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"Maybe there'll be a next generation after all..."

I'm sure you've all noticed.

The Playstation and Saturn revolutionised gaming by standardising 3D graphics.
Nintendo took this further by standardising 3D gameplay.

The Playstation was largely more powerful than the Saturn, the N64 was largely more powerful than the Playstation but after that it slowed down a fair bit...

Although the Dreamcast was obviously more powerful than the Playstation/N64, it didn't quite blow them away the way new consoles normally do.
When the PS2 came out, the difference shrank further, with Dreamcast games actually looking BETTER than many PS2 games.

And now with the Xbox and Gamecube, although each has different specs, if you look at the actual games, you can barely notice a significant difference.
The Xbox, Gamecube and PS2 have surpased all the old limitations of the last generation's hardware and the only limitations seen so far are so superficial (e.g. the graphics don't look QUITE photorealistic), they're not really worth worrying about or buying a new machine for.

That's why you could be thinking that there wouldn't be a proper next generation for quite some time.
Shigsy seemed to think so to, stating that the Gamecube would last 8 years.


So this is the end of the line for devellopment?
The next generation will completely fail to impress?

Well maybe not...
Not with new evidence...

I read the New Scientist the other day.
Apparently, by combining the strengths of various semi conductors, IBM have managed to make a 110 Ghz CPU.
That's more or less 100 times as powerful as modern processors!

What is the PS2 a hundred times as powerful as?
Those old 25 Mhz 386's that couldn't manage 3D graphics properly?

Implement this new technology into graphics/sound chips, it seems that there's about to be a boom in power.
The PC will be the first to taste this power but it will be expensive and few games will support the new expensive-not-widely-owned hardware.

The Playstation 3 will be the first to use it properly, combining state of the art power with a standard userbase, allowing devellopers to take advantage of it.

And I expect that Nintendo and Microsoft will follow with their own power boxes.

I know it's nothing to get overly excited about yet, especially as we haven't got into this generation with the GC and Xbox yet to be released over here, but it is nice to know that there IS a future...

Ha, the smiley went over 2 lines!!! :-D

Anyway, that sounds like a good idea, I remember this thing they used somewhere on a TV show AGES ago where you stood on a round circley thing, and did moves like kicks, punches, etc. and Streets of Rage (not sure whether it was a version designed for that control system) was playing on a big TV and the character pulled off moves like the ones the human on the circle did.

That's one type of control to be looked into, and I saw a kind of low tech PSX version of this with a mat and some sticks you could hit to represent pushing certain buttons.

Anyway, different control systems definitely should be considered for the generations after PS2, Xbox and GC...

That'd be a brilliant idea for a game like Toy Story or Micro Machines for example!
But it'd probably take you a good deal of time to get it all sorted so that it all works in 3D in the game, with jumps, slopes and everything.

I was talking about hologram games about a year back but everyone ignored me! :-D/( (not sure which face to use...)

I think that it would be cool if the system actually scanned your room so you could have a platforming game accross your settee's and climb up your curtains, or some air comabt simulator where you could crash into the light...

I think that it's a long way off yet though, but definately the future!

If you could put the article up, I would be interested to read it.

Also, the figures I'm quoting from Intel were released by them last autumn sometime, so it could be this new development will speed things up significantly.

However, on thing I've now mentioned twice, and has had no responce at all, is the fact that, I feel, in the next generation (XBox 2, PS3 etc) power won't be the most important aspect.

Priorty will go to how we control the game, how we view it. Will we still be using 2D TV and a crappy joypad?

We're already seeing specific controllers releaed for consoles, Sega's fishing rod attachment, MS's snowboard controller thing, Sega's maracca attachment for Sambo De Amigo etc.

In the arcades they have footballs you actually kick, instead of a button to press. In games like Time Crises they have movement sensors to tell when you duck etc.

I feel that this will be the next big leap. As you said yourself, we have near photo realistic graphics already, they can't get much better.

What we need is to immerse ourselves in the gaming world even more. How can we do that we we're still watching telly and having a crappy plastic controller that vibrates unconvincingly every so often?

Exactly.

This has squat to do with devellopments in the direction of Moore's law.

I'll read the article again later but it was something to do with using Germanium as well as Silicon in order to get the most efficient set-up.

Apparently, it's something that all leading chip designers have been trying to do but IBM got there first.
The likes of Intel and Co will follow with their own versions - probably even better ones - sooner or later.

And I know that there's more to power than simply a fast processor, but the the technology used to make the processor run faster could be adapted and applied to graphics chips and the like with relative ease.

Although a processor of this technology won't be out for a while yet, and the chances are that it won't work as well as the 110 Ghz tests say it does, it should still be available within about 2 years at roughly 80 - 150 Ghz.

I think that this new technology will be ready in time for the next generation of consoles atleast.
I'll re-read the article later a print it word for word, see what you all make of it.

I did read the original post.

Industry has bene using CPU's of around 3Gig for the last 4 years. Where was the home CPU market 4 years ago? Around 400Meg.

Just because IBM have got 1 chip working at 110Gig (which wouldn't even be able to windows as they're specialist chips designed to run only one or two applications), probably in a box the size of a room, embedded into a freezer or something, doesn't mean we'll be using them any time soon.

Intel, who would know, produced what's called a Road Map of where they thought the HOME CPU market would be, and they said that the standard HOME CPU would be around 20 Gig in 2007.

According to Intel, the CPU market would follow some law that stats the CPU speeds double every 18 months to 2 years.

Which means in 2 years time, we'll be using around 3-4Gig chips, as the standard is now around 1.5-2Gig.

By that time, industry will be using specialist chips that will be far far quicker than that.

So read the rest of my previous post, and see why CPU doesn't really matter that much for the next leap in gaming anyway...

YH, read the original post.

Now read this weeks copy of the New Scientist (be quick, the new one is out tomorrow).

IBM have develloped a 110 Ghz chip.

I know it won't be used properly in mainstream for a while but I think you can safely expect the next generation consoles to have chips around the 300 Ghz mark.

We are talking about 2 or 3 years from now.

Your Honour wrote:
> 20 GHz CPU's would be standard in PC's by the year 2007.


That what I heard too. Intel actually already know how to make these chips. Its just getting cost effectiveness down i think (or something)

300 GHz CPU's in a year and a half? I doubt it, certainly not in the mainstream.

I wrote a piece before Christmas based on Intels predictions that 20 GHz CPU's would be standard in PC's by the year 2007.

But what you have to think about is not how powerful the console is, as you said yourself, we've got near photo-realistic graphics now, it's not going to take much of an improvement to get proper photo-realistic graphics.

Where I feel the next improvement will be is in how we view what's going on in the game.

With a telly, you can NEVER EVER have proper 3D, as it's a 2D screen. There's no point in having 20Gig chips, if we're still watching on a 28" TV.

We need something new, something to immerse us in the game world more.

Maybe VR? They were in the arcades a few years back, but the problem was the screens were so small, that the resolution was crap. Now we can ge very high resolution in a small screen, meaning the graphics would be better.

Maybe Holographics, like the game of chess seen in Star Wars. That would be cool, playing DoA 5, with a holographic arena projected onto your bedroom floor, so you can view the action from any angle.

How good would that be for games like MGS etc? Fantastic!

It wouldn't work so well for other genres, driving games etc, or FPS's.

With both of those options, you have the problem of how the game would be controlled. Would you really want to be immeresed with your VR helmet etc, but then still have to use a normal joypad?

The holographic thing *could* work with a joypad, for some genres, mainly fighting and 3rd person titles.

I feel that hardware manufacturers need to think about the whole system. How the games will be displayed, how they will be controlled, rather than just chucking faster and faster CPU's in their systems.

There WILL be a leap into 3D television. When I was at uni some of the lecturers were part of a nation research group thing, and they were researching 3D tv, apparently they will be on the market, and affordable, within 10 years.

This new chip breaks moore's law.

But like you said, if within 1.5 years we get onto 300 Ghz processors and it keeps improving from there...