PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)

[Globalisateur]

For me this AF deficiency is a symptom of the fact that many devs don't care anymore about the final image quality in their games.

They think about numbers of shaders, number of stuff displayed, % of GPU used at any time without thinking about the real final result with its objective final quality.

They completely ignore that most players own LCD screens (not Plasma TV!) that already create good amount of motion blur + upscale/downscale by default on the image.

Those developers completely ignore basics and important stuff like textures resolution (or perceived resolution of textures, if you use high resolution textures but blur-stroy those textures with several post-effects...) and instead prefer focusing on others "modern" metrics like number of shaders/polygons/post effects/% of GPU used.

 

[TheWretched]

Without knowing the details of the engine... it's rather strange then, to see the X0 version of a (rather simple) game like Strider get AF and the PS4 version not. I don't think performance (if working correctly) can be an issue. I don't think bandwidth on PS4 should be, either... these early games surely don't put their textures in the esram AND have AF enabled because of it.

So my occams razor points to some low level OS stuff breaking AF on PS4. Maybe you can "code around" it somehow (I dunno if any game released on PS4 has it enabled or not... AC4 and KZSF both look good on my TV), but... there has to be a reason that it's missing on one and present on the other console.

 

[3dilettante]

Occam's Razor doesn't involve adding new assumptions to the situation being investigated. AF is a feature of the graphics hardware and doesn't have a history of being linked to the OS.
Affixing blame to the OS requires figuring out why an OS is now interfering where it hasn't before.

 

[MJP]

For me this AF deficiency is a symptom of the fact that many devs don't care anymore about the final image quality in their games.

They think about numbers of shaders, number of stuff displayed, % of GPU used at any time without thinking about the real final result with its objective final quality.

They completely ignore that most players own LCD screens (not Plasma TV!) that already create good amount of motion blur + upscale/downscale by default on the image.

Those developers completely ignore basics and important stuff like textures resolution (or perceived resolution of textures, if you use high resolution textures but blur-stroy those textures with several post-effects...) and instead prefer focusing on others "modern" metrics like number of shaders/polygons/post effects/% of GPU used.

It's true, I don't even know what our game looks like. I just look at our profiler, so that I can high five other devs when we our engine hits 60bwps (buzzwords per second).

 

[Shortbread]

It's true, I don't even know what our game looks like. I just look at our profiler, so that I can high five other devs when we our engine hits 60bwps (buzzwords per second).

lol

 

[TheWretched]

Occam's Razor doesn't involve adding new assumptions to the situation being investigated. AF is a feature of the graphics hardware and doesn't have a history of being linked to the OS.
Affixing blame to the OS requires figuring out why an OS is now interfering where it hasn't before.

Then what other explanation would you have? Other than AF being broken in hardware... which was "debunked" by some dev, which has been posted in this thread, too.

EDIT: I am using the word OS here as "everything" that sits on the firmware of the console or might be shipped on disc (i.e. GPU drivers, SDK...). You don't "glenable(aniso)" without your software allowing you to do so.

 

[Allandor]

Without knowing the details of the engine... it's rather strange then, to see the X0 version of a (rather simple) game like Strider get AF and the PS4 version not. I don't think performance (if working correctly) can be an issue. I don't think bandwidth on PS4 should be, either... these early games surely don't put their textures in the esram AND have AF enabled because of it.

So my occams razor points to some low level OS stuff breaking AF on PS4. Maybe you can "code around" it somehow (I dunno if any game released on PS4 has it enabled or not... AC4 and KZSF both look good on my TV), but... there has to be a reason that it's missing on one and present on the other console.

maybe just a temporarly driver/sdk bug that occurred when the game was close to it's release.

 

[3dilettante]

Then what other explanation would you have? Other than AF being broken in hardware... which was "debunked" by some dev, which has been posted in this thread, too.

Hardware and SDK reasons were ruled out for offline use of AF. Given the tight integration of the platform what the SDK permits should map very closely to the OS.

Is there a listing of how many of these titles use POM?
It may be that developers have opted for techniques for enhancing their surfaces that don't play well with AF, at least not with a hard frame time budget and development deadlines this early in the generation.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It's true, I don't even know what our game looks like. I just look at our profiler, so that I can high five other devs when we our engine hits 60bwps (buzzwords per second).

ha ha ha, best post on this forum in a while.

 

[Rangers]

It looks like another confirmation of 5GB available RAM in PS4

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=103340897&postcount=10

I was at a conference with the lead programmer a naughty dog and he said they had 5 gb to work with and the rest was for the OS.

And to more or less verify the guy, another post of his today regarding a thread about this video by Naughty Dog which the poster attended https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8XdvIO8JxE

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=103992648&postcount=13

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=782892


Oh and to double confirm all that, it's mentioned in the YouTube linked above at 34:45, 5GB RAM. And at around ~44:40 confirmation of two CPU's reserved for OS.

There's also a post on GAF implying they mentioned the whole "extra GPU for compute" thing. I haven't watched the whole vid, but right after the 44:40 part he says the GPU has "power to spare" when mentioning why they use it for GPGPU. Maybe there's a more specific reference, have to watch the whole thing later.


It's looking like 5GB and two cores reserved for PS4, very similar to Xbox, who woulda thunk it, PS4 isn't magic and able to run it's OS from thin air, magic ARM chips, and unicorn fairies??

Next thing you know we'll learn PS4 reserves a similar amount of GPU as well...oh wait we already know that too (ERP)

 

[Betanumerical]

It looks like another confirmation of 5GB available RAM in PS4

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=103340897&postcount=10



And to more or less verify the guy, another post of his today regarding a thread about this video by Naughty Dog which the poster attended https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8XdvIO8JxE

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=103992648&postcount=13

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=782892


But people dont want to hear this so I expect little play in the media...but it's looking like 5GB and two cores reserved for PS4, very similar to Xbox, who woulda thunk it, PS4 isn't magic and able to run it's OS from thin air and unicorn fairies??

Next thing you know we'll learn PS4 reserves a similar amount of GPU as well...oh wait we already know that too (ERP)

The reason people didn't think that the PS4 reserved the same amount of ram (at first) was because the console was originally slated to have 4GB of ram and people didn't think that Sony was going to be leave developers hight and dry with only 1GB of ram for games. But this obviously changed when they went to 8GB, I have a feeling it may drop pretty quickly in the future.

 

[Rangers]

The reason people didn't think that the PS4 reserved the same amount of ram (at first) was because the console was originally slated to have 4GB of ram and people didn't think that Sony was going to be leave developers hight and dry with only 1GB of ram for games. But this obviously changed when they went to 8GB, I have a feeling it may drop pretty quickly in the future.

5GB, 2 cores, and similar GPU reserve to One have all been known quantities for a long, long time, it's just the difficulty in getting them to become widely accepted on the internet. Hell I knew about the 5GB I dont know how long ago, going back to some Chinese BBS via Neogaf stuff long before PS4 release. It's just good to continue to get official word to point too so those numbers are harder to deny though (some still will anyway).

There is also a half GB on PS4 that apparently is not totally free. So it's more like 4.5GB free and clear. But I wont even bother getting into that and we'll call it 5GB

 

[(((interference)))]

Well I've been saying 5GB since last year and DF put out an article on the ram reservation last year too.

The GPU power to spare for GPGPU is the 14+4 balance thing.

 

[DrJay24]

Instead of the conspiracy theory or the Internet loves Sony card, maybe you can chock it up to being under NDA and not public knowledge? Just because you read something from a Chinese BBS or on Gaf does not mean you "knew" anything, they were unsubstantiated leaks.

So he claims the 5GB number was mentioned, but where are you getting the " 2 cores, and similar GPU reserve to One have all been known"? I don't believe much of anything is known, just vague rumors unless something has changed.

 

[Rangers]

Instead of the conspiracy theory or the Internet loves Sony card, maybe you can chock it up to being under NDA and not public knowledge? Just because you read something from a Chinese BBS or on Gaf does not mean you "knew" anything, they were unsubstantiated leaks.

So he claims the 5GB number was mentioned, but where are you getting the " 2 cores, and similar GPU reserve to One have all been known"? I don't believe much of anything is known, just vague rumors unless something has changed.

Watch the youtube at the timestamps (34:45, 44:40), it's all there, though i cant believe anybody would bother questioning these anymore.

ERP said the PS4 GPU reserve is a similar amount to Xbox One's, give or take. And no I dont really feel like digging up the post, knock yourself out with the search function . I know he said it and that's all that really matters to me. It was always common sense anyway.

 

[DrJay24]

Watch the youtube at the timestamps, it's all there, though i cant believe anybody would bother questioning these anymore.

Based on your post, a Chinese BBS was your original source. Do you treat rumors from unknown sources equally with a ND employee?

Glad that Sony has let a 1st party spill some more info, seems like a silly thing to try to keep secret. I also like this technical talk format, it better than trying to do some spin with DF as a mouth piece.

 

[AlNom]

How about you folks stop bickering about who said what and when and miscellaneous sources and just focus on the technical stuff. Buncha bratty children sometimes.

Youtube video of the talk. Slides of the talk (already posted days ago). Discuss or get out.

 

[Kaotik]

I figured I'd link to this post concerning a Naughty Dog presentation that contains some discussion of the PS4 CPU and job system.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1832042&postcount=134


The job system and CPU descriptions go with 6 cores being available.
There's some weirdness with the memory hierarchy description, for which I think there is some missing context.
There's discussion of the 2MB L2 for Jaguar, but then the presentation goes on to use split that suggests 1MB chunks, which I do not know the reason for.

Quite simply, there's 2 quadcore Jaguar "modules" in the APU, like many of the earlier multicore CPUs on PC used 2 single core or dual core "modules" to achieve first dual then quadcore

 

[3dilettante]

Quite simply, there's 2 quadcore Jaguar "modules" in the APU, like many of the earlier multicore CPUs on PC used 2 single core or dual core "modules" to achieve first dual then quadcore

The standard Jaguar module L2 is 2MB. That is not consistent with the presentation's labeling.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

Going back to the substance engine benchmark, I guess we can rule out the PS4 having less reserved cores theory. Does this suggest PS4 jaguars are clocked higher or they're the same clock and there's some overhead that drags down the Xbox's performance.