PC -vs- Game Console

Making a BACKUP is not legal - but making an emulator to play that back up can be - i believe MS has threatened a few companies who tried to make an X-Box Emu - because for one, you are taking the code of the console which is the sole property of the creator, and with out their strict permission, you are "stealing" code to create something - which in turn IS illegal.

It depends how the emulator is made. If documentation about the system is freely available, i.e. from the chip manufacturers etc. or public domain software is reverse-engineered then it is legal. If documentation is leaked, or official software is reverse-engineered in order to get an understanding into how the hardware works, then obviously it is illegal.

^^^^^ thanks for clearing up that part

Frankly, I couldn't agree more with you.... :grinthumb
PCs are the mack....

the next generation of consoles will blur the line in terms of performace vs. pc performance.

does anyone know the ''worth'' of the gaming industry, pc and console? just curious to see where the money is going. I assume ps2 leads the pack of consoles, but industry wide as well?

Have u seen the ps3 'specs'?
i have just read them in the new PCF!
apartenly the CPU has 100x the power of a 2.5ghz P4
and the ram apartenly has a 100gigabit/s bandwidth
and im the pink fairy! computers have nothing ike that power yet!
i reckon it will b the the GeFX (projected 3dmark2001 score:22,000, actual score:13,000)
and the price would b just incredeble

Steg

p.s. but if it is true (which it cant be) pc gaming might lose its last edge......

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quote...
Have u seen the ps3 'specs'? ...
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I would'nt believe everything you read!

Here are some rather more realistic specs for PS3 ...

PS3 Specs

It seems that information has become corrupted and misquoted as it has circulated the web. The 'impossible' specs quoted are simply not achievable by 2005.

The PS3 is being designed with the capability to share processing and resources with other networked PS3's so reducing the amount of work done by each - much like running the SETI@home or FOLDING@home programs.

You could get yourself a very powerful game console if you have enough cash to splash on a network of dozens of PS3's, but most of us probably won't bother.

Here's a link with more info on this ...

PS3 - Distributed Computing

Naa guys, dont bet your money on anything you see. This happenes every year, and the specs are always way off. It can change, and will change. In early mags I get with the 'upcomming PS2 specs', there all way off. For instance, the PS2 was ment to come with a Network adaptor and HD orgionally. Then they made it an extra $50 for the two. Now its $40 for the network adapter alone, we havnt even see a HD. Maybe E3 will show some goods It goes on and on, I'd never take word on any specs untill its actually out.

"Just my $.02"

Sorry got the 2x post put from that link above:

"120GB Hard Disk Drive"

Get a life. Think they want you to copy games to the HD? Imagine how how much this thing would cost to make. The PS2 actually costs $400 to make. Cept they have to retail for $300, not many will throw out $400 for something that in a years time will be $200. and another:

"3D Geometric Transformations: 2 Billion Polygons per Second "

The PS2 can only pull 20 million or so....Dreamcast comming in under 10 Mill. their saying 2 Bill for PS3? maybe 1 billion with those specs but Im not thinkin 2. =\

Check out this aticle, its pretty intesting about the polygons.http://www.ps2fantasy.com/hardware/ps2/graphics.php

remember that we're talking about as yet, unreleased, still in R & D hardware. I don't care how 'fast' it might be, but how fast it will be. and there is alot of time between now and ps3's release, expect the hardware to be up to specs then and not now.

Forget the PS3, just imagine the XBOX 2!! That console is gonna blow us all away, I am getting a little ahead of myself, but I can dream can't I? I found a page with the possible specs for XBOX 2 and then I went and lost it! If anyone finds anything, please post.

I believe the next generation consoles, just like Macs, are becoming more like PCs. Intel is making the CPU, nvidia is making the GPU, and two of the three mainstream consoles are being built by almost pure computer companies. The Mac OS is becoming more and more like Linux, and so is the console OS. To me, the console offers nothing revolutionary in terms of games. Most game technological advances have all been on the PC.

Soon, the definition of "console" will be synonymous with "mini-ATX computer."

And I wouldn't trust the "possible specs" for the XBOX2 unless they're from a slightly reputable site.

I agree with that, all of these so called "possible specs" are being denied by the manufacturers with the standard "we do not comment on rumors" But I think it's pretty safe to say that consoles are advancing extremely fast and are bound to be on par with the PC some time in the future.

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timmoore ...
... consoles are advancing extremely fast and are bound to be
on par with the PC some time in the future.
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True, but consoles are not currently upgradable in the same way that PCs are, so any advancement made by consoles will be short lived and bettered by PCs sooner than you might think. Most consoles seem to be engineered with a life expectancy of about 3 years before a better model (i.e. next generation console) becomes available.

Given this rather serious drawback I would'nt be surprised if consoles become more modular, like mini-PCs, in the not too distant future. Consoles, such as XBOX and PS2, can already run PC software such as Linux and even use similar hardware, so it is only a small step closer towards becoming a PC, with all the cost savings that using common components would entail. Also, game developer's will only need to target a single platform, thus making games development a whole lot cheaper and easier.

but by that time imagin wot pcs will b like
the ps3 might sound impressive now but by the time it comes out pcs are going to b so far in advance of it that it wont stand a chance!

Steg

Steg is right, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the possible specs of the PS3, but now that I think of it more thoroughly, the first thing that races to mind is what PCs will be like. I can just imagine.....

Does'nt anybody read these post properly?

As is mentioned in a previous post the PS3 specs that are circulating the web are grossly exaggerated and due to someone misinterpreting factual info.

Here is what Shin'ichi Okamoto, chief technical officer for Sony Computer Entertainment had to say on PS3 ...

PS3 Specs

Its pretty clear from this interview that the rather exaggerated performance claims for PS3 only apply when linking perhaps dozens of PS3's together to form a distributed supercomputer. It seems that someone read some stuff about possible performance and derived a spec by assuming that it was for a single cpu - not very clever really!

Distributed computing is something that would not be practical for most of us due to cost - e.g. say you have four PS3's at £200 each (cost = £800); to double performance you need another four PS3's (total cost now = £1600). It would be better to wait for PS4 and get more performance for effectively same cost as one PS3!

One other thing to mention is that distributed computing might not scale as well for games as it does for analysing protien molecules due to the fact that games are realtime and all output to your monitor would be controlled by a single PS3. There are also considerations of bandwidth limitation for the network. I think that PS3 is becoming more than just a games machine!

The more realistic published PS3 specs of 3.4GHz CPU speed are more believable and this speed cpu would be pretty cheap by 2005, but even this might be improved on slightly.

Sorry to disappoint all you PS3 fans, but its time to come back down to earth now.

If you are talking about me Nic, my apologies, and I shall read posts more thoroughly from now on.

Now all they have to do is put a PC type OS on the PS3, maybe Lindows? I know sony's gonna sell Linux for the PS2 but i get the feeling they're for programming only.

Ok so this PS3 can draw mighty high resolutions - BUT my 17inch moniter is better than HDTV in terms of resolution and definatly in terms of picture quality - and, hell, by that time us PC users might not be using moniters anymore

Steg