Nintendo Revolution's Power Estimates WRONG

[Eclipse 0]

http://cube.ign.com/articles/522/522559p2.html

 

 

Q: Is Revolution "two-to-three times more powerful than GameCube"?

 

A: USA Today reported this news based on a comment from Nintendo of

America's vice president of corporate affairs, Perrin Kaplan. The

information was later determined to be false. We do not yet know how much more power Revolution wields over its predecessor.

 

Looks like the info was false. The specs might be more powerful!

 

Also, check this info out. The Revolution specs MAY have been leaked online.

 

 

First to break it was a site in China called Unika.com. Now backed up with more detail by a a so called developer that works at Factor5. The guy named Han_Solo at the G4 Forums states:

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure the info I'm gonna release is already out in the Japanese news and Chinese, maybe Western also. But this info I have right now got to me in Feburary this year. So i dont know if you guys have seen it already, i hope not though. Also this info wasn't released by Nintendo themselves, so i might be taking a risk. lol.

 

You ask about 2-3 times more powerful, what if its 20-30 times more powerful.

 

Alright, here are some specs from my sources about Revolution. It is still not the complete or "Satisfied" specs, but they are the numbers that would rival xbox 360 and PS3.

 

 

Revolution Specs:

CPU: IBM Custom PowerPC 3.5 GHz + 4 internal Power PC G5 cores running at 2.5 GHz each.

L1 cache: 128KB or 256KB

L2 512KB - 1MB

2 Hardware threads per core, 8 total

12 billion dot product operations per second

Theoritical of 10 GHz total + 3 GHz CPU speed

 

Revolution GPU:

ATI Custom based RN520 core. (The "N" stands for nintendo, and is because the ArtX team is with them)

 

2 GPU cores (like the nVidia SLI motherboard with two Graphics Chips using ATI's alternative, and will be the first in any console.)

 

256 MB GDDR4 + 16MB eDRAM (eDRAM is an onboard flash memory - just like the 3 MB on the GameCubes flipper)

 

Core speed of 600MHz (Rumored at 500 MHz each).

 

Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles/sec theoritical, average 100 Million/sec

 

Shader Performance: 48 billion shader operations /sec

 

24 to 48 way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines for each core with unified shader architecture.

 

Revolution memory

512 MB (700 MHz Updated 1T-SRAM)

 

PPU:

The Revolution will support a PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip). This chip is very new to computer architecture, and it will mainly help in the physics area. It will have 32 MB’s of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU.

 

To compare to the usage of physics used in current games, Half Life 2 only used 5 MB’s, Rebel strike used around 1.3 MB’s, and RE4 used 3 MB’s, but this is off main memory, which made performance issues.

 

Sound:

There will also be a separate sound card that will support only DD 5.1 – DTS 7.1, rumours has it will have 16 MB’s, like the Cube DSP.

 

----

 

For comparison - Xbox 360 CPU:

3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each

Theoritical of 9.6 GHz + 3.2 GHz CPU speed

2 hardware threads per core; 6 hardware threads total

VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total

128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread

1 MB L2 cace

 

 

 

 

 

He also said that due to the 90 nanometer process in making these chips it will be cooler and cheaper than what many would think. Also, the system will fit easily into the smaller box due to this process as well!

 

 

 

Interesting isn’t it, about the thought of “would u ever imagine RE4 graphics in 1999”. Remember how I said that, the next generation would make people’s eyes wide like the way Rogue Leader did, in 2002. The same thing is going to happen. In my technical opinion, remember the starting fight in space in the movie Star Wars Episode 3. That’s the graphics of next generation. That would be like the “next Rogue Leader”.

 

This is some of my info on the PPU chip:

 

The PPU was built by the company Ageia, and is named the PhysX chip.

 

PhysX is the world's first Physics Processing Unit (PPU), an entirely new category of processor that promises to revolutionize gaming in the physics area. By offloading software physics processing from the CPU and GPU, the PPU completes the triangle of gameplay, graphics and physics, balancing the load of these processing tasks and enabling pervasive interactive reality in games.

 

PhysX Processor Architecture has been designed to enable radical acceleration of:

· Rigid body dynamics

· Universal collision detection

· Finite element analysis

· Soft body dynamics

· Fluid dynamics

· Hair simulation

· Clothing simulation

 

There is an SDK program that runs with PhysX and is as follows:

 

NovodeX Physics SDK

 

This program called the NovodeX Physics SDK, is a stable, high-performance solution for game developers to enable physics-based gameplay and effects in PC and console titles. This has been used in Half Life 2 extensively and Far Cry. But CPU power handling this and other things isn’t good compared with a CPU doing what it was mean to do, like data flow, and a PPU with this program handling just physics (and can also add physics to the sounds produced), makes the games kick ass. A powerful API for the PhysX PPU, NovodeX enables game developers to inject both software-only and hardware-accelerated features into their games. The NovodeX Physics SDK is also the first and only asynchronous (multithreaded) physics API capable of unleashing the power of multiprocessor gaming systems, just like Xbox 360, PS3 and the Revolution.

 

 

 

 

Well, I know there are doubters out there, but what makes this guy's claims important? The same guy "leaked" the XBOX 360 specs, and ALL THE SPECS he mentioned were 100% TRUE.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I seriously doubt those specs, although it would be cool if they were true. In fact, if it is, its even more impressive given that they didn't need a computer tower form factor to pull it off.

 

The only spec I care about is HD compatibility and I haven't heard a word about that.

[Eclipse 0]

Who knows? This guy was fully correct for the XBOX 360 specs. I hope he is batting a thousand. GOOD THING Revolution isn't going to be 2 to 3 times powerful.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Maybe people are just underestimating how powerful the Gamecube is...

[Anya 0]

None of this rhetoric even matters. It's the same thing every gen. "OMG 6000 times more powerful than old systems!", "System A blows System B out of the water!" and then it ends up being just hype.

[AndrewTS 0]

I don't think we'll see the true Revolution specs from Nintendo themselves until they're sure Sony's already committed themselves. Then again, it's not like these specs reveal the "Revolutionary" feature.

 

I'm not going to cream myself over the prospect of it being the most powerful, or even the 2nd most powerful out of the 3. However, I have faith it's going to be something that's mighty awesome. Remember that the Gamecube's specs were heavily downplayed, but it routinely cranks out stuff that puts the PS2 to shame and it's multi-console stuff is usually about on par with XBox.

 

If this is true, I'm sure the Nintendo-haters are going to complain that Nintendo lied to them (when I believe even the quote mentioning the power included "at least" in it, so it's no lie), but I think the specs are more for the digestion of their competitors than anything a gamer should be basing decisions around.

 

Isn't Factor5 supposed to be PS3-exclusive, though?

 

None of this rhetoric even matters. It's the same thing every gen. "OMG 6000 times more powerful than old systems!", "System A blows System B out of the water!" and then it ends up being just hype.

 

Sony's really the biggest offender in that game, though.

[Anya 0]

They all do it though.

 

But yeah, Sony is using the exact same hype for PS3 they used on PS2.

[AndrewTS 0]

They all do it though.

 

But yeah, Sony is using the exact same hype for PS3 they used on PS2.

With the exception of the artificial shortage for Christmas, which Microsoft is going to have a shot at if they dare.

 

Plus, the addition of the Killzone video in addition to trotting out the amazing Final Fantasy CG.

 

And for the Jin model--even in win poses we're not going to be seeing pores, so unless they decide to go through the trouble of making them, and them zooming the camera in on their faces for no reason but to show them off, I can't think of a single bloody good reason why they'd need to incorporate that into the in-game graphics. Improving the skin textures to make them more lifelike? Sure. Pores? Pfft...come on.

[AndrewTS 0]

Factor 5's PS3 Exclusivity

Cell chip sways former Nintendo developer to Sony.

by Patrick Klepek, 05/23/2005 

 

On Nintendo 64 and GameCube, development studio Factor 5 committed itself to developing Star Wars games for Nintendo-based hardware. Apparently not anymore, though, as the company seems to be switching exclusivity gears towards PlayStation 3 for next-generation, according to an interview with News.com.

Factor 5 has already played with Microsoft's Xbox 360, but said the PlayStation 3's 3.2GHz Cell chip offered more processing power over the other hardware options. The added power, allowing for a more realistic gaming experience, fueled the company's decision. Factor 5 made no comment on Nintendo's Revolution in the story.

 

Regardless of the company's personal preference, however, they say the next-generation should offer much to gamers and developers. "I was shocked by how powerful the new consoles are," said Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht to News.com. "They should really free our development."

 

Stay tuned to 1UP.com for more on Factor 5's future game development plans. 

 

Hm.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I wonder if, when you sign a deal to develop for Nintendo, you have to do it in blood..

[razazteca 0]

None of this rhetoric even matters. It's the same thing every gen. "OMG 6000 times more powerful than old systems!", "System A blows System B out of the water!" and then it ends up being just hype.

This reminds me of all the hype behind the systems being 16bit, 32bit, or 64bit. We all know that Atari Jaguar was all BS......"this time you can play PAC-MAN in 64bit!" The specs of the systems don't mean a damn thing unless there is software that can use the technolgy to the fullest.

[David Blazenwing 0]

Sounding like a mark or not... I can't wait to see the first WWE games on the new systems... if THQ still has the rights after PS3 comes out (my friend SWEARS that THQ is losing the rights, though I've heard otherwise) I'd love to see what they can do with the SmackDown (or SD vs. RAW, as it were) series with so much more powerful specs.

 

(Maybe we'll actually get a compete roster, lol...)

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Maybe we'll actually get a decent game.

 

Ha, who the hell am I kidding.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

(Sings to the Evolution theme)

Revolution is a mystery...

System working N Won't let us see

Will they improve on past history?

 

No controller here to show

Where will the saved files go?

Old games...will they be pay or free?

 

Sony and Microsoft's plan is grand...

How strong will Nintendo stand?

Please Nintendo make us understand...

Revolution...

Revolution!

[razazteca 0]

I'm still waiting for Fire Pro to be released on GCN