Xbox 2 coming in Nov-Dec 2005 - Revolution could be stronger

Cough Sin & Punishment (Treasure), Cough Majora's Mask...

 

Well, I personally evaluate console gphx performance based on which one featured the best looking char. model. That is the console with the best looking model is the winner. Why?

I prefer traditional japanese rpgs and if a model is superior it will showcase superior gphx in that genre at least during many areas of gameplay(close-ups, summons, spells, etc.). The highest detailed models of the last gen, IIRC are on psx rpgs. Traditional Rpgs given their nature can exceed other genres in terms of detail in this area given that if need be virtually all the resources can be focused on a single char model-summons, spells, close-ups, etc, and the games can run at 30fps with no problem.

 

Well the n64 had very few of those sorts of games, RPGs like you said can dedicate a lot more resources to a model because there's precious little else its modeling. The strength of the n64 IMO were in platforming titles where large areas could be displayed. I know Chrono Cross had some very nicely modeled characters, but the impact is killed by the IQ problems, still a pretty game...shoot I should start playing it again lol.

 

Well, in most areas yeah. But the optimized camera angles used in some boss battles, summons, etc pretty much eliminate them, giving crisp detail with none of the problems... thus overall superior gphx, that can sometimes go head to head and even exceed some next-gen titles IMHO.

 

I don't think it exceeded any modern titles, modeling is nice, but its one small element in a whole package. I played a bit of Skies of Arcadia, and though many models were indeed very simple, texture quality, IQ effects were all vastly superior, as were the true 3d environments. If Chorno-cross were ported to the Dreamcast but totally revitalized (like Conker on the Xbox) it would utterly kill the PSX version without a doubt. And I only played half of Chronocross, so I can't comment with 100% certainty, but I don't think there's anything in Chronocross that competes with FFX in the least.

 

Honestly i prefer the pixelated look of psx to n64 blur, especially since most games are sorta prefiltered.

Also the n64 has a severe iq problem, it doesnt really matter what you hook it up with you still wont get a picture much better than blurry composite. Psx on the other hand has exellent rgb(and svhs) supports.

What psx does good(small rooms) it does better than what n64 does good(big open scenes). I think games like vagrant story, mgs are the best looking games of last gen, they have detailed characters, detailed backgrounds and great effects.

 

I don't know, I still hold that mychief makers on the n64, yoshi's story, and maybe that goemon game(and some japanese only titles) were very nice looking 2d titles with 3d effects.

Didn't look quite as good. I believe sin and punishment was either still low res, or didn't have as good filtering, and majora's mask was built off the dated zelda engine, conker did have better textures and higher polygon counts by a large amount. Special effects are debatable perhaps.

BTW, didn't the zelda games have characters with similar polygon counts to skies of arcadia? If not zelda, then certainly conker's bad fur day...skies of arcadia wasn't an ideal situation for dreamcast, not a lot of overdraw and just vast empty skies.

As for n64 games with high quality character models, how about hybrid heaven, the turok series, or maybe paper mario?(they were flat, but still 3d right?) Mario tennis maybe?

In my experience, sure, low res n64 games looked like crap on svideo. However, hi res games like conker's bad fur day and perfect dark had a surprising amount of detail added with a good connection. I can't say the same for psx, I thought psx was ugly over rf and composite, but after the blurriness is removed and you're left with just pixels and popping polygons, ugh, get that stuff away from me. I couldn't even stand to play the best looking psx games like that.(and it sticks that the problems of the psx carry over when it's emulated)

Are you sure? Screenshots of its games didn't look that good, and d2 was changed over to dc and looked quite nice. I mean, if you're talking about voodoo 1 or the matrox powervr card, then yeah, it's better, but better than pvr2dc?
DC had trilinear, but no games used it.(same with n64)
DC had a faster drive. And a more powreful cpu. I mean, when was the m2 supposed to be released? Dreamcast was late 98 in Japan.(it amazes me how soon the dc came out after saturn died....literally saturn was stone dead by 98 in the US, and dc was out in Japan like within 6 months of the last US saturn game)

 

Qroach:

First of all, you were initially incorrect to assume that Anandtech was comparing dev kits. This article was written in 12/01, clearly after the platforms had both launched & specifications for both systems were finalized. You seem to forget that the unmodified Celeron X-CPU received a downgrade in clock frequency from 800mhz to 733 iirc. While the Flipper was downgraded from 202.5 to 162mhz, conversely the Gekko was raised to 485mhz from 405. An alteration which I would think would benefit the GC even moreso as all vertex data, custom lighting, procedural animation, etc. that must be offloaded there. (although vertex shaders are fairly easy to emulate save for the added issues with bus contention and scheduling) I didn't post a direct link for reasons that Fafalada reiterated. It is inaccurate in many sections, & clearly skewed in favor of the PC like architecture of the X-Box. It was unprofessional as their bias was blatant, & a thorough knowledge or grasp of the GC's abilities was definitely not present. (the TEV pipeline, etc.) But as you wish: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1566&p=2

You consistently refer to the EA benchmarks, I'm sorry but I do not put as much stock into them as you do. We don't know how efficiently coded that benchmark was to begin with, so why cling to its results as if they were gospel? Did you simply ignore all the other links that Fox5 provided? A general chameleon type code easily transferrable to all respective platforms is what EA does basically. Taking advantage of easy to obtain texturing, mip-mapping, or RAM advantages made available by the GC & X-Box. (take the gradual visual enhancements in Madden for ex. by platform) They aren't architecturally specialized type coders, whose performance outputs can vary rather greatly. For example such as Factor 5, Naughty Dog, KCEJ-W, Capcom, (RE4) EAD, (LOZ) Retro, Polyphony Studios, Bungie, Team Ninja, etc. And at many times EA are also responsible for noticeably lazily coded ports. (since the PS2 is the launch platform) Also AFAIR the EA benchmarks had the GC above, or just below the X-Box for whatever it's worth regarding in-game conditions. (correct me if I'm wrong)

Which devs. are you referring to exactly? Those with their roots in PC development? What about the plethora of japanese ones? Put some actual thought behind your statements before making blanket erroneous ones.

Nintendo also had this in their official GameCube Hardware Overview documentation (While Flipper@200mhz, & the Gekko was @405mhz, iirc though so some variations would apply):



By elegant I believe you mean efficient.

How can the X-Box be faster in lighting when on the GC they are done in parallel or simultaneously with other functions? (infinite with specular, or local omni. Negating any possible speed differential) Or shadowing & self-shadowing when they can both be combined in one operation or pass? From Gamasutra:

Some of the supporting data can be found here: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20021002/sauer_pfv.htm Teasy has the link to the additional GS light reference article.

EMBM can be performed faster upon the GC, although bumpmapping is faster when done on the X-Box. Although bumpmapping requires 2 texture layers alone, without lighting, standard or self-shadowing, etc. which require multiple passes on the NV2A. The speed difference between the respective GPUs is 71mhz. (233-162mhz) Not to mention the GC's sustainable 9ns main memory latency. The Celeron X-CPU is no faster, if anything its slower since we know that a Power PC clocked at 400mhz is the equivalent to an Intel operating at 700mhz or above. (although the GC is much more reliant upon their modified PPC 750CXe) And obviously 2-4 texture passes on the Gamecube will see a dramatic improvement in polygon throughput as I documented earlier.

"Who cares about 8 texture passes?" I'm sure that Capcom, Factor 5, EAD, Retro, & the more proficient Gamecube coders do. This is not to say that they're all utilizing 8 passes of course, but 5-6 at a time would still have its advantages. I believe RS3 is incorporating 6 per-pass while maintaining 60fps primarily, & pushing 12mpps. (more in some scenarios) Not to mention per-pixel lighting, light-scattering, an advanced particle system, self-shadowing, AI, DOT3, EMBM, a water physics system, etc. The GC's most comprehensive tech. demo regarding system ability. (even if F5 forgot to include the gameplay, even they admitted more performance could be obtained from the machine)

And exactly how many components on the X-Box is MS responsible for directly producing? Besides it's DirectX API? Do you see how irrelevant that statement you made is?

What one developer is capable of extracting with 8 textures poly-wise is not representative of what all developers can accomplish. By your logic then how did F5 get 12mpps using 5-6 texture passes then? (its listed maximum) Its all about developer proficiency when exploiting the said platform.

The DS is Yamauchi's last recommendation/contribution to Nintendo, he admitted this himself btw. You overstate Yamauchi's importance to Nintendo under Iwata's guidance. (completely unfounded as many of your statements have been thus far) Yamauchi may have picked his successor, though their ideologies are clearly different. (GBA & the SP for example, the iQUE as well. I don't recall Nintendo ever trying to branch out & establish a chinese market, I may be wrong however. The Revolution's design will also illustrate this departure in philosophy.) Iwata is stressing the need for innovation, not the abandonment of advancing technology in total. In case you hadn't noticed, software sales on the whole are on the decline in both NA/JPN since last generation. Nintendo is attempting to remedy this through innovative change. Change does not equate to weakness. And MS isn't harping on its power advantage anymore, but rather on the "extreme importance" of software & dev. cost. Quite a change in philosophy, though born out of necessity when realizing they "won't be flexing the most muscle" come next generation.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/504/504558p1.html

Additional related comments by Iwata:

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/505/505234p4.html

The purpose in all this is to point out that simply by the time differential, the Xenon could be the weakest by default. Nintendo's system will be at least as powerful, if not moreso than Xenon. (this is what happened with the current gen. batch of consoles if you recall, yet & still each have areas where they excel above the others in specific benchmarks as you noted.) The next-generation will follow the same precedent, such is the nature of technology. Photo-realism was not at the core of Nintendo's complaints about the current state of the industry. Diminishing returns based solely upon visuals was. (when a virtual graphical parity is reached, which is what Nintendo is alluding to for the next-generation of consoles) I doubt we hear anything regarding acquisitions, additional technology partnerships, architectural specs, etc. until next E3 in reference to Revolution. As Nintendo guards its secrets well, & as of yet they are not finalized. As I assume Xenon's would primarily have to be excluding clockspeeds.

I went over various aspects of the GC's design to illustrate both its efficiency as well as its power. I am also a fan of both the GCs & PS2's architectural intricacies over the X-Box's. But to say that Revolution will be behind the tech. curve citing the GC as an indirect example due to cost conservativism is lunacy. I never even touched upon paired single capability & other aspects of the GC. All next-gen consoles will be sold at a $299 price-point btw.

 

For rogue leader, but I thought for rebel strike that said they had maxed it. Not sure if that's quite true though, I think rare could have done a better looking game(and equally devoid of gameplay), or at least better looking in my opinion. Not sure how framerates would have compared, but I predict another rare game would have had flashier lighting and shading effects(probably little or no bump mapping though), and much sharper graphics. Rebel strike is incredible on an interlaced display...but with pscan you start to see all the flaws in its filtering(why do the shadows become pixelated in pscan, but smooth in interlaced?), still looks very good, but you wish it was higher resolution or something.

I think factor 5 did use 8 texture passes in some levels of rogue leader and rebel strike, btw. Maybe bespin, or perhaps the level with the shiny water in the first one? Hoth in the 2nd one I think was 6 or 7.

I kind of hope not, I like the $200 price point..on the other hand, a $200 price point also hurts the idea that a system is powerful, rather than causing people to think "wow, that's a good deal!"

 

Even on RS3 Fox5 they admitted that more could be "squeezed" out of the Cube as they phrased it. I was using 6 texture passes as a conservative number, although I had heard it utilized more. (just couldn't find the supplemental data confirming this through interviews etc.) The $299 price-point has been mentioned or stated by both Kutarugi & Iwata repeatedly in fact.

 

Btw Fox5, do you have any links regarding the texture passes utilized by F5 for RS3? (as I did not look very long nor very hard) This would help me to further illuminate the point I was trying to show Qroach. (exceeding the 5 million polycount number w/8 texture passes is dependent upon the developer's proficiency, & thereby making it not a "useless" feature because most devs. aren't utilizing it) I know that their game was running at 12mpps through interviews, although acheiving many more effects than RL did.

 

I'm sure DC could handle chrono cross and clean the iq in most of the battles. But the fact is, chrono features a few models that are more detailed and impressive than most enemy and character models in both grandia 2 and skies of arcadia, premiere next-gen DC rpgs. During the moments in which the camera is in an ideal move, spot or the like, most iq problems(pixelation, aliasing, and the like) dissapear, at least on a normal tv through vga. Thus if you were to come and see both games and only saw a snippet of em, a dc close-up of one of the common chars or enemy models, and one of the later impressive chrono ones... you might mistakenly believe the later to be on a superior platform. This is something impressive when talking about h/w from different generations.

 

This i dont understand. Composite picture doesnt get any better with higher resulotion, its still shit.

Filtered low res 2d graphics doesnt look very good imo. Goemon looked decent but has nothing on games like klonoa, einhänder, rtype delta.

 

http://www.gamechronicles.com/reviews/ngc/rogueleader/roguesquadron2.htm
Here under graphics it says they used eight textures passes in the original.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20021002/sauer_pfv.htm
Didn't see anyything about number of texture passes in this, but it's an interesting article.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/094/094556p1.html
Ok, here we go, this is the first game though, but the 2nd game did include the entire first game, and you'd assume they improved on just about every area.....

From nphiles

They also talk about their use of complex shaders in other interviews.
"During the moments in which the camera is in an ideal move, spot or the like, most iq problems(pixelation, aliasing, and the like) dissapear, at least on a normal tv through vga."
What do you mean vga? Maybe composite or rf, but if you actually had a tv that could accept vga, it would look horrible!

Besides, if you were to take a small shot of perfect dark in first person from some of the more complicated parts of the game, you could possibly be fooled into thinking it was a next gen game. I know some people who were fooled into thinking it was a dreamcast game, and it was actually from one of the cinema scenes where you can see the character models(I think character models are weak, but guns, environments, vehicles, and other objects all look good).
Perhaps conker's bad fur day too.

On a tv someone thought rebel strike looked better than the movies, which I doubt would have happened on a computer monitor as at least I can clearly see the visual errors on a monitor, but they're hidden by a tv.(was only using svideo though and not component)

BTW, what happened to factor 5's pilotwings game?

 

Composite picture hides the imperfections in the images of psx games, and does hide some n64 image imperfections.
Svideo allows for the higher res games to look clearer, composite does not do the high res n64 games justice.

 

SOA and Grandia 2 weren't polygon pushing monsters though, they barely bothered. Its nice that some models in Chronocross had more raw polygons dedicated to them, but I'd rather have the vastly superior IQ, texturing etc of a DC game, so they really don't compete in my book, but everyone is entitled to their opinions.

 

In certain camera angle movements, the iq is comparable albeit lower rez. I'm also talking about texture detail and animation complexity when I talk about the models.

If you don't mind spoilers, or if you've beaten chrono cross already, click on this link. The rez is slightly less than psone output, but just save it and click on it(to activate win xp image viewer) zoom a little bit. In any case the image quality and detail achievable through some angles are showcased in this pic, which is quite faithful to what is seen on an actual tv.
http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v297/zidane1strife/Destiny.jpg

Compare with....

High quality Dc rpgs:
http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v297/zidane1strife/skies_of_arcadia_comparison.jpg

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v297/zidane1strife/grandia_comparison.jpg

Top notch pc title of the time...
http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v297/zidane1strife/half-life_comparison.jpg

and with some of the best looking upcoming games in the pc arena(of course the pics for these 2 pc fps are some of the worst, but this is a comparison with a psx game after all... I needed to level the playing field a little )

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v297/zidane1strife/doom_3_comparison.jpg

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v297/zidane1strife/half_life_2_comparison.jpg

 

Composite looks like shit period, but then again i like a stable picture with the right colors. Thats why i stick to rgb wich by the way isnt possible(without modding) on the n64. And svideo on n64 looks like composite, or atleast i cant tell the diffrence..

 

Regarding the topic.. could Revolution be stronger...

I don´t think so. THe thing is that if Revolution would be stronger, then it would also mean it would be more expensive..right?
Can Nintendo really compete with MS in a price war? No.. and by having a stronger hardware would mean a bigger loss for Nintendo, if they would go to war with MS on price...

I think that Nintendos machine will probably match Xbox2, maybe be a little weaker...but might have additional features to separate it from the others. NIntendo is very sensitive about pricing and cost.. they´ll need all the money they have now that Sony has entered the portable biz.

Not only that, NIntendo will be supporting ALOT of machines under some time.

The GC, GBASP, N-DS, GC2, GBA2....

so Nintendo better watch out and keep an eye on the cash reserves they got, they cannot afford a pricewar at an early stage... which I think might be one of MS strategies...