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Inside the Xbox 360
QT writes "Ars Technica has an in-depth look at the Xenon processor
that will power the Xbox 360. It's the first technical look at the CPU itself, its design goals, and some of the differences between it and IBM's Cell processor. The Xbox
360's procedural synthesis capabilities look quite impressive, and I'm not as convinced as I was before that the PS3 would spank the Xbox 360."
While art asset costs are rising, programmer time is getting cheaper all the time.
... leading one to conclude that MSFT won't fight Disney et al on art costs and copyright/trademark extensions, but will outsource the programming.
... um, wait a sec, one of my five programs just finished ...
We see the above in the article about the chip internals of the xBox 360
Either that or we're just getting more productive at doing our work
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I actually read the submission and my first reaction was "Wasn't the XBox 360 going to have a PPC processor?". Then I noticed that I misread the name.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I can't answer your question, after a moment of confusion (during which I chalked up a seeming "mistake" to the quality of Slashdot's editorial staff) I figured it out.
I do have to give IBM credit for naming the processor after something that actually exists, rather than formulating a marketing driven non-word for their new product. Xenon is a gas that when excited, produces brilliant light...not a bad association.
I mean, what the hell is a Xeon anyway? Xenon, now that's something we can all relate to. Perhaps the name for IBM's new XBox processor was chosen after perusing the Greek root of Xenon xenos, which means "strange".
Isn't this CPU more like a "do everything" CPU compared to the CELL which is focused on entertainment media?
I thought that was the biggest difference between the two.
who gives a damm what their console runs... the point of a console is playing games... I had way more fun on my SNES & N64 then on PS2 and PS2 is like a 99999 times faster... ok you can have better graphics WOW but really the point his to have fun not make a reality "show" game... the most popular game in pc history where never the pretiest ones... for shure the engine was powerfull but the details were no that impressive... you think people played CS for graphics ...lol?
While they're not entirely inovative, I reccomend you take a look at both Viewtiful Joe and Alien Hominid (which started life as a flash game). They're excellent examples of great fun, great looking games that forego realism and even 3D graphics.
"Xenon is a gas that when excited, produces brilliant light...not a bad association.
Gaseous like vapor?
A brilliant light when the CPU is excited, followed by a loud poof and smoke?
Xeon is pretty stupid, but Xenon really isn't that imaginative.
Neither is Pentium, though PowerPC is an even stupider name. I guess Athlon isn't that great of a name either and Sempron is downright stupid.
The point really is, marketing names are all stupid, and to decide whos got the less stupid product names is just totally pointless.
iirc intel started making up words once they figured out they could not trademark/own the number "486".
twitter.com/gravitronic
Why am I so happy ? beacuse with such game consoles out there (despit the fact that I'm a full fledged PS3 fan, coolest thang, great stuff) Linux has a greater chance than ever.
:D
I, for one, will probably no way buy PC games in the future. Why the hell would I do that when I can have a quite powerfull and nice looking console hooked up to a hdtv in the living room. I ain't gona need no PC to play my brains out, the wish should arise.
And, added to the above and returning to my Linux idea at the beginning, don't forget that very very very many average clicking guys come with the "argument" that they won't even consider chaning or even trying Linux, because all the games run on Windows.
All in all, these consoles will probably be great, I hope so. Given the specs, the reviews, etc., I'm still nto convinced any bit of XBox's superiority over the PS3, but that's no problem if I can buy which I want and play, play, play
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Yes, this is real time. You can download the demo. That demo requires a high-end PC, and will give you a sense of what SpeedTree will look like on the new XBox.
Because that's what the somewhat clueless original article is about. SpeedTree will be available for the new XBox. This was announced back in March.
The trick is cramming something like SpeedTree into a wierd architecture like the new XBox. That's a headache, but not a breakthrough.
When traditional games need artwork, the illustrators draw it (with curves), and then use fancy software to make sharp polygons out of the curves (process called tesselation). When the add this information to the game database, it's a large list of verticies, which is unweildy to handle.
With the xbox 2*pi, the tesselation will be delayed until runtime. The data will be stored as curves[*], and will not be converted to polygons until it needs to be displayed. This won't affect the GPU, since the tesselation will happen earlier in the pipeline.
[*]Specifically, humans will be stored in separate poses, where a bone structure (and other solids) is saved for each pose. The skin, of course, is a deformable covering that will be added during the tesselation process. An intelligent algorithm will be used to fill in the segments of time between 2 given poses.
Lastly, Microsoft has received a patent for this idea of runtime-tesselation. My opinion
1) Is this really better? They emphasize the reduction in hours creating the vertex database, because the quantity of information is reduced. Is it really easy for a graphic designer to fit a mathametically curve to a particular line in his drawing? Is it really less information?
2) How did they get a patent for this idea? I'm sure there are lots of 3d games, probably even back to the 90's era, that used a similar princicple of representing objects with curves, and then displaying them at runtime with polygons. The patent is probably not really for that idea, but just for the architectual design (hardware) to handle such software.
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No doubt.
Furthermore, what's the deal with the hype around these consoles?
Yes, they're freaking powerful. This generation appears to be a significant leap from the last; much more of an immediately discernable difference in power between generations since 8bit to 16bit. But what are we going to get that will use that power?
The same old song and dance.
First person shooters. Arcade interaction games (DanceDance Revolution, etc...). 3d platformers. 3rd person action/adventure (Metal Gear, etc...). Fighting/brawling. Racing. MMORPGs.
Better graphics. Better sound. More expansive environments. Same old gameplay with a shiny new coating.
For the first time in forever (and I mean since the 2600), I'm just not excited about the next gen.
-- All views expressed in this post are mine and do not
-- reflect those of my employer or their clients
No idea about the ToyStory claim, but the FinalFantasy one came from Nvidia and was real, since they actually did render some scenes in realtime, however with quite a lot less detail and low framerates, Wikipedia has some screenshots:
p irits_Within
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy:_The_S
Just buy both? That's alot of geek cash. What I normally do is prioritize consoles, and right now the score is PS3>Rev>360 .
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Of the 3 questionable demos shown on the PS3 at E3, (hey, 3^3), only one was actually pre-rendered.
Of course we all know gaming journalism is broken. But if you think it's biased toward Sony then you've really got your head in the sand.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife