertex processing. Along with the extremely fast EDRAM, the GPU also includes hardware instructions for alpha blending, z-test, and antialiasing.

The Xenon graphics architecture is a unique design that implements a superset of Direct3D version 9.0. It includes a number of important extensions, including additional compressed texture formats and a flexible tessellation engine. Xenon not only supports high-level shading language (HLSL) model 3.0 for vertex and pixel shaders but also includes advanced shader features well beyond model 3.0. For instance, shaders use 32-bit IEEE floating-point math throughout. Vertex shaders can fetch from textures, and pixel shaders can fetch from vertex streams. Xenon shaders also have the unique ability to directly access main memory, allowing techniques that have never before been possible.

As with Xbox, Xenon will support precompiled push buffers (“command buffers” in Xenon terminology), but to a much greater extent than the Xbox console does. The Xbox team is exposing and documenting the command buffer format so that games are able to harness the GPU much more effectively.

 

[nubbe]

Nintendo better have something mindblowing to show... or there can only be a one console future

 

[RX178]

if the revolution support native 16:9 display, extremly high texture and no jaggles at all . do u think it's ok to be just 2.5 times the power of gamecube for 480P display?

will it be a great difference between 720P and a very good looking 480P games?

 

[imastalker co.]

You're a freelance photog? What cameras you use?

some shitty Canon A75 3 Mega Pixel camera with a broken LCD screen : /

only thing i've shot with though. i can't complain though, it's getting the job done. check out the portfolio. link is in my profile.

getting a Rebel XT either this week, or next though.

 

[Polari]

It's not about where you live. It is about cost and relative usefulness of it. I've no intention of more then doubling or tripling what I pay for the 'net to play maybe one or two online games and in the Rev's case possibly downloading some when 56k works perfectly well for all of my PC needs.

OK, so here's the deal: if you want broadband, and if you want to play the latest games online and take full advantage of next generation consoles, pay for broadband. If you don't think it's worth getting broadband, don't get it. More power to you. Just don't whine here about it.

Do you expect Nintendo to support people routing a Revolution through the 9600 baud modem on their Atari ST too?

btw Sega needs to revive the Dreamcast. It's online play was 56k perfection & it was the last good looking console (cause the Rev currently looks like the s-h-i-t word).

Now you're just trolling.

 

[PkunkFury]

ugh... since the controller didn't make the USA today article, does that mean we won't see it in the press conference tomorow? I really don't want to have to wait another couple months on the revolutionary feature stuff. If it ends up being something boring the wait will only make it seem worse.

 

[Pedigree Chum]

If Nintendo's system is underpowered they are done. Seriously, I really like their hardware design too...personally think it's the best I've ever seen, very Apple-esque.

 

[Monk]

Wow, thanks shog. It looks even more bleak for the GC now.

 

[CabbageRed]

The Xbox 360 games that are still looking pretty rough could end up looking similar or worse than a Nintendo game running at Nintendo's take on 2-3x faster.

 

[Polari]

By the way, I applaud Nintendo's design team. From what I can see in that picture, they've done some exceptional work, and are up there with the best of them.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

Source yourself or suffer mockery!

Get back to me after the unveiling Sho Nuff, you will kiss my converse, or I will kiss yours. I've already sourced my contacts btw.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Well we might as well wait (HAHAHA right) before we judge the graphics as it'll be revealed in 6 1/2 hours, but that download service sounds sweet.

That is, if it's free. Or at least cheap.

 

[Kai]

My God... I love the design...


I have to say this too, Manabyte, you mentioned to me that this was your guess for the Revolution over a year ago..... you were right.... good call man!

 

[Chrono]

I think I'm the only nintendo fan who doesn't like the design. :|

Better pics are needed...

And I don't think revolution will be underpowered. The same thing happened when gamecube was announced and IIRC nintendo said it'll push 5-6 million polygons. People compared that to sony's 50-60 million and went crazy.

Also nintendo made it clear many times that while it thinks next-gen isn't all about technology, they'll still match the competition (PS3) in terms of power.

 

[Industry insider]

Nintendo is in big trouble. The revolutionary aspect was it's banana-shaped controller, but Sony have copied it just as they feared.

 

[DIrtyWeasel]

I'm glad Nintendo didn't make this one look like a toy. DS is ugly, Revolution is hot.

Is there an official name for this console yet? I hope it's not Revolution... but if it is, it's still better than if the Gamecube's name were to have been Dolphin.

As of now I am almost 100% certain of getting PS3. Xbox 360 doesn't interest me so far, but neither did the original Xbox and I eventually ended up getting one.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

Well we might as well wait (HAHAHA right) before we judge the graphics as it'll be revealed in 6 1/2 hours, but that download service sounds sweet.

That is, if it's free. Or at least cheap.

It will be cheap.

 

[DaMan121]

LOL, for the Revolution to be only 2-3 times more powerfull than the NGC, IBM and ATI would have to take their existing products and neuter them, or maybe buy back old Radeon's off EBAY *rolleyes*

 

[Pedigree Chum]

I think I'm the only nintendo fan who doesn't like the design. :|

Yes. I'm not even a Nintendo fan and I think the design is fucking hot. HOTTEST GAME CONSOLE EVER.

 

[RX178]

if nintendo only target to display 16:9 480P display, the machine should not need to be very very powerful. e.g. ps3

a very good source DVD still looks very well compare to HDTV. consider that the rate of adoption of HDTV (1080p?), may be it's a better business model.
however, most of the consumer will be attract to buy ps3/x380 due to their higher spec.

 

[Sho Nuff]

Get back to me after the unveiling Sho Nuff, you will kiss my converse, or I will kiss yours. I've already sourced my contacts btw.

The search function is down for E3. Bollox!!!

I can't even change my avatar back to

!

 

[VALIS]

It will be cheap.

Because...?

 

[ziran]

thinking about it, blown up resolution aside, the new zelda pics are what i'd expect from x2 gc. so perrin's 2-3x gc sounds way off.

 

[Sho Nuff]

"Sony said Monday that the processor in Play-Station 3, which will come in several colors and be out next spring, will be 35 times more powerful than the PS2 processor."

Holy shit, the processor itself comes in different colors?

 

[CabbageRed]

I think I'm the only nintendo fan who doesn't like the design. :|

No. All I see is a black rectangle. Of all the consoles, it has the least personality in my eyes. No idea what other people are seeing.

 

[MattCoz]

What's so great looking about it? Besides the kick ass glowing slot drive. I'm personally hoping its available in silver.

 

[Virgin Wii]

I think I'm the only nintendo fan who doesn't like the design. :|

I'm a Nintendo fan and I don't like it. I'll wait for better pics though, because due to the size of the pic it just looks like a non-descript block to me right now.

 

[miyuru]

I got a Wavebird and am genuinely unhappy with it so shutup! There's 2 parts to controller grip. The handles and the wire. The handles are obivously where the hands go. But the overlooked part it the wire which helps keep controller position in check so you're not flailing the thing around all over the place. Get that wire between your knees or something and you got stability, it's sorta like those steering wheel controllers in a way. I won't even get into lack of rumble and all the problems that come along with being battery powered (rechargable or not).

:lol :lol :lol

Since when is the FUCKING WIRE part of gripping a controller? Holy shit, you're nuts. Lord knows what other motor deficiencies you are victim to.

Back to reality. Does anyone really think Nintendo, who've never sold new versions of their older games cheaply, will start selling classic game downloads for a buck each? Or, for crying out loud, free? Hey, I'd like to see it, but that would be one hell of a change in philosophy.

Then again, Revolution's design is a HUGE change in philosophy for Nintendo.