Inside the Xbox 360 347
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."
So that's why MSFT is hiring in China ... (Score:2, Interesting)
We see the above in the article about the chip internals of the xBox 360
Either that or we're just getting more productive at doing our work
Whats with? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
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
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
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
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
Re:Whats with? (Score:3)
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:2)
I'm not sure, but I think there are still some parents out there who don't play games themselves, but have kids who do, and aren't willing to blow $500-600 on a
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
Re:Whats with? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
Otherwise, that's why I am waiting anxiously for the nintendo revolution, a new way to play the games =)
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
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)
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?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
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
Re:Whats with? (Score:2)
Xenon vs Xeon (Score:4, Insightful)
My first thought too... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
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
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
Yes. Xenon is something we can *all* relate to.
What is it, again?
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2, Funny)
We all know that Xenon is the mega blast.
great.. now i cant that old bomb the bass track out of my head.
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
"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
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
Go to a unix prompt and type CD
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
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
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
Well, glad that that's cleared up. I feel silly for my alternate explanation now.
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
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
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
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.
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
Perhaps if you just at a burrito... then you might feel quite gassy I suppose.
For the same reason I hate video card Marketting (Score:2)
Re:Xenon vs Xeon (Score:2)
What's the deal-yo? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:What's the deal-yo? (Score:2)
Perhaps you meant camera obscura [wikipedia.org] rather than camera.
Re:What's the deal-yo? (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
"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:
Re:What's the deal-yo? (Score:2)
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)
I thought that was the biggest difference between the two.
Re:Multi-purpose CPU? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cell can do this too, probably better (Score:2)
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.
Re:Cell can do this too, probably better (Score:2)
CPU so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:CPU so what? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CPU so what? (Score:2)
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
Re:CPU so what? (Score:2)
Re:CPU so what? (Score:2)
Mac OS Xbox 360? (Score:2, Funny)
OK, now that we have a PowerPC chip here, who thinks they can port what to the new XBox 360?
Spank? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Spank? (Score:2)
Re:Spank? (Score:2)
I was at E3 and gaming journalism is broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I was at E3 and gaming journalism is broken (Score:2, Informative)
While I generally frown on blatant karma whores who post links to Penny Arcade strips in the vain hope that some of the humour will rub off on themselves, I think that this one is particularly appropriate
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-05 -23&res=l [penny-arcade.com]
I will now spend the rest of the evening frantically flagellating myself with barbed wire in an attempt to atone for this ac
OS/360 (Score:3, Funny)
Xenon? (Score:3, Funny)
procedural synthesis (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: procedural synthesis (Score:2)
Reminds
Re: procedural synthesis (Score:2)
Re: procedural synthesis (Score:2)
Then again. It seems obvious to me as well.
Re: procedural synthesis (Score:2)
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)
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
Re:I'm happy all over, from head to toe (Score:2, Interesting)
This also means that I don't have to run windows in my PC as I don'
Re:I'm happy all over, from head to toe (Score:2)
Who cares, just buy both (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who cares, just buy both (Score:3, Interesting)
huh? (Score:2)
Why would you assume the PS3 would spank the Xbox? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why would you assume the PS3 would spank the Xb (Score:2)
Did Sony ever mention Toy Story? Was it perhaps Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within that Sony had mentioned?
Re:Why would you assume the PS3 would spank the Xb (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy:_The_S
Re:Why would you assume the PS3 would spank the Xb (Score:2)
Hint: posting as AC automatically reduces your credibility to about 10% of what it would normaly be if it isnt justified (leaking insider stuff, breaking NDA,ect)
Procedural scenery is not new (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Procedural scenery is not new (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Procedural scenery is not new (Score:3, Informative)
There are many approaches. A big problem has been avoiding "popping", when an area suddenly is rendered with more detail.
Again, this is well understood. It just takes plenty of computer power to d
Quick Summary and opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Quick Summary and opinion (Score:2)
Dweeb.
Re:Quick Summary and opinion (Score:3, Informative)
It is definately less information
The other adv
Procedural Synthesis? (Score:2)
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
Re:Procedural Synthesis? (Score:2)
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
Amiga Anyone? (Score:2)
Sounds like the Amiga approach to me.
Re:*More* XBox 360 stories PLEASE! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly you arent, since you are about the 1500th person to mention it.
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one.. (Score:2)
Re:What about security? (Score:3, Informative)
You're refering to Intel's Xeon.
The XBox 360 has IBM's Xenon CPU.
Hope this clears it up.
The parent post is crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
(IOW, RTFA)
Re:These articles are crap. (Score:2)
Re:Inside the Xbox... (Score:3, Funny)