shredenvain
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Digital Foundry Microsoft Xbox Scorpio Reveal [2017: 04-06, 04-11, 04-15, 04-16]
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Not sure how they can do so without violating that patent. Maybe a technicality given the patent links the IDs with the Z buffer?
Okay I agree the patent is the proof Sony definitely owns this, but could MS still have helpers in hardware that can be useful to accelerate checkerboard, not necessarily an ID Buffer, maybe something else? I'm trying to make sense of DF statement it has checkerboard hardware support "just like the PS4 Pro". I really think DF will have to either tell us what they mean, or post a correction.
Most tech-type method patents really don't have a lot of value as they are typically very easy to engineer around. If you drop 1 step, out of say 20, then the patent doesn't apply to your process. Of course the ones that do have value and are hard to engineer around can have enormous value.
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Sure, but were these implementations indistinguishable from native or did they have artifacts and softness around the edges? Looking at the recent frostbite method, using ID buffer, they compared zoomed out sections. We're seeing 1800p-CB being almost indistinguishable from native 1800p. The question I guess is how much worse it will be on platforms without ID buffer (since they said frostbite would do CB even on PS4/XB1), and/or how much processing overhead will be necessary to reach a similar IQ (if possible at all).
Well the question is how much does the ID buffer help further reduce performance hit when doing checkerboard technique.
I'm still curious though how many developers would use a checkerboard technique on Scorpio instead of just going with native resolution..
I think it will depend on the engines, most third party AAA games would use the big ones, and those will definitely have a good CB implementation optimised for each platforms. Indies might not. I wonder about unity. Also all currently released titles will not go through the trouble of upgrading the engine, so they might improve much more easily on scorpio. Resolution scaling already implemented, etc...
For new games, if they use CB on pro, but not on scorpio, wouldn't they be making scorpio power advantage disappear in a puff of smoke? Of course not really, because the bandwidth advantage and 2.5GB additional memory remain very good assets. But it could be negligible.
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Yeah, but as Shifty said patents cover methods, i.e. how you do something not what you do. Generally patents aren't really problematic unless somebody nails a very efficient but simple implementation for a complex problem (plus variants), for example MPEG for over a decade. Anything can be engineered around but you typically end up adding complexity which is the enemy of engineers everywhere. Solutions should only be as complex as they absolutely need to be!
Yes. They were done in software and didn't use an ID buffer. The ID buffer in hardware is something new and Sony seemingly is set to have exclusive use of it, requiring others not licensing the tech to implement the ID buffer in software.
It's a bit shocking to read a patent and see something actually new and patentable! Also odd that this is Sony and not AMD.
Oh, and I've just seen the name! Registered to Tobias Berghoff, @T.B. Back in the day he was porting Sacred 2 to PS3. Then landed a job at Sony. His patents show work on AA and reconstruction. This ID buffer was actually invented 3 years ago given the patent date, just missing PS4. Maybe early work on PS4 engines led to this idea?
Maybe if we chant @T.B. enough, we can summon him to weigh in on what the ID buffer brings?
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They designed custom graphics hardware for two consoles so it's not inconceivable some of those engineers are still around and contributing ideas like this. It may be AMD would come up with this in due course but it's also quite likely their partner had engineers solely working on solutions to the resolution problem and just beat them to it.
I forgot to paste here another patent by Tobias Berghoff, it's in the other thread. It's targeting 4K rendering.
Method for efficient construction of high resolution display buffers
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150287231A1/en
Priority date 2014-04-05 Filing date 2014-04-05 Publication date 2015-10-08
If you look at the cross-reference section, it has these patents for PS4 Pro and also patents of the rendering method for PSVR, it seems Neo and Morpheus were developed alongside each other.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150287239A1/en
Method for efficient construction of high resolution display buffers
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150287231A1/en
Priority date 2014-04-05 Filing date 2014-04-05 Publication date 2015-10-08
If you look at the cross-reference section, it has these patents for PS4 Pro and also patents of the rendering method for PSVR, it seems Neo and Morpheus were developed alongside each other.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150287239A1/en
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On screenshots. In motion it is different. The higher the number of frames per second, the more it looks like a native resolution. 30fps are significantly more blurry than 60fps.
Wrong thread. This thread is discussion Scorpio. The ID buffer is only raised as we research where it came from and discuss relative impact.
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The 4K texture situation on PC is not great. A few games have good texture support (Crysis 3, Witcher 2 - 8K textures) but for most games you will need to go to modding, including the Witcher 3. Some games fall in-between like Skyrim and Fallout 4 which have official texture packs, with Fallout 4's texture pack weighing in at 55Gb but where they are also inconsistent with some textures being much improved, others not at all, others just marginally. Fallout 4 with the HD texture pack "requires" a 8Gb graphics card. It'll run on less in most places fairly ok with some drops here and there but there are places where it'll stutter like crazy with less than 6Gb.
I'd like to think that Scorpio (and to a lesser degree Pro) may actually help as they're more platforms pushing ~4K where I hope devs are thinking about rethinking texture usage. Somebody will mention "infinite resolution" or algorithmically generated textures before the day is out!
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