Microsoft leaks details on Xbox Next
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
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nobie said:
So the R500 VPU for XB-2 will be the .90nm core shrunk down to .65nm with the extra transistor space being taken up by embedded dram.
So what kind of impact will this edram on the VPU have? For shader execution I thought clock speed would have been paramount, but with edram the clock speed may get brought down. Of course bandwidth on the VPU will be plentiful. How much edram should we expect on the VPU?
Teasy said:
Licensing would be needed there... Nvidia surely won't miss the opportunity to make money out of something that has their name of it.
Oh, since u read my post, care to answer the rest? If u're able of course... Cheers!
I'll give it a shot
You're assuming that nearly all titles are either port jobs, or devs hardly do any micromanging of their own code. to clarify DX isn;t really hardware it's an abstraction used so Hardware vendors cna delveop and pushes their products (thereby making most Devs lives a little easier)
I imagine most devs wouldn't erally want to touch these fixed features too much, so yeah why not.
yup, more on topic. What would some of you conjecture the price point of this machine to be come launch?
You're assuming that nearly all titles are either port jobs, or devs hardly do any micromanging of their own code. to clarify DX isn;t really hardware it's an abstraction used so Hardware vendors cna delveop and pushes their products (thereby making most Devs lives a little easier)
I imagine most devs wouldn't erally want to touch these fixed features too much, so yeah why not.
yup, more on topic. What would some of you conjecture the price point of this machine to be come launch?
Mmmm 3 "high-ish end" CPUs (G5's arent exactly cheap today), a high end ATI GPU... As much as they try to cut costs by not including a HDD (which in my opinion is stupid therefore making me believe it's just an unfounded rumour), this this will make MSs ass bleed for a long time... If you excuse my finesse...
They cannot launch it at more than $299 or they'll get bombed... Of course i paid around £350 (that's US$ 635.88 today) for my PS2 at launch as a bundle, therefore we can't really tell...
They cannot launch it at more than $299 or they'll get bombed... Of course i paid around £350 (that's US$ 635.88 today) for my PS2 at launch as a bundle, therefore we can't really tell...
This IGN article is about Xbox2 but is says the earliest shipping date for PS3 is Fall 2006.
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/488/488949p1.html
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/488/488949p1.html
notAFanB said:
I think the majority of these issues will be soluable - that not to say it will "just happen", but there will probably be methods around many of them with some wrapper or something. If developers have microcoded to within the specifications that MS set, then where there are such shortcuts these will be known about and an alternative (DX / ATI) route can be sought - where it may be an issue is where developers have gone to NVIDIA and asked "how do you do this...". I'm sure that MS has been handling the developer support requests, but inevitably some little things occasionally get through, and its these cases that will probably represent the biggest issue.
Given the state of Emulation today, I think we can agree that any of this is 'solvable', but I don't think that for a commercial product relying too much on 'wrappers' would be an good idea. Maybe if they kept the HDD then custom (tested) wrappers could be maitained for quirky titles?
My case and focus was cleary not for when Devs choose to code close to the API specifications.
apologies Dave but you almost make it sounds like a bad thing to do so on what is essentially an closed box which can be emulated/shunkToFit X years down the line???
Teasy said:
These extensions will be easily managed through the massively improved functionality of the new GPU. No problem there.
There's nothing NV2A can do that a future DX9 or whatever chip cannot...
london-boy
No I can't see it being any problem to force AA or AF on XBox games if XBox2 ran them. After all PS2 added bilinear filtering to PS1 games when running them.
On Nvidia extensions, I don't think licensing would be the way to go. Because these extentsion are optimised for Nvidia hardware. I think it would probably be a case of sending the calls for a Nvidia specific extension through to a ATI extension that would do a similar job.
No I can't see it being any problem to force AA or AF on XBox games if XBox2 ran them. After all PS2 added bilinear filtering to PS1 games when running them.
On Nvidia extensions, I don't think licensing would be the way to go. Because these extentsion are optimised for Nvidia hardware. I think it would probably be a case of sending the calls for a Nvidia specific extension through to a ATI extension that would do a similar job.
no, there's nothing that the current API covers that a superset in the future cannot.
But that's hardly the issue here is it?
I imagine whatever problems there will be will timings and whatnot shouldn't be much of an issue. Of course there's always patches for specific titles.
So i guess the only thing holding backward compatibility is the HDD. I seriously do not think MS would do such a stupid think as to leave a HDD out, considering all the benefits it brings other than backward compatibility itself... Like saying "Sony will not call their next controllers Dual Shock 3". Impossible. 
notAFanB said:
I would have just thought you’d have some code embedded somewhere.
The DX API specification or MS approved programming practices for the XBox?
I’m sure there are levels to which MS are evangelising programming performance beyond DX.
It kinda is a bad thing in these cases. I know, for instance, that Nintendo will absolutely not let ATI near Gamecube developers as Nintendo want to take all of this themselves – now I’m sure that if you know the right people to talk to you can get good hardware level information, however with ArtX this type of thing would have been difficult to get out – with the familiarity with NVIDIA personnel through PC developments, and the similarity of the NV2A to the desktop functionality its more likely that a number of developers will know who to quietly talk to if needs be. However, the console vendor will want to know whats going on as much as possible so they get as few of these corner case eventualities as possible should the want to make alterations / compatibility with future parts – I believe that we’ve seen a similar thing with the PSX and devs not following official guidelines and hardcoding the USB port etc.
I think Sony has more barriers concerning backwards compatibility than MS. I know I'm oversimplifying.. but MS just needs an xbox1 driver for R500 and a layer between one ppc and x86, right? It's not as if they need to emulate xbox metal. It seems like upgrading your PC to me.. my games are still going to work. Which is why I don't understand the talk of nVidia getting royalties for backwards compatibility. Are any Xbox games coded 'to the metal'? I'm sure I'm missing something painfully obvious.. but that's what I'm good at, hehe.
Is PS3 going to have a PS2 for an I/O controller?
I think backwards compatibility may die out.. it's more difficult than it is worth IMO.
Is PS3 going to have a PS2 for an I/O controller?
I think backwards compatibility may die out.. it's more difficult than it is worth IMO.
gurgi said:
I think it was somewhat "confirmed" that PS2 would be software emulated on PS3, although we know very little... If they just stick a EE+GS@90nm (which is not much of a 90nm anyway, but there's a thread for that) on there then it's no problem...
Personally i would like to keep my PS2 games and be able to play them on PS3, i mean unless they remake ICO for PS3, i'd want to play it... Same for ZOE2 and some others... Also, i take it it will take ages for a GT game to come out on PS3, so i'd want to kill the time with GT4 some times...
I'd like to play my PS2 games on PS3 myself, I think it's just a much larger challenge than Xbox2 backwards compatibility (and eventually backwards compatibility will probably be a larger challenge than it's worth to manufacturers not to me, hehe) thanks to its API driven, PC nature.
If MS didn't provide an Xbox extension to this functionality, they could for Xbox2. Not sure if nVidia would be entitled to royalties for that or not.
If MS didn't provide an Xbox extension to this functionality, they could for Xbox2. Not sure if nVidia would be entitled to royalties for that or not.
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