Revolution Tech Specs Mooted: Uproar Ensues – Full Report

Yeah, I do agree, like if Nintendo suddenly re-released the Super NES as their home system they'd be doomed.



I think that the main limitation will be if Nintendo can deliver software.



True. Also though, you don't need hardware to program games - you could simulate your hardware or write for a similar platform (the Rev/GC will prob be sufficiently similar for you to do this).

I suspect that most people are still in the design stage at the moment...

Thanks for the constructive posts :)

Adam,

i wouldnt say it would be insane to put 16 megs of cache on die, but it would not be very cost effective when compared to what else you could do with that space.

Besides i must have misread it because they are referring to it as main ram and external ram but they say that "The external RAM can be accessed as quickly as the main RAM, which is a nice touch,".

Still these hz numbers dont mean a thing without knowing the processor architecture. More has changed in 5 years then what nintendo would settle for in a new console by just doubling the clock rates.

I am still buying one.

there seems to be two categories of subject here. The story was about specs, that is what we wanted. But this is why Ninty have withheld them. Some are talking specs, some are focused on the new ideas. It is not tec vs spec, its just forget the spec and enjoy.

Some people have already been re-educated, some will be re-educated. Some will buy the PS3 and shun the Rev. A few unfortunates will buy the 360.

Ninty are playing for time, the more they say 'it ain't about the specs' the more people will listen. But time is running out and clearly there are still plenty of punters who only want to talk tech specs. and compare them.

This is a totally new way of thinking. It is 'regressive' technology in some respects. Ninty are going sideways. There taking a left turn. I'm going to try to keep up.

It depends on the target audience. The new MX-5 was touted as having no more grip than the old one. No improvement, but then no change to the amount of fun you can have.

I definitely do compared to you ;).

Obviously, vastly, jealous.


Interesting theories.

About separate memory areas, apart from only being able to economically fitting on a chip with other functions, making a more stranded separate chip economical, they usually are for different purposes allowing different things to be doing in parallel. Parallel memories are also important because most memory timing schemes favour one stream of continuous memory, and put in extra cycles swapping memory access between functions etc. It is actually an efficiency.

Say a 1Ghz unit could do 3 ALU instructions per cycle, it will only make applications that sue it enough, as fast as (theoretically because ti is often not that simple) a 3Ghz cpu that does one a cycle. Still, the 3Ghz has an lead of the same peak ALU power plus the extra 2 Ghz of processing power. An application that doesn't require the ALU can theoretically run 3 times faster on the 3Ghz CPU than than the 1Ghz one.

The future game is media, and game simulation requires simulating all sorts of things past physics and graphics, so general purpose processing is a upcoming vital part of a gaming machine.

Mhz is not a good indicator of finale power, but more Mhz on the same system is. So being able to tell just how much cooling a little unit like the Revo can take, tells how much Mhz they can look at in the size, which tells how much they can afford to clock their system at. Unless they have some massive additions in terms of transistors (new arrays of graphic elements and CPU's, or mega graphics/processing die) rather than just a pure speed increase they should easily do 2Ghz, so 3GHz might require double. maybe even triple, what 2Ghz requires, 1Ghz is far lower again, and why those low powered embedded arms are so slow. The other factor is, that they can build extra complexity into a circuit, instead of Mhz. This is why, at the same Mhz, and shrunk to the same process size, a Power 4 chip would outperform, but run hotter, than the Gamecube's processor.

Putting 16MB of memory on a processor die is totally sane, because it can run very fast, though it has to balanced out to the most performance to cost ratio at the time. I think some of the latest upcoming processors are doing 16MB, or was that 32MB. I prefer 1GB on the processor with advanced clearspeed like co-processor array (AMD is talking to them about using it as a response to the cell, which I predicted would have to be done years ago). As a number of separate chips with embedded memory, and a memory chip stacked on top of each other, this allows memory access to be much faster between the chips, and on chip, as the amount of energy required to push signals off a chip package onto a board, and the length of traces, are a limiting factor on speed, and they can use different types of processes for each chip that better suit their functions with the chips brought together for stacking, main memory being a typical one that requires a very different assembly line fro production. The other factor is, apart from mega dies, price of chips are greatly effected by the amount of pins they have on the package to be connected to dies (a stack of dies just uses connect pads on the dies, the technology is quiet mature) Apart from that they can be stacked side by side (but normally PC processor companies use the big dies). This would reduce drastically the amount of pins (for example no external memory busses needed) so that the main pins could be put down ones side for vertical mounting with cooler units on the front and back of the chip. This also allows for the possibility to run slow busses off the top and side edges of the chip, like USB2, PC HDMI derivative, SATA etc (what do you think they are goign to do with 1 billion transistors+memory when they get there. Actually, you can replace all the pins, including hyper-transport, with a handful of modern peripheral busses (goign to external buffers) and do away with the chipset ;).

And before anybody says it, I know that faster memory is hotter, until they shrink it enough, and take away the off chip memory driving circuits, and swap to one of the upcoming low powered memories.

If this is the speed, on a modestly improved GC, then they could have released it two or three years ago. I'm for either a "April Fools" joke, or that concentration on handheld hardware Nintendo talked about a few years ago, which means this might be the Game Boy advanced 2 spec, or they are pushing this GBA2 spec developers to keep the system cool until they shrink it again (like the PSP did with under clocking) and to make a compatible game base for the GBA2. If it is for system cooling, then the real spec might be closer to 2Ghz. The again, maybe it is a new innovative architecture, or a very complex one that spits out heat. If we knew the process they used, and when the the next process is dues, we might be able to tell. In that case, they might be releasing this months ahead of the die shrink they want, and it will be overclocked to get there, with maybe double the power consumption they want. In that case, it will be one rather warm toy when new games that hit full speed start flooding in next year. Please note, that it doesn't mean that the first under clocked titles are goign to look much different to the majority of initial games on the XBox360, because it is likely it will be vastly improved processing functionality over the GC, an=d many XBox360 games shouldn't hit much of the machines true stride this year either.

Another alternative:
ATI is just readying their next generation core, for the PC market, which means they might be free to use the latest stuff on the Nintendo, now that would run at such a speed for the amount of heat that the box could take. Xbox 360 got that last year. It doesn't quiet explain the processor speed, but if you remember, the Atari Jaguar in the early 90's, it was next generation, and people criticised it for it's processor speed, but as Atari rightly pointed out, that the processor speed didn't really matter, as the co-processors were doing most of the work, and the main processor was just managing thing, sending the jobs to the co-processors. With an more general purpose GPU, like what is proposed for the upcoming generation, this is quiet possible for the speed of the processor it has.

It could be done. So which one is correct?

Just show me a bloody game.
God damn nerds run this world.

Way,

You are a complete idiot. Besides mispelling almost every other word in your reply...you reply is a bunch of techno gibberish that either means nothing, completely wrong, or both at the same time.

I think your response must be some sort of april fools joke...cause i surely hope you dont think you have a clue of what you are talking about.

typo I think.

that should be nerds 'ruin' this world.

Haha, which, almost all, of my spelling is wrong, That isn't a grammar mistake, just how you reply to a gibbering idiot. What are you doing nowadays after your star Wars episode 1,2 and 3 roles, Jar Jar,

Like your picture:
http://www.starwars.com/data bank/character/jarjarbinks/

Did you design the official Star Wars website, or the front page, it looks like it. Re-edit: Ah, it's finished loading, there is actually a menu now, there is some functionality, so you must be clear of that one.

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Seriously, I don't have time to reply to arrogant upstart man ship anymore, that can do little but falsely accuse people about what they know little about (yes clueless) little they know about. I know, because I used the simple standard terms (would you like me to use the really technical ones) common on web usage these days, If I am talking above your knowledge then don't complain, like I am the complete fool, and you are not, Read and learn or let others read in peace. Google some terms instead, or Get a Dictionary for CRS117's Sake. Unless you want to jump up and down and use Black Magic words to describe them instead of the sensible ones. Now I am not going to waste my time lengthening this thread by continuously replying to this stuff.

By the way, misspelling is spelled with two s's, not one, not to mention your "dont", and "april" (it's a noun). Your lucky I don't go around picking the eyes out of other people's spelling and grammar, like you are (without giving an example, mind you).

Have a good day, CRS117.