Topic: Is X-Box the most powerful console?

[Hemmorrhoid]

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Originally posted by: egman
Hemmorrhoid--So true. I can't help but scratch my head at 20 page threads about which game has the better bump-mapping.

Surely there has to be more than a couple people out there who can still have fun without having to defend their choice of hardware and software?

well eggman, maybe not now, but I promise that gaming will soon come to what it was once, the content and value of gameplay, not graphics, maybe nintendos new triumphant return?

[mouse_clicker]

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While I am sure that the GCN is capable of what most of you say and also somewhat on par with Xbox, I still
find this debate rather sad. Its a sad reflection of what gaming has become.

If you're talking about intentionally twisting facts and specs to appear superior, then yes it is sad. Byut if you actually read the thread and Shadow Fox's responses, it's clear that he doesn't choose consoles or games based on graphics- he fully agrees with everyone that points out what really matter is gameplay. HIS point, though, is that he's tired of Sony and MS lying to make people think they're better while Nintendo, the only honest one, gets ignored. He realizes that the ponit to choosing which console to buy is what games it is has, not how good it's graphics are, but he's simply pointing out that despite all the hype and PR BS, the Gamecube is actually the one with the most potential, or at least he thinks so. It's just a discussion, which is what message boards were made for.

[Twisted Halo]

How about we settle it the easy way.

                It's ALL about the GAMES!

   

[Hemmorrhoid]

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Originally posted by: mouse_clicker<br
If you're talking about intentionally twisting facts and specs to appear superior, then yes it is sad. Byut if you actually read the thread and Shadow Fox's responses, it's clear that he doesn't choose consoles or games based on graphics- he fully agrees with everyone that points out what really matter is gameplay. HIS point, though, is that he's tired of Sony and MS lying to make people think they're better while Nintendo, the only honest one, gets ignored. He realizes that the ponit to choosing which console to buy is what games it is has, not how good it's graphics are, but he's simply pointing out that despite all the hype and PR BS, the Gamecube is actually the one with the most potential, or at least he thinks so. It's just a discussion, which is what message boards were made for.

I realize and respect that a messageboard is about discussions, but that topic is very old, and the GCN amazing power that is somewhat on one level with Xbox, has been proven by professionals like Factor 5. What Im trying to say is that its really ridiculous what direction gaming (today) comes back to. Just think about the things Denis Dyack said, or Shiggy etc, soon only the gameplay will count, especially starting next Gen where photorealistic graphics can easily be pulled of on any of the systems and the difference in power will probably shrink to an indistinguishable freckle, thus only the contents counts.

[Grey Ninja]

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Originally posted by: Hemmorrhoid

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Originally posted by: mouse_clicker<br
If you're talking about intentionally twisting facts and specs to appear superior, then yes it is sad. Byut if you actually read the thread and Shadow Fox's responses, it's clear that he doesn't choose consoles or games based on graphics- he fully agrees with everyone that points out what really matter is gameplay. HIS point, though, is that he's tired of Sony and MS lying to make people think they're better while Nintendo, the only honest one, gets ignored. He realizes that the ponit to choosing which console to buy is what games it is has, not how good it's graphics are, but he's simply pointing out that despite all the hype and PR BS, the Gamecube is actually the one with the most potential, or at least he thinks so. It's just a discussion, which is what message boards were made for.

I realize and respect that a messageboard is about discussions, but that topic is very old, and the GCN amazing power that is somewhat on one level with Xbox, has been proven by professionals like Factor 5. What Im trying to say is that its really ridiculous what direction gaming (today) comes back to. Just think about the things Denis Dyack said, or Shiggy etc, soon only the gameplay will count, especially starting next Gen where photorealistic graphics can easily be pulled of on any of the systems and the difference in power will probably shrink to an indistinguishable freckle, thus only the contents counts.

We are arguing because MS is claiming that the Xbox is vastly superior to the GameCube, and produces games that just aren't possible on GameCube, but common sense dictates otherwise.  The average consumer is a bloody idiot, and see that the Xbox has more "M3gah4rtz", and is obviously better.

Hell, even in this thread, I see people claiming that the Xbox is more powerful but without a shred of proof to back themselves up.

Let me review it for you:

MS claims Xbox is CLEARLY the most powerful of the current consoles.

Nintendo produces higher polygon counts with more effects than Microsoft.
Nintendo produces lower load times
Nintendo produces near perfect ports of Xbox games.
Microsoft produces graphically inferior ports of GameCube games.

Use common sense here people.

We are arguing to say that MS is a bloody liar.  I could really care less which console is more powerful.  It just irritates me when people make a big deal out of a false statement.

[Gup]

The multi-platform games that I've played for both Xbox and GC are NBA 2K3, PSO, and Timesplitters 2.  My opinions are:

NBA 2K3 - GC > Xbox
PSO - GC = Xbox
Timespitters - GC = Xbox

I still think Xbox is stronger than GC(look at Halo 2 & DOAXBV), but not by too much.

[Grey Ninja]

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I still think Xbox is stronger than GC(look at Halo 2 & DOAXBV), but not by too much.

Those were discussed in the thread.  (Halo 2 anyways)

Halo 2 has a much decreased polygon count from Halo 1 (which had fewer polys than Rogue Leader), but features bumpmapped surfaces on EVERYTHING, and runs at 30fps.

Rogue Leader has many bumpmapped surfaces, about double the poly count of Halo 2, and runs at 60fps.

Rebel Strike has bumpmapped surfaces on everything, more polys than Rogue Leader, and runs at 60fps.

[Gup]

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Originally posted by: Grey Ninja
Halo 2 has a much decreased polygon count from Halo 1 (which had fewer polys than Rogue Leader), but features bumpmapped surfaces on EVERYTHING, and runs at 30fps.

Rogue Leader has many bumpmapped surfaces, about double the poly count of Halo 2, and runs at 60fps.

Rebel Strike has bumpmapped surfaces on everything, more polys than Rogue Leader, and runs at 60fps.

Those are tech numbers, what matters are the results and Halo 2 does look amazing as well as Rogue Leader.

[Grey Ninja]

EXACTLY.  Specs don't matter worth crap.

But the point of this is that MS is lying through its teeth when they say Xbox is clearly more powerful.  If it truly was more powerful, you would see higher poly counts and more effects in Xbox games.

[Bishman]

"Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you."

[mouse_clicker]

Building on what Ninja's been saying, Shadow Fox also mentions that you can't say which console is more powerful simply by looking games. He realizes that a lot of games on the XBox look better, but (as i've also mentioned here) that's usually beause of a) the XBox using a higher resolution, and b) the graphical flaw that gives all XBox games a plasticy look to them, which people often interpret as being superior. If the the Gamecube outputted in the same resolution as the XBox did, nearly all of it's games would look just as good if not better. Another reason that XBox games, especially multiplatformXBox games, look better is because XBox pays off the developer to make the gaphics better, which Nintendo does not do. Basically, developers aren't using the full potential of the Gamecube, which at least as good as the XBox.

Halo 2 does indeed look incredible, but, as Ninja pointed out, Bungie actually decreased the polygon count so they could bump map everything in the game. Comparably, if Metroid Prime had a decreased polygon count and full bump mapping, it would look just as good (and I hope Retro does this with Metroid Prime 2). Halo 2 is certainly nothing that can't be done on the Gamecube.

[Gup]

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Originally posted by: mouse_clicker
Halo 2 does indeed look incredible, but, as Ninja pointed out, Bungie actually decreased the polygon count so they could bump map everything in the game. Comparably, if Metroid Prime had a decreased polygon count and full bump mapping, it would look just as good (and I hope Retro does this with Metroid Prime 2). Halo 2 is certainly nothing that can't be done on the Gamecube.

Does it really matter if a developer uses less polygons?  Not if the game can look that much better.  You're giving no credit to those Bungie developers for using "bump map" which makes Halo 2 visually superior to it's prequel.

As for Metroid Prime, it's already out, "if" isn't an option anymore.  Besides, I believe it looks just as good if not better than the Halo 2 video.

[mouse_clicker]

Gup: I believe I gave sufficient credit to Bungie- I think Halo 2 looks vastly superior to Halo and it's obviously because they chose to bump map everything rather than jack of the number of polygons. That's a good thing- I don't think I was making you think otherwise. And my point about Metroid Prime was that if Retro HAD chosen to drop the number of polygons and bump mapped everything it would also look a LOT better, and I hope that Retro will use that technique with Metroid Prime 2 since it works so well.

I personally think that Halo 2 looks just a little better, but not by much. That's a testament, I think, to how powerful the Gamecube realy is, when  a game with very little bump mapping can look just as good if not better than game that has full bumb mapping.

[Gup]

OH! My bad.

[cheers69]

go metroid2

[Bishman]

Looks like Rebel Assault will surpass RL in polygons.

[mouse_clicker]

By quite a bit- if Shadow Fox is right Rebel Strike will be pushing 10 million more polygons a second than Rogue Leader, all while having every effect implimented and running at 60 fps- pretty impressive if you ask me.

[egman]

An aside about Metroid Prime 2--I actually hope that Retro does not take on the same low poly, high bump-mapping strategy of Bungie.

There is something about that style in Doom 3 and Halo 2 that comes off as rather plastic. For MP2, I'd rather see a compromise of slightly lower geometry and subtle use of bump-mapping.

IMO, the thing that would really put the game over the edge would be more dramtic lighting. Inspite of the massive jump in detail, I think the reason RS3 really stands out from RS2 is the lighting. Ign insiders should download the recent Bespin video with the Millenium Falcon to see just how a better lighting engine can yield almost photo realistic results on today's hardware. I think a new lighting engine more than anything else would improve the look of MP considerably.

[mouse_clicker]

egman: Well, like I said, the reason Halo 2 looks plasticy is because of a graphical flaw no the XBox that makes ALL games look plasticy. Doom III may look plasticy because of the weird system they use to shrink a scene of 50 million polygons down to 10 withouth any drop in quality (which is why it looks so incredible). Even if Retro did drop the polygon count and bump map everything I doubt MP2 would have a plasticy look.  

[manunited4eva22]

Just about the mhz arguement, right if mhz had anything to do with speed, then why is the 1.5ghz Madison Itanium2 the fastest CPU out? it is half the speed of a P4 3.2ghz, yet out performs it in int, and fpu...

[The All Knowing Lung]

Yup, this is my first post! Is Xbox more powerful? Who cares? What matters is the games. I have an Xbox... I've had it since launch. I just got my 'Cube last weekend. I don't really care which system is the most powerful, as long as there's some good gaming to be had on it, it's fine with me.

[boggy b]

OK guys, I'm gonna enter into this discussion. I know that people get very protective of their little GCN, and rightly so because its a cracking little piece of hardware.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but XBox is more powerful. The guy also makes several mistakes in his article.

Firstly, XBox does not implement bump-mapping via its pixel-shaders. Like GCN, XBox can perform bump-mapping in hardware, though they probably could be used to perform bump-mapping. It can also do environment mapping, and does a superior form to GCN - cubic environment maps. Ever wondered why the reflections in Mario Sunshine are so bad? It's because GCN isnt very good at environment mapping. XBox does indeed also have better textures - one look at Halo's righer resolution textures will tell you as much. This is because XBox has more RAM to store larger textures than GCN. HOWEVER, XBox does not have quite as good texture compression as GCN. This does cut both ways though. Increased texture compression means that the textures turn out worse. There is no way to compress a 1Mb texture down to 500Kb and keep a similar quality, sorry.

Also, the 'article' fails to mention that the integer performance of the XCPU makes the Gekko look like a lemon in comparison; 1980MIPS vs. 1125MIPS. Doesn't mean a lot, you say? Well MIPS are what make good physics. Which is always nice to have - good GFLOPS will get you nowhere.

Other advantages of the XBox over the GCN include higher GPU clockspeed (233MHz over 162MHz) and, of course, much much greater GFLOPS. The way that the nVidia chip does this is by not actually performing the calculations, but by looking them up in a table system. So powerful is the XGPU that it actually wastes cycles making mistakes, and STILL pumps out similar looking visuals.

Then, there's the actual, visual proof, and theres plenty of it around: Soul Calibur 2, Wreckless and Splinter Cell all look much better on XBox, often running at higher resolutions than the GCN counterpart and with more detailed models and textures. So much for 'no proof'. Halo 2 is much more visually impressive than Metroid Prime and is more technically advanced. XBox is also the only console to get cutting-edge PC games such as Half-Life 2, Deus Ex 2 and DOOM 3. John Carmack said that the only reason hes doing it for XBox and not the other consoles is simply that the XBox is the only console with enough power to play the game satisfactory.

The article also failed to mention sound performance, which is also an affecting factor. The XBox has a far superior sound card to the GCN.

Also, I HIGHLY doubt that Rebel Assault will have 10Million more polygons per second. That kind of increase isnt possible. RL slowed down quite a lot of the time, and thats with a claimed 15Million polygons per second (there's no proof of that though). 10Mil more will make it run like its bogged down in treacle.

[mouse_clicker]

Well then post that in the thread, boggy. Very few people here know much about console hardware, so you're not going to get much serious debate here. If you want a REAL discussion, the guys in the thread we're all talking about would be the people you're looking for.

[Grey Ninja]

I'll debate with him later.  I'm too tired right now.  Needless to say, he's made several basic mistakes I will correct later.

But let's remember that this is the guy who claimed that Raiden was a great addition to MGS2 because he made Snake look that much greater.

[mouse_clicker]

Who, boggy? Hehe.