Xbox 360 should have.....

[mrgq912]

I am not to thrilled with the xbox 3core cpu. After reading anand intial assessment and from what the developers are whispering.

Why would MS abanden its PC user fan base by complete switching to a new processor architecture. MS has a lot of money, why not just throw some real dual core FX processors into this new consoles. AMD rocks at gaming, or it could have worked with AMD to design a gaming only processor.

Also I why does MS support HD-dvd but not put it into its own console. With such a huge jump over sony, HD-dvd could have really taken off. Of course this would have set the launch date back, but who cares, I want a true evolution in consoles not a upgrade.

Hard drive should be standard, and they should have force developers to use to decrease load times and increase performance. After all they are forcing developers to render at 720p minimum.

And thats another thing, why only go upto 720p, when true HD is 1080p.

Only thing they did right is the GPU for ATI, that embedded ram thing is great. I wish they would do that for pcs.

What would you guys have wanted?

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

A keyboard and mouse standard with every unit. Only way developers would ever use it.

 

[mrgq912]

Yeah I forgot that one. MS may not like the fact that people mod there xboxs and people think of it as a pc. But hey as a pc lover, thats the reason I have the first xbox.

Why run from your fan base by not giving them what they want, keyboard and mouse support for FPS.

If MS did that then we may even start seeing RTS games come out for consoles.

People always say this generation of new consoles will destroy pc gaming. But if they simply allowed us or the developers to give support to keyboard and mice, it could challenge the PC.

Also whats up with no media center capabilities out of the box. MS really wants to own our living room, the easist way would have been to make the hard drive standard, and make this thing into a Tivo standard. This way people would use this 360 for everything from games to TV. Imagine pausing a game and watching TV. Then pauseing your tV and going back to the game. Also this way MS could have sold larger hard drives, giving people a real reason to buy large hard drives.

 

[blckgrffn]

A dual core athlon 64, low voltage around 1.8-2.0 ghz. I think that developers would have loved it and in the end it would still have roughly the same amount of realworld performance as the current 3 core solution. If AMD had added Hyper threading to it, it would have been great, with maybe 256 megs of ram just for the processor and not meddling neccessarily with the VRAM.

It would have given AMD a real use for that new fab even if they had sold the IP to Microsoft (some sort of more gaming centric A64 derivative) but also had MS agree to use them as some sort of exclusive provider for the first 2 years or so.

My $.02

Nat

 

[Hyperlite]

or a DC turion...that would have kept temps under control, and power consumption down.

 

[ND40oz]

I would have put an HDMI cable in the $400 system. Rediculous to ship it with analogue connections when they're marketing it with Samsung DLPs.

Also, I have to disagree with your statement that true HD is 1080p, 720p is a HDTV standard as defined by the ATSC.

Edit: forgot the dollar sign

 

[Hyperlite]

Originally posted by: ND40oz
I would have put an HDMI cable in the $400 system. Rediculous to ship it with analogue connections when they're marketing it with Samsung DLPs.

Also, I have to disagree with your statement that true HD is 1080p, 720p is a HDTV standard as defined by the ATSC.

Edit: forgot the dollar sign

Your correct about the HD, and there will be very little 1080P content for a long time. Heck, there arn't even any 1080p plasmas yet.

 

[SickBeast]

It should have more high-calibre games, and it should have a Project Gotham Racing 3 game that is truly an HD game, not a "faux-HD" game as people are suggesting it is.

It also needs a controller that is as good as the PS2 controller. A built in web browser would also be nice. Also, the ability to install freeware linux/word processor software would be amazing, but I'm sure that will be a very difficult feat to accomplish seeing as Bill Gates pwns all Xboxes in one way or another.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: mrgq912
Also I why does MS support HD-dvd but not put it into its own console.

Cost.

Hard drive should be standard, and they should have force developers to use to decrease load times and increase performance. After all they are forcing developers to render at 720p minimum.

Agree with you there. Load times aren't fun. Although we will see what they're like in games with the new 12X CAV DVD drive.

And thats another thing, why only go upto 720p, when true HD is 1080p.

HD was defined years ago as 720p and 1080i; 1080p is brand new and not even supported by anything but the latest DLP screens and ultra high end projectors. Considering 99% of current console games support up to 480p these days, 720p is a nice improvement. Especially combined with the fact that games are now forced to be 16:9 widescreen. We are spoiled by the PC, but 1280X720 is a big step up from 640X480 from most games of last generation (a few were 852X480; a couple were 1280X720 and Gran Turismo 4 was 1080i).

Only thing they did right is the GPU for ATI, that embedded ram thing is great. I wish they would do that for pcs.

I agree - in theory, the imbedded RAM giving essentially "free" AA for all games sounds downright brilliant!

What would you guys have wanted?

I would have loved larger media as well. Unfortunately, no next-gen disc drives are available yet, and prices would be way higher.

I would have also liked for Microsoft to just bite the bullet and include the HD as standard so developers would all program with the HD in mind. Now some will have to tiptoe around some users not having the HD to speed things up.

In my opinion though, MS will bundle the HD standard after about a year or maybe as soon as the PS3 is released, as a kind of counter to the PS3.

I agree 100% with ND40oz too: an HDMI cable should be included in the $400 system.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
In my opinion though, MS will bundle the HD standard after about a year or maybe as soon as the PS3 is released, as a kind of counter to the PS3.

That's what I've been thinking too... Once the unit gets down below that magical $300 price point.

That's the only reason MS offered a Core system... To provide a $299 leader.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: blckgrffn
A dual core athlon 64, low voltage around 1.8-2.0 ghz. I think that developers would have loved it and in the end it would still have roughly the same amount of realworld performance as the current 3 core solution. If AMD had added Hyper threading to it, it would have been great, with maybe 256 megs of ram just for the processor and not meddling neccessarily with the VRAM.

I like AMD processors as much as the next guy, but I don't see how or why Hyperthreading would help the relatively short-pipelined processors AMD produces. I definitely don't see why anyone would really want HT on a gaming console that already has multiple cores.

 

[Brunnis]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
I like AMD processors as much as the next guy, but I don't see how or why Hyperthreading would help the relatively short-pipelined processors AMD produces. I definitely don't see why anyone would really want HT on a gaming console that already has multiple cores.

HT is about using unused execution units for a second thread. For example, pipeline hazards might make it impossible to schedule enough integer instructions for issue in a particular cycle. HT makes it possible to choose non-conflicting instructions from a separate thread and therefore use resources that would otherwise have been idling until the next cycle. As you can see, there is performance to be had from this even with a much shorter pipeline than Netburst's.

About the 360: It is mostly what I wanted it to be. I agree that it would be better if the HD was standard, but otherwise I'm pretty satisfied.

 

[DigitalFreak]

I have a feeling that the video output path of the XBox360 is analog... Therefore, no HDMI/DVI.

 

[Hyperlite]

Originally posted by: DigitalFreak
I have a feeling that the video output path of the XBox360 is analog... Therefore, no HDMI/DVI.

yeah, HDMI would definantly have been nice. Are they just keeping it to composite?

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: DigitalFreak
I have a feeling that the video output path of the XBox360 is analog... Therefore, no HDMI/DVI.

Hmmm... I'm not sure. Will have to look into that one.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

too much love for AMD, its blinding.

That being said, Microsoft should have stuck with intel and pressured them to produce a dualcore P-M variant. Its quite clear that the P-M is as good if not better for gaming - the primary purpose of the 360, and the fact that they're not power hunger is a nice plus - oh and Intel could actually fulfill the supply orders whereas I could see AMD struggling, especially when Microsoft needed to get things rolling ASAP in order for their 1st to market release have enough time to be of any advantage over Sony.

Heck, even a singlecore P-M and a PhysX PPU from AGEIA...although AGEIA wouldn't have been ready in time for the 360's current launch.

Its easy to look at it now and say "this is what they should have done", but Microsoft did make chioces that are probably best for their console. Their CPU isn't expensive and should get the job done, the GPU is probably above and beyond expectations - little room for improvement there.

 

[n19htmare]

What price are you willing to pay for a gaming console?
Are you willing to dish out like maybe $800 on a gaming console that may use AMD dual-core chips (Fx processor with a $300 price tag, i think not) and have 1080p, HD-DVD and what not.

at the base price of $299, I think its a good console. I don't really know what else they could have implemented and kept the cost low. It's a lot easier to say shoulda done this, should done that but i'm pretty sure the guys up there know what they're doing, insead of some some guy online going shoulda, coulda woulda.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Brunnis

HT is about using unused execution units for a second thread. For example, pipeline hazards might make it impossible to schedule enough integer instructions for issue in a particular cycle. HT makes it possible to choose non-conflicting instructions from a separate thread and therefore use resources that would otherwise have been idling until the next cycle. As you can see, there is performance to be had from this even with a much shorter pipeline than Netburst's.

I'm aware of how HT affects performance, at least in general. I am also aware of the performance different of, say, dual Xeons with HT vs dual Xeons without, or Pentium 840D vs Pentium 840EE, etc.

Once you get into a multi-processor or multicore situation, getting a real performance advantage out of Hyperthreading is difficult, requires multiple threads and/or simultaneous apps, etc.

So, yes, while there is "performance to be had", it's really hard to squeeze it out of a multi-proc or multicore system, especially when games are the only apps being run.

 

[Brunnis]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
I'm aware of how HT affects performance, at least in general. I am also aware of the performance different of, say, dual Xeons with HT vs dual Xeons without, or Pentium 840D vs Pentium 840EE, etc.

Once you get into a multi-processor or multicore situation, getting a real performance advantage out of Hyperthreading is difficult, requires multiple threads and/or simultaneous apps, etc.

So, yes, while there is "performance to be had", it's really hard to squeeze it out of a multi-proc or multicore system, especially when games are the only apps being run.

Yeah, I know that. My response was to the statement that SMT wouldn't show any gains in a shorter piped CPU, which it in fact would.

 

[BitByBit]

I don't know how many times the purpose of Hyperthreading has been discussed, but pipeline depth has absolutely no bearing on a processor's suitability for SMT!

Back onto the OP's original subject, I agree with most here that a simple dual-core processor would have been a better choice. Perhaps MS had little to do with the designing of the actual processor, but an array of weaker cores makes life difficult for developers, because in order to get worthwhile performance, games are going to have to be atleast quad-threaded. We know from one of AT's previous articles that writing multithreaded code for games is no simple feat.

 

[TecHNooB]

So are any of the new consoles going with AMD? T_T

 

[carlosd]

No new consoles with AMD or intel.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: BitByBit
I don't know how many times the purpose of Hyperthreading has been discussed, but pipeline depth has absolutely no bearing on a processor's suitability for SMT!

The pipeline has no bearing on the processor's suitability for SMT except for the fact that deeper pipelines are usually less efficient, which makes the gain from SMT more pronounced. The same thing can be said about wide CPUs (cpus with lots of execution units), since they rarely use all of their execution units. A64s are shallow and narrow, however, so the gain from SMT would be insignificant considering that the CPU does not have a whole lot of execution units idling away for the most part. In fact, the transistor budget necessary to implement SMT may give a better performance boost used elsewhere. Also, just enabling SMT would have a much greater negative impact on performance on a CPU of the A64's design than it does on the netburst chips (single-thread performance is a bit worse when running HT enabled than without it) because of the shared units (parts of the front end, registers, etc).

Now, back to the topic: the harddrive SHOULD have been standard so patches, exploit fixes and the like could have been used for online games (MMORPGs would benefit tremendously from this). Now developers can't count on a harddrive, so they cant force users to update their software before connecting to the servers.

 

[BitByBit]

Originally posted by: Furen

A64s are shallow and narrow, however, so the gain from SMT would be insignificant considering that the CPU does not have a whole lot of execution units idling away for the most part. In fact, the transistor budget necessary to implement SMT may give a better performance boost used elsewhere. Also, just enabling SMT would have a much greater negative impact on performance on a CPU of the A64's design than it does on the netburst chips (single-thread performance is a bit worse when running HT enabled than without it) because of the shared units (parts of the front end, registers, etc).

Narrow?
The K7/K8 is a wide, triple-issue core, which allows it to achieve a higher IPC than Netburst. If what you state was the case, then the Athlon 64 would indeed be unsuitable for SMT.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: BitByBit
Narrow?
The K7/K8 is a wide, triple-issue core, which allows it to achieve a higher IPC than Netburst. If what you state was the case, then the Athlon 64 would indeed be unsuitable for SMT.

Well, I suppose the wide/narrow thing depends on what architecture you compare it to. The K8 is wider than the Netburst and the original P6 but compared to the 5-issue Power architecture (that uses SMT very effectively) it's narrow. My point was that the A64 is not wide enough so that it has many execution units wasting time idlings, so duplicating part of the front-end to give it SMT may not be worth the trouble (and cost, both in transistors and heat). That's one thing about Intel's upcoming Conroe. Because it will be even wider than the K8 it may find itself with idling execution units, so having SMT could conceivably benefit it.