Gpengine

[diablo2]

yeah you could go into that whole discussion but why bother
just say the 8-bit era
and 16-bit era
and 32-bit and 64-bit era
and 128-bit and 256-bit era

everyone knows what your talking about

 

[finty]

Is the XBOX 256bit? :blink:

I thought all of this era were 128bit.

 

[Dozer]

Is the XBOX 256bit? :blink:

I thought all of this era were 128bit.

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Xbox is based on a standard pc cpu so it's only 32bit.

 

[cat-mince]

PS2 is 128 but and GameCube is 64bit, is the Dreamcast 128 or 64?

 

[generalnmx]

PS2 is 128 but and GameCube is 64bit, is the Dreamcast 128 or 64?

The Dreamcast has a 128-bit processor. The Gamecube is actually 32-bits integer and 64-bits float. The Xbox uses a 32-bit processor. Really the extra bits are not used nearly to their full potentional in a gaming console, which is why the Xbox still excells with its 32-bit processor.

 

[DaveC]

The Xbox is also helped by having more RAM than the others, and the fact that the graphics system is better. That is why many Xbox games (Riddick, Halo, etc.) have bump and normal mapping that the others rarely do, if at all. The number of "bits" that a system has doesn't really reflect how good it will actually be anymore.

 

[MegatronUK]

PS2 is 128 but and GameCube is 64bit, is the Dreamcast 128 or 64?

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How on earth did you work out that the PS2 is '128bit' ? The main processor is a variant of the MIPS R5000 (http://3c.nii.org.tw/3c/silicon/Hot/R5000_Pr_Ov.pdf)... a true 64bit cpu that was used in the SGI Indy workstation (and Challenge/Origin supercomputers) over 10 years ago, granted it has a very wide data bus to its (tiny) memory, and a huge graphics bus to it's 'emotion engine' subsystems... but it certainly aint a 128bit console; the Dreamcast wasn't either: it had a 128bit graphics system (based on the ill fated PowerVR PCX technology... PC gamers wanted textures :-( ... ) but the SH5 cpu is a 64bit design with a 32bit memory addressing (to keep unit costs low - its mainly for embedded designs; just like the ARM/StrongARM/Xscale).

Don't try and classify consoles... some smart git will always point out the inconsistencies - like the '64bit' Atari Jaguar... yeah, ok... it had a digital signal processor that worked internally on 64bit registers... but did anything ever use it? ;-)

 

[FluBBa]

How on earth did you work out that the PS2 is '128bit' ?

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Maybe from info like this?
The Emotion Engine contains a modified MIPS core which has 128bit extensions, that probably doesn't make it a true 128bit cpu in your book though...
Does it matter for the average joe? probably not, programmers on the other hand can find it usefull sometimes, but it doesn't make or break the chance of making a special game.