Current Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [post GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

Status
Not open for further replies.
I don't think it is RDNA 3 maybe it is custom to Sony I just comment about the patent.

I don't care about all this story about RDNA 1, RDNA 2, RDNA 3 but about the feature set and the patent.
if it's a better front end than AMD has, there's no reason to not put it in... Is what I'm thinking.
But you could be right that perhaps incompatible with DX
 
if it's a better front end than AMD has, there's no reason to not put it in... Is what I'm thinking.
But you could be right that perhaps incompatible with DX

Better frontend than the one AMD uses? I don't think that sony or MS have the talent in that regard to designer bigger things that some "basic" additions. It is more or less Sony/MS tell AMD what they want to be accelerated in hardware (as a concept) and AMD tries to make it happen (if possible) and shows them what they are planning in future products.
And using "future" features, that are prototypes now, is not to great when you think that RDNA3 needs at least a year to be functional.
Yes MS did something similar in the xbox360 and the tessellation units (I think it was tessellation if I remember correctly) but it needed time to get that feature ready and useable. It was just not ready for market.

And yes, "Geometry Engines" is nothing new. But like it is with tech-companies they tend to reuse the same terms for different jobs. But I don't think that there has been much modified. More or less there might just be some patents from MS (like stated in the hotchips presentation) that Sony had to work around.
 
Better frontend than the one AMD uses? I don't think that sony or MS have the talent in that regard to designer bigger things that some "basic" additions. It is more or less Sony/MS tell AMD what they want to be accelerated in hardware (as a concept) and AMD tries to make it happen (if possible) and shows them what they are planning in future products.
And using "future" features, that are prototypes now, is not to great when you think that RDNA3 needs at least a year to be functional.
Yes MS did something similar in the xbox360 and the tessellation units (I think it was tessellation if I remember correctly) but it needed time to get that feature ready and useable. It was just not ready for market.

And yes, "Geometry Engines" is nothing new. But like it is with tech-companies they tend to reuse the same terms for different jobs. But I don't think that there has been much modified. More or less there might just be some patents from MS (like stated in the hotchips presentation) that Sony had to work around.
sure, I mean truthfully, I don't know what I don't know. If this is something that could be useful for AMD and they can leverage it, I don't see why not. But I'm also in agreement with what you write.
Though, imo, front end is going to be slowly shifting to the back burner compared to compute for a lot of tasks as we mature into this generation, so I'm also not all that sure how critical these front-end changes will be going forward.
 
I'm confused about this talk about PS5 "Geometry Engine" as if it's unique in itself. Is this not a generic term?

Common for RDNA stuff, yeah. The title has been used with regards to various parts (including XSX), but when used with in combination with the term "PS5" it ascends to become something that can do DX12U style VRS and "procedurally generate high quality textures". Apparently.
 
Better frontend than the one AMD uses? I don't think that sony or MS have the talent in that regard to designer bigger things that some "basic" additions. It is more or less Sony/MS tell AMD what they want to be accelerated in hardware (as a concept) and AMD tries to make it happen (if possible) and shows them what they are planning in future products.
It's less about Sony or MS going to AMD with a design that they then just use.
Both Sony and MS have enough knowledge to have a very good understanding of GPU (all aspects) and engines.
So it's about working together with concepts and ideas with the basis being AMD IP.

Is it possible that Sony came up with a good GE that amd thought, that's a good approach. Sure, I personally don't buy the RDNA3 talk.
But, it's very possible for someone to come in with fresh pair of eyes and ideas.

Again, I'm not saying I personally think that's what's happened. The GE would probably have had to be in the design phase prior to RDNA2 to be used in PS5. A new paradigm which based on what has been posted here it sounds like is a long bit of work, and as version 1 of things, we know don't always work as well as intended.

I personally find patents interesting with the view that they rarely turn up in products that are close to shipping.

We'll get a electron microscope die shot of the PS5 SOC before we hear details it seems.
 
It's funny how PS fans have taken the comment about "not RDNA 2" to mean RDNA 2.5 instead of the what is more likely RDNA 1.8 in PS5.

We're to believe that Sony has some secret sauce that they aren't shouting to the moon about to promote PS5? LOL

Sony is ahead in GDK and software development, so it's not going to surprise me if they are stronger out of the gate than MS, but I HIGHLY doubt there are secret sauce features that are going to suddenly materialize from nowhere at this stage of the game.
 
Would be very weird of Mark not to mention these features, especially if it had something years in advance not seen in AMD HW until 2022(?) and for MS to include supposedly inferior ones so promintently in their marketing before and minute after RDNA2 embargo dropped, but lets see :)

I am leaning towards no VRS and GE being earlier version of Mesh Shaders. I do so because :
  • MS would not brag about it in PR after 6000 series was shown
  • MS would not say they "waited" for these features, hinting others havent waited
  • Sony would not be able to put out SOC based dev kits in June 2019 if it had RDNA3 features which AMD will have in their hardware in only 3 years
  • DF would get confirmation it has those, which they hinted they didnt get
  • 2 SONY engineers implied this is the case
In any case I dont suppose it will make much of a difference.
 
I've been spying on them ;)
So now Ive seen Alex testing
AC: Unity
and now Watchdogs 1

alright.. maybe a comparison is happening here. between WD1 and WD4
edit: there was a patch. So perhaps he's just checking out any differences since the patch. Perhaps Discord is not recording his games correctly.

summary:
4k30 + raytraced reflections
higher quality render assets (textures, cube maps, geometry)
improved shadow quality
VRR
reduced loading times
 
Last edited:
I mean Cerny stated in the PS5 presentation that features Sony collaborated with AMD on for PS5 GPU that could also be deemed beneficial for wide use would be in RDNA2/discrete GPU's launched around the same time as PS5.

This sort of contradicts the whole....it has gpu hardware features that won't be incorporated until RDNA3....
 
I'm confused about this talk about PS5 "Geometry Engine" as if it's unique in itself. Is this not a generic term?
I'm 99% sure that when Cerny mentioned "geometry engine" he was simply comparing the new GPU architecture to the PS4. Obviously, AMD has updated the fixed function geometry hardware with RDNA 2 versus what is in the PS4. People took this out of context and ran with it.
 
I mean Cerny stated in the PS5 presentation that features Sony collaborated with AMD on for PS5 GPU that could also be deemed beneficial for wide use would be in RDNA2/discrete GPU's launched around the same time as PS5.

This sort of contradicts the whole....it has gpu hardware features that won't be incorporated until RDNA3....
The funny thing is, my conspiracy theory is that where it was beneficial for RDNA2 it got pulled down into it. Sony wouldn't have to pay for the feature in that regards, so development costs are reduced.

But it also meant it could be available to MS depending when they started work and how far through they were.
 
Would be very weird of Mark not to mention these features, especially if it had something years in advance not seen in AMD HW until 2022(?) and for MS to include supposedly inferior ones so promintently in their marketing before and minute after RDNA2 embargo dropped, but lets see :)

I am leaning towards no VRS and GE being earlier version of Mesh Shaders. I do so because :
  • MS would not brag about it in PR after 6000 series was shown
  • MS would not say they "waited" for these features, hinting others havent waited
  • Sony would not be able to put out SOC based dev kits in June 2019 if it had RDNA3 features which AMD will have in their hardware in only 3 years
  • DF would get confirmation it has those, which they hinted they didnt get
  • 2 SONY engineers implied this is the case
In any case I dont suppose it will make much of a difference.
First, "Geometry Engine" is AMD's name for the fixed function geometry hardware in their GPUs. This isn't a Sony term.

Second, an older version of the Geometry Engine could simply mean support for AMD's Primitive Shaders/Primitive Discard without support for Mesh Shaders.

Third, I remember reading an article about Unreal Engine 5 and Nanite and one of the Unreal Engine devs specifically mentioned that any geometry not being rendered through Nanite would utilize the primitive shader path on the PS5. He did not say "mesh shaders" but specifically mentioned "primitive shaders" and specifically mentioned "PS5".
 
I'm 99% sure that when Cerny mentioned "geometry engine" he was simply comparing the new GPU architecture to the PS4. Obviously, AMD has updated the fixed function geometry hardware with RDNA 2 versus what is in the PS4. People took this out of context and ran with it.
Actually could be the case yes, as he was comparing CUs with PS4 so perhaps this was extension of his comparison.
 

alright.. maybe a comparison is happening here. between WD1 and WD4
edit: there was a patch. So perhaps he's just checking out any differences since the patch. Perhaps Discord is not recording his games correctly.

summary:
4k30 + raytraced reflections
higher quality render assets (textures, cube maps, geometry)
improved shadow quality
VRR
reduced loading times

The face off on this one should be really interesting. 4k/30 with RT is RTX3090 level performance at all max PC settings so presumably the settings are lowered quite a lot. It'll be interesting to see what compromises have been made.
 
The funny thing is, my conspiracy theory is that where it was beneficial for RDNA2 it got pulled down into it. Sony wouldn't have to pay for the feature in that regards, so development costs are reduced.

But it also meant it could be available to MS depending when they started work and how far through they were.

It's not really a conspiracy theory...it's pretty much what Cerny said himself. Anything from their collaboration on the GPU that would be deemed beneficial for wide use in GPU's would be incorporated in RDNA2....

So the idea that features would be plucked out for RDNA3 seems like BS...

A lot this work was probably done in 2017/2018.....RX 6000 is releasing in almost 2021....
 
First, "Geometry Engine" is AMD's name for the fixed function geometry hardware in their GPUs. This isn't a Sony term.

Second, an older version of the Geometry Engine could simply mean support for AMD's Primitive Shaders/Primitive Discard without support for Mesh Shaders.

Third, I remember reading an article about Unreal Engine 5 and Nanite and one of the Unreal Engine devs specifically mentioned that any geometry not being rendered through Nanite would utilize the primitive shader path on the PS5. He did not say "mesh shaders" but specifically mentioned "primitive shaders" and specifically mentioned "PS5".
Yeah. IIRC "Primitive Shader" was mentioned by Mark Cerny when he was talking about the Geometry Engine in the Road to PS5 vid. Primitive Shader was introduced by AMD if I am not mistaking, during the Polaris or Vega Architectural reveal. Can't remember which exactly.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top