How powerful is the Gamecube?

[Mimi Nakamura]

A good example for me is Resident Evil 4. The GC version is superior in nearly every way to the PS2 verion.

Exactly.

[Rob2600]

A G3 running at 450 is not even close to a Pentium III running at 733

I guess Adobe Photoshop didn't get the memo. In benchmarks I've seen, they're just about equal. Then again, I don't work with 3D motion graphics, so I don't know about those benchmarks.

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.

No...the GameCube didn't get as many sports games because those versions didn't sell as well as the PS2 and Xbox versions. Graphics had nothing to do with it. If they did, the PS2 would've had even fewer sports games than the GC.

And obviously the Gamecube could handle detailed graphics, fast action, and multiple players/characters. Have you ever played the Time Splitters series on the GameCube? How about 007: NightFire or 007: Everything or Nothing? F-Zero GX? Madden? Even the Pikmin series featured detailed graphics and lots of characters on-screen.

Also, what about Spartan: Total Warrior? The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King? The Chronicles of Narnia? King Kong? Those games look equally as great on both the GC and the Xbox. One version isn't 10 times (or even 1.5 times) better looking than the other.

you have some type of irrational dislike for the Xbox.

No, I'm just responding to the original post by stating how powerful the GameCube is.

My old roommate had an Xbox and I had a GameCube. Burnout 2 on the GC looked just as good as Project Gotham Racing on the Xbox. Resident Evil 4 looked just as good as The Chronicles of Riddick. Star Fox Adventures looked just as good as Halo. Beach Spikers looked just as good as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. etc.

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.

F-Zero GX didn't have speed? It's one of the fastest games I've ever played and features plenty of detail. Plus, it runs at a constant 60 frames per second in 480p and widescreen.


Once again, the Xbox was more powerful than the GameCube. I'm not denying that. However, it wasn't 10 times more powerful like you seem to believe. Exaggerated theoretical hardware specs are one thing, but I'm talking about real-world, in-game graphics. Some Xbox games look slightly better than some GameCube games, but I've never seen the huge difference that you claim.

[Bojay1997]

I guess Adobe Photoshop didn't get the memo. In benchmarks I've seen, they're just about equal. Then again, I don't work with 3D motion graphics, so I don't know about those benchmarks.



No...the GameCube didn't get as many sports games because those versions didn't sell as well as the PS2 and Xbox versions. Graphics had nothing to do with it. If they did, then the PS2 would've had even fewer sports games as the GC.

And obviously the Gamecube could handle detailed graphics, fast action, and multiple players/characters. Have you ever played the Time Splitters series on the GameCube? How about 007: NightFire or 007: Everything or Nothing? F-Zero GX? Madden? Even the Pikmin series featured detailed graphics and lots of characters on-screen.

Also, what about Spartan: Total Warrior? The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King? The Chronicles of Narnia? King Kong? Those games look equally as great on both the GC and the Xbox. One version isn't 10 times (or even 1.5 times) better looking than the other.



No, I'm just responding to the original post by stating how powerful the GameCube is.

My old roommate had an Xbox and I had a GameCube. Burnout 2 on the GC looked just as good as Project Gotham Racing on the Xbox. Resident Evil 4 looked just as good as The Chronicles of Riddick. Star Fox Adventures looked just as good as Halo. Beach Spikers looked just as good as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. etc.



F-Zero GX didn't have speed? It's one of the fastest games I've ever played and features plenty of detail. Plus, it runs at a constant 60 frames per second in 480p and widescreen.


Once again, the Xbox was more powerful than the GameCube. I'm not denying that. However, it wasn't 10 times more powerful like you seem to believe. Exaggerated theoretical hardware specs are one thing, but I'm talking about real-world, in-game graphics. Some Xbox games look slightly better than some GameCube games, but I've never seen the huge difference that you claim.

I'm sorry, but I think the list of comparisons you made above are further proof that you don't know what you're talking about. The level of detail in environments and character models in games like Halo, PGR, and DoA Exteme Volleyball are several factors above the games you compared them to. Spend five minutes playing Halo next to Star Fox Adventures in a room full of neutral people and I guarantee 100% of them will agree that the speed and detail of the environments and graphics in Halo are several times that of SFA. That's not even mentioning the fact that you can play massive multiplayer games at the same level of detail on-line. Trying to do that on the Gamecube means splitting a single screen into tiny little lower detail boxes. Even bringing up crappy games like Nightfire and Chronicles of Narnia is absurd. I don't think any of the versions of those games are what I would consider to be good, so who cares if the Xbox version and the GC version both looked good to you. The developers didn't spend much time doing a good job on any version, so it's an invalid reference.

When I mentioned sports games, I was specifically comparing Madden and the 2K series which were released on both platforms. The player models in the Xbox versions were vastly superior to the GC versions. Plus, you can actually play the Xbox versions on-line with actual other people. Try doing that on the GC. It's not even close.

Seeing a game console owned by your former roommate is not the same as owning one and spending hours daily playing games on it and on the Gamecube. Your bias in this debate is obvious and it is easy to see when compared with your responses in other threads where other people noted your unapologetic pro-Nintendo arguments.

It's more than a slight detail and speed difference, if I had to put a number on it, I'd say it's more like 30% in multi-platform games and as much as 100% in games like Halo when compared to other FPS on other platforms from that generation. To me, that's worth owning the Xbox, particularly with its library of exclusives. I suppose you would claim in this generation that the PS3 and 360 aren't significantly better graphics and performance wise when compared to the Wii?

[hellfire]

Its pretty powerful, you could beat somebody over the head with it

[Rob2600]

bringing up crappy games like Nightfire and Chronicles of Narnia is absurd.

007: Nightfire received an 8.0/10 overall on the Xbox and GameCube. That's your definition of "crappy?"

Chronicles of Narnia received a 7.1/10 overall. Again, that's "crappy?"


I'm just saying.

It's more than a slight detail and speed difference, if I had to put a number on it, I'd say it's more like 30% in multi-platform games

How about Beyond Good and Evil? Is that a good enough example for you? The Xbox version doesn't look noticeably better than the GC version, let alone 30% better like you claim.

[scooterb23]

It's been 8 years since the systems came out. Seriously, let it go.

There isn't even a dead horse to beat anymore, it has decayed and has blown away in the wind.

[The 1 2 P]

But some people like to until it looks like a persian rug.

[Rob2600]

It's been 8 years since the systems came out. Seriously, let it go.

There isn't even a dead horse to beat anymore, it has decayed and has blown away in the wind.

But some people like to until it looks like a persian rug.

This discussion bothers you, yet you keep reading and replying. Interesting.

[The 1 2 P]

This discussion bothers you, yet you keep reading and replying. Interesting.

Who said it bothers me? I don't remember typing that.

[scooterb23]

This discussion bothers you, yet you keep reading and replying. Interesting.

It's one of those things I do to make me feel good about myself.

You know, the whole "Man, I did something dumb...but it wasn't THAT dumb" kind of thing.

By all means, keep it going...I've been sending highlights to my non-gaming friends so they can get a laugh as well.

[Rob2600]

By all means, keep it going

Okay.

The level of detail in environments and character models in games like Halo, PGR, and DoA Exteme Volleyball are several factors above the games you compared them to.

I honestly couldn't find any good in-game shots from DOA Volleyball, only renders. I think this is a decent comparison though. Again, the Xbox looks slightly better than the GameCube, but not several times better like you continue to claim.


Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Xbox) vs. Beach Spikers (Gamecube) (click for larger version):




Project Gotham Racing (Xbox) vs. Burnout 2 (GameCube) (click for larger version):

I think the list of comparisons you made above are further proof that you don't know what you're talking about. ... I was specifically comparing Madden and the 2K series which were released on both platforms. The player models in the Xbox versions were vastly superior to the GC versions.

Really? They look identical to me:


Madden NFL 07 (Xbox) vs. Madden NFL 07 (GameCube) (click for larger version):




Does anyone honestly think the Xbox version looks "vastly superior?"

[CelticJobber]

Does anyone honestly think the Xbox version looks "vastly superior?"

Only a certain XBox supporter who's been posting innaccurate claims in this thread to back up his favorite system, I would presume.

[tom]

But the Dreamcast is most powerful of all

[Icarus Moonsight]

Wait I'm confused... Did the Gamecube or Xbox have the biggest penis? Judging by the mass of the big black and green box I'm thinking steroids. Beefy, but greatly diminished twigs and berries. Then again, the Gamecube is fucking PURPLE!

*lightbulb* Now I get it, it's not really about the systems now is it?

[Greg2600]

If you line GC and XB up side by side, the Xbox would win, mainly thanks to the graphics card. It has much better lighting and shading, draw distance, etc. It's noticeable. But the Gamecube is no slouch. In fact, I always thought it was, never having played it for years. But several years ago, I looked at screenshots, and it's pretty close, and if you had a Gamecube, you weren't missing out on anything. The simple fact was that the Gamecube had Nintendo staples like Mario Sunshine, Kart DD, Zelda, Metroid, etc. The Xbox had 1st party games like Project Gotham and Halo, where the teams could make use of the Xbox's advantages. 3rd party are less likely to.

The moral of the story is the Xbox and Gamecube had better graphics than the PS2, and the GC was cheaper, yet the PS2 sold more units. What sense does that make?

[Rob2600]

it's not really about the systems now is it?

Icarus, usually your comments are humorous and right on the money, but this time, you're wrong. It really is about the systems, at least for me.

If someone searches Google for "Xbox vs. GameCube" and finds this thread, I want that person to have the facts. If I hadn't posted in this thread, that person might think the Xbox really could push 125 million polygons/second in-game or that the Xbox really is 10 times more powerful than the GameCube, neither of which are true.

Instead of believing Microsoft's old marketing hype and spreading misinformation, I'm trying to be as factual and fair as possible. For the record, once again I'm stating that the Xbox was indeed more powerful than the GameCube...just not several times more powerful like Bojay claims.

The theoretical tech specs that Microsoft released in it's marketing materials in 2001 are meaningless. I'm going by actual in-game graphics. Sometimes I see that the graphics in Xbox games are a bit better than the graphics in GameCube games, but the difference isn't gigantic, like Bojay claims. Again, this is from what I've seen in screenshots and from the Xbox games I used to play with my old roommate.

I was also the Assistant Manager at an EB in NJ and would run GameCube and Xbox games on the store's TV. Neither I nor my coworkers ever noticed a huge difference in the graphics between the two consoles and we never had any customers, not even the fanatical ones, come in and claim that Xbox graphics were several times better than GameCube graphics. Instead, they resorted to arguments like, "The GameCube only has kiddie games," or "The GameCube is stupid because it's purple," but they never bashed the GC's graphics.

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.

The GC couldn't handle online play? The Phantasy Star Online games run just fine using the GC's broadband adapter.

The lack of online GC games had nothing to do with CPU power or RAM. The Xbox had many more online games because it had a built-in network adapter and the GC didn't. It's as simple as that. How many people bought the GC broadband adapter? Five? It wouldn't make sense for developers to support GC online play when so few people bought the broadband adapter.

Besides, the Dreamcast featured online play in first-person shooters and sports games. If the DC can handle that, obviously the GC can, too.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Being that specs and benchmarks never tell the whole story and observations (especially in the realm of graphics quality these days) are highly subjective I'm sticking to "It's not about the systems."

As far as design goes they took completely opposite paths to arrive at about the same result. Which method is best is more a value judgment than anything else. It's a fruitless, ultimately pointless argument. They are what the are, no more and no less.

[Volcanon]

Who cares about the GC? the Famicom was made 20 years earlier and could handle EIGHT sprites without flicker! I'd like to see GC do THAT!

[dendawg]

Who cares about the GC? the Famicom was made 20 years earlier and could handle EIGHT sprites without flicker! I'd like to see GC do THAT!