Unified architecture gives Xbox 360 the graphical edge, claims ATI

[score]

from GamesIndusrty.Biz (http://www.gamesindustry.biz) :

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.

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."


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[Varsity]

Good to see ATi and nVidia taking their usual approaches. ;)

[Vandenh]

Interesting.. I guess we will see :)

Richard Huddy is a pretty smart dude and he used to work for NVidia :)

[MrTA]

Oh, is this the american version of Ken Kutargi (or whatever his name is)?

Anyway they should all just shut the fuck up and bring their stuff out the door instead of wasting time on theese sandbox games. Grow up!!

[vornskr]

I guess we'll see what happens a year from now when we have enough people with these consoles in their homes.

No point in speculating about it now :p Most people are going to buy the consoles they feel most loyal to/have the best games/get suckered into cause they don't know diddly.

Personally though, I hope that what Huddy has to say is true, and that they implement it in their next gen of pc cards >:E

[Vandenh]

>Oh, is this the american version of Ken Kutargi (or whatever his name is)?

Not really...

This guy has a brain and knows about the hardware. He hangs out in the DirectX mailing lists to give support to devs.

The ATI approach certainly looks like the smarter one... and I am sure developers will prefer the ATI setup. If the performance gain is there is another question.

[riposte101]

With 85% of the games going multiplatform the differences in these games will be minimal.

[Mrbunchypants]

So does this mean that it will be easy to program and code for?
With only one pipeline if something gose wrong you have all your eggs in one basket so to speak.

[Vandenh]

>With only one pipeline if something gose wrong

?????

Unified Shader Architecture... that just means that developers look at vertices and pixels the same way and can use the same "shader programs". It also allows makes sure the GPU is more busy (in theory) because all the different shader programs are equal ;)

[Hellstorm]

Blah Blah. When the Rev comes out, this guy will say, "Because of the unique and effcient design of the Rev GPU, the Rev can beat the 360 and Ps3 by X amount and at half the cost." Although with ATI in two and IBM in all three systems, I think it's time to buy some stock.

[Vandenh]

>Because of the unique and effcient design of the Rev GPU

Actually you can be sure that Rev will have Unified Shaders

[Goronmon]

No point in speculating about it now :p Most people are going to buy the consoles they feel most loyal to/have the best games/get suckered into cause they don't know diddly.Or just be a real gamer and buy all three ;)

[Chandler]

come on guys this is a competition, we don't rag on ben wallace for talking trash to tim duncan. let the slander begin!!

[megatron666]

I asked a friend of mine what he thought about the whole unified architecture thing. He has published many papers on graphics and is getting his Ph.D. soon. He's a real smart guy.

What he told me was that you always want more functionality for your fragment (pixel) pipes than you do in the vertex pipes. This is why graphics cards have more pixel pipes over vertext pipes. 16 vs. 6 in a geforce 6800.

So ATI's decision to have a unified architecture is obviously forward thinking and maybe the future of graphics. But that's not to say that nvidia has crippled it's architecture.

[SPBTooL]

"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."

Didn't NVidia absorb some of 3DFX's staff?
I remember 3DFX saying the exact same thing about hardware T&L.

[Furious Wang]

Yeah, but will it be able to create virtual phenomenons?

[Herodotus5]

Hellstorm is right. As far as I can tell the true winner of the next round of "console wars" has already been won, and the winner is IBM!

[bobbler]

Unified shader architecture is part of why the ATI chip is supposedly overall weaker. I would imagine the next generation (after this one, the R600 or G80) will have a lot better implementations of a unified shader architecture, without some of the limitations it has now. The only place the unified shader architecture has any real advantage is in Vertex Shaders, it, however, gets screwed when it tries to compete in Pixel Shaders (24/8 pixel/vertex that can all be used at once, or 48 weaker unified that can be used for one thing at a time per cycle -- it would only take 24 of the Nvidia shaders to swamp the 48 that the ATI has in the Xenos). The Xenos has a no-wasted-shader approach, but it still doesn't have as many shader pipelines as the RSX -- if the Xenos had 64 of them instead of 48 it would be easy to claim the victor, but it doesn't, so claiming the ATI chip wins is sort of silly (it possibly wins in vertex shaders but loses in the fact that it can't compete with how many overall shaders that can be done at once). The biggest strength the ATI chip has is the next-to-free AA, not the unified shader architecture. The differences between them are arguably fairly negligable, both (to the programmer) are very close to PC parts -- just slightly different in design -- overall both are going to make some fantastic looking games. To the programmer a unified shader architecture isn't going to look any different -- they still create the shaders and toss it to the GPU, the GPU will be the only one who knows the difference, there might be a difference in which shader they toss it to (instead of vertex or pixel they just toss it to the unified shader), but overall it's not really going to be 'easier' (as far as I know, someone feel free to correct me). One other note: I'd sure as hell hope ATI people think they made the superior product -- taking this as anything more than marketing is silly at this point.

Also, I was just thinking about about unified (and non unified) memory architectures.

The PS3's memory architecture is actually quite smart. It essentially allows for a 'RAID0' with memory (with a few tricks that are used today in many NUMA systems -- Opteron servers use NUMA to get insane bandwidth, for example). Say you have 256mb of stuff you want to store, you can store 128mb in each memory bank and use both of the ~20gb/s pipes to get at it, so essentially you get 256mb in half the time. Both the Cell and the RSX can use this trick. Both UMA and NUMA have strengths when implemented properly (the UMA xbox360 has is great in ease of use and just overall versatility -- just dump the memory to the bank and don't worry about it, both CPU/GPU has access to it so there is no worry of where the 'stuff' actually is. The NUMA PS3 has the it split which allows for some tricks that allow for substantial speed increases if the programmer feels the need).

[B_Money]

>Because of the unique and effcient design of the Rev GPU

Actually you can be sure that Rev will have Unified Shaders

I heard the Revolution will have a Unified Field theory.

[mister_slim]

I heard the Revolution will have a Unified Field theory.
The GBA has Universal Gravitation, so I'd expect so.

[bjornbarspingvinen]

haven´t fanboys already decided??

[Reanimated]

So ATI has claimed that Xenos is faster than the R520. Nvidia claims that RSX is about as fast as two 6800 Ultras using SLI.

Just last week benchmarks were released showing that R520 outscored a dual 6800 Ultra setup in 3DMark05.

That's all I need to know. No BS conjecture for me, thanks.

[bobbler]

What you just based your decision on was BS conjecture. And wrong BS conjecture at that.

Actually the RSX is supposed to be over twice as powerful as a 6800ultra. Not the same as 'about as fast as two 6800 Ultras using SLI'. Very different things. Same with the G70. G70 would be incredibly doomed if it was about the same as a 6800ultra in SLI. Give a little credit to these companies, they roughly double the power each generation... SLI isn't double the power.

Xenos and RSX will be similar in power.

The RSX is most likely a higher clocked version of the G70 (550mhz instead of 430, 90nm instead of 110nm). Otherwise the only big changes to RSX are most likely just making it work on the flexI/O bus and everything that entails. So If that is the case it'll be faster than the G70 cards coming out which at 430mhz are about twice as powerful as a 6800ultra in theory.