By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Project Natal drops hardware Motion detection to save costs!

JaggedSac on 07 January 2010
justinian said:
@Raze

It is superior to PS eye in that is uses two (or is it three) cameras to track motion and depth.

The main strength of natal was that all (or most) of the image processing would be done on a chip(s) built into the camera and therefore not using the x360 core processors.

What it also means is that Sony can simply release a new PS eye with multiple cameras and with the experience they have with the current eye tweak the software to to do the same thing.

In many ways it was the chip on the camera that give natal it's strength.

The IR(and IR pulse generator) is indeed a large part of what makes Natal tick.  It is actually the software that was doing the hard work.  From converting the IR output into a body skeleton, to voice recognition, to facial recognition, the software is the most important part.  The only change that has now happened, is that the software will be on the 360 instead of Natal.  This will cause a performance drop for the 360, but the motion controlled experience will remain the exact same.  Nothing has changed here except where the calculations take place.  IR sensors are not new, the software that MS is developing is what is new.



Around the Network
Cueil on 07 January 2010
bobobologna said:
Pretty much what I expected. When they first announced Natal, they said it would be a complete package including 2 cameras, mics, and a chip to process all the information. I thought "bullshit, no way you are going to do all that for a reasonable, marketable price."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/microsoft-drops-internal-natal-chip_1

"The load previously handled by the chip now falls on one of the main three Xenon processors, but while taking a "percentage" of performance away from the system, most games don't use up 100 per cent of the available processing power anyway."

This leads me to believe that as much as a whole processor could be tied up doing all the processing for Natal. Let's face it, it's going to be very CPU intensive, much more intensive than anything the PS Eye/Gem and Wiimote are doing.

or perhaps the rumor upgrade to the system will have new 360 use the cheaper version and older system use the more expensive one with the chip?  To many rumors I'm sliding this into rumor as well... it was a "source" that told them this after all.



 
Get your Portable ID!

JHawkNH on 07 January 2010

I am not surprised by this. It make good economical sense. The cheaper that they can make it the more likely that people will purchase this. As I have already stated before, Natal will not make a difference in this generation. Where it can have a very large impact is in the next generation. Right now MS is getting this out there so that gamers can get use to the controls and developers can get use to programming for the new control sceme. If that means that they have to sacrifice the graphics in the game somewhat to gain market potential they will.

And for those wondering, this will take significant resources from memory and the CPU's. Some games it won't matter on, but for some it will either meen less graphics or less FPS.

As a programmer I know how pattern and image recognition can be very CPU intensive and require a decent ammount of memory. I would expect this system to require a minimum of 16MB of memory to function on the 360 hardware and probably closer to 20MB of memory.

Not a ton of memory, and many games would not be a problem, but some of the very graphin intensive games would need all available memory.



Raze on 07 January 2010

Ok, gotchas. So, to reduce HW processing power, will this in any form limit the amount of flexibility in other areas, like sound, graphics, etc, to make up for the extra processing needed for motion?



The Carnival of Shadows - Folk Punk from Asbury Park, New Jersey

http://www.thecarnivalofshadows.com 


lvader on 07 January 2010
Bamboleo said:
lvader said:
If it's true, I'm no longer interested.

because....?

Because it's the onboard processing that made it interesting. Now it just another camera accessory.



Around the Network
JaggedSac on 07 January 2010

It will apparently use 10-15% of 360 CPU and take 10ms to complete the calculations. Not too bad. But it is a noticeable hit.



gamelover2000 on 07 January 2010

so what is gone now? the on board processor? and if so, what does that mean..



Currently playing: MAG, Heavy Rain, Infamous

 

Getting Plat trophies for: Heavy Rain, Infamous, RE5,  Burnout and GOW collection once I get it.

 

JHawkNH on 07 January 2010
Raze said:
Ok, gotchas. So, to reduce HW processing power, will this in any form limit the amount of flexibility in other areas, like sound, graphics, etc, to make up for the extra processing needed for motion?


It really depends on the game.  A game like Viva Pinyata does not use all the resource of the 360 so there would not be any effect on the graphics of the game.  But a game like Bioshock 2 that is very resource intense would probably have to cut back on either the graphics, the  sound, the AI, or the FPS.



bobobologna on 07 January 2010
JaggedSac said:
It will apparently use 10-15% of 360 CPU and take 10ms to complete the calculations. Not too bad. But it is a noticeable hit.

Where did you get that?

10-15% of all available CPU cycles?  Or 10-15% of a single core?



Dampfi on 07 January 2010

Again, this shows a motion control is not cheap to develop. I am really curious about how much Natal (bundled with the 360 premium) will cost at the end of the year. I think any price above the Wii will minimize the chances of really edangering the Wii sales.