From Ian Mapleson, University of Central Lancashire
Your short on the PlayStation 2
(This Week, 27 March, p 17) says: “A 128-bit
processor, with 32 megabytes of memory, will run at 300 megahertz and outstrip a
Pentium PC or workstation by generating 75 million graphics polygons per
second.”
This is misleading. There is no such thing as 128-bit processing in 3D
graphics, so describing any console or system as 128-bit is meaningless. Such
processors may have 128-bit cores, but what they are doing is merely multiple
parallel 8, 16, 32 or 64-bit operations.
Other systems, such as the Nintendo 64, use vector processors. The N64’s RCP
ASIC uses vectors of eight 64-bit registers. Should the N64 then be described
as a 512-bit console? Obviously not.
Preston
