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GC

Steven Kent Strikes Again

by Mike Sklens - July 20, 2001, 7:05 am EDT
Source: MSNBC

The gaming journalist has returned with a new article. This one is about the power of the new consoles.

If you've read any of Steven Kent's articles before you'll know he offers a fantastic perspective on the video game world. His new article is about the 3 consoles an the power they possess. And how it is totally pointless to try and compare them because they are completely different. Here's an excerpt:

Bit-for-bit comparisons fall apart when you consider display technologies that use the term “bits” to refer to an entirely different unit than the bits used in processors. Here you can see the concrete ceiling that makes bit comparisons entirely illogical: televisions and monitors only display 24 “bits” of actual color per pixel, and any additional bits are for so called “alpha channel” transparencies and other special effects. “There is no display on earth that shows 128 bits,” points out Doherty. “A $10,000 CRT display can show you 48-bit graphics.”

Merrick, the man Nintendo generally turns to when it comes to explaining engineering decisions, says that pixels play a central role.

“In video games, we frequently manipulate pixels. A pixel is 32 bits — eight bits for red, eight bits for green, eight bits for blue, and eight bits for alpha. So if you are just throwing pixels around, you can do one of them in 32-bit.”

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