Viewing Thread:
"Comparing future STATS!"

This might be a bit of a long read so if you want skim read or proceed straight to the STATS.

GameCube-Nintendo!
A lot of people last year and today would say the Playstation 1 kicks the N64 butt everytime. A 32bit console beat a Nintendo 64bit console not in my lifetime. The N64 was double the power, and now Nintendo have a HANDHELD as powerful as the PSX.
The N64 has had some superb games in its life with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and its sequel Majora's Mask, GoldenEye 007 and it's not as successful sequel TWINE and the rude and lewd Conker's BFD.
With Sony and SEGA both now having good 128bit consoles on the market Nintendo have now had to create their own Magic Machine!

THE GAMECUBE!

Up until this year it has been known as Project Dolphin and Nintendo in Japan were considering the name Starcube. But now as we all know Nintendo in North of America wanted GameCube so that is the name we know it as today.
The GameCube when we all first heard about it had a lot of colours that included:
BLUE
PINK
SILVER
PURPLE

But now has been narrowed down to only one PURPLE which suits me fine!

A lot of people have said that the GameCube is reasonably big infact very big as a console, well the Gamecube is a lot smaller than it looks in pictures, and is only about 20-30 by 40!

The companies we know about that Nintendo joined up with for the Gamecube were Matsushita, NEC, IBM, ArtX, MoSys, Macronix, S3, Applied Microsystems, Factor 5, Metrowerks and Conexant. Here if you do not know what they will do I will explain:

Matsushita which is known as Panasonic over here, are and still the largest electronics company in the world, they develop, manufacture and supply Nintendo with a proprietary disc drive to go into the Gamecube. Along with the disc drive Matsushita will also make the 8cm discs for the Gamecube. The discs will also have a very secure plan to prevent chipping and copying (check out the topic chipping your playstation is pointless by Myst1que to find out about that).

At the moment Nintendo's version of the Gamecube does not have a DVD drive neither does it support DVD-, but Matsushita has plans to offer a DVD-player that will, but it will come on sale shortly afterwards at a slightly higher price. A lot of people have said that it looks like a toaster!

IBM-In a deal between Nintendo and IBM that reached over $1 billion, IBM has designed a 405 MHz central processor unit.
The Gekko includes a 256KB of Level 2 cache memory and more efficient data management between the processor and the game system's graphics chip.

NEC manufactures an ArtX-designed graphics chip codenamed "Flipper" as well as the Gamecube's memory parts. Flipper will hold 3MB of embedded 1T-SRAM. Whereas, Sony's PS2 features 4MBs of eDRAM on its graphics chip, but also needs upon additional system RAM all the time. Nintendo has 40MB of system RAM to draw on; 24MB of that is 1T-SRAM and 16MBs of that is A-Memory (100MHz DRAM).

NEC is spending about 80 billion-yen (and don't ask me how much that is in sterling because I ain't got a foggy), to construct a factory in south Japan that will look at the produce of Gamecube.

ArtX is a graphics based start-up, based in California. The company, led by Silicon Graphics. Former head of Nintendo operations, Wei Yen, has also developed the "Flipper" graphics chip for the Gamecube. Yen and his team were also responsible for the Nintendo 64's graphics.

Macronix made the Gamecube's audio DSP that has been added to the design of the Flipper chip.
The GameCube's memory device is called a DIGICARD. It has 4 Megabits of Flash memory and fits into a slot underneath the controller like a PSone.
The GameCube will also be compatible with the SD DIGICARD adapter. This is also compatible with the huge capacity SD Memory card designed by Panasonic and it will give 64MB extra storage space
___________________________________________________________

This is basically what the GameCube is made up of:

MPU (Microprocessor Unit): IBM Gekko Processor

MPU (Microprocessor Unit): IBM PowerPC "Gekko"

Manufacturing process: 0.18 Microns Copper Wire Technology

Clock frequency: 405mhz

CPU capacity: 925 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)

Internal data precision: 32bit & 64bit floating point

External bus bandwidth: 1.6GB/second (peak), (32bit address, 64bit data bus 202.5mhz)

Internal cache: L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way), L2: 256KB (2 way)

System LSI: "Flipper"

Manufacturing process: 0.18 microns NEC Embedded DRAM Process

Clock frequency: 202.5mhz

Embedded frame buffer: Approx. 2MB, Sustainable Latency: 5ns (1T-SRAM)

Embedded Texture Cache: Approx. 1MB, Sustainable Latency: 5ns (1T-SRAM)

Texture Read Bandwidth: 12.8GB/second (peak)

Main Memory Bandwidth: 3.2GB/second (peak)

Colour, Z Buffer: Each is 24bits

Image Processing Function: Fog, subpixel anti-aliasing, HW light x8, alpha blending, virtual texture design, multi-texture mapping/bump/environment mapping, MIPMAP, bilinear filtering, real-time texture decompression (S3TC), etc.

Other: Real-time decompression of display list, HW motion compensation capability

The Gekko MPU integrates the PowerPC CPU into a custom game-centric chip.

(The following sound related functions are all part of into the system LSI)
-Sound processor: Special 16bit DSP
-Instruction memory: 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
-Data memory: 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
-Clock frequency: 101.25mhz
-Minimum number of simultaneously produced sounds: ADPCM: 64ch
-Sampling frequency: 48khz
-System floating point arithmetic capability: 13.0GFLOPS (peak), (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
-Actual display capability: 6 million to 12 million polygons per second (display capability assuming actual game with complexity model, texture, etc.)
-Main memory: 24MB sustainable latency, (10ns or lower 1T-SRAM)
-A-Memory: 16MB (100mhz DRAM)
-Disc Drive: CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) system average access time 128ns, Data transfer speed: 16Mbpsto 25Mbps
-Media: 8cm Nintendo Gamecube Disc based on Matsushita's optical disc technology – approximately 1.5GB capacity
-Input: Controller port: x4, Digicard slot: x2, Analog AV output: x1, Digital AV output: x1, High-speed serial port: x2, High-speed parallel port: x1

-Power supply: AC Adapter DC12V x 3.5A
-Main unit dimensions: 150mm/5.9in(W) x 110mm/4.3in(H) x 161mm/6.3in(D)

S3TC is in the graphics chip and gives or provides a 6:1 ratio for compressing textures. This means if a developer wants to cram 50MB of textures into the Gamecube, it will only use up about 8MB of memory, and because the technology is part of the graphics chip it won't affect the systems resources.

If you don't have a clue or understand what I mean it simply means that it’s a one of the most important parts of the Graphics in the GameCube. And if putting S3TC in every game from the systems launch and onwards, developers will be able to create the best graphics you have ever witnessed in your entire life.

And if you are wondering which console is the best check this part out before you start arguing against someone in a Newbies Console Wars topic!

Polygon Powers:
Gamecube: 6 - 12 million polygons per second
PlayStation 2: 3 - 5million polygons per second
Xbox: 150 million polygons per second not considering real gameplay environments
Dreamcast: About 3 million polygons per second
Nintendo 64: Around 150,000 polygons per second
PlayStation: Around 360,000 polygons per second
Main Clock Speed:
Gamecube: 405MHz
PlayStation 2: 300MHz
Xbox: 733MHz
Dreamcast: 200MHz
Nintendo 64: 93.75MHz
PlayStation: 33.86MHz

Memory:
Gamecube: 24MB of 1T-SRAM (main), 16MB of 100MHz DRAM (main), and 3MB of embedded 1T-SRAM in the graphics chip
PlayStation 2: 32MB Direct Rambus RAM (main), 4MB of embedded DRAM on the graphics chip
Xbox: 64MB of RAM (unified memory architecture)
Dreamcast: 16MB (plus 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM)
Nintendo 64: 4MB (+parity) Rambus D-RAM (expandable to 8MB)
PlayStation: 2MB (plus 1MB Video RAM, 512kb Sound RAM)

Memory Bus Bandwidth:
Gamecube: 3.2 GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
PlayStation 2: 3.2 GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
Xbox: 6.4GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
Dreamcast: 800 MB/s (Megabytes per second)
Nintendo 64: 500 MB/s (Megabytes per second) or about 0.5 GB/s
PlayStation: 132 MB/s (Megabytes per second)

Software Format:
Gamecube: Proprietary Gamecube (Optical) Disc, 1.5 GB capacity
PlayStation 2: Proprietary DVD, 4.7 GB capacity
Xbox: Proprietary DVD, 4.7 GB capacity
Dreamcast: Propriety CD, 1 GB capacity
Nintendo 64: Cartridge, 64MB capacity (so far)
PlayStation: CD, 650 MB capacity

The Nintendo Gamecube Disc: Holds 1.5 Gigabytes of data condensed onto an 8cm in diameter disc. If you compare the data storage capacity of the media to one of Nintendo 64's most popular games, Super Mario 64 (which holds 8MBs), you'll find that the Gamecube disc can store 190 times the data -- or roughly twice the amount of a regular CD game.

The Nintendo Gamecube controller has seven buttons, two analogue stick s (one of them is used for cameras in the game instead of C-buttons), a D-Pad and built in rumble pak like a PS2's.

Also, to the normal controllers, Nintendo has made the Wavebird, which is a wireless joypad. It uses a Radio Frequency system that can transmit up to 10 meters that is much more distance than you will probably need.
Some of the demos that were shown at E3 include:

Meowth's Party:
Meowth's Party images
Meowth's Party (Movie)
Wave Race Game Cube:
Wave Race images
Metroid Game Cube:
Metroid images and impressions
Metroid (images)
Luigi's Mansion:
Luigi's Mansion images
Zelda Game Cube:
Zelda: Link fighting Ganon
Rogue Squadron Game Cube:
Rogue Squadron 2 movies
Rare Demos:
Rare Demos (Impressions/Images)
Rebirth:
Rebirth FMV movies
Too Human:
Too human FMV images
Cars:
High-Polygon Demo: Cars (Impressions)

The Gamecube will have access to the Internet. The modem is a 56k and a broadband on is being built by a hardware company called Conexant. The 56k modem is not going to come in the package with the console, but this could change before Gamecube's release. The broadband modem will be available later.

The GameBoy Advance will be able to hook up with Gamecube. The Gamecube will connect straight to the GBA in a plug. You will be able to use the GBA to build character experience and then transfer the character into full on the Gamecube.

A rumoured $150-200 price is what has been said and heard about everywhere and it should be the cheapest next-gen console about and the most powerful!
At E3 Nintendo said that 4 companies are officially behind them all the way!

·Rareware -- The makers of Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Rareware is working on a sequel to Perfect Dark for Gamecube. Rare is also busy with the next Donkey Kong game and a CBFD game.

·Retro Studios - This company is working on five Gamecube games - a truck racer and first-person shooter a football game, an RPG and Metroid 4.

·Left Field Productions -- These are the developers of Excitebike 64. Left Field is working on a sports game for Gamecube, the next Kobe Bryant basketball game.

·NSTC (Nintendo Software Technology Corporation) – Is working on Wave Race 2

The firm is working on Wave Race for Gamecube.
Others are:

·Silicon Knights
·NDcube


Not very many games have been confirmed for the Nintendo GameCube. Here are some of the known, rumoured and what I know!

·Luigi's Mansion,
·Zelda
·Meowth's Party.
·Wave Race Gamecube.
·Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
·Metroid 4
·1080 Snowboarding
·Super Smash bros. Melee
·Pikmin
·Star Fox: Dinosaur planet
·Eternal Darkness
·NBA Courtside 2002
·Extreme G3
·Super Monkey ball.
I have also heard something about these:
SSX Tricky
Crazy Taxi
Phantasy Star Online V2
Resident Evil 0

_____________________________________________

XBOX

Specifications of Xbox

Xbox
CPU- 733 MHz Intel P3

Graphics Processor- 250 MHz custom-designed X-Chip, developed by

Microsoft and NVIDIA

Total Memory- 64 MB

Memory Bandwidth- 6.4 GB/sec

Polygon Performance- 125 M/sec

Sustained Polygon Performance (full features)- 100+ M/sec (non-gameplay)
Micropolygons/particles per second- 125 M/sec

Particle Performance- 125 M/sec

Simultaneous Textures 4

Pixel Fill Rate - No Texture 4.0 G/Sec (anti-aliased)

Pixel Fill Rate - 1 Textures 4.0 G/Sec (anti-aliased)

Compressed Textures- Yes (6:1)

Full Scene Anti-Alias- Yes

Micro Polygon Support- Yes

Storage Medium- 2-5x DVD, 10 GB hard disk, 8 MB memory card

Audio Channels- 256

3D Audio Support- Yes

MIDI DLS2 Support- Yes

AC3 Encoded game audio- Yes

Broadband Enabled- Yes

Modem Enabled- No

DVD Movie Playback- Remote control package required

Game pad included- Yes
Maximum resolution- 1920 x 1080

Maximum resolution (2 x 32bpp frame buffers +Z)- 1920 x 1080

HDTV Support- Yes

US Launch Date- Fall 2001



The XBOX isn't going to look as big and ugly as we all thought! It will still be the biggest on the market though! The big X with the Sidewinder pad was just a model to show at shows.

The XBOX will be released Autumn 2001 and it is the estimated release date from Microsoft. But no release dates for when it comes out in Japan but there is only a handful of the population in Japan waiting for Bill Gates' console most are waiting in anticipation for the GameCube.

The Xbox will probably be released at $300 US and the same over here or maybe £350.

There are still no definite names of games but it has been said that there is about 12-20 with 30+ titles in the stores by the end of the year 2001.

The Xbox will support DVD and CD. This will include HDTV support.
You won't be able to play DVD's right of the box. You'll have to buy a remote control kit that will have a piece of hardware or software and a remote control this will let you to play normal DVD's on your XBOX.

SEGA will be also creating games for the XBOX as well. Sega confirmed four titles, including Jet Grind Radio Future, Sega GT 2, Gunvalkyrie, and a new Panzer Dragoon game.
A 733MHz P3 processor is incredibly fast, but we all know that in 18 months it won't seem so great when let loose against the gigahertz power of home computers. A separate graphics processor will change all of that by taking the load off of the processor. Graphical data will be sent to the graphics processor while the 733MHz PIII will be able to focus solely on the computing.

Microsoft has announced that there will be a 8MB memory card. There are a lot of possibilities that the company has talked about, such as letting us gamers download demos of upcoming games before they're released.
It has also been confirmed that a few developers will use the extra hard disk space to lower loading times, store more textures, and speed up the overall performance of the games.
Well that is all I know about the XBOX but if you want more check a search site or XBOX home page or something.
Now looking at STATS try and work out where in your own personal charts, which will be top through to last.

Sorry if it was a bit of a long read but there is 5 hours of effort trying to get this down onto here!

Thanx for reading!
ZP

Time_Warp wrote:
> IS it copied...?


A couple of facts I had to look around when I was stumped for words but others are just me typing and copying what I wrote down on other Word docs.

Oh no, Nintendo ar'nt teaming up with Panosonic again are they? Remeber what happend last time, God those dreadful Zelda games, I shudder to think.

How many Polygons can be shifted per second rarely means anything, particularly if the programmers cant push a machine to its limits. Besides which stats are usually doctored (like Microsofts predictions of their new OS being 80% more stable than the last!), as soon as you add lighting, more colours, and other effects such as anti-aliasing then the nunber of polygons that can be shifted drops dramatically.

My advice is to ignore the stats and look at the Games :-)

Sorry everyone.

SRW has deprived me of sleep recently.

turbonutter wrote:
> Cheese, don't quote large amounts of text. I am going to get Tony to
> lower your word count.

That is cruel, can you do that?

IS it copied...?

Spider II wrote:
> Where did you get all that info from! Did you make the consoles or
> something

Well whenever I am on the net I always keep a word doc. open and whenever I see something about the GC or XBOX a write it onto word so yesterday I spent a good 5 hrs putting it all together and makeing it make sense and writing bits about it that had bee found out!

Cheese, don't quote large amounts of text. I am going to get Tony to lower your word count.

Where did you get all that info from! Did you make the consoles or something

zeldapro wrote:
> This might be a bit of a long read so if you want skim read or
> proceed straight to the STATS.

GameCube-Nintendo!
A lot of
> people last year and today would say the Playstation 1 kicks the N64
> butt everytime. A 32bit console beat a Nintendo 64bit console not in
> my lifetime. The N64 was double the power, and now Nintendo have a
> HANDHELD as powerful as the PSX.
The N64 has had some superb
> games in its life with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and its
> sequel Majora's Mask, GoldenEye 007 and it's not as successful
> sequel TWINE and the rude and lewd Conker's BFD.
With Sony and
> SEGA both now having good 128bit consoles on the market Nintendo
> have now had to create their own Magic Machine!

THE
> GAMECUBE!

Up until this year it has been known as Project Dolphin
> and Nintendo in Japan were considering the name Starcube. But now as
> we all know Nintendo in North of America wanted GameCube so that is
> the name we know it as today.
The GameCube when we all first heard
> about it had a lot of colours that
> included:
BLUE
PINK
SILVER
PURPLE

But now has been narrowed
> down to only one PURPLE which suits me fine!

A lot of people
> have said that the GameCube is reasonably big infact very big as a
> console, well the Gamecube is a lot smaller than it looks in
> pictures, and is only about 20-30 by 40!

The companies we know
> about that Nintendo joined up with for the Gamecube were Matsushita,
> NEC, IBM, ArtX, MoSys, Macronix, S3, Applied Microsystems, Factor 5,
> Metrowerks and Conexant. Here if you do not know what they will do
> I will explain:

Matsushita which is known as Panasonic over here,
> are and still the largest electronics company in the world, they
> develop, manufacture and supply Nintendo with a proprietary disc
> drive to go into the Gamecube. Along with the disc drive Matsushita
> will also make the 8cm discs for the Gamecube. The discs will also
> have a very secure plan to prevent chipping and copying (check out
> the topic chipping your playstation is pointless by Myst1que to find
> out about that).

At the moment Nintendo's version of the
> Gamecube does not have a DVD drive neither does it support DVD-, but
> Matsushita has plans to offer a DVD-player that will, but it will
> come on sale shortly afterwards at a slightly higher price. A lot of
> people have said that it looks like a toaster!

IBM-In a deal
> between Nintendo and IBM that reached over $1 billion, IBM has
> designed a 405 MHz central processor unit.
The Gekko includes a
> 256KB of Level 2 cache memory and more efficient data management
> between the processor and the game system's graphics chip.

NEC
> manufactures an ArtX-designed graphics chip codenamed
> "Flipper" as well as the Gamecube's memory parts. Flipper
> will hold 3MB of embedded 1T-SRAM. Whereas, Sony's PS2 features
> 4MBs of eDRAM on its graphics chip, but also needs upon additional
> system RAM all the time. Nintendo has 40MB of system RAM to draw on;
> 24MB of that is 1T-SRAM and 16MBs of that is A-Memory (100MHz DRAM).
>

NEC is spending about 80 billion-yen (and don't ask me how much
> that is in sterling because I ain't got a foggy), to construct a
> factory in south Japan that will look at the produce of Gamecube.
>

ArtX is a graphics based start-up, based in California. The
> company, led by Silicon Graphics. Former head of Nintendo
> operations, Wei Yen, has also developed the "Flipper"
> graphics chip for the Gamecube. Yen and his team were also
> responsible for the Nintendo 64's graphics.

Macronix made the
> Gamecube's audio DSP that has been added to the design of the
> Flipper chip.
The GameCube's memory device is called a DIGICARD.
> It has 4 Megabits of Flash memory and fits into a slot underneath
> the controller like a PSone.
The GameCube will also be compatible
> with the SD DIGICARD adapter. This is also compatible with the huge
> capacity SD Memory card designed by Panasonic and it will give 64MB
> extra storage space
>
___________________________________________________________

This
> is basically what the GameCube is made up of:

MPU (Microprocessor
> Unit): IBM Gekko Processor

MPU (Microprocessor Unit): IBM
> PowerPC "Gekko"

Manufacturing process: 0.18 Microns
> Copper Wire Technology

Clock frequency: 405mhz

CPU capacity:
> 925 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)

Internal data precision: 32bit &
> 64bit floating point

External bus bandwidth: 1.6GB/second
> (peak), (32bit address, 64bit data bus 202.5mhz)

Internal cache:
> L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way), L2: 256KB (2 way)
>

System LSI: "Flipper"

Manufacturing process: 0.18
> microns NEC Embedded DRAM Process

Clock frequency: 202.5mhz
>

Embedded frame buffer: Approx. 2MB, Sustainable Latency: 5ns
> (1T-SRAM)

Embedded Texture Cache: Approx. 1MB, Sustainable
> Latency: 5ns (1T-SRAM)

Texture Read Bandwidth: 12.8GB/second
> (peak)

Main Memory Bandwidth: 3.2GB/second (peak)

Colour, Z
> Buffer: Each is 24bits

Image Processing Function: Fog, subpixel
> anti-aliasing, HW light x8, alpha blending, virtual texture design,
> multi-texture mapping/bump/environment mapping, MIPMAP, bilinear
> filtering, real-time texture decompression (S3TC), etc.

Other:
> Real-time decompression of display list, HW motion compensation
> capability

The Gekko MPU integrates the PowerPC CPU into a
> custom game-centric chip.

(The following sound related functions
> are all part of into the system LSI)
-Sound processor: Special
> 16bit DSP
-Instruction memory: 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
-Data memory:
> 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
-Clock frequency: 101.25mhz
-Minimum number of
> simultaneously produced sounds: ADPCM: 64ch
-Sampling frequency:
> 48khz
-System floating point arithmetic capability: 13.0GFLOPS
> (peak), (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
-Actual display
> capability: 6 million to 12 million polygons per second (display
> capability assuming actual game with complexity model, texture,
> etc.)
-Main memory: 24MB sustainable latency, (10ns or lower
> 1T-SRAM)
-A-Memory: 16MB (100mhz DRAM)
-Disc Drive: CAV
> (Constant Angular Velocity) system average access time 128ns, Data
> transfer speed: 16Mbpsto 25Mbps
-Media: 8cm Nintendo Gamecube Disc
> based on Matsushita's optical disc technology – approximately 1.5GB
> capacity
-Input: Controller port: x4, Digicard slot: x2, Analog AV
> output: x1, Digital AV output: x1, High-speed serial port: x2,
> High-speed parallel port: x1

-Power supply: AC Adapter DC12V x
> 3.5A
-Main unit dimensions: 150mm/5.9in(W) x 110mm/4.3in(H) x
> 161mm/6.3in(D)

S3TC is in the graphics chip and gives or provides
> a 6:1 ratio for compressing textures. This means if a developer
> wants to cram 50MB of textures into the Gamecube, it will only use
> up about 8MB of memory, and because the technology is part of the
> graphics chip it won't affect the systems resources.

If you
> don't have a clue or understand what I mean it simply means that
> it’s a one of the most important parts of the Graphics in the
> GameCube. And if putting S3TC in every game from the systems launch
> and onwards, developers will be able to create the best graphics you
> have ever witnessed in your entire life.

And if you are
> wondering which console is the best check this part out before you
> start arguing against someone in a Newbies Console Wars
> topic!

Polygon Powers:
Gamecube: 6 - 12 million polygons per
> second
PlayStation 2: 3 - 5million polygons per second
Xbox: 150
> million polygons per second not considering real gameplay
> environments
Dreamcast: About 3 million polygons per second
>
Nintendo 64: Around 150,000 polygons per second
PlayStation:
> Around 360,000 polygons per second
Main Clock Speed:
Gamecube:
> 405MHz
PlayStation 2: 300MHz
Xbox: 733MHz
Dreamcast: 200MHz
>
Nintendo 64: 93.75MHz
PlayStation: 33.86MHz
>

Memory:
Gamecube: 24MB of 1T-SRAM (main), 16MB of 100MHz DRAM
> (main), and 3MB of embedded 1T-SRAM in the graphics chip
>
PlayStation 2: 32MB Direct Rambus RAM (main), 4MB of embedded DRAM
> on the graphics chip
Xbox: 64MB of RAM (unified memory
> architecture)
Dreamcast: 16MB (plus 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM)
>
Nintendo 64: 4MB (+parity) Rambus D-RAM (expandable to 8MB)
>
PlayStation: 2MB (plus 1MB Video RAM, 512kb Sound RAM)

Memory
> Bus Bandwidth:
Gamecube: 3.2 GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
>
PlayStation 2: 3.2 GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
Xbox: 6.4GB/s
> (Gigabytes per second)
Dreamcast: 800 MB/s (Megabytes per second)
>
Nintendo 64: 500 MB/s (Megabytes per second) or about 0.5 GB/s
>
PlayStation: 132 MB/s (Megabytes per second)

Software
> Format:
Gamecube: Proprietary Gamecube (Optical) Disc, 1.5 GB
> capacity
PlayStation 2: Proprietary DVD, 4.7 GB capacity
Xbox:
> Proprietary DVD, 4.7 GB capacity
Dreamcast: Propriety CD, 1 GB
> capacity
Nintendo 64: Cartridge, 64MB capacity (so far)
>
PlayStation: CD, 650 MB capacity

The Nintendo Gamecube Disc:
> Holds 1.5 Gigabytes of data condensed onto an 8cm in diameter disc.
> If you compare the data storage capacity of the media to one of
> Nintendo 64's most popular games, Super Mario 64 (which holds 8MBs),
> you'll find that the Gamecube disc can store 190 times the data --
> or roughly twice the amount of a regular CD game.

The Nintendo
> Gamecube controller has seven buttons, two analogue stick s (one of
> them is used for cameras in the game instead of C-buttons), a D-Pad
> and built in rumble pak like a PS2's.

Also, to the normal
> controllers, Nintendo has made the Wavebird, which is a wireless
> joypad. It uses a Radio Frequency system that can transmit up to 10
> meters that is much more distance than you will probably need.
>
Some of the demos that were shown at E3 include:

Meowth's
> Party:
Meowth's Party images
Meowth's Party (Movie)
Wave Race
> Game Cube:
Wave Race images
Metroid Game Cube:
Metroid images
> and impressions
Metroid (images)
Luigi's Mansion:
Luigi's Mansion
> images
Zelda Game Cube:
Zelda: Link fighting Ganon
Rogue
> Squadron Game Cube:
Rogue Squadron 2 movies
Rare Demos:
Rare
> Demos (Impressions/Images)
Rebirth:
Rebirth FMV movies
Too
> Human:
Too human FMV images
Cars:
High-Polygon Demo: Cars
> (Impressions)

The Gamecube will have access to the Internet. The
> modem is a 56k and a broadband on is being built by a hardware
> company called Conexant. The 56k modem is not going to come in the
> package with the console, but this could change before Gamecube's
> release. The broadband modem will be available later.

The
> GameBoy Advance will be able to hook up with Gamecube. The Gamecube
> will connect straight to the GBA in a plug. You will be able to use
> the GBA to build character experience and then transfer the
> character into full on the Gamecube.

A rumoured $150-200 price
> is what has been said and heard about everywhere and it should be
> the cheapest next-gen console about and the most powerful!
At E3
> Nintendo said that 4 companies are officially behind them all the
> way!

·Rareware -- The makers of Perfect Dark,
> Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Rareware is working on a
> sequel to Perfect Dark for Gamecube. Rare is also busy with the next
> Donkey Kong game and a CBFD game.

·Retro Studios - This
> company is working on five Gamecube games - a truck racer and
> first-person shooter a football game, an RPG and Metroid 4.
>

·Left Field Productions -- These are the developers of
> Excitebike 64. Left Field is working on a sports game for Gamecube,
> the next Kobe Bryant basketball game.

·NSTC (Nintendo
> Software Technology Corporation) – Is working on Wave Race 2

The
> firm is working on Wave Race for Gamecube.
Others are:
>

·Silicon Knights
·NDcube


Not very many games
> have been confirmed for the Nintendo GameCube. Here are some of the
> known, rumoured and what I know!

·Luigi's
> Mansion,
·Zelda
·Meowth's Party.
·Wave
> Race Gamecube.
·Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
·Metroid
> 4
·1080 Snowboarding
·Super Smash bros.
> Melee
·Pikmin
·Star Fox: Dinosaur
> planet
·Eternal Darkness
·NBA Courtside
> 2002
·Extreme G3
·Super Monkey ball.
I have also
> heard something about these:
SSX Tricky
Crazy Taxi
Phantasy Star
> Online V2
Resident Evil
> 0

_____________________________________________

XBOX

>
Specifications of Xbox

Xbox
CPU- 733 MHz Intel
> P3

Graphics Processor- 250 MHz custom-designed X-Chip, developed
> by

Microsoft and NVIDIA

Total Memory- 64 MB

Memory
> Bandwidth- 6.4 GB/sec

Polygon Performance- 125
> M/sec

Sustained Polygon Performance (full features)- 100+ M/sec
> (non-gameplay)
Micropolygons/particles per second- 125 M/sec
>

Particle Performance- 125 M/sec

Simultaneous
> Textures 4

Pixel Fill Rate - No Texture 4.0 G/Sec
> (anti-aliased)

Pixel Fill Rate - 1 Textures 4.0 G/Sec
> (anti-aliased)

Compressed Textures- Yes (6:1)

Full Scene
> Anti-Alias- Yes

Micro Polygon Support- Yes

Storage Medium-
> 2-5x DVD, 10 GB hard disk, 8 MB memory card

Audio Channels-
> 256

3D Audio Support- Yes

MIDI DLS2 Support- Yes

AC3
> Encoded game audio- Yes

Broadband Enabled- Yes

Modem
> Enabled- No

DVD Movie Playback- Remote control package
> required

Game pad included- Yes
Maximum resolution- 1920 x
> 1080

Maximum resolution (2 x 32bpp frame buffers +Z)- 1920 x
> 1080

HDTV Support- Yes

US Launch Date- Fall 2001



The
> XBOX isn't going to look as big and ugly as we all thought! It will
> still be the biggest on the market though! The big X with the
> Sidewinder pad was just a model to show at shows.

The XBOX will
> be released Autumn 2001 and it is the estimated release date from
> Microsoft. But no release dates for when it comes out in Japan but
> there is only a handful of the population in Japan waiting for Bill
> Gates' console most are waiting in anticipation for the
> GameCube.

The Xbox will probably be released at $300 US and the
> same over here or maybe £350.

There are still no definite
> names of games but it has been said that there is about 12-20 with
> 30+ titles in the stores by the end of the year 2001.

The Xbox
> will support DVD and CD. This will include HDTV support.
You won't
> be able to play DVD's right of the box. You'll have to buy a remote
> control kit that will have a piece of hardware or software and a
> remote control this will let you to play normal DVD's on your XBOX.
>

SEGA will be also creating games for the XBOX as well. Sega
> confirmed four titles, including Jet Grind Radio Future, Sega GT 2,
> Gunvalkyrie, and a new Panzer Dragoon game.
A 733MHz P3 processor
> is incredibly fast, but we all know that in 18 months it won't seem
> so great when let loose against the gigahertz power of home
> computers. A separate graphics processor will change all of that by
> taking the load off of the processor. Graphical data will be sent to
> the graphics processor while the 733MHz PIII will be able to focus
> solely on the computing.

Microsoft has announced that there will
> be a 8MB memory card. There are a lot of possibilities that the
> company has talked about, such as letting us gamers download demos
> of upcoming games before they're released.
It has also been
> confirmed that a few developers will use the extra hard disk space
> to lower loading times, store more textures, and speed up the
> overall performance of the games.
Well that is all I know about
> the XBOX but if you want more check a search site or XBOX home page
> or something.
Now looking at STATS try and work out where in your
> own personal charts, which will be top through to last.

Sorry if
> it was a bit of a long read but there is 5 hours of effort trying to
> get this down onto here!

Thanx for reading!
ZP



I agree wholeheartedly.