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

[Megadrive1988]

anyone else thinks it's suspicious that 4-5 years after GC's launch we only get a console with "2 times" the perf of GC?

yes I do.


hopefully, at worst, we are looking at a 2x increase in the areas that you wouldn't expect a huge leap such as main memory bandwidth and pixel fillrate.

if you look at main memory bandwidth increase from Xbox to Xbox 360,
it's only 3.5x (22.4 / 6.4). raw fillrate is only 4.29x (4000 / 932)
polygon performance is only 4.30x (500 / 116). yet in other areas Xbox 360 is a staggering jump, like in CPU fp performance, 76x (115 / 1.5) or at least 38x if you give the Intel 733 MHz CPU in Xbox a rating of 3 gflops.

ok now if Revolution's Hollywood GPU has pixel shader 3.0 or even 2.0 it would be able to render pixel shader enhanced graphics many times faster than Gamecube could. at least you would think so.


then again in the end, maybe all Nintendo is offering is a straight 2x to 3x increase and games will barely look better than Gamecube. I don't really know but we'll find out much more in the coming weeks and months.

 

[function]

if you look at main memory bandwidth increase from Xbox to Xbox 360, it's only 3.5x (22.4 / 6.4).

Don't forget that on the first Xbox that included the framebuffer!

Nintendo's job isn't to provide us with the best gaming experience they can*, it's to produce the most profit they can. Given this, it's easy to see how a 2 or 3 times GC powered system could be perfect for them.

*same goes for everyone else, before anyone starts!

 

[Guden Oden]

and if you doubled the framerate of RE4 while keeping the same level of graphics detail & quality, many would say there's no improvement at all.

Then again, who says the game's using all frame time to render the gfx? What if the game uses roughly 1.5 frames to draw the scene, doubling the hardware performance would thus allow (up to) 3x better gfx.

 

[Teasy]

I dont think you should look too deep into it.. I think it is a casual observation. Snes was stated to be 2x Nes in peformance from a lot of sources simple because of the amount of "bits" it could push per clock cycle. The Rev comments are probably similiar, i.e. just an arbitrary number, can be difference of clock cycles, transistors etc or just a casual observation.

Absolutely, for all we know when the developer said "double the clock speed of Flipper and Gekko and you're pretty much there" he was referring only to the clock speeds of Hollywood and Broadway. All we have from IGN are vague comments quoted out of context.

 

[Megadrive1988]

pardon me for stating the obvious (to most anyway)

depending on the exact details of the architecture, Broadway & Hollywood could be clocked lower than Gekko & Flipper, yet the new chipset could completely outgun the old chipset in performance. what really counts is the architecture of the functional blocks, ALUs, pipes, etc within Broadway & Hollywood. it seems 3rd parties have not see a real Hollywood GPU yet whatsoever, while may or may not have seen Broadway.

 

[OtakingGX]

I was trying to speculate as to what "2-3 times the power of the Gamecube" could be the other day. Well, Gamecube was stated as being capable of 6-12 million polygons per second. Word on the street is that Resident Evil 4 pushes 16 million polygons per second. So perhaps they'll say the hardware can do 32-48 million polygons per second, and games towards the end of the console's life will manage 64 million polygons per second. That's more than 3 polygons for every pixel at 640x480 resolution.

As far as theoretical fillrate goes, a 330 MHz part with 8 pipelines and corresponding texture units (somewhere between an X1300 and X1600) would give 4x the fillrate of Flipper. I think at 480p this would be overkill though. 4 texture units might still be the way to go, but more pipelines for pixel shading.

 

[Megadrive1988]

fillrate is not just for being able to render at a given resolution. you can never have enough pixel fillrate since it can be used for anti-aliasing and other effects. so I disagree that having 4x Flipper's fillrate would be overkill for 480p. even in this era of increasing importance of shaders over fillrate, the importance of fillrate isnt gone.

 

[Urian]

fillrate is not just for being able to render at a given resolution. you can never have enough pixel fillrate since it can be used for anti-aliasing and other effects. so I disagree that having 4x Flipper's fillrate would be overkill for 480p. even in this era of increasing importance of shaders over fillrate, the importance of fillrate isnt gone.

Knowing that the standard size of a polygon in the 128 bits era is 32x32 pixels we can asume that GCN can draw 19.5 milions of polys aprox.

If we put (this is an example) a GPU with 8 Pixel Pipelines at 333Mhz we get around 80 milions without FSAA and 40 Milions with FSAA unless the FSAA is optimized.

 

[ninzel]

anyone else thinks it's suspicious that 4-5 years after GC's launch we only get a console with "2 times" the perf of GC?

Not really. Just look at the diference between GBASP to DS, I think that hints at what we can expect from GC to REV. Like I was trying to explain in the other thread, Nintendo and Nintendo developers work with handhelds everyday, squeezing games out of relatively little power. And they do it successfully from both a critical and commercial perspective.
That environment can't help but influence their perspective on the kind of power is neccesary to make great games.
Also aren't these the kinds of numbers people throw around in the PC world. I mean if you upgraded your PC and the CPU and VPU were a solid 2X more powerful, wouldn't most people see that as a big improvement.
The bottom line is the Rev WILL BE less pwoerful than the others, the games WILL NOT look as good at the high end, but that doesn't say anything about thier potential quality.

 

[Teasy]

Not really. Just look at the diference between GBASP to DS, I think that hints at what we can expect from GC to REV.

GBA-SP and DS were released 3 years appart and the difference between them technically is an entire hardware generation (SNES to PS1/N64).

 

[function]

And both were an entire generation behind what they could have released it they'd chosen to, only they probably wouldn't have made as much money. And that's what it's all about.

Hasn't stopped a lot of people having a lot of fun with them, and for those that value power there's the PSP. Two different approaches to the current handheld gaming/entertainment market. Nintendo are going the same way with Revolution and you can't really knock it.

 

[pc999]

This Key components interpretation is interesting but in things like the BW and such it still looks very weak as it would be ~5Gb/s (that is less than a 7300GS (64bits)) and if BW is indeed one of the main factors then it will not be very good. I dont think it makes very sense to have a new HW if it dont give you better visuals (at least form a perception POV).

BTW anyone know how much cost current corrent CPU/GPU from GC, in abosolute or % (from the 99$) terms, or any educated guess. Personally I dont think it will be much in % terms, because if the firsts 10M consoles had been product in 180nm the seconds 10M could have been produced in a much lower process and if they could save even if only 1$ that would mean they would have saved 10M$ and unles the chance to such a lower processes it is much more costly that than I cant see why they keep the 180nm unless that both chips are indeed very cheap and so they would be in 90nm but with 4x the transistores.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

I have a question for devs and knowledgeable. Revolution API is supposed to be similar to the GC, do you have to have Rev hardware to start development and theoretical throughput numbers?

Also if you don't get any real hardware until its final devkits, would it hinder your ability to creat a game in a year if not sx months, considering there is no learing curve? Just knowing the console is capable of doing parallax mapping and all the bells and whistles of next-gen.

 

[Teasy]

And both were an entire generation behind what they could have released it they'd chosen to, only they probably wouldn't have made as much money.

More or less yeah, though that still doesn't hint at Revolution being only two times as powerful as GC. If anything it hints at a generational leap in graphics over GC but just not as much of a leap as PS3.

 

[pc999]

More or less yeah, though that still doesn't hint at Revolution being only two times as powerful as GC. If anything it hints at a generational leap in graphics over GC but just not as much of a leap as PS3.

Actually I think more or less the same, that we will see about the jump from GC to Rev to be equivalent to the GBA to DS jump, and like the DS a had lot of features (Wifi, DS, micro, sensitive...and all at 150$) we will see a Rev with a lot of, as usefull, features too and at a equivalent price (150$ (more likely IMO)-200$), which IMO it is very good for both gamers and Nintendo as DS had proved a very sucessefull strategy.

BTW do anyone knows how much is the jump from GBA to DS in % (or any other metric)?

 

[function]

More or less yeah, though that still doesn't hint at Revolution being only two times as powerful as GC. If anything it hints at a generational leap in graphics over GC but just not as much of a leap as PS3.

I can see your point, but I think I see things a little differently. Both the GBA and DS were what you'd call "low power" devices, that could be sold cheap and manufactured for less. The GC, while not on the same curve as the DC->PS2->Xbox, wasn't too far behind and was pretty close in many ways - it's not what I'd call top "top end" but it isn't "low power" either (to horribly overuse quotation marks for a moment).

The Revolution will probably represent a step down from the relative (to their competitors) performance of the GC, to something cheaper still. In that sense a "generational" leap as seen from SNES->N64->GC wouldn't make sense. A relatively smaller jump will see them position themselves to where they want to be in the next generation.

A bit off topic, but I'd also like to add that if they can avoid the £50 price tag of new xbox 360 games, and hit about £35, they'll further endear themselves to budget concious gamers.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

I personally think that the "2x the power" is quite misleading & in all probability, inaccurate. I also remember that the GC was supposed to have both geometry & animation shortcomings, due in part to its fixed function T&L. IIRC it was supposed to "choke" or hit an "overload" threshold as a result. Well the Sanctuary Fortress in MP:Echoes & RE4 (castle area) displayed plenty of geometry, moreso esp. in MP2 than I have seen in most games of this generation, & at a 60fps refresh rate no less. The animation issue should've been quashed with titles like Luigi's Mansion, TWW, Soul Calibur II, TP, (you'll see what I mean come the next trailer) etc, etc, which all boasted/will boast superb animation. So these technical myths were effectively proven to be just that, myths. Similar to how the PS2 wasn't supposed to be capable of this effect or those types of visuals, but the truly proficient developers dug deep into the metal & consistently surprised us. The GC had this in the aforementioned titles, (& of course F5) but nowhere remotely close as to what the PS2 experienced directly due to being by far & away the market leader.

Also, the Flipper handled certain ops in parallel, leaving the central processor penalty free regarding certain tasks it would've ordinarily been saddled with. 8 global lights, self-shadowing, & color tinting come to mind. I remember that Iwata has said that certain aspects they considered efficient or innovative would be carried over within the new chipsets, although we know they aren't based upon their predecessors respective architectures.

All that I'm attempting to illustrate here is that without comprehensive architectural knowledge, are they making carpet statements based on purely computational power, (i.e conservative paper polygon pushing numbers & future system specifications provided by Nintendo) twice the FLOPS, 2x the CPU/GPU clockspeeds, internally done diagnostics, how was this number attained? I'm certainly not trying to desperately attribute more power to the Rev, but you can see the relevancy of my question.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

I personally think that the "2x the power" is quite misleading & in all probability, inaccurate. I also remember that the GC was supposed to have both geometry & animation shortcomings, due in part to its fixed function T&L. IIRC it was supposed to "choke" or hit an "overload" threshold as a result. Well the Sanctuary Fortress in MP:Echoes & RE4 (castle area) displayed plenty of geometry, moreso esp. in MP2 than I have seen in most games of this generation, & at a 60fps refresh rate no less. The animation issue should've been quashed with titles like Luigi's Mansion, TWW, Soul Calibur II, TP, (you'll see what I mean come the next trailer) etc, etc, which all boasted superb animation. So these technical myths were effectively proven to be just that, myths. Similar to how the PS2 wasn't supposed to be capable of this effect or those types of visuals, but the truly proficient developers dug deep into the metal & consistently surprised us. The GC had this in the aforementioned titles, (& of course F5) but nowhere remotely close as to what the PS2 experienced being the market leader.

Also, the Flipper handled certain ops in parallel, leaving the central processor penalty free regarding certain tasks it would've ordinarily been saddled with. 8 global lights, self-shadowing, & color tinting come to mind. I remember that Iwata has said that certain aspects they considered efficient or innovative would be carried over within the new chipsets, although we know they aren't based upon their predecessors respective architectures.

All that I'm attempting to illustrate here is that without comprehensive architectural knowledge, are they making carpet statements based on purely computational power, (i.e conservative paper polygon pushing numbers provided by Nintendo) twice the FLOPS, 2x the CPU/GPU clockspeeds, internally done diagnostics, how was this number attained? I'm not trying to desperately attribute more power to the Rev, but you can see the relevancy of my question.

If you think back to the article released a month ago from Matt-IGN you would think devs had actual working hardware(Broadway and Hollywood). One dev actually mentions experimenting with the hardware, how is that even possible, when devs still have yet to receive hardware thats consist of actual Revolution hardware.

How many dev kit revisions did the XB360 have?

 

[Li Mu Bai]

If you think back to the article released a month ago from Matt-IGN you would think devs had actual working hardware(Broadway and Hollywood). One dev actually mentions experimenting with the hardware, how is that even possible, when devs still have yet to receive hardware thats consist of actual Revolution hardware.

How many dev kit revisions did the XB360 have?

Didn't the 360 have four revisions? I also agree, Matt posted comments like "Double the clockspeed of the Flipper & Gekko & you're just about there." Huh? You didn't even have in your possesion the 3rd iteration of the Rev devkit when this was written, it certainly did give the false impression he was experimenting with the final hw. Although Nintendo could've clearly given out spec. projections on what to expect, but why absolutely no GPU/Hollywood mentions then? Nintendo seemed keen on getting developers to familiarize themselves with the Revmote 1st & foremost, & even actively assisted some of the larger 3rd party developers with control implementation as well as ideas. As I posted here:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25383

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Didn't the 360 have four revisions? I also agree, Matt posted comments like "Double the clockspeed of the Flipper & Gekko & you're just about there." Huh? You didn't even have in your possesion the 3rd iteration of the Rev devkit when this was written, it certainly did give the false impression he was experimenting with the final hw. Although Nintendo could've clearly given out spec. projections on what to expect, but why absolutely no GPU/Hollywood mentions then? Nintendo seemed keen on getting developers to familiarize themselves with the Revmote 1st & foremost, & even actively assisted some of the larger 3rd party developers with control implementation as well as ideas. As I posted here:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25383

It gives the impression that Hollywood is just double the polygon performance, pixel pipelines, texture units(though knowledge on this front is an unknown). So basically what he has just done, is tell everyone to expect a console thats slightly above the Xbox in power.

I think its highly possible the CPU may be an derivative of the Gekko processor, only really consisting of some similar instructions for compatibility with the (GC)API.(Correct me if i'm wrong). The GPU is an unknown, because its not a doubled Flipper. ATI said that its a ground up desgin, it may inherent some of the Flippers strengths.