Sony offers confused feedback on PlayStation 2007 talk

Jesus. The PS3's a bit of a zombie, shambling round with no real definitive parts ^_^

The problem Sony faces, at least from what I can deduct from what seems to be the case, is that they need MS's next Generation Direct X GPU architecture, as used in part with the 360. The Cell processors are likely to be nowhere near as powerful as the new GPU for a lot of functions the GPU can do (realising that the new GPU architecture is more general purpose processing than previous GPU's).

So, if Sony waits for the GPU stuff to get to market they loose position, if they don't, they face a battle with MS. Either way they face a battle with MS. Maybe they will even have it in their hands soon?

Sony seems to lack a bit in some other interface and feature areas. Previously there was a TV recording PS2, this was touted when the PS2 launched but came too late, to big, toooo expensive, like the Panasonic DVD version of the Gamecube.

Multiple SATA would be good, wifi, wimax, UWB, Firewire B. 10Gigabit Ethernet, PCI-Express, Express Card, multi port card reading, are all relevant interfaces, even HDMI and component in for recording. If they want to future proof their customers investment, then all the user should need to add is a hard drive with MacOSX and Linux dual support (actually any drive and disks for the OS's that support dual boot).

The media centre functionality would be a great option from day one, maybe as an internal addon (Drive and extra ports) fro $100. Or a version with it, but at launch, and at a cheap price (less than $500, less than $400 better).

Of course, what are we going to get, maybe a compromise, as usual in the consumer electronics industry? But Sony has a lot riding.on this and may face significant delays compared to MS and Nintendo, so hitting hard and fast might be the best bet to get the customer to wait. Most of the features above, are cost insignificant compared to the rest of the system, some not so.

The
Way.

The PS3 will be using a derivative of OpenGL, which will give coders access to the shader languages. No need for DirectX at all.

I think the things that Sony are waiting on are the final specifications on the components of Blu-Ray, last I heard the spec for AACS was not tied down firmly.

I'm not suggesting that they should wait to use directX 10/11, just the GPU's that are designed for it (which can still be programmed in Open GL). The Direct X IP, and at least some part of the methods that the hardware will support is controlled by MS, and until they release it to the PC market, manufacturers may not be able to supply it to Sony. If you look at both xboxes, they got advanced GPU hardware before it got released to the PC sector. It took years before the PC industry got an equivalent embedded graphics on motherboards, the 360 GPU design has been finished over over 6 months, but no similar PC version in sight until Vista. If I wanted to troll, I would suggest, "Is Sony's fate, in the hands of Microsoft.".

To be fair to Sony, there was that article on how the 360 is easier to program and more powerful than the Playstation 3. This is the same argument used against the Sega product when the original Playstation came through, over time they were able to do something like double the performance of the Saturn before it got canned. People, complained about the PS2';'s complexity as well (though I don't remember them complaining too much about performance). I suspect the truth is that they just haven't got to grips with it yet. Now the fair part, 360 has a way good GPU compared to a conventional design, like what we think was originally specified for the PS3, but the PS3 has around double the GFLOP capability, and most of it is going to be used for graphics anyway, where the 360's extra capability does not matter very much anyway. So I suspect that both machines will probably perform similarly for games anyway.

You'll be happy to know that I got to play a 360 demo pre-release box the other day, and my theory of the games being too much like the last generation was proven true yet again. I think it was a perfect dark one, and except for some reflections, it reminded me too much of something you would play on a old generation console, or PC. I looked through the pre-release EB games catalogue for it, and most of the graphics looked previous gen (not saying some look "Squadron Leader" style ahead of the pack..

A funny thing, is that the retail dummy boxes MS has been using to make pre-orders for months, are a lot smaller than the machine itself, I doubt they are going to rectify this by producing a free replacement 360 Mini for them, the size that would fit the boxes people thought they were pre-ordering. There you go Doctor Dee, thats a story to look into, how come the dummy retail 360 container boxes used to generate pre-orders in Australia are a lot smaller than the xbox360 itself.

Re-edit: replaced the accidentally deleted text on replacement mini 360s.

Both DirectX and OpenGL are APIs that software can use to communicate with graphics hardware. In fact DirectX is a larger set of APIs that deal with sound and input as well, but we'll just stick to the graphics side of things here.

On PCs, the drivers that are supplied with the graphics card translate those API calls into direct calls to the hardware. I don't believe any graphics cards natively "speak" either DirectX or OpenGL. All that the graphics cards have to do is support all the features of DirectX through the drivers to have the "Designed for DirectX" classification, maybe support those features in hardware.

On the PS3, NVIDIA will supply a software library to Sony that will present the OpenGL API to developers and translate that API into calls to the RSX. By not including the DirectX API, they don't have any problems with Microsoft.

Tyrion, you might as well give up, I might well turn out to be wrong, but you are not going to prove it with arguments like this ;)

Microsoft invents and owns the IP to various techniques in Direct X, including their use on the hardware side (I am not talking about their implementation but there use in the implementation) and therefore can decide when and where it is supported (they also license them from other manufacturers for use in Direct X, like the S3 texture compression). They are usually generous enough to release it to the graphics card market, I imagine for free, as part of the Direct X standard. So, it is where ever MS wants to allow certain hardware based techniques to be freely available outside the PC market. Until MS presents them with a license to use the new techniques, even the card manufactures can't use them. But hopefully most of the stuff needed has been discussed in the public domain (it has been around 5 years since they were first discussed) and is free from IP to Be used. But the comments from ATI that there is certain IP in the GPU of the 360, that they cannot offer to the other console client, leads me to believe that this is not the case.

It is pretty obvious I was talking about 3D part of Direct X and not other direct interfaces (I think they were originally called direct whatever interfaces, and latter were integrated under one banner, but I can't remember).

Way.

-------------------------
Now, back to torturing DSes:
If you have a broken DS to give away, please let me know.

Way, as far as I know;

1) DirectX is 100% purely software,
2) Microsoft owns all IP rights to all of DirectX,
3) Any external libraries that subsystems of DirectX rely on are licensed to Microsoft and can be licensed to Sony,
4) The parts of the Xbox 360 GPU ("Xenos") that ATI can't license out are the parts they specifically put in for Microsoft, e.g. the geometry creation systems.
5) Xenos was developed by ATI and Microsoft working together, Microsoft owns the rights to the design, so they don't get burned again like they did with NVIDIA.
6) The RSX has nothing to do with Microsoft. By the latest reports, the RSX is fully developed and NVIDIA are waiting for the go-ahead from Sony to start production.

If I'm wrong on any of the above, please point me to sources that show me otherwise.

Incredible! It is not worth going on. It amazes me how you can botch up what has previously been said so often. On the classic news forums of the Internet, such activity is regarded as baiting, trolling in other words.

Let's tank this dance:


1) DirectX is 100% purely software,

Direct X is based on free and patented techniques, whether based in software or hardware, if it is presently patented, you usually need a licence to implement the technique in hardware. It uses new and used techniques.


2) Microsoft owns all IP rights to all of DirectX,

Your ne3xt point assumes that this point is wrong.


3) Any external libraries that subsystems of DirectX rely on are licensed to Microsoft and can be licensed to Sony,

Are they paying a license for the fun of it (meaning if there is no IP rights to be bought in, as assumed in point 2). And if somebody has an exclusive license (or just doesn't want to license, or are required under license conditions not to license to competitors and so on)?


4) The parts of the Xbox 360 GPU ("Xenos") that ATI can't license out are the parts they specifically put in for Microsoft, e.g. the geometry creation systems.

Based on the next version of direct X, the new stuff to direct x for Vista.


4-6) is just known, not in dispute and unnecessary.

The only point to be made about 6, is that Nvidia has to be granted permission to use anything new to direct x that MS has not already granted therm permission to use. Thus a method to make sure that Sony gets hardware based on older techniques rather than newer, or waits until the hardware is available when direct X 10/11 comes for Vista.




You should already know these things at your work. If they don't, they should hire me, even though I am years out of day. Refer to my previous statements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:k1m8bGCIg2UJ:www.quantum3d.com

This is an old one available to other manufacturers, and would have been great on the PS2 (with 3D textures and bump mapping).

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=18174

Thanks. I know you hate me, don't bother.

Have a great day Tyrion.


Way.

Way,
The links you provided say that S3's texture compression technology is included in DirectX, but has also been licensed by Sony. I fail to see how that prevents NVIDIA producing a GPU that uses none of the DirectX technologies, either in hardware or software.


Forgive me for not having read "what has previously been said so often" - I don't frequent DirectX programming websites or discussion boards.


Please, please, please notice the use of the word "external" there. Microsoft owns DirectX, but only licenses external, supporting technologies.


Which includes my original point that RSX has nothing to do with Microsoft.


Exactly, but if the RSX has nothing to do with DirectX, there's no issue.


I fail to see how I would need to know the internal structure of DirectX or the exact workings of a graphics card in order to write server-side Java applications and build websites. Perhaps you could enlighten me?


I don't hate you, I've never met you. I do find your writing style a bit aggressive and "all knowing" however. You seem to assume that everybody already knows the background to your statements, which is patently untrue. I also find some of your conclusions a bit far fetched and a call you on them. Hardly grounds to believe that I hate you.


Have a great day yourself, Way. And I don't mean that in an ironic or sarcastic way.

S3 Texture compression, the fact that Sony also lately applied for a license, I already stated, so there is no need to make a point out of it, it merely proves that it is not an exclusive license at the time.

It proves:
1) DirectX is 100% purely software,

Well, not quiet, there is underlying hardware techniques licensed.

2) Microsoft owns all IP rights to all of DirectX,

No, it doesn't.

3) Any external libraries that subsystems of DirectX rely on are licensed to Microsoft and can be licensed to Sony,

Yes, it has, which is sort of what I was saying in previous posts about MS licensing in what it did not own.

It has nothing to do with the Nvidia case, it merely addresses one of the separate arguments you have questioned. There is no need to twist it around as non-proof of something else.

"what has previously been said so often" in our discussions, what other context could it have been, but this is the perfect example, taking things out of context to prove a point.

It is obvious that anything licensed into direct X in part and parcel of direct X, even if it comes from outside. People don't normally believe that if they change a part of a car, that it does not become part of the car. I don't often here people say "Look those four wheels are following that poor car down the road, underneath it!".


Tyrion:
Which includes my original point that RSX has nothing to do with Microsoft.

The point being that I never said it did, I am talking merely about the technology that the PS3 Nvidia chip is allowed to use, versus the superior technology that the ATI 360 chip is allowed to use. That some of that advanced technology comes from the unreleased Direct x IP owned by MS.

way wrote:
The only point to be made about 6, is that Nvidia has to be granted permission to use anything new to direct x that MS has not already granted therm permission to use.

Tyrion replies:
Exactly, but if the RSX has nothing to do with DirectX, there's no issue.

Tyrion, it is pretty obvious that what doesn't matter is that RSX has nothing to do with DirectX, and it has always been obvious, what does matter, game and market wise, is that ATI can source through Microsoft, technology that makes the 360 match the PS3 (for now) and that NVIDIA does not appear to have that technology for the present PS3 part. That this may well be because MS owns certain graphics IP and will not release it until it is needed for the release of the Vista version of direct x. That such a delay means that PS3 ships with less advanced GPU technology, or has to wait while 360 goes into eventual volume shipments, before releasing a machine that the 360 can never match.

You work at a hard core game site, masquerading around their forums telling people, like me, they don't know what they are talking about, but you do, or they are not genuine etc, but you don't. I made some simply analysis based on my experiences of what I know and have learned in researching these things, which you misanalysed so many times in order to allegedly prove a point, rather than proving me wrong with arguments I can't refute. The only other alternative is that you are trolling. It has been obvious since last year, that you are on some sort of mission, following me around and trying to make fun of the situation, meanwhile after the previous times, I have started playing the game back at you. I have a number of British friends, and I know the games, and players can be the easiest to play.

The truth is these posts should have been getting shorter and shorter, not longer and longer, because you don't want to admit to being wrong, or me being right. You might think it is fun getting me to reply to more and more stuff, but at the same time I am getting you to either see it and quit or read and write more and more stuff. This wears down trolls. Not that you necessarily are deliberately, or subconsciously trolling me, you could be mistaken or just have some urge to debate it.

Tyrion:
I don't hate you, I've never met you. I do find your writing style a bit aggressive and "all knowing" however. You seem to assume that everybody already knows the background to your statements, which is patently untrue. I also find some of your conclusions a bit far fetched and a call you on them. Hardly grounds to believe that I hate you.

See, that is my point, you have this against me, and probably other people that know something and can confidently speak about it in an authoritative, magazine columnist like manner, or knows more than you. You probably wish to be this yourself, but one thing I, and most people, learn in life, is that we are not top dog, just climbing ladders, somebody always knows better or something we don't, and we learn from them. The truth is that I have been around the games industry probably longer than DoctorDee, and gaming since the 70's, I have bothered to spend heaps of time learning the computer/games market, learning the technical areas, designing and developing stuff more advanced than you have seen on the market, instead of being a know it all that knows little. I can wing it day in and day out, around a lot of know it alls on the net, if I wanted to, because I know enough just to say the things that are true, or I believe are likely to be true. When I come across picky people that know what they are talking about I can learn, if they don't know, then I wait and see if they relent, if they don't relent and want to play games, I turn their game against them. Tyrion, most people don't know what they are really doing, they just think they are doing what they want to make believe they are doing, even if you point it out to them, they tend to stick to their justifying belief. You believe that you have no hate, but really you resentfully hate certain things, for some past reason, that causes you to react to anybody that "might" fit a similar bill. I have an old friend, he is a marvelously well loved person, but most of the time nobody can tell him anything, even know more than him, and if your unlucky enough to know more than him, or better, or have better skills in his area, he goes off (I'm talking about a lot of people here). The truth is he had a critical disapproving adult when he was a kid, and he, himself, thought he was top jock over the years, so he resents anything said, and many people that say anything, or even people better off than him.

Recently there was some article that quoted some statistic like, that over half the people, or in half the emails they, can not pick up the tone of the emails they are receiving, producing frictions and disputes. You seem to be misreading my intentions a lot too. I assume people can read the simple obvious, clear, concise writing, arguments and context, and I explain things for those who don't. I don't need to give too much of a history for a simple argument or analysis, I am not writing a thesis, besides taking all day, and boring people, doing so would make people believe I am a know it all. Though I did sock it to you guys this time. I am pointing out to you however, if you believe that I am wrong, and you know more, than you should know these things, especially working here. That the conclusions, are only possibilities that carry some weight, but still only possibilities (compare them to the possibility of the "professional" costing analysis posted last week that says that a blu-ray drive in a PS3 will cost $350 cost price, which is more likely?). In the end, the possibilities are a bit of fun, and well see how it turns out. The only people that I usually taunt, is the games companies themselves.


way wrote:
Have a great day Tyrion.

Tyrion:
Have a great day yourself, Way. And I don't mean that in an ironic or sarcastic way.

Nor me.

Way,
I have re-read the thread and I can't exactly put my finger on where we went wrong. Your first and second posts seem to be implying that the delays were due to Sony not being able to deploy a GPU due to needing to wait for DirectX 10 to be released to graphics card manufacturers.

After that, I admit, I mis-read the point you were making and launched off on the OpenGL vs DirectX discussion that has bogged down this thread.

The point I was trying to make, admittedly not very well, is that the RSX is fully designed at this point and is not waiting for DirectX 10 or anything else.

You have since clarified your point that you believe that the RSX is inferior to Xenos and that Sony need to include the technology difference in order to compete with the XBox 360. I haven't replied to this yet, but I respect your opinion. However, from what I have read I don't think the differences are that great an advantage. I'm willing to be shown that I am wrong, but I have to admit my strengths don't lie in that direction so you may have to be gentle with me.

I also don't agree with your assertion that we at SPOnG should know everything there is to know about DirectX and game programming. You wouldn't expect the people running a car enthusiast website to know everything about the language used to program the engine management system. This is a gaming site for gamers, not a programming site for developers.

Much as I hate to prolong this discussion, I must also respond to the psychoanalysing and accusations you present in your last post.

Your whole argument seems to be based on me "following" you around these forums and disputing your every word. If I am guilty of this, you have to admit you have made some pretty wild claims in the past, uncrackable copy protection that you won't take to any interested party, the ability to design a world beating console that can't be sold due to big business and now you claim to have spent a lot of time "designing and developing stuff more advanced than [I] have seen on the market". None of your claims have been backed up with any proof, at no time have you pointed to something you have done that could convince me of your claims. You have to admit they do look like the normal blow hard spouting seen on many discussion areas around the web.

If I see someone behaving like that, I call them on it. I don't do it due to some deep-seated psychological need to always be right, I do it to find out if they actually do know what they are on about. I point out what look like faults in their arguments and see how they respond or don't.

In your case it is obvious that you have a lot of knowledge, but you hardly ever back up your assertions with facts or point to sources. You seem to expect people to take what you say at face value and not question it. I'm sure that's not your intention, but I do read your posts that way. I assure you I am not a troll or a "player" - I am not doing this to satisfy my ego or just to wind you up.

I've also read the article you mention that noted that 50% of written messages are mis-interpreted. Do you not think that this can go both ways? You seem to be reading a hell of a lot into my posts and making a lot of conclusions about my mental state. Is it not possible you have mis-read the intent of my posts?

I think if we were ever to meet, we would probably get along quite well, we have similar interests and passions. However, I think we are doomed to repeat this type of discussion if we only exchange views through a written medium.

How about this? I'll try to read your posts more carefully in future if you'll agree to provide more evidence to back up your claims?

OK, I'll bite:


Possibility, that could be the case, so a case is made that it could be. but the case is also made what happens if they delay or don't delay. I've put some numbers on the faces of the dice, where it lands, and which face lands up, time can tell.



A bit of justification, and clarification as to possible positions:

Only in respect to features that increase the efficiency of the 360's raw output, not in RAW speed itself, which is around double on the PS3, that is why I say in the end most of the performance is likely to be used for graphics anyway, and so may not make too much a difference in that area. (ATI said that something like 40%-60% wastage on existing GPU systems, because of stalls, and that the new combined system gets full efficiency, but as PS3 developers only have one GPU to develop for, I imagine they will eventually custom optimise it do much to lower that wastage figure on the PS3). For non graphics applications, being something that the DX10/11 helps, I don't think that there will be enough use in this generation to fully utilise the extra GFLOP offered by the ATI MS part over the cell. But as far as raw figures go, I expect that the 360 may match the PS3 based on DX9 GPU part (even though it does not use DX, the part is designed around the feature set of DX) for years, with the PS3 possibly pulling ahead by the end of it's life due to optimisations for it's GPU, where as development of PC/360 games will become further optimised for DX10/11, but graphically that may not be enough. You see there are many different things floating around in the air to include in an analysis like this. The oater possibility is Sony has It's own IP that will be added to the chip, but I have no details to consider and if any, it may be of very little benefit (but then they may have come across something really new and revolutionary, like what I have)..



Yes, as just shown, I expect that it might keep the 360 in good stead with a PS3, but hardly ever make it outclass the PS3 in shipping applications. But if we tell them we are happy with just anything they throw at us, that is what they will feel they can do. So pointing out, that "hey if you could include something a little newer then you will be ahead in everybody's eyes for years" is helpful. Wouldn't you like a clear leader in the next generation?



I don't either, I may be a mastermind in some other areas, but I am largely goign on what I read in the news/reviews, and what Spong should also have read, and be on top of, you have a lot of old hands there that should know this stuff, to ask, that can tell you..



Possibilities, when in doubt quote the likely possibilities, as long as you don't settle on one you are not wrong,



It's the way it is disputed that makes one really suspect, getting things out of context sometimes is OK, when I'm very sick I sometimes do this, but when it is one thing after another on obvious things, that really does make one suspect that somebody is just playing games, and why they are playing it.

I deal with some pretty wild stuff, I know people that do as well, and sure enough i might be advertising a bit for somebody to wake up and swoop down and express commercial interest, or be involved, I am also rubbing it in the face of certain companies, that behave like they have a mental ball and chain on, and like any, moron, they want to beat you to death with it rather than let anybody saw it off. The secrecy provisions of IP law are also very strict, and very easy to chuck your rights out of the window before you can patent. The problem with big business, is that it is a game, where only they can afford to play. The problem with little people, who don't know the game industry play, is that they would rather criticise than get involved and help. I find, even if you throw them a bone of something you are giving to them for free, as I have done a number of times elsewhere, it tends to be so different, and their interest, apart from being argumentative, so low, that all you hear is crickets chirping.

I am here anomalously for a reason. And I resent the blowhard label, actually resent a lot of stuff said, otherwise I would not bother following things up, and I haven't seen a blowhard post like this. But back to my older English friend, he considers people with suspicion if they are better off, or know anything, or can do anything more than him etc. You got o admit, a lot of people are just out to prove that they are as good as the next man, by trying to vainly prove the next man is not so good.




And if I see somebody trying to needlessly cut people down to make themselves feel better, I call them on that too, and if they are trying it on me, I give them a chance to change, and let them string themselves along until they realise it is pointless, and preferably wrong.



I got to say, that if you play a game to fervently, you should be equipped with the tools to play it first, meaning how to interpret and argument/context, and not making faults in counter arguments, it leads the other person to believe that you must be joking with them. So, from what you have said, you possibly are possibility 2/3) axe to grind (subconsciously having a go) and mistaken.



Anonymous, IP protection, and no, not to just take it at face value, but to logically examine it, not to come at it from all wrong directions. I must admit, after the last time or two, I was prepared to put you through the wringer this time for trying it on me again. I am about information and reaching understanding, sure it is fun to come up with nice analysis, but I am also about information, and if somebody with better information to the contrary can put it forward and correctly prove it, I'm happy enough with that. Who winds is secondary to nice analysis, pleasant opinion, which is secondary to correct information.



Believe me, it takes me upto 3-6 hours to write a reply to some of your posts in times past, and it is not to pleasant.



Oh, believe me, it doesn't, I am well to aware of this problem before the research was ever done, and though occasionally I do, I normally question what is goign on and what I am reading. Having said that, I think I probably have mis-interpreted a couple of things said lately, and that is a fraction, of what i am reading that has been mis-interpreted by others.



Possibilities ;) that why I question is it this or that. Actually I learned years ago that people are not even honest with themselves, and hold to a higher mental thought of what they are doing rather than their lower motivation. I subsequently were able to see things, but really requires a lot of time before you can and doing this on a forum in much more difficult. I had observed long enough to come up with possibilities.



I was thinking that yesterday myself, maybe we should work together sometime, I'll see. A lot of people mistake me in real life too, until they find out that I am completely different from what they assume I am, by that time I usually have had enough of them to bother with them anymore. It is usually a eye popping revelation, I had a talented friend get a look at my Uni results one day, and his eyes popped out. Just life, some people are appreciated for whatever they do good, or bad, and some people are not. I don't usually act like I act around here, what is the use of having an anonymous identity if you show up acting like yourself, gets a bit predictable. Plus there is other reasons for it, like questioning what is happening in the industry, fishing for interest, and playfully dealing with people that try to wrongfully grind me down and cook my goose (which gives me a chance to be more direct then my normal reserved self). If I wanted to bait,

and sure enough, impossible sounding true stuff is a most excellent way to do it, it just so happens that stuff also has to be said for other reasons sometimes (and when somebody is trying to grind you, it can be thrown in to confound them ;)

I could say, "Where is that letter Sir Clive Sinclair sent me again" ;)



Good observation.

Not, a Buckley's on the evidence, unfortunately, a lot of it doesn't require it, especially if it takes hours each to refined each obscure little piece of information, and if it's information that people from a news site should have read on their own site, or in news feeds. Considering a post might take upto 3-6 hours to write (which I technically don't have the time for) taking another 6 hours is just too much, even for me.

Sorry about the misunderstandings too, Tyrion, I guess your alright..

You can take what i say as an possibility, unless you know that it is an impossibility, then please follow me up. But I have come across a lot of impossibly sounding, but true stuff. I don't mean to be dishonest, and that is the catch, you can trust me to be honestly mistaken.

This document has not been proof read, too little time, so may contain some mistakes.,

Assuming you're alluding to SPOnG with that comment (rather than just outright stating it), I'd like to set the record straight here. SPOnG isn't solely or even primarily a news site. It's a videogame information archive, and as such many of the staff - Tyrion, for example - aren't involved in researching and writing news. This means they don't have the luxury of reading every single morsel that drops through their RSS feeds or Google news alerts. Some aren't even conversant (nor do they wish to be) in the technicalities of DirectX, OpenGL, GPU/CPU architecture, bandwidth bottlenecks or the issues of sub-22micron wafer fabrication due to quantum interference*.

Imagine that!

Even if SPOnG were a news site first and foremost, it runs consumer-focussed gaming news. Do you seriously believe that one needs to follow and understand the intricacies of GPU architecture and library support in order to write about latest titles, studio and publisher wranglings, insider gossip and today's mainstream media videogame scaremongery?

Kinda like needing to know the day-to-day advances and architectural differences between DSPs in an HDTV upconverter/videoscaler when writing for T3 or even Home Cinema Choice magazine. Knowing some of the higer level stuff is enough, not the nuts and bolts.

* yeah, okay. I kinda made that last one up based on something I'm vaguely aware of (but don't have the time/inclination/need to research)

Even worse!

Following the Spong news style, the information was probably published here anyway (which tends to be more comprehensive than most of the games news sites). But he has been debating like he does know it about a tech area, he could have just taken it on board and maybe made a few insightful comments that he knew to be well founded, discussion. So, of course I do expect him to be well versed as a game enthusiasts making out another (me) is wrong. There is no end to people that will prance on what ever you say on the net, but few that know enough to determine what to prance on.

You also notice that the front page has news as the prominent feature, and if reviewing games is not news in itself, what is?

Imagine that!

Yes, Imagine what i just said.

Let's see, spong constantly runs the rumours and Gossip, any site in their right mind is interested in why said product is technically up on the competition, so Spong does tend to publish specs, even the story why ATI reckon their chip was better.

I have never known Spong to be a Micky Mouse, Mario Bros, kind of site with very light coverage suitable only for children than gaming enthusiasts. While we don't need to go into detail that serious PC sites normally do, the new hardware cycle only comes along once every 3-5 years (here is hoping) to discuss it, so it is a rare opportunity to compare what to buy. Once all machines come out and disclose their detail, then it will be back to reviewing games/news for the next few years, with little mention of the hardware unless as a reason a machine pulls s lot ahead or behind.


> bottlenecks or the issues of sub-22micron wafer fabrication due to quantum interference*.

I think you meant 0.22micron, 22micron tends not to have those problems at that size ;). Quantum effects tend to start being a problem at sizes much larger than 0.22 microns, so it is not unexpected.

Well, Tyrion, some more information along lines that you will appreciate. Looks like Sony is claiming Blu-ray delays (but releasing it on independent players in the meantime, with other manufacturers) claiming they are waiting for a finale version. So there is the official line (apart from stuff about next generation HDMI 1.3 for the PS3).

I apologise for not getting back, been meaning too, been overwhelmed here and sick.


But in the mean time:

Nvidia commissioned by Sony, again:

http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=technology&storyID=nN23330678

A job as big as the first, a few jobs?

Nvidia and ATI readying architecture based on next generation directX, they are upto G80 so far, and I think it is the one that just missed tape out, so it is delayed. The PS3 is supposed to be something like G70, or G73 based, a bit behind?:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30623

MS, has delayed Vista, would this delay the 3D for it, I don't know.

We can only speculate what will come, just noticed that comical Revo Spec story, so going over there.

Thanks, have a good day.

Way.

I have some updates.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/04/04/how_capable_is_a_vista-capable_pc/index.html

By the looks of it, Direct X 10 has been wiped from it's requirements, for now, and by the looks of it delayed till latter this year (or early next).

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30745

ATI has also delayed it's chip (gives a chance for a die shrink, and to lower the power consumption) and the NVIDIA G80 also is scheduled to arrive latter, like the PS3. Are they reading this or something, they are not paying me.

I really hope that the PS3 uses the latest Tech, not the G73 stuff, will blow things away. Between Sony and Nintendo they could squeeze MS, but then again did I hear that MS was shrinking their machine.

If they ship a hard drive with Linux, we will really be grooving. A Linux PS3 computer in a cube case with lots of drive bays (drives and front panels for audio and video production modules) and room for a second board main board (more cells) would be my preference. Anyway, back to reality, just give me the Linux drive version.