Oh holy krap

[lazyfatbum]

you're gonna love this. Watch the video a few times and pay close attention to the backgrounds.

http://ms.nintendo-europe.com/wifitraile...eo_hq.html

and yeah that's Nintendo Europe's official site.

I still have goose bumps.

[Great Rumbler]

Subliminal messages!!

[Dark Jaguar]

What am I looking for? I could just barely make out the ghost of a whisper of a shadow of some letters in the background. I think I saw two O's.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, it's hard to see the word in the background until you know it's there...

[Dark Jaguar]

I suppose I could boost the contrast and brightness of my moniter, but I really don't like messing with my moniter's settings as I eventually have to get them back to normal.

[Great Rumbler]

First set: EVOL

Second set: TION

I wonder what it could be!

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/02/14/ninten...i-trailer/

[Dark Jaguar]

I wasn't able to make out those letters. Do you have your contrast very high? Did you have to watch it many times?

At any rate, cute, and bad spelling'd.

[A Black Falcon]

I was able to make out a few of the letters, but not all of them.

[Great Rumbler]

I caught it on the second viewing.

[Dark Jaguar]

Watched it about 4 times and still wasn't able to make it all out. The contrast is too low I suppose.

[EdenMaster]

REVOLUTION'D!

You can very, very faintly make out the letters during the very beginning and the part showing the world and the names of all the continents, but it's definitely easiest to see during the part with the watery background.

It's interesting the note that this isn't necessarily a teaser for DS Wifi, just the Wifi system. It's a (big) hint at the probablility that Nintendo is jumping into online gaming headfirst (Like Pete Rose) and is going to use a similar method for the Revolution that they use for the DS.

Tasty!

[lazyfatbum]

Not only is it basically stating that the revolution will be on the same wifi network (using the Revo as a hub for DS, which we already knew from an interview) but makes three ... prospects or atleast considerations of the 'why' the Revo name would be scrolling through the background.

1.) Revolution could indeed be the final system name

2.) The graphics it was using could have been done off the revolution hardware

3.) That watery background could be the revolution's boot screen. "'The blue sea" (also taking in to considertion the watery 'R' logo)

Nintendos patents are finalized, the NDA's are almost up, E3 is now 2 and a half months away, GDC is about to hit with a special keynote and all hell is about to break loose, it could be any day now that a picture will leak or a developer will slip

DJ/ what kind of monitor do you have? CRT's are better at displaying dark colors, LCD's and TFT'S tend to wash out dark colors.

[EdenMaster]

1.) Revolution could indeed be the final system name

2.) The graphics it was using could have been done off the revolution hardware

3.) That watery background could be the revolution's boot screen. "'The blue sea" (also taking in to considertion the watery 'R' logo)

1: See now I thought I remembered reading somewhere a while back (quite possibly here) that Revolution WAS going to be the final name of the system. Perhaps a future me was simply sending me a telepathic message.

2: Ooh...that's a really cool prospect.

3: As is that one!

[Dark Jaguar]

lazy, while that first one is valid, the other two are VERY extreme jumps to take from what we saw there. There is nothing to indicate that.

And, I have a CRT.

[EdenMaster]

Pessimist! Who knows? There could be any number of reasons why they have REVOLUTION scrolling along in the background of a teaser for something that is only on the DS now.

Good God, DS to Revolution connectivity??

THOSE are the kinds of horrible prospects that make us want to believe the ones lazy has!!

[Dark Jaguar]

... Yes and maybe aliens did it too.

The point is, there's no good reason to believe that's the case. That doesn't mean you have to suddenly believe in some other unlikely explanation. It just means that you should either go with the most likely explanation, or simply hold the position that you do not know what it means.

[lazyfatbum]

Well we already for a fact that the DS and Rev are going to have alot of connectivity, d/l between them whether its patches, game info (stats, characters) or entire games. i'm going to say tht the 'Revolution DS player' is going to as simple as d/l the DS game on to the rev wirelessly and using th virtual console to play it with the Revcon. It makes perfect sense.

As for the other ideas, the water being the startup screen, th graphics being real-time off the Rev, are not my ideas. They come from multiple sites who noticed that the graphics do indeed look real time and not prerendered, the watery background comes from a few angles, one being how many Nintendo reps including Reg often mention 'The Blue Ocean of opportunity, we welcome you to the blue ocean' etc, as well as the watery logo and the blue light from the disk drive of the console.

But just to get things in perspective:

"it will be simple" - "It is only a games machine" These lines are bullshit. We're dealing with a system with the following known so far:

german magazine had quoted a Nintendo rep that the base we've been seeing 9the slanted grey thing) is actually a charger or 'docking station' for the revolution. Why? no idea, i mean just because the console can fit in your backpocket doesn't mean... oh

it has two USB ports on the back. let's think on that. it's a wireless system that needs a wireless wifi adapter. there goes one slot (though there are other ways to connect to the network, such as the computer dongle) What's the other one for? Hmm, what does the revolution need? It should be noted that Sony has said that a hard drive will be available seperately for the PS3 and will hook up through the USB ports. It's also possible for Nintendo to release an add-on that will allow for more RAM accessed through USB. The USB ports certainly are not for wireless controllers, especially since there's 2. A hard drive, RAM exansion, camera, alternate displays for portability (base as a charger?), HD upgrade (upconverted to 720, 1080, which can basically be done by adding more RAM, as this is exactly what the xbox did to release 720p games), i'm getting horny

opera on DS, internet browsing on the free wifi. Nintendo was asked on possibilities using opera on the revolution, they said and i quote "That will be available for purchase". I'm assuming that other companies will be releasing a web browser for either system. Multiply that with the hard drive, the rumor about the Rev using TiVo-like interfaces for digital and television recording, you get the idea. nintendo is basically, in their own way, creating a Live! setup that is completely modular and can be built for your specific needs as either a fully integrated HUB for all things entertainment or 'just' an online gaming mecha.

at launch the Revolution will have the largest available library of games in history. some of which we know as fact to be 'updated to take advantage of th revolution". This could mean 3-D graphics, this could mean using the revcon on older games, this could mean online multiplayer for older games, it could mean all of the above. regardless, 'updated for revolution' means something, and on a wi-fi enabled box that uses 3-D controllers, well, its only obvious.

The PS3 wont hit europe until 2007 and MIGHT make the September release for the united states, though its extremely doubtful, not to mention that it will be well over 300 bucks.

E3 is going to be huge for Nintendo, they are aggresively seeking partners and publishers with a huge list already with only a few announced games that will change in May. i exppect to see the revolution completely unveiled, and i expect another delay to christmas 2006, but a side from that it's going to be fucking huge and all good. this is nintendos biggest console in their history and the most innovative and different, Nintendo is putting everything they have in to it, fuck i wish i could be at E3.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well that added information makes it a little more likely. So it wasn't just pulled out of your arse, but constructed from circumstancial evidence. Edenmaster on the other hand, there's no excuse for him just going along with it.

By the way lazy, will the revolution actually need a wifi adapter plugged into it? I thought it had that built in and all you needed was the router! That's pretty stupid... Wait, OR the wifi dongle? But, that's plugged into the computer, not the system! If the system has wifi built in, you don't need to actually hook anything up to the Revolution. If you are using the dongle and it does in fact need an adapter, then you STILL need the adapter.

RAM through the USB? The USB ports aren't THAT fast yet. Hard drive, certainly a possibility.
My XBox doesn't have a single port on it to add more RAM. I think what you mean is the system could assign more of the existing RAM to HD. That basically just means HD support could just be programmed into the Revolution without the need for more hardware, which I was always aware was a possibility so long as the actual data ports to the TV could send out enough data.

[EdenMaster]

Well that added information makes it a little more likely. So it wasn't just pulled out of your arse, but constructed from circumstancial evidence. Edenmaster on the other hand, there's no excuse for him just going along with it.

I wasn't going along with it. I was simply stating that those were very intriguing theories and it doesnt hurt to speculate. Not all of us like to nitpick everything until it's no fun anymore. Lighten up and think of all the possibilities and their total combined awesomeness :).

Besides, how can you have something as clear as that is, and not let your mind at least consider the possibilities? Improbability or lack of enough evidence does not completely flatten all chances.

[lazyfatbum]

This is just a theory, but let's say the Rev uses USB2 ports, wouldn't they be fast enough for extra RAM? What i'm getting at is that when you buy an 'HD ready TV' you have to buy a seperate box which decodes the signal that has been compressed on normal cable lines and upconverts the signal through higher end cables (such as the proscan cables). So if such a device can take in a 480 signal, upconvert it, and send it to the screen through such cables, i would think th Rev could do th same. Perhaps RAM isn't the answer. I was refering to the Xbox using RAM in its box to create upconverted HD, so I thought it was playing on the same principal of the set-top boxes for HD ready displays (uncompressing the video).

okay you sound very confused and you're making me confused. The DS has built in wifi, as in, it can connect to a network wirelessly. However it must have a network to connect to. the dongle plugs in to your computer and shares the connection you have to the internet so that your DS can go online, that's basically the idea for why would need a dongle for the rev. or, alternatively, plug the USB directly in to your modem, that method would give a dedicated line for just the Rev. And the third option would be to connect the rev's USB directly to a wifi router which could sit next to the rev.

As far as how to get 720 or 1080 out of the Rev, i'm almost certain th answer is in RAM which as far as we know now, the Rev is lacking any spare RAM to be used as such, if a developer could find the RAM, he could upconvert any game to 1080 and keep the refresh rates (not sure if im using the right terminology) at a steady pace.

some other things:

That 'weird connection port' on the back of the rev has been guessed to be the port for connecting the actual device that will pick up the movements of the revcon (which you put under your TV), but it could be the location for the dongle that activates DVD playback.

the german mag i talked about, which is actually the nintendo-europe official endorced mag, says that the base of the Rev is a charging or docking station. Now looking at some things, like the weird angles of it (th system and dock), makes sense that when you slide the Rev in, it will use gravity to stay connected to the power supply for recharging. Why - nintendo releases an 8 inch LCD screen, making it a portable DVD player/games (and online to boot)/internet browsing machine, about the size of 3 DVD cases stacked up, well, maybe 4 cases with the screen attached :D but how are you going to play with the Revcon while on the go? My guess is that you wont, when you're out traveling with your rev it will only play games off the virtual console (NES, SNES, N64, GC), but of course the updated older games with online play and the DVD playback and the web browsing will make it a worthwhile experience. this, of course, brings up the need for a keyboard. My guess - a keyboard/LCD monnitor that folds up on the rev that, when unfolded will give you a tilting/movable LCD screen and fixed keyboard. I'm not saying it's impossible that a portable Rev would use the revcon, but such a small screen with games that require large hand movements doesn't add up, you would have to put the screen at atleast arm's length from you. on an 8 inch screen, that's just dumb. so then the rumors about micro-projection come in to play which actually already exists (surprised the fuck out of me) which mean the Rev could project a 10 foot image on to any surface without the need to pull focus on a lens. The technology is talked about to be implimented in to cellphones (WHY?) so i guess we'll just wait and see.

This is the best i can come up with, i just cant see why else Nintendo would make a docking station for the console. In essense, the Revolution would be Nintendo's next console AND next Gameboy.

[lazyfatbum]

Okay, here's a simpler theory that makes no sense but does somehow, i hurt your brain. the base is the converter, Is; the power plug would plug in to the base.

Issue: There's an obvious powerplug on the Rev.

Solution: powerplug on rev connects to the base, the actual cord would then plug in to the base to thee wall.

issue 2: converter's tend to get hot. Why would you want the Rev to sit on a hot surface?

solution: none

theory: void

So here we sit:

the base of the rev is either a hunk of plastic, a poorly designed power converter, or a docking station to charge internal batteries on the Rev.

Official Nintendo UK magazine: Spong reports -

Revolution stand to double as power supply
Posted Feb 16th 2006 8:00PM by Christopher Grant
Filed under: Nintendo Revolution
It looks like Future Publishing's new Official Nintendo Magazine came through with the goods today as expected. Their "unrivaled access" snagged them one exclusive, and it's a doozy. The Revolution's stand "also acts as a power supply" for the console. This, naturally, raises more questions than it answers.
What about those patent images? The image of the bottom/right side of the unit revealed a bunch of unknown properties, which we can assume connect the console to the stand, but images of the stand reveal no such connection.

Will the stand function as a corded power supply if the unit is placed horizontally? There is a power port clearly visible on the back of the unit which may be used to connect the two in this configuration.

If the unit sits horizontally, will all the funky connectors be visible on the right side of the unit, or will there be a door to cover them? The clean, minimalist design of the Revolution uses doors on both the front and left/top to hide much of the ungainly ports and other visual distractions.

fat christ, no one can make heads or tails out of this thing.

[Dark Jaguar]

It could also be purely cosmetic? It isn't unheard of...

At any rate, even USB 2.0 doesn't have the transfer rates needed to make using it as a RAM port a viable solution. The only possible way is if Nintendo actually has their own transfer method in those USB ports on top of standard USB 2.0, something with speeds comperable to standard RAM ports. There is an up and coming standard that will however allow RAM (and even processors and whatever else you could want) to use some new style ports.

okay you sound very confused and you're making me confused. The DS has built in wifi, as in, it can connect to a network wirelessly. However it must have a network to connect to. the dongle plugs in to your computer and shares the connection you have to the internet so that your DS can go online, that's basically the idea for why would need a dongle for the rev. or, alternatively, plug the USB directly in to your modem, that method would give a dedicated line for just the Rev. And the third option would be to connect the rev's USB directly to a wifi router which could sit next to the rev.

Yes, I understand the DS needs a network to connect to, but you don't plug the dongle into your DS. You plug it into your PC. If the Revolution has wifi built right into it, why would I plug the dongle into the Revolution rather than the PC?

To EM: It isn't that lack of evidence means something can't be so. It is that lack of evidence means there is no reason to think it IS so. After all, if whatever it is was to have any effect on us, that would BE evidence.

And yes, imagination is a great thing. Just remember the difference between fantasy and reality.

[A Black Falcon]

There's no way USB could be fast enough for RAM... sorry.

[Dark Jaguar]

No way CURRENT USB is fast enough at any rate. A specially designed new format could potentially be fast enough.

[lazyfatbum]

DJ/ No one said anything about connecting the wifi dongle to the rev. The only dongle that attaches to th rev is the DVD dongle. And what are you talking about with your reality comment? No one has said anything unreal. And if it's purely cosmetic, why would the official Nintendo UK magazine say that the base is a power supply?

ABF/ What are the speeds needed? What's the speed of the jumper pack on the N64 I guess is what we need to find out. Nintendo must have put a port for more RAM somewhere.

[lazyfatbum]

s details trickle in as to the full extent of Nintendo's browser plans for its increasingly-essential DS portable, fresh information on the technology underpinning the Internet software is starting to trickle out.

To enable a smooth web experience, the DS will receive a RAM upgrade, via the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot. The add-on will be bundled with the Opera browser DS cart, the whole package costing just a shade under 20 quid in Japan. No US or European announcement regarding the surfing software has yet surfaced, though something is expected within the next fortnight.

Nintendo has not disclosed how beefy the injection of RAM will be for the DS, nor has it opted to comment on possible future applications for the memory upgrade. Speculation is rife the the DS will follow in the footsteps of the Nintendo 64, which successfully deployed a RAM upgrade used in games including Perfect Dark, Zelda: Majora's Mask, Turok 2 and Banjo Tooie, though Nintendo declined to comment on the possibility at time of press.

You can read news on the Opera browser for DS by clicking here and enjoy a full report on Nintendo's conference, including the DS TV adapter, right here.

We should also mention that possible headlines for this piece included "Nintendo DS gets RAMmed in the Rear Slot". So think yourselves lucky.

-------------

Okay, so if you can upgrade the RAM through the GBA cart slot, then why cant you do it through USB? or, just make a card for the SD slot that uses fast RAM? is that more plausible?

[Dark Jaguar]

Well it is possible to have slow RAM in the GBA slot. Remember, no matter how fast the RAM itself is, it is limited by the bottle neck of a transfer speed.

However, for browser usage, extra memory in a cartridge slot should run with all the speed that is required.

As far as the dongle to the rev, I must have misunderstood you. You mentioned above a comment something like "Well, the Revolution will need wifi add-on, so there goes ONE slot", which I assumed meant you wanted to actually hook something up to the Rev itself through a USB port.

[lazyfatbum]

yes, a wireless router or modem. i said the rev would need a dongle, in that that it would need a dongle on your PC for the rev to connect to.

the jumper pack on the N64 was fast enough ofr its bottleneck, looking at the jumper it actually looks like a small cart, so I think the transfer rates on the DS ram expansion will be a comparable speed and could be used for video games. After all, RAM for the browser would mean to store info in the memory to pull from when its needed at cart-speeds, so i think that's going to be fine.

Looking at the back of the rev, it seems to only have proscan cables and no AV cables. which means you must either get a seperate adapter to run AV cables to your TV or have a HD ready television. What this means is, out of the box, the Rev can hook up to an HD television and deliver 480p which is the first step of HD (progressive scan), people give it all kinds of names, but progressive scan can only be accomplished on HD ready displays and all other upconverted resolutions, 720, 540 (PAL), 1080 (including the new 1080p) can be done. It wont be native but it would look beautiful and sharp, even though the textures aren't HD atleast the standard res will look beautiful when upconverted. The question just becomes how are we going to increase the RAM capacity - with multiple developers complaining about lack of RAM or how the 512 flash memory isn't going to be used for actual game loading, one would think that Nintendo is planning something for 'Their most ambitious system in the company's history".

[Paco]

That was cool. Clearly spelled out Revolution. :)

[A Black Falcon]

The jumper pack is a block required by RDRAM -- RDRAM cannot have empty spots like you can have with DRAM. It's paired, and all slots must be full, so empty slots must be filled with a jumper block that says 'there is something here' even though it's just a circuit connection. So that's a fullspeed RAM slot... pretty fast I'm sure. Nintendo chose RDRAM at the time because it was one of the fastest kinds...

Now, I know that was 10 years ago, but still, I highly doubt USB2.0 is that fast...

[lazyfatbum]

480 Mbit/s (57 MiB/s). That's the speed of USB2.

Wikipedia has a great page on the Revolution as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_revolution

But I cant find RAM speeds anywhere! The type of RAM I assume would be Video RAM or SRAM, but Wiki doesn't mention its speeds. 57 MB a second should be fast enough, no? Considering that that would basically add a quarter more RAM than the Rev currently has that can be accessed for every frame of info. If Nintendo poped on a 57 MB RAM Pack that connected via USB2 it looks like it would be a great way to store the extra lines of resolution.

This is the type of RAM being used in the Revolution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1T-SRAM

Now on that page you see "Speed, 800 MHz", but what does that mean?

It looks more and more like Nintendo could (big if here) release a adapter that allows for 720 to 1080 upconverted resolutions. Hell, the system could be capable of it right now based on what wikipedia says about Revolution. But it's very important to stress that upconverted while beautiful, will not look like native HD graphics. In other words, a 720 texture displayed at 720p looks fantastic, a 480 texture diaplayed at 720p will look like an enhanced 480 texture, being sharper and clearer. The same can be said with connections to your TV (standard or HD), your DVD player will look better when you connect proscan cables and look worse when connected by RCA, it's that same 'retention of signal' that i'm talking about.

[Great Rumbler]

I found this on some website about RAM:

RAM type Max. peak bandwidth
FPM 176 MB/sec
EDO 264 MB/sec
SD 528 MB/sec

[A Black Falcon]

RAM-related tech specs for the N64 and GC (ignoring stuff like CPU-to-GPU speeds, the precise design of the architecture, etc)

For the N64 specifically: (Wikipedia)

#

*

# RAM: 4MB RDRAM (upgradeable to 8MB with 4MB Expansion Pak)

* Bandwidth: 562.5 MB/s
* Data path: Custom 9-bit Rambus at 500 MHz (max)
* Poor RAM latency. 64 clocks for a read (approx. 640ns)

I think that '640ns' might actually supposed to be '64ns', because elsewhere I read that the N64's latency is '60 to 90 nanoseconds'. The Wikipedia article seems quite clear about it though, so I'm not sure... it's not really that important though.

That means that the N64's RDRAM has a long access time, but as you read continuously it gets faster... as the interview below shows though, that's not the best for gaming. Still, it's very fast RAM (that is a feature of RDRAM, high speed... 500MHz here.)...

(ie it takes 60-90 nanoseconds to access the RAM, but once accessed you have a very fast connection for the time -- over 500 MB/s (with 4 or 8 megs of ram...).)

Note that the PS2 also uses RDRAM.

Gamecube: (Nintendo.com)

#
# System Memory : 40MB
# Main Memory : 24 MB MoSys 1T-SRAM, Approximately 10ns Sustainable Latency
# A-Memory : 16MB (81MHz DRAM)
#
# Main memory bandwidth : 2.6GB/second (Peak)

The A-Memory bandwidth is 81MB/second.

Note that the DRAM is very slow, and that's why it is "A-Memory" - auxiliary, for things that do not require speed (audio, perhaps cache, etc). The 1T-SRAM is faster, but its distinguishing feature is its very short access times, not its speed -- that stated 5-10nanosecond time.

Ah, there we go, this site says the 1T-SRAM's clock speed is 324MHz. Multiplied by the 64-bit bus, you get the stated 2.6GB/s transfer speed.
http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/overview/

Also, this interview is very interesting...

http://www.chip.de/c1_forum/thread.html?...did=156070

How will these systems feel about
the new Gamecube in one years' time?
Q: What is the reasoning behind connecting memory directly to the video chip?
A: Nintendo figured that incorporating a larger CPU cache would reduce the number of memory accesses the graphic chip requires. We also wanted to do everything we can to reduce CPU burden caused by graphics .
Q: What sort of results does this bring?
A: Well, to put it as simply as I can, the main worry is textures, or 2D images mapped onto polygons. These textures normally have to be in the video chip's memory to be displayed. Every game machine, including the Nintendo 64, is like this. The problem is that video memories are usually pretty small. The Nintendo 64 had only 4KB, and even the Gamecube only has 1MB. Because of that, operations ingame that require textures to be switched frequently can't be processed quickly enough. On the N64, you had to call the CPU to read textures into video memory, but the Gamecube's video chip can access textures directly from main memory without bothering the CPU. You could call it a kind of virtual texture memory. Thanks to this memory, the Gamecube can handle lots of textures easily with zero performance drop.
Q: A virtual memory for textures?
A: Right. This memory was one of the first things we tackled during development, since that was what we received the most feedback about from N64 developers. It was a difficult issue to deal with on a technical level.
Q: Is this memory why the Gamecube is easier to work on?
A: It's one of the main reasons. Still, making software easier to create isn't a matter of finding one problem and solving it, but going through every major obstacle and quashing them all, one by one. If we didn't pay attention to everything, there'd still be little snags left behind to make things harder. We really worked hard to solve all these problems this time around. I'd say the texture data problem was about number two or three on our list.
Q: There were other matters to deal with.
A: Right. Memory issues were still top on our list, though.
Q: Like, for example, how the main memory buffers textures by itself, but the Flipper video chip also has an onboard memory of its own.
A: You're talking about the video RAM. The PS2 uses DRAM in the graphic chip, too. The trend in video-chip technology these days is to incorporate a very wide bus connection between chip and onboard memory; this allows parallel processing of data and gets around memory bottlenecks for higher speed. Putting RAM in the chip is the best way to get this large-scale parallel connection.
Q: So the Gamecube's video memory arrangement resembles the PS2's?
A: It shares a few points with the PS2, but we're coming at it from a different approach, so it's not at all a similar design.
Q: What are some of the differences, then?
A: Well, on more general terms, the main difference between the Gamecube and the PS2 is that during development we stuck exclusively to features necessary for games. The concept of the PS2 is to let coders do anything they could possibly want to do; ours is offer high performance, easy development and the ability to concentrate more on creative matters. We know from experience what kind of platform we need, and we included onboard video memory and parallel processing features simply because we thought that's what the games require. I think that's a far different approach from the one PS2 is taking.

Q: Is the main memory designed to speed up memory access as well?
A: Splash, the Gamecube's main memory, uses 1T-SRAM from MoSys. It's a very specialized chip.
Q: 1T-SRAM?
A: That's one-transistor SRAM. Memory latency [the time between memory request and reception of data] has become a major bottleneck in data processing, and 1T-SRAM solves that bottleneck. It's both low-cost and low-latency.
Q: What made you decide to use that memory?
A: That was just another technology Takeda found after looking around. Actually, I believe the RDRAM from Rambus that's becoming standard in PCs today was first used mass-market by Takeda for the Nintendo 64. After using the N64 and studying what kind of memory is best suited to the needs of a game machine, we decided that 1T-SRAM is the best choice.
Q: How is 1T-SRAM better suited for consoles?
A: There's a major difference in random-access time between RDRAM and 1T-SRAM. RDRAM's most distinctive feature is that the first read from memory is very latent, but if you read in a lot of consecutive data at once, the latency gradually shrinks down. The problem is, games access memory very haphazardly, reading little fragments here and there again and again. The merits of RDRAM aren't geared towards this type of usage. A typical memory wait is a few dozen nanoseconds, and on a 480MHz processor or a 160MHz video chip that's a few dozen cycles wasted waiting for memory.
Q: So memory latency can downgrade console performance.
A: Exactly. CPU pipelines have made huge advances, and chips are clocked to run faster and faster, so now memory is the main factor which dictates how fast the entire machine runs. With 1T-SRAM, though, it uses SRAM so reading and writing data is a lot faster generally. It's about ten times faster than using DRAM, so the processor only has to wait a tenth of the time... or, really, not at all, usually. 1T-SRAM is absolutely perfect for game systems. You could almost say the Gamecube doesn't have a main memory -- it just has a giant level-3 cache.
Q: The whole memory's a cache?
A: Right. The memory in Flipper is 1T-SRAM as well, to make the memory system go as fast as possible. Games access random parts of memory for textures all the time, so this gives us a major edge over the DRAM used in the PS2. The 1T-SRAM is probably the most distinctive feature of the Gamecube, actually.
Q: There's also something called A Memory in the specs.
A: That's short for auxiliary memory; it's a regular synchronized DRAM. We couldn't use more than 24MB of 1T-SRAM from a board-area perspective, so we put this extra RAM in as a kind of temporary storage area. We used to call it "audio memory", but then the sound guys would want it all for themselves, so we changed it to "A Memory" (laughs).
Q: What sort of things would the A memory be used for?
A: A sample buffer, an animation bufer, a disc cache; pretty much anything.
Q: You've devoted a lot of work to RAM here.
A: We have, and we're getting just as much out of it too. Especially in graphics. If it wasn't for 1T-SRAM we'd never be able to test out the idea of virtual texture RAM. We'd just have to use textures without any tuning, processing speed would've gone down, and the whole machine would have been slower. We couldn't have tried it without these very high speed, very low latency chips. Thanks to that, you can get fabulous performance without devoting so much time to optimization. It makes development far more efficient.
Q: Do you perform any texture compression?
A: Definitely. The Gamecube is a hundred times better graphics-wise than the N64, but only has six times as much memory. We needed to do something about this, or else none of this performance would be accessible. We're using S3TC [S3 Compression Technology] to compress textures, as well as some vector compression technology.
Q: What does this do?
A: S3TC compression technology allows you to compress a full-color picture to four bits per dot. It's the same technology used in DirectX. Basically it compresses to about 25% of the original size. Some people claim it's more like 16%, but I think 25% is closer.
Q: What about vector compression?
A: 3D model vectors are usually stored in RAM as 32-bit floating point decimal numbers, but the Gamecube can also store data in 8- and 16-bit integer form. Using vector compression, you can convert these 8- and 16-bit numbers into 32-bit vectors automatically. It's great for memory conservation when all you need is 8- or 16-bit precision, and having less data to deal with also makes memory operations faster. There are a few other advantages, but those are the major ones. Basically we've been trying our best to compact data down and reduce memory burden as much as possible.
Q: Was this vector compression developed by Nintendo themselves?
A: I believe so. I haven't heard much about this elsewhere.

That is, for the Gamecube, the main RAM has very fast access -- 10 nanoseconds at most. The actual speed is a 324MHz connection over a 64-bit bus, or 2.6GB/s (that is how much data you can transfer per second...) on the main 24MBs of RAM... and 81MB/s on an 8-bit bus for the 16MBs of DRAM. You don't need to understand everything (I don't quite, and am not certain that I'm using the numbers completely correctly here...) to see the obvious difference in speed between them.

Anway, um, how would RAM through USB work... yeah, I don't know... the connection would be through that 57MB/s USB link. I guess (not certain, just my best guess) that that number is the one you'd compare to the DRAM's 81MB/s or the 1T-SRAM's 2.6GB/s or the N64's 562MB/s, and either way it appears to be slower than even the DRAM (though if I'm analyzing this wrong, as I could be, that might be wrong).

That leaves out one big part though: What is the access speed? What access speeds could RAM through USB have?

I know hard drives can be done through USB access, but that they are a bit slower than HDDs accessed through within your system -- I'd imagine the same is true for RAM, since RAM on the system can be directly connected with a short, fast link while RAM through USB has to go through that, which definitely seems to be slower.

[lazyfatbum]

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3096/...20revo.jpg

Photoshop users unite, discuss the validity.

Two things: Hate the logo, hope it changes (if real)

Nice "blue ocean background" that looks like the background of the WIFI commercial.

[lazyfatbum]

Oh, I totally didnt see those posts. So based on that info would a 57 MB transfer rate of 1TSRAM through USB 2.0 be a good way to hold the extra lines of resolution? (57 MB per sec for buffer?)

[A Black Falcon]

I don't know if making it 1T-SRAM would help or not (as the main advantage of using it is the fast access time, it seems), as I'm not sure how the USB interface works... the access speeds it allows, etc... you could put some RAM on USB I guess, but it'd be slow (that is, the amount you could access per second would be limited...). Even slower than the GC's secondardary DRAM, it seems... so I'm not sure if there'd be much point, even if it could be done. Perhaps, but I'm far from convinced that it'd be overly useful.

[lazyfatbum]

well, at 57 MB a second i'm willing to bet they could upconvert to 720p.

Did anyone cllick the link I posted?

[lazyfatbum]

http://www.nintendo-revolution.blogspot.com/

This is an extremely reliable blog from a guy in Germany who actually touched Miyamoto. he has good reason to believe that Nintendo is hiding a major secret about the way it displays its games - without a TV. It's a good read.

[A Black Falcon]

This 'Revolution uses 3d or projectors or headsets or whatever' stuff has been around for so long... and I just don't believe any of it. Why should I? There is absolutely no actual proof that Nintendo is going to do this... from what I can tell, it's 100% fans imagining what they wish would be...

[lazyfatbum]

And I agree for the most part, but did you read the article? There are some very weird things being said by people in Nintendo, all of them leading to the idea of 'TV-less displays'.

It starts to get less unbelievable when you consider full VR stereoscopic goggles for less than a 100 bucks, or a projector that uses lasers to make a ten foot HD display that is cheap to make and slightly larger than a nickel. i think i still have that link somewhere... yup here it is: http://www.lightblueoptics.com/

With Nintendo VP's, presidents and game designers all saying 'I'd like to fill the room, get away from the TV, make our own display etc etc" and then not show any games for rev? It can only mean a few possibilities - 1.) The graphics are so suck they're afraid to show them until they drain every ounce out of the machine or 2.) the way the graphics are displayed is another thing that Nintendo wants to keep underwraps for fear of being copied or stolen. 2 could also mean that Nintendo is getting away from traditional graphics as well, such as the cube mapping and what not, which would be something that Nintendo would want to patent and keep under wraps as well. But SOMETHING is definitely up, Nintendo has never been this secretive about showing off games to the point of showing us the box, the controller, the peripherals, the way we'll use the network, all this stuff and not show a single game? You cant deny the weirdness.

This reminds of the wird patents that were filed by Nintendo, one showing a 3-D display with characters on a flat screen being represented on another screen in 3-D and then the other one where a 2-D display was able to have depth, so it didnt actually pop out at you but you could see 'in to' the display as if looking in to a window. very strange patents for some kind of display device. so again, something's up.

Do i think its going to be some uber set of goggles with super immersion technology? not really, that would be expensive... but then again, wouldn't it make sense to release a $150/$200 system with a $150/$200 special display device that you can get seperately? The Rev has component out to hook up to a TV, but what if that component out is to hook up to a set of goggles? And all the rumors about 3-D, well, guess which type of connection offers the cleanest possible 3-D (such as LCD shutter glasses)? Component.

My prediction is that there will be something special in how we view the games, i doubt it will be a special display device like a internal projector or VR goggles, but a system that uses a TV to produce 3-D graphics through the use of LCD shutter glasses i can totally see happening. It fits well with Nintendo comments of 'With revolution we'll be using a technology that has been around for a long time in a new way' or 'the last secret of revolution actually has less to do with gaming'.

i dont mean to sound like a broken record, but SOMETHING is UP.

[A Black Falcon]

Oh joy, a few quotes you can use to "prove" that Nintendo is doing something... seriously, a lot of those points aren't points. "the stand is slanted"? So? That means nothing! The box itsself is too small to hold both hardware and some kind of projector, so it's sure not that... and as for those other quotes, sure it's the kind of thing Nintendo people would say. Doesn't mean that Revolution will use VR.

Anyway, we KNOW it has normal TV output, so it won't be this super-special-thing only anyway, so what are you supposed to do, ship two versions of each game on the disc or something? Make it fake "3d" that just uses the 2d image? I just don't see any reason at all to believe any of these rumors.

Oh, it's possible... just doubtful.

[lazyfatbum]

http://www.nintendorevolution.ca/

I didnt think this warranted a new thread, it would seem that EA might have let something slip.

"Touch sensitivity" could mean many, many things. For example it could mean that with 3-D movement, imagine petting a dog who's sitting in front of you - if you wannted to pet him you couldn't just randomly wiggle the controller like you would the stylus, you would have to 'aim' you hand in 3-D, and if you 'push' (in 3-D) too hard, you might upset the dog. So "touch sensitivity" could simply mean the characteristics of 3-D movement.

or, it could mean that those old rumores of Nintendo's controller having 'squeezable' grips could come to light. Imagine being able to pick up a weapon in a game by simply squeezing the controller. using that method instead of 'holding down a button' would free up the buttons for other controls. Squeezing the revcon would be a great way to activate a shield too like in SSB or otherwise block in a fighting game. hold it up to block your upper torso, or hold it down to block your mid section and legs. but squeezing would also be useful in a figghter for activating a grab manuever, or in any game where you have to throw or catch something. Alternatively, squeezing could also put the revcon in to a different mode, so without squeezing the revcon will control Samus's head movement, squeezing can bring up the reticle and put you in a strafing mode, or if there is an enemy in your reticle, activate the lock on. To lock off, you unsqueeze the revcon.

I dunno, it makes sense; i could see it being used in the revcon.