Revolution specs - the good side

[chris_wong]

People often make the point that the graphics will be alright, because of things like fillrate and such. But after reading about Oblivion, I start to wonder if it will be able to handle good AI and graphics at the same time. This is not a personal attack on anyone, I'm just wondering.

 

[Bohdy]

And doesn't anyone else find the fact that the Rev has 88MBs of ram with the response time of L2 cache on a competing console significant?

I remember developers on this very forum (ERP, I think) complaining that no matter how well they optimised a block of code, a single memory access would void that work.

 

[darkblu]

And doesn't anyone else find the fact that the Rev has 88MBs of ram with the response time of L2 cache on a competing console significant?

i'm sure many do. although some would never admit that openly..

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Is 1T-Sram bandwidth calculated the same way as DRAM?

 

[Tahir2]

If you mean bit width times clock frequency (multiplied by any doubling technology) divided by byte size (8) then yes.

And can you change your sig to not include the typos and other errors? Please!

 

[DudeMiester]

The "x3" idea may be ok for rendering, but has no bearing on any other function. You still have to run the same complexity of physics that you would on a PS3 or Xbox360, so that's a distinct disadvantage. Although, the low-latacy RAM might help, assuming you can stream in data from disk fast enough. So for the lower resolution, the Rev might have visuals that are on par with the PS3, but definitly not the same interactivity and "aliveness" of the environment. Given that the point of the Rev is new gameplay mechanics, I'd think this is a pretty big handicap.

 

[pc999]

Why people keep thinking that Rev at 480p will look +/- lie XB360 if it is indeed 2xGC?

It would not be near to have a feature set for that, it will not be able to push enought poligons, it will not be able to did animations for that etc...

I Rev is indeed 2xGC (a overclocked like one) it will barelly look better than GC (perception POV), probably just higher rez textures will be noticed.

 

[Tahir2]

I don't expect Nintendo Revolution games to be physics heavy (apart from a new Monkey Ball ) but I do expect them to pack quite a visual punch.
Interactivity is going to be increased due to the new controller rather than new physics freedom.

As to which console will be the likely candidate to have the most immersive physic's based location, that would be the PS3 with its SPE's... or at least that is my guess.

The other aspect of the x3 idea is that "pixel shaders" will require the same kind of horsepower regardless of resolution to execute in the same time, or is that not correct?
But then consoles are not like PC's, where you program for the lowest denominator and each consoles strengths will be used and weaknesses avoided by designers, artists and programmers.

 

[Tahir2]

I Rev is indeed 2xGC (a overclocked like one) it will barelly look better than GC (perception POV), probably just higher rez textures will be noticed.

Higher resolution textures, more variety of textures and increased polygon count.

That is the definition of next generation.... no?

 

[pc999]

Higher resolution textures, more variety of textures and increased polygon count.

That is the definition of next generation.... no?

Not anymore, in gfx you have (since XB(1)) you have shaders too and it is now one of the main way of getting better looking games, since it is used for ligtning, normal maps, water etc... and you need at least a new feature set (eg the XB is stated at 80Gflops and GC as 10,5 and the really big diference is shaders), n fact some first gen games used more polys than second gen games than traded it by more shaders) althought more of that is always good.

Anyway I think that a next gen must also bring improvements in animation, physics, AI, sound... and those are the things that gain more new gameplay IMO, and I guess that Rev can be really good for physics games and should bring a good chalange for animation.

To answer you question, for me next gen is when somenew HW brings me more and new gameplay in the must (#) varied ways possible (specs, UIs, gfx, onlime/MP, whatever...).

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Why people keep thinking that Rev at 480p will look +/- lie XB360 if it is indeed 2xGC?

It would not be near to have a feature set for that, it will not be able to push enought poligons, it will not be able to did animations for that etc...

I Rev is indeed 2xGC (a overclocked like one) it will barelly look better than GC (perception POV), probably just higher rez textures will be noticed.

I don't think there's any chance that the chips in the Rev are Gekko/Flipper overclocked.

Why people keep looking at clock rates and using it as a means to determine overall capability. Please stop judging the console on one small portion of the specs we have available to us.

Whats even more sad, devs are doing this aswell.

 

[compres]

It seems rather stupid for nintendo to use such old hardware. Based on that alone I think the information is bogus at best.

 

[pc999]

Why people keep looking at clock rates and using it as a means to determine overall capability. Please stop judging the console on one small portion of the specs we have available to us.

IGN said that (quoting a dev, from what they say, that it is just like a overclocked Gekko), ence I said "2xGC (a overclocked like one)".

 

[thundermonkey]

This is a portion of what Matt said from IGNRevsmost recent mailbag:

"Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, Rogue Squadron - these are very pretty games. Imagine what smart developers will be able to do with twice the horsepower and, just as importantly, double the memory. On top of that, studios have had five years to come to grips with the GameCube architecture. They know what they're doing on the console. And Revolution is an extension of that. First generation Revolution games have the potential to look as good as sixth generation GameCube efforts. I find that possibility extremely intriguing.

I have a 50" plasma screen hanging on my living room wall. I have a 30" LCD on my dining room wall. And I have an HD CRT in my bedroom. I'm a technical guy. I like high-definition graphics. I am going home tonight to play Oblivion on Xbox 360. I am, you could say, fully emerged in the so-called "HD era" of videogames. And yet, I'm promising you that you're going to be impressed with the visuals in some of the Revolution games on the horizon. I guess for now you'll just have to trust me on that point."

Source: http://revolution.ign.com/mail/

Sounds good to me.

 

[compres]

It does not make sense in my opinion. Why would they wait four years to release an overclocked gamecube? Basically you are telling me that is it took 4 years for ATI just to shrink and overclock the same chip in the gamecube and it took the same for IBM do the same with the CPU.

If it were just an overclock I would spect much more than a 50% overclock, that could have been achived even at the same process as the original gamecube. Again where is the logic to this?

The controller alone cold not have taken so much time. The more I think of this the less sense it makes. By the time the revo is released gamecube level hardware should be released in a gameboy, not in a next gen system.

 

[Rodéric]

...
If it were just an overclock I would spect much more than a 50% overclock, ...

herm, x2 = 100% overclock...

I doubt it's just an overclocked gamecube (I'd expect some architecture change at least), and once again, there has been only a single source providing this information sofar, so it's not to be taken for granted IMO.

 

[Legend]

'if' the specs are as low as this or close to them, the main advantage will be price. with a price of around $99-149 I expect it to sell like hot cackes.

it would be interesting to see how it goes if it is sold for the same price or lower than DS.

 

[Powderkeg]

The ONLY good side of the Revolution specs is it's cheap for Nintendo to produce so they may be able to continue making a profit, even if they lose even more marketshare.

From a consumers point of view, there is nothing good about it, and suggesting there is is merely damage control. There isn't one single good reason to want specs to be less than what they could get from another system, as it means the other systems are now capable of doing things the Revolution simply can't.

 

[Powderkeg]

First generation Revolution games have the potential to look as good as sixth generation GameCube efforts. I find that possibility extremely intriguing.

Source: http://revolution.ign.com/mail/

Sounds good to me.

Considering the amount of bashing the 360 has received for having too many games that "don't look next-gen" do you really think the Revolution launching with games that look like Gamecube games is really a good thing?

 

[see colon]

Why people keep thinking that Rev at 480p will look +/- lie XB360 if it is indeed 2xGC?

It would not be near to have a feature set for that, it will not be able to push enought poligons, it will not be able to did animations for that etc...

i think this mostly comes from the fact that many XB360 games, when played on an SDTV, look only slightly better than some XB/GC/PS2 games. what many people forget is that we've only seen the first crop of XB360 games, and many of them run on engines or use graphic techniques that were extreamly relavant last gen but aren't really optimized for the newer hardware. also, some games were quickly ported without any real graphical upgrade (you hear me activision?)

having played my 360 on my SDTV i can tell you it's pretty disapointing in some cases. not only do some games look only slightly better than the previous gen counterparts, but almost every game has unreadable text. fonts that are crystal clear on my monitor (i use the VGA cable) are so small and blurry on my SDTV you can't tell many letters and numbers apart. some games are cumbersome because of this.

none of IGN's revolution specs really bother me except for memory. i'd have liked to see at least 128MB in the machine, and i was really hoping for 256. that, and i was also hoping for a larger embedded memory pool on the GPU. i've always felt that was probably the most limiting factor on the GC, along with it's limited color accuracy.