Xbox 360 GPU A Vector Co-Processor?

Anyone Seen Thomas? writes "While Beyond3D's article on the ATI C1 (XENOS) graphics processor in the XBOX 360 gives you all you need to know about ATI's next generation hardware in terms of generating screen pixels, it also gives a big clue as to how it'll be useful for general purpose vector programming. XENOS is able to write data out of its unified memory architecture into system memory, and read it back again later. So with a large pool of powerful vector hardware available, does anyone fancy the idea of having a generalised , high-performance vector processor in their PC?. Read about that and the rest of XENOS." From the article: "Since XBOX 360's announcement and ATI's unleashing from the non disclosure agreements we've had the chance to not just chat with Robert Feldstein, VP of Engineering, but also Joe Cox, Director of Engineering overseeing the XBOX graphics design team, and two lead architects of the graphics processor, Clay Taylor and Mark Fowler. Here we hope to accurately impart a slightly deeper understanding of the XBOX 360 graphics processor, how it sits within the system, understand more about its operation as well as give some insights into the capabilities of the processor."

Comments

Re:Now this is how you sell a console

[vertinox]

Not like Sony's current stance of producing nothing of substance, whilst slagging off the competition.

So is this a paid ad from Microsoft or just an independant review from a third party? I don't think they are trying to sell me anything other than an informative article.

Just an Example...

[superpulpsicle]

Does anyone else think Gran Turismo 4 looks actually better than Forza sports? Point being, the console world is always 50% hardware, 50% software.

Re:Just an Example...

[alvinrod]

Don't you think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? It's really a matter of opinion which game "looks" better. You can ask which has more polygons on screen at any given moment, in which case you could probably guess Forza and be correct, but that doesn't necessarily translate to looking better.

I could make a car that takes all the processing power the the Xbox to draw, and still have it look like crap. I'm not saying this is the case with either game, but it's a valid point.

The software is always limited by the hardware. You can't go beyond these limitations without having negative effects (i.e. framerate being terribly low, etc.).

Looks are more or less dependent on the art style used by the game. This is what graphics should really be based around, rather than how many polygons can this console render at any given time. The next generation consoles (mainly the PS3 and Xbox 360) will be able to produce frighteningly large numbers of polygons at any given moment (the PS3 is supporting dual 1080p!) but that doens't necessarily mean the games will look any better.

Personally, I'd like to see more along the lines of an 80% focus on Software. That and more gameplay and less graphics.

Re:Just an Example...

[oGMo]

If anyone thinks anything else, they're just being silly. The video comparison on IGN between the two had me more suprised than I thought I'd be. At first I thought the GT4 screen was the XBOX game just because it was so much more realistic.

This is why recently I've been comparing PS2 and XBOX games. XBOX stuff hasn't seemed to improve considerably. Compare various shots/videos of GT4, God of War, Metal Gear Solid 3, Haunting Ground, Jak3, and others to Halo 2, Forza, etc. and you'll be suprised: the PS2 is actually better looking!

This is somewhat along the lines of what a few of us were saying years ago when the XBOX specs came out: the PS2 may seem to have smaller numbers, but it's a custom system, custom CPU, architected specifically for what it does. Give it a few years to mature and we'll be seeing things that still amaze us. The XBOX is just the same old Intel box; people already know how to get a lot out of it, so what you saw then was about the best you'd ever see.

Re:Now this is how you sell a console

[gabebear]

Honestly, I thought this was a slap at Microsoft. In the article they admit that the GPU is not compatable with DirectX. The original XBox's DirectX implementation was a bit funky but basically it was DirectX8 and developers bitched about that. The XBox360's Shaders(and who knows what else) aren't DirectX9 compliant, and it sounds like their is no hope for it Being DirectX Next compliant. If developers are going to have to rework a lot of complex code for the XBox360 I think this will turn off many game developers who see the XBox as a console that's cheap to port.

Re:Now this is how you sell a console

[zero_offset]

You're right, but you're overlooking an important point. Xbox developers basically didn't think DX/D3D compatibility was especially important. It was a selling feature that Microsoft hoped would score big, but that didn't happen. The 360 apparently has an all-new 3D API which was created in concert with some of the largest Xbox developers.

Anybody with even a little 3D programming experience will tell you that it isn't too difficult to learn a new API. They all deal with essentially the same concepts.