How powerful is the Gamecube?

[Rob2600]

Real world, the Xbox could push 125 million pollys per second.

So how come I've never seen an Xbox game that looks 5 times better than GameCube games (125 million polygons/second vs. 25 million polygons/second)? Actually, I've never even seen an Xbox game that looks 2 times better than GameCube games.

[makaar]

I love all three of last-gen's consoles, but Gamecube had a good line of stellar titles, which have been touched upon already in this post. Unfortunately, it really shows how good a game is when its developed by the right team. I remember countless rubbish third-party titles being released, many of which were multi-platform titles...which is what is once-again plaguing the Wii.

When all is said and done though, the first real thought is how fast load/save times were on the GC. Metroid Prime, for example, took literally a few seconds to load and save.

[Rob2600]

Real world, the Xbox could push 125 million pollys per second. Using a backbuffer at 60 FPS, that equates to about 2.1 million pollys per frame.

By the way, according to the information on Wikipedia, the Xbox could produce 485,416 triangles per frame at 60fps. 485,416 polygons/frame x 60 frames/second = roughly 30 million polygons/second (not 125 million). Am I missing something?


EDIT: Here you go:

"Xbox Geometry engine: 125 million particles/second (peak)"

That's particles, not polygons.


"Xbox Peak triangle performance: 29.1 million 32-pixel triangles/sec raw or with 2 textures and lit."

So, I was right...right? Roughly 30 million polygons/second, in-game (textured and lit).



Realistically, it seems like the Xbox could produce around 30 million polygons/second, in-game at 60 fps (in the hands of the best developers). That's slightly better than the GameCube, which could produce around 22-26 million polygons/second, in game at 60fps (again, in the hands of the best developers). Likewise, the PS2 can produce around 12-20 million polygons/second and the Dreamcast can produce around 5-6 million polygons/second.

In the end, some Xbox games look better than some GameCube games and vice versa. Again, I think Star Fox Adventures, Star Wars Rogue Squadron III, F-Zero GX, Metroid Prime 2, Resident Evil 4, Twilight Princess, and some others hold their own against anything on the Xbox.

the [Xbox's] 733 mhz CPU may as well have been stock (and yet, still twice as powerful as it's competitors)

In the world of computers, a 485 MHz PowerPC G3 CPU (similar to the GameCube's Gekko CPU) and a 733 MHz Pentium III (similar to the Xbox's CPU) have very close performance benchmarks. One isn't twice as powerful as the other. Don't fall for the megahertz myth:

"The term came into widespread use (or was even originally coined) in the context of comparing PowerPC-based Apple Macintosh computers with Intel-based PCs."

[noname11]

Remember that leap second that killed all zunes?


yeah, the gamecube is that powerful...

[Zap!]

Wow, I was expecting several people to say "As powerful as the Wii" but to their credit, no one did.

[walrusmonger]

There should be no questioning whether or not the GC is more powerful than the PS2, or that the Xbox is the most powerful of the 3.

The PS2 just had more developers making games for it so it ended up getting a lot of games that pushed it to the limits. Similar to how the Master System was more powerful than the NES, but there are bunches of NES games that blow away most of the stuff on the Master System.

And the Xbox had the best looking version of Soul Calibur 2- 720p (letterboxed though), crisp and clean. Very sexy.

[8bitCaged]

Remember that leap second that killed all zunes?

off topic it did not kill zunes it killed all zune 30's witch there less then I million of them.

[scooterb23]

The Gamecube is so powerful, it can keep 3 Netflix envelopes from blowing away in a stiff fan breeze!

It's so powerful, that if you attached a sturdy rope to it, and swung it around a few times, and hit someone in the skull...it may knock them out!

The Gamecube is so powerful, even Chuck Norris thinks twice before roundhouse kicking it!

So, to summarize... who cares how powerful it is? Shut up, and play all the great games released for the damn thing.

[bangtango]

Wow, I was expecting several people to say "As powerful as the Wii" but to their credit, no one did.

Being the cheap opportunist I am, I was headed to that tried-and-true "well" (dead serious) but unfortunately you spoiled the surprise an hour or two before I arrive.

Just because people like me are so predictable and rely on tired old
"gameplans" for threads like these doesn't mean you have to give away my playbook, heh heh

At least we managed to avoid the number of "bits" argument, like we used to have in the old days.

[CrimsonNugget]

I place the Gamecube between the PS2 and Xbox. The PS2 versions of multiplatform games always seemed like downgrades to me. Also, it seems like the Xbox had a very slight graphical edge over the GCN.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I place the Gamecube between the PS2 and Xbox. The PS2 versions of multiplatform games always seemed like downgrades to me. Also, it seems like the Xbox had a very slight graphical edge over the GCN.

Agrred 100%. After completing Resident Evil 4 I felt the cube was powerful enough, just not utilized by most game makers.......

[Rob2600]

After completing Resident Evil 4 I felt the cube was powerful enough, just not utilized by most game makers

In addition to RE4, I think...

Burnout 2: Point of Impact
F-Zero GX
Fight Night Round 2
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Star Fox Adventures
Star Wars Rogue Squadron III
Wave Race: Blue Storm

...are a few more examples of amazing-looking GameCube games. They definitely hold their own against anything on the Xbox.

I place the Gamecube between the PS2 and Xbox.

Yes. Again, from what I've read, the best developers were able to push 12-20 million polygons/second on the PS2, 22-26 million on the GameCube, and around 30-35 million on the Xbox. (5-6 million on the Dreamcast)

The Xbox and GameCube outdo each other in different ways. For example, the Xbox has more RAM and a faster GPU, but the GameCube has faster RAM, double the on-die L2 cache (256 KB vs. 128 KB), and double the texture layers (8 vs. 4). In the hands of skilled developers, both consoles produced fantastic graphics.

[noname11]

The Gamecube is so powerful, even Chuck Norris thinks twice before roundhouse kicking it!

I heard that Chuck Norris mans the Gamecube that operates the Hadron Collider.

[esquire]

How powerful is the Gamecube?

According to the Nintendo mafia it's more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

[alxbly]

In addition to RE4, I think...

Burnout 2: Point of Impact
F-Zero GX
Fight Night Round 2
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Star Fox Adventures
Star Wars Rogue Squadron III
Wave Race: Blue Storm

...are a few more examples of amazing-looking GameCube games. They definitely hold their own against anything on the Xbox.

Drop Harry Potter and add Resident Evil Zero to that list and I'd be in 100% agreement... with the list of best-looking cube games, anyway. I owned all four consoles from last gen and, truth be told, Xbox did outshine the Cube in a few games. Specifically; Chronicles of Riddick, Doom 3, Burnout 3, Jade Empire, Oddworld Strangers Wrath... there's others, but that'll do for now.

For games brought out on multiple platforms the differences obviously varied from game to game. Gamecube got a lot of bad ports but there were also some games that I thought were best on the cube. Often this boiled down to Xbox and Gamecube games looking virtually identical but the cube having quicker load times (I'm thinking of Beyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia, etc). Timesplitters 2 looked identical on both platforms; as far as I could tell the only difference was that the Xbox version had more memory for the map editor. Most FPS I bought were for Xbox but that was mainly because it had a better controller for shooters than the Cube (IMO).

[The 1 2 P]

Despite appearing as a little purple lunch box, the Gamecube was indeed pretty damn powerful. This just goes to show that looks can be deceiving. As most have already said, the GC was the second most powerful machine of the last generation, behind the Xbox and ahead of the PS2. Although the PS2 received the majority of third party exclusives, it didn't have any games that the Gamecube wouldn't have been able to handle.....graphic wise. Now if we could only do something about that gimpy conrtroller.

[heybtbm]

Also don't forget while Gamecube ports looked as good as the Xbox versions, the Gamecube versions often had an extra level of annoyance...multiple discs. It was a remnant of the previous generation that I wish would've stayed there.

I always seem to put the wrong disc in when picking up an old game. Not a huge deal, but still ridiculously unnecessary.

[alxbly]

Also don't forget while Gamecube ports looked as good as the Xbox versions, the Gamecube versions often had an extra level of annoyance...multiple discs. It was a remnant of the previous generation that I wish would've stayed there.

I always seem to put the wrong disc in when picking up an old game. Not a huge deal, but still ridiculously unnecessary.

I never considered that to be a big deal; I'd take the quicker loading times over very occasional disc swapping. I can't think of any games where you needed to swap discs more than once... but that might just have faded from my memory.

Does anyone know if there were any Gamecube games that came on more than two discs? I can't think of any.

[Rob2600]

I find it interesting that Nintendo was able to create a game console that produced graphics nearly as good as the Xbox, but for almost half the cost. I remember reading that the Xbox cost Microsoft around $400 to produce at launch, while the GameCube cost Nintendo a little under $200 to produce at launch.

Yes, the Xbox contained a 10 GB hard drive. How much was Microsoft paying for that in bulk, in 2001? Let's say...I don't know...maybe $60 each. I'm just guessing. So $400 minus $60 equals $340 to manufacture the Xbox (sans hard drive) vs. let's say $195 to manufacture the GameCube - and both machines produce similar graphics.

I just wonder why one company needed to spend roughly $340 per console (again, sans hard drive), while another company spent roughly $195 per console, which was nearly as powerful.

[Greg2600]

There aren't a whole lot of graphics-intensive games released for all 3 platforms to compare. I'd put it in the middle of PS2 and Xbox, though the PS2 is the oldest system. There's not a huge difference, and technically if you had a PC version of the same game, it would have the best graphics.

The Xbox was overkill in hardware, so it costs a lot more, and Microsoft lost a ton on the consoles themselves. Rob, Xbox also had a DVD drive, the Gamecube did not. The DVD was a selling point, it was for me for sure. Xbox also had an internal network adapter, GC did not. One of the things Microsoft was trying was to differentiate from Sony and Nintendo as much as possible. Nintendo made a cost-effective system largely along all of the tried and true lines of console past. However, it was almost immediately seen as the kiddie console compared to the other two. The purple color did not help. I think that moniker is still present in people's minds who compare the graphical prowess.

By the way, in searching I came across this absurdity, which has problably been written about here before:
http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/ne...-mod-09280209/