Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [2018]

Claim 1 is for a touchscreen in the controller, so it's something Sony are trying to patent. The downside there potentially is cost. How much will replacements/second controllers cost and how will such screens be used?

I love the way how patent lawyers won't even refer to 'left' and 'right' sides of a controller, instead calling them a first side and a second side.

 

That would be one way to preserve BC with DS4’s touchpad.

I thought I recently read e-ink will be getting color displays soon too.

Here we go: 2016 it was announced - https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...Advanced-Color-ePaper-Breakthrough-Technology

I think color could be useful for peripheral vision cues.

 

Would quality of experience be too poor to include a microphone in controllers?

Makes it easier to reference if they rotate the apparatus for another view?

 

If Sony can magically keep the controller under $60 (or the price of an Triple-A game), then the average consumer should be fine with it (additional/replacement). Anything over $60 (i.e., Elite controller pricing) will more likely be for hardcore gaming consumers.

 

Agreed. “Left” and “Right” presents a context of usage, whereas the other description is absolute.

 

I can't help but feel it would be more useful to replace one of the front buttons with a blackberry trackpad knock-off rather than messing around with a touchpad/screen so far out of reach you have to take your hands off the controller to use it.

 

Depends. If the voice quality [heard] is more akin of a cellphone or integrated laptop mic, it should be fine for the average consumer. Quality resembling a dedicated microphone, I don't think so.

 

We all know how that went.

 

So what you mean is the answer is zero games at the moment.
Will they come out eventually? I believe they will. But performance and RTX adoption will be a very big indicator for developers to determine whether the sales differential are worth the extra time and money after they're done being paid by nvidia to promote their hardware.

If it's something like a 3" LCD/OLED panel just to show stats for HUD-less games, choices on trivia games, etc. then the difference is just a couple of dollars in the BoM.
I doubt they're going with a Wii U-like controller, but if they did then I doubt they'd charge more than $100 for it. Cheap Android tablets with 9" 1080p IPS screens cost less than that.


At this point, I'm hoping the patent refers to Sony launching a PS4 Go tablet console that doubles as an optional gamepad for the PS5. How awesome would that be?

 

Yup still a little ways out.
They'll incorporate ray tracing into their engines regardless. It's better and faster for them to iterate their games, the optimizations will be helpful on both the production side and the player side of it.

 

The patent is just an update of the one filed in 2011, so they have been considering this for a while.

Wasn't there a sony interview saying they initially considered the ps4 touchpad to be a small screen?

Cost is a big deal for a screen, a beefier micro controller, BT bandwith, bigger battery. Would be very cool, but maybe too expensive.

 

Exclusive Forza 8 teaser

 

Nintendo has already pushed up the price of an extra controller to $80.

 

And yet there are just as many if not more developers complaining about how the RT hardware acceleration in RTX is too limited and too inflexible to be truly useful. About how it locks you into doing just a few things. About how they wish they could access some of the data in the RT "black box" or modify it in such and such way.

A lot of developers are excited for it because it allows them to do a very small handful of RT effects relatively well. A lot of developers want more from RT than just a few accelerated effects because it is too limiting.

Most agree, however, that it's good that they've gotten things started in the PC space. But many are hoping that RT hardware acceleration as featured in RTX dies a quick death and is replaced by a more general purpose solution.

None of that dampens the excitement over having RT, even in a limited capacity. But many are realistic that RT as featured in RTX is NOT the way forward.

Regards,
SB

 

And most of those naysayers have exactly zero experience with RTX and minimal with RTRT.

Just saying.

 

What's your experience of implementing RTX enhanced routines into your start-to-end graphics processing pipeline?

 

For the most its because the next gen consoles most likely aint going to have dedicated RT hardware. If there was to be fixed function RT hardware in PS5, most likely people would be more excited about it.
Its like the fixed pixel and vertex shaders and features like bump mapping from the early 2000's, as more flexible solutions where too slow. With RTX2070 and up its atleast a start, perhaps we will see RTX 3080 or 4080 series with better RT solutions around console launch time (2020/2021). Nvidia most likely is preparing for the future of RT.
On a side note, i dont think theres that many 'naysayers' really, and this is the console forums so thats to expect.

I do think GPU's are too expensive as they are right now, and strangely people are massivly buying them anyway, this doesnt really help in Nvidia lowering future prices.

 

That's not a given at all. If a tiny mobile GPU can have dedicated raytracing capabilities, consoles certainly can, and it's tech that offers a lot of advantages, specially if very flexible and usable for AI and audio. A console with compute, RT units, ML units, all nicely balanced and suitably efficient at their jobs, is possibly the best machine next gen if not compromised elsewhere to fit it all in, especially for first party titles that could go to town. There's just a lot of unknowns regards costs and compromises.

 

I really hope PS5 will be something like that, Insomniac, ND, Sucker Punch Productions, or whatever Sony exclusive dev will do some magic with the hw. Cant wait to see titles from those companies in action on PS5. Also hope that the next Xbox (and pc) will see titles from developers like that, so that AAA games will be enjoyed by more.

 

Microsoft provides preliminary DXR documentation and raytracing code samples on GitHub and they work with GCN hardware through a fallback layer - and Nvidia does provide RTX docs as well, so it's not that hard for a seasoned game developer to get a glimpse of the technology.

That said, I really doubt next-gen consoles would include raytracing, simply because it currently requires top-end hardware while consoles have always been based on mid-range GPUs.