The Xbox 360 has multi-channel surround sound that supports 256 channels of 48 KHz, 16-bit digital audio. The Xbox 360 Core System includes a standard-definition AV cable, while the other Xbox 360 bundles come with an AV HD cable and a media remote. There are also optional connections for S-Video and VGA, and the console supports some SCART-type adapters used in Europe. The Xbox 360 comes standard with both composite and component video connections to hook up to a TV. On the next page, we'll learn about how the Xbox 360 fits in with your home entertainment system. The Xbox 360 is the first device to use this type of architecture. ATI claims that this unified shader architecture allows for 48 billion shader operations per second. The apparent advantage of sharing pipelines is to add more assembly lines, making computation that much faster. ATI figured out a way at the hardware level to address the needs of both types of shaders using the same pipeline.
What that means is that now, both shader types share the same pipelines. As we learned before, the new ATI graphics card in the Xbox 360 has unified shader architecture. Traditionally, pixel shaders and vertex shaders have dedicated pipelines because each one has very specific and differing needs.
In the world of hardware, these assembly lines are called pipelines.
These computations are performed in steps through a series of computational components. The shaders make billions of computations every second to perform their specific tasks. In real-time graphics, like the kind you see in video games, shaders work with the graphics processor. By manipulating these variables, a vertex shader creates realistic animation and special effects such as "morphing." To read more about vertex shaders, see What are Gouraud shading and texture mapping in 3-D video games? These values are the x, y and z coordinates. The machine maps the position of an animated object in 3-D space by giving it a value. "Vertex" refers to the intersection of two coordinates in space. Vertex shaders work by manipulating an object's position in 3-D space. To learn more about pixel shaders, see nVidia: Pixel Shaders. Pixel shaders help "smooth out" 3-D objects, giving them a more organic texture. This in turn affects the overall color, texture and shape of 3-D objects built from these pixels. Pixel shaders alter the lighting, color and surface of each pixel. The graphics processor unit, or GPU, is responsible for the heavy-lifting for the console's beautiful, high-resolution images. With a multi-core processor, the system is powerful enough to pull off the computational demands needed for an amazing gaming experience without even breaking a sweat. It's really up to the game developers how the system's considerable resources are used. The system may allocate an entire processor just to rendering hi-def graphics. What this means when you are playing video games is that the Xbox 360 can dedicate one core entirely to producing sound, while another may run the game's collision and physics engine. Because the Xbox 360 cores can each handle two threads at a time, the 360 CPU is the equivalent of having six conventional processors in one machine. A conventional processor can run a single execution thread. The core processes these instructions and does the heavy lifting to get the job done. Think of a thread as a set of instructions for a program's job. The other interesting thing to note about the Xbox 360 CPU is that each core is capable of processing two threads simultaneously. Heavy work loads over multiple powerful processors rather than giving all the work to one super-powerful processor. The Xbox 360 is also a specially packaged computer, but once you look inside, you realize that this console has quite a bit under the hood:
The original Xbox was essentially a Windows PC with a modified Pentium III processor, some relatively powerful graphics and audio hardware and a modified version of the Microsoft operating system Windows 2000, all packaged in that distinctive black box.
The Xbox 360, like all video game consoles, is just a computer with hardware and software dedicated to the function of running video game software. In this article, we will learn about the hardware and features that make the Xbox 360 a leap forward into the next generation of gaming consoles.
Far more than a video game console, the Xbox 360 is a total media center that allows users to play, network, rip, stream and download all types of media, including high-definition movies, music, digital pictures and game content. From the name to the look to hardware and features, the Xbox 360 is a radically different and more powerful machine than its predecessor. Microsoft rebuilt the Xbox from the ground up.