MskoDestny wrote:
lou_dias wrote:
Counting the flash along with the RAM is a mistake. It's more akin to a small hard drive with a really low seek time than RAM. That said some of the supposed specs leak had some huge amount of RAM in it. Don't know if I believe that though.
they've stated they will be less expensive than the 360 or PS3. Having more RAM makes that harder to achieve. Bet on 128 or 256MB.
So you believe the leaks when it comes to the CPU, but not when it comes to the RAM?
The leaks said 128 and 256, you are the one who alluded to an outrageous amount of RAM based on something you think you heard.
Promises mean nothing. ATI designed the chip but MS owns the rights to it and can have anyone manufacture it. That's a fact.
All depends on the deal they struck with ATI and I have seen nothing to indicate that they actually bought the design from ATI. Everything would seem to suggest that ATI still owns the design and Microsoft is just going to buy chips from them. That's the way it works elsewhere, I don't see why it wouldn't work that way here as well.
This is a matter of public record. MS owns the designs and can have anyone manufacture the chips. That's the difference between the XBOX and 360, now MS can find cheaper manufacturers...
...now they can run into the same quality issues Sony has had. :lol:
when you buy a PPC Mac, you are not paying for a CPU and getting MAC OS X as a bonus, it's more like the other way around. You are buying a brand and paying a premium price for that brand in order to maintain an image.
Top end PowerMacs are equivalent in price of high end machines of similar spec from other manufacturers. But lets do a little exercise. The Mac Mini is estimated to have a profit margin of around 50% so that means it contains about $250 of parts and it only has a lowly G4. For the most part it has similar parts to what you would find in your rumored Revolution except that most of them are less capable (the only exception being that the Mini has a hard drive and the Revolution has flash). Since the G5 is certainly a good deal more expensive than the G4 and the new GPU from ATI is certainly more expensive than the Radeon 9200 in the Mini, the manufacturing cost starts to put the console right in with Sony and Microsoft which Nintendo has publicly stated they won't do.
You are ignoring the fact that a Radeon 9200 is a card. A card has to have supporting hardware to conform to AGP/PCIe standards. Also, any card you buy comes with driver software and packaging. Also there is bundled software. You pay for all that whether you realize it or not. Your cost comparisons are invalid.
yes, we all know early 360 devkits were MACs. So what? 2 magazines have made these statements. The same magazines that told us what the 360 devkits were.
My point is that the 360 devkits and the final hardware weren't incredibly similar so there's little reason to believe that the Nintendo devkits are any more similar to the final hardware.
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That was the path Microsoft took because their total development time for the 360 was 2 1/2 years. They needed PPC hardware and compilers to test on and the Mac was a quick way to do that. That's their issue not anybody else's.
Nintendo, on the otherhand, has been doing R&D on Revolution since the GC was released (Nov 2001). Their development process is different as is Sony's. Nintendo prototype hardware leaks have only occurred within the last 6-8 months.
Here's the bottome line. To be easily 100% backwards compatible with the GC, Nintendo's only choice is to go with the G5.
They could go with any number of PowerPC processors from the G4 to one or more of the PPEs found in the X360 and PS3.
They could but then they would have so-called similar power levels to those systems. The GC's G3 (GX) 'Gekko' was an enhanced G3 FX that had a high fsb and 37 additional SIMD instructions. Expect similar enhancements to Nintendo's G5 after all it needs to do everything the 'Gekko' did. Finally, the G4 is a MOTOROLA chip. Nintendo has a contract with IBM, not MOTOROLA so read my typing: YOU WILL NOT SEE A G4 IN A NINTENDO PRODUCT.
Here's a Revolution FAQ: http://cube.ign.com/articles/522/522559p1.html
I believe it's page 3 that mention the "2-3 times more powerful" statement as being FALSE.
It also says they haven't said how powerful it will be since then which puts a bit of a damper on the 3-5x argument.
In the same FAQ they also publicly stated that the machine will be less powerful than Microsoft's and Sony's offerings.
Your point?
All I ever said or alluded to is that you will not see 100% processing power out of a PS3 or 360 in the first wave/generation of titles that are released because a fundamental change in programming and compilers is required to do so. What I did say is based on that developers have said that early 360 titles are only going to take advantage of about twice the power of the current XBOX.
If you read editorials reviewing the TGS in September, you could see proof of this as 360 games look beautiful in their level of detail but the animation is choppy and apparent A.I. is weak...and that can be due to a lack of cpu processing power.
Also, since, (this is my opinion now) I expect Nintendo to use a full G5 + enhancements, that Nintendo titles will be able to run at maxiumum system efficency and produce quality software from the beginning. Unforuntately, Nintendo hasn't committed to HD visuals even though it will still support 720x480 progressive scan (which is not considered 'hi-def').
