IBM To Design Technology For XBox 2 CPU 151
An anonymous reader writes "According to Biz Ink, 'Microsoft has licensed leading-edge semiconductor processor technology from
IBM for use in future Xbox products and services to be announced at a later
date..' IBM are already working on the PlayStation 3 CPU alongside Toshiba, and have a relationship with Nintendo after making the GameCube CPU, though there's been no official announcement on GameCube 2's hardware. Is the next-gen hardware war heating up?"
Tough Luck, Intel! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tough Luck, Intel! (Score:2)
What happen?
Someone set us up the RISC.
Is it still going to be X86? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:2)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:1)
Just a minor nit, the XBox is Win2k based, not CE based (as the DreamCast was), so it's more than likely that the XBox 2 would be XP-based, especially with XP Embedded having taken a lot of the hype away from CE-based devices in the last couple years.
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:1)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:1)
Yeah it was slow, yeah it kinda sucked but it sure didn't make Chu Chu Rocket any less fun.
I was actually reminded of this benefit the last time someone said Dreamcast was Win CE based
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:2)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:2)
(I speak from experience.)
(rant) Nvidia needs to get their act together. There's too much app-specific optimization going on. ATI cards are reported to run the game better out of the box, and there's an Nvidia card IN THE XBOX!! I happen to be an Nvidia loyalist at the moment because of their Linux drivers, but they need to make sure their Win drivers don't *have* to be optimized for particular games or they'll go bust!
(/rant)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:2)
Any bets on how long before Gcc supports the CPU? AFter that how long before NetBSD and linux get support, and which of the two is first?
Re:Is it still going to be X86? (Score:2)
--Dan
Sucks to be Nintendo (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sucks to be miserable (Score:1)
But then I'm a nice person and don`t really see why the Xbox should whither just to stop Nintendo from becoming a games producer.
Especially given that there are 6 billion people in the world, That's probably enough for 3 consoles.
CJC
Re:Sucks to be miserable (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Sucks to be Nintendo (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Sucks to be Nintendo (Score:1, Redundant)
What's going on today people!!!
Re:Sucks to be Nintendo (Score:2)
In fact, they tend to not rely on any special or flashy hardware at all to make great games. This is why their consoles don't outsell competitors offerings, they aren't as flashy. I'd be just as happy playing a Mario title on a Sony console, because the focus is on the game and the gameplay NOT the system that is spinning the disc.
Re:Sucks to be Nintendo (Score:1)
um...i don't think so.... (Score:4, Informative)
That's all the detail that the article really gives. The rest is typical corporate marketing. No where did I see anything that says that IBM is designing the central processing unit for the XBox 2.
Re:um...i don't think so.... (Score:1)
But could this be a tactical move to improve IBM's relationship with Microsoft? IBM has been pushing Linux quite a bit as of late...EVIL CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUND!
Re:um...i don't think so.... (Score:2)
It is a god-awful press release written by someone in Microsoft, though. "Semiconductor processor technology." They might mean process technology, but last time I checked, MS wasn't interested in process technology. Look for the IBM press release to actually be coherent.
Re:um...i don't think so.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The first time it's mentioned, it's in the context of processor technology, the blurb most-cited so far in this thread. The second time is as follows:
According to Bernie Meyerson, IBM Fellow and chief technologist for IBM's
Technology Group, the new Xbox technologies will be based on the latest in
IBM's family of state-of-the-art process
Re:um...i don't think so.... (Score:2)
It's easy to assume that I suppose...except that modern computers typically have other processors such as for sound and video. I'd rather have it state "CPU" explicitely, because I found the text to be far too vague.
xbox obsolete already? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:xbox obsolete already? (Score:2)
How many sales were lost to the people who thought the PS3 would be out in a year or two???
This whole console race was initiated by Microsoft, because the perception was that they were
Re:xbox obsolete already? (Score:1)
They have to be ready when Nintendo and Sony release their next platforms, even though Sony's platform is the oldest of the 3. Most people are looking at 2005/2006 for the next generation, though it's hard to say as no one's announced a release date yet (though everyone's made some sort of announcement regarding some of their hardware partners).
I thought one of the nice things about consoles was that they didn't become obsolete technology as quickly as P
Likely to be Power5 Based.... (Score:1)
I imagine that the move by Microsoft in purchasing VirtualPC may be related to this announcement. Take an already proven PC emulator, port it for Xbox2 use.
Re:Likely to be Power5 Based.... (Score:2, Interesting)
But if you're a gambling man, I'll take that bet.
Re:Likely to be Power5 Based.... (Score:2)
NT was supposed to be multi-platform and XP is built off the NT codebase. Could we see XP for the PPC?
An alternative could be a hardware translator that converts Intel to PPC. Sort of like the Transmeta chip.
Could be... Very interesting. The big question is will Microsoft let IBM do the same thing for the G6 chip? Apple could be a
Uhh, so which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as IBM does so much research these days, it seems that "licensing technology" could possibly mean something really minor. Well, it could mean almost anything.
Personally, I predict that the GC2 will be the first Nintendo console to feature backward compatibility, and will also feature an IBM chip. Which would make it really wierd if IBM made the x-box chip as well. But what do I know..
Re:Uhh, so which is it? (Score:1)
Re:Uhh, so which is it? (Score:2)
Re:Uhh, so which is it? (Score:1)
Re:Uhh, so which is it? (Score:2)
Interestingly you can now get a game boy [color] emulator for the game boy advance; not the built-in stuff, but a port of some other emulator. This lets you do neat stuff like store a bunch of games, or s
Re:Uhh, so which is it? (Score:2)
Well... at least in theory SNES was also compatible with NES games. SNES uses an updated NES CPU and it was originally Nintendo's plan to sell some kind of adapter like Sega's Master System --> Mega Drive or Master System --> Game Gear.
That adapter was never officially released, but there was an unofficial NES --> SNES adapter called Super 8/Tri-Star.
Motorola could also make a PPC chip
Better Question: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Why doesn't IBM just cut out the middle-man and get into the console business for themselves?
Re:Better Question: (Score:1, Flamebait)
IBM selling game consoles would be like Apple selling OSX for the x86. There's just too much competition right now for such a huge gamble.
Re:Better Question: (Score:1)
Re:Better Question: (Score:1)
Re:Better Question: (Score:1)
IBM manufactured the first production runs of the Atari Jaguar. So they have the experience. But, I just don't think they could do it cheaply enough to be viable in this cutthroat market.
Re:Better Question: (Score:1)
Re:Better Question: (Score:1)
The hardware is not always sold at a profit. IBM will make money selling componets to Ninendo, MS, or Sony if it can. From IBM's point of view, why change?
Re:Better Question: (Score:1)
Re:Better Question: (Score:5, Funny)
Egad, man--imagine it! Big Blue with their own console--hell, just the tag line alone would be enough to induce acute narcolepsy:
Introducing the new IBM IES/90 Interactive Entertainment System. IBM IES/90: the right solution for your personal entertainment needs.
(System ships with Advanced Tactical Defensive Missile Systems Operator 1.0. Click here for a list of authorized IES/90 vendors and resellers.)
Hardware war (Score:1)
Sounds like it's cooling down, for IBM at least...
It makes perfect sense (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, it is still debatable that MS should even bother to do an Xbox2. The move into media PCs, along with a standardisation on games that can run directly from a DVD-ROM rather than installing on the HD would negate the need for the expense of selling an Xbox system. Get a standard PC into the living room and make it play games as well as a console and you would have a winner........
Re:It makes perfect sense (Score:1)
What? Are you claiming that x86 chip and mobo prices have remained constant for the last few years? How naive of me to believe that they were getting cheaper over time just because the numbers after the pound signs were shrinking so fast!
Re:It makes perfect sense (Score:2)
Not at all, what happens is that when you go to a shop to buy
Re:It makes perfect sense (Score:2)
Poppycock. Top of the line Desktop PC hardware is simply getting cheaper over time. You used to pay $3500 for a 386 from Tandy. If you spend that today, you can get a dual processor G4 or Xeon fer chrissakes, AND some addons. And those Tandys weren't the best of the breed eithe
Re:It makes perfect sense (Score:2)
Re:It makes perfect sense (Score:1)
The GC had 48MB of RAM and a 16MB frame buffer
The Xbox had 64MB of unified memory. The GPU memory was shared. My computer has 1024MB. Games often take 200-300.
Your figures are wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Gamecube has 3megs of local memory, just enough for 1 frame buffer, 1 Z buffer and whichever textures are being used to rasterise the current primitve. Textures are automatically DMAed from the 24megs of (extremely fast and low-latency) system memory as they are needed. There's 16megs of (PC100) audio memory and some games use that as a backing store for extra data - DMA to/from it is quite slow though.
You're right about Xbox's 64megs but it should be noted that the memory is divided by the crossbar memory controller into 4 16meg chunks and by carefully arranging what is in what chunk you get better performance because each chunk can be accessed at full speed (ie. as if the overall memory wasn't shared).
Game consoles really don't need a 64bit address space yet, but they do need a very wide data bus and wide CPU registers. Right now I'd say raw CPU performance and pixel fillrate are actually the two most limiting factors for games. More RAM would certainly be nice but throughput is a bigger concern, at least with the games I've worked on.
Re:Your figures are wrong (Score:2)
Sure we'd all like to see consoles have twice as much ram, it would improve their hacking value significantly. I know I'd pay ten more bucks for a console that just had the memory socketed, especially if it were as PC-like as an Xbox. But obviously as you say the bandwidth is significant. Nintendo is using some kind of small amount of RDRAM in
Re:Your figures are wrong (Score:2)
Re:It makes perfect sense (Score:2)
The PS2 streams textures from the 32MB of main memory. It doesn't have dedicated texture memory.
The framebuffer isn't 8MB. I think it is 4MB split between z-buffer and framebuffer.
Keep in mind that the bus designs in a PS2 are completely different to Xbox. Especially once you consider the DMACs and the split GPUs in the PS2
Make things short... (Score:4, Funny)
2) XBox and Nintendo fans: "PS2 Sucks!"
3) PS2 and Nintendo fans "XBox Sucks!"
It's great that I'm a IBM fan and can afford all three consoles
Good night!
Re:Make things short... (Score:1)
Probably like how people with Apple Computers brag about how fast they can run photoshop because there aren't any other programs for them. -Zing!-
hmm (Score:2)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Will it run? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
More focused competition - this sounds good (Score:1, Insightful)
The result? The consoles will have to get an edge over each other in other areas - like having DVR capabilities, better 3d implementation and technologies, online play, and, of course, better games. We will be less likely to face a decision now of 'more good g
Now we know... (Score:1)
What's the Timeframe? (Score:1)
So does this mean that we should expect...
'cause if so then I'll need to make sure that I have $299 for the XBox2, $700 for the PSX, $200 for the PSP, and enough time to s
Re:Let the Anti-MS rants begin. (Score:1, Troll)
Too bad this gaming site can't stay focused on games.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
It is probable that these new CPUs will use a second supervisor mode to allow the games to run their own "OS" but keep the system hardware hidden behing an machine kept API. (This would allow upgradebility and better sandboxing).
Re:Maybe (Score:1)
Are we on crack now?
Re:Maybe (Score:1)
RE: When (Score:2, Insightful)
The majority of people who buy consoles don't give a crap about picking their own hardware and building an "l337" gaming rig. Most of them don't give a rat's ass about open source non profit emulators either. One of the big draws of having a console is that sometimes people just like to sit down and play a game without having to worry about getting the latest video drivers, or having 3 Gigs of RAM, or a Radeon 9800 just to play a frickin' game. When I turn on my
Re: When (Score:1, Troll)
Re: When (Score:2)
Re: When (Score:2)
Your response is "so play some other game instead". That's a perfectly reasonable response. But it's not the one the poster you were replying to wanted.
Re: When (Score:1)
Re: When (Score:2)
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
In other words, try reading this [slashdot.org] and then this [slashdot.org].
Re:When (Score:1, Funny)
And you can do this for $99?? [ebgames.com]
Re:When (Score:1)
when you buy a ps2 game, you KNOW that it will work on your ps2. you won't have to upgrade parts of the hardware, install the latest drivers, worry about conflicting software/drivers/hardware.
and all software will be optimised and tested for the specific hardware, which is not the case with pc games.
you pop in the cd, and you can be 100% sure that it works.
and that's exactly what makes these consoles so popular.
Re:When (Score:1)
Re:When (Score:1)
Re:When (Score:1)
Re:When (Score:2)
Re:When (Score:1)
Re:When (Score:2)
How naive! I almost thought you were sarcastic until I realzed you were serious. If closed source and fixed consoles truly are the wonderful solution to all gaming's problems then why do [emutalk.net] (n64) people make [zsnes.com] (snes) such widely supported [epsxe.com] (playstaion1) and successful emulators?
Re:When (Score:2)
Re:When (Score:2)
What a scary, thought-provoking comment. What if the next version of XBox had two different hardware sets - one with ubergraphics, one cheaper? What if the PS3 is upgradable to a PS4? Or, in a tribute to Pokemon, what if you could combine a Nintendo GameSphere with a PS3 to create a SuperConsole? (Collect 'em all - better graphics, more games to combine)
Uhhh... yeah. (Score:2)
Yes - it's much better to spend 5 times as much up front to have a system that will be games-functional for about half the time.
Whether or not a console is stupid depends on the type of games you prefer, the amount of money you have, and how much you play. For many people, buying a gaming-class computer would be retarded - even if they use it for other things.
Re:Uhhh... yeah. (Score:2)
Well, you don't have me beat... (Score:2)
Many people can have all their gaming desires met cheaper, simpler and better with a console. They're not illiterate or retarded - they just like different things.
Re:Well, you don't have me beat... (Score:2)
Seriously though, the difference is that it's a helluva lot cheaper to just have the computer and not buy the console. I understand your argument that some people want the simplicity of it just working, but I'd rather take the cheaper solution that requires less money despite more effort and I suspect many agree with me. We should have both!
Re:When (Score:1)
Re:When (Score:2)
PC console emulation has always traveled hand-in-hand with pirated console games. I understand the difference between the two, but I doubt that subtle distinctions will influence console makers to give official support to anything that could cut into licensing fees. Yes, sales to PC users could increase fee revenue, but the risk of losing traditional sales is too great to take that chance.
I'm not
Re:When (Score:2)
Re:When (Score:1)
Or even better, I'll keep playing PC games on my PC and console games on my console and refuse to buy PC-centric genres (FPS, RTS, etc) on my console until I've played them first and know that they actually redesigned the interface rather than shoe-horning it onto the box, and refuse to buy cons
Re: Throw out your stereos, radios, clocks and... (Score:2)