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XGameStation Designer Talks Specifics
Thanks to GameZone for their interview with Andre LaMothe about the XGameStation, the DIY, programmable game console theoretically due this December, but likely somewhat delayed. Although details of the XGameStation are still being finalized, LaMothe describes the specific technical details: "I think the ARM7 is going to be my choice as the final main CPU at 33-66 MIPS, and an FPGA GPU that does basic sprite, character, and bitmap graphics in 4-256 colors, with 1-4 Megs of RAM", and goes on to evangelize the software: "We will surely encourage people to port as many games and emulators as possible to the XGS. I am mainly concerned with getting MAME, Intellivision, Atari 2600, etc. ported ASAP."
i think it looks pretty cool, but im not into consoles so much, prefer the good old pc. nothing is cheaper for the amount of games that can be found on it. plus the playbility is great. btw im first.
He releases many books each year, does consulting and lectures, and now hes releasing a console?
Id be surprised if he has time to play solitaire, let alone anything else.
He's going to have some trouble getting a MAME port with only 1-4MB of RAM to work with. Even games with relatively simple hardware go over that easily: pacman needs about 6MB just for the emulator core.
On the other hand, if the graphics chip is thoroughly customizable, we might see some dedicated single-system emulators that use the built-in graphics and are designed with low-memory situation in mind. Could be pretty cool.
Why would anyone want to buy this? Any desktop PC can become a powerful, programmable game console that runs just about every emulator out there.
I'm sorry, but I think I'll see bitboys videocards before that "console" makes it to the market.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
I'm not sure what the real selling point of this is. I have a lot of respect for Andre LaMothe, I think he's a pretty decent author, and he has about 5 college degrees. But if you're really interested in learning to do game programming, why spend the money? Just pick up the FREE DirectX or OpenGL SDK and crank out the code yourself for PC.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
That's only if you have all the MAME drivers loaded into memory at once, which is something you'll never do.
The main executable can be as small as a few hundred kilobytes, and then load the proper game driver from a datfile full of drivers (as is the case with some current distributions of MAME, like MAMEplus). There's no reason for Pac Man to require 6 MB, unless you were using some incredibly inefficent form of dynamic recompilation.
Of course, with 4 MB of ram, you can never run anything more complex than Capcom CPS1 games.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
A cheap console, that you can burn any game for, run emulators on, control the operating system, and totally hack apart..... Console, thy name is DreamCast.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Well, As much as i would like to buy this thing i just think the system spects are too low to make any thing worthy of showing off
.. i mean making neet games would be much better on a system like that... it would beat the Dream cast where thier system specs are a 200mhz system that has a CDR.. with a coder cable.. The total would be around $100us...
:)
"Hey Guys Look at my Game i Made..
What do u mean it looks Old School...
STOP LAUGHING AT ME!!!"
I just think they should bump the system spects up.. and replace the Rom Chips with a CDR DVDR and the processor speed to 700mz with a SDL tutorial
over all i think this system would have been a good idea if it were released back in 1995 witht he current specs..
The point of the xgamestation isn't making games, its a learning tool to help you make a videogame system. Andre is making this system so you can hack it. He's including a ebook that teaches you the entire process, from boolean logic to programming FGPAs. I know I wished for something like this when I was young. I mean I took art classes so I could learn to make videogame graphics. But remember, this isn't just a game player, you can make it do anything, the sky is the limit.
archmaxpower
Even more interesting is that I have noticed something really odd about the whole community. Please note that is is just a theory and my own opinion and may not be fact at all.
It seems that Andre may actually be forming some kind of weird Cult. Don't laugh I'm serious. Just hear me out.
First to have a cult you need a leader
Andre (calls himself necron)
First of all he makes himself out to be doing the job of 20 people, constantly reminds everyone how brillant he is and that he never sleeps.
Every one of the regulars actually reveres him as some kind of technical god. He claims to be in contact will all the pioneers of computing including the guys who created the Amiga, Ataris, etc. He indicates from time to time that only he is contact with these people and their will is being done through him.
There is something odd or creepy about him. He seems a little too friendly if you get in contact with him like he is trying to connect to you on some sort of emotional level. Just what you would expect from a cult leader.
Every cult needs its followers
The forum is full of these geek misfits. They probably game to the forum originally to learn game programming when they picked one of his books. They guys aren't particularly talented; they are the overlooked geeks that don't really ever become that successful and aren't really that bright. But they are loyal and love to learn from Andre. In fact they are fiercely loyal. If you speak up at all against anything they do they will just tear you to pieces.
So what do they do?
Well, actually Andre has this business where he publishes bundles of computer games on cds. He sells these at places like wal-mart and frys and such places. I'm not sure what stores exactly.
And the regulars write these games for him. They aren't very good, but that's what they do. They write games and give them to Andre for the cd. In this way each regular contributes to the good of the cult I guess.
Ok, so what keeps them there if this is all just an online thing?
I'm not sure. I don't know if a cult can really work online or not. I don't know if they ever actually meet. But one thing a cult needs is a purpose. So with the xgamestation, andre produces something. It might be a version of basic or something and the regulars test and contribute games and such. They have done this over and over without question during the life of the xgs development; it is actually kinda creepy how no matter what direction the console turns, they accept this and happily contribute.
Finally, the xgamestation has a major release date that keeps getting pushed back and back. Before the xgamestation there was a project called nanogear and before that another project I expect. All of these things seem to be just training the cult members to wait patiently for some upcoming event; almost like it is building to what will be an apocolypse for refugee geeks. They are being trained to wait for this great day when all their dreams will come true. That thing whether it is xgamestation, nanogear or whatever is always changing and never really seems to arrive.
Now I know this is far-fetched, but I don't have all the answers yet. Please check into this yourselves. Do some research and you may see it for your own eyes or be able to disprove my theory. But remember, don't get caught in the cult yourself!
http://www.xgamestation.com