Nintendo Game Cube (2002)
The GameCube is relatively small and as you can tell from the name, cube shaped. It was released in purple, black and special edition colours. The GameCubes is also Nintendo’s first system to use optical discs instead of the cartridge format. The discs used in the GameCube are very small compared to CDs and DVDs and can hold a total of 1.5GB. Thats much more than cartridges but not as much as DVDs used by other consoles. Nintendo worked very hard to give the GameCube the ability to read discs at fast speeds for faster loading times than other competing consoles. The GameCubes main and co processors were developed by IBM and the graphics chip was designed in conjunction with ATI. This has given the GameCube the ability to offer gamers brilliant quality games and eye watering visuals. The GameCubes controller is designed to be as easy to use as possible and has 8 buttons, a D-pad and 2 control sticks. The GameCube is also compatible with certain GBA titles and can play GBA games through the use of the Game Boy Player. The Game Cube can also be used online through the use of either the Modem Adapter or Broadband Adapter. Games like Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Can use the broadband adapter to create a LAN for Multi-GameCube multiplayer matches . The GameCube also has a huge Games Library including games from Nintendo franchises like Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Donkey Kong.
Technical Specs
MPU ("Microprocessor Unit") - Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"
Manufacturing Process - 0.18 micron IBM Copper Wire Technology
Clock Frequency - 485MHz
CPU Capacity - 1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
Internal Data Precision - 32-bit Integer & 64-bit Floating-point
External Bus - 1.3GB/second peak bandwidth (32-bit address space, 64-bit data bus 162 MHz clock)
Internal Cache - L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way}, L2: 256KB (2 way)
System LSI - Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"
Manufacturing Process - 0.18 micron NEC Embedded DRAM Process
Clock Frequency - 162MHz
Embedded Frame Buffer - Approx. 2MB, Sustainable Latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
Embedded Texture Cache - Approx. 1MB, Sustainable Latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
Texture Read Bandwidth - 10.4GB/second (Peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth - 2.6GB/second (Peak)
Pixel Depth - 24-bit Colour, 24-bit Z Buffer
Image Processing Functions - Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Anisotropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC), Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter
Other Details
Sound Processor - Custom Macronix 16-bit DSP
Instruction Memory - 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
Data Memory - 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
Clock Frequency - 81MHz
Performance - 64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM encoding
Sampling Frequency - 48KHz
System Floating-point Arithmetic Capability - 10.5 GFLOPS (Peak) (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
Real-world polygon - 6 million to 12 million polygons/second (Peak) (Assuming actual game conditions with complex models, fully textured, fully lit, etc.)
System Memory - 40MB
Main Memory - 24MB
A-Memory - 16MB
Disc Drive - CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) System
Average Access Time - 128ms
Data Transfer Feed - 16Mbps to 25Mbps
Media - 3 inch Nintendo GameCube Disc based on Matsushita's Optical Disc Technology, approx 1.5GB Capacity
Input/Output - Controller Port x4, Memory Card Slot x2, Analogue AV Output x1, Digital AV Output x1, High-Speed Serial Port x2, High-speed Parallel Port x1
Power Supply - AC Adapter DC12V x 3.25A
Main Unit Dimensions - 11.4cm (Height) x 15cm (Width) x 16cm (Depth)
Accessories
Memory Card 59/ Memory Card 251
The official memory cards can offer 59 or 251 blocks of space for your save games. The White one is the 59 and the Black one is the 251.
Game Boy Advance Cable
The Game Boy Advance Cable allows connectivity with selected GBA titles only. It can also be used to connect a GBA/SP for use as a controller with the Game Boy Player.
WaveBird Wireless Controller
The WaveBird is a wireless controller for the GameCube which uses RF instead of Infrared to prevent objects interfering with the controllers connection.
Game Boy Player
The Game Boy Player allows the use of GBA carts on the GameCube so you can play Game Boy games through your TV.
Modem/Broadband adapter
The Modem/Broadband adapter allows your GameCube to connect to the internet for Online Gaming. Few games used these adapters.
DK Bongos
The DK Bongos are a special controller for use in Donkey Konga, Donkey Konga 2 and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. The Bongos work like a real pair of Bongos and a built in Microphone can pick up clapping sounds.
Action Pad (Dance Mat)
Microphone
The Microphone came in the original packaging of Mario Party 6 and can only be used with specially designed games.
Also compatible with: