04-06-2005 06:28									#1
	Xbox 360/Playstation 3/Revolution Thread (Part 2) Increase Your PM Length

Continued from http://www.apolyton.net/forums/show...threadid=132028

Info on the PS3:

Sony confirms they're targeting a Spring 2006 launch date for the PS3, possible simultaneously launching in Japan (but not Europe). http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/0...ws_6126832.html

But most analysts are saying a Fall 2006 is most likely for the US, given that parts such as the PS3's graphics chip actually aren't even finished yet.

Also, looks like the PS3 will ship without a harddrive by default (like the PS2 did). This means that, unlike the Xbox/Xbox 360, devs cannot assume one exists and use it for things such as caching. :/


Info on the Xbox 360:

The Xbox 360 weighs 7.7 pounds (3.5 kg) and is:

309 mm wide x 83 mm high x 258 mm deep
(12.15 in wide x 3.27 in high x 10.15 in deep)

The Xbox (1) weighs 8.8 pounds (4 kg) and is:
320 x 100 x 260 mm
(12.5 x 4 x 10.5 inches)

The Xbox 360's volume is 6616.926 cm^3.
The Xbox's volume is approximately 8320 cm^3.

	04-06-2005 21:45									#2
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Xbox Live 360 images:
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/621/621229p1.html


(click to view full resolution on first picture)







Also, a new official image w/ faceplate:

	04-06-2005 22:20									#3
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Some faceplates. I'll definitely get the pink baloon one

Attachment: faceplates.jpg
This has been downloaded 205 time(s).

	04-06-2005 22:40									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

So, the PS3 won't have a harddrive standard...so no level caching.

It'll also come with a 1x HD-DVD drive (bluray), compared to the Xbox 360's 12x DVD-ROM.

1x blu-ray is 4.5 MB/s.
12x DVD-ROM is 16.2 MB/s.

The PS3 loading times look abysmal...

	04-06-2005 22:45									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Asher So, the PS3 won't have a harddrive standard...so no level caching. It'll also come with a 1x HD-DVD drive (bluray), compared to the Xbox 360's 12x DVD-ROM. 1x blu-ray is 4.5 MB/s. 12x DVD-ROM is 16.2 MB/s. The PS3 loading times look abysmal...

They could always change their minds about the hd. Otoh, the damn thing will lose Sony a bundle even without the hd. I wondered about the Blu-Ray DVD's speed. Are you sure about 1x? That's pretty slow...

	04-06-2005 22:50									#6
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1x blu-ray is the current rumoured spec. It's possible to go to 2-3x (I think that's the current level of the technology?), but 1x alone is very expensive...

	04-06-2005 22:54									#7
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

quote: One single-layer Blu-ray Disc (BD) can hold about 25 GB or over two hours of HD video plus audio, and the dual-layer disc can hold approximately 50 GB. The data transfer rate is 36 Mbit/s (54 Mbit/s for BD-ROM), but 2x speed prototypes with a 72 Mbit/s transfer rate are now in development.

The 2x ones are still in development it seems.

So it's very likely PS3 will get 1x, if BluRay at all...

	04-06-2005 23:12									#8
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So the 1x bluray data transfer rate isnt 4,5 mbps but 36?

	04-06-2005 23:13									#9
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

read a little bit closer.

1 bit and one byte are not the same things.

	04-06-2005 23:14									#10
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ah yes

	04-06-2005 23:14									#11
	Suffering from ads?

In fact, strangely enough, 4.5 * 8 = 36

That's an odd coincidence...

	04-06-2005 23:15									#12
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its all starting to add up now

	04-06-2005 23:26									#13
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Really, we're talking pretty ludicrous loading speeds anyway for a videogame on either DVD x 12 or Blu-Ray x 1. Only a couple seconds in either case.

	04-06-2005 23:28									#14
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Really, we're talking pretty ludicrous loading speeds anyway for a videogame on either DVD x 12 or Blu-Ray x 1. Only a couple seconds in either case.

A couple seconds?

It takes sometimes 20-30s to load some games with 64MB RAM on the Xbox with a 2x DVD-ROM.

The new systems have 512MB.

	04-06-2005 23:33									#15
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I don't know how the XBox does things, but you must admit that a game system could be constructed with Blu-Ray where you don't have to sit around for 20-30s.

	04-06-2005 23:35									#16
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Not if it's got suitable compressed textures and whatnot.

	04-06-2005 23:40									#17
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The stuff could load into memory in the background while you access the menu, if they wanted to construct the system that way. I don't see a problem.

	04-06-2005 23:44									#18
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They could do all of this stuff on the PS2 as well (and the Xbox), but it doesn't happen.

Why is that?

	04-06-2005 23:50									#19
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Because they don't want to spend the time to figure it out and put it in software.

	04-06-2005 23:50									#20
	Increase Your PM Length

Stop being coy, Asher.

Is there a reason you know of?

	04-06-2005 23:58									#21
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Because it's a huge waste of memory bandwidth, which is used for actual computations...not loading.

It's not a simple matter of transfering a chunk of, say, 64MB from the disc to the RAM...

Also, as you may have noticed from using the PC, accessing the discs seems to stall the rest of the computer while it waits for data. This is no different on the game consoles -- the controller is integrated with the GPU usually.

	05-06-2005 00:29									#22
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I thought it might be something like that.

	05-06-2005 00:34									#23
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You're FOS, Asher. It's coming out of your ears.

quote: Because it's a huge waste of memory bandwidth, which is used for actual computations...not loading.

The amount of memory bandwidth required for loading and doing menu stuff is miniscule. Entirely not even worth the thought.

quote: Also, as you may have noticed from using the PC, accessing the discs seems to stall the rest of the computer while it waits for data. This is no different on the game consoles -- the controller is integrated with the GPU usually.

Those problems arise from using a primitive I/O bus like the XBox did. Neither the 360 nor the PS/3 should have these considerations.

	05-06-2005 01:05									#24
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quote: So, the PS3 won't have a harddrive standard...so no level caching.

According to a gamespot article, Sony hasnt decided yet if it will ship the PS3 with a harddrive.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/0...ws_6126832.html

	05-06-2005 02:06									#25
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quote: Originally posted by flash9286 According to a gamespot article, Sony hasnt decided yet if it will ship the PS3 with a harddrive. http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/0...ws_6126832.html

It won't come with one.

Sony's PR machine says that, developers are being told not to assume a HD exists.

	05-06-2005 02:14									#26
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quote: Originally posted by DanS You're FOS, Asher. It's coming out of your ears.

quote: The amount of memory bandwidth required for loading and doing menu stuff is miniscule. Entirely not even worth the thought.

You're clearly very up to speed with modern game engines, aren't you?

You do know that virtually nothing is stored uncompressed on the discs, right? How do they get decompressed? Do decompression algorithms take up additional memory? Do they take up CPU/GPU cycles?

When the levels are being loaded, they're also be initialized. When you have only 32MB/64MB of RAM, you can't be lazy and just store and load. If that was the case you could fill up the Xbox's memory @ 5MB/s = 13s max. This is assuming they're contiguous in memory and there's no seek delays... (PS2 is 2.5MB/s, but 32MB...so also 13s)

quote: Those problems arise from using a primitive I/O bus like the XBox did. Neither the 360 nor the PS/3 should have these considerations.

What the hell do you base this on?

The Xbox's I/O bus was hypertransport, by the way. You call that primitive?

	05-06-2005 02:16									#27
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In any case, Dan...

1x Blu-Ray would take 114 seconds = nearly 2 minutes to fill 512MB of RAM, even if it was a simple memory block copy (which it's not).

	05-06-2005 02:32									#28
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quote: Sony's PR machine says that, developers are being told not to assume a HD exists.

Maybe because they haven't decided yet?

	05-06-2005 02:33									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Kalius Maybe because they haven't decided yet?

They won't decide that. Sony is skating on thin ice, their PS3 will cost a lot to make as they've outlined it.

It'll be Blu-Ray or HDD, not both.

	05-06-2005 05:31									#30
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I'll be getting the Revolution, myself. I'm a Nintendo fanboy.