Would it not be better to develop with on a device that is a small amount slower than the actual target? This way you get a better guarantee of end user performance?
Well, except that some of the best ways to optimize a game's speed is to make the game look or play worse - use smaller textures, lower resolution, less polygons, less objects being rendered, worse lighting... That's the advantage that a game console has over a multi-spec system like PC's or cell phones, we can push the system to its limit, knowing that everyone will have the same experience. But if the games are developed for a slower system than what they will be run on, then the games will have been designed to push the system less.
Having said that, pretty much every early dev console has either been slower than the final product or had less memory, or both. The difference is, after a certain point developers were told how much faster to expect the final device to be. Unfortunately, I know of one case where that didn't happen: the original XBox. My company made a launch title for XBox, and were expecting the final device to be much more powerful than it ended up being, so our game ran like crap (when we learned the true final specs, it was too late to optimize the game much more than it had been).
Id like to know if the dev systems are or aren't as they sit now. I've read through and it seems like the general consensus is that its NOT overclocked...
The Dev units are not overclocked. I'm thinking the consumer version will be and the dev units are kinda like a Beta version of the device. Maybe they will overclock the dev units through a software update late or maybe not?
I'm also wondering if everyone that got a Dev unit will also get a consumer unit as well?
Doubtfull we'll get a production unit unless we pay for it. Id be curious to know if there is a software limit in the system on board that is keeping these dev units from being overclocked or is it simply a hardware modification that needs to be made. Ive seen it go both ways on overclocking before...
Would be nice if the system had an update pushed that did speed it up...
It only needs a kernal update to overclock the Tegra 3, it's been done on a Nexus 7. Though on that device is becomes unstable if you go beyond 1.8Ghz (note, that tablet's got a slower Tegra 3 than OUYA, that one is normally clocked at 1.3Ghz compared to OUYA's 1.6/1.7Ghz norm).
Did the Ouya team ever get back to us Dev's on just how much of the devices resources we can actually use? my current project I wont say is resource hungry but the more the merrier. As long as I get at lease 512 of that memory I'm happy :)
Hi guys! Sorry if there's been some confusion about overclocking - the launch consoles will have the same Tegra 3 T33 operating at the same speed as the developer units you have now. That's substantially faster than the Nexus 7 and some of other tablets mentioned above. :-)
@chamberlin: Thanks for the info! Good to know going forward.
@jtn0514: Unfortunately, that's how it goes sometimes. However, one trick you can do is to just set your render buffer to 720p even though the console is in 1080p. We saw our framerate double when we did that as a test. Then if you've got frames to spare, try turning on anti-aliasing.
It's good to remember that very, very few Xbox 360 games actually render at 1080p (since 1080p was only possible in the later models which supported HDMI). Nearly all games on the 360 render at 720p, which the console then upscales to 1080p if necessary. In fact, Halo 3 doesn't even render at 720p... it runs at 1152x640!
Always be mindful of your platform's limitations and keep your expectations reasonable. :)
Hi guys! Sorry if there's been some confusion about overclocking - the launch consoles will have the same Tegra 3 T33 operating at the same speed as the developer units you have now. That's substantially faster than the Nexus 7 and some of other tablets mentioned above. :-)
Hi,
then how is the thing "overclocked"? It seems to be a complete stock t33. Can you get rid of the fan until launch then? It is really hard to believe that the Tegra is operated outside nvidias temperature specs when it runs inside tablets at the same speeds?
utack, he did specifically mention that it runs *faster* than most tablets, it is a different version of the Tegra 3 SoC. To give an example: The Nexus 7 runs the Tegra 3 at 1.3GHz, whereas the OUYA runs the Tegra 3 at 1.6-1.7GHz. Plus, having a fan in there allows games to push the graphics harder without having to worry so much about overheating.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
So for you guys that need more clarification. Based on what I think chamberlin is saying is that the device 'Ouya' is not overclocked and probably wont be overclocked. if I read what he said correct.
@Killa_Maaki : interesting stuff, but I don't doubt that. Considering how NVidia had two different versions of their 680m gtx mobile parts. on for windows laptops and the other for Imacs, with the Imac version blowing away all other variants. To the public though it was still advertised as just 680m gtx.
Well, that's really quite disappointing. It won't make a world of difference, but... still.
Since overclocking is purely software... is it in any way realistic to think OUYA might issue an update that would juice up the system a bit? It seems incredibly unlikely to me, but then, I don't know all that much about overclocking.
But if it now overclocked in what way is better then the stock t33? And why does Ouya have a fan?
Well the fan is there so you don't have to worry about overheating. Being able to keep the CPU/GPU cool is actually pretty important, and may even allow you to push it a little harder. Otherwise, it IS a stock t33 (nobody ever said it was better than a stock t33)
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
Julie does mention the Tegra chip is overclocked in this article, but maybe she didn't get the memo. The fan would still be important because you'll be playing games for potentially many hours at a time with OUYA, unlike most T33 devices. I have to admit that I'll be a little disappointed if the chip is not overclocked and it performs no better than a TF700.
higher mhz = more triangles on the screen.
More is better in this case, and since they have way more room when it comes to heat and power consumption, I hope they will crank out as much speed as possible.
When in doubt, use brute force :)
Mainstream people also like pretty graphic so the more power OUYA packs in this 99usd box the better for everyone.
Not to forget that the Ouya Team will stick to Nvidias, probably really careful, recommendations because they cannot risk broken units as startup.
Overclocking to the limit is too risky for a mass product with the individual variety across all Tegras you need to give full warranty for I think!
Well you see... The biggest differences between a smartphone and Ouya is that Ouya has a heatsink, a fan and it does not run on battery... Overclocking a device with proper cooling is not that risky considering that the Tegra 3 on the Smartphone is capable of reaching 2Ghz without proper cooling and running on battery (the battery can also get hot)... You see... I do think that 2Ghz is a very safe clock speed considering that the Ouya does have proper cooling to easily achieve that speed... So my opinion is that they must clock the mass production version of the Ouya at a higher speed than Smartphones... Otherwise the heatsink and fan are going to be kinda useless... One of the biggest criticisms about the Tegra 3 is that it's very slow, it does have more graphical effects than other SOCs (System On Chip) but talking about "Raw power" (Speed/FPS etc...) it's not even a match for the PowerVR SGX 554 MP4 which is the GPU of the Apple A6X and it's considered the fastest handheld GPU... So I do recomend developers to make experiences with the Ouya prototype and send a feedback, overclocking of course is the cheapest way of improving it (the most expensive way would be to change from Tegra 3 to Tegra 4 or "better" if you know what I mean, literally a new prototype)... The developers can also try to make their own cooling systems just to see if it reaches 3Ghz without any kind of motherboard and Power Supply modifications... Of course that before thinking about better coolers it's better to think about better systems... Or do absolutely nothing to improve the console itself... So there are these options: Overclocking (easy), New Prototype (hard) and Nothing. I am excited to see if it can be improved in a way that all massproduced versions are going to be already improved out of the box as a standard... So what do you think?
I'm not sure the Tegra 3 is capable of reaching 2Ghz on smartphones, when they overclocked the Nexus 7 to 2Ghz, it became unstable. The fastest they were able to make it stable is 1.8Ghz, which is 0.1Ghz faster than the stock Tegra T33 included in the OUYA. It's possible that with extra cooling it may have been stable at 2Ghz, but that's not guaranteed.
Yeah, but the Nexus 7 had the T30 while the OUYA has the T33.... the question is can the T33 handle higher speeds or is it already just an overclocked version of the T30?
Would it be possible for someone to sideload an overclocking app and see how much they can overclock while keeping it stable? If so, I would love to see the results.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
This is an area I'm incredibly interested in too. A member of the Ouya team told me that some devs are achieving clocks of 2 GHz to 2.4GHz.
What I would like to know is if any developers here can confirm what clock speeds they are achieving with the hardware (CPU or GPU) and how much the fan and heat sink help facilitate these speeds.
I would like to know what the highest stable clock speeds are and I would like to know if the Ouya GPU clock differs to tablets at all.
Another thing I'm interested to find out is if developers are allowed to sell games on Ouya that push the console architecture more than the standard settings for clock frequency.
Another thing I'm interested to find out is if developers are allowed to sell games on Ouya that push the console architecture more than the standard settings for clock frequency.
You can always add a high quality setting that will be working only on overclocked devices. User will definitely try overclocking - there probably will be ROMs for OUYA with unblocked overclocking.
Comments
Well, except that some of the best ways to optimize a game's speed is to make the game look or play worse - use smaller textures, lower resolution, less polygons, less objects being rendered, worse lighting... That's the advantage that a game console has over a multi-spec system like PC's or cell phones, we can push the system to its limit, knowing that everyone will have the same experience. But if the games are developed for a slower system than what they will be run on, then the games will have been designed to push the system less.
Having said that, pretty much every early dev console has either been slower than the final product or had less memory, or both. The difference is, after a certain point developers were told how much faster to expect the final device to be. Unfortunately, I know of one case where that didn't happen: the original XBox. My company made a launch title for XBox, and were expecting the final device to be much more powerful than it ended up being, so our game ran like crap (when we learned the true final specs, it was too late to optimize the game much more than it had been).
@jtn0514
The Dev units are not overclocked. I'm thinking the consumer version will be and the dev units are kinda like a Beta version of the device. Maybe they will overclock the dev units through a software update late or maybe not?
I'm also wondering if everyone that got a Dev unit will also get a consumer unit as well?
Thats really a shame...
Doubtfull we'll get a production unit unless we pay for it. Id be curious to know if there is a software limit in the system on board that is keeping these dev units from being overclocked or is it simply a hardware modification that needs to be made. Ive seen it go both ways on overclocking before...
Would be nice if the system had an update pushed that did speed it up...
then how is the thing "overclocked"? It seems to be a complete stock t33.
Can you get rid of the fan until launch then? It is really hard to believe that the Tegra is operated outside nvidias temperature specs when it runs inside tablets at the same speeds?
To give an example:
The Nexus 7 runs the Tegra 3 at 1.3GHz, whereas the OUYA runs the Tegra 3 at 1.6-1.7GHz.
Plus, having a fan in there allows games to push the graphics harder without having to worry so much about overheating.
It runs at stock clock for this model..it is not overclocked at all
Well the fan is there so you don't have to worry about overheating. Being able to keep the CPU/GPU cool is actually pretty important, and may even allow you to push it a little harder.
Otherwise, it IS a stock t33 (nobody ever said it was better than a stock t33)
Would it be possible for someone to sideload an overclocking app and see how much they can overclock while keeping it stable? If so, I would love to see the results.