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[xexex]

http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20050313/index.html

You mentioned multi-core processors in your keynote address as well. How is Microsoft going to help developers rise to the challenges that multi-core processors present?

J Allard: Well, the first thing you have to do is put aside the multi-core processors and say, we're shifting from an Intel and Nvidia architecture to an IBM and ATI architecture. Wow, that could be really hard. So what we are actually doing is insulating a lot of that pain for the developer by using the same operating system, the same tools, the same APIs that we did last generation.

You know the PC industry is going multi-core. One thing that I didn't mention during the keynote is that all of our Alpha kits are actually based on Macintosh G5 dual-processors. So for the last year, developers have been using our operating system, our APIs, connecting to our service, using our controllers, and thinking different with dual-processor G5s. It turns out that there are two different chips in the Mac, but we are going to put them on the same die.

so Xenon CPU is going to have just 2 cores and not 3 cores? or maybe Microsoft is paying head-games with Sony ...although Cell should be stronger (in FP) than even a quad-core PowerPC or POWER CPU

 

[mrklaw]

dev kits are currently using dual core G5s, because they are available. Makes no statement about what Xenon will or won't use.

 

[xexex]

dev kits are currently using dual core G5s, because they are available. Makes no statement about what Xenon will or won't use.

I guess you might be right. hmmmm

 

[Panajev2001a]

Well, let me tell you a story about another guy who moved from the 2D era to the 3D era to the HD era once. It was Michelangelo. He started painting on these little canvases. Then he graduated from 2D to 3D, and he started doing sculpture. One day a guy comes in and says I want you to paint my church. And he said, "I guess you haven't heard, I gave up on painting. I'm a 3D guy now. You're talking to the wrong guy, and I never did exteriors." The other guy says, "come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee. I want you to paint this." And Michelangelo, for probably the first time in his life, had his imagination intimidated by the task ahead of him, when the Sistine Chapel was presented.

Wow... I am quite speechless... .

 

[Andy787]

Wow... I am quite speechless... .

Ahahaha.

I officially love J Allard, and this wonderful HD Era.

Be like Michelangelo.. join the HD Era!

 

[Azrael]

Allard comparing Xenon to the Sistine Chapel? Why do I get the feeling that quote will get about 1/1000 the scrutiny of Kutaragi comparing the PS2 to the Matrix?

 

[gofreak]

Wow... I am quite speechless... .

I guess Kutaragi has met his match :lol

 

[xabre]

Well, let me tell you a story about another guy who moved from the 2D era to the 3D era to the HD era once.

Oooooh the HD era...is this the same era that PC games have been in for better part of the past decade?

 

[DCharlie]

"Oooooh the HD era...is this the same era that PC games have been in for better part of the past decade?"

lol - yeah, i was wondering between that and the "alienating consumers" thread ...

aren't we already going HD this gen ??? at least partially anyways...

 

[Ryudo]

Ahahaha.

I officially love J Allard, and this wonderful HD Era.

Be like Michelangelo.. join the HD Era!

Be a dickhead and troll some more xbox threads.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Be a dickhead and troll some more xbox threads.

Ahem... psst... you are the one being a dick-head for going around calling people names without a reason.

 

[Ryudo]

Ahem... psst... you are the one being a dick-head for going around calling people names without a reason.

Touche, i would have thought if you were trying to be clever that you wouldnt be stupid at the same time.

If this was a PS2 thread you would be on it like Mr T in a jewelers shop.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Touche, i would have thought if you were trying to be clever that you wouldnt be stupid at the same time.

If this was a PS2 thread you would be on it like Mr T in a jewelers shop.

Another personal attack, an impressive resume'.

 

[TekunoRobby]

Not trolling Allard at all but I'm getting tired of all this HD era chant. I don't mind the ideas he's preaching but hearing him say HD-era just sounds corny. It's the phrase that gets me for god knows what reason. :|

We want the content creators to dictate who is enamored with our platform by their experiences. And that's our focus, which is very much one of a platform, where we say, "look, we want to hear what the world's game creators have to say and then build the most amazing platform for them to realize their visions." It turns out that when you listen to everybody's visions, you hear visions that are appealing to six- and seven-year-olds, and you hear visions of people who are trying to drive gaming for 45-year-olds.

That's why I think we have a broader spectrum of content - because we listen to all of those game creators, and those creators that we also have on staff in our first party teams also spread the spectrum. We have Rare on one end of the spectrum; and we have Bungie on the other end.

Kinda sucks that he's selling Rare short (ie: for a specific part of the spectrum not capable of appealing to all ends) but that might just be my interpretation of it.

The Michelangelo quote needed the other half since it isn't a complete thought process without it:

And he said, "I need scaffolding, I need workers, and I need this, and I need that." It was no longer a simple painting, it was an enormous construction project. That's what game developers are facing in this HD era. They are jumping from something where they could do it themselves, they could bring in the marble and get the chisels out, envision it all and execute it themselves. And now they have this army of people they need to put it together.

In Michelangelo's case, if he were building the scaffolding, he wouldn't be focused on his vision, and that's what game creators are doing today. They are focusing on the scaffolding. So think of the XNA Studio as the scaffolding, the palette, and the paint and everything else. We are bringing everything there, so you are just focused on one thing.

 

[Ryudo]

Another personal attack, an impressive resume'.

WILL SPIN FOR SONY !

 

[android]

http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20050313/index.html




so Xenon CPU is going to have just 2 cores and not 3 cores? or maybe Microsoft is paying head-games with Sony ...although Cell should be stronger (in FP) than even a quad-core PowerPC or POWER CPU

I don't know much about the inner workings of computers, but what if each one of the G5's shown in the leaked Xbox Diagram meant two processors like the G5, thereby equaling 6 chips total. Could that be possible? Maybe they have a Cell like idea in the works. That might be where they get the teraflop of power from (of course fudging the numbers) But maybe i'm just really tired. It's 3 am and time for bed.

 

[Pug]

I don't know much about the inner workings of computers, but what if each one of the G5's shown in the leaked Xbox Diagram meant two processors like the G5, thereby equaling 6 chips total. Could that be possible? Maybe they have a Cell like idea in the works. That might be where they get the teraflop of power from (of course fudging the numbers) But maybe i'm just really tired. It's 3 am and time for bed.



Nope its not going to be 3 dual core porcessors. Or at least it wasn't.

 

[FightyF]

Wow... I am quite speechless... .

But he's right. Michealangelo had to go from a one-man operation to a multiman operation that involved many portions that all had to come together.

The great, great majority of games developed this last generation involved dev teams to write a lot of code relating to the graphics, sound, and AI.

 

[Andy787]

Touche, i would have thought if you were trying to be clever that you wouldnt be stupid at the same time.

If this was a PS2 thread you would be on it like Mr T in a jewelers shop.

Wow, that must've taken effort!

*goes to play Outrun 2 on my Microsoft Xbox videogame console*

 

[Panajev2001a]

WILL SPIN FOR SONY !

That is Kaching's ex-tag, if he earned it or not is another subject of discussion though.

If what I do is spinning, I do not want to be part of your idea of "a NO-SPIN zone" mr. O'Reilly .

 

[Odnetnin]

WILL SPIN FOR SONY !

what's this got to do with anything. You didn't have to be rude to Panav.

Allard's got the machine stuck on spin cycle. :lol

 

[FightyF]

Do you know what "spin" refers to, Odnintendonin?

 

[Panajev2001a]

But he's right. Michealangelo had to go from a one-man operation to a multiman operation that involved many portions that all had to come together.

The great, great majority of games developed this last generation involved dev teams to write a lot of code relating to the graphics, sound, and AI.

Michelangelo was not the first to do such a thing, but this is notthe place for Art History discussions. Second, I do not know may PSOne games made by one man operations and especially not many one man operations in the current generation.

He could have expressed his point much better without trying to stretch and mold Art History into something he could use to pimp Xenon which has many other things he could say about it that would put it in a very good light.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Do you know what "spin" refers to, Odnintendonin?

The meaning would be (in the case people are labelled spinners): "taking statements, facts and available data and consciously taking out all that is negative, highlighting what seems positive to change the truth into something more appealing and positive in regard to the party or item preferred by the so called spinner".

Basically it would be calling someone a bull-shit spewer, but it sounds nicer.

 

[gofreak]

AI

I get your general point, but AI is quite game-specific and will remain so.

 

[Fafalada]

but what if each one of the G5's shown in the leaked Xbox Diagram meant two processors like the G5, thereby equaling 6 chips total

It didn't, for simple reason that Xenon cores are not G5s.

 

[Shompola]

The Michaelangelo reference by Allard is awesome.

 

[Pug]

Panajev2001a, it’s not worth arguing the toss. Fact is MS has taken the HD issue and run with and from a PR point of view it is a sensible decision. As for his Michelangelo analogy, again so what it’s just a PR guy doing his job and doing it well I might add. What Sega and Nintendo neglected was PR and PR at a standard that Sony has been able top dish out for the last 5 years or so. MS won't make the same mistakes.

 

[Rhindle]

Michelangelo was not the first to do such a thing, but this is notthe place for Art History discussions. Second, I do not know may PSOne games made by one man operations and especially not many one man operations in the current generation.

He could have expressed his point much better without trying to stretch and mold Art History into something he could use to pimp Xenon which has many other things he could say about it that would put it in a very good light.

You're misunderstanding the Michaelangelo analogy.

He is saying that rather than having developers build their own scaffolding (i.e. program each game to the metal from scratch), they want to provide developers (through the XNA Studio tools, the common XBox Live services, etc.) with some of the base infrastructure so they can concentrate on the painting itself (i.e. the creative coding).

 

[Ryudo]

That is Kaching's ex-tag, if he earned it or not is another subject of discussion though.

If what I do is spinning, I do not want to be part of your idea of "a NO-SPIN zone" mr. O'Reilly .

Quite frankly i have nothing against you and i am fully aware your posts bring worth to this place. I just dont get why you would stick up for a a PS2 centric troll who is obviously incapable of being objective.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I am not arguing his PR might be effective or not, it probably is effective: I just do not like the analogy with Michelangelo, that is it.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Quite frankly i have nothing against you and i am fully aware your posts bring worth to this place. I just dont get why you would stick up for a a PS2 centric troll who is obviously incapable of being objective.

I was not sticking up for anything but my dislike to see insults flying this early into the thread.

I guess his comment was a bit inflamatory for you and derailing the point Allard was trying to make about what MS was doing with DirectX and Visual Studio 2005 to ease developer's job.

 

[gofreak]

Did anyone see the picture that was quickly pulled from the article? Apparently it had some Xenon stuff on it.

one at beyond3d said it had something like this on it:

"XENON LAUNCHER: All Xenon Executables
108.15GB Free
2.0.1332.0 Alpha 2
LAUNCH-TOOLS-EJECT-DELETE "

Not sure if it was a screen from the alpha dev kit, or what (seems to be the case). Not sure if there was anything else there, one just linked to the pic after that (and the pic is now gone).

 

[Striek]

Yeah it was a picture of the Xenon UI. Didn't even cross my mind as important, all the executables looked like developer stuff...

 

[Shompola]

It would be kinda neat if the greatest artist ever lived on our planet i.e. Michaelangelo designed the outer shell of the Xbox duex.

 

[gofreak]

Yeah it was a picture of the Xenon UI. Didn't even cross my mind as important, all the executables looked like developer stuff...

A regular windows GUI, or something more console-y like the stuff Allard showed in his presentation?

Oh, and have you got the picture cached?

 

[Funky Papa]

It would be kinda neat if the greatest artist ever lived on our planet i.e. Michaelangelo designed the outer shell of the Xbox duex.

That would be very Rambaldi like :lol

 

[Striek]

A regular windows GUI, or something more console-y like the stuff Allard showed in his presentation?

Oh, and have you got the picture cached?

It was the exact same as what Allard showed off - the blue, nice new Xenon one.

Don't have it cached :/

 

[gofreak]

It was the exact same as what Allard showed off - the blue, nice new Xenon one.

Don't have it cached :/

No worries. Interesting though! Were there any game icons, or anything else that might hint at....anything?

 

[TekunoRobby]

Would this be the picture in question?

It loads fine for me on the second page.

 

[gofreak]

Dolphin.exe? OMGWTF THE NINTENDO LINK!!1

edit - and thank you tekuno, that looks like it..

 

[xexex]

I don't know much about the inner workings of computers, but what if each one of the G5's shown in the leaked Xbox Diagram meant two processors like the G5, thereby equaling 6 chips total. Could that be possible? Maybe they have a Cell like idea in the works. That might be where they get the teraflop of power from (of course fudging the numbers) But maybe i'm just really tired. It's 3 am and time for bed.

Nope its not going to be 3 dual core porcessors. Or at least it wasn't.

I guess that could be possible (the main part of your post)

 

[Striek]

Hmm yeah its back up on the site now. Thats wierd that they pulled it down for a few minutes...

Its not much, unless you actually think MS might throw a 120GB HDD in
(We can hope )

 

[marsomega]

Wow... I am quite speechless... .

Teee heee, that one hit close to home didn't it? ;-)

You mentioned multi-core processors in your keynote address as well. How is Microsoft going to help developers rise to the challenges that multi-core processors present?

J Allard: Well, the first thing you have to do is put aside the multi-core processors and say, we're shifting from an Intel and Nvidia architecture to an IBM and ATI architecture. Wow, that could be really hard. So what we are actually doing is insulating a lot of that pain for the developer by using the same operating system, the same tools, the same APIs that we did last generation.

You know the PC industry is going multi-core. One thing that I didn't mention during the keynote is that all of our Alpha kits are actually based on Macintosh G5 dual-processors. So for the last year, developers have been using our operating system, our APIs, connecting to our service, using our controllers, and thinking different with dual-processor G5s. It turns out that there are two different chips in the Mac, but we are going to put them on the same die.

:lol I would have never, ever, have thought of Microsoft following the Apple "Think Different" mantra.

 

[Blimblim]

Would this be the picture in question?

It loads fine for me on the second page.

This is the debug Xenon dashboard. The same as the one on the current debug Xbox, but in blue.
The only interesting thing (even if it's already quite old) is that the executables are now using the .exe extension instead of .xbe. This could be mean that MS is aiming for both windows and xenon compatibility with a single executable. Disclaimer: This is speculation on my part, I never heard anything about such an idea from my contacts.

 

[Blackcherry]

109.15GB free? HDD mofos!(speculation of course)

 

[ecliptic]

Well that is probably an Alpha development kit. Which is probably running Windows as he said they were running their OS.

 

[Kobold]

Dolphin.exe? OMGWTF THE NINTENDO LINK!!1

edit - and thank you tekuno, that looks like it..

Dolphin is just a tech demo/stress test, it's also on current debug Xbox units. *runs it out of spite.

Well at least it has more space then these crappy debugs Microsoft gives out now, that have 4 gig space, so you can store only 1 build of most games...smart... (of course most come on discs, but still).

Anyways, cool article, thanks for link.

 

[sprsk]

michaelangelo did the sisteen by himself

he went back to mostly sculpture after that (his last unfinished work was a sculpture in fact)

plz do not compare michaelangelo (good art) to the xbox (bad art)

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

So is it called xenon or xbox360....?