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Originally posted by: Grey Ninja
*sigh* Unless someone can prove to me that GameCube uses OpenGL, I will call you a bloody liar. (or uninformed) As far as I know, GameCube uses its own proprietary API, PS2 makes you program your own API, and Xbox gives you DirectX. I seriously don't know how this OpenGL talk got started, as I have only heard it around here.
Actually OpenGL is the primary tool most GCN devvers use for porting over Maya/3DS Max models to GCN in low-level, realworld polygonal models. This much is in the very Factor 5 interview on the Rogue Leader disc, and there's much more about OpenGL manipulating Flipper LSI at warioworld.com.
In fact, Codewarrior specifically created it's own compiler for GCN use via
Direct X 8, so even Xbox code can be ported easily to GCN, creating shaders and the like on-the-fly.
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Flipper bears little to no resemblance to a Radeon GPU, as ATI didn't buy ArtX until the GPU design was already taped out. Comparing Flipper to a Radeon is simply erroneous. However, since ArtX is behind the design of newer Radeons, there is a little bit of Flipper showing through, but it's still not much. Flipper != Radeon.
Exactly. Finally someone here knows the difference between ex-Silicon Graphics work, and a low-end, consumer-based GPU.
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GameCube has no shaders, but the CPU is powerful enough to do such effects in software.
That, and Flipper LSI is not completely fixed function, as there is direct coding if of the API, and some direct effects (such as vertex shaders) already pre-recorded in newer GCN dev-kits. Factor 5 has also mentioned several hardware shaders developed in Flipper LSI for Rogue Leader- doing things previously thought to be possible only on Xbox and PC's capable of running Aquanox at full power.
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Most of the Xbox talk around here right now is correct though, as it's essentially a PC, and it's hard to screw that up. Comparing GameCube and PS2 to a PC is simply WRONG though. Don't do that.
Xbox is a PC in that it bears the same horrible 133mhz front-side bus that PC's were plagued with for years versus quicker Macs, plus the HUGE bottlenecks with the 1GB/sec CPU to GPU bandwidth, 10GB/sec texture bandwidth vs only 6.4GB/sec to pull them from main memory, the cost of 16MB of that 64MB of RAM just to create a damn Z-buffer, and several other nuances.
The only commendation that I see in Xbox is it's vastly superior DSP- there is no other console audio chip like it, let alone many consoles out there with a Dedicated audio chip with AC3 digital encoding. GCN can come close in the number of 3D voices (128 realworld, according to Factor 5), but the difference between analog and digital is no comparison.
The harddrive is great, but as we've noticed, not too many developers have used it creatively as a GAMING utility. Imagine what Nintendo or Sega would have done with this type of advantage...it's sad to see Microsoft not jumping the gun of creativity yet until it's too late (PS2 HD/PSX/PS3/GCN2).
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Anyone who claims that they know which system is the most powerful and isn't a liscensed developer for all three systems is outright lying. That includes most people here.
I tend to believe people who make games for all the systems, such as Factor 5, who claimed that all 3 systems were about equal in power when it all came down to it. I tend to trust Factor 5 more than some guy on a forum with a keyboard and a spec sheet in front of them.
Now can we please quit discussing this? This very topic just annoys me.
Read my mind. Exactly what I've been saying for what- 2 years now? I like this guy...
Sorry about bringing the topic back up, but there were some things I needed to clear up in the first quote about Flipper LSI's true abilities. Let me tell it; I think the thing sets records for being the most powerful graphics subsystem to do realtime T&L, PLUS be an audio and I/O chip all-in-one...
Now will somebody please stalk Microsoft until they give me the goods on what they're REALWORLD polygon performance specs are?
-Official Ninja of PGC