Predict: Next gen console tech (9th iteration and 10th iteration edition) [2014 - 2017]

[Shifty Geezer]

Maybe we don't need more TF but smarter TF. If we have potentially 'unlimited' bandwidth (TF/s stacked RAM) and highliy efficient compute based renderers, sheer calculation power might not be so important.

I end up coming back to what I mentioned before. Choice of hardware will be what's affordable at the time of release. No interest whatsoever in 'targeting' 4k or VR or anything else. As every console before, what can we put in the box and how will devs and the market care to have that used?

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Sorry, that's all way over my head - I assume you're saying that it won't be technically possible to have the cost/size/heat required sooner...but I don't understand all that, if this gen is 7 years unless the GPUs are as helpfull as Cerny said then the gap between PC and consoles will be too big IMO...it was bad enough this gen and that was with a comparitively more powerful PS3.

We won´t have new consoles with the 14nm node. And going from there to 10nm and 7nm will be longer than from 28nm to 14/16nm. This situation has a good thing. If you buy a PC next year purely based in 14/16nm tech it will remain competitive for a very looooong time.

 

[MrFox]

http://press.xilinx.com/2015-05-28-...y-Leadership-and-Multi-node-Scaling-Advantage

"Xilinx plans to introduce new 7nm products in 2017."

Okay this is Xilinx, and they are always a year or two ahead, but 7nm doesn't look impossible for 2019?

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Maybe we don't need more TF but smarter TF. If we have potentially 'unlimited' bandwidth (TF/s stacked RAM) and highliy efficient compute based renderers, sheer calculation power might not be so important.

I end up coming back to what I mentioned before. Choice of hardware will be what's affordable at the time of release. No interest whatsoever in 'targeting' 4k or VR or anything else. As every console before, what can we put in the box and how will devs and the market care to have that used?

Something like this to abuse that HBM bandwidth! (and make development cheaper, that is as important as achieve CGI like graphics).

 

[Globalisateur]

@psorcerer With adaptive vsync screens, those ~40fps average (TW3 high, 4K) will be much better than the current 30fps capped (with ~20fps capped drops...). And adaptive vsync could be perfect for open world games (games with big fps fluctuations) which are the future of gaming. Also those numbers are with one decently overclocked 980ti card.

@MrFox @London-boy They will be forced to build those machines for 4K, if just only for marketing purposes, neither Sony nor Microsoft will want to do / repeat the resolution gate we had this gen. Can you imagine one machine marketed for 1080p/1440p and one for 4K simultaneously releasing in ~2020?

Finally those 980ti 4K benchmark are with only 336GB/s of bandwitdh...HBM will give us 640B/s bandwidth in the near future, that will be perfect for 4K resolutions...And tech will become more "smart" as @Shifty Geezer wrote.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

http://press.xilinx.com/2015-05-28-...y-Leadership-and-Multi-node-Scaling-Advantage

"Xilinx plans to introduce new 7nm products in 2017."

Okay this is Xilinx, and they are always a year or two ahead, but 7nm doesn't look impossible for 2019?

Yeah, but for consoles chips to get a node it has to be mature enough to get good yields and have spare capacity (after smartphones...). That will add time.

@psorcerer With adaptive vsync screens, those ~40fps average (TW3 high, 4K) will be much better than the current 30fps capped (with ~20fps capped drops...). And adaptive vsync could be perfect for open world games (games with big fps fluctuations) which are the future of gaming. Also those numbers are with one decently overclocked 980ti card.

@MrFox @London-boy They will be forced to build those machines for 4K, if just only for marketing purposes, neither Sony nor Microsoft will want to do / repeat the resolution gate we had this gen. Can you imagine one machine marketed for 1080p/1440p and one for 4K simultaneously releasing in ~2020?

Finally those 980ti 4K benchmark are with only 336GB/s of bandwitdh...HBM will give us 640B/s bandwidth in the near future, that will be perfect for 4K resolutions...And tech will become more "smart" as @Shifty Geezer wrote.

You forget people play consoles on TVs. People don´t change TVs as PC gamers change monitors. And V-Sync will be in TVs?. As McHuj has said i would prefer Frozen like graphics at 1080p that going on with diminishing returns at 4K. You always have the PC to run the multis in 4K like now (or 8K in the future) or could have a great scaler making the job in the console (or even a 30fps 4K option there if 1080p 60fps is the base).

 

[MrFox]

Yeah, but for consoles chips to get a node it has to be mature enough to get good yields and have spare capacity (after smartphones...). That will add time.

Well xilinx shipped on 28nm in 2011, and consoles were out in 2013. So if history repeats itself, if xilinx ships 7nm in 2017 that would give us consoles in 2019?

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Well xilinx shipped on 28nm in 2011, and consoles were out in 2013. So if history repeats itself, if xilinx ships 7nm in 2017 that would give us consoles in 2019?

I hope so!.

 

[AlNom]

Well xilinx shipped on 28nm in 2011, and consoles were out in 2013. So if history repeats itself, if xilinx ships 7nm in 2017 that would give us consoles in 2019?

Costs are on the rise though.

 

[London Geezer]

@psorcerer With adaptive vsync screens, those ~40fps average (TW3 high, 4K) will be much better than the current 30fps capped (with ~20fps capped drops...). And adaptive vsync could be perfect for open world games (games with big fps fluctuations) which are the future of gaming. Also those numbers are with one decently overclocked 980ti card.

@MrFox @London-boy They will be forced to build those machines for 4K, if just only for marketing purposes, neither Sony nor Microsoft will want to do / repeat the resolution gate we had this gen. Can you imagine one machine marketed for 1080p/1440p and one for 4K simultaneously releasing in ~2020?

Finally those 980ti 4K benchmark are with only 336GB/s of bandwitdh...HBM will give us 640B/s bandwidth in the near future, that will be perfect for 4K resolutions...And tech will become more "smart" as @Shifty Geezer wrote.

Agreed. As I said, 4K and even 8K will be the number people flock to. Even though I'm pretty sure we'll get the same kind of upscaling-from-totally-arbitrary-resolutions like today for most of the games.

But really, do we want to play something that looks like Driveclub at 4K in 2020 or something that looks like Fast&Furious at 1080p? Uncharted at 4K or The-FMV-intro-from-Assasins-Creed at 1080p? Mortal Kombat X at 4K or The-FMV-trailer-of-MKX-they-tried-to-pass-for-gameplay at 1080p? The list goes on and on.

I know what I want. So let them market for 4K, render games at 2k/2.5k and upscale the hell out of them. And perhaps simpler indies at full 4K which I'll never touch. Happy with that.

I'm in hyphenating mode today.

 

[wco81]

Well maybe they could just aim for a real good 4K scaler and 4K Blu Ray support, if that format gains some level of popularity (doubtful it will be popular as Blu Ray).

That's assuming 4K displays go down enough in price that they slowly build up an installed base over the next 4 years or so.

 

[AlNom]

You forget people play consoles on TVs. People don´t change TVs as PC gamers change monitors.

Indeed. I suppose developers/IHVs may even attempt to keep track of 4K sales, but that info only tells so much (little).

If the current consoles had 4K video output already, the IHVs could have done a (hidden) survey of how many folks are picking 4K output, but alas....

 

[fehu]

That's assuming 4K displays go down enough in price that they slowly build up an installed base over the next 4 years or so.

We return to this any odd day.
4k are 300/400€ now in europe, people are buying this or 1080p just because are the only options, and on tv the most hidef contents are 1080i
in 5 years 4k will be mainstream and we will be talking how much blurry looks compared tothe new 8k

 

[wco81]

Oh I agree. About 8-9 years ago, when Sony announced support for 1080p on PS3, a lot of Xbox360 people said nobody has 1080p TVs.

That changed really quickly.

I'm not quite sure 4K will be adopted as quickly but if the price delta is minimal, people will buy. However, hope that includes HDMI 2.0, HDR and other niceties.

The Chinese bought most of the 4K TVs a couple of years ago but they were all cheap, no-name junk. But they may upgrade. Back in the day, they bought up an alternate disc format which wasn't even compatible with DVD? Then they adopted DVD and probably Blu Ray too.

 

[fehu]

Anyway
Having seen the new fury gpu + hbm, i was thinking how much big it would be on 16FF+
The gpu is 500+m^2, so half that on a new node? Add the cpus and stuff, and we are near One/Ps4 apu's size.
8 "better" TF can be considered as the realistically minimum for next gen?

And talking about better, what are the coming nextgen gpu features?

 

[dobwal]

Oh I agree. About 8-9 years ago, when Sony announced support for 1080p on PS3, a lot of Xbox360 people said nobody has 1080p TVs.

That changed really quickly.

Yet the 360 and PS3 with the majority of console games being 720p or less still managed to sell well.

 

[wco81]

No but the scarcity of 1080p TVs disappeared real fast.

 

[MrFox]

Yet the 360 and PS3 with the majority of console games being 720p or less still managed to sell well.

And they were both beaten by 480p analog Wii.

 

[fehu]

And unless you can pull a wii you must go for highend-coregamers-earlyadopter-consolewarlovers in the first year

 

[AlNom]

The gpu is 500+m^2, so half that on a new node? Add the cpus and stuff, and we are near One/Ps4 apu's size.

TSMC claims 2x density improvement, but I think that tends towards the easier types of structures like SRAM.

It's also worth considering that the memory I/O bus may have additional area savings with the HBM interface vs GDDR5/DDR3 (fairly significant chunk on both of the current console APUs).