xbox 360 e3 thread 4

[therealskywolf]

Can anyone explain this

First off, we reported on page 2 in our chart that the capable “Shader Performanceâ€￾ of the Xbox 360 GPU is 48 billion shader operations per second. While that is what Microsoft told us, Mr. Feldstein of ATI let us know that the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of doing two of those shaders per cycle. So yes, if programmed for correctly, the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of 96 billion shader operations per second. Compare this with ATI’s current PC add-in flagship card and the Xbox 360 more than doubles its abilities.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzcxLDM=

I dont know much about hardware, but the guys who wrote the article know....and they seem to be excited, so i get excited.

This GPU looks like something no?

 

[Tim]

Can anyone explain this

First off, we reported on page 2 in our chart that the capable “Shader Performanceâ€￾ of the Xbox 360 GPU is 48 billion shader operations per second. While that is what Microsoft told us, Mr. Feldstein of ATI let us know that the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of doing two of those shaders per cycle. So yes, if programmed for correctly, the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of 96 billion shader operations per second. Compare this with ATI’s current PC add-in flagship card and the Xbox 360 more than doubles its abilities.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzcxLDM=

Hardocp got it wrong, the XB360 has 48 Alus that can do one scalar and one vector operation per cycle and runs at 500MHz.

500MHz x 48 x 2 = 48 billion shader ops.

Ati was most likely trying to explain why it was not 500MHz x 48 = 24 billion shader ops. Kyle misunderstood them and thought the 2x was not already a part of the 48 billion number.

Edit:spelling

 

[pc999]

Thanks Tim.

 

[Jawed]

Hardocp got it wrong, the XB360 has 48 Alus that can do one scalar and one vector operation per cycle and runs at 500MHz.

500MHz x 48 x 2 = 48 billion shader ops.

Ati was most likely trying to explain why it was not 500MHz x 48 = 24 billion shader ops. Kyle misunderstood them and thought the 2x was not already a part of the 48 billion number.

Further, I think the bit about "if programmed correctly" relates to masking channels. If the ALU is 4D+1D (normally giving 2 ops per clock), with channel masking (.xy or .rg) you should be able to get 1x2D + 3x1D ops = 4 ops (same instruction?).

More speculation, though...

Jawed

 

[therealskywolf]

Wouldnt it be easier to try to talk to the guys and ask about it before saying they misunderstood something that you didnt even heard? (Told to You)

Just some toughts......

 

[pc999]

So better wait...

 

[therealskywolf]

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2423&p=2

"ATI was very light on details of their pipeline implementation on the 360's GPU, but we were able to get some more clarification on some items. Each of the 48 shader pipelines is able to process two shader operations per cycle (one scalar and one vector), offering a total of 96 shader ops per cycle across the entire array. Remember that because the GPU implements a Unified Shader Architecture, each of these pipelines features execution units that can operate on either pixel or vertex shader instructions."

I just came across that

 

[jvd]

IN regards to gow . I can see them doing this


Launch window pdz .

Febuary to spring window gow


Ps3 launch halo 3

 

[AlNom]

Ps3 launch halo 3

But you don't honestly see this happening, do you?

 

[jvd]

Ps3 launch halo 3

But you don't honestly see this happening, do you?

yes , yes i do . ms can release it

 

[DerekBaker]

Can anyone explain this

First off, we reported on page 2 in our chart that the capable “Shader Performanceâ€￾ of the Xbox 360 GPU is 48 billion shader operations per second. While that is what Microsoft told us, Mr. Feldstein of ATI let us know that the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of doing two of those shaders per cycle. So yes, if programmed for correctly, the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of 96 billion shader operations per second. Compare this with ATI’s current PC add-in flagship card and the Xbox 360 more than doubles its abilities.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzcxLDM=

Hardocp got it wrong, the XB360 has 48 Alus that can do one scalar and one vector operation per cycle and runs at 500MHz.

500MHz x 48 x 2 = 48 billion shader ops.

Ati was most likely trying to explain why it was not 500MHz x 48 = 24 billion shader ops. Kyle misunderstood them and thought the 2x was not already a part of the 48 billion number.

Edit:spelling

Or not: 'On chip, the shaders are organized in three SIMD engines with 16 processors per unit, for a total of 48 shaders. Each of these shaders is comprised of four [my bold] ALUs that can execute a single operation per cycle, so that each shader unit can execute four floating-point ops per cycle.'

http://techreport.com/etc/2005q2/xbox360-gpu/index.x?pg=1

500MHz x 48 x 4 = 96 billion shader ops.

 

[jvd]

ttp://xbox360movies.ign.com/xbox360/video/article/617/617011/g4_e305live_day2_gearsofwar_qthigh.mov

100meg gow video

 

[rabidrabbit]

So what is it with xbox360 backwards compatibility?

As the hardware is so much different, and there has not been any mention that it would include the original xbox chips (as the PS2 had PSOne chipset for I/O) how are they going to do it?

Is it only going to be a few key titles?
Eurogamer had a short article, where it was said:

MS explains that the current Xbox uses an Intel processor, but the 360 will use IBM's Power chips. In addition, the NVIDIA graphics card is being replaced with an ATI one.

Different chip architectures means backwards compatibility problems, so all the old games will need to be “recompiledâ€￾ for the 360. First on the list, says Microsoft, are the Halo titles.

In the conference, I remember Allard just said something like "the xbox360 will be backwards compatible (followed by voluminous cheering and applause :? )"

That would indicate it is at least as BC as PS2 was, so that a couple of titles would not work, but tha majority would work out of the box.

But that "recompiled" and especially "First on the list are the Halo titles"comment makes me doubt, would they be recompiled on the fly on xbox360 (emulated), or would they sell (dl from LIVE!?) a pre-recompiled (essentially rewritten) versions of old xbox key titles for a relatively small amount of money, or even free if you had the original to be used as a "verification dongle" in xbox360 dvd-drive.

As before there were many rumours about xbox260 not to be BC, did Microsoft just make a small white lie about backwards compatibility to counter Sony. So xbox360 would not be bc out of the box, but you'd need something like the Live! Gold membership and the optional HD to dl old recompiled games.

EDIT: Oops, seems there already was a thread of it's own dedicated for this. Mods feel free to delete this if needed.

 

[Evi]

ttp://xbox360movies.ign.com/xbox360/video/article/617/617011/g4_e305live_day2_gearsofwar_qthigh.mov

100meg gow video

That's nice if you're an IGN Insider. Otherwise that link is useless.

 

[Tim]

Or not: 'On chip, the shaders are organized in three SIMD engines with 16 processors per unit, for a total of 48 shaders. Each of these shaders is comprised of four [my bold] ALUs that can execute a single operation per cycle, so that each shader unit can execute four floating-point ops per cycle.'

http://techreport.com/etc/2005q2/xbox360-gpu/index.x?pg=1

500MHz x 48 x 4 = 96 billion shader ops.

I think they got the 4x number by changing the way they counting the ops per cycle (using the fact that the scalar ops are 4D), not that the Xbox360 GPU is actually more powerfull than we thought at first.

 

[McFly]

Xbox 360 Live Demos Running on Powermac G5: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home...-360-live-demos-running-on-powermac-g5-104295

A reader sent us another image from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 booth, where they are demoing real-time games powered by the Xbox 360. You can see in the picture that there is an Xbox 360 viewable through a little slot, implying that the games themselves are running on pre-production consoles, but if you actually come around to the side, you can see two Apple G5 PowerMacs, the development systems for the 360—plus a desktop fan to keep them cooled down.

Scandal? Not really. A bit disingenuous? Totally.

Launch this year? Good luck.

Fredi

 

[Tim]

Xbox 360 Live Demos Running on Powermac G5: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home...-360-live-demos-running-on-powermac-g5-104295

Yes, we already knew that, it is nothing new that the current dev kits are dual G5 + an x800. Final dev kits should be out next month. Why did you think MS have repeated like a million times that final hardware was not ready and the realtime demoes was running on systems with 1/3 the power of the final Xbox?

A reader sent us another image from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 booth, where they are demoing real-time games powered by the Xbox 360. You can see in the picture that there is an Xbox 360 viewable through a little slot, implying that the games themselves are running on pre-production consoles, but if you actually come around to the side, you can see two Apple G5 PowerMacs, the development systems for the 360—plus a desktop fan to keep them cooled down.

Scandal? Not really. A bit disingenuous? Totally.

Launch this year? Good luck.

The launch is on schedule, with the Xbox they did not have final dev kits out 6-7 months before launch either.

 

[arhra]

There's also near-final hardware running demos at the ATI booth, apparently (a ported version of the R520 Ruby demo).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Are those two G5's single cores, single threads? How do they compare with 360's 3 core, six thread design?

 

[McFly]

The launch is on schedule, with the Xbox they did not have final dev kits out 6-7 months before launch either.

They mentioned in an interview that final devkits will be available in July. That xbox 360 giving away starts 28. Aug., so if everything works out as expected, the devs have not even two months with final devkits. Now if they run into unexpected problems, those two months doesent sound like much.

Fredi