Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [2018]

[see colon]

It might well be decent. But unless some ground breaking new tech is present, it would be a small jump than the one we had when passing from last generation to the current.
720p to 1080p is a 2,25x increase in resolution. 1080p to 4K is a 4x increase in resolution.
If we divide the Gflops/Tflops we had/have by the 720p/1080p, we can get the gain of flops per pixel we had on the generation jump.
To get the exact same jump from the current generation to a next one at 4K we would need more than 26 Tflops (just do the math). This will not be achieved for next generation. It would be too expensive.
But we can get by with a lot less. Using reconstruction tecniques like the PS4 Pro does, we can reduce the Tflops needs to about 13 Tflops.
With these 13 Tflops we could have all current gen games at native 4K, 60 fps (Due also to Zen), and a new generation, with exact the same gains over the current one that we had on the current over the previous, at checkerboard rendering, or other similar tech. Once again this is just math.
10 Tflops would be a gain alright. It would be suficient. But owners of mid generation consoles will shure be disapointed by it. The jump on those cases would be small on the GPU side.
According to Tweaktown, Navi 10 will be able to reach up to 30 Tflops. This seems to mean that a cheaper and with lower clocks version of it can easily get to about 13.
Without any ground breaking new tech that allows performance gains, thats about the performance I'm betting on.

What about 120hz. 26TF is only enough is you stay at 30/60. 60 should be the basement going forward, IMHO.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

The only thing more wasteful than native 4k would be 120fps. I know there's an improvement from 60fps but it's far less than 30 to 60.

I could see it happen by gen 10. With Ms supporting VRR on X maaaaybe devs will have the option though? For visually simple competitive games like fortnite.

 

[see colon]

Variable refresh is for uneaven framerates, not so much as a replacement for high refresh. That's why it's most useful in the 40 fps area. VRR is essentially the CBR of refresh rates. For me, the difference between 60 and 100+ is big as 1080p and 4k. It FEELS so much better, and it's honestly the real big difference between current PC and console experiences right now IMHO.

 

[beyondtest]

I mean, I want next gen as much as the next guy, but I'm looking at it from the perspective of us already having the X, at around 6 TFlop, producing great visuals but basically the same as a Pro, more or less.

And now we're talking about a 'next gen' in a year from now, maybe at 10TFlops or less. That's just not 'next gen' to me.

Think of the last game I completed - Spiderman. Now think how much better that would be on a PS5? Sure, it would be native 4K (we probably wouldn't see much of a difference there). The biggest 'glitch' with the game is the reflections, which can only really be fixed with ray-traced reflections, and we've discussed this to death - not happening on next gen consoles.

So we end up with a 'next gen' console whose main purpose is the same purpose of the current Pro (make games look better on 4K, but they're the same games, with broken reflections and improvements that are barely perceptible).

Sure, TFlops aren't everything, but they do give an idea of what we could expect.

Or maybe Debby Downer is back in the building and I should just wait and STFU.

Wouldn't the game be different because the development base is leveraged?

A true next gen exclusive might possibly have more substantial visual and mechanical upgrades than an upscaled game built for the original PS4.

Less leaps are probably expected with how tech's slowing down anyway but I guess this statement goes more for longer generations.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Variable refresh is for uneaven framerates, not so much as a replacement for high refresh. That's why it's most useful in the 40 fps area. VRR is essentially the CBR of refresh rates. For me, the difference between 60 and 100+ is big as 1080p and 4k. It FEELS so much better, and it's honestly the real big difference between current PC and console experiences right now IMHO.

I mean maybe MS will support 120fps as an option with scorpio. Since they went through the trouble for VRR with X. It would be rarely utilized i'm sure but hey.
The problem with PC and it's brute forcing of framerate is that a lot of games have elements that are locked to 30, or 60fps so even if you can run a console game at 120fps, or a 60fps it might cause visual inconsistency if not flat out break elements of the game. See Vanquish before patch for example. In general these issues are not as prevalent this gen but they're still there.

Even console remasters with higher framerate can look wonky. The Uncharted games on ps3 have a lot of kinda crude animation blends and snapping, Which looked .ok. on ps3 but on ps4 they look extremely wonky and overly fast at 60fps. Actually shadow of tomb raider has this issue, but UC4 has really good blends.

Or gears 4 on 1X, has elements loked at 30fps even in high framerate mode. 120fps will happen eventually en masse but not until graphics improvement grinds to a crawl.

 

[London Geezer]

I mean maybe MS will support 120fps as an option with scorpio. Since they went through the trouble for VRR with X. It would be rarely utilized i'm sure but hey.
The problem with PC and it's brute forcing of framerate is that a lot of games have elements that are locked to 30, or 60fps so even if you can run a console game at 120fps, or a 60fps it might cause visual inconsistency if not flat out break elements of the game. See Vanquish before patch for example. In general these issues are not as prevalent this gen but they're still there.

Even console remasters with higher framerate can look wonky. The Uncharted games on ps3 have a lot of kinda crude animation blends and snapping, Which looked .ok. on ps3 but on ps4 they look extremely wonky and overly fast at 60fps. Actually shadow of tomb raider has this issue, but UC4 has really good blends.

Or gears 4 on 1X, has elements loked at 30fps even in high framerate mode. 120fps will happen eventually en masse but not until graphics improvement grinds to a crawl.

Let’s also never forget the adoption of such things on mainstream TVs.

120Hz is a long, long way away and we have much more pressing things to solve and worry about before even thinking about that.

90% of console games today are running at 30fps. Let’s worry about a 60fps base first, prettier pixels, and then we go from there. Yes I made that number up but that’s what it feels like, honestly.

Hence why I’m in agreement with those who think that 8-10Tf ain’t that great.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Let’s also never forget the adoption of such things on mainstream TVs.

120Hz is a long, long way away and we have much more pressing things to solve and worry about before even thinking about that.

90% of console games today are running at 30fps. Let’s worry about a 60fps base first, prettier pixels, and then we go from there. Yes I made that number up but that’s what it feels like, honestly.

Hence why I’m in agreement with those who think that 8-10Tf ain’t that great.

Lol I think more than 10%of games are 60fps but we don't have a lot for sure. Most recently I can't believe Valkyria chronicles 4 is 30fps given the remaster is 60 and they share an engine.

And definitely, TVs with native 120hz panels are safely in the 1000 dollars plus range right now.

 

[Xbat]

Variable refresh is for uneaven framerates, not so much as a replacement for high refresh. That's why it's most useful in the 40 fps area. VRR is essentially the CBR of refresh rates. For me, the difference between 60 and 100+ is big as 1080p and 4k. It FEELS so much better, and it's honestly the real big difference between current PC and console experiences right now IMHO.

This is obviously your opinion and I'm not saying it's wrong but for me as long as you getting locked 60 fps resolution is much more important for me especially when dealing with screens 50 inches and up.

Funnily enough I notice the higher refresh rate in windows while moving tabs around or browsing the web more than in games.

Regarding the whole this machine was 8x more powerful than the previous machine and the next gen won't be and all that I find perplexing. Surely the bigger the number the less important it becomes e.g. someone who has $8 compared to someone who has $1 is 8x richer but someone who has 4 billion dollars compared to 1 billion is only 4x richer but we would rather be the guy with 4 billion dollars than the guy with $8.

After reading that I have confused myself

 

[London Geezer]

After reading that I have confused myself

That’s what happens when analogies make zero sense [emoji38]

 

[Xbat]

Surely though you can do more with 10 TFlops than you could of done with 1TFlop? Even though that 1 TFlop was a bigger jump.

 

[London Geezer]

Surely though you can do more with 10 TFlops than you could of done with 1TFlop? Even though that 1 TFlop was a bigger jump.

I don’t think anyone is denying that, it’s pretty obvious.

 

[Xbat]

I don’t think anyone is denying that, it’s pretty obvious.

Then what's the problem about it only being 6x more powerful instead of 10x.

Also the comparing it to the Xbox X is also disingenuous because the Xbox X is hamstrung by the Xbox One.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Then what's the problem about it only being 6x more powerful instead of 10x.

Also the comparing it to the Xbox X is also disingenuous because the Xbox X is hamstrung by the Xbox One.

Personally I think we should use ps4 pro as a point of comparison for what next gen will be. Because its exclusives have the best base graphics excluding resolution, and we pretty much know next gen won't have lower res games than pro enhanced titles.

Given that, it's going to take 12.6 tf to even see a 3x jump for next gen, so I think any resolution upgrades we see will be minimal to nothing compared to pro. I don't doubt that games will even be lower res than X1X games once that leap in power over ps4 pro is used for framerate and graphics. 3 times, man that is pretty lame for a next gen leap and this is like best case scenario we're talking here. Not a problem as far as will the games look great or not, but it's almost no jump at all compared to previous gens.

Obvious solution is to, crazy idea not launch new machines anytime soon but I guess that ship has sailed.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Really I think we should talk more about the cpu leap, though it's harder to guess since they can go so many routes. 6 cores 12 threads (less likely but maybe), 8 cores no smt or 8 cores 16 threads with lower clocks. Can we reasonably expect a 4x increase here over pro and X?

 

[London Geezer]

Then what's the problem about it only being 6x more powerful instead of 10x.

Also the comparing it to the Xbox X is also disingenuous because the Xbox X is hamstrung by the Xbox One.

It’s my opinion!!! Sheesh!

 

[Xbat]

Personally I think we should use ps4 pro as a point of comparison for what next gen will be. Because its exclusives have the best base graphics excluding resolution, and we pretty much know next gen won't have

I'm not sure about that, the Pro is also hamstrung by base PS4. Not as much as Xbox X but still and the CPUs are going to be a big step up and hopefully architectural improvements in the GPU.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

I think it's quite a useful metric, seeing as Sony's first party efforts have done quite a good job of providing a stellar 4K image, with a fairly paltry 4.2TF.

With that in mind, 3 times the GPU grunt, along with at least double the quantity and bandwidth of memory, and a vastly superior CPU seems like a pretty satisfying generational leap IMO.

But the fact that Google and Microsoft are both getting aboard the PSNow train provides further reason to launch with two tiers IMO. Can't expand on that right now though - my dog's itching for a walk.

 

[anexanhume]

Really I think we should talk more about the cpu leap, though it's harder to guess since they can go so many routes. 6 cores 12 threads (less likely but maybe), 8 cores no smt or 8 cores 16 threads with lower clocks. Can we reasonably expect a 4x increase here over pro and X?

I think 2x is the lower bound. Likely near 1.5x base clock, another 1.5x in IPC (Zen 1 is 1.4x Jaguar). That’s single threaded. If they can get more than 7 threads working at a time, the number just goes up from there. I’m also expecting them to widen their vector units to 256, which should crush Jaguar in those workloads.

The one concern I have is with regards to Zen’s sensisitivity to RAM timings. A big latency GDDR6 solution may not play nice. Is a big 32MB L3 the answer?

 

[itsmydamnation]

I think 2x is the lower bound. Likely near 1.5x base clock, another 1.5x in IPC (Zen 1 is 1.4x Jaguar). That’s single threaded. If they can get more than 7 threads working at a time, the number just goes up from there. I’m also expecting them to widen their vector units to 256, which should crush Jaguar in those workloads.

The one concern I have is with regards to Zen’s sensisitivity to RAM timings. A big latency GDDR6 solution may not play nice. Is a big 32MB L3 the answer?

It's all relative, Zens latency issues are far better then dual module jaguar. Also 40% more IPC is a low bound especially for games that are very heavy Simd

 

[shiznit]

How are you getting a 1.4x IPC improvement? From what I can find it's at least 2.5x.