Who's Getting One....?

[redcell43]

grahpics info

 

 

Description

Although we reported yesterday on potential availability issues with ATIs R520 flagship boards, it seems that there will be no such problems with the company's Xenos chip for the XBox 360.

 

With a worldwide XBox 360 launch rumored to take place around Thanksgiving, plans for the console's components and their production are already well in place. ATI has made certain that it has done everything right on its side and it is expected to have plenty of boards ready for X360.

 

The latest news from the console wars front suggests that ATIs X360 chip may have an advantage on performance over its nVidia PS3 counterpart and 4X anti aliasing, for example, is something that it will be able to deliver smoothly while the PS3 component will not.

 

Xbox 360 will feature 48-pipelines compared to PS3s rumored 24 and its graphics processor will have 10 MB of EDRAM so we are guessing that graphically it may be able to produce much more than MS has let on so far. One reservation regarding the X360 however is how well ATI will pull off the unified Shader Architecture that combines pixel and vertex pipelines. If that works, than nVidia's dedicated extra 6 vertex pipes will not cause X360 much concern. Microsoft is already urging developers to take advantage of Xenos' high-specs by asking them to create native FSAA 2X and 4X games.

 

Microsoft knows that it will have to make the most of its head start and the possible graphics advantages as quickly as possible since developers will slowly become more familiar with PS3s 7-processor architecture and will soon catch-up to, if not overtake, X360 performance wise. Initial plans for Microsoft call for a 50 per cent market share with X360 although a 35 per cent figure would seem more sensible. If Microsoft does make it with its console, it will owe a big thanks to ATI and its component which the company has produced in a responsible and timely fashion, unlike its current generation PC components.

[redcell43]

The 360 will be backwards compatible only if you pick up the $400 package with the 20Gig HD

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Description

A marketing brochure released by Microsoft appears to be putting an end to the debate about backwards compatibility for its next-generation, XBox 360 console.

 

The marketing material released attempts to describe the features of the two versions of the console that will become available on its launch in November, 2005. The brochure includes various diagrams and tables describing the console and one of them (image to your right) explains that backwards compatibility with original XBox games will only be available to those X360 owners who also have a hard drive.

 

Although details of the level of backwards compatibility of XBox 360 have been scarce, it was always assumed that some sort of extra requirement would be imposed on the console's owners. Microsoft had already mentioned that paying the relevant rights to publishers and developers might be an issue but support for past XBox games also had to depend on previous requirements for those games. There has been a suggestion that MS may be adding a fee to the hard drive that will take care of any charges which may become involved.

 

It would also seem likely that since games like Halo and Halo 2 require a hard drive on the original console, they would do the same for the new console. Some experts also claim that the hard drive may be necessary in order for certain game-specific files to be downloaded from Microsoft so that original XBox games can be played on the new console but the fact that the brochure does not mention that XBox Live is a requirement for backwards compatibility makes this possibility unlikely.

 

So gamers who wish to carry their current XBox library over to the new console may have to come to terms with the possibility that backwards compatibility comes at a price.

[redcell43]

you know only time will tell i belive that both of these systems will have great titles

killzone2 and or halo3. Atv offroad fury 1 and 2 were great. but i was burned by sony so im probally not going to buy a ps3.but im sure they will both be great consel systems. they still dont hold a candle to a computer systems.

[RNBRAD]

they still dont hold a candle to a computer systems.

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That's true at this point. PC' company's continue to upgrade thier video hardware as where we are stuck with the current game console available until the next generation. According to nVidua the ps3's video architecture will surpass anything PC wise, but the PC market will soon catch and pass it until the next generation console system is released.

[PUSH THE THROTTLE]

That's true at this point. PC' company's continue to upgrade thier video hardware as where we are stuck with the current game console available until the next generation. According to nVidua the ps3's video architecture will surpass anything PC wise, but the PC market will soon catch and pass it until the next generation console system is released.

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We used to run dual processor liquid cooled gamers buying ram buy the box, it got too expensive and took to much screwing around to make it worth keeping up. Console systems are easy to use but become outdated and still cost less than competing to have the newest fastest computers. Atleast with a console you have the newest fastest for a couple years until the next version arrives.

Since I never bought an x-box I can put that money towards the new one and I'll also be able to start a collection without spending $60 a game.

[redcell43]

That's true at this point. PC' company's continue to upgrade thier video hardware as where we are stuck with the current game console available until the next generation. According to nVidua the ps3's video architecture will surpass anything PC wise, but the PC market will soon catch and pass it until the next generation console system is released.

437353[/snapback]

i dont know about that by the time its released. 6 months to a year. i bet you we will have 1gig video cards.