Mixed Information on Consoles or How I learned to loathe PR *spin off*

They just need to exceed the specifications of mid range GPUs of the time to allow generational shifts in software.

I largely agree with most of your post. In terms of generation shifts in software, when it comes to graphics that's been defined by Direct3D and OpenGL, and these too are slowing down. The suite of DirectX APIs launched 1995 then for every year until 2005 there were multiple released each year. Thereafter it began to slow. Yearly released 2006 to 2009, nothing in 2010, releases in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Nothing 2015, DirectX12 was released in 2015 and we've had nothing in 2016 or 2017.

Just like engineering, the progress of technology is beginning to slow and get disproportionately expensive. It'll continue to get better but at a slower rate unless an unpredictable breakthrough technology emerges. Fundamentally, technology is hitting a multitude of quantum walls, whether at the electron, molecular or thermal level.
 
Oh there are plenty of places to go in terms of improved graphics fidelity, but it's not on the technological horizon so isn't going to happen for PS5 unless Sony have some amazing tech up their sleaze that can obliterate a Titan X (a $1,000, 11Tf, 250w GPU) in terms of visuals on a console budget with console power profiles.

I'm not going to hold my breath on that. :nope:
Except the software being written for a Titan X is targeting 1.4TF machines, by and large. 1) We've no idea how far a Titan X could go if targeted exclusively. 2) Improvements in other aspects like programmability and algorithms means more will be attainable with future hardware. 3) We've no idea when the next gen hardware will release!

This is all headed OT though. Based on the history of consoles, a console running the same games with the same alogrithms to produce broadly the same visuals only in higher fidelity isn't a going to be perceived as a generational advance by anyone other than someone looking at MS's strategy and deciding they are doing something different. 'Next gen' means something tangible, and it needs to be shown that'll fail next time around before we can redefine the concept.
 
Optimist - my glass is half full
Pessimist - my glass if half empty
Me (good day) - I have half a glass of orange juice
Me (bad day) - what the hell is this I'm drinking??

You mean a glass of Screwdrivers because its also has vodka in it.
 
By that logic, PlayStation 2 was the same generation as the original PlayStation and Wii was the same generation as GameCube. There is no set in stone definition for console generations, wikipedia is the most common source and they categorise depending on when a console is released. Technology or functionality don't factor in.

These generations are universally accepted so its as good as it gets until somebody comes up with something better.

No. The PS2 was backward compatible but the PS1 wasn’t forward compatible making the PS2 a new generation.
 
I thought the only two 100% compute games, Dreams and Claybook, weren't released yet?

I think what caught the focus was the "running large open world, complex engines" part of your sentence and not the middle part focused on compute. Also, fairly certain there has so be some aspect of rasterization involved otherwise how does one see the results?
 
Except it doesn't. The Switch and Wii U are 8th Generation consoles. As you've declared this as OT, I'll leave it at that.

It's not comparable... it's tangible because they changed the whole concept, once again.

It's clear for everybody that the Switch is the next Nintendo console. There is not any blur between these 2 generations...

Also, there are exclusive games on Switch since launch.
 
I thought the only two 100% compute games, Dreams and Claybook, which are beautiful, but appear limited in scope, weren't released yet?
they are both releasing for this gen, so you don't need next gen hardware to have whole compute pipelines.

These type of games are limited in scope because of the amount of R&D to make everything work for these types of engines. I'd say it's an issue surrounding tools and being the first to pioneer many methods required by the new compute only engine vs a lot of techniques that are tried tested and true on rasterization.

If you look at why games in the AAA space evolve so slowly, it's because tools need to evolve as well. Rewriting your renderer to be 100% compute based means tossing/rewriting all your tools, and that's detrimental to the success of any game, especially when it takes years to craft and build a large open world game, you can't have your world makers stuck for years waiting to for tools to build.

So we only get these types of games in the indie scene. And it will be a long time until we see 100% compute engines in the AAA scene. It's a slow transition, but they will become more compute over time, they just can't do a hard cut like smaller studios can, since smaller studios are more likely to rely on abstract graphics, where AAA artwork is fairly different.

I barely know anything about SDF, but
if this is how they have been creating content without some sort of importer/conversion tool that's painful.

So in some AAA studio they're probably using some 3D modelling tool that operates in polygons, and that model has importers to import into the game. They'll need to have some way, either through polygons, or perhaps some sculpting tool, or a vector based 3d modeller, or some other tool to import into a SDF object.

I suspect it's doable, but I don't suspect it's easy. We're also looking at a whole workflow adjustment etc.

I think these are the realistic reasons we don't see SDF in AAA yet.
 
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Wolfenstein 2 is 80% compute... All tools and middleware are polygones bases maybe one day one developer will go 100% compute for AAA but probably not before 5/6 ears minimum....
 
Vote for PS5 Pro 2020. $599.

Bring 2nd jobs back to America. Make Sony Krazy again.

Sony might not want or can offer the strongest console like MS. MS has been saying that they will have the strongest console, like with the one x. Sony hasn’t, but ssd performance then (nvme like xsx)
 
Actually in the xbox one's case, they have been pretty open and honest.
Not at launch, the online store publicity advertized it as the most powerful console.

Penelo was continuously denying the power gap, saying esram was bringing the power to parity with ps4, etc...

The cloud giving the power of three xb1 to every player.

Redefining the word exclusive to "exclusive exclusive", timed exclusivity being secret, and end of exclusivity being secret.

Xb1x had the edge in gpu power so they used it well in publicity, but then they went crazy misrepresenting the competiton (ps4p cannot do 4k, cannot do highend vr), or themselves (it will absolutely support high end vr).

Hololens presented as the real optics, and it was a fake compositing with occlusion and impossible FoV.

Hovis Method sold as some car tuning turbocharger magic, and it looks like it was what the most cynical of us said as a joke. TDP roulette.

Their PR have a spotty track record.
 
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Actually in the xbox one's case, they have been pretty open and honest.
Huh? Power of the Cloud??

"Most Powerful" PR comments are full of shit from all parties. And as frequently repeated, "Most Powerful" isn't really measurable so it's somewhat a nonsense term anyhow unless you are faster in every way, or have good metrics. After release, comparing games on the systems from Year 3 onwards, we can start to see for sure which console has the real-world performance advantage. Hypothetically, if two machines are archiecturally identical with one having more in every way, then we could say it was the more powerful, though we wouldn't know that until the platforms are released (or tech documents leaked).

Corporate Spokespersons should never be relied upon.
 
Even some consoles moto's have been incredible lies, "It only does everything". Yet there wasn't vocal objections to that PR Lie.
 
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