Baseless Next Generation Rumors with no Technical Merits [post E3 2019, pre GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

[Shifty Geezer]

The only way I can see one pulling away from the other in terms of power is if one of them makes the very risky decision to delay some HW lockdown so that they can take advantage of some potential new tech that might be available a few months after the other has locked down the specs for their platform. Risky because you might get into supply problems, delays etc.

The other option is choose to spend more on the hardware and be more expensive or make losses. If A chooses $400 of hardware for $400, and B chooses $500 for either $500 or $400 with $100 loss, B would be more powerful, potentially significantly so depending on where that money goes, but with a notable gamble.

 

[London Geezer]

Current generation AMD already did (x1 uses EDRAM+DDR, PS4 uses GDDR5).

My point is that I don’t see something like that happening again.

 

[London Geezer]

The other option is choose to spend more on the hardware and be more expensive or make losses. If A chooses $400 of hardware for $400, and B chooses $500 for either $500 or $400 with $100 loss, B would be more powerful, potentially significantly so depending on where that money goes, but with a notable gamble.

Obviously. I was working under the assumption of same budgets/price points. Which is a big assumption, but this is the Baseless thread

The exercise here is what can possibly happen at parity of budgets, and same release time frames? Not much differentiation, is my point.

 

[Xbat]

The other option is choose to spend more on the hardware and be more expensive or make losses. If A chooses $400 of hardware for $400, and B chooses $500 for either $500 or $400 with $100 loss, B would be more powerful, potentially significantly so depending on where that money goes, but with a notable gamble.

Yup this is the only way to get a big difference. I was under the impression that the teams working on the custom silicon didn't communicate with each other at all?
So there is still a small possibility for some mystery?

 

[BRiT]

So you're telling me there's a chance?

 

[London Geezer]

Anything can happen. MS or Sony can decide to do whatever they want to do, and I think that this is why both have said ‘custom Navi GPUs’ as a way to give themselves a buffer with what they could do if they shift some of their budgets here and there, and move price points.

It just came out quite revealing that they both said almost exactly the same words: custom Zen2, Custom Navi, “raytracing” but no real explanation of “How”. So in my mind, this could mean we’re very much in the same ballpark.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

MS actually stated hardware accelerated raytracing, whereas Sony said raytracing is supported. Which could mean they're different, although more likely means they're not.

I guess the place to look for differentiation is actually outside of AMD, with MS and Sony patents.

 

[RobertR1]

MS actually stated hardware accelerated raytracing, whereas Sony said raytracing is supported. Which could mean they're different, although more likely means they're not.

I guess the place to look for differentiation is actually outside of AMD, with MS and Sony patents.

I'm sure both will have a raytracing checkbox.

AMD isn't exactly knocking it out of the park with GPU advancement. People need to have realistic expectations.

Likely other generations, the biggest benefits will be:
- Closed development platform with defined specs
- Subsidized pricing compared to building it yourself
- Advanced toolset for developers

 

[Jay]

Most of the underlying tech will be the same, but that doesn't mean they didn't have different focuses, even whilst the goal is about gaming.

• Did they both think that RTRT will be performant enough to spend same die budget on
• Will MS go with shape 2.0 instead of AMD solution, believe AMD solution may carve of a couple CU's to deal with latency.
• Will Sony expand on ID buffer, and MS include things in pipeline to help with dynamic resolution
• Will MS include customisations for ML
• Did Sony make additional customizations for BC
• SS implementation differences

All these things cost die space and impact general performance.
So things will be similar, but I expect interesting differences.
Don't lose hope tech nerds.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

All these things cost die space and impact general performance.
So things will be similar, but I expect interesting differences.
Don't lose hope tech nerds.

It's going to result in negligible differences on screen though. The old console comparisons used to be the difference between PS2 and XB levels of doing things, and PS1 versus GC. Completely different architectures, hugely different results. Lots of pros and cons. Next-gen looks to be effectively discussing the spoiler shape and colour on two identical cars, and maybe the window tint colour will be different and we can discuss how that impacts the driver's performance.

At the moment, greatest place for differentiation looks to be RT solutions, if Sony go with their photon-mapping ideas.

 

[London Geezer]

Not to be too pessimistic, and we're still a year and a half away, but I also think that RTRT in consoles will be little more than a checkbox feature. And honestly, that's totally fine. It might be used here and there in very controlled situations, but you can't have your cake and eat it. You can't push for (ridiculous) 8K and 120fps but then mention RTRT. Heck, even at native 4K you're not gonna get much RTRT, if at all.

Also, a lot of us were hoping to see the end of 30fps, and if we have a choice between 4k60 and 4k30, we would always make the sacrifice required and go for 60fps, even if that means RT stays off.

Whatever happens, Realistic expectations = happy customers. Which is why both Sony and MS have been very vague so far.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm more optimistic in that respect. If there's suitable hardware in there, devs will find ways to optimise it and make a real difference through hybrid techniques. Improved AO and dynamic secondary illumination will make a big difference, and we're already seeing clever stuff in those domains in screenspace.

8K and 120 Hz are niche-game features. 8K Tetris, perhaps. 120 Hz for some arcade games, sure. That'd be very welcome. Wipeout 120 Hz! These upper limits are always little niches though. Like, PS3 could do 1080p and some games, notably 2D ones, were 1080p, but most were 720p (or worse!).

 

[London Geezer]

Sure, and as I said we're a long way away. What are we thinking is the latest they can lock down specs?

 

[RobertR1]

I'm more optimistic in that respect. If there's suitable hardware in there, devs will find ways to optimise it and make a real difference through hybrid techniques. Improved AO and dynamic secondary illumination will make a big difference, and we're already seeing clever stuff in those domains in screenspace.

Let's not conflate defined technology with "clever stuff" which is exactly what these marketing arms will do. Can you show me what evidence there is some breakthrough in HW that allows for real time ray tracing? I don't care about spinning circles around "clever stuff." Point me to direct HW advancement that allows for real time raytracing.

I have no doubt bro gamers next generation will be taken back by their "ray traced" games because daddy Sony and mommy Microsoft told them so.

I have a 2080ti so I'm fully aware of the benefits and (the massive) performance hit of ray tracing. It hasn't gotten any better so far.This is B3D after all so let's keep things close to facts.

 

[Ike Turner]

Sure, and as I said we're a long way away. What are we thinking is the latest they can lock down specs?

6 months before release (clocks can still be tweaked by then), 1 year before release for major components like RAM configuration etc..

 

[Jay]

It's going to result in negligible differences on screen though. The old console comparisons used to be the difference between PS2 and XB levels of doing things, and PS1 versus GC. Completely different architectures, hugely different results. Lots of pros and cons. Next-gen looks to be effectively discussing the spoiler shape and colour on two identical cars, and maybe the window tint colour will be different and we can discuss how that impacts the driver's performance.

At the moment, greatest place for differentiation looks to be RT solutions, if Sony go with their photon-mapping ideas.

Do I think there will be huge on screen differences? Nope, that's not my expectations.

I was talking about the fact that there can still be many worth while differences even though they have both gone AMD.
I'm talking about the tech more than on screen what gamers can see results. The things we like discussing here.
I wouldn't rule out being able to see differences though, but due to the way multi plats are developed, I doubt they will be huge though, probably just drop resolution.
Will be exclusives that may show it. Trouble is then art direction comes into play.

Would have to be something crazy like a huge difference in RTRT implementation and performance.

 

[RobertR1]

What I'd like to see next generation is less about raw specs but key execution in a couple of areas:

- HDR support into game engines following HDR standards and not just "billy's version" of what he thinks HDR should look like
- Variable refresh rate in games. HDMI 2.1 and future displays will have VRR into a lot of sets so let's not get hung up on the circle jerk of fixed frame rates. These things are meant to last 5-7 years so plan ahead
- Respectful of color gamut. Based on what I know, a lot of the large studios are now using calibrated displays for development which is great. Let's hope that trend continues. No more black crush, blown color palettes, blown out whites and so on. Developers, your games will look a lot better if you stick to standards

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I have a 2080ti so I'm fully aware of the benefits and (the massive) performance hit of ray tracing.

You're only aware of the benefits and performance hits of current raytracing solutions, which are first-generation based on existing offline-rendering concepts shoe-horned into games not designed for them. We've already seen new developments such as screen-space secondary illumination.

And that's a mod on top of an engine, rather than an engine designed from the ground up to support intrinsic ray-traced data. The people working in realtime graphics are utterly brilliant, and they will find utterly brilliant ways to leverage this new information. Compare and contrast first gen titles on any console with EOL titles, where new software concepts on the same hardware results in huge improvements, and apply that to your expectations of ray-tracing acceleration.

 

[London Geezer]

What I'd like to see next generation is less about raw specs but key execution in a couple of areas:

- HDR support into game engines following HDR standards and not just "billy's version" of what he thinks HDR should look like
- Variable refresh rate in games. HDMI 2.1 and future displays will have VRR into a lot of sets so let's not get hung up on the circle jerk of fixed frame rates. These things are meant to last 5-7 years so plan ahead
- Respectful of color gamut. Based on what I know, a lot of the large studios are now using calibrated displays for development which is great. Let's hope that trend continues. No more black crush, blown color palettes, blown out whites and so on. Developers, your games will look a lot better if you stick to standards

I agree wholeheartedly, I'm tired of game devs spending so much time on the tech of the game, to make them look and sound amazing, but then completely ignoring the final, very important part which is the delivery of all those pixels to our TVs and eyes, in a way that makes sense, with no blown highlights or raised blacks, and all the mess in between. I call it the 'final mastering' of the games (a bit like movie being mastered for distribution), and I know that it is a job in itself but it's really, REALLY important.

 

[scently]

You're only aware of the benefits and performance hits of current raytracing solutions, which are first-generation based on existing offline-rendering concepts shoe-horned into games not designed for them. We've already seen new developments such as screen-space secondary illumination.

And that's a mod on top of an engine, rather than an engine designed from the ground up to support intrinsic ray-traced data. The people working in realtime graphics are utterly brilliant, and they will find utterly brilliant ways to leverage this new information. Compare and contrast first gen titles on any console with EOL titles, where new software concepts on the same hardware results in huge improvements, and apply that to your expectations of ray-tracing acceleration.

And even so with most update to existing games with RT the performance cost keeps coming down with optimizations.

I think its fantastic that both consoles have RT support. MS has announced hardware support and I expect Sony's to be hardware based too. The only thing to know now is if they both have similar hardware based on AMD's design or they are both custom implementation developed independently of each other. If that is the case then it will be interesting to see which is more performant.
Ultimately I think its actually to the benefit of PC gaming and advancement of RTRT that it is a feature of both consoles.