XBox 2 graphics & bandwidth

[bariole]

I agree about ray tracing. it will not be done by PS3-N5-Xbox2. Nor
will the PS4-Xbox3-N6 do ray tracing in real-time by 2010-2012. Maybe
a generation or two after that ( in other words 2 or 3 console cycles
away ) pretty much what you said.

About PS3 and its 8 (or 16) PowerPC or POWER CPUs, they will not be
doing the lions share of the processing. The 8 Attached Processing
Units (APUs) *per* PPC CPU will be. There will be between 32~64 APUs
in the PS3's main Cell-CPU alone. The PS3's GPU will have a further
16-32 APUs. So the lowest number of APUs for the *whole* PS3 is 48.
(32 in the CPU, 16 in the GPU) while the highest number of APUs, I
guess would be 96 (64 in the CPU, 32 in the GPU).

Each APU will have 4 floating point units (FPUs) and 4 integer units
(IUs). I don't think they'll be able to do both floating point ops and
integer ops at the same time. Not clear on that. but regardless, the
FPUs and IUs within the APUs will be doing the bulk of the processing
for PS3. Therefore, the APU *is* the workhorse of PS3. The PowerPC or
POWER CPU cores will only be managing what work the APUs have to do,
and controlling the APUs access to memory. The PPC / POWER cores are
the generals, the APUs are divisions, the FPUs and IUs are the
brigades / batallions. The PS3 will employ an army of processors to do
all the work to give us prettier, more intense games.

I saw graph of PS3 design which circulated trough web. It was interesting
architecture but in my opinion kind of unsuited for game console. They went
on full parallel design for a machine which main purpose is video-games.
Design of this type (large number of CPUs equipped with vector units) is
more suited for supercomputers than console. This will not behave good in
games 'cause only most skilled programmers will be able to extract all
power from hardware like this one.
And I don't expect high raw power from ps3 either. Sure it will be strong
in year of introduction but nothing incomparable to average PC of that
time. They are bounded by silicon size (or money), not architecture.
Graphics and sound is type of data which is fairly well to manipulate on
parallelized architecture like PS3, but they can't produce chips big enough
to implement full size PPC cores + 4 highly programmable APU's per core. I
guess they'll make simplified PPC cores + APU's specialized in couple most
common manipulations.
Anyway it looks expensive to produce, power hungry and complicated to
program for. This are not good recommendations for purpose for which these
chips are build.
And I don't expect it will behave better than common CPU+GPU with only one
advantage which I think off: it is more flexible platform, but this is not
big privilege because all consoles are made with one purpose - to play
games. All other is bonus.

 

[juha]

All this discussion about the future got me wondering what people were
speculating 10 years ago would be the state of gaming today. So I had a hunt
on Google and came across this thread from 1993 about the future of gaming
circa 2003...
http://tinyurl.com/n7pr

Some quotes:

"In the next decade (the 00's?) we'll have digitzed odours, holographic
VR and synthezised blood, but we'll still be blowing things up."

"Virtual Reality: That's the first thing that pops to mind nowadays when
anyone talks about
video games of the future. Cheap color eye goggles are certain to be
developed within a decade as already some good TV resolution LCD displays
are available."

"I think we would probably have virtual
reality machines in arcades (they will replace the popular video game
arcades one sees now - it has already begun to happen), and one could
probably see some kind of personal computer linked to a virtual reality
machine (sort of like they have done with combining a Sega Megadrive
with a PC)."

But there were some quite good guesses there as well, e.g.

"CPU speeds will enable real-time rendering to die for. Virtually
everything will be either on CD-ROM or on some higher access-speed,
higher capacity storage I haven't hear of yet."

"Speech recognition and simulation will indeed progress to the point
that gamers are talking, rather than writing, with their games."

 

[bariole]

"CPU speeds will enable real-time rendering to die for. Virtually

everything will be either on CD-ROM or on some higher access-speed,
higher capacity storage I haven't hear of yet."

"Speech recognition and simulation will indeed progress to the point
that gamers are talking, rather than writing, with their games."

I read complete thread. Most of the stuff they predicted very well (AI,
nonlinearity, etc.). Basically they mispredicted VR thing.

Back then VR was big buzz word. It was next big thing. Problem was that
hardware didn't evolve that fast to put VR on desktop. FPS and similar
games of today are VR games by standards of 1993. Only real problem is lack
of VR helmet. Even today they are too expensive for what they offer and
they lack on support. Although times are changing. With every passing year
VR helmets continue to grow in numbers. And their resolutions keeps
improving. 1920x480 (that's actually 640x480, but manufactures count
subpixels instead pixels because it sounds better) is new trend. Only
problem is price - 4000-6000 US dollars.

 

[Spazzy]

Noone knows jack crap abotu the Ps3 or Radeon.

Look at sony. First they say it will use the "cell" technology. Then now it
won't since the silcon production is not slated till after 2006.

Microsfot said they are producign their own CPU with core technology beyond
Linked Dell techology. This will be aimed at new PC markets as well. We all
know how Sony comes up with nifty names to sale an idea. Yet Cell Tecnology
is nothign new, and other companies are already developing it. Also note.
THere is no way in hell the cells can share CPU tiem by linking over the
internet. No BRoadband or oc line is fast enough for that. THink about it
first. That was a total roumor.

You have to wait and see.

[from TeamXbox]

First Details: Inside the Xbox 2 - Part 1
By: Cesar
09.08.2003 @ 07:05 PM




Both ATI and Microsoft executives are absolutely refusing to answer
questions on the Xbox successor, but that didn't stop us in our
mission to be the "Insider's Choice for Xbox Information."

We're proud to bring you today the very first info on the Xbox 2 GPU.
Our highly placed source within the industry informed us that the
graphic technology powering the Xbox successor is a derivative of the
R500, the successor of the R420 to be unveiled later this year at
Comdex.


This graphic chip has been in design for longer than a year at ATI's
Marlborough, Mass. office and much like the Xbox's nVIDIA GPU, the
Xbox 2 graphic chip will also be a custom silicon that will have the
R500 as its core technology.

This graphic chip is aimed at the next version of the DirectX API,
most probably called DirectX 10, which is already in development and
simply code named: DirectX/LH. LH stands for Longhorn, the next major
desktop Windows release, which will follow Windows XP.

This same source also told us: "Microsoft chose ATI not just because
the publicly known problems with nVIDIA but also because current
technology shows ATI is the real winner when it comes to pixel shaders
performance." Something that is correct, as several publications have
put in evidence that ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro surpasses the GeForce FX
5900 Ultra in most Pixel Shaders 2.0 benchmarks.



"And we all know graphics' future is all about pixel shaders" our
source added.

This VPU is being designed with the latest technologies in mind, such
as GDDR2 SDRAM provided by Samsung running at 1600 MHz. A 128-bit
configuration is capable of providing up to 25.6 GB/s peak bandwidth,
while its 256-bit mode brings up to a shocking 51.2GB/s peak
bandwidth!!! Samsung's GDDR2 256-megabit memory will enable graphics
memory cards of 512 MB, althought it is impossible to confirm if the
Xbox 2 will feature such amount of system memory.

Speculating the Xbox 2 might ship in Christmas 2005, we can be sure
its graphic chip will support Pixel Shader 3.0, a model that is a
significant improvement over today's 2.0 version, as well as Vertex
Shaders 3.0. This will make the Xbox 2, without a doubt, the most
powerful console when it comes to visual performance with a graphic
chip that, in hardware terms, is two generations ahead of current
technology.


http://www.teamxbox.com/news.php?id=4811

cute little article on Xbox 2 but there is something wrong with it. As
I've said before, DX10 and R500 generation will have something beyond
Pixel Shader and Vertex Shader 3.0 - The 3.0 standard is part of DX9
and should be implimented in ATI's R420 and Nvidia's NV40. The XBox 2,
which will used some derivative of R500, should have VS/PS 4.0 or
better.

Also, while 51 GigaBytes/sec bandwidth seems like alot today, that
will look weak compared to PS3's eDRAM bandwidth (for both CPU and
GPU) which is expected to be in the 100s of GB/sec, even though PS3's
main memory bandwidth (Rambus XDR) might only be 25 GB/sec. Unless
MS/ATI are designing XBox2's GPU with ultra fast eDRAM, the 51 GB/sec
(or whatever it is, it will "only" be in the dozens of GB) will have
to suffice for EVERYTHING. CPU, GPU, MCP. just like Xbox1. It will
be interesting to see how MS/ATI go about tackling PS3's reported
TFLOP performance and staggering on-chip memory bandwidth.