NGGP: NextGen Garbage Pile (aka: No one reads the topics or stays on topic) *spawn*

[liolio]

I agree. I think its pretty clear that Sony went with something simple yet powerful. Something that wont break bank and won't be able to turn your car on from your couch, but still good gaming system. MS went in other direction. We are going to see how that pans out.

I'm not calling MS out yet, I have more "faith" in their engineers than in Sony's and I'm sure they are going to make interesting and efficient choices with hardware.

I do agree that (with the info at hand and if they are correct) the hardware looks straight forward.
But wrt to breaking the bank, I would be a bit less confident, that is pretty big chip on an expansive process, we speak of 4 GB of GDDR5.
I'm not sure that it is going to be that cheap if at all.

Looking at those "info" and the noise around durango I wonder if MSFT again was extremely wary about going with "big" chips and every chips in the consoles could end under 185mm^2 as in the 360.

Thinking of those "blocks" (assuming its real hardware not "functional/software" blocks, for example I could see something like this:
chip#1 CPU cores (whatever they are) and some DSP (rumors... if there are DSP I would expect the CPUs to be IBM for some reason) 120<X<150mm2.
chip#2, 12/14CUs, 12/16 ROPs bunch of sram just below the 160mm^2<x<180mm^2, no video processing engine here, a bare GPU+its scratchpad memory.
Chip#3 super north bridge/southbridge, could be a dual core jaguar with a 1 or 2 SIMD CPU, it runs the OS, DSP for Kinect, obviously (if it's a north bridge) that is where the memory controller to the DDR3 are. Lot of the chip is IO related.
May be those extra DSP people spoke about, it would be tiny 100/120mm^2 and possibly produced on a LP process.

/I'm not an engineer so it could not make sense some could do better here that is for sure. Though the idea is not crazy (though the way I present it might be), what would be is the cost of designing those three different blocks even if it turns as a win wrt production costs.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...
I don't think they can outdo MS on engineering part either (meaning console hardware design). Limits are pretty clear (watts, transistors, money and multimedia) for both, and both get the hardware from the same vendors.

That's actually pretty true. Building a console has become more like buying a videocard. You have companies that put together a product that's designed with what are essentially off-the-shelf components. In this case parts might be a little bit customized, or there may be some small part of the system that are custom, but the real heavy work in that area will be done by the vendors they're getting the parts from.

I just think Sony wins by focusing on the hardware (gaming performance) because MS would be able to beat them head-to-head if they tried to compete based on software and services. The hope for Sony is people want the hardware and not the services, and MS is hoping for the opposite.

 

[french toast]

Hey guys, been out of the loop for ages and wonder if someone could fill me in with a brief over view of where we think orbis and durango are sitting right now without me trawling through 50 odd pages:

I did read a couple of main news articles today from so called inside dev sources that completley contradicted each other..as in not even close....one of which said durango was pushing out an absurd 4.2tf and had a blitter...what ever the fuck one of those are lol, sounds like aload of made up crap from a 12 yr old to me.....any updates would be welcome cheers..

 

[Karamazov]

we have no specs for neither of the two, only rumours and magical divinations, so for now we still know nothing.

 

[Lycan]

But we have a set of converging rumors that are quite credible :smile:. If we go by last year's gossip, Durango is a tad more powerful...

 

[expletive]

I'd agree. You've got to play to your strengths. I can't see Sony outdoing MS on the software and services side. Best bet is just to make sure they win on the hardware and attract devs that way.

I don't think hardware attracts devs though, at least not the disparity that's possible between these machines. I think there's really only 3 things that attract devs anymore: tools, installed base, exclusive money.

MS cater to Crytek and Dice when it comes to designing the Durango.

What's that mean though, as opposed to catering to epic or ubisift, etc?

 

[XpiderMX]

MS cater to Crytek and Dice when it comes to designing the Durango.

Interesting, a gafer (shockingalberto) said something similar, companies like EA (DICE/Crytek) and Activision wanting power for AAA titles:

They asked publishers and developers what they need in a next-gen system

EA, Activision, DICE, and Epic all insisted on raising the ceiling by what we would traditionally consider a generational leap.

Microsoft listened because they were told this would increase game sales and hardware adoption.

 

[french toast]

But we have a set of converging rumors that are quite credible :smile:. If we go by last year's gossip, Durango is a tad more powerful...

Well thats confused me more, im thinking that ealier rumours of durango hovering around just above 1tf and hhaving extra features will be nearer the mark..

 

[Alexct]

Noticed lherre made a post on D vs O

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=46551080&postcount=274



I think this was in reference to the vg247 article so I wonder which details. OS RAM leaps to mind first.

Edit: He said "articles", thread is vg247 and nowgamer, and the now gamer article is riddled with junk, so I guess it doesnt say much.

"In my opinion both machines will be very close, with some details in favor for each one, but I think we will have a ps360 situation again with 2 machines very close.

And some details in the articles are simply wrong".

Then all assumptions made so far are useless.At this point, better to wait for the presentation too many fake insider.

 

[liolio]

we have no specs for neither of the two, only rumours and magical divinations, so for now we still know nothing.

Someone making sense, nice

 

[Delta9]

The vita retains 1/4 of its cores for the OS, so it's not a surprise.

That is talking about 720.


Digital Foundry

There'll be a relatively high CPU overhead too, with potentially two cores reserved for the customisable apps Microsoft wants to run in parallel with gameplay. Orbis has no such ambitions and may power past the new Xbox simply because it focuses its resources on out-and-out games power.

 

[anexanhume]

That is talking about 720.


Digital Foundry

I'm talking about how 2 cores being reserved for the OS isn't that outlandish, and I doubt it would have a huge effect on games. 3GB RAM for the OS would be worse.

 

[Bagel seed]

I'm talking about how 2 cores being reserved for the OS isn't that outlandish, and I doubt it would have a huge effect on games. 3GB RAM for the OS would be worse.

Agreed.

Also, if we think for a second that Orbis won't also have cores dedicated to the OS like Durango we're too naive. It's just that DF doesn't know (or hasn't found anyone that posted info about it on gaf or B3D..)

 

[XpiderMX]

Agreed.

Also, if we think for a second that Orbis won't also have cores dedicated to the OS like Durango we're too naive. It's just that DF doesn't know (or hasn't found anyone that posted info about it on gaf or B3D..)

Orbis will reserve some resources for OS too, PS3 reserves 1 SPU for the OS.

 

[Bagel seed]

Orbis will reserve some resources for OS too, PS3 reserves 1 SPU for the OS.

Of course. DF doesn't know jack so they imply that 100% of the CPU will go to games.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Lol I've been confused with the duplicate discussion about this. Same issue is being addressed on the "Predict..." thread.

 

[BRiT]

Methinks it's just the moderators moderating (ie: putting the discussions where they should have been in the first place).

 

[Rangers]

crosspost from the predict thread

True but from Sebbi's posts, I mean you dont exactly NEED all your RAM every frame.

And most games will be 30 FPS next gen again, so you can access 2GB per frame with durango.

I can argue the Orbis is over engineered. It can access over 6GB per frame at 30 FPS, yet it's total RAM is only 3.5GB. Now what? Only thing you can do is go back and hit the hard disk or worse, blu ray disk and load more in. Good luck with that.

192 gb/s might be good on pc, where my game might need to go up to anywhere to 200 fps and my resolution up to 4k, but is it good for a console?

In other words over say 3 frames, Durango might be able to do more. It can use 2GB/2GB/1GB of unique data. Orbis will be like 3.5GB/uh-oh/uh-oh

RAM speed is not a substitute for quantity. Both are important.

It actually sounds to me like the PS4 might be really good at 60 FPS games. I mean literally the majority of games might be 60 on it cause it's got so damn much bandwidth. But, they probably wont look much better than 30 FPS Durango counterparts.

For the article, the main thing to come out of it is Orbis using 8 Jag cores supposedly. It was generally thought it would switch to Jag cores by me, but that it's 8 of them and all..

It just removes one more point of differentiation to Durango. However, vs 4 Steamroller cores, it's likely a downgrade realistically.

Also interesting DF says its an SOC and even has a code name. In that case I guess it's true both should be doing SOC's for cost reasons. I was skeptical of SOC's in either, especially PS4, but it's looking more and more likely.

At the end of the day anyway, you may get most multiplatform games optimized for 1.2 teraflops and 3.5GB RAM. Lowest common denominator.

 

[Rangers]

i don't understand why so many people absolutely and desperately want the durango to be less powerful.

yeah, and funny how power gets to be suddenly so important when people smell microsoft blood in the water (or even Sony for that matter, but it seems to be Microsofts right now). when the rest of the time we're to believe it doesnt matter at all to market success.

videogame graphics discussions on the internet never cease to amaze me, people pathologically downplay them, yet when the rubber hits the road it's all people (core gamers anyway) really care about. see wii u for another recent example.

this industry needs to grow the damn hell up and start admitting graphics are basically the most important factor in core gaming, and there is no close second.

 

[Rangers]

But on another topic, I wonder if MS starts getting skunked a little bit in graphics, they dont start dialing back the OS RAM reserves.

It was always said you start with a high reserve, since it can never be enlarged later, but you can always pare it down later.

I would think it's a weapon in their toolbox, anyway. If they can free up another gig that makes 6GB to 3.5, and so on from there. They may not be planning on it now, but conditions may change imo.