Microsoft designed the 360 GPU?
- Thread starter eddman
- Start date
Lol no. AMD/ATI designed the C1/R500/Xenos.
Much of it was based in their earlier and ultimately abandoned R400 PC architecture.
I imagine Microsoft had a hand in defining the features though given how much of the eventual DX10 spec it incorporated.
It's a bit more complicated than that yes they say what features go into the api but they do that concert with gpu makers and game devs who tell ms what they would like to see in future dx versions. Also dont forget direct x isnt the only game in town there is vulkan and nvapi and others.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Just a small correction before diving into a response to the OP, AMD R&D designed the R400 (C1/Xenos/Crayola) for MS.
So, in a way you could kind of say that MS had a hand in creating modern PC GPUs. But that's basically been the case for all PC GPUs ever since D3D was introduced.
The slightly longer story. Since the introdution of D3D, PC GPUs are created via a process involving graphics IHVs and software developers with Microsoft acting like a middle man or project manager.
Microsoft takes input from IHVs on what they are working on. Microsoft takes input from developers on what they'd like to see in a graphics API (D3D). Microsoft goes back to the IHVs and takes input on what they could implement in X timeframe for inclusion in the next version of D3D. Microsoft goes back to software developers with what IHVs think is possible and seeks input, etc...
Both R6xx and G8x didn't come out until 2007, it's likely that developer exposure to a unified architecture on X360 (2005) drove developer demand for a unified architecture on PC which then initiated both AMD and NV to seriously start designing a unified architecture for PC GPUs.
Alternatively, MS were pushing for this in D3D before there was solid developer feedback and that's just how long it took for NV to come up to speed with a unified architecture as AMD basically already had one.
That said, PC GPUs are much more than just a unified shader architecture. So while MS certainly has input, that input is generally formed by input from IHVs and software developers who lay the groundwork for respectively, what's possible (IHV) and what is desirable (software devs).
Regards,
SB
US were coming anyway. nVidia had theirs in development before 360 released and released it commercially a year later, before 360 could prove the value of US. If 360/Xenos never happened, we'd still be on US from somewhere first because it's a more efficient solution. We'd also have still ended up with compute.
I'm not sure what DX's role even is for US. At that point it was still separate vertex shaders and pixel shaders in HLSL code (still is) and the GPU just handled them on its end.
I'd say the design for 360 was forward thinking, but it didn't define the industry and probably didn't influence it either. PC's needed their own solutions and a console-like design based on 360 wouldn't have worked.
Whatever the source was, BTW, it's a highly skewed perspective. I presume from a XBox fan site!
I'm not sure what DX's role even is for US. At that point it was still separate vertex shaders and pixel shaders in HLSL code (still is) and the GPU just handled them on its end.
I'd say the design for 360 was forward thinking, but it didn't define the industry and probably didn't influence it either. PC's needed their own solutions and a console-like design based on 360 wouldn't have worked.
Whatever the source was, BTW, it's a highly skewed perspective. I presume from a XBox fan site!
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Yea, I had read that sometimes it's the other way around, where GPU manufacturers ask MS to add features they want to an upcoming Direct3D.
That claim was posted on neowin in the comments section. It makes it look as if MS is the one that designs the chip architecture, which just sounded like nonsense to me.
EDIT:
IINM they do have chip engineers, but they've only done work on some minor co-processors, controllers, etc. for surface devices and alike.
That claim was posted on neowin in the comments section. It makes it look as if MS is the one that designs the chip architecture, which just sounded like nonsense to me.
EDIT:
IINM they do have chip engineers, but they've only done work on some minor co-processors, controllers, etc. for surface devices and alike.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
Gah, I thought it was the R500, but when I looked it up the only source I easily ran across was Wikipedia which stated it was R400.
Bleh. Apologies to @pjbliverpool. Always have to question whether Wikipedia is correct or not.I'd completely forgotten that Dave had done an article here on it.
Regards,
SB
that's one of my favourite articles on Beyond3D. I think Xenos was probably the best console exclusive GPU chip to date (taking into account that modern console GPUs from PS4 era on are just PC GPUs with unified memory). It worked really well. I remember that ATi graphics cards at the time couldn't combine AA + HDR -iirc?, or was it AA + AF at the same time?, excuse me if I am wrong- but Xenos was very efficient and was a super strong GPU against theoretically more powerful machines like the PS3.
360 like the Gamecube was incredibly well optimized around a specific target resolution. Multithreading and HD woes aside, the 360 was an absolutely fantastic console for what it could do relative to cost and transistor count in 2005. Just took a while for devs to grasp it, but by end of life, it's pretty impressive what was being done with the hardware spec. Crazy impressive.
As for unified shader hardware, I think Xenos was the inflection point of transistor count, processing power, and efficiency crossing to make unified shader worthwhile. Might be why ATi abandoned R400 as unified shading comes with a big increase in transistor count, and I doubt R400 was powerful/efficient enough to be worth the die area. Not totally sure on accuracy (using Google), but Xenos + Daughter die is 337 million transistors, while the R580 in the X1900 series is 384 million and easily twice as powerful on paper. I wonder if the Xenos even contains any media engines like the X1900 I'm sure does.
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davis.anthony
Veteran
It was the 7000 series and below of Nvidia GPU's that couldn't do AA+HDR at the same time.
It was later corrected with the 8800 series from Nvidia.
PS3 used nAo32 HDR hack iirc, which used Integer rather than FP for HDR.
The performance hit from enabling HDR when it first came out was just as large, if not larger than the performance hit from enabling ray tracing.
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