Sega Announces the Successor to the NAOMI/ATOMISWAVE

Sega has announced the Aurora board the Successor the the Naomi/Atomiswave arcade platform

the specs are as follows

ardware : System-on-a-chip 90nm solution with integrated CPU, Graphics and Sound Hardware. CPU : Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC CPU @ 300MHz GPU : Imagination Technologies Power VR MBX+VGP @ 150MHz SPU : ADPCM Sound Triangle Rendering : 10M Polygons/sec Fill Rate : 150M Pixel/sec Max Resolution : 1280x1024 Other Features : Ethernet and USB

Software Setup; GT Library : Specially designed 3D graphics library provides simple and easy development environment for 3D graphics application not requiring deep hardware knowledge. A/V Streaming Middleware : Movie/Stream Audio middleware provides High Quality and High Performance Video and Audio rendering. Operating System : Embedded LINUX 2.6 OS providing highly efficient Real-time multi-task operation. Serveral modificiations were made including SH4 Specific Minor tuning on 2.6 to improve the interrupt response 100-500?ec and a synchronization API was added.

Source?

Announce??

Yeah months ago at the same time as Lindberg.

It's not a successor to anything, it's a budget hardware for limited titles like Mushikings and other "entertainments".

The info is from system16.

Japhie?

RGP said:

Japhie?

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hermankane said:

Embedded LINUX 2.6 OS providing highly efficient Real-time multi-task operation. Serveral modificiations were made including SH4 Specific Minor tuning on 2.6 to improve the interrupt response 100-500?ec and a synchronization API was added.

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*flex*

I just can't understand how a company can mantain profit supporting or even developing all this arcade hardware almost at the same time these days.... (Aurora, Lindbergh, Chihiro, Triforce, <add next>)

Atomiswave and Naomi 2 don't count in this case.

You're saying Aurora is going to be cheaper to develop on/for rather than an intel based Linberg? I would think developing for a SH4 based board will be more painful than an intel base.. granted, if you have a linux development environment like this implies then all the dev tools could be on an intel linux host with cross compilers/toolchains.

Perhaps the Aurora hardware will be less cost per installation than Linberg, seeing that Linberg looks like a hefty box (from the pictures i've seen)..

Anyone have any experience with Linberg? or Aurora?

.02$

bay said:

You're saying Aurora is going to be cheaper to develop on/for rather than an intel based Linberg? I would think developing for a SH4 based board will be more painful than an intel base.. granted, if you have a linux development environment like this implies then all the dev tools could be on an intel linux host with cross compilers/toolchains.

Perhaps the Aurora hardware will be less cost per installation than Linberg, seeing that Linberg looks like a hefty box (from the pictures i've seen)..

Anyone have any experience with Linberg? or Aurora?

.02$

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"Software Setup; GT Library : Specially designed 3D graphics library provides simple and easy development environment for 3D graphics application not requiring deep hardware knowledge."

once you have the cross compiler tools on its no different compiling at least ,but cpu specific coding might be different, but it'd be all high level c/c++ with the GT library surely? wouldnt make much difference, plus they arent in competition anyway.

bay said:

You're saying Aurora is going to be cheaper to develop on/for rather than an intel based Linberg? I would think developing for a SH4 based board will be more painful than an intel base.. granted, if you have a linux development environment like this implies then all the dev tools could be on an intel linux host with cross compilers/toolchains.

Perhaps the Aurora hardware will be less cost per installation than Linberg, seeing that Linberg looks like a hefty box (from the pictures i've seen)..

Anyone have any experience with Linberg? or Aurora?

.02$

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SH CPU series are a cheap solution = the sega gold mine in arcades.

kernow said:

once you have the cross compiler tools on its no different compiling at least ,but cpu specific coding might be different, but it'd be all high level c/c++ with the GT library surely? wouldnt make much difference, plus they arent in competition anyway.

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sure, the cross compiling will be easy but you'll still have to have either
1) a software emulator for debugging SH4 code
2) a communications cable to a device/card that will run/debug the SH4 code (such as an aurora mainboard).. this is of course more desirable as you are running and stepping through code actively on the target (aurora) board. plus its cool to have a devkit sitting on your desk alongside your PC =]

all the graphics routines can be nicely packed into a library, but it's still debugging the code that can get to be more involved and a pita. and it's not just the SH4 that would have to be emulated if done via emulation, rather the mainboard would have to be emulated. it's really finding those quirks in the game when its being run on the target hardware....

as for competition, no.. they are both SEGA hardware solutions.. i think it's a wise move to have 2 active platforms for developers to choose based upon need & production costs.

Verythrax said:

SH CPU series are a cheap solution = the sega gold mine in arcades.

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agreed, the SH CPU series has proven itself several times to be more than capable of dominating the arcades. in this regard im sure it's rather cheap for SEGA and others to get SH series chips at great bulk discounts. perhaps it's more a question of how big of a discount per part there is versus intel/amd chips which have a HUGE userbase via desktop PCs.

.02$

should be alright,

Interesting...It's all well and good they're going to phase out naomi/aw for a better "budget" arcade platform, but I wonder how much support this will get? More Guilty Gear games, SNK/P, Sega "budget" titles, and so forth?

the Sega-Sammy Aurora board is more powerful than the NAOMI / Atomiswave boards but *less* powerful than the NAOMI2 board which arrived in 2000-2001

Aurora is also less powerful than the Gamecube-based Triforce board and the Xbox-based Chihiro board, and obviously far, far weaker than the PC-based Lindbergh board.



Aurora's 10 million polygons per second are not as robust as NAOMI2's 10-12 million polygons/sec. NAOMI2 can do 10 million polygons second with 6 light sources per object. if Aurora was doing 6 light sources per object, it's polygon rate would be a fraction of 10 million/sec

pixel fillrates:
( Aurora is only 50% more than NAOMI and Atomiswave)

Dreamcast: 100M pixels/sec
NAOMI: 100M pixels/sec
Atomiswave: 100 Mpixels
NAOMI2: 200 Mpixels/sec
Aurora: 150 Mpixels/sec
Gamecube: 648M pixels/sec
Triforce: 648M pixels/sec
Xbox: 932M pixels/sec
Chihiro: 932M pixels/sec
Playstation2: 1200M pixels/sec (textured)
System 246 (PS2-based) 1200M pixels/sec (textured)
Xbox 360: 4000M pixels/sec (with 4x FSAA)
Lindbergh: ???? comparable to GeForce 7800 series:
6880 Mpixels/sec @ 430 MHz - 8800 @ 550 Mhz
Playstation3: ???? 8800 (if 16 ROPS) ~ 13220 (if 24 ROPS) @ 550 Mhz



Aurora is comparable to the specs for the unreleased Ngage 2 handheld.
both use PowerVR MBX and SH GPU core.

when all is said and done, Aurora is only a slight improvement over
Dreamcast / NAOMI / Atomiswave, and not on par with NAOMI 2, PS2/System 246, Gamecube/TriForce, or Xbox/Chihiro, much less new platforms like Xbox 360, Lindbergh and PS3.

GigaDrive said:

Playstation2: 1200M pixels/sec (textured)

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I cannot find anywhere that says a PS2 has 1200M pixels/sec, just 150 million pixels/sec.

zhulien said:

I cannot find anywhere that says a PS2 has 1200M pixels/sec, just 150 million pixels/sec.

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150 million pixels/sec is just for the Emotion Engine, not the graphics chip.

the PS2 graphics chip, Graphics Synthesizer, puts out 2400M (2.4 billion) pixels/sec untextured and 1200M (1.2 Billion) pixels/sec (actually texels) textured with bilinear filtering.

http://pcvsconsole.com/features/consoles/playstation2.php

I've seen it on www.system16.com

Oh well, anything to keep SNK popping out the new games and updates to old games/sequels like possibly the next World Heroes, AOF4, Ninja Master II, and other games...like NGBC2 etc..

Dark_Geese said:

Oh well, anything to keep SNK popping out the new games and updates to old games/sequels like possibly the next World Heroes, AOF4, Ninja Master II, and other games...like NGBC2 etc..

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Or Super SPy 2.

You think all the new fighting games will be on the Aurora board? Or do you think they will keep pushing games out onto the atomiswave? I personally want the new KOF series to be kept on the Atomiswave as they have only released KOF XI on it and everyone loves it. I'm eager to see what else they can do with the series on the atomiswave.