Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[upnorthsox]

"United States Patent Application 20120159090
Kind Code A1
Andrews; Jeffrey ; et al. June 21, 2012
SCALABLE MULTIMEDIA COMPUTER SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE WITH QOS GUARANTEES

Abstract
Versions of a multimedia computer system architecture are described which satisfy quality of service (QoS) guarantees for multimedia applications such as game applications while allowing platform resources, hardware resources in particular, to scale up or down over time. Computing resources of the computer system are partitioned into a platform partition and an application partition, each including its own central processing unit (CPU) and, optionally, graphics processing unit (GPU). To enhance scalability of resources up or down, the platform partition includes one or more hardware resources which are only accessible by the multimedia application via a software interface. Additionally, outside the partitions may be other resources shared by the partitions or which provide general purpose computing resources.



Inventors: Andrews; Jeffrey; (Sunnyvale, CA) ; Sell; John V.; (Los Altos, CA) ; Carrie; Susan; (Mountain View, CA) ; Grossman; Mark S.; (Palo Alto, CA) ; Tardif; John; (Sammamish, WA) ; Baker; Nicholas R.; (Cupertino, CA)
Assignee: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Redmond
WA

Serial No.: 970361
Series Code: 12
Filed: December 16, 2010 "


http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...ND&d=PG01&s1=nintendo&OS=nintendo&RS=nintendo

Just an observation, this was filed on Dec. 16th, 2010. The presentation that was leaked was for a meeting on Monday Sept. 27th, 2010. It would seem a go ahead decision was made pretty fast?

 

[bgassassin]

He said he already had early dev kits. Then said the system would be very balance like psvita.

I disagree, seems lherre is making that claim based on info he has access to.... highly doubt Sony told him x720 would even be more powerful.

But I wasn't talking about his Xbox 3 info. My post focused only on the Sony comment. And as I've said so far I disagree with him with the Xbox 3 comment unless he has truly changed on that.

I wonder why there's nothing about two GPU's, two different chipsets etc in BG's rumors? Could it be that the Durango dev kit only contains the gaming side of the hardware so to say, and the app chipset doesnt exist in Durango gaming dev kits? Or just that the whole two chipset idea isn't what they're doing?

Nothing we hear about Durango dev kits suggests an odd two-GPU architecture (well, not the dev kit rumors, there have been sporadic dual GPU rumors about both Durango and Orbis)

Another option could be I was only given info about the "gaming side" of the hardware.

 

[ERP]

Just an observation, this was filed on Dec. 16th, 2010. The presentation that was leaked was for a meeting on Monday Sept. 27th, 2010. It would seem a go ahead decision was made pretty fast?

I filed patents at MS and if it was filed on that date the paperwork was started months before that.

 

[Kb-Smoker]

But I wasn't talking about his Xbox 3 info. My post focused only on the Sony comment. And as I've said so far I disagree with him with the Xbox 3 comment unless he has truly changed on that.
.

Disagree with what? That it will be more powerful than ps4? Seem some people are saying you started the 1TF rumor with x720 gpu.

That would go directly against what Lherre has been saying. who to believe....

 

[AzBat]

Would this patent provide the capability of streaming content to multiple screens in the house while still allowing somebody to game on the main unit connected to the biggest screen in the house? When I first heard of 2 GPUs last year, that's what I envisioned, Also, could Smartglass be an integral part of that experience moreso than the add-on for 360?

Tommy McClain

 

[bgassassin]

Disagree with what? That it will be more powerful than ps4? Seem some people are saying you started the 1TF rumor with x720 gpu.

That would go directly against what Lherre has been saying. who to believe....

It's better than IGN's 6670 rumor.

And lherre hasn't been saying anything lately so we don't know if he would stick with his original comment.

 

[Sonic]

Wow, that post really did make some news. Anywho, kind of funny how I found it considering I went to the patent application page and did a search on Nintendo and this was in the list. Still an interesting and exciting read. I'm glad to see MS researching a scalable architecture. I do imagine that with the game processing, and memory, being separate from the media processing as it allows the machine to truly be the center of entertainment for the house. If it can stream videos throughout the hosue while playing games, like AzBat and others have mentioned, then that's one nail in the coffin into taking over the living room for MS. It will be interesting to see how they handle new hardware iterations and if they will be upgrades on the hardware as well. It could make lives more difficult for game developers in order to focus on performance of two or three sets of hardware and features/performance. Way too early speculation on that.

So if the game processing and media processing are separate does that mean MS can use differenct architectures for each? PowerPC for the gaming, and ARM for the media. Or x86 doesn't matter.

 

[mboeller]

If an optical drive realistically tops out at 33MB/S and

Back in time there was a way around this problem, I think. It was called TrueX:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=6084

They used 7 lasers instead of one. So 7times the read-speed. I'm not sure if this really worked as intended.

 

[Squilliam]

I don't really think multiple lasers is a likely solution given the increased cost and complexity as well as probably reliability issues. It was mentioned earlier in this thread I believe but the feedback on the idea wasn't particularly good...

 

[aaronspink]

Just an observation, this was filed on Dec. 16th, 2010. The presentation that was leaked was for a meeting on Monday Sept. 27th, 2010. It would seem a go ahead decision was made pretty fast?

Filing dates generally have little to due with when work started on something. The first thing you do when you get an idea generally isn't to file a patent on it. Companies tend to mine work for patents at various intervals in time. Some of my patents were filed in some cases 3-5 years after work started.

 

[Davros]

I havnt been following this thread so maybe its been posted already
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-microsoft-scalable-platform-patent

 

[kyetech]

I havnt been following this thread so maybe its been posted already
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-microsoft-scalable-platform-patent

LOL, you didnt read the article either... 'unearthed by beyond3d member sonic'.... from this very thread...

 

[upnorthsox]

I filed patents at MS and if it was filed on that date the paperwork was started months before that.

Filing dates generally have little to due with when work started on something. The first thing you do when you get an idea generally isn't to file a patent on it. Companies tend to mine work for patents at various intervals in time. Some of my patents were filed in some cases 3-5 years after work started.

Well of course the work on it began much earlier, just reading it makes that obvious. I was refering to the go ahead to file. This isn't a widget patent, it's the details of a nextgen platform. There would be strategy, discussions, and consensus arrived at before something like this is let loose in the wilds of the patent office. If anything is obvious from the 13,430+ posts in this thread, it's that these kind of details are shrouded in secrecy for as long as is possible.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The other thing to remember is that just because they filed a patent, doesn't mean that's what the console is actually going to be. It does seem likely with all the other rumours around, but it definitely isn't a sure thing.

 

[ERP]

Well of course the work on it began much earlier, just reading it makes that obvious. I was refering to the go ahead to file. This isn't a widget patent, it's the details of a nextgen platform. There would be strategy, discussions, and consensus arrived at before something like this is let loose in the wilds of the patent office. If anything is obvious from the 13,430+ posts in this thread, it's that these kind of details are shrouded in secrecy for as long as is possible.

It's just a patent, possibly related to the next XBox.
At MS departments have budgets for patent filings and depending on the dept it's usually just one person who has to approve.
From an individual engineers standpoint at MS there is a $ bonus for patent filings if you spend your time dealing with the attorneys.

 

[upnorthsox]

"United States Patent Application 20120159090
Kind Code A1
Andrews; Jeffrey ; et al. June 21, 2012
SCALABLE MULTIMEDIA COMPUTER SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE WITH QOS GUARANTEES

Abstract
Versions of a multimedia computer system architecture are described which satisfy quality of service (QoS) guarantees for multimedia applications such as game applications while allowing platform resources, hardware resources in particular, to scale up or down over time. Computing resources of the computer system are partitioned into a platform partition and an application partition, each including its own central processing unit (CPU) and, optionally, graphics processing unit (GPU). To enhance scalability of resources up or down, the platform partition includes one or more hardware resources which are only accessible by the multimedia application via a software interface. Additionally, outside the partitions may be other resources shared by the partitions or which provide general purpose computing resources.



Inventors: Andrews; Jeffrey; (Sunnyvale, CA) ; Sell; John V.; (Los Altos, CA) ; Carrie; Susan; (Mountain View, CA) ; Grossman; Mark S.; (Palo Alto, CA) ; Tardif; John; (Sammamish, WA) ; Baker; Nicholas R.; (Cupertino, CA)
Assignee: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Redmond
WA

Serial No.: 970361
Series Code: 12
Filed: December 16, 2010 "


http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...ND&d=PG01&s1=nintendo&OS=nintendo&RS=nintendo

Interestingly, that link doesn't go to the same patent anymore.

 

[bkilian]

The other thing to remember is that just because they filed a patent, doesn't mean that's what the console is actually going to be. It does seem likely with all the other rumours around, but it definitely isn't a sure thing.

Actually, it might make it less likely. Most patents for sensitive information are held to the last minute, which is generally something like 60 days after you've disclosed the ideas in the patent to any third parties. (I can't remember the actual number of days, I last went through patent training about 5 years ago), and trust me, the rumors of third parties having dev kits in 2010/2011 are certainly not based on anything in this particular universe (I can't speak for any other universes in the multiverse)

It's just a patent, possibly related to the next XBox.
At MS departments have budgets for patent filings and depending on the dept it's usually just one person who has to approve.
From an individual engineers standpoint at MS there is a $ bonus for patent filings if you spend your time dealing with the attorneys.

Yep. I got the full $1500 for mine. Certainly makes dealing with patent lawyers more bearable. The number of times their "edits" or "rewording" completely changed the actual meaning on the patent is astounding.

 

[onQ]

Interestingly, that link doesn't go to the same patent anymore.

Pretty smooth Microsoft, pretty smooth!

here is the PDF


http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publ...T=D&ND=3&date=20120621&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP

 

[onQ]

Actually, it might make it less likely. Most patents for sensitive information are held to the last minute, which is generally something like 60 days after you've disclosed the ideas in the patent to any third parties. (I can't remember the actual number of days, I last went through patent training about 5 years ago), and trust me, the rumors of third parties having dev kits in 2010/2011 are certainly not based on anything in this particular universe (I can't speak for any other universes in the multiverse)

Yep. I got the full $1500 for mine. Certainly makes dealing with patent lawyers more bearable. The number of times their "edits" or "rewording" completely changed the actual meaning on the patent is astounding.

Maybe they released the patent because the documents leaked.

Also that patent is no longer at the link.

 

[jonabbey]

Actually, it might make it less likely. Most patents for sensitive information are held to the last minute, which is generally something like 60 days after you've disclosed the ideas in the patent to any third parties.

What's the point of a secret patent? The whole public interest rationale for patents is that you publicly disclose your invention in exchange for a limited period of property rights to the idea.