I've asked like ten times now: does the water in the Xbox version of
Morrowind have realistic reflections,
You've already been answered - yes it does.
Why the fixation on Morrowind's water anyway? It's hardly that tough to
find an Xbox title that clearly uses pixel shaders - there was one if you
recall _on the day of release_, a small title called HALO.
Of course, you believe that's running on a "stripped down MX440 core".
There were more titles using pixel shaders during the Xbox's first 6 months
of release than there were PC games that utilized any DX8 features
extensively at the time.
Or, you could actually get off your ass and do some research about the
Xbox's technical abilities, instead of hinging your absurd notion that the
Xbox has a graphics system as crippled as the GFMX due to the quality of one
game's water effect.
If you're laughing out loud at yourself, it's appropriate.
Yeah, unified memory, with code and graphics data all pooled into
64 MB of RAM, is so fantastically more efficient than having the code
and graphics on separate buses that fabulous machines like PCjr (and
various budget laptop PCs) had it in the early nineties.
It's patently obvious you don't have the technical understanding to grasp
why this can be an advantage in the case of a dedicated platform (and by
"technical understanding", I mean actually reading some technical articles
and interviews with developers that any simpleton - even you - is capable
of).
What is the relevance of the unified memory architecture on past or current
PC's?
- The graphics chip in past and modern PC's that utilize a shared frame
buffer don't have nearly the capabilities of the NV2A in the Xbox. Intel
Integrated "Extreme" graphics blows because the graphics chip sucks, not
just because of its shared interface to system memory.
- Despite sharing memory, on the PC an integrated graphics solution is
indeed a detriment as much of the polygon set-up still has to be done by the
processor, so you're taking away bandwidth without any gain - these
integrated graphics basically act like an AGP card that just steals more
bandwidth from the rest of the system.
- Due to the unified memory architecture, and even more important the fact
that the Xbox's hardware can be accessed on a far more low-level method than
the PC due to the fact it's a standard system that doesn't deviate, much of
the work a PC game has to do with the CPU can be done on the Xbox's GPU.
That's why a 733mhz Celeron with a Geforce3 will get its ass handed to it in
terms of performance when compared to the Xbox.
- The NV2A in the Xbox has many bandwidth-saving abilities, and the Xbox
also uses AMD's HyperTransport. It's 6.4 GB/sec total, yes - but it does
make very efficient use of that, and as mentioned above when you can access
the hardware at such a low-level, you can further optimize out the
bottlenecks.
- Continuing on the bandwidth track, running at 640*480 takes far less
bandwidth than PC gamers who demand 1024*768 as the starting point.
Again, this information can easily be gathered from a little research. Thus
concludes today's lesson.
I think you need to come to grips with the fact that the hardware of
XBox is the best Microsoft could buy _really cheaply_. It is not
performance hardware in any way, shape or form.
Amongst all three consoles, it consistently offers the best graphics across
the widest range of titles, and multi-platform ports usually run the
smoothest.
Of course it's not a PC with a 9800 Pro - who is saying that? It's a
console, cost is naturally going to be a significant factor. I'd take a
mid/high-end PC any day if performance was the utmost objective; my
XP1800/GF4 4200 is still a very capable game machine with superior graphics
to most Xbox titles. Heck, I _had_ an Xbox, and sold it over a year ago
because I found the selection of titles lacking.
Your attempts to divert the issue away from your own ignorance of the
platform are truly pathetic. No one is arguing the Xbox is the "bestest
videogame platform ever invented at any cost!", this thread has sprung up
from your own ignorant declarations on the Xbox hardware - mainly, that it
was "based on a stripped Geforce4 MX440 core", which as has been pointed
out, is complete nonsense (as well as your crap about the MX440 being "twice
as fast as any Geforce2, when in fact it's basically identical in
performance to a Geforce2 Ti). Instead of just ceding the point that you
didn't know that much about the Xbox as you thought, you go off on this
ridiculous tangent.
You ****ed up, you don't know what you're talking about , pure and simple.
It's time _you need to come to grips with that fact_.
Then again, after looking at your reply address...I don't hold out much
hope.
)