Activewin has made available the XBox 360 specifications.
XBox 360 Specs Available
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Activewin has made available the XBox 360 specifications.
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
wow…
Is Linux already available for this baby? :o)
All I’d need is a large enough USB 2.0 hard drive (presuming it will support it) and VirtualPC for PPC to replace my current system with something faster, even with emulation!
In case you’re wondering, I have a dual p3-450 system, so that should be more than feasible to emulate at an equivalent or faster speed, if the numbers I’ve heard are correct of PPC emulating x86 at 1/4 of PPC clock speed. Besides, with 3 PPC processors, especially with the much improved memory bandwidth, it could do a lot of virtual hardware emulation with the third processor quite nicely
It was said that puppy would be using G5s, but I have not heard of any G5 running at that speed… And what GDDR?
This game console probably can outperform all my servers in the server room. Those specs are sick!
It’s a custom PPC CPU, not a pure/real G5. It has things taken out and other things put in, that’s why it can run in such speeds.
“This looks hot!” – Paris Hilton
PowerPC + VMX (aka altivec), the new xbox is a Mac.
I’m still waiting on all the consoles to report in, personally, before making a decision. However, if these specs are accurate then they are pretty impressive. And if Microsoft is selling this for sub-300 like some reports say they’ve been aiming for, I wil be very impressed as a computer of this strength would probably cost 10x that.
Xbox Live, according to this, will have two tiers. Silver requires no subscription while Gold is the normal subscription based one, and will carry over from Xbox 1. Silver isn’t going to allow for online play, though, except for on “Free Xbox Live weekends”. It would still allow some nice features, but if Nintendo does the unified multiplayer as they’ve been thinking about, or perhaps even Sony, the Xbox 360 is going to have some tough competition there.
“Downloadable demos and trailers”, now there is a feature that all consoles need. Having the ability to go and download a demo for a game, like I can on the PC, and try before I buy is very nice.
Streaming media, picture viewing, music playing from “portable devices”, those are all awesome features that would, if the other consoles lack them (and I doubt they will), definately add a point in my mind for the Xbox 360. However, it also depends on if they allow streaming from standard Win XP and not just Media Center Edition. I can do PVR and stuff with normal Win XP just fine. If it works via normal Windows file shares, and so may work with Linux or OS X, all the better.
“Communication with voice, video or text *” Hello Jetson’s-style video phone! That could be a killer app, unless the other consoles also feature it (and I bet you they will, at least as an upgrade).
You can say that again! I own an XBox and was thinking of not upgrading. Looks like I may upgrade in the end, if there are good games on that console.
Anyone remember the leaked block diagram? The figures are almost identical.
Those CPUs combined should produce 153.6 GFLOPs peak (AltiVec Multiply Adds).
There actually more which isn’t mentioned here (additional instructions) but you’ll have to go digging in the patent to find them.
It’s going to be a seriously powerful system…
PowerPC repreSENT.
The best architecture finally being recognized.
OS X should be able to run through Mac-On-Linux within PPC Linux.
This should spur a lot of life into PPC linux as well.
____________________________________________________
But this is basically just a freaking computer.
tri-core 3.2 Ghz PPC, built-in wireless, 20 GB drives?
It will cost a sh*load!!
this is a ridiculously powerful machine. if this were a pc it would be priced at 2,000 bucks or something, the only downside is the 512 ram, but for a console that is amazing. how can microsoft price 2,000 dollars worth of hardware for under $400??
just buy in bucket loads, convert to pc’s and sell for a nice profit!
they can sell at such low prices because they initially make a loss on the hardware hoping later to gain from the software!
They can subsidize it. Microsoft has made a loss (intentionally) on many, or perhaps all Xboxes they sell. The plan is, however, to make that money back on game sales and royalties/licenses pertaining to that.
Microsoft is also building all the parts in very large quantities, and they’ll have factories set up to specifically build only this console and its parts. That drops the price.
amazing, i cannot wait for thursday
Does seriously make’s one wonder about hackability.
With 3 cpus it could be quite interesting.
The big question mark at this time is whether some kind of interconnect can be had? Can some very fast IO be hooked up to this thing? Will this thing be 64bit? (would that matter much even?)
I seriously believe this next generation of console hardware is an indication of where cpu’s are going in the future now that brute manufacturing methods have hit a sort of ceiling.
This looks like nice hardware. It might buy one for a server, but I won’t because I don’t like Microsoft–even though Microsoft is probably going to take a loss on it.
Anyone want to guess how long it takes for Linux and NetBSD to run on it? Or what tricks Microsoft has put in to prevent it? Will Microsoft use the DMCA to strongarm consumers?
You might be able to play STUN Runner at 60fps
I wasn’t expecting much from teh xbox 2/360 but man.. that thing is starting to sound better and better. I’m definitely buying one.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000490042605/
since when has 3 been 2^n
I thought it was illegal to sell things at a lose to kill the opposition?
“Will Microsoft use the DMCA to strongarm consumers?”
How? The last generation consoles had copyright protection built in, and the next generation will as well. It’s a given. Every console company is likely to use the DMCA to scare the modchip people, but there are of course many countries in the world other than the US.
Anyways, Xbox-scene.org currently has tutorials on modding the Xbox, installing Linux and all, yet they aren’t shut down. They do stop short of distributing copyrighted material (modified BIOSes or software compiled with the Xbox SDK), but all the other stuff is fine. http://www.xbox-linux.org/ is there too, and they’ve even got Sourceforge projects. It’s all fine so long as you’re not violating copyright.
> I thought it was illegal to sell things at a lose to kill the opposition?
try to sue them… if you are that big, you buy your rights.
they even bought the us government and thereby the courts.
3 cores just doest work…
systems are done in powers of 2 for a reason!
unless of course MS have made a new kind of binary and altered the laws of physics slightly 😉
“I thought it was illegal to sell things at a lose to kill the opposition?”
Wrong, it is illegal to “dump”. That means if you own the market in the West Coast, you can’t go and sell stuff really cheap on the East Coast and use your profit on the West Coast to stay in business. You have to either sell it cheap everywhere or sell it expensive everywhere.
I remember specs like these coming out for the PS2 a few weeks before release. I predict the 360 will be released with just one processor and video performance from a PC of last year.
How? The last generation consoles had copyright protection built in, and the next generation will as well. It’s a given. Every console company is likely to use the DMCA to scare the modchip people, but there are of course many countries in the world other than the US.
You just answered me and yourself: “Every console company is likely to use the DMCA to scare the modchip people.”
I live in the US and I mostly am concerned with US laws.
It’s all fine so long as you’re not violating copyright.
That’s not how the DMCA is used. Big companies have used (or tried to use) the DMCA to stop competition or control hardware. See <a href=”http://photoshopnews.com/?p=226“>Nikon for latest example.
>> I thought it was illegal to sell things at a lose to kill
>>the opposition?
>try to sue them… if you are that big, you buy your rights.
>they even bought the us government and thereby the courts.
And now the US government (including the courts and the military) is one of Microsoft’s larger customers.
IIRC one of the cores is gonna be offset to work directly w/ the GPU…can’t remember where I read that though. The other 2 will work directly together to process everything else.
>I remember specs like these coming out for the PS2 a few
>weeks before release. I predict the 360 will be released with
> just one processor and video performance from a PC of last
>year.
I find this hard to believe too. Tripple core CPU? The consumer dual-core CPU is very new.
Yeah right!?!? Get-out-a-town with those crazy ass specs!!!
If the Xbox 360 has 3 3.2ghz cores, then Steve Jobs will probably drive a tank through IBM’s headquarters.
(yes, it will be a uber cool “ipod white” colored tank with U2 blaring from the stereo — and yes, Steve will be wearing a bullet proof black sweater)
This is one h*ll of a beast machine.. wow, got to get one.. and the hardware beats my system by far.
http://bitsofnews.com & http://tech.bitsofnews.com
“I thought it was illegal to sell things at a lose to kill the opposition?” ”
Slash is right. Companies can come under fire for dumping – like a japanese steel mill selling it for a loss here by using profits from other markets to make up for it.
Selling products for a loss happens quite often – it’s called the razor n blades approach. Sell the razor for a loss, make money (hopefully) on the blades.
How do we know this is true?
What about compatibility with the old xbox?
How am I going to play my games for my old xbox, which used a celeron, to this new risc powerpc based processor?
Not that its a particuarily big deal, but it would be nice to have some backwards compatibility.
Unlikely to have 3 3.2ghz chips. I’m sure someone had a miscommunication there.
Now, it will have 3 processors. One system processor (running at 3.2ghz), one ATI GPU (at 500mhz), and one APU (from who knows where, probably ATI).
the same tanks that they ran over the pentium IIs with in the old G3 advert?
maybe the third core is for the anti virus software.
This is all very cool, but what media is the Xbox 360 going to use? The PS3 will have heavy Blu-Ray DVDs. I would like to see this new Xbox have HD-DVD.
Rumor is that the hard drive version has BC. (Which makes sense as many xbox games use the hard drive for streaming)
Basically, they would need to develop an x86 emulator for the ppc.
Supposedly, the version w/o the hard drive is 299 and the one with it is 349/369 or something?
I believe these specs more of the real deal, since these been rumored for a while now.
The specs on that are so unreal that I’m going to say HOAX and go back to waiting for my ps3
“Unlikely to have 3 3.2ghz chips. I’m sure someone had a miscommunication there.
Now, it will have 3 processors. One system processor (running at 3.2ghz), one ATI GPU (at 500mhz), and one APU (from who knows where, probably ATI).”
It is ONE CPU with THREE CORES – and that has been the story for a while now.
Dunno if it will have wifi built in, but it would be nice to have the option of ethernet for low latency high speed online games.
And because it seems a new wifi comes out every 6 months.
“This is all very cool, but what media is the Xbox 360 going to use? The PS3 will have heavy Blu-Ray DVDs. I would like to see this new Xbox have HD-DVD. ”
It is using plain ol’ DVD.
Note: it can read DVD+R/RW/… but it does NOT come with a burner as some folks reading the specs assumed.
There is a rumor that a version will come out next year with HD-DVD or something. Games are still based on DVD.
Any other format drive is just too expensive right now.
from what I’ve seen it seems more like one triple core cpu with one vector unit per core
one ATI GPU seperate of teh cpu.
I don’t think it will have WIFI built in, probably a USB 2 add-in.
Having a standard LAN port is guaranteed. It’s not mentioned in the same way that consoles don’t make a big deal about having a video out port.
Under ideal conditions the XBox reaches a 150 GFLOPs(AltiVec multiply adds) peak performance while the PS3 has over 1 TFLOPs in the standard configuration and ways better memory bandwith. The other specs of the Xbox are also rather disappointing.
As a gamer I prefer to save my money and get a PS3 as soon as it comes out.
It looks like Apple’s designers did some moonlighting for Microsoft to get the XBox looking like it does (i.e. iMac/iBook/iPod white, sleek design, etc.).
1) Since it is Wi-Fi ready is there a chance it will work with AirPort Express?
2) Does anyone think it will be possible to connect one’s iPod to it so you can listen to your music in the background while palying games?
3) What is meant by a detachable hard drive, and how does it detach?
4) Is this phase one to Microsoft’s new “Home Media System” (i.e get rid of the Home Media Center PC)?
I think Andrew Babiec may be right here, 3 cores makes more sense then 3 cpu 🙂
if we added up all the intergrated cores and controllers on current chip dies I wonder how many there actually are… CPU, FPU, APU and memory controller are the first that spring to mind
I am not impressed since the gpu looks like it only does with 10 mb of memory. All i can say is if the damn Xbox 2 games are ported to PC and not the other way around or PC games made separate from Xbox 2 games even though they are the same titles, I am gonna get pissed. Consoles are nothing when they come to having the ultimate in sound or graphics or gameplay when playing a game. As a gamer I would only use a PC.
It’s all fine and good. Blazing speed to play Halo 3 or Doom 4 in HDTV, widescreen, 1080i.
Let’s see what specs hold true when Microsoft lauch the Xbox 360 somewhere in november.
Now, first save your money for that new HDTV (that can do NATIVE 1080i) that you will need to buy and then save for the new xBox or PS3 you’re dreaming about.
That’s alot of money only to play games. Since their is still not much to watch in HDTV…. Soon mabe HD-DVD or BlueRay movie will push people to upgrade their TV set…
i agree. another thing to consider is that the XBox 360 has an ATI graphics card while the PS3 has been co-developed by Nvidia(contracted by Sony/Toshiba/IBM) and is expected to feature an entirely new graphics architecture that provides photo-realistic real-time graphics that blows away even professional graphics workstations.
that provides photo-realistic real-time graphics
LOL
1) Since it is Wi-Fi ready is there a chance it will work with AirPort Express?
It is Wi-fi “ready” but probably will not include a wifi card.
2) Does anyone think it will be possible to connect one’s iPod to it so you can listen to your music in the background while palying games?
See my “other rumors” in a future post.
3) What is meant by a detachable hard drive, and how does it detach?
You can upgrade it – i.e. pull it out.
4) Is this phase one to Microsoft’s new “Home Media System” (i.e get rid of the Home Media Center PC)?
I’m thinking synergy/coexistence not one vs. the other.
– Xbox360 dev tools are good in the eyes of developers.
– More than 50 titles will be announced at E3, including some that are only announced by title (i.e. no video / demo)
– Will be released in US and Japan this year. Europe and other regions will be next spring.
– Hardware comes in two flavours: one comes with a 60G HDD and includes B/C with current Xbox. Other one has no HDD and no B/C. HDD will also be sold separately so you can upgrade later.
– Price of HDD model $369, regular model $299.
– Xbox360 will be compatible with MSN Music, and a memory-based audio player that uses the memory unit slot will be sold by MS.
– Audio player will be $99 for 512 MB version.
“Consoles are nothing when they come to having the ultimate in sound or graphics or gameplay when playing a game. As a gamer I would only use a PC.”
Well now that’ s funny. I think that a person should have to spend hundred on a graphics card alone or around a grand for the whole machine to play a $20 game is ridiculous. And of course, if your hardware is not completely top of the line, you’ll have to hope that the game runs on it, otherwise wait for a patch which might or might not come and might or might not work. And no matter how good your hardware is, they’ll be wanting you to upgrade it again in 6 months.
I had person babbling to me just the other day about how much better Battlefront looks on PC than on X Box. To spend hundreds of dollars more only to have the graphics SLIGHTLY better seems pretty fscking stupid.
PC gaming is joke and a racket.
Goa graphics are way more than slightly better, PC graphics are wayyyy better than xbox graphics. If these specs are real, this new xbox 360 will probably be superior to the majority of PC gaming hardware when released.
– Price of HDD model $369, regular model $299.
Why will a 60 GB hard drive cost 70 bucks when xbox 360 is released?
Yeah, those XBox 360 specs don’t impress. I’ll also wait for the PS3. Seems like the PS3 will hit the stores sooner than expected(spring 2006) and this beast will be a whole new experience.
The following was leaked around June of 2004 last year…
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.
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.
“Goa graphics are way more than slightly better, PC graphics are wayyyy better than xbox graphics.”
I saw Battlefront on PC for myself. The difference wasn’t that big. You can switch sides in the middle of a battle and they’ve changed the race of the Rebel missile launcher guy.
I was told the same thing about KOTOR as well. Actually went out and bought it. BFD
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.
The Xenon system south bridge also contains a key hardware component for audio—XMA decompression. XMA is the native Xenon compressed audio format, based on the WMA Pro architecture. XMA provides sound quality higher than ADPCM at even better compression ratios, typically 6:1–12:1. The south bridge contains a full silicon implementation of the XMA decompression algorithm, including support for multichannel XMA sources. XMA is processed by the south bridge into standard PCM format in RAM. All other sound processing (sample rate conversion, filtering, effects, mixing, and multispeaker encoding) happens on the Xenon CPU.
The lowest-level Xenon audio software layer is XAudio, a new API designed for optimal digital signal processing. The Xbox Audio Creation Tool (XACT) API from Xbox is also supported, along with new features such as conditional events, improved parameter control, and a more flexible 3D audio model.
Input/Output
As with Xbox, Xenon is designed to be a multiplayer console. It has built-in networking support including an Ethernet 10/100-BaseT port. It supports up to four controllers. From an audio/video standpoint, Xenon will support all the same formats as Xbox, including multiple high-definition formats up through 1080i, plus VGA output.
In order to provide greater flexibility and support a wider variety of attached devices, the Xenon console includes standard USB 2.0 ports. This feature allows the console to potentially host storage devices, cameras, microphones, and other devices.
The PS3 will be between $300 and $400, anywhere between 3 and 10 times faster, and Sony promises that there will be more games available for the PS3 than for the XBox within the next three years. That’s what I call an easy decision…
wow them specs are better then whats in my computer Lol but to me it all comes down to price and whom ever has the cheapest hardware thats what il go for
Why call a new console & game a «whole new experience»? It’s nothing new, it’s only better.
It’s like the evolution of video card, from newer DirectX to better hardware and faster CPU.
I’ll call a «whole new experience» when i’ll be able to plug my brain on the console (movie eXistenZ!). Sony had a couple of nice TV spot like that when the PS2 came out.
Remember, only better but NOT new.
Storage
The Xenon console is designed around a larger world view of storage than Xbox was. Games will have access to a variety of storage devices, including connected devices (memory units, USB storage) and remote devices (networked PCs, Xbox Live). At the time of this writing, the decision to include a built-in hard disk in every Xenon console has not been made. If a hard disk is not included in every console, it will certainly be available as an integrated add-on component.
Xenon supports up to two attached memory units (MUs). MUs are connected directly to the console, not to controllers as on Xbox. The initial size of the MUs is 64 MB, although larger MUs may be available in the future. MU throughput is expected to be around 8 MB/sec for reads and 1 MB/sec for writes.
The Xenon game disc drive is a 12× DVD, with an expected outer edge throughput of 16+ MB/sec. Latency is expected to be in the neighborhood of 100 ms. The media format will be similar to Xbox, with approximately 6 GB of usable space on the disk. As on Xbox, media will be stored on a single side in two 3 GB layers.
Industrial Design
The Xenon industrial design process is well under way, but the final look of the box has not been determined. The Xenon console will be smaller than the Xbox console. The standard Xenon controller will have a look and feel similar to the Xbox controller. The primary changes are the removal of the Black and White buttons and the addition of shoulder buttons. The triggers, thumbsticks, D-pad, and primary buttons are essentially unchanged. The controller will support vibration.
Xenon Development Kit
The Xenon development environment follows the same model as for Xbox. Game development occurs on the PC. The resulting executable image is loaded by the Xenon development kit and remotely debugged on the PC. MS Visual Studio version 7.1 continues as the development environment for Xenon.
The Xenon compiler is based on a custom PowerPC back end and the latest MS Visual C++ front end. The back end uses technology developed at MS for Windows NT on PowerPC. The Xenon software group includes a dedicated team of compiler engineers updating the compiler to support Xenon-specific CPU extensions. This team is also heavily focused on optimization work. The Xenon development kit will include accurate DVD emulation technology to allow developers to very precisely gauge the effects of the retail console disc drive.
Miscellaneous Xenon Hardware Notes
Xenon is a big-endian system. Both the CPU and GPU process memory in big-endian mode. Games ported from little-endian systems such as the Xbox or PC need to account for this in their game asset pipeline.
Tapping into the power of the CPU is a daunting task. Writing multithreaded game engines is not trivial. Xenon system software is designed to take advantage of this processing power wherever possible. The Xbox Advanced Technology Group (ATG) is also exploring a variety of techniques for offloading graphics work to the CPU.
People often ask if Xenon can be backward compatible with Xbox. Although the architecture of the two consoles is quite different, Xenon has the processing power to emulate Xbox. Whether Xenon will be backward compatible involves a variety of factors, not the least of which is the massive development and testing effort required to allow Xbox games run on Xenon.
I think speculation about xbox 360 vs. ps3 is a little premature considering we know so little about either. I would rather revisit that debate this fall/winter.
I’m not certain even about the 360 specs posted here until it is official. We should know more about 360 at E3 later this month.
What OS will the XBox 360 run? Is it possible to run Linux on it?
” am not impressed since the gpu looks like it only does with 10 mb of memory”
It uses a unified memory architecture so the 512 can be split between CPU and GPU however the developers see fit.
See the June 2004 doc section on memory earlier.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=10548&offset=60&rows=69#3…
i heard a rummor that xbox 360 would use a very modified version of windows ce, is this true?
Notice the über-fast dedivated 10MB “cache” for the GPU. Additionially the bandwith of the 512MB shared RAM seems to be almost on par with the memory of the fastest graphics cards available for the PC.
“if we added up all the intergrated cores and controllers on current chip dies I wonder how many there actually are… CPU, FPU, APU and memory controller are the first that spring to mind”
none of the current CPUs in your desktop are multicore. The new Pentium Ds and Athlon X2s are DUAL cores but they are pricey and not in the mainstream yet.
Remember, this isn’t a regular G5 – it is “PowerPC-based” CPU, one specially made for 360 with design tradeoffs made specifically for games.
truly it could use NT or CE as long as there was a port for the cpu.
my bet is on some NT OS embedded
“What OS will the XBox 360 run? Is it possible to run Linux on it?”
“heard a rummor that xbox 360 would use a very modified version of windows ce, is this true?”
Considering that Microsoft had made Windows NT for PPC a while back, all rumors suggest a stripped-down, gaming/directX-optimized NT core is also being used for 360. Which is what they also did for original xbox.
In terms of Linux, we won’t know until hobbyists get their hands on the consoles – Microsoft will probably do everything to make this impossible.
http://home.btconnect.com/hgi/xbox2/xbox2systemL.gif
It’s all fine so long as you’re not violating copyright.
That’s not how the DMCA is used. Big companies have used (or tried to use) the DMCA to stop competition or control hardware. See http://photoshopnews.com/?p=226 Nikon for latest example.
Wayy back in the comments, sure. But what I mean is that Microsoft has not done anything against Xbox-Scene or the likes through the DMCA. Perhaps these places are hosted out of the states, but in any case the sites will likely be up for the Xbox 360.
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And RE: PS3
It’s all speculation and rumours. You have no more proof of these claims than the Xbox people have of these Xbox 360 specs. And what of Nintendo, me lad?
Any one expecting 1 TFlop from the PS3 had better break out the kleenex because they are going to be disappointed. I am not saying it is not going to be more or less powerful but 1 TFlop is not realistic.
Also as Andrew keeps saying they are not G5’s they are custom made and will only have 1MB of L2 cache for all 3 CPU’s. Therefore are cheaper to manufacture as opposed to AMD’s approach of having 1MB of L2 for each core.
PowerPC + VMX (aka altivec), the new xbox is a Mac.
IBM is still the manufacturer of PowerPC. Neither is the Xbox 360, nor Mare Nostrum a Mac.
“The Xenon compiler is based on a custom PowerPC back end and the latest MS Visual C++ front end. The back end uses technology developed at MS for Windows NT on PowerPC. The Xenon software group includes a dedicated team of compiler engineers updating the compiler to support Xenon-specific CPU extensions. This team is also heavily focused on optimization work. The Xenon development kit will include accurate DVD emulation technology to allow developers to very precisely gauge the effects of the retail console disc drive.”
XNA is going to absolutely rock.
http://www.microsoft.com/xna/
>The specs on that are so unreal that I’m going to say HOAX and go
>back to waiting for my ps3
That’s a very ironic statement…
The 3 cores are most likely *very* similar to the PPC core in the Cell in the PS3, not exactly the same (they have extra instructions and more AltiVec registers) but certainly very.
The reason they can put 3 high clocked core on a die at a low price is they are completely unlike any current desktop CPU. Desktop CPUs are highly complex out-of-order designs. These are dual threaded, 64 bit …but in-order. Because they are a lot less complex thus smaller (read cheaper) and can be made to run at a higher clock rate.
Nintendo will probably use something similar as well but perhaps not as custom.
>And RE: PS3
>
>It’s all speculation and rumours. You have no more proof of these
>claims than the Xbox people have of these Xbox 360 specs.
There’s quite a bit of information available on the production version of Cell about now …there’s also a patent on the XBox which bears more than a close resemblance to previously leaked specs.
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For Macs these systems will likely provide “interesting” performance characteristics, great in some areas but they’ll suck in others, a recompile should fix this though. That said, I reckon Apple will introduce a dual core version in a future product…
Any one expecting 1 TFlop from the PS3 had better break out the kleenex because they are going to be disappointed.
The only posting sofar I can find about “anyone expecting” is somebody claiming that the peak performance can be reached “under ideal conditions”. Well, that depends on the definition of “ideal” – in reality, this condition simply does not exist.
I am not saying it is not going to be more or less powerful but 1 TFlop is not realistic.
This is not an issue with whether the value itself is “realistic” or not. Peak performance are defined as the maximum (one chosen floating-point, usually add, multiply or multiply-add) instructions per cycle (times the vector length for SIMD instruction) times the clock frequency.
How close you can get to the peak performance depends on the application. If you almost entirely work in your cache and never need anything else, you can get fairly close to the peak performance. Most scientific floating-point applications, however, requires processing of a data stream. In this case, the limiting factor is usually the memory bandwidth, and you can simply estimate real FLOPS by dividing the bandwidth by 4 bytes per IEEE single precision. You should come much closer to SPECfp by this crude estimate.
i heard a rummor that xbox 360 would use a very modified version of windows ce, is this true?
The dreamcast used windows ce, its possible.
Dreamcast didn’t use Windows CE as the OS.
Only a few days until that MTV thingie, when we should get specs on the new Xbox (unless they just spew out marketing junk, which is not unlikely). A number of days after that, and E3 should be providing us information on all consoles.
I just like the sony fanboys who are flaunting around the possible/probable/? superior power of the PS3, while clinging to the weakest of the current generation of consoles. You shouldn’t have to find things to justify your nutty brand loyalty like that, nor repeatedly point out how “superior” Sony is to everyone else.
Just chill, compare before buying, etc. I’d rather let them sit around for awhile before buying, it will be cheaper and I’ll better be able to gauge which will come ahead, or which will be better for myself.
so thats why the dreamcast I’m staring at on my desk says “Compatible with Microsoft Windows CE” ? and every website containing info on the dreamcast states it runs CE ?
“One of the things that existed for DC developers was a port of Windows CE, a scaled down version of Windows for other platforms. The idea was that developers could develop for Win32 with DirectX and port their titles to the Dreamcast with a minimum of headache. In return for this, Sega put a WindowsCE logo on the Dreamcast. However, the port of WindowsCE is held on the GD-ROM of the product, it’s not part of the Dreamcast itself. In addition, a Win32/DirectX program must be specifically compiled for the DC version of Windows CE in order to work this way”
from http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6631
ah cool.
thanks for the info.
NP helf
I can see why people think it runs CE on the DC as its main OS since it has the logo there.
This bad boy seems to good to be true, and way to good to be sold for under 300 dollars. 3 PPC processors, running at 3.2 ghz? after that expense how can they afford much else
Microsoft bought VirtualPC some time ago. VirtualPC has a pretty decent x86 emulator for the PPC. The new Xbox hardware sounds like it has plenty of speed to emulate the current Xbox, using a VirtualPC layer.
Microsoft was limited in what they could do with security in the Xbox because they were using standard hardware. With this new Xbox using a custom CPU, they can write security keys directly into the core.
I predict that the only way to break the security on the Xbox 360 to run anything but MS approved software will require a Microsoft or IBM insider to leak it, or someone to take it into a university lab and strip it with an electron microscope.
They can subsidize it. Microsoft has made a loss (intentionally) on many, or perhaps all Xboxes they sell. The plan is, however, to make that money back on game sales and royalties/licenses pertaining to that.
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Microsoft isnt the only one to do this, nor are they the first to do so.
That’s cute, but can they make any decent games on it?
Doesn’t it already take far too much time, money and effort to make games as it is, not without lazy ass publishers like EA who will stop at nothing to sell you shite software.
I see no improvement in the software space, tell me that EA is shutting down, and *that’s* gaming news that matters.
this is a ridiculously powerful machine. if this were a pc it would be priced at 2,000 bucks or something
I don’t know… it’d cost 2000 bucks build from the parts bought in retail stores. Everything soldered onto one board and produced en masse. I remember when PS2 came out – a look at my desktop machine at the time almost made me cry.
Before talking about PC vs XBOX performance, note that this machine is not on the market yet. When it comes out, everybody will run AMD64 with dual (later quad) cores at 4GHz, with 4-8 GB RAM and GPU 512MB (compare this to shared 512MB total). With Java and .NET, 512MB is really too little for anything useful (like Eclipse). So, I will keep with good ol’ PC, if anybody want to swich to XBOX 360/PS3/Whatever, good luck!
Do you really think PCs will advance that fast? XBOX 360 debutes this november!
It will be postponed, then too few consoles available, too expensive at the start, only some markets, others later. And when you get a chance to actually own one here in Europe for 300 Euro, in the summer 2006, PC specs I wrote will apply. After one year from that point, summer 2007 xbox 360/ps3 is crappy old obsolete hardware with too few ram to run anything new. All seen before.
I think the problem with ps3 is it’l have only 256mb ram, the cell is also much more harder to programm than plain ppc cores. Microsoft tries to make things easier for the developers opposed to sony. So i think it will be a closer battle this time and ms learned much from their experience and are not new to this market anymore. I wonder who wins this time. I personally bet on m$ seing better hardware/developer support, but sony had traditional more creative games. Ps3 will also be much expensive (anyone remembers rambus?).
It’s fun to read all the replys here. Everybody seem to know so much about Xbox360 and PS3! It’s nice to know that OSNews has so many readers that works for MS and Sony.
Before saying that PS3 will be so much better because of The Cell CPU (that we did not see in action as of now…) or that it will be slower because of only 256mb of ram… Or anything else about Xbox360, could you please WAIT until MS and Sony publish REAL SPEC?
And above all, it’s not just about the hardware. GAMES has to bee good too. With no game, any console would die.