General Next Generation Rumors and Discussions [Post GDC 2020]

[Betanumerical]

Maybe the restriction is not a product of some issue with the actual configuration of the CUs. But rather RDNA’s CUs poorly mimic the performance of GCN’s CUs in some form or fashion, and the frequency of a RDNA CU must be boosted to compensate.

Whilst I have no absolute proof if this was how they went, the GitHub leaks indicates that the chip runs at the exact same clock speed as the prior consoles with the same number of CU's activated, running in a special mode to mimic the performance and behaviour of GCN. This indicates to me that the emulation is likely pretty much spot on and shouldn't require a huge boost to frequency.

 

[Rangers]

Cerny did advise people not to buy PCIe 4.0 drives now.
Prices should be different come November/December.

Better yet, prices should be much different once you actually need to purchase a PCIe 4.0 SSD add-on after your initial storage ran out, unless you plan on installing 10 games on day one.

Also, Sony is letting people put in there a PCIe 4.0 SSD that follows the 2280 M.2 industry standard so that several 3rd party suppliers can compete with their offers.
Don't be surprised if price-per-GB on PS5-certified SSDs will be lower than the slower but custom single-supplier option you'll get for the SeriesX/S/?.

Yep. It mighty be higher initially, but over time one would expect the Sony solution to be more cost effective.

I'll be watching carefully to see how scummy MS is with the proprietary price gouging...I am hoping for $160, but maybe being too optimistic.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yep. It mighty be higher initially, but over time one would expect the Sony solution to be more cost effective.

I'll be watching carefully to see how scummy MS is with the proprietary price gouging...I am hoping for $160, but maybe being too optimistic.

The last time Sony made the mistake of using proprietary media was with the Vita. It might have been one of the strongest reasons for the console to fail.

 

[AzBat]

I'll be watching carefully to see how scummy MS is with the proprietary price gouging...I am hoping for $160, but maybe being too optimistic.

Free with 1 year subscription to Game Pass Ultimate.

Tommy McClain

 

[dobwal]

Whilst I have no absolute proof if this was how they went, the GitHub leaks indicates that the chip runs at the exact same clock speed as the prior consoles with the same number of CU's activated, running in a special mode to mimic the performance and behaviour of GCN. This indicates to me that the emulation is likely pretty much spot on and shouldn't require a huge boost to frequency.

LOL. Well, have to kick that thought out the door.

I’ll add the caveat that Cerny never described a basic BC mode but rather enhanced BC with testing dealing with running BC at boosted frequency.

 

[dobwal]

The last time Sony made the mistake of using proprietary media was with the Vita. It might have been one of the strongest reasons for the console to fail.

There has never been a gen without some form of proprietary storage. From memory cards, game cartridges to HDDs, proprietary storage has always been part of consoles in some fashion.

 

[Rangers]

There has never been a gen without some form of proprietary storage. From memory cards, game cartridges to HDDs, proprietary storage has always been part of consoles in some fashion.

Not HDD's last gen PS/Xbox.

I dunno, was there some weird memory card on any?

Not proprietary on Switch either?

 

[Xbat]

There is nothing special about Sony hardware that makes it easier to cost reduce.

Other than the APU potentially being smaller?

 

[RobertR1]

Other than the APU potentially being smaller?

Which can be countered with yields due to gpu clocks being so high. Leaks about yields will be interesting to keep an eye on.

 

[RobertR1]

Has DF or anybody tried to mimic next gen specs by building a PC(s)???

Of course it would be an exercise in futility, but still a fun one.

They could either try to overclock an 5700XT to the max (might work for PS5) or maybe use an Nvidia GPU clocked to 12 TF for Series X, like a 2080 or 2080 Ti. The 2080 clocked various ways might be a better idea, as they could simulate ray tracing in the consoles as well.

Of course Zen 2. And they could run a top of the line SSD.

Again of course they couldn't simulate games programmed for a blazing fast SSD baseline or anything, but it'd still be fun. There's a post in Era about how Doom Eternal loads in like 1s on an SSD and is well optimized for SSD, so that might be a good taste.

I am quite sure they're working on this video as they've done similar things.

can do:
3700 down clocked
5700xt with power mods under water to hit high clocks
Memory would be the most difficult to match up
Pci-e 4.0 ssd
X570 board

the problem the sits with consoles games being very much coded to the hardware whereas the OS and overhead on the PC makes a direct comparison quite difficult.

In terms of raw theoretical output, the new gen on consoles are not even the top of end of exiting pc hardware from a cpu, gpu and mem standpoint. The difference being a closed box with a large team building custom development tools for maximizing performance will allow it to compete with current gen top of line pc hardware: 9900k + 2080ti. If the gameplay experience of the XSX can’t match that combo, I’d be disappointed.

 

[Xbat]

Which can be countered with yields due to gpu clocks being so high. Leaks about yields will be interesting to keep an eye on.

I don't think yields would be a problem on a new node.

 

[RobertR1]

I don't think yields would be a problem on a new node.

It’s not a new node. It’s 7nm “enhanced.”

7nm+ EUV, which would be a true node change, is not being used for either console or rdna2 as a whole.

 

[Xbat]

It’s not a new node. It’s 7nm “enhanced.”

7nm+ EUV, which would be a true node change, is not being used for either console or rdna2 as a whole.

I'm talking future node, that's the whole premise of my point.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I’ll add the caveat that Cerny never described a basic BC mode...

Yes he did. It was implicit. He talked about AMD adding BC, and then went on to say that boosting clockspeeds added additional complexity. We also have the blog clarification:

We’re expecting backward compatible titles will run at a boosted frequency on PS5 so that they can benefit from higher or more stable frame rates and potentially higher resolutions. We’re currently evaluating games on a title-by-title basis to spot any issues that need adjustment from the original software developers.

They expect games to run at boosted frequencies, but they may not, falling back to the standard clock speeds of the originals as per the GitHub testing. It's a pretty clear picture of a next-gen architecture designed to support last-gen games and being designed around that requirement. Without the hardware abstraction of XBox, and with the hardware not able to cope with any significant divergence, we've got a system that somewhat PS4 legacy bound. PS4 > PS4 Pro had limited scope to advance, and then on to PS5 has more limited scope.

This puts Sony in a tricksy place for next gen. Are they going to go with a clean break? Software emulation? Or BC hardware again? Whereas MS can just roll on through as they're doing, free to pick whatever hardware they want so long as their VMs can map okay. The penalties of abstraction have actually become less than the penalties of hardware BC. Sony's short-term win with PS4 being notably faster than XBO puts them at a disadvantage from PS4P onwards.

 

[Barrabas]

Not sure it should be to much of a concern. As I understand from Cerny's presentation, BC is mostly handled by AMD going from earlier GPU architecture to newer (like GCN to RDNA) and any additional custom adjustments that Sony wants is implemented and what they don't need is removed. He also said that if custom changes that Sony want is beneficial for AMD, they can be implemented in their PC GPU series.

To add to that, it might be harder for Sony to break away from AMD, let's hope that are not cursed by this 18 and 36 CU issue.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not sure it should be to much of a concern.

The lack of abstraction seems to mean that PS5 was limited to 36 CUs. How long will that limit extend? PS5 needs a decent abstraction so devs can't rely on specific CUs or registry files, and have to access the GPU through a degree of abstraction so that it can be replaced. The old idea of hitting the console hardware is dead. For a platform with longevity in its library, abstraction is pretty essential.

 

[milk]

I hope sony learned the value of a better software virtualization layer with their troubles buildung ps5 and are using that lesson on it. Coding to the metal is cool and all, but at the level of performance and hardware complexity we have reached, it is hardly worth it.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

I hope sony learned the value of a better software virtualization layer with their troubles buildung ps5 and are using that lesson on it. Coding to the metal is cool and all, but at the level of performance and hardware complexity we have reached, it is hardly worth it.

This cannot be said enough times. If they truly want to be forward compatible like PCs, there is no other way, even at the cost of some performance.

PD: They've been investing in Vulkan. Leverage that investment.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Also, if we want to get really funky, an abstraction layer could be ported to other devices. Like, say, a Windows PC. And then you could sell your games on that platform too...

 

[Lurkmass]

This puts Sony in a tricksy place for next gen. Are they going to go with a clean break? Software emulation? Or BC hardware again? Whereas MS can just roll on through as they're doing, free to pick whatever hardware they want so long as their VMs can map okay. The penalties of abstraction have actually become less than the penalties of hardware BC. Sony's short-term win with PS4 being notably faster than XBO puts them at a disadvantage from PS4P onwards.

Umm, no they really can't ? Custom D3D on Xbox One exposes raw GCN2 ISA much like GNM does on PS4. Aside from maybe a couple of registers, they're largely the same GPU architecture. On consoles they can bypass the entire shader compiler.

As for why games aren't able to take automatic advantage of boost clocks, that's likely down to their reliance on timing specific behaviour on previous hardware.