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.

Comments

One thing they left out

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Some misinformation from the article

[Gath]

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.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[SuiteSisterMary]

To further clarify the situation, the Xbox doesn't ship with DVD capability in order to also not ship with the 30 dollar licensing fee from the DVD Consortium. The Playstation 2, however, does mean you're paying 30 dollars, even if you'll never put a DVD-Video disc into it. Matters to some people.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

overheats??

[Anonymous Coward]

If i remember right, demo xboxes were supposedly overheating because they were in very enlosed cases with little room for air to circulate to cool it off.

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.

Re:overheats??

[Osty]

If i remember right, demo xboxes were supposedly overheating because they were in very enlosed cases with little room for air to circulate to cool it off.

More than that, the possibility that those units were overheating was nothing more than speculation. The only units that ever had problems were those running earlier demo discs, and it was announced that the demo discs were bad -- they were built for the XDK box which has twice the memory (for development purposes), rather than the production XBox, and so would often step past the potential memory space of the real XBox (see how the XBox isn't a PC? If it were, it'd use that nice hard drive as virtual memory, but it doesn't because it's not a PC. Oh, sure, a game could implement its own virtual memory handler, but that has to be done on a per-game basis, as with any console ...). Thus, software problem, not hardware problem. The possibility of overheating was just Slashdot jerking its collective knee.

Who cares?

[dimator]

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.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[iso]

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

GSODs and BSODs

[Glonk]

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.

I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Sludge]

I've played all three systems (as well as many other consoles), and I think that the Gamecube is the best bet for the type of game I want to play.

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?

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[strags]

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.

Hmm... Actually vertex shaders and pixel shaders are nothing new - it's just that we've finally slapped a standard name on them. Even the Nintendo64 had a "colour-combiner" which could apply two passes of linear equations to the various different colour sources - no, it wasn't a fully programmable pixel shader, but then neither is DX8's most of the time, given the various hardware limitations. I believe the GameCube has a much more sophisticated colour-combiner step - capable of doing pretty much anything the XBox can do with its pixel shader.

As for vertex shaders - gimme a break! The N64 had completely updateable microcode - you could use the RSP for whatever you wanted, and perform whatever calculations you liked at the vertex transform/shading level.

DX8 didn't bring us either of these technologies. You would do well to examine the actual meanings of these terms, and look at the capabilities of the competing hardware rather than blindly accepting the hype.

Re:The Xbox does not overheat

[SuiteSisterMary]

I haven't trusted Tom in years. I fully expect to see something like this:

As you can see, the Xbox overheated 100 percent of the time, while the Playstation 2 didn't overheat once.* *Test conditions: The Microsoft Xbox was wrapped in tinfoil and place into an oven heated to 400 degress farenheit for all tests. The Playstation 2 was placed in a refridgerator and cooled to 50 degrees farenheit for all tests.

Get a clue

[Nerds]

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.

load of bull?

[Scrameustache]

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.