本帖最后由 cmgi 于 2009-11-17 18:10 编辑
欧洲知名的技术博客 Digital Foundry 最近报道了关于SONY和任天堂下一代掌机的相关消息，据博客作者声称，相关消息的来源十分可靠。而其中最为重要的一个讯息就是：任天堂将和nVidia联合开发下一代掌机DS2，而SONY和IMG合作开发的PSP2将会成为一个"技术怪兽"
关于下一代掌机之争，SONY和任天堂似乎都回归了技术路线。任天堂方面，由于已经决定和著名的显卡厂商nVidia合作开发下一代掌机，DS2将会使用nVidia公司的Tegra 2处理器，这个在PC业界也颇受期待的处理器，性能在目前DS主机的2倍以上，而且DS2还将兼顾散热和功耗方面的因素，可能会采用40nm制造技术（目前的Tegra处理器使用的是65nm技术）来平衡性能和待机时间之间的矛盾。另外，DS2的屏幕将会有所改变，新掌机的分辨率将达到WVGA 800x480，远超过目前iphone的分辨率480x320。这也意味的着，DS2的游戏画面将进一步获得提升。
而回到PSP2方面，Digital Foundry 的作者称其为"技术怪兽".除了之前媒体披露的可能采用PowerVR SGX543四核版本的显示处理器之外，现在又有了一个新的版本：SONY将会采用一款性能介于XBOX和XBOX360显示芯片（Xenos GPU ）之间的GPU，这个新的GPU将拥有大幅超越PS2显示芯片的性能，而且这些性能的优势还没有把小屏幕运行游戏的优势计算在内。
原文链接
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ds2-vs-psp2-article
英文原文（超长超超长，大家可以当做6级英文阅读材料 ）
In Theory: Nintendo DS2 vs. Sony PSP2
November 14th, 2009
Page 1 of 2. Page 2
While the combination of crippling losses, the general economic crisis and the advent of motion control are enough to stall the release of true next-generation consoles, there's strong evidence to suggest 2010 won't be the hardware drought we thought it might be. Both Sony and Nintendo are deep in development on a new wave of handheld devices that look set to deliver a substantial amount of gaming power in a pocket-sized form factor.
The development of new hardware is something that the major platform holders are finding difficult to keep secret in an internet age where unofficial screenshots of the new Halo game leak a full year before the game appears, and where company-sanctioned news generally yields few genuine surprises that haven't been "rumoured" beforehand months in advance.
A whole host of "rumours and speculation" have appeared recently providing tentative specs for the next generation of portable consoles. This Engadget post effectively sums up most of the rumours associating Nintendo with NVIDIA's low-power mobile Tegra 2 chipset, while Eurogamer itself has been privy to some startling information on the technological make-up of the successor to the Sony PSP and its Go sibling, now being developed by the platform holder in association with its chosen third-party partners.
Speaking under conditions of anonymity, further credible sources from within the mobile graphics industry have provided Digital Foundry with further background detail on the raw technical capabilities of the new hardware. These sources, intimately involved with the alliances and deal-making within their sector, effectively confirm the reported allegiances between Nintendo/NVIDIA and Sony/IMG, but also provide a fascinating insight into the kinds of devices the new handhelds will be, and the power levels we can expect.
In many ways, the next generation of handheld gaming technology will mirror the differences in philosophy seen in today's devices. Nintendo's new machine will offer a modest level of 3D power using established parts, while Sony will once again be aiming for the bleeding edge in mobile performance, which could well come with the same kind of price premium we saw with the launch of the original PSP.
Nintendo's alliance with NVIDIA is an interesting one in that the graphics specialist has already published a developmental roadmap for the evolution of its mobile Tegra technology. Assuming a late 2010 rollout for the new machine, it's fairly easy to peg which iteration of the chipset will find its way into the DS successor's make-up: Tegra 2 will be well into production, and looks like a very useful piece of mobile 3D technology.
The current-generation Tegra, as found in the Zune HD, features two pixel shader units, two vertex shader units and two texture mapping units (TMUs) while running at a real-life speed of 130MHz (the 600 and 650MHz speeds are mostly marketing-speak associated with fill-rate). NVIDIA demos have shown the technology as being capable of running Quake III Arena at 800x480 at 35 frames per second with both anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing fully engaged.
So, how does the Tegra 2 we expect to see in the new Nintendo handheld stack up? Let's just say that it is a significant improvement, and a colossal jump in performance compared to the current DS. While the amount of vertex shader units remains the same, TMUs and pixel shaders are doubled, and as the chip will be manufactured at a physically smaller size (40nm perhaps, versus the current Tegra's 65nm), we can expect a reasonable bump in clock speed too. Our sources can only speculate at this point, but suspect anything up to 300MHz is possible, depending on just how much the platform holders want to concentrate on battery power. The faster the chip, the more impact it has on battery life.
NVIDIA is on the record as saying that Tegra 2 offers four times the power of its predecessor. The specs might disagree with that, but it's worth pointing out that the chipset also includes an ARM 11 CPU - NVIDIA's claims are most likely based on a similar bump in the capabilities of this part of the chip, but there's nothing to stop Nintendo opting for its own choice of CPU component (though ARM is used in the current DS).
While stories have circulated that Tegra is based on GeForce 6 architecture, our sources dispute that, effectively saying that it is a grandchild of the earlier GeForce 5. Only the third-generation Tegra, set for release in 2011 - and unlikely to feature in the new Nintendo console - features GeForce 9-level functions such as the unified shader set-up that makes Xbox 360's Xenos chip such a useful GPU, and which is also found in the chipset mooted for PSP2.
Regardless, there's no doubt that the new Nintendo unit will have a useful graphical power boost over what's been seen in the currently available Tegra devices, and in terms of the tech demo discussed previously, we also need to factor in that handheld consoles are unlikely to require full WVGA 800x480: an iPhone utilises a 480x320 screen, for example. Fewer pixels means more effects or potentially higher frame-rates.
On the flipside, we still have no idea on just what kind of device Nintendo has planned overall: while a new dual-screen "DS2" would obviously carry on the momentum attained by the mega-popularity of the current handheld, it's difficult to underestimate the power of its dormant Game Boy sleeper brand, and so a single-screen unit is still a possibility. Two screens would obviously incur a higher load on the GPU up against a single-screen set-up, and would make the device more expensive to produce too.
What is also important to point out is that NVIDIA is effectively licensing its Tegra IP to Nintendo and the platform holder is free to adapt it in any way it sees fit. The Zune HD uses a vanilla Tegra, so it has onboard HD video decoding and an HDMI output. Tegra is structured in such a way that many of its functions occupy separate and distinct areas on the chip's die. It would be simplicity itself for Nintendo to remove the HD decoding features for example, if it doesn't feel the need to include advanced media playback facilities. Other "add-on" functions of the chipset include a USB controller and also an image processor (designed for working with photos and videos). In short, while Tegra 2 will most likely find its way into the new Nintendo handheld, how much of it and at what speed it will run is still up for grabs
In Theory: Nintendo DS2 vs. Sony PSP2
November 14th, 2009
Page 2 of 2. Page 1
In many ways, the new Nintendo handheld is also a continuation of the firm's long-standing philosophy of making use of existing technology that's proven, established and cheap (though the cost of the chipset will all depend on the nature of the deal agreed with NVIDIA). However, while there is a undoubted sense that the current DS is somewhat underpowered, the new machine should compete manfully with whatever form of gaming the fourth-generation iPhone will provide when it emerges sometime after Q2 2010. Projections that the machine will match the power and exceed the Wii's capabilities are not unrealistic.
From what we've learned about the in-development PSP2, the device is going to be a technological monster. Insiders in the mobile space are fully aware that a deal has been struck between Sony and IMG (creators of the PowerVR derivatives found in the iPhone) and, as previously reported by Eurogamer, a multi-core variant of the forthcoming SGX543 looks set to the GPU of choice for the new machine. A four-core version of the chip appears to be most likely, and while this sounds like overkill, at 45nm you'd be looking at die of around 20 square millimetres based on measurement derived from IMG's own whitepaper. That's significantly lower than the silicon used by the current-generation PSP's graphics unit, which should give some inkling of an idea on costs and power consumption.
The deferred rendering solution employed by the IMG/PowerVR set-up makes like-for-like comparisons against the Tegra solution difficult, but not impossible. SGX543 has four arithmetic logic units, two texture mapping units and 16 of the z-check units essential in using its preferred deferred rendering set-up. And that's per core.
So how do the potential PSP2 and DS2 architectures match up? The performance difference is potentially astonishing. While Tegra's tech demos of its first-gen chipset are clearly pretty impressive, the IMG set-up potentially has more to offer. The SGX's arithmetic logic units combined with the deferred rendering approach and its use of unified shaders are significant advantages for just the one core, and IMG can be rightly proud of the ways its architecture scales over multiple cores. Put simply, a single core SGX543 should match and potentially exceed the performance of Tegra 2 clock-for-clock. And the PSP2 will most likely have full four cores at its disposal.
The raw potential of Sony's mooted solution is seriously impressive, to the point where you really have to sit down and take a deep breath before reading the next bit: we're talking about a GPU with the potential to be a halfway house between the raw power of the original Xbox's graphics chip and the Xenos GPU found in the Xbox 360, without factoring in all the advantages of running on a much lower resolution screen.
Of course there are caveats with that. It's all going to be down to the efficiency of the implementation, and thus far IMG's final, delivered solutions haven't quite lived up to the brilliance of the potential. John Carmack notably described the iPhone's GPU power as being in excess of the original Dreamcast and head-and-shoulders above the PSP's 3D performance, but we've yet to really see any tangible evidence that really backs that up aside from a couple of promising efforts (such as Carmack's own Doom Resurrection). Additionally the SGX535 found in the iPhone 3GS has also been used by Intel in its Poulsbo GMA500 netbook chipset, which has been roundly criticised for its awful drivers and generally lacklustre performance. Even measured in netbook terms, its 3D output is pretty poor.
While Intel gets some stick for the driver situation, IMG needs to take its share of the blame too. Within the mobile industry, IMG's hardware has an excellent reputation but its software support comes in for plenty of criticism and this could be just as impactful to any Sony collaboration as it has been in the past with its previous endeavours. By contrast, while the Tegra 2 hardware may seem somewhat limited in comparison, there's no doubting NVIDIA's accomplishments in terms of its flexibility, ease-of-use and the maturity of its software. These factors are just as important as the efficiency of the hardware design.
The other potential problem facing IMG is the time it takes in getting its products to market, and for that we have a good example to hand. Texas Instruments' OMAP3 processor, as used in the Palm Pre, uses the SGX530 - just like the chip in the iPhone 3G, albeit sans one TMU. Its successor, OMAP4, is set to appear in the second half of 2010 using SGX540. Industry insiders reckon that the next-gen OMAP5 using a dual-core version of PSP2's SGX543 won't appear until sometime in 2011.
Could the PSPgo really be a stop-gap unit designed to extend the PSP lifespan until its successor is ready to launch? It's a possibility, though we suspect Sony would want to launch in the same window as its competition. A 2010 release for the new Nintendo handheld is conceivably no problem - the design of the chipset would've been complete last year and NVIDIA will be in full production of Tegra 2 in a matter of months.
Up against an annually evolving platform in the form of Apple's iPhone, it will be interesting to see how the next generation of fixed platforms compete. While the prospective chipsets for the new Nintendo and Sony consoles look positively mouth-watering, the success of the DS and iPhone in particular emphasise that superb graphical prowess counts for little in the hearts and minds of today's gamers
NW独家：注意绿色部分：作者认为2010年DS2代肯定会推出，因为芯片的设计已经在去年完成了，并且N卡公司将会在几个月之后将Tegra2高产能化
文章：互联网/Digital Foundry |
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发表于 2009-11-17 15:23:17
