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

[Shifty Geezer]

Possibly. It'd certainly make it harder. As others have pointed out, much to my disbelief, some devs could select specific CUs for jobs and stuff at such a low level, that I imagined just wasn't worth it. However, in my mind, the same way software emulators can remap instructions to even completely different hardware, I envision some hardware re-routing/emulating type Thing. Because both hardwares are fixed and known, it'd make that process a lot easier then those poor yet incredible folk who create emulators for PC that somehow manage to actually work and play PS2 games on DX hardware. Effectively, potentially, possibly, Sony can include a PS4 GNM driver for PS5 that should be able to handle the same instructions, or stick something in a custom firmware emulation unit that just deals with handling calls.

Given the rumour of Sony working with AMD on RDNA, and RDNA 1 having compatibility intended with GCN, perhaps Sony were there making sure they could get low-level PS4 GNM code working on their future GPU? ¯\(°_o)/¯

 

[turkey]

Any chance PS5 will have a coprocessor? I know this has been oft discussed, but with some certain patent apps published in late 2019 it may be worth another look. It's a bit of a stretch.

Here's a link to one of the patents.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2019/0347030.html

Could this relate to VR? It seems like VR controllers and or hand tracking could be a lot of data to send over the wire. Also quite a bit to process so some local resolve if the raw data be beneficial in both cpu load and input latency?

I must confess the actual patent test seems like the same words on random repeat so I could be way off in scope or actual planned operation.

 

[turkey]

But - and excuse my utter ignorance here - if some games have been coded at the lowest level, not quite to the metal but as close as it gets, then surely that messes up BC?

From what I recall devs on Xbox (the OG) used non published Nvidia operations and BC then with 360 was a nightmare even with Nvidia licensing they learned a lesson. This is probably massively wrong but it's not the techy thread.

The 360 I believe enforced only certain api calls in retail games to Microsoft controlled the hardware use to known paths. Ps3 I believe allowed more direct calls to lower levels if the devs wished to take that on.

Xbox one has a vCPU and vGPU probably as an extension of the lessons learned over thoes prior two generations. We know Xbox One was designed with 360 BC from the silicon stage, it stands to reason decisions were taken to aid future BC work for the Xbox One.

Sony may be a generation (or slightly more) behind on this. Cernys patent on BC sounds like a proposed solution to a problem Microsoft may have engineered mostly around 8 years ago.

 

[VitaminB6]

Cernys patent on BC sounds like a proposed solution to a problem Microsoft may have engineered mostly around 8 years ago.

ModEdit: quote tag fix

This also gives MS a slight advantage when it comes to designing new hardware. Take the OneX for example, MS was able to simulate the Esram used in XB1 with new hardware, in this case GDDR5. Where XB360 was not X86 based they did have to use some forward thinking when designing XB1 and included some hardware to help translate PowerPC code to X86 I believe (as well as repackaging games) but that shouldn't be an issue where newer systems will no longer be using exotic hardware going forward. Sony's backwards compatibility is almost entirely hardware based, so you have to wonder if that impacts the choices they can make when designing a new console. To what degree it has an impact for Sony I'm not sure but MS certainly has more freedom with their virtualized OS.

 

[mpg1]

Xbox 360 compatibility on Xbox One wasn't full compatibility though.

I'm under the impression that these new systems will be fully compatible with last gen. Full interoperability.

 

[VitaminB6]

"Xbox 360 compatibility on Xbox One wasn't full compatibility though."

It wasn't and as I mentioned MS had to do some forward thinking when designing the XB1 to make BC possible but virtualization played a key role.


"I'm under the impression that these new systems will be fully compatible with last gen. Full interoperability."​

Like I said I'm not sure what type of impact it has for Sony, and it may not be a big factor for them when choosing hardware for their next console. As we know RDNA is fully compatible with GCN so it may be fairly straight forward. I do think the strategy MS has adopted for BC is more advanced and a bit more flexible though.

 

[BRiT]

Xbox 360 compatibility on Xbox One wasn't full compatibility though.

Due to license agreements, not due to technical obstacles.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't think that's true, unless you have a more up-to-date source than this one:
https://www.pocket-lint.com/games/n...xbox-360-game-is-not-backwards-compatible-yet

So that's why, when we got the opportunity to talk to Spencer at the recent Xbox Spring Showcase event in San Francisco, we asked about backwards compatibility, why it takes so long to get games onto the supported list.

"[It's a long process] especially when you’re working with third-party games," he explained to us.

"If you put out something and it’s not running well, it will reflect negatively on the publisher. So we want to get approval from the third-parties before we release them.

"You also have to make sure it runs well in backwards compatibility mode. We have one of our testing team run through every level of the game, just to make sure that there is nothing not working exactly the way we expect."

Each game needed work, rather than full fire-and-forget compatibility. The expectation is next-gen will just run this gen games without any per-title intervention being needed.

 

[mpg1]

I don't think that's true, unless you have a more up-to-date source than this one:
https://www.pocket-lint.com/games/n...xbox-360-game-is-not-backwards-compatible-yet

Each game needed work, rather than full fire-and-forget compatibility. The expectation is next-gen will just run this gen games without any per-title intervention being needed.

Right though I believe on a technical level the game code itself wasn't being altered. The general compatibility software itself did have to be optimized for titles. It was more than just licensing.

But I am assuming there is a much stronger degree of interoperability between generations this time. Basically 100%.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yeah, it's the difference between compatibility via abstraction (PC running a Windows game) versus emulation (PC running a PS2 emulator). BC is a combination of the two, with better abstraction increasing overhead on current-gen titles but decreasing the cost and complexity of running older games. For MS, it certainly seems the abstraction doesn't have a massive impact on performance so a real win for their investment.

 

[iroboto]

forgot which thread we were talking about expandable SSD storage for next gen consoles.
hope this is the one.
probably need to shift this to baseless I think

 

[AlNom]

forgot which thread we were talking about expandable SSD storage for next gen consoles.
hope this is the one.
probably need to shift this to baseless I think

What's the tl;dw?

 

[Jay]

forgot which thread we were talking about expandable SSD storage for next gen consoles.
hope this is the one.
probably need to shift this to baseless I think

Nothing he said has any factual basis, so should be in the baseless thread I would say.

He covered a few topics.
Regarding expandable storage he said not to count (think it was) Seagate out as MS uses a lot of there drives for Xbox and that the Samsung partnership probably didn't relate to drives or chips.

 

[iroboto]

What's the tl;dw?

the tl;dw -> send to baseless

nothing even rumour worthy. I linked the video on the basis of the YouTube thumbnail. Which we used the surface pro X expandable ssd earlier in one of our threads.

 

[London Geezer]

Question.

What’s the word on playing PS4 games with “PS5 enhancements” (bit like Pro patches) so that, say, all of us buying FF7 and TLOU2 can enjoy extras (RT? Please) when playing on ps5?

They wouldn’t make us wait years for remasters, would they??

 

[bgroovy]

No official word, but I think there's a decent chance game will get PS4 Pro-style patches to take advantage of the more powerful hardware for increased resolution/framerate.

 

[iroboto]

I would expect ps5 to get 4Pro enhancements immediately. Ps5 based enhancements on ps4 titles I suspect will arrive. Perhaps over time and on a per title basis.

 

[AlNom]

Enchantment

 

[anexanhume]

Enchantment

Enchantment!

 

[Silenti]

RGT video has a "leaked" GDC presentation summary that is about "dedicated hardware accelerated 3d spatial audio". Borderlands 3 team apparently doing some of the presentation. Stated it was created with Dolby. Sory, shit kindle touchscreen typing.