Spring 2005 say's sources. Nintendo's next console

[nonamer]

Back on topic: What kind of fabrication process can Nintendo expect if they release in early 2005? They don't have their own fab like Sony does so Nintendo will have to outsource production of the chip.

 

[PC-Engine]

NEC who else...

 

[Deepak]

Back on topic: What kind of fabrication process can Nintendo expect if they release in early 2005? They don't have their own fab like Sony does so Nintendo will have to outsource production of the chip.

Sony is an electronics giant...so they have the expertise/experience necessary to build/operate fabs....but N has neither...and building a fab needs billions...so it makes sense to outsource production!

 

[Evil_Cloud]

Back on topic: What kind of fabrication process can Nintendo expect if they release in early 2005? They don't have their own fab like Sony does so Nintendo will have to outsource production of the chip.

Sony is an electronics giant...so they have the expertise/experience necessary to build/operate fabs....but N has neither...and building a fab needs billions...so it makes sense to outsource production!

Probably they will use the cheapest outsource production
But I wonder what GameCube 2 will look like... a dolphin? A moustache?

 

[Josiah]

Well for comparison, Intel plans to begin production at 65-nm in 2005, in limited quantities. And ATI should be bringing forward R500 by that spring (at 90-nm). This gives us an idea of what to expect.

 

[qwerty2000]

It is easy to see that GameCube increase in specs over N64, such as FP performance, etc, turns into realworld, ingame/ on screen gains in graphics.

GameCube is easily an order of magnitude or two beyond N64. I expect the same increase from GameCube to GC2 as from N64 to GC. at the very least. so that is roughly 100x increase in polygon performance.

-polygon count-
Nintendo: 64: 150,000-160,000
GameCube: 15-20 million
GameCube2: 1.5-2 billion?

-memory-
N64: 4.5 MB
GC: 43MB
GC2: 512MB?

-main memory bandwidth-
N64: over 500 MB/sec
GC: 2.6 GB/sec
GC2: 20-30 GB/sec?

-Floating Point Performance-
N64: 100-125 MFLOPs (CPU) + 100 MFLOPs (RCP/GPU)
GC: 10.5 GFLOPs total (Gekko + Flipper)
GC2: 1-5 TFLOPs total (CPU + GPU)

-Texturing-
N64: 4K texture cache
GC: 1MB texture cache (6MB with S3TC)
GC2: similar increase

-memory latency-
N64: 50-100ms
GC: 10ns (6.5ns on Flipper)
GC: 1-2ns?

not to even mention Flipper's internal graphics bandwidth.

 

[Deepak]

Speculation:

Will GC2....

1) be online enabled?
2) have XB-Live sort of service?
3) have HD?
4) have backward compatibiliy?
5) DVD playback?

 

[Evil_Cloud]

Speculation:

Will GC2....

1) be online enabled?
2) have XB-Live sort of service?
3) have HD?
4) have backward compatibiliy?
5) DVD playback?

Yes
No, it will be free (exept for games like Phantasy Star)
Not sure
Not sure, but would be awesome
Yes, remember Q?

 

[Josiah]

It is easy to see that GameCube increase in specs over N64, such as FP performance, etc, turns into realworld, ingame/ on screen gains in graphics.

GameCube is easily an order of magnitude or two beyond N64. I expect the same increase from GameCube to GC2 as from N64 to GC. at the very least. so that is roughly 100x increase in polygon performance.

-polygon count-
Nintendo: 64: 150,000-160,000
GameCube: 15-20 million
GameCube2: 1.5-2 billion?

...

2 billion? that's all? I was hoping for atleast 80 - 90 trillion

 

[Teasy]

Josiah

Are you being sarcastic or are you actually being serious?

 

[London Geezer]

Josiah

Are you being sarcastic or are you actually being serious?

I think the explained it all...

 

[Phil]

Yes, remember Q?

yes of course, how could one forget? After all, it's selling like mad not just in japan...

/jk

 

[London Geezer]

oh Q!!! yeah how could ANYONE forget a Japan-only released system which must have sold less units than the VirtualBoy.....

 

[Teasy]

I think the explained it all...

A can be taken in many ways though. I was just asking him to clarify exactly what he meant there.. just wondering.

 

[Josiah]

yes, i was being sarcastic. 2 billion pps is going to amount to hundreds of polygons per pixel, even if they could accomplish this it would be a complete waste.

 

[notAFanB]

will it come with a keyboard?

 

[Teasy]

yes, i was being sarcastic. 2 billion pps is going to amount to hundreds of polygons per pixel, even if they could accomplish this it would be a complete waste.

What about when HDTV resolutions are more commonly used? (2005-2006). HDTV resolutions would mean close to 5 times the amount of pixels per frame when compared to current 640x480. Also what about multi-pass rendering.. where you might need to T&L an entire scene 4 or 5 times per frame? Ok, even with 1280x1080 and 5 passes 2 billion pps is still over the top (unless I'm missing something). But 1 billion wouldn't be too over the top would it? Anyway as I said, I've heard much more ridiculous pps numbers mentioned for PS3.

 

[Steve Dave Part Deux]

World space is not screen space. The number of pixels in your color buffer doesn't limit your ability to display geometrically complex environments.

 

[jvd]

well since they are going with ati and ati is really good maxing out processes we may see a video card at .13 micron from ati or mabye mabye .9


If it launches in 2005 then nintendo will have the most underpowered system but also the lead. If they can use that time wisely they might end up in a stong second postion. Unless ms hits it right off the bat they are going to end up 3rd me thinks .

 

[notAFanB]

isn't that assuming that GFX tech will be the driving force being the next gen( and the gen after that)?

IMO we are approaching the point where performence levels between competitors are so close as to be indistinguishable from each other and diifer only on content (exclusives, services etc...).