Centurion

What good is an opinion if you don't have the rationale to back it up?

jeffdsmith

GP, Josh1, Josh2, I'll get a thread together by this Sunday. There is not much info, but it will help to keep people in the proper topics for certain material.

Josh H

Oh, I agree and don't mind discussing and backing up my opinions at all.

I was just responding the the post about not posting your opinion repeatedly by saying that's not what I do, but rather that I post it and then address questions and issues others have with it.

I have no problems at all with the questions etc. or taking the time to back them up.

Shoot away when you want to discuss something I post, and those that get annoyed by my posts or think I'm repetitive due to this, can simply put me on their ignore list.

Chris_D

Definitely give Jade Empire a shot. I think the gameplay elements are a lot better than KOTOR. I don't really understand quite the level of criticism the game seems to have got, maybe people had too high expectations. I understand the complexity of the fighting system is nothing like a dedicated fighter or even the average adventure game, but it's certainly on par with something like tales of symphonia, and a lot of fun IMO. I really don't think the average rpg player needs something that is overally taxing anyway. I have died about 5-10x so it's not a complete walkover.

The environments are a nice change as well and really evoke a feeling of a mystical ancient china. The fact that you spend 90% of your time in beautiful outdoor environments is a nice change from most rpgs.

I'm about 20 hrs in and so there's still time for it to go to crap but so far the plot has been entertaining.

Josh H

I'm 100% picking up Jade Empire when it hits $20. I'd probably pick it up before Kotor II or Halo 2 if they all dropped at the same time.

discostu1337

Quick question before I head to work. I know the XBOX360 supports a minimum of 720p for HD gameplay, but what about the thousands of HD owners whose TV's do not display that? I know my TV, along with most others does the standard 480, and 1080...hardly anything uses 720. Why would they pick that at the minimum? My main concern is...will the system 'down-grade' to 480p on those 720 games, or does no one know yet? If not, this will really hurt the XBOX, as no one will be able to play their games in HD.

Gallant Pig

Your 720p resolution will be upconverted to 1080i and look really good. 720p is the minumum for game makers. It's actually the most popular format for front projectors. They might have picked it as the minumum because it's HD format. It has less jaggies than 1080i.

flashburn

Doesn't that depend on the TV itself? I thought I read about people being pissed off that their HDTV downconverted 720p to 480p.

Gallant Pig

A lot of TV channels broadcast in 720p too. Sounds like I'd take that tv back. Sony will most likely also be 720p, it just makes sense for video games (less jaggies & easier to do).

jeffdsmith

Yes. In fact most TV tuner cars on the market today do exactly as you describe, they down convert from the higher progressive signal to the lower. It is not uncommon.

joshd2012

It important that you find a TV that accepts 720p, otherwise it will convert to whatever the native resolution is. If the native resolution is 420p, but you want it displayed in 1080i, it will downconvert to 420p before upconverting to 1080i. You want the native resolution to be 720p for these new systems.

I've done some research for a new TV myself

Gallant Pig

My 1080i only direct view Wega looks just as good in 720p as it does in 1080i. I believe most direct view HDTVs on the market do the same thing.

mrpayroll

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=9410

Seagate to provide LD25 hard drives for Xbox 360

Rob Fahey 11:40 09/06/2005

New discs designed specifically for gaming and home entertainment systems

Microsoft's Xbox 360 is set to use hard drive technology from storage specialist Seagate, with the company announcing that its new LD25 2.5" discs are to be used as the removable drives for the console.

Seagate announced the LD25 range of drives in a statement last night, describing the new drives as specifically designed for use in game systems, home entertainment devices and small form factor PCs.

The drives will be available in 20GB, 30GB and 40GB variants, with the Xbox 360 set to ship with the 20GB version of the hardware - which will be used for applications ranging from downloading game content to storing video messages and custom soundtracks.

"The hard drive extends the gaming experience on Xbox 360," explained Microsoft's corporate VP of Xbox hardware, Todd Holmdahl. "From downloading trailers, new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, and more to supporting custom playlists in every game and storing video messages from friends, Seagate's LD25 Series 2.5-inch hard drive brings gaming and digital media together for the ultimate entertainment experience."

According to Seagate, the new drives use a technology called DynaPlay, which optimises their performance to reduce power consumption and improve media streaming and security, while motors using a technology called SoftSonic mean that the drive runs more quietly than its competitors.

Seagate joins an impressive line-up of technology partners who are working with Microsoft on the new console, including CPU provider IBM, graphics chipset designer ATI and wireless solution provider RTX Telecom.


Chris

Josh H

Interesting.

I'm always skeptical of new technology, hopefully it will be reliable. Seagate is a good company though, so it should be fine.

tenaciousdave

I'm sure it will work like any HD set top box. You choose the resolution to output, and it will do the conversion. Tv stations are broadcast in different resolutions, but you cable/satellite box converts it for you.


I have a Hitachi CRT, one of the few CRT HDTVs that support 480, 720p, 1080i.

/can't wait for all HD games

Centurion

Bingo!

It's mostly dependant on the native resolution of your HDTV.
Take a game (or movie for that matter) programmed in 480 lines and output it to a screen with a native resolution of 720 lines (one column of pixels from top to bottom should have 720 pixels). What happens here is the Xbox (if you clicked "YES" in the Xbox dashboard) will output 480P but your monitor has to scale that information to fill all of it's 720 lines of resolution. That means, no matter how good of a scaler your monitor has, it still has to "make-up" some of that information to fill it's screen. This is why people who spend thousands of dollars for an HDTV still have their Xbox games looking like crap compared to a regular tube TV worth hundreds of dollars. These older TV sets have a native resolution of 480 lines (640 x 480).

The Xbox 360 will have, at a minimum, games programmed with 720 progressive lines of resolution. An HDTV with that same native resolution will look sweet. All the information the game developers programmed into their game should come up on screen. No conversion or scaling needs to happen. What you need to be concerned with now is how well your LCD, DLP, LCoS monitor can show fast changing colors and objects which is opening another can of worms altogether.

mrpayroll

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=9451

Unified architecture gives Xbox 360 the graphical edge, claims ATI

Rob Fahey 13:23 10/06/2005

PlayStation 3 may be faster on paper, but Xbox 360's easier to harness, says Huddy

Microsoft's Xbox 360 will have better graphics performance than the PlayStation 3 despite the better on-paper specifications of the Sony console, according to graphics chip designer ATI's Richard Huddy.

Speaking in an interview with techie website bit-tech.net, Huddy - ATI's developer liaison and technology evangelist - went into detail about the Xenos chipset used in Xbox 360, and how it stacks up against NVIDIA's RSX part for the PlayStation 3.

Although the RSX is more powerful in terms of raw specifications - it runs at a higher clock speed for a start, 550Mhz rather than the 500Mhz speed of the Xenos part - Huddy claims that the unified shader architecture used by ATI will give Xbox 360 the graphical edge.

"That mere 10 per cent clock speed that RSX has on Xenos is easily countered by the unified shader architecture that we've implemented," he claimed. "Rather than separate pixel and vertex pipelines, we've created a single unified pipeline that can do both."

"Providing developers throw instructions at our architecture in the right way, Xenos can run at 100 per cent efficiency all the time, rather than having some pipeline instructions waiting for others," Huddy explained. "For comparison, most high-end PC chips run at 50-60% typical efficiency. The super cool point is that 'in the right way' just means 'give us plenty of work to do'. The hardware manages itself."

For its part, NVIDIA has repeatedly downplayed the importance of unified shader architecture, and has publicly stated that it doesn't believe that this is the best path to improved graphics performance.

Huddy believes that this position is marketing bluster from NVIDIA, rather than being based on any genuinely held beliefs about the technology in question.

"This time around, they don't have the architecture and we do, so they have to knock it and say it isn't worthwhile," he said. "But in the future, they'll market themselves out of this corner, claiming that they've cracked how to do it best. But RSX isn't unified, and this is why I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful."

Of course, neither the RSX nor the Xenos exists in final silicon form yet, and the claims of both NVIDIA and ATI need to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt as a result. Although they're both based on IBM-manufactured chips and PC-like graphics parts, the architecture of the Xbox 360 and the PS3 is radically different and direct comparisons are difficult.

However, many developers working with both consoles up to now have privately concluded that Sony's system, which will be launched at least six months after Microsoft's, will have the edge in terms of overall performance.


Chris

joshd2012

On backwards compatability:

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/8492/X...ility-Details/

If this ATi guy is correct, then they have to emulate each game separately. If this is the case, 100% backward compatability will come... but maybe in 5 years.

Miami Joe

Quick question re: media center capability... does this mean that if I've got some .VOB files located on a USB or CAT-5e external hard drive, that the 360 will "see" them and I'll be able to play them on my hdtv instead of my computer? Thanks anyone

tenaciousdave

It's also been said that when they get some games working others would also work.

I don't think there will be 100% backwards compatibility ever. The PS2 doesn't play 100% of all PS1 games, but it does play all but a handfull.

tenaciousdave

I doubt it, but nothing has been announced regarding it.

Chris_D

Even PS1 emulation on PC requires different configuration (occasionally a different plugin even) to get optimum results. However one particular configuration might work great for 50 different games, as I'm sure MS will be hoping. The idea that you are writing totally different code for each individual game is completely wrong.

amped

Took a quick glance through the thread and didn't see a pic so unless I missed it, here's something to look forward to:

Flay

Cool picture, I'll stick it in the links section.

jeffdsmith

Is that kiosk image from MS? I never imagined them including a headphone jack.