Topic: Cube specs?

[Asimov]

I know the days of "Spec Wars" are over, but does anyone know the theoretical spec for the cube.  I remeber reading some Xbox propaganda called the "Xbox Advantage" and was extremely disgusted by M$ spec comparison sheet.  The things corporations will do....

[BlkPaladin]

Nintendo never released thertical specs. That is what Microsoft loved to pick on Nintendo about. They released in its stead dumbed down specs that have been surpassed in some games.

[HolyPaladin]

The most accurate specs I have found are fairly common across the internet, save for sites favoring Xbox or PS2 which tend to use outdated specs or twising them around a bit.  Nintendo went real conservative and realistic whereas the other guys listed figures that you never come close to in a real game.  Gamecube even had at least one launch title that blew past the listed polygon performance, not to mention some of the games that followed, while no PS2 or Xbox game has yet came close to reaching figures listed in their specs.  They won't ever push 120 million polygons a second, 80 million, 60, or even 40 million polygons per second.  Heck PS2 launch titles averaged 1 to 3 million.

The best I can give is this:

MPU("Microprocessor Unit")* = Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"
 
Manufacturing Process =  0.18 micron IBM Copper Wire Technology
 
Clock Frequency = 485 MHz
 
CPU Capacity = 1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
 
Internal Data Precision = 32-bit Integer & 64-bit Floating-point
 
External Bus = 1.3GB/second peak bandwidth (32-bit address space, 64-bit data bus 162 MHz clock)
 
Internal Cache = L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way) L2: 256KB (2 way)
 
System LSI = Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"
 
Manufacturing Process = 0.18 micron NEC Embedded DRAM Process
 
Clock Frequency = 162 MHz
 
Embedded Frame Buffer = Approx. 2MB Sustainable Latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
 
Embedded Texture Cache =  Approx. 1MB Sustainable Latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
 
Texture Read Bandwidth =  10.4GB/second (Peak)
 
Main Memory Bandwidth = 2.6GB/second (Peak)
 
Pixel Depth = 24-bit Color, 24-bit Z Buffer
 
Image Processing Functions = Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Anisotropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC), Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter  
 


Sound Processor = custom Macronix 16-bit DSP
 
Instruction Memory = 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
 
Data Memory = 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
 
Clock Frequency =  81 MHz
 
Performance = 64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM encoding
 
Sampling Frequency = 48KHz
 
System Floating-point Arithmetic Capability = 10.5 GFLOPS (Peak) (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
 
Real-world polygon = 6 million to 12 million polygons/second (Peak) (Assuming actual game conditions with complex models, fully textured, fully lit, etc.)
 
System Memory = 40MB
 
Main Memory = 24 MB MoSys 1T-SRAM, Approximately 10ns Sustainable Latency
 
A-Memory = 16MB (81MHz DRAM)  
 
Disc Drive = CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) System  
 
Average Access Time = 128ms
 
Data Transfer Speed  16Mbps to 25Mbps
 
Media = 3 inch NINTENDO GAMECUBE Disc based on Matsushita's
Optical Disc Technology, Approx. 1.5GB Capacity
 
Input/Output = Controller Port x4
Memory Card Slot x2
Analog AV Output x1
Digital AV Output x1
High-Speed Serial Port x2
High-speed Parallel Port x1  
 
Power Supply  AC Adapter DC12V x 3.25A
 
Main Unit Dimensions  4.3"(H) x 5.9"(W) x 6.3"(D)  

[XMasterLinkX]

  Don't look at specs all of the time, Nintendo made specs on what was right for Nintendo.  There was no exact official specs notice, unless you go by what Nintendo said.  There are alot more that go along with the specs they said...  You could have 64 mb of ram in the XBox, and 24 in the GCN, but that doesn't make the GCN bad, because there is always something that goes along with the lower of something that is higher.  You can have 24 mb of ram, but higher System Memory, or 2 64 mbs video chips, and a better card itself, or one 128 mb video card, and more video ram...  There is always something that goes along with it all...  The specs in the Nintendo Gamecube, are fine, and they work good with the laser discs the Gamecube uses, because it hardly loads...  Only alittle bit..  Thank You...

XMasterLinkX(The Real Link)

[enigma487]

System LSI = Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"

I would just like to point out that ATI didn't actually design the video processor.  I can't remember the name of the company, but ATI bought them just as the cube went into production.  i think it was something like that anyway.  not important, just kinda weird.

[Cooolcorey]

Just as bits are no longer the deciding point in a console, Mhz also is very misleading. The Gamecube's "Gekko" processor runs at something like 485 Mhz. XBox's Intel chip runs at 733 Mhz. This means nothing because the "Gekko" runs at about the same speed as a 700 Mhz processor (actually I have heard some say it's more in the line of 800 Mhz, but I can't be sure). This is because of the architecture of the processors.

See, every singe calculation in a game (or any other program for that matter) is taken to the processor and broken down so that it can be calculated into sections called cycles. The Mhz number is how many cycles per second X1,000,000 the processor can do. So if there is a 500 Mhz processor, it can do 500,000,000 calculations per second. But that's not all. These cycles are broken down into shorter steps and the "Gekko" uses less steps to complete a cycle, so it's cycles get done faster. XBox (and all of Intel's processors) suffer from an inoptomization of this.

But that's not all still. You also need to take into account the fact that the XBox uses a PC motherboard to connect all of it's pieces. PC motherboards were originally designed for using a word processor, not for tranferring 2 GB worth of textures per second. The GameCube has a fully optimized BUS that transferes everything at full speed.

There's still more. The GameCube is known for having some of the best textures around (look at Metroid and Star Fox for evidence), and that is because it has an excellent texture compression system. This allows for more information to fit into the RAM like AI commands or full quality music/SFX. This is why the GameCube doesn't need 64 MB of RAM to perform as good as (if not better than) the XBox.

Sorry to get into the extreme technical side of things but, I think it's good info to know whether you're debating Boxes to Cubes, or Pentiums to G4's.

[Infernal Monkey]

GameCube, a technical breakdown:

- Handle. Ideal for breaking faces.
- Graphics chip. It's able to display stuff on screen. Outstanding.
- Sound chip. To go along with the graphics chip. Adds more realism to games.
- Power button. State of the art 'on' feature. Can be also used in order to power down the unit. Not recommended.
- Powerful CD laser. Because nobody likes to wear glasses when reading CDs.

FISSION MAILED.

[Jasper Lamar Crabb]

I believe the graphics chip was designed by a company called ArtX (something along those lines).  ATi bought them out both to position themselves for a contract with Nintendo and to integrate the underlying tech into their PC boards (it's been speculated that the acquisition is what allowed them to gain an edge over Nividia with their R200-core boards, but I'm not sufficiently well versed in the technology to say how accurate that assertion is).

[ThePerm]

yes it was art-x you are right. Nintendo really should have followed the trend by releasing unrealistc specs..i mean fans are stupid and alot of people thought xbox was alot better because of microsofts damn lies. Gosh i remember reading in egm soem spec sheet madee by microsoft...on every feature that gamecube was better at it was listed as NA...pretty funny.

[Asimov]

So if what you are saying is indeed true, then why are publishers half-assing ports and such on the cube.  Nothing infuriates me more than seeing a cube port become worse than the PS2 version of the same game or become the lesser of the Xbox version.

[thUnd3Rm0nk3y]

Theorhetical specs for GCN poly counts were rumored to be quite low, which is supposedly why Nintendo never listed them.

In real games though the numbers are very similar across all three platforms.

Texture wise the amount of RAM in the Xbox gives it a slight edge in detailed textures. But again it doesn't matter much. And when it comes down to useable texture effects the GCN's TEV unit is almost on par with the Xbox's Pixel-Shader. Both being able to do many things the other can't, though in general the Xbox's Pixel-Shader is much more programmable, and has a larger feature set.  

[PIAC]

Quote
Originally posted by: Asimov
So if what you are saying is indeed true, then why are publishers half-assing ports and such on the cube.  Nothing infuriates me more than seeing a cube port become worse than the PS2 version of the same game or become the lesser of the Xbox version.

the trend seems to be, 1) developers porting are quite lazy, 2) they assume the games wont sell aswell on gamecube, so they dont do a good job, and then make big noises when they dont sell well. hooray for self fullfilling prophesies... allthough, i haven't seen a game thats on PS2 and gamecube that looks worse on cube, but then i dont own alot of multi platform games. (fifa football 2003 and gauntlet dark legacy being the only two)

[ThePerm]

also im thinking some are quite ignorant of the hardware their workign on..i remember reading one devloper talk about the gcn like it had no ram at all. Then you go and read an interview with Julian Eggebracht and he'll rave about the system. Funny thing is guess who has the better looking game.

[HolyPaladin]

Quote
Originally posted by: Asimov
So if what you are saying is indeed true, then why are publishers half-assing ports and such on the cube.  Nothing infuriates me more than seeing a cube port become worse than the PS2 version of the same game or become the lesser of the Xbox version.

Yep.  I have griped about this much.  There is no excuse for a GCN game to be upstaged by anything on the PS2, in any category or aspect.  A GCN version should never be inferior in anything pertaining to visuals, frame rates, load times, number of characters or levels, or anything else imaginable, since the GCN blows it out of the water in every conceivable way.  Nevertheless, we often get a game that is equal to or even worse than what appears on the POS 2.  It bugs the snot out of me just thinking about it.

I was going to quote Cooolcorey's post, too, so to also reply to it, but it is too long to throw in with what I already have, here, so I will simply drop this reference to it and continue: The points made were interesting and very much the same things that I, myself, like to point out when the occasion arrises.  Every time I would run into some Xbox fanboy babbling mindlessly about how much bigger their numbers are, I have to use the hard truth to cut them and their lofty specs down to size, and love every amputating moment of it.

[Cooolcorey]

Quote
Originally posted by: ThePermi remember reading one devloper talk about the gcn like it had no ram at all. Then you go and read an interview with Julian Eggebracht and he'll rave about the system. Funny thing is guess who has the better looking game.

That's quite simple, of course the XBox has 64 MB of RAM and the GameCube has somthing like 32 MB of total RAM, but the GameCubes texture compressors make up for that. If you're a developer and you develop a game on the XBox, you don't need to worry about texture compression as much, and you can use the full 64 MB. Let's say they decide to port the game to the GameCube. If they leave the game the way it is, it's impossible. But if they program a good algorithm to work with the GameCubes texture compressors, then they could get it down to 32MB. Note that if they are using a full 64 MB for the textures, then they are probably using some hi-res textures and the game would run slowly, so most likely they won't use the full 64MB for textures. Maybe music, but that's a completely different topic. Anyway my point is that you won't likely see people using the full 64 MB, so compressing it down to 32 MB shouldn't be as big of a problem as some developers make it out to be.

And besides, they don't complain about the PS2 having "no RAM at all", but the PS2 has even less RAM than the 'cube, and subpar texture decompressors!

[egman]

Honestly, I think specs are overblown. Some programmers might not agree with me, but artists are becoming more important.

For example, look at Kojima's MGS2 and ZOE2. These games are beautiful, but not because of a lot of hardware trickery. Texture wise these games look almost cel shaded. KCET has to compensate for that by utilizing the PS2's real strengths, particle effects and polygon pushing. Combined with a gorgeous art design, most gamers overlook the fact that those games have little texture.

And even with games that support a whole lot hardware tricks, the art is still important. I can barely look at Brute Force without cringing from the pitiful designs. On the other hand, Factor 5's Rogue Squadron games have rocked not only for their technical wizardy, but also because those games have been supported by F5's talented artists and some of the resources availble from ILM. The RS games are a part of a small group of games using the Star Wars license that actually look like something from Star Wars.

[Felis Demens CCXXI]