XaviX is the video gaming base console for the XaviX Interactive System, released by SSD COMPANY LIMITED in 2004.
Bits and system power
Bit ratings for consoles largely fell by the wayside after the fifth generation (32/64-bit) era. The number of "bits" cited in console names referred to the fifth generation (32/64-bit) era. The number of "bits" cited in console names referred to the CPU word size, but there was little to be gained from increasing the word size much beyond 32 bits; performance depended on other factors, such as central processing unit speed, graphics processing unit speed, channel capacity, data storage size, and memory speed, latency, and size.
The importance of the number of bits in the modern console gaming market has thus decreased due to the use of components that process data in varying word sizes. Previously, console manufacturers advertised the "n-bit talk" to over-emphasize the hardware capabilities of their system. The Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 were the last systems to use the
The importance of the number of bits in the modern console gaming market has thus decreased due to the use of components that process data in varying word sizes. Previously, console manufacturers advertised the "n-bit talk" to over-emphasize the hardware capabilities of their system. The Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 were the last systems to use the term "128-bit" in their marketing to describe their capability.
It is not easy to compare the relative "power" of the different systems. Having a larger CPU word size does not necessarily make one console more powerful than another. Likewise, the operating frequency (clock rate, measured in terms of Hertz) of a system's CPU is not an accurate measure of performance either, except between systems of the same or similar architecture.
The Microsoft Xbox uses a 32-bit (general purpose) CISC x86 architecture CPU, with an instruction set equal to that of the Coppermine core Mobile Celeron, though it has less cache (128 kB) than the PC equivalent. It has 64 MB RAM (shared) and runs at 733 MHz. Because the Pentium 3 introduced SSE, the Xbox also had 128-bit SIMD capabilities. Its NV2A GPU, which is very similar to the GeForce 3 Series of desktop GPUs, makes it the only console in its time with traditional vertex and pixel shaders.[41]
The Nintendo GameCube's IBM Gekko PowerPC CPU runs at 485 MHz, while its "Flipper" graphics processor is comparable to the original ATI Radeon, and it has 43 MB of non-unified memory (24 MB of 1T-SRAM, 3 MB embedded 1T-SRAM, and 16 MB DRAM). The GameCube supports Dolby Pro Logic II.[42]
The PlayStation 2's CPU (known as the "128-bit Emotion Engine") has a 64-bit core with a 32-bit FPU
coupled to two 128 bit Vector Units, The hybrid R5900 CPU is based on MIPS architecture. The PS2 also has an internal 10 Channel DMA Bus which is fully 128 bits wide. Paths between the Emotion Engine, RAM and the Graphics synthesizer (GS) are also 128 bits wide. The PS2's unique hardware arrangement with no less than 10 processing units were difficult to come to grips with. Many developers struggled initially with programming the hardware. The PS2's Graphics Synthesizer (GS) has fast dedicated video memory, though it is limited in the amount of data it can hold, The 10 Channel 128 bit wide DMA bus could pump data to GS Memory as fast as the screen could update. Consequently, with the main memory being limited to 32MB, many of the PS2's games have reduced textures compared with versions for other consoles. It also does not have a hardware dedicated transform and lighting unit like the ones found in the Xbox and GameCube GPUs.
However the PS2's design allows a remarkable degree of flexibility and choice. For example, Program control and general arithmetic could be handled by the CPU, while the Vector Units 0 and 1, could provide parallel processing of physics, clipping and transform and lighting to the scene. The Vector units were noted to be so versatile that Shadow of The Colossus used one of the vector units to do full Pixel shading for the fur of the Collossi.
The Dreamcast has a 64-bit double-precision superscalar SuperH-4 RISC Central processing unit core with a 32-bit integer unit using 16-bit fixed-length instructions, a 64-bit data bus allowing a variable width of either 8, 16, 32 or 64-bits, and a 128-bit floating-point bus.[43] The PowerVR 2DC CLX2 chipset uses a unique method of rendering a 3D scene called Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR): while storing polygons in triangle strip format in memory, the display is split into tiles associated with a list of visibly overlapping triangles onto which, using a process similar to ray tracing, rays are cast and a pixel is rendered from the triangle closest to the camera. After calculating the depths associated with each polygon for one tile row in 1 cycle, the whole tile is flushed to video memory before passing on to render the next tile. Once all information has been collated for the current frame, the tiles are rendered in turn to produce the final image.
During the sixth generation era, the handheld game console market expanded with the introduction of new devices from many different manufacturers. Nintendo maintained its dominant share of the handheld market with the release in 2001 of the Game Boy Advance, which featured many upgrades and new features over the Game Boy. Two redesigns of this system followed, the Game Boy Advance SP in 2003 and the Game Boy Micro in 2005. Also introduced were the Neo Geo Pocket Color by SNK in 1998 and Bandai's WonderSwan Color, launched in Japan in 1999. South Korean company Game Park introduced its GP32 handheld in 2001, and with it came the dawn of open source handheld consoles. The Game Boy Advance line of handhelds has sold 81.51 million units worldwide as of September 30, 2010.[13]
A major new addition to the market was the trend for corporations to include a large number of "non-gaming" features into their handheld consoles, including cell phones, MP3 players, portable movie players, and PDA-like features. The handheld that started this trend was Nokia's N-Gage, which was released in 2003 and doubled primarily as a mobile phone. It went through a redesign in 2004 and was renamed the N-Gage QD. A second handheld, the Zodiac from Tapwave, was released in 2004; based on the Palm OS, it offered specialized gaming-oriented video and sound capabilities, but it had an unwieldy development kit due to the underlying Palm OS foundation.
A fairly uncommon handheld of the 6th generation was the vtech V.SMILE Pocket. A handheld version of their V.SMILE home console.
With more and more PDAs arriving during the previous generation, the difference between consumer electronics and traditional computing began to blur and cheap console technology grew as a result. It was said of PDAs that they were "the computers of handheld gaming" because of their multi-p
A major new addition to the market was the trend for corporations to include a large number of "non-gaming" features into their handheld consoles, including cell phones, MP3 players, portable movie players, and PDA-like features. The handheld that started this trend was Nokia's N-Gage, which was released in 2003 and doubled primarily as a mobile phone. It went through a redesign in 2004 and was renamed the N-Gage QD. A second handheld, the Zodiac from Tapwave, was released in 2004; based on the Palm OS, it offered specialized gaming-oriented video and sound capabilities, but it had an unwieldy development kit due to the underlying Palm OS foundation.
A fairly uncommon handheld of the 6th generation was the vtech V.SMILE Pocket. A handheld version of their V.SMILE home console.
With more and more PDAs arriving during the previous generation, the difference between consumer electronics and traditional computing began to blur and cheap console technology grew as a result. It was said of PDAs that they were "the computers of handheld gaming" because of their multi-purpose capabilities and the increasingly powerful computer hardware that resided within them. This capability existed to move gaming beyond the last generation's 16-bit limitations; however, PDAs were still geared towards the typical businessman, and lacked new, affordable software franchises to compete with dedicated handheld gaming consoles.
Pictured left to right: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro
