Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[DoctorFouad]

Like a previous poster said, if one of the two platforms is significantly weaker than the other in some aspect, I expect multi-platform developers to push the platform vendor improve the design in that regard. E.g., if initial specifications for the PS4 had half the memory than the next Xbox, I would be surprised if developers didn't push Sony to increase the amount of memory.

Yeah thats basically what I said in a previous post, I should add that it works also vice versa, I mean Microsoft or sony could ask developers what they really want to be improved in their hardware offerings.

The idea of competitors copying each other is nothing new, it is how the market economy function, and this doesent have to be through law infringement, there are different ways to explore what your competitor is doing (reading financial statements and future plans of the company, how much is spent on R&D, looking at new products in exhibitions and closed doors presentations, which contracts for chipset design and production have been signed, when was that, and with whom, information gathered from multiplatform developers...etc).

There a lot of indirect info coming out of third parties, they're trying to influence the console makers by making these info public (without actually saying anything specific). The worst thing that can happen to third party devs is a large difference between consoles.

- They really should put more RAM in there
- I SAID they REALLY should put around *ahem* twice the RAM, because *ahem* it's what we need

Then both consoles magically have the same amount of ram and it's just a coincidence

exactly, and I wont be surprised if both consoles end up not only with the same amount of RAM, but also the same bandwidth, and the same CPU/GPU performance target, if they basically signed contracts with the same AMD company, how much different the chipsets would be...

No, you really can't. Silicon costs money. Bandwidth costs even more money. Given that there are only a handful of suppliers, both of the companies will be paying essentially the same for the silicon and the bandwidth. There are no hidden efficiencies to exploit -- if you want to ship a console with a surprising amount of power, you first need to spend billions to get it. There really is no way around that.

thats not really true, there is what we call better more intelligent and efficient engineering, I would give the example of xbox360 GPU, the silicon budget is smaller than that of the PS3 RSX but it ended up being in real applications more powerful than RSX because it was a lot more efficient (edram for bandwidth, unified shaders).

It's not about how much support Sony executives choose to give the PS4. It's about how much they can give. When we say Sony is broke, we really mean it. They do not have the cash on hand to pay for a uberconsole, and they are not able to borrow it.

again thats another hypothesis, there is no way today me or you can say about how much sony is allocating money and resources to its ps4 prject development....it could end up being the most important project for sony these last years, and that they dont want to screw it, and are willing to take huge risks regarding the finance of the project, maybe not ps3 kutaragi level risks, but nonetheless huge risk...who knows...

 

[lefizz]

But seeing as Sony has little cash and effectively can't borrow how would they do that? Sell a division to finance PS4?

As its one of their only brands which is worth anything today IMHO it could be worth while, but I can't see it.

Better to sell a capable but not far of profitable console and concentrate on supporting the Devs. They can't win a power race with MS but there is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[arijoytunir]

Sony needs a turnaround like Nintendo did with wii after GameCube !
Ps4 must be affordable like wii u but much more powerful than it !
The real competetion for next gen consoles will be the long rumoured Apple TV . If apple pulls off the strategy of introducing incremental upgrades like the iPhone and iPad every year with Apple TV then I can't imagine the harm it will do to Nintendo ,Sony and Microsoft , like it did with 3ds and ps vita.

Nvidia 's maxwell is said to combine high performance arm CPU with nvidia gpu .
Can't the next gen consoles combine custom arm CPU cores (like apples swift architecture ) with amd custom gpu ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

thats not really true, there is what we call better more intelligent and efficient engineering, I would give the example of xbox360 GPU, the silicon budget is smaller than that of the PS3 RSX but it ended up being in real applications more powerful than RSX because it was a lot more efficient (edram for bandwidth, unified shaders).

I was going to say the same. However, that transition has been made, and is the only one that would really deliver (other than borked implementations of hardware). If AMD had some amazing new architecture that could gain much better performance from the same silicon, don't you think they'd be releasing that as their main product line? Unless Sony have a magic new rendering process and are working with AMD to produce it for PS4 exclusively, against the intelligent rumours we are getting, then the GPU limits will be the same for Sony as everyone us - a factor of cost: size: performance. There are no new areas of efficiency to be tapped.

 

[upnorthsox]

But seeing as Sony has little cash and effectively can't borrow how would they do that? Sell a division to finance PS4?

As its one of their only brands which is worth anything today IMHO it could be worth while, but I can't see it.

Better to sell a capable but not far of profitable console and concentrate on supporting the Devs. They can't win a power race with MS but there is more than one way to skin a cat.

It's not a race though, if Sony comes out with a more powerful console then that's that (and vice versa). It's not like MS will just top it with a new one a year later.

 

[DoctorFouad]

I was going to say the same. However, that transition has been made, and is the only one that would really deliver (other than borked implementations of hardware). If AMD had some amazing new architecture that could gain much better performance from the same silicon, don't you think they'd be releasing that as their main product line? Unless Sony have a magic new rendering process and are working with AMD to produce it for PS4 exclusively, against the intelligent rumours we are getting, then the GPU limits will be the same for Sony as everyone us - a factor of cost: size: performance. There are no new areas of efficiency to be tapped.

the efficiency of the Xenos wasent due only to the unified shaders architecture (this technology was at its infancy at that time, and it is difficult to know exaclty how much added efficiency to xenos was due to this new architecture) but also to the edram bandiwidth allowing less bottleneck applications of MSAA and transparencies compared to ps3 RSX, and if the RSX hasent been helped by the CELL, the edram bandwidth of xenos would have allowed xbox360 games to boost more polygons per second.

ps4 could use intelligently a part of the silicon budget for an innovative efficient edram solution. (if your question is : why than AMD do not use edram for PC products if it adds to efficiency, the answer would be : different constraints and bottlenecks, you dont need edram if you have 200+GB/s of 3 GB GDDR5 bandwidth, also consoles are closed programming boxes, but for PC you just cant throw a 10mb of edram on a PC GPU and call it a day, developers should do the tiling themselves for every game if the framebuffer dosent fit...so for obvious compatibility issues, there are some solutions that could work for consoles but cant be commercialized for PCs)



for other ideas than intelligent edram use for consoles, regarding the question of how to use more efficiently the silicon budget, these are some quotes from the interesting article of Charlie Demerjian :

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/03/02/sony-playstation-4-will-be-an-x86-cpu-with-an-amd-gpu/

"One of the things that we had heard about the PS4 chip, or should we say PS4 SoC, is that Sony is really keen on the idea of TSVs. The other bit is that they are going to have lots of extras, we have heard about sensors, but that could just be part of the other odd bit, FPGAs. Yeah, there is a lot of weird talk coming out of Sony engineers, and programmable logic, aka an FPGA, is just one of the things. Additional media processing blocks, DSPs, and similar blocks are all part of the concept.

To do all of this, and I do realize how odd it sounds, you would need some monumental memory bandwidth for it not so starve. Sony is known for screwy memory architectures, if you have ever seen PS3 programming documents, you know how much pain a dev has to go through to get bits in the right place at the right time. The PS4 looks to be better in that regard, but far from perfect. Expect stacked memory, and lots of it, all over the aforementioned interposer. I know this sounds crazy, but we have been hearing it for a year plus now, and, well discounted most of it until Paul Demsey got the same story from a Sony CTO.

In the end, it looks like Sony is going to go for the take no prisoners option on the PS4. If you don’t push fab limits that hard, but do push advanced packaging to the limit, you could very well end up with a monster that is simply not manufacturable as a single die. It won’t be cheap, but it will undoubtedly punt a single chip, or a single chip with stacked DRAM, in to the weeds."

 

[Ruskie]

the efficiency of the Xenos wasent due only to the unified shaders architecture (this technology was at its infancy at that time, and it is difficult to know exaclty how much added efficiency to xenos was due to this new architecture) but also to the edram bandiwidth allowing less bottleneck applications of MSAA and transparencies compared to ps3 RSX, and if the RSX hasent been helped by the CELL, the edram bandwidth of xenos would have allowed xbox360 games to boost more polygons per second.

ps4 could use intelligently a part of the silicon budget for an innovative efficient edram solution. (if your question is : why than AMD do not use edram for PC products if it adds to efficiency, the answer would be : different constraints and bottlenecks, you dont need edram if you have 200+GB/s of 3 GB GDDR5 bandwidth, also consoles are closed programming boxes, but for PC you just cant throw a 10mb of edram on a PC GPU and call it a day, developers should do the tiling themselves for every game if the framebuffer dosent fit...so for obvious compatibility issues, there are some solutions that could work for consoles but cant be commercialized for PCs)



for other ideas than intelligent edram use for consoles, regarding the question of how to use more efficiently the silicon budget, these are some quotes from the interesting article of Charlie Demerjian :

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/03/02/sony-playstation-4-will-be-an-x86-cpu-with-an-amd-gpu/

"One of the things that we had heard about the PS4 chip, or should we say PS4 SoC, is that Sony is really keen on the idea of TSVs. The other bit is that they are going to have lots of extras, we have heard about sensors, but that could just be part of the other odd bit, FPGAs. Yeah, there is a lot of weird talk coming out of Sony engineers, and programmable logic, aka an FPGA, is just one of the things. Additional media processing blocks, DSPs, and similar blocks are all part of the concept.

To do all of this, and I do realize how odd it sounds, you would need some monumental memory bandwidth for it not so starve. Sony is known for screwy memory architectures, if you have ever seen PS3 programming documents, you know how much pain a dev has to go through to get bits in the right place at the right time. The PS4 looks to be better in that regard, but far from perfect. Expect stacked memory, and lots of it, all over the aforementioned interposer. I know this sounds crazy, but we have been hearing it for a year plus now, and, well discounted most of it until Paul Demsey got the same story from a Sony CTO.

In the end, it looks like Sony is going to go for the take no prisoners option on the PS4. If you don’t push fab limits that hard, but do push advanced packaging to the limit, you could very well end up with a monster that is simply not manufacturable as a single die. It won’t be cheap, but it will undoubtedly punt a single chip, or a single chip with stacked DRAM, in to the weeds."

Charlie is full of crap and eDRAM is not the reason why Xenos has upper hand at vertex processing, its unified shaders actually.

 

[lefizz]

I think its more that there just is no reason to go too over the top this time. Last time they did that and what did getting into a pissing contest with MS bring them? Nothing,a huge loss at the start and finally probably break even on the whole ,bloody long, cycle.

I cant see either console being more than 20% faster than each other but i may be wrong. But at that level as i said before working with devs and getting services right first time are far more important than the last few percent of performance. If there was a huge gap it would be different but if you are trying to enter the same generation at the same time as a competitor using the same third party to create your silicon how far apart can they be?

Only if MS is willing to loose money for a couple of years on their hardware could they be in a situation to have a big gap between them and Sony. But even at 2x power which seems almost impossible I am not sure it would make that much difference to the games developed for it.

Though marketing wise it could be a bit of a disaster

I think the biggest source of performance advantage could well be bandwidth. We live at a time when memory is incredibly cheap but decent bandwidth is bloody expensive. The company which works out the best way to create a high bandwidth shrinkable solution which can be made cheaper over the life of the unit will win the perfomance crown.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

ps4 could use intelligently a part of the silicon budget for an innovative efficient edram solution.

And so can MS. What is the reasoning behind believing MS could release a console on a budget and Sony could usurp it in performance on the same budget by being cleverer, when AMD is reportedly designing them both?

for other ideas than intelligent edram use for consoles, regarding the question of how to use more efficiently the silicon budget, these are some quotes from the interesting article of Charlie Demerjian :

Charlie's tantamount to a swearword here. I'm kinda scared how some are getting their info from him and Jeff Rigby and others with proven track records of being full of the brown, smelly stuff. Personally I'll only take understanding from known/reputable sources passed through the knowledgeable folk here. I've been here 8 years and seen the scrutiny on every bit of hardware released, and that consensus has always been bang on the money.

 

[ergem]

I cant see either console being more than 20% faster than each other but i may be wrong. But at that level as i said before working with devs and getting services right first time are far more important than the last few percent of performance.

I agree, getting services right first time are far more important.

I just hope that Sony or Microsoft target a platform that can render what Agni's Philosophy has shown us. I hope they felt obligated after Square Enix has shown the gamers what to expect. If not, there will be a lot of disappointments.

 

[DoctorFouad]

Charlie is full of crap

wow what a tolerance and elaborate arguments

and what about Masaaki Tsuruta, CTO of Sony Computer Entertainment ? would you also consider his opinion as irrelevant ?
http://mandetech.com/2012/01/10/sony-masaaki-tsuruta-interview/

some quotes directlly from his mouth :

"You are talking about powerful CPU and GPU with extra DSP and programmable logic."

"We are confident that we can now see a way and that we can use some of these advanced methods to create a new kind of system-on-chip. We think that there are the technologies today that can be taken to this project.”

and eDRAM is not the reason why Xenos has upper hand at vertex processing, its unified shaders actually.

fine but the idea is that the edram bandwidth eliminated many bottlenecks for the xbox360 GPU which allowed it to achieve better results in many aspects.

 

[DoctorFouad]

And so can MS. What is the reasoning behind believing MS could release a console on a budget and Sony could usurp it in performance on the same budget by being cleverer, when AMD is reportedly designing them both?

I would ask you the same question regarding microsoft, and I can also use your words : "and so can sony". of course I agree that each company can produce better hardware than the other, but thats my own whole point defended in the last pages, a lot of posters in this topic seem to believe that SONY CANT compete with microsoft hardware wise, because they are BROKE. and I tried to argue with many arguments that thats not necessarly the case (efficiency of silicon budget, importance of ps4 project for sony's strategy, Microsoft not necessarily shooting for a very powerful hardware this time around,...etc).

Charlie's tantamount to a swearword here. I'm kinda scared how some are getting their info from him and Jeff Rigby and others with proven track records of being full of the brown, smelly stuff. Personally I'll only take understanding from known/reputable sources passed through the knowledgeable folk here. I've been here 8 years and seen the scrutiny on every bit of hardware released, and that consensus has always been bang on the money.

I dont know this guy and his reputation here, sorry to bring it into the discussion. But I didnt take his ideas as facts about the ps4 project, but just as hypothetical ideas that sony could have been using right now to create their new hardware, and as such it could be worth discussing...

 

[Helmore]

Wat do we consider similar in performance? Within say 20-30% of each other?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do you see an obvious difference on screen? If only side-by-side comparisons show the difference (more tearing, less grass, more dropped frames, on one version than other), then they are similar. If one is clearly superior in content, then not.

 

[Osamar]

Given two consoles more or less equal in performance (CPU+GPU) and bandwith.
If one console, have one ot two more Gb of usable ram, it could be a really great advantage it used by developpers?

 

[ERP]

The problem with adding DSPs and FPGAs and other cores is that devs rarely use them, when you're on a time and money budget, you're going to code to the lowest common denominator, which is usually the main CPU and GPU.

The original XBox had full hardware offload for 256 voices. Almost no one used it.

Except the OS locked up if you used more than 192 of them
That was on of my favorite exchanges with MS tech support
me : "My game locks up if I use too many voices",
tech support : "Yes it's a bug"
me : "well how many voices can I use?"
tech support : "It depends there isn't a specific limit"
me : "hmm so how can I budget my audio"
tech support : "don't know"
me : "........"

 

[kagemaru]

Given two consoles more or less equal in performance (CPU+GPU) and bandwith.
If one console, have one ot two more Gb of usable ram, it could be a really great advantage it used by developpers?

If the former is true, than having more memory can never be a bad thing IMO.

The problem with adding DSPs and FPGAs and other cores is that devs rarely use them, when you're on a time and money budget, you're going to code to the lowest common denominator, which is usually the main CPU and GPU.

The original XBox had full hardware offload for 256 voices. Almost no one used it.

Do you mean that no one used it properly or no one used it at all? If the tools are given, I find it hard to believe developers wouldn't use components that would give them extra performance in the end. Not saying you're wrong but it's surprising to read this.

That's not entirely true, the 360 has been the #1 selling console worldwide for the last two years.

I knew the 360 outsold the ps3 in 2011, but I thought the PS3 was outselling the 360 this year. Not that it matters anyways.

Not according to vgchartz, what's your source?
It's clear that PS3 sold and average of 1 million more every year, I guess it depends if you count the year from Jan-Jan (vgcharts) or Mar-Mar (fiscal year). It also currently has a 1.3 million advance YTD for 2012.

There's a reason why some site don't use vgchartz or find them reliable.

Except the OS locked up if you used more than 192 of them
That was on of my favorite exchanges with MS tech support
me : "My game locks up if I use too many voices",
tech support : "Yes it's a bug"
me : "well how many voices can I use?"
tech support : "It depends there isn't a specific limit"
me : "hmm so how can I budget my audio"
tech support : "don't know"
me : "........"

lol wow.

 

[BRiT]

Moved VGC to http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46474

 

[Rangers]

One obvious angle is that if MS comes out in 2013, and Sony in 2014, PS4 will be more powerful.

Like PS3 was more powerful than 360 despite a years difference? And now nodes are slower, the potential for meaningful time-based difference is significantly less in 2012 than it was in 2005 I'd argue. In 2005 a year meant a lot more than it does today imo, and Sony still didn't capitalize.

The time frame guarantees nothing. Given current rumors I wouldn't be shocked if PS4 slips six months and still ends up weaker and undercooked.

 

[arijoytunir]

recent posts by aegies ( polygon.com staff )

My understanding is that Thebe and Kryptos are appropriate trees to bark up.

My personal conjecture given what I've heard over the last 12 months is that Durango is using a heavily engineered part from AMD that is not easily comparable to any current GPU out there right now. Sony is more likely to use a more directly consumer-derived part, because it's much cheaper and faster to implement, which I'm led to believe because all the PS4 movement devkit-wise has been really, really recent.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45554694&postcount=3945

so just like this gen - xenos was more future proof than RSX .

Originally Posted by RoboPlato:
They're probably doing something similar to Xenos at the time for the 360.

Ding.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45555102&postcount=3950

Originally Posted by B.O.O.M:
I honestly don't think it will matter much if they are close enough. Besides an off the shelf component might be more easier to handle for the 3rd parties right? Or am I missing something here

I think you should be less concerned about minor power differences and more interested in the tools the first parties get out there for developers to take advantage of their respective architectures.

If I were the worrying type, that would be what kept ME up at night.

And I wouldn't expect much info from CES, save for more rumors.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45557439&postcount=4005

next xbox no show on ces 2013.

Originally Posted by Vol5:
ok so your also saying ps4 kits are last minute. not enamoured with that. i would expect sony to be on the ball this time around. not great news tbh

I'm not talking about the kits themselves, I'm talking about general developer support and software tools. I have heard zero about Orbis/PS4/whatever, so I don't know anything about it. Historically speaking, this has not been Sony's strength.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45557776&postcount=4008

Originally Posted by SPDIF:
Hearing this makes me wonder if the guy in this pastebin post that I saw a while ago actually knew what he was talking about. At least somewhat.

Everything I've heard has pushed IBM completely out of next-gen, unless you consider the wii U part of that.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45560561&postcount=4035

so AMD it is !!