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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 ;)
Its still happening. They demoed this functionality recently with a new Kirby game, although I dont remember if the game is going to make it to the production state. Basically, you plug the GBA into a controller port for the gamecube, and if the game is GBA-aware, the developers can choose to do whatever they want with it. One VERY cool thing is that the Kirby demo included an empty 'gamepak' in the GBA that was en empty cartridge with a Tilt-Sensor in it. So you could use the GBA as a controller which could tell the Cube what angle it was being held at. Imagine the possibilities.
.. also consider that you could have one friend control the gun of a ship and use the GBA screen as a radar, and you control the flying of that ship. I don't know, there are lost of possible cool ways to use the GBA link, but we'll have to see if anyone stumbles across the aforementionned 'killer app'. Then again, who knows, maybe it'll just be Pokeman again. :)
But to answer your original question, the functionality is there; the only question is, can Game Cube developers find the 'killer app' for this configuration? I think the most useful implementation will be to share saved game data between GBA and Gamecube versions of the same game, but thats my limited imagination talking (and I dont know what typical savegame sizes are on GBA titles.) The football example you provided was good
Check cube.ign.com and gamespot.com, and do searches for "Game Boy Advance Link Game Cube" or something similar.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Dammit, man, your post just reminds me how nice the VMUs are when playing NFL2k on the Dreamcast. It works like you suggest: lets you select your play privately. But, it's much more convenient because it actually is a part of the regular controller. (On the GC, I'd think you'd either have to switch between the GC controller and the GBA, or you'd have to use the more limited GBA to play all the time...) And, of course, it costs a lot less for a VMU.
I wouldn't look for too many games for the GC/GBA hookup, (at least from anyone other than Nintendo) since if a developer makes a game that works really well when a GBA is used, he'd risk losing the business of GC-owners that don't have a GBA.
-- dR.fuZZo
I rented the XBox for five days from blockbuster and bought the hdtv adapter from Compusa using the takeback special(they deserve it for screwing me over so many times, like that time they held onto $200 of my money for two months without sending me the product I ordered and lied about receiving the money, but I digress). Anyway, one thing I can say is that composite output does not do the Xbox justice, you definitely need to use the high-definition component adapter to get an idea of the real power. None of the games currently support 1080i, however the startup screen does, and it is awesome. As far as the games that don't support hd, well, they still run at 480p (640x480x60hz for the hdtv illiterate). However, it's not widescreen 480p, widescreen at 480p is actually 720x480x60hz, if I remember correctly. I would say that the geforce 3 should easily support hd resolutions, unless the fillrate is being chewed up elsewhere, think about it, I run quake III at 1600x1200x32 at 90 + fps on my pc, so this card should be able to do 1920x1080ix16bits at the required framerate. I am in serious doubt of this artx chip that the gamecube is using however, there is a reason that nvidia is at the top of their game, and that is because their chips have an extreme amount of fillrate and performance. If you are looking for hdtv support, I would stick with the XBox, it has the kind of hardware that should be able to handle those kinds of resolutions.
P.S. If I were you I would rent the consoles before buying, for the XBox I would highly recommend checking out halo, and for pure graphics quality, Dead or Alive 3.
Actually, the PowerPC was once 5 seperate processors that powered IBM's RISC workstations.
Later IBM wanted a partner for the PowerPC processor since they wanted to challenge Intel. Motorola's 68K line was getting long in the tooth so they decided to go for the PowerPC partnership since at the time they needed a RISC chip.
Motorola is/was a partner, but the original PowerPC is pretty much a child of IBM.
They're even selling a version of it at higher clock speeds (culling the fast parts off the line and selling it for more). It is the PPC750CX and
CXe http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/te
Perhaps, but the tech is really cheap and the software is redaily available. If Nintendo wanted to get into the online game market, they blew it. A conscious decision to make sure to provide an on-board modem or ethernet port early in the design might have made $20 difference.
Let's face it: The add-on market for consoles blows goats. Most people will get extra controllers, but that's about it. Many don't get "fancy" controllers either (rapid fire excluded).
Game developers will make sure that the game works as much as possible on the lowest common denominator system, which means no connectivity. The only system add-ons I've ever seen sell well are mod chips and Game[Genie, Shark, etc.] units.
Maybe the online game market isn't one that Nintendo every really intended to dig into. By explicitly not providing that option to developers at launch, few of them will want to get into it.
Pax, Ardax
The 440GP was being considered, but Nintendo opted to go with the 750. You can read all about it here.
"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.