The
Next Generation Console from
Nintendo.
The Game Cube will be fighting against the Dreamcast,Playstation 2, and the new X-Box for dominance of the video game market.
Games likely to be developed for this console are Super Mario, Metroid, Wave Race and a Star Wars:Rogue Squadron 2 game. These games have been shown as demos in the Space World Convention. Metroid looks particularly amazing, which shows that Nintendo is taking the US market more seriously. Metroid always sold poorly in Japan.
It has comparable or higher power than the Playstation 2.
Nintendo has shown an interesting bit of honesty that other companies usually do not show by stating the following in the official specs page:
"The peak figures listed are all for maximum instantaneous performance and cannot be achieved with the actual game. However, following the conventions in the game industry they are listed for your reference."
This is usually true for all consoles, but they all try to hide it.
These are the official specs, from Nintendo.com:
Official Name NINTENDO GAMECUBE
- MPU("Microprocessor Unit")* IBM Power PC "Gekko"
- Manufacturing Process 0.18 microns Copper Wire Technology
- Clock Frequency 475 MHz
- CPU Capacity 925 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
- Internal Data Precision 32bit Integer & 64bit Floating-point
- External Bus Bandwidth 1.6GB/second(Peak)
- External Bus Bandwidth 1.6GB/second(Peak) (32bit address, 64bit data bus 202.5MHz)
- Manufacturing Process 0.18 microns NEC Embedded DRAM Process
- Clock Frequency 202.5MHz
- Embedded Frame Buffer Approx. 2MB
- Embedded Frame Buffer Approx. 2MB Sustainable Latency : 5ns (1T-SRAM)
- Embedded Texture Cache Approx. 1MB Sustainable Latency : 5ns (1T-SRAM)
- Texture Read Bandwidth 12.8GB/second (Peak)
- Main Memory Bandwidth 3.2GB/second (Peak)
- Color, Z Buffer Each is 24bits
- Image Processing Function Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, HW Light x8, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texture Mapping/Bump/Environment Mapping, MIPMAP, Bilinear Filtering, Real-time Texture Decompression (S3TC), etc.
OTHER
- Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW Motion Compensation Capability
*The Gekko MPU integrates the power PC CPU into a custom, game-centric chip.
(The following sound related functions are all incorporated into the System LSI)
- Sound Processor Special 16bit DSP
- Instruction Memory 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
- Data Memory 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
- Clock Frequency 101.25 MHz
- Maximum Number of Simultaneously Produced Sounds ADPCM: 64ch
- Sampling Frequency 48KHz
- System Floating-point Arithmetic Capability 13.0GFLOPS (Peak) (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
- Actual Display Capability 6 million to 12 million polygons/second
- Actual Display Capability 6 million to 12 million polygons/second (Display capability assuming actual game with complexity model, texture, etc.)
- System Main Memory 24MB Sustainable Latency : 10ns or lower (1T-SRAM)
- A-Memory 16MB (100MHz DRAM)
- Disc Drive CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) System
- Disc Drive CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) System Average
Access Time Data Transfer Speed 16Mbps to 25Mbps 128ms
MEDIA
- 8cm NINTENDO GAMECUBE Disc based on Matsushita's Optical Disc Technology Approx. 1.5GB Capacity
- Input/Output Controller Port x4
- Digicard Slot x2
- Analog AV Output x1
- Digital AV Output x1
- High-Speed Serial Port x2
- High-speed Parallel Port x1
- Power Supply AC Adapter DC12V x 3.5A
- Main Unit Dimensions 150mm(W) x 110mm(H) x 161mm(D)
(It is not really a cube. A cube needs the 3 axis lengths to be equal, in order to be considered a cube. I guess "Game Rectangular Prism" did not sound as attractive.)