CpuUsage
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Kinect will use only a 'single-digit' percentage of Xbox 360 CPU power
What do you know, someone's been busy working in Microsoft's labs while we've been waiting for the company's Kinect motion control peripheral to launch itself into our living rooms. The highly sophisticated webcam has undergone some algorithmic optimizations and now Alex Kipman, lead software developer for what used to be known as Natal, tells us that its processing overhead for the Xbox 360 console will be no greater than a "single-digit" percentage. That contrasts very nicely with the last number Alex gave us, which indicated there'd be a 10 to 15 percent penalty for using Microsoft's new motion controller, and should mean your petting sessions with Kinectimals will be running smooth as butter when Kinect hits stores tomorrow. Great news, eh?
HD decoding CPU usage shootout: ATI vs nVidia
While around here you're more likely to see a flame war erupt about Blu-ray versus HD DVD, on many computer gaming websites the war is over ATI and nVidia, with the two major video card manufacturers constantly leapfrogging each other in an attempt to benchmark the highest scores on games like Unreal Tournament and Doom. Ars Technica has a head-to-head comparison on how well the their latest offerings perform decoding high-definition content, using an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive and some prerecorded 1080p and 1080i content. While both camps did similarly well, ATI was better at playing back VC-1-encoded HD DVD content, and nVidia held a slight edge on 1080i recordings. The benefits to both allow even older video hardware to take a load off the CPU, meaning home theater PC builders can pair a cheaper CPU and video card for playing back HD on the cheap.
