[Brimstone]

Originally Posted by ERP

Yes but you have to get it in there in the first place you'd be looking at almost 2 minutes to fill 8GB @ optical disk speeds even with average compression ratios.
It's one of the reasons lots of memory isn't just an obvious win.
I still think it's useful to games, but I don't think you get much benefit if you just use it as a RAM cache.

If Microsoft goes with GE Holographic Micro-Hologram discs data rates will be much higher.


I have a hard time imagining Blu-Ray for 4 gigs let alone 8 gigs.

[Ruskie]

Originally Posted by onQ

Do you have a link to these posts & are they recent?

& the way I read the older spec sheet the specs wasn't 10X the PS3 but had a CPU that was 10X the PPU in the PS3 & had a GPU 10X the RSX leaving out the SPEs but said that the final specs would be 10X The PS3 like there is going to be something more to make up for the SPEs.

They are from December last year I think (translated)

The "target" specs I've seen from ps4 (the pc's that are the first kits so to speak) are about 10x ps3 in terms of raw power cpu and gpu ... And this is always less powerful than the hardware end with the final models. And Xbox next is even more beast so I have commented. So as I say surprise in that regard when all predict "little jump" technology.

[onQ]

Originally Posted by Ruskie

They are from December last year I think (translated)

No not that I've read that I'm talking about what SkySony was saying about him being shocked when he seen the specs, that's what I'm asking about because he make it seem like something might have changed.


edit: or was you replying to the part about the spec sheet not being 10X the PS3?

[ERP]

Originally Posted by Brimstone

If Microsoft goes with GE Holographic Micro-Hologram discs data rates will be much higher.


I have a hard time imagining Blu-Ray for 4 gigs let alone 8 gigs.

I don't see MS using anything but BluRay as optical media.
Anything MS choose would have to have sufficient production capacity to produce 5M+ discs in < 30 days, and be price competitive with BluRay.
That pretty much rules out any alternative.

Of course there is the MCV rumor that it won't have an optical drive, and be download only, but I find that equally hard to believe.

[Ruskie]

Originally Posted by onQ

No not that I've read that I'm talking about what SkySony was saying about him being surprised when he seen the specs, that's what I'm asking about because he make it seem like something might have changed.

This is probably what he thought since I haven't seen anything other than this.

[bkilian]

Originally Posted by onQ

I notice the hardware Video decoding in the early PS4 specs & Remote Play & Media Streaming was the 1st thing I thought of because it will take the work off of the CPU/GPU hopefully the Xbox Next will have hardware decoding also. or are they going to let the 2nd CPU handle all the media stuff?

Can't say. All depends on what the designers find important, every cent spent in a CE device requires a tradeoff somewhere else in the device. Xbox 1 had a DSP, 360 did away with it in favor of doing audio on the CPU, it's all tradeoffs.

[Acert93]

I wonder how much gamesmanship and "guessing" what your competitor was going to do played into the designs. e.g. Did MS design at all with the consideration that Sony may have pulled out a 4 PPE-Plus + 32 SPE (1TFLOPs) CPU design + GPU? Sure devs would not like the per-existing Cell issues but by sheer core count and peak flops (and the fact it would probably fit into the same space as a robust x86 solution).

Could the 16 core Xbox3 rumors stem from a project design/draft from a stage of development when MS thought they would need to face such a monster?

[Ruskie]

I wish bkilian would leak something on B3D as we are scrapping the bottom of a barrel here for some months now

[Acert93]

His silence is confirmation that MS is working on something and he knows something

[Ruskie]

Originally Posted by Acert93

His silence is confirmation that MS is working on something and he knows something

Of course he knows. Everybody knows everything MS is working on, just look at you sig

[bgassassin]

Originally Posted by Acert93

bgassassin: I got a message for you to send back to those giving you some vague platform overviews. Maybe this will help get the ball rolling and some much needed clarification

Regarding the 1 TFLOPs number for Durango, could they specify if that is Single or Double Precision. I tried to explain to a messenger that there isn't a huge need for DP on a console but according to him MS is quite happy with their DP performance. AMD is already packing this sort of performance into 365mm^2 GPUs in 2012 so while such architectural choices seem necessary, depending on what was cut from a GPU to put it into a console (e.g. ROPs from 32 down to 16 or even 8 at 1GHz, reduction in TMUs, etc) I guess it is possible, but I don't trust him. But he swears it is true.

Oh, and something about insisting there is a new memory type with similar performance to eDRAM but he didn't know the tech stuff (he really is a newb) but he was told it is a newer technology not on the market yet with some manufacturing and reliability issues. What came to mind was this, but the messenger didn't know.

So the big questions would be: What are the SP and DP Durango GPU metrics and besides the 8GB of memory what other memory architectures are in place on Durango.

Haha. I don't know if I can get the first detail, but I'll try.

Originally Posted by upnorthsox

So BG, these are based off of you/your info? If so, can you elaborate on this:



I don't understand what the context or comparison is.

Also, to the class as a whole. What are the Sea Island features that anyone is waiting for?

Is it just DX12 compatability? If so, what are these new hardware specs?

Again, what features could anyone be waiting on for MS or Sony to risk delaying a launch and alienating developers?

Unfortunately when I got the PS4 specs, that wasn't a part of the summary I got last year so I couldn't answer that. This is what I originally learned in November.

Quad core AMD CPU @ >3ghz
~2 Teraflop AMD R10x derived GPU with capabilities beyond DX11 – 18 CUs
2GB UMA @ 192GB/s - pushing for 4GB
50GB BD @~6X speed
All SKUs with a HDD supporting automatic caching

What's funny is I "leaked" the specs back in December on GAF and had the correct clock speeds and didn't know it at the time. Though if they are going Jaguar, the CPU obviously won't be 3.2Ghz.

[Ruskie]

BG, you have the same info as Iherre, right?

[bgassassin]

Originally Posted by Ruskie

BG, you have the same info as Iherre, right?

I believe so. His is probably more detailed though.

[Brimstone]

Originally Posted by Acert93

I wonder how much gamesmanship and "guessing" what your competitor was going to do played into the designs. e.g. Did MS design at all with the consideration that Sony may have pulled out a 4 PPE-Plus + 32 SPE (1TFLOPs) CPU design + GPU? Sure devs would not like the per-existing Cell issues but by sheer core count and peak flops (and the fact it would probably fit into the same space as a robust x86 solution).

Could the 16 core Xbox3 rumors stem from a project design/draft from a stage of development when MS thought they would need to face such a monster?

I doubt that.MS will listen to Tim Sweeney and it is clear what he desired years ago: ease of development. 16 cores is Larrabee and Tim clearly liked it. The other two major wiz bang technologies floating around, Hybrid Memory Cube and Micro-hologram have been in development for a very long time at Micron and GE.

[Ruskie]

Originally Posted by bgassassin

I believe so. His is probably more detailed though.

So you also got the "12 gigs, 7 series and 8 cores" part for Durango too?

[bgassassin]

Originally Posted by Ruskie

So you also got the "12 gigs, 7 series and 8 cores" part for Durango too?

I said probably when I should have said definitely. As for my info it wasn't quite like that. For the memory it was said that the 12GB was for the dev kit with 8GB being the final. I was only told a "multi-core" CPU. And when it came to the GPU all I got was "1+ TFLOPs". That's why I'm still hoping/waiting to get clearer info.

[Rangers]

Where did the "1-1.5 teraflops" come from then? I've been repeating it, maybe it's false.

A teraflop machine really is a little disappointing if you think of current gen as quarter teraflop. Then, there's efficiency gains though, which some people are saying are double (therefore 1TF today=2TF in 2005 terms).

[bgassassin]

Originally Posted by Rangers

Where did the "1-1.5 teraflops" come from then? I've been repeating it, maybe it's false.

To be honest I have no idea. Looking back I only said it sounded weird and unbalanced.

[Acert93]

But you then need to apply the same "gains" to all previous generations which, when you compare the length of the current generation and the prospects of an even longer/last gen (before streaming) a quarter better in raw specs isn't much at all. And for every "efficiency" game there is the reverse side, e.g. remember areas where the Xbox 360 was slower than the Xbox. If the CPU cores lack beefy vector units or come with a similar core count with similar vector units we could be looking at no performance increase in some instances. It seems the forward looking paradigm + easy low hanging fruit would be GPU centric so skimping there in investing in other areas is a good indicator of the product aiming at different agendas (i.e. media box).

[Rangers]

The rough hewn specs we have now look competitive, possibly superior to PS4 imo and in the end the end thats all that matters. Not power, but power relative to competition.

The media box stuff as well, easily criticized, but could be quite compelling.

Now if it ends up being a turd sold out for set top box, I'll be the first one screaming trust me.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by anexanhume

Never said it was. I'm saying RAM isn't cheap, no matter what types you choose to go into a $300-$400 box.

Eh? People sell $400 PCs with higher software costs AT A PROFIT with 4-8 GB of ram. RAM is very very
CHEAP. Using 2-3 GB as a stream cache alone will vastly improve the actual game experience.

[anexanhume]

Originally Posted by aaronspink

Eh? People sell $400 PCs with higher software costs AT A PROFIT with 4-8 GB of ram. RAM is very very
CHEAP. Using 2-3 GB as a stream cache alone will vastly improve the actual game experience.

And what type of RAM does that system have? Discrete GPU?

[AlStrong]

hm... Judging by that list of board costs from AMD last year, it seems that 1GB of DDR3 would be about $6.35 (for DDR3-1600/1800 based on the reference clocks for the relevant cards sporting DDR3).

(Obviously not the Newegg price. )

5.5Gbps GDDR5 seemed to be 4.47x the cost (per GB relative to DDR3)
4Gbps GDDR5 was about 3.39x.

It's kind of neat... At the time, you'd basically have 9GB DDR3 being about the same cost as 2GB of high speed GDDR5.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Well 1), I imagine XB3 will have hardware support for whatever codec they want to use for broadcasting media around the home , and 2) 30 frames of 1080p is 30 x 6 megabytes per frame is 180 MBs. I'm still not seeing how many hundreds of MBs can be consumed by media streaming such that the machine needs 4 GBs of RAM or something to serve content. Maybe I'm missing something?

Well if they intend it to be a competitive DVR device, the it realistically needs to support 4-6 streams at the same time as gaming.

[Rangers]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

hm... Judging by that list of board costs from AMD last year, it seems that 1GB of DDR3 would be about $6.35 (for DDR3-1600/1800 based on the reference clocks for the relevant cards sporting DDR3).

$50 just on RAM going by that cost (I'd assume it's dropped though). Quite hefty to the BOM. Which hey, is the newegg price too (8GB=~$50)

Sony's 2GB-4GB transition then could bring their RAM total from $50 to $100. Another reason they may not do it.