XBox 2 Dev Kits

[Dave Baumann]

Just occured to me - ATI were scheduled to introduce R400 (as it was) last year and they certianly went as far as taping them out. There's a possability that this work has continued behind closed doors (whats coming out or Marlborough is very closed) such that the dev kits may not feature contempary PC parts, but R400/R500 style parts.

Performance is not so much of an issue as you can tell developers "expect x to be 2X the speed... expect y to be the same speed...", but features will be more important - if you want the full extent of the functionality used in the early games then having contempary parts will not give the full access to the types of functionality available with the XB2 graphics. An old R400 based system may offer more of the functionality that the XB2 part will, but at a different performance level.

It'll be interesting to hear what they have in the dev kits, if we can find out, or at the very least see what they publically announce (interestingly, although its widely rumoured that both NV and ATI will announce their latest parts at CeBit, ATI don't list CeBit on their events list, but do GDC).

 

[cthellis42]

They actually did produce R400 silicon? I thought they got bumped long before getting to that point. (Though of course they could have finished up some of the designs and produced a few if they feel it would be a better idea for Xbox2 development.)

 

[Dave Baumann]

It certainly believe went to the fab.

They were talking about the possibility of it being ready in July '03 at the end of '02 meaning the end of the layout process had begun. Things went quiet after that and we found out about R420 in March or April '03 IIRC, and they would be in the revision process by then. The next CC they mentioned high R&D costs and cited something about a "high end part we decided to do something else with".

 

[Sonic]

It's a plausible idea but I just don't see it happening. I'm not sure MS was settled with ATI the time R400 taped out and what not. It's possible that the specs are known and were sent out to developers but actual hardware is a bit unlikely. There would have been rumors from somewhere to leak out about such a thing happening. I don't know of any dev kits with us right now, only preliminary specs that are subject to change given future development.

 

[Dave Baumann]

We know that ATI were employing people in relation to the XBox project at the same time R400 went off the roadmap - XB2 is one of the factors that prompted ATI to remove R400 in favour of R420 in the PC space.

 

[Qroach]

Xbox 2 kits haven't arrived yet.

 

[cybamerc]

Eh... features are important but not essential. Xbox developers started with GF2s and PS2 and GC developers started development on PCs as well. It's still very early, Xbox 2 won't be out for a long time.

 

[Brimstone]

I still don't understand the ATI contract. It was mentioned that that orignial bids had a "floating design", which I guess meant Microsoft held the right to update what they wanted from the VPU in terms of features and performance. So bids from ATI and Nvidia could change. Once Microsoft awarded the contract to ATI, how flexable is ATI required to be? For example, lets say early on in the contract Microsoft was thinking of a .90 nm design when the contract began and then later on decided to go with a .65nm fab, is ATI obligated to accomadate Microsoft?

The reason I bring this up is because the R500 is supposed to be a .90 nm part, while whatever goes into the X-Box 2 will probably be .65 nm. I base this on Team Xbox saying the CPU is going to be .65 nm, so I assume the VPU will also be .65 nm.

 

[London Geezer]

We will have to see about the .90 vs .65 issue, and personally i wouldn't trust Team Xbox too much.

I'm sure that if MS pumps out enough cash, ATI will just do as they're told and get on with it.

What i'm fearing is that ATI ends up slowing down their PC Graphics production because of resources put into the Xbox2 project, like it happened to Nvidia.

DISCLAIMER: That is, if Nvidia really got in trouble with NV30 and successors because of NV2a, like many people were saying at the time...

 

[Dave Baumann]

Xbox 2 kits haven't arrived yet.

I know. That’s why I say it will be interesting to hear what they have in them when they are supplied.

Eh... features are important but not essential. Xbox developers started with GF2s and PS2 and GC developers started development on PCs as well. It's still very early, Xbox 2 won't be out for a long time.

Yes, and that may well be what happens in this case as well – it may ship with contemporary PC parts. However, what I’m saying is that you can make a greater impact in terms of visuals in the early days of the console if you have early developer hardware that closer matches your finalised specification – whilst R400 (as was) probably wont offer the entire functionality of what the XB2 ends up with it’ll probably have more than capabilities than Shader 2.0 or 3.0 models, and in this instance there may be an opportunity for MS to ship early dev kits with hardware that is much closer to the final feature capabilities of the system.

With the previous early XBox dev kits they had lower performance and much more limted fragment operations – if you can eliminate one of those differences to a large extent then you’ll likely end up with better utilisation from the offset, and of those two performance can be estimated better.

While there previously wasn’t the opportunity to do such a thing with the Xbox1 there could be the possibility in this instance.

Once Microsoft awarded the contract to ATI, how flexable is ATI required to be? For example, lets say early on in the contract Microsoft was thinking of a .90 nm design when the contract began and then later on decided to go with a .65nm fab, is ATI obligated to accomadate Microsoft?

The reason I bring this up is because the R500 is supposed to be a .90 nm part, while whatever goes into the X-Box 2 will probably be .65 nm. I base this on Team Xbox saying the CPU is going to be .65 nm, so I assume the VPU will also be .65 nm.

Well, you are assuming that the XBox part is a direct copy of R500 for starters, which its unlikely to be – it’ll probably share the same architecture, but I believe that there is a separate team in Marlborough that is dealing with it.

However, we there is a key element that we still don’t know about – to what level is ATI supplying the “IP� Because this is an IP deal it may or may not be ATI’s task to target a specific process. I asked Eric Demers (R300 Pixel Shader lead engineer / Flipper design team) about this a while back:

Link[/url]]I asked if IP has to be targeted at a different process should some be sold to a prospective console vendor.

[Eric Demers] "As a generalized comment, if one were to buy IP in the form of RTL code, then one could port it from technology to technology. If one were to buy netlists, then if one is porting from one tech to another, the tech have to be similar, otherwise the design will not meet timing."

So, that hinges on exactly what level of IP MS have bought.

 

[cthellis42]

With the previous early XBox dev kits they had lower performance and much more limted fragment operations ? if you can eliminate one of those differences to a large extent then you?ll likely end up with better utilisation from the offset, and of those two performance can be estimated better.

Methinks developer quality and effort will always be the far overriding factor here, though. Halo and DOA3, for instance, still look better than gaggles of other games to come out much later.

 

[nelg]

We know that ATI were employing people in relation to the XBox project at the same time R400 went off the roadmap - XB2 is one of the factors that prompted ATI to remove R400 in favour of R420 in the PC space.

Why would ATI remove the R400 for the R420 in relation to the XBOX ?

Edit: To clarify, IIRC, there have been various rumors that the R400 was to complex to produce efficiently, under powered and overpowered.

 

[Brimstone]

What is a bit intresting is how close IBM's Fishkill location is to ATI's Marlborough location. If people from ATI wanted to brainstorm in person with people from IBM, they could make a day trip out of it and drive to East Fishkill. I wonder if any way this will help the Marlborough team at all? Having an advanced fab so close has to be cool for them.

 

[ERP]

I'd have though that any PS/VS3.0+ capable hardware, would incorporate the vast majority of features that your going to see in the XBox2 Timeframe.

MS will want to get kits in as many hands as possible, so assuming they follow the same pattern as last time, I'd expect mass market parts in the alpha kits.

 

[cthellis42]

Edit: To clarify, IIRC, there have been various rumors that the R400 was to complex to produce efficiently, under powered and overpowered.

It could still have been a factor along with those--though I certainly hope that those factors alone would have caused them to shift their schedule anyway. Trying to build over-complex cards on processes not ready for it yet to bring about potentially a lot less performance than it's capable would seem to me to be a very bad idea all by itself.

 

[jvd]

I'd have though that any PS/VS3.0+ capable hardware, would incorporate the vast majority of features that your going to see in the XBox2 Timeframe.

MS will want to get kits in as many hands as possible, so assuming they follow the same pattern as last time, I'd expect mass market parts in the alpha kits.

why the xbox2 is set to come out in 2006 which is around dx10 and longhorn. So if anything it be closer to dx 10 if not full dx 10 . than it would be dx 9

 

[Megadrive1988]

because Xbox 2 will use some modified variant of R500 and some variant of DX10, it should also have VS/PS 4.0 or 4.0+ especially if its coming in 2006, or even late 2005.

 

[ERP]

Yes, I just don't expect VS/PS4.0. to be a huge step forwards in terms of functionality.

It comes down to how big the subset of shaders that you could write in PS/VS4.0 that you can't write in 3.0?

 

[Megadrive1988]

oh ok, I see what you're saying. I would tend to agree then.

so while Xbox 2 may have VS/PS 4.0 or 4.0+ - it probably won't be a massive leap from VS/PS 3.0

 

[jvd]

oh ok, I see what you're saying. I would tend to agree then.

so while Xbox 2 may have VS/PS 4.0 or 4.0+ - it probably won't be a massive leap from VS/PS 3.0

Why wouldn't it be. vs and ps 3.0 would be almost 4 years old at that point . Why wouldn't there be a big leap between them ? If it wasn't a big leap why not call it 3.1 or 3.2 ?