Revolution specs from IGN

[Urian]

I can see the Hollywood with the next improvements over Flipper:

-Stencil Buffer support.
-FSAA improved for be done 1, 2, 3 or 3 times in one pass instead of 2 passes like Gamecube.
-Improved multitexture FX for be done in one pass
-Fixed T&L but with things from DX 9.0 like the HDR.
-TEV has been improved to the level of a DX 9.0 Pixel Shader

Why the people is so worried about Revolution?

Because Matt is trolling against the console, Matt doesn´t understand that this is not the power who changes the things and makes Revolutions, Revolutions are made thanks to the interface and the easy of use to the general people, if Matt is making all this bullshit against Revolution posting specs and crying because "No-HD" thing is just clear his inteligence.

Do you remember the original Macintosh? It was less powerful than the Amiga 1000 and the PC AT but it was revolutionary because its interface was designed for the people in the streets and not for the computer geeks.

Revolution is designed around the same idea, a new interface for the "PITS", for attracting the non-computer geek people to the market and expanding it. But some people cannot understand this fact and one of this person is named Matt Cassamasina.

 

[EndR]

Seeing as the baseline resolution (or maybe indeed the only possible resolution) is 3 times lower than that of its competitors, a modern (better than Flipper and NV2a) ~250Mhz VPU could be enough to pull off the same pixelshader stuff as 360.

I think that you underestimate the 360 quite a bit. Your comparison seems to be on what you have seen right NOW on 360. Granted, few games on 360 impresses graphically right now. Fight night3, Oblivion and GRAW are maybe at the top right now but we still haven´t seen what 360 can muster out.

If these Rev-specs are true, 360 will eat it up for breakfast and still be ordering seconds (and thirds etc).

Besides, Rev is interesting because of its controller, not because of the specs behind it.
It will be interesting to see Li Mu Bais comments about these specs, because there were some interesting speculations going on at the thread the created... which were waaaaay off...

 

[Legend]

the point about power not being everything in gaming is all clear and good. what is worrying is if the power is 'this' low. we are talking as if Cube will face PS3 and X2. we are talking about missing an entire generation cycle. we are talking about an equivilent of leaving your current system take you through the next cycle.

no system can ever hope to be successful without good 3rd party support. Cube is already having 'not so good' 3rd party support. how do you think that will change with such a poer difference between the new systems and this one? add that to having to support the remote and you don't exactly see a very bright picture.
this isn't like DS vs PSP, or PS2 vs Box. this is like Cube vs PS3 and X2.
there are already stunning looking games on X2 and PS3. if these specs are true, Rev will look out dated from day one- let alone six months, a year, or two years from now.

somehting isn't right here.

 

[Squeak]

I think that you underestimate the 360 quite a bit.

I think you underestimate the former ArtX team quite a bit. What they pulled off with Flipper was nothing short of phenomenal.
A 150Mhz VPU with integrated sound and embedded 1T SRAM, that can compare well with a dedicated 233Mhz GPU is quite a feat.
Let's just wait and see if they can do it again.

 

[Phil]

Not to take credit away from the people at ArtX, but there's a fine distinction of what compares favourably due to art and brilliant effort and what is actually competing on a technological level. Having said that, each of architectures of this generation (PS2/GC/Xbox) had their strengths and weaknesses that resulted in few games pushing the envelope and still competing visually despite being different hardware.

What surprises me most about this move by Nintendo is that they are quite evidently going their own path in trying something new. This may or may not be a good thing.

As positives, I see lower development costs though: Developing for Revolution might just be a breeze compared to the other two consoles of this new generation and that might lure developers onto it. Thanks to the controller, unique content will be a given, one that will help it distinguish it even more from its competitors. Is it what gamers will want though? Personally, I'm not sure if I see myself buying into one just yet - though I might not be targeted at the moment anyway. At the very least though, I could see this being picked up by Nintendo loyalists (backwards-compatibility will ensure that at the very least) and by other gamers that already bought either a PS3 or Xbox360. Revolution might just end up being that "perfect 2nd choice". Cheaper games, different games = Win.

 

[Corwin_B]

Seeing as the baseline resolution (or maybe indeed the only possible resolution) is 3 times lower than that of its competitors, a modern (better than Flipper and NV2a) ~250Mhz VPU could be enough to pull off the same pixelshader stuff as 360.

It would have to have nearly the same number of pipelines, though, and as such be a very large chip. To have 1/3 of the power of the 360 at 250MHz, it would have to have 32 shader units.

In fact games such as Metroid Prime/Echos look as good or better than the best xbox titles.

That's about art direction, not technique, though. The most technically advanced XBox titles (SC3 for example) are doing stuff that can't be easily duplicated without complex shaders.

Also, using the Cube/XBox comparisons is not very relevant for the case at hand, since most of last gen multi-platform development was done using PS2 as a baseline. This gen, if the Rev is as drastically underpowered as those numbers suggest, and taking into account the specific controller, it probably won't be used as a baseline.

 

[Kanyamagufa]

Obviously, Nintendo wants the games to be the deciding factor here, and if developers can create a brilliant looking game on the Rev, who cares what the hardware running it is? Seriously, in the long run, who will actually care? There is no real value to being able to quote specifications of your console to your friend, unless you feel you must have a bigger e-penis. After seeing what developers were capable of doing on the GC, I can't honestly say I'm worried about the graphics to come on the Rev.

It's all about utilizing resources.

 

[Guden Oden]

This thread is about what I expected, as far as the general tone and arguments being tossed back and forth.

Am I happy about these specs? Hell, no. Of course not, I'm a technogeek! And Nintendo was my one deity that I used to swear by in the NES to N64 days. I decided to HATE sony and the PS simply because they weren't Nintendo... Then I became pragmatic, bought a PS2/360 and will pre-order PS3 as soon as I can, heh.

Now, are these specs about what I expected? Uhm, actually, they're a bit less. I was hoping for a 1GHz CPU, but well, considering the cooling the system will have, not quite 730MHz is probably all we can expect. 88MB RAM, that I did expect. It's been a number that leaked quite a while ago after all. I didn't think it would be two separate pools of memory though, but at least it's all 1T SRAM, if these rumors are to be believed. That's much better than if only 24MB had been 1T and the rest ordinary crappy DRAM.

I wonder if the 'main' and 'external' memory denominations might mean the 'main' 24MBs are integrated onto the CPU die and the 'external' RAM is mounted on the mobo... I wouldn't count on it, but it's an intriguing thought! Regardless, the 'main' RAM is probably quite, or even very fast, at least as far as latency goes.

Are we to expect the world to end (at least as far as Nintendo's concerned) due to these specs? Um, well, heh. That depends on your outlook I suppose! The ******s will wail and scream of course - M$'s and Sony's with derision and Nintendo's with despair. The more reasonable amongst ourselves will sit back and take a more distanced view of things.

Here's the deal:

Rev will be extremely underpowered compared to the Ferraris and Lamborghinis from MS and Sony. It's a Volkswagen in comparison. It's small - even the handheld controller's tiny - and by all indications it'll be cheap. Both the system itself and the games are set to be comparatively low-priced it seems.

Do I think Nintendo, with its new approach of smarter, more original and 'different' games, will find enough customers to survive with Rev as a stationary system? Sure. All its strong characters and franchises will ensure to that, and no doubt there will be enough intriguing (1st party) titles using the revmote input system to ensure the system's survival.

Do I think Rev will be a runaway success with the masses? Hmmm. That's much more difficult to try and foretell. Rev's a rather quirky system after all, even more quirky than the DS - which against my expectations became a huge hit... Then again, Nintendo's been doing much better on the portable front than the stationary for over a decade now. And there's also the matter of 3rd party support...

Then again, the system will be cheap, and great graphics alone never made a great game, while no better-looking title has ever managed to come close to the amazing atmosphere of say Metroid Prime for example. If nothing else, people might go for a Rev as the famed second system. The 360 or PS3 will probably cost too much and take up too much space in the eyes of most people to buy if one already owns the other, while the Rev will be kind to the wallet, hardly occupy any space at all, and is easy on the eyes to boot. So it'll probably not flop despite its tech is on the level of a couple years ago. And I still want one yesterday.

 

[EndR]

I think you underestimate the former ArtX team quite a bit. What they pulled off with Flipper was nothing short of phenomenal.
A 150Mhz VPU with integrated sound and embedded 1T SRAM, that can compare well with a dedicated 233Mhz GPU is quite a feat.
Let's just wait and see if they can do it again.

I do not underestimate the ArtX guys in any way but even comparing the Xbox GPU with Xenos is kind of pointless. Xenos blows it away. Sure, Xenos has double the Mhz number but Mhz isn´t everything. Xenos pushes shaders like a m*therf*cker and has many things besides Mhz going for it.

The GPU in Rev might do some great things but looking at these comments about Rev specs clearly point it out as greatly underpowered compared to 360 and PS3.

But specs wasn´t the thing about Rev either. The machine will be cheap and NIntendo will still sell it with profit. This machine could go for 199 dollar and Nintendo would still be able to make a buck from each machine.

But specs for specs and looking at the coming games for PS3 and 360, second, third and fourth generation of games.. Rev will not be able to compete in the gfx department..

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Now, are these specs about what I expected? Uhm, actually, they're a bit less. I was hoping for a 1GHz CPU, but well, considering the cooling the system will have, not quite 730MHz is probably all we can expect.

Considering better can be got in laptops, I don't know that form factor is the limiting factor. I'd have thought a GHz Pentium M and mobile 3D chipset like GoForce or whatever ATi's is would fit in the box nicely with a well designed airflow. If the RAM is integrated on die for speeding up access, maybe the low amount makes sense. If these specs are true, maybe Nintendo want to keep the specs low to keep development costs down? If you've oly 88 MBs to play with instead of 512 MB, you're not going to be pending so much on content creation. The biggest games on Rev would thus be all of a fifth the cost of the biggest games on the other platforms, give or take. So where on XB360 and PS3 you have to spend big money for your game to be level-playing with the competing games on those platforms, Revolution would be keeping costs down.

 

[fearsomepirate]

That's about art direction, not technique, though.

And framerate and geometry levels. Meanwhile, among the Xbox titles that run at 60fps...the fact is, you can talk about dot products all you like, but they didn't buy the Xbox enough in terms of image quality to produce a significant advantage over Gamecub e exclusives.

Anyway, that said, the thing I'm most worried about is this:

Sources we spoke with suggest that it is unlikely the GPU will feature any added shaders, as has been speculated.

No shaders = no next-gen graphics, 640x480 or no. I'm really, really surprised that Nintendo is building a machine that wouldn't have been been considered powerful in 2002. They must be so concerned with backwards compatibility that they're not willing to take advantage of cheap, much more powerful, off-the-shelf parts for fear of compatibility issues with Gamecube software that no one will have any interest in buying anywya. A 243 MHz fixed-function GPU isn't going to make anyone say "wow." It's going to make people say "Hey, that's like what I've been seeing already with 2x as many polygons. So what?" So no, Chaos Theory won't be a "baseline," not without hardware shaders. I think we can just forget about seeing really solid FPS's on the machine if this thing can't even handle any modern graphics engines like Doom 3 or Crytek.

I'm not really broken up about the RAM at all. Considering how much devs pulled off with the 24 MB of main RAM in the Cube or the 32 in the PS2, I really don't think it's going to be a big problem. And of course, you won't need to be storing normal or cube maps, either. The thing I'm really concerned about is that Nintendo doesn't seem to be thinking about the long-term. Sure, X360 is expensive now, but what about when the price drops to $199 in maybe 2 or 3 years? Then where will Nintendo be? $199 for a comparative beast of a machine is going to mean a lot of people will just quit buying Revolution titles and go for the much bigger, deeper, and prettier X360 and PS3 titles, regardless of whether or not the machine in $99 or even $59. It's not like PSP, which will always have the disadvantage of squat for battery life and relatively fragile construction.

Revolution is going to look dated when it hits the shelves. Current-gen titles with some extra geometry and a little more emboss mapping (since PS2 won't be a baseline) aren't going to excite anyone just because the control is nicer.

 

[London Geezer]

I might be the only one, i don't know and i don't care, haven't read the whole thread, but having seen the controller and imagining the things that could be done with it, i am really really excited about Revolution. I mean, REALLY. I don't give a damn about specs, although i do admit that PS3 specs with Nintendo's mentality would be really nice. Having said that, i really can't wait to see what Nintendo will come up to.
By contrast, i'm tiepidly excited about PS3 now, and not excited at all about X360.
And that, coming from me, is really something else.

Personally i think that Nintendo's sitting on a goldmine, the only thing that worries me is that there might just be not enough new games for Revolution, like there weren't a lot of games on GC compared to the competition.

 

[pc999]

WOW at this rate in E3 they will say that it is less than GC.

I smell this is as a early Aprill folls, but if this is true then it is better it be much less than 99$, with top games starting at 20$, anyway I still dont belive it I need much more evidences to that.

I wonder if this is a lie why do IGN keep it, everything else point to a significant better console, as it only make sense given dev times/money, todays price HW, case size etc...

 

[Nick Laslett]

I expect Sony to bundle the Eye Toy with the PS2 going forward and that will be their main strategy to combat the Revolution.

There is a huge market for gimmick gaming with casuals. Just look at the success of the "5 old games in a joystick" market for £20.

But we already have lightguns, steering wheels, eye toys, guitars, dance mats, etc that already provide for this market. No matter how amazing the Rev control is, I don't see how it can replace all these add-ons. Lightgun games will still be better with a gun shaped controller, won't they?

 

[Corwin_B]

I might be the only one, i don't know and i don't care, haven't read the whole thread, but having seen the controller and imagining the things that could be done with it, i am really really excited about Revolution. I mean, REALLY. I don't give a damn about specs, although i do admit that PS3 specs with Nintendo's mentality would be really nice. Having said that, i really can't wait to see what Nintendo will come up to.
By contrast, i'm tiepidly excited about PS3 now, and not excited at all about X360.
And that, coming from me, is really something else.

Personally i think that Nintendo's sitting on a goldmine, the only thing that worries me is that there might just be not enough new games for Revolution, like there weren't a lot of games on GC compared to the competition.

I'm really excited at the Revolution too (intend to pick up one on launch day), although I think that if those specs are true it could really have benefitted from some extra power (especially some shaders support).

If the image quality is "clean" enough (decent filtering and AA) and the little increase in power allows more titles to reach the level of the GC very bests (Baten Kaitos, MP1&2, Twilight Princess, RE4, Rogue Leader...) then I'm definitely not worried by "GC-level" graphics and playing in SD. I still have an XBox 360 (and will perhaps get a PS3 depending on exclusives and price) to give the graphic-whore in me a quick fix anyway.

 

[gamepower]

I cannot believe this specs.Only 3MB textur/framebuffer?It ist the same from the
5 years older Gamecube,there is no changes??You need a big textur/framebuffer not
only for higher resolutions ,you need it for big textures,for a good AA,for many effects.
I dont think that the controller can change the game for Nintendo,because Sony can
build it too.

 

[Corwin_B]

I expect Sony to bundle the Eye Toy with the PS2 going forward and that will be their main strategy to combat the Revolution.

There is a huge market for gimmick gaming with casuals. Just look at the success of the "5 old games in a joystick" market for £20.

But we already have lightguns, steering wheels, eye toys, guitars, dance mats, etc that already provide for this market. No matter how amazing the Rev control is, I don't see how it can replace all these add-ons. Lightgun games will still be better with a gun shaped controller, won't they?

Isn't that what the various extra shells are for ? BTW, I wouldn't compare the Revmote to those extra peripherals which are for the most part only suited to a very specific game or two. The Revmote is more of an alternative to the current controllers than a game-specific device.

 

[London Geezer]

because Sony can build it too.

They CAN, anyone can, but first of all i'm sure Nintendo patented the hell out of the controller, and secondly Sony already has eyetoy which is a similar method but ultimately is not as good for obvious reasons.
I expect the vast majority of Rev games to be in first person mode, as that makes the most sense with the games that will be developed for it (tennis games, golf games, most sports games actually, even action games) so i'm sure they thought about that too.

 

[see colon]

i just hope the framebuffer isn't limited to 24bits. if this is true, then nintendo really got taken to the cleaners by ATi and IBM for what amounts to doubling the clockspeed.

then again, MHz never tell the entire story. looking at clockspeed alone it looks like Xenos is only about 2x NV2a.

 

[skilzygw]

Who cares how easy it is to develop for if there is no one to buy the games? Didn't gamecube 3rd parties have a tough time selling their games on GC?

With these specs i would not pay over $150 for this console. At $199 I could spend a 100 more and get a 360 core system.