Author Topic: The Power of 2X to 3X... (Read 5416 times)

iMoron · « **on:** January 22, 2006, 01:49:36 PM »

Am bored... so I will make this thread (maybe killing a dead horse as well)...

Besides, someone from Nintendo did say that the Revolution will be 2 to 3 times more powerfull than the GameCube... so maybe he did know of one thing or and other in somewhat no oficialised form.

But lets see at what would those numbers migth have been.

The GameCube, for reference in key areas:

CPU Clock Frequency 485 MHz
GPU Clock Frequency 162 MHz

Real-world polygon 6 to 12 million polygons/second

Total System Memory 40 MB

Now, the Revolution considering them numbers:

2X

CPU Clock Frequency 970 MHz
GPU Clock Frequency 324 MHz

Real-world polygon 12 to 24 million polygons/second

Total System Memory 80 MB

3X

CPU Clock Frequency 1455 MHz (1.5 GHz!)
GPU Clock Frequency 486 MHz

Real-world polygon 24 to 48 million polygons/second

Total System Memory 120 MB

4X,

for fun!

CPU Clock Frequency 1940 MHz (2 GHz!)
GPU Clock Frequency 648 MHz

Real-world polygon 48 to 96 million polygons/second

Total System Memory 160 MB

Well, some numbers might still look small compare to those other consoles... But the 2X memory numbers are somewhat similar that rumor that was heard over at IGN... and maybe that rumor was product of this same kind of analisis (if you can call this jumbomubo of mine an analisis)... That is, they realy know nothing concret... just took the comment that was made literally...

Then again... I wonder which numbers did that Nintendo representative (Reggie was it???) saw/knows about... Power is not like if one has 2 times the frequency you get 2 times the polygons... it is more complex than that... but interesting to consider the potential when you have some numbers to look at. Also taking note that those numbers will be consentrated in a 480p resolution, and we know that thats loots of potential in posible games... The higher the resolution is the harder the hardware has to work, thats why those other consoles are such monsters on paper! The rev should be well valance!

Now... since this will be dry for close to... 3 month until E3... WHAT THE HELL WILL WE DO??? Am about to infiltrate NOA headquaters if I don't get anything in the next 24 hours or so! Planet... when will the new page will be ready??? I NEED a real job... and a life to... ummm, and a wife, would be nice! .... ahhhh... *bangs head against the wall.... am better now... *twichess

ThePerm · « **Reply #1 on:** January 22, 2006, 02:20:10 PM »

the key to everything is "custom", while xbox 360 is way more custom then the original xbox was it is still designed more for general calculations then specific game calculatiuons. On the othe h and revolution being made by Nintendo will have special sections in the processor dedicated to important game features. So even if it was lower powered it would still comparable.

alot of people equate hd to mean that means better graphics which isnt true. However it does mean longer load times.

also , nad while ign claim they have leaked spec sheets the specs are just as likely to change much like the specs changed for gamecube.

Ceric · « **Reply #2 on:** January 22, 2006, 02:27:07 PM »

Hold off on the wife until you get the job. Trust me.

None of those stats are really that unrealistic in the processor and memory area.

Your analyst is as good as the real peoples. I assure you.

I'm with ThePerm on this one, (does that mean I'm with Ian by extension?

). Nintendo also has specialized hardware that makes things work better than what they would on an equivalent system. Even todays computers have a hard time emulating the N64. I'm sure in the key areas they will have some really nice hardware dedicated stuff that you would be stupid not to use, hopefully compression and decompression is one of them.

BiLdItUp1 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 22, 2006, 05:21:55 PM »

Theperm, how could a triple-core IBM (which isn't even considered to be a PPC) be considered even remotely 'general'? It seems something too naive for Microsoft to do, having already survived one hardware generation.

Ceric - today's computers have a hard time doing any sort of 3D emulation, period. The Rev, which will almost certainly be less powerful than my computer, will be able to emulate the n64 better than my desktop ever will, because Nintendo knows everything about the innards of the 64 and we simply don't. So that comparison is hardly valid.

I agree though, that the Rev will be specialized. There's alot we don't know. How will the complexity of the controller affect CPU/GPU usage? and other questions of the sort. Doubtless we'll find out more at GDC...

ThePerm · « **Reply #4 on:** January 22, 2006, 06:22:23 PM »

i said it(360 cpu) compared to the original was alot better, but i'm not sure if it has alot of sections that were cutsom...like sections for ai, physics collision detection, etc.
I wouldnt know really, but I read an anandtech article that compared ps3 to 360 going into the details. Basically what i gathered was the spe units were all custom and very good for gaming, but because there are 7 of them it gets crazy confusing and makes i t difficult t o make games with. 360 does general processing, not as efficeint but bruteforcing it.

i think as far as graphics and processing go it will be like this. Superman(ps3, xbox 360) is all about strength and power and could defeat any villian. Batman on the other hand is tactical. He solves the problem his own way.

Nile Boogie · « **Reply #5 on:** January 22, 2006, 08:23:16 PM »

"I think as far as graphics and processing go it will be like this. Superman(ps3, xbox 360) is all about strength and power and could defeat any villian. Batman on the other hand is tactical. He solves the problem his own way."

Didn't Batman kick the boyscouts' ass the last time they fought?

NinGurl69 *huggles · « **Reply #6 on:** January 22, 2006, 08:49:33 PM »

Dunno. I remember Justice League couldn't get anything done when Batman was captured one episode.

Ceric · « **Reply #7 on:** January 23, 2006, 03:35:01 AM »

Lets face it. Superman is great and everything. He can do a lot. But in the end he's no Bruce Wayne. He's smart but come on Batman is a "normal" guy for the most part and he can defeat every different villian on the sun. I'm leaving this alone now.

To the people worrying about the controller and processore usage. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo had a processor dedicated to doing the logic for the four controllers and there attachments. I wouldn't be surprised one bit.

Dirk Temporo · « **Reply #8 on:** January 23, 2006, 06:57:49 AM »

Need I remind you that Batman has single-handedly defeated every member of the Justice League at least once?

Chris1 · « **Reply #9 on:** January 23, 2006, 08:08:03 AM »

WOO! Batman!!!

Ian Sane · « **Reply #10 on:** January 23, 2006, 08:49:05 AM »

"does that mean I'm with Ian by extension?"

Deep down everyone is. They just haven't realized it yet.

Yes Batman is awesome. I got The Dark Knight Returns for Christmas and yeah Batman can beat anyone. Hell he's like 60 in that book and he's beating guys a third his age. His lack of superpowers forces him to come up with better strategies and to innovate new gadgets and keep in shape. For someone like Superman his incredible powers are somewhat of a crutch. Once you kryptonite his ass he's screwed because he's so inexperienced at being vulnerable. Why learn to fight properly when you're so much stronger than everyone else? Why learn to defend yourself when no one can hurt you?

I don't really know how this relates to consoles though. The only thing I can think of is that Nintendo has benefited as a developer from forcing restrictions on themselves. For example they're very efficient with space because they had to be on the N64. Sadly third parties don't see things the same way and it's not a strategy that will attract support. But it can improve Nintendo at least.

Actually once Nintendo was on the Cube and thus could have the freedom of CD quality audio and FMV and had all sorts of cool effects at their disposal they find of underwhelmed us. Their music is still largely midi and those Mario Sunshine FMVs were horrible and the Mario model they used looked pretty meh compared to the SSBM Mario model. In a way Nintendo benefits from the "they did THAT with only THIS?" scenario. It's impressive to overcome a limitation. When the limitations are unreachable then there's that feeling where more could always be done.

JonLeung · « **Reply #11 on:** January 23, 2006, 09:01:19 AM »

If you double more than one facet of something, wouldn't you more than double it overall?

For example, if I have a square measuring 1 x 1...and I double its height and its width, it becomes 2 x 2. But its area didn't double to 2...it quadrupled to 4. Double x double = quadruple.

Now I'm sure with all these technical stats you'd have to increase more than one thing. So to "double" its overall power, you would actually have smaller increases for each. o_0 That would just be too negative, though. Like how doubling a square to have an area of 2 you'd need sides of only 1.41...

I suppose it depends on whether it's the SUM of all those specs or its PRODUCT. If it's the sum, then yes, you can do a doubling up across the whole board.

NotSoStu · « **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2006, 09:39:19 AM »

2x the power doesn't mean you simply multiply the numbers by two. There are all sorts of things you have to bring into consideration - Clock speed and memory are not the only things. This especially applies to custom hardware such as that which is used in consoles. You could have a graphics card with a 1GHz/1.5GHz core/memory clock speed, but that'd be useless if it only had 2 pipelines.

The 2x-3x comment didn't mean hardware, but rather a guesstimation of performance. And that's all it is - a guesstimation. I wonder how much Perry Kaplin (or whoever it was who said 2x-3x) knows about hardware? Because we all know that they teach you about ALUs in business school...

iMoron · « **Reply #13 on:** January 25, 2006, 02:11:44 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Stu L Tissimus
2x the power doesn't mean you simply multiply the numbers by two. There are all sorts of things you have to bring into consideration - Clock speed and memory are not the only things. This especially applies to custom hardware such as that which is used in consoles. You could have a graphics card with a 1GHz/1.5GHz core/memory clock speed, but that'd be useless if it only had 2 pipelines.

The 2x-3x comment didn't mean hardware, but rather a guesstimation of performance. And that's all it is - a guesstimation. I wonder how much Perry Kaplin (or whoever it was who said 2x-3x) knows about hardware? Because we all know that they teach you about ALUs in business school...

Let me bold something you aparently missed!

Quote

Then again... I wonder which numbers did that Nintendo representative (Reggie was it???) saw/knows about... Power is not like if one has 2 times the frequency you get 2 times the polygons... it is more complex than that... but interesting to consider the potential when you have some numbers to look at. Also taking note that those numbers will be consentrated in a 480p resolution, and we know that thats loots of potential in posible games... The higher the resolution is the harder the hardware has to work, thats why those other consoles are such monsters on paper! The rev should be well valance!

My point is in speculating, what the hell did Perim Kaplan (was she??? I don't remember) see, numbers of specs maybe for them initial comments about Revolutions 2 to 3 tmes more powerfull than the Cube to try and spark some discution...

And we ain't talking about "Batman" or the Justice Leage here... At least i wasn't... why do thread end up like soup... all cook with letters and meadballs... Do you want some of my meatballs???

BranDonk Kong · « **Reply #14 on:** January 25, 2006, 07:05:43 PM »

1.5Ghz PowerPC is comparable to about 2.5Ghz Pentium...just but the Xbox 360 essentially has 9.6Ghz in it (3x3.2Ghz)...2.5Ghz comes nowhere close. It'll be a Hell of a lot better than the Gamecube, and no doubt will be an extremely powerful system, but it pales in comparison to the PS3 and X360.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #15 on:** January 26, 2006, 05:40:07 AM »

What kind of 2.5GHz Pentium? P3? P4? PM?

iMoron · « **Reply #16 on:** January 26, 2006, 06:09:08 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Brandogg
1.5Ghz PowerPC is comparable to about 2.5Ghz Pentium...just but the Xbox 360 essentially has 9.6Ghz in it (3x3.2Ghz)...2.5Ghz comes nowhere close. It'll be a Hell of a lot better than the Gamecube, and no doubt will be an extremely powerful system, but it pales in comparison to the PS3 and X360.

errr... Let me see... So what you are saying is that the Sega Genesis was super powerfull compared to the Super Nintendo... considering that the SNES had its CPU running at a miserable 3.85Mhz, a pale comparation to the SG's 7.90Mhz...

Poor us, we were spoiled by Nintendos inability to perform... that was a horrible generation, eh, SNES games never performed as well, or played, or looked as well as the SG's games... poor us....

Fool! (no ofence)

BranDonk Kong · « **Reply #17 on:** January 26, 2006, 07:23:40 AM »

No, that's not what I'm saying. I didn't mention the SNES or the Genesis once in my post. The difference between 3 3.2Ghz Cores and a single 2.5Ghz Core is leaps and bounds...and bounds and bounds and bounds beyond the difference between 3.85 and 7.9Mhz anyway. It's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and supercomputers.

BranDonk Kong · « **Reply #18 on:** January 26, 2006, 07:40:12 AM »

Plus, read my post again

"It'll be a Hell of a lot better than the Gamecube, and no doubt will be an extremely powerful system, but it pales in comparison to the PS3 and X360."

A Ford Mustang GT is a sweet car, but it pales in comparison to say, a Dodge Viper. Still, I'd love to own a new Mustang GT and would drive the Hell out of it if I had one. See what I'm saying?

BigJim · « **Reply #19 on:** January 26, 2006, 08:43:15 AM »

Well, you can't combine core speeds to create some theoretical uber GHz rating. Physics and bandwidth don't make it possible.

I still believe that the 360 and PS3 NEED that power since they are supporting HD. The cost of the HD output itself is negligible, but the power is necessary if they want the HD visuals to be impressive and not just glorified SD pictures. There's literally 3-6x more resolution to account for.

Much of that power is unnecessary when you're still only supporting VGA. So it's pointless to argue the specs. It's less powerful because it can be. Xbox and PS3 specs are gross overkill at 480p. Now if anybody wants to argue about the exclusion of HD, I'm there with ya.

iMoron · « **Reply #20 on:** January 26, 2006, 12:42:14 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Brandogg

No, that's not what I'm saying. I didn't mention the SNES or the Genesis once in my post. The difference between 3 3.2Ghz Cores and a single 2.5Ghz Core is leaps and bounds...and bounds and bounds and bounds beyond the difference between 3.85 and 7.9Mhz anyway. It's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and supercomputers.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Plus, read my post again

"It'll be a Hell of a lot better than the Gamecube, and no doubt will be an extremely powerful system, but it pales in comparison to the PS3 and X360."

A Ford Mustang GT is a sweet car, but it pales in comparison to say, a Dodge Viper. Still, I'd love to own a new Mustang GT and would drive the Hell out of it if I had one. See what I'm saying?

Well... again, so a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.6GHz is better than a Athlong FX 2.4GHz... eh... just because one runs faster than the other... Fact is the Athlon FX runs as good or even better than the Pentium EE and it cost less and runs at cooler temperatures than the Pentium EE...

Leap and bound it, I read your post... but even thoug you feel it (Revolution) will performe you other comments downplays it as inferior... reason why I pointed to those examples to ilustrate my point... And remember that, just because something is larger it thoes not meen it is better.... And I ain't downplaying those other consoles.

I shure am not understimating the Revolution!

What I was getting at is about desing, efisiency and cost...

And this all post was to speculate on what was that provoke that "2 to 3 times as powerfull" comment... shurely it could have been some numbers... or not... but interesting to see if it were something like that.

BlkPaladin · « **Reply #21 on:** January 26, 2006, 01:28:57 PM »

Orinally by Ceric -
To the people worrying about the controller and processore usage. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo had a processor dedicated to doing the logic for the four controllers and there attachments. I wouldn't be surprised one bit.

Most machines have a seperate chip that handles I/O for devices such as joystick, in computers it use to come with a sound card, the Gamecube even has one, they are relitivly cheep to implement with the benifits of reducing the load on the MPU.

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Author Topic: The Power of 2X to 3X... (Read 5416 times)