[Rodéric]

Originally Posted by almighty

It was released MONTHS ago that AMD is doing the GPU and not Nvidia.

Press release ?

I thought it was still undecided, but I didn't follow that closely as I usually just wait for the official specifications to come around.

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by fehu

fairly impossible indeed 0_0
modern and emerging rendering tech have made some progress in the tbr?

TBDS/R helps with shading/rendering efficiency. Unless they go with a TBDR hardware design (e.g. Vita, iPad2), there's not much they can do to avoid paying the cost of storing multiple samples per pixel.

Originally Posted by Rodéric

Press release ?

Pretty sure it was only a rumour coming out of E3.

[Sonic]

Originally Posted by Rangers

Sony's next GPU will be Nvidia. Microsoft will be AMD. At least until proven otherwise.

I just want to see someone pick up IMG's Rogue and make a many core version of it and see the wonders of it.

[Masuta]

I'm as big a PVR fanboy as the next guy, but IMGTEC hasn't proven itself in the high end for over a decade.

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by homerdog

It seems very unlikely that there will be multiple GPUs in a gaming console.

I agree in a perfect world they would have one huge GCN. But in the search for maximum performance with the smallest die possible while getting sufficient yields in the smallest node process possible at the earliest launch frame possible ... that opens the window for multiple GPU's.

What is the ARM core for?

The arm core would be for quite a few non-gaming applications.

It's only 13m trans so a relatively insignificant part of the budget to allow the following with low power:
-background downloading
-dashboard (internet?) browsing
-dashboard social aspects
-media playback
-wake-up on kinect wave or audible que
-crossplat between winphone and xb720
-improved piracy protection

[homerdog]

Doesn't Microsoft have to pay if they use ARM? Seems like it wouldn't be worth it, although I dunno maybe the licensing fee is negligibly small.

[AlphaWolf]

Having a low power cpu for simple tasks doesn't really seem to be worth it, when the higher power CPU is required for the primary functions. It's just an additional cost and complexity that really isn't necessary. Lower power (for certain functions) would be nice, but it really doesn't put any money in MS's pocket.

[Rodéric]

Originally Posted by Masuta

I'm as big a PVR fanboy as the next guy, but IMGTEC hasn't proven itself in the high end for over a decade.

What's the definition of high-end ?

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by Rodéric

What's the definition of high-end ?

200 wat

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

...but it really doesn't put any money in MS's pocket.

Creating a seamless ecosystem for win8, win8 phones, and xb720 does.

It encourages the use and adoption of these devices if apps etc are cross compatible.

Again, it's only a 13m trans chip.

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by TheChefO

Creating a seamless ecosystem for win8, win8 phones, and xb720 does.

It encourages the use and adoption of these devices if apps etc are cross compatible.

Are they going to convince everyone to put an ARM cpu in their PC? No. So they are still going to need software to make that happen, fortunately for them they are a software company.

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

Are they going to convince everyone to put an ARM cpu in their PC? No. So they are still going to need software to make that happen, fortunately for them they are a software company.

They are making win8 for arm ... tablets

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by TheChefO

They are making win8 for arm ... tablets

And PC....

in fact you can download the beta for PC right now.

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

And PC....

in fact you can download the beta for PC right now.

Granted,
But for the rest of the market that ms is trying to grow into (phones and tablets) if they can cheaply encourage the adoption of this ecosystem, then it will indeed make them money.

Also, with having the os running on arm, they can take advantage of this fact for fighting piracy.

Again, another money making angle.

And if the console is whisper quiet while operating many of the features, then it may encourage more consumers to buy.

[AlphaWolf]

I just don't see that being worth the effort when it can all be accomplished in software. They need to be able to run win 8 without an ARM processor in any event.

[tongue_of_colicab]

Originally Posted by TheChefO

Granted,
But for the rest of the market that ms is trying to grow into (phones and tablets) if they can cheaply encourage the adoption of this ecosystem, then it will indeed make them money.

Also, with having the os running on arm, they can take advantage of this fact for fighting piracy.

Again, another money making angle.

And if the console is whisper quiet while operating many of the features, then it may encourage more consumers to buy.

How is using a arm chip going to make a difference fighting piracy? That will have a whole lot more to do with the whole protection system. DS, Wii, smartphones etc. All use arm. All have piracy.

Using a arm chip wouldnt make the system that much more silent either. With all the power saving tech we got cores that don't get used get turned off and what is used gets downclocked. Assuming they use atleast a half decent fan you won't really hear the system anyway unless your sitting in a totally silent room.

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

I just don't see that being worth the effort when it can all be accomplished in software. They need to be able to run win 8 without an ARM processor in any event.

I'm not saying that Arm will definitely be in the console, but there are some advantages and so it is a possibility for very little cost.

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by tongue_of_colicab

How is using a arm chip going to make a difference fighting piracy? That will have a whole lot more to do with the whole protection system. DS, Wii, smartphones etc. All use arm. All have piracy.

Using a arm chip wouldnt make the system that much more silent either. With all the power saving tech we got cores that don't get used get turned off and what is used gets downclocked. Assuming they use atleast a half decent fan you won't really hear the system anyway unless your sitting in a totally silent room.

Sure they could use power gating to save power, but still not as efficient as Arm.

Wake-up on image/audio for Kinect would be much more power efficient than gating cores and would be a very nice feature.

Piracy could be more effective by having the OS controlling the system in a controlled environment on Arm. Similar to how Sony have effectively used Cell.

[Barbarian]

I can see having a dedicated ARM chip for Kinect, Audio and other low-power uses. I'd hate having to dedicate (again) one of the high-power cores for those tasks.

[Acert93]

Originally Posted by Barbarian

I can see having a dedicated ARM chip for Kinect, Audio and other low-power uses. I'd hate having to dedicate (again) one of the high-power cores for those tasks.

We saw how NV has a "different" core in their new quad design. Maybe MS may be looking at DVR and other functions and looking at the slow dash and stuff like Kinect and want some dedicated resources for these "background" tasks that are "always on" and then the primary CPU/GPU resources be available for developers. This way your DVR recording, dash, and other background stuff can run autonomously at all times without impacting gaming.

Maybe a crazy idea... but for the consoles to become more functional boxes there is the conflict between the gaming and the background media/social tasks. I am sure they could come up with a solution where there are dedicated CPU resources for such but maybe they have decided to go with dedicated hardware for it?

Btw, I am not sure any of the current rumors are really legit. But it does pose interesting questions as the new consoles approach.

[Dominik D]

Originally Posted by TheChefO

I'm not saying that Arm will definitely be in the console, but there are some advantages and so it is a possibility for very little cost.

There's really no point in having ARM in console as something that would unify Windows platform. First of all: I don't believe OS codebase will be shared between desktop and console. There are tons of reasons*. Second of all: code portability has to do a lot with API portability and tools maturity. My Win32/C code works perfectly fine on x86, amd64 and IA64 - three very different beasts. And I'm not even thinking that much about making it portable: I just follow some guidelines, don't bind my code to, say, pointer size, endianness, etc. and I'm fine 99% of the time.

* the core concept of Windows is multitasking; the core concept of console is "run this game securely at max perf". This difference makes it hard to have generic OS components that can be shared: your I/O has to be secure on the console, so your I/O stack is different; you have no paging, so your memory manager has to be different; your OS tasks have strict budget so your background services have to work differently; your HW cannot be compromised so you run on top of a super-tight hypervisor; your graphics API does not need all the abstraction layers you need on PC, so you strip WDDM completely; and so on... I mean - it'd be cool to have one code base, but I don't think it's gonna happen for X3.

[Megadrive1988]

My question now is, will Xbox3/PS4 have GPUs that go beyond the current DX11/Shader Model 5.0 spec ?


p.s. I don't mean the upcoming DX11.1 spec.

[tongue_of_colicab]

Originally Posted by TheChefO

Sure they could use power gating to save power, but still not as efficient as Arm.

Wake-up on image/audio for Kinect would be much more power efficient than gating cores and would be a very nice feature.

Piracy could be more effective by having the OS controlling the system in a controlled environment on Arm. Similar to how Sony have effectively used Cell.

Its not going to be as efficient as a arm but is switching on 1 core at lower clock rates isn't going to be inefficient either. Besides your still stuck with having to run the gpu anyway which probably is going to use the most power anyway. You also need to keep in mind costs. Not sure how much a arm core + all the extra logic on the mainboard will cost you but it will be atleast 5 dollars? Is it really worth spending 250~500million extra (on 50million consoles) just so you can shave of a couple of watts used when watching a movie or something? I got one of those low power amd X2 cpu's for my htpc. It does 35watt max and that is without the ability to switch cores off. Switch one core off and down clock and your probably not even using 15 watt.

I don't see it working for piracy either. Just like cell it will depend on the global protection of your system, not on the cpu you use. Wii has a seperate arm cpu for all the security stuff I believe but still Wii security is fundamentally broken.

[AzBat]

Originally Posted by Acert93

We saw how NV has a "different" core in their new quad design. Maybe MS may be looking at DVR and other functions and looking at the slow dash and stuff like Kinect and want some dedicated resources for these "background" tasks that are "always on" and then the primary CPU/GPU resources be available for developers. This way your DVR recording, dash, and other background stuff can run autonomously at all times without impacting gaming.

Maybe a crazy idea... but for the consoles to become more functional boxes there is the conflict between the gaming and the background media/social tasks. I am sure they could come up with a solution where there are dedicated CPU resources for such but maybe they have decided to go with dedicated hardware for it?

I think this makes the most sense for an ARM core. The high performance CPU & GPU would be wasted on dashboard & video duties. Maybe they are going to take the ARM Shiva class processor that is already in Kinect & put it in the console? That way they can cost reduce Kinect & also use it as an alternative CPU for the dashboard. That would save the monster CPU & GPU for developers.

Tommy McClain

[shiznit]

Why should MS care how much power the Xbox uses at the dashboard if 99% of potential buyers don't? I have never heard someone say: "I don't want to buy a 360 because it's idle power consumption is too high."

If MS cared about idle power consumtion (not what caused their RROD problems), wouldn't they have made the new slim use less power at idle? 70W vs 90W peak hardly shows they care that much.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3774/w...box-360-slim/3