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GameCube Hardware In Depth on Anandtech
plootid submitted linkage to a fairly technical look at the GameCube running over at AnandTech. You can learn about the hardware that makes the new Smash Bros. possible. Something about seeing Samus doing battle with Pikachu makes me want to know more about the PowerPC chip that powers the system ;)
Since the Gekko is a native RISC processor it does not suffer the same fate as its Xbox counterpart in that it doesn't have to spend much time in the fetch/decoding stages of the pipeline. Immediately upon fetching the RISC instructions to be executed, they are dispatched and one clock cycle later, they are ready to be sent to the execution units.
Doesn't that simply mean that the PowerPC processor (Gekko) doesn't utilize microcode, rather than being an inherent advantage of the RISC architecture. I mean, couldn't there be a RISC processor with several state machines which depend on each other's instruction sets?
Bush Lies Watch
Get the whole thing on one page, much less annoying.
Cool little screen
The kids may be getting a GC instead of XBOX now.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
This is your first post effort? An almost complete non-sequitor about cube versus sphere?
Come on, there are plenty of dumb things you could have said about this story. Take a crack at the editorial staff. "Well I won't buy a GameCube until SmashBros offers the chance of pitting CowboyNeal against JonKatz, now that's a win-win situation."
Take the high road and say something like "I really wish these gaming machines were more flexible. Such raw power and only channeled into games. I wish more systems were like the Dreamcast that you can run Linux on."
Or you could even go the traditional way and say "First Goat!" or something. Your reply was so unimaginative and pathetic that it's a real shame you got First Post.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Now that we've covered stories about the effort to put linux on the Dreamcast and Playstation 2, how long will it be before the Mac OS runs on the GameCube - it's just an enhanced G3 that I'm running right now.
If anyone is forming a project, let me know by responding to this comment.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
Somone needs to tell Anand that a console can have all the Mhz, memory, and processing speed in the world. But at the end of the day, the games are what really make a console succeed or not.
It seems to me like the Gamecube is an attempt by Nintendo to get at a new domain of customers that they traditionally don't aim at.
Nintendo has been a console of the children. I would say ballpark 6 to 15 years of age is Nintendo time. After that, Playstation and the now-defunct Sega take over for the most part. N64 was still a very much "little kiddy" console, compared with the Playstation and Dreamcast. X-Box I'm not even going to factor in at this point, as I don't expect them to meet with tremendous success this go-around. Likely Microsoft wouldn't mind having the whole console gaming market, but that's not the issue.
Essentially it seems to me like Gamecube not only aims at the kids who are now 6-15 years old, but at those who were 6-15 years old and played on NES or SNES. Nintendo seems to be broadening their market.
This will play out pretty interestingly. I'd like to see a nice comparison of the Gamecube and the PS2. Sony is no lightweight and will not let go of their market easily.
In fact, I just had a revelation, albeit an obvious one. This is capitalism at work. Three strong companies duking it out. And since for once the sides are relatively balanced this might actually be at the benefit of the consumer. Who'd of thunk it?
I disagree. While the most recent N64 games (Pokecrap, etc.) were obviously aimed at children, when it was first released, the N64 had a wide variety of games to appeal to people of all ages. I was a freshman in college when the N64 came out (1997) and we had a blast in my dorm with Mario Kart, Goldeneye, and Madden 64. Granted, N64 had its share of 'kiddie' games at that time as well, but Nintendo continued to release games that appealed to all ages (Zelda, among others.) 18-20 year olds don't fit your demographic of 6-15.
I really think the idea of Nintendo as a 'kiddie games' company isn't very valid. It's only perceived this way because a) a larger set of actual 'kiddie' games are released (and become popular) for Nintendo consoles and b) Nintendo releases games that appeal to all ages, and most of the time these titles avoid gratiuitous violence and sexual content, at least compared to Sony or Sega console games.
Did you get yours yet?
You are supposed to spam the religion and astrology newsgroups with that link. I don't think that there is a moron who reads Slashdot that will give you a click-thru.
pronoblem
they playing Madden,007,Perf Dark, and some of the M rated games for n64...how old are YOU...65?
and i bet you NEVER have a n64..much less a gaming system..also if you do have one i bet its a playstation1...and you think its the best..that snes days asshole!
The Xbox looks like it can crunch any other console, but you know, so many of the developers they grabbed will be porting to the PC. I wonder if they havn't underestimated the overlap of PC gamers and potential Xbox owner demographics.
.. and no harddrive (thank god). It's a console. The Xbox is a PC, to the extent the MS is trying VERY hard to keep developers from wanting to port their MS-sponsered Xbox titles back to the PC (where many of them probably started, in terms of development). I have a PC. :)
I got my Gamecube 3 days ago, and holy crap, it's amazing. The Xbox might look good, but I'll take a the Cube anyday. Better controllers, best 1st party games (Halo might be coming out for PC, isn't that right?), seriously WIKED ASS form factor
I think the one arena Nintendo may have screwed up is with going with no onboard ethernet card. They are dirt cheap, why didn't they just throw one on?
"Old man yells at systemd"
But, we shouldn't even be discussing this. There is no point in complaining here. Just calm down and enjoy the news you like to read. Let's try to get on-topic again:
When it comes to the Gamecube, its hardware allows great real-life performance when you consider the theoretical limits, compared to the X-Box. The X-Box has impressive specs on paper, but in reality, the Gamecube can actually match this.
It could be that the Gamecube hardware is better "integrated", allowing better performance with less hardware due to fewer bottlenecks.
But hardware matters less and less in my opinion. With the powerful systems of today, the developer is the limit, most of the time. The Gamecube does a lot for developers, since it it apparently a dream to develop for, in contrast to the N64, which gave developers a lot of headaches.
You can throw in a lot of hardware which is powerful in theory - and when it is not part of a whole. This only leads to bottlenecks, however, so Nintendo have apparently chosen the hardware carefully to get a balanced system, and appear to have kept the specs more in the background when marketing the system. Their focus now is on games, the software available for the Gamecube.
Nintendo don't want the Gamecube to be a "home entertainment system", but want a pure gaming system - for gamers.
There are so many aspecs of their choice of hardware and media which can be discussed. The controllers are incredible. Nintendo have actually created even better ones than before, and unlike many others, they go new ways to make the controllers part of the gaming experience.
Miyamoto apparently was very much involved in the shaping of the controllers, and it shows. He truly knows what he is doing. Miyamoto is important to Nintendo, and we can all see why. Can he err?
Clever signature text goes here.
Ehh... I disagree. The n64 seemed to kind of dominate my collage campus for a few years. Everyone bought a playstation at first, but then games like Golden Eye, 1080 SnowBoarding, and Zelda game out... so everyone ran out to buy a 64. he only thing I found my Ps 1 good for (after Resident Evil) was Tony Hawk (which later came out on the 64 and looked 10 times better).
For some reason Nintendo has been getting a bad wrap because of Miyamoto's games. People think they are kiddy games or something. However, Miyamoto makes the coolest stuff. Miyamoto's the reaons I bought a cube. Games like Mario Cart, Super Smash Bros, and even Pokemon on the game boy were actually very very good games.... I advise playing them.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
If Halo comes out for the PC does that mean they'll have to remove the "XBox Only" logos from the comercials and boxes?
Hmmm...
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
because of the same reason M$ put an ATA33 hard drive cable in instead of an ATA100.. it cost them $3 more..but it could work fine without..also only about 40% will play online. the other 60 will play solo or agains friends with the 2 controlers..
also tis a marketing strategy..charge $35-45 EXTRA for something that is only worth X$in price..
I have read several of these hardware comparisons, and while they are certainly interesting for what they are (hardware comparisons) I cannot help but continue to feel that they are missing the point: the games.
In this article, it seemed the games were not even mentioned until the very final paragraph. While I do understand that was not the point of the article, I would care for Slashdot link to more game reviews and comparisons.
To be quite honest, I do not care which console has the absolutely greater graphics. Even the aging PS2 is still comparable to the latest two consoles, and while there is always room for improvement, all three are bassically "good enough."
I have been playing Super Smash Brothers Melee since its release perhaps three weeks ago here. It is a wonderful game, better than the Nintendo 64 original, and most enjoyable. While it is always interesting to see the consoles compared in terms of their hardware, I would also like to see more links to a comparison of Xbox games (since I cannot yet buy it ^_^).
Thank you.
R. Suzuka
I stopped reading the article on the second page. The Gecko CPU is based on the Book E standard and IBM's (not yet released) PPC 440 processor. The only thing common between the "Book E" standard PPC and regular PowerPC's like the 750 are the usermode instructions are the same. Supervisory mode such as memory management, page tables, etc are all changed.
--Mark
Anyways, yes, Microsoft has overlooked that most of their games are either PORTS from the PC, or in the process of BEING ported TO the PC.
Hi, I have a great PC, ill skip the XBox, I dont need another PC.
I remember when first reading about the gameboy advance, I saw something about being able to use it as a controller for the GameCube. The example of when this would be a 'good thing' was a football game. Gameplay goes on on the main screen, but you can make your play selection, privately, on your own little screen.
Although the cost is currently prohibitive (to me, at least), this seemed like an absurdly cool idea. I haven't heard anything about it since. What happened?
I've had this sig for three days.
According to my Next Generation mag, IBM made the processor for the Gamecube. It doesnt say ANYTHING about Motorolla and PowerPC .. Help?
But back to the original idea, exactly how hard would it be to get Darwin working on one of these things? Storage media aside (hopefully there will be some sort of hard drive available soon enough), all that would need to be written would be drivers for the Flipper chip and the controllers. And once you've got a working Darwin PPC platform, how hard would it be to get Quartz / Aqua working on top of that?
Great, now I've got two things to dream about..
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
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Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
-
Something about seeing Samus doing battle with Pikachu makes me
;)
the brunt power of the system doesn't lie in the IBM chip. It's in the ATI chip...want to know more about the PowerPC chip that powers the system
though not a valid argument, but a good indication, just compare the chip sizes:
the ATI chip is quite a bit larger
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
I am curious to see how the later games will play out on both systems. They may be about equivalent graphically now (maybe xbox has a slight edge) but all gamers have seen how much good developers can improve a system. Look at the original PlayStation - with some of the later games, you couldn't even tell you were playing on the same system!
With simple to program hardware, the GameCube devs will be able to write low-level code to really eke performance out of the system. I wonder if xbox programmers will be able to do the same, or if they will be restricted by the (godawful IMHO) directx apis.
Is this rock and roll, or a form of state control?
When it comes to the Gamecube, its hardware allows great real-life performance when you consider the theoretical limits, compared to the X-Box. The X-Box has impressive specs on paper, but in reality, the Gamecube can actually match this.
It could be that the Gamecube hardware is better "integrated", allowing better performance with less hardware due to fewer bottlenecks.
I think you ought to read the article before you comment. The Gamecube is better than the PS/2, but lacks the graphics, sound, interface, and raw CPU power of the X-Box. I hate to say it, but I got a strong feeling Nintendo may end up like Sega did with the Dreamcast. Great little system, not enough power/support.
size comparison
XBox motherboard
GameCube motherboard
With the Xbox there are a number of supported DTV and HDTV resolutions including two of the more interesting ones - 720p and 1080i. The GameCube offers basic support for 480i and 480p, but that is all.
I own a widescreen HDTV and I'll be buying a GameCube soon. The N64 output in 320x240 I believe. (The highest resolution a regular TV can support -- 240 lines of horizontal resolution.)
High quality DVD output is normally done at 480p, same as the GameCube. This is the part that confuses me though -- if DVD outputs at 480p (using a progressive scan DVD player), how is it able to fill my 16:9 TV with a perfect, widescreen picture? Does this mean that GameCube games could also output in a 16:9 mode, even though they are limited to 480p?
And although it sounds like the XBox will be able to output HDTV quality pictures at 1080i, does the console have enough power to draw full frames at that resolution?? We're talking about 1920x1080 screen resolution!
I wish someone would cover the HDTV capabilities of these new console systems for those of us with widescreen HDTV's.
"And like that
The Gamecube is better than the PS/2, but lacks the graphics, sound, interface, and raw CPU power of the X-Box. I hate to say it, but I got a strong feeling Nintendo may end up like Sega did with the Dreamcast.
Totally agree with this. Indeed before this article I had though that the Gamecube was more powerful than it is, but now it seems that The Xbox very clearly eclipses it. Then again the Gamecube is a 1/3 cheaper and may end up with better games: We'll see how it plays out.
I saw a recent GT3 commercial showing some scenes I'd never seen before, and I have to say that it looked HORRIBLE : For all of the accolades, I'd seen better graphics in Driver on the PC a couple of years ago. I think most of the people who slobber over the PS2 or Gamecube have never seen anything never than a S3 VX on a PC.
Well, that's the point. It doesn't look "as good" on paper, so to speak.
What I, perhaps a bit clumsily, was trying to say is that impressive hardware specs won't help if it doesn't allow developers to do what they want.
This will mainly be a problem in the beginning, before developers get more acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of a system. The initial impressions quoted developers as saying that the Gamecube was amazing to develop for. Nintendo learned from the mistakes they made with the N64. This gives people developing for the Gamecube a head start when it comes to actually utilizing the power within the system.
The X-Box does have nice specs, but it isn't all that much more powerful than the Gamecube. Something to keep in mind is that the games that are being done today can be done on just about any of the current generation consoles. Sometimes, one may have to sacrifice speed or certain "extras" if one wants to port a game. However, the X-Box does not beat the Gamecube on all fronts. Gamecube has its strengths, as the X-Box does, though the X-Box probably has the upper hand. This is only true when the developers can actually use the power of the system properly, which is a lot easier with the Gamecube than the N64, for example. I haven't read too many comments on the X-Box and its "development-friendlyness", but I think Nintendo has a winner here.
Clever signature text goes here.
I think that the whole issue about which game system is the best comes down to a lesson my father taught me about of all things, cars.
Its about stability, reliability, and working out the kinks.
He said never, ever buy a car the year the new model comes out. The manufacturers have tested it, but not the way the consumers will. Usually, the best cars to drive are the ones where they are about to change the fundamental design (usually after three years or car generations) a few years after have worked out all of the major complaints brought in, and before they change the design again.
So what does this have to do with video consoles? Well, as I see it, Nintendo has gone through several generations of workign the bugs out in hardware and gameplay, and that in itself is its benefit and reason to buy.
There are at least 3 generations of Nintendo in major US release, even after they made coin ops.
Playstation is on generation 2.
Xbox is on its first generation.
Honestly, I can't even think of a in-house Nintendo game that I was ever dissatisfied with, other than the super-late shipping time.
It has worked so far very well with the cars.
It has done well with consoles.
To start, there are plenty of widescreen TVs out there that are not HDTV. The widescreen issue is seperate from that of 480p/1080i support.
In many games (like GT3) the PS2, for example, supports widescreen displays. This means that the game will have a 16x9 aspect ratio. It will use all of the frame's horisontal lines of resolution (as opposed to dedicating some top and bottom hor lines to black, in order to make the wide aspect ratio on a 4x3 display).
There is nothing stopping any console game from supporting widescreen displays. You could even make widescreen games on a 8bit NES! It is just a matter of scaling the picture, cramming more picture into each horisontal line. This would result in a squased diplay on 4x3 televisions.
Now as for the 480p-1080i modes support, this is obviouly hardware specific. The output chip needs to be able to draw to these video modes. Again, this is a seperate issue from the 4x3/16x9 issue. It just so happens that most high-end TVs that support these modes also happen to be widescreen displays (but not all!).
In conclusion, *any* console can support 16x9 widescreen display modes, but the support for high-resolution progressive display modes is hardware hence console specific.
Exactly, I think they were confusing widescreen tv's with hdtv. My hdtv is not widescreen, but can still display hd content.
I remember when I was younger, and my father decided that a game console would be my birthday present - at the time, I had the fateful choice between either SNES, or whatever SEGA system was out (genesis?).
I remember it plainly - sega was "the cool system". It had the blood, and the arcade ports - and, good golly, it had a black case!! but I just couldn't help but be taken with the appearance and gameplay of the SNES. Super Mario World was a huge-ass factor in my decision. And I've never regretted it. I still play my SNES games today.
but I bring this up for a major reason - this "Xbox vs. GameCube" sounds like "sega vs. snes" all over again... and even if xbox does survive, I doubt it'll ever be nintendo.
microsoft's xbox, imo, relies too much on the "cool" factor. nintendo has higher standards of quality.
For the most part I enjoyed the read (though I already know what all was in my little Cube). I did have a problem with a few of the opinion based statements that where made though. The writter claims that faster load times on the cube are probably attributed to low geometry and lower resolution textures in games than that of the Xboxs. I have a feeling that this reviewer had a tendency to not look at the games he was playing. While some of the textures in Luigi's mansion might be viewed as graining...every other game has had UNBELIEVABLE textures and geometry. I guess he hasn't played SMB or SSB or Rouge Leader or anyother game for that matter. So...please take some of the statements in this review with a grain of salt and just look at the technical stuff stated.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
Since I am an owner of many macs with powerpc and ATI chipsets I am familiar with some of the "syncing" problems ATI has with their cards, specifically, their tendency to refresh different parts of the screen at different times...
Put simply, when my gamecube displays at 480p it seems like the top 1/3 of the screen refreshes before the bottom 2/3, resulting in unnatural pixel shift in (a sort of invisible line) and around the top 1/3 of my screen. This is very similar (if not identical) to the display problems of ATI cards on the mac in graphically intensive situations. When playing quake 3 on my mac with a ppc g4 500mhz with radeon will sometimes choke and refresh different parts of the screen at different times.
If anyone out there knows what the hell I am talking about, I would enjoy any feedback regarding these GC visual farts, which are very evident in Pikmin. Please assume I have hooked everything correctly and have troubleshooted everything I can think of.
I refuse to beleive this is a problem with my TV as it has diplayed 480p very well in the past.
My real question is... is anyone else experiencing these visual anomalies?
"Smokey, this isn't Nam, there are rules." -Walter
Technically that's not true. True HDTV is 16:9.
Halo isn't the only game. For example "Project Gotham Racing" lets you use some of that 10 gig hard drive to store music that you can substitute in the game. You simply bootup your xbox, pop in an audio cd, rip the tracks, and then load PGR, choose audio and select the tracks you ripped. Now your playing games with the music you like.
Halo, no matter if it comes out for the PC is a great game on the Xbox. The controller is superb for halo controls, i don't know why people despise the controller so much. It (the xbox controller) is MUCH more confortable with games requiring the dual analog sticks then "thumbing" the PS2 type controllers or monkeying with the Nintendo controllers.
DVD Support is great in the Xbox as well support all digital audio outputs other then the costly THX output.
The Xbox isn't meant for PC porting, i don't know whose ass your pulling that out of. I can play EA's games, Tony Hawk and all the other hottest sellers (Including Grand Theft auto) on my PC if you really want to be a wise ass and get precise.
Don't get me wrong, the Gamecube is a great system if your into the mario stuff.
Xbox is far from a PC.. And even if it is a "PC", wasn't that what another console maker was trying to do with LInux?
What makes the Xbox so powerfull and affordable is its pc "roots", hence keeping the cost of ownership for amount of processing power VERY low.
You will get alot more out of an XBox then you will even the Fastest pc right now for the simple fact there is one VERY high powered video card, one sound card, one network card and a single interface. There is no os overhead, no different drivers, no crashes because someone has a cheap video card, no overhead of background processes.
The Xbox is a green, lean and mean machine. Your just missing out on some of the action if you limit your consoles to one vendor.
No, Microsoft isn't lobying pc developers. If you see the latest releases and schedules, most games coming out on the Xbox that are out on PC are coming out for Gamecube and PS2 as well (Max Payne, Unreal Championship, Grand Theft Auto, EA Sports games...) Xbox has its own games though, just like any other console.
..I think the Xbox is a nice middle ground between the PC and systems like the Gamecube. One thing I really like about the Gamecube and Xbox is "no hassle" game playing(and the PS2 for that matter). When is last time that you didn't have to spend a least an hour installing a game to your PC, downloading the latest patches, and tweaking your video card to make it work perfectly? I'm sure a lot of people like this control and the ability to tweak stuff, but it gets old when you just want to sit down and play. I do think the Xbox has the advantage over the Gamecube because it has the "no hassle", it has more powerful hardware, it has an ethernet port already built in, and beacuse of the hard drive it also has the ability to eventually download fixes and patches to correct problems in games and hopefully add enhancements. I think the article brought up a good point about add on adapters such as the ethernet port for the Gamecube. Past systems have had problems getting software developers to write for the accessories, and I hope that Nintendo plays it right and releases its' accessories early on and doesn't wait until developers look at them as a bother incorporate. -b
I don't get everyone saying the Xbox is a PC and getting PC ports while the Gamecube is cool and a unique console.
The Xbox is just as much a "PC" as the Gamecube is a Mac/Apple/PowerPC, so with the anti microsoft politics aside, each console has its own advantages and leave it at that.
If you want to compare against PC's then that rules out Metal Gear Solid, Unreal Tournament, All EA Sports games, The Grand Theft Auto Series, bunch of Sega Games and tons more.. (I can even play tonyhawk on the pc).
Its just the simple fact microsoft chose proven, affordable and mass produceable hardware without changing the underlying infrastructure they have been developing on for the past two decades.
My point is, none of the consoles are a "PC". All these new consoles have there own advantages as well as problems.
SO just game on , read the review and decide for yourself what you want.
Is this the dispelling of a bit width vs. performance myth?
Is Nintendo just filling in a gap in their NES(8)-SNES(16)-GCN(32)-N64(64) line?
Will Intel unveil a high-performing 300 MHz Pentium 5?
AlpineR
You're right, my panny (ct36hx41) does an anapamophic (sp?) squeeze, which wastes the top and bottom half of the screen in 1080i mode, and uses all the scanlines for the 16:9 picture. It's not the best solution, but in this transition period, it's pretty much a tossup, I guess it depends on whether you think you'll be spending more time watching the half dozen HD channels, or the 200+ NTSC channels, I figured I would be doing the latter, although I have to admit, HD is pretty compelling and can even make Jay Leno look good.
That's total BS, they (AnandTech), obviously, don't know anything about audio standards, especially considering they didn't spend any time on this subject. What benefit does DD 5.1 have over DPL II? I guess being an older standard and having more support could be considered a benefit... DPL II completely revamps the DPL standard. DPL had quite a few limitations, only 4 channel, rear channel had a very limited bandwidth, etc... DPL II fixes all of these shortcomings and provides something DD does not, low latency. I don't know how the X-box handles the latency issue, if it even does. Dolby intended DD to be used for pre-recorded material where latency isn't a problem but when you're dynamically creating audio it's big issue. From the specs I've seen the max sync speed of DD is 30/fps, and any FPS die hard will tell you that 30/fps just isn't going to cut it when trying to frag your opponents. DPL II, OTOH, is around 60/fps which is all the faster a TV can sync to anyway. So, what this means is, unless X-box does some nifty tricks with the audio it isn't syncing to the video. IOTW, when your missle hits the wall there's a half second delay before you hear it. This is fine if the wall is 550 feet away but not when it's right in front of you.
NE1 have more information on this?
I can't believe you, you go on talking about how the GameCube is soo much better than the XBox, and yet, you still manage to spell wicked wrong. Notice that there's a 'c' that your missing. Sheesh, some people.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
(The highest resolution a regular TV can support -- 240 lines of horizontal resolution.)
WTF?
NTSC has 525 scanlines (480 visible), and PAL has 625 (576 visible).
480i is exactly the same as NTSC but digital, 480p gives you a better picture due to non-interlacing (NTSC updates every other line each sweep).
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Flipper always operates on 4 pixels at a time using its 4 pixel pipelines; each of those pipelines is capable of applying one texture per pipeline"
Nope, it can actually apply 8 textures using 16 combiner stages.
"The Flipper graphics core is a fairly simple fixed function GPU"
It can do z-texturing, dependant-texturing, 8-way multitexturing etc. There's no way you can describe it as simple or fixed function. I'd suggest that whoever wrote this article boot up Pikmin, walk out into the water on level four and take a look at what Flipper can do in a single pass over a flat polygon.
I remember having my SNES console and thinking that there would never be games that could be superior to some of the first games that came out (Super Mario World, FZERO, Zelda, etc..) but as the years went by the console continued to mature (FX Technology in Starfox, Amazing graphics in Super Mario World 2, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid!) It took several years before games of that caliber were finally released. The hardware on the SNES never changed, so it is absurd to dwell on the hardware of a system to measure how great of a console it is.
Then what makes a console great? If hardware was what made the SNES better than its predecessors then why are millions of people (including myself) still playing and discovering games that actually surpass PS2,XBOX,GCUBE, et cetera on almost every level?
The answer is simple, it's the games. Which is what many posts ahead me have said. But what makes a game great? The CODING and DEVELOPMENT behind the game. I think we are forgetting about how much CODING and DEVELOPMENT has to do with a consoles success. (Which is why many top level game designers [recently: Hideo Kojima MGS, MGS2; Shigeru Miyamoto Mario, Zelda, Pikmin] People always attribute a consoles success to games, but the success of the games is caused by the great coding behind the games. And for coding to get to that level coders need time to work with the console and also the technology within that console. It took many years before the full potential of the SNES was realized. My biggest fear is that the Console Gaming Industry is rushing too fast to try and compete with the new developments in technology to appease all the uneducated consumers who just demand the fastest, most powerful machine; and in doing so is not letting their console systems reach their true potential.
I don't know about anyone else, but I will take Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 2, Final Fantasy 3, Super Metroid, et cetera over almost all of the current games for the next generation of consoles (granted PS2 is FINALLY starting to get some good material).
Bottom line: We shouldn't spend so much time analyzing and over-analyzing the hardware behind the systems (we've argued about bits [4bit, 8bit, 16bit, 32bit] and now it's X-CPU vs. GCube-CPU, and nVidia NV2A vs. ATI Flipper). We should focus more attention to those who spend YEARS developing some of the most imaginative and engrossing games in the world, and give payment where it's due: the people behind the games.
The Xbox may have a lot of "power", but much of that power is spent spinnings its wheels and getting nowhere. The GameCube may have less "power", but its power is used more efficiently, always moving things along.
I say this because of the memory systems of the different systems. Xbox is crippled by UMA DRAM. DRAM has long latencies for page misses, and with UMA, you're guaranteed to have lots of page misses. GameCube has dedicated memories for framebuffer, texture buffer, and audio. So its graphics processor is never stalled waiting for memory access. And the 1T-SRAM means low low latency with no page-miss costs.
Peak performance figures may sound nice, but without efficiency and practical considerations, they're meaningless.
I think it is indeed a digital port. If you, um, "study" the component video cable enough, you'll notice a chip inside of it which must be a DAC.
1st of all, there aer still more people on dial up than there are on broadband. Microsoft is very optimistic to assume this, but the aiblity to hook multiple xboxes together is nice.
2nd. ethernet adaptes may be dirt cheap, but the internet infrastructure needed to support it isnt. you guys are looking at the cost of the component, not the overhead that it costs to maintain it.
Like everyone else already said, nintendo will probably just sell it separately or include it with the 'must have' game for the new product.
1st Pokemon Stadium came witht he GB transfer
star fox came with the rumble (?)
donkey kong came with memory expansion
Hey you pikacu came w/ microphone
I want to start by saying I totally agree with you about the games measuring the system, but I have a couple of points to make.
The reason why the hardware is being analyzed is that people want to see room for growth. You mentioned Star Fox using the SuperFX chip. The SNES was designed to run this kind of DSP, whereas the Genesis couldn't do this very well. (remember virtua racing for it? HUUUUGE cartridge)
The people who plunk down change for the machine would like to know that it does have a few surprises waiting for it. Remember Virtua Fighter 2 for the Saturn? Remember how much better it looked than ANYTHING on the Playstation? I think there are people out there betting that whatever system they own will pull a rabbit like that one out of their hats.
The other point I'd like to make is that it's comforting to know that the hardware is simplified. One thing that really stinks is when a game slows down in the heat of the action. By having a system configuration that is predictable, they can greatly reduce problems like these. If the XBOX, for example, had a bottleneck where drawing a huge polygon on the screen drastically slowed it down, then that'd be bad for most games. But if the XBOX can handle games in just about any situation reliably, then it's good to know that ur gaming experience isn't going to be distrupted by a bottleneck in the system.
I, personally, chose the GameCube because I believe it has the best potential. Not because of it's power, but because of the work artists have been able to put into it. I really believe that the battle between the consoles out today will be decided by the artists, not the programmers this time. Look at Donkey Kong Country and you'll see what I mean....
"Derp de derp."
If you take the fact that it is basically just a pc, there isn't much to learning how to use the system so the games we see are possibly as good as they may get? Where as with the GC and PS2, the tools and lib for development have a greater margin for improvement over the more abundant and familiar pc clone.
just a though...
could it be true? I can post now?
Aye aye aye aye, I am the Frito bandito.
AmigaDE is CPU independent, it was already demonstrated running on the Dreamcast over a year ago.
I've read the contrary, a review of SSX Tricky for the GameCube on IGN states the PS2 version of SSX Tricky was a lot faster and had better textures and an over-all clearer picture than the GameCube version. I wonder how he came to his conclusion? He never mentioned that, he assumed it was common knowledge. I didn't try the X-Box version of SSX Tricky as it wasn't out at the time (is it on X-Box at all?)
The PS2's Graphics Synthesizer is entirely too dependent on extreme parallelism in order to fill its 16 pixel pipelines which could be the cause of many of the slowdowns we've seen in games for the platform.
I don't think that's so evident, SEGA claims to have gotten Virtua Fighter 4 to do 63 million polygons/second on the PS2, and after seeing some screenshots running on the actual PS2 hardware, I don't doubt them one bit.
While the PS2's Emotion Engine has a lot of potential, developers have continuously stated that the platform is too difficult to program for.
Maybe so, Sony had recently released a tool that measures efficient use of the system, and apparently Gran Turismo 3 only uses 25% of the PS2's power (Official US PS Magazine Issue #52, Page 31). Games certainly will get better, and it's impressive to see how much growing room there is for developers. Developers mostly complained in the beginning that the PS2 was hard to program, but Sony's development kit wasn't complete. Once Sony had released debuggers for VU0 and VU1, things went a lot more smoothly and we were able to see games such as Metal Gear Solid 2. In any case, developers are doing pretty good considering the trouble they had with the Saturn which was also "plagued" by parallelism. I quote "plagued" because parallelism can be an advantage as well as a disadvantage.
I'm honestly not trying to flame Anand, but it seems like the way he drew his conclusions on the PS2 were sketchy at best:
Both the GameCube and Xbox are clearly superior to the PS2 in terms of the quality of the graphics seen in games available today. The transition from PS2 to GameCube and/or Xbox is a fairly large leap, but going between GameCube and Xbox is a bit less dramatic.
Statements like this appear opinionated to me... After playing the games I consider to be the top of the line in graphics for each system: Jak & Daxter (PS2), Metal Gear Solid 2 (PS2), Gran Turismo 3 (PS2), Rogue Leader (GCN), Halo (X-Box), DOA3 (X-Box), Luigi's Mansion (GCN), Wave Race (GCN), Splashdown (PS2), I don't know how he can even say that. The games look as if they were all played on the same system, each game seemed pretty on-par with their peers.
Perhaps observations like these will be addressed in Part 3 of the "Hardware Behind the Consoles" series? Does anyone have any other suggestions on what to look into concerning the PS2 in Part 3?
Concerning the GameCube itself, though, the article was definitely worth the read. It explained the GameCube's hardware at exactly the technical level I was interested in, good job!
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
But you should be doubly scared by someone named "Ranchero" or "Pinto."
Lol. You got me.