DeanoC , in another forum argues it would be unnecessary. I disagree with DeanoC. Gamers will compare the gflops rating of X2 and PS3 and think "256gflops greater than 72gflops. I'll buy the PS3". Adding a vector processor to X2 will boost the gflops rating, even if in fact, it's not necessary. What matters is public perception, DeanoC. MS cannot afford the puplic to perceive that the X2 is inferior.
Adding a multi-vector processor to X2 a good idea?
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A very small percentage of consumers know something that specific, and an even smaller amount base their buying decisions on it. And some of those few will know enough to realize that FLOPs speed by itself doesn't say much about performance or even much about overall FLOPs performance.
Of course every advantage will contribute to the consumer's perception of value in some way, but the draw of a game like Halo or Gran Turismo, or perhaps a feature like custom soundtracks or Blu-Ray, will greatly overshadow the effect of some obscure spec hype.
Of course every advantage will contribute to the consumer's perception of value in some way, but the draw of a game like Halo or Gran Turismo, or perhaps a feature like custom soundtracks or Blu-Ray, will greatly overshadow the effect of some obscure spec hype.
most people dont know what flops are I dont know if a multi-vector processor would boost performance or not but it would add a lot of heat and with the cpu and gpu things are already going to be hot unless they use water cooling
the cell might be over 256gflops but I dont think its going to be as big of deal as people making it out to be in real world performance it reminds me when people I know first started hearing about dual cpu systems they thought it would be twice as fast as one cpu cuase on paper it would have twice as many flops
the cell might be over 256gflops but I dont think its going to be as big of deal as people making it out to be in real world performance it reminds me when people I know first started hearing about dual cpu systems they thought it would be twice as fast as one cpu cuase on paper it would have twice as many flops
BTW, the PR BS will talk about (more than 1) Teraflops performances. So thoses realistic, or more exactly meanigful GFlops numbers will mean zilch in the end.
Edit: I forgot to say that I think Lazy8s's post is spot on. Joe Sixpack couldn't care less for the overall amount of Flop generated by X or Y console, when he buys it at his local supermarket.
Edit: I forgot to say that I think Lazy8s's post is spot on. Joe Sixpack couldn't care less for the overall amount of Flop generated by X or Y console, when he buys it at his local supermarket.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
I think it would be an awesome thing, if Xenon had a seperate processor with multipule vector sub-processors, in addition to the multi-core CPU and ATI VPU.
an 8-vector pipe/processor chip could offload all of the vertex shading, geometry, lighting calculations from both the CPU and VPU.
the CPU is free to run game code, physics, etc. the VPU is free to run pixel shaders, render & display graphics. the 8 vector processors in one additional chip, inbetween the CPU and VPU, would crunch transform data like a motherfawker. the thing gets its own pool of 256 or even 128 MB of RAM, like how ELAN in NAOMI 2 had its own seperate RAM.
but I do agree, that 99.9% of people who buy videogame consoles and games don't know what FLOPS are, much less care. it will make no difference to consumers what the FLOPS rating is. only percieved power, and more importantly, library of games, value, etc.
an 8-vector pipe/processor chip could offload all of the vertex shading, geometry, lighting calculations from both the CPU and VPU.
the CPU is free to run game code, physics, etc. the VPU is free to run pixel shaders, render & display graphics. the 8 vector processors in one additional chip, inbetween the CPU and VPU, would crunch transform data like a motherfawker. the thing gets its own pool of 256 or even 128 MB of RAM, like how ELAN in NAOMI 2 had its own seperate RAM.
but I do agree, that 99.9% of people who buy videogame consoles and games don't know what FLOPS are, much less care. it will make no difference to consumers what the FLOPS rating is. only percieved power, and more importantly, library of games, value, etc.
MS employees have already agreed that the PS3 will be technically superior to the X2. So how can you say they cannot afford that perception? They seem to be embracing it.bbot said:
And as far as public perception goes, that is such a wildly misinformed mess of numbers and incorrect facts it takes until it doesn't matter at all for it to get marginally sorted out. In the meantime, MS can just point to X2 games and say that they do not look noticeably worse than PS3 games. Which, if true, should be enough.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
mmmmm give me (i mean developers)
*4-core PowerPC CPU w| 256 MB RAM
*8 vector unit Processor w| 256 MB RAM
*twin R5xx w| 256 MB RAM *each*
1 GB RAM total.
Playstation3 killer ^__^
*4-core PowerPC CPU w| 256 MB RAM
*8 vector unit Processor w| 256 MB RAM
*twin R5xx w| 256 MB RAM *each*
1 GB RAM total.
Playstation3 killer ^__^
I'm not sure where I posted that but I think your misunderstanding me, I think a seperate vector processor is not the best use of money. The GPU has certain features that mean its already a general vector processor, so why not go with another GPU or another CPU if you want more grunt power? Your already ignoring the existing vector unit (GPU) for your FLOPS rating, so why would anybody count another vector unit in the CPU vs CPU comparisions anyway. Gamers fundementally don't understand hardware very well, I'd prefer MS make design decisions for developers (and themself) rather than consumer misunderstanding irrelevant benchmarks...bbot said:
It would be much easier for MS to simple 'munge' the figures, alla J.Allards Teraflops statement. Its probably not untrue just not what your talking about but then if consumers don't even know what a FLOPS is why not use a defination of FLOPS that produces higher numbers...
randycat99
Veteran
DeanoC said:
This part of the statement rings especially true, for many would-be, armchair "console experts" here, except substitute any console maker of choice for "MS", and extend the context to include not only FLOPs but vector hardware, processor plumbing, cache sizes, main memory RAM, bus widths, clockrates, pipeline #'s, # of stages in a pipeline, eDRAM amounts, software media type, polygons/sec, pixels/sec, types of pixel shaders, etc. People get a hold of a few numbers and buzzwords, and then think they have an "insider look" of what is defining hardware by simply picking the higher number and wishing/hoping/FUD'ing that console xyz will have x% more of something, and hence will make superior games...
Every once in a while it is good for anybody to just take a step back, appreciate the proposed hardware for what it is, and just be content the games to come will be wonderful. You don't need any grasp of the "numb3rz" to accomplish this (I promise). For most people, they are, indeed, safer by doing just that rather than spend a life making wide-sweeping speculations and predictions based only from rudimentary specs.
People know enough to 'know' bigger numbers=better. PS2 is 300MHz, XBox is 700MHz. Ergo XBox is better. They do it all the time with their PCs. If Xenon is 1 Teraflop, and PS3 is 4 terafloos (by the time the numbers have been massaged) people will know PS3 is more powerful.
However I don't think that affects the buying decision too much. Most people won't know the stats and of those that do I imagine they won't care. The only people who will mind are those who have to have the biggest, fastest, bestest of everything, often XBox fanboys who go on about how their machine is the best as it's the most powerful. If PS3 comes out with bigger numbers they might well swing loyalties, and I guess that's why companies try to squeeze bigger and bigger numbers from their hardware.
However I don't think that affects the buying decision too much. Most people won't know the stats and of those that do I imagine they won't care. The only people who will mind are those who have to have the biggest, fastest, bestest of everything, often XBox fanboys who go on about how their machine is the best as it's the most powerful. If PS3 comes out with bigger numbers they might well swing loyalties, and I guess that's why companies try to squeeze bigger and bigger numbers from their hardware.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
randycat99 said:
now that made me think. wow. it's so true on many levels, especially the last things you said...you know something, probably never before in all of videogame history, has there -ever- been *so* much -intense- discussion, speculation, speculation, speculation, anticipation, for a new wave of consoles, and years in advance of them arriving. It is such a different world now, with the internet.....back when I had an Atari 7800 and Sega Master System in 88-89, I had no idea there were new game consoles in the works, i had no idea that some of them had already been released on the other side of the world. I was just happy to have a new game to play, after carefully saving up, or convincing my parents to get one for me. now the very inner workings of consoles are discussed & speculated and argued on 4-5 years before they even come out. times have changed. even from the 3do-saturn-ps1-n64 generation when the internet was fairly new to most people.
It's like magical touches of Microsoft's hands - in 1995, they implemented a TCP/IP stack in Win95 (J Allard is the man who defined Winsock) for the internet age and in 1999 they started development of a game console witnessing Kutaragi's attempt to create a home media hub. If Microsoft is interested in something, it means they smelled out something so big and profitable that many people follow it.Megadrive1988 said:
BOOMEXPLODE
Regular
They can always lie/exaggerate. Find some way to say the system displays 4 zillion polygons per second and can cure cancer, typically with console performance claims the truth doesn't figure into the equation at all.
Besides, what will be much more important is how the games look. Because Xenon will probably be the first next-gen system released, it will initially be compared to the old generation consoles, for lack of anything else to compare it to. In that context it will appear incredibly powerful. Then the question becomes, when PS3 and Revolution are released, will Xenon games look technologically inferior or will they hold their own? If PS3 and/or Revolution claim performance numbers 1000x higher than Xenon but the games don't look any better then it will hardly matter. Of course, if the games do look appreciably better, then Xenon will become a tough sell...
Besides, what will be much more important is how the games look. Because Xenon will probably be the first next-gen system released, it will initially be compared to the old generation consoles, for lack of anything else to compare it to. In that context it will appear incredibly powerful. Then the question becomes, when PS3 and Revolution are released, will Xenon games look technologically inferior or will they hold their own? If PS3 and/or Revolution claim performance numbers 1000x higher than Xenon but the games don't look any better then it will hardly matter. Of course, if the games do look appreciably better, then Xenon will become a tough sell...
Yeah kinda like PS2's 6.2 GFLOPS from EE cpu, or the 66 million polys per second which I've still yet to see in a PS2 game vs GCN's measly 12 million polys which I've seen in games. Or how about Emotion Synthesis and the 1TFLOPS CELL cpu or the 33 million polys the PSP can produce while doing nothing else?
I guess it all depends on if the bigger numbers fall under your console of choice or not...
The numbers you quoted where IIRC never marketed as in game numbers, just theoretical/peak numbers. It's not hard to push 66 Mpoly/s on the PS2..but I don't think you would like 1 milion untextured and flat shaded triangles per frame in your favourite gamePC-Engine said:
If you think that peaks number doesn't have any sense and shouldn't be used to market a product I may agree with you, but you can't blame Sony, they told the 'truth'.