Strengths and weaknesses of GameCube relative to its peers *spawn

Maybe because of the lower main memory of GC (24MB) compared to PS2 (32MB) and Xbox (64MB) ?
Once you take into account that a chunk of that 32mb in ps2 is used for sound, the difference dissipates. Not to mention the Ps2 may have more eDRAM, but it lacks texture compression so in practice it's much less usable memory.
 
Overall it's GC > Xbox > Ps2 > DC, but everything after the dreamcast had some extremely impressive games at one point or another.
Which consoles did you have at the time? I had the GC and the Xbox and I wonder if you have played games like Riddick, Project Gotham Racing 2, Halo 2, Conker Bad Fur's Day, Ninja Gaiden /60fps/ or Rally Sport Championship 2 /60fps/, Dead or Alive/60fps/... which made drool half the world
 
IIRC one of the resident devs (might have been ERP) who had worked on both platforms was adamant that the PS2 was more powerful than GC, particularly with regards to vertex processing ability. This was based on hands-on low level efforts to get a game engine up to speed.

The GC's RAM limitations were no doubt an issue too.
polygons aside, I wonder if Gekko was an in order CPU or was it out of order? That being said, I don't think the PS2 nor the Xbox could run F/Zero GX at that frequency like on the GC and at the same resolution, because of transparencies /PS2 would excel there, Xbox wouldn't/ and definition /which Xbox could match or even surpass, but other aspects of graphics would suffer/.
 
Which consoles did you have at the time? I had the GC and the Xbox and I wonder if you have played games like Riddick, Project Gotham Racing 2, Halo 2, Conker Bad Fur's Day, Ninja Gaiden /60fps/ or Rally Sport Championship 2 /60fps/, Dead or Alive/60fps/... which made drool half the world
Had 'em all but the dreamcast. Let me be clear, I think the gap between GC and Xbox is relatively small, pretty insignificant compared to the gc and xbox vs. the ps2. If anyone has anything to share on aspects Xbox was better at than gamecube, i'd truly love to know.

The metroid prime games are paragons of tech as far as shooters went, simply unmatched at the time. Ninja gaiden looks nice and runs at 60fps, it deserves a mention. In terms of more "realistic" racing games, Xbox has gamecube thoroughly beat, not going to argue there. Riddick has a lot of impressive shader effects but like Doom compromises too much on core details. I'd say riddick on Xbox is more impressive than doom 3 on xbox.

Conker is extremely detailed, probably the most detailed Xbox game, though the animation is even a step down from the 64 version, characters are less expressive. But detail wise is insane, and is definitely pushing more detail than star fox adventures on the gamecube. But it also runs at half the frame rate and came out 3 years later, who knows what a conker 2 could've looked like on the cube. Panzer dragoon Orta and Conker are the games i'd choose as Xbox's best.
 
All right, what's false about it? Vastly lol, get out of here.

"Xbox’s GPU also requires 16MB of the 64MB DDR just to cull a Z-buffer"

"GameCube, having this architecture, has a significantly shorter data pipeline than Xbox’s PIII setup (4-7 stages versus up to 14), meaning it can process information more than twice as fast per clock cycle. In fact, this GCN CPU (a PowerPC 750e IBM chip) is often compared to be as fast as a 700mhz machine at 400mhz. So GCN could be 849mhz compared to Xbox’s 733mhz machine performancewise."

"Not ONCE do you hear this fact stated by Microsoft’s PR, nor do you see anything listed that Xbox can be “beat in” on their official specs (no realworld poly count, no realworld fillrate, no listing of simulataneous texture layers/hardware lights per pass, no mentioning that pixel/vertex shaders only do bumpmapping and skinning commonly done on all games now)"

"Bumpmapping Microsoft didn't want you to know about that's done just as well on Nintendo's system without "vertex shaders""

"I then point to Luigi’s Mansion and Metroid Prime, which are impossible on Xbox because they HAVE NO LOADTIMES (the game is constantly streamed from the GameCube disc in burst packets)."

"Simply put, there’s not one effect Xbox can do that GCN can’t, while this can go the other way since Xbox lacks half of GCN’s hardware lights and texture layers onboard."


There's probably more, I don't want to spend more time on it. That blog post is a mess.

I didn't claim carmack was stupid, I said if he said the gamecube couldn't run doom 3 because of a lack of programmable shaders that obviously means he thought gamecube couldn't do bump mapping and the like.

GC couldn't properly support per pixel dot3 (per texel light vector) so it couldn't have done Doom. JC knew what he was talking about. You think JC didn't know what he was talking about, but you only think that because you don't know as much as he did.

Gamecube has games such as rouge squadron with higher poly counts than Xbox games, so to say the ps2 was a more capable poly pusher makes no sense.

Well it certainly made sense to the highly experience AAA developer that stated PS2 was more powerful.

You don't know that Rogue Squadron has higher polygon counts than any Xbox game (it probably doesn't) and it uses static meshes for almost everything. Pushing high polygon counts when you could achieve better results using more advanced methods on more powerful and more flexible hardware isn't smart anyway.
 
polygons aside, I wonder if Gekko was an in order CPU or was it out of order? That being said, I don't think the PS2 nor the Xbox could run F/Zero GX at that frequency like on the GC and at the same resolution, because of transparencies /PS2 would excel there, Xbox wouldn't/ and definition /which Xbox could match or even surpass, but other aspects of graphics would suffer/.
Gekko's an out of order design, Ps2 was in order.
 
Had 'em all but the dreamcast. Let me be clear, I think the gap between GC and Xbox is relatively small, pretty insignificant compared to the gc and xbox vs. the ps2. If anyone has anything to share on aspects Xbox was better at than gamecube, i'd truly love to know.

The metroid prime games are paragons of tech as far as shooters went, simply unmatched at the time. Ninja gaiden looks nice and runs at 60fps, it deserves a mention. In terms of more "realistic" racing games, Xbox has gamecube thoroughly beat, not going to argue there. Riddick has a lot of impressive shader effects but like Doom compromises too much on core details. I'd say riddick on Xbox is more impressive than doom 3 on xbox.

Conker is extremely detailed, probably the most detailed Xbox game, though the animation is even a step down from the 64 version, characters are less expressive. But detail wise is insane, and is definitely pushing more detail than star fox adventures on the gamecube. But it also runs at half the frame rate and came out 3 years later, who knows what a conker 2 could've looked like on the cube. Panzer dragoon Orta and Conker are the games i'd choose as Xbox's best.
darn, wish I played Pazer Dragoon Orta now that you mention it. I purchased the Xbox One new version of the classic that is Kinect compatible and a launch game though.

That being said, I've watched the Metroid Prime DF feature and there was nothing there that the Xbox couldn't run. In addition I didn't ever see a game with Fur Shading on the GC like Conker on the Xbox.

lol, I remember this part after getting drunk iirc
hqdefault.jpg


Bad-Fur-Day-4.jpg


conkerl%26rpic_050211.jpg
 
polygons aside, I wonder if Gekko was an in order CPU or was it out of order? That being said, I don't think the PS2 nor the Xbox could run F/Zero GX at that frequency like on the GC and at the same resolution, because of transparencies /PS2 would excel there, Xbox wouldn't/ and definition /which Xbox could match or even surpass, but other aspects of graphics would suffer/.

Can't remember the details, but I've seen it described as "partly OoO". From dev comments I've read in the past, it was said to be about as fast clock for clock as the P3 in Xbox, but it was much smaller and I expect had better perf/watt. The CPU burden in GC was likely higher for most games because the hardware T&L needed CPU assistance with things like skinning (like Sega's Naomi 2 arcade board).

For its time Gekko appears to be a very good choice of chip. Performance in relation to it's size (and therefore cost) does seem to have been better than P3.

Pity that IBM are out of the consumer CPU market.
 
^ Starfox and Donkey kong jungle beat both have fur shading. Although not quite the same method, the Ps2 even had it on Shadow of the colossus. Conker's is the highest quality, but we are talking about 30 vs. 60 frames here.
 
"Xbox’s GPU also requires 16MB of the 64MB DDR just to cull a Z-buffer"

"GameCube, having this architecture, has a significantly shorter data pipeline than Xbox’s PIII setup (4-7 stages versus up to 14), meaning it can process information more than twice as fast per clock cycle. In fact, this GCN CPU (a PowerPC 750e IBM chip) is often compared to be as fast as a 700mhz machine at 400mhz. So GCN could be 849mhz compared to Xbox’s 733mhz machine performancewise."

The other examples I admit on, but you'll have to explain yourself here. I don't claim to know everything but it's definitely true that Xbox had to use more memory for certain things due to the lack of eDRAM. And yeah considering what gamecube games are doing at 60fps, to me it's pretty clear the gc is faster than Xbox clock for clock. Not to mention it has twice the l2 cpu cache. And what of Factor 5's statements regarding the cpu? On Wii where clock speeds are almost the same, there's games like boom blox which have very impressive physics, there's nothing like that on Xbox.
GC couldn't properly support per pixel dot3 (per texel light vector) so it couldn't have done Doom. JC knew what he was talking about. You think JC didn't know what he was talking about, but you only think that because you don't know as much as he did.

Well it certainly made sense to the highly experience AAA developer that stated PS2 was more powerful.

You don't know that Rogue Squadron has higher polygon counts than any Xbox game (it probably doesn't) and it uses static meshes for almost everything. Pushing high polygon counts when you could achieve better results using more advanced methods on more powerful and more flexible hardware isn't smart anyway.

I don't know what you mean but with regards to lighting, the gamecube and wii were absolutely capable of per pixel lighting. My suspicion is that GC couldn't run the game the same way as Xbox could and that would explain Carmack's statement.

Ps2 version of Resi 4 says hi, since it's not blatantly obvious to you that the ps2 is weaker.

Well you'll have to prove that an Xbox game can match RS in polys.
 
@phoenix_chipset

Here's a thread where a very experienced developer talks in detail about the PS2, GC and Xbox. Warning: you won't like it.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/was-gc-more-or-less-powerful-than-ps2-spawn.52550/

The Gamecube was a marvel of engineering in comparison to its competitors of that particular generation. [snip]
Hmm wouldn't have been my assessment.
It was by far the worst performing of the 3 platforms. You should see the performance penalty when god forbid the GPU has to clip a polygon, it was so bad I actually wrote code to traverse triangle lists and clip tris with the CPU.

There's more good stuff in that thread - look out for ERP's posts.

The other examples I admit on, but you'll have to explain yourself here. I don't claim to know everything but it's definitely true that Xbox had to use more memory for certain things due to the lack of eDRAM. And yeah considering what gamecube games are doing at 60fps, to me it's pretty clear the gc is faster than Xbox clock for clock. Not to mention it has twice the l2 cpu cache. And what of Factor 5's statements regarding the cpu? On Wii where clock speeds are almost the same, there's games like boom blox which have very impressive physics, there's nothing like that on Xbox.

You don't "cull a Z-buffer" and if you did(!?), it wouldn't take 16 MB. You cull primitives, then for none-culled primitives write or reject fragment depth in the Z buffer. Size for 640 x 480 would be about 1.2 MB for 32 bit. On Xbox it was a G buffer, not a Z buffer.

A half length CPU pipeline doesn't make the CPU twice as fast. I don't know what Factor 5's statements on Gekko are. Boom Blox has lots of static meshes, very little by way of AI or scripting from what I can see. Don't see any evidence of something that Xbox couldn't at the very least closely approximate.

I don't know what you mean but with regards to lighting, the gamecube and wii were absolutely capable of per pixel lighting. My suspicion is that GC couldn't run the game the same way as Xbox could and that would explain Carmack's statement.

Per pixel lighting covers lots of things. Doom 3, Riddick and the Halo games required a kind of lighting that was more complex than anything the GC could do. WiiU onwards can do it though. Without it the look of the games - particularly Doom 3 and Riddick - would be badly broken.

Ps2 version of Resi 4 says hi, since it's not blatantly obvious to you that the ps2 is weaker.

GC Burnout 3 says hi right back. ;)

Well you'll have to prove that an Xbox game can match RS in polys.

Actually, I don't have to. "RS has more polygons than any Xbox game" is an unsupported statement. I don't have to disprove an unsupported statement. You have to prove it.

But seeing as we're here ...

Canned Boss Game Studios game, Xbox, 2002
Cars - 25000 polygons (highest LOD) - 4 textures/poly, Base texture, Reflection map, a texture used to compute a fresnel term, Shadow map, Specular highlight (encoded in the alpha channel of the reflection map)
Backgrounds - 2 or in some cases 3 textures/poly
Peak number of polygons per second - 30M polygons**

Info provided by a developer that posts here. GC is a really nice little machine, but it's not the beast you think it is.
 
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Do you think the PS2 is more powerful than Gamecube?
Doing what? In this exact case, was PS2 more capable in running the AI, physics, etc. that the supposed dev post claimed? Quite possibly. I have no experience developing for either console so would defer to the experts on such matters, but general console knowledge does tell me that PS2 was a maths monster so I can well believe it.

It'd behoove the discussion if you either presented you credentials and experience, or your references for scrutiny, or admit it's just your opinion based on stuff you've read.
 
Frankly I don't care if Iwata told me the ps2 was stronger than gamecube, it's simply not true. Resi 4 is a concrete example, and the decrease in complexity in the ps2 version is hugely noticeable. No one has any proof whatsoever that burnout, or any other game that doesn't exist on the gamecube would not run on it. That developer ERP said it had abysmal triangle throughput, that can be debunked immediately. And way to insult me saying implying I can't deal with being wrong. So that developer had a hard time with gamecube, well that's one developer against concrete results showing otherwise, when resi 4's brought up the dev even says he's just sharing his own experiences.

"Gamecube's Gekko is the most powerful general-purpose CPU ever in a console. The PowerPC alone is so much better and faster structurally that Gekko not only is much, much faster than the PS2's main CPU but every bit as fast as a 733 MHz Pentium," rebukes Eggebrecht. "Don't forget how extremely powerful the 256K second level cache in Gekko makes Gamecube. The size of a CPU's second level cache determines how fast general game-code runs. The PS2 has a tiny 16K of second level cache, and even the X-Box only has 128K." - Julian Eggebrecht, Factor 5

http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/11/04/gamecube-versus-playstation-2

What I care to discuss is the xbox and gamecube, the idea that ps2 was more powerful (overall) doesn't hold up with real world examples.

@phoenix_chipset

Boom Blox has lots of static meshes, very little by way of AI or scripting from what I can see. Don't see any evidence of something that Xbox couldn't at the very least closely approximate.

Per pixel lighting covers lots of things. Doom 3, Riddick and the Halo games required a kind of lighting that was more complex than anything the GC could do. WiiU onwards can do it though. Without it the look of the games - particularly Doom 3 and Riddick - would be badly broken.

Just as I don't see anything in those games that couldn't be done on the gamecube. Not in the way those games do it, but as you say, approximated. Ps2 did not support per pixel dynamic lighting, while gamecube and wii can achieve it, though it wasn't as easy to do for the developer as on Xbox. Flashlights in games, as an example. See the silent hill games on ps2 vs. RE Darkside chronicles on Wii. Umbrella chronicles used per vertex lighting like the ps2. This is what I meant when I said per pixel.

"Canned boss game studios"

Wow, you used a quote from a developer for whose game didn't even see the light of day, and whose studio was shut down, bravo. While we ARE at it though, rebel strike is capable of even more polygons per second - 20 million as opposed to the 15 mil in Rogue squadron. It shouldn't be that hard a task to find an xbox game with as many polygons per second as Rogue Squadron if the Xbox is so much more powerful, and the gamecube has such terrible triangle throughput.

Yeah, thought so.
 
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Frankly I don't care if Iwata told me the ps2 was stronger than gamecube, it's simply not true. Resi 4 is a concrete example, and the decrease in complexity in the ps2 version is hugely noticeable. No one has any proof whatsoever that burnout, or any other game that doesn't exist on the gamecube would not run on it. That developer said it had abysmal triangle throughput, that can be debunked immediately. And way to insult me saying implying I can't deal with being wrong. So that developer had a hard time with gamecube, well that's one developer against concrete results showing otherwise, when resi 4's brought up the dev even says he's just sharing his own experiences.
You contradict yourself. You say a game doesn't run on GC because the dev is no good, yet claim a game on PS2 isn't any good because it's not as powerful.

What I care to discuss is the xbox and gamecube, the idea that ps2 was more powerful (overall) doesn't hold up with real world examples.
You're not being intellectually advanced enough to have a meaningful discussion (and if you take that as an insult instead of what it is, that shows you also lack the maturity). "More powerful" needs to be qualified, because there are definitely workloads where PS2 was by far the most powerful. Talking in such a general term just does not work, and every 'what is the best...?' thread here turns to noise and quickly gets locked.

"Canned boss game studios"

Wow, you used a quote from a developer for whose game didn't even see the light of day, and whose studio was shut down, bravo.
Your attitude sucks. I can't even be bothered to explain what's wrong with this argument as its plainly obvious. Change your attitude or be ejected from the forum.
 
You contradict yourself. You say a game doesn't run on GC because the dev is no good, yet claim a game on PS2 isn't any good because it's not as powerful.

I didn't say a developer wasn't good? Criterion were very technically competent. We are talking about a single person's experiences and here say with regards to burnout 3.
Your attitude sucks. I can't even be bothered to explain what's wrong with this argument as its plainly obvious. Change your attitude or be ejected from the forum.

The game doesn't exist, what else needs to be said? When arguing you need proof, right? But fair enough, I won't be cheeky even though I was treated in the same way.

You contradict yourself. You say a game doesn't run on GC because the dev is no good, yet claim a game on PS2 isn't any good because it's not as powerful.

You're not being intellectually advanced enough to have a meaningful discussion (and if you take that as an insult instead of what it is, that shows you also lack the maturity). "More powerful" needs to be qualified, because there are definitely workloads where PS2 was by far the most powerful. Talking in such a general term just does not work, and every 'what is the best...?' thread here turns to noise and quickly gets locked.

Yes Shifty, and if you re read my posts I even said that, with regards to the ps2's throughput, but yes i'm sure there are other instances. I can't edit those posts now so please, take a look.
 
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Frankly I don't care if Iwata told me the ps2 was stronger than gamecube, it's simply not true.

Not a great start in a technical forum thread ...

Resi 4 is a concrete example, and the decrease in complexity in the ps2 version is hugely noticeable. No one has any proof whatsoever that burnout, or any other game that doesn't exist on the gamecube would not run on it. That developer said it had abysmal triangle throughput, that can be debunked immediately.

I don't think you're in any position to debunk ERP's hands on experience with the system. Unless you have an experienced multiplatform developer source talking specifics, or leaked internal dev studio engine benchmarks, or you're a highly experienced developer adept a range of low level optimisations on a wide range of different hardware.

Lets start with: how did you get past the culling performance hit on GC's hardwired T&L unit? Although ... given that you think "culling a z-buffer takes 16 MB" I'm guessing you haven't come up with a better solution than ERP.

And way to insult me saying implying I can't deal with being wrong.

*looks up*

*looks down*

So that developer had a hard time with gamecube, well that's one developer against concrete results showing otherwise, when resi 4's brought up the dev even says he's just sharing his own experiences.

No, he didn't have a hard time with the GC. He said GC is pretty straight forward, it's just that it didn't have much to give.

"Gamecube's Gekko is the most powerful general-purpose CPU ever in a console. The PowerPC alone is so much better and faster structurally that Gekko not only is much, much faster than the PS2's main CPU but every bit as fast as a 733 MHz Pentium," rebukes Eggebrecht. "Don't forget how extremely powerful the 256K second level cache in Gekko makes Gamecube. The size of a CPU's second level cache determines how fast general game-code runs. The PS2 has a tiny 16K of second level cache, and even the X-Box only has 128K." - Julian Eggebrecht, Factor 5

A Nintendo second party talking without having run anything on the Xbox, a year before the Xbox launched and before the GC launched. With years of hindsight, I've seen a number of developers state that Gekko was an excellent chip, but Xbox CPU was faster overall.

And given the chip was twice as big and 50% faster, I think the only person surprised by that would be you.

"The size of a CPU's second level cache determines how fast general game-code runs." ... well ... no. It's one factor amongst many, many other potentially much larger ones. So, no, basically. That's the kind of thing a none programmer would say.

Gekko is much faster than PS2 main CPU, but PS2's strength lies in its vector units which are maths monsters and can far outperform Gekko in vectorised workloads.

What I care to discuss is the xbox and gamecube, the idea that ps2 was more powerful (overall) doesn't hold up with real world examples.

Burnout 3 and ERP's work are real examples.

Just as I don't see anything in those games that couldn't be done on the gamecube.

See, now this is a problem. We *know* the GC can't do what Doom 3 and Riddick did. We *know* it, it's a fundamental limitation of the hardware. You saying you can't see it doesn't change what the hardware can do.

We've even had JC say it can't do it - at which point you indicate that he knows less than you.

Not in the way those games do it, but as you say, approximated. Ps2 did not support per pixel dynamic lighting, while gamecube and wii can achieve it, though it wasn't as easy to do for the developer as on Xbox. Flashlights in games, as an example. See the silent hill games on ps2 vs. RE Darkside chronicles. Umbrella chronicles used per vertex lighting like the ps2. This is what I meant when I said per pixel.

You aren't talking about approximating here, you're talking about simply not doing something and taking the hit.

"Canned boss game studios"

Wow, you used a quote from a developer for whose game didn't even see the light of day, and whose studio was shut down, bravo.

Not only is that an insulting and fantastically weak argument, but earlier in the same post you used a quote from Julian Eggebrecht.

While we ARE at it though, rebel strike is capable of even more polygons per second - 20 million as opposed to the 15 mil in Rogue squadron. It shouldn't be that hard a task to find an xbox game with as many polygons per second as Rogue Squadron if the Xbox is so much more powerful, and the gamecube has such terrible triangle throughput.

You just heard about a game hitting 30 million back in 2002. But you disregard that because [reasons].

Both Xbox and PS2 could hit higher poly counts than GC. But particularly on Xbox, high poly counts weren't necessarily the best way to achieve the best results.

Yeah, thought so.

No, you didn't think.
 
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I would just say that when I pointed out that studio was shut down, it wasn't to laugh at anyone's misfortune, it was just poorly worded on my part. I've been awake for quite some time, and I only just realized how my post was interpreted. I only meant to say that the game was never made, or seen, which... yeah is a pretty good reason not to use it in an example. If the game existed in some form for us to validate that figure, it would be usable evidence.

Oh and so now not only can the xbox produce more polygons, so can the ps2? Well that's two examples i'd like to see from you now. Since you just claimed that about the ps2, by your own rules, the burden of proof is on you as far as that's concerned.

Not a great start in a technical forum thread ...

The Iwata line was meant to be funny, nothing more.

See, now this is a problem. We *know* the GC can't do what Doom 3 and Riddick did. We *know* it, it's a fundamental limitation of the hardware. You saying you can't see it doesn't change what the hardware can do.

We've even had JC say it can't do it - at which point you indicate that knows less than you.

You aren't talking about approximating here, you're talking about simply not doing something and taking the hit.

You can achieve similar results through different methods, is what i'm saying. the Ps2 shouldn't be able to do things the gamecube and xbox can in certain games, but there are workarounds. Dot3 is the only thing i've ever heard the gamecube not being able to do, that the Xbox can.

But yeah as Shifty said, the thread will just be noise so it's best I move on now.
 
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I would just say that when I pointed out that studio was shut down, it wasn't to laugh at anyone's misfortune, it was just poorly worded on my part.

Cool, then I withdraw my grumps immediately!

They're a very respected developer, they didn't have much trouble finding another lead tech role.

I only meant to say that the game was never made, or seen, which... yeah is a pretty good reason not to use it in an example. If the game existed in some form for us to validate that figure, it would be usable evidence.

Trouble is it's hard to validate any games outside of a professional performance analyser or an emulator. I have no doubt that the game in question was peaking around 30 mpps, though averages would have been lower no doubt.

Edit: wouldn't surprise me if Factor 5 were using a similar method to ERP to maximise polygon throughput actually.

The Iwata line was meant to be funny, nothing more.

My humour chip wasn't plugged in. :(

You can achieve the same results through different methods, is what i'm saying. the Ps2 shouldn't be able to do things the gamecube and xbox can in certain games, but there are workarounds. Dot3 is the only thing i've ever heard the gamecube not being able to do, that the Xbox can.

GC can do dot3, but AFAIK it can only use one light vector per texture. For something like Rougue Squadron where your primary light source is something at infinity (the sun) that would work okay [edit: perfectly?], but in Doom 3 and Riddick light sources are very close to surfaces (as is the camera) so the light vector would need to change per element of the bump map. This is where the GC breaks down, if my understanding of the hardware is correct.
 
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Frankly I don't care if Iwata told me the ps2 was stronger than gamecube, it's simply not true. Resi 4 is a concrete example, and the decrease in complexity in the ps2 version is hugely noticeable. No one has any proof whatsoever that burnout, or any other game that doesn't exist on the gamecube would not run on it. That developer ERP said it had abysmal triangle throughput, that can be debunked immediately. And way to insult me saying implying I can't deal with being wrong. So that developer had a hard time with gamecube, well that's one developer against concrete results showing otherwise, when resi 4's brought up the dev even says he's just sharing his own experiences.

"Gamecube's Gekko is the most powerful general-purpose CPU ever in a console. The PowerPC alone is so much better and faster structurally that Gekko not only is much, much faster than the PS2's main CPU but every bit as fast as a 733 MHz Pentium," rebukes Eggebrecht. "Don't forget how extremely powerful the 256K second level cache in Gekko makes Gamecube. The size of a CPU's second level cache determines how fast general game-code runs. The PS2 has a tiny 16K of second level cache, and even the X-Box only has 128K." - Julian Eggebrecht, Factor 5

Eggebrecht was the PR guy at Factor 5, not a programmer. That quote is partially plain untrue, and partially just deceptive.

The alleged reason for Burnout 3 not being on the cube (according to someone who was seemingly at criterion at the time) was because it couldn't handle the amount of (relatively) high polygon deformable cars. The gamecube T&L unit was fixed function, so, it couldn't be used in that way, without the CPU jumping in to help (and reducing the amount of time it could work on physics, a.i., game simulation), whereas the PS2s programmable vector units seem to have been perfect for that kind of thing.

Now maybe they could've made changes, perhaps scaled the game back in some ways for the gamecube, I don't know. But it doesn't change the fact that all the evidence we have shows that the gamecube wasn't as capable as the ps2 in this specific situation.

As far as I know at least.
Were there games with comparable amounts of deformable geometry to B3 on the gamecube?


"Canned boss game studios"

Wow, you used a quote from a developer for whose game didn't even see the light of day, and whose studio was shut down, bravo.

Why does the fact it was cancelled make it less likely to be true?

If it was cancelled, seems like there would be less reason to hype it up..
 
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