How powerful is the Gamecube?

[Rob2600]

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.

True, good points. The GameCube did have a DVD-like optical drive though. And wouldn't a standard, "off-the-shelf" DVD drive cost less than Nintendo's custom, proprietary optical drive?

Also, how much did a network adapter cost in 2001? Enough to account for the $145 difference in production costs (sans hard drive)? It still doesn't add up to me.


(Keep in mind, I had bought an ethernet card for my computer in 2000 for $15, retail. How much could it have cost Microsoft in 2001, in bulk? $5 each?)

By the way, in searching I came across this absurdity...
http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/ne...-mod-09280209/

What the...?

[Game Freak]

I always thought the gamecube was the weaker of the 3 (probably because of the press and whatnot) but I honestly think that there was a great library of games that could easily compare with what the PS2 had. I dont really judge consoles by the capabilities of the system, but by the quality of the library. The gamecube had some great titles such as:

Animal Crossing
Battalion Wars
Bomberman Generation
**Finding Nemo (honestly the best handled of the systems it was released on, i have both PS2 and GC versions)
**SSX Tricky (see above)
**SSX 3 (not sure about this, but i enjoyed it a lot more on the GC than the ps2)
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life
Legend of Zelda: Collectors Edition
LoZ: Ocarina of Time Master Quest
LoZ: The Wind Waker
LoZ: Twilight Princess
**Lego Star Wars
Luigi's Mansion
Metroid Prime
**MLB Slugfest 20-03
Pokemon Channel (yes, hate me all you want, I enjoyed this game)
Pokemon Colosseum
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness
Resident Evil 0, 1, **4 and Code Veronica X (I'm missing 2 &3)
Star Fox Adventures
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Tales of Symphonia

all these games were really good. The games marked with asterisks i believe or know were released on other systems, but i think they look much better on the Gamecube. Im not really tech savvy about the systems, I just like to play the games rather than criticize them. I grew up playing SNES and what not, so i personally dont care what the games look like, as long as they dont give me nausea (like Spyro: Year of the Dragon and Kingdom Hearts)

However, i also greatly enjoy the PS2, with games such as:

Ace Combat 4&5
Ape Escape 2
Burnout 3
Castle Shikigami 2
Dark Cloud
Devil May Cry
Gran Turismo 3
Ico
Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy
Kingdom Hearts Series
Mad Maestro
MetropolisMania
Shadow of the Colossus
Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder
Spy Hunter
Star Wars Battlefront II
Theme Park: Rollercoaster
Tiger Woods 06

i dont like to judge systems on their power, i judge them by the library. The GC and PS2 are pretty equal to me, and the games I play really only depend on my mood. I have a very ranged taste of genres. as i do in the music world -.-

[Greg2600]

True, good points. The GameCube did have a DVD-like optical drive though. And wouldn't a standard, "off-the-shelf" DVD drive cost less than Nintendo's custom, proprietary optical drive?

Also, how much did a network adapter cost in 2001? Enough to account for the $145 difference in production costs (sans hard drive)? It still doesn't add up to me.

Nintendo had a long history in producing consoles, thus were able to design it as small, light, and cheap as possible. Microsoft essentially took what amounted to off the shelve PC parts and used those. They might have been okay at $400, but when the console quickly went to $199, and then $149, they were taking a bath. They did little to nothing to reduce the material cost over the life of the unit. They went through 3 different DVD drives, due to reliability issues, that's about it. Again, it wasn't about that for MS, they wanted to have the most powerful thing out there, to make a dent on the market. I've compared some of the cross-plat games, mostly from EA, and Gamecube holds up well to XBox, PS2 does not.

[Bojay1997]

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.

I'm starting to see a trend in your posts. You appear to be a Nintendo fan boy who is intent on bashing the Xbox at any chance. The Gamecube has some great games and I think it was a great console. Having said that, it's not even close to the Xbox in graphics capability and it can't push the kind of detail or number of elements on screen that the Xbox can. It's not just the graphics on games like Halo that the Gamecube couldn't handle, it's also the multi-player both over a LAN and on-line that it didn't have leftover horsepower to handle. Tracking multiple human controlled players in real time is super processor intensive and that's why you never saw anything beyond four player games on the Cube.

Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube is great. Of course, like all Resident Evil games, your character moves relatively slowly and there aren't hundreds of enemies on screen at once. It's the perfect game for a capable but not necessarily technically spectacular console, which is why the Wii version holds up so well.

The Xbox hard drive allowed for game saves without investing in overpriced, low capacity memory cards. As you probably know, if you actually wanted to save anything on your GC, it cost a minimum of another $20 for a third party memory card and $30 for a Nintendo model at launch. The Xbox has a built-in networking adapater which allowed playing games with lots of people on-line at once whereas if you wanted to play one of the handful of on-line capable Gamecube games, you had to invest in an expensive and not widely available plug in adapter. In addition, the significantly faster processor (allowing for the kinds of multiplayer games that previously only PCs could handle) and higher end graphics card are what pushed the cost of the Xbox to $400 as opposed to $200.

[ReaXan]

my problem with the XBox is that it took forever to go down in price, I know it had a hardrive yet I can remember a brand new Gamecube was 99 dollars while the XBox was 150 used and discontinued. I know Memory Cards were expensive but i seem to remember getting a basic one for like 10-15 bucks. I would play one game,beat it,then erase over the old data except for sports rosters. I didn't need massive amount of storage space compared to some who used their XBox as a media center for music and what not. I am beginning to finally see why it didn't go down in price but I still contest it was too high for too long.
I think if you took the best aspects from

PS2-The Library and 3rd party support(Games/Periphials)
Gamecube-The cost effective cube design and controller(Graphics/Controller)
XBox-Online capability and the Hardrive(Online Multiplayer/Media)

You would have the perfect system

I would have that system look like the Panasonic Q or the PSX

[ReaXan]

delete

[j_factor]

Most of the time, the reason Gamecube looks better than PS2 is due to superior textures, anti-aliasing, and other such things. While they are very significant to a game's visuals, do they fall under "power"? I'm not so sure.

[ReaXan]

I think everyone would have been more than content with the Gamecube's graphics last gen if it had a better library,DVD support and a hardrive.

The PS2's graphics initially didn't even look better than the Dreamcast's when it first came out. So mark that out

The XBox was expensive to make despite being well-equipped for First Person shooters.

I think the Gamecube was the perfect compromise for graphics for that generation.

I do however think the Cube gets a bad rep this generation because of people having to endure the Wii's graphics, which is basically a Gamecube that is 20 percent better.

[Greg2600]

my problem with the XBox is that it took forever to go down in price, I know it had a hardrive yet I can remember a brand new Gamecube was 99 dollars while the XBox was 150 used and discontinued. I know Memory Cards were expensive but i seem to remember getting a basic one for like 10-15 bucks. I would play one game, beat it, then erase over the old data except for sports rosters. I didn't need massive amount of storage space compared to some who used their XBox as a media center for music and what not. I am beginning to finally see why it didn't go down in price but I still contest it was too high for too long.
I think if you took the best aspects from

PS2-The Library and 3rd party support(Games/Periphials)
Gamecube-The cost effective cube design and controller(Graphics/Controller)
XBox-Online capability and the Hardrive(Online Multiplayer/Media)

You would have the perfect system

I think Xbox went down to $149.99 new after 2+ years? I know it was in Spring '04. You had to have the hard drive for XBOX Live, and yes, it was very handy for game saves, not having to worry about memory cards (which I loathe). Unless you were way into game mods or complex sims, the Xbox was the PC plus console experience all in one. The library and DVD-play and online play really outshown the Gamecube (PS2 did as well). Plus people want the next new thing. That was not the Gamecube.

PS: Bojay, Rob is just making the point that the Xbox was graphically superior because they it used much more advanced and expensive components. That Nintendo used a less powerful, less expensive architecture, and the result was pretty close to Microsoft's. Microsoft did what it knew best, it worked with PC-like components.

[Rob2600]

You appear to be a Nintendo fan boy who is intent on bashing the Xbox at any chance.

I didn't bash the Xbox at all. In a few posts in this thread, I wrote that in the hands of the best developers, the GameCube could produce around 22-26 million polygons/second (in-game), while the Xbox could produce around 30-35 million polygons/second (in-game). How is that bashing the Xbox?

The Gamecube has some great games and I think it was a great console. Having said that, it's not even close to the Xbox in graphics capability and it can't push the kind of detail or number of elements on screen that the Xbox can. ...

Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube is great. Of course, like all Resident Evil games, your character moves relatively slowly and there aren't hundreds of enemies on screen at once. It's the perfect game for a capable but not necessarily technically spectacular console

Julian Eggebrecht at Factor 5 would probably disagree with you. The two Star Wars Rogue Squadron games on the GameCube featured plenty of fast-moving, detailed elements, plus fancy lighting effects. F-Zero GX, too.

I'm not saying the GameCube out-performed the Xbox. I'm just saying the GameCube came pretty close in the hands of the right developers.

the significantly faster processor...and higher end graphics card are what pushed the cost of the Xbox to $400 as opposed to $200.

As I wrote in an earlier post:

A 485 MHz PowerPC G3 CPU (very similar to the GameCube's Gekko CPU) and a 733 MHz Pentium III (very similar to the Xbox's CPU) have very close performance benchmarks. One CPU isn't significantly more powerful than the other. Don't fall for the megahertz myth.

Also, the Xbox had more RAM, but the GameCube had double the L2 cache (256 KB vs. 128 KB). So far, one console still isn't significantly more powerful than the other, but...

...The biggest difference between the Xbox and GameCube was the GPU. The Xbox's GPU was more powerful than the GameCube's in almost every way.


So overall, yes, the Xbox edged out the GC in terms of visuals, but the difference isn't quite as gigantic as you claim.

PS: Bojay, Rob is just making the point that the Xbox was graphically superior because it used much more advanced and expensive components. That Nintendo used a less powerful, less expensive architecture, and the result was pretty close to Microsoft's.

Exactly. I was just trying to figure out why the Xbox supposedly cost around $400 to manufacture, while the GameCube supposedly cost around $195. Questioning things and trying to figure something out isn't the same as bashing.

[The 1 2 P]

PS: Bojay, Rob is just making the point that the Xbox was graphically superior because they it used much more advanced and expensive components. That Nintendo used a less powerful, less expensive architecture, and the result was pretty close to Microsoft's. Microsoft did what it knew best, it worked with PC-like components.

Exactly. I was just trying to figure out why the Xbox supposedly cost around $400 to manufacture, while the GameCube supposedly cost around $195. Questioning things and trying to figure something out isn't the same as bashing.

Before I play mediator for everyone in here, answer this: are you two brothers? Surely you have to be related somehow with the "2600" in your screen names and the "New Jersey" state of residency. Coincidence? Thats what OJ said about his bloody footprints at the scene of the crime.

[Rob2600]

Before I play mediator for everyone in here, answer this: are you two brothers? Surely you have to be related somehow with the "2600" in your screen names and the "New Jersey" state of residency. Coincidence? Thats what OJ said about his bloody footprints at the scene of the crime.

We're friends, not brothers. We do a pop culture podcast called The Paunch Stevenson Show. You should check it out sometime.

[Bojay1997]

I didn't bash the Xbox at all. In a few posts in this thread, I wrote that in the hands of the best developers, the GameCube could produce around 22-26 million polygons/second (in-game), while the Xbox could produce around 30-35 million polygons/second (in-game). How is that bashing the Xbox?



Julian Eggebrecht at Factor 5 would probably disagree with you. The two Star Wars Rogue Squadron games on the GameCube featured plenty of fast-moving, detailed elements, plus fancy lighting effects. F-Zero GX, too.

I'm not saying the GameCube out-performed the Xbox. I'm just saying the GameCube came pretty close in the hands of the right developers.



As I wrote in an earlier post:

A 485 MHz PowerPC G3 CPU (very similar to the GameCube's Gekko CPU) and a 733 MHz Pentium III (very similar to the Xbox's CPU) have very close performance benchmarks. One CPU isn't significantly more powerful than the other. Don't fall for the megahertz myth.

Also, the Xbox had more RAM, but the GameCube had double the L2 cache (256 KB vs. 128 KB). So far, one console still isn't significantly more powerful than the other, but...

...The biggest difference between the Xbox and GameCube was the GPU. The Xbox's GPU was more powerful than the GameCube's in almost every way.


So overall, yes, the Xbox edged out the GC in terms of visuals, but the difference isn't quite as gigantic as you claim.




Exactly. I was just trying to figure out why the Xbox supposedly cost around $400 to manufacture, while the GameCube supposedly cost around $195. Questioning things and trying to figure something out isn't the same as bashing.

No, no you weren't. If that had been your intention, you would have said something like, the Gamecube was a good deal for a system that offered better graphics performance than the PS2 for a 30% lower launch cost and looked pretty good for a system half the price of the Xbox. Instead, you claimed that a $200 system had indistinguishable performance from a $400 system which in the same sentence you admit had 50% better performance specs just in the graphics processor.

A G3 running at 450 is not even close to a Pentium III running at 733 on all of the important measures including floating point performance. You may be confusing a G3 with a G4 which would offer very similar or in some cases better performance on all the critical measures at 450 MHz or higher. Similarly, having a 256 KB cache is not going to overcome an advantage of 16 more megs of RAM, especially with some of the advances NVidia built into the GPU. I have spent many hours working on complex motion graphics and editing projects on both PCs and Macs over the years and I have a good handle on what a Power PC G3 and G4 can do versus a Pentium. The performance boost on the Pentium III over the G3 is something on the order of 50% better.

The GPU on the Xbox can theoretically perform at 80 Gigaflops while the Cubes is about a tenth of that. Heck, the Nividia in the Xbox runs at 233 Mhz while the ATI runs at about 162 MHz. I believe the Gamecube only offers 24 bit color while the Xbox offers full 32 bit. Similarly, the textured fillrate of the Xbox is about 1800 Megatexels/sec while the Cube is only a third of that. I realize this might be minutae, but you can see the difference in Xbox games pretty clearly when you compare them to the same game on the Cube which is a little hard to do because other than sports and some million selling games, there wasn't exactly a ton of cross-over on the two libraries

The Rogue Squadron games were good, but I don't think anyone would accuse them of having the most stunning visuals on the Gamecube. The games played lots of fog and distance tricks to make it look like a lot more was going on than actually was and I recall tons of pop-up which you wouldn't see in a game of the same type like Crimson Skies on the Xbox. Frankly, the fact that you couldn't play large-scale multiplayer was a huge disappointment in Rogue Squadron. I would pit the Xbox version of Battlefront against those games anyday. Don't even get me started on Fight Night or most of the EA sports titles which looked amazing on the Xbox and really flat and mediocre on both the GC and PS2.

You already know why the Xbox was more expensive based on the text of your earlier post. It had a hard drive, networking and a processor and graphics unit that were on the bleeding edge of technology at the time. If you want more info about the actual development and cost of the Xbox, I would suggest you pick up the book Opening the Xbox.

[ReaXan]

I think some of you are correct on saying that some people are underating the power of the XBox yet at the same time painting a picture that the Gamecube was seriously more weak than the XBox. I don't even think the true power of the XBox was ever realized to be honest.Microsoft got close but I don't even think they did. I believe the Cube's was however,Capcom I think proved that.

I remember playing games such as Resident Evil 1,0 and 4 on the Cube and thought they looked amazing at the time. I loved that I could get my Resident Evil cannon fix by investing in a cheap little machine like the Cube.I wanted to give the XBox a chance but I basically saw it as a glorified PC. I am a computer builder so I saw that I could upgrade my video card to the top of the line for the price of the XBox yet still blowing it out of the water graphically by a large margin. Look at Doom 3 on PC High and then on the XBox and get back to me.

If you already had a decent PC the XBox didnt look that attactive compared to a cheap Gamecube that had my favorite exclusive series Resident Evil. (Yes I know about Outbreak and the other ports on the PS2, they are shit).Some games are just better on a home console and the Gamecube was a nice option to have for Sports,Zelda,Mario and whatever.


I am from the NES generation so I look at the XBox as what the SNES was to me. The XBox was many people on this board's second system and was their main one for a majority of their childhood/teenage years. So their is natural nostalgia attached to that.

[Greg2600]

We're friends, not brothers. We do a pop culture podcast called The Paunch Stevenson Show. You should check it out sometime.

And when the Nintendo subject comes up, we often disagree.

[The 1 2 P]

We're friends, not brothers. We do a pop culture podcast called The Paunch Stevenson Show. You should check it out sometime.

And when the Nintendo subject comes up, we often disagree.

I'll have to check it out just so I can see you two cat fighting

[Rob2600]

The answer to the original post is:

The GameCube was more powerful than the PlayStation 2, but not quite as powerful as the Xbox. Again, 12-20 million polygons/second (PS2) vs. 22-26 million polygons/second (GC) vs. roughly 35 million polygons/second (Xbox). Just for comparison, the Dreamcast produced 5-6 million polygons/second.

Additionally, the GameCube can handle up to 8 texture layers and features 6-to-1 texture compression, full scene anti-aliasing, bump mapping, reflection mapping, texture filtering, and a 24-bit z-buffer, all in the hardware. It was a well-designed, efficient, powerful machine, especially for $200.

I have spent many hours working on complex motion graphics

I thought you're a lawyer?

The GPU on the Xbox can theoretically perform at 80 Gigaflops while the Cubes is about a tenth of that. ... I believe the Gamecube only offers 24 bit color while the Xbox offers full 32 bit.

Then why don't Xbox games look 10 times better than GameCube games? Theoretical specs are useless. In-game specs are obviously what count. I'm not saying the best-looking Xbox games don't look better than the best-looking GameCube games. They do look a bit better, but not 10 times better...not even 2 times better.

And both the GameCube and Xbox are capable of 24-bit RGB and 32-bit RGB (which is basically 24-bit RGB plus 8 bits of alpha blending).

Even if the Xbox could display true 32-bit color depth, the vast majority of current TVs and computer monitors can't display more than 24-bit color anyway, which is already photo quality.

The Rogue Squadron games were good, but I don't think anyone would accuse them of having the most stunning visuals on the Gamecube. The games played lots of fog and distance tricks to make it look like a lot more was going on than actually was and I recall tons of pop-up

Hmmm, I don't recall any pop-up in the Gamecube Rogue Squadron games. And I do think they're two of the most impressive-looking GameCube games.

How about F-Zero GX? Complex backgrounds, plenty of cars on-screen, fancy lighting effects, and super-fast motion...all at 60 fps. That's one of the most impressive-looking GameCube games, too. What do you think?

[Bojay1997]

The answer to the original post is:

The GameCube was more powerful than the PlayStation 2, but not quite as powerful as the Xbox. Again, 12-20 million polygons/second (PS2) vs. 22-26 million polygons/second (GC) vs. roughly 35 million polygons/second (Xbox). Just for comparison, the Dreamcast produced 5-6 million polygons/second.

Additionally, the GameCube can handle up to 8 texture layers and features 6-to-1 texture compression, full scene anti-aliasing, bump mapping, reflection mapping, texture filtering, and a 24-bit z-buffer, all in the hardware. It was a well-designed, efficient, powerful machine, especially for $200.




I thought you're a lawyer?



Then why don't Xbox games look 10 times better than GameCube games? Theoretical specs are useless. In-game specs are obviously what count. I'm not saying the best-looking Xbox games don't look better than the best-looking GameCube games. They do look a bit better, but not 10 times better...not even 2 times better.

And both the GameCube and Xbox are capable of 24-bit RGB and 32-bit RGB (which is basically 24-bit RGB plus 8 bits of alpha blending).

Even if the Xbox could display true 32-bit color depth, the vast majority of current TVs and computer monitors can't display more than 24-bit color anyway, which is already photo quality.



Hmmm, I don't recall any pop-up in the Gamecube Rogue Squadron games. And I do think they're two of the most impressive-looking GameCube games.

How about F-Zero GX? Complex backgrounds, plenty of cars on-screen, fancy lighting effects, and super-fast motion...all at 60 fps. That's one of the most impressive-looking GameCube games, too. What do you think?

Yes, and a television producer as well, with a love for cutting edge post-production technology. As I have already stated, I think the Gamecube is a great system. It is not, however great for every application and it certainly could not touch the Xbox for multiplayer and on-line applications. The Gamecube also does not get anywhere close to the Xbox in a number of game genres like FPS or sports games simply because it can't push the same level of graphic detail while maintaining multiple player controlled and computer controlled characters. It's clear from your posts in this thread and in the previous Xbox thread that you have some type of irrational dislike for the Xbox. I think being being wed to any one platform is ridiculous and leads to missing out on some amazing games in every generation. It's unfortunate that you are not open minded enough to see beyond Nintendo.

I would encourage you to replay the Rogue Squadron games and see if things don't just pop-up, especially in parts of the game where massive waves of enemies are involved. It's not to the point where I felt cheated by the game or its AI, but it lead to a feeling that the game was a little more scripted than most similar space simulation action games. F-Zero is great on the Gamecube, but I don't think it had the same level of graphic detail or speed that games like Quantum Redshift had on the Xbox. I would say that in general, Nintendo first party games on the Cube have a lot more character and charm than their Xbox equivalents, but there are times when as a gamer you're looking for more than charm and that's where the need to own a PS2 and Xbox come in.

[makaar]

I think if games were developed for each console for 10 years you would see the limits pushed for development (obvious statement). Usually (not always) towards the end of a console's life, you see a lot of great games come out. Like Shadow of the Colossus, that was really ahead of its time graphically, and Perfect Dark/Conker's BFD were both high-end N64 titles.

I just wish they were still making games for some of these systems so we could see the limits the systems could go...oh well.

[Gentlegamer]

I would encourage you to replay the Rogue Squadron games and see if things don't just pop-up, especially in parts of the game where massive waves of enemies are involved.

Have you seen RETURN OF THE JEDI? It's being true the source material.