Xbox 360 or Ps3 or Nintendo Revolution.

[gimli of gloin]

mmmm i dunno, a pc would be a good choice.

 

[gimli of gloin]

NONE of them, console gaming = bad!

i agree

 

[Kalek]

the order i prefer.

1. XBOX 360

2. PS3

3. Nintendo Revolution.

 

[PZEROFGH]

if XBOX uses ATi then im going with the PS3.

how are they going to make a GTA4...? in the real world 2006 lol no
ps3 is coming out next spring that aint a couple of months
the xbox360 is coming this thanksgiving,
whens the revolution coming out??? and if they come with free games from the past im getting that dude


600 POSTS! i had to find somewhere else cause i had to psot fast to get 600

 

[killians45]

Yes lol, I just think it's amazing how console gaming is looking more and more like PC gaming every generation, heh.

And I am not afraid to admit the truth because PC gaming owns console gaming! Anyone can say, "Hey, I have a Xbox 360!"

PC gamers can brag, we can say: "I have an FX-59 w/ 1GB PC5400 RAM and a 7800GTX, what do you have?"


Yes PC's will catch up, but not as quick as you think. You see, they are using the powerPC setup (very similar to the cell, however unlike the cell the multi processor divisor is ON THE CHIP), and not dependent upon how many cell processors are online, how much bandwidth is available for process sharing via networking, and how much processing power is available via other processors. Now, the powerPC never took off because of pricing problems. For the PC market to catch up, there will have to be a major change/revolution going on in hardware. Completely new architecture, rewritten hardware instruction, a learning curve due to having ordered instructions, getting the software industry and all hardware industry behind it (because remember, you are now dealing with a huge array of different hardare setups as more hardware manufactureres get on the boat). Problem is, until it shows to make money, not many will imitate this except the more succesfull companies who will probably charge alot of money for this technology. As a result, unless it becomes popular (can anyone say powerPC??) it will never take off. Yes, powerPC's are used, but mostly via graphic design artists because of its huge processing strengths. Now, a break down:


XBox 360 and its unified shader:

'Feldstein cited several major areas of innovation where the Xbox 360 GPU breaks new ground. The first of those is the chip's unified shader array, which does away with separate vertex and pixel shaders in favor of 48 parallel shaders capable of operating on data for both pixels and vertices. The GPU can dynamically allocate shader resources as necessary in order to best address a computational constraint, whether that constraint is vertex- or pixel-related.

This sort of graphics architecture has been rumored as a future possibility for some time, but ATI worried that using unified shaders might cause some efficiency loss. To keep all of the shader units utilized as fully as possible, the design team created a complex system of hardware threading inside the chip itself. In this case, each thread is a program associated with the shader arrays. The Xbox 360 GPU can manage and maintain state information on 64 separate threads in hardware. There's a thread buffer inside the chip, and the GPU can switch between threads instantaneously in order to keep the shader arrays busy at all times.

This internal complexity allows for efficient use of the GPU's computational resources, but it's also completely hidden from software developers, who need only to write their shader programs without worrying about the details of the chip's internal thread scheduling. '

So as you can see here, a unified shader has finally been done and is able to be efficiently used. How does this differ? Well, on a PC when ever the shader is being used, say a pixel shader, it will stand in, for lack of a better word, a que. Usually processing time is accurately determined, but what can happen sometimes is it takes longer to process that thread and when the vertex shader runs it must wait its turn and sometimes you get that weird artifact or small jumps. Now, this is something important to read:

If I have read it once, I have read it a thousand times, “The Xbox 360 is just ATI’s next generation (fill in favorite code name here) GPU.” The simple answer to that is, “No it is not.” While most modern GPUs share many architectural similarities, Bob Feldstein and Chris Evenden of ATI went out of their way to explain to me, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise, that the Xbox 360 GPU is very much an original creation. While some will try to tell you that is it simply a modified DirectX 9 GPU, you might be interested to learn that the only API spec that the Xbox 360 hardware meets is its own API. That is correct, the Xbox 360 GPU only meets it own Xbox 360 API specifications. While of course some lessons learned in DX9 and upcoming DX10 were applied, the GPU of the Xbox 360 is very much its own and comparing it directly to anything in the PC world is simply “not right” according to Mr. Feldstein. Obviously, the Xbox 360 can be thought of as a very innovative solution specifically for the Xbox and only the Xbox.

One interesting thing that was said to me during our conversation was that 3D game content developers were relied on along the way as the GPU was designed. Not consulted with or talked to once in a while, but relied upon for their GPU functionality requests and feedback as to the GPUÂ’s implementation. Also keep in mind that Microsoft owns this technology and while there is certainly a good amount of technology sharing between ATI and Microsoft, Microsoft has the ability to make their own changes and take the part anywhere in the world to be fabricated. So while it is ATIÂ’s design, it is fundamentally MicrosoftÂ’s GPU. All this and more indicates that the Xbox 360 GPU is truly a unique GPU.

Here is a breakdown:

7800GTX:

.11 micron
430 core clock
1200 memory clock
24 pixel, 8 vertex pipes
10.32 GPixels (texture fill is same)
texture per pixel pipeline = 1
256bit GDDR3 memory interface
memory bandwidth 38.4 GB/s

XBox 360 GPU:

500MHz core
700MHz DDR (boost this even farther because of unified shader and
10 MB of DRAM (for instructional cache, damn!!!!!!)
48 specialy pipelines (unified shader and direct L2 cache read/write
makes this another xbox exclusive) adds to the speed
512 MB of GDDR3 memory
22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
21.6 GB/s front-side bus
500 million triangles per second
16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA
48 billion shader operations per second


Xbox 360 GPU also acts as the systemÂ’s memory controller, much like the Northbridge in an Intel PC

The “small” 10MB of Smart 3D memory that is currently being built by NEC will have an effective bus rate between it and the GPU of 2GHz. This is of course over 3X faster that what we see on the high end of RAM today.

Inside the Smart 3D Memory is what is referred to as a 3D Logic Unit. This is literally 192 Floating Point Unit processors inside our 10MB of RAM. This logic unit will be able to exchange data with the 10MB of RAM at an incredible rate of 2 Terabits per second. So while we do not have a lot of RAM, we have a memory unit that is extremely capable in terms of handling mass amounts of data extremely quickly. The most incredible feature that this Smart 3D Memory will deliver is “antialiasing for free” done inside the Smart 3D RAM at High Definition levels of resolution.

The Smart 3D Memory can also compute Z depths, occlusion culling, and also does a very good job at figuring stencil shadows.

Now remember that all of these operations are taking place on the Smart 3D Memory so they will have very little impact on the workload GPU itself. You may now be asking yourself what exactly the GPU will be doing.

First off, we reported on page 2 in our chart that the capable “Shader Performance” of the Xbox 360 GPU is 48 billion shader operations per second. While that is what Microsoft told us, Mr. Feldstein of ATI let us know that the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of doing two of those shaders per cycle. So yes, if programmed correctly, the Xbox 360 GPU is capable of 96 billion shader operations per second. Compare this with ATI’s current PC add-in flagship card and the Xbox 360 more than doubles its abilities.

There is even more info, and this is ONLY the GPU. The whole architecture is just as impressive. Look here for more info:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzY4LDI=

 

[[SC]Hawk]

confused: depending on which type of persopn u are depends on what gaming console you want to get. Xbox 360 is more of a PC console as it is very easy to upgrade the componets like the harddrive space. Graphical wise i believe that they are close as i have seen both in action and their isnt much of a differnece. Also depending on the type of games that people like also depends on the console. PS has brought out some really good RPG games like Final Fantasy 10 and Xbox has brang out some good games like Halo 2. So depending on the gaming will also effect the outcome.

To me the best way to go is PC. You just have to upgrade ur computer when new games come out instead of throwing out the PS1 when PS2 came out! Also the games are much better with the option of online gameing just makes the deal better, and if you can download games of the net and play them on your computer instead of paying 80 - 100 dollars for a game.

so get a PC and get gaming!

 

[maroon1]

i heard that xbox360 and revolution uses ati graphics
and ps3 uses nvidia graphics

can anyone tell me their type, i mean which geforce and which radeon they use

 

[killians45]

360 uses a GPU designed ground up, there is no counterpart as it is wholly unique.

 

[Harper]

I am very likely to just be purchasing a PlayStation 3 it will very likely having all the games series that I liked and enjoyed on the PS2 and PSX.

Unlike other people here, I purchase the console for the game play, and not for the pretty graphics.

However currenly, i have a PS2 which I have not playied that much in the last 2 year since I baught it. I also recently got a X-BOX as my freind was selling it off for a rather good price (AU$200 for XB, 4 Controllers and about AU$1000 with of Games). And again, I got games that i have not even looked on the beasty too.
Plus there is my addition to my computer gaming rig, where I am currently putting in a lot of my spare time on Star Wars Galaxies.

So I don't see myself purchasing any of the next-gen consoles for at least another 12 months after the release.

 

[Harper]

But around the time when they come out, PC hardware will advance too!

PC hardware had it's big jump in the last 12 months. Like i got my current gaming rig, and I am hopping to get another 18 months to 2 years out of it before i have to change MoBo + CPU. MAYBE one more APG vidio card before the next upgade upgrade.