Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [post E3 2019, pre GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

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Make sense to me that Sony out of the two would have a more specialized RT HW. MS needs theirs to align with what's happening in the PC space for obvious reasons. I am expecting RDNA RT to be that. Using machine learning and HW RT to approximate RT is probably the MS and industry standard way forward. I'm really curious as to what Sony will be doing. With that said, I hope for both consoles to devote as little as possible of the GPU die space to dedicated RT HW.

That wouldn't be too good for 90% of the games for consoles are cross platform titles? Will either RT feature go unused apart from exclusives?
 
Are the use cases really the same? How many people really use Android tablets (dead in the the water, only crap Chinese hardware and a Samsung tablet released per year or so in the market) and iPads for productivity tasks? On the other hand, if one wants a tablet mostly for content consumption, getting a Surface Pro is overkill.
The point is that an Android/iOS devices generally does its job nigh perfectly, whereas a Windows tablet does its job flakily. My SP4 will lose connection with the pen, requiring me to restart the pen by taking the battery out and putting it back in - never had any pen troubles with my Samsung Note (of course, as its Wacom tech). I have auto-hide on the start bar, but then it frequently won't come up when I drag from the bottom of the screen, requiring me to pull in the right-hand side bar, press Network, and then the bar will pop up. The on-screen keyboard doesn't always come up when you press in a text-box, requiring one to manually bring it up by pressing the option button on the start bar. So worst case, which I had the other day, you click in a text box, no on screen keyboard, try to drag the start bar onto the screen but that fails, drag in side bar, press Network, start bar appears, press on screen keyboard, press the textbox you wanted to type in, get to type. All the other devices, a textbox press brings up the keyboard without fail.

There are many niggling usability issues with Windows 10 where the rival OSes have been solid since launch and just gone from strength to strength in terms of features. MS haven't anywhere near the same level of quality and polish for their OS as they have their hardware. Which is ironic considering we've always considered Sony a hardware company and MS a software one! ;)
 
The point is that an Android/iOS devices generally does its job nigh perfectly, whereas a Windows tablet does its job flakily. My SP4 will lose connection with the pen, requiring me to restart the pen by taking the battery out and putting it back in - never had any pen troubles with my Samsung Note (of course, as its Wacom tech). I have auto-hide on the start bar, but then it frequently won't come up when I drag from the bottom of the screen, requiring me to pull in the right-hand side bar, press Network, and then the bar will pop up. The on-screen keyboard doesn't always come up when you press in a text-box, requiring one to manually bring it up by pressing the option button on the start bar. So worst case, which I had the other day, you click in a text box, no on screen keyboard, try to drag the start bar onto the screen but that fails, drag in side bar, press Network, start bar appears, press on screen keyboard, press the textbox you wanted to type in, get to type. All the other devices, a textbox press brings up the keyboard without fail.

There are many niggling usability issues with Windows 10 where the rival OSes have been solid since launch and just gone from strength to strength in terms of features. MS haven't anywhere near the same level of quality and polish for their OS as they have their hardware. Which is ironic considering we've always considered Sony a hardware company and MS a software one! ;)

Fair enough. Get a laptop :p
I tried a tablet for productivity and never again.
 
Didn't MS state at E3 that their next console will have 'hardware RT support'?

Yes. GPU RT acceleration. But that's not what the prior responses or replies are asking or stating. Talking about timing or reasons why for different RT approaches (if both have different solutions).
 
Yes. GPU RT acceleration. But that's not what the prior responses or replies are asking or stating. Talking about timing or reasons why for different RT approaches (if both have different solutions).

Ah ok got that. Still, i think the best case would be if both xbox and PS would have the same approach as all games would be supporting it, we would see a wider integration of RT software on consoles (and pc).
 
You mean DXR? If they can't get the hardware needed into their budget, they won't be able to support its full potential. But at the same time, if they can fake raytracing as the original line suggests, and get similar results with less effort, and this is seamless through the DXR API, then they are supporting it and supporting it in a very valuable way that brings DXR type features to lower-spec machines. I'd call that supporting their own technology very well, depending on results.
It just occurred to me that; looking at Surface Pro X; there could be a focus on emulation through AI. Or put better; denoising via their AI chip and have less rays calculation. A little different from tensor cores perhaps. So this is entirely plausible.
 
Ah ok got that. Still, i think the best case would be if both xbox and PS would have the same approach as all games would be supporting it, we would see a wider integration of RT software on consoles (and pc).

But that's the thing... we have no idea on which solution will be better suited for adoptions towards a more unified approach. MS solution may heavily rely upon DX RT APIs, with RT hardware acceleration. While Sony's solution opts for a pure RT hardware approach, relying mostly upon developers to develop their own RT stacks/APIs for their game engines.

Microsoft's RT solution will more than likely bridge Xbox and PC gaming, especially from the perspective of having their first-party games and Live Services (ecosystem) coexisting peacefully across platforms. While Sony's solution focuses solely on the PS5 platform.
 
Make sense to me that Sony out of the two would have a more specialized RT HW. MS needs theirs to align with what's happening in the PC space for obvious reasons. I am expecting RDNA RT to be that. Using machine learning and HW RT to approximate RT is probably the MS and industry standard way forward. I'm really curious as to what Sony will be doing. With that said, I hope for both consoles to devote as little as possible of the GPU die space to dedicated RT HW.

Nothing requires MS and AMD to stick to a generic version of RT. AMD can work together with MS to provide a customized version of AMD original design and that customized design can be used in both the console and PC space. MS is a dominant player in the PC space so there practically no reason for MS to limit any customization to one market. Synergy with the Xbox and PC hardware serves MS better than forcing devs to support two different versions of RT.

Plus I doubt MS or Sony can produce something more performant than AMD. And third party IP usually require license fees that Sony, MS and AMD would have to pay for inclusion. Plus there is no guarantee that that RT IP can be simply be bolted on and work well.
 
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My SP4 will lose connection with the pen, requiring me to restart the pen by taking the battery out and putting it back in - never had any pen troubles with my Samsung Note (of course, as its Wacom tech).

Strange, I have that problem with my Surface 3 pen, but I don't have that problem with my Surface 4 pen. Perhaps the Surface Book 2 has a better BT receiver than the Surface 4 Pro?

There are many niggling usability issues with Windows 10 where the rival OSes have been solid since launch and just gone from strength to strength in terms of features. MS haven't anywhere near the same level of quality and polish for their OS as they have their hardware. Which is ironic considering we've always considered Sony a hardware company and MS a software one! ;)

Yeah, Windows quality has gone WAY downhill since Nadella took over. On the plus side I guess is that we get faster iterations of the OS (buggy as they are) and quick releases of half-baked software (Edge, anyone?).

I still prefer the Windows OS environment over any other desktop environment, but I do miss the days where Windows stability and robustness was more important than quick iterations that aren't tested as well as they need to be. It's like they are trying to replicate the buggy mess that iOS generally is everytime a major release is pushed out to my phone.

Regards,
SB
 
Nothing requires MS and AMD to stick to a generic version of RT.
Indeed. The DXR API means the hardware can be totally different and abstracted - that's the whole point of APIs! And regardless how you go about ray-tracing, the way it fits into the render pipeline is going to be the same, producing various buffers and datasets you combine.

Plus I doubt MS or Sony can produce something more performant than AMD. And third party IP usually require license fees that Sony, MS and AMD would have to pay for inclusion.
Though one does wonder why Sony wanted the RT guy from Imagination working for them.
 
The custom cpu in the surfaces are just binned regular cpu, with a little higher clock, and less disabled units.
Nothing that amd or qualcom can't do on their own.
I was hoping at least for something like hovis, or a stricter collaboration in the cpu's internal firmware (ok, I don't know how it's called), as a sign of what they can do on custom hardware for future products and amd in general.
Like hello amd, we know that you have a lot of opinions, but just in case here are the cpu/gpu telemetry of all the windows pc in the world, to finetune your zen3. Happy birthday.
 
A small heads-up:

During the Surface reveal event that's happening right now, Microsoft announced the new Surface Laptop 3 13" and 15".
The 13" uses Intel Ice Lake, but the 15" one uses - according to them - a custom Ryzen APU with Radeon RX graphics.

This could be a semicustom SoC with a decent GPU that might have been mistaken as a console SoC throughout some leaks.

It's only got 1.2TF of GPU compute. I don't think anyone's mistaking that for a console APU.
 
Yeah, Windows quality has gone WAY downhill since Nadella took over. On the plus side I guess is that we get faster iterations of the OS (buggy as they are) and quick releases of half-baked software (Edge, anyone?).

I still prefer the Windows OS environment over any other desktop environment, but I do miss the days where Windows stability and robustness was more important than quick iterations that aren't tested as well as they need to be. It's like they are trying to replicate the buggy mess that iOS generally is everytime a major release is pushed out to my phone.

Regards,
SB

The one major advantage WIndows has over Android is that OS and driver updates aren't the responsibility of the device manufacturer, so the devices actually get timely updates and enjoy long-term support. Even the cheapest Windows tablet in the world still has Microsoft and Intel supporting it, which is no small thing.
 
What's the bandwidth? Xbox One has 109 /204, right?
 
It's got an additional graphics core over the existing mobile parts, so that at least is different.
Raven Ridge and Picasso both have 11 CUs. The V1807 embedded raven ridge and the desktop Ryzen 5 G have 11 CUs enabled.

After knowing the specifics on the SoC, we can conclude there's very little 'custom' in this semi-custom.

It's probably just a higher binned Picasso with more aggressive states/clocks and a cooling system that allows it to go up to 25W.

I'm actually disappointed they didn't even tweak the system to use DDR4 3200MT/s at 1.2V, which is widely available right now, and stuck to the old 2400MT/s memory.

How far off a portable XB1 is this thing? :runaway:
CPU, GPU compute and fill rate is either pretty close or substantially better. Memory bandwidth is pretty far, unfortunately. 48GB/s on the Picasso vs 60GB/s main + 200GB/s edram on the XB1.
 
Raven Ridge and Picasso both have 11 CUs. The V1807 embedded raven ridge and the desktop Ryzen 5 G have 11 CUs enabled.

After knowing the specifics on the SoC, we can conclude there's very little 'custom' in this semi-custom.

It's probably just a higher binned Picasso with more aggressive states/clocks and a cooling system that allows it to go up to 25W.

I'm actually disappointed they didn't even tweak the system to use DDR4 3200MT/s at 1.2V, which is widely available right now, and stuck to the old 2400MT/s memory.


CPU, GPU compute and fill rate is either pretty close or substantially better. Memory bandwidth is pretty far, unfortunately. 48GB/s on the Picasso vs 60GB/s main + 200GB/s edram on the XB1.

I was going off the info here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/2/...-laptop-3-custom-processor-qualcomm-amd-specs

Microsoft has worked closely with AMD to add an additional graphics core on the 12nm Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 Surface parts that are built on Zen+, and to optimize the chip to fit inside the slim-and-light chassis it uses for the Surface Laptop 3.

The article further quotes Jack Huynh, general manager of AMD’s semi-custom group describing the working relationship between MS and AMD.

“We literally spent tens of thousands of hours of co-development and co-engineering hand-in-hand with Microsoft not just optimizing the CPU and GPU, but also the overall system power management, pen, touch, memory bandwidth, firmware, and drivers to deliver the highest graphics laptop performance ever in a very thin and light form factor.”

And Tom Warren adds:

At times, this has meant engineers from AMD and Microsoft both working in the same buildings, all trying to get a Surface Laptop with AMD parts to live up to the Surface brand.

All this engineering effort went into getting a more power-efficient part and pretty much left no stone unturned from a hardware and software standpoint to achieve it.

Edit of the edit: No, actually the article is correct. Desktop Picasso parts are Vega 8 and 11. Mobile has Vega 8 and 10, so they really did add an additional core to the equivalent mobile Ryzens.
 
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