PS4 Longevity

[MrFox]

The premise was that PC "becoming more powerful" would make this gen shorter.

This GPU must be released when PS5 launch to make it equal to the PS3 to PS4 transition, in reference to the above premise:
48GB or 64GB HBM2
30TF
200W
$300 MSRP
In 2017 or 2018?

(The numbers are the PS4 specs multiplied by the relative difference between a PS3 and the Nvidia 770 or AMD 280x that both launched in 2013 for $300)

It's interesting to use that angle, because whatever is available for PC would equally mean there's enough performance improvement to justify a new console with significant performance increase. It's the same idea. This performance increase has to happen no matter what causality you believe in.

 

[goonergaz]

Why just talk about GPU? We know this gen has poor CPUs already significantly less powerful and struggling with some games. Then add in PCs becoming more user friendly, the software sales showing the format is becoming more popular and all of a sudden there could be serious competition for consoles.

 

[MrFox]

I guess it's all the same, whatever advancement happens, GPU, CPU, or memory, it will enable an upgraded console as much as it enables a more powerful PC. But to make a $399 or $299 complete PC you have to put a really crappu CPU in there. And if you go up in price it's not the same market?

The other question is if PS4 will have the same performance increase over time that we saw with PS3. Uncharted 1 was beautiful when it came out, but Uncharted 3 and TLoU are incredibly improved, it's funny to look back at U1 screenshots. Mark Cerny implied it will happen when devs start mastering async compute.

 

[goonergaz]

I guess we will have to see, I too was under the impression that async compute would give some longevity...I guess in time we will tell, I just can't see Sony resting now they have the bit between their teeth, I can see them trying to build momentum...especially if MS are still in the race, they won't want to give them a headstart again!

 

[sebbbi]

The other question is if PS4 will have the same performance increase over time that we saw with PS3. Uncharted 1 was beautiful when it came out, but Uncharted 3 and TLoU are incredibly improved, it's funny to look back at U1 screenshots. Mark Cerny implied it will happen when devs start mastering async compute.

Devs haven't even mastered basic compute yet. It will take some time until the GPU will be running the most efficient algorithms (instead of various levels of brute force). Asynchronous compute will increase the GPU utilization, but I still expect the biggest gains to be had with algorithmic improvements.

AMD GCN has some nice features that are not used in PC games, since the API support is very limited. This presentation describes many of these features: http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/De...-gcn-architecture-a-crash-course-by-layla-mah . For example the cross lane operations give big boosts for some common GPU primitives (such as prefix sum, vote, reductions). On PC side only OpenCL 2.0 exposes these instructions (and no games use that API). There are also some nice OpenGL 4.4 GCN specific extensions that are not supported by other GPUs (and thus are not part of DX12). Once these features will be fully used, the gains will be quite nice. PC games will have to use the generic slow path instead of these GCN specific ways. This will give the consoles a big advantage in some important algorithms over the PC.