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

[Sonic]

babcat needed to go. He was being super negative and detracting from the discussion in multiple threads.

I for one am glad of the posts onQ made in regards to the total FLOPS number and graphics and compute blah blah blah. From that tired discussion I and others learned a lot more about how the GCN architecture works and how a CU can have different wavefronts in flight and what not. It was educational for me thanks to a few board members clarifying the way it works. But hey onQ, there's no need to continually defend yourself with it as it is over with and we've all moved on and it was a great learning experience.

And the further this thread goes the more excited I am by what devs will be able to accomplish from the PS4. The system is looking to be very nicely balanced all around with a very nice GPU and 8 Jaguar cores and am glad to see 8 GB of memory. It will be nice reading what other devs have to say i regards to getting their hands on the hardware and just working it to see how they can get the most out of it through the years. The machine hasn't launched so we're still in the infancy stages of seeing dev comments. I still remember reading and enjoying all these posts about 360 and PS3 development through the current generation and expect to see more posts like that in regards to PS4. That's the thing I love about consoles, they offer a closed platform so we can fully see what the architecture is capable of. And I'm very glad of the direction Sony is heading, it seems like they finally get it again and have made an architecture that makes it easy to develop for, and that means more time focused on making the gameplay better. They've gotten their shit together and I'll be lining up to get one from day 1, with a complementary bum brigade to ensure my spot.

 

[yewyew]

What are the chances that Sony will use 3.5" HDD in PS4?

As far as I can see, 2.5" are maxed at 1TB. That doesn't seams as much these days.

So you could for example decide 500GB is not nearly big enough for me, I want two terabytes. You could decide that and you could go and buy the Sony caddie and a two or one terabyte drive from another manufacturer and then you've got yourself not a 12GB but a 2000GB device.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...the-decline-of-3d-and-the-threat-of-the-wii-u

http://www.amazon.com/WD-Green-Mobi..._t=1401&pf_rd_p=1550417882&pf_rd_i=1000953331

 

[Gradthrawn]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...the-decline-of-3d-and-the-threat-of-the-wii-u

http://www.amazon.com/WD-Green-Mobi..._t=1401&pf_rd_p=1550417882&pf_rd_i=1000953331

Just FYI, that WD Green drive you linked to is 15mm (tall). Very good chance that's not going to fit the PS3 caddy (stock drives are 9.5mm, IIRC and there's not a lot of headroom last I checked). Whether or not that's relevant to the PS4 remains to be seen but I thought I should point that out in case anyone was thinking of grabbing one for the PS3.

 

[Rangers]

Theres a chinese guy on GAF saying another guy on chinese BBS is saying PS4 has 5GB of RAM available for games.

I'd dismiss it but apparently (the BBS guy) a dev, who also mentioned two cores reserved for OS a month before the Shadofwall presentation

Relevant post links in order

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57925826&postcount=12312

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57926492&postcount=12321

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57927562&postcount=12343

Digging a little deeper and running some of the Chinese guy's (alleged dev) posts through Chrome translate (really handy how it offers to auto translate foreign pages, I use Firefox but love that feature of Chrome) I get:

This news is wrong, the game can use the memory operation is about 5G

The news he's talking about is it's a thread saying PS4 has 8GB.

Then this exchange

lumikumi Post at 2013-4-13 10:05
you have seen the development of machine?

I have spent a few months

Couple posts later

The entire game can be controlled, shared by the CPU and graphics card, 5G.

And

5G more than enough game, which is not including heap and system services. CPU game with a 6-core system with 2-core. This left a lot of resources to the party, video recording, live video, as well as a background task. Can be expected is a good experience of multi-tasking system.

There's where he mentions the 6/2 core split. That post is dated 4-13-2013.

Allegedly he works for a "Ratloop studio"

Which googling has this wiki page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratloop

Guess that guy would work for the Singapore branch. Anyways enough Sherlock Holmes for me.

 

[Kb-Smoker]

Really cool find. Strange the 3GB matches the x720 rumors.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Really cool find. Strange the 3GB matches the x720 rumors.

Well, it has logic, they want to know what are the competition plans before put the final game resources in a stone. Maybe leaving 6 cores for games is also the reason they are looking for a bump in cpu clock.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If true it could mean a few things.

They figure most multiplatform games are going to limit themselves to whatever memory pool is common between platforms. IE - platform with smallest memory pool will generally determine what the game ends up being coded for (level design, etc.).

Or, they want to make sure they have enough memory that they can potentially match Microsoft feature for feature when it comes to the whole living room experience. IE - they don't want to be at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to living room services (internet, media, apps, etc.) or multitasking. This would also include any always online services and apps. in the OS itself. The last thing they'd want is to have to suspend or evict those services when running a game.

Regards,
SB

 

[Xenio]

Well, it has logic, they want to know what are the competition plans before put the final game resources in a stone. Maybe leaving 6 cores for games is also the reason they are looking for a bump in cpu clock.

but what could be the reasons to reduce yields by improving cpu of a useless 20%?
this should put the Jaguar from the 100 GF to a 120 GF, right? is this worth?

I think they can do better, a lot better reservering 1 CU to compute aid for cpu and with the same yields rate.
Infact only its GPU should gain a lot of performances from a clock variation

 

[onQ]

but what could be the reasons to reduce yields by improving cpu of a useless 20%?
this should put the Jaguar from the 100 TF to a 120 TF, right? is this worth?

I think they can do better, a lot better reservering 1 CU to compute aid for cpu and with the same yields rate.
Infact only its GPU should gain a lot of performances from a clock variation

AMD wish Jaguar was 100 TFLOPS .

 

[Xenio]

AMD wish Jaguar was 100 TFLOPS .

sorry for typos, I mean 100 GF of course.
this will ends as the Shifty 90 GF for ps4 hope NeoGAF isn't reading or a new rumor will jump on the boards

 

[deanos]

Theres a chinese guy on GAF saying another guy on chinese BBS is saying PS4 has 5GB of RAM available for games.

And I say PS4 has more than 5GB RAM available for games.

 

[Xenio]

And I say PS4 has more than 5GB RAM available for games.

excuse me friend but who you are?
are you meant to be Deano from Ninja Theory? sorry fo the doubt but care to prove it if it's the case?
from what I know he is still using his nAo account and your name can drive to confusion

 

[Love_In_Rio]

but what could be the reasons to reduce yields by improving cpu of a useless 20%?
this should put the Jaguar from the 100 GF to a 120 GF, right? is this worth?

I think they can do better, a lot better reservering 1 CU to compute aid for cpu and with the same yields rate.
Infact only its GPU should gain a lot of performances from a clock variation

Well, with a 200 MHz speed bump from 1,6 to 1,8 GHz for example, with 6 cores you take back 200*6 = 1,2 GHz of performance, so almost like having 7 cores again at 1,6GHz...With a speed of 2GHz you will surpasss this of course.

 

[Cjail]

If Sony had always in mind 3GB for OS then then they would never have waited 2013 to go up to 8GB of GDDR 5.
PS4 would have had 8GB of GDDR 5 since the beginning and we never would have heard about PS4 packing 4GB of GDDR5 at all.

 

[Xenio]

Well, with a 200 MHz speed bump from 1,6 to 1,8 GHz for example, with 6 cores you take back 200*6 = 1,2 GHz of performance, so almost like having 7 cores again at 1,6GHz...With a speed of 2GHz you will surpasss this of course.

this is another way to do the same math, anyway I fit better with % than MHz

1.6 -> 1.8 means +12.5%

so a + 12.5 GF

adding a CU to CPU computing will add ~100 GF, doubling the whole jaguar power, while the graphics will not change going from 18 to 17 CU's

you know what I mean?

If Sony had always in mind 3GB for OS then then they would never have waited 2013 to go up to 8GB of GDDR 5.
PS4 would have had 8GB of GDDR 5 since the beginning, we never would have heard about 4GB of GDDR5, and developers would have known it: no surprise for anyone.
.

nope, developers know barely what is done on system side, they know better the resource reservation for gaming, of course, and given the 4->8 GB change, maybe the third party devs are a little in the dark about system resources

 

[scently]

excuse me friend but who you are?
are you meant to be Deano from Ninja Theory? sorry fo the doubt but care to prove it if it's the case?
from what I know he is still using his nAo account and your name can drive to confusion

He is not.

 

[Rangers]

I'm not even sure what he was upset about, AFAIK there hasn't been a word spoken about any disabled cores in PS4, and he goes on a ranting spree that there'll be only 6 active... I'm like, "whuh?"

i love babcat. he's the only consistent one of us. no matter which console or what component, it isn't enough, it's a weak disgrace

 

[Rangers]

And I say PS4 has more than 5GB RAM available for games.

well unless you're claiming to be a dev (an a quick glance at your post history doesn't suggest it), it's meaningless. slightly more meaningless than a guy who says he's a dev on a chinese message board, i guess.

look it's just a evidence point. like i said on gaf, we arent even likely to know how much ps4 reserves. i lost track of ps3's ever changing nebulous reserve amount a ways ago.

 

[Betanumerical]

this is another way to do the same math, anyway I fit better with % than MHz

1.6 -> 1.8 means +12.5%

so a + 12.5 GF

adding a CU to CPU computing will add ~100 GF, doubling the whole jaguar power, while the graphics will not change going from 18 to 17 CU's

you know what I mean?




nope, developers know barely what is done on system side, they know better the resource reservation for gaming, of course, and given the 4->8 GB change, maybe the third party devs are a little in the dark about system resources

FLOPs are not equal, sure adding a CU will double the FLOPs but if your trying to do stuff that isnt suited to the parallel procesisng style that a GPU uses then those FLOPs arent going to be a great deal of help. Id honestly rather they took the clock bump.

 

[kots]

i love babcat. he's the only consistent one of us. no matter which console or what component, it isn't enough, it's a weak disgrace

At least , i hope he found out the secrets of RSX ...