Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Mobius1aic]

You guys are so boring. There is no such thing as overkill from a computer hardware perspective. Give the devs the resources and they will find new and interesting ways to use it.

I don't think Nintendo, Sony or MS are interested in releasing consoles that they can't profit off next time around. I think Nintendo will release a system with 2 GB if it's in the current rumored timeframe of being shown off at E3. Here's hoping for a GPU with 640 to 800 SPs! GDDR5 can't be that expensive, and on parts of Juniper or RV740 caliber, 1 GB definitely would be workable, but having another 1 GB, either as system RAM or with the other gig as unified pool would be the best solution. A run down of GDDR5 costs vs XDR vs XDR2 would be interesting, though I imagine XDR and XDR2 are very expensive.

 

[Xenus]

1GB or less would leave Nintendo painfully behind again as I can see Sony or MS going for 2GB as a minimum. Both Sony and Microsoft are making money of this gen now Microsoft passed into the black overall this gen a while back and Blu-ray is what doomed Sony to massive amounts of losses this gen not the amount of Ram.

 

[Mobius1aic]

1GB or less would leave Nintendo painfully behind again as I can see Sony or MS going for 2GB as a minimum. Both Sony and Microsoft are making money of this gen now Microsoft passed into the black overall this gen a while back and Blu-ray is what doomed Sony to massive amounts of losses this gen not the amount of Ram.

I was just mostly wondering if it would be better to have 2 GB of unified RAM or 1 GB system RAM + 1 GB VRAM. With an APU system, going with a unified solution would be the only real course unless on die VRAM was made possible. Even with separate CPU and GPU dies, would a unified 2 GB system still be reasonably the best solution, despite the performance advantages of separate large RAM pools?

 

[Megadrive1988]

I see Microsoft/Sony going with at least 4 GB RAM (of GDDR5/6) with Xbox3/PS4 and Nintendo going with 1-2 GB GDDR5 plus some 1T-SRAM,

As far as Sony and the PS4, I'm really hoping, not for current XDR2 or GDDR5/6 but for Rambus - Terabyte Bandwidth Initiative RAM, especially if Sony goes for another Nvidia GPU that lacks embedded memory.

 

[Xenus]

Depends on the timeline. If Sony/MS are releasing at late 2013 at earliest I would guess that iut would be at least 4GB. Also Nintendo is playing a dangerous game if they launch too early with too little of a jump over the PS3/X360 they are in danger of being in a bad situation when Sony/MS release.

 

[Boxercide]

Are we sure that 1080p native rendering is the goal for the next gen?

Considering the type of PC specs one needs to get games that are designed for current consoles to run at full 1080p, IMHO 720p 60fps with more bells and whistles seems to be a more cost/heat effective goal.

Though I do understand the marketing behind blaring "FULL HD!!!!! OMGodZorz!!!"

 

[Mobius1aic]

Are we sure that 1080p native rendering is the goal for the next gen?

Considering the type of PC specs one needs to get games that are designed for current consoles to run at full 1080p, IMHO 720p 60fps with more bells and whistles seems to be a more cost/heat effective goal.

Though I do understand the marketing behind blaring "FULL HD!!!!! OMGodZorz!!!"

720p + 4x AA hurts my eyes. 1080p + no AA does not

 

[Xenus]

In all likelihood even if they designed it with 1080P 60fps in mind there are devs that would go to 720p 30fps if the tradeoff makes their game look just that much better.

 

[Arwin]

Are we sure that 1080p native rendering is the goal for the next gen?

Considering the type of PC specs one needs to get games that are designed for current consoles to run at full 1080p, IMHO 720p 60fps with more bells and whistles seems to be a more cost/heat effective goal.

Though I do understand the marketing behind blaring "FULL HD!!!!! OMGodZorz!!!"

Full HD was the marketing speak this gen already, and some games even already run in 1920x1080p@60fps this gen. I think 1920x1080p at 60fps is definitely going to be the main target for next-gen games, even while I do agree that limitless effects are probably more important than resolution at this point in a number of situations.

But if, say, the PS3 indeed launches in 2014, then that's 9 years between generations, particularly if we look at GPU tech (GPU wise, the PS3 shows it was delayed a year for various non-GPU related reasons). So yes, I believe we should hope to expect a slightly larger jump than last time. 720x480 to 1280x720 to 1920x1080 are otherwise very similar jumps.

In addition, I think that next-gen most games will aim to support the 60fps / 3D / split-screen tri-factor, making 60fps more likely than last-gen.

This is still taking into consideration that I expect next-gen will likely launch with a maximum price-tag of $399/399EUR and therefore the difference between the PS3 and the 'PS4' will likely be a little smaller and that will show in the hardware. But I also expect both consoles to be smarter about their hardware cost-spending than last time.

 

[Entropy]

Are we sure that 1080p native rendering is the goal for the next gen?

Considering the type of PC specs one needs to get games that are designed for current consoles to run at full 1080p, IMHO 720p 60fps with more bells and whistles seems to be a more cost/heat effective goal.

Though I do understand the marketing behind blaring "FULL HD!!!!! OMGodZorz!!!"

Twice the pixels is potentially twice the information. When you blow it up to the size of a modern TV-set, (or god forbid, a projector), it makes a substantial difference (depending on distance, obviously).
1080p is pretty much the only thing on the market right now, around here. The odd intermediary "HD-Ready" devices are phased out. In the ads I see now, it's only for the very cheapest TV-sets that the advertiser bother to point out that they are Full-HD or 1080p, as if to say it isn't 2009 anymore. For all other sets it's not even mentioned as a feature. Camcorders, and even digicams are 1080p these days, so all user video material can be assumed to be 1080p going forward.

When the old consoles were launched in 2005/2006 1080p was used to fleece another few hundred dollars off the affluent. Today, it is standard, and when the new consoles launch, it will have been the baseline for years, and peoples expectations will have changed accordingly.

 

[liolio]

It's terrible Nintendo is worse than Intel they will ship a non Dirext X11 compliant machine by 2012...

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yes, only 1080p tv-sets are being sold right now, even the cheapest 30" screens.

I could see 1080p as being pretty much mandatory, with the 3D implementation being optional.
Or at the very least, 1080p or 720p with stereo 3D.
Not that it should be a problem for any mid-end GPU in 2014.


720p in 2014 will be like 480p was in 2005. At least Sony and Microsoft won't let any games coming out in 720p, as they didn't let anything coming out in 480p this gen.

 

[ShadowRunner]

540p isnt far off 480p...

Anyway, i think dynamic framebuffers will be much more common next gen, with 1080p as a base and moving down from there based on workload. Makes much more efficient use of available resources.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I believe Project Cafe / Wii 2 will be able to handle 1080p much better than Xbox 360 or PS3, even if it's using 4 year old R7xx technology.

I cannot wait to see Super Mario Galaxy 3 (or whatever the next console Mario game is) running at 1080p 60fps with a massive, massive two orders of magnitude increase in detail/complexity over SMG1/2 with per pixel lighting and all kinds of shaders and effects.

 

[V3]

Does Crytek know how next gen consoles can even achieved 8 GB of RAM ? Using today tech next gen PS3 segmented design would need Cell pair with 4GB XDR and dual GPUs paired with 2GB GDDR5 each. I am not even sure how you can fit 8 GB to something like Xbox360 UMA design. 512 bit bus maybe ?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Does Crytek know how next gen consoles can even achieved 8 GB of RAM ? Using today tech next gen PS3 segmented design would need Cell pair with 4GB XDR and dual GPUs paired with 2GB GDDR5 each. I am not even sure how you can fit 8 GB to something like Xbox360 UMA design. 512 bit bus maybe ?

Why would game consoles being launched in late 2013 -> 2014 have to carry 32-bit CPUs?
And why are you assuming that the RAM chips in 2-3 years will have the same density as they have now? They won't...

 

[V3]

Why would game consoles being launched in late 2013 -> 2014 have to carry 32-bit CPUs?
And why are you assuming that the RAM chips in 2-3 years will have the same density as they have now? They won't...

Well I suppose 8 Gb chips might go into mass production by 2014. 2 Gb just went into mass production end of last year. That's why we see high end graphic cards with 2 GB. I really don't expect next gen console to have greater than 256 bit bus though.

 

[wsippel]

It's terrible Nintendo is worse than Intel they will ship a non Dirext X11 compliant machine by 2012...

How does DX11 compliance matter if Nintendo doesn't even use DirectX? You don't need D3D to do tesselation or compute shaders.

 

[liolio]

How does DX11 compliance matter if Nintendo doesn't even use DirectX? You don't need D3D to do tesselation or compute shaders.

Directx compliance hints at what the hardware is able to do. I don't expect N to use directx 11.
What I meant is that Nintendo is to use out dated tech, even Intel who is lagging in regard to directx/compute - openCL/GL compliance will ship compliant parts in 2012 (along with Ivy bridge).
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For memory I don't expect more than 4GB of Ram that's already plenty.

 

[wsippel]

Directx compliance hints at what the hardware is able to do. I don't expect N to use directx 11.
What I meant is that Nintendo is to use out dated tech, even Intel who is lagging in regard to directx/compute - openCL/GL compliance will ship compliant parts in 2012 (along with Ivy bridge).
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For memory I don't expect more than 4GB of Ram that's already plenty.

As far as I'm aware, all the major new features of D3D11 are supported by the R700 family of GPUs - AMD simply used different implementations back then, which means that the GPU is not D3D11 compliant even though it can do everything a D3D11 GPU does. And since Nintendo doesn't use DirectX, that hardly matters.