Announcement

**Asher** · November 18, 2001, 03:34

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I completely agree with you with regards of Glonk on M$ issues. You can prove that he's wrong 10 times over, but he'd keep evading real issues, dropping contexts, and be generally underhanded.

UR, not once have you proved me wrong about anything. Hell, the MS issues are all opinion anyway, there is no right or wrong. Just goes to show you how arrogant you really are. Now, about proving someone wrong, see my next comment:

Glonk,

Who cares? All the best games are available for the PC. The nVidia chip is coming out for the PC also. You can get better resolution graphics on a PC, and Creative's new Audigy kicks arse in the audio department.

Wrong.
The Nvidia chip is NOT coming to the PC. Xbox's a modified GeForce 3 core. That is, it's running at 250MHz (even the brand new Ti500 is 240MHz), it has TWO vertex shader pipelines (PC counterpart has 1), AND it's not limited by the AGP bus. In other words, the PC card is fed at 1GB/s, the Xbox is fed at 6.4GB/s. Not only that, but the OS is designed and specialized to run games. No overhead for anything else.
The next video chip on the PC from Nvidia is not going to be what the Xbox has either (Next PC version is NV25, GeForce 3 is NV20, and the Xbox's is NV2A)
Oh, and the Xbox is giving me 1920x1080. And it's not on a 17/19/21" monitor, it's on a 36" Trinitron HDTV.

And about the sound cards:
True, the Audigy does kick ass (I have one). BUT:
It does NOT encode to Dolby Digital 5.1 (Xbox does).
It does NOT support 64 3D audio channels (Xbox does, Audigy does 32)
It does NOT support 256 channels (Xbox does).

As for console market goes PS2 will take the high end and the Gamecube will take the low end.

That's what you really hope for, isn't it?

It seems Sony's worried now because Xbox IS taking the high end. That's why they bumped the PS3 up two years.
Why do you think the people who made Oddworld scrapped their PS2 development and fled to Xbox? They liked the extra power.

**Asher** · November 18, 2001, 03:36

Originally posted by Ramo
Personally, I'm looking forward to a beefed up version of nVidia's nForce mb. *drool*

Who needs a goddamn X-Box with one of those??

Still won't hold a candle. The PC is saddled by the restrictive AGP bus, the 'general' OS, and the lack of one extra vertex pipeline in the GeForce 3.

Hell, a GeForce 3 Ti500 (1 less vertex pipeline, 10MHz slower than what's on the Xbox) costs MORE than the Xbox itself. And it sits on a slow bus...

It'll be a while before the PC can crank out the graphics the Xbox can.

**Ramo** · November 18, 2001, 04:03

Doesn't matter, as long as it can get somewhat close. And I can wait to upgrade (my P2 450) as long as Halo isn't released for the PC.

10MHz slower than what's on the Xbox

You probably can't overclock the Xbox, though...

**Asher** · November 18, 2001, 04:06

Originally posted by Ramo
You probably can't overclock the Xbox, though...

Wouldn't do you any good, all Xbox games run fine on the stock hardware.

And you can't actually overclock a 240MHz GeForce 3 either, that's already at the physical limits of the chip. A few more MHz or so, maybe 250MHz max...still missing half the vertex pipelines the Xbox has though.

**Mankind** · November 18, 2001, 08:18

Xbox defencer? , micro$oft fan?

ok not important

i'm not saying xbox is bad console , just when micsrosmurf entered on console gaming market he spoiled everything
[now new consoles will appear 3-4 years not 4-6 years]

and maybe micro$ofty will favourably surprise us?
perhaps will add to xbox bouquet of flowers? or freshener to toilet?

**Wraith** · November 18, 2001, 11:03

--"About the hardrive, the nice thing about the X-box having it built in this is good cause then all games developed for it will beable to take advantage of it."

Not really. There are some X-Box features built in that no one's taken advantage of yet (espeically as regards resolution). If the basic use of the hard drive is just for save-games, then it really isn't a big deal. I also don't see any real bonus to being able to rip CDs to it. Only moderately interesting use is downloadable demos, but knowing MS that'll be a subscribtion based service (or at the very least require a MSN or whatever account), and I wouldn't be willing to pay for demos.
It also brings up the interesting possibility that MS is including it so they can patch the console. If they put as much effort into their console OS as they have into their other software, they're going to need it.

--"Maybe Microsoft didn't want the problems that PS2 had, so they shipped out extra."

Could be, but the retailers are going to hate that. If that's the case prices will be driven down quicker than they want. Of course, I do recall reading about Microsoft's practices towards the launch of this, so it might well be the case that everyone able to currently sell the thing has contractual minimum sale prices for x months.

--"Sony WEGA XBR 36""

Ah. Well, direct-view is the best choice if you're going to be doing a lot of console gaming on it, but it's hardly tops for image quality.

--"Say you get a new pc, you can play games on it for what 2 years before you start running into the minimum recommendation levels."

However, it is also useful for more than just playing games. You can do quite a lot with a decent gaming PC. A console's just for games.

--"Oh, and the Xbox is giving me 1920x1080. And it's not on a 17/19/21" monitor, it's on a 36" Trinitron HDTV."

Except that your monitor does not have the resolution to display that. No direct view HDTV does. You need to get into the high-end of the 8" CRT projectors (or 9" CRT projectors) to get the full 1080i resolution.

You're also wrong about current X-Box games outputting in 1080i. Not a single launch title (or planned title that I'm aware of) supports this resolution. There's been quite a bit of talk about this on various home theater forums. Most games support 480p, no one really expects 720p or 1080i to ever actually happen in a game on the X-Box.
I should also note that while widescreen is a feature, not all games support it. Very few so far, actually. There's also no indiciations on the packaging anywhere to show which games do and don't support it, so you won't find out until you get home to try it out.

--"Still won't hold a candle. The PC is saddled by the restrictive AGP bus, the 'general' OS, and the lack of one extra vertex pipeline in the GeForce 3."

You won't be able to see a noticable difference on a high-end PC. The X-Box's display is far more limited than you seem to think at the moment. It's nice, yes, but not overwhelming.

Wraith
You could be replaced by an infinite number of monkeys

**Wiglaf** · November 18, 2001, 11:26

Alright, let's compare Madden to any other Football game. Hmmm, there's 989 Sports Gamebreaker... wow, that game sucks, they can't even rehash a game right. That's IT.

there's nfl2k2 for all consoles, nfl fever by microsoft, nfl blitz by midway, etc, etc. find out what you're talking about, then post. the bottom line is that EA has been cranking out the same garbage for the last several years with only minor improvements, and now other companies, like visual concepts, are starting to do it to their products too.

again, console gaming is boring and immature. really, you generally get a lot more depth and originality with a PC, and that's just for the videogame uses of it. personally I don't buy a computer for games alone...if I did, then I could see where you're coming from with the price issue.

as it stands, Xbox is having a pretty bad launch anyway. thank god.

**Asher** · November 18, 2001, 16:23

Originally posted by Wraith
Not really. There are some X-Box features built in that no one's taken advantage of yet (espeically as regards resolution). If the basic use of the hard drive is just for save-games, then it really isn't a big deal.
(snip)

That is one of the most common uses of the hard drive on the Xbox...let's list some more:

**Asher** · November 18, 2001, 16:23

as it stands, Xbox is having a pretty bad launch anyway. thank god.

Where do you pull that from, oh wise one?
The Xbox is getting some really great reviews (newspaper gave it 4 out of 4, etc).
There's 200+ announced titles in development, and it quite clearly is better than the PS2 in both the audio and visual department. There's nothing like playing Halo in Dolby Digital 5.1.

Or those DOA levels like Forest...*drool*

**Wraith** · November 18, 2001, 17:30

--"That is one of the most common uses of the hard drive on the Xbox...let's list some more:"

Of these, I mentioned two. Caching actually sounds useful, but level load times don't really bother me anyway. The add-on bit has potential, but for good and evil. I really don't want console games to get to the release-first-patch-later state that's common among PC games. This has been one of the prime attractions of console games, no need to worry about constant patches.

As far as cost goes, the X-Box (with your add-ons and whatnot) runs around $500-$600 for a launch bundle, right? I can make a decent PC for that cash. For twice that I can make a high-end PC. If we're just talking upgrade...

--"Erm...you're saying the Sony WEGA XBRs cant do "full 1080i" when the manual and spec sheet says yes, and you can watch 1080i signals on satellite fine?"

That's exactly what I'm saying. All HDTV manufacturers make that claim for their direct view and RPTVs, and they can't back it up. They'll accept 1080i input, but that doesn't mean you're getting the full 1080i on the screen. Direct-view sets are physically incapable of dipslaying the full resolution (thanks to shadow-masks and their variants). RPTVs are better, but the only one on the market that might actually resolve it fully is the Pioneer Elite line. All manufacturers use various weird measurements to get their claimed numbers, but most of them don't even have the internal bandwidth in the control logic to pull it off. Even assuming a full 1080i input signal (not common at all) it'll get slightly downgraded internally unless you're using one of the really expensive front-projection models (and I think some of the digital solutions are capable of it, but there are other problems there, especially regarding US availability).

--"Well, the Dashboard supports 1080i (for what it's worth)."

Right, since it is a feature of the X-Box. It's just something that hasn't been taken advantage of yet.

--"I think that the HDTV games will come out more in a year or two."

I don't. Graphics right now, even on the X-Box, are very much memory bandwidth limited. Going from 480p to 1080i is a huge increase in required information, and therefor bandwidth.
In addition, apparently the chip used in the HD Pack (the CX25870, if the forums are correct) doesn't even have the full 1080i capacity itself. Instead it upscales XGA (1024x768 vs the 1920x1080) input, which is extremely odd considering the nVidia chip can apparently output the full 1080i.
Realisticly, developers are going to be optimizing for the majority. Most people do not now, and for the life of the X-Box will not have, displays that can take advantage of anything over 480i (and the difference between 480i/p to the developer isn't much). HD penetration is not that great compared to SD penetration, and then you have to consider that most people with HD sets aren't going to game on them (because of burn-in).

With Halo, apparently the game itself is only 4x3, but all (or most) of the commercials show it 16x9. I think MS is really pushing a false advertising suit here. If they had bothered to set a standard for widescreen support on the packaging they'd be in the clear, but they didn't.

--"Care to elaborate"

The limits of the AGP bus probably aren't even going to come into this. X-Box has other limitations, probably most important being that although there is hardware AA it requires developers to take advantage of it. Between a high-end PC using good AA (latest Radeon or GeForce) and the X-Box it'll probably come out in favor of the PC. PC displays have other advantages (vSynch OFF, for instance

) that'll help.
Looking at it optomistically, X-Box games will be almost all in 480p at most. Even if there are some 1080i or 720p capable games, they aren't going to be until third or later generation. X-Box is not unique among consoles for 480p support, so this isn't a very big advantage.

--"There's 200+ announced titles in development"

Announced title count means nothing. How many of them are interesting? Titles like "Judge Dredd" and "WWF Raw is War" really don't get me going.

Wraith
Resistance is useless! (If < 1 ohm)

**Eroberer** · November 18, 2001, 17:32

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
As for console market goes PS2 will take the high end and the Gamecube will take the low end.

I sure hope that is a bad excuse for a bait and not your real thoughts.

Asher, what do you think the chances are of the X-Boc replacing my need to upgrade my PC?

How does Halo play with a gamepad? Auto-aim?

**faded glory** · November 18, 2001, 17:37

This X-Box is going to make Bill Gates filthy rich!

**mactbone** · November 18, 2001, 17:40

OK Wiglaf, one of the reasons I didn't mention those games is because to this point they haven't been on the same console as Madden. Let's go with it though. NFL2K2, comparable graphics, franchise mode, but no salary cap, realignment, expansion, and no real physics wrt the ball. Yes, I have played it, yes I did play gamebreaker and Madden. Madden in Madden gets old at times, but for the first couple of days is very entertaining. I think the problem you have is that you must not like playing sports games, because from everything I've played and seen, consoles whoop PCs when you like sports games.

You already said that Madden has gotten better in the last ten years, right? OK, we've seen the franchise mode, and all the features that have arisen from that, we've seen exponentially better graphics, balls that don't bounce predictably, AI that can stop you, players that don't quit until the play is dead, play designers, practice mode, two-minute drill, and other things I can't recall right now. What more do you want? There's only so far you can go until it stops being about football and starts becoming a game about something else.

**Asher** · November 18, 2001, 17:55

Originally posted by Wraith
As far as cost goes, the X-Box (with your add-ons and whatnot) runs around $500-$600 for a launch bundle, right? I can make a decent PC for that cash. For twice that I can make a high-end PC. If we're just talking upgrade...

Well, your figures would be right if you were talking Canadian funds.

I got a the Xbox + 2 games for $599.99 Canadian. That's like $370US.

With Halo, apparently the game itself is only 4x3, but all (or most) of the commercials show it 16x9. I think MS is really pushing a false advertising suit here. If they had bothered to set a standard for widescreen support on the packaging they'd be in the clear, but they didn't.

You are correct: Halo is 4x3 most of the time. In the cinematics, it switches to 16:9.

The limits of the AGP bus probably aren't even going to come into this. X-Box has other limitations, probably most important being that although there is hardware AA it requires developers to take advantage of it. Between a high-end PC using good AA (latest Radeon or GeForce) and the X-Box it'll probably come out in favor of the PC. PC displays have other advantages (vSynch OFF, for instance

) that'll help.
Looking at it optomistically, X-Box games will be almost all in 480p at most. Even if there are some 1080i or 720p capable games, they aren't going to be until third or later generation. X-Box is not unique among consoles for 480p support, so this isn't a very big advantage.

True, Gamecube supports 480p. I don't believe PS2 does, though.
And what's wrong with having the game companies turn on/off anti aliasing? This isn't a PC: If it runs fine in their testing labs with AA on, they'll turn it on. If it gets really choppy, they'll turn it off. It's in the hands of the developer because there's no real reason you'd need to toggle it on or off on a console.

Asher, what do you think the chances are of the X-Boc replacing my need to upgrade my PC?

How does Halo play with a gamepad? Auto-aim?

I don't think it changes the needs of a PC upgrade. It's not going to stop me from upgrading to a 2.2GHz Northwood w/ PC1066 RDRAM in the summer.

It all depends how you play and what you play. I like both PCs and consoles.

Halo works pretty well with the gamepad. I use the left analog joystick to control strafing (left, right, fore, back) and the right analog joystick to control aiming and looking (up, down, left, right). Right trigger is gunfire, left trigger is grenades, A is jump, X is reload/pick up new weapon, Y is change weapons, the white button is toggle flashlight/nightvision. To some degree, it does have auto aim. It is 'forgiving' (at least on the first difficulties I've tried) in that if you're not completely aiming right on them, if the aiming cursor is red it'll hit. That being said, you can still aim and hit 'critical' points. Some of the enemies have shields, and these shields have a little hole at the side where they shoot out of. If you hit in the middle of that hole, you'll hit them. If you get headshots, it's almost always an instant death, etc.

**Eroberer** · November 18, 2001, 18:11

So you have to either stop strafing or aiming in order to jump? Is there any way to make it so you can do all these at the same time?

Announcement

The X-Box is here -- Are you ready? ;)

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment