oh so now Xenon has a TERAFLOP processor? (just CPU alone??)

[sunscar]

I believe we all realize that is the likely case right now. The debate seems to be over the sincerity/credibility/knowledge of the speaker when he quoted a "1tflops processor".

It'll likely end with this being the case... these machines may be in the performance region of a "1tflops system", but nowhere near as flexible or implicitly codable.

 

[Megadrive1988]

of course we all know that a small lowend supercomputer with a 1 TFLOP sustained performance rating, or even a 1 TFLOP peak perfrmance rating, would eat Xenon and PS3 for lunch when running most applications

 

[Megadrive1988]

Mabye some parts of the xenon gpu are quad pumped ? Like in the p4 ? So some things might be running two or four times faster ?

Mabye there is a physics cpu in there and we just don't know about it and that plus the main cpu can be stretched into the 1tflop zone ?

Mabye they are using fast 14 or whatever and hit 9 ghz

Maybe MS is capitolizing on the internet forum frenzy Sony diehards created with the idea of 1TFLOPs consoles by claiming a total theoretical system performance number no one will be able to test anyway, but it looks good on paper, *might* be justifyable, but most important is the first to stake the claim "1TFLOP console".

Yeah, for the next 18mo we are going to have to hear about Xenon with the press quip, "that according to MS's Allard exceeds 1TFLOPs of total targeted system performance".

Ms not only gets to play "Me too" but also gets to say "First there!" I see this as a small swipe at Sony's thunder. MS did not even release a number, so if Sony says "We can do 1.5 TFLOPs" the "over 1TFLOPs" does not look bad. This is as bad as politics. Spin, respin, everyone argueing why everyone else lies--and we STILL do not even have the facts. How many processors are in X2? We have no clue, but we sure like to argue who is right and wrong! Oh yeah, next gen is in full swing now!!

Anyone got popcorn?

exactly. Microsoft launched a pre-emptive Xenon strike (tm) on Sony, as I said in other threads. this is going to be fun.

*passes the popcorn around*

 

[Megadrive1988]

I would say it was a slip of the tongue. Just like some people call their computers "CPUs". Even the PS3 teraflop goal/"rough target", I believe, was based on total system (back when a modified CELL was thought to be the GPU). I find it VERY ironic that MS is playing right into the hype WE (=geeks) made! How many people were expecting 1TFLOPs systems and told everyone they knew? Now in one swift move MS has delivered. Does not even matter if they are theoretical numbers, or for the entire system, all these people talking up 1TFLOPs chips--MS could not miss the opportunity to cash in on it. We are the victim of our own expectations.

And while I do not discredit that the machines may have a TFLOP of total system power (pretty hard to discredit) theoretically--i.e. who knows what the real world numbers are on EITHER system, does it really matter? TFLOPs are the Polygons/sec arguement from 2 gens past. More poly/s are not going to make better games. We are no longer at the point where we are comparing a 300poly model with x,y,z effect to a 500poly model with x effect.

But we are going to have to endure a load of marketing hype for the next 18mo or longer, and everyone is going to argue over it. All I want to know is WHO is making WHAT games for what system--and what features are on those systems that I will enjoy. Unlike some, I do not enjoy playing with TFLOPs 8)

Yet, back on the quote, the easiest explaination is to look at what was officially said at GDC, and that was that the system provides (most likely theoretically at that). The interview really looks like a slip of the tongue--unless they are counting everything as one processor since the GPU can write to the CPU cache.

Not that it matters. So far all we are hearing are theoretical numbers (which ironically tell us very little about the quality of the SOFTWARE we will have) and some of you are going to hate MS/Sony no matter what they say.

From this point on, EVERYTHING said from this point on is uber-Hype intended for the mass market. It will offend and alienate people on both sides on the fense, and those in the middle will laugh and say, "Uh, nice... so can we see the games yet?"

I just wish BF2 was a X2 launch title

although it is possible that 1 TFLOP total system power was the goal for Sony PS3, I believe almost everyone agreed it was for the CPU alone. the Broadband Engine made from 4 Cell Processor Elements. 256 GFLOPs each, 1 TFLOP total. on top of that, there would be a Cell-based GPU with it's own 128 to 512 GFLOPs.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Is it me or are they incorporating programmble floating-point-operations-per-second AND hardwired fixed-point-operations-per-second into this infalted 1TFLOPS figure???

If it's the latter, then it's not even,

F-L--O-P-S

it's

F-L-O-P-S + F-P-O-P-S

and they might aswell include integer maths in there aswell as integer-operations-per-second,

I-O-P-S

So is the total a sum of FLOPS, FPOPS, IOPS and what size bits, 32bit, 16bit or 8bit?

They might aswell call it a total system operations-per-second so that when they say 1TeraFLOPS, they mean,

Total system operations per second ~ FLOPS+FPOPS+IOPS

and

1TeraFLOPS >>> 1TeraOPS

Bah!...It's all misleading BS!

well, Microsoft always said the original Xbox (NV2A GPU alone) does over 1 trillion operations per second. if you look at the specs for Nvidia's PC NV25 GPUs (GeForce4ti) which came out after Xbox (but are simular to NV2A-XGPU in performance plus have some additional things) you will see that the three NV25 | GeForce4ti GPUs are also all rated at over 1 trillion operations per second.

 

[Inane_Dork]

PS: Jaws, yeah, that's precisely it.

No, that's precisely not it. As Megadrive pointed out, GeForce 4's were already over 1 TOP. If MS were going for pure FUD, they surely would have claimed more than 1 TFLOP if they were really counting TOPs.

Xenon is not 1Tflop + of processing power. It is Microsofts newest marketing speak "MSFLOPS" which is an inclusion of fixed function processing.

I really don't get the hate MS is receiving for this. So much of it is unwarranted. Take all that "fixed function FLOPs" out and you'll find the GPU is crippled in both legs, above and below the knee. MS is counting absolutely vital FLOPs in the total count. Fanboys be hanged.

 

[Acert93]

I really don't get the hate MS is receiving for this. So much of it is unwarranted. Take all that "fixed function FLOPs" out and you'll find the GPU is crippled in both legs, above and below the knee. MS is counting absolutely vital FLOPs in the total count. Fanboys be hanged.

Same reason Sony gets nailed for 66M poly/s. It is a valid number within a certain frame work, it is mentioned in PR releases because it sounds good (that is the job of PR people!) and the media are generally idiots so vague numbers that sound impressive are used, and then it gets twisted all kinds of ways by GAME MAGAZINES, Fan-people, media, and company-haters and it becomes a vile situation. Note to say companies/PR departments do not missuse numbers, just that we often interpret them within a certain framework. When PS/N64 gamers were used to systems doing 100k-250k polygons a second, and Sony has a press quip saying "Our new console does 66M" it is very easy to see how people connect the dots. That is why Nintendo (mistakenly!!!) was realistic and said the GCN would do 8-10M in realworld situations. Dare I say we are going to see the same thing this gen, yet with TFLOPs and other performance numbers?

Same setup here. While the 66M polys really was only millions in real game situations, the "over 1 TFLOPs of targeted performance" is NOT equivalent to the TFLOPs you would want out of a supercomputer. Both are just PR/theoretical numbers to give a vague indication of the power of the system. SOMEDAY, consumers will learn that the most important thing is in the games, and the games come from a platform that is developer/publisher/user friendly and has realistic price points.

But unitl that day (=NEVER!) we get to enjoy PR departments taking valid tech numbers and using (=twisting!) them as spot quotes that the press and gamers pick up, missuse, and argue over. I just cannot wait until someone trys to pull off the "The NDS memory has a 16ms latency, and the PS3 has a 1ms, so the NDS pwns the PS3 with a 16x better latency!!!111" Gotta love this!

Anyone have salt for that popcorn?

 

[Inane_Dork]

So, in other words, because no one will see it in-game.

Right? If so, it's rather ironic that the only people capable of understanding the numbers correctly are the ones who hate them.

 

[Mythos]

No matter how you cut it and add to it.. the PR talk (XBox 2=1 tflops +) won't make a difference if the hardware is not capable. Even if you throw in its all about the games. Hardware is as crucial as software. If you say hey XNA will make games easier and IF your hardware is realistically pushing 15 Gflops and everyone else is pushing 60 Gflops with capable software then your 1 Tflops + claim means nothing.

 

[jvd]

No matter how you cut it and add to it.. the PR talk (XBox 2=1 tflops +) won't make a difference if the hardware is not capable. Even if you throw in its all about the games. Hardware is as crucial as software. If you say hey XNA will make games easier and IF your hardware is realistically pushing 15 Gflops and everyone else is pushing 60 Gflops with capable software then your 1 Tflops + claim means nothing.

Do you really think with most likely 6 months diffrence in launch the ps3 will be that much more powerfull that the xenon ?

THe diffrence between 1million pps and 10million pps is huge . The diffrence between say 150m pps or 160 or 170m pps wont be that much of a diffrence .

Also if current rummors are right the xenon may end up with 512 megs or more of ram

 

[Andy]

No matter how you cut it and add to it.. the PR talk (XBox 2=1 tflops +) won't make a difference if the hardware is not capable. Even if you throw in its all about the games. Hardware is as crucial as software. If you say hey XNA will make games easier and IF your hardware is realistically pushing 15 Gflops and everyone else is pushing 60 Gflops with capable software then your 1 Tflops + claim means nothing.

Do you really think with most likely 6 months diffrence in launch the ps3 will be that much more powerfull that the xenon ?

THe diffrence between 1million pps and 10million pps is huge . The diffrence between say 150m pps or 160 or 170m pps wont be that much of a diffrence .

Also if current rummors are right the xenon may end up with 512 megs or more of ram

The difference could be quite considerable, but it just depends, keep in mind ps3 has been in development since 2000 or earlier where Xbox2 is probably been in development about 3 years or more. That said I personally don't see the difference between PS3 XBox2 and Revolution being that great graphically. Physics, AI etc. could be a different story, time will tell.

 

[sunscar]

No, that's precisely not it

Actually, yes it is (AFAIK)... to what I was referring to anyway. I.E. my reference pertains to the previously famous "NVflops" numbers... they were fixed point operations + Floating point operations combined to equal "Flops", not flops alone. AFAIK...

Next time don't be so damned turse, I_D_.

Later

 

[Shifty Geezer]

SOMEDAY, consumers will learn that the most important thing is in the games, and the games come from a platform that is developer/publisher/user friendly and has realistic price points.

That'll never work though, because no next-gen consoles would be sold. That is, Joe Public has a PS2/XBox and wants to upgrade for the HD era (despite only have a conventional CRT TV and isn't going to upgrade to HD in the next five years, he appreiactes HD is the future )

Joe looks at what's coming. Oooo, XB2 uh? Oooo, PS2, huh? Hrm, which shall I get. I know, I'll wait for the game base to develop, so 6-12 months after the consoles release, to see which shows the most real-world potential.

6-12 months later.
Ahhh, I see everyone was waiting like me, and no-one's bought any console. So I see no company's made games for systems with a zero userbase. So there are no games and the consoles have been dropped.

For next-gen to be successful, hardware needs to be bought BEFORE there is a suitable choice of games that allows comparison of systems. Marketting needs to convince people to buy their system early, and to buy their system over their competitors. For this they need a marketting hook - something to convince Joe Public their's is the better (more powerful tends to equate better) machine.

On some forums I've read people (related to Joe Public I believe) saying PS3 will suck because XB2 has XNA and that'll make the games better. Totaly misinformed opinion, with no knowledge what XNA really is, what tools it provides, and what Sony offers it's developers. But in these cases MS's marketting has started a campaign of 'informing' the buying public before the machines are ever released which will be better.

This is inevitable, just as is all empty PR promises/claims. They need to convince you to try something, and realistic claims (certainly in the marketting companies eyes) won't manage this.

 

[London Geezer]

I don't agree. It's ALREADY all about the games. The console with the biggest library, with the "coolest" library (in the eyes of the targetted audience) is winning over the competition, although it is less powerful than them. And this is the second time around that this happens.

People won't know anything about "next-gen" (they do to a certain extent), but at least they will know "the GTA game that looks 10 times better than the one on PS2!!!11!1!". If you know what i mean.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Now, yes. Consoles don't sell on specs but basically, cultural invasion. PS wins hands down. Next gen how do you differentiate? Of course PS3 only needs say "we're PlayStation" and they get the continuing saga. For MS and Ninty they've got to find a way to distract buyers from going with the same old PS they know and love. They can't wait for games to show their system's better than PS3 as they need a user base to make it worth developers writing games for. Plus are the games really going to be that different to begin with? With cross-platform development alredy announced there won't be much in it.

I think what'll happen is existing users of a console will go with what they know. XB owners will upgrade to XB360, PS2 owners to PS3, GC owners to Rev, all enjoying the next iteration of the franchises they're addicted to - Halo, GTA, Mario. That'll account for initial purchases. Then it'll settle down to a prolonged marketting battle. But that's not going to stop companies trying to trump the others with some PR hook they can wrestle attention with.

How's about a bit of historical reference? How did PS1 take pole position? What did Sony do to wrestle attention from the known players, SEGA and Nintendo (apart from Nintendo being late!)?

 

[London Geezer]

For one, they had a KILLER marketing team, and they still have it today although the biggest job was done during the PS1 days obviously.
They thought that the only way to sell buckets was to make people think their products were "cool". And look where that took them.

From that, they got big sales, and coupled with some good deals here and there (Sqaure and Namco), they got huge 3rd party support.

Then they decided that the best way to sell buckets was to have A LOT of software on PS1, so they centered it on 3rd party support and filled it with tons of games, some good some not so good.

Sony did many things to sell more than 100M PS1s, they did a hell of a job rethinking the market and making it what it is today.

 

[London Geezer]

Also, i'm not sure the audience will go from xbox1 to xbox2 and ps2 to ps3 and so on.

Xbox buyers were the ones that wanted the best hardware, and this time around it seems PS3 will be the best hardware, so all the techie whores might migrate.

PS2 buyers bought it because they previously had a PS1 and because PS2 was the real first next gen machine released, so some of those might go for an xbox2 just to have a glimpse of next gen straight away. I might be one of those in fact.

 

[rabidrabbit]

5% of xbox buyers bought it because they hate Sony
7% of xbox buyers bought it because they love MS
3% of xbox buyers bought it because they think Nintendo is too kiddy and they hate Sony
2% of xbox buyers bought it because they believed MS would buy Sega and Square
6% of xbox buyers bought it because they believed MS would totally win Sony over console market this gen
9% of xbox buyers bought it because they want more than just one console.
10% of xbox buyers bought it because they can mod it and use it as media player.
20% of xbox buyers bought it because of Halo
56% of xbox buyers bought it because it was specced higer than PS2 and GC, in hope that the games would be 3xbetter

 

[Inane_Dork]

Actually, yes it is (AFAIK)... to what I was referring to anyway. I.E. my reference pertains to the previously famous "NVflops" numbers... they were fixed point operations + Floating point operations combined to equal "Flops", not flops alone. AFAIK...

As was already pointed out twice (i'm not sure how you're missing this), we were at 1 TOP 4 years ago. If MS were truly counting that way, they claim the X2 as a system is as powerful as the X1's GPU. Dumb, huh?

If you're going to hate the number, fine. But at least don't make up false stories for support.

Next time don't be so damned turse, I_D_.

It's the internet. I'll be as turse as I want.

 

[gurgi]

I don't agree. It's ALREADY all about the games. The console with the biggest library, with the "coolest" library (in the eyes of the targetted audience) is winning over the competition

Chicken, meet egg. Egg, chicken.