The processor thats being used for the revolution

[cab2002]

After reading several patents nintendo have made i stumbled across a patent from july 2005 that indicates that a ibm 750 custom processor that could be used in the console. click this link

Have i managed to find the processor spec see for your self. note: use the find feature and type 750 and see the information yourself.It also mentions hi-def out put.

[Nintendork]

Thanks, patents tend to be pretty useless.. just a guideline of things to expect.

 

None of us are experts but this seems to be a little goldmine.. look what I found just under IBM 750 processor (which is what Broadway must be based on). This is relatively common knowledge though.. has been since Revolution was anounced.

[0088] an audio digital signal processor (DSP) 156,

That to me suggests the small port just above the AV connection we found the Revolution patent is what someone suggested. Digital Audio out.. which is a relatively low cost way of creating an immersive experience that "fills the room"

 

As far as offering immersion it's good, and because it's cheap.. it's more accessible tech than HD tvs..

 

w00t for the digital audio.

 

/me continues scowering the patent.

 

edit 1.

[0069] The user also needs to connect main unit 54 to a power source. This power source may be a conventional AC adapter (not shown) that plugs into a standard home electrical wall socket and converts the house current into a lower DC voltage signal suitable for powering the main unit 54. Batteries could be used in other implementations.

I can't compare this to the images, because I can't seem to find them.. but I'm gonna assume unit 54 is the controller. This would suggest at the time the patent was written.. the controller was still in development and it was undecided whether there would be batteries or a power pack.

 

Reading on it is certain Unit 54 refers to the main free hand controller, 52a and 52b being add-ons.

 

It's very important to find the patent images now, because the only add on we've seen for the Revolution is the free hand controller.. this details 2 add-ons.

 

edit 2.

[0092] a display controller 164.

The numbers refer to annotated diagrams of hypothetical situations for the hardware.. I'm thinking this could mean DS interconnectivity..

 

I'm becoming more and more sure that this system has digital surround and standard stereo audio capability.

 

122 that compresses and decompresses digitized audio signals and may also convert between digital and analog audio signaling formats as needed.

edit 3.

format which, for example, enables motion compensation under the MPEG standards (e.g. MPEG2) to be supported by the system.

DVD playback.

 

edit 4.

[0202] An emulator 1303 used to provide some or all of the features of the video game system described above may also be provided with a graphic user interface (GUI) that simplifies or automates the selection of various options and screen modes for games run using the emulator. In one example, such an emulator 1303 may further include enhanced functionality as compared with the host platform for which the software was originally intended.

Wahey, virtual console

 

edit 5.

Sorry to post a big chunk like this but I thought it was important.. bolded the important bits

[0204] A number of program modules including emulator 1303 may be stored on the hard disk 1211, removable magnetic disk 1215, optical disk 1219 and/or the ROM 1252 and/or the RAM 1254 of system memory 1205. Such program modules may include an operating system providing graphics and sound APIs, one or more application programs, other program modules, program data and game data. A user may enter commands and information into personal computer system 1201 through input devices such as a keyboard 1227, pointing device 1229, microphones, joysticks, game controllers, satellite dishes, scanners, or the like. These and other input devices can be connected to processing unit 1203 through a serial port interface 1231 that is coupled to system bus 1207, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port Fire wire bus or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 1233 or other type of display device is also connected to system bus 1207 via an interface, such as a video adapter 1235.

 

[0205] System 1201 may also include a modem 1154 or other network interface means for establishing communications over a network 1152 such as the Internet. Modem 1154, which may be internal or external, is connected to system bus 123 via serial port interface 1231. A network interface 1156 may also be provided for allowing system 1201 to communicate with a remote computing device 1150 (e.g., another system 1201) via a local area network 1158 (or such communication may be via wide area network 1152 or other communications path such as dial-up or other communications means). System 1201 will typically include other peripheral output devices, such as printers and other standard peripheral devices.

 

[0206] In one example, video adapter 1235 may include a 3D graphics pipeline chip set providing fast 3D graphics rendering in response to 3D graphics commands issued based on a standard 3D graphics application programmer interface such as Microsoft's DirectX 7.0 or other version. A set of stereo loudspeakers 1237 is also connected to system bus 1207 via a sound generating interface such as a conventional "sound card" providing hardware and embedded software support for generating high quality stereophonic sound based on sound commands provided by bus 1207. These hardware capabilities allow system 1201 to provide sufficient graphics and sound speed performance to play software stored in storage medium 62.

 

[0207] While the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the scope of the appended claims.

The important part is the last bit.. don't get excited about the bits I've bolded... this patent was filed in very very early days, Nintendo probably didn't know what they were making or where they were going. It's possible they ditched most of these ideas, and I wouldn't expect any of them.

 

I just found it interesting reading about what they were thinking and what ideas were going through their minds early in development..

[cab2002]

It mention hi-def connections using composite conennection which indicates it will support hi-def tvs but not necessary hi resolutions

[AshMat]

Maybe that's the "revolutionary" other feature, but hopefully better than the Ds's virtual surround.

[system_error]

I am sorry to disappoint you but the IBM PowerPC 750 is the CPU used for the custom made Gamecube CPU "Gekko". To be more precise the Gekko is a custom PowerPC 750CXe.

 

Those patents are only "refilled" because most of them date back to early 2000. So this patents does not reveal anything new at all.

[Nintendork]

Patent images revealed basically nothing but techno mumbo jumbo.. out of all the 39 images Mario only popped up once..

 

http://aiw1.uspto.gov:80/.DImg?Docid=us20050162436ki&PageNum=2&IDKey=AD932786EEB6&ImgFormat=tif

 

Hopefully the vagueness of the drawing, system and generally the whole thing explains how far Nintendo were in development of the console..

 

System Error is right to a certain degree.. there is only so much this patent can truely tell us, but I do not see the Revolution's final secret in this patent anywhere.

[goku21]

Did you read it? This is the only paasage that´s hinting:

 

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

 

[0028] Many of us have seen films containing remarkably realistic dinosaurs, aliens, animated toys and other fanciful creatures. Such animations are made possible by computer graphics. Using such techniques, a computer graphics artist can specify how each object should look and how it should change in appearance over time, and a computer then models the objects and displays them on a display such as your television or a computer screen. The computer takes care of performing the many tasks required to make sure that each part of the displayed image is colored and shaped just right based on the position and orientation of each object in a scene, the direction in which light seems to strike each object, the surface texture of each object, and other factors.

 

[0029] Because computer graphics generation is complex, computer-generated three-dimensional graphics just a few years ago were mostly limited to expensive specialized flight simulators, high-end graphics workstations and supercomputers. The public saw some of the images generated by these computer systems in movies and expensive television advertisements, but most of us couldn't actually interact with the computers doing the graphics generation. All this has changed with the availability of relatively inexpensive 3D graphics platforms such as, for example, the Nintendo 64.RTM. and various 3D graphics cards now available for personal computers. It is now possible to interact with exciting 3D animations and simulations on relatively inexpensive computer graphics systems in your home or office.

 

[0030] A problem graphics system designers confronted in the past was to provide a powerful yet inexpensive system which enables various data formats to be stored and processed thereby in a efficient and advantageous manner. Graphics chips used in graphics systems have included a local or on-chip memory for storing data as it is rendered by the graphics pipeline. When data is generated by the graphics chip it is transferred from the local memory to an external memory, where it can be used by, for example, a video interface unit to display the data on a display device. This external memory is typically part of the main memory of the graphics system and is referred to as the external frame buffer (XFB). The processing path of the data between the local memory and the external frame buffer may be referred to as the copy pipeline.

 

[0031] The local memory and the external frame buffer can have a variety of data formats for achieving various functionality in the graphics system. One problem that graphics system designers have faced in the past is to determine what format(s) of data to support in the local memory and the external frame buffer to enable advantageous and efficient use thereof by applications running on the system. Various solutions to this problem were offered. For example, graphics systems have used a variety of data formats in an attempt to improve or maximize the overall operation of the system. While some work has been done in the past in connection with such memories and data formats, further improvements are desirable. Specifically, further improvements are desired for high performance, low cost graphics systems, such as home video game systems.

 

[0032] The present invention addresses this problem by providing techniques and arrangements for use in connection with an embedded frame buffers in graphics systems. The invention provides a combination of pixel formats for an embedded frame buffer that is particularly advantageous when used in systems designed for playing interactive 3D video games. The invention enables the embedded frame buffer to be reconfigured to and efficiently used in a variety of modes, including an anti-aliasing mode, a deflicker mode and a YUV (i.e. luma/chroma) mode, thereby increasing the flexibility of the system to support a variety of applications. The desired pixel format for each mode can be selected using, for example, a command to the graphics hardware on which the embedded frame buffer is provided.

 

[0033] In accordance with the invention, the copy pipeline is advantageously used to further process the data from the embedded frame buffer prior to storing the data in the external frame buffer. For example, the copy pipeline can be used to convert the data between a variety of useful formats to, for example, reduce the amount of memory needed to store the data, and/or provide the data in desired format for use in further processing by the graphics system. The copy pipeline can also be used to further process the frame data in a manner that improves the display quality and/or modifies the display characteristics.

 

[0034] In accordance with one aspect provided by the invention, the graphics processor includes pixel processing circuitry for producing pixel data, and an embedded frame buffer which receives pixel data, wherein the embedded frame buffer is selectively configurable to store the received pixel data in any of the following formats:

 

[0035] RGB color and depth (Z);

 

[0036] super-sampled RGB color and depth (Z); and

 

[0037] YUV (luma/chroma).

 

[0038] In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, the RGB color and depth is a 48-bit format which includes 24 color bits and 24 depth (Z) bits. The embedded frame buffer is further configurable such that the 24 color bits selectively include either 8 bits for red, 8 bits for blue and 8 bits for green (RGB8) or 6 bits for red, 6 bits for green, 6 bits for blue and 6 bits for alpha (RGBA6). Preferably, super-sampled RGB color and depth is a 96-bit format which includes 16 bit color and 16 bit depth data for three super-sample locations for each pixel. The 16 bit super-sample color data preferably includes 5 bits for red, 6 bits for green and 5 bits for blue (R5G6B5). The YUV format is preferably a YUV 4:2:0 format. The embedded frame buffer (EFB) may be a dynamic random access memory (DRAM). In one embodiment of the invention the EFB is a 1T SRAM, such as provided by Moses, which is a DRAM that acts as an SRAM.

 

[0039] In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a method of using an embedded frame buffer in a graphics system is provided. The method includes providing an embedded frame buffer that is selectively configurable to store point sampled pixel data including color and Z, super-sampled pixel data including color and Z, and YUV format data, and providing an interface, such one or more API commands, to the graphics system which enables the particular configuration of the embedded frame buffer to be established by a programmer on a frame-by-frame basis.

[Nintendork]

Goku, that doesn't tell us much though.. it's techno speak for we're making a cheap console that emulates the experiences we enjoy every day at cinemas around the world.

 

Our system will offer a high performance : cost ratio under a highly flexible design that allows everyone to enjoy computer games.

 

It's nothing we've not known since TGS '05.. that's why I overlooked that bit mate.

[DCK]

Some German mag mentioned that the thing would run an underclocked PowerPC G5 (like in the final IBM Macs) so that'd mean there's no PowerPC 750. I doubt it though, I think they'll go for an upgraded Gekko.

[Nintendork]

This is early development stages.. pre Hollywood and pre Broadway.

 

Of course there wont be mention of the final hardware.. I think the chances are it will be a G5.