PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)

[AlNom]

Shadow mapping is an example where you could be limited by the triangle rate though these triangles are in addition to the scene triangle count because it means objects are being rendered multiple times.

Any thoughts on tessellating shadows (stencil or SM)

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Since Cerny mentioned it I'll comment on the volatile flag. I didn't know about it until he mentioned it, but looked it up and it really is new and driven by Sony. The extended ACE's are one of the custom features I'm referring to. Also, just because something exists in the GCN doc that was public for a bit doesn't mean it wasn't influenced by the console customers. That's one positive about working with consoles. Their engineers have specific requirements and really bang on the hardware and suggest new things that result in big or small improvements.

Wow, so onion plus that was the another thing Cerny mentioned is also a Sony impulsed thing?.IMHO is the most important custom thing of those we know about.
No wonder Cerny is such a low level guy capable of cracking the Cell.He was studying the X86 architecture to know what kind of low level performance could be taken from it!.For sure he wanted to know if something like the Cell compute model could be extrapolated.
By the way, all the custom things driven by Sony are legally able to be implemented in the PC space?, i mean, doesnt Sony buy and copyright anything of this?.

 

[3dcgi]

Any thoughts on tessellating shadows (stencil or SM)

Tessellation should be no different as it doesn't increase the theoretical triangle rate limit.

Wow, so onion plus that was the another thing Cerny mentioned is also a Sony impulsed thing?.IMHO is the most important custom thing of those we know about.
No wonder Cerny is such a low level guy capable of cracking the Cell.He was studying the X86 architecture to know what kind of low level performance could be taken from it!.For sure he wanted to know if something like the Cell compute model could be extrapolated.
By the way, all the custom things driven by Sony are legally able to be implemented in the PC space?, i mean, doesnt Sony buy and copyright anything of this?.

A Sony specific feature won't be put in a Microsoft console and vice versa, but that doesn't mean useful features won't make their way to the PC. Some things like security features will remain exclusive and others are determined on a case by case basis.

 

[(((interference)))]

*AHEM* The below should give pause to rule out 1GB/3GB OS reservations.

Could it be that ERP is just referring to the fact that the final OS reservation is still undecided (or only recently finalized)?
Or perhaps that it is not quite 1 GB or 3 GB - say 1.5 GB, 2.5GB etc.

Not really. Blow starts off with the caveat "certain things havent been finalized" and says RAM reserve is "way higher", "I think" on Xbox.

Then Cliffy interjects "that's the one I keep hearing about". Sounding like he just reads the same internets we do.

So what Blow said is somewhat leading but not conclusive, what cliffy said means nothing. Overall still inconclusive.

Interesting though. Makes me come off the 3GB for PS4 thing just a bit.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1753468&postcount=2124

What Richard wrote:

So with the PS4 hardware specs mostly done and dusted, the only real questions remaining concern the CPU and RAM resources swallowed up by the operating system. Guerrilla Games' recent post mortem of its Killzone: Shadow Fall PS4 reveal demo suggests that two CPU cores are reserved for the OS (something we're told could change but remains the current working allocation), but the amount of GDDR5 required by background processes remains unknown. What we do know is that 512MB was the target during the time that PS4 was slated to ship with just 4GB of system RAM, with current murmurings suggesting that has doubled to 1GB

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-sony-details-final-ps4-spec

Yes, and the over 5 GB of RAM needed to not stream assets "won't quite fit" in PS4.

Link


Link


The "wants to use over 5 GB' is in context of memory usage.

EDIT

I've been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how we can both be using the exact same quotes and coming to different conclusions. It looks like I'm talking about his quotes entirely in the context of memory usage (which seems to be the context of that entire string of tweets). You're talking about 5 GB of memory usage, and then taking that second tweet of his as context about memory needed to load "the entire game" with that having some other, higher, memory requirement. If that's the case, I have no idea how you're coming to that conclusion and it seems like a leap in logic to me.

It might be that devs currently can only use 5GB, but that is just an interim allocation and the final OS reserve is closer to 1GB (or less than 3GB).

So while Blow can't use more than 5GB for the game he's developing, the final reservation could well be less than XB1 (you would certainly expect so anyway).

 

[Cjail]

One of us here posted an interview with Yoshida where he says that developers are informed about the final/actual OS reservation.
I can't find it though

Edit
OK I found the interview, which is in Japanese, but the automatic translators isn't helping sadly.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

A question from ignorance.

Do we really have a hUMA implementation on PS4 if CPU and GPU use different buses to comunicate with the main memory? Or the fact that their are not sharing the same bus is irrelevant.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Do we really have a hUMA implementation on PS4 if CPU and GPU use different buses to comunicate with the main memory? Or the fact that their are not sharing the same bus is irrelevant.

I think is UMA because its only a pool for the whole system, without taking into account how you access that pool. As for the "h" of hUMA ( heterogeneous ) is because the cpu can access the same memory space the gpu can access and viceversa, without taking into account how you do it.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

I think is UMA because its only a pool for the whole system, without taking into account how you access that pool. As for the "h" of hUMA ( heterogeneous ) is because the cpu can access the same memory space the gpu can access and viceversa, without taking into account how you do it.

OK, this clarifies a lot. Thanks.

 

[Boxercide]

One of us here posted an interview with Yoshida where he says that developers are informed about the final/actual OS reservation.
I can't find it though

Edit
OK I found the interview, which is in Japanese, but the automatic translators isn't helping sadly.

- "in the PS4, the amount of resources of processor memory and the OS occupies What?"

Yoshida: "? it but it is a problem of resource occupancy of the game have decided, I have to tell the people of development. However, it is policy that, not to open as information. Please pardon. (Laughs) Well in truth no comment about it too? Did you capacity rumored. I ...... because there is 8GB. This is not it a huge territory considerably."

 

[Cjail]

Yep that part but the translation is bad as you can see.

 

[Boxercide]

Yep that part but the translation is bad as you can see.

Seems pretty clear to me.

 

[Grall]

If you think it's clear, then what do you think that reads out as, in real actual english?

"No comment" is pretty much the only thing I can glean from that confusing pile of machine-generated nonsense.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yep, "no comment, I'm not going to say."

 

[Boxercide]

Yep, "no comment, I'm not going to say."

'Devs know. Otherwise, no comment.'

 

[Strange]

This part?
I'll do a limited translation on my limited Japanese.


――PS4で、OSが占有するメモリーやプロセッサーのリソース量はどうですか?


On the PS4, how much processor and memory resource is taken by the OS?



吉田：ゲー ムの占有リソースの問題ですよね?　それは決まっていて、開発の方々にはお伝えしてます。しかし、情報としてはオープンにしない、という方針です。ご容赦 ください。噂されている容量についてですか? それについても真偽はノーコメントで(笑)まあ。8GBありますからね……。これは相当に膨大な領地ですよね。


This question is about the game's available resource right? That has been decided and is being told to the developers. But our policy is to not release this as open information. Please bear with me. The rumored capacity right? About the truth of that rumor I will also have no comment (laughs). Well, there is 8GB there, so... This is a great amount of territory there.


Hope this clears that up.

 

[Cyan]

I wouldn't be surprised if PS4 supports OpenGL too in Sony's attempts to make the platform as accessible as possible. We've heard that devs can go low-level, but Sony aren't forcing that. Here's a rumour from 2012 on the idea of PS4 supporting OpenGL. I guess AMD will provide the drivers and devtools, so it's just a matter of connecting the lib to the OS.

I always assumed PS4 would use some version of OpenGL "if need be".

And now I am as sure as ever that there has to be a willingness in Sony to utilize the API, especially now that the Tiled Resources tech has been announced. Hence why an OpenGL API makes sense, to use GCN tech in all its glory.

As for the OS, now that they know that the competition is using 3GB for the OS(es) alone, Sony have a lot of flexibility to work with. I have a feeling they went with 2GB for the OS to have future proof OS/console or 3GBs at most.

The PS4 is perfectly capable of running games at full speed with great graphics if it has 6GB of memory or less. What would be the usefulness of having 2GB of extra RAM if not for improved loading times? I wouldn't say texture quality is one of them, for instance. Excuse me if I am wrong.

 

[Kaotik]

Why on earth would OpenGL API make sense when they could use "new version of libGCM" which is far "closer to metal"?

 

[dagamer]

Why on earth would OpenGL API make sense when they could use "new version of libGCM" which is far "closer to metal"?

I'd assume OpenGL would be used for cross platform libraries where compatibility takes higher precedent over performance. It would probably be far easier to get Unity 3D working on OpenGL rather than libGCM. I assume they could switch later.

 

[dagamer]

I always assumed PS4 would use some version of OpenGL "if need be".

And now I am as sure as ever that there has to be a willingness in Sony to utilize the API, especially now that the Tiled Resources tech has been announced. Hence why an OpenGL API makes sense, to use GCN tech in all its glory.

As for the OS, now that they know that the competition is using 3GB for the OS(es) alone, Sony have a lot of flexibility to work with. I have a feeling they went with 2GB for the OS to have future proof OS/console or 3GBs at most.

The PS4 is perfectly capable of running games at full speed with great graphics if it has 6GB of memory or less. What would be the usefulness of having 2GB of extra RAM if not for improved loading times? I wouldn't say texture quality is one of them, for instance. Excuse me if I am wrong.

Tiled resources are a DirectX API feature, not a GCN one. Sony will have to implement that for their own developers to use, which is why it's a DirectX 11.2 feature that will work on all DirectX 11 cards, no new special hardware needed.

 

[3dilettante]

Tier 2 Tiled Resources are how DirectX 11.2 exposes the Partially Resident Texture functionality that was in GCN. There's no calling dibs on a feature set that was already accessible in OpenGL through the sparse texture extensions.