PLAYSTATION 2 VS. NINTENDO GAMECUBE

Now that Nintendo has released the full details behind that technology that makes up GameCube we can now compare it to it's direct rival Sony's Playstation 2. Will The Gekko eat the Emotion Engine, or will Nintendo just get run over by the competition. First, we'll put these two Head to Head, spec for spec and see. For those of you who actually know what all this stuff means feel free to make the comparison. If Floating Point Operations Per Second, and Texture Mapping are terms that boggle your mind, then you can kindly press "Back" on your browser and no one will think less of you. I even had to do some studying to know what this stuff means.

SONY PLAYSTATION 2
CPU: 128 Bit "Emotion Engine"
System Clock: 300 MHz
System Memory: 32 MB Direct Rambus
Memory Bus Bandwidth: 3.2 GB per second
Co-Processor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 1, Floating Point Divider x 1)
Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 9, Floating Point Divider x 1)
Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS
3D CG Geometric Transformation: 66 million Polygons Per Second
Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG2
Graphics: "Graphics Synthesizer"


Clock Frequency: 150MHz
DRAM Bus bandwidth: 48 GB Per Second

DRAM Bus width: 2560 bits
Pixel Configuration: RGB:Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8:32)
Maximum Polygon Rate: 75 Million Polygons Per Second
Sound: "SPU2+CPU"


Number of voices: ADPCM: 48 channel on SPU2 plus definable by software Sampling Frequency: 44.1 KHz or 48 KHz (selectable) I/O Processor

CPU Core: Current PlayStation CPU
Clock Frequency: 33.8 MHz or 37.5 MHz (selectable)
Sub Bus: 32 Bit
Interface Types: IEEE1394, Universal Serial Bus (USB)
Communication via PC-Card PCMCIA
Disc Media: DVD-ROM (CD-ROM compatible)

 		Nintendo Gamecube
MPU (Microprocessor Unit): IBM PowerPC "Gekko"

Manufacturing process: 0.18 Microns Copper Wire Technology
Clock frequency: 405mhz
CPU capacity: 925 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
Internal data precision: 32bit & 64bit floating point
External bus bandwidth: 1.6GB/second (peak), (32bit address, 64bit data bus 202.5mhz)
Internal cache: L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way), L2: 256KB (2 way)
System LSI: "Flipper"

Manufacturing process: 0.18 microns NEC Embedded DRA Process
Clock frequency: 202.5mhz
Embedded frame buffer: Approx. 2MB, Sustainable Latency: 5ns (1T-SRAM)
Embedded Texture Cache: Approx. 1MB, Sustainable Latency: 5ns (1T-SRAM)
Texture Read Bandwidth: 12.8GB/second (peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth: 3.2GB/second (peak)
Color, Z Buffer: Each is 24bits
Image Processing Function: Fog, subpixel anti-aliasing, HW light x8, alpha blending, virtual texture design, multi-texture mapping/bump/environment mapping, MIPMAP, bilinear filtering, real-time texture decompression (S3TC), etc.
Other: Real-time decompression of display list, HW motion compensation capability The Gekko MPU integrates the PowerPC CPU into a custom game-centric chip.
(The following sound related functions are all incorporated into the system LSI)

Sound processor: Special 16bit DSP
Instruction memory: 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
Data memory: 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
Clock frequency: 101.25mhz
Minimum number of simultaneously produced sounds: ADPCM: 64ch
Sampling frequency: 48khz
System floating point arithmetic capability: 13.0GFLOPS (peak), (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
Actual display capability: 6 million to 12 million polygons per second (display capability assuming actual game with complexity model, texture, etc.)
System main memory: 24MB sustainable latency, (10ns or lower 1T-SRAM)
A-Memory: 16MB (100mhz DRAM)
Disc Drive: CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) system average access time 128ns, Data transfer speed: 16Mbpsto 25Mbps
Media: 8cm Nintendo Gamecube Disc based on Matsushita's optical disc technology � approximately 1.5GB capacity
Input: Controller port: x4, Digicard slot: x2, Analog AV output: x1, Digital AV output: x1, High-speed serial port: x2, High-speed parallel port: x1
Power supply: AC Adapter DC12V x 3.5A
Main unit dimensions: 150mm(W) x 110mm(H) x 161mm(D)

Your brain, like mine has probably turned to complete jello now, but as we can see (put on scholarly Professor's voice) The "Gekko" (Not to be confused with Geico which could save you hundreds in car insurance...) has a higher clock speed than the "Emotion Engine" 300 Vs 405. Sony 0, Nintendo 1. The Sony Playstation 2 can push more polygons per second. Sony Maximum Polygon Rate: 75 Million (Actual Display Capability Around 20 Million) vs Nintendo Actual display capability: 6 million to 12 million polygons per second. Sony 1, Nintendo 1. Game Ports, Playstation 2 - 2, Nintendo Gamecube - 4. Nintendo gets another point. Maximum storage medium capacity, Playstation 2 DVD - 4.7 GB. Nintendo Gamecube, PsudoDVD 1.5 GB. Score is tied up 2 to 2. Backwards compatability. Sony: Yes. Nintendo: Nope. Sony 3, Nintendo 2. Total System RAM, Sony: 32, Nintendo 40. 3 - 3. Judging from what I can tell of these specs it would seem that Sony and Nintendo just might very well be in a Dead Heat technologically. Unfortunely, what we don't see in this picture is the Sega Dreamcast, with it's lowly 200 Mhz Processor, 16 MB of RAM, and 4 Million Polygons Per Second. Poor little guy. Then again, Goliath X-Box looms over the shoulder of our little tourney at a Whopping 733 Mhz Processor, 64 MB of RAM, and 150 - 300 Million Poly's per second. Whoa!

What all this really means is that we gamers are going to be on the winning end of all this raw power. Now understand, it's not necessarily technology that makes a game system successful, rather the quality of the games that are produced for it. Nintendo really needs to expand their appeal to the older gamers, something that Sony has managed to accomplish quite well with many Action and RPG titles that have sold millions. Some say that Nintendo's GameCube is going to be too little, too late, when X-Box hits stores in America on or about the same date as GameCube with Dreamcast already in use for 2 years and Playstation 2 with a year's head start. Nintendo has always been last in the Next Gen console races, but usually dazzles gamers with what they can do. I can't say that the N64 really impressed me over time whereas the Playstation did, but many of Nintendo's lauch titles and core First party games, as well as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, made that system less than a total loss. Understanding that the big N will attempt to suck every possible penny from the Pokemon Franchise is a given, but they must win back their gamer base they had with the SNES and NES with titles like Metroid and Zelda. Many of these kids are in High School or entering College now, and little cutesy monsters will not cut it with this crowd. They should really make a bold attempt at making and marketing decent RPG's that rival Sony's good buddy Squaresoft. When they do that, they will definitely be rocking Sony's world.

Although this article focuses primarily on Sony and Nintendo, what remains to be the big mystery is the Fate of Dreamcast, and of Microsoft's bold foray into the console gaming industry. Sega plans on introducing internet based gaming with Phantasy Star Online, and Quake III Arena, but one wonders if it will catch on as something to be done on a console that sits on your TV set, rather than a computer. Interestingly enough it was Microsoft that assisted Sega with the Dreamcast, and now they are kind of stabbing them in the back by making their own system that very well could have been the REAL Dreamcast, and marketing it as a competing product. X-Box is a big ? No one really knows if Microsoft can pull off adding a new machine into the market, having no track record with gamers in this field. We saw Sony do this in 1994 with the Playstation, but you've got to wonder if Microsoft will remain devoted to this thing, and will it end up being a perpetual glitch machine like many of it's less than stellar software releases. The specs on X-Box are impressive, but I could have IBM's Deep Blue, and if all it does is play chess, then why would anyone bother? Do I want to play games like Rollercoaster Tycoon, The Sims, or Quake on a console? Not really. I'll reserve judgment until I actually see more about what Microsoft is planning, but it will take a bold introduction to grab us gamers into accepting Microsoft into the family.


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