"2x the power of the GC," can someone clarify what this means? (ERP)

[pc999]

Well, FWIW, IGN reported way back that Nintendo had been telling developers to expect specs in the "super high end PC stuff" (http://cube.ign.com/mail/2004-10-22.html). That was October 22, 2004. At that time, X800 was ATI's high-end IIRC.

and now it is 2-3x the GC .

 

[Urian]

[Eric Demers] Well, initially, we wanted a prep stage that would allow all DX7 & DX8 fixed function operations (now shader operations) to execute in a single pipelined cycle in our HW. But then, we generalized the structure to give a full adder, do all DX9 input modifiers and also allow for some funkier functions, such as dual stage single cycle non-dependant LERP operations (which required the substract). It's ended up being a very good addition to the MAD stage, and the shader compiler does a great job of finding work for these units. We were able to save significant area by removing the multipliers from the pre stage. Even after these years of shader optimizations, we keep on finding new ways to use this shader core and get even more out of it. It ended up being a very good thing.

I have been reading the interview to Eric Demers and since ATI West Coast seems to be the responsable of R5x0 and Hollywood is just interesting how they talked that they wanted all that Eric Demers said in this part of the interview.

I said all this because it seems that R5x0 in PC is a plan A and Hollywood is a plan B from the same interaction.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

I have been reading the interview to Eric Demers and since ATI West Coast seems to be the responsable of R5x0 and Hollywood is just interesting how they talked that they wanted all that Eric Demers said in this part of the interview.

I said all this because it seems that R5x0 in PC is a plan A and Hollywood is a plan B from the same interaction.

Would you be so kind as to link this interview Urian? Thanks.

 

[pc999]

Is that the same as the "X800 engineering team " they talk about in the mag?

Personaly I dont know why would they do/use a discret shaders design isntead of a unified one, as we already shaw that it bring as very good ratio of performance/die size/heat (vital in Rev case), and they should have one on the PC by the end of year (and the Xenus since end 2004) .

Anyway this kind of power is very good.

 

[pc999]

Would you be so kind as to link this interview Urian? Thanks.

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r580/int/

 

[Thunder Emperor]

I have been reading the interview to Eric Demers and since ATI West Coast seems to be the responsable of R5x0 and Hollywood is just interesting how they talked that they wanted all that Eric Demers said in this part of the interview.

I said all this because it seems that R5x0 in PC is a plan A and Hollywood is a plan B from the same interaction.

Read the article and I am clueless on all the technical stuff. so doe sthis mean hollywood will be a great card in comparison to the R5X0 series cards

 

[see colon]

Multi-media features are superflous when dealing with strictly gaming-related aspects. EMBM is fixed function as well, & features such as per-pixel lighting, shading, etc. are not. Storage capacity differs solely to combat piracy. Surely you do not want to bring up some of the PS2's outdated technology (even when the console launched) as it is far from guiltless in this regard.

every console has some outdated technology, but look at the specs on the PS2 for it's day. 16 pixel pipelines with 8 TMU's with an embeded framebuffer was nuts back then.

nintendo may have made storage choices to combat piracy, but sega surely didn't. they would have used DVD had it been comercialy viable at the time, but instead they settled on the GD-rom. the cheaper, older technology that featured less storage.

per pixel lighting and shading can easily be fixed function. the Geforce 2 GTS* was called GTS becuse it stood for Giga Texel Shader. the Geforce 2 was also capable of per-pixel lighting.


anyway, the point was that neither the DC nor the GC were really technology beasts. look at the tech and compare it to what other consoles had and what was available in the PC space. when did the first 16 pixel pipeline graphics cards come out for PC? and what other console has 16 pixel pipes today?


*high end GPU from 2000, the year the PS2 was released, that has 1/4 the pixel pipelines of the PS2's "outdated" GS. the Geforce 2 is fixed function.

 

[function]

anyway, the point was that neither the DC nor the GC were really technology beasts. look at the tech and compare it to what other consoles had and what was available in the PC space.

I'd actually disagree with this with respect to the DC. If *any* past console was a technology beast with respect to its peers when it launched the DC probably was.

Back in late 1998 I had just about the fastest PC setup you could get; a Pentium 2 400 with 100 mHz SDRAM and (a single piped, 93 mHz 12MB) Voodoo 2 card. The DC quite frankly shat on it in a way that the PS2 never did to the GeForce 2. Even 3DMark's synthetic "high polygon" tests returned lower figures than several of the more conservative developer claims for well performning DC games.

When the DC came out it blew away the two year old N64, outperformed and replaced Sega's Model 3 aracde board in its Naomi incarnation and made my "high end" PC look less than spectacular. I can't think of any other console that's managed that.

The PS2 and Xbox never managed to distance themselves from their contemporaries in such a way, unless you want to look at tech specs or selceted performance figures in a special space where you disregard what they actually delivered.

when did the first 16 pixel pipeline graphics cards come out for PC? and what other console has 16 pixel pipes today?

Number of pipelines alone seems a poor way to judge the merits of a piece of hardware, given how significantly the 4 pixel pipelined Xbox outperforms the 16 pixel pipelined PS2.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

every console has some outdated technology, but look at the specs on the PS2 for it's day. 16 pixel pipelines with 8 TMU's with an embeded framebuffer was nuts back then.

nintendo may have made storage choices to combat piracy, but sega surely didn't. they would have used DVD had it been comercialy viable at the time, but instead they settled on the GD-rom. the cheaper, older technology that featured less storage.

per pixel lighting and shading can easily be fixed function. the Geforce 2 GTS* was called GTS becuse it stood for Giga Texel Shader. the Geforce 2 was also capable of per-pixel lighting.


anyway, the point was that neither the DC nor the GC were really technology beasts. look at the tech and compare it to what other consoles had and what was available in the PC space. when did the first 16 pixel pipeline graphics cards come out for PC? and what other console has 16 pixel pipes today?


*high end GPU from 2000, the year the PS2 was released, that has 1/4 the pixel pipelines of the PS2's "outdated" GS. the Geforce 2 is fixed function.

Number of pipelines alone seems a poor way to judge the merits of a piece of hardware, given how significantly the 4 pixel pipelined Xbox outperforms the 16 pixel pipelined PS2.

Good point function. See colon the GC was actually supposed to launch in 2000 as well, (I still remember the delay news) but mass production problems as well as software launch availability delayed its scheduled debut. Its initial specs. were well finalized by then. I agree that Sega's format choice wasn't intended to combat piracy, but the fact that per-pixel lighting & shading can both be accomplished via fixed-function doesn't alter the fact that the PS2 cannot accomplish them. There is flexibility within the TEV. Yet these very same shader techniques were in use at that time on various PC graphics cards. So imo, it cannot be considered bleeding edge as say the PS3 will be viewed. Even the DC could do bumpmapping. But you're turning this discussion into something it is not, a DC, GC, vs. the PS2 architectural debate.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

I have been reading the interview to Eric Demers and since ATI West Coast seems to be the responsable of R5x0 and Hollywood is just interesting how they talked that they wanted all that Eric Demers said in this part of the interview.

I said all this because it seems that R5x0 in PC is a plan A and Hollywood is a plan B from the same interaction.

It would definitely appear that way Urian, a derivative for the Hollywood seems likely. We'll simply have to wait for some type of confirmation. I was somewhat skeptical, but ATi's "clean design" may mean certain custom console-specific characteristics not present in the R5x0.

 

[Urian]

It would definitely appear that way Urian, a derivative for the Hollywood seems likely. We'll simply have to wait for some type of confirmation. I was somewhat skeptical, but ATi's "clean design" may mean certain custom console-specific characteristics not present in the R5x0.

X800 GT board has a power consumption of 75W in their desktop configuration, is hot for the Revolution case but the hope for me that we can enjoy a similar GPU in performance since my MacBook Pro has a PSU of 60W and an Intel Core Duo 1.83+ATI X1600 mobile that has similar speed and complexity in the processor.

I believe that Revolution is going have 50% of the graphical performance that 360 has.

 

[Urian]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/ati-powercons.html

 

[nintenho]

I believe that Revolution is going have 50% of the graphical performance that 360 has.

Why exactly? Just becase of power consumption?

 

[see colon]

I'd actually disagree with this with respect to the DC. If *any* past console was a technology beast with respect to its peers when it launched the DC probably was.

Back in late 1998 I had just about the fastest PC setup you could get; a Pentium 2 400 with 100 mHz SDRAM and (a single piped, 93 mHz 12MB) Voodoo 2 card. The DC quite frankly shat on it in a way that the PS2 never did to the GeForce 2. Even 3DMark's synthetic "high polygon" tests returned lower figures than several of the more conservative developer claims for well performning DC games.

When the DC came out it blew away the two year old N64, outperformed and replaced Sega's Model 3 aracde board in its Naomi incarnation and made my "high end" PC look less than spectacular. I can't think of any other console that's managed that.

The PS2 and Xbox never managed to distance themselves from their contemporaries in such a way, unless you want to look at tech specs or selceted performance figures in a special space where you disregard what they actually delivered.

in the US the dreamcast launched september 9th, 1999. august of that same year, nVidia launched it's Geforce 256. intel launched the pentium3 and amd the athlon in 1999 as well. if you go by the japanese release you had arguably a year of GPU superiority with the DC... maybe.

Number of pipelines alone seems a poor way to judge the merits of a piece of hardware, given how significantly the 4 pixel pipelined Xbox outperforms the 16 pixel pipelined PS2.

if the PS2 is so low tech, find me an accurate PS2 emulator on the PC that runs at full speed. hell, find me one that runs at half speed. they simply don't exist. with the PS2, sony looked at what they thought would be important in the next 5-7 years. fillrate and geometry were the strong points for the PS2. and they still are. you can do things with the vector units on PS3 that you can't with VS3, and many PS2 games (god of war, the burnout series) hold their own against xbox titles.

But you're turning this discussion into something it is not, a DC, GC, vs. the PS2 architectural debate.

i'm just making a point. there's never been a console launched that didn't have some old technology in it.

just for the record i love the DC, but i think some of it's fans look at the past through rose colored glasses.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The PS2 and Xbox never managed to distance themselves from their contemporaries in such a way, unless you want to look at tech specs or selceted performance figures in a special space where you disregard what they actually delivered.

What PS2 delivered was far from what it was capable of at launch though. If you compare the latest games of now with the best a PC could manage, which is about as hardware bound then as now so advances in techniques haven't improved the output of 5 year old PC tech, you get to compare what the PS2 hardware was in comparison to PC hardware of the period.

there were also games of outstanding visual quality for the period that set PS2 beyond PCs. GT3 was an incredible step in my experience. What this would need really though is comparable images of PC games from the period, because I've never followed graphics that closely on PC and wouldn't know what the top-end, expensive machine of the time can produce and how that compares with what PS2 hardware is capable of.

 

[Reznor007]

if the PS2 is so low tech, find me an accurate PS2 emulator on the PC that runs at full speed. hell, find me one that runs at half speed. they simply don't exist. with the PS2, sony looked at what they thought would be important in the next 5-7 years. fillrate and geometry were the strong points for the PS2. and they still are. you can do things with the vector units on PS3 that you can't with VS3, and many PS2 games (god of war, the burnout series) hold their own against xbox titles.

http://forums.ngemu.com/pcsx2-official-forum/69731-pcsx2-0-9-news-update.html

Not perfect, but better than nothing. However, emulation is a hard way to measure power. You need anywhere from 10-30x the original performance to get full speed. With a 300MHz CPU you would need anywhere from 3-10GHz just for the CPU emulation alone, not counting SPU and graphics stuff.

Also, if emulation speed is anything to go by, San Francisco Rush arcade(Atari Flagstaff hardware) is extremely powerful. However, the specs are MIPS R5000 @ 200MHz, Texas Instruments TMS320C31 @33MHz(sound CPU), and Voodoo1...not exactly top of the line.

 

[darkblu]

just for the record i love the DC, but i think some of it's fans look at the past through rose colored glasses.

jeez, those pesky rose-colored-glasses dc fans, the nerve of them! so you know a pc videocard in the launch-till-Q4'99 timeframe that could match the dc, right? one which was better overall and was available on the consumer market? yes, some later consoles had fillrate to brag about (not that it's of low importance, but some normal fidelity texture here and there would not have been bad either) and smart vector copros, but those came as rather dear trade-offs. try to find such trade-offs in the dc, in the days of its design timeframe.

and for the record, i highly respect the ps2, but i think some of its fans need to get off the horses' backs lest them get knocked down by some of the lower tree branches.

oh, and i aboslutely am not trying to turn this into a dc vs ps2 vs gc thread! i cross my heart!

 

[see colon]

jeez, those pesky rose-colored-glasses dc fans, the nerve of them! so you know a pc videocard in the launch-till-Q4'99 timeframe that could match the dc, right? one which was better overall and was available on the consumer market?

http://www.nvidia.com/content/timeline/time_99.html

August, 1999
NVIDIA launches GeForce 256�, the industry's first graphics processing unit (GPU).

 

[pc999]

This is a Rev thread.

I believe that Revolution is going have 50% of the graphical performance that 360 has.

In relative (half qualitity per pixel/vertex) or absolut terms (ie the ~450Gflops)?

Personally I would bet on equal (or near) in realtive terms which should be around 1/3 meybe a bit more (at least for many cases). One year after that should be very cheap to get. I am more worried with the CPU.

 

[function]

in the US the dreamcast launched september 9th, 1999. august of that same year, nVidia launched it's Geforce 256. intel launched the pentium3 and amd the athlon in 1999 as well. if you go by the japanese release you had arguably a year of GPU superiority with the DC... maybe.

Yeah, so as the months went by and new hardware came out, the DC initially big lead shrank and eventually disappeared. But that always happened. When the DC hit the market it was a technology beast. You said it wasn't.

Even when it came out in the US it still led the console and arcade market. Maybe top end PC hardware had caught up, but it had had long enough. I'll compare this to the PS3, where top end PC hardware will have been singificantly outperforming it for over a year.

if the PS2 is so low tech, find me an accurate PS2 emulator on the PC that runs at full speed. hell, find me one that runs at half speed. they simply don't exist.

1) I never said the PS2 was "so low tech", so don't get like that!
2) Difficulty to emulate, like number of pixel piplines, is a really poor way to judge the merits of piece of hardware. Find me a flawless Saturn emulator! Find me a working model 3 emulator! And a Naomi 2 while you're at it!

with the PS2, sony looked at what they thought would be important in the next 5-7 years. fillrate and geometry were the strong points for the PS2. and they still are. you can do things with the vector units on PS3 that you can't with VS3, and many PS2 games (god of war, the burnout series) hold their own against xbox titles.

And many PS2 games don't hold their own against Xbox titles. And some of the best Xbox titles look far better than even the best PS2 titles you've mentioned.

I never said the PS2 didn't have strong points; clearly it does. I it didn't comprehensively surpass the competition in every comparable field (console, arcade, PC) in the same way the DC did back in 1998. But (and this is where it's relevant to this thread) it didn't stop the PS2 romping away with the market.