Slashdot Mirror


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."

2 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Now this is how you sell a console by cassidyc · · Score: 0, Troll

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

  2. Re:Interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    In other words the 360 is one big hack.

    Sorry, no one with any real world hardware experien ce can look at the 360 hardware layout and have any other reaction.

    It is exactly what you would expect from a company with basically no hardware experience, no the first xbox doesn't count, trying to rush something to market and not lose billions on the hardware.