PC gaming rewind to 2005

[HFS+]

did pc gaming have better graphics and techology (Hardware power) than the 360 in 2005 when the 360 just came out?

 

[schneiderguy]

Yes.

 

[JSt0rm]

At the top levels yes. But you had to spend a ton.

 

[Corporate Thug]

2005 had to have been the x800 series for ATI right? is that more powerful than whatever is used in the 360?

 

[Arglebargle]

The one big advantage for PCs from the Xbox360 release was their having 3 cores. This lead to programming for multithreading with more than two cores, which was the standard for computers then. IIRC the video processor was some sort of cut down 7800? Edit: Apparantly a custom mix of the 1900 and the next generation 2000 line of ATI's video chipsets.

Sadly the xbox skimped on memory, both main and video, due to costs at the time. We are saddled with all those legacy constraints for the next couple of years.

 

[pw38]

Which at the time you probably wouldn't have cared because it's MS, they won't hobble the PC games market to promote their new console will they? Will they?!

 

[Oyeve]

Dunno, gta:sa was ass looking in sli.

 

[lavaheadache]

2005 had to have been the x800 series for ATI right? is that more powerful than whatever is used in the 360?

the 360 has an r580 derivative. It is essentially an x1900 which was the top Ati card out at the time of the 360 release.

 

[Aikouka]

Sadly the xbox skimped on memory, both main and video, due to costs at the time. We are saddled with all those legacy constraints for the next couple of years.

The 360 may not have a ton of memory compared to most computers, but it has just as much as the PS3, which came out the next year. The difference is that the 360 has combined memory (shared between CPU and GPU), but the PS3 has segmented memory (256MB for Cell and 256MB for the RSX).

 

[schneiderguy]

2005 had to have been the x800 series for ATI right? is that more powerful than whatever is used in the 360?

Nvidia 7800s were out by the time the 360 launched IIRC.

 

[schneiderguy]

the 360 has an r580 derivative. It is essentially an x1900 which was the top Ati card out at the time of the 360 release.

The 360 gpu is closer to the HD 2k series (it's a unified architecture) I believe. The x1900s didn't launch until after the 360.

 

[jmarti445]

The Xbox 360 uses a modified X1900 GPU, it has the 48 pixel shaders on that card. That card was a great card for its time, much more so then the 7800 based graphics of the time. An HD 2900 had 320 unified shaders, its definately in a different league then the Xbox 360 GPU, even though the HD2900 card came out half baked.

 

[BladeVenom]

The 360 CPU was weak. It was like an old G4.

 

[Bateluer]

the 360 has an r580 derivative. It is essentially an x1900 which was the top Ati card out at the time of the 360 release.

Close, R520. The X1900/1950s were R580 designs, the Xenos GPU falls between the X1800 and X1900s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenos_(graphics_chip)

Moot point though. A 30 dollar video card today outperforms all these cards, while using a fraction of the power to boot.

 

[Dumac]

This isn't exactly 2005, but OB on PC looked better than OB on Xbox with my ~1k PC.

 

[wuliheron]

Video games reached their zenith with Dx 9 and its been a slow downhill slide into mediocrity every since. We've got fast enough processors and powerful graphics cards, but its just not enough to take it to the next level. What we need is raw bandwidth and that requires a lot of different innovations coming together which I expect sometime in the next few years. Until that happens its all about the money, money, money that people can squeeze out the existing technology.

 

[schneiderguy]

The Xbox 360 uses a modified X1900 GPU, it has the 48 pixel shaders on that card. That card was a great card for its time, much more so then the 7800 based graphics of the time. An HD 2900 had 320 unified shaders, its definately in a different league then the Xbox 360 GPU, even though the HD2900 card came out half baked.

It's not a modified x1900, it's much closer to R600 than R580 in terms of architecture. The full 2900xt is quite a bit faster than it (Xenos is close to the x1800s in performance).

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Try and remember that the XBOX was only outputting games at 30fps in 640p and then realize that yes. PC's were still better back then.

 

[blckgrffn]

Sadly the xbox skimped on memory, both main and video, due to costs at the time. We are saddled with all those legacy constraints for the next couple of years.

From what I remember they were going to go 128/128 on the 360 until the PS3 umped the Ante. We should all be very happy that MS decided to "splurge" on increased memory.

Don't forget the 20MB of edram (I believe) that is onboard the GPU. As the next gen consoles are likely looking at native 1080p as an actual target I don't know how feasible it is going to be to have that cache on board.

That said, it will be interesting to find out what they do with the xbox next. Are they going to keep Xenos around for legacy apps and a low powered dashboard/video playback GPU? Can it gain some compute ability that would allow it to be used for physics/AI in addition to the main GPU? Will it be able to do some sort of overlay or hybrid crossfire?

Or will they just remove it and tell you to buy a used xbox if you want to play last gen games at all?

I am hoping they don't just die-shrink Xenos, physically double or quadruple its architecture and push it relatively cheaply out the door. A full DX11.1 part would push both the console and the PC gaming markets in a way that would be more beneficial, IMHO.

If it is GCN based, that would be pretty darn awesome and much needed (again, IMHO) in AMD's cap. We would likely see the same "OMG use the xbox as a supercomputer!" as the PS3 experienced early in its life.

 

[WildW]

The XBox is doing really well to keep up these days. Some of the new releases really impress me - watching my friend play Dead Island right now, and it's a long way from some of the early 360 releases. The 360 version of Battlefield 2, for instance, back near launch day, looked pretty poor. Unfortunately that's the kind of picture I have frozen in my head about how good the 360 hardware is.

 

[pw38]

The XBox is doing really well to keep up these days. Some of the new releases really impress me - watching my friend play Dead Island right now, and it's a long way from some of the early 360 releases. The 360 version of Battlefield 2, for instance, back near launch day, looked pretty poor. Unfortunately that's the kind of picture I have frozen in my head about how good the 360 hardware is.

You get to know the hardware long enough like devs have with the 360 and you'll find all sorts of tricks to make games look better. I wouldn't say the 360 is keeping up more so that the PC is being held back.

 

[Malak]

2005 was only a year after HL2 was released right? Because the 360 and PS3 can do better graphics than that game. I'm pretty sure MW3 graphics are superior to anything 2005 had.

 

[iahk]

I'm pretty sure MW3 graphics are superior to anything 2005 had.

Yes. Call of Duty 2 was an X360 launch title.

 

[jmarti445]

Actually...the Xbox 360 did have something that the X1900 cards didn't have, a tesselator.

 

[jmarti445]

2005 was only a year after HL2 was released right? Because the 360 and PS3 can do better graphics than that game. I'm pretty sure MW3 graphics are superior to anything 2005 had.

I thought that Half Life 2 was released in late 2003, I had a 9800 Pro when I played that and I remember it being released on the original Xbox.