Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [pre E3 2019]

[Nesh]

We discussed actually that maybe PS5 can be only backward compatible with PRO titles... Will see

But we dont have only Pro specific titles anyways. All titles are PS4 titles enrhanced for pro tight?
I think it goes without saying that the Pro will never have it's own titles and that all PS4 will be compatible with 5 in the event that it has BC.

Finger's crossed that it will be compatible with all Playstation games. I still find it a strange omission that PS4 has no PS1 game compatibility.
There are a lot of PS1 games on the PS Store itself that could have brought some nice revenue to Sony that can only play on the PS3, Vita and PSP. I am sure during the PS3 era that compatibility and the option to transfer them to your handheld gave some extra life to their handhelds
It would be delightful to have a BC that als enhances performance and IQ.
Super delightful if BC includes console and handheld compatibility

 

[Nesh]

You're understanding is very wrong. It's 100% artwork. If any game on a platform can be colourful, all games can be, but the designers choose for them not to be. 16.8 million colours is the total number of colours and shades possible by representing each of the RGB channels by a byte, so 256 values to the power of 3. These are enough colours to represent a large range of colours and shades, and generally is good enough to represent most photos. You can use primary, solid colours, or slightly adjust them, or completely desaturate them.

The same desaturation is used a lot in modern TV and film to make things 'gritty' and 'dark'.

Nerd

 

[zed]

No idea about the PS1 but Im guessing it could not display 16 diff milion colors at the same time, I assume they had a limited pallete

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Apparently it had a mode that could display every pixel as a different colour, but it was limited to 640x240 pixels, so 153,600 colours on screen. Games like Spyro and Crash show colourful wasn't a technical hurdle.

 

[Kaotik]

Zen2 ...

https://www.ultragamerz.com/500-nex...-outperforms-1700-intel-cpu-leaks-and-rumors/

Something that looks too good to be true, often ends up being not true.

Not to mention those claimed CPU specs are pretty old "leaks"

 

[Karmaprof]

Apparently it had a mode that could display every pixel as a different colour, but it was limited to 640x240 pixels, so 153,600 colours on screen. Games like Spyro and Crash show colourful wasn't a technical hurdle.

Ok , but i has a doubt that Crash and Spyro runs with so much colors. After i play
Scud Race in the Arcade anno 98' it blews me away , so much nicer an more Colorful than Console Games at this Time.

 

[HBRU]

I think can be PS5 is only BC with pro enhanced titles... As compatibility is hardware supported it may be complicate and expensive to support both Ps4 and pro. It make sense also commercially as someone will keep the ps4 just to play maybe Bloodborne sometimes. So you have less used ps4 in the market... and keep the commercial value of them a bit higher.... And that doesnt destroy value of the today installed base. Also if some sw house want to release some remastered titles for ps5 they can do it.... Maybe few dollars for people owning the ps4 version in some cases.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

Apparently it had a mode that could display every pixel as a different colour, but it was limited to 640x240 pixels, so 153,600 colours on screen. Games like Spyro and Crash show colourful wasn't a technical hurdle.

Jut to add that this is not a color limit!. It´s a resolution limit! PS1 had a 24 bit pallete! Unfortunatly you cannot have more colors on screen that pixels, and 640*240 means a total of 153 600 different pixels.

Mode 15 (15 bits textures with 32,768 colors) was common on 3D though, but due to memory limitations.

 

[chris1515]

https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/PU/JPA_H31503013/TKBS_GM302_Detailed.action

Another patent for backward compatibility but this time this not only Mark Cerny but Simon Pilgrim (guy doing something with the LLVM commits for Free BSD)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

*split post between here and spin-off thread* /al

PS4 is by far the worst platform to play your old games on. (Or any game aside from some exclusives or against a one s version)

Please leave your childish fanboy drivel out of this forum. Especially so in what's supposed to be a technical thread.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Nintendo also does that with the swith and Wii U "remasters". And it's the worst plateform for multiplat games.

This is supposed to be a technical discussion about next-gen hardware. 'Which console is the worst' is a shit discussion that doesn't belong on this board, let alone in this thread. Don't feed the trolls.

 

[AlNom]

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...-in-the-face-of-backward-compatibility.61072/

Ah... spin-off just in case...

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/PU/JPA_H31503013/TKBS_GM302_Detailed.action

Another patent for backward compatibility but this time this not only Mark Cerny but Simon Pilgrim (guy doing something with the LLVM commits for Free BSD)

Hopefully MS's commitment to BC this generation will encourage Sony to pursue it with the PS5.

They've emulated the PS2 and released some PS2 games, which include trophies and I think some other improvements. It's something, but there's room for improvement. As Microsoft execs have commented, the biggest issue is licensing. Fair enough. But I think the best way to get some of these licensing discussions underway is to make an emulator capable of playing any game on the console being emulated, barring the odd technical cases.

With X360 BC that may or may not be possible. I seem to recall an MS exec stating that they emulate the full X360, and don't modify the game's code. But you have to download something per game - I don't know if it's a patch or a full game, maybe an XBoxOne user here could clear that up - which indicates that it's not just running the original code.

With PS2 BC, we know that hacked PS4's are able to emulate a bunch of PS2 games that aren't on the store. Open up that emulator, gather some data, and make publishers and whatever other rights holders aware that they're sitting on free money.

There are games like the Resistance series that I'd love to play on my PS4, ideally with enhancements. Heck, they could even be cynical and enable unenhanced BC for discs, and release a slightly modified version on the store that runs at 4K60 with video recording and trophies for a relatively low price - say ~£20 per collection, £5 - £15 for single games.

Hopefully they'll do that with the PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, and PSVita. Although I can imagine things get legally tricky with the portables, as we're no longer looking at discs which a BR drive can naturally be expected to read.

 

[AlNom]

<need to find the BC thread to move post>

They've emulated the PS2 and released some PS2 games, which include trophies and I think some other improvements. It's something, but there's room for improvement. As Microsoft execs have commented, the biggest issue is licensing. Fair enough. But I think the best way to get some of these licensing discussions underway is to make an emulator capable of playing any game on the console being emulated, barring the odd technical cases.

So just to add/clarify - licensing isn't an issue when the emulator can wholly playback the original disc/package content with zero interference. And so... ->

With X360 BC that may or may not be possible. I seem to recall an MS exec stating that they emulate the full X360, and don't modify the game's code. But you have to download something per game - I don't know if it's a patch or a full game, maybe an XBoxOne user here could clear that up - which indicates that it's not just running the original code (e.g. PS2 emulator on PC or Dolphin for Wii etc.).

... because MS still has to recompile the games to help facilitate performance (lol-Jaguar) for x86, it's perhaps considered a new distribution, and may or may not trigger legalities on the original agreement for licensed distribution. In these cases, MS have indicated that it's up to the publisher to either relicense or spend some time to remove the offending/problematic content. The latter is perhaps much more difficult in some of the cases where the original developer or publisher no longer exist, whereas we've seen, for example, Remedy go through a relicense of music for Alan Wake (because the music was crucially chosen specifically for the narrative experience). In a couple cases, the music isn't as critical to the game (perhaps just some random licensed track for a sports/racing title).

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...x-one-x-back-compat-how-does-it-actually-work

With PS2 BC, we know that hacked PS4's are able to emulate a bunch of PS2 games that aren't on the store. Open up that emulator, gather some data, and make publishers and whatever other rights holders aware that they're sitting on free money.

Haven't seen how their process works, so can't comment.

There are games like the Resistance series that I'd love to play on my PS4, ideally with enhancements. Heck, they could even be cynical and enable unenhanced BC for discs, and release a slightly modified version on the store that runs at 4K60 with video recording and trophies for a relatively low price - say ~£20 per collection, £5 - £15 for single games.

So that'll be up to the bean counters to determine on an ROI basis. I'm not sure if Sony has a similar online feedback forum where they can similarly gauge interest in the community for particular titles as MS does.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Keeping on target for discussion about hardware, are there any hardware choices needed to enable BC? PS1 and 2 emulators are already plentiful so they should be a given. PS4 emulation should just be a case of a few considerations in the GPU design?? Is there anything at all that could enable PS3 emulation short of a Cell processor? Could Cell be emulated on a GPU these days?

For XB it'll just be MS as normal, so no specifics there, though could they benefit from hardware designs to ease BC? So instead of having to profile and tweak old games, enable direct disc playback.

 

[BRiT]

MS included plentiful hardware customizations to get BC. No need to guess what they were, just refer to the existing BC thread to see all they did for X360 BC on the One.

As for Sony BC, they did a number on the 4Pro to remain BC, by not changing any of the hardware instruction set other than to bolt on some new instructions. They might have the hardest time with BC going forward given how low level their PS4 development is.

 

[turkey]

I still find it a strange omission that PS4 has no PS1 game compatibility.

It also lacks the ability to play CDs, so I suspect it's drive lacks the laser to read CDs as a cosy saving measure?
After effects of the PS3 blue diode syndrome ?

 

[AlNom]

Is there anything at all that could enable PS3 emulation short of a Cell processor? Could Cell be emulated on a GPU these days?

For XB it'll just be MS as normal, so no specifics there, though could they benefit from hardware designs to ease BC? So instead of having to profile and tweak old games, enable direct disc playback.

The thread scheduling seems to be one of the major issues, even for MS and they had it relatively easy all things considered, and they were decidedly mum about VMX128 when I asked Richard about it.

"The way we talk about it offhand is that effectively we try to make sure that the game never knows that it's not running on an actual 360 console, and so whatever value the game presents, we return the value that it expects to get from the 360 hardware and we just do all that in software,"

That sounds mighty difficult if we were to look at Cell and moving it to a GPU. I dunno - something something SPU processing vs GPU internal precision & formats, command processor queuing things up for compute units... (just throwing random points out there), SPU scratchpad memory vs GPU internal caches, EIB vs GPU connections. *shrug*

That's also considering that MS has to emulate even "wrong" results because of the HW quirks, something Sony would have to also deal with on the GPU side between nV RSX and AMD GCN.

At the end of the day, it's a significant investment for QA at MS.

As Brit mentions, MS has a bunch of customizations in the XO family (One S - codename is "Edmonton" :V ) to help facilitate some of the texture and audio formats.

 

[BRiT]

For reference:

Xbox One BC Thread - https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...enhancements-for-x360-and-og-xo-xox-bc.56984/

Digital Foundry articles on Xbox One BC:
From 2015 - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-vs-backwards-compatibility-on-xbox-one
From 2017 - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...x-one-x-back-compat-how-does-it-actually-work
EG's list from 2019 - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...kwards-compatibility-list-xbox-360-games-6011

 

[anexanhume]

Keeping on target for discussion about hardware, are there any hardware choices needed to enable BC? PS1 and 2 emulators are already plentiful so they should be a given. PS4 emulation should just be a case of a few considerations in the GPU design?? Is there anything at all that could enable PS3 emulation short of a Cell processor? Could Cell be emulated on a GPU these days?

For XB it'll just be MS as normal, so no specifics there, though could they benefit from hardware designs to ease BC? So instead of having to profile and tweak old games, enable direct disc playback.

Sony used an open source PS1 emulator
For the PS mini. RPCS3 is open source for Windows and Linux, and takes advantage of AVX512 instructions. They claim over a third of the library is playable, and they have enough Patreon contributors to allow one of their devs to be full time.