is XBN being irresponsible by publishing such outrageous spec for Xenon?

X

xexex

Banned
okay get this (for those of you who have not read it) in the Feb XBN, on page 20, they wrote:

"insiders expect ATI's R500 to promise 10 times the polygon power and four times the pixel power of ATI's Radeon X800 XT chip-in other words, around 5 billion triangles per second and a 30 billion pixel per second fill rate, give or take some billions. With those sorts of numbers, we're not sure whether to laugh or just sit back and smile"


5 billion polygons/triangles and 30 billion pixel fillrate---what the hell?

Now, if you go back and look at the leaked Xenon document, which has been called fairly accurate by some of those actually working on its games (arguably) you will see it lists Xenon's performance at around 500 million polygons/triangles and 4 billion pixel fill rate. there's a seemingly huge difference between these two sets of specifications.

which one is right--I mean, which one is likely to be close to the truth?
 
Dedicated fan magazines have been publishing completely pie-in-the-sky specs for upcoming consoles from their manufacturer of choice since the 80s. There's nothing new here.
 
30 Gigapixels doesn't seem totally out of the bounds of possibility? Xbox had 4 (well it didn't really, but that was the spec they put out).

And the polygon figure? Hmm, not so sure. Don't know.
 
in truth, Xbox fillrate is 0.9 gigapixels per second or 932 million pixels per second fillrate to be precise. 1.8+ gigatexels ~ 1864 million texels per second. I think it would be grand if Xenon had ~30 times the fillrate of Xbox.

yes the original Xbox spec for fillrate was said to be 4.8 gigapixels ~ 4800 million pixels per second. if that's how they're measuring Xenon fillrate, then it's only just over 6 times higher. i'm a bit confused. at the end of the day specs only matter in that they are a pallete for developers to create software. look at Biohazard / Resident Evil 4. it's delishious in visuals & gameplay & fun. more specs just mean greater games in the end. so it's still somewhat important.......(sorry if im going from one subject to another...ive been up all damn night playing RE4, just now getting some coffee...)
 
5 billion polygons/triangles and 30 billion pixel fillrate---what the hell?
Click to expand...
The 4x/10x increase for pixel/geometry power number, comes directly from leaked Xenon specs - but it NEVER refers to fillrate or polygon throughput, it's a reference to shader power.

The XBN quote is just a case of the writer not having a good understanding of the numbers he's been told, but running with his reasoning anyway, because it makes good sensationalistic article.
 
They could say the processor is 500 trillion gHz if they wanted to and it would still be meaningless. Until we see actual playable games specsheets are just for tech fanboys to get big boners over.
 
Specifications of the graphics engine the Xbox 2 console is reported to have impress much: the chip seems to have 10 times higher geometry and 4 times higher pixel performance compared to the RADEON X800 XT. In case the same applies to the desktop R500, then next year we will see processors outperforming today’s chips in graphics-intensive applications by a factor of 3, at least…
Click to expand...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/editorial/print/news26_glance.html

edit:
People seem to be forgetting that ATI has licensed Intrinsitys Fast14-tech design for designing the GPU.

Intrinsity's Fast14 technology could enable ATI to design GPU logic that clocks up to four times faster than today's clock speeds, according to a company spokesman for Intrinsity. Current high end GPUs clock in the 400-600MHz range, so a chip using Fast14 technology could deliver GPUs that run in the 1.6 GHz to 2.4 GHz range. Fast14 doesn't help with memory clocks, including onboard cache memory, so only the logic portion of the chip would run at the high clock rates.
Click to expand...

So there are chances that the XenonGPu could break tha 1 Ghz-barrier...
 
Fafalada wrote:
The 4x/10x increase for pixel/geometry power number, comes directly from leaked Xenon specs - but it NEVER refers to fillrate or polygon throughput, it's a reference to shader power.
Click to expand...


It does? I thought the 4x/10x increase came from website rumor & speculation about R500. not the leaked Xenon specs & document. the leaked Xenon specs & document showed 4 gigapixels which is less than Radeon X800 / X800 XT. it also showed 500 million polygons/triangles sec which is also less than Radeon X800 series, until it mentions that the 500 million figure is with non-trivial shaders in actual applications.
 
This seems a little interesting but reality check people - its not all about graphics anymore. Definitely in the next generation everyone should (and even now) be able to produce good graphics using a spec system like that so what it really comes down to is who can create good games. So in other words, these specs whether true or not you really shouldn't give a damn. The more cool games like DMC3, Resident Evil 4, Psyvariar, VF4FinalTuned, GTA:SA, etc etc we get, the better... So what am I really interested in then? Well I want to know is what type of games and how would they provide us innovation.
 
Trojan X said:
This seems a little interesting but reality check people - its not all about graphics anymore. Definitely in the next generation everyone should (and even now) be able to produce good graphics using a spec system like that so what it really comes down to is who can create good games. So in other words, these specs whether true or not you really shouldn't give a damn. The more cool games like DMC3, Resident Evil 4, Psyvariar, VF4FinalTuned, GTA:SA, etc etc we get, the better... So what am I really interested in then? Well I want to know is what type of games and how would they provide us innovation.
Click to expand...


IAWTP. it ultimately will not be about specs. the specs do matter in some ways. a larger canvas for making better and bigger games.
 
bitwise said:
yeah, Sony would never do such a thing! :lol
Click to expand...


362435.jpg
 
Seriously though, I'd be pretty happy with Xenon (for Nov '05 release) if it was able to:

1. >500M sustained vertices/sec in game
2. >10B sustained pixels/sec in game

All doing vertex/pixel shader 3.0 FXs, and have 512MB of DDR2 for system RAM (plus the 10MB of eDRAM speculated).

Don't care whether it's HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Both are overkill.
 
Shogmaster said:
Seriously though, I'd be pretty happy with Xenon (for Nov '05 release) if it was able to:

1. >500M sustained vertices/sec in game
2. >10B sustained pixels/sec in game

All doing vertex/pixel shader 3.0 FXs, and have 512MB of DDR2 for system RAM (plus the 10MB of eDRAM speculated).

Don't care whether it's HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Both are overkill.
Click to expand...



yeah as would I. that would be a large leap from where we are now
 
The key word there is "promise." And the key response is that these best-case promised specs are never fulfilled by real-world software applications. Until the industry grows up past the Atari Jaguar days and is willing to dedicate space to publishing better benchmarks than hypothetical fill rates and polygon counts, these relatively inane specs will continue to be the way new GPUs are marketed by manufacturers.
 
xexex said:
It does? I thought the 4x/10x increase came from website rumor & speculation about R500.
Click to expand...
I posted explanation of this once before.
X800 has 6VS units, with setup of 1.5polygons per clock at peak rate = 4shader operations per polygon at maximum polygon rate.
Leaked XGPU has 48shader units, with setup of 1polygon per clock at peak rate = 48shader operations per polygon at max rate (500Mpoly/sec for 500Mhz chip).
48/4 ~ 10:1

Similar math can be shown for pixel operations.

[quote="Shogmaster]1. >500M sustained vertices/sec in game
2. >10B sustained pixels/sec in game[/quote]
While sustained 500MVert/s is 'very' possible (look at the above math), consider that Unreal3 tech is targetting ~1-2Milion polys/frame, (ie, 60-120Mpp/s). I'd say they've got plenty of room to spare there.
As for pixel rate - given the target resolutions are probably going to be 720P or below, I'd say 10G is overkill (there's some uses like global stencil shadows, but there are (imo better) alternatives that we can use instead).
Which isn't to say I wouldn't like to have 10G to play with, just not if it comes at expense of higher shader throughput.
 
Fafalada said:
While sustained 500MVert/s is 'very' possible (look at the above math), consider that Unreal3 tech is targetting ~1-2Milion polys/frame, (ie, 60-120Mpp/s). I'd say they've got plenty of room to spare there.
Click to expand...

Yeah but how long is UE3 gonna remain relevant enough for use throughout Xenon'x lifecycle? Isn't it gonna an old hen by like end of year 2 of Xenon's life? Or am I off base (probably)? When's UE3 games hitting the PC again?

As for pixel rate - given the target resolutions are probably going to be 720P or below, I'd say 10G is overkill (there's some uses like global stencil shadows, but there are (imo better) alternatives that we can use instead).
Which isn't to say I wouldn't like to have 10G to play with, just not if it comes at expense of higher shader throughput.
Click to expand...

NOOOOOOO~~~ We must keep alive my dreams of multiple monitor output for Xenon! 180 degree view driving games! Panorama gaming! Come to meeeeee~~~
 
Doesn't matter if PS3 is more powerful than Xenon if it uses the same crappy dev environ as PS2 (and PSP...)

Devs will just give Sony the finger because now there's a viable alternative.
 
Speaking of PS3, I suspect that Sony's approach next gen would be an extension of what they have done this gen hardware wise: Goo-gobs of polygons above all else.

Addition of nVidia will no doubt bring up their shader capabilities up to spec, but i think Ken Kutaragi designed PS3 to be a polygon throughput monster. Probably aiming for well over 1 billion triangles per second sustained in game.

So IMO:

Xenon = Shader flexibility monster with solid geometry throughput
PS3 = Solid shader capabilities with geometry throughput monster.

Both will proabably end up with similar AI and physics capabilities after visuals have been first addressed.
 
Vortac said:
Doesn't matter if PS3 is more powerful than Xenon if it uses the same crappy dev environ as PS2 (and PSP...)

Devs will just give Sony the finger because now there's a viable alternative.
Click to expand...

*looks at the gap between Xbox and PS2*

You call that a viable alternative? Look if the hardest console to develop for on this planet has an install base of 80 million users, while the simplest has 16 million, you can damn well bet devs will put up with the hardest.
 
Shogmaster said:
Speaking of PS3, I suspect that Sony's approach next gen would be an extension of what they have done this gen hardware wise: Goo-gobs of polygons above all else.

Addition of nVidia will no doubt bring up their shader capabilities up to spec, but i think Ken Kutaragi designed PS3 to be a polygon throughput monster. Probably aiming for well over 1 billion triangles per second sustained in game.

So IMO:

Xenon = Shader flexibility monster with solid geometry throughput
PS3 = Solid shader capabilities with geometry throughput monster.

Both will proabably end up with similar AI and physics capabilities after visuals have been first addressed.
Click to expand...

Hopefully for xenon, devs go more the normal mapp route, keeping geometry to a minimum.
 
Ryudo said:
Hopefully for xenon, devs go more the normal mapp route, keeping geometry to a minimum.
Click to expand...

I didn't say Xenon was gonna be crap in geometry throughput. I said solid. As in good. Shit, current gen's best XBox games probably hover around 15 Million polygons per second. 20+ times that will do me just fine.

Anyways, I think most PC devs are probably gonna embrace the Xenon approach, and we'll see what the Japanese console devs will embrace.
 
I was just thinking things over a bit. especially in light of Capcom's achievement in Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube, a console that can only push ~15 million polygons with heavy effects, textures and lighting. it boggles the mind what could be done with ~500 million polygons with far more advanced shaders & lighting.
 
xexex said:
I was just thinking things over a bit. especially in light of Capcom's achievement in Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube, a console that can only push ~15 million polygons with heavy effects, textures and lighting. it boggles the mind what could be done with ~500 million polygons with far more advanced shaders & lighting.
Click to expand...

I really doubt that the RE4 is pushing close to 15M polys per sec. 10M maybe? Just don't look it. If it was like 60fps, sure, but it can't even maintain 30!
 
^ well even more reason to be impressed (with what Xenon will do) yes sometimes RE4 drops to under 30fps. and if Gamecube is only moving ~10 million or less polygons/sec, Xenon will be even more impressive. as will Revolution
 
Shogmaster said:
Speaking of PS3, I suspect that Sony's approach next gen would be an extension of what they have done this gen hardware wise: Goo-gobs of polygons above all else.

Addition of nVidia will no doubt bring up their shader capabilities up to spec, but i think Ken Kutaragi designed PS3 to be a polygon throughput monster. Probably aiming for well over 1 billion triangles per second sustained in game.

So IMO:

Xenon = Shader flexibility monster with solid geometry throughput
PS3 = Solid shader capabilities with geometry throughput monster.

Both will proabably end up with similar AI and physics capabilities after visuals have been first addressed.
Click to expand...

No. Their approach is actually remarkably similar. Offload the geometry processing to CPU, and let GPU handle the shaders.
 
Trojan X said:
This seems a little interesting but reality check people - its not all about graphics anymore. Definitely in the next generation everyone should (and even now) be able to produce good graphics using a spec system like that so what it really comes down to is who can create good games. So in other words, these specs whether true or not you really shouldn't give a damn. The more cool games like DMC3, Resident Evil 4, Psyvariar, VF4FinalTuned, GTA:SA, etc etc we get, the better... So what am I really interested in then? Well I want to know is what type of games and how would they provide us innovation.
Click to expand...

I hate to say it, but this was said in 2000 as well. Frankly I don't see a day when graphics won't matter...history shows that the better games look, the more people bitch about the flaws that remain unchecked. And that's especially true when fanboy turfwars are at stake.
 
Izzy said:
No. Their approach is actually remarkably similar. Offload the geometry processing to CPU, and let GPU handle the shaders.
Click to expand...

Sure, that's fairly obvious, but I think the point is that whatever the extra power Cell has would be focused more towards geometry muscle than anything else I can think of. AI? Physics? Fine and dandy, but whatever extra muscle Cell represents over the mini Power 5s in the Xenon would be used for geometry calculation first and foremost I think.

Whether the nVidia chip can actually render everything cell throws at it would be another matter, but I think Ken would have specified that alot of the transistors on the GPU be geared towards meeting that goal first. Up to date shaders? Great, but not at the expense of the polygon output.

At the end of the day, it would all come down to how much more transistors PS3 has over the Xenon and how much faster they clock to determine just how much more powerful PS3 is over Xenon. If the release dates are only 9 months or so apart, it won't be night and day like from DC to PS2 (16 months difference: .25 micron to .18 micron) and PS2 to XBox (21 months: .18 to .15).

Also keep in mind that last round, XBox was largely off the shelf affair with only the GPU being tweeked to MS's specifications over the desktop part equivilent (NV2A's extra vertex shader over GF3Ti 500), and not much of the tweeking was to keep the cost down. Also, hitting the same $300 launch price as PS2 but with extra components like the hard drive kept MS from really maximising the power for the console for the time advantage. Xenon is much different approach this time around, and especially with PS3 pushing blu-ray (incuring extra cost over HD-DVD of Xenon), I believe the two consoles will be fairly close in power. I just don't see PS3 and Cell overshadowing everything else like fanboys here and elsewhere keep suggesting.
 
No. Their approach is actually remarkably similar. Offload the geometry processing to CPU, and let GPU handle the shaders.
Click to expand...
There's two differences - Xenon still has the option of processing geometry on the GPU (something that PS3 may not be able to do - we don't know yet), and Cell is considerably better at streaming vector processing then XCPU.

But either way, I expect both consoles to be limited by memory first, not rendering throughput. And that's where we should see the really interesting advances - alternate data storage and compression approaches - as the consoles get further in their life.
 
Fafalada said:
But either way, I expect both consoles to be limited by memory first, not rendering throughput. And that's where we should see the really interesting advances - alternate data storage and compression approaches - as the consoles get further in their life.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more. Memory will be the #1 problem next gen for developers. Even with 256 Mbytes of RAM (expected amount for Xenon, I doubt there will be more on other systems) plus some amount VRAM the devs will very quickly have problems putting everything they want on screen with the quality everyone will expect from them.
I guess that's one of the main reasons MS seems to push procedural textures for XNA, even if only a rather small amount of textures (10% ?) are able to be created that way, it could already be a big help for developers. Of course PS3 devs with the highly parallel architecture of Cell should be able to pull this off rather "easily" too, only they may have to do everything by themselves instead of being able to use some tools XNA could (emphasis on could) already have from day 1.
Fafalada: Do you really expect PS3 to have to do all geometry data in the CPU part and the GPU only to do the shaders/rendering work ? It would make some sense considering how powerful CELL is supposed to be, but I doubt such a GPU would be something Nvidia would brag so much about ?
 
Blimblim said:
Of course PS3 devs with the highly parallel architecture of Cell should be able to pull this off rather "easily" too, only they may have to do everything by themselves instead of being able to use some tools XNA could (emphasis on could) already have from day 1.
Click to expand...

First off, procedural textures are generated by algorithms programmed by coders - I doubt anyone will have a tool handy for doing that, although to be honest it probably wouldn't be that hard for someone to come up with one of their own. There aren't too many algorithms in common use..you could roll your own fairly easily.

Second, as far as I know XNA isn't offering anything new in terms of available tools. A lot of people seem to think XNA is going to offer a plethora of new stuff and be a cure-all for Xenon development. I don't believe this is the case, from my knowledge of it. It's simply taking what's already there and putting it into a framework that should make tools involved more standardised to use, and to use together. But individually, the tools involved aren't anything that won't be available for use with PS3 or Rev development, those coming exclusively from MS aside - unless MS gets third party middleware people to start making their tools Xbox-only, which isn't going to happen given the development focus of publishers today (Playstation, and some still like to work with Nintendo too).

Third, on the point about NVidia and their pride in the PS3 GPU - if they come up with a pixel shading monster, there'll be a lot to be proud of. It's all about tailoring your design to fit the system.
 
gofreak said:
First off, procedural textures are generated by algorithms programmed by coders - I doubt anyone will have a tool handy for doing that, although to be honest it probably wouldn't be that hard for someone to come up with one of their own. There aren't too many algorithms in common use..you could roll your own fairly easily.

Second, as far as I know XNA isn't offering anything new in terms of available tools. A lot of people seem to think XNA is going to offer a plethora of new stuff and be a cure-all for Xenon development. I don't believe this is the case, from my knowledge of it. It's simply taking what's already there and putting it into a framework that should make tools involved more standardised to use, and to use together. But individually, the tools involved aren't anything that you won't be able to use with PS3 or Rev development, those coming exclusively from MS aside.

Third, on the point about NVidia and their pride in the PS3 GPU - if they come up with a pixel shading monster, there'll be a lot to be proud of. It's all about tailoring your design to fit the system.
Click to expand...
I guess you are right about NVidia, but without any geometry processing I would hardly call this a GPU. Keeping up with what the CELL could be able to send to this chip in terms of raw polygon throughput could indeed be something to be proud. True enough.
As for XNA yes it's mostly a rather practical way to have the whole toolchain all joined together. But like the Xbox SDK introduced the excellent PIX analysis tool, I expected MS to have a few new cool tools for Xbox 2. I'm pretty sure they have something in store so graphics artists/coders could be able to create procedural textures more visually than just have someone code the whole thing. I could be wrong of course, and it's not truly what XNA is all about, true enough again ;)
 
If only the new consoles could each have a nice 1 GigaByte pool of external main system memory, plus ultra fast embedded memory & caches. 256 MB for nextgen consoles is a step BACKWARDS as far as memory quantity increases from one generation to the next.


N64 ===> GCN about 9.5x (43.12 / 4.5)

PS1 ===> PS2 about 11x (40 / 3.5 )


Imagine if the Xbox had only 32 MB of memory, or the PS2 & GCN only 20 MB, thats what giving nextgen consoles only 256 MB main memory is like, IMO.

if nextgen consoles had 512 MB main memory, that would only just be 'on par' as far as increases.

1 GB would be really nice. you can never have too much and developers would even complain with 1 GB but at least with 1 GB you wouldnt be CHRONICALLY short.

memory is supposed to be cheap. why the fuck cant we have 1 GB? oh yeah in PS3's case its using brand new Rambus XDR memory. sigh. but Xbox2 and Revolution might use more standard GDDR3/4 memories, so why couldnt they have 1 GB? damnit.
 
5 billion isn't too much.

N64 = 150 kpps
PSX = 300 kpps
GC = 33 mpps
PS2 = 66 mpps

33 000/ 150 = 220
66 000/ 300 = 220

both machines were released 6 years after each other

220 = x^6

x ~ 2.94

Xbox = 125 mpps

Xenon is released 4 years after

125 * 2.94^4 ~9.34 billion pps



If anything it is underpowered coming from the Xbox.
 
Well, if you are going after rediculous theoretical figures, sure.... Why not. :lol



Edit: your math seems off somewhere, BTW.


PSX launches in Dec 1994. PS2 in Mar 2000 = 5 years 3 months (63 months)
N64 came out in June 1996, GC in Sept 2001 = 5 years 3 months (63 months)

Instead of using years, you should use months.

But the bigger problem is trying to compare wildly different methods of stating theoretical limits of the systems. Using vairous comapnies own PR theorectical limits as hard number is throwing your end figure for Xenon totally out of whack IMO.
 
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