From PC to Next-Gen Consoles: Largest Performance Gap...

[PC-Engine]

SEGA designed the NAOMI 1/2 systems not IMGTEC

Keep grasping...

Lol. Now we're going to have an argument about what "design" means. Here's a clue for you since you seem to be lacking in this department.

CPU : Hitachi SH-4 64-bit RISC CPU (200 MHz 360 MIPS / 1.4 GFLOPS)
Graphic Engine : PowerVR 2 (PVR2DC)
Sound Engine : ARM7 Yamaha AICA 45 MHZ (with internal 32-bit RISC CPU, 64 channel ADPCM)
Main Ram : 32 megs <-- Whoa, wonder if Sega "designed" this?
Main Memory : 32 MByte <-- Or this?
Graphic Memory : 16 MByte <--This? NOPE!
Sound Memory : 8 MByte <--We getting any closer? NOPE!
Media : ROM Board (maximum size of 172MBytes) / GD-Rom <-- Ok, maybe this.

Looks like they were all off-the-shelf parts.

Go ahead and list the parts of a GCN...

You're hopeless...

 

[jvd]

WHich would easily be on par with a ps2.

Where did PS2's VU - the most distinguishing point in its architecture - go?

what are you talking about ?


a naomi 2 would have been capable of 10 million polygons with 4 lights (was it more ?) sustained. it would have also had a 200mega pixel fillrate .all the way up to 2000mega pixel fillrate.

It would have also been able to do fsaa , bump maping , volumetric effects and a host of other things.

Would, would, would...

In reality, all that was in the arcades and no one can tell what kind of machine they could have actually produced for the home market, with DVD and all.

Also, I agree with Phil post, which is just way more competent than saying "If Sega launched DC in 2000 they would have put 128 MB RAM". There are way more factors than available technology when marketing a new console.

actually dude the naomi 2 was cable of it. I was using would as in discribing if it ws made into a dreamcast 2.

If sega launched the dc in 1999 they could have put in a 128mbs or ram. How much do u think pc100 ram was back then.




As for the rest of you before continuing this pissing contest ( i know nocking sony upsets you) you should read what this was all in reply too.

A person stated that the ps2 would have been more powerfull than an xbox if it had more ram.

I then said a dreamcast launched a year later costing the same as a ps2 would have been just as fast if not faster than a ps2 and would be a home version of a naomi 2 . Which actually existed unlike a ps2 with more ram.

 

[jvd]

SEGA designed the NAOMI 1/2 systems not IMGTEC

Keep grasping...

Lol. Now we're going to have an argument about what "design" means. Here's a clue for you since you seem to be lacking in this department.

CPU : Hitachi SH-4 64-bit RISC CPU (200 MHz 360 MIPS / 1.4 GFLOPS)
Graphic Engine : PowerVR 2 (PVR2DC)
Sound Engine : ARM7 Yamaha AICA 45 MHZ (with internal 32-bit RISC CPU, 64 channel ADPCM)
Main Ram : 32 megs <-- Whoa, wonder if Sega "designed" this?
Main Memory : 32 MByte <-- Or this?
Graphic Memory : 16 MByte <--This? NOPE!
Sound Memory : 8 MByte <--We getting any closer? NOPE!
Media : ROM Board (maximum size of 172MBytes) / GD-Rom <-- Ok, maybe this.

Looks like they were all off-the-shelf parts.

Go ahead and list the parts of a GCN...

You're hopeless...

I actually want to see a where i can get a powervr dc chip. The closest thing to it is a neon 250 which came out later than the dreamcast. So obviously it wasn't off the shelt. The modified sh4 was also not off the shelf. The gd rom wasn't either.

 

[DeanoC]

Deano, I thought that the SH-4 FPU had two modes: scalar FPU and Vector Engine (so it would have SIMD FLOPS) which we can see in normal FMAC instructions and specialized dot products and the like.

My memory may be going but IIRC its not a SIMD engine. Not the usual set of 2/4 way adds and multiples.

 

[DeanoC]

                Integer        Float       Integer SIMD      Float SIMD     Address bits
GC        :     32             64          0(1)              64             32/52(2)

1) Gekko has integer SIMD 'like' instructions for 'string' operations (store/load string), but x86 had that since 8bit days and noone classified it as SIMD so.
2) 32 Physical/52 Virtual

And because I like to nitpick , I will mention that EE has (very)limited 128bit number integer arithmetic too. Question, shouldn't bitness chart include memory bus width too though?

Thanks Faf,

Lets add your entry and add some physical/virtual stuff + add some bus widths. Might needs some help on the bus widths though.

              Integer   Float   Integer SIMD   Float SIMD     Address bits  Bus Width
XBOX    :     32      80       64                  128             32       128
XBOXVS :      0       0        0                   128             8        ??
PS2EE    :    64       32      128                 0 [1]          32        128
PS2VU0  :     16       0        0                  128             16        ??
PS2VU1  :     16      32[2]     0                  128             16        ??
GC       :     32      64      0                   64            32/52       128
Apple G5 :     64     64[3]   128                 128            42/64      128
Pentium4 :     32      80      128                 128             36/32     64
AMD64    :      64     80      128                 128             40/64    64/128
GBARM   :      32       0       0                   0               32       32
SH4DC   :      32      32[4]   64                   0               32       64
Notes:
[1] PS2EE can use VU0 for float SIMD
[2] VU1 doesn't have scalar float caps but the EFU provides some scalar float functionality.
[3] G5 have a fused multiple add with 100+ bits effective precision
[4] DC has extended float scalar ops (approx sin/cos and dot product)

 

[Crazyace]

1 year on..

I thought about things a bit - and I think that if Sega had been a year later to market the specs of the DC wouldnt really have changed that much.. They might have upped the clock speeds to 250 for the SH4 and 125 for the PowerVR chip, with faster memory to match, and they would certainly have gone for 16MB Vram rather than 8MB. After all the DC was a console design, so cost of goods would have been very important.
The SH4 had special support for dot product and matrix multiply, as well as fast reciprical sqroot - so it wasnt the bottleneck, and adding an extra chip with its own DRAM pool just for t&l would have been excessive for a console.
However even if a T&L chip would have been present it may not have been enough to win the hype war.. and there would have been no guarantee that the initial software would have fared any better ( VF3 was OK, although slated as a poor conversion, but Godzilla and Seventh Cross would never have been 3D showcases... )
Also GT3 was ( and still is ) a showcase product - outshining the best racers on Xbox in some ways.
In the US I would have expected PS2 to launch with Madden et al, but Namco to concentrate on Tekken over Soul Calibre . The impact of NFL2k would have been a lot less if PS2 madden had launched at the same time.

 

[Crazyace]

My tuppence worth..

              Integer   Float   Integer SIMD   Float SIMD     Address bits  Bus Width
XBOX    :     32      80       64                  128             32       128
XBOXVS :      0       0        0                   128             8        ??
PS2EE    :    64       32      128                 0 [1]          32        128
PS2VU0  :     16       0        0                  128             16        128
PS2VU1  :     16      32[2]     0                  128             16        128
GC       :     32      64      0                   64            32/52       128
Apple G5 :     64     64[3]   128                 128            42/64      128
Pentium4 :     32      80      128                 128             36/32     64
AMD64    :      64     80      128                 128             40/64    64/128
GBARM   :      32       0       0                   0               32       32
SH4DC   :      32      32/64/128[4]   0[5]                   0               32       64
Notes:
[1] PS2EE can use VU0 for float SIMD
[2] VU1 doesn't have scalar float caps but the EFU provides some scalar float functionality.
[3] G5 have a fused multiple add with 100+ bits effective precision
[4] 32 float .. 64 double ... 128 dot product/matrixmultiply only ( not really  SIMD.. just wide)
[5] Not seen any integer SIMD stuff on SH4 - apart from overloading load/store double for 2 floats at a time.

 

[Ty]

Go ahead and list the parts of a GCN...

You're hopeless...

Why? Did Sega "design" that too?

 

[jvd]

Go ahead and list the parts of a GCN...

You're hopeless...

Why? Did Sega "design" that too?

well sony didn't design the playstation 2 . So i guess sony doesn't design consoles either.

 

[jvd]

thought about things a bit - and I think that if Sega had been a year later to market the specs of the DC wouldnt really have changed that much

at the same price point i twouldn't have changed much. Your right.

Only diffrence was they would prob have been able to ship with slightly higher clock speeds at a cheaper launch price.


Now if they launched a year later witha 450$ price point like sony things would be diffrent.

dual powervr dc with a elan tnl chp and a sh4 would have done wonders.

They would have been able to claim a higher max fillrate than the ps2 and they would have been able to claim 10 million polygons with 6 lights sustained which is a feat the ps2 can't do (irc)

So the dc99 style would have been supior to the ps2 in many ways and lacking in few.

It doesn't eally matter as any of this happened.

But that is not hte point.

The point is not only sony could have changed the specs of the machine to make it better .

 

[archie4oz]

well sony didn't design the playstation 2 . So i guess sony doesn't design consoles either.

Haha! Oh really, then who did?

The modified sh4 was also not off the shelf. The gd rom wasn't either.

The SH-7091 is pretty typical of the off-the-shelf SH-4 (at least CPU core-wise) although most SH-4's tend to have more peripheral components hung off of them... And GD-ROM is just a CD-ROM burned with higher pit frequency (you can hack a CD-ROM drive firmware to read GD-ROM's natively)...

Only diffrence was they would prob have been able to ship with slightly higher clock speeds at a cheaper launch price.

Faster SH-4's didn't come out 'till much later...

Now if they launched a year later witha 450$ price point like sony things would be diffrent.

dual powervr dc with a elan tnl chp and a sh4 would have done wonders.

Yeah, I wonder what it would've done to SEGA's bottom line...

 

[Lazy8s]

If the DC hardware partners had been contracted to design parts of a console for release in March 2000 instead, Hitachi, like their spinoff Renesas has, would've been given the task of extending the SH-4 further than was done with the SIMD component, and an Imagination Technologies graphics part would've reflected their further advanced state of generational technology development. Also, SDRAM would've become extremely affordable.

 

[jvd]

Haha! Oh really, then who did?

rambus. They did the ram after all . So thereforce sony didn't design the ps2 (if you haven't noticed i'm using the logic that others are using to say sega didn't design the dreamcast)

The SH-7091 is pretty typical of the off-the-shelf SH-4 (at least

the sh-4 was modified for sega to have a higher flops rating and a higher sustianed performance lvl. IT was not off the shelf . Though it may have been used in other devices after the dreamcast.

GD-ROM is just a CD-ROM burned with higher pit frequency

yet u still can't go buy a gd-rom. Meanwhile the ps2 used a dvd player which was off the shelf .

Faster SH-4's didn't come out 'till much later...

That doesn't mean that yields wouldn't have improved in the year so that tyhey could release a faster sh4.

HOw much faster is anyones guess.

Yeah, I wonder what it would've done to SEGA's bottom line...

who knows. But thats not what was being discused .

 

[Lazy8s]

archie4oz:

Haha! Oh really, then who did?

It was just a distinction between the system designs of consoles versus the designs of their parts and IP.

 

[jvd]

archie4oz:

Haha! Oh really, then who did?

It was just a distinction between the system designs of consoles versus the designs of their parts and IP.

'
thank oyu lazy8s

 

[OryoN]

Lol, you mods operate at lightspeed around here, don't you?

 

[Ty]

rambus. They did the ram after all . So thereforce sony didn't design the ps2 (if you haven't noticed i'm using the logic that others are using to say sega didn't design the dreamcast)

Break apart the components down to the chip level and tell me that Sony didn't design the EE or GS. Now play that same trick with Sega and NAOMI. When talking about technological capability it's a joke to say that Sega designed the CLX or Elan or SH4. Folks are robbing ImgTech of the work they did. Now if you're talking about the financial capability of Sega that's a different story but PC-Engine is firing only 2 or 3 of his cylinders to give Sega technological credit for DC/NAOMI.

 

[archie4oz]

If the DC hardware partners had been contracted to design parts of a console for release in March 2000 instead, Hitachi, like their spinoff Renesas has, would've been given the task of extending the SH-4 further than was done with the SIMD component

First of all, what SIMD component? Secondly, do you think Hitachi/Renesas just sat on their arse after the DC? The SH-4 has always been constantly developed and extended since the DC (and they've gone on to the SH-5 as well) so what you see now is pretty much what SEGA would've had to work with in their respective timeline...

the sh-4 was modified for sega to have a higher flops rating and a higher sustianed performance lvl. IT was not off the shelf . Though it may have been used in other devices after the dreamcast.

Can you name an SH-4 developed before the DC? And can you name an SH-4 (with an FPU) that doesn't have the "undocumented" sin/cos approximations, or frsqrte stuff?

yet u still can't go buy a gd-rom

Yes you can... It's called a 6X CD-ROM drive...

That doesn't mean that yields wouldn't have improved in the year so that tyhey could release a faster sh4.

They have... In 2002... And got up to 400Mhz in the newer 7780s this year...

who knows. But thats not what was being discused .

Well with regards to a NAOMI 2 based home unit it is... Or at least it's intrinsic to the discussion of it.

 

[jvd]

rambus. They did the ram after all . So thereforce sony didn't design the ps2 (if you haven't noticed i'm using the logic that others are using to say sega didn't design the dreamcast)

Break apart the components down to the chip level and tell me that Sony didn't design the EE or GS. Now play that same trick with Sega and NAOMI. When talking about technological capability it's a joke to say that Sega designed the CLX or Elan or SH4. Folks are robbing ImgTech of the work they did. Now if you're talking about the financial capability of Sega that's a different story but PC-Engine is firing only 2 or 3 of his cylinders to give Sega technological credit for DC/NAOMI.

I don't need to.

Main Ram : 32 megs <-- Whoa, wonder if Sega "designed" this?
Main Memory : 32 MByte <-- Or this?
Graphic Memory : 16 MByte <--This? NOPE!
Sound Memory : 8 MByte <--We getting any closer? NOPE!

remember when u said that about 10 posts again.

Why suddenly do the rules change ? When you found out you were wrong ?

Sega designed the dreamcast. They may have not designed the chips inside it. But they designed the dreamcast. Sony designed the ps2. They may have not designed all the chips inside. But they designed the ps2.

What you are trying to get at is wrong and bs .

Now please stop acting childish and changing your points on the fly.

Can you name an SH-4 developed before the DC? And can you name an SH-4 (with an FPU) that doesn't have the "undocumented" sin/cos approximations, or frsqrte stuff?

I'd have to go dig up some old articles in the dreamcast mag or at segatech pages (or whatever its called these days )

But the sh-4 was modified for sega .

Much like how the bluegene is being modified into the cell chip for sony .

Yes you can... It's called a 6X CD-ROM drive...

err wrong. You'd have to modify a cd-rom drive in order to play a disc. That isn't off the shelf .

Well with regards to a NAOMI 2 based home unit it is... Or at least it's intrinsic to the discussion of it.

what does a faster sh-4 have to do with a home based naomi 2 ?

Naomi 2

Was a dreamcast with a sh4 , 2 powervr dc chips and a elan tnl chip.

A faster sh-4 has nothing to do with a naomi .


Though at the same price point as the normal dc a year later they would have been able to add in a faster sh-4 (even if it was only 25-50mhz) more ram and a faster powervr dc chip. After all the pc version was a 125 mhz instead of a 100mhz .


Just becasue they didn't push the sh-4 faster doesn't mean they coulnd't have.

hell my uncle has a dishwasher that has a sh-4 in it. Why in gods name would they need a faster cpu in a dishwasher ?

 

[Lazy8s]

archie4oz:

First of all, what SIMD component?

The component of the design on which SEGA was keen to see expanded that used an internal FPU for SIMD capabilities?

The SH-4 has always been constantly developed and extended since the DC (and they've gone on to the SH-5 as well) so what you see now is pretty much what SEGA would've had to work with in their respective timeline...

Right, so the state of their technology was more advanced at the later date.

Can you name an SH-4 developed before the DC?

The design was customized largely to SEGA's specification.

Well with regards to a NAOMI 2 based home unit it is... Or at least it's intrinsic to the discussion of it.

The talent of PowerVR's engineers is not contingent upon the commitment of their licensees.