Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

Except next time they will want to push 3D, so perhaps next time we'll see more games which render at 60FPS.

On something else:

Hypothetically would it be bad if they simply upgraded the GPU hardware and left the CPU pretty much as-is for the most part for next generation hardware?

Throw in another core, add another MB of cache and implement hyperthreading and they're done? (At least on the Xbox 360). If the GPU can be made to multitask then why not have the CPU hanging off the side of what is effectively a massive ALU array? On 28nm the CPU itself could be very small relative to the GPU and make up less than a quarter of the overall transistor budget.

 

I dont think thats needed for 3D though, especially if you want to make 3D support a requirement. To me it would make more sense to make all games 1080p standard at whatever framerate the dev feels best, and then the 3D mode could be rendered at 720p in a side by side format, which is actually less pixels to render than 1080p, leaving the games framerate consistent between modes thus not effecting gameplay. This way all games could have a 3d mode and the sacrifice to enable it would be a reduction in resolution rather than framerate. A reduction in res is much less of a sacrifice than reduction in framerate IMO, id almost certainly take a 720p 3D image over a 1080p 2D image but having to choose between 1080p@60 in 2D and 1080p@30 in 3d would be a tougher choice for me especially in competative online games. I cant see a 60fps requirement hapening but 1080p i think is reasonable.

 

Next-gen the gaming industry will be gunning to usurp film in size, and to appear a more rounded art-form, will drop to 24fps to match the cinematic look...

Seriously, the framerate doesn't matter for 3D. The TVs will buffer the left and right fields and flick between them 120 times per second, regardless of whether the frames are updated or not.

 

That just seems inefficient, if 3D is going to be a fully supported display mode. Would it not be easier to simply ensure the console had a massive fillrate as fillrate would be the biggest performance hit in rendering a scene twice, however an efficient implementation can reduce the duplication of other workloads. 1280-1440 by 1080 could be a good target resolution for 3D as its between a third and a quarter fewer pixels to render and thereby reduce the hit taken by 3D to manageable levels.

What will this do for latency though? If moving to even more parallel architectures in the future introduces more inherent latency and 3D again introduces latency as well, could we see over 200ms typical for 3D modes at 30FPS?

 

3D latency will only ever be one frame on account of being 3D, no worse than current TVs which already buffer the image prior to processing and display. 3D really adds nothing to the display pipeline. Your console outputs an image (even if two fields, you can basically consdier it a 2x 720p sized image no matter how it's packaged) which the TV gets and then shows on screen, only alternating between half and half of the pixels 120 times per second. This 3D alternation is in parallel to the display stream, just as your current TV updates 60 times per second regardless of how quickly or slowly the video stream arrives.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but that would mean a game like Halo 3 would be 133ms latency and a game like Killzone 2 would range from up to 200ms latency in 3D if you count an extra frame. Would it not also mean that frame dips in 3D mode are even more evident as a proportion of overall latency/responsiveness experienced by the player?

 

Again, going 3D will add 0 ms latency above and beyond any latency a screen currently adds. If Halo3 is 100ms latency now on a screen that buffers and upscales a frame, it'll be 100ms latency on the same screen with 3D enabled such that the screen alternates fields. Well, in theory. I don't put it beyond the TV companies to create naff systems and introduce pointless lag!

 

Sorry I misread your post as I was in a hurry, forgive me sensai!!

 

hdmi 1.4a spec said that

- movie 3d profile
Frame Packing
1080p @ 23.98/24Hz

- game 3d profile
Frame Packing
720p @ 50 o 59.94/60Hz

1080p for movie

720p for game

so devloper let start think about it

i am very disappointed becouse geometry have to be made thinking that when a game will run in 3d mode they will be twice. No problem for the fillrate becouse the 3d version 720p will have about the same amount of the 2d version on 1080p

 

I hope you mean sensei. Unless Shifty used to be your wife

 

So bow to your sensei and bow to your sensai are essentially the same thing?

 

Theres is said to be new talk about PS4 (and PSP2) at watch.impress if anybody can translate (better than Google) > http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/kaigai/20100309_353492.html

From another board this article rumors PS4 supposedly has BC with PS3, Cell with more PPU's, and cost was a key design factor (whatever that means, isn't it always?).

Edit: From machine translation seems to be saying Sony is going back to more PC/X360 type general purpose cores. While apparently keeping the current 7 SPU's for BC?

 

I want more SPU's to have 1080p MLAA, or each spu can get more local storage.

 

Well it is, but with PS3 they did go a bit overboard with regards to costs, initially at least. They will be paying for the decisions made on PS3 for years to come.
Now, Nintendo is the one who definitely got the whole 'making money' part of the business equation right. They never made a loss on the Wii, released a product with relatively archaic technology, and they've been laughing ever since.
Seeing that Sony might want to basically release a new Playstation by, perhaps, reusing parts from the PS3, or release it without the massive increase in power we saw from PS2 to PS3 (which to be honest i'm not sure would be possible), does not surprise me in the slightest.

 

I don't think Sony has to get too radical for PS4. Cell is pretty powerful as is, so they probably only need to tweak it to make it easier to work with. And go with a better GPU and more memory of course. BC shouldn't be a problem. Seems like an obvious choice.

Starting over with another new architecture seems foolish to me.

 

If Sony goes low end and Microsoft doesn't Microsoft will steal the graphic whore market for themselves. Even if Microsoft and Sony collude to do it there is a significant risk they will start losing market share to PCs IMO (before anyone asks ... yes, I'm fucking serious).

 

We've seen how having the 'best hardware' helped this generation. And the last. And the one before.... and on and on and on...

/sarcasm

 

They still served a customer base which didn't abandon them for your preferred lower end competition, even if that base wasn't large enough to give them monstrous profits ... the problem with trying to out-Nintendo Nintendo is that they will have to leave that customer base behind, hope they follow them, and then steal some of Nintendo's customer base at the same time.

That's a dangerous gamble, what can easily happen is that you lose your old customer base and find out Nintendo's customer base has no interest in what you have to offer.

 

They will either have to come up with some innovation that people will go crazy over or go for performance. Sure the console with the best graphics hasnt always been most sucessfull but aside from the wii they have always been in the same ballpark. There is a sweet spot i think where perfomance per £ starts to decrease heavily, its this peak just before the point of heavily diminishing returns that they should be targeting. Wii doesnt prove people dont want better graphics, it proves thats not the only way to drive sales if you have something else people want. What is going to drive sales of PS4 if the increase in performance isnt significant, they need something else in that case otherwise why would you upgrade.

Nintendo have said themselves that they had no choice but to go the route they did with Wii because they couldnt compete in the same market as the others, this led to them taking this huge risk. Sony would be mad to take such a gamble when they have a fanbase there waiting for them. All they need to do is not release a £450 console this time, and i dont think the will cosidering they dont have a format to push this time.

 

Imho Sony would be completely crazy to let Ms and Nintendo more than a two years head start. It would be close to suicidal.