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GBA, the future of handheld gaming...
Rotating sprites,
Mode 7 graphics,
32 bit games,
Hey???? Hold on a sec...
So you're trying to tell me that this pathetically small handheld device has the power of a PS1. Certainly some gamers seem to think it does, but this is simply NOT true!
Although the GBA may have a 32bit processor, it certainly doesn't have the PS1's graphics card, sound board, texture mapping etc, etc...
Which makes me wonder, how many other consoles have "lied" about their power...
Well, the earliest example is the Atari Jaguar... that "64 bit" console released in the early 90s. Sure, it had the right number of bits, but none of the technology to use it!
A bit on from that there was the Mega Drive... the 16 bit console that actually used duel 8bit processors that weren't as efficient as a proper 16bit processor...
Following that we had the Saturn that was so underpowered compared to the PSx (both sega and ninty didn't realise how important 3d gaming was until the psx came out!), that sega just stuck another processor in... in a completely random architecture! The result was a powerful console, but one that needed so much time and money to squeeze life out of that only Sega bothered!
Adn now we're stuck in a situation where all the consoles are 128 bits... a notation that is now meaningless! Instead it's all about the clock speed of the processor, and the architecture of all the componenets of the console. Add onto this the fact that in games other effects can be used, and this makes it impossible to judge the "more powerful" console. Suffice it to say, Xbox comes out on top, with GC following, and the PS2 not far behind (developers have had time to refine techniques on the Ps2).
But it's the games that count....
Sonic
Rotating sprites,
Mode 7 graphics,
32 bit games,
Hey???? Hold on a sec...
So you're trying to tell me that this pathetically small handheld device has the power of a PS1. Certainly some gamers seem to think it does, but this is simply NOT true!
Although the GBA may have a 32bit processor, it certainly doesn't have the PS1's graphics card, sound board, texture mapping etc, etc...
Which makes me wonder, how many other consoles have "lied" about their power...
Well, the earliest example is the Atari Jaguar... that "64 bit" console released in the early 90s. Sure, it had the right number of bits, but none of the technology to use it!
A bit on from that there was the Mega Drive... the 16 bit console that actually used duel 8bit processors that weren't as efficient as a proper 16bit processor...
Following that we had the Saturn that was so underpowered compared to the PSx (both sega and ninty didn't realise how important 3d gaming was until the psx came out!), that sega just stuck another processor in... in a completely random architecture! The result was a powerful console, but one that needed so much time and money to squeeze life out of that only Sega bothered!
Adn now we're stuck in a situation where all the consoles are 128 bits... a notation that is now meaningless! Instead it's all about the clock speed of the processor, and the architecture of all the componenets of the console. Add onto this the fact that in games other effects can be used, and this makes it impossible to judge the "more powerful" console. Suffice it to say, Xbox comes out on top, with GC following, and the PS2 not far behind (developers have had time to refine techniques on the Ps2).
But it's the games that count....
Sonic
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Dringo wrote:
> The GBA can do better 2D graphics than a Playstation and the N64 was all
> designed around 3D hence the 3D stick.
Hmmmmm...
but you forget, that the GBA shows the games on a tiny screen, that can't store anywhere near the amount of details of a PSX game... the GBA also has far less memory and vector processors etc...
Which means the GBA can't really do graphics better than a PSX.
Ortega wrote:
"I think Sonic was refering to the SNES, not the N64. Because the psx came out way before the N64, and we all know Mario 64 showed the whole gaming world how to do a proper 3d platformer."
No... I meant the N64!
You see, Sony, ninty and Sega developed the PSX, N64 and Saturn at about the same time. And then, Sony jumped out with the console specs hwich clearly demonstrated that the company valued 3D gaming as a really big thing, so to speak. Ninty and Sega had designed their consoles around the continuence of 2D dominance. So when they heard the Sony specs, Sega rushed the console design, and pushed the release FORWARDS(!) turning the console into a disaster. Ninty decided to take time over the development of the console to turn it into a 3D machine... hence it came out after the PSX.
Finally, someone was saying that the PS2 has a main CPU and an Emotion Engine. The EE is just the name of the processor... like the GC's chip is called the Gecko, and my PC's chip is called the Pentium
Sonic
> The GBA can do better 2D graphics than a Playstation and the N64 was all
> designed around 3D hence the 3D stick.
Hmmmmm...
but you forget, that the GBA shows the games on a tiny screen, that can't store anywhere near the amount of details of a PSX game... the GBA also has far less memory and vector processors etc...
Which means the GBA can't really do graphics better than a PSX.
Ortega wrote:
"I think Sonic was refering to the SNES, not the N64. Because the psx came out way before the N64, and we all know Mario 64 showed the whole gaming world how to do a proper 3d platformer."
No... I meant the N64!
You see, Sony, ninty and Sega developed the PSX, N64 and Saturn at about the same time. And then, Sony jumped out with the console specs hwich clearly demonstrated that the company valued 3D gaming as a really big thing, so to speak. Ninty and Sega had designed their consoles around the continuence of 2D dominance. So when they heard the Sony specs, Sega rushed the console design, and pushed the release FORWARDS(!) turning the console into a disaster. Ninty decided to take time over the development of the console to turn it into a 3D machine... hence it came out after the PSX.
Finally, someone was saying that the PS2 has a main CPU and an Emotion Engine. The EE is just the name of the processor... like the GC's chip is called the Gecko, and my PC's chip is called the Pentium
Sonic
Some great points. It's hard to judge a console by the stats we're fed with. After all, how many of us can REALLY understand all the figures thrown at us?
I've always found the best policy to try all the consoles available with a variety of games before making any purchases.
I have to say the PS2 sounds a lot more powerful on paper than what i've seen thus far.
I've always found the best policy to try all the consoles available with a variety of games before making any purchases.
I have to say the PS2 sounds a lot more powerful on paper than what i've seen thus far.
Bonus wrote:
> A brilliant article on the new consoles can be found here
> http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1566
That's part 2 concentrating on
> the Gamecube, you'll have to hunt about for part 1 about the Xbox, part three
> concerning the PS2 coming soon.
just read that and have to agree that it contains a lot of good points, worth a read if you are at all interested in this kind of stuff.
> A brilliant article on the new consoles can be found here
> http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1566
That's part 2 concentrating on
> the Gamecube, you'll have to hunt about for part 1 about the Xbox, part three
> concerning the PS2 coming soon.
just read that and have to agree that it contains a lot of good points, worth a read if you are at all interested in this kind of stuff.
A brilliant article on the new consoles can be found here http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1566
That's part 2 concentrating on the Gamecube, you'll have to hunt about for part 1 about the Xbox, part three concerning the PS2 coming soon.
That's part 2 concentrating on the Gamecube, you'll have to hunt about for part 1 about the Xbox, part three concerning the PS2 coming soon.
Strafex wrote:
> So what you're saying is, games don't really use 128 bit binary strings that
> much anyway, as 32 does just fine?
No, not really, a signle part of each processor runs at a core bit legnth. Inside the gekko and emotion engines, the floating point processors are only 64bit.......
Bit length means absolutely nothing, as it isn';t that simple. Ignore bit lengths altogether unless it's a compatibility issue, for performance they mean very little.
> So what you're saying is, games don't really use 128 bit binary strings that
> much anyway, as 32 does just fine?
No, not really, a signle part of each processor runs at a core bit legnth. Inside the gekko and emotion engines, the floating point processors are only 64bit.......
Bit length means absolutely nothing, as it isn';t that simple. Ignore bit lengths altogether unless it's a compatibility issue, for performance they mean very little.
So what you're saying is, games don't really use 128 bit binary strings that much anyway, as 32 does just fine?
At a basic level that is?
I think that's what you mean...
At a basic level that is?
I think that's what you mean...
Ok here goes, trying to make sense here so forgive me if it dosn't.
As anyone who knows a fair bit about computing in general should agree here. In the same way that clock speed of a processor tells you very little these days in terms of performance the bit rating of consoles is more or less a marketing tool. Just because the X-Box is a 32 bit console does not mean it is inferior in terms of performance, infact it is probably the most advanced console to date. The higher the bit rating of a console usually means that there will be larger registers and more memory addressability for the developers but these aren't really useful for games on consoles, maybe in the future they will be but not at this moment in time.
The X-Box has a 32 bit CPU with a clock speed of 733 MHz, again this clock speed is more of a marketing term than a true definition of the performance. The GameCube has a clock speed of 485 Mhz but it has a 7 step pipeline compared to the X-Box which is probably around 20 step pipeline. Due to this the gamecube can perform at a similar level to the x-box as it can process instructions just as fast although if you compare them by clock speeds you would think the X-Box is nearly twice as good as a gamecube.
As was mentioned before it is not just the CPU that does everything within the console but that dosn't change the fact that the X-Box is a 32 bit console, the other components combined make the x-box outperform the PS2 and GameCube.
All the consoles have their own good and bad points, the PS2 emotion engine has a lot of potential but many developers claim it is to hard to program for. The X-Box and Gamecube both have architectures similar to PC's. I'm going to cut this short, firstly because I have to go home from uni and secondly because most people on here already understand that it is the games that matter. There is no point having a "Super console" if the games on it are utter pants. This is why all three consoles should do extremely well, competition will be very high and hard to pick a winner.
I don't think the console wars this time will be that great a thing, next time Nintendo and Sony release a console (maybe other companies too) then maybe we will see a better "console war"
As anyone who knows a fair bit about computing in general should agree here. In the same way that clock speed of a processor tells you very little these days in terms of performance the bit rating of consoles is more or less a marketing tool. Just because the X-Box is a 32 bit console does not mean it is inferior in terms of performance, infact it is probably the most advanced console to date. The higher the bit rating of a console usually means that there will be larger registers and more memory addressability for the developers but these aren't really useful for games on consoles, maybe in the future they will be but not at this moment in time.
The X-Box has a 32 bit CPU with a clock speed of 733 MHz, again this clock speed is more of a marketing term than a true definition of the performance. The GameCube has a clock speed of 485 Mhz but it has a 7 step pipeline compared to the X-Box which is probably around 20 step pipeline. Due to this the gamecube can perform at a similar level to the x-box as it can process instructions just as fast although if you compare them by clock speeds you would think the X-Box is nearly twice as good as a gamecube.
As was mentioned before it is not just the CPU that does everything within the console but that dosn't change the fact that the X-Box is a 32 bit console, the other components combined make the x-box outperform the PS2 and GameCube.
All the consoles have their own good and bad points, the PS2 emotion engine has a lot of potential but many developers claim it is to hard to program for. The X-Box and Gamecube both have architectures similar to PC's. I'm going to cut this short, firstly because I have to go home from uni and secondly because most people on here already understand that it is the games that matter. There is no point having a "Super console" if the games on it are utter pants. This is why all three consoles should do extremely well, competition will be very high and hard to pick a winner.
I don't think the console wars this time will be that great a thing, next time Nintendo and Sony release a console (maybe other companies too) then maybe we will see a better "console war"
Bonus wrote:
> Hmmmm, this one baffles me a bit, maybe it's just my lack of understanding, but I always thought that the emotion engine was the main CPU inside the PS2. It contains the core processor, the two vector units, the MPEG
> decoder and hadles data transfers between all the other chips. The GS is the graphics synthesiser which merely converts the display lists sent to it be the emotion engine and applies extra features such as mip-mapping, anti-aliasing, amongst others if the developers implement them.
OK.. May have got them the wrong way around, but both ae still 128bit each... Thanks for the corection Bonus!
One thing that is unique tot he PS2 is it's texture handling. Unlike the XBOX and GC which rely on hardware to do all of its textures, the PS2 streams them off the disc and only rely on a smaller chip to handle them.
A lot of developers complained about it's poor texture handling at the beginning but have now realised that the possibilities are enormous!!
> Hmmmm, this one baffles me a bit, maybe it's just my lack of understanding, but I always thought that the emotion engine was the main CPU inside the PS2. It contains the core processor, the two vector units, the MPEG
> decoder and hadles data transfers between all the other chips. The GS is the graphics synthesiser which merely converts the display lists sent to it be the emotion engine and applies extra features such as mip-mapping, anti-aliasing, amongst others if the developers implement them.
OK.. May have got them the wrong way around, but both ae still 128bit each... Thanks for the corection Bonus!
One thing that is unique tot he PS2 is it's texture handling. Unlike the XBOX and GC which rely on hardware to do all of its textures, the PS2 streams them off the disc and only rely on a smaller chip to handle them.
A lot of developers complained about it's poor texture handling at the beginning but have now realised that the possibilities are enormous!!
Tyla wrote:
> PS2's main CPU (GS) is 128bit, but the EE is also 128bit so most of the work is
> done by one and delivered with the other, plus the two vector units!
Hmmmm, this one baffles me a bit, maybe it's just my lack of understanding, but I always thought that the emotion engine was the main CPU inside the PS2. It contains the core processor, the two vector units, the MPEG decoder and hadles data transfers between all the other chips. The GS is the graphics synthesiser which merely converts the display lists sent to it be the emotion engine and applies extra features such as mip-mapping, anti-aliasing, amongst others if the developers implement them.
Also talking word lengths in consoles means diddly squat. If it really wanted to be impressive, Sony could Shoy off at how it's GS embedded memory had an I/O word legnth of 2550, yes that's 2550 bit architecture for the VRAM giving it a massive bandwidth of 48Gb.
Talking bits means nothing, all that matters is what is on show from the console, to date, the Xbox has the textures, resolution and wow factor, the PS2 has the special effects and the GC sits comfortably in between.
In the end what matters to the end user?? being entertained by the games they play, cue GTA3, Devil May Cry, Pro Evo Soccer and Tony Hawks 3. I'm sure owners of the other consoles will be happy with their systems, when they get them, that is...........
> PS2's main CPU (GS) is 128bit, but the EE is also 128bit so most of the work is
> done by one and delivered with the other, plus the two vector units!
Hmmmm, this one baffles me a bit, maybe it's just my lack of understanding, but I always thought that the emotion engine was the main CPU inside the PS2. It contains the core processor, the two vector units, the MPEG decoder and hadles data transfers between all the other chips. The GS is the graphics synthesiser which merely converts the display lists sent to it be the emotion engine and applies extra features such as mip-mapping, anti-aliasing, amongst others if the developers implement them.
Also talking word lengths in consoles means diddly squat. If it really wanted to be impressive, Sony could Shoy off at how it's GS embedded memory had an I/O word legnth of 2550, yes that's 2550 bit architecture for the VRAM giving it a massive bandwidth of 48Gb.
Talking bits means nothing, all that matters is what is on show from the console, to date, the Xbox has the textures, resolution and wow factor, the PS2 has the special effects and the GC sits comfortably in between.
In the end what matters to the end user?? being entertained by the games they play, cue GTA3, Devil May Cry, Pro Evo Soccer and Tony Hawks 3. I'm sure owners of the other consoles will be happy with their systems, when they get them, that is...........
AliBoy wrote:
> it only has a 32 bit CPU which was chosen
> for a good reason.
That's just the CPU? But the archtecture of the XBOX doesn't rely on the main CPU doing all of the work, it just delivers the end product...
The PS2's main CPU (GS) is 128bit, but the EE is also 128bit so most of the work is done by one and delivered with the other, plus the two vector units!
The GC has a single 128bit CPU but has other chips handling textures etc..
Bit rate is becoming more irrelivant, it's more down to how the architecture works.
The Jaguar and the N64 were made form the smae architecture, the difference being that no one knew how to use it with the Jaguar at the time!!
> it only has a 32 bit CPU which was chosen
> for a good reason.
That's just the CPU? But the archtecture of the XBOX doesn't rely on the main CPU doing all of the work, it just delivers the end product...
The PS2's main CPU (GS) is 128bit, but the EE is also 128bit so most of the work is done by one and delivered with the other, plus the two vector units!
The GC has a single 128bit CPU but has other chips handling textures etc..
Bit rate is becoming more irrelivant, it's more down to how the architecture works.
The Jaguar and the N64 were made form the smae architecture, the difference being that no one knew how to use it with the Jaguar at the time!!
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