Design possibilities for the next GBA

[jvd]

You know tag, I don't know. Too little is known about PSP yet, as its still at least 2 years down the road and many things might change.

Worldwide launch: Q4 2004

Still, a lot can happen in one year and two months, too.

I still must say nintendo can easily make a hand held out of the gc . With the drop from .18 - .09 in the chips or even more depending on when nintendo releases the thing. If the keep the clock speeds the same. Add in power saving tech that ati has . Drop the voltage on both chips. THe system would run quite cool .

 

[Tagrineth]

No, I think a handheld GC wouldn't work yet, unless they scaled back more than just size... where would the controller circuit board go, for one?

 

[jvd]

No, I think a handheld GC wouldn't work yet, unless they scaled back more than just size... where would the controller circuit board go, for one?

I'm sure with simple mods and additions they can easily do it . I'm sure they have one in the lab . IF they are serious about hanging on to thier bread and butter they will have alot of designs behind closed doors. A portable gamecube would make way to much sense . It already has a large tittle selection. Devs are already used to programing for the cube. IT would allow more devs to program games for the cube and increase software sales . If gc2 can play gamecube games and thier new handheld games it would increase sales for that system.

It makes to much sense


Of course a handheld ps2 would have made much more sense than what the psp is . Large amount of software for the system. Devs already used to the system. But they didn't go that way. Which i don't relaly understand . The only problem is the size of the ps2 discs. Which the gamecube doesn't have .

 

[Tagrineth]

Of course a handheld ps2 would have made much more sense than what the psp is . Large amount of software for the system. Devs already used to the system. But they didn't go that way. Which i don't relaly understand . The only problem is the size of the ps2 discs. Which the gamecube doesn't have .

Yeah, the size of the discs is a BIG problem for handhelds (larger disc = greater rotational inertia = more power needed to spin, plus longer distance for the laser assembly to move).

But keep in mind the PS2 also has too many components... too much power draw.

 

[jvd]

Of course a handheld ps2 would have made much more sense than what the psp is . Large amount of software for the system. Devs already used to the system. But they didn't go that way. Which i don't relaly understand . The only problem is the size of the ps2 discs. Which the gamecube doesn't have .

Yeah, the size of the discs is a BIG problem for handhelds (larger disc = greater rotational inertia = more power needed to spin, plus longer distance for the laser assembly to move).

But keep in mind the PS2 also has too many components... too much power draw.

Don't forget sony is building .65nm factorys. There is alot of ps2 parts that would not be needed or condenced . Creating a smaller format disc and then converting the games to the smaller disc would still be cheaper than developing a whole new game.


Which is another question. How complex can thse games be on the media that they are on . I can see the rpgs being limited. I don't know many people that will want to change discs on a handheld .

 

[Panajev2001a]

jvd, RPGs like to use FMVs: SCE has new MPEG4 technology for that

 

[jvd]

jvd, RPGs like to use FMVs: SCE has new MPEG4 technology for that

not the good rpgs

 

[Panajev2001a]

Those too

 

[V3]

Of course a handheld ps2 would have made much more sense than what the psp is . Large amount of software for the system. Devs already used to the system. But they didn't go that way. Which i don't relaly understand . The only problem is the size of the ps2 discs. Which the gamecube doesn't have.

Yeah, handheld PS2 would be simpler, but Sony went a head with something more advance than PS2, so can't really complained.

Nintendo, need something more advance than GC too, if they want to compete with PSP tech wise, and I think they can.

 

[nonamer]

This is off topic but Microsoft may also have a chance at the handheld market. They have a very old graphic chipset design called the talisman which looks pretty ideal for a handheld if improved and modernized. Here is another article.

 

[Josiah]

they could make a portable GC with a built-in screen, but how small would it be....probably not small enough to fit in your pocket like the GBA. it would be atleast 4-5 times as big. Nintendo is sure to counter PSP with something though.

 

[Tagrineth]

they could make a portable GC with a built-in screen, but how small would it be....probably not small enough to fit in your pocket like the GBA. it would be atleast 4-5 times as big. Nintendo is sure to counter PSP with something though.

And you really think that with all that, PSP will fit in your pocket? LOL...

 

[Josiah]

probably not, but I think it will be smaller than a portable GC would be

 

[Tagrineth]

probably not, but I think it will be smaller than a portable GC would be

I dunno, GC's entire system is five chips plus the disc drive...

CPU, LSI (Flipper contains sound and I/O), two 1T-SRAMs which could be condensed into one, and a DRAM.

 

[Vince]

I dunno, GC's entire system is five chips plus the disc drive...

CPU, LSI (Flipper contains sound and I/O), two 1T-SRAMs which could be condensed into one, and a DRAM.

Enough yackety-yak. PSP is one 90nm IC, including RAM. End of story.

 

[Teasy]

london-boy

carts: price grows proportionally to capacity, more "resistant"...

This is how I see the advantages of carts.

Carts are far less fragile (both the unit and the cart itself), load times are much quicker, they use less power and they use far less space.

I really hope they use carts in the next GB, IMO discs just won't work with a handheld, not to my satisfaction anyway.

Phil

point is, technology wise, if Nintendo goes with the cartridges, they will hold a similar position among developers as they did during the PSX vs N64 days.

N64 had 64mb carts vs PSX's 700mb CD's, that's an 11 times difference in space

A 512MB cart vs a 1.8gb disc is only a 3.5 times difference.

The first one is a significant difference, the second is not. So no they would not be in a similar position AFAICS.

jvd

I still must say nintendo can easily make a hand held out of the gc

Nah that's not a good idea IMO, it will give backwards compatability of course but it will also mean a system that is not optimised for size and power usage. Taking a full console, shrinking it and adding power saving, is never going to give you as good results (in size and power usage) as designing something for handhelds from the ground up.

On the subject of PSP, thinking about it makes me laugh a bit actually. Just the thought of someone sitting on a bus with a 'handheld' that looks something like a Dreamcast/XBox controller in his hands

 

[Vince]

On the subject of PSP, thinking about it makes me laugh a bit actually. Just the thought of someone sitting on a bus with a 'handheld' that looks something like a Dreamcast/XBox controller in his hands

The hell is wrong with people? The size is going to be dominated by the UMD and screen size. The single IC is insignificant, as is the MG/MemoryStick [which is 2"x0.8"x0.07"].

The screen will be roughly 4" by 2" and the UMD is ~2.25".

So enormous indeed.

 

[jvd]

I dunno, GC's entire system is five chips plus the disc drive...

CPU, LSI (Flipper contains sound and I/O), two 1T-SRAMs which could be condensed into one, and a DRAM.

Enough yackety-yak. PSP is one 90nm IC, including RAM. End of story.

Vince do u know what your talking about ?


PSP CPU Core:
- MIPS R4000 32-Bit Core
- 128 Bit Bus
- 1~333 MHz @ 1.2V
- 8 MB Hauptspeicher (eDRAM)
- Bus Bandwidth: 2,6 GB/sec
- I-Cache / D-Cache
- FPU, VFPU (Vector Unit): @ 2,6 GFlops
- 3D-CG Extended Instructions

PSP Media Engine:
- MIPS R4000 32-Bit Core
- 128 Bit Bus
- 1~333 MHz @ 1.2V
- Sub Memory: 2MB (eDRAM) @ 2,5 GB/sec
- I-Cache / D-Cache
- 90nm Cmos

PSP Sound Core:
- Reconfigurable DSPs
- 128 Bit Bus
- 166 MHz @ 1.2V
- 5 Giga Operations/Sek.
- CODEC
- 3D Sound, Multi-Channel
- Synthesizer, Effecter, ...

Kommunikatin:
- Wireless LAN 802.11 (Hot Spots, Home Server, usw.)
- IrDA (PSP, Handy, usw.)
- USB 2.0 (PSP, PS2, PC, usw.)

(Specs from GA Forum / Funky Papa / Source: GF)


Thats a cpu , a gpu and a sound chip . Thats 3 chips . Each one on .09nm. Then i'm supecting the wireless lan , usb irda and what not to be another chip or mabye included in the sound chip. So thats 4 chips . Not so much diffrent than the 5 chips in the cube.


But then again they can drop the cube chips to .09nm and add more on die ram to both chips and cut that number down to 4 chips . Not so diffrent .



Teasy . Ibm has already been designing the power pc chips for low power and heat . They want to move them into the portable section. So most likely they have a version of the gecko that is for moblie purposes. Reduce micron size . It will get even cooler. The flipper. Well I'm sure with a bit of tweaking and some process drops ati can do wonders with it.



I'm sure that it be much cheaper to adapt a current system to portable than it is to create one from the ground up


Thats not to say i wouldn't love nintendo coming out with a portable even mroe powerfull than cube.

 

[Fox5]

I could see a portable gamecube being more powerful....just lock it at normal speeds for gamecube games, and bump flipper up to 200 mhz and maybe gecko up to 600 mhz when needed. Or if they could somehow make it so the gamecube hardware didn't need to work in ratios, they could raise gecko 450 or 500 maybe. Then there's the problem of new games that require the extra speed, but by this time nintendo won't care much about gamecube, and they can just use different packaging, like gameboy color and gameboy advance. Similar hardware with a gamecube compatibility mode would work....I think. Oh yeah, it should also have gameboy support, just put the gameboy player onto a single chip, and integrate it and a cart slot into the player.(I don't think that'd take too much space....)

 

[Phil]

jvd:

Vince do u know what your talking about ?

probably more than you ever will...

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20030729/psp08.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20030729/psp09.jpg



Teasy:

N64 had 64mb carts vs PSX's 700mb CD's, that's an 11 times difference in space

A 512MB cart vs a 1.8gb disc is only a 3.5 times difference.

The first one is a significant difference, the second is not. So no they would not be in a similar position AFAICS.

3.5 difference isn't little when you think about the cost of a mass manufactured UMD opposed to an expensive matrix ROM. Give me evidence that the ROM at 512MB are not significantly more expensive. Also, PSP is aiming at PS2 class graphics in a handheld - I'm sure 1.8 GB will do the hardware (and the developers) fine.