PS4 Pro Speculation (PS4K NEO Kaio-Ken-Kutaragi-Kaz Neo-san)

[DieH@rd]

IMO, they should just release 4.2TF console as per leaked SDK info for 399€ max, and then boost the clocks down the line if they feel the need.

Are we sure it's not 3mm and not cm? Cm is hardly ever used for measuring things at a technical level.

3cm stat was not revealed by a technical expert with a doctorate, it was an assembly worker from Foxcon.

 

[AlNom]

At least he used metric system.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Xbone was mocked because it was a sloppy, lazy design which was mostly empty space housing weaksauce hardware, plus a bigass power brick on top. PS3 Phat was BIG and fricken heavy in its launch iteration, but there was logic behind the design. It was all very well thought-out. Just because you're big doesn't mean you're automatically worthy of mocking; there's no hypocrisy at play here.

Except it wasn't either sloppy or lazy. It had a different design goal than the PS4 [edit: oops meant PS4, had PS3 in there before the edit]. Extremely low acoustics to fit a potentially quiet living room to enable media playback without the intrusion of sounds from the device. To that end the design was brilliantly executed, marred by only one thing. The small fan used in the external PSU meant that quality control was exceedingly important. It wasn't quite up to what it should have been and some few people got external PSU's with noticeable sounds from its tiny fan.

The XBO-S follows the exact same design principles, except that they included the PSU in the case. And unlike many systems where the PSU is included, the PSU is cooled by cool air from outside the case.

Contrast this to the PS4 where the PSU is cooled by the hot air from the CPU cooler. However, the Slim PS4 design seems to address this, as it appears that the air cooling the Slim PS4's PSU is unpolluted by the hot air from the CPU cooler. That likely helps with the reduction in internal volume as you can use 2 smaller fans (lower in height) versus one larger fan. As the airflow required will be less for the PSU (cool air versus hot air) and presumably less for the SOC (assuming SOC is on a smaller process).

Regards,
SB

 

[orangpelupa]

Looking at slim ps4... Now I wonder how will neo will look.

More like the original ps4? A completely new design?

 

[Grall]

Sort of like an Apple Time Capsule, I'm hoping. The PS4 Slim's basic shape, but without the sloping sides. Straight sides, rounded corners, equal length sides all around.

...Oh, and capacitive touch buttons please. That's high class stuff. The light-up logo of the slim is a neat touch too. It'd be cool if that carries over to neo.

 

[milk]

I think sony added the 3cm in the last minute to please the fans that wanted an increase in tech specs. Bigger numbers are better, right?

 

[loekf]

I'd prefer the hard edges of current PS4 over any rounded Apple TV/Time Capsule like design.

Well.... I feel some reality distortion field at Sony:

Steve suddenly got more intense. “Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!”. And sure enough, there were lots of them, like the whiteboard and some of the desks and tables. Then he pointed out the window. “And look outside, there’s even more, practically everywhere you look!”. He even persuaded Bill to take a quick walk around the block with him, pointing out every rectangle with rounded corners that he could find.

I just hope the Neo is powerfull enough and Sony doesn't release a Neo "S" next year with another update. As the development cycle for their in-house
gaming studios (Naughty Dog) is 2-3 years, likely we won't see another PS4 refresh until 2018.

Still I'm puzzled why they do a Neo now and don't wait another year to have a system on-par with the Scorpio. However.... maybe they will surprise us and is Microsoft lagging and the Scorpio was a late response to Sony.

 

[Clukos]

why they do a Neo now and don't wait another year

You answered your own question. If the Neo is released in 2016 it'll have a significant advantage against the Scorpio similar to how much of an advantage the 360 had against the Ps3.

 

[MrFox]

Except it wasn't either sloppy or lazy. It had a different design goal than the PS4 [edit: oops meant PS4, had PS3 in there before the edit]. Extremely low acoustics to fit a potentially quiet living room to enable media playback without the intrusion of sounds from the device. To that end the design was brilliantly executed, marred by only one thing. The small fan used in the external PSU meant that quality control was exceedingly important. It wasn't quite up to what it should have been and some few people got external PSU's with noticeable sounds from its tiny fan.

The XBO-S follows the exact same design principles, except that they included the PSU in the case. And unlike many systems where the PSU is included, the PSU is cooled by cool air from outside the case.

Contrast this to the PS4 where the PSU is cooled by the hot air from the CPU cooler. However, the Slim PS4 design seems to address this, as it appears that the air cooling the Slim PS4's PSU is unpolluted by the hot air from the CPU cooler. That likely helps with the reduction in internal volume as you can use 2 smaller fans (lower in height) versus one larger fan. As the airflow required will be less for the PSU (cool air versus hot air) and presumably less for the SOC (assuming SOC is on a smaller process).

Regards,
SB

This is completely wrong.
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/1937328/

 

[mpg1]

Well this is sort of interesting. Someone posted this on neogaf. It's basically a patent from Mark Cerny which sounds like how neo is going to run the older non-neo ps4 games.

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...&d=PG01&S1=Cerny.IN.&OS=Cerny.IN.&RS=Cerny.IN


"BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY THROUGH USE OF SPOOF CLOCK AND FINE GRAIN FREQUENCY CONTROL

Abstract

An application runs at a first operating frequency if the application is designed for a current version of a system and runs at a second operating frequency if the application is designed for a prior version of the system that operates at a lower frequency than the first operating frequency. The second operating frequency may be higher than the operating frequency of the prior version of the system to account for differences in latency, throughput or other processing characteristics between the two systems. Software readable cycle counters are based on a spoof clock running at the operating frequency of the prior version of the system, rather than the true operating frequency."

 

[DieH@rd]

So... they patented downclocking?

 

[3dilettante]

It's a patent on creating adjusted timer and cycle counters so that low-level software functions are not aware that the hardware is clocked higher.

The conservative case here is that a given architecture iso-clock might not be equally performant in compatibility mode or might simply be a regression. If the hardware is clocked high enough to compensate, there's a problem that specific counters would accelerate and break the software. If the hardware is upclocked, it can finish just as fast or finish faster and wait until when the software expects it to finish.

 

[milk]

Isn't it a bit reckless that at this day and age a platform would allow software to be dependent on specific clock-speeds to not break?

 

[Grall]

Isn't it a bit reckless that at this day and age a platform would allow software to be dependent on specific clock-speeds to not break?

Probably, but race condition bugs and whatnot are very hard for mere mortals to avoid. There could be hidden bombs in software that break on differently clocked hardware without anyone even knowing they're there, and going through source for major titles and debugging it and perhaps having to re-jig it in a major way before re-compile is probably not feasible, especially for software launched years ago. If you OTOH make the bugs work as they do on first-gen PS4s, then you're all set.

 

[Globalisateur]

It's a patent on creating adjusted timer and cycle counters so that low-level software functions are not aware that the hardware is clocked higher.

The conservative case here is that a given architecture iso-clock might not be equally performant in compatibility mode or might simply be a regression. If the hardware is clocked high enough to compensate, there's a problem that specific counters would accelerate and break the software. If the hardware is upclocked, it can finish just as fast or finish faster and wait until when the software expects it to finish.

Ok so apparently they won't downclock the Neo (CPU and GPU) in PS4 mode.

But due to the need to counter the effects of differences in latency, throughput, and other aspects of processing, it is desirable to have fine grain control over the frequency of operation, so that the more powerful console can be run at frequencies slightly higher than the original console.

I understand that latency will be different with GCN4 instead of GCN1.1. But why would the latency be different for the CPU if they are going to use the same Jaguar?

No spoof clock for the memory on the document. So this could mean memory bandwidth improved from 176GB/s to 218GB/s by default for all OG PS4 games.

 

[yoowul]

I understand that latency will be different with GCN4 instead of GCN1.1. But why would the latency be different for the CPU if they are going to use the same Jaguar?

It's so that they can unlock the hidden Zen CPU later. Forget discrete GPUs, this will be the first APU with a discrete CPU. A really discreet CPU, Sony will have disguised it as an ASIC, so that MS can't notice a thing. It's a perfect plan .

 

[Commenter]

Isn't it a bit reckless that at this day and age a platform would allow software to be dependent on specific clock-speeds to not break?

Didn't the pc break away from cpu speed dependancy in the Dos-era?

 

[milk]

Probably, but race condition bugs and whatnot are very hard for mere mortals to avoid. There could be hidden bombs in software that break on differently clocked hardware without anyone even knowing they're there, and going through source for major titles and debugging it and perhaps having to re-jig it in a major way before re-compile is probably not feasible, especially for software launched years ago. If you OTOH make the bugs work as they do on first-gen PS4s, then you're all set.

How is it done on pc and other platforms tnen?
-Legitimate question.

 

[Globalisateur]

How is it done on pc and other platforms tnen?
-Legitimate question.

They don't code to the metal?

 

[milk]

Sure, but are ps4 and xbone games that low level? Are their games compiled down to fucking assembly? Wasn't avoiding this kind of shenanigans the whole point of the VMs, at least in xbone's part? How low level does a programming model need to be for cpu cycles to be a possible issue? Aren't there safe programming practicess to avoid that kind of issue? Can't ps4/bone code made for jaguar be tested in other x64 processors at different speeds to test for compatibility.

Again, all legitimate questions. I sort of already know the answer to many, but I want to have one of those Beyond3d moments when someone in the know explain the shit out of that stuff to us.