Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[tuna]

I might get a Scorpio if it has the following features:

HDMI 2.1 with adaptive frame rate.

A better UHD player than XB1S seems to have (there are reports that colors etc are not perfect).

Good BC. I want to play Bayonetta and Guardian Heroes exactly as they were on the 360.

Good price (€400).

Unless the above is fulfilled I will probably stay with my Pro as favoured gaming system.

 

[mpg1]

Consumers don't work that way. That's why there's many products across many price ranges and not just low-end and high-end. Those who are not bottom-feeding will compare the value of the two higher end models and make their choice based on numerous parameters.

There's some strange fanboy thinkings out there! Why would Scorpio affect a PS4 owner's upgrade choice? It's literally nothing to do with them, any more than Apple releasing a new phone or Samsung a new fridge-freezer. If I want a better Pro experience, I buy a 4 Pro, regardless what othe products are out.

The thing most affecting future upgraders probably is that the longer they leave getting a 4Pro, the nearer they'll be to getting a PS5. As such, post Scorpio release we should expect 4Pro adoption to decrease. Potentially the same from Scorpio too.

Consoles are different imo. With consoles (at least comparing modern day PlayStation and Xbox) you have a very limited set of discrete fixed hardware options. There aren't that many parameters to factor in. For some people who don't care that much about having the best will choose either XBO or PS4. For those that do care about having better/willing spend more than XBO or PS4 are going to choose Scorpio over PS4 Pro at a high rate simply because they already decided they want something better...and Scorpio will be the best.

 

[wco81]

Big improvement but they still held on to the idea of symmetrical joysticks...? Dpad should secondary on left side of controllers these days

I'm the opposite. Couldn't adapt to the Xbox layout at all.

There must be a lot of people who are used to or prefer the symmetric design or else you'd see people replacing DS4 with third-party controllers.

 

[goonergaz]

Consoles are different imo. With consoles (at least comparing modern day PlayStation and Xbox) you have a very limited set of discrete fixed hardware options. There aren't that many parameters to factor in. For some people who don't care that much about having the best will choose either XBO or PS4. For those that do care about having better/willing spend more than XBO or PS4 are going to choose Scorpio over PS4 Pro at a high rate simply because they already decided they want something better...and Scorpio will be the best.

It will only be the best at 3rd party games, it will (likely) be a good deal more than Pro so it'll be if the difference is enough for the extra cash, and as Pro has shown power is not the be all.

I'm the opposite. Couldn't adapt to the Xbox layout at all.

There must be a lot of people who are used to or prefer the symmetric design or else you'd see people replacing DS4 with third-party controllers.

Me too, I'd like PS5 controller to have a more XBO controller shape as it feels nicer in my hand but I prefer overall PS4

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Consoles are different imo. With consoles (at least comparing modern day PlayStation and Xbox) you have a very limited set of discrete fixed hardware options. There aren't that many parameters to factor in. For some people who don't care that much about having the best will choose either XBO or PS4. For those that do care about having better/willing spend more than XBO or PS4 are going to choose Scorpio over PS4 Pro at a high rate simply because they already decided they want something better...and Scorpio will be the best.

In the same way everyone went out and bought an OXB when it was released because it was the best?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

There's some strange fanboy thinkings out there!

And here.

For those that do care about having better/willing spend more than XBO or PS4 are going to choose Scorpio over PS4 Pro at a high rate simply because they already decided they want something better...and Scorpio will be the best.

And how big is the that rabid demographic who want the most powerful console, but apparently not a PC for some reason, who presumably had a PS4 initially, then a Pro, who will willingly give up their game library and buy a Scorpio?

 

[Clukos]

Just wanna say, if every game that uses 2160c has the iq of Horizon, I'd prefer if they used the exact same thing on Scorpio. It really is a waste of resources in a console form factor to aim for 2160p. 2160c with a good enough temporal AA to clean up artifacts can look sublime and is a much more sensible choice than native 2160p imo, at least for high production AAA games.

 

[AzBat]

The new 1080p vs 900p debate? That will be an interesting debate to see who supports which side.

Tommy McClain

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Just wanna say, if every game that uses 2160c has the iq of Horizon, I'd prefer if they used the exact same thing on Scorpio. It really is a waste of resources in a console form factor to aim for 2160p. 2160c with a good enough temporal AA to clean up artifacts can look sublime and is a much more sensible choice than native 2160p imo, at least for high production AAA games.

I like the nomenclature 2160c, but does that stand for checkerboard? If so, we should change it to 2160r for reconstruction to account for reconstruction methods that don't use a checkboard pattern.

It's also worth noting Sebbbi has been advocating this approach for a whiles now. Some console fanboy types have been very reticent but people who prefer numbers to results on screen (similar to old school polygon count debates) don't deserve the awesomeness on offer from clever use of hardware.

 

[iroboto]

Just wanna say, if every game that uses 2160c has the iq of Horizon, I'd prefer if they used the exact same thing on Scorpio. It really is a waste of resources in a console form factor to aim for 2160p. 2160c with a good enough temporal AA to clean up artifacts can look sublime and is a much more sensible choice than native 2160p imo, at least for high production AAA games.

I'm sure all the developers feel the same about this as well. Caveats will be that not every title can support the same type of checkerboard techniques or interweaving techniques.

 

[goonergaz]

The new 1080p vs 900p debate? That will be an interesting debate to see who supports which side.

Tommy McClain

Whilst I see what you're saying this time the difference really is hard to tell (so hard DF had to be within a foot of the TV IIRC). Certainly I think as Scorpio (sounds like) it would scrape into 4K rather than do it with ease I would have thought it's got to be a better to go checkerboard and add some nice effects.

I like the nomenclature 2160c, but does that stand for checkerboard? If so, we should change it to 2160r for reconstruction to account for reconstruction methods that don't use a checkboard pattern.

It's also worth noting Sebbbi has been advocating this approach for a whiles now. Some console fanboy types have been very reticent but people who prefer numbers to results on screen (similar to old school polygon count debates) don't deserve the awesomeness on offer from clever use of hardware.

480p with real life graphics FTW

 

[zupallinere]

Whilst I see what you're saying this time the difference really is hard to tell (so hard DF had to be within a foot of the TV IIRC). Certainly I think as Scorpio (sounds like) it would scrape into 4K rather than do it with ease I would have thought it's got to be a better to go checkerboard and add some nice effects.



480p with real life graphics FTW

240C wins PERIOD!!

 

[Clukos]

The new 1080p vs 900p debate?

It's really not though, the problem with 900p is that there ain't too many 1600x900 screens (I'm not sure if X1 even supports that resolution on such a display) and running that res on a 1080p display can lead to an ugly result. I remember Crytek running a custom upscaler for Ryse on X1 to avoid exactly this issue. 2160c resolves the exact same amount of pixels on a 4k display as native 2160p does, just effectively shading half the pixels per frame afaik.

 

[mosen]

There's some strange fanboy thinkings out there! Why would Scorpio affect a PS4 owner's upgrade choice? It's literally nothing to do with them, any more than Apple releasing a new phone or Samsung a new fridge-freezer. If I want a better Pro experience, I buy a 4 Pro, regardless what othe products are out.

The thing most affecting future upgraders probably is that the longer they leave getting a 4Pro, the nearer they'll be to getting a PS5. As such, post Scorpio release we should expect 4Pro adoption to decrease. Potentially the same from Scorpio too.

Strange fanboy thinking? What about those people who think everyone has a powerful PC in their home and no one is going to buy Scorpio except some early XB1 adopters? Or those people who trying so hard to downplay all of Xbox advantages (BC,FC,XPA etc.)? Would you name all of these theories/opinions a "strange fanboy thinking" as well?

If some of the current PS4 owners are interested to buy a newer more powerful console some of them may prefer to buy Scorpio instead of PS4Pro to be able to play the best version of 3rd Party games and enjoy some of Xbox console exclusive as well or using some of Xbox services like 360 BC, XGP, etc. or to use some newer unannounced hardware capabilities like HDMI 2.1 or 4k UHD. However, some of the current PS4 owners may like to buy a high-end PC and play their 3rd Party games (as well as some Xbox/W10 Store exclusive games) on it.

Both of these decisions are appealing for Microsoft, but not for Sony. Actually, the second possibility forced Sony to release a mid-generation upgrade. So, if Scorpio eventually be considered as a great upgrade, what would be the difference between buying a new high-end gaming PC or Scorpio for current PS4 owners?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Strange fanboy thinking? What about those people who think everyone has a powerful PC in their home and no one is going to buy Scorpio except some early XB1 adopters? Or those people who trying so hard to downplay all of Xbox advantages (BC,FC,XPA etc.)? Would you name all of these theories/opinions a "strange fanboy thinking" as well?

Possibly. Depends what the arguments are precisely.

If some of the current PS4 owners are interested to buy a newer more powerful console some of them may prefer to buy Scorpio instead of PS4Pro to be able to play the best version of 3rd Party games and enjoy some of Xbox console exclusive as well or using some of Xbox services like 360 BC, XGP, etc. or to use some newer unannounced hardware capabilities like HDMI 2.1 or UHD. However, some of the current PS4 owners may like to buy a high-end PC and play their 3rd Party games (as well as some Xbox/W10 Store exclusive games) on it.

That's a different situation to 'killing motivation to upgrade'. If you mean, "Scorpio may convince some potential PS4 Pro upgraders to switch platform," then I'd agree.

 

[iroboto]

Whilst I see what you're saying this time the difference really is hard to tell (so hard DF had to be within a foot of the TV IIRC). Certainly I think as Scorpio (sounds like) it would scrape into 4K rather than do it with ease I would have thought it's got to be a better to go checkerboard and add some nice effects.

Base Scorpio specs land it squarely to be able to take theoretically _any_ XBO game and make it run natively at 4K. The implications there are pretty big but are often ignored because everyone wants to use that power to make graphics better and resolution no longer matters, and not to anyone's fault, but MS marketed it that way.

The biggest advantage here is that any XBO game can become 4K with relatively small effort; looking back at the existing 3 year catalog of XBO games, any developer can go back and make some tweaks to the graphical buffer to 4K remove esram calls and you've got a 4K game. This would also apply to any developer who cannot leverage checkerboard rendering techniques or does not have the time schedule to meet their deadlines to make a vastly optimized 4K reconstruction renderer.

For developers who want to do more, or are working on future titles, the expectation is that they will leverage reconstruction and use the remaining power on other things.
MS does not care if it's 4K*, they only care if it's vastly superior to its competition in which reconstruction would enable.

MS walks away with some big wins here in this department, Scorpio will be the king of graphics at least until next generation arrives and it can (I think) launch with an enormous existing catalog of games patched to be 4K. Do not be surprised if this E3 there is a massive catalog of 4K Scorpio games ready.

4Pro requires a bit more work to make this happen, it ultimately does not have the hardware to run a game at 4K natively, at least it has no chance at running a PS4 game at 4K without reconstruction;

tldr; I would expect the result to see more 4K games (through w/e rendering means) on Scorpio than on 4Pro.

 

[Clukos]

The biggest advantage here is that any XBO game can become 4K with relatively small effort; looking back at the existing 3 year catalog of XBO games, any developer can go back and make some tweaks to the graphical buffer to 4K remove esram calls and you've got a 4K game.

While this is true for 1080p X1 games i don't think it is as easy of a task for 900p games (which is a large number of titles). The effective jump from 900p to 2160p in raw pixels is x5.7 while the jump in theoretical performance is around x4.6 (compared to OG X1). Of course, not every title scales the same and different titles will hit different bottlenecks.

 

[zupallinere]

For developers who want to do more, or are working on future titles, the expectation is that they will leverage reconstruction and use the remaining power on other things.

Would some of these techniques to create this continuum of resolution/performance between XB1 -> Scorpio -> PC allow for a mid range PC to mimic Scorpio-ish performance on a 4K display ? I think 1080P gaming on a PC is relatively moderately expensive so if you don't have a 4k display you might be set for a while with Steam games to boot.

 

[iroboto]

While this is true for 1080p X1 games i don't think it is as easy of a task for 900p games (which is a large number of titles). The effective jump from 900p to 2160p in raw pixels is x5.7 while the jump in theoretical performance is around x4.6 (compared to OG X1). Of course, not every title scales the same and different titles will hit different bottlenecks.

not all bottlenecks are the same. XBO has anemic hardware in nearly every category there is except esram bandwidth.

Scorpio has significantly more RAM, CPU, compute, and better architecture. I'm fairly positive they will hit. Regardless. 720p games on XBO are often just terrible optimization, 900p is the norm, 1080p would be above expectations.

edit: @Silent_Buddha put in the heavy work on this front #3105

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Base Scorpio specs land it squarely to be able to take theoretically _any_ XBO game and make it run natively at 4K.

This may or may not be true. It's going to depend on how much of an upgrade the CPU is over the one used in the XBO, and whether it can remove or reduce the CPU as the limiting factor on framerate in games which are wholly or partially CPU limited.

If the game was purely GPU limited, then it should be relatively easy as you mention. We know at least that the GPU will be more than capable of rendering XBO level of graphics IQ at native 2160p resolutions as long as the CPU isn't a limiting factor (which it is in certain games).

Oh wait, you're only talking resolution. Duh. Yeah, that should be relatively easy. It's hard for me to decouple framerate from any game discussion talk as it is the single most relevant non-gameplay statistic in determining whether I'll enjoy most games.

Regards,
SB