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"Bonus, a techy question for you re Xbox and PS2"

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Sat 30/06/01 at 09:28
Regular
Posts: 787
Bonus, I’d like to ask you a question about the tech article which compares the PS2 to a PC ( http://www.arstechnica.com/ cpu/2q00/ps2/ps2vspc-1.html )

In this it has an analogy that represents cache size and bus speed properties. For those who haven’t read it here it is:

“Imagine a series of large buckets, connected by pipes to a main tank, with a cow lapping water out of each bucket. Since cows don't drink too fast, the pipes don't have to be too large to keep the buckets full and the cows happy. Now imagine that same setup, except with elephants on the other end instead of cows. The elephants are sucking water out so fast that you've got to do something drastic to keep them happy. One option would be to enlarge the pipes just a little (*cough* AGP *cough*), and stick insanely large buckets on the ends of them (*cough* 64MB GeForce *cough*). You then fill the buckets up to the top every morning, leave the water on all day, and pray to God that the elephants don't get too thirsty. This only works to a certain extent though, because a really thirsty elephant would still end up draining the bucket faster than you can fill it. And what happens when the elephants have kids, and the kids are even thirstier? You're only delaying the inevitable with this solution, because the problem isn't with the buckets, it's with the pipes (assuming an infinite supply of water). A better approach would be to just ditch the buckets altogether and make the pipes really, really large. You'd also want to stick some pans on the ends of the pipes as a place to collect the water before it gets consumed, but the pans don't have to be that big because the water isn't staying in them very long.”

So as you can see the PS2 has stupidly large pipes that pump into immensely tint pans vs. the Xbox which presumably has AGP-sized pipes and stupidly large buckets. What I want to know is will the Xbox’s cache/buckets ever “empty” and reduce the performance of the Xbox over a long session?

As far as I am aware, this would probably crash it, which is NOT what you want during the middle of a game. Perhaps it won’t crash, maybe there will be a severe slow-down for a second or gradual slow-down after a long time. I don’t really know but as far as I am aware something is going to happen when the buckets run out and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Another thing I was worrying about was could this ever happen to the PS2? If all the data is basically just being streamed down the bus to the cache then off again then surely things like this won’t affect the PS2.

Anyway, I’m not a tech genius (software is my realm) so could you sort this out for me?
Sat 30/06/01 at 10:47
Regular
Posts: 23,218
must be
Sat 30/06/01 at 10:45
Regular
"Eff, you see, kay?"
Posts: 14,156
So, bucket size doesn't matter, it's all down to the pipes?
Sat 30/06/01 at 10:39
Regular
Posts: 14,117
It won't happen to either of the consoles simply because the size of the pipes and buckets will be taken into account when the game is being made.

As The Game says, you couldn't run MGS on the SNES as the AI routines and texture processing etc would drain the buckets much quicker than the pipes could fill them.

A good example of buckets being to small is when you try and run a game on your PC in a higher resolution than it can handle. It jerks. It can't fill the buckets quick enough so the screen can't refrsh as quickly as it needs to.
Sat 30/06/01 at 09:44
Regular
Posts: 23,218
i aint bother if it happens to x box
Sat 30/06/01 at 09:43
Regular
"Fishing For Reddies"
Posts: 4,986
In comparison....
Sat 30/06/01 at 09:42
Regular
"Fishing For Reddies"
Posts: 4,986
I think, basically it is just whether or not the console is capable of playing the game. You know there are some games that consoles can't handle... you couldn't put MGS2 on the SNES because it drinks too fast, the pipes aren't big enough and the buckets have turned into cat bowls...

The only reason consoles slow down is because they can't process all the data... this shouldn't happen with the X-Box because of the sec, although the PS2 might suffer because it isn't very powerful.

Game: Still Waiting...
Sat 30/06/01 at 09:34
Posts: 0
My heads spinning.
Sat 30/06/01 at 09:31
Regular
"qwertyuiop!!"
Posts: 2,517
Now I'm Confused!!!
Sat 30/06/01 at 09:28
Regular
"Eff, you see, kay?"
Posts: 14,156
Bonus, I’d like to ask you a question about the tech article which compares the PS2 to a PC ( http://www.arstechnica.com/ cpu/2q00/ps2/ps2vspc-1.html )

In this it has an analogy that represents cache size and bus speed properties. For those who haven’t read it here it is:

“Imagine a series of large buckets, connected by pipes to a main tank, with a cow lapping water out of each bucket. Since cows don't drink too fast, the pipes don't have to be too large to keep the buckets full and the cows happy. Now imagine that same setup, except with elephants on the other end instead of cows. The elephants are sucking water out so fast that you've got to do something drastic to keep them happy. One option would be to enlarge the pipes just a little (*cough* AGP *cough*), and stick insanely large buckets on the ends of them (*cough* 64MB GeForce *cough*). You then fill the buckets up to the top every morning, leave the water on all day, and pray to God that the elephants don't get too thirsty. This only works to a certain extent though, because a really thirsty elephant would still end up draining the bucket faster than you can fill it. And what happens when the elephants have kids, and the kids are even thirstier? You're only delaying the inevitable with this solution, because the problem isn't with the buckets, it's with the pipes (assuming an infinite supply of water). A better approach would be to just ditch the buckets altogether and make the pipes really, really large. You'd also want to stick some pans on the ends of the pipes as a place to collect the water before it gets consumed, but the pans don't have to be that big because the water isn't staying in them very long.”

So as you can see the PS2 has stupidly large pipes that pump into immensely tint pans vs. the Xbox which presumably has AGP-sized pipes and stupidly large buckets. What I want to know is will the Xbox’s cache/buckets ever “empty” and reduce the performance of the Xbox over a long session?

As far as I am aware, this would probably crash it, which is NOT what you want during the middle of a game. Perhaps it won’t crash, maybe there will be a severe slow-down for a second or gradual slow-down after a long time. I don’t really know but as far as I am aware something is going to happen when the buckets run out and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Another thing I was worrying about was could this ever happen to the PS2? If all the data is basically just being streamed down the bus to the cache then off again then surely things like this won’t affect the PS2.

Anyway, I’m not a tech genius (software is my realm) so could you sort this out for me?

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