General Next Generation Rumors and Discussions [Post GDC 2020]

sounds really creepy

 

Sounds like Aibo



edit: I take it back! Thats indeed very creepy! It is taking personal information and because it is under a cute cover it is easier to consent. It also potentially creates alienation with real people and more emotional attachment with a thing, a product.....that doesnt have feelings or consciousness.
Aibo isnt taking such information for a company's consumption at least

It sounds super interesting and complex though.

edit 2: https://us.aibo.com/feature/feature3.html
I take that back too. Aibo is also collecting data.
Seems like it is based on a similar concept and ideas. It is probably using the same tech modified for different needs.

 

Sony could have lie and never talk about the variable frequency. There is a drawback like they said when the worst-case games will arrive it will lower the frequency. Sony will talk when they decide they are ready to do it probably May or June.

For the SSD, this is probably the main component of the machine and the first element they work on during PS5 R&D all patents are from 2015/2016 and Mark Cerny talked about 2015/2016 in Road to PS5 for SSD R&D. And he said the PS5 R&D began in 2015. They sacrificed some GPU power to have the I/O complex and the Tempest Engine on the die. They decided to go with a tinier APU for cost and maybe they will be able to launch the PS5 at a cheaper price than the XSX. We have every detail about the SSD* and optimized games and if they lied it will be visible: Less than one second loading time, no loading screen, no long patch install and 8 to 9 GB/s of compressed data for optimized games. And out of the variable frequency, the true compromise and drawback of the PS5 is the memory bandwidth.

The center of the XSX is the GPU and CPU, the power the 12 Tflops.

But MS never lied they told there is faster memory and slower memory. They did not give more explanation than this. There is one example of a PC card with the same system the Nvidia 970 and it is a very clever way to keep the cost down when you said the truth like MS did. In theory, XSX has 25% more bandwidth than the PS5 if you take into account this clever cost-saving, there is 20% more memory bandwidth for the XSX compared to the PS5 after factoring CPU bandwidth. They only lost only 5% of bandwidth advantage and gain 20 to 30 dollars on the bill of material. This is great. For example, if Sony decides to go with 16Gbps modules(512 GB/s), it would cost them more than this probably 40 dollars and they would have a little bit less bandwidth than MS for the GPU(3%).

This is a great compromise much better than the memory bandwidth situation of the PS5. If something needs to improve on PS5 this is the memory bandwidth. It looks like the PS4 Pro weakness. I was shocked by how low is the memory bandwidth when I see Digitalfoundry spec sheet.

Consoles have some strong points and weaknesses. PS5 strong point is the SSD and the 3D audio, weaknesses variable frequency and low memory bandwidth. On XSX side strong points are the CPU, the GPU the memory bandwidth, weaknesses a slower SSD and less emphasis on Audio.

This is the fastest console against the most powerful console.

*Out of cooling solution

 

Slower SSD remains to be seen, how much slower it actually is in practice. If WC isn't straight out lying, they actually mitigate the gap with the PS5 using bcpack. MS was empathizing sustained/guaranteed rates very specifically, more so then Sony did (same for clocks). It seems that MS aimed for a slower drive itself, but wanted to put the stress on other hardware, this could be due to temperatures, those tiny mem cards need to run at the same speed.

As for audio, also the XSX is using a DSP for it. It could very well be the exact same thing in hardware (a CU reserved for audio / trueaudio next). Untill we have definite specs/numbers from MS on the audio solution we cant just conclude already they have less emphasis on audio. The software solution might be different though.

In the same vein, we can't yet conclude that PS5 might not have any hardware VRS just because they didn't mention it. They also seem to name their hardware differently (geometry engine).

 

Sony gave a very precise value for typical Games scenario 8/9 GB/s. No throttling will depend on the thermal solution we will have more details when they will do a teardown by Gamernexus and maybe Digitalfoundry.

The solution of MS is very different. They prebaked the 3d audio sound and use an audio equivalent to light probes see Projects Acoustics and they don't have the same emphasis on HRTF. There is one advantage, the solution works too on Xbox One.



https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-triton/

https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-series-x-project-acoustics-audio-ray-tracing-revealed

 

Yep, typical indeed. That's not what was being talked about either MS didn't claim typical.

Let's hope DigitalFoundry in that case. Most likely they will, they have been in direct contact with cerny, so have some faith.

We don't know that yet, we need to learn more to conclude that. Like said, it's not impossible both are using the same actual hardware but the API's might differ. If MS is using a different hardware solution like last time, it might be superior also then what AMD could offer (like in 2013).

 

If they had the same emphasis on it, they would have talked about it. They are far more transparent than Sony on the technical side. If they utilize the same hardware they don't need to prebake the 3D audio. This is right inside the XSX spec deep dive with Digitalfoundry. You said MS lied about its own machine.

Tempest Engine and Steam Audio solution create 3d sound in realtime. They aren't some prebaked solution.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/03/16/xbox-series-x-tech/

This was so important for them they did not talk about it on the official site. They don't do VR, this was not a very important point for them.

They can't guarantee this level of performance. First, if the dev doesn't use Kraken they will not reach this level of bandwidth. And dev needs to optimize the game too. This is the reason I talk about optimized game engine this is not magic and one of the reasons the SSD was done before the other part of the machine. They needed a prototype as fast as possible. There is a reason no PS4 games were announced after 2017. All teams with unannounced exclusive games for Sony work on PS5 games if the project began in 2017 and after.

EDIT: It is the same on MS side, teams need to modify heavily the game engine to exploit the SSD.

 

MS showed emphasis for VRS (patented and all), Sony didnt. So sony doesn't have any VRS? As said, we need more details to have a final conclusion.

They can't cover everything, were just one month past the official reveal. Hold your horses. MS ain't done and so isn't Sony. MS showed and boasted what they think was important to them, likewise for Sony.

Edit: You seem to have no idea if all teams past 2017 have only been working on PS5 games exclusively, with no PS4 version in mind. Besides that, it would be a hard blow to those over 100 million current PS4 users.

 

But MS talked about the audio solution. Read or maybe you don't know how to read. The XSX uses project Acoustics and a DSP to replay the prebaked 3d sound. All details are on MS site and this is a prebaked solution. This is the solution used in Gears 5 for 3d audio. Sony did not talk about VRS at all, they just talked about Geometry Engine and raytracing and the GPU is a custom RDNA 2 GPU. This is very different.

https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-series-x-project-acoustics-audio-ray-tracing-revealed

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-inside-xbox-series-x-full-specs

 

You want to take the bet like I have known the SSD speed will be above 7GB/s before PS5 reveal, this is something I heard about. Sony never talked about cross-gen games. Each playstation generation, it is the same thing the third-party publishers continues to do cross-gen game. There is only one exception on Sony side MLB The Show.

https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/irday/pdf/2019/GNS_E.pdf

They said it to investors and shareholders last year, they believe in generations.

If you want to harness the full power of a new console, you need to do exclusive games.

Other things Sony do a postmortem of generations and two executives told they were unhappy with the first part of the generation(Andrew House and Shuhei Yoshida to Famitsu) from the point of view of first-party exclusives. I am ready to do a bet the first part of the generation will be much better from an exclusive point of view on the Sony side.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/irday2015electronics_presenE.pdf

Same Andrew House said it to investor and shareholder

https://gamingbolt.com/sonys-andrew...es-are-sparse-says-exclusives-are-hard-to-get

 

If they were more powerful, they would shout out from the top of the roof. They did not talk so much of the audio like Sony did not talk so much of the CPU and GPU because they are behind the Xbox Series X.

And probably the reason many third party audio engineers react positively to the 3d audio solution of Sony and not the MS one(not bad but not the best).

 

And if they have 98% of the power? What would they do then? Shout it from the 3rd floor?

At worst I would think MS will have at least a rough equivalence with XB1 for BC. I suspect it will take a refined ear to notice a difference in the audio solutions.

 

If it was comparable they would have spoken more about it. The focus was on creating the most powerful console and it worked. This is the best part of the XSX, it is CPU 3.8 GHz without SMT, 3.6 GHz with SMT and 12.15 Tflops GPU, all of this with constant frequency and a good memory bandwidth 560 GB/s fast memory and 336 GB/s slow memory.

Each company had a different focus.

Sony tried to create a cheaper console and maybe they failed. If they are the same price, it is a failure. If it is only 50 dollars a semi failure.

 

Why would MS's marketing focus on audio which has such a small impact for most gamers and also game producers themselves?

 

Not really. Mentioning audio more would just mean mentioning 12.2 Teraflops less.

Audio rarely makes headlines in the gaming news.

 

Because it is not the priority and they don't do VR.

Sony is in VR and they need it and it is a priority for exclusives out of VR and it is possible to market it now because everyone has a headphone and can access youtube. And audio engineers need to fight a lot to make the sound a priority on Sony side. They talked more of audio than CPU and GPU...

Use an headphone you will understand better.



They can use 3d audio in trailers or conference.

 

They prioritized what is important to 99% in their PR. XSX most logically has a CU/dsp reserved for audio, done by amd. Its by far the cheapest and easiest solution to integrate coming from amd, i suspect trueaudio is the same thing. Their api might differ seeing what they have to work with.
They indeed wont shout it from the roof since no one cares, VR is still a niche market. When it becomes something more, ms can just release VR headset and the dsp hardware will do what the ps5’s does and more.
MS was also being conservative during their reveal regarding ssd, they could have showed max rates but went with minimal rates. If they want they can show max rates at a later stage, PR and all. Different strategies.

 

Nope to both affirmation i would tend to say. If their audio solutions was able to do more than Sony's one they would have added a one line like "fixed frequence", as they had leak from sony presentation.
And both talked about maximum throughput of their ssd solution: 5Gb/s for MS, 22Gb/s for Sony.
The different marketing strategies (except obviosuly the focus on power which is the main one) comes from trying to minimise bandwith advantage with the "mysterious" BCpack compression format, while sony actually talked about realistic throughput of 8/9Gb/s.

 

May or June...

 

Or September, or November. MS have until the machine releases to communicate all its selling points to consumers to get them interested.