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Games Entertainment

In-depth X-Box Hardware Review 185

Posted by michael from the soon-to-be-illegal dept.
Tauvix writes: "AnandTech is running an in-depth article on the hardware of the X-box as compared to a PC, the PS2, and the Gamecube. There's some very interesting suprises and commentary on what was done right, and what could have been done better."
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In-depth X-Box Hardware Review More

In-depth X-Box Hardware Review

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  • what's needed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jrs 1 ( 536357 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @07:48AM (#2600034) Homepage
    what's really needed is the investment into making a game that makes use of all the new geforce 3 hardware. having console games made for the xbox (then probably being very easily ported to windows) will mean a larger amount of investment in pc games in the long run.

    (also possibly a monopoly on the games market)

    • (OT) Video card (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by dimator ( 71399 )
      geforce 3

      A 64 MB geforce 3 card goes on sale this friday for a great price, and I wanted to get in on the deal. But then I remembered that it's a damn waste of a card on me, because A) I run linux, and B) I find coding more fun than games. It's a shame, really...

    • Re:what's needed (Score:2, Insightful)

      by I.T.R.A.R.K. ( 533627 )
      Ahh, but would such a game even run well on the X-box?
      Optimizing games for existing effects is one thing, but writing your game to take advantage of new effects on top of old ones takes a lot of dedication on the part of the cpu. What the gpu can handle, the cpu might not be able to. Especially if it is an Intel Celeron equivilant.
      I definitely agree that new games need to be written to take advantage of the on-board memory. Remember the days of Quake 1 where the default game would allocate a small amount of ram to the game (Wasn't it 16? I don't recall) when you had 128+ sitting around doing nothing?(I did, at least). It was only with command line paramaters that I could allocate more.
      I don't think X-box users have the convenience of a command line. But, since the X-box uses a unified memory architecture, this shouldn't even be an issue and I'm just rambling. Late night benders tend to do that to me.
      In any event, this is one example of how PC-native games probably won't run well on the X-box unless they're ported specifically. There's no sense in having all that extra hardware sitting around if no one's going to use it.
    • Loom? Monkey island kicked Loom's ass any day. :)

  • Is it worth Hacking (Score:4, Informative)

    by slashnik ( 181800 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @08:18AM (#2600065)
    It is said that the XBox is being sold at a loss but does that automatically mean that it is a good deal if it is hacked to make a general purpose computer. The CPU is soldered and non-upgradeable, the memory again is soldered and non upgradeable. The hard disk and PSU are "non standard"

    Can an open platform, boxed general purpose computer with similar spec be built for the same or simlar money

    Anyone who says that the XBox would make a good cluster node should price up a similar spec motherboard + CPU + memory + NIC+ case. I believe that this should come in cheaper and be far more upgradeable

    What are the other uses for a hacked XBox

    slashnik
    • The drives are 5400RPM with 8GB and 10GB (random luck which one you get). The CPU is a quasi Celeron/PIII at 733MHz. The memory is fixed at 64MB

      Today I can buy a generic computer with 933MHz celeron, at least 64MB RAM (upgradable to 192MB for about $25), with keyboard, a bigger HD, and a $80 DVD ROM for about the same price.

      Sure the Xbox sells at a loss. That's because they put extra effort into things that make game playing better. These are the things that are of no benefit for running your word processor or compiler. Hack the box? Why bother?
      • You forgot the GF3 - that's $299 by itself.

        But don't count on it being hacked in the short term. MS have seen other consoles get hacked before, and watched those companies lose money on subsidised consoles to hackers looking for cheap machines.

        They've gone to great lengths to make the machine as hackproof as they can - encrypted BIOS, signed executables, specific hardware checks... you can't even change the IDE cable without the machine objecting.

        That said, I'd love to see some non-game apps for my Xbox - a networked MP3 player & 3D visualiser comes to mind - but I'm not expecting to see them until MS trims their production costs & actually makes a bit of money on each unit.

        • If I was cynical I'd say MS might have just left the box very hackable. Just think about it, they have cash to burn, wouldn't mind losing money if it pushed another 900lb gorilla (Sony) out of the market and put their system under everyones TV's. Then again I still think that Sega leaked the way to hack the DreamCast as a last ditch attempt to try and boost console sales (people do weird things when ships sink).

          (I don't think they intentionally left it hackable though, the game market is lucrative as it is.)

          Interestingly enough I haven't heard anything about the copyprotection behind the Xbox. Anyone have any information regarding the schemes used?
      • Those PCs put together, however, invariably always use terrible chipsets, slow memory (PC133) and mediocre video. The onboard audio is probably sufficient but I don't know. They're sufficient, perhaps, to Joe Schmoe who doesn't use a computer very often except to check email and browse the web for an hour, and to open Microsoft Word. The Xbox, presumably, at least ships with a high(er) quality chipset- something that would jack the price up of these computers to at least $50 more than the Xbox, assuming that Video is on board.

        I'd like the idea of a computer in my living room which is intended to pipe mp3s to my stereo (off CD or the HD or the network), pipe video to my TV, capture video from the TV like a VCR and play DVDs. The Xbox doesn't fit this bill right now completely but hacked, it'd be able to do all of it except for the PVR function (assuming that adding a USB based tv tuner isn't possible). Yes, there are computer that can do all of this right now, but how many of them resemble a consumer component, and are silent like one, instead of being as noisy as a desktop computer (and as obvious as one- I wan't something that doesn't look like a computer there.)
    • Is it work hacking? Heck yeah, because it's THERE. Oh, and the fact that it's MS helps too.

      Hacking into something that may not be practical hasn't stopped hackers, and I hope it never does.

  • Single page article (Score:5, Informative)

    by purplemonkeydan ( 214160 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @08:22AM (#2600071)
    Protect your sanity and view the whole article on one page here [anandtech.com], rather than clicking 'Next' 100 times and downloading heaps of ads.
    • Isn't the point of the ads so that they can pay their hosting cost when something like a slashdotting happens?
      • Isn't the point of the ads so that they can pay their hosting cost when something like a slashdotting happens?

        Yeah, but the single page view saves them considerable amounts of bandwidth.

        Really, those miniscule "pages" aren't necessary at all. If they had a clue, they'd dump the lot on one or two pages.
        • The ads are there to do two things

          1. Pay the costs
          2. Motivate

          And yes, they certainly have a clue at anandtech - I'm positive they don't make 10 seperate page articles for aesthetical reasons. They did it to make money. This information is free to the viewers, so I don't think it's too much to ask the visitors to browse through several pages, as long as anand keeps supplying quality reports.

          However if people get pissed off about all the pages, they won't come back, and the system will regulate itself.

  • XMSN? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by imrdkl ( 302224 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @08:22AM (#2600072) Homepage Journal
    From the article: Microsoft has yet to announce their official plans for taking the Xbox online and unfortunately by default the Xbox's Ethernet port is not set to receive an IP from a DHCP server

    Perhaps there some sort of Xbox ISP in the works exclusive to MS? A XMSN, if you will? If so, are Xbox owners need a membership to play games remotely?

    • Re:XMSN? (Score:3, Funny)

      by zulux ( 112259 )
      Xbox's Ethernet port is not set to receive an IP from a DHCP server


      It's not even TCP/IP! It uses Microsoft's new NetBEUI-2001 protocall. I know it's true, 'cause my OS/2 LanManager server says so! ;)
      • I'm posting withouth the +1 bonus because my comment about the NetBEUI shoulden't have been moderated as 'Informative' - it's was ment as a joke. NetBEUI - was Microsoft and IBM kludge of a networking protocall for small evironments. Think Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Microsoft still can's break away from NetBEUI - Windows still uses it, it's just wrapped in a TCP/IP layer to hide it's suckyness.
    • unfortunately by default the Xbox's Ethernet port is not set to receive an IP from a DHCP server

      That's incorrect. At least, I've seen more than one report elsewhere that the Xbox *does* request a DHCP address.

      Guess I'll have to try it myself now :-)

    • With a 25M USD price on his head....some Afghan will get a big fat pay check first......

      Yes...I do believe he would get a fair trail in as a war criminal.

      Yes...I do believe the US gov would pay....

      Steve

  • Interesting Look (Score:5, Interesting)

    by r.suzuka ( 538257 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @08:28AM (#2600078) Homepage
    I read through the article and perhaps I did not understand it completely but I believe the writer may have been missing the points overall.

    In Japan, the market for consoles is perhaps much greater than it is in the United States. Many people have a computer but not as many as have a console. Instead of looking at the Xbox as a console, I believe it was looked at as a dedicated gaming computer. Does that make sense? Please correct me if I am unclear.

    I believe that the writer missed many of the reason for the popularity and technical strength of consoles. For a console, a developer of course knows what sort of hardware his program will be running on, and he has specialized tools from the console maker to help him in his development. That is not found so much with a computer (though it is with the Xbox). Quite a bit can be done without enormous quantities of RAM as consoles through out history have shown. If you remember the Zelda game for the Nintendo 64, it would run on only 4 MB of RAM. I would like to see PC games do that ^_^

    I also did not see a comparison of the Xbox to the Nintendo GameCube. I have had a GameCube since it was released two months ago and I am very pleased with it so far. I may even enjoy it more than my PlayStation 2. I believe that the GameCube is a worthy competitor to the Xbox.

    I am making the point that consoles are not meant to be personal computers and they should not be judged in that way. The Xbox is a impressive dedicated gaming PC in many respects if developers will learn to fully utilize its power, but as a console, I do not prefer it.

    Thank you for reading this long post of mine. Once again please correct me if I am not clear in what I say. Thank you.

    R. Suzuka
    • Anand will be running a comparative article on the GameCube. Don't worry, all systems will be compensated for.

    • Re:Interesting Look (Score:3, Informative)

      by EMN13 ( 11493 )
      Actually, at least according to the anand tech article, you're incorrect in assuming that consoles come with specialized which would make them easier to program for. PS2 apparently came without a c-compiler, and though I have little knowledge about consoles in particular, c is still king for most embedded applications.

      I only have limited OpenGL and assembler experience, but I've seen the instruction set that the vertex shader's in the X-Box use, and they are orders of magnitude simpler (and correspondingly less flexible) than implementing such vertex transformations in x86 assembler. (This has nothing to do with the x86 architecture, it's simply that NormalizedCrossProduct EBX, EAX, ECX (psuedocode) is a lot easier than working out a normalized cross product manually, though the vagaries of the x86 FPU won't help.) Given the fact that the x86 architecture is old, as is DirectX, it should be much and much easier to program for this familiar platform, especially now that it's got a unified memory architecture.

      The XBox is a console in the sense that it has hardware stability; you know exactly what you're coding for, and a PC in simplicity. I'ld expect it to be a great hit in the game-programming industry...

      And as to the amount of memory, while it's true that one can make good games in little ram, some things like hi-res images, animated textures, music clips, hi-poly geometry, and whatever else I'm forgetting do take a lot of ram, and it would be sad if that turned out to be the limiting factor. A smartly structured game which loads game code and story on the fly, perhaps even compressed in some way, with code reuse done well can be very small. It's just that extra ram never hurts...

      I'm not sure about this, but I think that the reason for previous generation of consoles success was hardware+software stability, and definitly not the tools supplied by the manufacturer. Those tend to be great for the PC. A small simple platform has the advantage in testing (java: write once, run anywhere - sound familiar?) and complexity. The coders don't need to worry whether the user has win95 or the osr2 version, and that is GREAT.
      • The AC is right in pointing out that Anand talked about the lack of C libraries, not compiler. Also, I think you should also know that rumor has it that the developers for the PSOne wanted it that way in a sense. Most of them were programming directly to the hardware via assembly, not using the provided C libraries, so I think Sony took that as a clue and allowed them to program directly to the hardware. Unfortunately, not everyone understood the capabilities of the hardware in time, so you got technically medicore games for a while.
      • The XBox is a console in the sense that it has hardware stability; you know exactly what you're coding for, and a PC in simplicity. I'ld expect it to be a great hit in the game-programming industry...

        This makes sense in theory but how well does that hold up? From what I've seen Sony seems to redesign the PS2 every 3 weeks. They have done some major revisions to the motherboards I'd guess for the sake of cost and possibly in an attempt to defeat mod chips (unsuccessful on the later part).

        From what I've seen there have been minimal problems with such revisions in other consoles to this point but will it remain that way?
    • If you read the article more thoroughly, you should have noticed that there will be a Part II to the article with X-Box vs. GameCube.

      Anyway, I really want to know if Japan has more computers than consoles. Really, I thought it was the other way around (more Japanese have consoles in their homes than PCs). Up until the Internet boom, I would say that the US also had more consoles in people's homes than PCs, but that's speculation. Anwyay, while the US is pretty fanatical about the consoles, I think the Japanese are much more so. How many times have you heard about public launch parties that drew hundreds if not thousands? GT3 had kiosks stations set up in convience stores dedicated just to the game if I remember correctly. I even heard that there were live performances of the music on the launch of FFX. I certainly haven't heard of anything to that magnitude in the US. So I guess the console market is hotter and perhaps bigger than PCs, but I don't think its because there are fewer owners of consoles than computers.

      • Re:Interesting Look (Score:5, Funny)

        by JabberWokky ( 19442 ) <slashdot.com@timewarp.org> on Thursday November 22, 2001 @01:57PM (#2600873) Homepage Journal
        Anwyay, while the US is pretty fanatical about the consoles, I think the Japanese are much more so. How many times have you heard about public launch parties that drew hundreds if not thousands?

        Slashdot Helpful Hint #681: When telling someone what you think it might be like in another country (oh, say... Japan), make sure that the person that you are replying to isn't, oh... say... named R. Suzuka and a student of Physics at the University of Tokyo.

        --
        Evan

        • Slashdot Helpful Hint #681: When telling someone what you think it might be like in another country (oh, say... Japan), make sure that the person that you are replying to isn't, oh... say... named R. Suzuka and a student of Physics at the University of Tokyo.

          Best. Hint. Ever.

      • Hello, I am sorry for my failure to see the information about the upcoming GameCube comparison. English is not my primary language and to be honest I was relieved to reach the end of that lengthy article. I did not concentrate on the conclusion but rather the technical comparison.

        Perhaps I was not clear in my original post, but as of now, more Japanese homes have consoles than computers. I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. Many of the events you have mentioned do in fact occur. If you would like to know more, I would be happy to answer questions you have but I am afraid that I may misunderstand you. As I said, my English is not the language with which I am best skilled. Thank you for your patience.

        R. Suzuka
    • If you remember the Zelda game for the Nintendo 64, it would run on only 4 MB of RAM. I would like to see PC games do that ^_^

      Speaking soley as a person who has been playing games for longer than 6 months(aparantly, you haven't...), Almost any game for DOS will run on 4 megs, and a large variety of games for windows will too. There are some exceptions under dos (many of those are DPMI apps and can be told to swap to disk, which oddly enough ends up just as quick as an 8 meg machine), but Quake, Duke 3d, Descent, TV, doom(and mor importantly, doom legacy), tomb raider, and hundreds of others are all fully capable of running under 4 megs. Games so sloppy they require 128/256/512 megs of ram (like duke4ever) are a relatively new phenomena.
      • Hello. You are of course correct, I am sorry I was not more clear. I was referring to games that have been released in the last two years. I will also admit that I am not a major computer gamer, but consoles are my first love. However I think it cannot be argued that modern day computer games are roughly on par with modern day console games in terms of graphics; however, on average, perhaps console games use less memory?

        I apologize if I have missed your point and I apologize for not being more clear in my initial post. Thank you for your comments and for your patience!

        R. Suzuka
        • on average, perhaps console games use less memory?

          Defintely, they are designed that way. I'd love to see better designed PC games which follow that "we have two megs of memory to work with" philosophy which bring console systems to their limits, and it really makes me cringe when I hear about games with such horrible memory requirements (couldn't some of that 512 megs of RAM that some games ask for be left on the hard drive?).

          As a developer who is currently working in real mode (mostly to learn the ins and outs of interfacing directly with hardware(hardware programming is beautiful. :))), memory restraints make me use the memory I have better. For instance, I use boolean arrays to store fonts instead of integers, which lowers memory useage by a factor of 8. I sometimes think that a few weeks coding on pentium systems would help developers understand the need for optimization of memory use and processor use.
        • I agree with you completely, Console's definatly need / use less ram, and its not such a new phenonemen, i remember some of the first pc games i got back on my first 386 (when i finnaly moved from Amiga) took up 10-20 disks! WingCommander2/3 i believe?? Althought they both ran on 4-8MB, that in those days was so much!

          With PC games its always been the case that when designing a game, you can take into acount the 1-2 year development phase, and consider that in 1-2 years the 'average' pc will be 10x20 times FASTER!

          On the other hand with console's (and i might add here computers such as the Amiga :]), what you have is all there will be, ever! Excluding the likes of the mem cards you got with the N64, etc..

          In my opinion history of game development, has proven time and time again that given a static hardware base programmers WILL find a better way.

          If anyone doesnt believe me go download a Commodore64 emulator, then a demo written say last year for the original C64 and if that doesnt make your jaw drop nothing will! :)
    • If you remember the Zelda game for the Nintendo 64, it would run on only 4 MB of RAM.

      And this, I think, is the point that is currently being lost on many commentators. Developers get extremely good at using console hardware. The original playstation was (IIRC, which I probably won't) 33MHz, 2Mb of Ram, and a deeply crap 3d accelerator. And yet it runs Gran Turismo 2. The flexibility of the hardware allowed this to happen, and from what I've seen the PS2 is more flexible, not less.

      I think we're going to see some outstanding work on the PS2. Even over the last year we've seen some astonishing improvements over the launch titles.

      Dave

      • Re:Interesting Look (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Eil ( 82413 )

        Right, in the PSX's day, 2MB was a huge amount of memory for a console. Prior to that, much less memory was typically used because the storage medium of choice, the ROM cartrige, could be accessed extremely quickly.

        But I've always had the impression that video game manufacturers have always had the right idea. They make the hardware extremely simple and let the programmers have free reign over how it's used. If you've ever read up on console hardware design, the first thing you'll notice is how much it resembles the basic layout of examples used in Computer Science classes. The only two things that a video game console needs to are push pixels and be able to move data around very quickly. The first is usually met with some special graphics rendering hardware and the second is achieved by giving the hardware an extremely simple but flexible and fast design.

        Because of this, I initially believed the X-Box was doomed to fail simply because it was based on PC hardware. Typical PC hardware is so overly complex because the kind of software that runs on a PC... it wouldn't surprise me to hear that a modern PC game goes through a dozen or more layers of software (and hardware, think of the CISC -> RISC tranlation in modern Pentiums) before you get to the point where you're actually shooting at the bad guys.

        But despite its PC origins and also despite my typically anti-Microsoft attitude (:P), I believe the X-Box is a pretty nifty piece of kit and will do quite well on the market.

        I just hope M$ doesn't use the same business tactics with its console that it does with its operating systems... though I have a feeling that Nintendo and Sony would be much more difficult adversaries than Apple, Netscape, etc. I look foward to seeing how this three-way war turns out.

  • What could (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nervlord1 ( 529523 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @08:30AM (#2600081) Homepage
    Welcome to the Xbox, a nerds best friend:

    What was done right:
    The xbox acts as a cooker itself! no need to buy a microwave to warm up that pizza, just put it on the xbox!

    Expensive heating is now cut down thanks to the myraid of heat exhauts on the Xbox

    Balance your Tv, VCR and kitchen sink on the xbox's overly large service

    Use the controller as an inexpensive door stop: big enough for even the heaviest of doors.


    With all the versetile uses of the x box, we say use this common daily appliance in your every day life, coming soon: a hack to reverse the exhauts so the xbox doubles as a vacum!

    P.s. for those with no humour, yes, this was a joke post.
    • The xbox acts as a cooker itself! no need to buy a microwave to warm up that pizza, just put it on the xbox!
      Is the x-box big enough for this? I doubt it since this was meant as a family machine. That means you need BIG pizza's. The xbox is only atx size [gamers.com]

      Expensive heating is now cut down thanks to the myraid of heat exhauts on the Xbox
      A Beowulf [beowulf.org] cluster of ... would solve this problem much faster.

      Use the controller as an inexpensive door stop: big enough for even the heaviest of doors.
      Or better, use your Dreamcast, it is is real cheap now.

      coming soon: a hack to reverse the exhauts so the xbox doubles as a vacum!
      Silly, why do you want to heat your dust?

      just my 2 cents
    • The xbox acts as a cooker itself! no need to buy a microwave to warm up that pizza, just put it on the xbox!

      Seriously, would anyone go for a combination development machine/coffee warmer? I've been thinking of making a gigantic heatsink with a space cut out for a coffee mug, or pouring my coffee into one of those Koolance [slashdot.org] cases and leaving the fan off. (I actually have put leftover chineese food on the 1U dual gigs. It got lukewarm, but i think by opening the case and attaching directly to the heatsink this could actually work.)
  • From the article:
    What would help however is a faster hard drive, but there are numerous problems associated with performing a hard drive upgrade:

    1) Getting the Xbox image onto the hard drive. Without modification, no OS will let you access the Xbox hard drive making it very difficult to create a ghosted image of the drive


    ummm... dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd anyone? (or whatever the device names to be when you plug them in on your system).
    Why does the OS have to understand the data to read/write it raw from one disk to the other?
    • (1) The Hard drive interface is custom - you can't just plug it into a normal PC (yet, the electrical format will probably be sussed very soon and adaptors made)

      (2) The format of the hard drive may be such that you cannot even dd it.

      (3) How will dd help you if you want to use a different hard drive? dd is great for copying HDA to HDB, where both HDs are the same in every respect. However, sticking in a 40GB 7200RPM drive to get more speed will not work anyway.

      • (3) How will dd help you if you want to use a different hard drive? dd is great for copying HDA to HDB, where both HDs are the same in every respect. However, sticking in a 40GB 7200RPM drive to get more speed will not work anyway.


        As I said in another reply, if speed is the only thing you need to upgrade, going from a 10GB 5400rpm to a 10GB 7200rpm shouldn't make a difference. dd should work as long as the drive geometry is the same (which I'm assuming the speed doesn't make any difference to)
      • (1) The Hard drive interface is custom - you can't just plug it into a normal PC (yet, the electrical format will probably be sussed very soon and adaptors made)
        No, it is only a normal IDE interface. You can plug it into your PC, but it has a custom partition format that is not recognizable by any other OS (yet).
    • It may not be that simple. The Xbox BIOS may recognize only certain HDD firmware identifiers and anything that does not belong to the list will be banned.

  • Wonderfull Design, but Perhaps Unflexable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zulux ( 112259 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @09:22AM (#2600146) Homepage Journal
    The XBox has some fantastic hardware, but it puts the developer in a DirectX 8.1 sandbox. If the game is a 3D, with textures and snazy vertex shading, then the Xbox hardware is wonderfull.

    If the programmer needs somthing else: like generateing all the textures using algorithms, or simulating deformable shapes on a per-pixel basis, that the design like the massivly parrallel and massivly flexible PS2 really shines.

    Anand had a great example of this: Electronic A rts just used one of the the PS2 vector units to encode Dolby 5.1. sound. Thats flexible.

    It's kinda like compairing the Atari 2600 to the ColecoVision - the Atari was really felxible but limited in processing power, but Coleco had a wonderfull sprite chip and a great processor.

    Unfortunatly the Coleco design was inflexable, and Atari programmers were able for move the 2600 from being a pong macheine, into generating alomost thoushands of colors and thousands of sounds. The Coleco had decent games, but nobody was able to coax anything truly unique out of it.

    The Atari 2600 went from Combat http://outerspace.terra.com.br/special/historia/co mbat.JPG [terra.com.br]
    to psudo 3D Poleposition http://www.whimsey.com/z26/POLEPSN.GIF [whimsey.com] due to it's fexibility.

    Perhaps the PS2 will do a likewise transformation.
    • Perhaps the PS2 will do a likewise transformation.

      I suspect so. What I can't help thinking is that we're already seeing 80% of the Xbox potential. Of course, this was the whole design issue,: it's enough like a PC to be easy to develop for.

      Like the PS(1), I think we've only seen a fraction of the capabilities of the PS2, I would guess GT3 is only showing us 1/3 to 50% of the best of what the PS2 can offer.

      It'll be interesting to watch anyway...

      0.02

    • Re:Wonderfull Design, but Perhaps Unflexable (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TheMoog ( 8407 ) <matt @ g o d b olt.org> on Thursday November 22, 2001 @09:35AM (#2600164) Homepage
      If the programmer needs somthing else: like generateing all the textures using algorithms, or simulating deformable shapes on a per-pixel basis, that the design like the massivly parrallel and massivly flexible PS2 really shines.

      ...it shines if you like programming an almost impossible-to-debug multiprocessor system. Orchestrating four separate processors with DMA accesses flying over limited bus power is tricky. Plus Xbox, though DX8-based is not just DX8, it's superficially similar but greatly optimized and tailored specifically for Xbox.

      Xbox has UMA too, which means the CPU can get in and address textures directly itself, unlike on the PS2 where DMAs have to be set up to talk to texture memory, so in fact it's easier on Xbox to generate the textures using algorithms, as you describe.

      As for 'simulating deformable shapes on a per-pixel basis' I've been in the graphics trade for five years, and have never heard such a made up bunch of junk. You want deformable shapes? Cool; you can either dump polys completely and write your own renderer, in which case Xbox will beat PS2 as it has a faster processor, and none of the specialist rendering hardware in either box can help you. If you mean deformable as in morphing/procedurally modified vertices, then both machine are equal. If you mean procedural generation of geometry, then granted, the PS2 shines here, though it's not as if Xbox can't do it. As for anything 'per-pixel' the PS2 can render a single texture per-pixel at a time. Only Xbox and GameCube can do anything like arbitrary per-pixel operations.

      Anand had a great example of this: Electronic A rts just used one of the the PS2 vector units to encode Dolby 5.1. sound. Thats flexible.

      Granted, that is cool; but you are of course giving up 30% of your processing power to do something Xbox does in hardware. All credit to them though!
      • The PS2 is 18 months old, so you could argue that it is a whole "Moore's Law Cycle" behind the XBox and the GameCube (although the latter is cheaper, so is probably in the middle).

        However, I agree that the PS2 has not reached anywhere near its full potential yet, whereas the XBox is using well-known hardware, and thus will be already achieving much closer to its full potetial from the start. Which means great games at launch, but they will not improve as much as the PS2 has.

        Does anyone have the figures for the computing power of the Penteron/Celium III processor in the XBox vs. the computing power of the PS2's CPU and the GameCube's PPC derived processor? Of course, according to Mac users, the Gamecube will be twice as fast as the XBox despite running 148MHz slower... :)

        The GameCube and PS2 both have on-die framebuffers and ZBuffers, etc. This gives then great performance for these operations (although the PS2's is a little cramped now), whereas the XBox has to access memory for these operations.

        Also, what is the effect of Embedded WinXP+DX8 on the usable memory of the XBox? The GameCube may have less memory overall (but it does have very low latency 1T SRAM!), but it doesn't have to deal with possibly large operating systems...

        • Does anyone have the figures for the computing power of the Penteron/Celium III

          Have you tried entering "Penteron/Celium III" into Google? :-)

          Pentium III 2.9 Gflops at 733MHz, PS2 EE 6.2 Gflops at 300 MHz, dunno about the GameCube.

        • However, I agree that the PS2 has not reached anywhere near its full potential yet, whereas the XBox is using well-known hardware, and thus will be already achieving much closer to its full potetial from the start. Which means great games at launch, but they will not improve as much as the PS2 has.

          I agree that the XBox has well-known hardware, in the sense that much of it is standard PC components. However, to say that the XBox has pretty much maxed its potential with its launch titles is pretty short-sighted. Sure, DOA3 is freakin' awesome, but even it has room for improvement (I don't know how it could be improved visually, but I'm sure Tecmo will do it). Shrek is a very good example of the bump-mapping and texturing capabilities of the XBox (everything is bumpmapped, with multiple detail textures), but its gameplay isn't quite up to snuff. Halo is awesome, graphically and gameplay-wise, but it could use some work with the Dolby 5.1 audio. And on top of all of that, few developers have actually started using vertex and pixel shaders in PC games, and that's where the real power of the GF3 and XBox comes into play. Being programmable, you can do anything from skinning models with vertex shaders, to vertex shader-based animation, to per-pixel reflection and refraction for perfectly simulated water effects, or cloth effects (you can see some of this already, such as in DOA3 where you can tell the difference between a silk dress and a leather belt, or in NFL Fever 2002 where you can see the satiny sheen on jerseys before they get dirty). As well, no games utilize the XBox's native 2x, 4x, or Quincunx (a sloppy-4x AA, if you will) anti-aliasing, so visual quality can be improved even more still. And non-visually, since the XBox offloads much of the graphics work (all T&L, vertex and pixel shaders), there's more CPU time to do AI, physics, and other gameplay elements.


          Also, what is the effect of Embedded WinXP+DX8 on the usable memory of the XBox? The GameCube may have less memory overall (but it does have very low latency 1T SRAM!), but it doesn't have to deal with possibly large operating systems...

          First, a small nitpick -- the XBox is based on a highly-customized windows 2000 operating system, which doesn't do much more than provide access to the hard drive. It's a very light layer. In fact, it doesn't even do any virtual memory handling, so if you need to swap out the hard disk, you'll have to program that yourself. As far as DX8 goes, it's also been highly customized. Because the hardware isn't going to change, DX8 is now little more than a very thin layer over the graphics hardware. And what's more, developers need not use DX at all. As with the PSX, where Sony originally provided a C API but developers eventually wrote their own assembly routines (thus prompting Sony to not provide a C API for PS2, which caused the bitching and moaning about PS2 being hard to program, and effectively locked smaller dev houses out of the PS2 market), expect XBox developers to create their own in-house libraries for talking directly to the hardware. What DX allows is quick time to market, thus allowing developers to get a game under their belts (and the corresponding money), so that they can spend their time working on in-house libraries for game #2. It also allows for less up-front investments to get into XBox development (through Microsoft's grassroots program, interested developers can get the necessary information to begin development on qualified PCs, and once they obtain a publisher, will get the necessary XBox development hardware. At least one game scheduled for release within the next few months has gone through this process). Small dev houses that can't afford to target the PS2 can target the XBox instead.

        • whereas the XBox is using well-known hardware, and thus will be already achieving much closer to its full potetial from the start

          I agree with your reason why the xbox may not see the great leaps in performance we see as developers learn other consoles. However, I think the fact that the xbox is a console, not a pc (it's really both, but hear me out) may be more important.

          PC developers never know what they're going to be running on, so have to be careful. Xbox developers know exactly what the hardware is and they get the whole dang box. I guess that most of the early xbox developers came from PC land. As they learn to push to the edge and as those used to pushing (veteran console developers) learn PC hardware, we may yet see improvements vs. first-release games.
      • Orchestrating four separate processors with DMA accesses flying over limited bus power is tricky.

        Quite true, the Xbox is much easier platform to develop for if you want a typical game. PS2 is a bitch, reminds me of the Saturn. Unlike the Saturn though, the huge volume of shipped PS2 systems will give good developers the push they need to get out of their one-processor, one thread mindset.

        As for 'simulating deformable shapes on a per-pixel basis' I've been in the graphics trade for five years, and have never heard such a made up bunch of junk.

        The Slashdot audience is made up of computing professionals with a wide array of knowledge. I use terms to facilitate communication, not to shout to the world that I know arcane terminology.

        You want deformable shapes? Cool;

        No, what I want is beer and a good curry.

        Don't get all hot and bothered because someone things that the PS2 has a bit of untapped potential left in it. The Xbox will do fine and there are plenty of fun games to make for it. I'm really looking forward to Myst IV.
        • The Slashdot audience is made up of computing professionals with a wide array of knowledge. I use terms to facilitate communication, not to shout to the world that I know arcane terminology

          A fair point; but I think it's also fair to say your comment made no sense at all. I just see too much putting-down of things people don't fully understand on this site, and your line just looked like blanket 'if it can't do this it's appalling'. Apologies for taking it to heart too much.
          No, what I want is beer and a good curry.

          I'll join you on that one :)
          • I just see too much putting-down of things people don't fully understand on this site, and your line just looked like blanket 'if it can't do this it's appalling'.

            Sorry if I was seemed I was picking on the Xbox.

            The conflict between freeform and constraned design is always interesting. Sometimes a freeform design is inspireing; it's the diferance between Legos and GI Joe. Unfortunalty though, freeform designs can lead to a mess; the diference between the Pontiac Aztec and any normal car.

            With video-game consoles, for a consumer, it's easy:Buy them all!

            Deveopers have to be carefull that the type of game they are making fits the desing of the console or operaring system, there's nothing noble about making life difficult.
    • The XBox has some fantastic hardware, but it puts the developer in a DirectX 8.1 sandbox.

      You can use OpenGL too (with nVidia extensions). You're not required to use DX.

      Anand had a great example of this: Electronic A rts just used one of the the PS2 vector units to encode Dolby 5.1. sound. Thats flexible.

      Actually, they're encoding to DTS, not Dolby. There's a difference (DTS is easier, and less widely supported). nVidia (AFAIK) are the only currently released licencee of Dolby's realtime encoding algorithm.

      Yes, it's certainly flexible, and it's a creative use of the PS2's vector processors, but now you only have one vector unit & the CPU left for the game & graphics...

      • You can use OpenGL too (with nVidia extensions).

        Interesting. Should I read that as "Just enough OpenGL to run the Quake 3 engine?" ;) To be fair, NVidia has been robust in their OpenGL support.

        it's a creative use of the PS2's vector processors

        I imagine an Xbox developer is trying to get the hard-drive seek motor to thrash about, creating the Ultimate-Console-Rumble-Pack(tm). :)

        I'd love to peek at the vector code - if they were really clever and if it diden't require full use of the unit, they could split the vector pipeline in half and use one half for the sound and the other half for 'other'. I have no idea on the types of operations performed for 3d sound, so I have no idea if the sound transformations would be usefull for any other type of data at the same time. On second thought, I'd rather not look at the vector code, it makes my head hurt. PS2 developers have my sympathy.
    • The Atari 2600 went from Combat to psudo 3D Poleposition due to it's fexibility. Perhaps the PS2 will do a likewise transformation.

      So are you suggesting we'll see 4-dimensional games soon?

  • This is a good article. Theres a depth there, which means I want to read part two. Its probably the third or fourth thing Ive read on /. this year that I can say that about.

    Standards are rising ;-)
    • Erm... I'd just like to point out that this article wasn't on Slashdot, it was just posted there, in case you hadn't noticed.

      Maybe you should start finding other sources of information, Slashdot tends to be somewhat slow to report hardware/games related stuff.
      • I never fail to be amazed at how petty some of you guys can be.

        /. has turned into a news repeater. It rarely posts novel information, normally just opinion on some article elsewhere.

        Judged on this basis, this was a _good_ article, because it refered to an interesting article. Most of the stories are simply items on bbc.co.uk or yet another build announce. Dull.

        Your reponse just shows that its not just /. that 'tends to be a little slow' ;-)

  • Xbox fire (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by blixel ( 158224 )
    My nephew bought an XBox despite my warnings and it litteraly caught on fire. It didn't just smolder and melt, we are talking flames. Anyway, after that happened I did a search on dejanews and I found a post that alleges an XBox caught on fire at the E3 demo. Does anyone know if this is some kind of real problem with these things?

    I found this link [thegia.com] regarding the E3 demo but it only talks about the stability of the XBox. It doesn't mention anything about it catching on fire.

    • Re: Xbox fire (Score:3, Insightful)

      by EMN13 ( 11493 )
      I find it hard to believe the XBox you mention caught on fire... And please, if it's serious, do you have any evidence? I can hardly believe microsoft would knowingly kill their reputation by selling dangerous equipment.

      • Re: Xbox fire (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I find it hard to believe the XBox you mention caught on fire... And please, if it's serious, do you have any evidence? I can hardly believe microsoft would knowingly kill their reputation by selling dangerous equipment.

        I agree, I find it unlikely, and I find exceedingly unlikely that microsoft would delibrately sell dangerously defective units (as if they don't have enough problems).


        On the other hand, I had a computer power supply go up in smoke once, does that mean that computers are too dangerous, and I should never buy another computer?

      • Of course. With the quality that Microsoft is famous for, they would NEVER release a defective product.
        • I find it hard to believe the XBox you mention caught on fire

        Me too, but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility. For example:

        • There is no flow of air over the hard drive in the Xbox. In fact, it is mounted on a plastic tray over the CPU and IGP meaning that if anything, it's in the worst possible place from a cooling standpoint

        Or it could have been damaged in shipping. There's a lot in there to fall apart and short, and I'll bet they didn't kick the crap out of too many of the development systems to check their robustness.

        • Although the use of only a single platter can arguably reduce the damage incurred by dropping the system, the fact remains that the plastic tray that holds the hard drive does not do a very good job of absorbing shocks. In other words don't drop your Xbox.

        Don't have it shipped by UPS, in other words. ;-)

  • Earliest computer entertainment devices? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WowTIP ( 112922 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @10:31AM (#2600265)
    From article:
    But although PC gamers have taken the lime light recently, every true PC gamer and most PC users in general can trace their roots back to the earliest of computer-entertainment devices: videogame consoles.

    Most people I know started out on Commodore 64, Sinclair or some of the other early home computers. In fact, I think most people that started out on computers are still gaming on computers (PC). Those that started out on consoles still pretty much run consoles.

    But that's just my buddies... Might differ...

    • Actually, contratry to the article, I started out on the Tandy 1000TX. Great machine, I remember playing Marble Madness, Thexder, and Sega Outrun on it in 1988. It was without a doubt the top of the line gaming machine in its day, although it was *very* expensive.

      After the 286 started really showing its age, I bought an SNES and didn't see much of a difference in graphics and sound until some of the better games starting coming out. (Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II, Final Fantasy 6, etc)
  • Are there any games that display hexadecimal readout of game data? Decimal is for dinosaurs.
  • ... is that review, given there's a link to "find the lowest prices on an X-Box" at the bottom of the page?

    I mean, sheesh... that's not even trying to hide any kind of affiliation.
      • ... is that review, given there's a link to "find the lowest prices on an X-Box" at the bottom of the page?

      You're saying that publications shouldn't do articles on anything that they carry advertising for? Adverts that will be aimed at their readership.

      Would you prefer that tech sites only carry adverts for Polly Pockets dolls? So that they never get a click through and go under?

      Silly hobbit. It's a fine article that covers both plusses and minuses and doesn't overly advocate purchasing an Xbox. If you're going to read an advertising supported publication (which you just did) you really can't ask for more than that.

    • They put that link on everything they review. It's not a bias towards MS or Xbox, it's just their deal with CNet Shopper (as clearly indicated by the CNet logo next to the link).

  • MCP? (Score:2)

    by British ( 51765 )
    Hey, there's an MCP-X!

    "Another warrior is on the Mesa"

  • M$ miscalculating game strategy? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HiredMan ( 5546 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @03:44PM (#2601172) Journal
    Here's something I'm unsure of - if standardesque DirectX software is used to program the XBox then shouldn't porting those games to a Windows computer be fairly easy? I know the XBox has nifty optimizations - especially for 3D - but isn't just about ANY decent gaming computer sold today able to match the specialty hardware because it has a processor that's twice as fast and a video card that can be repeatedly upgraded?

    The reason I ask is because most hardcore gamers (obviously the core XBox market) probably have a gaming computer and if I can get Halo or DOA3 or TitleX for my computer (which has better graphics than my TV set and I'm used to playing games on) why would I buy an XBox?
    Why wouldn't I would buy a PS2 or a gamecube if I buy a console so I could play games NOT available on my computer....
    This being said is M$ going to have to embargo the good XBox games to "XBox only" to keep the Windows game market from eating their own lunch?

    If M$ doesn't have a big backlog of cool XBox only games would seem that they might be limiting their market to "gamers who can't afford a good gaming computer" and those who have enough money to buy everything out there. I don't think this is a broad enough market to support an entire platform.

    =tkk
  • but I don't recall ENCOM making game consoles...

  • Snot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @07:10PM (#2601844)
    Anand wrote a very good article with plenty of meat and potatos to satisfy but I think he is sort of missing a very important point. He mentions in the article how the PS2 falls behind the XBox in some way because it has less fancy graphics and sound capabilities. SONY HAS SOLD NEARLY 20 MILLION OF THE FUCKING THINGS AND HAS HUNDREDS OF GAMES AVAILABLE FOR IT. I think Anand needs to reassess his position on the PS2. It is still selling for 300$ because people are still eating it up at this price. The XBox may be able to do a bajillion polygons per second but it still doesn't have the game franchises that make bank on console systems. Nintendo's also in a good position because they are destined to get the little kids who want to play Pokemon until their eyes fall out. Who cares if Pikachu's only rendered with half a million fucking surfaces, people want to play the games not write a master's thesis on the theoretical graphic capabilities of a computer system. I bought a GC on my way home from Louisiana and since I've been home my brother's been playing Rogue Squadron almst non-stop. He hasn't yet complained about the lack of theoretical polygons the GC can render yet and I sort of doubt he will. The XBox will only truely contend with Nintendo and Sony when it has games in high demand. I thought it's launch titles were pretty crappy compared to the GC's though a little better than what the PS2 originally offered. Besides that I got a GC and two games for the price of either the PS2 or XBox.
  • The equivalent saying in console would have to be "games, games, games". If you ain't got great games that are addictive as cocaine, you can forget about making a dent in the business. Just because microsoft can make a few PC games, it hardley has a great track record compared to the real heavy weights.

    Contrary to what Microsoft might have thought early in the beginning, they are now realizing how different console games are. It's not just the controller is different or that keyboards are missing. It's a totally different mind set. But then again, ask any experienced game developer. They'll clear that cob web from your eyes with a good slap in the face.

  • Expected Lifespan? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What is the expected lifespan of the x-box? I remember reading on gamespot today that due to the competition from the x-box and the gamecube, sony is thinking of reducing the ps2's lifespan to 3 years and releasing the ps3 a little earlier. It'd be interesting to see your answers to this question.

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