Official Microsoft Japan Summit 2005

[scooby_dooby]

I can't remember the source, I think it was Allard, said the 360 OS would be based on the NT kernel like the original dashboard was.

i just hope it supports filenames longer than 32 characters this time, it sucks when many of your mp3's are over 32 characters and you can't transfer them.

[ShootMyMonkey]

The only thing that is really left is the process management and some of the API naming conventions almost everything else was rewritten, what's to dislike?
Actually, the biggest dog would have to be that driver model. DirectX was the one thing worth hating with a passion about Xbox.

Having worked on both Xbox and PS2, I know which OS I think is better designed and implemented and it wouldn't be Sony's effort.
Granted, but that's given you can even consider Sony's work to be an effort worth mentioning.

I can't remember the source, I think it was Allard, said the 360 OS would be based on the NT kernel like the original dashboard was.
That's odd... in the beginning, they were making such a big deal about how huge the improvements would be because of using Longhorn and the new driver model and the CLR runtime and everything. Frankly, CLR is probably the toughest sell of them all -- probably a total failure in the gaming arena. Longhorn Driver Model would be an easy sell, otoh.

[SanGreal]

Allard has said a few times that the 360 OS is based on the Xbox1 OS and that they dind't go back to the Windows codebase.

[scooby_dooby]

Actually, the biggest dog would have to be that driver model. DirectX was the one thing worth hating with a passion about Xbox.

Funny that you say that, the box was actually named after DirectX

Its the DirectX-Box, it was a codename used by Ed Fries and the other early developers of the console, they never expected it to be the final name but it kept winning in al the focis testing so the name stuck.

Just a little interesting fact.

[ERP]

The only thing that is really left is the process management and some of the API naming conventions almost everything else was rewritten, what's to dislike?
Actually, the biggest dog would have to be that driver model. DirectX was the one thing worth hating with a passion about Xbox.


But there is no real driver on Xbox, almost every call just shoves stuff in the push buffer. About the only thing you can't change is the push buffer management and I'm not sure you'd want to if you understood how it worked. We reverse engineered the Pushbuffer format relatively early on, but in the end we used the provided calls to do the compilation.

OK Perhaps I buy not liking the API, but the implementation is about as thin layer as it gets. The only thing that doesn't directly represent how the hardware works is the specification of the vertex DMA streams.

If your going to pick on poor software on Xbox at least pick on the broken stuff. DirectSound is horribly implemented.

[SanGreal]

DirectSound is horribly implemented.
DirectSound was dropped from the 360 in favor of X3DAudio, correct?

[ShootMyMonkey]

OK Perhaps I buy not liking the API, but the implementation is about as thin layer as it gets. The only thing that doesn't directly represent how the hardware works is the specification of the vertex DMA streams.
That's odd, because the API overhead is still not lightweight. There's probably a reason why they allow us to bypass it on 360. I don't know if there was still a separation between kernel space and user space or what on Xbox, but there was no significant difference in API call overhead between Xbox and a 733 MHz PC w/ a GeForce3.

Funny that you say that, the box was actually named after DirectX
Well, that's far from surprising, considering it was sort of a proving ground for the then new DX8 API design.

Also, there's nothing new about using "X" in marketing names because it's an easy sell. The general idea is that if you say the letter 'x' repeatedly a few times, it'll come out sounding like you're saying "sex."

Hence, DirectSex, ActiveSex, SexBox, SexNA, SexML... Well, you get the idea.

[aaaaa00]

I don't know if there was still a separation between kernel space and user space or what on Xbox

How could you have written any significant code for xbox without knowing this? :shock:

[ShootMyMonkey]

How could you have written any significant code for xbox without knowing this?
I haven't... I've only debugged existing code for Xbox, and most of any newly written code has been purely computational. All my experience prior to my current job has been with PCs.

[ERP]

That's odd, because the API overhead is still not lightweight. There's probably a reason why they allow us to bypass it on 360. I don't know if there was still a separation between kernel space and user space or what on Xbox, but there was no significant difference in API call overhead between Xbox and a 733 MHz PC w/ a GeForce3.

RTFM.....

Better yet just look at the header files or stick a breakpoint in your code and look at the disassembly in an optimised build. Some calls can be expensive but they are expensive for one of three reasons, either you're copying a lot of data into the pushbuffer (in which case use precompiled lists!) or you've filled the push buffer and you're stalled waiting for the GPU (make the push buffer bigger or use jumps to precompiled lists) to process some of the data or you locked the resource hyou're trying to use and you have to wait for the GPU to finish with it.

I have a racing game on disc here (never published) pushes a peak of somewhere around 30Million polys/second, and finishes submitting all it's geometry in less than 30% of a frame.

There is no seperation between Kernel and user space on Xbox, and you're answers aren't convincing me you have much more than a passing experience with Xbox.

[ShootMyMonkey]

There is no seperation between Kernel and user space on Xbox, and you're answers aren't convincing me you have much more than a passing experience with Xbox.
I said otherwise... when? I'm going on a combination of my own experience and what other people have said. I never said it's entirely my own work that showed what I said.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that no one could come up with a thinner implementation than Microsoft's were they given full hardware documentation to the end effect of being able to bypass DirectX and use one's own API. In fact, I find it difficult to believe that a significant percentage would fail at such an endeavor.

[DotProduct]

ShootMyMonkey:

Please... Do not try to pretend to have ever developed for the XBox.

The only thing DirectX PC and DirectX Box is the API. There is no "driver support" or anything like that on the XBox. Everything is linked against your libs or even inline. And there is some cool stuff you can do on the Box you could never do with DirectX PC.

API wise I prefer OpenGL, but that is propably a matter of taste.

[ShootMyMonkey]

Believe what you want... I know one thing with absolute certainty, though. The last good OS Microsoft developed was DOS. And they didn't even really make the best DOS either.

I can be more than 100% certain that life would be better if Win32 never happened.

[ERP]

There is no seperation between Kernel and user space on Xbox, and you're answers aren't convincing me you have much more than a passing experience with Xbox.
I said otherwise... when? I'm going on a combination of my own experience and what other people have said. I never said it's entirely my own work that showed what I said.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that no one could come up with a thinner implementation than Microsoft's were they given full hardware documentation to the end effect of being able to bypass DirectX and use one's own API. In fact, I find it difficult to believe that a significant percentage would fail at such an endeavor.

You should sit with a disassembler and look at what the functions actually do, there is by enlarge a one to one correspondance between the API calls and the hardware functionality. It's one of the reasons MS added support for GL style immediate mode primitives to the XBox API. The hardware supports them natively.

Sure someone could rename the functions, but that wouldn't be any thinner. I don't see what is bad about DirectX (as an API) The functions largely let you set state, that translate to a move of a command into the pushbuffer (except when multiple states are shared in a single register), and DrawIndexedXXX which just does a raw copy of the indices into the pushbuffer. I mean they even let you ignore the pixel shaders and just jam values into the combiners if you want.

The one real exception to this is the handling of vertex streams, where the API doesn't really reflect what's happening, it isn't particularly inefficient though.

[Gollum]

They didn't even devlop DOS, they just bought it from a ppor chao who had no clue he was sitting on a gold mine. Ermmm ... how did this turn into an OS discussion?

[ShootMyMonkey]

Ermmm ... how did this turn into an OS discussion?
One of the nice things about the anonymity of the net is that you can afford to vent certain things through what would otherwise be an alterego. I'm one of those people who likes to keep about 5 or 6 different personalities. You're listening to the "opinionated elitist bastard" alterego, in case it wasn't clear. Long-standing gripes bubble over, and the broader Win32 hate came out. That's all there was to it.

[ultimate_end]

I'm one of those people who likes to keep about 5 or 6 different personalities.
:shock:

I'm starting to wonder whether anyone should even be taking you seriously at all...
.
.
Anyway, wasn't this thread about the Xbox summit? So yeah, I think Microsoft did a pretty good job with this. Considering the circumstances anyway.

Maybe we could come up with lists of Summit games that we are anticipating most.

Thjese are the games that I most looking forward to:

Enchant Arm
World Airforce
FEoE remake
N3
possibly RR6, whatever Idea factory is cooking up and maybe the new Namco RPG, if it turns out interesting.

I'm assuming that Taito's World Airforce is a continuation of their Energy Airforce series on PS2. I really love those games. It's about the only real flight sim for consoles (if you forget those 6poly/s genesis ones).

Ofcourse I've mainly been buzzing about the Mistwalker games, which weren't represented at the summit. But after this, the 360 lineup is starting to sound really sweet!

[PC-Engine]

I think it's pretty cool that Taito is supporting Xbox with a nice quality game. Seems like all the old school Japanese companies like Taito and Hudson and SNK are onboard. I wonder what happen to companies like Data East/Data West. I want a new fully 3D Robocop game damit!! :evil:

[ultimate_end]

Yeah, I had wondered what happened to them, they basically disappeared completely. Data East made some good arcade games. It's a shame these companies go out of business sometimes.

Just like it's a shame old franchises die out. I really want someone to make a nextgen Wonderboy in Monsterland remake, dammit! I never played the Genesis ones, but I think the series sort of lost it's way at that point. Then died completely. :cry:

[DigitalSoul]

Heh, Data East went belly up a few years ago.....Plus Titus has already given Robocop a bad name.