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  • Subject: Has anyone really heard about the Xbox 2/ Xenon?
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Subject: Has anyone really heard about the Xbox 2/ Xenon?
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DO you really know anything about this system? If so, then post what you know.

[I know A LOT about it]

  • 10.09.2004 8:55 PM PDT
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It can cook a burrito in a minute.

  • 10.09.2004 8:56 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

I'll type up everything I know. Give me a minute.

  • 10.09.2004 8:57 PM PDT
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Posted by: MCs Brother
I'll type up everything I know. Give me a minute.


He's makin' a burrito.

  • 10.09.2004 8:58 PM PDT
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I know it's not going to use a Hard Drive. And, I know it may be backwards compatible.

  • 10.09.2004 9:00 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

OK. Forget it. I know too much to type. Basically I know everything that was on the leaked white paper.

  • 10.09.2004 9:00 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

Posted by: ObbiQuiet
Posted by: MCs Brother
I'll type up everything I know. Give me a minute.


He's makin' a burrito.


Several burritos. And a taquito.

Mmmmmm.......taquitos. <slobbers>

  • 10.09.2004 9:01 PM PDT
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Posted by: Vella
I know it's not going to use a Hard Drive. And, I know it may be backwards compatible.


... no hard drive?

... can't be serious... Woe. Memory cards are lame.

  • 10.09.2004 9:03 PM PDT
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I want info, I haven't heard anything. Anyone got a linky?

  • 10.09.2004 9:03 PM PDT
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Woe IS you.

The alternative storage is an ultra large Flash Memory Storage System.

--FIXED

[Edited on 10/9/2004 9:07:29 PM]

  • 10.09.2004 9:05 PM PDT
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Posted by: Vella
Woe IS you.

The alternative storage is an ultra large Flash Memory Storage System.


Doh, they took it down. Link is brizoke.

  • 10.09.2004 9:06 PM PDT
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Posted by: ObbiQuiet
Posted by: Vella
I know it's not going to use a Hard Drive. And, I know it may be backwards compatible.


... no hard drive?

... can't be serious... Woe. Memory cards are lame.

I agree. Memory cards are lame. I heard a rumour that the Xbox 2/Xenon uses a removable, Ipod like, memory storage device that has several gigabytes of memory.

[Edited on 10/9/2004 9:07:46 PM]

  • 10.09.2004 9:07 PM PDT
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Posted by: DemonSpawn77
I agree. Memory cares are lame. I heard a rumour that the Xbox 2/Xenon uses a removable, Ipod like, memory storage device that has several gigabytes of memory.


Big Rumor. The Xbox Next-pod, is not going to be real. I can guarantee you that. Having something to interfere with Microsfts new line up of Portable Media Centers is a no-no.

  • 10.09.2004 9:08 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

Posted by: Vella
Woe IS you.

The alternative storage is an ultra large Flash Memory Storage System.


Memory cards it is. In february, M-Systems and Microsoft entered into an agreement where Microsoft would recieve removable flash memory units for "future Xbox products". And we aint talking like this year "future Xbox products". Were talking a year and a half from now future xbox products.

  • 10.09.2004 9:09 PM PDT
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Did you guys get that link to work? It doesn't work on my end.

  • 10.09.2004 9:11 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

If I type up the entire contents of the leaked white paper, will you guys actually read it? Cuz it isn't exactly short.......

  • 10.09.2004 9:15 PM PDT
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umm i will

  • 10.09.2004 9:17 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

What about Vella, Obbi and G?

  • 10.09.2004 9:18 PM PDT
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Posted by: MCs Brother
If I type up the entire contents of the leaked white paper, will you guys actually read it? Cuz it isn't exactly short.......


I'll read it.

  • 10.09.2004 9:20 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

Good enough. Give me a couple minutes.






<I'm makin' burritos>

  • 10.09.2004 9:21 PM PDT
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I'll skim it until I see sex-related words, then I'll read it intently - like I do with everything.

  • 10.09.2004 9:22 PM PDT
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Already read it. :-)

The technical one? With the pipeline/ processor info?

  • 10.09.2004 9:22 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

This documentation is an early release of the final documentation, which may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release, and is confidential and proprietary information of MS Corporation. It is disclosed pursuant to a nondisclosure agreement between the recipient and MS.

“Xenon” is the code name for the successor to the Xbox game console from MS. Xenon is expected to launch in 2005. This white paper is designed to provide a brief overview of the primary hardware features of the console from a game developer’s standpoint.

Caveats

In some cases, sizes, speeds, and other details of the Xenon console have not been finalized. Values not yet finalized are identified with a “+” sign, indicating that the numbers may be larger than indicated here. At the time of this writing, the final console is many months from entering production. Based on our experience with Xbox, it’s likely that some of this information will change slightly for the final console.

For additional information on various hardware components, see the other relevant white papers.

Hardware Goals

Xenon was designed with the following goals in mind:


Focus on innovation in silicon, particularly features that game developers need. Although all Xenon hardware components are technologically advanced, the hardware engineering effort has concentrated on digital performance in the CPU and GPU.

Maximise general purpose processing performance rather than fixed-function hardware. This focus on general purpose processing puts the power into the Xenon software libraries and tools. Rather than being hamstrung by particular hardware designs, software libraries can support the latest and most efficient techniques.

Eliminate the performance issues of the past. On Xbox, the primary bottlenecks were memory and CPU bandwidth. Xenon does not have these limitations.
Basic Hardware Specifications

Xenon is powered by a 3.5+ GHz IBM PowerPC processor and a 500+ MHz ATI graphics processor. Xenon has 256+ MB of unified memory. Xenon runs a custom operating system based on MS Windows NT, similar to the Xbox operating system. The graphics interface is a superset of MS Direct3D version 9.0.
CPU.

The Xenon CPU is a custom processor based on PowerPC technology. The CPU includes three independent processors (cores) on a single die. Each core runs at 3.5+ GHz. The Xenon CPU can issue two instructions per clock cycle per core. At peak performance, Xenon can issue 21 billion instructions per second.

The Xenon CPU was designed by IBM in close consultation with the Xbox team, leading to a number of revolutionary additions, including a dot product instruction for extremely fast vector math and custom security features built directly into the silicon to prevent piracy and hacking.

  • 10.09.2004 9:29 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

Continued VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

  • 10.09.2004 9:29 PM PDT

Devil is Double is Deuce and Joker always trumps Deuce.

Each core has two symmetric hardware threads (SMT), for a total of six hardware threads available to games. Not only does the Xenon CPU include the standard set of PowerPC integer and floating-point registers (one set per hardware thread), the Xenon CPU also includes 128 vector (VMX) registers per hardware thread. This astounding number of registers can drastically improve the speed of common mathematical operations.

Each of the three cores includes a 32-KB L1 instruction cache and a 32-KB L1 data cache. The three cores share a 1-MB L2 cache. The L2 cache can be locked down in segments to improve performance. The L2 cache also has the very unusual feature of being directly readable from the GPU, which allows the GPU to consume geometry and texture data from L2 and main memory simultaneously.
Xenon CPU instructions are exposed to games through compiler intrinsics, allowing developers to access the power of the chip using C language notation.
GPU

The Xenon GPU is a custom 500+ MHz graphics processor from ATI. The shader core has 48 Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) that can execute 64 simultaneous threads on groups of 64 vertices or pixels. ALUs are automatically and dynamically assigned to either pixel or vertex processing depending on load. The ALUs can each perform one vector and one scalar operation per clock cycle, for a total of 96 shader operations per clock cycle. Texture loads can be done in parallel to ALU operations. At peak performance, the GPU can issue 48 billion shader operations per second.

The GPU has a peak pixel fill rate of 4+ gigapixels/sec (16 gigasamples/sec with 4× antialiasing). The peak vertex rate is 500+ million vertices/sec. The peak triangle rate is 500+ million triangles/sec. The interesting point about all of these values is that they’re not just theoretical—they are attainable with nontrivial shaders.

Xenon is designed for high-definition output. Included directly on the GPU die is 10+ MB of fast embedded dynamic RAM (EDRAM). A 720p frame buffer fits very nicely here. Larger frame buffers are also possible because of hardware-accelerated partitioning and predicated rendering that has little cost other than additional vertex processing. Along with the extremely fast EDRAM, the GPU also includes hardware instructions for alpha blending, z-test, and antialiasing.

The Xenon graphics architecture is a unique design that implements a superset of Direct3D version 9.0. It includes a number of important extensions, including additional compressed texture formats and a flexible tessellation engine. Xenon not only supports high-level shading language (HLSL) model 3.0 for vertex and pixel shaders but also includes advanced shader features well beyond model 3.0. For instance, shaders use 32-bit IEEE floating-point math throughout. Vertex shaders can fetch from textures, and pixel shaders can fetch from vertex streams. Xenon shaders also have the unique ability to directly access main memory, allowing techniques that have never before been possible.

As with Xbox, Xenon will support precompiled push buffers (“command buffers” in Xenon terminology), but to a much greater extent than the Xbox console does. The Xbox team is exposing and documenting the command buffer format so that games are able to harness the GPU much more effectively.

In addition to an extremely powerful GPU, Xenon also includes a very high-quality resize filter. This filter allows consumers to choose whatever output mode they desire. Xenon automatically scales the game’s output buffer to the consumer-chosen resolution.

Memory and Bandwidth

Xenon has 256+ MB of unified memory, equally accessible to both the GPU and CPU. The main memory controller resides on the GPU (the same as in the Xbox architecture). It has 22.4+ GB/sec aggregate bandwidth to RAM, distributed between reads and writes. Aggregate means that the bandwidth may be used for all reading or all writing or any combination of the two. Translated into game performance, the GPU can consume a 512×512×32-bpp texture in only 47 microseconds.

The front side bus (FSB) bandwidth peak is 10.8 GB/sec for reads and 10.8 GB/sec for writes, over 20 times faster than for Xbox. Note that the 22.4+ GB/sec main memory bandwidth is shared between the CPU and GPU. If, for example, the CPU is using 2 GB/sec for reading and 1 GB/sec for writing on the FSB, the GPU has 19.4+ GB/sec available for accessing RAM.

Eight pixels (where each pixel is color plus z = 8 bytes) can be sent to the EDRAM every GPU clock cycle, for an EDRAM write bandwidth of 32 GB/sec. Each of these pixels can be expanded through multisampling to 4 samples, for up to 32 multisampled pixel samples per clock cycle. With alpha blending, z-test, and z-write enabled, this is equivalent to having 256 GB/sec of effective bandwidth! The important thing is that frame buffer bandwidth will never slow down the Xenon GPU.

Audio

The Xenon CPU is a superb processor for audio, particularly with its massive mathematical horsepower and vector register set. The Xenon CPU can process and encode hundreds of audio channels with sophisticated per-voice and global effects, all while using a fraction of the power of a single CPU core.

Cont. VVVV

  • 10.09.2004 9:30 PM PDT

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