David Shippy, a 1979 Lafayette High School graduate and 1983 UK graduate, served as technical leader of the development team. He and colleague Mickie Phipps, the project manager, have written The Race for a New Game Machine: Creating the Chips Inside the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 (Citadel Press, $21.95).
The two detail how the IBM-led project started out with only Sony as a customer, but then the team found itself also building a chip for Microsoft's rival console, creating tension with the engineering teams devoted only to Sony.
Shippy, whose father is a retired UK engineering professor and still lives here, answered the following questions:
Discover how to acquire the iconic Cantina Band Jam Track in the Fortnite x Star Wars collaboration. Gear up for an intergalactic musical journey in Fortnite's latest event.
“I thoroughly enjoy retro-style games and with that, Magic Orbz modernises the classic brick breaking formula and it has held up beautifully.” - A.J. Maciejewski from Video Chums.
Kevin writes: "Multi-GPU gaming was one of those things that seemed like a good idea for as long as it lasted. I mean honestly, the idea of a modular approach to graphics upgrades – be that SLI or CrossFire – was brilliant. I repeat, the idea was brilliant."
Im old school... when i hear the term SLI, I immediately think of 3dfx. I still have a pair of 12mb Monster V2's in an old rig. I never tried out the more modern take on SLI or Crossfire for that matter.
I mean, it was mostly for bragging rights. It was a very temperamental tech that improved with newer iterations, for sure. But folks like myself, who have used it, probably recall that troubleshooting was an integral part of the experience and the value that you got out of the setup was really low.
However, none of that mattered because it looked sick as hell on a well-built PC.
I remember doing my research at the time 😂 I got 2 GTX 460's, as they in SLI were meant to be better than the 480 at the time. Not all games were optimised at the time, which meant some games meant setting them up for 1 card alone. Never forget the time I came home from night shift, turned on my computer like normal, went and made a cuppa, come back and it was still off. Tried to turn on again, and one of the 460's caught fire... good times.
"The two detail how the IBM-led project started out with only Sony as a customer, but then the team found itself also building a chip for Microsoft's rival console, creating tension with the engineering teams devoted only to Sony"
SO this is where all the fanboy crap started...before the consoles were even finished.
Sounds like the 360 got the best components of the Cell processor.