Xbox 2 unveiling at GDC may not feature hardware - waiting for PS3 specs

[PowerPC 603e]

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Xbox 2 "sneak peek" at GDC may not feature hardware unveiling

Rob Fahey 11:46 08/03/2004
Xbox Japan spokesperson drops hints about GDC presentation


As widely expected, Microsoft's chief Xbox officer Robbie Bach will take to
the stage at the Game Developers Conference to discuss the next Xbox
console - but the presentation may not include details of the system's
hardware.

Speaking with Bloomberg, Microsoft Japan's Asako Miyata stated that Bach
will appear at the conference on March 24th, and will discuss the company's
software strategy for Xbox Next, talking about games for the console and
some technical aspects of its format.

However, Miyata stated that the console's actual hardware will probably not
be unveiled at GDC, and that a decision had not yet been taken to as to when
the technical specifications of the system should be released.

Microsoft has already discussed its hardware plans with a number of key
developers - leading to the leaking of information regarding the system's
CPU and graphics configuration - but it's thought that certain vital aspects
such as the quantity and type of RAM to be used have not yet been decided.

Some commentators have suggested that Microsoft is holding back from a final
decision on the RAM, and possibly on the inclusion of a hard drive, until it
finds out what Sony is planning to do with the PS3 - so that the spec for
the Xbox Next can be adjusted to out-perform Sony's system, at least in
these areas.

It's already known that Xbox Next will feature six next generation IBM
PowerPC processing cores, spread across three discrete CPUs, and an advanced
graphics hardware solution provided by chipset manufacturer ATI. It's
expected that the system will dispense with the hard disc drive in favour of
a high capacity removable flash memory solution - effectively a large memory
card.
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=dev&aid=3073
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Microsoft not revealing hardware specs, or full hardware specs, is a good
thing--keeping their cards close to their chest, while waiting for Sony to
reveal PS3 specifications.

I expect to see some realtime "Xbox 2" demos on the new R420. not unlike the
GeForce 2 demos used at Xbox1's announcement 4 years ago. Microsoft will get
the pleasure of saying something like "the next Xbox will have visuals much
better than these" since Xbox 2 will be getting some beefed up version of
R500. XBox 2 GPU will be some custom R5xx ^__^

Sony has yet to prove themselves capable of engineering a good consumer
level renderer / rasterizer. sure, the 'GPU' in PS1 was fast, and GS in
PS2 is much faster with a few bare bones graphic features (bilinear
filtering, alpha, mip-map)
but Playstations have never had the kind of graphics QUALITY that I have
seen on PCs since the late 1990s and in arcade coin-ops since the -mid-
1990s. or Dreamcast.

With Xbox 2, we are certain to have outstanding image quality and rendering
features. with PS3, at best, it is a gamble, hoping Sony has enough
competent
graphics engineers to bring them to the level of even Dreamcast, Gamecube
and Xbox1. (not talking polygon rate, talking graphics quality)...........

[/rant mode off]

 

[Phil]

With Xbox 2, we are certain to have outstanding image quality and rendering
features. with PS3, at best, it is a gamble, hoping Sony has enough
competent
graphics engineers to bring them to the level of even Dreamcast, Gamecube
and Xbox1. (not talking polygon rate, talking graphics quality)...........

[/rant mode off]

Well congrats that the dumbest thing I've read all year.

 

[DJ Saltynuts]

With Xbox 2, we are certain to have outstanding image quality and rendering
features. with PS3, at best, it is a gamble, hoping Sony has enough
competent
graphics engineers to bring them to the level of even Dreamcast, Gamecube
and Xbox1. (not talking polygon rate, talking graphics quality)...........

[/rant mode off]

Well congrats that the dumbest thing I've read all year.

Where do you get such rubbish from?

laters

Dj

 

[Dark Avenger]

Most televisions still only do 800x600 at max....

Tell me, where to put the eye candy on 800x600 pixels!

 

[joe smith]

With Xbox 2, we are certain to have outstanding image quality and
rendering

features. with PS3, at best, it is a gamble, hoping Sony has enough
competent
graphics engineers to bring them to the level of even Dreamcast, Gamecube
and Xbox1. (not talking polygon rate, talking graphics quality)...........

[/rant mode off]

Well congrats that the dumbest thing I've read all year.

I don't know what you know, but Sony is notorious for doing things backwards
in their graphics chip(-sets). First they do rasterization ALL WRONG in the
original Playstation, the scanconverter is like freshman's first draft for
graphics course assignment: no subpixel accuracy, affine texture mapping,
etc. Triangles wobble around the screen with serious precision issues,
texture coordinates swim. Hello, anyone awake? That is total shit.. school
children wrote better graphics algorithms in so-called demo-scene at the
time Sony didn't manage to do even this with their wealth.

Then comes Playstation2, and what happens.. no proper trilinear filtering,
you will be hard-pressed to find mipmapping on the titles for the platform!
This means serious aliasing issues. Then lack of alpha blending source and
destination factors which already been a standard in the industry to a
decade and more.. I mean, what's this about not having, say,
src_alpha,src_inv_alpha or src_alpha,one -blending combinations? I can
see why they would choose to have a couple of fixed combinations in favour
of speed, why not.. indeed.. but lacking some really fundamental ones which
are used by virtually all 3D game titles written in past 3-5 years is beyond
any comprehension!

Let's face it.. the graphics hardware for PS2 is crap. But it's
fundamentally powerful crap (relatively so, aging architechture now!) but
the raw power is thrown out the window as soon as you enable gradients, want
to do same thing you do on other platforms (for free).. every time you
enable little feature, you throw power away, and when you have something
resembling what other platforms do, you have only fraction of the original
power left.. and you are slower than other platforms, which are more
flexible an use their (lesser) power in more smart ways and while doing it
are much easier to program for (which from consumer's perspective is
irrelevant, I grant).

So the dumbest thing you read all year seems ****ing smart thing to me, but
then again I might be the dumbest thing since non-sliced bread. In short,
you made yourself look pretty dim, no offense. >B)

Now, it would be amazing, if Sony did things 'right' on the Playstation3. I
somehow doubt it, though they have 3rd times charm this time. But that's
technical side of things, they will sell their consoles anyway no doubt.

 

[joe smith]

Most televisions still only do 800x600 at max....

Tell me, where to put the eye candy on 800x600 pixels!

You don't know where you want your eye candy or just puzzled over too many
pixels? I would also disagree that most televisions definitely do not have
800x600 at max... 480P, 720P or 1080i *1) are more likely television
resolutions.. I don't know _any_ television which can do 800x600, sharp. Is
this somekind of LCD based display?

What you mean? Explain...



*1) Allow me to explain, if the television can do 480P, then 800x600 is a
dream for that tv set.. if it can do 720P, then it can do MORE than 800x600,
so in that light your 800x600 max means 480P televisions.. but then I find
it strange that you can say 800x600 max, so I assume you know something I
don't about televisions.. 480P even in overscan couldn't reach 600 lines, or
could it? Did you mean overscan? What did you mean? Puzzled...