CIPWTTKT&GC v0X12 (v18): Makol can't Computer Very Good
10,676 replies, posted
[QUOTE=MC3craze;35071980]You idiot. I have nVidia components running right now.
I am not going to believe such a claim until more information is available.[/QUOTE]
Nor am I, but I was trying to give you some fucking news, I'm not arguing with yall anymore, I have better shit to do.
[editline]10th March 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Shadaez;35071985]noone even mentioned AMD, are you autistic? do you not understand computer? they could have optimized the engine, they could have been limited by memory constraints, the new videocard might do dx11 better, they might have been bottlenecked by the CPU before, there's tons of other variables than omg 1 680 IS THREE tiems more powerful!!!!!![/QUOTE]
Leme spell it out for you.
I. F. U. C. K. I. N. G. K. N. O. W.
[QUOTE=sunny946;35072002]Nor am I, but I was trying to give you some fucking news, I'm not arguing with yall anymore, I have better shit to do.
[editline]10th March 2012[/editline]
Leme spell it out for you.
I. F. U. C. K. I. N. G. K. N. O. W.[/QUOTE]
Then don't go batshit crazy and assume things you know nothing about if you "know."
[editline]9th March 2012[/editline]
And I would like to know your age. I doubt you're 21
Oh, shut up. Both of you. All of you. You're all wrong until proven otherwise, even if both of you being wrong would destroy the foundations of logical consistency.
The subject is now game consoles. How would you design a console? Hardware specs, software, anything. GO.
I would make the console upgradable for one. Then one of the main drawbacks would be gone.
It'd be essentially a low-cost gaming PC.
[QUOTE=sunny946;35072002]Nor am I, but I was trying to give you some fucking news, I'm not arguing with yall anymore, I have better shit to do.
[editline]10th March 2012[/editline]
Leme spell it out for you.
I. F. U. C. K. I. N. G. K. N. O. W.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=sunny946;35071756][url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkHGBDPCUcE[/url]
Holy shit.
Three, THREE times more powerful than an 580, I hope this is true.[/QUOTE]
you sure do now
On the subject of consoles.
what do you guys thing of the rumors of the next Xbox having no DVD drive and being released next year?
[QUOTE=Makol;35072114]On the subject of consoles.
what do you guys thing of the rumors of the next Xbox having no DVD drive and being released next year?[/QUOTE]
If they do digital distribution, I hope they have Steam-caliber servers.
[QUOTE=Makol;35072114]On the subject of consoles.
what do you guys thing of the rumors of the next Xbox having no DVD drive and being released next year?[/QUOTE]
I hope not, putting Microsoft in charge of pricing games would be awful
do I have to post that page stretching STOP FIGHTING image again
No you don't it's all good now.
[QUOTE=MC3craze;35072146]No you don't it's all good now.[/QUOTE]
Well it wasn't quite "all good" when I posted that.
"How to Design A Console" doesn't warrant said image, so as long as it stays here for a bit I'll be fine.
[url=http://facepunch.com/profile.php?do=addlist&userlist=ignore&u=314231]Solution[/url]
[editline]10th March 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Shadaez;35072132]I hope not, putting Microsoft in charge of pricing games would be awful[/QUOTE]
That's a scary thought.
Myself, this is how I would design it:
CPU: A Sandy Bridge type design, obviously. Probably Ivy Bridge, actually. I'd base it off whatever the IB version of the 2600 is, but I'd cut out the integrated GPU (useless in a console). I'd also trim out some legacy x86 stuff - no need for an x87-style FPU, or MMX compatibility. And probably trim the cache to 4MB, to lower the cost.
GPU: GeForce 550, with mods. I'd try to get a die-shrink, 22nm version of it produced on the Intel fabs, if possible. I'd also ditch the onboard VRAM (more on that later).
RAM: Shared CPU/GPU memory is definitely the way to go. I'm thinking 4GB of GDDR5, split into two units (think 2x2GB) would be best. The two units means the dual-channel controller could work at full, or that the CPU and GPU could access different banks simultaneously.
Storage: Internal hard drive - base model 100GB, higher-tiers up to 1TB. User-upgradeable. Games would mainly be sold online, but physical retail would be done via read-only SDXC or SDHC cards.
Controllers would be standard USB (wired) or Bluetooth (wireless) devices. Standard dual-thumbstick, ABXY, dual-trigger controllers. Add stereo rumble, Gamecube-style combined triggers (they had a regular analog input, plus a digital all-the-way-in button) on the L1/R1. Allow keyboards and mice to be usable - in fact, make that part of the certification for releasing a game, that it at least be usable with them.
Software: Linux-based, with custom semi-proprietary drivers (since we're making the hardware, we don't have to reverse-engineer anything), and heavily modded to make it more console-like. Support "open mode" via a DIP switch on the mobo - enabling it makes it load unsigned executables with root permissions, but it locks out the heavily-encrypted gaming firmware, making games unplayable. That solves a lot of problems - open-source people and tinkerers don't have to mess with any security to have their fun, so the pirates can't piggyback on their work.
Partner with Steam for the online experience, and make sure to get Netflix available on the box as well. Pay third parties to port their shit - get a Call of Duty, a Grand Theft Auto, a Monster Hunter (to get Japan) and at least one good RTS and fighting game, as release games.
First-party, I'll take care of. Between Project Z, Numbers, Galactic Empires, Skies, Green Dawn, Evenfall, Pax Alchemica, Collateral Damage and Mage vs Marine, I think I've got enough ideas. I just need people to make them, and if I've got the sway to make a console, I've got enough minions to get this shit done.
Am I the only one who laughs a little inside when I see an i7 at 1.5-1.8ghz?
If I were to design a console I'd avoid commodity and x86 as much as possible, I don't think it's the way to go.
CPU: I'd approach IBM, the way to go with CPU's right now, they be rolling in awesome. I'd suggest a design based off the 4 Core POWER7 chip, increase SMT Threads (6 instead of 4) per core and flood it with DP FPU's, 8 instead of 4, I'd go for a lower clock though, 2.2Ghz maybe and stick on a 64MB L3 cache (I'll get to why such a large cache later, SRAM all up in this bitch) leaving all the other L caches empty and maybe try to get a 32NM process on it.
GPU: Try to get a midrange kepler card, something based around the 660. Nothing too fancy. 64MB GDDR5 vRam, however this would be secondary RAM, building off Gmans idea. I'm not so much a fan of GDDR5, it has a fundamental problem of high latency.
RAM: SRAM. That shit be king. 512MB of SRAM. Now remember the large CPU cache from before, that cache is the primary source of RAM. It would be the fastest to access, developers would put their core game essentials in here, so the base code, high use models and textures (Main character for example, it wouldn't be much) then all secondary items will go to the secondary SRAM. I'd partition off the SRAM though, 128MB for CPU, 128MB for the GPU and 256MB for whatever the developer wants. This would be a bit of a mess to organise for developers at times but I think it would end well. Maybe.
Storage: Internal hard drive, 250GB to 500GB, internal with the ability to use upgrade like the PS3 worked. Nothing special. I'd use Blu-rays for game storage and like the PS3 cache to hard drive. But not be a dick and offer a 40GB model, ever (I have 2 games and the fuckers already full)
Controller: I'd like to say keyboard and mouse only but that just wouldn't work. It wouldn't be anything special, really just something like the 360 controller but I'd leave some USB ports and let devs do what they please.
Software: Proprietary. Maybe Linux based, not sure. But the main feature I'd like to allow would be something line XNA, an easy to port and use system that would allow Indie devs to get their stuff out there onto the system. I'd also copy gman and try to work with Steam for an online service, let them host the content. Every service free bar games of course. I'd probably only like to see paid licensing on retail games. No online is required, just nice to have.
[QUOTE=wingless;35072513]CPU: I'd approach IBM, the way to go with CPU's right now, they be rolling in awesome. I'd suggest a design based off the 4 Core POWER7 chip, increase SMT Threads (6 instead of 4) per core and flood it with DP FPU's, 8 instead of 4, I'd go for a lower clock though, 2.2Ghz maybe and stick on a 64MB L3 cache (I'll get to why such a large cache later, SRAM all up in this bitch) leaving all the other L caches empty and maybe try to get a 32NM process on it.[/quote]
Interestingly, rumor has it that's what Nintendo's doing. POWER7-based design, at least.
The extra SMT threads might be problematic. 6 is an odd number for that. I know of 2tpc ones (all kinds of Intel stuff, POWER5/6, SPARC64 VII), 4tpc ones (POWER7, UltraSPARC T1) and 8tpc ones (UltraSPARC T2 -> T4), but no 6tpc processors. Especially since SMT seems to hit a point of diminishing returns after a point.
64MB of SRAM is going to be hell of expensive, too. The most I have record of is the POWER5 series, with 36MB, and those things cost thousands.
I'd thought about alternative architectures, myself. Some massively-parallel ARM system might have merits for FLOPS/watt, but games are rarely so parallel. POWER is too mainstream for consoles. SPARC is too server-focused - you'd have problems finding a good, low-price design, and with getting the right software tools. Itanium is a joke. x86, especially post-Core, is getting better and better. The main issues with the current ones has to do with all the legacy support, and making a clean break for a console means fixing those.
[QUOTE=wingless;35072513]RAM: SRAM. That shit be king. 512MB of SRAM. Now remember the large CPU cache from before, that cache is the primary source of RAM. It would be the fastest to access, developers would put their core game essentials in here, so the base code, high use models and textures (Main character for example, it wouldn't be much) then all secondary items will go to the secondary SRAM. I'd partition off the SRAM though, 128MB for CPU, 128MB for the GPU and 256MB for whatever the developer wants. This would be a bit of a mess to organise for developers at times but I think it would end well. Maybe.[/quote]
The idea of using a smaller amount of SRAM is good, the only problem is this:
Textures.
A 1024x1024, 32-bit texture, with S3TC compression, takes up 1 megabyte (unless I fucked up the math somewhere). You'll often have hundreds of textures in-memory at once. That small amount of memory means either a) really low-res textures, b) forcing every dev to write a fiendishly complex caching system, or c) cutting out features like normal maps, spec maps, and so on.
Remember, the freaking 360 had 512MB as far back as '05, and the main issue with it nowadays is limited memory. With 64MB of cache, you'll have extremely low latencies, so even using slower memory wouldn't cripple it.
[QUOTE=Lyoko774;35070398]Does anyone happen to remember the name of the embedded x86 board that was only slightly more expensive than the raspberry pi?
I think it had an embedded 386/486 on it.[/QUOTE]
You're probably thinking of the [URL="http://www.bifferos.co.uk/"]Bifferboard[/URL].
[QUOTE=gman003-main;35072786]Interestingly, rumor has it that's what Nintendo's doing. POWER7-based design, at least.
The extra SMT threads might be problematic. 6 is an odd number for that. I know of 2tpc ones (all kinds of Intel stuff, POWER5/6, SPARC64 VII), 4tpc ones (POWER7, UltraSPARC T1) and 8tpc ones (UltraSPARC T2 -> T4), but no 6tpc processors. Especially since SMT seems to hit a point of diminishing returns after a point.
64MB of SRAM is going to be hell of expensive, too. The most I have record of is the POWER5 series, with 36MB, and those things cost thousands.
I'd thought about alternative architectures, myself. Some massively-parallel ARM system might have merits for FLOPS/watt, but games are rarely so parallel. POWER is too mainstream for consoles. SPARC is too server-focused - you'd have problems finding a good, low-price design, and with getting the right software tools. Itanium is a joke. x86, especially post-Core, is getting better and better. The main issues with the current ones has to do with all the legacy support, and making a clean break for a console means fixing those.
The idea of using a smaller amount of SRAM is good, the only problem is this:
Textures.
A 1024x1024, 32-bit texture, with S3TC compression, takes up 1 megabyte (unless I fucked up the math somewhere). You'll often have hundreds of textures in-memory at once. That small amount of memory means either a) really low-res textures, b) forcing every dev to write a fiendishly complex caching system, or c) cutting out features like normal maps, spec maps, and so on.
Remember, the freaking 360 had 512MB as far back as '05, and the main issue with it nowadays is limited memory. With 64MB of cache, you'll have extremely low latencies, so even using slower memory wouldn't cripple it.[/QUOTE]
I'm not so much a fan of the Wii U CPU, talking seriously and not overkill now, the design of the Wii U CPU is the most expensive part of the unit, which normally doesn't mean much but in this case I think it's about 4x as expensive as anything else, the Wii U launch price is going to be $600 to $800 all because of the overkill CPU. Consoles don't need that, If anything the 360 has the perfect building block for a console CPU. The Xenon is goddamn perfect for it. Especially with the whole new SoC design of the 360 S. Back to the console thing though, SRAM is expensive but hell, this is all theoretical. I would never put this out on the market, it would be the 3DO 2 (Expensive as fuck and failed from it's extremely high price).
Oh and Intel Itanium Poulson is going to have 50MB on chip SRAM. That thing's gonna hold the crown for the best commercial processor in the world once again, especially with these new POWER8 delays and possible POWER7+ Cancellation and the only joke about Itanium is Merced and Tukwilla (Bad refresh).
Poulson is going to be king once again, if it ever gets damned released. Gonna push up EPIC VLIW from 6 instructions per cycle to fucking 12 with a 3~Ghz clock speed, that means 36~Ghz per fucking core, in real power. It's a god-damn beast and on a Quad core chip, that's fucking amazing.
Textures are going to be a bitch, of course we can improve on it. This isn't exactly a design I've been thinking of for months, just something I quickly wrote up.
[editline]10th March 2012[/editline]
Oops, another wall of text.
[QUOTE=:smugspike:;35072889][url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9N69P0Wyzw&feature=related[/url]
:v:[/QUOTE]
...That is the tackiest thing ever.
[editline]10th March 2012[/editline]
Also, Hardware and Software needs a bowl of rice as a rating.
Windows blows my mind sometimes.
[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/Cellular/IMAG0067.jpg[/img]
HOW DO I NOT HAVE CD/DVD DRIVERS IF I'M RUNNING THE INSTALLER OFF A DVD??
Gonna see if it becomes happy if I use a SATA DVD drive.
The way I'd want a console designed:
CPU: Just stick a nice powerful CPU in there, with a good size cache.
GPU: Same. And make sure it has access to a good chunk of RAM. Don't care if it's VRAM or not.
RAM: Figure about 1GB of whatever is the best sort of RAM available at actual manufacturing start.
Storage: Ah yes now here's where it gets interesting. We have the removable HD thing like the 360 has. But on the inside bit, there's a place to easily (and securely) place a standard computer hard drive. We offer two variants - a 250GB variant and a "blank" variant (doesn't come with a hard drive). The console will take pretty much any filesystem you throw at it, but if the drive doesn't have any setup on it by default (or you tell it to format the drive) it will use ext3 or ext4 (is ext4 still experimental?)
Controller: Support for any USB-based controller type, including keyboard/mouse and even the old style joysticks, ships with a knockoff 360 controller.
Software: Linux-based, and proprietary so the dumber developers aren't screaming about communism in my console or whatever. Offer developers tools to make games for the console in whatever language they want. Upload finished products to a central location (similar to the iOS App Store or [del]Android Market[/del] Google Play). Games uploaded will be sent through an approval process but that's just to make sure they aren't violating the ToS for the game store (which means pirated copies of big games get removed). Consistent or severe violations of this ToS result in a console ban.
[QUOTE=wingless;35072877]I'm not so much a fan of the Wii U CPU, talking seriously and not overkill now, the design of the Wii U CPU is the most expensive part of the unit, which normally doesn't mean much but in this case I think it's about 4x as expensive as anything else, the Wii U launch price is going to be $600 to $800 all because of the overkill CPU. Consoles don't need that, If anything the 360 has the perfect building block for a console CPU. The Xenon is goddamn perfect for it. Especially with the whole new SoC design of the 360 S. Back to the console thing though, SRAM is expensive but hell, this is all theoretical. I would never put this out on the market, it would be the 3DO 2 (Expensive as fuck and failed from it's extremely high price).
Oh and Intel Itanium Poulson is going to have 50MB on chip SRAM. That thing's gonna hold the crown for the best commercial processor in the world once again, especially with these new POWER8 delays and possible POWER7+ Cancellation and the only joke about Itanium is Merced and Tukwilla (Bad refresh).
Poulson is going to be king once again, if it ever gets damned released. Gonna push up EPIC VLIW from 6 instructions per cycle to fucking 12 with a 3~Ghz clock speed, that means 36~Ghz per fucking core, in real power. It's a god-damn beast and on a Quad core chip, that's fucking amazing.
Textures are going to be a bitch, of course we can improve on it. This isn't exactly a design I've been thinking of for months, just something I quickly wrote up.
[editline]10th March 2012[/editline]
Oops, another wall of text.[/QUOTE]
The problem with Itanium was never the actual hardware (at least past 2). It was either development (I can't name a single Itanium that released on-schedule), or software. It's effectively impossible for a compiler to optimize properly for the Itanium. They've been working on it for years, and they still can't do it right.
Also, the only thing really known about the WiiU CPU is that it's POWER7-based. It could be a stripped-down, quad- or triple-core, 8MB cache 3gHz model for all we know.
Also also, you used gHz instead of GI/s like a CIPWTTKT.
[QUOTE=Demache;35072977]Windows blows my mind sometimes.
[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/Cellular/IMAG0067.jpg[/img]
HOW DO I NOT HAVE CD/DVD DRIVERS IF I'M RUNNING THE INSTALLER OFF A DVD??
Gonna see if it becomes happy if I use a SATA DVD drive.[/QUOTE]
Turn off ACHI for you motherboard's sata controller or get the ACHI driver for it and load it on a flash drive.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;35072997]The problem with Itanium was never the actual hardware (at least past 2). It was either development (I can't name a single Itanium that released on-schedule), or software. It's effectively impossible for a compiler to optimize properly for the Itanium. They've been working on it for years, and they still can't do it right.
Also, the only thing really known about the WiiU CPU is that it's POWER7-based. It could be a stripped-down, quad- or triple-core, 8MB cache 3gHz model for all we know.[/quote]
I'm confused, what do you mean by not actual hardware? Compiler issues are a legitimate issue, but we'll see as it rolls on.
the CPU is a confirmed quad core, and Nintendo says it has "a large cache" so I'd imagine 8 or 16MB, there's been a few leaks. Like the login information for the Nintendo Press site, which gave away most of the CPU info. but the problem with POWER7 is it's inherently expensive to manufacture. Even with mass production.
Oh and
[quote]Also also, you used gHz instead of GI/s like a CIPWTTKT.[/QUOTE]
...Fuck.
I am sitting on a skype call with my friend and he asks how to get to the program files and I told him just look on the C: drive and then he asks me what that is. I just facepalmed and left the call.
[QUOTE=I be da best;35073108]I am sitting on a skype call with my friend and he asks how to get to the program files and I told him just look on the C: drive and then he asks me what that is. I just facepalmed and left the call.[/QUOTE]
Why didn't you help him?
[QUOTE=wingless;35073070]I'm confused, what do you mean by not actual hardware? Compiler issues are a legitimate issue, but we'll see as it rolls on.[/QUOTE]
With the exception of the earliest Itaniums, most of them are pretty decent chips. Decent clocks, decent cache, and so on. The newest ones even share some support architecture with the Xeons.
[QUOTE=wingless;35073070]the CPU is a confirmed quad core, and Nintendo says it has "a large cache" so I'd imagine 8 or 16MB, there's been a few leaks. Like the login information for the Nintendo Press site, which gave away most of the CPU info. but the problem with POWER7 is it's inherently expensive to manufacture. Even with mass production. [/QUOTE]
8MB, almost definitely.
Also, what exactly makes them expensive? The 8-core ones, yeah, 567mm dies don't come cheap. But a 4-core, reduced-cache one would probably be under 200mm^2, easily producible.
I remember when I tried to help some random guy on steam to save his Dead Space 1 save files.
I told him to go to program files, steam, steamapps, username..
Once we got up to that point he went "lmao ur not getting my acc" and blocked me.
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