Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[3dilettante]

ISA is of secondary importance to performance, barring any really bad features (x87).
The x86 architecture has smoothed over some very significant shortcomings that could not be fully worked around by hardware.

However, the credit for being competitive at all rests more on the some of best semiconductor manufacturing in the world, and more engineering effort than any other architecture ever had.

Making x86 competitive did not come cheap, and just as there is no massive technical disadvantage to x86, the upside to having it is similarly limited.
The price tag for the same results is going to be higher, and there is less flexibility to push redesigns and shrinks, since those would be at the mercy of another company.

 

[Gubbi]

I doubt anyone hates x86 as much as I used to.

Being forced to code assembler for 8088 when i was used to M68K is one of my programming low points as well.

But the one thing you can say about the architecture is that it was good enough to get to the point where the instruction set is no longer a signficant driver for the archtecture.
I just don't see it going anywhere.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Companies developing x86 has been a driver behind some of the most important microarchitectural developments. Intel released the first OOO processor in late 95 (PPRO), AMD the second in early 96 (K5). state of the art branch prediction and speculative memory loads are all performance enablers that *any* architecture today need if they are to be performance competitive with Intel's latest and greatest.

Cheers

 

[rpg.314]

Being forced to code assembler for 8088 when i was used to M68K is one of my programming low points as well.

You had an assembler, you lucky dog.

I had to assemble those by hand when I took my microprocessors class,

 

[fehu]

I'm a bit confused comparing different architecture
what are the so bad legacy things that take back x86?
they are structural necessity or keep only for backward compatibility?
in the second case can amd or intel develop an x86 derivate especially designed for console and efficiency?

 

[rpg.314]

what are the so bad legacy things that take back x86?

That list is too long to list in a single post....

they are structural necessity or keep only for backward compatibility?

compatibility

in the second case can amd or intel develop an x86 derivate especially designed for console and efficiency?

That will basically amount to junking pretty much all of x86's ISA and starting from scratch.

 

[aaronspink]

FFXI is pretty successful, and although it's too early to tell, DCUO sold out at launch. There is a demand for Console MMO's out there. Or are you one of those people who thinks no MMO besides WOW is successful?

FFXI was so so and had a large PC user base. DCUO sold out because SOE didn't ship any, not because of insane demand. Compared to recent MMO launches, it is doing pretty bad atm. And quite honestly, I'd wait at least a month or two on it to determine how it really is doing.

 

[3dilettante]

Companies developing x86 has been a driver behind some of the most important microarchitectural developments. Intel released the first OOO processor in late 95 (PPRO),

I'm thinking you meant Intel released its first OOO processor in 95.
It was not the first OOO.
x86 made it signficantly harder to design an OOO chip.

I'm a bit confused comparing different architecture
what are the so bad legacy things that take back x86?
they are structural necessity or keep only for backward compatibility?
in the second case can amd or intel develop an x86 derivate especially designed for console and efficiency?

The x86 ISA is a variable-length encoded instruction set with many addressing modes, reg/mem operations, and small number of almost-general-purpose registers, and a lousy stack-based FP ISA that will hopefully be fully deprecated at some point.
Its SIMD sets started out horrible, and have incrementally improved with each generation. There's unfortunately a host of incompatible short-vector SIMD instructions as a result.
There are various other things like old complex instructions, condition code setting, and segmentation that add cruft.

x87 was a horrible performance limiter, so it is being ditched.
x86 has gone through several address space extensions.

x86 is not x86 without the sea of prefixes, memory modes, and reg/mem.
The irregular instruction set makes high-speed decoding very hard.
The large number of addressing modes makes handling memory more complicated.
This worsens the following: Reg/mem operands couple a highly variable and unpredictable memory operation with core execution. Instructions are cracked into an internal ISA because it would be too unwieldly otherwise.

Without backwards compatibility, there is no particularly good reason to re-implement x86.
It wasn't on technical merits that the ISA became so widespread.

 

[aaronspink]

I wouldn't bet on the new generation consoles repeating the high cost negative margin stuff we've come to expect. Nintendo has proved that it's not all about horsepower anymore.

In other news, Disney proves that it isn't all about quality animation anymore. In other news, Emirates airlines proves that it isn't about oil anymore. etc.

This might come as a shock to you but the Nintendo consoles for quite sometime have been a required gaming accessory in order to play any Nintendo games. No one cares about the consoles and MS/Sony cannot replicate the game library of Nintendo. OTOH, no third party has been successful on the Nintendo platforms in recent memory.

The short point is that Nintendo != MS/Sony and making any comparison between the two is really valid or reasonable. Nintendo is a large publisher/developer that just happens to sell a console and just happens to require that console for all their products. MS/Sony are NOT in the same business as Nintendo. If either MS/Sony released the Wii, they would already have killed it for lack of sales and be getting out of the biz.

 

[aaronspink]

You're confusing loss-leader hardware sold at microcenter with actual prices. I guarantee that newegg made a loss on that ram sale, and microcenter was just liquidating old motherboards and made a loss on their sale. Same goes with mail in rebates, they're based on the fact that many people won't send them. You also did not include any assembly costs and now have a shitty and noisy power supply and case.

Actually, all those prices are likely at a profit.

You're not going to see many PC ports next gen, and PC's will still remain niche for strategy games, simulations, World of Warcraft, Flash games, low budget independent games, and the occasional online shooter that sells far less than the console versions.

I think someone doesn't realize what most games are developed on.

 

[aaronspink]

I doubt anyone hates x86 as much as I used to.
But the one thing you can say about the architecture is that it was good enough to get to the point where the instruction set is no longer a signficant driver for the archtecture.
I just don't see it going anywhere.

I'm pretty sure just about everyone in computers would pay their first born, their families, their neighbors, and their souls to not be going anywhere just like x86.

 

[corduroygt]

Actually, all those prices are likely at a profit.

When the other retailers are charging 20-30 bucks more and without a free, but ancient motherboard, it's quite obvious that they are not.

I think someone doesn't realize what most games are developed on.

Where are the PC ports of many console games this gen? Let's start with Halo, RDR, Uncharted, Vanquish, Castlevania, Gears 2, etc. I'm sure all of them are developed on PC's running tools built for x86 workstations.

Just because x86 is used on development PC's does not mean the games developed on them are suited or optimized for it. Nor does it mean they could easily be converted to x86. I'm sure trucks and other heavy machinery is used for building racetracks, but in the end, racing cars use them. PC is irrelevant as a gaming platform save the occasional strategy game, independent game, and MMO. New gamers are used to controllers before they even pick up a mouse, and PC FPS populations are dwindling compared to console FPS populations too.

x86 doesn't have the biggest market advantage it had on the console front, which is legacy compatibility. Therefore it's not a good fit for the next generation consoles.

 

[AlNom]

Where are the PC ports of many console games this gen? Let's start with Halo, RDR, Uncharted, Vanquish, Castlevania, Gears 2, etc. I'm sure all of them are developed on PC's running tools built for x86 workstations.

Publishing politics aside.... (i.e. Microsoft focus on Xbox).

 

[pjbliverpool]

Where are the PC ports of many console games this gen? Let's start with Halo, RDR, Uncharted, Vanquish, Castlevania, Gears 2, etc. I'm sure all of them are developed on PC's running tools built for x86 workstations.

Lets start? You picked around 50% of the top exclusives this gen. Take any single console and you'll have the same result of "not available here".
Fact is that most games these days are multiplatform which means PC's as well as consoles. If you pick platform exclusives thought then of course you are going to have platforms that wont be playing the game.

 

[eastmen]

FFXI was so so and had a large PC user base. DCUO sold out because SOE didn't ship any, not because of insane demand. Compared to recent MMO launches, it is doing pretty bad atm. And quite honestly, I'd wait at least a month or two on it to determine how it really is doing.

Your right , mmorpgs are meant to last years , if user base starts to decrease in the next 6 months instead of increase its bad for Sony

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

FFXI was so so and had a large PC user base. DCUO sold out because SOE didn't ship any, not because of insane demand. Compared to recent MMO launches, it is doing pretty bad atm. And quite honestly, I'd wait at least a month or two on it to determine how it really is doing.

Can you prove any of this or is this just talk? You talked about DCUO doing pretty bad atm, yet DCUO is the best selling game for SOE. You, also, said SOE "didn't ship any" copies of DCUO for PC. Did you forget that it's, also, available on Steam? It's not like it would be a surprise that the console version of games sell more. It's pretty standard, actually.

Your right , mmorpgs are meant to last years , if user base starts to decrease in the next 6 months instead of increase its bad for Sony

Why 6 months or did you just pull that time period out of thin air?

 

[eastmen]

You're confusing loss-leader hardware sold at microcenter with actual prices. I guarantee that newegg made a loss on that ram sale, and microcenter was just liquidating old motherboards and made a loss on their sale. Same goes with mail in rebates, they're based on the fact that many people won't send them. You also did not include any assembly costs and now have a shitty and noisy power supply and case.

In any case you're over $500 without assembly and shipping, and accessories, which will bring the price to $600. Consoles also have a retail markup, but it's 5-10% at most.

The only reason x86 is popular is the same reason the Porsche 911 is popular. It's inherently bad design but engineers have worked hard at it for years to make it work fast and work well. Intel also has an undisputed manufacturing advantage and the x86 has BC advantage for PC's, but outside of the PC/Server world, x86 is not needed. Current gen developers are already used to the PPC architecture, and PC development doesn't really drive consoles anymore outside of DirectX, which is used for GPU programming.

You're not going to see many PC ports next gen, and PC's will still remain niche for strategy games, simulations, World of Warcraft, Flash games, low budget independent games, and the occasional online shooter that sells far less than the console versions.

we are also talking about parts in 2011 vs 2012 or 2013. You can also bet that amd made money off that sale even if newegg didn't although i don't see why newegg would sell the ram at a loss

 

[eastmen]

Can you prove any of this or is this just talk? You talked about DCUO doing pretty bad atm, yet DCUO is the best selling game for SOE. You, also, said SOE "didn't ship any" copies of DCUO for PC. Did you forget that it's, also, available on Steam? It's not like it would be a surprise that the console version of games sell more. It's pretty standard, actually.


Why 6 months or did you just pull that time period out of thin air?

alot of mmorpgs peak at 6-12 months , if subs start decreasing thats not a good sign.

Of course sony can still make money on dcu and it wont be a flat out failure but no one wants to make a 100k -500k sub user base game.

 

[corduroygt]

Lets start? You picked around 50% of the top exclusives this gen. Take any single console and you'll have the same result of "not available here".
Fact is that most games these days are multiplatform which means PC's as well as consoles. If you pick platform exclusives thought then of course you are going to have platforms that wont be playing the game.

Exclusives matter, because if PC was a leading platform, we'd see exclusives on it comparable to the consoles instead of getting 1 exclusive title in 5 years. Games are developed for consoles and quickly ported to the PC for the most part by spending as little money as possible. PC is not the driving force under game development anymore, so x86 is irrelevant in next-gen gaming.

 

[corduroygt]

we are also talking about parts in 2011 vs 2012 or 2013. You can also bet that amd made money off that sale even if newegg didn't although i don't see why newegg would sell the ram at a loss

Of course AMD made money on that sale, there is no doubt about that. The question is why would they settle for a lot less when they obviously have no trouble selling their chips for more than any console manufacturer would want to pay for them.

 

[cal_guy]

PC exclusive List.
Starcraft II, Dawn of War 2 + DOW2 Chaos, Stalker Call of Pripyat, Empire Total War, Napoleon Total War, Sims III, Command and Conquer 4, Spore, Sins of Solar Empire, ArmA 1/2, Witcher 1/2.