The use of the G5 makes sense for SDK for the Xbox2 if you include the VPC technology for backward Xbox compatibility. But I still highly doubt the reliability of the Inquirer article.
while i don't think MS is completely clueless, I did say MS knows more than us, but marginally.
Well I guess it comes down to your definitions of "marginally" and "long-range" then. MS is not privvy to IBM's entire roadmap, especially where there are agreements in place with other companies (i.e. Apple, Sony, Toshiba, nVidia, AMD, etc), and regarding markets Microsoft isn't interested in (i.e. the POWER server line), and beyond the expected life-cycle of the XBox 2 (several years, at least). That still leaves a lot for them to know that isn't public knowledge, and over a duration that anybody in this fast moving industry would call long-term. This is probably the most important part of IBM's planning right now because it is an area of huge sales, key technologies, and the most accurate plans & predictions (the farther out the plan/prediction, the less accurate it will be). So MS might not know IBM's entire master plan, but they do know a very big and very important chunk of it. I know they know, but I have no way to prove it to you and wouldn't be allowed to even if I could.
The use of the G5 makes sense for SDK for the Xbox2 if you include the VPC technology for backward Xbox compatibility. But I still highly doubt the reliability of the Inquirer article.
Dunno, you only need the emulator to be as fast as a 733 MHz PIII (what the XBox I has). The (DirectX?) API calls can probably be mapped to native API pretty easily (like Windows on Windows, which lets you run 16-bit Windows apps on 32-bit Windows OS, etc.).
Microsoft is known to have insiders everywhere I wouldn't be surprised if they did know some inside info, and what sony and IBM going with cell... microsoft knows they are about to be out of options.
Dunno, you only need the emulator to be as fast as a 733 MHz PIII (what the XBox I has). The (DirectX?) API calls can probably be mapped to native API pretty easily (like Windows on Windows, which lets you run 16-bit Windows apps on 32-bit Windows OS, etc.).
You dont even need to emulate the 733 pIII (actually a celeron).They could add the chip to the board and it could run legacy games.I doubt it would cost much and it wouldnt be a power or heat issue because it would only run when legacy games are played.PS2 does this.It has the ps1 processor onboard to run old games.
Does this mean that any game that is released for XBoxII with the addition of a game controller, will be able to run on the G5 I ordered yesterday?
If so, that's huge! A lot of serious game players invest big bucks on high end peecees complaining that the mac platform simply doesn't have their favourite games. If a whole new library of games all of a sudden become available to the G5...
I was just thinking about this and it just occurred to me... I really think microsoft does take its work seriously if they are in it enough to invest in another platform just to make a good machine. I mean it shows they are really wanting serious about their xbox platform and serious about gaming.
Does this mean that any game that is released for XBoxII with the addition of a game controller, will be able to run on the G5 I ordered yesterday?
Absolutely not. First, you aren?t running Windows NT. Second, just because the games are written for a console using PowerPCs does not mean you can play the games on a computer using G5s any more than you can run current Xbox games on a PC.
Not too surprising really. MS had NT running on PowerPC processors early on - along wtih MIPS and Alpha (I actually had an Alpha at one point that ran NT 3.51). So, getting it running on a G5 should have been pretty simple, all they really needed to do was write drivers for the devices. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the kernel is still the old 3.5 kernel - I don't think the RISC versions of NT ever made it to NT 4.
Windows NT 4 was built for all the RISC platforms. I still have it running on Alphas.
BTW, most people don't know this, but NT 4 for PPC/Alpha/MIPS contains an emulator. You can run X86 applications seamlessly on the RISC hardwdare under NT 4.
Xbox Next using PPC chips has no effect on Apple and the Mac games market.
At best it has made a lot of die-hard x86 gamers/engineers rethink their chip loyalties. A lot of them are probably sorting out the cognitive dissonance of Macs(PPC) suck and Xbox(PPC,too) rules.
Perhaps it is the first hints of a major shift at MS to the PPC chip family. Probably not. MS trying another x86 machine crammed into a box the size of a console simply wasn't an option after the marketplace disaster of the first version.
Four years ago or so I got to work with the first Dolphin SDK at the company I was working at. It was basically some renamed OpenGL headers that you compiled against and a bunch of docs on the hardware you didn't have yet. I ran it on one of the ancient early PowerMacs that the company hadn't gotten around to throwning away yet.
Once the real hardware arrived, the early SDK Mac was disgarded for x86 boxes running the real dev tools connected up to a Dolphin development unit.
I have no direct knowledge, but I assume the Xbox SDK will follow a similar path once the first batch of usable motherboards with the new IBM chip(s) are able to be shipped off to developers.
The final SDK will most likely be a development environment running on a x86 machine with a MS OS connected by Ethernet to a development version of the Xbox Next. No Macs involved. The XBox Next hardware will most likely be running the same type of NT/Win2k kernel as the first XBox and a port of DirectX. Pretty basic stuff for a company the size of MS. Certainly nowhere near the tech level of Sony's PS3.
What intrigues me more is that the successor to the GameCube will be using the same proc and graphics as the Xbox 2. Makes you wonder what that means.
It means Intel and AMD are pissed and IBM is very happy!
Other than that I'm not sure if anything else could be read into it... Other than maybe the 9xx line of CPUs are going to get some additional R&D funding.
I seriously doubt Intel and AMD are pissed, since together they account for roughtly 90% of the computer market with their chips.
AMD is starting to do quite well in the enterprise markets with their opertrons. They are hardly pissed.
All this speculation about games coming to the Mac platform, is trash, and you know it. XBox 2 with a PPC has nothing to do with OSX and a PPC.
Unless MS plans on using an OSX Kernel and porting DirectX, its not gonna happen.
This isn't even a big deal in terms of consoles. Almost all consoles that I'm aware of usually used a custom chip. The Xbox 1 was the devation, and look what happened with that. We are back on the traditional road map.
Windows NT 4 was built for all the RISC platforms. I still have it running on Alphas.
BTW, most people don't know this, but NT 4 for PPC/Alpha/MIPS contains an emulator. You can run X86 applications seamlessly on the RISC hardwdare under NT 4.
what most people also don't know,is that the non x86 version of NT were NOT written by microsoft.
they were written by the chip manufacturers.
NT for Powerpc was actually done by Motorola(of course, the way the license went was these companies did the hard part of coding it for the cpu's while microsoft still got the money for it(because they figured windows on these chips would increase sales)...
I seriously doubt Intel and AMD are pissed, since together they account for roughtly 90% of the computer market with their chips.
AMD is starting to do quite well in the enterprise markets with their opertrons. They are hardly pissed.
All this speculation about games coming to the Mac platform, is trash, and you know it. XBox 2 with a PPC has nothing to do with OSX and a PPC.
Unless MS plans on using an OSX Kernel and porting DirectX, its not gonna happen.
This isn't even a big deal in terms of consoles. Almost all consoles that I'm aware of usually used a custom chip. The Xbox 1 was the devation, and look what happened with that. We are back on the traditional road map.
You're right on the money here. Intel might feel a little snubbed since XBox2 is high profile, but monetarily its not a big deal.
It is good for IBM, however, and for Apple as a side effect. The more places they can sell their 9xx cores into, the more money they will spend on new generations of it.
While off topic would you care to elaborate a bit on "the future of their chips"?
Quote:
Originally posted by DaveGee
kay one last time without any laughs...
I have seen (previous) IBM and Motorola roadmap PDF's and PPT's - I have also seen those same documents that have additional pages tacked on to the end and were marked IBM CONFIDENTIAL (or MOT CONFIDENTIAL) NDA ONLY and trust me those 'additional pages' that are made available to NDA clients contained MUCH more information about the future of their chips / processes / designs / etc.
Comments
Originally posted by concentricity
while i don't think MS is completely clueless, I did say MS knows more than us, but marginally.
Well I guess it comes down to your definitions of "marginally" and "long-range" then. MS is not privvy to IBM's entire roadmap, especially where there are agreements in place with other companies (i.e. Apple, Sony, Toshiba, nVidia, AMD, etc), and regarding markets Microsoft isn't interested in (i.e. the POWER server line), and beyond the expected life-cycle of the XBox 2 (several years, at least). That still leaves a lot for them to know that isn't public knowledge, and over a duration that anybody in this fast moving industry would call long-term. This is probably the most important part of IBM's planning right now because it is an area of huge sales, key technologies, and the most accurate plans & predictions (the farther out the plan/prediction, the less accurate it will be). So MS might not know IBM's entire master plan, but they do know a very big and very important chunk of it. I know they know, but I have no way to prove it to you and wouldn't be allowed to even if I could.
Originally posted by vdoc
The use of the G5 makes sense for SDK for the Xbox2 if you include the VPC technology for backward Xbox compatibility. But I still highly doubt the reliability of the Inquirer article.
Forget backwards compatibility.
Originally posted by Programmer
Forget backwards compatibility.
Dunno, you only need the emulator to be as fast as a 733 MHz PIII (what the XBox I has). The (DirectX?) API calls can probably be mapped to native API pretty easily (like Windows on Windows, which lets you run 16-bit Windows apps on 32-bit Windows OS, etc.).
Originally posted by nguyenhm16
Dunno, you only need the emulator to be as fast as a 733 MHz PIII (what the XBox I has). The (DirectX?) API calls can probably be mapped to native API pretty easily (like Windows on Windows, which lets you run 16-bit Windows apps on 32-bit Windows OS, etc.).
You dont even need to emulate the 733 pIII (actually a celeron).They could add the chip to the board and it could run legacy games.I doubt it would cost much and it wouldnt be a power or heat issue because it would only run when legacy games are played.PS2 does this.It has the ps1 processor onboard to run old games.
If so, that's huge! A lot of serious game players invest big bucks on high end peecees complaining that the mac platform simply doesn't have their favourite games. If a whole new library of games all of a sudden become available to the G5...
Originally posted by lungaretta
Does this mean that any game that is released for XBoxII with the addition of a game controller, will be able to run on the G5 I ordered yesterday?
Absolutely not. First, you aren?t running Windows NT. Second, just because the games are written for a console using PowerPCs does not mean you can play the games on a computer using G5s any more than you can run current Xbox games on a PC.
Originally posted by kiwi-in-dc
Not too surprising really. MS had NT running on PowerPC processors early on - along wtih MIPS and Alpha (I actually had an Alpha at one point that ran NT 3.51). So, getting it running on a G5 should have been pretty simple, all they really needed to do was write drivers for the devices. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the kernel is still the old 3.5 kernel - I don't think the RISC versions of NT ever made it to NT 4.
Windows NT 4 was built for all the RISC platforms. I still have it running on Alphas.
BTW, most people don't know this, but NT 4 for PPC/Alpha/MIPS contains an emulator. You can run X86 applications seamlessly on the RISC hardwdare under NT 4.
At best it has made a lot of die-hard x86 gamers/engineers rethink their chip loyalties. A lot of them are probably sorting out the cognitive dissonance of Macs(PPC) suck and Xbox(PPC,too) rules.
Perhaps it is the first hints of a major shift at MS to the PPC chip family. Probably not. MS trying another x86 machine crammed into a box the size of a console simply wasn't an option after the marketplace disaster of the first version.
Four years ago or so I got to work with the first Dolphin SDK at the company I was working at. It was basically some renamed OpenGL headers that you compiled against and a bunch of docs on the hardware you didn't have yet. I ran it on one of the ancient early PowerMacs that the company hadn't gotten around to throwning away yet.
Once the real hardware arrived, the early SDK Mac was disgarded for x86 boxes running the real dev tools connected up to a Dolphin development unit.
I have no direct knowledge, but I assume the Xbox SDK will follow a similar path once the first batch of usable motherboards with the new IBM chip(s) are able to be shipped off to developers.
The final SDK will most likely be a development environment running on a x86 machine with a MS OS connected by Ethernet to a development version of the Xbox Next. No Macs involved. The XBox Next hardware will most likely be running the same type of NT/Win2k kernel as the first XBox and a port of DirectX. Pretty basic stuff for a company the size of MS. Certainly nowhere near the tech level of Sony's PS3.
Originally posted by DanMacMan
What intrigues me more is that the successor to the GameCube will be using the same proc and graphics as the Xbox 2. Makes you wonder what that means.
It means Intel and AMD are pissed and IBM is very happy!
Other than that I'm not sure if anything else could be read into it... Other than maybe the 9xx line of CPUs are going to get some additional R&D funding.
Dave
AMD is starting to do quite well in the enterprise markets with their opertrons. They are hardly pissed.
All this speculation about games coming to the Mac platform, is trash, and you know it. XBox 2 with a PPC has nothing to do with OSX and a PPC.
Unless MS plans on using an OSX Kernel and porting DirectX, its not gonna happen.
This isn't even a big deal in terms of consoles. Almost all consoles that I'm aware of usually used a custom chip. The Xbox 1 was the devation, and look what happened with that. We are back on the traditional road map.
Originally posted by DanMacMan
What intrigues me more is that the successor to the GameCube will be using the same proc and graphics as the Xbox 2. Makes you wonder what that means.
Erhh... Since when?
Originally posted by Faeylyn
Windows NT 4 was built for all the RISC platforms. I still have it running on Alphas.
BTW, most people don't know this, but NT 4 for PPC/Alpha/MIPS contains an emulator. You can run X86 applications seamlessly on the RISC hardwdare under NT 4.
what most people also don't know,is that the non x86 version of NT were NOT written by microsoft.
they were written by the chip manufacturers.
NT for Powerpc was actually done by Motorola(of course, the way the license went was these companies did the hard part of coding it for the cpu's while microsoft still got the money for it(because they figured windows on these chips would increase sales)...
Originally posted by scavanger
I seriously doubt Intel and AMD are pissed, since together they account for roughtly 90% of the computer market with their chips.
AMD is starting to do quite well in the enterprise markets with their opertrons. They are hardly pissed.
All this speculation about games coming to the Mac platform, is trash, and you know it. XBox 2 with a PPC has nothing to do with OSX and a PPC.
Unless MS plans on using an OSX Kernel and porting DirectX, its not gonna happen.
This isn't even a big deal in terms of consoles. Almost all consoles that I'm aware of usually used a custom chip. The Xbox 1 was the devation, and look what happened with that. We are back on the traditional road map.
You're right on the money here. Intel might feel a little snubbed since XBox2 is high profile, but monetarily its not a big deal.
It is good for IBM, however, and for Apple as a side effect. The more places they can sell their 9xx cores into, the more money they will spend on new generations of it.
Originally posted by DaveGee
kay one last time without any laughs...
I have seen (previous) IBM and Motorola roadmap PDF's and PPT's - I have also seen those same documents that have additional pages tacked on to the end and were marked IBM CONFIDENTIAL (or MOT CONFIDENTIAL) NDA ONLY and trust me those 'additional pages' that are made available to NDA clients contained MUCH more information about the future of their chips / processes / designs / etc.
Originally posted by The General
what most people also don't know,is that the non x86 version of NT were NOT written by microsoft.
Most people wouldn't know that because its not true.