Full Xbox 360 specs. Oh...my.....God!!!

[DemoCoder]

Sorry if I contributed to the off-topicness but perhaps discussions about console controllers can be done in another forum. Actually, I'm not even sure if this thread belongs in this forum!

2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing

My bolds. Would be interesting to see what we'd be getting (software and hardware-wise). Wonder how useful AA would be on a TV.

Would be VERY useful. I have an handful of X-box games that run at 720p on my HDTV and the aliasing is very noticable. Don't even me started about the "PlaySparkle 2" system.

 

[Reverend]

Well, I ask that because consoles are that much different from the PC (duh!).

AA is still pretty much a forgettable feature for PC developers. Enabling "support" for it is easy. "You want AA? Here it is. Don't complain if our game runs crappy if you enable AA though. We just officially support AA.". Or, alternatively, folks just up the rez in PC games, which gives you different framerate results compared to enabling AA at lower rez.

This has never been a problem on the consoles, partly because you can't increase the rez. Which makes things easier -- and straightforward -- for developers. They know the target framerate for all owners of their games. They don't need to consider "sophisticated" gamers that know when to disable AA in console games if framerates are affected negatively. They know how much shader effects they can do in any one particular scene, without "worrying" about AA having a negative impact.

Perhaps I still look at consoles in a much lighter way than I do the PC. When I'm playing a console game, I rarely ever feel the need to complain about aliasing. It is totally different when I play a PC game. I wonder if there are others that approach the two platforms the same way as I do...

 

[V3]

Yummy - why buy an X900 or G70?

Because I don't like consoles and need a keyboard+mouse for gaming?

For PS2, certain FPS games you can plugin standard USB keyboard+mouse and play it like on PC.

And AFAIK Microsoft try to distant itself from PC, so it never offer keyboard+mouse for Xbox, though technically I doubt its impossible.

 

[Xmas]

I am not inclined to believe that all 48 ALUs on the X-Box are completely general purpose and can do any standard ALU op.

Actually, I do believe all ALUs are "general purpose", meaning each is MAD/DOT4 (with 3:1 split). I don't know how they handle the "special functions" rcp/rsq/sin/cos/exp/pow though, maybe there are only half the number of SFUs.

 

[JD]

There is a need for both console and PC games and that's how it's going to remain for near future. Maybe forever. WoW game has lots of PC users for sure and GTA3:SA has lots of console users as well. Can we all just get along

 

[Ostsol]

If consoles and more console games would have official support for a keyboard and mouse, I'd gladly make the switch to console for my gaming needs. A public SDK would also be great.

 

[OpenGL guy]

Well, I ask that because consoles are that much different from the PC (duh!).

AA is still pretty much a forgettable feature for PC developers. Enabling "support" for it is easy. "You want AA? Here it is. Don't complain if our game runs crappy if you enable AA though. We just officially support AA.". Or, alternatively, folks just up the rez in PC games, which gives you different framerate results compared to enabling AA at lower rez.

There are many games that play just fine with AA enabled, I don't see your point. In fact, I'd say that there are many more PC games than can be played with AA than console games that support AA.

This has never been a problem on the consoles, partly because you can't increase the rez. Which makes things easier -- and straightforward -- for developers. They know the target framerate for all owners of their games. They don't need to consider "sophisticated" gamers that know when to disable AA in console games if framerates are affected negatively. They know how much shader effects they can do in any one particular scene, without "worrying" about AA having a negative impact.

Perhaps I still look at consoles in a much lighter way than I do the PC. When I'm playing a console game, I rarely ever feel the need to complain about aliasing. It is totally different when I play a PC game. I wonder if there are others that approach the two platforms the same way as I do...

Most console games don't use AA, so I don't see your point here. One benefit consoles have is that TVs have some built-in "antialiasing", at least until you get to digital TV. Computers are naturally digital so you're going to notice aliasing much more.

I've seen several popular games on consoles that had so much aliasing, I wondered how people could stand it... and this was at GDC in the console vendor's booth! On your PC, you at least have the option of enabling AA or changing the resolution as needed... good luck with that on your console.

Anyway, PC titles often default to 640x480 or 800x600 resolution, where performance is not normally a problem for any card (although it may look bad on a flat panel display). That's already at least as good as most console games.

 

[thomase]

Regarding console controllers, why is it that we have yet to see a pointing device integrated on the standard controller? Replace one of the two joysticks with a small trackball that can operated with the thumb, or place the trackball somwhere else on the pad, or make a swapable module where you can plug in either a thumb-operated trackball or a joystick. At the bit level, the interface is the same - ie. the joystick/trackball position translates to x,y coordinates. The difference is that the joystick has a grip sticking out of it and springs back to the center position when released. I know its not exactly the same as a mouse, but the key issue here is the need for a pointing device. I'm sure I could get use to playing a console FPS or RTS with such a controller.

Although, maybe there is a higher risk of repetitive stress injury with such a device compared to a mouse.

Any thoughts?

 

[Megadrive1988]

Those specs are indeed unbelievable, considering how much it would cost to build a similar spec'ed PC. What is the estimate of MSRP?

consoles are not built on the same economics of scale that PCs and PC components are.

the Xbox1 should've cost 2-3 times as much as it did, going by PC prices.

 

[Ailuros]

There are many games that play just fine with AA enabled, I don't see your point. In fact, I'd say that there are many more PC games than can be played with AA than console games that support AA.

If he should mean that way too many developers still consider anti-aliasing as a luxury item, he has actually a point. In other words games aren't optimized with AA in mind performance-wise and there are way too many spots where you'd need a high sample supersampling density to get rid of the dancing meanders across the screen. For today's standards where the fill-rate impact even on low-end accelerators for 2xMSAA is relatively small, it's fairly unexcusable.

 

[V3]

Regarding console controllers, why is it that we have yet to see a pointing device integrated on the standard controller? Replace one of the two joysticks with a small trackball that can operated with the thumb, or place the trackball somwhere else on the pad, or make a swapable module where you can plug in either a thumb-operated trackball or a joystick. At the bit level, the interface is the same - ie. the joystick/trackball position translates to x,y coordinates. The difference is that the joystick has a grip sticking out of it and springs back to the center position when released. I know its not exactly the same as a mouse, but the key issue here is the need for a pointing device. I'm sure I could get use to playing a console FPS or RTS with such a controller.

I think there was that Bandai/Apple consoles called Pippin, that had a trackball on the controller.

Even without mouse+keyboard, FPS have started to really take off on consoles this generation. And next generation, probably going to be MMORPG. So I think the current joypad are fine.

Although, maybe there is a higher risk of repetitive stress injury with such a device compared to a mouse.

Any thoughts?

That too, I rarely use mouse anymore cause I just find them uncomfortable. I substitue it with tablet and touch screen, I find them more natural and better solution compare to mouse.

 

[DemoCoder]

I've seen several popular games on consoles that had so much aliasing, I wondered how people could stand it

Oh brother, you said it. Many PS2 games are almost headache inducing on a HDTV due to aliasing. HDTV doesn't add the NTSC "blur/bleed/noise" filter that you get with regular TV and it is far more noticable.

4xAA or some combo with TAA is definately needed for 720p

 

[MistaPi]

The Hardware:

2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing

I would expect 720p for most of the games and 1080i for a few. 1920x1080 + AA sounds a little high to be used for all games.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

1920x1080 + AA sounds a little high to be used for all games.

For 1020i, wouldn't it be more like 1920x540 ?

 

[Acert93]

The Hardware:

2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing

I would expect 720p for most of the games and 1080i for a few. 1920x1080 + AA sounds a little high to be used for all games.

720 x 1280 = 921,600 pixels
540 (1080i) x 1920 = 1,036,800 pixels

So there is only a 12% difference in total pixels. I would assume there would be more calculations needed for 1080i, but I am not sure you would need a ton more bandwidth for the AA. I could be wrong.

The Xbox 360 has the Enhanced DRAM module as a framebuffer which will be one of the reasons the Xbox 360 can offer a lot of AA. From the sounds of it the framebuffer with have an effective bandwidth of ~250GB/s, so I would not doubt that AA is required for all titles.

Hopefully they give some wiggle room for the future... Nintendo was very set on making developers use the N64s features when in some cases they might have been better off not using them.

 

[MistaPi]

Ok, my bad. It makes more sense then.