Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[JasonLD]

I thought the trend was that most of the floating point processing intensive stuffs were deferred to APUs, and PS4 seems to be heading that way (CPU+APU+dedicated GPU).
Microsoft seems to be going toward that Sony was trying to do with PS3, with many core CPU optimized for such tasks. Just feels like MS is kind of going backward in some ways.

 

[Albofighter]

If Sony is using 4 gb of gddr5, what would be an effective way to use ram for the OS? Maybe add 1-2 gb of ddr3 just for the OS? I know someone mentioned that they can use the unified ram like vita to pause the game when it uses OS but it doesn't sound feasible for ps4. I don't want them to use gddr5 reserves for the OS as that would be a waste of fast ram and there's a good chance xbox is using 8gb for a reason.

What about if they use 16gb flash memory for the OS? Is that possible? Doesn't ps3 super slim have 16gb flash? I'm trying to see what a good alternative would be so that they use fast ram purely for games and cheap ram for the OS but enough of it that Sony wouldn't have problems upgrading the OS with features and services during the console's lifecycle.

 

[Shaderhacker]

So the "secret sauce" of 720 is VTE? Real time ray tracing for lighting? Sound cool! I searched VTE but I can't find much talk on it. Is this something MS is cooking up that's like brand new? I don't see how these VTEs just lept frogged GPUs and can do what GPUs still can't do.

But it's cool regardless, when will we see VTEs on desktop GPUs? I'm sure there's a sizeable market for being able to do raytracing in real time for lighting no?

Impossible. Try RT for doing limited recursion (i.e. A-star algorithm or some pathfinding AI).

 

[Rylan]

Found this interesting, apologies if it has no business here

So Xbox 720 hardware is on this diagram:
- super advanced tech by IBM-AMD-MS. Design started back in 2007 as you said in 2010.
- It has APU+GPU on every SOC(system on a chip).
- It has 2 of this SOCs
- Each CPU in APU has 8 cores with 4 thread in each. So tolal we have 2xSOC x 8Cores x 4 threads = 16cores x 4thread=64 threads.
- Each GPU in SOC is 8xxx GPU(Mars or Venus) with advanced tech not available on PC some time
- Each SOC has 1.5Gb of GdDR5 memory with additiond 5 gb of shared ddr3/ddr4.
- Each SOC has EDRAM. Previosly you said about 110 mb
- Xbox has some other hardware features. Like RayTraycing chip(VTE on this picture).
- The goals of the system design are - universal for different type of tasks, easy to parralellism, easy to fully load, zero bottlenecks an future proof as Xbox 360 design with low energy consumtion..
- Some part will be upgradable later.
- It should be about 4+terraflops. Of couse it will be better of every high end PC available in 2013-2014 and maybe 2015. With optimisation it have to be on pair with PC 8 years.
- There will be Kinect 2.0
- There will be illumiroom tech as additional feature after the launch.

Oops forgot the link, can't find the edit button either..

http://www.psu.com/forums/showthrea...ith-parts-ahead-of-time?p=5987489#post5987489

 

[LXFBN]

~256MB of eDRAM, ~32 GCN2 CUs, 5GB HMC RAM + 3GB GDDR5

Not an ounce of truth in that.

Found this interesting, apologies if it has no business here

Nonsense like that has no place here.

 

[patsu]

It's just a big concept. Those people in the link may not know what PS4 is to begin with. Sony will have their own grand vision. No point comparing these console speculations and fake numbers in a tech thread. The real products and games are what matters.

 

[itsmydamnation]

what are the requirements to go from calling something tech to advanced tech?
then what are the requirement to go from advanced tech to super advanced tech?

or is this more a tree sytle name

			Super advanced tech
				|
		--------------------------------
		|				|
	   Super tech			   advanced tech
		|				|
	----------------		----------------
	|		|		|		|
	Tech		Super		advanced 	tech

 

[bbot]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01...dly-leaked-to-nvidia-by-former-amd-executives

The IGN artcle at the link above is able AMD suing former executives . But it also claims that Durango is a PowerPC mated to a modified HD6670. Oh noes!! A 768 gflops weakling gpu!! Guve me a 1.2Tflops gpu over this anyday., I'm sorry about complaining about 1.2TF being too little!!

 

[XpiderMX]

Oops forgot the link, can't find the edit button either..

http://www.psu.com/forums/showthrea...ith-parts-ahead-of-time?p=5987489#post5987489

Do you know who is the source?

- mistercteam

aka

- misterxmedia

 

[Rangers]

32 MB ES RAM @ 102 GB/S
8 GB DDR @ 68 GB/S

So basically 170 GB/s for memory is what the rumors point to so far. This is fine.
This would mean that Durango is not gimped in memory speed.

Supposedly these are legit.

I like it. 102 seems low on the ESRAM tho, and not even much more than the DDR. Less than the EDRAM in 360. Less than the PS4's GDDR5 by almost half. That's weird. Edit: ahh, ERP has it covered.

I like 32MB tho, a very good number that doesn't go overboard.

But am I right in thinking 32MB=render targets only=this ESRAM is not going to be particularly flexible?

Are 12 ROPs enough @ 800MHz? Even a Radeon 7750 (512 shaders/800 MHz) has 16 rops.

Well at a glance 12 ROPS at 800 is going to well more than double Xenos 8 ROPS at 500. Actually it's 2.4X. And 1080P is 2.25X pixels so it works pretty perfect.

 

[MrFox]

If Mr Fox is right?
Then perhaps it isn't a SoC after all.

What I mean is that SRAM doesn't have any intrinsic speed, there's no capacitance or complicated settling time or refresh like Dram, it's six pure transistors! So the maximum speed is whatever the process can do. I suppose they would design it whatever way they need it, I can't see it as anything other than a pure brute force memory, like registers. I think the Cell Local Store is exactly that, just a big SRAM array, but nobody ever called that eSRAM.

Also, because it's on the same die, there's no limit to the width of the interface, which we don't know so the speed is not something we can know, I suppose they would design it to saturate whatever is on the other end... the speed is whatever they want.

 

[Rangers]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01...dly-leaked-to-nvidia-by-former-amd-executives

The IGN artcle at the link above is able AMD suing former executives . But it also claims that Durango is a PowerPC mated to a modified HD6670. Oh noes!! A 768 gflops weakling gpu!! Guve me a 1.2Tflops gpu over this anyday., I'm sorry about complaining about 1.2TF being too little!!

Scott Lowe (IGN tech editor who keeps putting out the 6670 claim) is an idiot.

I dont think he even knows what a 6670 is in any real sense. He's an embarrassment of a tech editor.

IF these new ESRAM/DDR bandwidth numbers are true, and supposedly they are, we really are learning almost everything about Durango now. MS back to being that leaky ship I guess, but we are less than 1 year out where 360 stuff leaked almost 2 yrs out so it's to be expected imo.

 

[Proelite]

Well at a glance 12 ROPS at 800 is going to well more than double Xenos 8 ROPS at 500. Actually it's 2.4X. And 1080P is 2.25X pixels so it works pretty perfect.

It'll have at least 16 ROPS, even the 7770 has 16 ROPS.

Prediction for Durango's transistor count.

CPU: ~500 million transistors
GPU: ~2.500 billion
Special Sauces including Esram, audio dsp: ~500 million

Orbis:

CPU: ~500 million
GPU: ~3 billion
Special Sauces: ~200 million

 

[Delta9]

Was this posted?

Originally Posted by bluedevilstudent View Post
Any ways, since Durango specs are going to be leaked anyday now by either Polygon / SuperDae, I'll make my final prediction.

8 x jaguar cores at 1.6ghz
8GB of DDR3 256 bit bus >60 gb/s
1.2 teraflop gpu with >=16 mb of Esram
Blitter, Zlib decompressor, video decoder, hardware scaler
audio dsp

100% confident.

No Mistercteam level of expectations from me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Too high on the memory, and at least one thing one one of the platforms that no one has gotten yet.

-Charlie

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=175495&postcount=171

 

[(((interference)))]

Did he post that before or after thuway posted his bandwidth specs on GAF?

Prob before, since he got the eSRAM figure wrong, 16 MB is way too low - I think he might be just going with the most credible speculation from B3D.

Lol, but isn't Charlie showing how full of crap he is,'too high on the memory" indeed

 

[(((interference)))]

Also, no one has problems with the PS3's bandwidth of 192 GB/s? It's quicker than the combined DDR and ESRAM bandwidth of Durango.

But then they are rumoured to be using stacking, so perhaps it is. I don't really know anything about memory speeds.

 

[MrFox]

Wow, he called it a Blitter, it's really spreading
My dev kit is the old model, the blitter chip is called Fat Lady on the motherboard, but that chip is genuinely called a blitter by the engineers...

Also, no one has problems with the PS3's bandwidth of 192 GB/s? It's quicker than the combined DDR and ESRAM bandwidth of Durango.

But then they are rumoured to be using stacking, so perhaps it is. I don't really know anything about memory speeds.

What's wrong with 192GB/s, it's in line with 256bit GDDR5, isn't it?
I don't think it can be compared that way, because the eSRAM would have an amazingly low latency, a huge number of banks, granularity, and it could do read-modify-write like crazy. It's clearly superior regardless of bandwidth. I would guess the bandwidth cited is simply the maximum that the GPU can do. (if it's the real number)

 

[(((interference)))]

No I'm happy if you guys think it's plausible, not familiar enough to tell whether it was too high or not.

I have no idea where the blitter came from, it wasn't even a rumour, someone must have picked it up from the custom hardware thread, posted it on GAF or one of the other fora only, for it to be regurgitated as a rumour now.

 

[Rangers]

It'll have at least 16 ROPS, even the 7770 has 16 ROPS.

Prediction for Durango's transistor count.

CPU: ~500 million transistors
GPU: ~2.500 billion
Special Sauces including Esram, audio dsp: ~500 million

Orbis:

CPU: ~500 million
GPU: ~3 billion
Special Sauces: ~200 million

some seem too high on durango, off the top of my head 7770 is ~1.5b. even adding 2 cu's shouldn't add much.

and you've already dedicated transistors to special sauces so that cant be added to the gpu...

IF Orbis is really 4 steamroller cores though, it could have quite a lot more die area than Durango. Something I've given some thought to recently. The die area difference between pitcairn and Cape Verde is also substantial (230mm vs 130mm IIRC)

It's too early to say but Orbis pricing could be shaping up higher I guess. If Ms can come in with similar performance for less, obviously that'd be a win.

 

[bkilian]

I really think people should move away from flops as a measure of performance, especially for the Durango. I think everyone is privy to the fact that not all flops are equal, and Durango flops are the "best" flops you'll seen yet. If my understanding of some general technical details are correct, they're substantially better.

Bkilian? What say you?

BKilian say FLOPS great for comparing protein folding performance. Crap for comparing Game Console performance.

And seriously, I go out for one day and you guys add 8 pages to the thread?