Nintendo's hardware philosophy: Always old, outdated tech?

[thop]

I wouldn't put much stock into what RL says about Nintendo. It's just speculation to fill an article.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-project-cafe-rumour-analysis?page=2

For example, how much RAM does Project Cafe have? With the 3DS packing 512MB, we would expect more: at least 1GB.

Yeah ... report on Apple and Sony hardware instead.

 

[_phil_]

But I remember watching some of the initial Cell demos in E3 2005, a bathtub with rubber ducks where Phil Harrison told the crowd there was no GPU involved, everything was being done by the Cell.

No ,the bathtub ducks was a gpu demo and supposed that way (done by Qgames guys if a recall correctly)

The cell only demo was the parallelized raycasting of a landscape (from satellite data) and was an IBM demo ,btw.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

No ,the bathtub ducks was a gpu demo and supposed that way (done by Qgames guys if a recall correctly)

The cell only demo was the parallelized raycasting of a landscape (from satellite data) and was an IBM demo ,btw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UaDvIPpQnQ


It's a demo where they brag about the physics that Cell can handle. It doesn't look like a GPU demo at all.

 

[Brad Grenz]

But it uses the GPU in the rendering, nonetheless. It's not a completely software rendering engine for the Cell, like those IBM-made terrain demos.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

But it uses the GPU in the rendering, nonetheless. It's not a completely software rendering engine for the Cell, like those IBM-made terrain demos.

Does it?
It was a demo presented in E3 2005, in June.
The PS3 was released in November 2006, a year and a half later, with the inclusion of a G71 being said as a "last-minute" change.
Back in June 2005, word was that the PS3 would use Cells for rendering, and the first G70 was launched two weeks later, made in 110nm with an 80W TDP @ 450MHz.


So I have my doubts that in E3 '05 that demo was being GPU-accelerated.

 

[Sigfried1977]

"For example, how much RAM does Project Cafe have? With the 3DS packing 512MB, we would expect more: at least 1GB."

The 3ds is packing 512 MB of ram? Or is this a typo?

 

[aselto]

They meant 360.

 

[_phil_]

So I have my doubts that in E3 '05 that demo was being GPU-accelerated.

It uses GPU for graphics and SPU for physics.The cell was never meant to do the graphic tasks , a custom GPU (not cell based) was in the design process ,but wouldn't have been ready in time, as MS forced an earlier than scheduled launch.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Totally random speculation there, and quite funny that their source would rate a HD4770 as only "close the Xenos".. Let alone "would operate at a deficit to Xenos in some applications", like what applications?

They aren't saying the 4770 would operate at a deficit to Xenos. They are saying their sources suggest the mystery GPU to operate at a deficit which they use as an example of contradictory evidence that cafe uses a 4770.

Xenos is a R5xx with some R6xx features added yeah? 48 unified shaders, 240Gflops. HD4770 is R7xx and 960Gflops AFAIR, can't remember how many shaders it has though.

Xenos is more of a custom GPU which roughly falls between R5xx and R6xx technologically. But yes, the HD4770 is superior GPU both technically and in performance terms, often vastly so.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

If Project Café has anything performing below X360 (I won't say PS3 because the Cell might be hard to top at everything within a reasonable budget) then it'll be a real disapointment.

 

[Megadrive1988]

If Project Café has anything performing below X360 (I won't say PS3 because the Cell might be hard to top at everything within a reasonable budget) then it'll be a real disapointment.

agreed.

 

[Brad Grenz]

My guess is it will be bandwidth limited. No embedded memory in a single chip, UMA design.

 

[Squilliam]

According to Wiki even Juniper mobility is 39W TDP on a mobile process. Im pretty sure they could get something approprate for around 30W to do as their GPU.

See? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units

 

[Deleted member 13524]

According to Wiki even Juniper mobility is 39W TDP on a mobile process. Im pretty sure they could get something approprate for around 30W to do as their GPU.

See? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units

Aaand Juniper is being rebranded to HD67xx, so AMD will continue to make those.
And you're not even counting with the memory's power consumption. Notice that the difference between the 500MHz Mobility HD5830 (GDDR3) and 500MHz Mobility HD5850 (GDDR5) is a whopping 6W, so the GPU itself at 500MHz could be consuming as little as 20W max.

But all the rumours are pointing to the same R700-based architecture, so Juniper (although a fantastic solution even at ~500MHz IMHO) is a very unlikely option, at the moment.
It could be an 800sp, 40TMU, 16ROP GPU connected a 128-bit 2GB GDDR5 UMA.
With the "R700" meaning it'll only do OpenGL 3.3 and OpenCL 1.0 (which AMD still supports in those GPUs, although with not much dedication).

 

[eastmen]

"For example, how much RAM does Project Cafe have? With the 3DS packing 512MB, we would expect more: at least 1GB."

The 3ds is packing 512 MB of ram? Or is this a typo?

the 3ds has 512MB of internal storage

 

[eastmen]

If Project Café has anything performing below X360 (I won't say PS3 because the Cell might be hard to top at everything within a reasonable budget) then it'll be a real disapointment.

i don't think nintendo has to worry about that , even if some part is lower powered than the 360 the diffrence we should see in ram (even 1gig) would make the nintendo system look leaps and bounds better than the current systems.


Anyway nintendo may be in an interesting postion, they can get alot of hardcore gamers to move over if their online is close to psn and games like cod 2012 look much better on the nintendo than on the 360 or ps3. If they have close to 2 years before the next systems come out of course it wont look as good as those systems but it might be dirt cheap purchase by that point. If MS /Sony hit with $300-$400 systems than the nintendo at $150-$200 could still move alot of boxes

 

[swaaye]

Have you ever enjoyed a shooter on Wii? I've found the control scheme to be anything but ideal. Actually I'd call it almost unplayable and I'm assuming that they aren't going to be moving back to gamepads with their next machine. Hardcore shooter fans surely aren't the target audience. The target audience from those systems will be the Kinect/Move people and these games are all cartoony usually and will look good with even a small hardware boost.

 

[sfried]

Have you ever enjoyed a shooter on Wii?

I actually had. Goldeneye is surprisingly solid once you have tweaked the settings.

 

[swaaye]

I could not wrap my head around the controls for The Conduit or two of the COD games. I think it's considerably worse for that kind of play than a gamepad.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I have Red Steel and it plays fine.
Not hardcore like keyboard+mouse but definitely better than the "squishy auto-aim is doing all my work" in the gamepad.