However, AMD, the tech company responsible for Xbox 360 graphics tech, said the next Xbox will be able to render graphical detail on par with James Cameron’s sci-fi opus.
AMD won’t confirm it’s working on the new Xbox, but, according to the Official Xbox Magazine, AMD said the new Xbox will launch with that level of graphics.
What’s more, AMD’s Neal Robison added that the upcoming A.I. will enable every pedestrian in, say, Grand Theft Auto have their own personality and react to situations differently.
This sounds like AMD talking up whatever they’re working on. Fingers crossed it actually pans out, because words like these can come back to haunt you.
Kotaku is following up with Microsoft and will update this post should the company comment.
AMD: Xbox 720 graphics will look like Avatar [Examiner.com]
Top photo: Fox
weresmurf
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 7:10 AMI’ll believe that when I see it. Given how much effort went into the Avatar cgi, I’m doubting its at *THAT* quality yet. Why? We still haven’t seen a PC card that can render in real time that well.
Wesley
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 2:12 PMToo right, dude. Consoles will always be behind PCs in terms of quality of tech, due to pricing and we sure as hell haven’t seen this tech in a PC yet.
MrBS
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 7:15 AMAh the infamous Toy Story quote. Good times.
TSH
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 9:31 AMMy very first thought ^__^
PDaddy
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 7:30 AMFinally someone else who didn’t like that stupid giant blue smurf movie!!!
Oh and yay for graphics..
Benzo12
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 7:50 AMShit, I’m still waiting for my toy story level playstation graphics.
PhatJockey
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 7:55 AMyes please
nightFlarer
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 8:27 AMYeah, it may look like avatar graphics, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to “render avatar graphics” unless the new xbox has a render farm connected to it lol
As a character artist, I really hope they find a way to have real time hair simulation. nVidia has got something like it working in the past but it’s pretty much impossible on consoles (and most PCs) at the moment.
Jordaan
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 1:41 PMGenerally speaking, there are 3 types of hair: fluffy fur (think of a baby penguin), short hair/fur (men’s haircut) and long hair (woman / Iggy Pop’s haircut).
Each requires a different type of structural representation and thus separate rendering method. Real-time fluffy fur is easy, can and has been done on Xbox360 already. Short hair is more difficult, long hair is more difficult again.
Beyond overt methods like Spirits Within’s individually rendered hairs, I’ve yet to see long hair rendered well. Even short hair has very few good-looking procedural techniques yet.
Shane
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 8:32 AMLet’s hope game developers get $500 million budgets then.
My prediction is that it will take a LONG time for games to even come close to maxing out a system like that (which I guess is kind of the point).
Richard
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 9:18 AM“What’s more, AMD’s Neal Robison added that the upcoming A.I. will enable every pedestrian in, say, Grand Theft Auto have their own personality and react to situations differently.”
That’s such a speculative, broad, non-graphics oriented statement. Shame on you, AMD.
Ad
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:58 AMI was going to say, what would AI have to do with the graphics card?
Ed
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 2:31 PMThe fact that it is a non-graphics statement actually gets me excited.
This suggests that they are integrating openCL or some sort of api to their fusion APU hardware they have been working on.
Utilising the gpu for massively parallel tasks [such as, say, giving each npc it's own thread] would be a massive leap forward for game technology. It is not only an emphasis on graphical technologies, other areas of games need to start making significant advances too!
Aliasalpha
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:06 AMIts from AMD? What are the chances that this is even vaguely accurate?
Slek
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:14 AMhttp://www.hejibits.com/comics/originality/
Grandmaster B-Funk
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:25 AMas long as all the games aren’t like avatar, i really didn’t like that movie
Dark_Templar
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:51 AMWasn’t the Nintendo 64 meant to be able to do this? That panned out well…
Khuntza
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:53 AMAMD are talking out their asses.. if a new Xbox is to launch in the next 24mths, and it is they who are making its chip you can bet it will be a 6990 or equivalent being used..
Avatar on a chip.. lol
womble
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:55 AMBULLCRAP.
This isn’t even remotely feasible. Not now, not in 3 years time.
To anyone who believes the next gen is capable of rendering Avatar in real time, I have some digital swamps I need to sell you.
Call now. Our SwampSalesmen are standing by!
Ryan
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:43 AMEven if it is, we won’t see that kind of quality for years into it’s lifecycle. Think of every console in the past, it’s graphics slowly improved to it’s full potential as developers got more savvy with the technology.
Space Bro
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:45 AMPfffffffffffffft. Real time or it ain’t worth shit.
The PS2 could render the entire Avatar movie, given enough millennia
Alinos
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 12:31 PMso at least 12GB of RAM i here you say AMD
don’t much care if you can actually render it.
but needs mooar RAM
AdamD
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 1:35 PM“What’s more, AMD’s Neal Robison added that the upcoming A.I. will enable every pedestrian in, say, Grand Theft Auto have their own personality and react to situations differently.”
I think that should read:
What’s more, AMD’s Neal Robison added that they plan to over hype their upcoming technology and make the gaming public expect things like every A.I character in a game like GTA have their own personalities. He speculates this will lead to either blowing out development budgets or causing disappointment in gamers. Most likely both.”
Dain Bramage
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 2:26 PMTwo words,
THE SIMS
Jordaan
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 1:44 PMAI is almost purely a software constraint, not hardware. Unless he was referring to hardware-accelerated neural network architecture, this is pure bull.
Ed
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 11:21 AMAnd what is software bound by? Unicorns and lolypops?
By your logic, the only reason we can’t get a self aware AI running on an intel 8080 is because programmers are lazy mofo’s…..
If you look into current paradigms in programming and consumer level parallel processing, you will see exactly how the AI statement fits into a hardware announcement.
Snacuum
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 2:01 PMWooowooo, you guys are all so informative! I didn’t know so many people didn’t like that movie, it’s so great to know that you don’t like something, YAY!
Chazz
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 5:42 PMNext thing you know AMD will be saying that their ATi graphics drivers won’t constantly be a steaming pile crap.
Ed
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 11:17 AMI welcome you to 2011, time traveler! While your delorean re configures it’s time circuits, let me fill you in on events which have transpired since your departure in 2003….