Ipod/NDS/PSP and soon "Xboy"?

[Shifty Geezer]

I'd have thought keeping arrays and reducing size of arrays is preferential. With only one Shader Array, you're either 100% PS or 100% VS at any given moment. With 3 smaller arrays you can balance throughput better. I don't know what the overhead in management logic would be though. Would 1 array of 12 ALUs be smaller and cheaper and more/less effective than 3 arrays of 4 ALUs?

 

[Dave Baumann]

There are reasons why the shader arrays are the size they are; altering that size has ramifications elsewhere. Even operating over a single array many ops can be hidden - i.e. vertex ops can quite easily be scheduled while a pixel op is waiting on texture data etc.

 

[nelg]

A couple of quick questions.

1. Would this be the time and chip to combine the main die and daughter die on to one?

2. If ATI is doing work for this wouldn't it have had to have been mentioned to shareholders wrt to contracts? Or could this work have been included under the original contract with MS?

 

[Shogmaster]

What I'd like to see in a XBoy:



Basically, you sell two seperate units (just like X360): The core unit, and the HDD add on. The core "game" unit is $120 for best market penetration, and is your familar gameboy Advance SP set up with better screen, wifi and alot more power (3.4" 320x240 TFT, 200MHz ARM9 CPU + MBX with VGP or something with similar capabilities, 16MB of RAM). I did incorporate a dual analog nub set up in my design so that 3D shooters will actually be workable in controls. It has both a game card slot and a SD slot for music and video playback as well as game saves.

The $240 40GB HDD add on basically turns the whole thing into a iPod beating MP3/PMP. Now, $240 for a 40GB HDD add-on might sound too expensive, but that includes an extended battery, a wired remote for MP3/PMP functionality, head set, and PC/X360 USB connector/dock kit. The $360 total price for the duo (yeah, har har) is still competitive against $299~$399 iPod video.

Now imagine that with this device, MS also extends the XBLA to mobile territory, allowing for downloadable games via WiFi in the XBoy, or via docking to X360 or PC. This will bring those $5~15 indy dev/retro games to it's most apt medium: a handheld system. Circumventing the brick and mortar distribution, these ideal for handheld games can reach prices that would make purchases more likely and make the consumer feel much less ripped off (a great example is Bust A Move on PSP, which was approximately 16MB in total size but was shipped on a 1.8GB medium and was going for 50 freaking bucks!).

 

[mckmas8808]

Sounds nice, but only 16 MB of RAM? Why so little? Why not 64?

 

[Lazy8s]

The choice of SoC probably doesn't effect a handheld's price nearly as much as its screen or battery, so a device with a selling point like gaming where performance is important could probably afford to include an ARM11 or good SH-4 based chip without becoming too costly. They'd match up better with the MBX for performance whereas an ARM9 could be served well by an MBX Lite.

By the time Microsoft would launch a handheld, they'd probably find an affordable graphics solution in the generation with ATi's upcoming "Xenos-like" core, SGX510/520/530, Mali 200, G40, etc. now.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'd expect at least 32 MB RAM, assuming a 2007 release. Maybe 256/512 MB Flash RAM built in for buffering stuff and downloadable content, seeing as a portable optical drive is unlikely. A flash card reader might be enough but you'd want space for buffering too I think.

 

[Shogmaster]

Sounds nice, but only 16 MB of RAM? Why so little? Why not 64?

Trying to keep the core unit to $120. More is always better, but honestly, I think 16MB of RAM would be good enough for this kind of device. It's not gonna be a PSP killer in graphics, but will get you within 66% of it I'd reckon.

Besides, it will not be using optical media so probably the game roms will be 128MB at the most. If you have 32 or 64MB of RAM with that amount of ROM, that's a waste of RAM IMO (I could be way off obcourse).

The thing I'd like to emphesize here is that this is a mass market priced gaming device with a multimedia add on that is purely optional. I think a huge part of DS's success over the PSP is the cheaper price. By late 2006/early 2007, I think a device with the spces listed above will be able to hit $120 price point. That's a pricepoint that will make casual purchase much more likely.

 

[mckmas8808]

To Shifty and Shog if that's the case then why are people talking about MS might be putting a "mini ATI Xenos" into this Xboy? Do you two guys think a mini-Xenos is a waste as well?

 

[Shogmaster]

To Shifty and Shog if that's the case then why are people talking about MS might be putting a "mini ATI Xenos" into this Xboy? Do you two guys think a mini-Xenos is a waste as well?

I personally don't put much into this "mini Xenos" business. I don't even freakin know what a "mini Xenos" might be in that small of form factor to be honest... I mean I fully expect an ATi part coming out soon that will compete with your MBXs and GoForce 3D 4500s and what not, but how does that part relate to the Xenos? Unified Shaders? Enhenced DRAM on or off die? Just a marketing name?

My vision for the XBoy can be made real with whatever vender's 3D core, so as long as we get at least BMX capabilities, I'm all game. But I really doubt that there is some "mini Xenos" coming out for such a device from ATi. It's probably their mobile part planned in parallel timeframe with Xenos (I've talked with ATi reps at trade shows for the last few years about such MBX like competitor they've been working on).

 

[Lazy8s]

ATi's MBX competitor is their Imageon 2300 series which has been out for a long time, is already powering LG's SV360 cellphone, and just added two new processors to its line-up, the 2380 and 2388. Their next generation handheld processors will most certainly be closer to Xenos in shader model functionality as ATi's already mentioned their OpenGL ES 2.x technology and will probably also adopt some of Xenos's architectural features as speculated, too.

When it first released in 2004, an MBX Lite chip only cost $17 from Intel under normal pricing, so Microsoft would likely be able to budget a new generation graphics processor, or at least a strong current generation one, into the bill of materials for a low priced handheld system they were designing.

 

[Shogmaster]

ATi's MBX competitor is their Imageon 2300 series which has been out for a long time, is already powering LG's SV360 cellphone, and just added two new processors to its line-up, the 2380 and 2388. Their next generation handheld processors will most certainly be closer to Xenos in shader model functionality as ATi's already mentioned their OpenGL ES 2.x technology and will probably also adopt some of Xenos's architectural features as speculated, too.

When it first released in 2004, an MBX Lite chip only cost $17 from Intel under normal pricing, so Microsoft would likely be able to budget a new generation graphics processor, or at least a strong current generation one, into the bill of materials for a low priced handheld system they were designing.

Well I checked out that LG with Imageon 2300 at this year's CES closely, and it just did not compete with 2700G/MBX in the Dell X50v in 3D rendering quality. It could have been the quality of the software to some degree, but I thought it was hardware capability difference.

This new 2380/2388 seems much much more capable than the 2300 in the LG phone, at least going by the screenshots and the videos of the demos. The biggest difference to me is the rendering quality. The 3D games on 2300 looked more PSOne than Dreamcast in IQ. 2380/2388 seems to even out do MBX and DC in IQ from those PR shots (which I realise is afterall, PR, and not to be taken at face value).

 

[Urian]

Microsoft talked about the expansion of the cell phones market. perhaps the Microsoft portable console doesn´t exist but the microsoft portable plataform exist and will be licensed.

 

[Lazy8s]

They'd have to convince a great portion of the second tier phone manufacturers to adopt their platform considering Nokia is the largest manufacturer by far and are already going with N-Gage.

 

[GwymWeepa]

Sorry was casually looking the thread over and noticed the term "mini-xenos". So ATI is working on lower power parts based on the Xenos architecture? Could something like this be used in the Revolution?

How about the next Gameboy? Ati is still partners with Nintendo. I think it would be hilarious if a Xenos like architecture winds up in one of its products.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I personally don't put much into this "mini Xenos" business. I don't even freakin know what a "mini Xenos" might be in that small of form factor to be honest... I mean I fully expect an ATi part coming out soon that will compete with your MBXs and GoForce 3D 4500s and what not, but how does that part relate to the Xenos? Unified Shaders? Enhenced DRAM on or off die? Just a marketing name?

Along with the previously link post, it also relates to this in th same thread - read the entire thread. Also note that the last CC Orton stated they were working with embedded RAM for mobiles.

 

[Hardknock]

Being used in the Next Gameboy sounds like the most likely scenario to me.

 

[Shogmaster]

Along with the previously link post, it also relates to this in th same thread - read the entire thread. Also note that the last CC Orton stated they were working with embedded RAM for mobiles.

Very intesting thread! And embedded RAM for mobiles sounds cool, as long as it does not drive up power requirements like PSP.

I really doubt next Gameboy will be using off the shelf tech though. With so much stuff to BC with, I think Nintendo will go with yet another proprietary graphics part.

 

[Hardknock]

Very intesting thread! And embedded RAM for mobiles sounds cool, as long as it does not drive up power requirements like PSP.

I really doubt next Gameboy will be using off the shelf tech though. With so much stuff to BC with, I think Nintendo will go with yet another proprietary graphics part.

Nintendo has never went with a proprietary part for their gameboys and portables. To my understanding they only use Arm processors and the like.

 

[Shogmaster]

Nintendo has never went with a proprietary part for their gameboys and portables. To my understanding they only use Arm processors and the like.

For the CPUs, sure, but I thought for instance the graphics part for the DS is quite proprietary, as was the one for GBA.