MS teaming up with ATI for the next xbox? [Archive]

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bbot

13-Oct-2002, 14:32

This is what a MS road rep said on the teamxbox forum :

I've heard a rumor, can't say from where (outside of the industry, so take it for what it's worth), that there's a pre-Xbox2 running around with a Radion 9700 vid card and "the biggest ass hard drive I've ever seen" in a briefcase styled box. This is coming from a person who regularly works with multiple 200+GB hard drives, so I'm thinking dev kit and 500 GB of space? Oh yeah, and three years to bump those specs UP. For right now, if they can do Splinter Cell and Halo 2 and DOOM III on the Xbox, then the Xbox has PLENTY.

CaptainHowdy

13-Oct-2002, 14:49

Very possible, being thier relationship with Nvidia is shot all to hell

Qroach

13-Oct-2002, 14:55

I don't beleive this being true. Few reasons actually.

1. MS has already said they are using Nvidia in Xbox 2.

2. If they had any sort of pre xbox 2, it wouldn't be capable of running any of the current games, since there's quite a difference in architecture between the two companies. Small difference that would be enough to make it difficult to switch. Even if the 9700 is faster and has more features, when you make calls to features other companies don't support, you'll run into troubles. Stuff like the bounding box rejection or other features exposed only in the Xbox version of DX/drivers

3. They couldn't do this without Nvidia being invloved.

4. MS planned to start showing what the next gen of hardware is capable once NV30 has arrived. Either late this year or early next year.

PC-Engine

13-Oct-2002, 14:57

If that were the case, then the probable reasons are leverage against Nvidia's pricing.

Qroach

13-Oct-2002, 14:57

CaptainHowdy

13-Oct-2002, 15:51

Captain howdy, perhaps you should stay away from all post regarding Nvidia or xbox, becuase you clearly don't keep up on things. The situation is hardly "shot to hell" and they already mentioned working with each other on Xbox 2 publically.

Maybe you should
A) stop being a big bitch about everything and
B) dont tell me what to do

it was not long after the Xbox 2 announcement that Nvidia and MS went to court over the deal, and Nvidia was forced by the courts to continue as is with MS on the Xbox, so a rumor of MS shopping elsewhere is no suprising.

Johnny Awesome

13-Oct-2002, 16:02

CaptainHowdy

13-Oct-2002, 16:06

Xbox is fine. Xbox 2 is even finer. Nothing to see here. :)

Captain should go play his Cube. I've been playing mine all weekend (rented Super Monkey Ball and Pikmin), since I lent my Xbox to my Little Brother.

Since it's so fun to give advice to Captainhowdy:

1) Go play your Cube.
2) Stop bitching about MS/Xbox.

Seriously, you'll have a better life dude. 8)

and why dont you have a nice tall glass of shut the @#$% up
I never bitched about the Xbox, Quincey Poon is the only one bitching(and then of course, you coming along like his little gimp to back him up not even aware of whats being discussed, do you guys shower together too?), all I said was, seems likely(and being the new ATI Chipset is amazing, that is a GOOD THING!!

get off your friggen high horse, you have to argue EVERYTHING that doesnt go right along with your rosey image of the world.

duffer

13-Oct-2002, 17:20

Getting back to the topic.

I bet MS is talking to all the graphics companies about Xbox 2-- they need the best technology at the best price in order to compete with PS3.

If they just meekly go with NVIDIA, they have no bargaining power, and they leave themselves open to having to pay way too much money for the Xbox 2 GPU.

It's also less clear that NVIDIA is the technology leader this time around. ATI's been looking pretty good lately.

And MS has lots more time to plan the Xbox 2 than they did the last time around. They could even develop their own graphics capability if they wanted to.

Hey, if MS goes with ATI, and Nintendo exits the console hardware business, maybe the Xbox 2 will be upwards compatable with GameCube games as well as Xbox games. :-) Stranger things have happened.

CaptainHowdy

13-Oct-2002, 17:22

the last "Rumor" I had heard, was that MS was developing thier own GPU, which would be a good thing, enabling them to make the power they want, without losing a lot of money on it.

Dave Baumann

13-Oct-2002, 18:06

1. MS has already said they are using Nvidia in Xbox 2.

Quincy – where on earth did that come from?

Last I heard on the subject was from NVIDIA saying that MS have not decided they will work with NVIDIA.

I bet MS is talking to all the graphics companies about Xbox 2-- they need the best technology at the best price in order to compete with PS3.

Yes. AFAIK, they have put asked for tenders from all the companies. They have a target specification in mind and they have put it out to everyone to make proposals, should they wish to.

the last "Rumor" I had heard, was that MS was developing thier own GPU, which would be a good thing, enabling them to make the power they want, without losing a lot of money on it.

I have heard this as well, but rumors this early can also get a little confused. IMO what the rumor may have been trying to indicate is that MS are keen to fab the chips themselves (or have control over the fabbing) – this way they have more control over the costs of the chip and any changes they may wish to make for it (security, smaller die changes, integrating multiple chips onto single smaller dies etc). So, what I personally think is that they are looking for a deal where they can license the core, rather than pay for full chips.

Magnum PI

13-Oct-2002, 18:16

ATI, nvidia...

why not powervr ? so they could license the technology but control the fabbind.

PC-Engine

13-Oct-2002, 18:41

They would still have to pay for a fab partner, unless they've been fabbing chips secretly at Area 51 :lol:

bbot

13-Oct-2002, 19:11

Some time back, there was an article published by redherring.com about MS making a xbox/ultimatetv(digital video recorder) combo. Could the large hard disk drive be part of that?

Qroach

13-Oct-2002, 23:37

Dave,

Quincy – where on earth did that come from?
Last I heard on the subject was from NVIDIA saying that MS have not decided they will work with NVIDIA.

There was a article about this on some financial website a while back. To be honest i think the article was more focused on MS than Nvidia. Inside it they talked about continuing the partnership with Nvidia despite the court case over chip costs. They also said something about demonstrating some early Xbox 2 hardware either this fall or next year (I can't remember which).

I don't think MS is going to change thier partner in this area. Certainly not change the GPU vendor based on the release of only DX9 hardware. Nvidia has shown MS thier road map for years ahead so they know what they are getting.

Here's another thing I'll throw out. This isn't a rumor but just something that's been in the back of my head. I can forsee Nvidia purchasing AMD and MS purchasing both both companies down the road. MS appears to want to get in to the hardware business alittle more each year IMO.

Qroach

13-Oct-2002, 23:39

Vince

14-Oct-2002, 00:16

I'm going to have to side with Quincy yet again;

There is too many microarchitectural diffrences when going between competing IHV's. Everyones underlying architecture is diffrent in how the logic blocks fit together, even when running the same fucntions. They're way to many places where an IHV will 'Optimise' the logic for a certain function - that *may* produce a similar effect, but will reak havok on a closed system where developers are now coding to nVidia's routines.

The only function ATi would play is one similar to that of GigaPixel - competition = lower costs.

They also said something about demonstrating some early Xbox 2 hardware either this fall or next year (I can't remember which).

Correct, considering a 2005 launch - specs for Xbox2 will need to be locked in early 2004 - only a year or so away. nVidia's new Cinefx architecture will be the base (about time they dumped the TNTx legacy) and will probobly belong to the NV3x generation. Perhaps Dev kits with NV30/35, and a shipping NV3A -esque devise.

So, what I personally think is that they are looking for a deal where they can license the core, rather than pay for full chips.

Interesting idea, but whats nVidia's incentive? Regardless of the current rumors, Microsoft needs nVidia and has a decent relationship with them (look to current inveriews and financial statements). The thought of XBox2 being non-nVidia powered is stretching it; saying nVidia will just liecense the core over is pushing it.

Not only do you enter the problem of IP (et al), but whose going to do the remasking/spining, security fixes, and other things that nVidia is now getting docked with? nVidia gets much out of being in the 'box from the point that developers are working and familiarizing themselves with nVidia hardware, but they retaint he advantage wether or not they produce or liecense the core - I see only downfalls for nvidia.

Nice to see ya in the Console forum Dave

KnightBreed

14-Oct-2002, 01:16

Interesting idea, but whats nVidia's incentive? Regardless of the current rumors, Microsoft needs nVidia and has a decent relationship with them (look to current inveriews and financial statements). The thought of XBox2 being non-nVidia powered is stretching it; saying nVidia will just liecense the core over is pushing it.
Why exactly would MS need nVidia? We're talking about next generation technology. MS can go with whomever they wish to design the next GPU. Backward compatibility isn't a concern.

Steve Dave Part Deux

14-Oct-2002, 01:21

Duffer-
Nintendo is working with NEC, Panasonic, and Hitachi on their next console. It is rumored to be a departure from Nintendo's traditional hardware, a "digital hub" if you will, with features similar to what Microsoft and Sony are planning to offer. Nintendo will no longer develop and manufacture their own hardware, they will simply lend software support and their name to a machine produced by their technology partners(they've been moving in this direction for a while). Given that Nintendo's name will certainly be used to market the machine I expect them to maintain the same quality standards as they have in the past.

Ooh-videogames

14-Oct-2002, 01:53

fbg1

14-Oct-2002, 02:30

Backward compatibility isn't a concern.

Why not?

Also, anyone know what the chances of Xbox 2 being backward compatible with Xbox will be? As I understand, Xbox exposes the hardware more than a PC typically does. If Xbox games are coded more to the XGPU and XCPU than to DX, then won't that cause problems when trying to run these games on Xbox 2?

CaptainHowdy

14-Oct-2002, 02:51

Cyber,

and why dont you have a nice tall glass of shut the @#$% up
I never bitched about the Xbox, Quincey Poon is the only one bitching(and then of course, you coming along like his little gimp to back him up not even aware of whats being discussed, do you guys shower together too?), all I said was, seems likely(and being the new ATI Chipset is amazing, that is a GOOD THING!!

get off your friggen high horse, you have to argue EVERYTHING that doesnt go right along with your rosey image of the world.

Funny, how the world is only "rosey" in Nintendo land. Comments like this are why you need to grow up a little. Or atleast play more games instead of bickering.

yea, I need to, I believe it was you lashing out at me for quoting a recent Reuters article, while you spout off something you read way back when.
I wasnt flaming, and you try to turn even a civil conversation into one, yes, I did lash out, but, you asked for it, ass..

and yes, things are only Rosey in Nintendo land, being they are actually making money and selling consoles overseas, guess thats more rosie than the billions of dollars of loss MS is taking... sure..

clem64

14-Oct-2002, 03:39

I don't see Nintendo going with Hitachi and I hope not because this is the same company that designed the Sega Saturn Gpu and it was to hard to develope for, causing a lot of problems for them and developers and you know what happend to Sega.

Right but ease of development is not always a big factor in some cases. Look what happened to PS2.

Besides, Hitachi Designed the SH4 for Dreamcast and the cost/performance ratio was really good for the time.

http://segatech.com/technical/cpu/index.html

Read the "Why Sega went with the Hitachi SH4"

Qroach

14-Oct-2002, 15:01

Qroach

14-Oct-2002, 15:04

Anyway, back to topic, I think backwards compatability is a MAJOR concern with MS moving forwards. It makes perfect sense for you to purchases a new console and be able to play games from the previous console. It's a very big selling point...

mech

14-Oct-2002, 15:08

I think it's stupid speculating on Xbox2 at this point in time. Wayyyy too early, and the tech's going to be far beyond anything that's out right now - why would they put a Radeon 9700 in something that's going to be out in 2+ years time?

duffer

14-Oct-2002, 17:16

I think backwards compatability was a very good move for Sony with the PS2, because it allowed them to launch the PS2 without any software for the first year.

However, I'm not sure backwards compatability is all that important for consoles in general. Especially not at the expense of system price/performance or time-to-market.

There is one compatability issue that's new to the Xbox-to-Xbox2 transition, or the PS2-to-PS3 transition: MMORPGs.

MMORPGs will want to keep their users paying the monthly subscription fees as they transfer from one generation of console to the next. But they could do this by porting the game, rather than by having the new generation be backwards compatable. I'm not sure how thrilled people would be about having to pay twice for the same game. Maybe they can minimize the complaints by offering a subscription fee rebate for users who upgrade.

CaptainHowdy

14-Oct-2002, 17:17

I wasnt flaming, and you try to turn even a civil conversation into one, yes, I did lash out, but, you asked for it, ass..

Uh -huh. You do the same thing in EVERY xbox related thread. You don't even own an Xbox yet you take such an interest in it I see... and your interest is purely transparent. the conversation was civil before you arrived and will be civil when you leave.

and yes, things are only Rosey in Nintendo land, being they are actually making money and selling consoles overseas, guess thats more rosie than the billions of dollars of loss MS is taking... sure..

For one thing, you shouldnt concern yourself with stuff like that. play game ON your console instead of worrying if the company is making enough money compared to others. If you really think nintendo has made billions of dollars on Gamecube, you really don't have a clue. Have a look at nintendo stock sometime.

tell me, what does owning a console have to do with discussing whats going on in the world? you need to lose the attitude, your acting like a putz, I was nicely talking about an article, that obviously only two people in this thread bothered to read(obviously you not being one of them), you have a serious chip on your shoulder, and you need to take care of your personal problems elsewhere, I dont like you either, but Unless your barefaced spouting off BS(which is often enough), I tend to leave it at that..

and Nintendos Stock dropping a small bit with Yen Fluactions has nothing to do with Nintendo's money making ability there hoss, maybe when you read Nintendo flaming news, you should read it from Reuters or CNN, and not Isuckonbillgatesballs.com

Qroach

14-Oct-2002, 18:41

tell me, what does owning a console have to do with discussing whats going on in the world?

That's just the thing, you don't care what's going on in the "gaming world", you don't care about games for that matter, you're too busy trolling. You only care about what going on in the nintendo world (and that's fine) but you don't ned to go around posting BS in every xbox thread. Other people don't have an interest in xbox, and you don't see them trolling in every xbox thread.

you need to lose the attitude, your acting like a putz, I was nicely talking about an article,

You don't "nicely" talk about anything but nintendo. If anyone around here needs and attitude adjustment it yourself. Just look who's throwing the majority of names/insults around in this thread and this forum "putz".

you have a serious chip on your shoulder, and you need to take care of your personal problems elsewhere, I dont like you either, but Unless your barefaced spouting off BS(which is often enough), I tend to leave it at that..

Riiight, I'm the one that spouts off BS around here. :roll: I'm not suprised how you'd forget about all the BS you've mentioned over and over again without even checking something for simple information. Stop acting like an ass please.

and Nintendos Stock dropping a small bit with Yen Fluactionshas nothing to do with Nintendo's money making ability there hoss

Obviously you don't look at the entire picture. Nintendo dropper their projections. That means they are now expecting to sell less than they oringinally expected. So Nitnendo stock didn't ONLY drop due to a weak yen. Either way none of this matters to people actually interested in playing games they like. Obviously you're not a gamer and you'd rather argue and troll then just enjoy the games. For all I care, you can go back under you're bridge. I'd rather talk to people around here that have a more level head. i may argue with Teasy (a lot), but at least I can respect the guy.

maybe when you read Nintendo flaming news, you should read it from Reuters or CNN, and not Isuckonbillgatesballs.com

:lol: this is why people just usually ignore your posts. It's also why we need a user filter or something along those lines.

Qroach

14-Oct-2002, 18:48

MMORPGs will want to keep their users paying the monthly subscription fees as they transfer from one generation of console to the next. But they could do this by porting the game, rather than by having the new generation be backwards compatable. I'm not sure how thrilled people would be about having to pay twice for the same game. Maybe they can minimize the complaints by offering a subscription fee rebate for users who upgrade.

Very good point! i didn't even consider this before. Yet another reason why having backwards compatability is something very important moving forwards. The longer or more console people can run a single MMORPG the better off the developers/publishers are...

Legion

14-Oct-2002, 18:57

I would really like to see that some of what you are paying for in the machine would translate over to any other fee you might have OR at least offer some free time online with the sale of each unit.

As for backwards compatability my concerns are in the overall price of the unit. I would rather see the money invested but forth into turning out a much better systems (better developers/technology). I really don't want to end up with another shlock system like the PS2.

Vince

14-Oct-2002, 18:59

Very good point! i didn't even consider this before. Yet another reason why having backwards compatability is something very important moving forwards. The longer or more console people can run a single MMORPG the better off the developers/publishers are...

Yes, excellent point. Score one for duffer :)

Also, it's becoing the status-quo thanks to Sony's usage of it. Whoever said it was totally correct, it's a great way to "cover" your ass to some extent during the early adoption period as high quality 5th and higher generation games on the former system are being released.

Besides, Sony's *probobly* doing it with by combining the EE & GS on IBM's liecensed 0.10um SOI process and using it as an IOP or similar controller, I can hardly see MS conceiding parity and not matching this feature.

zurich

14-Oct-2002, 19:00

Backwards compatibility shouldnt be all that hard, as long as MS sticks with NVIDIA. This is assuming that they dont do something wacky next gen like 'distributed procesdsing' ;)

zurich

Legion

14-Oct-2002, 19:01

The question is do you think that MS is thinking the same thing we are?

zurich

14-Oct-2002, 19:15

Legion

14-Oct-2002, 19:20

have any reliable rumors been circulating recently?

CeiserSöze

14-Oct-2002, 19:29

I think the PS2 kind of established a de facto standard for backwards compatability. That's to say, that I think all gamers this gen (save Ns) expect to be able ot play their current games on PS3 and Xbox2. I know I do ;)

I think even Nintendo's next gen console will be backwards compatible. They did it with the GBA so why shouldn't they do the same with the "NGC 2"? Now that they've switched to optical storage media too (finally) I don't see any problems there.
Speaking of it: Yes, despite all the rumours floating around, I believe Nintendo will make at least another console - if they wanted to exit the hardware-business, they should have done this after the N64.

Steve Dave Part Deux

14-Oct-2002, 19:43

Hitachi is rumored to be acquiring the PowerPC ISA from Motorola.

Legion

14-Oct-2002, 19:47

really? I would have thought IBM would want that. Isn't IBM already producing the chips for them?

CaptainHowdy

14-Oct-2002, 20:49

Quincy, Noone did any flaming until you opened your @#$%ING mouth..
show me where I was trolling, and I mean BEFORE you pissed me off....
you cant do it, because I wasnt, now STFU and move on with your pathetic little life.

Steve Dave Part Deux

14-Oct-2002, 22:30

Legion, my only reasonable guess would be that Hitachi plans to take Motorola's place next to IBM.

Brimstone

14-Oct-2002, 23:11

If the choice is between ATI or Nvidia, I would have to go with Nvidia being the most likely choice for GPU design. Although I think ATI would have a good shot on getting in on the action.

The biggest problem is fabbing the chips for the X-Box 2. Intel probably has the best fabs that Microsoft could use. I think a lot of possibilities are out there. One possibility is that Intel could merge with ATI (this is wild speculation) or Nvidia and then fab both the CPU and GPU for the X-Box. I'm sure there will be some intresting twists and turns along the road to the X-Box 2.

fbg1

15-Oct-2002, 02:44

Or, as someone previously suggested, Nvidia could purchase AMD (especially if things don't start looking up financially for AMD) and supply the entire chipset & mobo for Xbox2.

Nexiss

15-Oct-2002, 03:05

While I suppose it is possible, I don't think AMD is exactyl looking to be bought out. I don't think they are really that desperate...

Qroach

15-Oct-2002, 04:04

Who says you'd have to be desperate to be bought out? it's a good way to have your business expanded and would also open up new opportunities for both companies.

Nexiss

15-Oct-2002, 05:05

heh, I guess I should choose my words more carefully.
All I meant was that I don't think AMD is in a position where they are looking or wanting to be bought out by Nvidia (or some other company), nor do I think Nvidia is currently in a position to be taking such a (potential) risk. Perhaps if Hammer doesn't perform as well in the market as they are hoping (which, given market conditions, is possible), but I don't see it right now. Either way it is purely speculation as to their future.

Tagrineth

15-Oct-2002, 16:01

I don't see Nintendo going with Hitachi and I hope not because this is the same company that designed the Sega Saturn Gpu and it was to hard to develope for, causing a lot of problems for them and developers and you know what happend to Sega.

Bzzt! Wrong :)

The 3D part of Saturn's GPU that was such a hell to code (quadratic primitives) was made by none other than the side subject of this thread - yes, nVidia. :) What was it, NV3 right? Or was it NV2... I don't remember offhand, look it up in the History of nVidia article at FiringSquad (http://firingsquad.gamers.com/)... :P

The 2D part of the core, which is probably what you're talking about, was a designer's dream, from what I understand of it :)

duffer

15-Oct-2002, 16:44

Although, to be fair, it has been said that another reason the Saturn was so hard to program was that the dual CPUs on the Saturn were also quite hard to use effectively. (Because there wasn't enough memory bandwidth to keep both CPUs fed with instructions and data.)

Tommy

15-Oct-2002, 17:04

I would like to see MS use ATI cards.

I've always had a bad taste for Nvidia as they are one of the main reasons for the decline in the quality of PC games over the last several years....until recently.

People become way to infatuated with graphics and benchmarks.

Tagrineth

15-Oct-2002, 20:13

Qroach

15-Oct-2002, 20:56

Tag,

The 3D part of Saturn's GPU that was such a hell to code (quadratic primitives) was made by none other than the side subject of this thread - yes, nVidia.

Nvidia didn't have anything to do with the sega saturn hardware. Saturn also didn't support quadratic primitives, only triangles. The two main chips in the Sega Saturn were hitachi designed processors. Nvidia worked out a deal with sega to convert some of their games to ship with a PC card called Diamond edge 3D (If I remember the name correctly).

What was it, NV3 right? Or was it NV2... I don't remember offhand, look it up in the History of nVidia article at

You could essentially call it the NV1 since it was the first consumer card nvidia produced.

zurich

15-Oct-2002, 21:09

Didn't Lockheed & Martin design Saturns 3D insides?

zurich

Qroach

15-Oct-2002, 21:24

No, I think they were involved with the Arcade hardware sega was using... jeez, that was a long time ago, I can't really recall.

PC-Engine

15-Oct-2002, 21:25

I don't see Nintendo going with Hitachi and I hope not because this is the same company that designed the Sega Saturn Gpu and it was to hard to develope for, causing a lot of problems for them and developers and you know what happend to Sega.

Hitachi didn't design the Saturn though. SEGA designed it. It was an ok design until they threw in that second SH2 at the last minute when they found out about the polygon throughput of of PSX.

Hitachi's cpu's are very well designed and it had nothing to do with the relativey poor design of the Saturn.

Magnum PI

15-Oct-2002, 21:26

No, I think they were involved with the Arcade hardware sega was using... jeez, that was a long time ago, I can't really recall.

i think they were involved with the arcade hardware daytona racing was using.

PC-Engine

15-Oct-2002, 21:40

Model 3 used the LHM chip.

Also the arcade version of the Saturn was the ST-V Titan.

SEGA has had a long history in using different cpu and gpu manufacturers. Their arcade boards have used cpus from Hitachi, Intel, NEC, Motorola, IBM and gpus from Fujitsu, Lockheed Martin, PowerVR, and of course thier own in house designs.

BTW the Model 1 board was the first real true 3D system from SEGA.

16-Oct-2002, 04:40

Didn't Lockheed & Martin design Saturns 3D insides?

That's what Yu-Suzuki wanted Sega to do, instead, they went with their internal R&D team to put together Saturn, if it wasn't for PSX, Saturn would be quite lower spec too, probably 32X level.

I also read somewhere, that Sega executives were quite shock to see PSX 360,000 polygons/s figure is higher than their high-end board at the time, Model 2 at 300,000 polygons/s. I find that funny if that was true :)

Saturn 3D aren't that bad, I prefer some of the Saturn version of games compare to PSX version, though I think both are quite horrid. Last generation, they should still stick with 2D games.

archie4oz

16-Oct-2002, 16:45

Hitachi is rumored to be acquiring the PowerPC ISA from Motorola.

Why would they need to acquire the PowerPC ISA when they already produce PowerPC cores? (SR8000 scalar core)

But it's still easier than PS2...

Erm, no...

archie4oz

16-Oct-2002, 19:03

Three, actually... two SH2's and an SH1

4 if you include the SH-DSP in the SCU (System Control Unit). Throw in VDP1, VDP2, the FH1 DSP and M68EC000 of the SCSP, and the SMPC (a little 4-bit Hitachi microcontroller) and you're looking at managing 9 processors...

Although, to be fair, it has been said that another reason the Saturn was so hard to program was that the dual CPUs on the Saturn were also quite hard to use effectively. (Because there wasn't enough memory bandwidth to keep both CPUs fed with instructions and data.)

Well the quirky thing about the system was that it's CPU config wasn't SMP, rather a master/slave setup. That along with the distributed cache pool setup (much like the PS2) and you weren't really contending for data on the main bus. The processor configuration did make it a pain at times to maximize utilization though.

Nvidia didn't have anything to do with the sega saturn hardware. Saturn also didn't support quadratic primitives, only triangles. The two main chips in the Sega Saturn were hitachi designed processors.

While you're correct about the Nvidia part, you're wrong about the primitave support of VDP1.

VDP1's primitives were called 'parts', and it drew textured parts and non-textured parts. Textured parts consisted of a normal sprite, scaled sprites, and distorted sprites. Distorted sprites were like normal sprites except they could be rotated and 'distorted' by specifying the coordinates of its' four corner points and it would map the bitmapped image within those points.

Non-textured parts were straight forward, very much like distorted sprites except you applied an RGB value or a single palette color. You had a polygon (a four-point primitive (which could also be gouraud shaded), a polyline which was like a polygon except you didn't fill it, you only coloured it's edges. And you had a basic line.

Tagrineth

16-Oct-2002, 19:57

Definitely quadratics...

And if there's no nVidia of any kind within Saturn, why did FiringSquad (http://firingsquad.gamers.com/) do a big investigation into it as a follow-up to their History of nVidia article, titled Whatever Happened to NV2 or something like that...? I'd look myself right now, and quote, and stuff like that, but my school's proxy blocks FS :(

I know they talked about SEGA grabbing nVidia's then-latest chip at the last possible moment as a response to the 'amazing' 3D capabilities of PlayStation X... was all of their research wrong? :(

zurich

16-Oct-2002, 20:09

They were talking about the Dreamcast. Only thing that the NV1 and Saturn had in common were their rendering methods, and hence quick-to-port titles.

NV2
NVIDIA's financial savior came in the form of a video game console, more specifically, a Sega video game console. Through the NV1, NVIDIA had established a strong working relationship with Sega. The chip promoted sales of Saturn accessories and Sega programmers were somewhat familiar with quadratic surfaces after having ported a small number of games for the NV1. Most importantly, Direct3D was a non-issue because many of the Japanese console developers were ready and willing to use the unconventional technology of quadratic surfaces if it brought additional performance.
Sega funded a significant portion of the research on the NV2 and it is reasonable to suggest that NVIDIA might not exist it its capacity today if it were not for Sega's support of the NV2. Unfortunately, Sega eventually dropped the NV2 to give the Dreamcast a better future through an easier programming environment. Sega ended up going to 3dfx and later to PowerVR for the graphics technology in the Dreamcast. Little else is known about the NV2 story and the timing of events. Despite limited success of the NV1 and failure of the NV2, NVIDIA was not ready to quit

zurich

Tagrineth

16-Oct-2002, 20:18

ben6

16-Oct-2002, 23:58

NV4- TNT
NV5- TNT2
NV10 Geforce
NV11 Geforce2 MX
NV15 Geforce2 GTS
NV16 Geforce2 Ultra
NV17 Geforce4 MX
NV18 Geforce4 MX AGP8x
NV20 Geforce3
NV25 Geforce4
NV28 Geforce4 AGP8x
NV30 uh dunno :)

NV20_1 was Ti200
NV20_2 was Ti500 i think

Of course there was also TNT Vanta, TNT2 M64, Crush 18, Crush 11

Tagrineth

17-Oct-2002, 01:58

Megadrive1988

17-Oct-2002, 08:06

I've only read the first 2 pages of this thread, but a few points:

If MS is going to use an ATI chip for XBox2, it would NOT be in the R300/Radeon9700 generation. R300 would be ANCIENT by the time XBox2 is out (2005) More like an R500 at the very least. The main ATI design team who made R200/8500 is working on R400, and the ArtX team (team West I think) is working on the R500, AFAIK. If R400 is due out in 2003, and R500 in 2004, then R500 would be the minumim base for an ATI-based XBox2 GPU.

If MS chooses Nvidia again (the most likely of three main choices) then I would expect that at the very least, an NVidia-based XBox2 GPU would be in the NV4X family. Not the NV3X line. Anything that is NV3X based would be too old for XBox2. Depending on the pace of Nvidia developing new GPUs, I think NV40 would be the place to start XBox2 development, much like NV15/GeForce2 GTS (or NV16/GF2 Ultra) was the starting point for XBox development. Perhaps XBox2 will ultimately use an NV5X GPU, but I don't want to get too far ahead of things. If you remember, back in late 1999 "X-Box" was rumored to use an NV10 (GeForce256) and AMD K7 500 Mhz. - Then in early 2001, just before XBox was officially annouced, the GPU was said to be an NV15, but when it was actually annouced, MS said XBox would use an NV25, far ahead of the original predictions. Although ultimately, XBox ended up having the so called NV2A, which is inbetween
the NV20 and NV25, but still far ahead of the originally predicted (by magazines and websites) NV10.

So IMO, saying the XBox2 will have an NV3X GPU is probably like saying the XBox would have an NV10. The XBox ended up using something conciderably more advanced than that

The last possibility, is that MS might design its own GPU (and/or CPU)
I believe that this is the least likely possibility, but stranger things have happened. IIRC, MS owns the former CagEnt team. that is the design team that developed the 3D0/Matsushita M2 chipset and also the more powerful MX chipset (MX was basicly an M2 on sterioids) - this group of engineers got sold to Samsung around 1997 or so. then they almost got acquired by Nintendo, because Nintendo had their eye on the MX chipset, and wanted it to be used as the GPU of their next gen console, after a fallout with SGI over the N2000 project. CagEnt and the MX technology ended up in MS's WebTv division, if I'm not mistaken. So it seems MS does have some impressive graphics engineering talent and IPs. If they were to put that to use in XBox2, well that would be interesting.. the M2/MX people had done some amazing work that unfortunately never made it to market because of politics and Matsushita's cold feet.

Megadrive1988

17-Oct-2002, 08:17

Forgot to mention that ATI will probably work with Nintendo on the GPU for
GCN2 or (Gamecube2) this past spring, ATI mentioned at one of its conferences that its working on R400, R500 and was trying to win the contract for "Nintendo's next generation system" meaning beyond Gamecube.

- its news to me that Hitachi is working with Nintendo but I wouldn't totally surprize me. Perhaps Hitachi will supply the CPU for the next Nintendo (SH6 or SH7?) instead of IBM (as IBM-Sony-Toshiba are working on CELL which will be used in PS3 among other things) any links or anything more on Hitachi & Nintendo?

Megadrive1988

17-Oct-2002, 08:52

Oh, about Nvidia and Sega Saturn, there was NO Nvidia chip or Nvidia technology in Saturn at all. Although Nvidia and Sega did have a relationship. You see, Nvidia's first chip, the NV1, used in the Diamond Edge 3D card, had several Saturn games converted to it - VF Remix and Panzer Dragoon among others. The NV1-based Diamond Edge card was also made compatable with the Sega Saturn controllers. But Saturn was completely unrelated to NV1/Diamond Edge in hardware. though they shared some similar ideas on rendering, the develpment of NV1 was done by Nvidia and I think SGS Thompson as well. While Saturn was completely a Sega of Japan and Hitachi effort.

The Saturn had chips from Hitachi, and the VDPs (VDP1 and VDP2) were designed by Sega. What eventually became the Saturn actually started off (in 1991-1992) as the so-called Giga Drive, which was ment to be based on Sega's sprite pushing System32 arcade hardware, much like the Mega Drive (Genesis) had been based on the System16 hardware. Saturn went through MANY design changes throughout its development. The 32X is about what Saturn would have been, if it wasn't massively overhauled and upgraded again, when Sega learned about the PSX's performance. There was also no Lockheed-Martin chips in Saturn whatsoever. However, one faction within SoJ wanted to quickly scrap Saturn in favor of a Lockheed Martin design console, even before Saturn was launched in Japan on Nov 22, 1994. (I'll explain more about nV, LMC and Sega consoles later)
At the time that Saturn was in development, Sega only had arcade boards with General Electric and NEC chips in them (Model 1) there was no Lockheed Martin or Model 3 then anyway, in 1994.

Sega 3d polygon arcade hardware:
-Model 1 (1992) had General Electric Aerospace & Fujitsu 3D technology, NEC CPU
-Model 2 (1994) had Martin Marietta & Fujitsu 3D technology, NEC CPU
-Model 3 (1996) had Lockheed Martin Real3D technology, Motorola or Hitachi PowerPC 603e CPU
-NAOMI (1998 or 1999) Dreamcast based (PowerVR2DC + Hitachi SH4 with twice the video and main memory of DC.
-NAOMI2 (2000 or 2001) Dreamcast based with twin PowerVR2DC chips, ELAN T&L unit - 32MB memory each for CPU, ELAN and PowerVR2DCs, plus maybe 8 MB for sound - over 96 MB memory total

Real3D was a division of LM, it was the combined pool of technology and people from GE Aerospace's + Martin Marietta's graphics devisions, with Lockheed's as well. Saturn was designed in the years of 1992 through 1994, so all Sega had in 3D tech was the GE based Model 1 with flat shaded polygons. Model 2 was just coming into arcades as Saturn was being finished in 1994. The very most that Saturn could have possibily had, in the way of true 3D processors, would have been a stripped-down Martin Marietta chip or chipset used in Model 2 - but that would likely have been VERY expensive, thus Saturn didn't have it, or anything related to Model 2 at all. Saturn shared absolutely no technology with Model 1 or Model 2.

Martin Marietta bought GE's graphics division in 1993, then, Lockheed merged with MM in 1995 to form Lockheed-Martin Corp. Shortly after,
LMC put all of that graphics expertise from the combined companies under one roof, that was Real3D, a division or company within Lockheed-Martin - Real3D continued to work with Sega, in its new form, using its new Real3D Pro-1000 in Model 3 - and almost getting the contract to make a chipset (Real3D-100 or something else) for a Saturn upgrade, thus the so called VF3 upgrade cart, or a new system, or both. I read that both the upgrade and the new system where once called "Saturn2" by Next Generation magazine and some websites. (see NG Nov. 1995 for 2 page article)

Sometime before LMC and Sega were working to design a Saturn upgrade and/or sucessor, or perhaps during and after that time (its seems there was alot of back & forth/ on-again off-again with LMC/Sega) Nvidia was under contract to design a new graphics processor for Sega. The new graphics chip (it was in fact the NV2 that has been mentioned) was not for Saturn, but a Saturn sucessor, yet this was pre-Dreamcast. This's probably confusing the hell out of people, but.... anyway.... Sega's arcade groups liek AM2 didn't like what Nvidia was trying to push (quads), Sega wanted triangles but Nv wouldn't budge. Sega said, ok, that's fine, but quietly moved on to other (many other) chip makers. (LM, Matsushita M2, 3Dfx, PowerVR, etc)

Dreamcast was the direct result of Sega of Japan's PowerVR2-based console, first called Dural, then Katana, finally DreamCast, which competed with Sega of America's 3dfx-based "BlackBelt" console to become the next official Sega console beyond Saturn. Both the Dural/Katana/DC and BlackBelt prototypes came AFTER all co-operation with Nvidia had ceased. Probably LMC's as well. I like to compare this process of prototype console competition like this: you can think of Dural/Katana and BlackBelt as a face-off to be the console selected as Sega's sucessor to the Saturn, much like the USAF holding the ATF (advanced tactical fighter) competition between the Lockheed YF-22 and Northrop YF-23, to become the fighter that replaces the F-15 Eagle.
Its interesting that Lockheed was involved in one of the new fighter planes and an early design proposal for a new Sega console. The YF-22 won the ATF competition, and became the F-22 Raptor, kinda like the Dural/Katana won the console comparasion and became known as the Dreamcast :)

Ahem, anyway, the NV2 never got produced as far as anyone knows. at least not in any high-profile machine. The Firingsquad.com article is very very good, and seems to be accurate, (though the person that posted first about it in this thread got confused) that article said (or maybe it was another) that NV2 might have ended up in the Sega Pico, a childs learning toy that hooks up to a TV. whatever actually happened to the NV2, it was basicly a reject chip that Nvidia never talks about. It was quietly swept under the rug. However, as the article points out, Sega's funding of NV2 probably saved Nvidia from going down the tubes like so many other 3D chip makers. NV2 was not used in the Diamond Edge (again, DE 3D was NV1-based) Although NV1, NV2 and Saturn all used quads of some sort, but to be perfectly clear, neither NV1 nor NV2 were used in Saturn, or Dreamcast.

So these seperate technologies are:

NV1 - Nvidia/ SGS Thompson chip used in Diamond Edge 3D card
NV2 - abandoned chip or used in Pico(?) funded by Sega
NV3 - Riva 128 - Nvidia's first sucessful 3D chip - first DirectX Nv chip

Sega Saturn - Hitachi SH2 based with custom Sega video processors - vastly upgraded beyond original System32 base spec - somewhat more powerful than Model 1 in most areas - though not true polygon based like Model 1 or Model 2 - MUCH weaker than Model 2 - Saturn's 200k textured "polygons" not comparable to Model 2's 300k textured polys. Model 2 conversion to Saturn are no where near "arcade perfect" visually dispite what anyone says. best Saturn can do is maybe 30-40% graphically of Model 2. if that.

Lockheed Martin Real3D - used in Model 3 in the form of Real3D-Pro-1000
(2x) The fore-runners of LMC Real3D are the GE Aerospace & Martin Marietta chips, used in Model 1 and Model 2 respectively.

Dreamcast - Videologic PowerVR2, Hitachi SH-4 based. Not related to previous work that Nvidia did with NV2 for Sega, not related to any LMC tech either,

PC-Engine

17-Oct-2002, 17:37

Then Intel bought Real3D and used that technology in their integrated chipsets for Pentium based motherboards.

17-Oct-2002, 18:46

Then Intel bought Real3D and used that technology in their integrated chipsets for Pentium based motherboards.

That Starfighter thingy or whatever it was called ? Its the R3D-100, its the cheap version of R3D-1000PRO. If Sega had cancelled Saturn, and wait abit longer, it was rumoured that R3D-100 would power the Sega System.

Megadrive1988

17-Oct-2002, 19:33

That Starfighter thingy or whatever it was called ? Its the R3D-100, its the cheap version of R3D-1000PRO. If Sega had cancelled Saturn, and wait abit longer, it was rumoured that R3D-100 would power the Sega System.

Almost correct. the Starfighter card used the Real3D/Intel i740 chip. The i740 was also known as Auburn. It is not the same thing as the R3D-100 - the R3D-100 was a chipset with seperate processors: 1). a graphics processor (probably the main one for rasterizing) 2). a geometry processor (for T&L) 3). a texture processor (texture mapping)

The i740 was a single chip, and although it most likely shared some basic technology with R3D-100, it was not the same thing, i740 was less powerful overall. Where as the R3D-100 was used in low-end workstations or high-end PCs and was MORE powerful than the Martin-Marietta chipset in Sega's Model 2 board, the i740 chip in the Starfighter card was LESS powerful than Model 2 in realworld, especially framerates. Though the image quality of i740 was very good, its performance sucked, it was not as fast as Voodoo2, more like Voodoo1, but with better IQ than Voodoo2.

Many Sega enthusiasts such as myself thought that Sega would use use the LM R3D-100 in a Saturn upgrade, or even a new console. This was before the i740 was known about. Many people following the PC 3D world at the time thought that Lockheed's low cost entry into the consumer 3D graphics card market would be the R3D-100. that was not to be. it would take another 2 years for the i740 to appear in 1997 or so.

Megadrive1988

17-Oct-2002, 19:34

My ideal senareo for Sega's 32-bit generation would have gone something like this: Sega releases a 32-bit Giga Dive in 1993 in Japan, and 1994 in U.S. There is no 32X upgrade for Genersis. This Giga Drive is what it was originally suppose to be/should have been, in the real world - a simple combination of beefed up System32 sprite hardware and GE Model-1 polygon hardware. Giga Drive would be capable of around 200,000 flat shaded polys/sec, and these are real polygons, unlike the real Saturn.
Model-1-to-Giga Drive ports are painless and exact to the arcade. All System32 sprite games and Model-1 polygon games are brought over to Giga Drive during 1993-1995. Model-2 conversions might be attempted, but never released due to Giga Drive's inability to handle texture mapping or enough polygons.
When Sega learns of the PSX and Ultra64 specs in 1993-1994, they immediately turn to Lockheed-Martin to have them build a $200-$300 upgrade for the Giga Drive, with full 3D texture mapped polygons. This upgrade will fit on top of the Give Drive, like a turrent on top of a tank. The R3D-100 upgrade gives the Giga Drive at least 2x the performance of the Model 2 board (750,000 polys with texture and everything) more features than Model 2 (gouraud shading) better image quality, the ability to handle decent conversions of Model 3 games, even though the R3D-100 upgrade isn't as powerful as the twin R3D-Pro 1000 based-Model 3 (maybe 30-50%) though it can easily do better than exact Model 2 games. Even though this upgrade based on R3D-100 is more powerful than Model 2, it's MUCH cheaper to produce since it would be coming out in late 1996, (3 years after the base console Giga Drive is out in Japan, 2 years after it's out in the U.S.) where as Model 2 was built in 1993, being out in arcades in 1994's Daytona USA. Model-2 was so damn expensive because it was so old, 1993-1994, when 3D graphcis for any type of game, even arcades, was new, AND, because production was limited to several thousand units worldwide. Giga Drive's R3D-100 upgrade is produced in the millions, in late 1996 when better chip fabbing process is available and when ram prices are lower.

The R3D-100 handles most of the heavy lifting while Giga Drive's adaquate CPUs, audio chips, 4x CD-ROM drive, I/O, and power supply are still used.
A PowerPC CPU is not needed, btw, since Model 2 games didnt have one. The CPU(s) in Giga Drive are enough to handle Model 2 games when offloaded from 3D work done by R3D-100.
The combined GigaDrive + R3D-100 upgrade gives SEGA the most powerful machine of its generation. both in 2D AND in 3D. The 3D ability of this upgraded Giga Drive is many times more powerful than PSX, upgraded NEC PC-FX, Jaguar2, and several times more powerful than Nintendo Ultra64, somewhat more powerful than Matsushita's M2, and even beyond any PC 3D chip of the time from 3Dfx, Nvidia or PowerVR.. As well as having the highest image quality.

Sega's Giga Drive + LM R3D-100 upgrade is only matched by Lockheed's own R3D-100 cards for PCs, and surpassed only by Sega's Model 3 board. Then with the sucess of Giga Drive w/ its new found 3D texture mapping ability, its awesome upgrades of all Model 2 games, and decent conversions of some Model 3 games, and market place success, equaling PSX in sales, Sega hands the contract to Lockheed to design a R3D-500 for Sega's next gen console of 1998-1999, which will have 3D from the start! A new console with well beyond Model-3 ability, with around 10x the 3D power of the upgraded Giga Drive, in other words, about 3x Model-3 power, in the 5Mpps range. this catches Sony off guard, who has nothing to counter this new Sega console with until at least 2001. Sega goes on to win the 1998-2003 generation (being on par with Sony in the last) then partners with Lockheed yet again, and this time, MS, to build the XBox, which pulls together many of the major American graphics technology companies (LM, Nvidia, E&S, 3Dfx, Intel) to counter Japan's gaming industry, especially the 2001 released PS2, with XBox not getting released until 2003!

ahhh what never was... :) hey at least in reality we got PowerVR and they were decent!

Megadrive1988

17-Oct-2002, 20:11

ahhh, sorry for getting sooooo off-topic there. but it was too much fun to type :)

Megadrive1988

19-Oct-2002, 04:36

bump

PC-Engine

21-Oct-2002, 19:40

I see a slight problem with that scenario though and that is market fragmentation.

fbg1

24-Oct-2002, 00:41

Besides, Sony's *probobly* doing it with by combining the EE & GS on IBM's liecensed 0.10um SOI process and using it as an IOP or similar controller, I can hardly see MS conceiding parity and not matching this feature.

Wouldn't that mean MS would have to combine Intel's P3 and Nvidia's XGPU (and MCP?) all on one chip? That would be something of a first. Do you think Intel and Nvidia would allow that?

Qroach

24-Oct-2002, 11:40

I didn't write that...

fbg1

24-Oct-2002, 14:42

Right, Vince wrote that. Not sure how that got tangled up, maybe I was quoting Vince quoting you and accidentally forgot to delete all of your quote. I fixed it now.

Reznor007

24-Oct-2002, 15:16

-Model 1 (1992) had General Electric Aerospace & Fujitsu 3D technology, NEC CPU
-Model 2 (1994) had Martin Marietta & Fujitsu 3D technology, NEC CPU

You are correct that Model 1 used an NEC CPU(V60 to be exact), but wrong about Model 2(2A-CRX, 2B-CRX, 2C-CRX).

Model 2 used an Intel I960+the same Fujitsu TGP chip as Model 1. 2A used the same but with 5 of the TGP chips. 2B used the I960+an Analog Devices SHARC DSP. 2C used I960+Fujitsu TGP4x (totally different from the other one).