Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Shifty Geezer]

As an adult you obviously don't find the same things fun anymore as when you were a kid and more things were new and fun to you.
You experimented and discovered new things, and while you might have not been aware of it then, that was what made everything more fun to you.

Getting a highscore in a game, or achieving a certain task just isn't as much fun to an adult as it is to a child, because you as an adult know it really doesn't matter much, and that there really isn't any reward for achieving in a game.

I don't know how true a generalisation that is. eg. In Guild Wars they've added lots of pointless achievements to win titles by playing the game stupid amounts. For me, I have tired of the game and play it now primarily to complete it, because I always have to play to completion games. I would come under your group who know achievements don't count and won't play to win them. But there's people who play to get those achievements, and they seem popular on XBLive! I'd be interested to learn how much winning those achievements for these people is actually fun though, or just a more psychological need for completion as it were, and was for me before I learnt that it doesn't matter!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

1080p has around double the amount of pixels as 720p, which has around double the amount of pixels as 480p, so in terms of performance hit, it's all the same jump...

1080p has 2.25x over 720p, which has 3x over 480p... and it's also worth noting that 480p is not that common on PS2. 480i is much more common on PS2 than 480p. 720p has 6x more pixels than 480i, however on Xbox 95% of the games were 480p and some supported 720p.

The jump from 720p to 1080p won't be as big as what we are getting this gen.

edit, uups sorry I counted 640x480 for 480p, as it should have been 720x480... so yeah the jump from 480p to 720p is the same as from 720p to 1080p, however my point about 480i still basically stands...

 

[McHuj]

Huh? No, it was better graphics that was the major driver, same as for the ten-fold spec increases every prior generation that didn't see a res jump..

The move to 720P alone soaking up so much power in fact dulled a lot of the impact of the spec increase, I believe it is one reason why their has been so much criticism of the 360 as "not next gen enough" or "it looks like the Xbox game in higher res". Previous consoles did not have to deal with increasing resolution, so ALL their power just went into better looking games, and you didn't hear "it looks just like previous gen".

That's what I was trying to say.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That's what I was trying to say.

LOL are you guys saying that PS1-games were 480p/i... Well they weren't apart from some very rare occasions, well I'm sure 480p was nonexistant, but Gt1 had that high-res mode for 1 car, but other than that, I'd say that the jump in resolution from PS1 to PS2/Xbox was even bigger than what we're getting now.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I think this is could be a great thread, Acert93, because of this exellent OP


I don't have time right now to really reply with something well thought out.....but...


we do know that Sony-Nvidia have a graphics roadmap, they said so last year. the start of that roadmap is PS3's GPU, the Reality Synthesizer ~ RSX.

I guess the next major waypoint is the Nvidia PSP2 GPU, whatever that will be.

Then it goes out all the way to PS4 in ~6+ years (or 5+ years).

NV2A: 63 million transistors, but maybe somewhat less for the actual graphics processing core.

RSX: over 300 million transistors, but not everything is for PS3 graphics processing.

but I'll just give rough estimate by saying 60M ====> 300M (5x increase in transistors)

since PS4 is probably going to be 6 years away, (Xbox1 NV2A to PS3 RSX is 5 years)
we might expect somewhat more than a 5x increase in transistors from RSX's 300M.
so we're looking at 1.5 to 2 billion transistors for PS4 GPU. that's assuming NO EDRAM.
neither NV2A nor RSX had EDRAM so.....

now, looking at GCN's Flipper to X360's Xenos.

Flipper was done in 2000. Xenos was done in 2004.
Gamecube released in 2001. Xbox 360 released in 2005

Flipper: 51 million transistors. not all of this is for graphics processing (audio DSP)
and about half of it, is embedded 1T-SRAM (~26M transistors ?) leaving between 20M
and 25M for the GPU core.

Xenos' transistors count, I forget now. it's what, 235M transistors for the GPU core, plus a few tens of millions for the logic in the daughter die, then the transistors for the 10 MB EDRAM. I've seen total T counts for the entire graphics subsystem listed as 315M, 352M, 385M.... regardless, the total is WELL over 300M

lets be "fair" and call it roughly ~350M transistors (counting the EDRAM)
so that's *between* a 6.5 and 7x increase in transistors from Flipper to Xenos.

and a ~5.5x increase increase from Xbox1 NV2A to Xbox360 Xenos.

we can expect roughly, a ~2 billion transistor GPU for the NEXT gen Xbox.


so both the next Xbox and the next Playstation should have GPUs in the ~2 billion transistor range. though we could say minimim 1.5 billion and maximim 2.5 billion. because of the EDRAM wildcard. or other things.

I spent my whole post talking transistor counts. ok lets move away from that now.

what will they acomplish on those next-next gen GPUs? I hope the efficiency of Nvidia GPUs gets better. I hope both GPUs will be able to provide the next leap in graphics, beyond pixel shaders. such as, some "hack" that provides a workable realtime fake of GI.
or will it just be more polygons and better shaders ?

 

[liolio]

Ok don't know.... lol
I would see three main chip

1) For the cpu, in regard to nex intel proc.
A conroe variant.
I would say two Massive OoO core + specialized co processors on the die.
Not like cell when I says specialized i don't mean almost general purpose more like real dsp for decompression, math heavy code, etc
2Mo L2 cache,

2) North bridge on the GPU
unified architecture, 300/400 of transistors hight frequency 1+ ghz
directx10 features.


3) some kind of edram enought for 1080p+ x amount of AA (no tiling)
including logic aka xenos.

1 Go UMA pool, gddr4 or xdram 2

I think ooo core will be cheap enought, dsp on die will make up for some limitations, I don't think we will be needing lot thread running.
That way developpement cost will not be hight.

Could be easily a media/gaming device
Apple and Ms are aiming at this. they have the software.
Sony is in a different situation, if they have to put part together, they still don't have expertise for OS righting.
And I think they will have hard competting with intel/amd, ibm seems more and more on the server side if thing, Gaming and desktop will see a technological convergence.

Software (exclusive Sony have still some good dice) will rule next gen even morethan now..

I think next gen console won't be some kind of "boutique" hardware.

 

[CNCAddict]

Hmm, I'm not sure anyone has accounted for the major majufacturing problems associated with higher and higher transistor densities. We're at 65nm right now, I think the projected path is 32nm and there are MAJOR stumbling blocks after that. So without some wonder technology, transistor budgets may scale 4x not 10x for the next console.

I don't want to hear the argument "they have come up with work arounds in the past, and they will for the next consoles". The fact of the matter is that there are real physical limits. Depressing as that may sound, it's true. We're allready hitting the Mhz wall, and transistor counts are not far behind without something radical "3d chips, etc." However 3d chips have giant stumbling blocks in the form of heat dissipation and costs, and without a very large reduction in fab costs, multi chip solutions are not likely either. I hope as much as the next guy that we get a 10x increase for the next gen, but I wouldn't bet on it IMHO.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I predicted 5x increase in transistor count for the GPUs.

they will probably be on 32nm.

both Xbox 360 and PS3 will go from 90nm to 65nm to 45nm and probably to 32nm

the NEXT gen consoles will start at 32nm


the NEXT Xbox will use either something between Dx10 and Dx11, or Dx11
Shader Model 5.0++ or SM6.x however that fits into future versions of DirectX / Direct3D
depending on timing, NEXT Xbox will use an ATI R8xx or R9xx, but something custom from
the specific PC GPUs.

if PS4 follows in the path of PS3 GPU being a generation behind the state-of-the-art (NV5x will be launching around PS3 launch) then PS4 will use something from the NV6x generation, but hopefully instead, something from the NV7x generation.

the next generation of CELL might look something like Intel's Platform 2015 concept. with CELL next-gen for PS4 having a few main cores (next-gen PPEs), dozens of general purpose cores (next-gen SPEs) plus some specialized cores for graphics rendering, audio, voice recognition, etc (something CELL currently does not have).

 

[Acert93]

Intel talks a little bit about tri-gate transistors and the 32nm process node scheduled for late 2009.

 

[zed]

2 senerios'
A/ multiple cores with the gpu (like the new nvidia card having 2 on the one card)
B/ no gpu, all graphics are done on the cpu

 

[TheChefO]

B/ no gpu, all graphics are done on the cpu

Wasn't this Sony's original plan with ps3? I think they found cell a bit weak in comparison to other graphic techs and added Nvidia to the team after their research proved gpus were still more efficient at graphic rendering. I don't see how the situation would be any different 5 years from now.

 

[Tahir2]

I see with my magic eye something that begins with d and ends with ete with an isc in the middle.

Discrete memory pools to offset the bandwidth problem, within a die I would expect to see AI processors and Physics processors and Sound processors. All with a nominal amount of their own cache to play with. I then expect to see a monster CPU with many cores (quad core perhaps) and a nice little GPU.

In 5 years I expect the major advancements we are seeing now from DX8 to DX9.0c to have ceased and the big players (NV and ATI and maybe a new "old" third player) bringing about faster parts.

I do not expect transistor budgets to continue increasing the way Acert93 has predicted and I also see lithography limitations raising their ugly head going beyond 65nm to 45nm....power consumption will be an issue as transistors eat up electricity and having a few billion going on and off a few billion times a second isn't cheap.

 

[DarkRage]

GPU centric designs, even more than 360.

More flexible ALUs in GPUs => graphics and physics in GPU. A "simple" CPU can deal with other tasks (a cheap 4 Intel Core3 would be enough).

But the heart would be the GPU: Hundreds of flexible and efficient ALUs. Not multiplied by 30. Just 8-10 times more. 256 ALUs, with good granularity and efficiency.

Yeah, 64 MB of eDRAM for massive bandwith to the GPU. 1080p FSAAx4 only? Deal!!!
2 GB RAM.

No optical drive. Connection required. Hard drive optional, flash memory as standard storage.

And please, improved APIs, middleware, programming languages. Bottlenecks are shifting form hardware constraints to development limits.

 

[Megadrive1988]

highspeed internet connection as the ONLY way of getting games/content will not happen, even in the next generation.

but I agree, please do away with optical drives. I want to see a return to FAST access solid-state media of some kind. even at the expense of storage space.


like how Nintendo DS works, with near-instant start-up for games.

only alot more storage space on NEXT gen consoles.
(but not as much as Blu-ray, HD-DVD)

won't even need a harddrive. the less moving parts, the better.

solid-state media ===> main RAM memory ====> CPU-GPU (with embedded memory)

with no optical drives or harddrives to slow things down. more money can be put into the GPU ^__^

 

[Tahir2]

What happens when your internet connection is down?
We will all tell our grandkids stories of how we used to use Floppy Disks to play games and cartridges...ahh the good ole times.

 

[Farid]

Great thread idea

Just a side note, but isn't NV2A capable of 8 Z-Sample per passes?

LOL are you guys saying that PS1-games were 480p/i... Well they weren't apart from some very rare occasions, well I'm sure 480p was nonexistant, but Gt1 had that high-res mode for 1 car, but other than that, I'd say that the jump in resolution from PS1 to PS2/Xbox was even bigger than what we're getting now.

The vast majority of the games running on the PSone/Saturn/N64 were runing in the 320x240 range (Lower on the N64, for some of them).

A few Saturn games ran in "high resolution" mode, as you said GT had some limited "HD" mode and some N64 supported a high resolution mode when the N64 had the Expansion Pak inserted, this modes on the N64 also meant more slowdowns (with the exception of Resident Evil 2). Speaking of this, was the high resolution mode on the N64 640x480, or was it just "higher than usual"?

Anyway, we can say that the Saturn/Psone generation of consoles supported 640x480 just like this generation supported 720p/1080i, read only few titles did while the majority didn't.

It should also be noted that the jump between the ~320x240 used on the 1995/96 era of consoles and the 640x480 (640x448 on the PS2...) is a bigger jump in resolution than the one we see today. 640x480 is 4 time larger than 320x240, while 1280x720 is "only" 3 time larger than 640x480.

 

[pc999]

I personally dont see high end HW in the next gen (I also doubt we will see next gen so soon as I expect them to be very close proffit wise).

If we look at how a lowest end (eg X1300) HW from today would kill anything on XB at much higher rez, I would expect a relatively low soluction for it too.

Anything that run UE4 in the low-mid details will be more than enought IMO.

 

[sonyps35]

I personally dont see high end HW in the next gen (I also doubt we will see next gen so soon as I expect them to be very close proffit wise).

If we look at how a lowest end (eg X1300) HW from today would kill anything on XB at much higher rez, I would expect a relatively low soluction for it too.

Anything that run UE4 in the low-mid details will be more than enought IMO.

I expect Sony and Nintendo to go this route of low end hardware for PS4 and Wii2. But I think Microsoft still sticks with the high end hardware for Xbox720.
















*Ducks glass bottles* Just kidding!

 

[Megadrive1988]

Tech.co.uk looks ahead to the technology in Xbox 2011/X720

http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertai...360-microsofts-next-console?print=true&page=1

It's almost two years to the day since Microsoft launched the Xbox 360. So you would expect its successor to be well on its way towards fruition. But Microsoft has dropped only a few subtle hints about what form it could take, and hasn't provided any details.

Putting the clocks back

To start off, let's take a look at how the Xbox 360 leapt ahead of its predecessor, and what that could mean for the Xbox 2011. The CPU clock speed quadrupled between the Xbox and Xbox 360, so that might imply that the 2011 CPU would be running at 12GHz.

But Intel is claiming its 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture will arrive at 4GHz in 2010, and clock speeds for the top desktop CPUs have remained steady at around 3GHz since the tail end of 2003. So we can't see a console processor hitting 12GHz, even in 2011. The core clock would well be a fairly minor leap forward - it could be running at just 5GHz.

One thing the Xbox 2011 CPU will have, however, is processing cores - lots of them. The Xbox had one core, and the 360 has three. Looking at current trends, we predict there will be at least eight processing cores in the next version, possibly as many as 16 - and there could even be up to 32. After all, desktop PC chips with eight cores are due at the end of 2008 in the shape of Intel's Nehalem architecture.

Something similar is likely to happen to the graphics acceleration. It is rumoured that AMD/ATI's forthcoming R700 architecture will offer up to eight GPU cores for the highest-end products, and that's due in 2008. Intel's Larabee graphics project also aims to be many-cored.

On the other hand, the Xbox 360's graphics run at only twice the clockspeed of the original Xbox's. So we could be seeing consoles in 2011 with lots of little graphics cores, perhaps as many as 64. But each one might only be running at a speed of 2GHz or even less.

All of these cores could well be part of one single chip, too. Both Intel and AMD are planning to integrate graphics onto their CPUs around the beginning of 2009. By 2011 this idea could be well established. There's even some talk of Microsoft designing its own chips, although there are very few details of this.

RAMming it home

Where today's premium PCs are sporting 2GB of memory, with 512MB more lined up on the graphics card, the Xbox360 only has 512MB shared across both CPU and GPU. A console needs to be much more affordable for the mass market.

Since we expect the console's operating system to be a 64-bit environment, memory in excess of 4GB would be perfectly feasible. But we suspect the amount of RAM will remain well behind desktop PCs, for cost reasons - maybe just 8GB?

The Xbox 360 has 115.2 GFLOPS floating point performance, 100 times the original Xbox, and can process 500 million polygons a second - five times its predecessor. With its plethora of cores, the Xbox 2011 could have 100 times more GLOPS again - maybe 10 TFLOPs, not far off supercomputer status.

Something that could be very different in 2011 is the mode of game delivery. Online game purchasing (like Valve's Steam) is still in its infancy, and current next-gen consoles are sticking primarily with discs for games. PlayStation 3 uses Blu-ray, and you can get an HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, so these options are likely to remain on their successors, if only for backwards compatibility.

But the chances are that the next consoles will be very much network-connected devices, something Microsoft has pioneered with Xbox LIVE.

So the Xbox 2011 will more than likely come with a big hard disk - or even gigabytes of Flash storage - and your games will download straight onto this. It'll destroy the second-hand trade-in market, of course. But maybe we'll all be selling our electronic license keys on eBay instead!

Our prediction for the next Xbox is...

So here's the bottom line for the Xbox in 2011, based on current trends and what we know is happening over the next few years. Check back here in 2011 to see if we were right!

CPU/GPU - Integrated chip with 16 x 5GHz processor cores, 32 x 2GHz graphics cores
Memory - 8GB GDDR8
Media - Dual-format HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive for backwards compatibility and movies
Storage - 4TB hard disk for online game (and movie) delivery
Built-in camera - for gesture-based control
Built-in microphone - for voice-recognised control

 

[dobwal]

http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertai...360-microsofts-next-console?print=true&page=1

Thats prediction for a Xbox 1440 not the 720 (xbox 3).

intergrated CPU/GPU? Intel and AMD wants to intergrated their CPU with IGP like GPUs not the large die, tons of transistors and power hungry high end GPUs.

8 Gb of GDDR8? We haven't seen the full adoption of GDDR4 and we're suppose to see ATI and Nvidia adopt a new series of RAM basically every year until the 720 drops.

4TB harddrive? Given the current trouble surrounding the cost of intergrating a HDD into the current consoles, I am at a loss for words that someone would predict a harddrive that large.

Amazing that they mention built in camera and microphone, yet given the success of the Wii with its motion sensing, the is no mention of that type of feature.