More on NVIDIA's Involvement In X Box

ManWithNoName writes "In the Private Eye, there's an interesting look at NVIDIA's involvement (which was officially announced today) in the X-Box, with their APU and iGPU and how these technologies could have the potential to be used for other products other than Xbox. There's also a very satirical "General Industry Interview" (involving Sony, Sega, 3dfx, NVIDIA, ATI etc...)with everyone involved in the industry that either is inside the Xbox or has tried to get into it over the pasty year. On a more serious note, the authors talk about a conspiracy that Microsoft's Xbox will punch the PC industry in the nuts with the whole Delay to DX8 causing NVIDIA, 3dfx and ATI to delay the releases of their next generation 3D chips, which are dependant upon the unreleased API."

Comments

Re:Can someone fill me in?

[bssea]

I just went to an X-box presentation last Wednesday where that exact question was asked.

Their answer, in short, was that they are Microsoft. They make DirectX, therefore it makes since for them to push DirectX. The Dev guy also stated that if anyone wishes to make an OpenGL subsystem for the Xbox, they are welcome to, but it won't be supported by Microsoft.

One of their exact quotes was:
"Why put our eggs in 2 baskets that are half-assed, when we can put them all in one and it be kickass." This was from the Multimedia Head of the Xbox Dev Team.

Also, they stated that it will not BSOD.. they can't afford that. That quickly got questions like: "Then what color is it?". heh, quite funny.. you had to be there I guess.

But, overall, the presentation really didn't impress me... too much "This is what 10% of the theorectical power of the Xbox will be able to do" crap.

Well.. that's my bit for now.

Re:Vendors waiting for DX8

[Junks Jerzey]

Think how much more Blizzard would make if they re-released all their titles for Linux

Judging from past experiences, including Q3 for Linux, I think the answer is "not much." Linux may be growing 2000% a year or whatever, but it's a strange market. If you make one minor license screw up, you end up as a Slashdot headline and vigilantes bring down your site. Warning: This is how many developers see the culture surrounding Linux. Don't laugh it off.

Been there, done that, told not to, still will?

[ackthpt]

On a more serious note, the authors talk about a conspiracy that Microsoft's Xbox will punch the PC industry in the nuts with the whole Delay to DX8 causing NVIDIA, 3dfx and ATI to delay the releases of their next generation 3D chips, which are dependant upon the unreleased API.

This would certainly not endear them to the DoJ, let alone lend credibility to their comical denial of monopolistic behavior. I keep expecting M$ to learn and shape up, but it's like there's pattern of behavior... Too bad Bill's not in California, we could possibly get him on the 3 strikes and cool him off in the pokey ;-)

Interesting side note (considering for a second the capacity at the XBox to do other than play games) The Register concerning the ditching of M$ ActiveTV by AT&T


It's all true! ±5%

DirectX and new feeatures

[EvlG]

DirectX is winning lots of developers because MS actually implements new features and concepts ina standardized way in the API. All you get with GL is a bunch of vendor-supplied extensions. The paradigm for development hasn't changed at all for GL, whereas DX has moved along with the times.

That said, I think GL has a superior implementation. It's just a shame that GL is withering away in the face of new feature developments, losing to the MS machine.

What ever happened to the new 3D API, called Farenheit, that was to be co-developed by MS and SGI? I remember it was announced not long after the GL vs. DX wars went into full swing, about 3 years ago. Where did that go?

Re:DirectX and new feeatures

[Allen Akin]

The September OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) meeting was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'll pass along a few observations.

• Running an open standard in these days of hyperactive lawyers is a pain. One concern is that people adding new functionality to OpenGL (or even reviewing specifications for it) might sneak in some proprietary intellectual property. If this made it into the standard unchallenged, the owner could then reap a substantial windfall by suing anyone unlucky enough to implement it.

  The way this problem is solved is to require anyone active in the ARB to sign an agreement stating that they'll simply disclose any proprietary interest they might have in features that are being considered for use in the API.

  This is a good deal, in my opinion; you don't actually have to give up your rights to any intellectual property you might own, and you gain insurance that no one else will "submarine" a patented technology into the API. I encourage anyone who's interested in participating in the development of OpenGL to sign the agreement. See the ARB FAQ link on this subject for more information.

  The flip-side is that if you haven't signed the agreement, you can't be included in the discussions, so there's no easy way to know what's actually going on. For example, you couldn't know much about the new features going into the API. :-)

• As far as features go, everyone should understand that what really counts is what's supported by the hardware. OpenGL and D3D actually have similar ways of exposing these features. Microsoft puts things into the D3D API whether or not the hardware vendors can actually support them, and then adds capability bits and pipeline validation queries so that applications can determine at runtime whether the features will work. The ARB and individual vendors put extensions into OpenGL, and then add the names of the extensions to the extensions string so that applications can determine at runtime whether the features will work.

  You get the idea -- the bottom line is really pretty similar for the two APIs. Just because a feature is "in" D3D doesn't mean it actually works; just like in OpenGL, you need to test to see what works and be prepared to adapt your code to run on a particular chip or card.

  This isn't a bad thing, in my opinion. As long as the hardware vendors are developing new features, there'll be differences between them that app developers have to live with. But the competition exposes new ideas and the market will eventually encourage the ones that are useful.

• Just for the record, things discussed at this ARB meeting included programmable vertex processing, rendering to textures, encapsulating vertex data in objects that can be processed faster by T&L hardware, advanced pixel processing, and new memory management schemes for textures and other objects. You'll probably see this stuff being usable in OpenGL about the time hardware actually supports it, just like D3D.

Oh, yeah, Fahrenheit. Long story there. Bottom line as I understand it: As far as Microsoft is concerned, D3D8 or 9 essentially is the Fahrenheit Low-Level API. SGI isn't participating in that effort any longer. The Fahrenheit Scene-Graph API exists, and you can actually buy it from Microsoft, but there's no support for it, so its future is uncertain.

Allen

you answered your own question...

[slothbait]

> It's already here AND it's cross-platform.

Which is *exactly* why Microsoft won't use it. "Cross Platform" gives them nightmares. MS's mission is to lock consumers into *their* products, *their* systems, and *their* way of doing things. That way consumers are forced to keep buying MS, no matter what sh*t the company puts out.

Cross Platform means easy migration, which is wonderful for consumers, and horrible for Microsoft. If you could easily pick up shop and take your business elsewhere, MS would be forced to provide a decent product to win your business. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. I keep hoping that consumers will wake up and realize that MS's actions are not in their best interest, but that's probably asking too much.

I can dream, can't I?

--Lenny

No open documentation? NO BUY nVidia!

[maynard]

After getting their act together with XF86 support, they're regained the loving affection of the Linux community.

If "getting their act together" means only releasing proprietary beta drivers for a specific Xfree86 4.x revision without any hardware documentation, then God help us if it's the last act of the play. Frankly, I'm hoping ATI and the Utah-glx project comes through with quality Radeon drivers. And if they don't, then I'll just skip a generation and pray for a decent Voodoo card next time.

The GeForce is quality hardware, but I won't spend a dime for a black box lacking proper documentation. Intelectual property my ass, this is a $400 card we're talking about! Can you imagine Ford claiming they can't document the internals of your new car because of "Intelectual Property" issues? Would you buy that car? Would you have bought an S-100 Dazler shipped without documetation?

I'm a long time Linux user, and let me say: after going through the undocumented video card mess from Diamond years back, nVidia gains no "loving affection" from me. The last thing I need is to be forced into a video card upgrade because nVidia stopped updating drivers for MY old card and nVidia can't release their "Intelectual Property" (read: documentation) to their customers. Been there once before, NOT AGAIN!

Some information

[Amon CMB]

I found this interesting article on the internet recently:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/x box.html

I'm wondering about those legacy PC bottlenecks on the xbox. It's on a x86 based processor going against a 100% 128-bit PS2 Emotion Engine that's got a main 300 mhz CPU and two vector coprocessors that blow Pentium III floating point ops out of the water.

For example, SquareSoft is trying to make their beat-em-up, The Bouncer, have Dolby Digital 5.1 support in gameplay. They used to think it was impossible, but it might not be so with the VU units. It seems MS just thought "Hey, we can beat 300 mhz easy!" without thinking about the hidden trump card in the PS2. Also, I noticed the 6.4 GB/sec memory bandwidth on the Xbox (shared, so it indludes video memory speed). And the PS2 has dedicated VRAM that flies at 48 GB/sec. So what do you guys think?
- Amon CMB

Microsoft's money will help the rest of us here...

[Gendou]

Microsoft is clearly pouring a great deal of money into the XBox. A lot of it is, of course, going to nVidia. nVidia in turn, uses this big bag of free money to create a killer 3D accellerator (200 million triangles / second I believe?) for the XBox. Clearly it's unlikely that nVidia would not simultaneously (or a shorttime thereafter the XBox is released) present video card manufacturers with this technology. I also doubt that nVidia would do anything to limit this accellerator by making it DX8 specific. It'll support OpenGL too. (Why wouldn't they support OpenGL? After getting their act together with XF86 support, they're regained the loving affection of the Linux community.) So, after all that wordiness, my point is that we can actually thank Microsoft for helping to fund a truly great product on the part of nVidia. Thanks Bill!

Re:Wouldn't it be cool...

[evilned]

In further news today, Aureal was bought by Creative Labs, so the old a3d tech (great 3d sound in windows, but linux drivers that were about as good as two tons of cow manure) is owned by them. Judging by creatives past record of innovation on the sound front (they sold the same card with no features added for three years straight) I wouldnt hold my breath on them innovating any until another upstart Aureal type company pops up. Even then you have only have the time between the sound card shipping till creative sicks their lawyers on them.

Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box

[zlite]

Actually, Sony is not the second most-widely known brand in the world: Microsoft is. Microsoft's also the world's second largest game publisher. So what was your point again?

I haven't been keeping up.

[2nd Post!]

So please clue me in on the advancing nature of Direct3d.

At least, I'm separating DirectX from Direct3d, because comparing the sound libraries of DirectX is meaningless.

If I'm not mistaken, all of the progress in Direct3d, from v1-v6 was to *catch* up to OpenGL.

Which means, as of D3d6, MS is starting to reach parity with OpenGL.

Which features are you talking about, in terms of GL, is M$ overtaking them? GL does rely on vendor extensions because it makes sense; each vendor will *want* to supply optimizations and features that they have, and when everyone else has those features, the GL board will increment the version number and include that feature into the set.

M$'s way is to implement in software mode, what isn't found in hardware, isn't it? That's not terribly useful, actually, if software can't keep up, and if software can keep up, then there is no need for there to be vendor implementations, right? So software supplied multi-pass texture is useless in this light.

So as far as I can tell, GL isn't behind and M$ isn't actually doing all that much.

The nick is a joke! Really!

OpenGL as vendor extensions faster than DirectX

[tjwhaynes]

But this is why I asked; what is D3D doing that's surpassing OpenGL?

As far as I can tell, nothing. All the 3D accelerated functions available on my NVIDIA card are exposed under the OpenGL 1.2 spec, GL_ext_ extensions or on NVIDIA specific extensions - GL_NV_. This is of course on Linux using the NVIDIA drivers and the NVIDIA GL/gl.h etc. headers converted to Linux. In many respects the functionality of the card is available faster on OpenGL than DirectX because the Vendor specific extensions do not have to go through the OpenGL ARB before being implemented, whereas vendors are dependent on DirectX being releases with their own extensions built in.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

That's why I read Slashdot...

[tycage]

The vivid imagery.

...Microsoft's Xbox will punch the PC industry in the nuts....

;)

--Ty

Can someone fill me in?

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

I don't understand why you'd wait for the next version of DX--why not just use OpenGL? It's already here AND it's cross-platform.
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