Possible memory expansion for GC/IGNCube

[Ooh-videogames]

GameCube Ready for Expansion
Leaked hardware documents suggest that Nintendo may have more RAM in mind for GameCube's future.



quote:
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March 15, 2001 - A Nintendo partner recently leaked us the full GameCube Hardware Overview that went out with Version 1.0 of system development kits (SDKs) mid-last year. The 30-page documentation provides in-depth details about the inner-workings of the hardware, including several revelations -- one of which relates directly to how much RAM GameCube features and the possibilities for future memory expansion.

Under the section of Auxiliary RAM (ARAM), Nintendo Technology Development notes the publicly released figure of 16MBs internal SDRAM, but also indicates that this memory is expandable up to 48MBs with an external accessory. The external addition, which we believe would be inserted into one of the GameCube's underside ports, would bump the console's total memory from 43MBs to 75MBs.
Utilizing a speculative prefetch system, which, according to the documentation, the GameCube's optical disc drive employs, the extra RAM could be used not only to store more graphics, animation and sound, but to eliminate load times too.

It is important to remember that while Nintendo's own documentation for GameCube lists the possibility of a future RAM expansion, it may never happen. The company has been known to change its position where hardware is involved before and the memory upgrade could simply be a method of extending the life value of GameCube, just as the extra 4MBs were for Nintendo 64. But the option is there and that, at least, is promising.

We contacted Nintendo for comment, but the company did not return our phone calls in time for publish.


Is it possible a developer could release a game that takes advantage of the extra memory, but not alienate gamers buy making a software switch like the use of pro-scan. I would think Nintendo wouldn't want to go down the route of N64 expansion pack where the it was required to play certain games.

 

[Tahir2]

More ARAM?

What a waste of time that would be.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Iwish I could delete the thread, I missed the date. My apologies, though I thought it may be the new peripheral.

 

[Qroach]

hehe, for a second there I was like "what the?"

 

[Guden Oden]

More ARAM?

What a waste of time that would be.

Above post awarded the "knee-jerk response of the day" prize.

Congratulations, Tahir! It was surely well deserved!

*hands over trophy*

 

[Berserk]

GameCube Ready for Expansion
Leaked hardware documents suggest that Nintendo may have more RAM in mind for GameCube's future.

What is your source?

 

[Qroach]

Guden,

Above post awarded the "knee-jerk response of the day" prize.

Congratulations, Tahir! It was surely well deserved!

*hands over trophy*

Um, how is his post a knee jerk reaction? ARAM is foolishly slow. It's not fast enough to be of any important use. I forget the transfer speed of the aram, but wasn't it like 98-90 megabits per sec? or somehting like that?

 

[a4164]

Its an old ign

http://cube.ign.com/articles/092/092429p1.html

81mb/sec (8-bit@81mhz)?

 

[Qroach]

Yep that's it. Certainly can't be useful for anything that requires low latency... Hmm, this reminds me that I had an argument about this with teasy about a year ago.

 

[Fox5]

Bleh, they should have included this from the start, or already made it available.
It would do little to help the system though, pretty much do what the xbox hard drive already does for games.(outside of permanent storage)

BTW, I thought lower bandwidth memory tended to be lower latency as well?

How much use can this memory be? Quicker load times yes, but nintendo games already have very quick load times. It could be useful for larger environments, but some developers already accomplish that with just transfer off the disk, so it would just encourage lazy coding. I guess they could fit a bunch of textures in it ready for quick swap to main memory, but the disk read speed should be fast enough for that.(128kb texture would take how long to load off disk?)

 

[Guden Oden]

Yep that's it. Certainly can't be useful for anything that is low latency dependant...

Just because you think it has no use for "low latency dependant" situations does of course not mean it has no uses at all.

It has a bandwidth of 80 some MB/s, that means it completely fills main memory in less than a third of a second. If you have 48MB of such memory, I'd have to say it's obvious to me at least that's an ideal way of buffering large levels. With some fancy-pants portal rendering or such to chop up larger rooms into sections one wouldn't need Metroid Prime-style doors that hides the loading. You'd might to make a bend here and there, but it would definitely ease streaming. Isn't that obvious to you?

 

[Ug Lee]

A Nintendo partner recently leaked us the full GameCube Hardware Overview that went out with Version 1.0 of system development kits (SDKs) mid-last year. The 30-page documentation provides in-depth details about the inner-workings of the hardware

I still wouldn't mind having a read of that 30 page documentation.

 

[Fox5]

Ok, if ARAM is so slow, why didn't nintendo just include more of it to begin with? Doesn't sound like something that would be so expensive.

 

[nobie]

Even a $10 increase in manufacturing cost is significant, when multiplied by millions of units. They could have included more RAM, and lots of other things, but then Gamecube probably wouldn't be $99 right now...

 

[Qroach]

BTW, I thought lower bandwidth memory tended to be lower latency as well?

I forget honestly. I probably got my wording reversed. I think low bandwidth memory has high latency, in that it takes you longer to get the data out of it.

How much use can this memory be? Quicker load times yes, but nintendo games already have very quick load times. It could be useful for larger environments, but some developers already accomplish that with just transfer off the disk, so it would just encourage lazy coding. I guess they could fit a bunch of textures in it ready for quick swap to main memory, but the disk read speed should be fast enough for that.(128kb texture would take how long to load off disk?)

The Aram isn't typically used for loading anything like textures or geometry, it's far too slow compared to main memory and the embedded memory. If I recall right it was perfect for data that doesn't change often or can stream (like music).

 

[Qroach]

Guden,

Just because you think it has no use for "low latency dependant" situations does of course not mean it has no uses at all.

did I say it has no uses at all? No i didn't, so i don't know why you're getting all defensive about it.

It has a bandwidth of 80 some MB/s, that means it completely fills main memory in less than a third of a second.

Why would you want to load somehting out of A-ram into main memory so slowly?

If you have 48MB of such memory, I'd have to say it's obvious to me at least that's an ideal way of buffering large levels. With some fancy-pants portal rendering or such to chop up larger rooms into sections one wouldn't need Metroid Prime-style doors that hides the loading.

Are you kidding me? it's far to slow for such a thing. If you could oload things like this out of A-ram, at a speed that is acceptable then they would have thrown out the main system memory that's running at 2.6 gigabytes per second.

You'd might to make a bend here and there, but it would definitely ease streaming. Isn't that obvious to you?

I don't think it's obvious to you, let alone me. I think you're stretching for teh use of aram. You wouldn't be able to get your data out of it fast enough for use in a portal engine. It's good for sound and stuff like that, and it's about it. Current developers don't even use all of it

http://www.planetgamecube.com/specials.cfm?action=profile&id=204

"The only RAM-expansion that would be possible would be more ARAM and 16 Megs of that are really enough. We only use 10 Megabytes of it for sound and the rest for game data and program code. In hindsight I don t think that the Expansion Pack was a great idea. "

Julian from factor five knows the gamecube hardware well (they designed a portion of it), and they hardly use it and seem agree with what I've been saying. Btw, when he says game data, he's not talking about polygnal meshes or textures. That data is in system memory.

 

[PC-Engine]

He was talking about the executable which was around 4MB so effectively they had an additional 4MB of main RAM to use for other things like textures or geometry.

 

[cthellis42]

I've always wondered why more consoles wouldn't pursue the possibility of upgrading their consoles in some ways to exact better performance as they go along. Even if it doesn't really affect old games, surely they can do certainly changes that fix problems, add functionality, or add capacity where they are weak without breaking earlier games, can't they? It gives a box a fresher image, more for developers to play with, better competition with their--uh--competition ( ), more incentive for people to buy it or buy a second one...

Why not?

 

[Rodéric]

I've always wondered why more consoles wouldn't pursue the possibility of upgrading their consoles in some ways to exact better performance as they go along. Even if it doesn't really affect old games, surely they can do certainly changes that fix problems, add functionality, or add capacity where they are weak without breaking earlier games, can't they? It gives a box a fresher image, more for developers to play with, better competition with their--uh--competition ( ), more incentive for people to buy it or buy a second one...

Why not?

Cause the strength of a console is that it's a set hardware.

 

[London Geezer]

Erm... Haven't read the whole thread, but this article was done in May 2001..... That is, almost 3 years ago...