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Xbox Architecture

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Re: Xbox Architecture

#41

Post by [deleted] »

phire wrote: post #36
monocasa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly you see one of the major compelling reasons for the north bridge functionality to be on a separate chip. That large fixed area cost component (the pads have a lot analog components that don't shrink like logic does) can be manufactured on whatever tried and true older process node gets amazing yields for the area cost rather than the cost per gate (like you want your CPUs on). It's a lot like what you s…

Infinity fabric isn't serial. Wikichip [1] says there are two versions of infinity fabric (which is a super-set of HyperTransport), one optimised for on-package communication that is 32 bits wide, and one optimised for inter-socket communication that is 16bits wide. I'm not a hardware person, just a software person who dabbles in hardware, so I don't know if the term "SerDes" strongly implies serial and AMD have misu…

[deleted]

Re: Xbox Architecture

#42

Post by koolba »

nitrogen wrote: post #31
dehrmann wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not games but music. One of the things Spotify and Apple Music bring to the table is search and cataloging. It's less of an issue for video games where you might be seriously interested in 20 titles, but for songs, someone else organizing it for you is a huge value-add.

Sadly, due to licensing agreements, nothing can beat the breadth, depth, and curation of the classic not-legit sites that were shut down. I pay for Spotify, but several albums I have on e.g. CD are not available there, and you can't put local music into a Spotify playlist or vice versa.

No service will ever compare to how awesome Oink’s Pink Palace was. It just worked and it had everything. No blackouts, no licensing windows, no format issues. Just all music.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#44

Post by j-james »

nitrogen wrote: post #31
dehrmann wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not games but music. One of the things Spotify and Apple Music bring to the table is search and cataloging. It's less of an issue for video games where you might be seriously interested in 20 titles, but for songs, someone else organizing it for you is a huge value-add.

Sadly, due to licensing agreements, nothing can beat the breadth, depth, and curation of the classic not-legit sites that were shut down. I pay for Spotify, but several albums I have on e.g. CD are not available there, and you can't put local music into a Spotify playlist or vice versa.

You can put local music into a Spotify playlist.

https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/listen...

Re: Xbox Architecture

#45

Post by TeaDude »

I know nothing about the actual underlying architecture but from the (credible) sources I've heard from apparently it's a really nice API hiding an absolutely unholy mess and that's why emulation has been so poor for so long.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#46

Post by bananamerica »

jariel wrote: post #20
vmception wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is false. But I can say that I became disinterested in piracy when they made getting games more convenient than piracy. When they made using the hardware closer to its full potential part of the default experience. When they got the pricing right for these “premium” but pretty basic features. And of course, personally having the disposable income to afford the content because I would have never been a custo…

"And of course, personally having the disposable income to afford the content" I think this is most of the story. I mean, it's fun to hack, but a lot of people's ideology about a lot of things go out the window as soon as they have a regular job and can afford to buy regular stuff and see these things as pretty much regular products and services.

When the currency of your third world country is worth less than 1/5 of the US dollar and a single game amount to a quarter of many people’s incomes, piracy don’t register as something even remotely wrong.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#47

Post by jariel »

bananamerica wrote: post #46
jariel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And of course, personally having the disposable income to afford the content" I think this is most of the story. I mean, it's fun to hack, but a lot of people's ideology about a lot of things go out the window as soon as they have a regular job and can afford to buy regular stuff and see these things as pretty much regular products and services.

When the currency of your third world country is worth less than 1/5 of the US dollar and a single game amount to a quarter of many people’s incomes, piracy don’t register as something even remotely wrong.

I don't think MS is hugely concerned about piracy that doesn't affect sales.

In fact, if they're smart, they'll be fine with it, because it's a form of 'perfect price discrimination'.

That said, the question is to what extent piracy from other areas bleeds into the higher value markets. Which I believe does happens, ergo 'a crack is a crack is a crack' probably.

It's funny because if the cost of getting a 'hack' of a game literally entails buying a 'CD-ROM' and going through the pain of copying it like in the 'old days', which is a small pain but more than many want to bear, it puts a natural bound on the copying/hacking: it will happen a lot in poor countries, less so in rich countries.

But if a hack is 'discovered once', wherever, and then easily exploited everywhere ... not so good.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#48

Post by nitrogen »

j-james wrote: post #44
nitrogen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, due to licensing agreements, nothing can beat the breadth, depth, and curation of the classic not-legit sites that were shut down. I pay for Spotify, but several albums I have on e.g. CD are not available there, and you can't put local music into a Spotify playlist or vice versa.

You can put local music into a Spotify playlist. https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/listen...

I should have clarified that I mean music that is stored on my phone while I'm not at home. Also, the default Spotify player in Ubuntu is in a SNAP container that can't access my music folder and won't follow symlinks from the SNAP's designated music folder to other folders.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#50

Post by temac »

phire wrote: post #36
monocasa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly you see one of the major compelling reasons for the north bridge functionality to be on a separate chip. That large fixed area cost component (the pads have a lot analog components that don't shrink like logic does) can be manufactured on whatever tried and true older process node gets amazing yields for the area cost rather than the cost per gate (like you want your CPUs on). It's a lot like what you s…

Infinity fabric isn't serial. Wikichip [1] says there are two versions of infinity fabric (which is a super-set of HyperTransport), one optimised for on-package communication that is 32 bits wide, and one optimised for inter-socket communication that is 16bits wide. I'm not a hardware person, just a software person who dabbles in hardware, so I don't know if the term "SerDes" strongly implies serial and AMD have misu…

IFIS multiplexes with PCIe so it probably qualifies as quite serial. IFOP a little less, but that's blurry at this point.
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