Both of you are completely right. The alpha dev-stations were Mac G5s with a special ATI reference board in them. Basically a PS_3_0 chip with more registers and instructions. Plus there wasn't even a recall. They only replaced/repaired units that had problems.
And because not every potential platform has the same specifications. Take the PS3 and the 360 for example. PS3 256mb main / 256mb video -- 360 512mb unified. PS3, constant linear velocity drive reading at something like 5mb/sec -- 360 constant angular velocity drive at like 24x. Throw PC into that mix and you have an infinite number of combinations. It's just very hard to do, not to say that it cant be done, but it's just really hard.
Uhhh... You sure about that? According to an AnandTech.com article it's a fixed function GPU. That and I haven't heard anyone at work speak of it as anything other than a fixed function GPU.
"The Flipper graphics core is a fairly simple fixed function GPU aided by some very powerful amounts of memory bandwidth, but first onto the architecture of the graphics core. Flipper always operates on 4 pixels at a time using its 4 pixel pipelines; each of those pipelines is capable of applying one texture per pipeline which immediately tips you off that the ArtX design wasn't influenced by ATI at all. Since the Radeon and GeForce2, both ATI and NVIDIA's cores have been able to process a minimum of two textures per pixel in each of their pipelines which came quite in handy since none of today's games are single textured anymore.
The fact that the Flipper's T&L is a fixed function T&L unit is a bit of a disappointment as well but it would have been impossible for ArtX to implement ATI's SmartShader programmable pixel and vertex shaders into their design and still meet Nintendo's strict deadlines. The one thing that is playing to the GameCube's favor is that the Flipper GPU was designed solely with console gaming in mind, and the input that went into the T&L unit was much more closely tied to the developers than some of the earlier T&L units for desktop PC graphics cards. Although it may be better suited for its target use than the earliest T&L units for PCs, there is no skirting the fact that with a fixed function T&L pipeline there are limitations to exactly what game developers will be able to do. After seeing what over two years of fixed function T&L support in games for the PC was like, we'd hope for much more out of developer use of Flipper's GPU."
I totally agree with this. The only other thing I have to add, is get others to review the code that you write. You can also learn alot by talking about the code that you/others write with your peers.
I recently did a search on some of our codebase here at work to see how many times the above keywords remained in shipping code. I was a little surprised to see how many cases there were in our code. I think sometimes, maybe even most of the time we as programmers over use these words.
This is probably the biggest mistake they could have made. I'm in game development as a software engineer and I work on consoles. I can, without thinking about it too much, can think of two ramifications to make this a very bad call.
1) We choose consoles because we know what hardware will be in them. We know what we can do, and we know what we cant do because the hardware is always the same. Sure it shrinks, but if we want to go outside the bounds of what the API's provided can do we can do it because we can count on the hardware being the same.
1) We (ok, not engineers, but people who make decisions) decide to develop our games for the lest common denominator. Meaning, because all these consoles with regular DVD drives will be on the market we wont be making HD-DVD games. Probably ever. If we were to choose to make a game for release on HD-DVD we know that we would alienate a large section of our market. So the call will be made to make the game fit on a single DVD. And we can probably rule out dual DVD games for the majority of video game releases as well. Because who wants to pay the extra cost of manufacturing?
Not that you'll be reading this or not, but, bad call Bill. Bad call.
Yeah, you need to have had a failure on your frist drive, and the 75GXP replacement and werent offered another replacement to get the $100. Otherwise you get some crappy CDS or 15% off IBM's store.
Big whoop.
--P
Re: quads = text.split('.')
on
Data Crunching
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· Score: 3, Informative
Highly doubtful. The original core was x86, this core is PPC. Different endianness. They would have to find some way to swap the endianness of the hardware for this to work. That or endian swap the data that is being read of the disc. Ain't gonna happen. You want to play old games? Buy an xbox. Want to play new games? Buy an xbox360.
Slashdot Mirror
Both of you are completely right. The alpha dev-stations were Mac G5s with a special ATI reference board in them. Basically a PS_3_0 chip with more registers and instructions. Plus there wasn't even a recall. They only replaced/repaired units that had problems.
Yes, it sure is. That was my first thought when reading the summary. Big whoop. This is news? :)
And because not every potential platform has the same specifications. Take the PS3 and the 360 for example. PS3 256mb main / 256mb video -- 360 512mb unified. PS3, constant linear velocity drive reading at something like 5mb/sec -- 360 constant angular velocity drive at like 24x. Throw PC into that mix and you have an infinite number of combinations. It's just very hard to do, not to say that it cant be done, but it's just really hard.
Yeah, great, but they aren't shared. Software running on the SPU or the PPU has to DMA data into the local store. It's not multi-access either.
The PPU also does not automatically control the SPUs. You have to write software to split up the tasks running on the SPUs.
Oh, and actually there are 8 SPU cores, and 1 PPU core on the chip. 1 SPU core is disabled to get higher yields.
Uhhh... You sure about that? According to an AnandTech.com article it's a fixed function GPU. That and I haven't heard anyone at work speak of it as anything other than a fixed function GPU.
"The Flipper graphics core is a fairly simple fixed function GPU aided by some very powerful amounts of memory bandwidth, but first onto the architecture of the graphics core. Flipper always operates on 4 pixels at a time using its 4 pixel pipelines; each of those pipelines is capable of applying one texture per pipeline which immediately tips you off that the ArtX design wasn't influenced by ATI at all. Since the Radeon and GeForce2, both ATI and NVIDIA's cores have been able to process a minimum of two textures per pixel in each of their pipelines which came quite in handy since none of today's games are single textured anymore.
The fact that the Flipper's T&L is a fixed function T&L unit is a bit of a disappointment as well but it would have been impossible for ArtX to implement ATI's SmartShader programmable pixel and vertex shaders into their design and still meet Nintendo's strict deadlines. The one thing that is playing to the GameCube's favor is that the Flipper GPU was designed solely with console gaming in mind, and the input that went into the T&L unit was much more closely tied to the developers than some of the earlier T&L units for desktop PC graphics cards. Although it may be better suited for its target use than the earliest T&L units for PCs, there is no skirting the fact that with a fixed function T&L pipeline there are limitations to exactly what game developers will be able to do. After seeing what over two years of fixed function T&L support in games for the PC was like, we'd hope for much more out of developer use of Flipper's GPU."
Wow, someone's bitter.
I totally agree with this. The only other thing I have to add, is get others to review the code that you write. You can also learn alot by talking about the code that you/others write with your peers.
Yeah, no kidding. Who the hell would answer the door while "mid-thrust in an awesome sexual encounter" anyway?
Even if it was Righty.
Well, I know it's a pain, but if you read the _whole_ article, it did say that it was shipped with Linux.
Hey, wait a second, isnt that the number of "terrorist targets" they claim to have?
Odd how you cant count either. It has 39 characters.
Yeah, I'm with you. I read it a couple times and it still doesnt make sense. :)
... instead of making decent tools/compilers/linkers for the PS3.
I recently did a search on some of our codebase here at work to see how many times the above keywords remained in shipping code. I was a little surprised to see how many cases there were in our code. I think sometimes, maybe even most of the time we as programmers over use these words.
Pete
Somebody call the DMCA police!
Actually, they use a video projector to blast the offending area with light. Since when did video projectors start using infra-red bulbs?
Wow. If the last thing that a company did was in nearly 10 years ago (8 for Mr. Picky here.) then maybe closing their doors wasnt a bad idea...
I thought they closed up shop a long time ago.
Ditto. This is newsworthy?
You are right. Compare this to game consoles, should I be mad that my PlayStation game wont work in an Xbox?
This is probably the biggest mistake they could have made. I'm in game development as a software engineer and I work on consoles. I can, without thinking about it too much, can think of two ramifications to make this a very bad call.
1) We choose consoles because we know what hardware will be in them. We know what we can do, and we know what we cant do because the hardware is always the same. Sure it shrinks, but if we want to go outside the bounds of what the API's provided can do we can do it because we can count on the hardware being the same.
1) We (ok, not engineers, but people who make decisions) decide to develop our games for the lest common denominator. Meaning, because all these consoles with regular DVD drives will be on the market we wont be making HD-DVD games. Probably ever. If we were to choose to make a game for release on HD-DVD we know that we would alienate a large section of our market. So the call will be made to make the game fit on a single DVD. And we can probably rule out dual DVD games for the majority of video game releases as well. Because who wants to pay the extra cost of manufacturing?
Not that you'll be reading this or not, but, bad call Bill. Bad call.
--Pete
Yeah, you need to have had a failure on your frist drive, and the 75GXP replacement and werent offered another replacement to get the $100. Otherwise you get some crappy CDS or 15% off IBM's store.
Big whoop.
--P
"\b(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.(25[0-5 ]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0 -9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[ 0-9][0-9]?)\b"
This will match a valid IP address.
--Pete
From someone who is in the industry, stay away from games. You are only signing yourself up for long hours for lackluster compensation.
--P
It's not HP. It's TI. Maybe you should find one of those calculators and see if you can get them to read articles for you.
A plethora of methane & sulfur dioxide and no oxygen generator.
Sucks to be them!
Highly doubtful. The original core was x86, this core is PPC. Different endianness. They would have to find some way to swap the endianness of the hardware for this to work. That or endian swap the data that is being read of the disc. Ain't gonna happen. You want to play old games? Buy an xbox. Want to play new games? Buy an xbox360.
Just my $0.02.
--P