iye-yie-yie-yie.... Where to begin... And why to bother?
So when you register as a developer for the Nintendo Gamcube and they send you a dev kit, it includes no documentation? Surely you jest. A dev kit gives you libraries to use all the system's capabilities. The GC's graphics uses Open GL...tough to find documentation there. The CPU is an updated G3 with a higher system bus speed and extra SIMD instructions but I'm sure IBM won't tell you anything about it.
First off, the Nintendo gamecube dev kit costs a fair bit. You don't just register and look in your mailbox in a week. Plus, with that kit, there are restrictions as to WHAT you can develop for that console, and what licensing and distribution terms are. This is the first hurdle. Why would Nintendo want you to be able to run AmigaOS on their console? The chances of getting a legitimate license from them are practically nil. Heck, the chances of just getting ahold of someone who speaks English and will talk with you about licensing at Nintendo are practically nil!
Oh and a Gamecube developer's kit is available for CODEWARRIOR to licensed GC developers for $595. But I guess according to some people, at that price, all you are buying is the Nintendo logo.
Actually, that's just a six month lease of CodeWarrior without any distribution rights.... At least I think that's what
this site is talking about.
Boy, you got to admire Capcom for making a game like Resident Evil 4 with no documentation at all...truly the 8th wonder of the world. (Hello, the Gamecube has been touted as having an excellent API for programmers!)
Well, that's all fine and dandy... But if you're going to use the Nintendo's own API, you're going to have to build an abstraction/emulation layer on top of it to provide something for the Amiga OS to latch onto. Basically write a PowerPC reference board emulator. Talk about a performance hit!
If you want to try to hit the hardware yourself (which is what I was assuming you were talking about) well, gee, by definition, that just threw the reknowned Nintendo APIs out the window.
Well, I guess there is a third solution... Totally re-writing AmigaOS to be able to use the Nintendo API directly, but as it's taken so long to get AmigaOS 4 written the first time, I can't see that happening.
And you mention dog-slow shared RAM architecture... WTF? [...] Not only does the Flipper have it's own 3MB of internal 20Gb/s bandwidth ram, the GC has 24 Megs of Mosys T-1 which has lower latency that anything else in any gaming platform. It's system bus speed is 162.5Mhz, what's the A1's?
Uhm... 66 or 100mhz, I think. It's not exactly a rocket, either, but it's a real general purpose bus, not a dedicated chip-to-chip interconnect. There's a fairly large difference here, not that you seem to be caring. But the point I'm trying to make is that you're not going to see anywhere near peak performance here. Like I said before, you have to do one of two things...
1) Throw out the Nintendo API and go at it blind. Surely not very easy or efficient...
2) Build an emulation layer. Figure at least 2-cycles lost to overhead per emulation layer cycle. Even OC'd to 210mhz, you're down to 70mhz in a best-case scenerio. Most likely real numbers would be much worse, yet.
Here's another thing you won't read: http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2002/4559.html and I know you especially won't read the last paragraph.
Here's the last paragraph. What's so special about a proprietary chip and ATi and Nintendo aren't too anxious to share details about?
NINTENDO GAMECUBE features a revolutionary graphics processor, called the 'Flipper' chip, from ATI. The highly integrated processor includes both a 2D and 3D graphics engine, a DSP (digital signal processor) for audio processing, all system I/O (input/output) functions including CPU (central processing unit), system memory, controllers, optical disk, flash card, modem and video interfaces, and an on-chip high bandwidth frame buffer.
GameCube has a really complex chip in it! That's what I've been saying! The thing isn't like something you're going to find in a PC. And for good reason. The thing is dedicated proprietary hardware.
Alright... Here's one for you. When you get your GameCube stuff you ordered, go and install a Gentoo build on it. I'll install a similar revision-level Gentoo on the 5 year old P2-400mhz (i440BX chipset) that I'm currently using as a doorstop. We'll run some of
these and see how well the Nintendo stacks up.
When I said the internet, I meant the real internet, it's routers and switches across the planet. They run at 10Mb/s
Now THAT is the best quote I've heard so far this year. :lol: :rofl: Ya just put Cisco back to the 1970's!
