Revolution Tech Details Emerge ( Xbox1+ performance, 128 MB RAM )

[Guden Oden]

I consider Revolution a non starter if this is true. Well, I have all along.

Yes, we know. Now perhaps you could save us all a lot of time and spare us the rest of your "doom and gloom" posts regarding Nintendo/Rev?

Videogames are about graphics, not controllers.

Dude, that's SO not true, but whatever.

I would have assumed the Rev to be below next gen consoles, but still a solid step up from current consoles.

3-5x the GC would be what I would call 'a solid step up'. Particulary if it's closer to 5 rather than 3.

I just dont see where it gets Nintendo. I dont think the silicon costs on X360 are THAT high. They just aren't.

You're basing this on your own imaginary teaparty figures out of Alice in Wonderland I have to assume. There was a cost breakdown done by a consulting firm that specializes in that kind of stuff, the GPU was estimated at $120+ and CPU at $100+ as I recall. Just RAM chips were over $60.

MS plans to break even on hardware by 2007 due to the high priced accessories.

Accessories? What accessories? The core system doesn't have any (that wouldn't be included with any other console), and of the ones included in the premium system only the harddrive has any real, substantial cost and even that doesn't come close to cover the $100 price premium; the harddrive is a god damn cheap-ass SAMSUNG unit. The headset is as cheap and flimsy as they come for example, and the controller while wireless, doesn't represent any real dollar manufacturing cost either. You can buy wireless mice for peanuts these days.

And knock out the EDRAM, you know what I think of it anyway.

You've been disputed on this count a number of times by actual game developers. Face it, you simply have no clue. MS went TO eDRAM because unified memory was a troublesome design in the original xbox, as was it in the N64 before that. It's cheap and easy to design, but performance is not particulary consistent as MS (re)discovered. eDRAM may be limited in space, but performance can be there in oodles. Transparencies forcing read-modify-write accessses kills performance on any design using external RAM, but PS2 with its triple-ported memory barely slows down at all. You could do 20 fullscreen smoke polygon layers on top of each other running at 60 frames/sec and you'd never notice it framerate-wise. That's the power of eDRAM.

It doesn't matter the price though. People are going to prefer to pay 399 for PS3 because of the superior hardware.

Well, considering you still live in with your parents and don't have to pay any bills (let alone any little kiddies to raise), most people aren't made of money. If Rev is sub-$200 (or even sub-$150) and PS3 is $400 or more, that automatically puts PS3 out of reach of a lot of people. Lucky us you're not the one calling the shots at any of these companies though.

The geek in me is a little disappointed over the RUMORED specs of Rev, but I have to remind myself high specs were never claimed by Nintendo anyway, and considering what was done with current GC hardware in Metroid Prime, even better graphics and effects WILL look really nice on our TV screens. Only 128MB RAM will feel rather small I suppose, but we have to remember that 1T SRAM is much more expensive (and much faster) than standard DRAM, and 128MB is ~5x more than the 24MB of GC after all...

 

[Rodéric]

I have a very hard time to believe it...
I just quick checked Nintendo financial reports and came up with a total of 151,614 thousands US dollars in R&D.
That's a bit much for a pad and software alone, and a NGC on steroïd, IMO...

 

[Confidence-Man]

There go my hopes of seeing a zelda game with the graphical quality of oblivion. :/

 

[Guden Oden]

On the other hand, unless IGN is totally lying out of its ass, they do have a lot of different sources that all point in the same general direction.

 

[assen]

Applly the same logic to computers (since consoles are becoming computers anyway). So, why aren't we all posting comments on our X2 4800 with SLI and 4GB RAM?

You're stretching your analogy waaaay too thin. $399 is one thing, $1999 quite another.

 

[Belmontvedere]

well if ATI designs some oldy time steam powered GPU made of wood for Revolution I'll be pretty darn let down. but if it's $99 and has some great first party games I'll get it.

 

[Jimmers]

You're stretching your analogy waaaay too thin. $399 is one thing, $1999 quite another.

It makes sense to me. Most games are rehashes of each other anyway, so if I can play them for $100-200, that's good. $400 is not.

But then again, I'm a broke-ass student, so I won't be buying anything release day anyway.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How can 4 years pass and the improvement by all of 2x the tech? If true this'll be a cheap cheap CHEAP device for Nintendo that I guess they hope to sell like GBA's and make oodles on the hardware as well as the software.

Still, four years designing what sounds mostly like a peripheral...doesn't seem an efficient use of time. What have ATi been doing all this time? Maybe an engineering core of a handful of technicians?

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

Therre is a few things with nintys choice :

1. In the eye's of casuals were bigger spec number's mean better hardware the REV is doomed
2. Limmited processing power could limmit the amount of things that a DEV is allowed to do, they might move onto 360/PS3 to get it done the way they vissioned it.

I hope it works it works out for ninty.

 

[Apoc]

Videogames are about graphics, not controllers.

You're wrong. Videogames are about gameplay and fun, not graphics. Graphics only can't enjoy you, and if they do, let's play some 3dmark.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Nothing is about graphics except tech demos. CG movies are about stories (or at least should be). Games are about gameplay. If you only care about graphics then buy computer art, not computer games.

 

[liolio]

we don't learn lots of things from that article.
what about the processor? wil it be able to push lot of geometrie and physics?
With the memory i don't consider the quoted values as so low, the rev is only design to push 480*640.
the Gpu seems directX9 compliant, for the resolution they're aiming i can't see anything wrong.
i don't think at that stage we still have enought precise clue to conclue taht thr rev is doomed to failure.

 

[Farid]

Superior to the Xbox 1 performance?
128MB of RAM?

Well, the 128MB or RAM is a quite interesting information. I thought that 256MB, or something close like 192MB, were to be expected.

If those news are close to the reality, we can write off the X360/PS3 to Rev ports, I guess.
Not a bad thing for the whole gameplay paradigm-shift thing, I'd say, at least if you have a Rev + a PS3 or a X360.

I take it that they are still going with OpenGl then?

That's either OpenGL or assimilated (Like what they did with Gamecube or Sony is doing with the PS3), or create from scratch a new and completely functional API (Why reinvent the wheel?), but like the PS3 or X360 I guess that devs should be able to make hardware calls without passing throught the API layer.

 

[parrapa]

maybe the controller is the console??

 

[Zeross]

That's either OpenGL or assimilated (Like what they did with Gamecube or Sony is doing with the PS3), or create from scratch a new and completely functional API (Why reinvent the wheel?), but like the PS3 or X360 I guess that devs should be able to make hardware calls without passing throught the API layer.

The GameCube graphics API wasn't OpenGL strictly speaking but it was very similar in its principle.

For the PS3 Sony is using OpenGL ES but where did you read that developers could program the GPU down to the metal ? In fact I've read quite the opposite :

it’s not clear yet how much the hand feeding of the graphics processor on the renderer, how well we’re going to be able to move that to a CELL processor, and that’s probably going to be a little bit more of an issue because the graphics interface on the PS3 is a little bit more heavyweight. You’re closer to the metal on the Microsoft platform and we do expect to have a little bit lower driver overhead.

 

[Readykilowatt]

Readers are advised to make two notes before continuing with this article. The first is that developers are still working with incomplete Revolution hardware. Most studios are, in fact, developing on "GameCube-based kits," according to major software houses we spoke to, which have asked to remain anonymous. The second is that developers are still without final specifications for Revolution's ATI-developed graphics chip, codenamed Hollywood.
That stated, many third parties have been partially briefed by Nintendo representatives about the Revolution hardware, its overall horsepower, and the Big N's plan for the console.

So, when are we going to get the Revolution's specs?

 

[Farid]

The GameCube graphics API wasn't OpenGL strictly speaking but it was very similar in its principle.

Hence the "or assimilated"

For the PS3 Sony is using OpenGL ES but where did you read that developers could program the GPU down to the metal ? In fact I've read quite the opposite :

The GPU, for now (and some think that it might stay as such for quite some time), is not as documented as Xenos is, but from what I heard nothing prevent them from making hardware calls.

 

[Urian]

In part I suspected all this since I read the capability of NEC for manufacturating a GPU in their own 90nm process.

"100 milion transistors only"

In other words, you can only put a GPU with the power and performance of an ATI X1300, take the ATI X1300 and and erase from the design the Crossfire and the AVIVO and you will have the first half of the GPU. Take an huge number of MoSys 1T-SRAM-Q with Flipper and you will have the other half of it.

 

[wazoo]

I have a very hard time to believe it...
I just quick checked Nintendo financial reports and came up with a total of 151,614 thousands US dollars in R&D.
That's a bit much for a pad and software alone, and a NGC on steroïd, IMO...

You have to take the DS RD into account also

And, Im'not sure if R&D for Nintendo does not encompass software developpment also.

 

[fearsomepirate]

How can 4 years pass and the improvement by all of 2x the tech? If true this'll be a cheap cheap CHEAP device for Nintendo that I guess they hope to sell like GBA's and make oodles on the hardware as well as the software.

Still, four years designing what sounds mostly like a peripheral...doesn't seem an efficient use of time. What have ATi been doing all this time? Maybe an engineering core of a handful of technicians?

Like someone else said...feature-rich, just not a huge performer. So hopefully it can do all kinds of crap, just not at huge speeds, or fast enough to consistently run 720p games at 30fps or better. I get the impression that Nintendo designs hardware with the philosophy "What's the minimum amount of junk we can put in this box to get this IQ if we design it right?," while the other companies are more like "What's the maximum amount of junk we can put in the box on this budget?" So hopefully the hardware will have a few tricks up its sleeve.