Slashdot Mirror
Probing the Guts Of the Consoles
Max Entropy writes "Finally, an in-depth article of the technologies within the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox. The article covers architectures, processor/memory silicon, I/O, expandability, and storage among a host of other topics." If you are wondering what makes each system distinctive (Besides
the fact that one has about a hundred times as many games, one overheats,
and another has Luigi) this might be worth a read.
is that the Xbox also has an X-10 compatible home automation controller built into the power supply. If you notice, a small serial data cable leads from the motherboard to an area of the supply (the part of the supply farthest from the large capacitors). No software is known to control this yet, though. IIRC the IC that they used will only send signals, not receive them.
The article claims that the PS2 cannot play DVDs without the remote control, which is not true. It can play them just fine without. The XBox, however, cannot. It's not that bad of an article, just not objective enough.
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I have not heard a thing about production xboxes off the shelf that are overheating. In fact, I have not seen anything about overheating, BSODs occuring at all.
Editors, if you have any evidence for your allegations, please provide them, otherwise you look just like bitter fools spreading FUD.
"The shoot-'em-up game genre, popular in the past, is losing its appeal as television viewers behold the horror of real-life war on the evening news. What game genres will replace it is less clear"
HUH!?! I beg to differ. Too many people have asked me about playing Q3, Half-Life, and UT online in the last few weeks. Since the prices of pc's have dropped and broadband availibility growing in my city, more and more people are wanting to "shoot'em up" online. (Oops, forgot to mention that the price of those games have dropped recently.)
I have had the xbox since it was released, and it has not 'overheated' once. The only time it did anything out of the ordinary was with the Obi-wan game, and I've heard reports from a couple other people of seeing the occasional fluke with the game. So please don't make generalized statements claiming the xbox overheats all the time, when in fact, I think you'll notice that the production xbox is very, very stable.
"I drank what?" -Socrates
"At first they were simple gaming machines, now they focus on email, broadband, DVD playing, web browsing, etc etc"
:) There have been consoles before with laser disk support though.
Bah.. Yes, at first in 1972 they were just that. But hey, the Odessy only had 40 transistors/resistors/diodes and the "computer" world was a bit different then.
Current gen:PS2 has planned NIC/HD and can play online (check the back of the PS2 version of Tony Hawk 3 next time you're in a software store!). GC has broadband/56K support on Nintendo's page. The Xfl-box has a built in NIC. DC has 56K support.
Previous: Saturn had an official modem and all that email, web, stuff, just not the DVD
Previous to that: the 3DO was going to be a multimedia box every household needed. Before that in the late 80s/early 90s Commodore tried the CDTV for multimedia stuff and had Nolen Bushnell promoting it.
Previous: SNES and Genesis had the Xband modem for games and "email". Again there was planned modems, etc that never shipped. Still Nintendo etc always have those expansion slots-just incase. There was a CD-ROM add on for many of these era consoles so you didn't need to buy a seperate cd player to listen to the new music format..
During the NES era Nintendo partnered with AT&T to allow users to do banking/stock trading online through their NES! 10,000 homes were hooked up for a test in Minnesota and for $10 a month they could play the state's lotteries online.
In 1983 there was the CVC Gameline (used a catridge with a 1200baud modem with 8K of ram) for the Atari 2600 that offered news, stocks, "electronic mail", and banking services to 2600 owners. And you could download games for $1 each and keep them until you turned your system off.
Game consoles have always been "simply gaming machines" until there is enough of them people's homes to be something else. What MS is doing is nothing different than what has been going on for the last few decades.
Is anyone else tired of /. posting every single console hardware review? It doesnt really matter anyway, how many polygons each machine can pump.
Games matter. Instead of wasting time, I suggest you go to www.gamespot.com and take a good long look at the list(s) of games of each console, read the unbiased reviews, stare at pictures and movies, and then decide which console is coolest.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
The article is pretty good overall but lacks a major component. GRAPHICS performance (duh)!. It has one paragraph telling us something about multitexturing (guess which box? it starts with an 'x'), high polygon performance to render some cute girlees hair (rrrright), anti alliasing (same 'x'), anisotropic filtering ('x'), writing z-buffer optimised code (goes for all graphics software), if multiple lighting and transforming calculations can be offloaded of the main CPU (xbox again, sorry). It doesn't even mention other texturing tricks that we are allready used to on the PC. Environmentmapping, bumpmapping, etc. (damn impressive in Halo on my xbox).
I would recommend those that want a deeper analysis of why the xbox is the graphics gaming console of the future (verses these other boxes) to have a good look at what DX8 brought us. Hint: vertex shading and pixel shading.
Oh, and Mr CmdrTaco, get with the program:
- PS2 has more games, yes. 425 PS1 + PS2 combined titles. Xbox has about 40 now and that list is growing fast. 100x...whatever
- Overheating? Don't pull a 'the prerelease box was rumoured to overheat' kinda bull on this forum please
- Luigi??? Abe farts in the fase of Luigi! In more colors, with surround sound and at 1080i
LINUX (kernel 0.9) SUCKS!!
If by "one" you mean the XBOX, then you are either a liar or an idiot. I purchased an XBOX and have not yet turned it off, indeed I have hardly stopped playing it (that includes 18 straight hours of Halo, during which I beat the game), and it has yet to overheat. In fact, the box itself is not uncomfortably cool (although it is noticeably warm to the touch), but the gameplay does not slow down. Only someone with 17 fans on their Athlon would think the XBOX overheats. Perhaps you editors should only post what you know, rather than whatever might make people think that Microsoft looks bad. Your propaganda battle is pointless, because you're preaching to the choir, who largely don't matter.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Wow, I've found quite the opposite. A friend of mine has an N64 and now a Game Cube, and while there's a lot of kiddie games, there's a whole lot of what I'd call "social games." Games that are genuinely fun, with decent graphics, that are best played with at least three or four people.
These are the games that are actually fun, and aren't the kind that you only play locked up in a dark room all night by yourself. Of course, knowing slashdot, there are probably very few people here who would actually agree that being social is a good thing.
- j
The BSODs and GSODs you hear of are actually not true. The "GSOD" you saw online is actually a disc error (inserting the wrong type of disc) into the XDK, not even the final Xbox (Next time you see it, check out the bottom).
If the Xbox crashes or freezes, you don't get ANY type of message. It'd just lock up (read the documentation). Same as the other consoles.
So somehow I actually doubt your "number of friends" got GSODs in games.
I've had my Xbox since launch day: No crashes, no freezes, no problems, and certainly no overheating.
When I want single player FPS action, I'll play games on my PC, where I have a mouse, keyboard, cable modem and an excellent 21" Sony Trinitron monitor. So far, the dark and gritty games are still done best on the PC, and this seems to be the major targets of the XBox and PS2.
Enter Gamecube, a system with games that are commonly colourful and very party oriented. If I'm going to be playing console games, I want to play them with my friends around a big TV. When I pick up my Gamecube, I'm definately grabbing Super Monkey Ball and Super Smash Bros. along with three additional controllers.
As a PC Gamer, I see the XBox and PS2 for people who don't have near top of the line PC hardware. I see the Gamecube's function as being something a bit different, and it's very attractive. I can't get that over here.
Besides, it looks like we're going to see some impressive first party titles. Is it possible not to be interested in a Zelda game on mass storage media for the first time?
Will you personally buy a game cube? If you answer yes to this one you'll be the only one I know who will.
Get out a little more. They've sold a million of the things. By the way, great argument there. My dad can beat up yours.
I think I represent the average gamer and I want strategy games, fighting games, REALISTIC images, great audio.
Nah, the average gamer wants The Sims and Pokemon.
I want games to move me and scare me. I especially don't want Mario this or Luigi that.
Fair enough, but if you're going to speak for the average gamer, keep in mind that Nintendo sold about a billion dollars worth of software in 2000. Their closest competitor? EA, with under 500 million. Keep in mind that EA publishes games on all platforms and that Nintendo is restricted to their own. And in case you're wondering, those numbers don't include hardware, it's just the games. Doesn't sound like the average gamer is agreeing with you so far.
Game cube commercials are already touting a new Mario + friends mortal combat style fighting game. I truly think you need to be 11 to get a kick out of that.
Yeah, you definitely need to be eleven. Like last night, I was playing Smash Brothers with my roommate and two friends and it was so fun that we played for about two hours. Then I remembered that we're all over 24 so we threw that game out. I don't know what Gamespot was thinking when they put it in the top ten console games of the year, because I'm pretty sure their editors are over 11 (although sometimes it's a tough call). Good thing, we stopped playing, though, so we could move on to a game that lets you drive one of these armed cycles on some huge courses and blow your friends up.
But I'll admit that the Gamecube's graphics aren't that great, like that Rogue Leader game. I mean, did they really think anyone would want to play a game with graphics like this?
And in fighting games, we'll put aside the fact that you're superficial and clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I know Kirby and Pikachu are cute as all get out, but the fighting system in SSB is way more fun than DOA3's. And if that's not enough for you, Soul Calibur 2, successor to the real king of 3D fighters (OK, fine, Virtua Fighter rules, too), will be exclusive to the GameCube when it first arrives.
Speaking of realism, did you know that the water in Wave Race: Blue Storm, an amazingly addictive racing game with a tight control system, was so good, that Gamespot created a new category in their year end awards for it?
Oh, right, and you want to be scared. So, how about four Resident Evil games and Eternal Darkness? Is that enough blood for you, mister sophisticated mature gaming man?
I've got a GameCube, a Playstation 2, and a Dreamcast (which, as far as I'm concerned, still has the best catalog of games around), couldn't be happier.
My other
How about a Slashdot review on how the hell you plug all of these game consoles into your existing video system? :P
Seeing how the article makes blatant mistakes (the PS2 does not, in fact, require an extr remote to play DVD, nor does it require extra consoles to play with more than two players, its got an optionnal multi-tap for that), I'm wondering how many more subtle mistakes it makes in the less easily verified points: Numbers, architecture descriptions, etc.
And I reiterate: The GAMES are the important thing.
Xbox has nothing worth buying it (ooo, halo, big freakin' deal) while PS2 has Metal Gear Solid 2 (greates game of all time???), the Game Cube has super monkey ball (come on! A monkey in a ball? You can't get any more fun!), an pikmin and more coming.
I bought a PS2...I'm thingking about a game cube, but xbox is NOT interesting.
You can't take the sky from me...
Microsoft is just trying to create a closed pc where they can control everything. The XBox is an evil machine, even the name 'X' is evil, what does it mean? why 'X'? are they trying to hide something? Also, everyone knows that the XBox crashes all the time and that it overheats because there is a hampster fused with a plutonium core inside which they can use to make a nuclear device, i've seen the plans!!!
10 years on, and Microsoft's XBox is the industry standard. After the system was reverse engineered by an independent party, the market opened up for XBox 'clones' also known as Microsoft Compatables. These clones were produced by 3rd parties but the OS and DRM systems were provided by Microsoft - Because of the wide software base (Microsoft bought up Sony in 2004), the 3rd parties wanted to maintain compatibility with the Microsoft OS, and, because it was law in America, the Digital Rights Management System had to be provided by an approved company - either Microsoft or AOL/Time Warner. On the other side Nintendo provided their range of computers - the Polyhedron series. However no-one took them seriously except artists and writers.
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cube.ign.com has a great interview with two of the designers of the chip, and it's really informative. Part 2 is even better, where they talk about the competition's chips :)
The interviews really shed some light onto the chip's functionality; it's engineered for gaming and a far cry from the off-the-shelf XBox CPU. Additionally, they mention that IBM detailed the chips at Hot Chips and the Embedded Processor Forum. Can anyone dig that info up?
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
I just got an Xbox and I am quite happy with it.. except for one thing: It does over heat. While playing a great game of Project Gotham after finishing a one on one with a Skyline (with my Ford Focus lol) it just froze on the loading screen... I havent had this problem with other games I have but its quite annoying...