Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Deleted member 13524]

From a certain point of view, I guess you could call the current XCPU a Fusion-like chip, with an AMD GPU and an IBM CPU.

AMD would certainly allow a single chip with an IBM CPU and a R7xx GPU, but I doubt they'd let it be called "Fusion". That's their trademark for a chip that contains their CPUs and GPUs, their IP.

That said, I still think an actual Fusion chip would make more sense than anything else. It would be interesting to see, in this generation, how the developers would cope with a multi-core CPU that's actually good for general processing.

 

[Boxercide]

Project Cafe only has 8 GB onboard storage and will use 25 GB discs:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-03-project-cafe-has-8gb-storage-report

8 GB seems pretty small unless they go with SD card use. 25 GB discs point to single layer Blu-Ray.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

SD Card compatibility is obvious to me. Nintendo supports those in the Wii, the DSi, the DSi XL and the 3DS.
My only question would be either they'll adopt the SDXC standard (up to 2TB) or stay with the ancient SDHC (limited to 32GB). The Wii was one of the first devices to support SDHC, so that might be a good indicator that'll support SDXC.

Having the console to support out-of-the-box USB Mass Storage devices for media and game content would be the cherry on the top.


25GB discs means it's a single-layer Blu-Ray, even if it won't bring Blu-Ray media capabilities (I imagine Nintendo not even using the Blu-Ray logo and trademark in order to save a bit more in licensing).


I went to the original article in Kotaku and saw something that let me down a little bit:

The new 2012-scheduled Nintendo system will fall more in line with the 360 and PlayStation 3 by matching those consoles' abilities to render and output graphics in high-definition. I've heard mixed things about whether Nintendo will cap their machine's graphical resolution at 1080i or 1080p, but either figure would significantly exceed the Wii's 480p and achieve the resolutions used for most high-end console games on the Microsoft and Sony consoles.

Kotaku usually has pretty solid informers, and AFAIR they never say anything about hardware until they're 99% sure of what they're saying.

This means we can forget all the dreams of a RV740-like GPU, and even RV730 seems unlikely to me at this point, as it would easily double the X360's graphics capabilities @ 650MHz.
240 DX10.1 shaders using 48*VLIW5 with 8ROPs and 16 TMUs @ ~600MHz, with some eDRAM seems more likely, as it would place it just a notch above X360, while somehow matching its architectural perks.
GDDR5 is also unnecessary. A plain UMA of 128bit 1333\1600MHz DDR3 is sufficient to keep up with the others, and should be a whole lot cheaper than GDDR5. The 2GB rumours should be true, as 2GB of DDR3 are dirt-cheap nowadays.
And I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with a plain 3-core PPU @ 3.2GHz.


That said, I don't get why not just go for an off-the-shelf ~45W Llano, as AMD would be 200% interested in selling them the APU for cheap in order to get it in the hands of AAA game developers.

 

[liolio]

Project Cafe only has 8 GB onboard storage and will use 25 GB discs:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-03-project-cafe-has-8gb-storage-report

8 GB seems pretty small unless they go with SD card use. 25 GB discs point to single layer Blu-Ray.

Well it's enough for caching, the Os and some save. If true it let the possibility opened for Nintendo to let the HDD choice in consumers hands. May be N is going for what devs and consumers want. They have a lot to do if they want to take back the gamers from MS and Sony. I can't see them pass on HDD if they want to please either devs or gamers. More importantly the thing may chip with Wiimote 2 and possibly one pad (not sure about it they may leave that into the hand of costumers too but shipping with one would be nice selling point).
I see no problem either with 25GB BD it's plenty already.

It looks like Nintendo is serious about delivering something worse it for gamers. If I were to make bet/wishes for now I will go with these specs:

One single chip including the CPU and the GPU @32 nm (otherwise they may have launch earlier).
Cpu: a Xenon "+" with 2MB of L2 @3,2GHz
GPU: R700 based, 480 sp (so 6 arrays) @ 600MHz (for FLOPS lovers 576MFLOPS).
128bits bus / 2GB of GDDR5 @1GHz
<200mm2
TDP lower than AMD Llano
8GB of on board memory.
Free HDD slot.
X4 BRD player.

 

[GuestLV]

The new 2012-scheduled Nintendo system will fall more in line with the 360 and PlayStation 3 by matching those consoles' abilities to render and output graphics in high-definition. I've heard mixed things about whether Nintendo will cap their machine's graphical resolution at 1080i or 1080p, but either figure would significantly exceed the Wii's 480p and achieve the resolutions used for most high-end console games on the Microsoft and Sony consoles.

In this case I not see enough reason ,to buy another one PS360 console ,just with Nintendo label (only for Mario Zelda Metroid in HD?New joypad?Not enough for me)
Still hope this is not true

 

[lwill]

I think that statement may be taking out of context. This was the full quote from Kotaku:

The new 2012-scheduled Nintendo system will fall more in line with the 360 and PlayStation 3 by matching those consoles' abilities to render and output graphics in high-definition. I've heard mixed things about whether Nintendo will cap their machine's graphical resolution at 1080i or 1080p, but either figure would significantly exceed the Wii's 480p and achieve the resolutions used for most high-end console games on the Microsoft and Sony consoles.

http://kotaku.com/#!5797890/nintendos-next-console-will-enter-the-hd-era-but-not-the-hard+drive-era

The following sentences in that paragraph did not mention anything about the actual graphical abilities of the system since locking it at 1080i/1080p doesn't mean that the GPU isn't capable of going beyond that. I believe Kotaku was just saying that it will match the 360/PS3 in that it can render graphics in HD.

In fact, the article stated this in the next paragraph

Nevertheless, the numbers do hint at some of the system's capabilities. The disc size and the broad impression of graphical prowess is consistent with my and others' reports that the new console will at least equal the PS3 and Xbox 360 in horsepower, increasing the likelihood that games made for the current Sony and Microsoft consoles could also be made for Nintendo's next machine.

Kotaku's article has no new info on the actual horsepower of the system.

 

[Blazkowicz]

what would be even better than SD cards or USB disks is using whatever networked storage you have already, why buy other hard disks to put in little boxes when you may own one or more absurdly big ones already? (hopefully backed up to some extent)

I don't mean expecting everyone to network their Wii with something better than some 1MB/s wifi, and set up a file server or own a NAS (a smart acronym for just a file server) ; just giving the option.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The following sentences in that paragraph did not mention anything about the actual graphical abilities of the system since locking it at 1080i/1080p doesn't mean that the GPU isn't capable of going beyond that. I believe Kotaku was just saying that it will match the 360/PS3 in that it can render graphics in HD.
(...)
Kotaku's article has no new info on the actual horsepower of the system.

Although there is no technical information, the "matching those consoles' abilities to render and output graphics" is pretty much self-explanatory to me. It means Nintendo isn't aiming to surpass the render capabilities of PS3 and X360 (which is a shame as it would be dirt-cheap nowadays). Nintendo is aiming to match the current-gen's render capabilities.

what would be even better than SD cards or USB disks is using whatever networked storage you have already, why buy other hard disks to put in little boxes when you may own one or more absurdly big ones already? (hopefully backed up to some extent)

I don't mean expecting everyone to network their Wii with something better than some 1MB/s wifi, and set up a file server or own a NAS (a smart acronym for just a file server) ; just giving the option.

I don't think Nintendo is going to put a Gigabit Ethernet port in the console, and as you said, most people are stuck with Wireless G, with their internet connection almost being capped by their own home network.
That said, it would make more sense to have the option to stream game content directly from the internet, rather than a networked hard drive.
That and give the players the ability to store some save games, profile settings and achievements in a cloud storage.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't think Nintendo is going to put a Gigabit Ethernet port in the console, and as you said, most people are stuck with Wireless G, with their internet connection almost being capped by their own home network.

Wireless G can achieve faster connections than the < 8 megabits of typical broadband. A good wireless connection is good enough to cope with internet traffic, as long as it's not being shared with other high bandwidth issues. I don't think you can really design a system around a theoretical household network structure, as it all varies so much. In Wii's case Nintendo made a wired connection adaptor to accommodate those without Wifi. Gosh, it's amazing how cheap and penny pinching Nintendo are! Not even including an Ethernet port.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Wireless G can achieve faster connections than the < 8 megabits of typical broadband. A good wireless connection is good enough to cope with internet traffic, as long as it's not being shared with other high bandwidth issues. I don't think you can really design a system around a theoretical household network structure, as it all varies so much. In Wii's case Nintendo made a wired connection adaptor to accommodate those without Wifi. Gosh, it's amazing how cheap and penny pinching Nintendo are! Not even including an Ethernet port.

Oh sorry, I was thinking of the >30mbit/s typical connections in Europe.
Really, no pun intended.

 

[Rangers]

Oh sorry, I was thinking of the >30mbit/s typical connections in Europe.
Really, no pun intended.

Wait, in every Onlive debate, we learn Europe connections are terrible and much worse than USA. Weird

 

[Fafalada]

And I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with a plain 3-core PPU @ 3.2GHz.

If they are after a low-power envelope like they were with the Wii (ie. keeping the box small with next to no cooling), I doubt clock speeds would go that high, regardless of the design.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Wait, in every Onlive debate, we learn Europe connections are terrible and much worse than USA. Weird

European connections to Onlive are terrible because all the Onlive servers are in North America, duh... ¬¬

But really, the worst rock-bottom connection you can get here is ADSL 12Mbps, wich you can upgrade to 25Mbps by paying 20% more.
That means even the "guys who only do e-mail at their homes" could have Onlive with its recommended 5Mbps connection, if we had a local server.

If they are after a low-power envelope like they were with the Wii (ie. keeping the box small with next to no cooling), I doubt clock speeds would go that high, regardless of the design.

I saw no rumours regarding power envelope so far...

 

[Blazkowicz]

what's typical is all what your phone line allows, there no magic bullet that makes adsl faster on >= 3 kilometer long lines just because they're in Europe.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

what's typical is all what your phone line allows, there no magic bullet that makes adsl faster on >= 3 kilometer long lines just because they're in Europe.

That may be true but I haven't heard of such limitations in years, except in remote villages where people end up using 12Mbps 3G.
In the cities, people get the speed their ISP caps their connection to, either it's phone line or optic fiber.

But this is a highly off-topic discussion.

The point was: Nintendo might be giving cloud storage to the Stream's users in order to compensate for the 8GB flash memory, like Asus did for the first SSD-based EeePCs.
Either you have a fast enough Internet connection to make it worthwile or not, is a whole other issue.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That may be true but I haven't heard of such limitations in years, except in remote villages where people end up using 12Mbps 3G.
In the cities, people get the speed their ISP caps their connection to, either it's phone line or optic fiber.

But this is a highly off-topic discussion.

It's also flat-out wrong. Recently one UK town hit the world's top hundred fastest broadband connected cities, with an amazing connection speed of 6.2 Mbps. 6.2. Megabits. Akamai's State of the Internet reports (as of Q4 2010) show only South Korea getting above 10 Mbps on average. Everyone else is below, around 6-8 Mbps for the faster nations. And Speedtest shows, of those geeks into testing their fast broadband, the typical is all of 10 Mbps. OFCOM reckons the UK average is 5.2 Mbps, whereas Akamai pegs us at 3.8. Nothing anywhere points to superfast broadband being at all common. It'll be a reasonably long time before 10 Mbps is even commonplace (UK government is aiming for 2015 infrastructure rollout). It'll be an age before the ~20 Mbps practical BW of Wifi G becomes a serious internet bottleneck, by which point wifi G will be long dead I'm sure.

 

[TheWretched]

Wait, in every Onlive debate, we learn Europe connections are terrible and much worse than USA. Weird

Well... it's correct in that half of Germany cannot get more than 4Mbit/s or thereabouts, because Telekom Germany and others don't see any reason to make faster connections available...

If you live in the right parts, then getting very fast connections is easy... Telekom Germany announced 500mbit/s for later this year and 1Gbit/s for some time next year or 2013... but only for select locations with fiber.

 

[HellFire_]

Well... it's correct in that half of Germany cannot get more than 4Mbit/s or thereabouts, because Telekom Germany and others don't see any reason to make faster connections available...

If you live in the right parts, then getting very fast connections is easy... Telekom Germany announced 500mbit/s for later this year and 1Gbit/s for some time next year or 2013... but only for select locations with fiber.

You can get fast internet access through the television cable providers already in most regions, Kabel Deutschland for example is investing heavily in infrastructure. I just upgraded my connection from 16mbit through telephone line, which I think is the slowest connection you can get in Berlin, to a 100mbit connection through cable. (But because of my firewall and router I only get 45mbit or so )

 

[Cyan]

I hope next gen consoles use similar processors than the new line of 22mm processors Intel, and other companies, are creating for the future. The Ivy Bridge. 3D chips -physically 3D, not flat transistors anymore- using a technology called Tri-Gate.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13283882

Traditional planar chip design (left) and Intel's new Tri-Gate technology (right). The company believes that 3D transistors perform more efficiently

 

[3dilettante]

Unless Intel does the fabbing, I'm not convinced it's going to happen next gen.
TSMC and GF seem to have a horizon 1-2 nodes behind Intel for a shift from planar, which could add another 4-6 years.