Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[MfA]

They switched 4xMSAA with FXAA.

Blah, Sweeney sells out as usual. With all his talk about how big a problem aliasing was hoped he would try and make a high quality multisampling/edge-AA hybrid instead of just ditching his work for an approach optimized for memory constrained platforms (aka consoles). Guess his work on multisampling and REYES was just a temporary fit of insanity before he went back to where the money is :/

 

[Acert93]

Meh at Epic hyperbole and marketing. What an unoptimized demo can and cannot run on, doing what (quality, resolution, framerate???), etc behind quasi-closed doors, whatever.

I would also go with MfA here in regards to aliasing. Are we all getting excited for a generation of technology of sub-pixel crawling all over? I guess the cost of fast ROPs, even faster memory, and a large VRAM are too much to ask (on the PC side with a Kepler-class GPU they were using I will say I am severely dissappointed--robust ROPs and a ton of fast memory 3GB/more than 200GB/s--should be a given and should alleviate such). ho hum

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree. If next-gen is losing subsample accuracy, IQ isn't really going to improve properly. Just as this gen failed to add decent AF, next-gen is going to have the opportunity to improve IQ yet will fail to do so. Next-gen is gonna be this gen all over - great screenshots with poor framerate and IQ.

 

[Rangers]

Some more Rein/GDC stuff

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...ter-in-2012/?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...les-arent-bleeding-edge-apple-will-beat-them/

The affable Unreal Engine exec assured us that, just like it did with Gears of War and the Xbox 360, it's "constantly pushing" platform holders with stunning demonstrations like its Samaritan demo, in an attempt to persuade them to make their next-gen platforms as "bleeding edge" as possible.

"Don't worry. We are absolutely every day [pushing platform holders]," Rein told CVG. "This is why we did Samaritan and why we're doing a really high-end demo in the room here. We really are pushing these guys, because if they don't, Apple will go right past them."

"The only way they're going to go away is if they don't stay true to what they are. The console gaming experience is about delivering something that's way out past the bleeding edge and subsidising it through the software royalty model - just like Apple does with the phones. It's not that much different."


He added: "That's the console gaming model, and if you don't do that - if you don't stretch just far enough, you don't just have enough of a difference to make people want to take the leap with you... it all falls down.

"Now, I don't think that's going to happen - I think the console guys are going to blow us all away. But as you say, we're on them."

No doubt Xbox 3 will be expected to blow us away with it's 6670 in 2014

 

[AlNom]

There's always 720p and 4xAA...

 

[Acert93]

"The only way they're going to go away is if they don't stay true to what they are. The console gaming experience is about delivering something that's way out past the bleeding edge and subsidising it through the software royalty model - just like Apple does with the phones. It's not that much different."


He added: "That's the console gaming model, and if you don't do that - if you don't stretch just far enough, you don't just have enough of a difference to make people want to take the leap with you... it all falls down.

"Now, I don't think that's going to happen - I think the console guys are going to blow us all away. But as you say, we're on them."

Did I just agree with Mark Rein? I feel filthy. I need a virtual bath :|

 

[3dilettante]

I'm not certain his assessment is wholly accurate going forward.
The software as razor blade model was not as effective in this last generation, and pushing hardware for the next is going to incur more costs to achieve the same growth.

The future emphasis is on the walled gardens they are setting up for guiding and monetizing user consumption.
In order to support new hardware, games become just one of many razor blades.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's daft to stick to a retrospective mindset when the world is ever-evolving. What was the console method for years may well become unworkable. eg. Plenty of companies are trying out Freemium software and finding it's working, despite that never being the way things used to be done.

Console gaming is about selling boxes that sell games and make money, and for the past gen or two also about getting your OS/portal into living rooms (when no-one expected that to be spearheaded by mobile devices). It's down to MS and Sony and whoever else wants to give this hard, hard market a shot to pick the hardware and software that they feel will make them the most money, and if someone finds a recipe that makes low-spec hardware fearsomely desirable and profitable, then power to them.

 

[babybumb]

"Wasnt our decision to not show it" The NDA thing dosent seem to add up or something unexpected is coming..

Who can put NDA on showing it on Kepler hardware? Steambox?

 

[Acert93]

"Wasnt our decision to not show it" The NDA thing dosent seem to add up or something unexpected is coming..

Who can put NDA on showing it on Kepler hardware? Steambox?

Ranger probably has the answer here in the GDC 2012 thread (i.e. UE4 associated material is related to an unannounced IP): http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1626159&postcount=11

My response was: "That makes sense. Epic got away with it with the Gears assets for UE3 but if Epic shows UE4 -- and it is highly likely it is being co-developed with a game in view -- it gets the "cat out of the bag" so to speak on some companies (MS/Sony) next big IP."

 

[TheChefO]

I agree. If next-gen is losing subsample accuracy, IQ isn't really going to improve properly. Just as this gen failed to add decent AF, next-gen is going to have the opportunity to improve IQ yet will fail to do so. Next-gen is gonna be this gen all over - great screenshots with poor framerate and IQ.

Just imagine how poor it will look with a 120mm2 GPU instead of a Kepler-class GPU ...

 

[TheChefO]

The software as razor blade model was not as effective in this last generation...

Not as effective for whom?

Nintendo made a ton of money (until the one trick pony was put out to pasture)
Microsoft made/makes a ton of money even with the RRoD $1B write-off
Sony would have made good money on the console, but they decided BR was more important and so I assume they are making up for it in BRD sales ...

The only thing broken in the model is on the development side where it takes too many man hours to produce a AAA game and this cost pushes Executives into ever less "risky" endeavors which leads to more failure as "the same games" keep getting produced and flood the market and half of which don't sell leading to more failure and more conservatism ... the cycle continues until the development model is fixed which has nothing to do with the razor blade model.

 

[TheChefO]

Console gaming is about selling boxes that sell games and make money, and for the past gen or two also about getting your OS/portal into living rooms (when no-one expected that to be spearheaded by mobile devices).

Mobile is still not the answer for a connected TV. Mobile data rates will be an issue as long as people keep buying new phones and nobody wants to sit on the coach with their connected phone telling them they can't watch the movie because they just went over their data cap (or incurring the costs associated on some plans).

Sony and MS spearheaded these services in the livingroom and will continue to drive this growth as long as they stick to the formula and improve it.

______________

"The only way they're going to go away is if they don't stay true to what they are. The console gaming experience is about delivering something that's way out past the bleeding edge and subsidising it through the software royalty model - just like Apple does with the phones. It's not that much different."

This quote pretty much spells it out. Consoles are a great success because they can offer higher spec than a mobile device ever can. If Sony/MS don't take advantage of this size/energy gap between mobile and console, they will be competing head to head power-wise with gadgets that are everything they are, and mobile too ... that's a recipe for failure.

 

[TheChefO]

"Wasnt our decision to not show it" The NDA thing dosent seem to add up or something unexpected is coming..

Who can put NDA on showing it on Kepler hardware? Steambox?

Who said it's being shown on Kepler?

He was talking about UE4 not Samaritan and he mentioned before about UE4 being run on "consoles he can't name yet".

Not to mention the software IP thing makes sense as well. If someone made a deal for publishing the demo-turned-game then they have the right to control media access to the property.

 

[babybumb]

Who said it's being shown on Kepler?

http://www.geforce.com/News/article...-running-on-next-generation-nvidia-kepler-gpu

Today GDC 2012 is upon us, and once again Epic has shown the Samaritan demo, but this time with a twist - instead of three GeForce GTX 580s, the demo was shown running on a single next generation NVIDIA graphics card.

 

[Kaotik]

http://www.geforce.com/News/article...-running-on-next-generation-nvidia-kepler-gpu

Today GDC 2012 is upon us, and once again Epic has shown the Samaritan demo, but this time with a twist - instead of three GeForce GTX 580s, the demo was shown running on a single next generation NVIDIA graphics card.

Samaritan is UE3, not UE4

 

[babybumb]

BTW it is confirmed UE4 is purely for high specs and wont scale to current-gen..
http://kotaku.com/5891609/gdc-notebook-day-3-the-death-of-consoles-andor-their-rebirth

The point, Rein explained to me, is that, if you were making a game for next-gen systems that you'd also want running on current systems, you would still go with UE3 and try for Samaritan-level sizzle in the next-gen versions of the game. But if you were going purely next-gen, you'd go with UE4.

 

[3dilettante]

Not as effective for whom?

Nintendo made a ton of money (until the one trick pony was put out to pasture)

The Wii didn't need software royalties to subsidize loss-leader hardware, so it does not match what Rein said.

Microsoft made/makes a ton of money even with the RRoD $1B write-off

Sony would have made good money on the console, but they decided BR was more important and so I assume they are making up for it in BRD sales ...

The console life cycle was extended this generation because the ROI was not as high as expected.
The consoles are financially in positive territory now, but it took longer than expected to reach that point.

Microsoft's surge in popularity as of late didn't even come from a bleeding-edge console introduction.
Sony's experience this gen has been brutal, though not all of it is because of the PS3 itself.

 

[hoho]

BTW it is confirmed UE4 is purely for high specs and wont scale to current-gen..
http://kotaku.com/5891609/gdc-notebook-day-3-the-death-of-consoles-andor-their-rebirth

So they don't expect to get it run on mobile platforms as UE3 does? Interesting.

 

[Rangers]

I figured out irrefutable proof at least a 7850 can fit in next gen:

Alienware X51, console sized, supposed 150 watt GPU limit.

7850, 130 watt typical power.

Boom, done! 2 teraflops GPU.

And actually, at least one website put a 560 Ti in the X51, presumably it draws even over 150 watts.

AND this is on an extremely unoptimized, off the shelf PC parts machine/cooling system running a honking Intel OOE X86 CPU and up to 8GB DDR3! Vast cooling/space efficiency gains could be had I expect in a custom console.