Natal to use 10-15 percent of Xbox 360's computing resources

omg Bradwart, it's obvious it would be called Natal Plus

But that 10-15% would come off the 85% the game is using not the unused portion. Right?

Based on the wording given, no.

Regularly, no, but I'm sure a lot of games spike to max out the CPU on occasion. Now they'll have to be tighter about keeping that from happening.

The software behind Natal is obviously a lot more complicated than what has been done with EyeToy.

The fact it will have to use power from the box (as the 360 already does for audio, nxe etc) is just taking away from what Natal is capable of to make it more affordable. It's a catch 22 and all of it leads to the argument that Natal probably isn't ready to come to market in either instance. We don't know how accurate the 10-15% figure is anyway ... it could be less or it could be much more. It likely just means you won't see Natal used in meaningful games.

It doesn't mean that at all.

exactly that Bains, exactly that..

The one failing I could see from the ps eye / mc was the fact that they were using cpu cycles to keep track of the ball.. Sony minimised cycles by using a motion controller and a glowing ball - A set size and set colour to follow becomes a lot easier to calculate and track and isn't affected by darkness and light, it also doesn't care about your skin colour or any disabilities you may have, as long as you can move around / control your arms you should be good to go..

Microsoft still has to try and track and build a skeletal model from what is basically the same output as what they would have got from the playstation eye.. The only difference here being they have a sensor projecting out a grid to make up for the motion controller / ball built into the sony mc..

So in effect the load that would be put on the xbox is probably double / triple the load put on the PS3.. Well done Microsoft that officially makes the Natal complete hype and just a rip off of the playstation eye.. All that hype all that marketing and a polished turd as the final product..

I bet Microsoft engineers having been slapping there heads going DOH !, I wish I was working at Sony its so blatantly obvious Sony is so far ahead of them in terms of research and actual technology.. Kind of makes you understand what Kaz Harai and the rest of the Sony research team was going on about now right ?

Dont forget they showed a live tech demo in E3, Microsoft also attempted to show off Natal then, can you imagine how bad the lag will now be ?

It no longer can do anything like real time skeletal modelling its reliant on a processor weighed down in heavy physics / AI etc etc, it doesnt have a dedicated processor making on the fly real time calculations..

What was that processor exactly? Was it completely self contained ? The company behind the original device said what made it possible was the new brain / CPU they had developed

I bet they were running something like a cut down Linux to do all of the calculations on the fly -- cpu is useless without an os/kernel , and windows only runs on x86 based processors now and plus its a heavy junk of an os with no chance of modification.. Which means that its lost any hope of having a 1:1 response, which makes it only suitable for sitting on a couch and grinning like an idiot while you flick through the video selection like they showed in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oACt9R9z37U -- 3:15 onwards

Btw GPU does rely heavily on a CPU stick a top end GPU in a low end CPU and watch the GPU perform like turd...

Remember folks all you need is life experience, or better yet to be a gullable twat..

@ McDuck:
Except that Microsoft doesn't recognize Linux's existence so I seriously doubt that they'd create anything without using a Windows platform.

@mahouneko yeah I know,

3DV originally owned it and Microsoft bought them out though

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/10/microsoft_3dv_mou/ -- I didnt know it but all of the employees of 3DV were sacked with the purchase.. They could well have been running a Linux kernel (busybox maybe) to actually give them an interface into controlling the hardware and to run their program which did the skeletal modelling ..

same here

I dont think it will use 10-15% power all the time.

Also it struck me that if push comes to shove black people could just bring another lamp to the game room. I mean who doesn't have an extra lamp lying around?