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[rpmurphy]

And you'll see them. We're a long ways off from the release of this system.

Next year's E3 is going to be huge. >_>

 

[SolarPowered]

Next year's E3 is going to be huge. >_>

This year's E3 was pretty big. More than fifteen thousand people were on the site some time near the Nintendo press conference.

That breaks the old record by two thousand or so.

 

[antonz]

This year's E3 was pretty big. More than fifteen thousand people were on the site some time near the Nintendo press conference.

That breaks the old record by two thousand or so.

Yeah from what I heard they were closing the line for the day like 20 minutes after doors opened with 6 hour queues

 

[Luigiv]

Quoting myself from the Nature demo thread, I think it makes more sense here:

I just realised, those oddly placed feet on the side are there to prevent you blocking the ventilation. Clever.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Yeah from what I heard they were closing the line for the day like 20 minutes after doors opened with 6 hour queues

For the Nintendo Booth?

 

[antonz]

For the Nintendo Booth?

yeah Giantbomb mentioned it last night. Nintendo kept tweeting videos each day of the stampede to their booth

 

[Grampa Simpson]

yeah Giantbomb mentioned it last night. Nintendo kept tweeting videos each day of the stampede to their booth

Fuck. It's like 2006 all over again. I need to buy Nintendo stock again.

 

[bgassassin]

Fuck. It's like 2006 all over again. I need to buy Nintendo stock again.

With it being at a five year low, now is the best time.

 

[TestOfTide]

Says the guy that compared an off screen picture of a F2P game that runs the game from two different perspectives at the same time to a direct screen picture of a full retail game.

No offense, but you did something that was obviously wrong, and you got corrected on it.

fixed

 

[NinjaTehFish]

I just realised, those oddly placed feet on the side are there to prevent you blocking the ventilation. Clever.

Nice.
I love finding little details like these.

 

[mrklaw]

I'm still confused by the eDRAM. I thought the reason they have so much on Power7 is as a solution to the 'multiple cores' problem and getting enough bandwidth to the outside world (of the chip). They simply can't get enough wires to support all those cores with memory simultaneously. So they all get a nice big pool of L3 cache (eDRAM) to suckle on, reducing their requirements to access external memory, letting them run closer to their potential.

I have a couple of issues with this:

1) 'customise' the chip down to dual core or tri-core, and the primary reasons for needing eDRAM reduce significantly. I guess you're still getting latency/bandwidth benefits of the eDRAM, but you don't really *need* it - you could get a cheaper CPU with tri-core accessing external memory more traditionally

2) for games, I'm not sure that model is necessarily ideal. You want to be dealing with streams of data - polygons etc - coming into the CPUs, being processed and then being exported to the GPU. eDRAM doesn't really help with that as you still have to move things in and out of main memory rapidly, that is still your bottleneck. Perhaps on a server class machine like power7s are designed for there is a higher percentage of code that can sit and process inside the L3 cache, but I don't see that so much for games?

 

[blu]

I'm still confused by the eDRAM. I thought the reason they have so much on Power7 is as a solution to the 'multiple cores' problem and getting enough bandwidth to the outside world (of the chip). They simply can't get enough wires to support all those cores with memory simultaneously. So they all get a nice big pool of L3 cache (eDRAM) to suckle on, reducing their requirements to access external memory, letting them run closer to their potential.

I have a couple of issues with this:

1) 'customise' the chip down to dual core or tri-core, and the primary reasons for needing eDRAM reduce significantly. I guess you're still getting latency/bandwidth benefits of the eDRAM, but you don't really *need* it - you could get a cheaper CPU with tri-core accessing external memory more traditionally

You could get a 1024-core transputer with 8KB of 'cache' per core. I'm not sure what you're asking about, frankly, but I'll give it a shot.

Cache coherency protocols are neither cheap nor free. Having 3 cores share a common secondary/ternary pool of high performance memory, prior to the common memory bus is a _good_ thing. Xenon had that too, it was just too little (1MB of shared L2 per 3 cores). Many new quad-core chips have shared L2s, etc.

If your question is re the amount of edram - we don't really know how much that is, just that it's "a lot". How expensive that was for nintendo is everybody's guess.

2) for games, I'm not sure that model is necessarily ideal. You want to be dealing with streams of data - polygons etc - coming into the CPUs, being processed and then being exported to the GPU. eDRAM doesn't really help with that as you still have to move things in and out of main memory rapidly, that is still your bottleneck. Perhaps on a server class machine like power7s are designed for there is a higher percentage of code that can sit and process inside the L3 cache, but I don't see that so much for games?

Both Gekko and Xenon had the ability to use a 'shotcut' path between cpu's cache and the GPU. edram can only help there.

For GPU data that does not need to be touched by the cpu the path is entirely different - the GPU can fetch such data directly from main ram without the help of the cpu.

 

[wsippel]

You could get a 1024-core transputer with 8KB of 'cache' per core. I'm not sure what you're asking about, frankly, but I'll give it a shot.

Cache coherency protocols are neither cheap nor free. Having 3 cores share a common secondary/ternary pool of high performance memory, prior to the common memory bus is a _good_ thing. Xenon had that too, it was just too little (1MB of shared L2 per 3 cores). Many new quad-core chips have shared L2s, etc.

If your question is re the amount of edram - we don't really know how much that is, just that it's "a lot". How expensive that was for nintendo is everybody's guess.

Lots of level 3 cache makes a ton of sense if Nintendo goes for fast, unified, high latency memory, too. If a lot of data can stay on the CPU, you minimize memory access from the CPU and maximize memory access from the GPU.

 

[blu]

Lots of level 3 cache makes a ton of sense if Nintendo goes for fast, unified, high latency memory, too. If a lot of data can stay on the CPU, you minimize memory access from the CPU and maximize memory access from the GPU.

That's more or less what Wii did. The 24MB 1T-sram was meant both for cpu and gpu access, but was favorable to frequent cpu access. The 64MB gddr3 was mainly a gpu pool - cpu still had access to it, but could not execute code from there, which helped improve the bus contention and mitigate I$-miss situations.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

For some retrospect, here is Nintendo's Howard Lincoln on Project Dolphin at Nintendo's E3 1999 press conference, where he talks a bit about the IBM Gekko CPU:

Thank you and good afternoon everyone.

While Nintendo's focus clearly remains fixed on the N64--We happen to believe that it has many more years of profitable life, both for our retail partners and for our company--I want to take this opportunity to share with you some of Nintendo's plans for the future.

Let me raise the curtain just a little on Nintendo's next home video game system. One that we are targeting for worldwide launch at the end of year 2000.

The code name for this product is "Dolphin." That's not the name of the product, but I'll use the Dolphin name this afternoon when I refer to our new hardware system.

While our new Dolphin hardware will be extremely powerful, it will not be expensive. It will retail at a mass market price for home video game systems.

And, as you're about to see, Dolphin's software will also be competitively priced at retail.

Nintendo has been working on dolphin for sometime now.

The graphics chip is being developed by ArtX of Palo Alto, California. This company is headed up by Dr. Wei Yen,--the man who was primarily responsible for the N64 graphics chip.

Dr. Yen has assembled at ArtX one of the best teams of 3D graphics engineers on the planet.

We are absolutely confident that Dolphin's graphics will equal or exceed anything our friends at Sony can come up with for Playstation 2.

Dr. Wei Yen is here today in the front row and I'd like him to stand and be recognized.

Of course, we need to power Dolphin with a CPU that's second to none.

A CPU that is the most powerful processor of any current or planned home video game system. How about a 400 MHz CPU?

Well, that's precisely what we're going to use. And we call that chip the "Gekko processor."

I am pleased to announce that Nintendo's partner and the company that is now in the advanced stages of designing the Gekko processor and which will manufacture this chip at its world class manufacturing facility in Burlington, Vermont is . . . . . . .IBM.

IBM & Nintendo have entered into a multi-year, $1 billion technology agreement under which IBM will manufacture the custom designed 400 MHz Gekko processor for Dolphin.

Gekko is an extension of the IBM Power PC architecture.

The Gekko processor will feature IBM's unique industry leading copper chip technology.

Only IBM has the technology to manufacture chips using copper circuitry.

Nobody else in the world can do what IBM does. And quite frankly, anything less is simply not state of the art technology.

By the way, you may have seen a recent article in the New York Times about how Sony & Toshiba plan to build a brand new factory to manufacture a chip with quote "Cutting edge 0.18 Micron technology"?

The article went on to say that Toshiba had never mass produced a chip using 0.18 Micron technology.

Well guess what! IBM already makes 0.18 Micron chips at its Burlington, Vermont manufacturing facility!

That's where the Gekko processor will be manufactured. And the Gekko processor will be a 0.18 Micron chip . . . using copper chip technology.

As I said before, it will be the fastest and most powerful CPU in any home video game system . . . . period.

Needless to say, Nintendo is very pleased with its strategic alliance with IBM.

Our engineers have for sometime now been working closely on the Gekko processor with a team of engineers from IBM Microelectronics.

IBM Microelectronics is headed up by Dr. John Kelly. At this time, I'd like to introduce Dr. Kelly and ask him to say a few words about the new IBM/Nintendo relationship. [dr. kelly remarks]

Thank you, John.

Well, as all of you know, the world's most powerful CPU and the world's best graphics chip have to play games on . . . . . something. On some software medium. And this time around, that software medium is not going to be ROM cartridges! Dolphin's software medium will not only be one that will be very inexpensive and quick to manufacture, it will also be one that is counterfeit proof.

Earlier today in Tokyo, Mr. Yamauchi, Nintendo's president, and Mr. Morishita, the president of Matsushita, held a joint press conference to announce another strategic alliance.

As many of you know, Matsushita is the largest consumer electronics company in the world. It's best known outside of Japan for products marketed under the "Panasonic" brand.

Here's what Mr. Morishita and Mr. Yamauchi announced:

First, Matsushita will develop, manufacture and supply to Nintendo a DVD disk drive for incorporation into the Dolphin hardware unit.

The software medium for Dolphin will be DVD and this DVD software will be manufactured by Matsushita and supplied to Nintendo.

Second, Dolphin's technology will be integrated into various Matsushita or Panasonic branded DVD consumer electronic products, enabling consumers to play movies and music as well as Dolphin games published by Nintendo and Nintendo's third party publishers.

Third, the Matsushita and Nintendo strategic alliance will enable the two companies to explore various ways of extending Nintendo's Dolphin technology and Matsushita's DVD technology to other products.

I mentioned before that Dolphin's software will be competitively priced at retail.

Let me assure you that this is a critical objective for Nintendo--as is the need for flexible and quick manufacturing turn around of Dolphin software and strong and effective counterfeit protection.

All of these objectives will be achieved under the Nintendo-Matsushita alliance.

Joining us today from Princeton, New Jersey is Dr. Paul Liao ("lee ow") the chief technology officer and vice president of Matsushita Electronic Corporation of America.

Dr. Liao is also president of Panasonic Technologies Inc. And the head of R&D for Matsushita in North America.

Dr. Liao is sitting in the front row and I'd like him to stand and be recognized.

Thank you, Dr. Liao ("lee ow").

In a nutshell, Dolphin hardware and software will be fast, powerful and inexpensive.

Need I say that it will also feature world class video games from people like Mr. Miyamoto and the Stamper brothers?

Is there any question about Nintendo's proven track record of mega hit video games spanning the last 15 years? I don't think so.

Well, there you have it.

We've lifted the curtain a little on Dolphin. But we aren't going to lift it all the way.

We're going to continue to be very circumspect in revealing all of Dolphin's specs . . . for a very simple reason--there are more technological surprises to come, and we'd like to keep them just that--surprises--for you and especially for our competitors.

But as I stand here this afternoon, I think Nintendo is very well positioned to take on Sony and Sega.

And with partners like ArtX, IBM and Matsushita, I'm very confident we'll do very well in that coming battle. In fact, we can hardly wait!

http://cube.ign.com/articles/083/083222p1.html

 

[v1oz]

Howard Lincoln did better at marketing video game hardware than Reggie. At least he had a better understanding of the hardware and technical aspects.



...

 

[[Nintex]]

But as I stand here this afternoon, I think Nintendo is very well positioned to take on Sony and Sega.

Funny he said that, Yamauchi never seemed to deliver on that Nintendo 2000 thing and despite the fact that they were 'late' and hadn't done much N64 stuff in a while they also seemed horribly unprepared when they launched the GameCube. Might've had something to do with the transition from Yamauchi to Iwata when everyone expected Arakawa to take the reigns. Even more interesting is the fact that Arakawa wanted Nintendo to be more than just for the 'family' and wanted to take on Sony head on. I sometimes wonder if Eternal Darkness and other Nintendo early 'core' projects in the GameCube cycle were spearheaded by Arakawa.

That finally leaves me with 3 questions.
1. What if Yamauchi retired much later and actually continued to strengthen his partnership with Matsushita. Would Nintendo and Matsushita been able to take on Sony if they combined their strengths on multiple levels?

2. What would the videogame market be like if Arakawa took over Nintendo instead of Iwata.

3. How the hell did they aim for a 'late 2000' Dolphin launch only to get the GameCube out a year later with almost nothing to show for it? What was planned in 1999 and what was in development between 1998 and 2000 in terms of games that they could've/would've launched with.

 

[donny2112]

2. What would the videogame market be like if Arakawa took over Nintendo instead of Iwata.

Someone else at the head by now, probably. Arakawa wasn't interested in running his step-dad's business. His wife didn't like it, IIRC.

 

[Reallink]

Howard Lincoln did better at marketing video game hardware than Reggie. At least he had a better understanding of the hardware and technical aspects.



...

I'd agree. I'm trying to figure out if Reggie has just bullshitting everyone with corporate/marking speak, or if he really doesn't know what 1080p is, the difference between scaled and native, the fact that 1080p displays already display (scale) everything to 1080p by necessity, and that none of their showcased demos have (as of yet) actually supported 1080p despite his repeated use of the terminology.

 

[1-D_FTW]

Howard Lincoln did better at marketing video game hardware than Reggie. At least he had a better understanding of the hardware and technical aspects.



...

I doubt Lincoln was much more knowledgeable than Reggie. The difference is that Howard had something to crow about. The Gamecube was incredibly elegant. It was powerful and incredibly efficiency for its day. It was also IBM at their peak and a small group (Art-X) that was about to forever change ATI. Of course you celebrate tech specs when those are the cards you're holding.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

This is a very interesting read from Next Generation Online (I've posted it in another thread) It's about Nintendo searching for a chipset to power a successor to the N64. Before Project Dolphin, Nintendo had planned to use CagEnt (3DO Systems) MX technology. The MX was the follow-up to the unreleased M2 console/chipset.
Nintendo wanted to use a MIPS CPU instead of the PowerPC CPUs that M2 and MX used. It never worked out and eventually Nintendo turned to Art-X and IBM.

Although experts acknowledge that the video games business is surprisingly
incestuous by even Jerry Springer’s standards, recent developments taking
place within two of Seattle’s biggest corporations have made that fact clear
for the whole world to see. Next Generation Online exclusively reports on how
Nintendo and Microsoft wound up eyeing the same company’s chipset for the year
2000’s biggest game console.


Few in the video game industry are aware of a rift that formed between
Nintendo and partner Silicon Graphics, Inc. just as their jointly-developed
64-bit game console rolled off production lines. Already beginning to feel
financial strains due to changing market conditions for their high-end
graphics workstations, Silicon Graphics found itself arguing over component
profits with notoriously tight-fisted Nintendo as the system’s American launch
MSRP was lowered at the last minute before release. Although the companies
maintained their working relationship, the decidedly traditional and hard-
lined management at Nintendo had taken offense, and no longer considered SGI a
lock for development of Nintendo’s post-N64 game console.


Then several important events took place during 1997 inside of Nintendo, SGI
and one of their former competitors. Weak Japanese sales of the N64 and its
software lowered the company’s confidence in the N64 platform, and American
sales were projected to fall off as key internal software titles were
continuing to miss release targets by entire seasons. Demonstrably strong
sales of PlayStation games in the inexpensive CD format had weakened the
appeal of Nintendo’s third-party development contracts, and Nintendo started
to believe that it was in the company’s immediate interest to prepare a new
console for release as soon as Fall of 1999. At the same time, a number of
Silicon Graphics key Nintendo 64 engineers left the company to form the new
firm ArtX, with the express intention to win a development contract for
Nintendo’s next hardware by offering Nintendo the same talent pool sans SGI’s
manufacturing and management teams.


As it turns out, most of the industry’s top 3D chip experts have been lured
away from smaller firms by accelerator developers NVidia, 3Dfx and NEC, so
Nintendo’s pool of potential partners was already shrinking when it began to
shop around for a new console design team. Enter CagEnt, a division of
consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung, and here’s where the confusion
begins: CagEnt was formerly owned by 3DO, where it operated under the name 3DO
Systems and developed the M2 technology that was sold to Panasonic for $100
Million some time ago. When 3DO decided to exit the hardware business, it sold
off the 3DO Systems division to Samsung, which named it CagEnt and gave it
roughly two years to turn a profit. CagEnt owned three key technologies: a DVD
playback system, a realtime MPEG encoding system called MPEG Xpress, and a
completed game console with a brand new set of console-ready chip designs
called the MX. Adrian Sfarti, who had formerly developed the graphics
architecture design for SGI’s Indy workstation, was the head of the MX
project.


The MX chipset was a dramatically enhanced version of the M2 chipset sold to
Panasonic and Matsushita, now capable of a 100 million pixel per second
fillrate and utilizing two PowerPC 602 chips at its core. (CagEnt’s executives
also boasted of a four million triangle per second peak draw rate, though the
quality of those tiny triangles would of course have been limited). Nintendo
executives Howard Lincoln and Genyo Takeda were among a group of visiting
dignitaries to tour CagEnt’s facilities, culminating in late 1997 or early
1998 with a formal offer from Nintendo to acquire CagEnt outright. At this
point, Nintendo had terminated its development contract with SGI (see SGI/MIPS
Loses Nintendo Business).


As purchase negotiations continued, Nintendo worked with CagEnt engineers on
preliminary plans to redesign the MX architecture around a MIPS CPU, as
Nintendo’s manufacturing partner NEC has a MIPS development license but none
to produce the PowerPC 602. Nintendo and CagEnt flip-flopped on whether the
finished machine would include a built-in CD-ROM or DVD-ROM as its primary
storage medium, with Nintendo apparently continuing to insist that ROM
cartridges would remain at the core of its new game system. Yet as DVD and
MPEG technologies would have been part of the CagEnt acquisition, Nintendo
would probably have found some reasonable use for those patents eventually.
The MX-based machine was to be ready for sale in Japan in fall 1999 -- in
other words, development of games for the new console would begin within
literally months, starting with the shipment of dev kits to key teams at Rare
and Nintendo’s Japanese headquarters.


Although the asking price for CagEnt was extremely low by industry standards,
talks unexpectedly broke off in early 1998 when Samsung and Nintendo
apparently disagreed on final terms of CagEnt’s ownership, leaving Samsung’s
management desperate for a suitor to buy the company. CagEnt aggressively
shopped itself around to other major industry players. SGI’s MIPS division,
reeling from the loss of its N64 engineers to ArtX, allegedly considered
acquiring CagEnt as a means to offer Nintendo the technology it had already
decided it liked. Sega, 3Dfx and other companies toured CagEnt’s facilities
and finally CagEnt found a suitor.


In early April, Microsoft’s WebTV division ultimately acquired all of the
assets of CagEnt and hired on most of its key personnel. WebTV and Microsoft
apparently intend to use the MX technology at the core of their next WebTV
device, which as might be guessed from the graphics technology, will no longer
be limited to simple web browsing and E-mailing functionality. The next
generation WebTV box will be Microsoft’s low-cost entry into the world of game
consoles, melding the functionality of a low-end computer with a television
set-top box and game-playing abilities. Having worked with Sega behind the
scenes since 1993 or 1994, Microsoft has been quietly gathering the knowledge
it needs to market and develop games for such a device, and now it has the
hardware that even Nintendo would once have wanted for itself.


As for Nintendo, all signs point to a very unpleasant near future for the
Japanese giant. Lacking internal hardware engineers with the necessary
expertise to develop the next high-end chipset, Nintendo is now all but forced
to either partner with ArtX, or one of the 3D accelerator makers who have been
sucking the industry dry of all its most talented people, or perhaps join with
one of its other major rivals. The latest word has it that ArtX and Nintendo
are in talks to work together, perhaps under circumstances similar to those
under which Nintendo would have acquired CagEnt. Unlike CagEnt, however, ArtX
does not have a finished console or even half-completed chip designs to sell
Nintendo, and it would be unlikely that Nintendo would be able to scrape
together a reasonable system by Christmas 2000 with ArtX’s present
limitations. Additionally, SGI’s recent series of strategic lawsuits against
Nvidia and ArtX seem to be intended to serve as garlic and crosses to stave
off any Nintendo alliance with its tastiest potential allies: Nintendo might
well fear developing a new console only to find out that its core technologies
or employees are depending upon infringed patents, regardless of the merits of
those patents or the lawsuits.


Meanwhile, the company continues to harbor tremendous concerns for the future
of the Nintendo64 platform, which appears to be sinking deeper and deeper in
Japan by the day. Nintendo’s negotiations with CagEnt shed light upon the
tremendous dependence the Japanese company now has upon Rare, which has been
responsible for a number of the Nintendo 64’s best-looking games and at least
two of the machine’s most popular—Diddy Kong Racing and Goldeneye 007. As
Nintendo’s Japanese development teams have never been known for their ability
to stick to release schedules, the company’s third-party rosters have remained
bare and its management has remained dogmatically fixated upon silicon chips
as its sole means of profit, Nintendo’s problems have set the stage for a
truly interesting set of negotiations come this E3.


To sum up, readers need to understand that decisions and relationships made
early in the design process of a new console can dictate a company’s standing
in the industry for the following five years. Ripple effects from these
decisions can be felt in a company’s bottom line can be felt for even longer.
Nintendo has found itself in the unenviable position of being without an
established partner and with the clock ticking down. If Nintendo should choose
to go with ArtX (assuming it’s able to fight off SGI’s lawsuit), it will need
to complete a chip design is an extremely short period of time. If it doesn’t
go with ArtX, Nintendo will have to find a technology that is already suited
to the console market or one that can readily be changed to suit a similar
purpose. Either way, at this point the chances of Nintendo hitting its desired
2000 release with a new system are extremely slim

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.video.nintendo-64/msg/a15e2046396dedc4?hl=en&dmode=source

 

[Coolwhip]

I'd agree. I'm trying to figure out if Reggie has just bullshitting everyone with corporate/marking speak, or if he really doesn't know what 1080p is, the difference between scaled and native, the fact that 1080p displays already display (scale) everything to 1080p by necessity, and that none of their showcased demos have (as of yet) actually supported 1080p despite his repeated use of the terminology.

People outside of forums like this don't know the difference either though. So if he just hammers on 1080p he does his job well.

 

[dacuk]

This is a very interesting read from Next Generation Online (I've posted it in another thread) It's about Nintendo searching for a chipset to power a successor to the N64. Before Project Dolphin, Nintendo had planned to use CagEnt (3DO Systems) MX technology. The MX was the follow-up to the unreleased M2 console/chipset.
Nintendo wanted to use a MIPS CPU instead of the PowerPC CPUs that M2 and MX used. It never worked out and eventually Nintendo turned to Art-X and IBM.

Thanks for the awesome read, hz!

 

[SneakyStephan]

People outside of forums like this don't know the difference either though. So if he just hammers on 1080p he does his job well.

If his job is bullshitting people.
I take offense to it, those who don't know what upscaling and 1080p mean etc would too if they knew.

It's tiresome to not be able to get a straight answer out of a company anymore, it's like politics, but completely unproductive in a superfluous industry.

Pain in the ass, and they all do it these days, more than ever.

 

[AceBandage]

If his job is bullshitting people.
I take offense to it, those who don't know what upscaling and 1080p mean etc would too if they knew.

It's tiresome to not be able to get a straight answer out of a company anymore, it's like politics, but completely unproductive in a superfluous industry.

Pain in the ass, and they all do it these days, more than ever.

Oh yes. Companies NEVER bull shit customers before now.
We never heard about doctors recommending cigarettes or soda water being cures for diseases.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Thanks for the awesome read, hz!

no problem!