ATI XBOX 2 etc etc performance etc etc

[cthellis42]

Yeah, just found that out and had adjusted my post. They also had a webcam. (Though I don't think that got outside Japan.)

Interesting enough topic to follow on its own right. I wonder if there were any other little-known or little-selling projects out there for other systems that made use of a mic? Didn't the X'Eye have microphone inputs?

 

[pahcman]

RalliSport Challenge 2 Offers Free Xbox Live Download Featuring New Cars, Careers Modes



September 28, 2004 - Microsoft Game Studios today announced the arrival of new downloadable content for the popular Xbox racing title, RalliSport Challenge 2. Now gamers can race two new vintage cars, the Volvo Amazon and Saab 96, as well as two new Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV), the BMW X5 and VW Touareg.



In the download are two new career modes; Mountain Challenge (Hill Climbs) and Arena Challenge (Ice Racing and Rally Cross). Gamers that enjoy personalizing their cars will be thrilled to learn the download offers two new paint jobs or "skins" for each of the 43 original cars in the game, providing numerous new visual designs to enjoy while racing. In addition, each of the four new cars comes with six new skins.

Also new is a "Challenges" mode that features daily, weekly and monthly new contests that feature a specific car and track, with all the results recorded and presented for easy bragging rights via Xbox Live scoreboards.

RalliSport Challenge 2 features five unique rally sports including the a Crossover duel that test a driver's skill and stomach for danger with extreme speeds on tracks that could send even the best driver on a collision course with disaster. From broken windows to missing hoods, RalliSport Challenge 2 features an updated graphics engine with realistic vehicle physics complete with damage modeling and performance degradation to test a driver's mettle. It features 47 of the most challenging rally cars, including the infamous group B cars that were banned because of uncontrollable horsepower. Gamers will be able to make minor modifications to each car to meet the challenge of each track. With nearly double the tracks of the original, gamers can race on different tracks from Australia, the frozen Nordic, and the Pacific Northwest. Drive in variable weather conditions, including rain, snow, and fog. It also features new camera angles that focus on spectacular crashes and interactive environments, including breakaway signs, moving rocks and new splash and rain effects.

Microsoft Game Studios is a leading worldwide publisher and developer of games for the Xbox video game system and Windows and online platforms. Comprising a network of top developers, Microsoft Game Studios is committed to creating innovative and diverse games for Windows (http://www.microsoft.com/games/), including such franchises as "Age of Empires," "Flight Simulator" and "Zoo Tycoon"; Xbox (http://www.xbox.com/), including such franchises as "Halo," "Project Gotham Racing" and "NFL Fever"; and Zone.com (http://www.zone.com/), the official games channel for the MSN network and home to such hits as "Bejeweled" and "OutSmart."

New DLC on Xbox Live.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Sony had the HDD planned already before the xbox was announced.

Doesn't matter, they are canning it soon.

Uh :? they still had it planned before xbox was announced.
Not providing compatibility for HDD on the new PSTwo only proves the point that they are not copying xbox Live

 

[wco81]

There's been some talk about Sony doing a single login for all their online games.

One thing they should avoid is trying to do a subscription model.

There are more people online with the PS2 than XBL. So not really surprising that more people would participate with the free option.

If the rumors are true that Xbox2 won't have a hard drive, then we may have seen the last of the experiment with fixed storage in consoles. That would be too bad but those are the economic realities of this business.

XBL has patched some console games which may be a good or bad thing. I think it's good for the consumer but I'm sure publishers/developers may not necessarily see it the same way.

 

[jvd]

Well the current rumor is the r420 refresh is 24x1 in that case i could see more 32x1 for the r520. For percision i wouldn't expect more than fp32 for a long time. Also going foward the pipelines are going to be less and less of a problem. It will be shader performance that will be the bottleneck..

I don't see how 2 tmus can really hurt that much. Perhaps we will see a 24x2 or 32x2 for the xenon.

I dont see ATI throwing away the r420 design for and replacing a very succesful high end part with a 40% larger one for less than 6 months shelf life. what will they do with a SM2.0 24 pipes/230mil transistors part in the summer of 2005? wipe their collective a*ses?

R520 could/should be a "more pipes"/highly parallel design but for the R400/R500 I see, due to the unified architecture, a low pipe count (16 max), very high clock speed (above 1 GHz), huge amounts of cache and, maybe, embedded RAM.

Well remember they added things to the r420 but they had more time between the r300 and the r420 than nvidia did between the nv30 and nv40. Look at what nvidia was able to do. So i beleive the the r520 will be fp24/fp32 or fp16/fp32 (not sure . and sm 3.0 .

But dave was saying i was wrong on something. I think it was the fp32 only option. Though i could be wrong again haha .

I would think the r520 would last almost a year on the market before an r600 is able to come down from above .

Unless , the r520 becomes the r420 refresh and the end of next year the drop the r600 .

 

[thop]

I believe MS is overestimating the market of pay-to-play on consoles.

 

[cthellis42]

There's been some talk about Sony doing a single login for all their online games.

One thing they should avoid is trying to do a subscription model.

Sadly, centralization is appealing to the public for its simplicity, so they'll want it anyway. It which point it becomes easy to attach a payment method, so THAT will become more likely as well. It may keep from being a subscription service itself, but some games require them regardless (MMO's), and if developers see an easy ability to charge, they're more likely to test the waters.

Eventually it'll ALL move that route anyway, but I'd like to resist this as long as possible.

 

[Spidermate]

Who's designing the PS3 GPU? Sony again? Seeing how 'awesome' the PS2's graphics synthesizer wasn't, I'll hold off on being stunned by PR this time.

The PS2's GPU,for its time,performed quite well, and the console,as a whole, has held its own up against the others.

I seriously don't understand people sometimes. The PS2 is almost two years dated compared to the other consoles. If not for this, I'm sure it,too, could have been just as powerful as the others. Why is that some people just can't accept the console as a date product? I mean,you act like the hardware it uses should remain elite no matter what.

 

[Spidermate]

Xbox Live is a service. A damn fine one to boot. If i dare say, the premier one.

Take a look at how much further MS is planning to push it.

"Are you interested in using C# and .NET to improve the integrity and performance of servers? Want to help create a new feature for Xenon not available on any other platform? Microsoft Game Studios Publishing is looking for an SDET with server experience to help design and implement the new Xenon Title Server features, including: a spectator mode for many Xenon games, Xbox TV - with tickers at the bottom of the screen featuring recent high scores and game highlights, a tournament system, and tradable trophies. Core technical challenges the team will face include: integrating networking code with existing networking layers of many games, optimizing the SQL server backend, working with restricted console memory, optimizing data flow, designing and implementing scalable servers, and integrating several systems into a single customer experience"

Hiring now!

That's great. But, do you honestly think the competition is going to set back,watch and do nothing?

 

[McFly]

One of the patents posted over here about a year ago from Sony described something very similar.

Fredi

 

[BigGamer X]

There's been some talk about Sony doing a single login for all their online games.

One thing they should avoid is trying to do a subscription model.

There are more people online with the PS2 than XBL. So not really surprising that more people would participate with the free option.

If the rumors are true that Xbox2 won't have a hard drive, then we may have seen the last of the experiment with fixed storage in consoles. That would be too bad but those are the economic realities of this business.

XBL has patched some console games which may be a good or bad thing. I think it's good for the consumer but I'm sure publishers/developers may not necessarily see it the same way.

I'm a consumer and I don't like companies messing around with my software after I have bought it. Make it right the first time, or don't bother!

 

[_phil_]

i wonder how this would handle D3
http://www.es.com/products/image+generators/simfusion+6000/index.asp

...or Enemy Territory

 

[swaaye]

Who's designing the PS3 GPU? Sony again? Seeing how 'awesome' the PS2's graphics synthesizer wasn't, I'll hold off on being stunned by PR this time.

The PS2's GPU,for its time,performed quite well, and the console,as a whole, has held its own up against the others.

I seriously don't understand people sometimes. The PS2 is almost two years dated compared to the other consoles. If not for this, I'm sure it,too, could have been just as powerful as the others. Why is that some people just can't accept the console as a date product? I mean,you act like the hardware it uses should remain elite no matter what.

It's not that it's aging poorly. The chipset has tons of issues and limitations. Do some forum searches. There has been lots of discussion about the issues with the current consoles, each of which has some unfortunate limitations. The Sony GS is probably the most poorly designed of the bunch though.

 

[cthellis42]

It's not that it's aging poorly. The chipset has tons of issues and limitations. Do some forum searches. There has been lots of discussion about the issues with the current consoles, each of which has some unfortunate limitations. The Sony GS is probably the most poorly designed of the bunch though.

This topic has been hashed and rehashed to death on here already. Hack, you only have to do some "forum searches" here; the entire time I've been here the matter gets brought up and debated incessantly, and I probably came in LATE on it. And at the core of what I learned has been "everybody has their own interpretations;" no dataset properly frames it all, and conjecture-over-time is always difficult. And in the end, most people leave with the same opinions they had when they came in--only perhaps with a few more numbers to bring up.

 

[Inane_Dork]

I'm a consumer and I don't like companies messing around with my software after I have bought it. Make it right the first time, or don't bother!

I hope you like 4 year development times, because that's about what you asked for.

I'm all for fixing bugs before the game ships. But statistically speaking, to eliminate all or effectively all bugs from games will take a long time next generation.

 

[Spidermate]

Who's designing the PS3 GPU? Sony again? Seeing how 'awesome' the PS2's graphics synthesizer wasn't, I'll hold off on being stunned by PR this time.

The PS2's GPU,for its time,performed quite well, and the console,as a whole, has held its own up against the others.

I seriously don't understand people sometimes. The PS2 is almost two years dated compared to the other consoles. If not for this, I'm sure it,too, could have been just as powerful as the others. Why is that some people just can't accept the console as a date product? I mean,you act like the hardware it uses should remain elite no matter what.

It's not that it's aging poorly. The chipset has tons of issues and limitations. Do some forum searches. There has been lots of discussion about the issues with the current consoles, each of which has some unfortunate limitations. The Sony GS is probably the most poorly designed of the bunch though.

But,it's funny how this "poorly designed" archchitecture has managed to holds its own to the others dispite its age. That is what I am telling you. The thing is almost two friggin' years old. When it launched the market in its time,it was the most powerful system at that time. ONLY NOW does the system seem weaker because others have gotten much powerful hardware. Now,if these systems had launched around the same time, then your point would make more since.As of now,however,it doesn't because others are almost a half a generation ahead. It is not a fair comparison no matter how you slice it.

 

[Spidermate]

I'm a consumer and I don't like companies messing around with my software after I have bought it. Make it right the first time, or don't bother!

I hope you like 4 year development times, because that's about what you asked for.

I'm all for fixing bugs before the game ships. But statistically speaking, to eliminate all or effectively all bugs from games will take a long time next generation.

I'll believe that when I see it.

 

[Inane_Dork]

But,it's funny how this "poorly designed" archchitecture has managed to holds its own to the others dispite its age. That is what I am telling you. The thing is almost two friggin' years old. When it launched the market in its time,it was the most powerful system at that time. ONLY NOW does the system seem weaker because others have gotten much powerful hardware. Now,if these systems had launched around the same time, then your point would make more since.As of now,however,it doesn't because others are almost a half a generation ahead.

You are, of course, free to think what you like. I prefer to think of great looking PS2 games as being a testament to the ability, time and insane caffeine levels of graphics programmers the world over.

It is not a fair comparison no matter how you slice it.

*shrugs*

It's only as unfair as the PS2 having more market share because it launched earlier. I don't see you crying foul over that one.

I'll believe that when I see it.

I don't have a clue what you're attempting to say here.

 

[one]

It is not a fair comparison no matter how you slice it.

*shrugs*

It's only as unfair as the PS2 having more market share because it launched earlier. I don't see you crying foul over that one.

*cough* DC *cough*

 

[AlNom]

I'm a consumer and I don't like companies messing around with my software after I have bought it. Make it right the first time, or don't bother!

I hope you like 4 year development times, because that's about what you asked for.

You mean, we don't already have 4 year development times?

I'm all for fixing bugs before the game ships. But statistically speaking, to eliminate all or effectively all bugs from games will take a long time next generation.

Assuming that a certain Mr. Sweeney becomes excessively rich next gen, I should hope that the bug fixing should be limited... Then again, I don't know much what really constitutes a "bug" or just some minor querk that takes a variable change or something simple.

It is not a fair comparison no matter how you slice it.

*shrugs*

It's only as unfair as the PS2 having more market share because it launched earlier. I don't see you crying foul over that one.

*cough* DC *cough*

hey, what's that?