Microsoft leaks details on Xbox Next

[V3]

With 6 PPC cores, it should actually be feasible too, with power to spare even.

So what's the deal here ?

Each core is capable of processing two threads, thus meaning the whole system can process six threads simultaneously.

That TeamXbox article suggest 3 cores, since they're confirming the Mercury article, I assume the spec that is in circulation among dev is 3 cores PPC chip and not 3 dual cores PPC chip.

 

[Deadmeat]

...

If PS3 ends up coming later, and having say 2X more memory and 2X more powerful CPU/GPU hardware (basically the situation with PS2/Xbox with now)it will be without doubt possible to see the difference

Really??? But what if PSX3 was so hard to code for that first-gen games ran at 10% efficiency, while Xbox Next games start at 50% efficiency right away due to its forgiving nature and developer familiarity???

Hell, PSX2 has been on the market for 4 years and developers are getting like what, a 50% efficiency according to SCEE???

Just think about it, why would existing tens of millions of long time Playstation owners switch to a hardware that is not going to be as powerful

This arguement has been used in the past too many times. In the end, marketting, pricing and software availability matters more than systems performance.

PSP maybe more advanced than GBA, yet GBA won't have trouble outselling it at least 10:1. Think about that.

will not have many games they're interested in playing anyways, as all the important devs in the industry will be saving their breath for the launch of the 'true king'?

Most multi-platform titles are coming out for Xbox anyway, MS won't have a trouble securing enough titles for Xbox Next.

I just had to demonstrate what a LOAD OF BUNK THAT WAS <<---Linkee! Clickee! (edit)

And exactly what does that prove??? Both SSE and Vertex Shader does the same thing; Intel threw in SSE to accelerate T&L from the CPU side before the arrival of GPU side T&L, which is faster and works more efficiently anyway.

 

[Deadmeat]

...

That TeamXbox article suggest 3 cores, since they're confirming the Mercury article, I assume the spec that is in circulation among dev is 3 cores PPC chip and not 3 dual cores PPC chip.

3 cores is a pretty strange numbers to fit into a chip simply because of the antisymmetric chip layout.

I guess the writer must have seen some document mentioning CPU3 and guessed that it meant having 3 CPUs, when in reality there are four logical CPUs from CPU0 to CPU3.

 

[Deadmeat]

..

PS. My reasoning against Altivec in Xbox Next

1. IBM never used Altivec internally. None of IBM designed Powers and PPCs contain Altivec. The sole exception is "designed for Apple" PPC970 series.

2. Gecko doesn't contain a vector processor.

3. Altivec implementation raises cost, which MS is trying to kill by all means.

4. MS has nothing to gain from Altivec. Vertex Shader has displaced the usefulness of Altivec for T&L. Physics calculation is not dot product intensive.

 

[V3]

3 cores is a pretty strange numbers to fit into a chip simply because of the antisymmetric chip layout.

There isn't alot of chip that has symmetric layout, Actually I don't think I have seen one yet. 3 cores is no strangers than 2 or 4 or 5.

I guess the writer must have seen some document mentioning CPU3 and guessed that it meant having 3 CPUs, when in reality there are four logical CPUs from CPU0 to CPU3.

4 is better than 3 obviously, but its only because its one more than 3. Look I am not going to speculate on someone else claimed that have insider information, I just go as is for the time being until more concrete info or official one comes.

 

[zurich]

the question the world wants to know is, how can Sony be brought down...

Easy. If Square-Enix jump ship again

 

[nondescript]

Re: ..

Physics calculation is not dot product intensive.

*Jaw drops to floor* Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Have you done any scientific computation?

Two examples of where dot-products are ESSENTIAL:

1. Diffusion/heat propagation: for effective modeling of smoke and particle effects.

2. Solving Laplace's equation - any second-order partial differential system will have these. Modeling EM wave propagation, etc.

And there's plenty more - airflow and torque off control surfaces of an airplane, elastic collisions...

And AI? (I know you didn't say AI, but I'll mention it anyways). If the game uses any form of adaptive weighted decision network (neural networks, or other learning systems), the ENTIRE PREMISE of the AI is based on dot products.

[EDIT: Actually, it doesn't even have to be adaptive - any weighted decision network requires lots of dot products.]

 

[V3]

Easy. If Square-Enix jump ship again

Nah, they're too heavy to move, if they did though they might actually sink the ship that they jump to.

 

[Vince]

What Zurich's trying to say is, THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY IC:S.

Well, perhaps. But he did refer to the "necessary guts" being put into the XBox2, did he not?

MS would emulate the box1 components using software licensed from NV. You'd hardly expect NV to be able to exact license money from MS for the IBM CPU that could theoretically run NV ip code using emulation now would you?

Of course not, because there's less than a snowball's chance in hell of a PPC emulating the hardwired functionality of a modern rasterizer at anything remotely "real-time."

With 6 PPC cores, it should actually be feasible too, with power to spare even.

I can't disagree more.

 

[cthellis42]

Easy. If Square-Enix jump ship again

They certainly help, but Sony got most-blessed by GTA3 being the right game at the right time for the right crowd. No one loss will bring anyone down.

Excepting, I suppose, if Nintendo jumps their OWN ship!

 

[marconelly!]

Really??? But what if PSX3 was so hard to code for that first-gen games ran at 10% efficiency, while Xbox Next games start at 50% efficiency right away due to its forgiving nature and developer familiarity???

I don't know!!!??? What if a meteor blasts at Sony HQ, kills Kutaragi so there's no PS3 anymore???

This arguement has been used in the past too many times. In the end, marketting, pricing and software availability matters more than systems performance.

Hardware power is a tiny aspect, but one that may play a role in deciding whether one abandons a platform or not - and unless tens of millions of Playstation owners decide to abandon the platform, Microsoft has little chance. Hardware power aside, marketing, games availability, ability to catch and keep the attention of mass market, have all so far been heavily on the Sony's side.

 

[Deadmeat]

...

*Jaw drops to floor* Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

Sure, physics as used in gaming.

Physics calculation in gaming(collison, force, acceleration, displacement, etc) involves a fair amount of both scalar quanity and vector quanity, and conversion in bewteen.

I see that you will gain certain acceleration in vector dot product with dedicated dot product instructions, but they make up a relatively small percentage of overall calculations. Whereas T&L is almost all dot product, physics is not as dot product heavy and the computational acceleration gained from dot product is comparatively small.

In addition, there is another reason IBM shuns VFPUs in its designs. For a typical VFPU implementation, the speed gain observed over a comparable scalar FPU implementation is 2X. IBM implements a dualFPU architecture plus good load/store units to keep the FPUs going, so that the speed difference between a four-way VFPU and its dual FPUs is kept to minimum. A VFPU must be coded in assembly or in custom library, while dualFPUs can be coded in straight C++. This is why IBM insists on dualFPUs over VectorFPUs for its high end and even supercomputer applications.

IBM dual FPU scalar processors CAN ALMOST MATCH dedicated VFPUs in sustained vector computation, and this is why MS can safely drop Altivec without a performance penalty.

And AI? (I know you didn't say AI, but I'll mention it anyways). If the game uses any form of adaptive weighted decision network (neural networks, or other learning systems), the ENTIRE PREMISE of the AI is based on dot products.

I only learned the recursive solving of a weighted network. Sorry.

 

[cthellis42]

Hardware power aside, marketing, games availability, ability to catch and keep the attention of mass market, have all so far been heavily on the Sony's side.

That's obviously flipped from one console generation to another, though granted never twice--in a row--in a fully-developed industry with lots of competition. Methinks things have to be explosively good or explosively bad one way or another for a major change--let alone a flip-flop. Offhand, I think the industry will keep on growing, and through growth even out a bit (as it already has), but likely not introduce huge changes. In some ways, it will depend on how the PSP is received and grows up to next gen's launch; if it doesn't amount to much, Sony will have gained a chink in the armor to be pried open more, and if it DOES succeed well... Hard to imagine them with even MORE mindshare, but there ya go.

 

[chapban.]

Possible FALL of the Playstation

-ps3 delays
-yet ps3 games not looking TOO hot vs oldies, once again
-software not cool yet
-hard to shiite programing
-eh yest! cranky online environment
-conflict of objectives -should we price it cool, should we make it console or AIO, should we have X parts inside or Y parts? what be of the PS3????

ANYWAY, once AGAIN just what so cool about PS2 graphiX, that we see somehow somewhere we can say PS2 has the plus n minus as with Xbox has the plus n minus over each other??? I only see that what PS2 can do, Xbox can do and many time, Xbox can do better.

 

[Clashman]

Another thought:

Could MS put the necessary guts in the XB2 for backwards compatibility, but leave it disabled? That way if consumers DID want to play XB1 games, they could buy the 'software' to enable it? That way NVIDIA would only be paid on a need-to-have basis.. think DVD playback kit, where MS left it disabled to avoid paying fees to the DVD consortium.

It could be as simple as a bootdisk or a controller adaptor or something.

I would think that if they put hardware int XB2 to play XB1, they would need to pay nVidia, because it's the hardware that nVidia has patented, (well, the software too, I guess). What might be feasible is releasing a hardware addon that will allow you to play XB1 games. Kinda like how the Panasonic 3DO was supposed to have a hardware upgrade that would allow it to play M2 games, (only backwards). That way, they would only have to pay nVidia for the hardware units sold.

 

[nobie]

Are we all forgetting that PS2 has 3 "CPUs" on one die (MIPS CPU, VU0, VU1). I'm not saying MS will use anything remotely similar, but sticking with powers of two isn't one of the ten commandments...

 

[chapban.]

How bout MS do a smaller version of Xbox by 2005(Xbox Ex! ), licensed it to 3rd party like Dell/Alienware/Samsung/VIA etc to do their own Xbox and sell it cheapo like 79-99? To sweeten the deal, let them 3rd party do the mod from what current Xbox does. For ex, have it surf the net, play emulators etc.

BUT backward compatibility is bleh-ly over rated. MayB when the start of a console life with limited games, do gamers go back to their ICKY looking last gen games, but in the end backward compatibility is hmm hmm..

 

[nobie]

Team Xbox has some more details:
http://www.teamxbox.com/news.php?id=5388

They say PowerPC 976 processors will be used and the GPU will have embedded memory used as the frame buffer.

 

[Geeforcer]

Humm, if these rumors are true, then MS might as well give up now. Technological innovation and superiority were some of the key advantages Xbox1 had, as far as consumer-oriented selling points are concerned. If they seed that, what will they have? Playstation is far bigger brand name then Xbox, and if PSX3 will be technologically superior as well, then what does Microsoft have to positively differentiate itself? Earlier release date? That worked wonders for Saturn and Dreamcast. Oh, and the premise of waiting for Sony makes no little sense -with release date apparently 20 months away, they better start nailing down the specks pretty soon if they want launch software to showcase the new hardware. I doubt very much some of the rumors outlined in the article are true, because otherwise MS has almost no chance of success with Xbox2 and they should be smart enough to see that themselves.

 

[chapban.]

Earlier release date? That worked wonders for Saturn and Dreamcast.

Saturn early release was TEH suck. Truly blotched job by Sega and DC coming after the Saturn nightmare(bad rep + bad bank balance) didnt help. Sega was going downhill then, MS is gaining steam now.

I can see Xbox2 doing potentially better than Saturn + DC. Unless they do a funny FUBAR job. But it is MS, runs by smart geeks, should be safer. Xbox Live will be one of TEH crucial part next gen.