An 8600gts RSX instead of a 7800 gtx

[AlNom]

Afaik, issues such as deferred rendering with MSAA and transparencies could actually be combated thanks to the programmability of the 8 series

This is more of an API/d3d9 issue rather than a hardware one. With console development, there will be lower level access that forego this sort of limitation.

 

[swaaye]

In the end, an 8600GTS would probably not really offer a tangible advantage over what the PS3 is equipped with right now. I think you'd need to double the RAM, go 256-bit bus, and go with something like a 9600GT-esque design to really be impressive and dust Xenos. That was just never going to happen.

I think ATI had much more time to put things together than NV did. I actually kinda wonder if the original, unfinished R400 was a major stepping stone to Xenos*.


*hoping to incite extreme speculative conversation here

 

[V3]

I tried to do the same for the 360.
If Ms were about to do a 360 now with the same transistor budget, they would likely use a HD4550 derivated part.
Here two links to reviews of this card:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=628&type=expert
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3420
The comparison is interesting as both parts are close in transistor budget (I don't count memory).
The HD4550 is made out of 242 millions transistors.
The xenos is made out of 232 millions transistors + 70 millions on the daughter die.
Xenos is slighty bigger (~15%) the HD4550 is clocked higher (~20%).
On top of that the HD4550 is likely to spend some transistorstors on its pretty advance media accelerator (don't remember the exact name).
Overall it think that it's fair to estimate that the only difference between both part is design and that's design that would decide the perf behaviour.

360 Now with HD4550 ? I just built a PC for less than $400 with 4850 (price don't include Windows, a controller, or my time to get it working) But it kinda show how expensive the custom parts in 360 and PS3 really are when prices haven't really go down that much. They really should go for commodities next time around, like how arcade machines are now.

I wasn't even planning to use this PC for gaming (was originally for PVR and encoding) but I was suprised at the performance of the 4850. Its really quite a bargain, IMO. Sony or MS shouldn't tie themself to one providers, they should just shop around, especially if Intel part is also competitive.

 

[gongo]

RSX weaker than 7900GS?

Hey fellows, i saw this at neogaf, Capcom said PS3 has complications running SF4 shaders.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/42163.html

"Capcom's really good at doing realistic graphics on the PS3 hardware, but we have struggled getting the more artistic shaders of Street Fighter IV working correctly."

SF4 in the arcades runs on Taito x2 hardware, a quick Google search shows the specs as a very modest C2D E6400, 512MB/1GB RAM, 256MB 7900GS, Realtek embedded audio and Windows XP SP2.


Another thread caught my eyes, GTA4 PC minimum req. against reccomended req.

Minimum System Requirements

* OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3

* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz

* Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space

* Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements

* OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3

* Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz

* Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)

* 18 GB Free Hard Drive Space

* Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

Is there anything we are use from these information?

 

[pjbliverpool]

The GTA4 specs are pretty interesting. They don't tell us much about PS3 performance but they do tell us that we shouldn't expect the game to scale very much considering how close the min and recommended systems are.

 

[eastmen]

I wouldn't really say they are close

Your talking about a whole graphics generation leap there. Your also looking at a doubling of the cores on the intel side and an addition of a third core on the athlon side and a cpu gen upgrade.

I think the game will scale pretty well but reviews should be out in a few weeks

 

[geeQ]

HD space

Minimum System Requirements

* Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space

Wow! That's a pretty serious install right there! Is 16GB around the norm now for a pc game install?
I remember it was not too long ago when 8GB - 9GB was the usual install size.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I wouldn't really say they are close

Your talking about a whole graphics generation leap there. Your also looking at a doubling of the cores on the intel side and an addition of a third core on the athlon side and a cpu gen upgrade.

I think the game will scale pretty well but reviews should be out in a few weeks

I think they only chose the Q6600 on the Intel side because its the lowest end multicore CPU Intel makes. That level of CPU isn't actually required if the much slower PhenomX3 is anything to go by.

Most likely the game is looking for 3 threads ala Xenon to run optimally.

And on the GPU side, the jump from a 7900 to an 8600 in performance terms is practically none existant. The ATI jump is bigger but its also a bit unbalanced compared to the NV requirements. Unless the 8600 requirement is a typo and it should actually be 8800.

 

[Nano]

This is more of an API/d3d9 issue rather than a hardware one. With console development, there will be lower level access that forego this sort of limitation.

In many respects I agree, the DX9 API imposes a lot of limits on Geforce 7 chips in graphics and therefore we can expect a lot more flexibility when we can use OpenGL or libgcm in a console. Although, when you think about it, the Geforce 8 still has more sophisticated yet more general purpose shader architecture and I think that would be quite a factor in how you can render 3d worlds.