Pandora Graphics

[edwin_cartagena]

can somebody remake this comparicion with pandora, xbox and ps2? (i dont know much about this)

GPU (graphics processor)
Xbox:
250 Mhz. X-Chip 3-D nVidia chip developed in collaboration between Microsoft and nVidia.
PS2:
147.456MHz. Sony Graphics Synthesizer, graphics chip developed by Sony.

Number of polygons per second
Xbox:
125 million per second
PS2:
66 million per second

Number of simultaneous textures
Xbox:
4, capable of bump mapping (The bump mapping is a technique that provides relief textures simulated. Thanks to this fact when illuminate a object, even though it is totally flat, there are shadows that cause us the feeling that there is a relief.)
PS2:
1

Polygonal capacity - No textures
Xbox:
4.0 G / Sec (+0.5 P.)
PS2:
2.4 G / Sec

Capacity-polygonal - With Texture
Xbox:
4.0 G / Sec (+0.5 P.)
PS2:
1.2 G / Sec

Compression-textures:
Xbox:
Yes, 6:1
PS2:
None.

 

[Phawx]

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...5583&st=72#

"Yea I corrected myself a couple of posts up. To be fair, the SGX 530 pushes the same amount of polys as the gamecube and has a fillrate that crushes the NV2A in the Xbox. The Gamecube has double the memory throughput, Pandora's being ~1.3GB/s, but we also have all of the efficiencies of the PowerVR architecture that compensate for memory throughput to have T&L and 2-4xAA enabled for close to free. On top of everything we have a feature set capable of supporting geometry instancing and displaced subdivision surfaces (great thread on the other board) And even on top of THAT is that the SGX 530 is stupidly power efficient. I.E. Compartmentalizing the 2D engine from the 3D engine to save power when not using the 3D engine. Oh, I forgot to mention that we have 256 MBs of RAM. That's 4x the amount of the original Xbox. Obviously we still need to store the OS in that, but we still have a ton of RAM compared to the last generation of consoles."

Also, the SGX 535 = Intel GMA 500. And on X86 based machines running 3DMark06 it has a score of 76-ish. <---Don't read to much into that, because the CPU used was a low clocked atom.

Here is a link showing some video of video benchmarks on the SGX530: (Note the isight is the reason for the framerate)

http://openpandora.wordpress.com/2009/01/0...he-beagleboard/

I think we are going to have to wait and see what happens. SGX driver is out now, so I would like to see Quake 3 running on the beagleboard/panda and than we could run benchmarks on that and get a little bit of a better understanding. Also Displaced subdivision surfaces is a much better version of bump mapping if I am understanding it correctly and geometry instancing is a great way to achieve lower memory usage.

I think if someone were to create a game from the ground up on the Pandora we would see something truly spectacular.

 

[Svartalf]

Oh, I forgot to mention that we have 256 MBs of RAM. That's 4x the amount of the original Xbox. Obviously we still need to store the OS in that, but we still have a ton of RAM compared to the last generation of consoles."

You don't realize something here. The X-Box had to load up XP Embedded (and still does) in that 64Mb RAM profile and still be able to do things. We're going to have about the same or slightly less in-RAM footprint with more capabilities.

I give a rough analogy of about a GC or an X-Box in the palm of your hand when I explain to people what they're seeing when they see the dev board or I explain to them what I'm trying to port things over to.

 

[Phawx]

Oh, I forgot to mention that we have 256 MBs of RAM. That's 4x the amount of the original Xbox. Obviously we still need to store the OS in that, but we still have a ton of RAM compared to the last generation of consoles."

You don't realize something here. The X-Box had to load up XP Embedded (and still does) in that 64Mb RAM profile and still be able to do things. We're going to have about the same or slightly less in-RAM footprint with more capabilities.

I give a rough analogy of about a GC or an X-Box in the palm of your hand when I explain to people what they're seeing when they see the dev board or I explain to them what I'm trying to port things over to.


Agreed.

 

[WoD]

QUOTE

I give a rough analogy of about a GC or an X-Box in the palm of your hand when I explain to people what they're seeing when they see the dev board or I explain to them what I'm trying to port things over to.



I have no problem getting the GC in the palm of my hand anyway, it's the screen and power supply that's the problem.

Seriously, though, Tux Racer is going to be sweet.

 

[mazza558]

It's a shame mobile graphics really aren't that impressive compared to the full-size things, being 9 years behind in terms of power (given GC was announced in 2000). Heck, we've seen PS2 in our hands (God of War on PSP) for a few years already.

 

[Phawx]

God of War is the *only* title on the PSP that feels like a PS2 game. Graphically. There won't be jaggies like there is on the PS2.

 

[benjiro]

Heck, we've seen PS2 in our hands (God of War on PSP) for a few years already.

Not exactly the same thing. The PSP's power is somewhere between a PS1 & PS2. You will see that the texture quality used on the PSP is a lot lower ( what stands to reason because off the screen size. You don't need the same textures on a lower sized & resolution screen ).

Phawx: "Also, the SGX 530 = Intel GMA 500."

I was under the impression that the SGX 535 was used in the Intel GMA 500.

 

[Phawx]

You are correct. I will edit my above message

 

[WoD]

God of War is the *only* title on the PSP that feels like a PS2 game. Graphically.

I don't know about that, I thought Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters was pretty damned good in the graphics department. Then again, colorful cartoon platformers are not the best gauge of graphical quality.

 

[Phawx]

The graphics are okay for Ratchet and Clank, but the camera angle I guess is so close that you can really see the muddy textures.

 

[PoisonedV]

You can't do comparisons like these. First of all, the pandora will never reach the level of graphics (likely) that a commercial product with the exact same specs will- while the homebrew community have a large set of skills, detailed 3D graphics on a hardware-budget usually aren't one of them (well, the demoscene has coded a few PLAYABLE things that looked really nice)
second, processors and all that aren't the same. 900 Mhz on the pandora isn't the same amount of power as 900 mhz on the ps2 or whatever and so on. It doesn't work, people always are making equations on these forums but what it really 'equates' to is bad math

 

[mazza558]

You can't do comparisons like these. First of all, the pandora will never reach the level of graphics (likely) that a commercial product with the exact same specs will- while the homebrew community have a large set of skills, detailed 3D graphics on a hardware-budget usually aren't one of them (well, the demoscene has coded a few PLAYABLE things that looked really nice)
second, processors and all that aren't the same. 900 Mhz on the pandora isn't the same amount of power as 900 mhz on the ps2 or whatever and so on. It doesn't work, people always are making equations on these forums but what it really 'equates' to is bad math

Some of the free Linux games look very good and are available on ARM.

 

[raytaller]

Some of the free Linux games look very good and are available on ARM.

...why don't people accept the fact that commercial games (in general) are far beyond free games (in general) in terms of production quality and quantity ? Ok, there are a few exceptions... cave story (although it wouldn't had so much support as a commercial game...), I also like nethack...
I mean, games that you play as a player, not as a supporter of the open-source.
Forget a minute the freeness of games and look at the 50 games that you liked most. How many free games ?
And how many if you don't count those that were developed by a company and then left to the community ? And how many that are not just clones of commercial games (I consider game design as much important as implementation, so clones are only half games for me).

I'm now working on two games : one is for my job, for Wii, the other is on my spare time, and will be open and free. I don't sleep a lot, but still, I can guarantee that I'll never spend the same amount of time and energy on my personal project, just because I can't. Most of developers are in this situation.

Pushing the hardware at its limit is really time and energy consuming, that's why demomakers usually make "demos" that don't exceed a few minutes. Writing a full, finished, polished game is really time and energy consuming, that's why a lot of homebrew are not focusing 100% on optimization, with such things as pygame etc. Doing both is really a full-time job, that's why mot of AAA games are commercials.

This is why comparing commercial and open-source hardware is irrelevant, like PoisonedV said.

That being said, I don't care of AAA. I'm a lot more interested in this : http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html
And I'd be glad to see commercial games on pandora, and buy them. Also don't forget that you can sell open-source software, or at least sell the releases. If I find a good open-source game, I'd be glad to buy an official release for a few bucks, even if I can compile from source by myself.

A bit off-topic, but I'm tired of reading thinks like "look at tuxracer or frets on fire" (mazza558 > not talking about you ^^)

 

[fusion_power]

You can't do comparisons like these. First of all, the pandora will never reach the level of graphics (likely) that a commercial product with the exact same specs will- while the homebrew community have a large set of skills, detailed 3D graphics on a hardware-budget usually aren't one of them (well, the demoscene has coded a few PLAYABLE things that looked really nice)

Why not? I always wondered, why "Payback" onto the GP2X was the only game with that graphical bombast. Commercial or not, the community can cook with the same tools like Apex design, the community have the same Sources etc... And I'm sure some of them have the same skills. No Problem at all, because the GP2X is mainly a 2D Console.
I hope, we will see great Homebrew 3D games onto the Pandora because we have the great OMAP including SGX Power, there should be enough beef to take the Homebrew Software into new heights.

 

[mazza558]

I didn't say they were equal to their commercial counterparts, but some games really are pretty decent considering you paid nothing to use them. Not necessarily graphics-wise, but in terms of enjoyment

 

[Zeno Arrow]

The X-Box had to load up XP Embedded (and still does)

FYI, the XBOX1 OS wasn't XP Embedded, it was based on Win2k. See here:
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS3988467635.html

 

[MDave]

I am a little concerned about the 110 MHz core clock speed of the SGX, that seems pretty slow to me, in comparison to the rest of the device's specs. Tile-rendering off-sets this limited speed I guess?

 

[Tinnus]

I am a little concerned about the 110 MHz core clock speed of the SGX, that seems pretty slow to me, in comparison to the rest of the device's specs. Tile-rendering off-sets this limited speed I guess?

Constant factors in MHz comparisons mean nothing. ie: 110 Hz to 110 MHz to 110 GHz do mean a lot, no matter what is done per cycle, but say from 110 to 440 MHz, the thing at 110 could do 4 times what the other one does at just 1 cycle. (for example, it may have more shader execution units)

 

[maciek_urbanski]

I am a little concerned about the 110 MHz core clock speed of the SGX, that seems pretty slow to me, in comparison to the rest of the device's specs. Tile-rendering off-sets this limited speed I guess?

Those 110MHz give you fillrate up to 220Mpix/sec. Pandora screen is 800 x 480, so it can be filled with constant color 572,916(6) times/sec. But this value is of small practical meaning, because it gives you 'flat shaded' fillrate.

More interesting is answer to question: How many HW instructions SGX 530 (two dual-issue USE engines) can execute when rendering entire screen with given fps.

When we'll assume 30fps it gives you 19 clocks/pixel. In each clock one USE engine can execute up to 2 instructions, so we'll end up with max. 38 HW instructions. Not a lot.

When 'overclocked' to 166MHz (if it's possible) SGX 530 has fillrate of 332Mpix/sec. It gives up to 57 HW instructions. That's way better.

Going to 25 fps gives us up to 45 instructions (@110MHz) and up to 69 instructions (@166MHz).

Imagination Technologies claims that 4x anti-aliasing is free in SGX (probably something along lines of coverage sampling anti-aliasing).

Anyway it seems that some heavy optimization is a must...

On positive side - because SGX is a tiled architecture it means that in case of opaque surfaces only one shader invocation per pixel will occur. For visible transparencies multiple shaders will fire (one per surface) per pixel, but during processing all output data will reside on-chip, so it still very efficient.