Quote:"To be honest, it's not much more powerful than an Xbox. It's like a souped up Xbox," a major third party source revealed to us. "But it's the controller that makes the difference and the controller is really nice."
Revolution.ign.com
So shitty graphics but the controller's nice. I'm afraid that the Revs graphics are not going to age well in comparison to the other two systems.
Oh and it's coming out around Thanksgiving 2006.
Revolution.ign.com
"Readers are advised to make two notes before continuing with this article. The first is that developers are still working with incomplete Revolution hardware. Most studios are, in fact, developing on "GameCube-based kits," according to major software houses we spoke to, which have asked to remain anonymous. The second is that developers are still without final specifications for Revolution's ATI-developed graphics chip, codenamed Hollywood."
Nintendo also stated that the Metroid Prime 3 demo is from the build that was designed for GC and that it was pushed to Revolution.
Another interesting aspect is that the XBox is not even a quarter more powerful than GC as far as power it can output (# of polys, effects, etc). In fact the only thing XBox does that GC doesn't is output 720p for HD televisions (GC outputs at 480p). Anyone who's actually studied the systems will tell you that the XBox and GC, a side from one having a hard drive and online networks with an odd sound card, are almost the same system in terms of horsepower.
The fact that the 'source' wants to remain anyonomous and with the above facts, we can conclude that this is a stab at trying to create content for an IGN channel that barely has enough factual documentation to create one whole article and is desperate for that content.
I doubt IGN is just making it up. The most likely reason their source wants to remain anonymous is because they're not supposed to be talking about this.
If their sources can be trusted the reason it doesn't do 720p is because it can't. The Revolution won't have more than 128mb of RAM.
Quote:Gamers holding out for Nintendo to reverse its stance on the HD front may be in for a disappointment. Revolution will not have the RAM capacity to store and display an abundant source of high-definition textures. Third parties have revealed to us that the console will top out with 128MBs of RAM, and possibly even less. One studio would not give us an exact figure, but did say, "The same as GameCube plus an extra 64MB of main RAM." That number is by comparison nearly triple the amount of memory in GameCube. However, it is a far cry from the 512MBs present in Xbox 360.
There's also another spin on the whole thing, Nintendo and Miyamoto have been saying since E3 that 'We have not revealed everything about Rev's controller'.
We know that the controller shown was a prototype, but also that some statements lead us to believe it is pretty much a finalized design. I could jump on this and say GYROSCOPES! but I wont (though i'm thinking it :D) I think these hints are being dropped for a reveal of the Rev's attachments and configurations. You could even go so far as to say that we might even get something of a wearable controller, since the pick-up is already placed on the TV to detect the rev controller's movement - a wearable controller would be really immersive.
In the promo video where the Japanese people are jumping around their living rooms... well why are thy jumping? Why is the guy who's using the 'shotgun' configuration hiding behind his couch and popping up to take some shots? Does the revolution recognize that he's behind an object? Is the Rev 'taking a picture' of his living room so that the game has objects in it that are representative of the living room?
Or is he ducking behind a couch because it looks cool? :D
Regardless of what the additional features are that Nintendo is holding on to, I have a feeling that they're major aspects.
If it's gyros, i'll pee. Then i'll drink it. Then i'll throw up, collect it in a jar, feed it to my dog and drink HIS pee that is a mixture of mine and his and then i'll buy a rap album.... and LISTEN TO IT WILLINGLY... maybe even SING ALONG.
Well they compare the beta dev kit's ram (which is th GC dev kit) to the XBox. The XBox has more ram BECAUSE it outputs at 720p, that's all that extra ram is used for (unless the game doesn't support 720p).
But the key phrase here is, the dev kit that the developers have is a GC dev kit - they dont even have the main processors for Christ's sake.
Nintendo said pointe blank: Horsepower is not the future for Nintendo". But thy also said "in terms of graphics, you will say 'wow'. Nintendo has always pushed the graphical abilities of the system with each generation and the Revolution is no different."
You know, the article says 'it's like a souped up xbox' and 'the "two to three times better than GC" thing looks accurate'... yet the xbox is barely more powerful than GC, as Lazy said, so something isn't right there... and I'd put my bets on "just a souped up xbox". :)
Quote:If their sources can be trusted the reason it doesn't do 720p is because it can't. The Revolution won't have more than 128mb of RAM.
I thought GC had 40MB, making their math kind of odd...
As for these reports, it's possible. I mean, it's quite possible that it's got just 128MB of RAM, and is only a couple times more powerful than an Xbox and is well behind PS3 and X360... but Nintendo has said that on a normal TV you won't be able to tell much difference. And you know what? Going by X360 screenshots, that shouldn't be hard... X360 doesn't really look much better than current-gen systems until you up the resolution, it seems. Of course, it does look better, and Revolution is going to be quite a bit more powerful than this generation's systems, but still... I wonder if, by focusing on standard definition, they can make graphics that look better on a normal TV than X360 graphics do, despite the greater power of the X360...
Quote:It's like a souped up Xbox,
So...it's like the Xbox360? BAZZZZING!!!
http://revolution.ign.com/articles/673/673799p1.html
Interesting... now they're saying 104 megs of RAM (24 and 16 from the GC plus 64MBs more, not counting 'probably 3mb on the videocard' or the flashram), and power "one and a half to two times the power of the Gamecube"... and pretty standard DVD media size -- 4.7GB single layer, 8.5GB dual layer... plenty without HD textures...
Oh yeah, and if these rumors of the CPU and GPU basically being improved versions of the stuff in the GC, it'd sure explain how the Rev. will be able to do full backwards compatibility with the GC...
Anyway, whether or not this is true, it does look pretty certain that Revolution won't match Xbox 360 or PS3... which is too bad, if true (I'm taking all of these rumors not as fact), given that before this Nintendo has always had very competetive graphical power... I know they say 'graphics power doesn't matter anymore' and they are partially true, but you CAN see the difference, and people will. The question is if they can do on home consoles like they did with the DS and convince people to buy the thing anyway...
I wish they'd just go ahead and show us some Revolution games.
I wonder why they won't? ;)
No way is the Revolution going to cost more than $200. Could the Revolution be the first console to launch at $99? That would be cheap enough to get non-gamers to buy it.
First console to launch at $99?
... not when you take my position that handhelds are consoles too... :)
Latest announcement: System double the power of the NES!
So the system will be about twice as powerful as the GameCube. One developer said it might not even be quite that powerful. It really is GameCube 1.5 or GameCube Turbo, take your pick. But it actually makes sense that they're doing it this way. They said they weren't going to compete with Sony or Microsoft. They said they weren't going after the same market. Boy were they not lying!
They have a three prong approach to getting "non gamers" on board:
Simplify the controller: Too many buttons scare old people.
Nostalgia: Old people like old games.
Inexpensive: $99 - $150 at launch. No way non gamers would pay $400 for a game system.
And that's what it really comes down to. Nintendo is aiming this as a mass-market device that will appeal to regular non gamer folk. The kind of people that wouldn't be willing to spend $300 - $400 on a game system. There's no way that Nintendo could put the kind of tech that's in the Xbox 360 in this thing at the price they want to sell it at and still make a profit.
The double-edged sword with the price though is that when something is cheap people think 'isn't it cheap because it's worse'... GC launched at $100 less than the competition and it did nothing. I don't think price will be the deciding factor here... Nintendo's innovation with the control scheme, marketing (if they do it right), whatever they're hiding, the virtual console (like Live Arcade but with so much more...), etc, etc... that is what they're betting it on. The price thing... the 'simpler controller will help' thing... they tried those on Gamecube and they failed. I don't expect any more success from them this time. It's the innovation (that is, it's not the controller simplification that will help, it's the new 'freehand movement' control scheme...) and the games that are the key... and Nintendo is still the best console games developer in the world, so they should have the games down. :)
It is hard to say it did nothing, considering the PS2 had a big lead. However, yes, there is insufficient evidence to say that actually did something so we must assume it didn't.
And, here's the thing I have a problem with. Why appeal to the non-gamer? Do they realize exactly what sort of audience non-gamers are? Remember the last time a company tried appealing to non-gamers? Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, Xtreme sports games? Sony's original PS1 campaign? THAT is what appealing to the non-gamers is all about! Basically what I'm asking is, be more specific Nintendo. Are you appealing to the non-gamer that would enjoy games more if they were more intellectually stimulating, or the sort of non-gamer who looks at a game and says "that's confusing, maybe if the game beat ITSELF while I watched I'd play, now I'm off to gamble".
I over simplified, but the thing is, we have to think about how Nintendo's goals will affect US.
Okay, let me get this straight. Everyone is dooming the Revolution because it will have krappy graphics and only be two or three times the 'power' of the GC.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, allow me to introduce you to the greatest misconception of all time in this industry.
The 'power' meaning 'graphics. However for 360, output at full 1080i with high res textures to boot - The result is that games look like a slight jump forward but now can be played in full HD. The system specs of both 360 and PS3 are basically the XBox and PS2 with 'real' HD output and a higher (or for PS3, a MUCH higher) polygon rate.
Now, if you were to take the 360 for example, and use its resources with low-res textures and output at 480p you would have a graphically mind blowing game. It would be at the same res as current gen, but the actual game would be stunning with the amount of polys being used, the amount of effects, etc. But that's not what they're trying to do, they want an HD machine.
Now Nintendo has opted to stay at 480p and their system, by all accounts is "2 to 3 times more powerful than Gamecube." Now... let's think about this:
The Nintendo Gamecube can run about 40 million polys with most effects on. It should be noted there hasn't been a game with all effects on at once released on the GC.
The Revolution, at 'two to three times' more powerful, would mean it could output about 120 million polys with most effects on.
Now, you'll notice that when you google xbox specs, you'll get some people claiming that the xbox can do 4000 million polys a sec which is simply not true in any situation and are claims made by fan-sites and people with no clue. With full effects on, real time lighting, etc. And outputting at 720p The Xbox can do around 50 million polys.
From Microsoft.com:
"Xbox 360 boasts a custom ATI graphics processor that clocks in at a blistering 500 MHz. If you want to get even more technical (and who doesn't?) Xbox 360 can take advantage of more than four times as many polygons as the original Xbox® console, and more than four times (seeing a pattern here?) the number of pixels per second."
So let's assume that they mean it's 4 times the number of polys with most effects on (though I doubt it). They're litteraly saying the 360 is 4 times more powerful.
The XBox 360 with most effects on at 720p (possibly at 1080i?) can do about 200 Million polys. Hmm... 120 million polys Vs. 200 million polys... both with most effects on...
Nintendo: It's about 3 times more powerful than GC.
Public: NOOOOO ITS THE END TIME! WINGED BEARS STEALING OUR CHILDREN IN TO PITS OF HELL, JESUS BLEEDS TEARS NOOOOO
Microsoft: It's 4 times as powerful as XBox.
Public: Oh hey that's powerful, cant wait to see that, yup yup.
This is getting rediculous. So here's the facts:
* The XBox is slightly more powerful than GC (if you compare output resolutions, the xbox wipes the floor with GC)
* The Revolution and XBox 360 will be nearly at the same level of graphical quality. Though it should be noted, since the Revolution doesn't need to spend its resources on HD output, more resources can go to sound quality, number of polys and textures, etc.
* What this could mean is that the XBox 360 and the Revolution will look exactly the same in graphical quality save for one having HD output (and each system will have stregnths and weaknesses, Revolution for example might have an effect that 360 does not and vice versa). Hey, isn't that where we are now?
So there it is. Black and white, factual info. The Revolution will look fine. IGN is taking part in the age old past time of bullshitting to create content that will generate buzz for their new channel and have taken a huge nose dive in my book as far as being a trusted news source.
I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
And fact is, 2 to 3 times is rather meaningless. The specs are what's important, and so far the sources indicate the specs aren't all that much of an improvement.
What I want to know is, why am I buying a new system? Can't they just stick an HD in my Gamecube, release these controllers as add-ons, and be done with it?
Well, your dealing with one architecture from the GC and the new architecture for the Rev. An 'add-on' and new controllers will atleast run you 150 bucks which is what people are churcning out in the rumor mill as the price of the Revolution itself. Not a biggie there.
And yes the whole dealings of 'Only twice as powerful!?!?" is totally blown out of proportion and really makes no difference. However you say the specs are all that matters - in my opinion what matters is that the graphical content of the games are on-par with Microsoft's and Sony's offerings. That doesn't always equate to similar specs, Nintendo is known for pulling major rabbits by reinventing current technology and offering cheaper system with on par graphical prowess.
Though, from what I understand, the PS3 is going to be leaps and bounds above anything the 360 or Revolution could do in terms of graphics. This opens a new door though, as the PS3 requires massive R&D for a totally new type of development. Which means, as a developer, who are you going to spend most if not all your R&D with? In other words, you could develop for 360 and Rev at the same cost (and time) as just developing for PS3.... which is what Sony is counting on. It'll be interesting for sure, especially when you look at the screen shots and movies of real-time PS3 stuff and it looks pretty much like current gen... until you find the Gears of War pics. :D
A side from that, the 360 and Rev will be toe to toe I think. The "We are not going to compete" is another way of saying "You cant compete with Revolution". It's a Japanese sales pitch. I think Nintendo knows that Microsoft is the new Sega and sony is venturing in to a realm where it truely is not trying to compete with any company other than its own sales figures from its other divisions. They dominate the market hands down, so Nintendo and Microsoft are left trying to be the 'compliment' piece next to everyone's PS3.
But still, everything's in the air. Sony could faulter by alientating the companies. It only takes one bad fiscal year to take a system down a notch or two and it only takes one game to put a company on the map (if its good). In 6 months time, as proven in th past, you can watch the PS2 get over taken by the GC, lose shares, cut losses, announce lower profits and then Rockstar releases "Nigga Stole my Bike: Fuck Your Mom 3" as a PS2 exclusive and they're back on top. Gotta love grossly saturated installed user bases. :D
My predictions are that sony will continue to rule the planet and Nintendo will overtake the 360 by a small margin. That small margin is going to be from two factors: Internally developed games and a shit-ton of exclusives from smaller independent developers. I dont think it will be too far fetched to see release lists that show more than 50 games in a month for Revolution. A throw back to the NES days.
For 360, I think their heel is going to be from the huge partnerships they're making with companies that love to produce krap. Mind you, some of that krap has a following, but anyone who plays video games on multiple consoles and buys/rents atleast 5 games a month knows that EA is pure uncut shit, their internal development consists of hordes in the thousands (mostly Hebrew) who are fed beer and forced to create meaningless cash-cow video games that are usually forgotten within the same week of their release.
Has anyone here played Big Red One? God damn, it was like having a hernia in my brain. imagine having a porcupine sewn in to your throat while 80 year old women hit you with hammers; That's what playing an internally developed EA game is like... and Harry Potter's there too, he keeps throwing sports games at me that he says are new but its the same one over and over and over and over.....
This is exactly why I want to see the games. Specs can be twisted either way!
Please be sensible people. These are unofficial specs IGN has pieced together from developers. As much doom talk IGN does I suspect they've given the lowest specs they have been told just to add to that. Wait for more reliable sources.
They can be "twisted", but they do say some very specific things.
The only thing I have to say is the system needs to be a CERTAIN level of power about the Gamecube or I'll feel like I'm just buying a new iPod (Planck Constant addition, the smallest possible unit of size in the universe, from there things just jump from space to space with no between travel, uses mini-omega USB port adapter, sold seperatly).
wow, a whole thread of nothing...impressive.
Quote:So there it is. Black and white, factual info. The Revolution will look fine. IGN is taking part in the age old past time of bullshitting to create content that will generate buzz for their new channel and have taken a huge nose dive in my book as far as being a trusted news source.
I'd blame it more on their obsession with the fact that Revolution doesn't have HD output... to people as consumed with graphics as them, that's a horrible, potential-system-killing fact there... but I just don't care much. :)
You're probably right that Revolution will look just about as good as X360 when run on a standard definition TV.
Quote:A side from that, the 360 and Rev will be toe to toe I think. The "We are not going to compete" is another way of saying "You cant compete with Revolution". It's a Japanese sales pitch. I think Nintendo knows that Microsoft is the new Sega and sony is venturing in to a realm where it truely is not trying to compete with any company other than its own sales figures from its other divisions. They dominate the market hands down, so Nintendo and Microsoft are left trying to be the 'compliment' piece next to everyone's PS3.
No, Microsoft wants to replace Sony... they just won't. I think Nintendo secretly wishes it was winning, but wants to get there its own way... by doing its own thing and by claiming that handhelds count in the analysis, which puts them nearly equal to Sony...
Quote:Please be sensible people. These are unofficial specs IGN has pieced together from developers. As much doom talk IGN does I suspect they've given the lowest specs they have been told just to add to that. Wait for more reliable sources.
You're absolutely right, I don't consider IGN as particularly reliable... I'm not completely believing this. Not that it doesn't make sense, but that IGN isn't exactly always right...
Numbers are fun. The PS2 had the fastest CPU of all three consoles but was clearly the lesser in terms of graphics. The Xbox is capable of 25 million polygons while the Gamecube tops out around 18 million but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone to say that Resident Evil 4 was less impressive than, say, Ninja Gaiden.
The Revolution will be impressive, but it's very obvious it won't be as powerful as the 360 or PS3. It just wouldn't make sense for a single processor CPU, said to be two to three times as powerful as the Gamecube (coming in somewhere between 1 ghz to 2ghz), to compare to a triple core CPU, each core clocked in at 3.2 GHz.
As far as the output goes...I agree that the 512MB of RAM on board the 360 and PS3 are there for HD output, but it's going to allow for richer textures all around. It takes a HDTV to truly appreciate them but it's not as if you can't tell the difference on a regular TV. Again, I don't doubt the Rev will be impressive, but I can't help but think it silly to say they'll be on par.
Having said that, I don't believe that the Revolution needs to be on par with the 360 and PS3 because they're going to offer different game experiences. The 360 and PS3 are heading down a similar path of last generation, but everything is bigger and prettier. Nintendo has made it clear they are heading in an entirely new direction.
Indeed, I'm really just saying that if they didn't make something decently greater in power, I don't think I'd be alone if the next gen games barely looked all that good and people just would rather have the controller than a whole new system.
And I think it's hilarious all these sites are pointing out the on-board save memory won't be usable as system RAM. Well duh. The transfer rates would be painful to behold.
Quote:Indeed, I'm really just saying that if they didn't make something decently greater in power, I don't think I'd be alone if the next gen games barely looked all that good and people just would rather have the controller than a whole new system.
Umm... 1.5x the power of GC might seem suspect, but what about the other reports that say 2.5x? So a 250% increase in power isn't worth making? I disagree...
Quote:And I think it's hilarious all these sites are pointing out the on-board save memory won't be usable as system RAM. Well duh. The transfer rates would be painful to behold.
Well that, and how flash memory has a limited number of flashes until it can't be written to anymore... and using it for RAM would use it up a LOT faster than using it to save does.
People have this idea that consoles are built just like PC's. Everyone knows that more RAM in a PC increases peformance but with a console it's simply not true, it only needs th RAM specific for the processors to organize the graphical data it has to read. So people see a # in RAM spec that is lower than an HD system and think it's going to suck.
Quote:it's very obvious it won't be as powerful as the 360 or PS3. It just wouldn't make sense for a single processor CPU, said to be two to three times as powerful as the Gamecube (coming in somewhere between 1 ghz to 2ghz), to compare to a triple core CPU, each core clocked in at 3.2 GHz.
I can understand that it wont be as powerful as the PS3 in theory, but it will be on par with the 360 (in theory). Also, multiple core CPU's do not make graphics, they are there to run compute cycles. MS opted for the triple core because the system is going to be displaying HD graphics across 200 million polygons (based on what MS says) so it needs heavy central processing to make sure everything runs smoothly. But a fast processor does not imediately grant better graphics to a system, the hardware takes the rom and spills it out and the processor has to make sense of it all. For example, if you put a slower processor in the GC, RE4 would run at a lower fps since it's trying to compute everything and is getting overwhelmed but it would not change anything about the graphical quality of the game. if the CPU was slower, a game developer would use things like the caches or other processors and caches in the GPU to get the game at an acceptable frame rate. This is the main reason why (compression ratios included), during the life of a console, the graphics improve with each game released. That 'organization' becomes more and more dynamic to the point that they can squeeze things in that normally wouldn't be available because it would chugalug trying to make sense of it all.
This is also why, if a developer chose to do so, a game running at normal resolutions on the 360 could look vastly improved (as far as polys and effects with a reasonable fps go). In other words, that is what Nintendo is doing to create a cheaper system that is capable of displaying on par graphics. To get PDZ on Revolution (480p from th ground up), you would only need half the resources of the 360 - which is basically what the Revolution is. Textures wouldn't look as sharp, but you'd only notice the difference if you had an HDTV and the proper connection anyway.
People are hearing all these grande numbers and hugely bloated system specs for 360 and PS3 and not seeing a major improvement in graphics. The games look like marginal improvements over last generation because everything is now running at full HD, not upconverted, but litteraly fed in to the rom at super high resolutions which takes ALOT of power to display. Remove the super high resolutions and suddenly that computing power can go to more important things. which is what Nintendo is thinking.
That article was much more insightful than IGN's. They basically said everything I just did. But there two things I liked hearing:
1.) They still dont have the final chipsets and the GPU is still a bit of a mystery.
2.) What they do know, is that the system is built perfectly for standard definition.
Imagine Metroid Prime with two and a half times the polys on screen. Or better yet, imagine RE4 2 and a half times better in graphical quality... oh shit... I actually cant imagine that. All i'm picturing in my head is higher resolutions which we know isnt the case, but now i'm thinking about things like even more detailed hit detection and real detail in the objects and facial structures, I mean... what would Leon look like if you had about 3 times the resources to make him?
......oh........ :D
Quote:That article was much more insightful than IGN's.
Yes, wasn't it? IGN continues to underwhelm... or perhaps 'do as well as I expect it to', given their consistent level of mediocricy...
Isn't a GPU basically a type of videocard? Those are important. The thing could have a gig of memory on it for all we know.
Well having a gig of memory would be nice for sure but just the idea of having a doubled up processor, one that specifically handles the graphics engine and one that deals with the actual game and cross paths with eachother to handle the load, both running at about 3 times the GC means its going to kick ass and the potential is huge.
I'm even starting to think that the Revolution will show us a more marginal improvment over 360. People aren't going to care if it's in HD or not if the games look on par or better. I mean think about it, if a game is running at 480p in 16:9 and looks exactly like Kameo, just not as sharp, are you really going to want to spend the extra 300/400 bucks (or even more for the PS3) just to have it running in 720p or 1080i?
I own an HD 16:9 rear projection and i've watched 1080i material and compared it to 720p annd 480p and the difference is simply a 'cleaner' look. But you have to have the right connections and make sure your television has been properly calibrated, an uncalibrated HD set shows even less of a difference between resolution modes (unless its broadcast television).
Of course, there are many other factors. The 360 and PS3 will both support the new DVD formats which are larger and made for DVD players that can output 720p and up (even the new 1080p) but as with all combo systems, the DVD players of the 360 and PS3 will suck in comparison to even the cheapest stand-alone unit with the same features. However, the two-in-one cost effectiveness will definitely be a factor. Then we have the online networks which right now MS excels in with its super easy to use set up. Nintendo though promises a similar set up that, atleast for first party titles, will be free. And then there's one major factor, which is the Revolution controller. A truely 3-D controller has never been done before so we have nothing to gauge its possible acceptance or failure in to the market... except for the fact that Nintendo controllers have always recieved praise from everyone in the industry.
I dunno, i'm getting more and more excited and my penis is singing which usually means that... screen shots are about to hit soon... unless Nintendo opts to show nothing until next E3 a few weeks before launch. :D
Quote:Isn't a GPU basically a type of videocard? Those are important. The thing could have a gig of memory on it for all we know.
Um... GPU means Graphics Processing Unit, so it's not "a kind of videocard" it IS a videocard... even if in this case it's just a chip, not a whole board. :)
RAM: More is better. Sure since this isn't a PC not quite as much is needed, but still... PC games use lots of RAM... I can't see any reason why console games wouldn't need just as much, and that's just today's games... lots of PC games these days would really like you to have at least 512mb ram. So 100mb does seem a bit small... but the GC did great with 40mb, so it's not that bad. It's just that it's a smaller jump up than previous generations, because of how Nintendo isn't trying to completely keep the graphical pace with everyone else... will it work? Quite possibly... as I've seen said many times, Nintendo fans will buy the Revolution anyway and nongamers, the other target market, won't buy just because of graphics; if they haven't so far, why should they now? That's why the 'expanding the market' focus is on new control schemes and different kinds of games... just look at the DS. :) So the worse graphics shouldn't hurt that much, even if it is annoying in several years when lots of people have HDTVs but Revolution still only supports 640x480. Oh well... there's no way a smaller company like Nintendo can keep pace with Sony and MS, so they've got to try something different...
I hope that by smaller company, you meant that they only focus on video games and not PC's, TV's, walkman's, etc. We all know about Nintendo's financial statements and that, looking at just the games division of Sony and MS, has a much larger bottom line.
ABF/ PC games require alot of RAM because of the way the game works on the PC. Doom III for example looks better on Xbox than on a high end PC, the same is applied to Morrow Wind, etc. And yet the XBox has very little RAM in comparison to a high end PC with a few gigs stuffed in. I dont pretend to know all the ins and outs of how it works, but it is far easier to develop for PC because your painters pallette is gigantic and you can pretty much do what ever you want and just slap a warning of system requirements on the box.
You could compare it (PC's Vs. Consoles) to trying to have a conversation with a few people (console), or trying to have one with a giant factory full of people (PC).
But basically it just comes down to the point that PC's are designed to be PC's - consoles are designed to be gaming systems.
I dunno about Nintendo not putting as much RAM in to Rev as previous generations. The NES had none, the SNES had none, the N64 had 4 MB (8 if you have the expansion pak) and the GC was the only one to really make the leap and now Rev is going to atleast double it. From what I understand, the RAM in a console is mostly used for preimptive loading and holding textures and models for current or soon to be used sequences for the game so that it doesn't have to re-load the textures and models (making the game run slower). But I know very little about this kinda stuff. It would make sense though that an HD system would need more RAM if it's basically being used as a cache for textures and what not.
MS is forcing developers to design the games around HD.
Sony is not.
Quote:ABF/ PC games require alot of RAM because of the way the game works on the PC. Doom III for example looks better on Xbox than on a high end PC, the same is applied to Morrow Wind, etc. And yet the XBox has very little RAM in comparison to a high end PC with a few gigs stuffed in. I dont pretend to know all the ins and outs of how it works, but it is far easier to develop for PC because your painters pallette is gigantic and you can pretty much do what ever you want and just slap a warning of system requirements on the box.
Actually, games that are on both PC and Xbox look better on PC unless your system is really old. Higher resolutions, texture qualities, etc. matter... (and this is why some people are making a big deal about HDTV. It's 1280x720 versus 640x480... a dramatic difference... I don't care about HDTV support right now because I don't have one and won't anytime soon, but I can certainly see how people who do have them are annoyed at Nintendo.)
As for development, I'd think PC is harder because you can't develop just for one hardware configuration... you've got to make something that works across many systems, so you need to aim at some lowest-common-denominator while making sure that it works on everything else too. Tricky, compared to just working with a set spec like you do on consoles...
Quote:I hope that by smaller company, you meant that they only focus on video games and not PC's, TV's, walkman's, etc. We all know about Nintendo's financial statements and that, looking at just the games division of Sony and MS, has a much larger bottom line.
Yes, Nintendo is more profitable, but Sony and MS'es other divisions more than make up for that money-wise... you cannot say that just Sony's game division 'counts' when you are talking about whether Nintendo can keep up with Sony monetarially, to say nothing of absurdly rich Microsoft...
Quote:I dunno about Nintendo not putting as much RAM in to Rev as previous generations. The NES had none, the SNES had none, the N64 had 4 MB (8 if you have the expansion pak) and the GC was the only one to really make the leap and now Rev is going to atleast double it. From what I understand, the RAM in a console is mostly used for preimptive loading and holding textures and models for current or soon to be used sequences for the game so that it doesn't have to re-load the textures and models (making the game run slower). But I know very little about this kinda stuff. It would make sense though that an HD system would need more RAM if it's basically being used as a cache for textures and what not.
The NES and SNES had RAM. Every computer has RAM, and consoles are computers. They just didn't have much. (for instance, the SNES has a 3.5mhz CPU...) The N64 has, I believe, a 90mhz CPU and 4MB ram, upgradable to 8MB with the ram pack. The GC has 24MB of fast ram and 16 more megs of slower ram. And revolution... 104-128mb. Not nearly as big a jump as previous Nintendo consoles, or consoles from anyone else... same for the clock speed, 'somewhere around double' is not even close to the usual upgrade.
http://www.freewebs.com/planetn/nes.html
http://www.freewebs.com/planetn/snes.html
http://members.aol.com/Dave388/n64specs.html
Ram... the NES'es ram is measured in kilobytes... the SNES has about 128kb ram... the n64 4mb (8mb with the ram pack)... GC has 40mb... each is a substantial jump. This one is a lot smaller -- the other stats, like clock speed, resolution, etc. show similar decreases in the degree of improvement. That just shows that this time Nintendo is not trying to 'keep pace' graphically, and hopes to do alright anyway... I certainly think it can. But you just can't say that this console is as big a jump as N64 to GC was, or SNES to N64, or Xbox to X360, or most other console jumps... (though it's certainly more than GB to GBC, which, despite eight years, had barely better hardware outside of the added color...)
It is true that they need a lot less RAM since they don't need to cache all those HD textures. Definitely. The fact that they aren't trying to do HD is the defining fact here... and shows clearly how different this console is from any of the major consoles Nintendo has done before. Let's hope their gamble works... because as the GC proved, Nintendo just can't play the same money game that Sony and MS can (oh, they can to a degree, but once you ramp it up, Nintendo's limited size becomes a liability and restricts them...), and they know it. Sure, Nintendo has billions of dollars in reserve, and make more almost every quarter, but if they started spending huge amounts like MS can they'd run out...
As for Sony, they're pretty much just desperately hoping to hold on to their leadership position because I think the PS division is responsible for a huge amount of Sony's profits. :)
Wow I had no idea that the NES and SNES had RAM :D It makes sense that all computers need RAM but I just didn't make the logical leap.
Still, I dont see how going from a few kb's to 8 MB's across 3 home consoles is any more of an upgrade compared to the GC's 40 to Rev's 128. In fact, am I wrong or is that a much larger jump forward than their previous consoles? That certainly looks like 'trying' to me. :D
2 to 3 times the power of the last generation is definitely the margin to which new consoles are measured. Going all the way back to Atari we can see how 4 bit became 8, to 16 to 24 bit (Remember the Neo Geo?) then the 32 bit era, the 64, the 128 (now) and the next gen which is at 256 (360 and I believe PS3 as well). Those "bits" as you probably know simply meant the capability of the processor, but you can litteraly cut open the consoles and see that these are basically doubled or trippled in power when compared to their last incarnations. 360 is no different except for its desire to be an HD machine which requires different architecture and massive amounts of power to even do the simplest things.
I really dont expect the Revolution to look worse than 360. Maybe my head's in my butt but I think Nintendo knows what they're doing. Regardless of it being better or worse than 360, it will be more than twice the power than GC and as we find out more about the GPU, I suspect that number to climb or become completely irrelevant
lazyfatbum Wrote:People have this idea that consoles are built just like PC's. Everyone knows that more RAM in a PC increases peformance but with a console it's simply not true, it only needs th RAM specific for the processors to organize the graphical data it has to read. So people see a # in RAM spec that is lower than an HD system and think it's going to suck.
I can understand that it wont be as powerful as the PS3 in theory, but it will be on par with the 360 (in theory). Also, multiple core CPU's do not make graphics, they are there to run compute cycles. MS opted for the triple core because the system is going to be displaying HD graphics across 200 million polygons (based on what MS says) so it needs heavy central processing to make sure everything runs smoothly. But a fast processor does not imediately grant better graphics to a system, the hardware takes the rom and spills it out and the processor has to make sense of it all. For example, if you put a slower processor in the GC, RE4 would run at a lower fps since it's trying to compute everything and is getting overwhelmed but it would not change anything about the graphical quality of the game. if the CPU was slower, a game developer would use things like the caches or other processors and caches in the GPU to get the game at an acceptable frame rate. This is the main reason why (compression ratios included), during the life of a console, the graphics improve with each game released. That 'organization' becomes more and more dynamic to the point that they can squeeze things in that normally wouldn't be available because it would chugalug trying to make sense of it all.
This is also why, if a developer chose to do so, a game running at normal resolutions on the 360 could look vastly improved (as far as polys and effects with a reasonable fps go). In other words, that is what Nintendo is doing to create a cheaper system that is capable of displaying on par graphics. To get PDZ on Revolution (480p from th ground up), you would only need half the resources of the 360 - which is basically what the Revolution is. Textures wouldn't look as sharp, but you'd only notice the difference if you had an HDTV and the proper connection anyway.
People are hearing all these grande numbers and hugely bloated system specs for 360 and PS3 and not seeing a major improvement in graphics. The games look like marginal improvements over last generation because everything is now running at full HD, not upconverted, but litteraly fed in to the rom at super high resolutions which takes ALOT of power to display. Remove the super high resolutions and suddenly that computing power can go to more important things. which is what Nintendo is thinking.
What has you thinking that the GPU's are going to be on par? From what I've read I've seen the PS3 and 360 being refered to as "monsters" and "stupidly powerful," etc. What I've read of the Revolution is "a souped up Xbox" and "double everything in the Gamecube and you have the Revoultion." The bottom line is that it's not on par, and as HDTV's become standard (and they will over the next several years) then that difference will become all the more obvious.
Not seeing the major difference yet is what you meant to say. I don't see anything of this generation that comes close to Gears of War or those shots of Too Human.
I'm not really sure what to think yet. Hell, we haven't even seen any real games for the PS3.
Quote:Still, I dont see how going from a few kb's to 8 MB's across 3 home consoles is any more of an upgrade compared to the GC's 40 to Rev's 128. In fact, am I wrong or is that a much larger jump forward than their previous consoles? That certainly looks like 'trying' to me.
A larger leap in raw numbers, but that's not the important statistic, the multiplier -- 'how many times more does this have than the previous system' is the important one. And that's the one that is less, across the board, with Revolution.
Quote:2 to 3 times the power of the last generation is definitely the margin to which new consoles are measured. Going all the way back to Atari we can see how 4 bit became 8, to 16 to 24 bit (Remember the Neo Geo?) then the 32 bit era, the 64, the 128 (now) and the next gen which is at 256 (360 and I believe PS3 as well). Those "bits" as you probably know simply meant the capability of the processor, but you can litteraly cut open the consoles and see that these are basically doubled or trippled in power when compared to their last incarnations. 360 is no different except for its desire to be an HD machine which requires different architecture and massive amounts of power to even do the simplest things.
I think Neo-Geo was actually 16 bit, but I'm not sure, and it was definitely substantially more powerful than any other console of the generation... Neo-Geo games still look pretty nice for 2d, actually. :)
As for 'bits' that doesn't really matter... other things are more important, and consoles fudge that sometimes anyway... (like the "64-bit" Jaguar or the "16-bit" TurboGrafx 16) I mean, by many definitions PCs are still mostly "32-bit" (though some now are 64), but does that affect much? Consoles are usally a lot more powerful than their predessors. X360, despite just a four-year turnaround, is a lot more powerful on paper than xbox. Revolution just isn't quite as big an upgrade... this isn't necessarially a bad thing, because Nintendo fans will buy Revolution anyway and if Nintendo succeeds people won't really care if the Revolution has HDTV or not because the games will be too good to resist (for gamers and nongamers alike, like the DS), but it's a fact. Nintendo is trying, this time around, to not play the same upgrade game... we'll see if it works.
How good will Revolution graphics be? We really don't know. They will certainly look much better than current generation graphics, but they won't look as good as PS3 or X360, especially on an HDTV where the difference will be very clear (due to resolution). Nintendo is just hoping that enough PS3 and X360 owners buy a Revolution too, because of Nintendo's games, and that they can succeed in spreading gaming to people who don't play videogames and for whom the best graphics don't matter... we'll see. It's too early to tell how successful the Revolution will be, but it's certainly got a good chance... though I think a lot will depend on the quality of the launch games and how good the marketing is -- GC's marketing, for instance, was pretty bad...
I dunno, I guess all we can do is wait.
Nintendo did say though; "It will be graphically on par with PS3 and XBox 360". Nintendo wouldn't say that if they didn't feel that th graphics are litteraly on par.
Looking at RE5, and based on Capcom's comment of "Because of our agreement, we will not announce RE5 for Revolution until more is revealed on Revolution." and looking at the above screenshot, i think we'll be okay.
Some interesting things i've found:
1.) Nintyendo is renting out the Kodak Theater to unveil Revolution for E-3. This is the same theater used for the Academy Awards ceramonies. It holds about 3 times more people than the auditoriums used for the PS3, 360 unveilings. This is a direct relflection of the main chipset's names 'Hollywood' and 'Broadway'
2.) Speaking of which, the names of the chips have gotten many a head scratched. This info could shed some light on the names: Hollywood deals with manufactured content projected on a display or TV. Broadway deals with live content on a stage. Pre-rendered and real-time. But what's the point?
There have been many rumors and speculation but the most notable being the pattents that Nintendo has signed up for within recent months:
displacement mapping
Wikipedia has this to say about displacement mapping:
Hardware displacement mapping can be interpreted as a kind of vertex-texture mapping, where the values of the texture map do not alter the pixel color, but change the position of the vertex instead. Unlike bump mapping and normal mapping, displacement mapping can in this way produce a genuine rough surface.
Let´s look at the diagram accompanying that article and allow me to repeat the above in my own words.
![[Image: Displacement.jpg]](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1480/1168/1600/Displacement.jpg)
Rather than altering the colour of the pixels, the displacement map alters their height, actually raising or lowering the mesh. The obvious advantage over bumb mapping is that it actually creates a rough surface. Bump mapping only creates the illusion of one. Whereas the effect of bump mapping depends on how you look at the rendered object (the effect will be lost in a profile view, i.e. from the side), this technique works irrespective of viewing angles.
The following image is an example of what this technique can do, courtesy of ZBrush.
![[Image: displacementmap7tx.jpg]](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1480/1168/1600/displacementmap7tx.jpg)
Displacement mapping allows you to can create elaborately detailed objects with a low polygon count. Here´s a comparison between the various mapping techniques, taken from Johannes Hirche´s 2004 Ph.D. thesis Adaptive sampling and tessellation for displacement mapping hardware, which focusses on ´efficient rendering of such displacement maps, mainly targeted at graphics hardware architectures´.
![[Image: Displacement%20mapping.jpg]](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1480/1168/1600/Displacement%20mapping.jpg)
I am sure you can tell that it is a significant step up from the previous techniques. However, it comes at a price. While the poly count is significantly lower, there is some strain on the CPU. Johannes Hirche writes:
Rendering displacement mapped surfaces is a process that involves a significant number of geometric and arithmetic operations. When applied to a triangle mesh, it involves prior retessellation of the base domain surface and transformation of the vertices and normals. Even on fast CPUs, it is a time consuming operation, wasting bandwidth and processing power.
This is why displacement mapping has not been widely used in real-time graphics. However, new and refined techniques allow for displacement mapping to be implemented in real-time. Again, Johannes Hirche writes:
The main focus was to explore new techniques suitable for hardware implementation in order to reduce the bandwidth strain on the system bus by moving the tessellation process onto the graphics subsystem. (...) A possibility to overcome these problems is to tessellate the individual triangles sequentially and to adaptively add triangles where necessary, until a desired level of accuracy is
reached. (...) With only minor user interaction or conservatively predefined input parameters the sampling schemes produce adaptive tessellations with very low error measures.
The above covered the immediate advantages of displacement mapping and some current problems with it, as well as how they may be overcome. Let´s see why this is relevant to Nintendo and, perhaps, the Revolution.
Firstly, there is a Nintendo patent that has caused this topic to crop up in this community before. It is entitled Method and apparatus for efficient generation of texture coordinate displacements for implementing emboss-style bump mapping in a graphics rendering system.Its abstract is a bit of a mouthful, unfortunately. Read my highlights, though:
A graphics system including a custom graphics and audio processor produces exciting 2D and 3D graphics and surround sound. The system includes a graphics and audio processor including a 3D graphics pipeline and an audio digital signal processor. Emboss style effects are created using fully pipelined hardware including two distinct dot-product computation units that perform a scaled model view matrix multiply without requiring the Normal input vector and which also compute dot-products between the Binormal and Tangent vectors and a light direction vector in parallel. The resulting texture coordinate displacements are provided to texture mapping hardware that performs a texture mapping operation providing texture combining in one pass. The disclosed pipelined arrangement efficiently provides interesting embossed style image effects such as raised and lowered patterns on surfaces.
This proves that Nintendo has not only been interested in this technique but is a patent holder. The section entitled ´cross-reference to related applications´ references 25 separate provisional patent applications that are thereby incorporated into the patent. Almost all of them date back to 2000. This would suggest that it is an important patent that has kept Nintendo busy but doesn´t date back too far to be cutting edge.
Secondly, relating back to making the process of displacement mapping more efficient and less of a strain on the CPU, one way of adaptive tessellation might actually be the last Nintendo patent I talked about in great detail, called Three-dimensional image generating apparatus, storage medium storing a three-dimensional image generating program, and three-dimensional image generating method. A number of readers pointed out that the patent had nothing to do with actually visualising graphics in 3D, but rather optimizing a 3D world to be viewed on a 2D display. Then, that patent made little sense to me. But in the context of trying to reduce the computational strain on the CPU involved in displacement mapping, this may make perfect sense.
Lastly, whether the Revolution´s graphics chip will turn out to be based on the R520 or R530, it will be Radeon technology. And its manufacturer ATI has the following advice for developers on their Designing for Radeon development support page:
Use multi-texturing effects for realistic low polygon primitives. For example, you can use emboss style bump mapping to achieve the illusion of a bumpy surface that would take a lot more polygons to approximate otherwise. Similarly, other intelligent use of texture maps can reduce the polygon count of your mesh designs.
This may not be unusual, since nVidia will undoubtedly have similar advice on their development support pages, but at least it shows that ATI is also very concerned with this technique. In fact, ATI supported this technology earlier than nVidia, it seems. While the Radeon 9500/9700 was capable of displacement mapping, the GeForce FX was only partly so. The Radeon 9700 Pro already supported adaptive tessellation. In fact, ATI has an exclusive technology called ´Truform 2.0´, which is a kind of tessellation.
Now, there have been numerous rumours about Nintendo having discovered some kind of secret development technique. This may not be secret per se, but it would make sense if Nintendo had discovered a way of implementing displacement mapping efficiently. They have a patent relating to this technology and they have a strong ally who has some expertise in this field.
It may explain why Nintendo have not yet talked about the graphics chip or shown any real game footage yet. It would also explain why the basic hardware features that have been suggested seem to be underpowered at face value, yet Nintendo maintains that their graphics will be on par. This may yet turn out to be the Revolution´s last secret.
Sources: Wikipedia, Adaptive sampling and tessellation for displacement mapping hardware by Johannes Hirche, Tweaktown, 3D Chips, HardOCP, 3D Test
Image sources: Wikipedia, ZBrush, Johannes Hirche
So let me get this straight... this tech would allow real time graphics to look like pre-rendered graphics... a mesh of Hollywood and Broadway..... I want screenshots now.....
Stop hyping me, god damn it!
THE REVOLUTION WILL FAIL! NINTENDO WILL DIE AND MIYAMOTO WILL PISS IN MY MOTHER'S CORNFLAKES WITH MISSING TEETH WHILE RECTALLY INSERTING MY POPTART!
(Not in my asshole, mind you. I meant his.)
Okay then... Matt Cassamassina said on TV that if Nintendo charged $200 for the Revolution they'd be ripping people off... there, that lower your expectations?
... what, we already didn't trust IGN anyway? Oh... right. :)
hahaha
hey the pictures dont work, lemme upload them. They give a pretty good idea of the 'pre rendered in realtime' look of the models. Keep in mind that what this could possibly mean is that Revolution will be capable of displaying something totally different than 360 or PS3. It would be more like playing a game that looks like CGI in real time. But the question is, to what extent can this be done? On a grande scale, the idea is that the low-polygonal model is still there but has been 'shaped' to look like a rounded detailed image. So instead of adding more polygons to create complicated structures, you're simply molding the existing polygons in to specifric shapes by telling the polygon (and texturemap) what to look like at different angles. So by applying these two ideas, you end up with a model that has actual depth and structure far beyond what conventional 3-D graphics are can do, and you end up with something like these:
This 'meshing' picks up whatever the developer tells it to and gives it the illusion of sticking out more than another object behind or next to it and (with the same principal of bump mapping) cause that surface to show height and depth depending on the angle it's viewed at.
In other words... imagine being able to use 8 polygons to make a broadsword (like the low-poly sword Link uses in OoT) but give the look and detail of a prerendered sword with actual scars and cuts on the metal or with detailed embossed designs
This is ACM applied to 3-D graphics. You create the full prerendered object and then take pictures of it from every angle and paint the pictures on to the low poly model so that anything square becomes round and the level of detail is only limited by the amount of detail the developer wants to put in to the object when it's being fully rendered on the workstation. Playing a video game (whether it will be on Revolution or not) is not far from looking like Finding Nemo. Apparently the technology is available now but no one is using it.
I'm not entirely sure how feasible this is, but it certainly is incredibly interesting.
That really is an impressive technique, but from what I've studied on it, it is still processor intensive.
I'm not sure either but apparently Nintendo owns the patents on it.
The thing is though, like in DKC, you have to create fully rendered models on the workstation. Like the kind of models you might use in a cut scene or in a film, such as a highly detailed dinosaur. Then take stills of it and apply it to the poly model so it would look just like the pre-rendered dinosaur complete with 'real bumps' and lighting. That would definitely take more time.
Then again, using this type of development would mean you could take stills of actual props such as a gun for example and use the stills of it to apply to the gun in-game. Then do the same for any model you want such as a person. But instead of a flat texture wrap, it would have all the depth and structure of the person's actual face. Dipping in to a 32 bit color processor and applying some nifty real time lighting and whoosh, photo-real graphics and you're now playing FF: Spirits Within in real time.
Obviously I dont believe Nintendo will be going to this extreme level but i can totally see Nintendo using this technology to create the most unique and realistic looking games to date.