ATI talks Nintendo, Hollywood GPU

wow; I'm surprised IGN didnt get this exclusive scoop.

And props to Swinimer for the excellent use of the side-stepping technique way to steer clear of breaking any NDAs.



Can May get here fast enough?? I'm getting restless from not knowing the details!

This time ATI don't leave any bugs in the chip like you did with the flipper

What bugs were in the Flipper chip?

What bugs in the Flipper?



Also, is Swimmer alluding to a cpu + gpu rolled into one chip package per the Motorola comment? That would shrink Revolution's board and lower costs and boost cpugpu thru-put. Picture a cpu like Cell - only the second core is a gpu...maybe even add a ppu core as well! That would rock!



Revolution is really shaping up. I bet it launches before the PS3.

Of course Hollywood and Broadway are 2.0 versions of Gekko and Flipper. Since the Revo is "only" 2-3x more powerful than the Cube, it's doing the emulation in hardware. Since the Revo can play Cube games, there's no way Nintendo could put Hollywood, Broadway, Gekko AND Flipper into that small case.



Building 2.0 versions of proven current-gen technology keeps production costs low (which Nintendo always has an eye on). And since Nintendo already has all the libraries and APIs for the Cube worked out, developers will be already familiar with how the Revo's internals work. (Hince the "low development cost" Nintendo has repeatedly said.)

I remember a few times the first month I had my GameCube when it froze at certain points in Metroid Prime. This only happened about twice, if that, and as I recall it was during the elevator rides to and from the Chozo Ruins.



Another time was really strange: I'm playing Mario Sunshine, see, and alluva sudden the picture, like, cracks. Like glass, and—at least, until the game froze completely—there was this polygon shard covering more than half the screen and bending the views on either side of it. Just like glass. Weird.



These problems are the only problems I've had with my Cube, and they both happened within a month of purchase. Which was Christmas 2002, I believe. Since then, no problems at all.

How is that the Flipper's fault...could have been a DRE (disk read error).

Momus - There were a bunch of Gamecubes on the market that overheated causing your games to lock up. Mine would lock up during Resident Evil Zero. I had an extended warranty for it and when I called it in they told me that the Gamecube overheating was a common thing. I had it replaced with a brand new one and now I'm good to go. I don't think it's an ATI issue but I could be wrong.

I must say, Nintendo make very sturdy products. My 4-year old step-brother at the time, literally picked up my GameCube and slammed it on the floor. Trust me, this was no "light" slam. It chipped on the corner a bit, but I've had absolutely no problems with the system. Just today, actually, I was playing my GameCube, and my little 2 year old brother accidently dropped my Cube from my entertainment center. I'd say about 1 and a half feet high. That fall to the ground did not disrupt my game at all, and thankfully, no damage was done to the system itself. Technically speaking, concerning glitches or freezes or whathaveyou, I've never experienced any of that with my Cube since I purchased it on Launch Day. Peace!

@Navstar



There's nothing wrong with that stragedy. They've been doing the exact same thing with the Gameboy line since day 1. That's why the DS is a 3rd pillar. I believe the next Gameboy will be an N64-class handheld that's still backwards compatible with the GB line and have an analog stick and gyro technology (ala Warioware Twisted).



The DS will evolve in it's own direction...be more versatile like a PDA.



Back to Revolution:

The GC was a wonder of efficiency. Revolution will be no different but with more modern hardware. Infact, my only complaints about the GC were media size and lack of online play. Both of those things have been corrected. As long as it can output 480p, I'll be happy with improved polygon counts and full-screen anti-aliasing and no slowdown on games like Madden.



Honestly, this thing is supposed to be more powerful than the original XBOX...and who needs more power than that on a console? If they pull off the new controller right - it will truely be a REVOLUTION.

@Navstar:

I believe this is the quote to which you are referring: "It is designed the same as the Flipper was -- from the ground up for a specific console".

But this doesn't mean that it's a "Flipper 2.0", but rather a completely new build - as Flipper was a brand-spankin' new build - and that's what it means by "the same". At least that's how I take it. The quote, however, is open to interpretation, as I am sure any more specific information would have been sure to break a number of NDEs. If anyone else thinks they know what this means, _specifically_, please help - but I think I have it right here (as it has been verified in this manner by other sources as well).

Lou, you have got to be kidding. There is no upper limit to the power that can be exploited if developers are given the chance.



However, that kind of power doesn't necessarily suit Nintendo's plans. They've learned in no uncertain terms that playing the hardware power game is not a battle they can hope to win against the two major competitors. Such has never been Nintendo's strong suit. Their strength is in design innovation as seen in the DS.



ATI has little to say about the chip because it isn't very exciting by today's standards. But it will be as much as can be done within a price point that makes the console accessible immediately to a very wide audience. While falling far short of the competition it will still allow developers to do a great deal that would have been terribly difficult or impossible on the GameCube while looking to new input methods to make up the difference and keeping the cost of entry very low.

Ok, i've been trying to put my interpretive hat on and here's my analysis of what he was saying:



It's a new chip built from the ground up, but essentially with flipper compliance in mind



It won't have progammable shaders



It will however employ fixed hardware solutions for some of the more useful new effects (most likely normal mapping, depends on what other stuff ATI play around with in their labs like parallax mapping).



For this reason, the specs seem pathetic (no shader ops - sounds very last gen) hence the non-announcement, but should still pack sufficient punch.



This fits in with the GC philosophy: Do your effects non-programmably so that you save on silicon and stretch out loads of real power on the effects devs find most useful. By focusing on those they take away variables devs have to work out. Kinda like driving an automatic vs mannual. Devs don't have to worry about shader optimisation and graphics tech, and can instead focus on artistry.



Furthermore, don't know what his position is on the revolution team but his other work at ATI may imply the chip is heavily embedded in nature: Either an influence of the GC (flipper had GPU, sound, memory, memory controller all in one), or perhaps a suggestion that the CPU + GPU might be integrated onto the same die in final production, which has massive memory and bus implications.

I recognise that chip in the pic from when I did the import mod on my GC.



As to "bulit from the ground up, like Flipper." The only way to interpret that is that the new chip is designed with the requirements of the Revolution in mind. That means that they need to support old game formats, so they it will probably allow hardware emulation of the GC, but not necesarily. With a broadway processor, (I speculate, so don't flame me if I'm wrong) I suspect that it might not be necessary to do that emulation completely in hardware. If they started with the old flipper tech, then the comment about designing the chip "from the ground up" makes a lot less sense.

i forgot were i read it but there was this really long blog about bump mapping (im pretty sure its not bump mapping haha! its something fancy and never really done before) or something. it sounded really ligit, it sounded more like figuring out nintendos strategy than creating rumors



since it was called broadway and hollywood.



broadway is Live



hollywood is prerendered



they claim nintendo has the patents for using a prerendered screen in real time-usually impossible or something like that, but nintendo found a new efficent way



it said something about, instead of texture effects like ground->



there would be one layer and another over it, and the secound one will seam to morph in relation to the first layer creating a more realistic and 3d texture.





I shure hope what i read is correct, because if its true you dont need to have really high power and price tag, though I really really hope they do it in high def.



Man they tried to play the gamecube on their plasma wide screens at nintendo world NYC and it looked Horrible, its like streching magnifying then magnifying again . the pixles look like 1inch blocks (of course im exagerating)



ps i saw the link somewhere, im not sure if it was on this sight. just search for nintendo and bump mapping or half something something HAHA good luck!

supposedly i remember that the sight was blue? wiht lots of words, like everything he ever said on one page. It was really understandable. and somehting about ati was first to adopt this new technology and then nvidia didnt even until FX the fully later. its never really been taken advantage



this would be the revolution. the new way we make new games.

I didn't read that specific patent, but parallax mapping would have a similar effect to what you described: It more or less fakes displacement mapping (makes a texture look like it has complex geometry that isn't really there) and looks correct as you move around the object, so long as you don't face it parrallel to the texture. For far off backgrounds it could be a real boon as it can sort of allow pre-rendering of very complex backgrounds that should have a consistent hardware hit no matter how complex they get.



That being said, Normal mapping is probably more worth while as a fake for displacement mapping. Normal mapping tricks the lighting systems into thinking a texture has more curves than there really are. It doesn't have quite the same effect from multiple angles as parallax mapping, but the benefit is because lighting is fully integrated, it can do complex specularity (shinyness) which parallax mapping doesn't, and as far as I can tell would be a darn sight easier to implement in a system without programable shaders (as I suspect the Revolution is).



That talk of cube mapping is simple really. Cube mapping as far as I know is basically a form of environment mapping - which is a way of faking reflections, basically a false texture is moved across the surface of a polygon as the polygon rotates: check a mirror; the reflection 'moves' across its surface as you move past it. Basically metal mario is a good example (remeber Durel anyone?). Cube mapping I thiiink, is a newer form where the false texture is quickly and roughly computed in a low res render of the scene from specific angles, so that the environment map being used looks like a real scene reflection rather than a random silvery image.



My personal wish would be for the revolution GPU to incorperate some kind of hardware sub-surface scattering system - as far as I can tell this requires generating a map of all the lights in a scene as per usual (although I don't know if this works with per-pixel lighting) and then basically blurring and discolouring them in accordance with a material's diffusifivty - not quite a ridiculous feat anymore, and yet it's the stuff that makes skin look real:



http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/images/imgs/layered_skin_model.jpg



Think Golum, or Advent Children etc.

What's wackier, is this blurring could actually be done cheaply if ATI (or any GPU maker) does something crazy by incorperating ANALOGUE circuitry into these newfangled muti-million transistor chips.