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Xbox 2 specs

Uncle Nasty

By Uncle Nasty,
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Guest Two Heavens

Guest Two Heavens

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I think we're much more likely to see a multi-core PowerPC in the Xbox 2 than 4 separate processors

Stop spoiling it!

Is the number of processors going to be the new "bits"? A vaguely useless and slightly fuzzily defined number that proves your console is better than the opposition?

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PaulM

PaulM

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Stop spoiling it!

Is the number of processors going to be the new "bits"? A vaguely useless and slightly fuzzily defined number that proves your console is better than the opposition?

It could be ;) And the whole cores thing means that the fanboys can argue forever! :(

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Ste Pickford

Ste Pickford

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So are Bungie geniuses for this fantastic use of the Xbox hard drive in Halo, while other, lesser developers are lagging behind still trying to figure out how to keep a dead body on screen for more than 10 seconds without the whole game grinding to a halt?

There is certainly no noticable performance drop when you reach the end of a level in Halo, a trail of dead bodies and discarded weapons left in your wake.

That's not really fair.

Bungie were commissioned to create a flagship title, so weren't working in quite the same commercial environment as other developers. They doubtless had (to a certain extent) the time and money they needed to implement a variety of features which were there simply to show off the hardware.

Features which would have probably been dropped by any developer out to actually make money from sales of the game. Most other developers would also have to keep an eye on revenue from other platform releases, so hard disk only features, only usable in the smallest or second smallest userbase platform wouldn't be commercially viable to implement.

To a large degree the quality of a game (and by extension the 'cleverness' of a developer) is simply a function of time and money available.

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Spacehost

Spacehost

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GC = 32-bit Power PC for the processort and 256-bit for the "Flipper" graphics chip as far as I know.

Oh, please don't start on the bit counts. They start getting silly with modern hardware.

Remember, "the Pentium 4 is an 128 bit CPU sometimes" and "2,560 bit GE!11!one"?

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Pob

Pob

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So do you think that, if, in the future, all consoles have hard-drives as standard (or something similar), we'd start to see more and more innovative ways of it being used? I'd like to think so. Perhaps MS have set the trend, so to speak.

This is the crux of the matter, and takes us back to the beginning of the thread.

By junking HDDs in future machines, console manufacturers are potentially holding back developers from implementing pioneering new ideas.

Or is it not that big a deal?

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JPickford (retired mod)

JPickford (retired mod)

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This is the crux of the matter, and takes us back to the beginning of the thread.

By junking HDDs in future machines, console manufacturers are potentially holding back developers from implementing pioneering new ideas.

Or is it not that big a deal?

While there are plenty of (potentially) cool gameplay ideas that make use of HD, I don't think it's anything pivotal as far as most developers are concerned. As has been said many times in this thread it's not like PC developers have made much creative use of the HD over the years.

There are many hardware features that have game design potential; You could claim any number of missing hardware elements are holding games back. Even simple stuff like an analogue paddle or slider switch could have many, many uses in games.

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PaB

PaB

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Like I said though... if all it takes to "imprlement pioneering ideas" is an HDD, then why isn't it happening on PC?

AFAIK just about every game uses the PC HDD in some form or other. It is used as one big cache for data. It's why when you go back to an area you haven't visited for hours on KOTOR, the carcasses of creatures you have killed are still there. If you look at readme files ofr games, you will see that they all require a given amount of free HDD space after install - expressly for this purpose - cacheing.

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PaB

PaB

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Yeah I'm sure it does use it... but not in terms of bringing new, innovative ideas to the gameplay, is what I meant.

Actually I can think of one. Remember Virus? (not the braben one) A first person shooter, a bit like decsent. It took a snapshot of your hard drive and you effectivly flew around your directories and files destroying an infecting virus.

It was shite.

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JPickford (retired mod)

JPickford (retired mod)

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PC games use the HD because it's there. In fact most don't do anything special as far as I'm aware.

What we are talking about are gameplay ideas which make creative use of a HD. Like Blinx - which is the only example that springs to mind in exsisting games.

A game like Animal Crossing was designed around a large storage device; that game would be amazing with a HD.

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PaB

PaB

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PC games use the HD because it's there. In fact most don't do anything special as far as I'm aware.

What we are talking about are gameplay ideas which make creative use of a HD. Like Blinx - which is the only example that springs to mind in exsisting games.

A game like Animal Crossing was designed around a large storage device; that game would be amazing with a HD.

But its just memory storage isn't it. I mean all blinx is doing is "recording" your game for a period of time. It's just memory - You could do the exact same thing if you had, say 1GB of RAM n the Xbox.

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Disgraced Toblerone

Disgraced Toblerone

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No HD? Firing in you own foot if you ask me.

And this :

The machine also will have about 256 megabytes of dynamic random access memory. But Microsoft will upgrade that to 512 gigabytes if Sony puts in more.

Erm, wasn't a second chip added to the Saturn to upgrade 3D features when Sega discovered the PS specs?

Good move, yes. Add features at the end of development seems like a good idea. Pff.

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Sng

Sng

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I'd love to see them just annouce consoles and not bother with specs. It would be amusing to see how people would argue without any pointless numbers to throw around ;)

It would also mean they'd have to concentrate solely on their own console and not worry about what the others are up to.

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Aardvark

Aardvark

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Erm, wasn't a second chip added to the Saturn to upgrade 3D features when Sega discovered the PS specs?

Good move, yes. Add features at the end of development seems like a good idea. Pff.

Yes, but more memory is just more memory making use of it is not difficult. The Saturn screwed up so badly because it was quite hard to make effective use of those two CPUs.

I'm personally a bit sceptical about all these specs floating about, they just don't quite feel right especially some of the speculation about the number and type of processors.

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Disgraced Toblerone

Disgraced Toblerone

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Yes, but more memory is just more memory making use of it is not difficult. The Saturn screwed up so badly because it was quite hard to make effective use of those two CPUs.

I'm personally a bit sceptical about all these specs floating about, they just don't quite feel right especially some of the speculation about the number and type of processors.

I agree with your statements.

Still, if MS is "really" looking at others "specs" before making his own console, looks like the wrong way to make one.

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Pob

Pob

Posted
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PC games use the HD because it's there. In fact most don't do anything special as far as I'm aware.

What we are talking about are gameplay ideas which make creative use of a HD. Like Blinx - which is the only example that springs to mind in exsisting games.

A game like Animal Crossing was designed around a large storage device; that game would be amazing with a HD.

Well, that sounds like the final word on the matter. Very interesting dicussion.

I still reckon a next-gen GTA won't be all it can be if all consoles decide to ditch the hard drive idea though...

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PaB

PaB

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The problem with multiple processors (if we are talking CPU's and software written for one processor) is that every additional processor adds a diminishing return - To the point where 4 processors is actually slower than three - The forth processor being exclusively tied up trying to co-ordinate instructions between the other three. Of course, if the software is specifically written for 3 processors, then it is a different matter - but then you would imagine it being an absolute nightmare to develop for - as seen with PS2.

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Aardvark

Aardvark

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The problem with the PS2 is not simply multiple processors, it has the problem that they are specialised and making use of them requires going and writing custom assembler. Mutliple PowerPC processors do make more sense as you can make use of them fairly easily, and making use of the vector operations is a doddle compared to the PS2's VUs, and I imagine IBM will do a roaring trade in their C compilers that can optimise code to make use of vector operations.

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Graham S

Graham S

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"[X-Box 2] also will have about 256 megabytes of dynamic random access memory. But Microsoft will upgrade that to 512 *gigabytes* if Sony puts in more..."

- San Jose Mercury reports proportionate response from MS

...Sony to counter with claims of "infinity" memory in PS3, vague threat that "their dad" may also become involved

http://www.ntk.net/2004/02/06/dohgiga.gif

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