Nintendo GameCube

The Nintendo GameCube, (ニンテンドーゲームキューブ Nintendō Gēmukyūbu) abbreviated NGC or GCN, is Nintendo's sixth generation video game console. The GameCube was released in late 2001 for Japan and North America and early 2002 for other regions. The GameCube has sold 21.74 million units since its release in 2001.
The Nintendo GameCube is the first of Nintendo's consoles to utilize optical discs. Though its competitors use full DVD's, the GameCube only used miniDVD-like discs. Due to this, however, the GameCube doesn't have functionality to play DVDs and CDs as the other systems in its generation could.
Production of the Nintendo GameCube was discontinued in early 2007.
== Technical specifications ==
* Central processing unit:
** 486 MHz IBM "Gekko" PowerPC CPU
** PowerPC 750CXe-based core[15]
** 180 nm IBM copper-wire process, 43 mm² die, 4.9 W dissipation[15]
** Roughly fifty new vector instructions[15]
** 32-bit ALU
** 64-bit FPU (1.9 GFLOPS, usable as 2 × 32-bit SIMD)[15]
** 64-bit enhanced PowerPC 60x front side bus to GPU/chipset, 162 MHz clock, 1.3 GB/s peak bandwidth[15]
** 64 kB (32 kB I/32 kB D) L1 cache (8-way associative), 256 kB on-die L2 cache (2-way associative)[15]
** 1125 DMIPS (dhrystone 2.1)
* System memory:
** 43 MB total non-unified RAM
** 24 MB MoSys 1T-SRAM (codenamed "Splash") main system RAM, 324 MHz, 64-bit bus, 2.7 GB/s bandwidth
*** 3 MB embedded 1T-SRAM within "Flipper"
** Split into 1 MB texture buffer and 2 MB framebuffer
*** 10.4 GB/s texture peak bandwidth, 7.6 GB/s framebuffer peak bandwidth, ≈ 6.2 ns latency
** 16 MB DRAM used as buffer for DVD drive and audio, 81 MHz, 8-bit bus, 81 MB/s bandwidth
* Connectivity:
** 4 controller ports, 2 memory card slots
** Analog AV Out: interlaced composite video, S-Video (NTSC models only), and RGB SCART (PAL models only), stereophonic analog audio
** Digital AV Out (DOL-001 only): interlaced or progressive scan YCBCR video, decoded to YPBPR using a DAC chip inside component video and D-Terminal cables,[17] ** stereophonic I²S audio (never officially utilized)
** Resolutions: 480i, 576i, 480p
** High-speed serial ports: 2
*** Serial Port 1 is reserved for a broadband adapter or modem adapter
*** Serial Port 2 is unused
** High-speed parallel ports: 1 (reserved for the Game Boy Player)
** Power supply output: 12 volts DC; 3.25 amperes
** Physical Measurements: 150 × 161 × 110 mm / 5.9 × 6.3 × 4.3 in (width × depth × height)
* Graphics processing unit:
** 162 MHz "Flipper" LSI (co-developed by Nintendo and ArtX, acquired by ATI)
** 180 nm NEC eDRAM-compatible process
** 8 GFLOPS
** 4 pixel pipelines with 1 texture unit each[15]
** TEV "Texture EnVironment" engine (similar to Nvidia's GeForce-class "register combiners")
** Fixed-function hardware transform and lighting (T&L), 20+ million polygons in-game[18]
** 648 megapixels/second (162 MHz × 4 pipelines), 648 megatexels/second (648 MP × 1 texture unit) (peak)
*** Peak triangle performance: 20,250,000 32-pixel triangles/s raw and with 1 texture and lit
**** 337,500 triangles a frame at 60 fps
**** 675,000 triangles a frame at 30 fps
** 8 texture layers per pass, texture compression, full scene anti-aliasing[18]
** 8 simultaneous hardware light sources
** Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic texture filtering
** Multi-texturing, bump mapping, reflection mapping, 24-bit z-buffer
** 24-bit RGB/32-bit RGBA color depth
*** Hardware limitations sometimes require a 6r+6g+6b+6a mode (18-bit color), resulting in color banding.
* Video Modes:
** 640×240 interlaced (240i) or progressive scan (240p) - 60 Hz[19]
** 640×480 interlaced (480i) or progressive scan (480p) - 60 Hz
** 640×576 interlaced (576i) - 50 Hz
* Audio:
** Integrated audio processor: Custom 81 MHz Macronix DSP
*** Instruction memory: 8 kB RAM, 8 kB ROM
*** Data memory: 8 kB RAM, 4 kB ROM
*** 64 channels 16-bit 48 kHz ADPCM[18]
*** Dolby Pro Logic II multi-channel information encoded within stereophonic output
* Storage media:
** Panasonic-developed CAV miniDVD-like 8 cm optical disc, 2.000 MB/s–3.125 MB/s transfer rate, 128 ms average access time, 1.5 GB capacity
** Memory cards of varying sizes for saved game storage
== Accessories ==
=== Game Boy Player ===
The Game Boy Player is an accesory for the GameCube which allows you to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games on your TV. It was released in Japan on March 20, 2003, in Europe on June 20, 2003 and in North America on June 24, 2003. It fits under the GameCube console, adding a few inches to the system. To start a GBA game, a Game Boy Player disc must be inserted into the GameCube. The rumble feature was added in some games also.
=== DK Bongos ===
The DK Bongos are a controller for the GameCube, for use with the games Donkey Konga, Donkey Konga 2, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and Donkey Konga 3. The DK Bongos look like drums made of barrels. The bongos also have a microphone in the middle to detect sound. The bongos have been used with all of the Donkey Kong GameCube games, and they come with all of those games. But, they are also sold seperately. In the New Play Control! remake of Donky Kong Jungle Beat however, the DK Bongos were not compatible with the game.
=== WaveBird Wireless Controller ===
The WaveBird Wireless Controller is a wireless Gamecube controller. The only other change to the Gamecube's controller is that the WaveBird requires two AA batteries. The batteries can last up to 100 hours.
Category:Consoles released by Nintendo