Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Blazkowicz]

even on PC we're getting to a point where low end desktops can do anything. high end desktop publishing, digital audio workstation, video editing, 3D creation, engineering, nuclear test simulation (almost)

I guess some people will try gaming on their IGP, run some mildly old (i.e. almost current) or lightweight game and say "wow, it's insanely powerful!'. got that reaction from someone getting a FX 5500 (in 2007)

well, the high end gaming market probably won't shrink, because there's always more and more computer user each year, and the hardware is cheap. but increasingly people at large will only upgrade because of dead hardware.

 

[hoho]

If manufacturers would start pushing decently priced monitors at >1080p then that alone would mean PC's would need quite a bit higher graphics performance. Going from 1080p to 2560 × 1600 would mean roughly twice the amount of work is needed to fill the screen.

 

[Heinrich4]

Article with Crytek and Epic:
New Xbox & PlayStation 4: What to Expect

Interesting. In summary(in my opinion or realized) they are working with what to expect next generation *.Still believe ps3 and x360 still has to offer, would like next gen console if possible have the same performance of high end hardware for PCs today (I believe 2*6970 crossfire or 6990 or SLI GTX580) to show level qualittive and quantitative something like Samaritan.



* (From what I've seen in forums developers ... i7 quad core cpu and gpu Radeon HD 5870)

 

[Heinrich4]

For me to get used displays 1080P (industry standard since at least each two years) would be good if the games are targeted to this resolution as the default or at least something close to it (2 / 3) ... without upscales.

Resolutions between generations (I know most of the time not come to that):

ps1 -> 320x240
ps2/xbox/dc/gc -> 640x224i/448P to 480P w / 2 * MSAA
ps3/x360 -> 2 / 3 of 720P to "full" 720p w / 2 * MSAA
Next gen -> at least 2 * 720p w/2*msaa =~ 1080p with somekind post processing AA(FXAA,DLAA whateaver) because our vision in this resolution (depending on course quality, size and distance from the diplay ...) almost do not notice jaggies. .

 

[Megadrive1988]

I highly doubt any developer will target resolution higher than 1080p next-gen. It'll all be about improving the actual graphics (geometry, shaders, AA, post-processing effects, etc etc) to a level of the Samaritan demo if not better.

 

[pc999]

even on PC we're getting to a point where low end desktops can do anything. high end desktop publishing, digital audio workstation, video editing, 3D creation, engineering, nuclear test simulation (almost)

Most dual core (athlon X2, first gen) will do a decent job on those, my 330€/3 years old PC/45W CPU ! still amazes me on what it can do in music production in some heavy projects. Taking in account that a 300€ PC of today have a lot more power (~3x by my estimates) or that even most laptops are more powerful than this PC I can certainly see the mid-high end of the market getting smaller for anything but multimedia professionals and very very enthusiastic users.

We need some very different applications before we need more powerful PCs for the average user, anytime soon...

(I will still need to upgrade my CPU, because I am on the multimedia pro side).


To relate it to the thread I dont think that there will be vast investment in making PC better looking, but at least some small one there will be, I think.

 

[pc999]

I highly doubt any developer will target resolution higher than 1080p next-gen. It'll all be about improving the actual graphics (geometry, shaders, AA, post-processing effects, etc etc) to a level of the Samaritan demo if not better.

60 FPS too I hope

 

[Megadrive1988]

60 FPS too I hope

Of course there will be 30fps games next-gen, I just hope there is a larger percentage of 60fps games than this gen.

 

[dragonelite]

Atleast i hope some of the platform holders enforce 1080p for some years kinda like microsoft had for 360 games but then for 720p

 

[Rangers]

Article with Crytek and Epic:
New Xbox & PlayStation 4: What to Expect

That article was a letdown, certainly much less of substance there than the GAF thread title would have you believe.

 

[homerdog]

Next gen -> at least 2 * 720p w/2*msaa =~ 1080p with somekind post processing AA(FXAA,DLAA whateaver) because our vision in this resolution (depending on course quality, size and distance from the diplay ...) almost do not notice jaggies. .

That is not true unless maybe you're sitting too far away on a too small TV. Even then there will be noticeable shimmering ("crawling ants") without good AA and high frequency transparency stuff (fences etc.) will still be a mess. Gotta have AA even at 1080p.

 

[Heinrich4]

That is not true unless maybe you're sitting too far away on a too small TV. Even then there will be noticeable shimmering ("crawling ants") without good AA and high frequency transparency stuff (fences etc.) will still be a mess. Gotta have AA even at 1080p.

I own 3 TVs, 2 Plasma 50 "1080P and 50" 768p and a LED 40 "1080P and watch a distance considered adequate, and don´t have any vision problems and I feel a lot less jaggies in 1080p just does not bother me, I agree with you on the technical side, but maybe there is a subjective matter...im agree that it is preferable to have AA at 1080p, but not necessary * (i like post silent buddha and strange) and I think that is more a subjective nuisance or not, because I've seen many games with 720P w/2msaa that bothered me more than others to 1080p with no AA.


And talking about next gen consoles ... the videos showed the WII U games without AA and 720P is more than likely to be in very early stage of development, and developers should not have the final sdk(im coulb be wrong here...) ,but should not we already have seen this console at least 2msaa? And imagining a scenario that "X720" and "PS4" are considerably more powerful (released one year or more after power commensurate with ...) is that we will see, the preference of more processing shaders,frame rate etc instead of using AA( relegating this to post-processing?) ?

*
Good discussion here:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1301181&postcount=11
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1301186&postcount=14
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=54347

 

[homerdog]

AA will still be necessary at least for things like foliage and fences. And this post-processing bs won't cut it.

 

[Blazkowicz]

post-processing AA is done because of memory starving, and it also gives a constant and predictable hit. can keep a SPE busy rather than letting it idle.

With 4x/8x the total memory or video memory a 720p or 1080p framebuffer with 4x MSAA becomes more affordable so I hope they'll just use that for the most part.

 

[AlNom]

hm? Post AA perf depends on the number of edges that are detected and require processing/blending/interpolating.

 

[Kaotik]

http://hardocp.com/news/2011/07/20/next_generation_console_hardware_update

We reported earlier this month in our "E3 Rumors on Next Generation Console Hardware" article that Microsoft's next-gen Xbox would likely be sporting a new IBM cell processor, although we did suggest that was not written in stone. We are hearing this week that AMD has very likely locked up the whole shebang with a Fusion Bulldozer variant APU. This of course will be a huge win for AMD.

 

[Rangers]

Riiiight it's going to be some low end IGP thing again

I dont even know what a "Fusion Bulldozer" is but from Wiki the highest SP I see on the fusion article is 400. Yeah after 8 years, why even bother.

And now he's recanted his ridiculous "Next Xbox will have a Cell" rumor already? That lasted one whole week?

We reported earlier this month in our "E3 Rumors on Next Generation Console Hardware" article that Microsoft's next-gen Xbox would likely be sporting a new IBM cell processor, although we did suggest that was not written in stone

This guy has no freaking idea what he's talking about. He must be getting emails from some "inside source" on GAF because it's in line with what they're obsessed with.

And you're not getting Avatar graphics out of fusion, disproved

 

[function]

Fusion is an overall term for AMD's CPU and GPU integration rather than a particular chip. The limit on shaders or cpu cores/modules is how big you want to make the chip.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Riiiight it's going to be some low end IGP thing again

I dont even know what a "Fusion Bulldozer" is but from Wiki the highest SP I see on the fusion article is 400. Yeah after 8 years, why even bother.

I dunno, by Xmas 2013 I can see a fusion based chip sporting easily 800 - 1200 SP's coupled with a powerful Bulldozer quad core and a specialised high speed memory architecture to feed it all.

It would be fully DX11 complient and much more efficient than the current Xenon<->Xenos setup for a given number of execution resources. I can see it easily being 5 -6x more powerful than the 360 which is plenty for a xent gen console.

I can't see an APU design in that timeframe going much beyond current i7 / 5870 power though without a little something extra (which it may yet have).

 

[Kaotik]

Riiiight it's going to be some low end IGP thing again

I dont even know what a "Fusion Bulldozer" is but from Wiki the highest SP I see on the fusion article is 400. Yeah after 8 years, why even bother.

"Bulldozer Fusion" is coming next year for PC, and features Bulldozer CPU cores and VLIW4 shaders. XBNext could use one custom designed to fit their needs, say, something equaling 800-1200 VLIW5's with 4 to 6 BD modules (1 BD module = 2 INT pipes + 1 shared FP-pipe (2x 128bit which can also work as 1x 256bit)