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XBox (Games) Hardware

Inside the Xbox 360 347

Posted by Zonk from the tech-that-drives-the-beast dept.
QT writes "Ars Technica has an in-depth look at the Xenon processor that will power the Xbox 360. It's the first technical look at the CPU itself, its design goals, and some of the differences between it and IBM's Cell processor. The Xbox 360's procedural synthesis capabilities look quite impressive, and I'm not as convinced as I was before that the PS3 would spank the Xbox 360."
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Inside the Xbox 360 More

Inside the Xbox 360

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  • While art asset costs are rising, programmer time is getting cheaper all the time.

    We see the above in the article about the chip internals of the xBox 360 ... leading one to conclude that MSFT won't fight Disney et al on art costs and copyright/trademark extensions, but will outsource the programming.

    Either that or we're just getting more productive at doing our work ... um, wait a sec, one of my five programs just finished ...

  • Whats with? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheKidWho ( 705796 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:27PM (#12636991)
    All the fanboyism?

    All three of these consoles are going to be wicked powerful, omfg just because ps3 is 1.32012535x faster then xbox360 doesn't mean that it sucks all of a sudden. Fanboys need to take some chill pills!

    Anyways, I await the revolution, im going to be dissapointed if its not revolutionary =(

    • Re:Whats with? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by coop0030 ( 263345 )
      I agree, the hardware is going to be so close. It is going to come down to the software.

      This is what Microsoft is betting on with releasing the console 6 months before. They are thinking that the earlier release is going to give them more time to have a strong library of games before the PS3 ever comes out.

      What would you buy? A PS3 with 20 decent launch games? Or an XBox 360 with 80 games, with a bunch of them that are great?

      I think most people will pick the second option. Look what Halo did for the
      • People will be awestruck at the Xbox 360

        no, they won't, especially if Sony 'coincidentally' will release a bunch of prerendered videos and claim that they are actual gameplay footage: people will be ooh-ing and aah-ing and wait for the PS3 launch which will cause MS to lose money on Christmas sales.

        I don't really care either way about which brand comes out on top (heck, I have an xbox, a ps2, a gc and a dreamcast to give you an idea) but it would be nice for once not to have to be witness to the usual o
      • I agree, the hardware is going to be so close. It is going to come down to the software.

        For me it mostly comes down to the hardware. Sure all the consoles will be able to play games nearly the same, a lot of the same games will be on all of them, but only one will have blue-ray. I think this could be a giant foot-in-the-door for Sony and I'm very surprised at Microsoft leaving out HD-DVD. Some games are already filling up DVDs as it is. I don't want to swap discs or install to a hard drive to play. Anoth
    • omfg phantom is 1.32012536x faster than both of those so they are obviously teh sux0rtz d00d wtf
    • "All three of these consoles are going to be wicked powerful, omfg just because ps3 is 1.32012535x faster then xbox360 doesn't mean that it sucks all of a sudden. Fanboys need to take some chill pills!"

      I'm more worried about price than power. Sony and Microsoft can each bite my butt if the $399 rumor is true.

    • Re:Whats with? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by C.Batt ( 715986 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @03:20PM (#12637522) Homepage Journal
      No doubt.

      Furthermore, what's the deal with the hype around these consoles?

      Yes, they're freaking powerful. This generation appears to be a significant leap from the last; much more of an immediately discernable difference in power between generations since 8bit to 16bit. But what are we going to get that will use that power?

      The same old song and dance.

      First person shooters. Arcade interaction games (DanceDance Revolution, etc...). 3d platformers. 3rd person action/adventure (Metal Gear, etc...). Fighting/brawling. Racing. MMORPGs.

      Better graphics. Better sound. More expansive environments. Same old gameplay with a shiny new coating.

      For the first time in forever (and I mean since the 2600), I'm just not excited about the next gen.
      • Well I missed this last generation(haven't owned any of the consoles) Although I did own a dreamcast, n64, and psx.

        Otherwise, that's why I am waiting anxiously for the nintendo revolution, a new way to play the games =)

        • Otherwise, that's why I am waiting anxiously for the nintendo revolution, a new way to play the games =)

          I'm still waiting a console which will automatically switch all characters to buxom female versions and generate and apply nude patches for them.

          I wonder if some of the emulators in PC could get this as an additional feature...

          Hmm... I guess that picture of Link as a woman affected me a bit more than I thought ;).

      • Re:Whats with? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Fr33z0r ( 621949 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @04:40PM (#12638358)
        Bear in mind that this is the first generation that's been online out of the box. Sure it's nothing for us PC gamers, but these consoles are going to open up a door for non-PC gamers to play all their favourite games against real people - the difference between AI and real people isn't something to be sniffed at as "same old song and dance"

        The past couple of years have been right up there IMHO, where in just a few months we've had the likes of Half Life 2, World of Warcraft, San Andreas, Silent Hill 4, Resident Evil 4, Halo 2, Doom III, Metroid Prime 2, Paper Mario TYD... There have been more great games released in the past year than there have been in any I can remember, and there's certainly enough on every format you busy for a long time, and what's coming up just looks better and better with every passing day (and that's ignoring the PSP and DS). Sure purists will say "those ones above are all sequels" but who cares, they're all great games, (with the possible exception of Doom III, heheh)

        Games are still as cool, fun and new as ever, it sounds like you're just getting a bit jaded, or maybe spoiled for choice?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "Anyways, I await the revolution, im going to be dissapointed if its not revolutionary =("

      Er.. and you are the one complaining about "fanboyism"?

      Revolutionary: Is not, is going a ramped up version of a gamecube with a dvd player (which should've been in the gamecube anyway), you are going to be able to play a few New Nintendo games (Gamecube too) and 20+ years of downloadable N games, from the excusable to the classical. The controler is going to feature some silly gimmick like the DS touch screen which o

  • Xenon vs Xeon (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:28PM (#12636999)
    Why would IBM name a PowerPC chip "Xenon", when Intel has been using the confusingly similar "Xeon" for years now?
    • I actually read the submission and my first reaction was "Wasn't the XBox 360 going to have a PPC processor?". Then I noticed that I misread the name.

    • Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:5, Interesting)

      by vought ( 160908 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:34PM (#12637055)
      I can't answer your question, after a moment of confusion (during which I chalked up a seeming "mistake" to the quality of Slashdot's editorial staff) I figured it out.

      I do have to give IBM credit for naming the processor after something that actually exists, rather than formulating a marketing driven non-word for their new product. Xenon is a gas that when excited, produces brilliant light...not a bad association.

      I mean, what the hell is a Xeon anyway? Xenon, now that's something we can all relate to. Perhaps the name for IBM's new XBox processor was chosen after perusing the Greek root of Xenon xenos, which means "strange".

      • Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2, Interesting)

        by blackicye ( 760472 )
        "Xenon is a gas that when excited, produces brilliant light...not a bad association.

        Gaseous like vapor?
        A brilliant light when the CPU is excited, followed by a loud poof and smoke?

        Xeon is pretty stupid, but Xenon really isn't that imaginative.

        Neither is Pentium, though PowerPC is an even stupider name. I guess Athlon isn't that great of a name either and Sempron is downright stupid.

        The point really is, marketing names are all stupid, and to decide whos got the less stupid product names is just totally
        • A brilliant light when the CPU is excited, followed by a loud poof and smoke?

          No, but then again, people who take everything literally usually aren't ever going to admit they're swayed by marketing anyway.

          Neither is Pentium, though PowerPC is an even stupider name. I guess Athlon isn't that great of a name either and Sempron is downright stupid.

          I don't know if you're really thinking this one through. PowerPC seems to be the most descriptive of all the names you cited. PowerPC is the name for the chip

      • iirc intel started making up words once they figured out they could not trademark/own the number "486".
      • Xeon is probably somewhere near Radeon on the marketing table of imaginary elements.
      • Xenon, now that's something we can all relate to.

        Yes. Xenon is something we can *all* relate to.

        What is it, again?

      • Silence! -

        We all know that Xenon is the mega blast.

        great.. now i cant that old bomb the bass track out of my head.
      • I do have to give IBM credit for naming the processor after something that actually exists, rather than formulating a marketing driven non-word for their new product.

        "Marketing words" are specifically chosen to be different because it's easier to enforce a trademark if it's unique. Hence, we don't have a type of fabric called Expand, it's Spandex... and so on.

        I mean, what the hell is a Xeon anyway?

        Same thing as what the hell a Slashdot is (dots which slash you?), or Microsoft (small and not very roug
        • Slashdot is rather simple.

          Go to a unix prompt and type CD /. and see what it does for you :-)
          • Typing "cd /." takes you to the root - just as typing "cd /". There is no point to typing the dot.
            The real reason for name is outlined in the faq:

            "Slashdot" is a sort of obnoxious parody of a URL. When I originally registered the domain, I wanted to make the URL silly, and unpronounceable. Try reading out the full URL to http://slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org] and you'll see what I mean. Of course my cocky little joke has turned around and bit me in the butt because now I am called upon constantly to tell people my URL or em
            • Ahh. Cool. Yes, that makes sense. I think that I had heard that one as well.

              Well, glad that that's cleared up. I feel silly for my alternate explanation now.

      • rather than formulating a marketing driven non-word for their new product

        And yet, if you read articles like Strength of Trademarks [bitlaw.com] you'll see that those "non-word" (aka "fanciful) trademarks are the strongest to protect. So there's a reason for formulating them.

        Of course, the challenge with the fanciful names is linking them to the product/service.

        Eric
        Latest book: I've written an AdSense book [memwg.com] for non-techies

      • puts on classics hat

        xenos more accurately means "foreign" than "strange". It would be a word used by an Athenian to describe a Spartan, for example. Hence xenophobe. It also means "guest". Generally "someone or something who does not belong where they currently are", but without an always negative connotation.
      • Xenon, now that's something we can all relate to.

        Perhaps if you just at a burrito... then you might feel quite gassy I suppose.
    • nVidia & ATi: If you look at video cards today (and a few months back) you would see something like... ATi: 9200 9600 9800 and then there would be a few different things like "XT" or other letters in front of them, but when you look at the actual cost of the video cards there are some 9600's that are more expensive than some 9800's so it's very confusing which one is better. nVidia: "6600" brand of cards can actually be priced below and above the "6200" and "6800" cards, so it's a real pain in the
    • Xenon was the codename for the whole Xbox 360; the processor chip has a different codename (at least within IBM).

  • What's the deal-yo? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:31PM (#12637025) Homepage Journal
    The Xbox 360's procedural synthesis capabilities look quite impressive, and I'm not as convinced as I was before that the PS3 would spank the Xbox 360.

    What the heck? This is 99% speculation. Is there any reason to start off with a fanboy potshot?

    The only power that any next-gen system needs is the power to output an HD resolution. None of the graphics I've seen so far looks like they couldn't be done on a Gamecube or Xbox.

    Hopefully, now that we've got this nearly photorealistic power at our command, games will evolve the way that painting did when the camera was invented. Realism just becomes another style (and a boring and lazy one at that). Let's see some avante-garde approaches to video games for once. Stylistic innovation that I can butter my teeth with.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Hopefully, now that we've got this nearly photorealistic power at our command, games will evolve the way that painting did when the camera was invented.

      Perhaps you meant camera obscura [wikipedia.org] rather than camera.
    • While I get your point, it seems both companies are going for the same goal, just in different ways.

      Microsoft is pushing their "procedural synthesis" into extremly parallel processors, to offload work from artists, and still make games look better. Sony is pushing their Cell chip as an extremely parallel processor to offload the work of the game, putting all the weight on artists, and still making the games look better. None of this, however, helps gameplay, which is the reason I don't even own a current

      • The Wheel of Life (Score:5, Insightful)

        by argent ( 18001 ) <peter@slashdot . ... t a r o nga.com> on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @03:17PM (#12637480) Homepage Journal
        It's funny how the early paradigms for optimization in computers are now starting to work in reverse.

        "Starting to"? As long as computers have been around, the trade-offs between the CPU, coprocessors, and I/O processors have been changing.

        The earliest reference to it that I know of it dates back to the early '70s:
        cycle of reincarnation
        [coined by Ivan Sutherland ca. 1970] n. Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again. Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in graphics-processor design, and at least one or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also known as `the Wheel of Life', `the Wheel of Samsara', and other variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea.
    • Let's see some avante-garde approaches to video games for once. Stylistic innovation that I can butter my teeth with.

      Legend of Zelda - Wind Walker has a very distinctive and stylised look. Screen shots don't really do it justice.

  • Multi-purpose CPU? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by coop0030 ( 263345 )
    Isn't this CPU more like a "do everything" CPU compared to the CELL which is focused on entertainment media?

    I thought that was the biggest difference between the two.

    • Re:Multi-purpose CPU? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 2ms ( 232331 )
      As I understand it, games these days need CPUs that are good at everything. Especially now that vector computations are overwhelmingly performed in GPU, there really isn't any single particular area where gaming CPUs should be optimized at the expense of strength in other areas. In other words, if a gaming cpu isn't good at everything, then it isn't good.
    • Procedural synthesis basically involves moderately simple code generating 3D objects on the fly.

      That's something Cell's 7 SPEs would kick ass at. Nice idea, but not like this is something the 360 is exclusively capable of. I'd guess that the Cell should be able to do this better, if properly harnessed.

  • CPU so what? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by logik3x ( 872368 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:37PM (#12637078)
    who gives a damm what their console runs... the point of a console is playing games... I had way more fun on my SNES & N64 then on PS2 and PS2 is like a 99999 times faster... ok you can have better graphics WOW but really the point his to have fun not make a reality "show" game... the most popular game in pc history where never the pretiest ones... for shure the engine was powerfull but the details were no that impressive... you think people played CS for graphics ...lol?

    • Re:CPU so what? (Score:5, Funny)

      by m50d ( 797211 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:49PM (#12637194) Homepage Journal
      You mean you're not thinking of running linux on this thing? Turn in your geek card immediately.
    • Graphics/Sound are important for immersion in the game world. But more important than "pushing pixels" is the game's aesthetics. When everything in the world fits...
      For example Metal Gear Solid 1 on the PS1. If you pay attention, you see the graphics are really crappy, pixelated and have a lot of Z-buffer errors. But you can't ignore the fact the game just feels good. The character animations are excellent, voice acting superb and the areas, while low detailed, feel "right".
      Surely this is not such an old ga
      • I know excatly what you mean. Ecco the Dolphin, Tyrian, Half-Life (1, even before Source)... they all still have great immersion and art, even though their graphics are very obsolete.
    • If you're a person like myself, you aren't using the hardware information to make a purchase decision. You are just interested in the technology. There is some pretty cool technical design in the hardware for these next generation consoles.
  • Codenamed Xenon, the multicore PowerPC CPU that IBM designed for the Xbox 360 . . .

    OK, now that we have a PowerPC chip here, who thinks they can port what to the new XBox 360?

  • So you thought "the PS3 would spank the Xbox 360." Do you have to have both consoles to run that game? And is it X rated? :-)

    Or I guess the rating I'm asking about is NC-17 these days. My mention of X ratings probably shows the time frame in which I saw much of that kind of flick. :-)
    • I think that would be an "M" rating (Governer Rod wants to ban console spanking! The horror!).

  • I was at E3 and gaming journalism is broken (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garagekubrick ( 121058 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:48PM (#12637188) Homepage
    Because every developer on the floor knew that the most impressive demos for the PS3 were totally prerendered. They could even name the people who worked on them. And for some reason no one in the games journalism community would point blank persistently ask Sony and groups like Axis Animation what the deal was. Look at this article [ign.com] where it's all speculation and guessing. The public deserves to know that what they were shown is not exactly how a game is going to look on PS3. Meanwhile, closed door demos of the Xbox 360 were actually impressive. I don't work for either company or work in games for that matter, though I do love them. I am totally neutral about both machines. My bias is negative towards Microsoft as I'm a Mac zealot and my Xbox is my least favorite console. I went into E3 feeling Microsoft had blown it. Then I saw what it could do, held the controller in my hand, and now am impressed and rather excited about the Xbox 360. And privately a developer told me that they aren't anywhere near having the machines run full speed or utilizing their full power in the very obvious Mac G5 dev kits they're running everything from. But I will say this: HDTV is going to be a requirement. The PS3 remains vaporware in my mind - I recall claims of rendering scenes of the Final Fantasy movie on PS2's "emotion engine". And ultimately what's even sadder is there were a mere handful of games at E3 that made me excited. Okami, the new Zelda, We Love Kattamari, Shadow of the Collossus, Stubbs the Zombie, and that's pretty much it. Horsepower may be here, but games are as stunted, as juvenile, and as retreaded as ever. Future marines vs. monsters and bimbos galore. Meanwhile next gen gaming is going to cost more, Microsoft have shunted most PC development to the Xbox, killing the richness of PC games for the most part other than MMORPGs. And now we're going to have live updating advertising in games, along with additional content that will have to be purchased. Want that sword +2? You can buy it for $4.99. Welcome to gamer hell [pointlesswasteoftime.com].

  • OS/360 (Score:3, Funny)

    by ntufar ( 712060 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:49PM (#12637192) Homepage Journal
    Amazingly nobody mentioned OS/360 released by IBM exactly 40 years ago http://ldworen.net/fun/os360obit.html [ldworen.net] and still downloadable from http://www.cbttape.org/os360.htm [cbttape.org]

  • Xenon? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <shadow.wrought@g ... minus herbivore> on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:53PM (#12637223) Homepage Journal
    You mean all these years I've been trying to figure out the composition of the magic smoke that makes my machine run and its been Xenon the whole time!?

  • procedural synthesis (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:55PM (#12637248) Homepage Journal
    I don't get how this could be patented? How is this different than any of a 1000 fractal plant or landscape programs that are out there?
    • I've been trying to figure this one out... the article describes it in a way that leads you to believe it's a process that only the Xenon can do, and will do it for free. It's a common technique used in many games. It doesn't mention anything about the Xenon that would significantly improve the process - I'll bet my lunch it doesn't have a BLOW_IN_WIND operator in the silicon. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the whole process will still need to be programmed much the same as it is on other machines.

      Reminds
      • I have to wonder if it has more to do with the transfer of data to the GPU than the synthesis. I also have to wonder what cross IP agreement IBM has with Microsoft on this? Could we see the G6 be a Xenon core with Cells????
    • Didn't Issac Newton discover this? Isn't it called calculus? (Passing a formula when describes a curve instead of the curve itself?)

      Then again. It seems obvious to me as well.
    • I was wondering the same thing. The only thing that comes to mind is that it may introduce some level of abstraction via a new primitive data type. I do, however, think that most of it is over-patented.

      The concept, however, I agree with. The fact that most aesthetics of video games are generated solely by artists does lead to a rather disappointing world. I would like to be able to generate a forest-full of trees that is exactly the same every time, with every tree different, and not have every fricki

  • I'm happy all over, from head to toe (Score:3, Interesting)

    by l3v1 ( 787564 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @02:56PM (#12637251)
    Why am I so happy ? beacuse with such game consoles out there (despit the fact that I'm a full fledged PS3 fan, coolest thang, great stuff) Linux has a greater chance than ever.

    I, for one, will probably no way buy PC games in the future. Why the hell would I do that when I can have a quite powerfull and nice looking console hooked up to a hdtv in the living room. I ain't gona need no PC to play my brains out, the wish should arise.

    And, added to the above and returning to my Linux idea at the beginning, don't forget that very very very many average clicking guys come with the "argument" that they won't even consider chaning or even trying Linux, because all the games run on Windows.

    All in all, these consoles will probably be great, I hope so. Given the specs, the reviews, etc., I'm still nto convinced any bit of XBox's superiority over the PS3, but that's no problem if I can buy which I want and play, play, play :D

    • I realized this years ago. I am sure there are many like me who at the thought of upgrading their computer syetem for 3000$ to play games balked. Why do that when you can buy an xboxen for 300$. The ONLY negitive is that you can't rip off games. Of course people got mod chips to do even this. I for one didn't go that far as I can just rent the game. I have yet to play a game that keeps my attention longer than a week anyway (perhaps Halo2).

      This also means that I don't have to run windows in my PC as I don'
    • The only thing you should be convinced of is that this generation is completely about Marketing and Games. Tech will have little or nothing to do with it (unless the PS3 is a complete nightmare to develop for). Both consoles will be awesome. It'll be up to MS and Sony to line up the devs with the killer titles.
  • both will have some great games
  • Procedural synthesis and Level of Detail (AKA rendering vertex data on the fly from generated objects)? I'm reading the article, and I'm amazed most of this really, really obvious stuff wasn't being done already. guess the old consoles just didn't have the power.
  • You didn't think you were watching real footage of _anything_ from Sony did you? You didn't think that the PS3 they "showed" would be final form of the box, did you ? Do you think the "dualshockboomerang" is the final form of the controller?

    You don't actually beleive that giving the 7 SPE's hand coded routines to do (that accomplish nothing, btw) and then proclaiming it is the tflops king makes a better video game machine, do you ?

    Which of those 7 SPE's is going to run the IP stack for all the networked games (that wont have an online service comparable to xbox live).

    None of them.

    Sony made _ridiculous_ claims about the PS2, the fanboys ate them up, and sony way, way underdelivered. "The PS2 will do Toy Story in real time!!". Riiiiight. What part of Toy Story did Sony do, exactly? What do they know about making a Pixar quality film?

    For that matter, if the PS2/PS3 are so great, why aren't they _actually_ in the Top500 list? The best supercomputers from Japan aren't made by Sony - they're made by NEC. Where is their supercomputing architectural experience? How is it that a stereo/walkman manufacturer gets by claiming that it is building a faster machine than just about anybody thats been doing it for 30 years, and that they'll sell it for $300 to boot.

    The real tragedy here is that Sony fanboys didn't learn from PS2. Sony has the hype cranked up to 11, and people are eating it up, just like they did last time.

    I am sure that the PS3 will allow you to have fun playing games.

    I am also sure that it will NOT be the hardware equivalent of the return of Christ. Please see through the BS.

  • Procedural scenery is not new (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @03:08PM (#12637388) Homepage
    "Procedural synthesis" has been around for a while. First came fractal synthesis of mountain ranges and clouds, then came L-system for trees and shrubbery. SpeedTree [idvinc.com] has been doing this for years, and has the best production system. Here are high resolution screenshots. [idvinc.com] "Windblown trees and grass, subtle lighting effects and hundreds of thousands of trees, plants, palms, cacti, grasses, spread across vast terrains covering hundreds of square miles." One of their older demos is the "million tree forest". The grass, trees, and leaves sway in the wind, just like the claims for the new Xbox.

    Yes, this is real time. You can download the demo. [idvinc.com] That demo requires a high-end PC, and will give you a sense of what SpeedTree will look like on the new XBox.

    Because that's what the somewhat clueless original article is about. SpeedTree will be available for the new XBox. [idvinc.com] This was announced back in March.

    The trick is cramming something like SpeedTree into a wierd architecture like the new XBox. That's a headache, but not a breakthrough.

    • It's seems like every time I hear about something "new" in the computer science field (like procedural synthesis) it is actually an idea that some smart dude thought of 40 years ago and just couldn't implement on vaccuum tubes. I don't think we're as smart as we think we are.

  • Quick Summary and opinion (Score:4, Interesting)

    by uigrad_2000 ( 398500 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2005 @03:09PM (#12637397) Homepage Journal
    Summary of article:

    When traditional games need artwork, the illustrators draw it (with curves), and then use fancy software to make sharp polygons out of the curves (process called tesselation). When the add this information to the game database, it's a large list of verticies, which is unweildy to handle.

    With the xbox 2*pi, the tesselation will be delayed until runtime. The data will be stored as curves[*], and will not be converted to polygons until it needs to be displayed. This won't affect the GPU, since the tesselation will happen earlier in the pipeline.

    [*]Specifically, humans will be stored in separate poses, where a bone structure (and other solids) is saved for each pose. The skin, of course, is a deformable covering that will be added during the tesselation process. An intelligent algorithm will be used to fill in the segments of time between 2 given poses.

    Lastly, Microsoft has received a patent for this idea of runtime-tesselation. My opinion

    1) Is this really better? They emphasize the reduction in hours creating the vertex database, because the quantity of information is reduced. Is it really easy for a graphic designer to fit a mathametically curve to a particular line in his drawing? Is it really less information?

    2) How did they get a patent for this idea? I'm sure there are lots of 3d games, probably even back to the 90's era, that used a similar princicple of representing objects with curves, and then displaying them at runtime with polygons. The patent is probably not really for that idea, but just for the architectual design (hardware) to handle such software.

    • "2*pi" is one more keystroke than "360".

      Dweeb.
    • 1) Yes it is better. The designer doesn't "fit" a mathamatical curve -- the software handles that under the hood for them. They choose a circle and manipulate it, or they choose points to deform on a line and manipulate it.

      It is definately less information ... one "shape" may have more data than a single vertex, but it has far less data than a similar shape made out of vertexes. This reduces the amount of data that must be transfered over the system bus, which is critical in this context.

      The other adv
  • From the article In a nutshell, procedural synthesis is about making optimal use of system bandwidth and main memory by dynamically generating lower-level geometry data from statically stored higher-level scene data.

    Patent? Sorry, but I was using a plug-in for Lightwave 3D back in the mid-1990s that did that. I could swear that was a popular technique used by a variety of 3D animations software a decade ago.

    -Charles
    • I think that the difference is in the way the hardware handles this. IANAE on this but it looks like vertex data is never being stored in main memory, but is "streamed" to the GPU via the processors. The main memory only gets a description of the object to be rendered instead of the whole object. This reduces the bandwidth overhead and frees up more room for object descriptions.

      So basically instead of 10 trees rendered 40 times a piece we may get 40 trees rendered 10 times. This should make a huge differe
  • ...the hardware that powers the Xbox 360 is custom-made from the ground up to run games, high-definition video, and digital audio.

    Sounds like the Amiga approach to me.

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