Atari VCS 1st Q&A with some explanations

Thaldor · July 16, 2018

Atari VCS system architect Rob Wyatt wrote a Q&A to the Medium (also source), who Rob Wyatt? The Rob Wyatt who worked for Microsoft working on the system architecture of the original Xbox. What he brings to the Atari VCS, almost the same as with the original Xbox (it's not just a gaming console but a multimedia device), Atari VCS is a console, but if you want to use it as a PC, you can.

At the end he goes quite a way to explain that the Atari VCS won't be locked to the AtariOS but it won't also run just the normal everyday Ubuntu installation from a USB drive (mothing to worry about, just that their own boot code puts the CPU to 64-bit. protected mode and some minor changes are needed from other operating systems). Nothing that interesting. But what really is interesting is that he reveals the (at the moment) final specs of the Atari VCS:

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The VCS hardware will be powered by an AMD Bristol Ridge family APU with Radeon R7 graphics and is now going to get 8 gigabytes of unified memory. This is a huge upgrade from what was originally specified and unlike other consoles it’s all available, we won’t reserve 25% of hardware resources for system use.

Ok, nothing new here except that they doubled the RAM. But next paragraph:

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We looked at the whole series of AMD APUs and when you factor in cost and thermals in addition to performance the Bristol Ridge family came out on top. Thermals are a much bigger deal in a consumer product than in a typical PC. Yes, on paper the Ryzen family is technically better but without increasing the cost and having a higher thermal capacity, a Ryzen APU would never run at full performance. When the Ryzen is operating in a thermally limited environment its performance is only marginally better than Bristol Ridge. We figured any additional cost would be better spent on more memory in an optimal bank layout to maximize bandwidth as this benefits everybody all the time. A thermally-limited but higher performance APU adds some performance here and there but it’s not a universal gain. We will continue to maximize the thermals to allow the Bristol Ridge APU to run at maximum speed.

I tried to find some numbers but couldn't find anything, but I could have put my head in the bet and said that Ryzen based APUs would be cooler than old Excavator APUs. Of course they would have been more expensive, but personally I would have bought Atari VCS if it would have had Raven Ridge APU instead of old Bristol Bridge.

Considering they are that concerned about thermals I would say Atari VCS is probably running A12-9700B or FX-9800P (or something around those) which both have 12-25W TDP. If they would have gone with the higher performance A12-9730P or FX-9830P they would have rised the TDP to 25-45W and at that point Raven Ridge APUs (at least on the paper) would have been cooler choice.

I call "BS" on the thermal argument but can somehow understand the price aspects. But still 100-200$ more to the price to get "AAA-class" hardware, I don't think that would have been that bad gambling since people couldn't have thrown in the arguments of Atari VCS being the next Oyua or Steam Machine.

Also now that we know the specs:

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Not much to say at this time, other than we have AR/VR plans but it will be an after-launch feature. More info to come on this somewhere down the road.

Nothing really, but those who work with VR and have tested multiple headsets and know what they can ask from the system; We might have a competition coming for the Lenovo Jedi Challenge.

Those who don't know. Don't expect anything, because it's probably more possible that that is the only time anyone talks about Atari VCS and AR/VR in the same sentence and if a miracle happens and they come up with something, it's no way near the level of Oculus and Vive.

Nothing really has changed, somethings have been clarified. Those who have already pre-ordered Atari VCS, congratsulations you get 8GB of RAM. Those who haven't, almost nothing has changed. I still kind of hope that Atari would have come with something more, maybe I was wanting the Atari VCS to be more like a Steam Machine, PC under your TV with hardware that could be used for more than just play retrogames and games with "simple graphics" (the Atari VCS still has more power than Switch, but Nintendo is Nintendo, they probably could revive Game & Watch consoles with their primitive LCD screens and still sell them in millions) and play 4K-media.

Okjoek · July 17, 2018

Bristol Ridge APU with 8gb RAM? That's not too bad for games of certain eras. Would probably run Minecraft perfectly fine.

What other games can you play on Linux?

Rocket League might be a bit too much unless you're on low settings at sub 1080p resolution

Stardew Valley would be fine

Shovel Knight too

Bit Blaster XL

Undertale

CSGO

And that's all I can think of from my Steam Library, but if it's steam we're talking about why not just build an HTPC with something like a Ryzen APU, Pentium /i3 and run Ubuntu?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhvBvhTuLDY

(video y u no embed?!)

Thaldor · July 17, 2018

13 hours ago, Okjoek said:

Bristol Ridge APU with 8gb RAM? That's not too bad for games of certain eras. Would probably run Minecraft perfectly fine.

What other games can you play on Linux?

-snip-

And that's all I can think of from my Steam Library, but if it's steam we're talking about why not just build an HTPC with something like a Ryzen APU, Pentium /i3 and run Ubuntu?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhvBvhTuLDY

(video y u no embed?!)

In my opinion when launching a console it's not about what games can you play with it at the moment, but what might be coming. Looking at where Unity especially is developing we are probably going to see mroe and more AAA-class graphics in indiegames and and more demanding effects even in cartoonish games. Bristol Ridge APU is good choice at the moment if you really don't have money, but if Atari isn't going to release "Atari VCS2" next year or year after that, things might change a lot.

Also when talking about games on Linux that would pork the VCS: Metro Redux and Metro Last Light Redux.

But either way, I call BS on that the Raven Ridge APU would run hotter than Bristol Ridge APU. Sounds kind of crazy that 28nm architecture can run cooler than 14nm architecture at least when desktop Ryzens are as cool as they are compared to older AMD desktop CPUs. I would believe that they were so far in designing at the moment when Ryzen APUs were released that changing from the Bristol Ridge to Raven Ridge would have ment going back to the drawing desk and redoing almost everything and probably cancelling some part orders.