Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Xbox Architecture

copetti.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 78 posts

Re: Xbox Architecture

#31

Post by nitrogen »

dehrmann wrote: post #29
bluedino wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still hard to beat “free”

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.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#32

Post by vmception »

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.

Where I would disagree is when I think about Xbox and PS2, they had hardware to be media centers. They had compelling region locked content that just couldn't be used. Hacking any of that meant hacking all of that, and now you could also download games which was faster and more convenient than going to the store. And play Japanese games you couldn't get anyway.

Future generations of consoles made that default behavior, and games are released in multiple continents at the same time with their respective localization. American flagship games are now more appealing and engaging than their Japanese counterparts.

Its not just the money.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#33

Post by saagarjha »

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.

No, not really. Things that annoy me are not going to get my money, even though I have some to spend now. What really happened once I started earning was I started paying for things that I had appreciated back when I was running their free trials, or ones that I had ahem "extended" the trials for (or added one :P).

It's still fun to hack, by the way, I just have less time to do it.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#34

Post by saagarjha »

bluedino wrote: post #9
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…

It’s still hard to beat “free”

But it is entirely possible. I paid money for a Git client, for example, even though what it can do is a strict subset of what I can do with the command line tools.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#35

Post by wtallis »

monocasa wrote: post #28
wtallis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the case of the xbox, the GPU is acting as a combined Northbridge/GPU (a design that was common at the time in low-cost desktops and laptops) As I recall, the earliest Intel integrated graphics added almost nothing to the production cost of the chipset. The die needed a certain perimeter to support all the IO connections, and that left quite a bit of unused silicon in the middle. Putting GPU logic in that space…

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…

> I wonder if we'll therefore see a replacement for Intel's QPI if they switch to chiplets too.

I think Intel's trying to ensure they have the advanced packaging/interposer/bridge tech to handle wide parallel connections between chiplets. If it works out, they might even end up moving in the opposite direction—toward wider interconnects rather than narrower.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#36

Post by phire »

monocasa wrote: post #28
wtallis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the case of the xbox, the GPU is acting as a combined Northbridge/GPU (a design that was common at the time in low-cost desktops and laptops) As I recall, the earliest Intel integrated graphics added almost nothing to the production cost of the chipset. The die needed a certain perimeter to support all the IO connections, and that left quite a bit of unused silicon in the middle. Putting GPU logic in that space…

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 misused it here, or if SerDes is generic enough to apply to any SERialisation/DESerialisation.

But still, I think you are on the right track. The investment and development into low power, high-speed, and low-latency on-package links is probably what has enabled chiplets to become relevant now.

Because multi-chip modules have always existed.

[1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/infinity_fabric

Re: Xbox Architecture

#38

Post by cortesoft »

favokus wrote: post #3
transpute wrote: post #2

Xbox One architecture talk (2019): https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/ > Every game console since the first Atari was more or less designed to prevent the piracy of games and yet every single game console has been successfully modified to enable piracy. However, this trend has come to an end. Both the Xbox One and the PS4 have now been on the market for close to 6 years, without hackers being ab…

Uh, I'm confused. The PS4 has been cracked. Jailbreaks exist. And yes, they enable piracy. But like any console that is still being actively supported/updated by the manufacturer, it requires a certain firmware version (or below).

Do the jailbreaks let you play online with pirated games?

Re: Xbox Architecture

#39

Post by landr0id »

cortesoft wrote: post #38
favokus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, I'm confused. The PS4 has been cracked. Jailbreaks exist. And yes, they enable piracy. But like any console that is still being actively supported/updated by the manufacturer, it requires a certain firmware version (or below).

Do the jailbreaks let you play online with pirated games?

Yes. The problem though is as soon as the vulnerability used in the exploit becomes public Sony pushes out a patch.

Re: Xbox Architecture

#40

Post by m4rtink »

vmception wrote: post #32
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.

Where I would disagree is when I think about Xbox and PS2, they had hardware to be media centers. They had compelling region locked content that just couldn't be used. Hacking any of that meant hacking all of that, and now you could also download games which was faster and more convenient than going to the store. And play Japanese games you couldn't get anyway. Future generations of consoles made that default behavio…

More importantly they no longer do the stupid region locking & on the Switch for example you can even buy digital games from other countries eshops.
Post reply on HN