avs on xbox
 

justin's .plan reveals that he seems to be think of avs for xbox instead of avs 3.0 for winamp :)

That hurt.

Anyways, Steve said that the team *should* be working on AVS once Winamp3 is finally mostly bug-free, so I don't really think Justin will have much support there...

But of course, Microsoft with all that money plus a console which is much more powerful than my comp equals...

..to be thinking of..

If i weren't an AVS Addict, i would probably say that: "The day avs comes for xbox is the day i quit doing avs"

but hey... good for him for making a few bucks out of avs to get some lunch money... I just hope i don't have to pay for avs when nullsoft interacts with microsoft...



Aaaaand....

Oh Money, Money, Money! Must be funny, in the rich man's world!

I wouldn't bother with XBox, the memory bandwidth limitations and very old CPU and GPU design would not run AVS very well. It'd be better trying a PS2 or Gamecube version. I'm not sure about the gamecube, but I know the PS2 is unmatched for data bandwith, and control cache size (4MB), which is exactly what AVS needs to run good. Not only that, but the GS (GPU) can be reprogrammed to do specific tasks.

Though AVS is cool and all, I'm not going to mod my xbox to use it.

Great. First they sellout to AOL. Now they're going to sellout to Micro$oft. At this rate, Winamp will become another Winamp... :(

Nullsoft, selling out again?? It wouldn't be so bad if winamp did replace WMP, because WMP is crap. As long as we could still download the latest version and as long as it doesn't become XP reliant I'd be happy.

i didn't say it'd replace WMP, i said it'd become WMP...or worse (it's possible, trust me - ever heard of Destiny MP?)

why would it? its not bad to have some competition for existing xbox mediaplayers.. i'm wondering if the avs-version for xbox will run faster, since it can be optimized to run on that system (<> everybody has a different pc configuration)

Besides the fact that it's Microsoft, XBox just plain sucks. Getting a working version of AVS for the WINDOWS VERSION OF WINAMP is much more important than getting a working version of Winamp onto XBox. (We asked first, and all that...)

Yeah but we aren't paying....

i doubt microsoft is paying justin.. he's always fancying attitudes like the xbox hackers have.

well i cant say if the xbox sucks, but it certainly makes a good divx player :)

But for all other purposes it's, well, crap. There's approximately 2.1167 games I'd ever want to play on it, and there's also the fact that Microsoft has been supporting this Tom Clancy asshole (the guy who's putting out all the "american" games about taking down sadam's regime, etc.). Coupled with the fact that it's Microsoft trying to make even more money in a market that the never accelled in anyway...

I seek solace in the fact that consoles will soon be a thing of the past... along with TVs, stereos, phones and pretty much every other entertainment and communications device currently available. The PC is currently the best tool for games, communication and audio-visual entertainment. It won't take much longer for people to realise how much easier it is to have the all in one package which also works better than the seperate componenents and is cheaper. Its been happening gradually over the past ten years or so, the trend will continue and the computer will rule supreme.

Yeah, but not if you actually want to use specific controllers. IMHO the ones that are put out by Microsoft etc. are crap - the N64, PS, PS2, and CG controllers are by far the best I've ever seen. Although those big-ass Sidewinders that Microsoft makes do kick major ass, they're joysticks, and I prefer my teeny buttons and triggers :)
But consoles still do the jobs they do a whole lot better than PCs do, and I'm convinced that they will continue to do so. That and for family or dormroom purposes, who wants to buy two bloated computers when you can buy a streamlined custom home-made job, and a TV?

I don't know. I think video game machines will stay around for a long time. They are much better at their purpose than computers are. Until computers are able to run games that look like the real world, televisions replace monitors, controllers come standard with computers, and computers have multiplayer capabilities w/o lag I think video game systems will stay a step or two ahead of computers.
As microcomputer technology increases, though, I think [video] phones, pda's, watches, cd players, etc. will be combined into one easily portable computer.

the masses should go for macs in my opinion, it's hard to do anything wrong there... with osx you get a user-unix, that linux promised long ago, but never really became.. oh, we're getting off-topic here.

the pros about avs on xbox are that the version could be optimized for that specific hardware and it's easier to run it on tv or beamers, since the xbox is naturally equipped with the necessary connectors.

A top of the range PC has been better than a console since ever I can remember. Are you saying that a console can outperform a 3GHz w ATI Radeon 9700 pro?

You know that a TV is basically a shitty monitor right?

Its called a LAN or a T1... take your pick.

Actually, I think a video game console(PS2 or X-Box) can out perform a 3GHz(maybe not a dual Xeon 2.8GHz) with a Radeon 9700 pro(maybe not with a Nvidia Quadro-4). Computers just aren't built to play games like consoles are. Plus, the best games for computers are designed to be playable on 500Mhz computers with a Ge-force 1.
HDTV's(esp. plasmas) are much nicer than monitors(nice resolution and large size).
LAN works well, but can still have problems. I wish I had a personal T1(or T3) line, but that it is a bit too expensive for most people.

Computers are great, but they aren't going to eliminate video game consoles for a while - especially portable ones(gameboy advance) because they are made to do everything decently well, but nothing extremely well. Eventually, the differences in performance will become so minute that people would rather only buy the "all-in-one" computer.

Go Macs...infinitely more stable and user-friendly than PCs. The only problem is the vicious circle of:
USER: Macs don't have enough software, therefore they're crap and I'm not going to buy one.
PROGRAMMER: Not enough people use Macs for me to waste my time programming them
USER: Macs don't have enough software...
et cetera ad infinitum

And for those two reasons, Macs are completely worthless. Plus I hate the look of the OS. Windows is just more aesthetically pleasing.

...In other news, Lewis Cypher got two feet of snow today...

... And now for some foreing news...
Today Finland - Rovaniemi has a -35 Celcius average tempature, it is the coldest time of the year. We now ask Mr.J how has it been? "Well... duh... it's like... so cold out there man... i feel like my brains are frozen... d00d, you should really try it too. It's trippy man!". Riiiight, anyway back to you Atero.

foreing news, Tugg?:p
It's a nice 42 F here in Chesapeake.

that was a polite way of saying "right, when hell freezes over..."

Dunno what JUstin means by his plan. Maybe there will be a new 'offical' xbox visualization. It might be a revenue stream for Nullsoft who no doubt will be canned (as they make no money) with AOL massive losses continue.

Try and see it in a possive light.

ANdy O'Meara of the WHiteCaap/GForce fame sold his ideas/copyright to apple for there ITunes default visualization seen on all teh TV adverts.

Kevin 'Zaph' Burfitt of CThugha fame wishes when he was working for Microsoft he pimped his visualiation stuff before WMP came out.

I don't know Nullsoft are doing anythig differently.

Personally I do not thoink it will be up to the power of it. THat is unless they are designing something for the next XBox to be released.
If that is teh case then surely they need some experenced authors out there to create some decent stuff and that no doubt will involve a free XBOX. :);)...oh well we can dream.:)

Quadro4? is that the NV30. Anyway, personally I really doubt that... remember that the console has it easier because it is essentially rendering at half res because TVs are interlaced... thats why they look blurry and fuzzy. That and I can see the interlacing with my peripheral vision... as can a few other people I know. It annoys me. A PC could run any game on a TV as well as a console because of this... you can't plug a console into a monitor to check really.

Firstly, modern consoles are, for all intents and purposes, PCs without the fluff, optimised for games. In order to make them more affordable though they aren't as powerful.. simply because they don't need to render at high res and because the hardware is always the same the software is always optimised for it. The best games need more than 500mhz+gf1, + you are forgetting that you can turn your graphics settings up so that minimum spec will never run the game at its best... eg. Quake 3 - min spec 233mhz+ogl compliant card, @320x200 this will work, however, my 1GHz w/Radeon 9000 still struggles to run it at 1280x1024 with everything set to the best. Yet I can run it at a constant 60fps+ at 1024x768... almost double TV quality. When games go from console to PC the PC versions will tend to have higher quality textures too, e.g. GTA3. In terms of raw power the PC will always be the better tool, its just a shame that the power gets wasted by bad programming e.g. GTA3.

TV resolution is actually lower than 640x480 and it is interlaced.


I hate to be stubborn but I really think that consoles are going to become PCs at some stage in the near future... just look at the XBox and PS2 now, they are starting to move that way.

Here's the Quadro 4 specs:NVidia Quadro4
You seem to agree with me though.
This is basically what I said. And this is why consoles will stay better than PC's for games for a while.

Also, HDTV's(and plasmas too, I believe) have hire than 600x480 resolution. This is the hole point of HDTV's. Sure interlacing can be annoying, but it still gives consoles a speed edge over PC's because TV's have less pixels to render, but are still bigger.
I also hate to be stubborn, but I think we have at least 20yrs. until consoles are gone for good.

TV IS interlaced, making the frame resolution 320x480, but the actual image produced isn't - it's still 640x480 :)

Wow, I just realized that I spelled "higher" hire. That is amazing.
So Atero, are you saying that the game only has to render 320x480 (is that supposed to be 240?)?

People who just want to play games, surf the net and play cds don't want to learn about hardware/software. Plug and play will always be with us. But there will be those who like customisation/tweakability - because there will always be a greater need than whats readily available.
X-box will be more interested in 3d music visualisations rather than 2d (for resource flexibility). Big company's like Hewlett Packard are developing 3d audiovisualisers for release early next year.

yeah, and all of justins efforts to upgrade avs according to the wishlist will be wasted on xbux.

Just to put the thread back on topic ;)

I was speaking to Krash (from the MD forums) regarding *how* this visualisation would actually go onto the system. I concur with Jaheckelsafar - although I'd love a great visualisation, I want something I can load onto the machine without modding my X-Box.

Anyway, here's what Krash said (did anyone have any other ideas on how this would be implemented?):

Well, if they have serial ports like the gamecube does (which I'm sure they do) you could sell AVS in something that would just plug into the box, then add an adapter (if needed) for keyboard input. Then you could just play CDs and it would output the video as it would do normally for a game.

However this still means Justin's going to be programming it for XBox, completely ignoring the people who've been asking for it for months on end. I don't know about you guys, but that really pisses me off.

Sure it makes me mad that they aren't updating AVS on the computer, but they have good reason(to take money from M$ or not). Personally, I would love to get my hands on M$ money. They are getting paid to do this, correct?

Guys - maybe he is still going to update the windows avs. I thought I read somewhere that xbox runs on a 32bit windows os anyway.
If I where a winamp programming committee I think avs would probably be last on the update list anyway. They have to continue to update winamp as a whole in order to remain 'relevant' in the marketplace. Which means firstly they've got to secure/maintain users by improving the product features used most (anonymous usage stats will tell them what that is).
They could update avs first - but that would be useless if there are little/no winamp users. Its quite rational - but unfortunately we're going to have to wait. Im sure Ryan Geiss and Juston have big plans for avs. Im thinking there will be opengl/3d accellerated involvement in the next release.

Personally I would like to see something new. The archeticture of AVS is not designed for decent upgrading so starting for the beginning I feel will be a good idea.

What I'd like to know, is why waste time developing something which needs pixel power on a system which is designed for HAL polygons instead. I say nullsoft just develop a goddamn MP3 hardware player with a colour 320x240 LCD screen. Or maybe a TV set-top box. The specs wouldn't be hard either, all you'd need is a really fast processor, a NIC (to download presets), a small HDD (8GB is plenty), and a 2D TV out card.

That would be the ultimate option really, building an AVS-Station.

Atero: you do realize that TV has a capped bandwidth, causing it to blur and fade an image? This is why back in the day, a lot of people felt consoles looked better than monitors, because the monitor accurately reproduced the image, while the TV's blurring felt a bit like anti-aliasing.
Funny, because a lot of people now say FSAA is useless because it does exactly that: blur the image ;) (crudely put, let's not talk about that).

Point is, consoles have a lot going for them: they're small, the package you buy in the store is pretty much usable for 99% of the games/software, there are no hardware incompatibilities, etc...

Few people mind an xbox/ps2 next to the VCR/TV, but how many would put their pc there?


Maybe it's time we put that OpenGL-visualiser idea to practice (think Milkdrop on steroids). If only I had time... (another run of exams coming up, and I'm probably going to fail most of them).