Sony Playstation Meeting September 7 2016 [PS4 Slim, PS4 Pro, Rumors, Speculations, and News]

[Shifty Geezer]

It could be a wrong assumption, but it also seems likely. It would make little sense to offer devs anything that was non-trivial, especially when they're hoping devs will patch their games to hit 4k. No one could just patch their game to render the way Rainbow Six Siege does.

Blurry is also subjective. They could use an upscale that adds some "blur" but it wouldn't mean that everyone that looked at it would find the image blurry, or maybe even anyway. Ultimately you are right, and good results = good method, especially if it's cheap and fast.

I'm gong mostly by Richard Leadbetter's observations and remarks. Some titles shown weren't upscaling nicely, but three first-party titles were.

Speaking to developers on site, several aspects of the checkerboard technology came into focus. Up until now, we've seen it as a software post-process upscale, but in actual fact, it's one of a number of new custom features backed into the PS4 Pro's GPU and as such comes with zero cost to game developers. We also understand that while it is a hardware feature, game-makers do seem to have a certain level of control - which may perhaps explain why different games exhibit varying levels of artefacting.

If the results on Days Gone and Horizon Dawn are that much better, it likely isn't a fixed upscale solution, as the unnamed developers allude. Could be that the upscale works with a set of data you can supply, and the more you can supply, the better the results?

 

[novcze]

The UHD standard includes both HDR and 4K specifications. Minimum resolution to support UHD standard is 3840x2160. 1080p HDR TV sets would not meet the UHD minimum specifications. I doubt any TV manufacturer releases a TV set that doesn't follow the standard.

Games can of course render at 1080p + HDR and let the console or TV scale the result to 4K. Xbox One S has 4K output + 4K scaler. PS4 Slim and the original PS4 most likely use the TV scaler to scale from 1080p to 4K. I am not 100% sure what HDR input resolutions are supported by UHD standard, but it would be odd if 1080p HDR input wouldn't be supported.

Will be interesting to know for what color space the game developers shooting, any thoughts? I would guess that sRGB is still the safest bet even for 4K+HDR output.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm gong mostly by Richard Leadbetter's observations and remarks. Some titles shown weren't upscaling nicely, but three first-party titles were.

If the results on Days Gone and Horizon Dawn are that much better, it likely isn't a fixed upscale solution, as the unnamed developers allude. Could be that the upscale works with a set of data you can supply, and the more you can supply, the better the results?

Yah. I'm hoping they give more details soon. I think it was said they'd detail some of the customization to the hardware over the next few weeks.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Will be interesting to know for what color space the game developers shooting, any thoughts? I would guess that sRGB is still the safest bet even for 4K+HDR output.

I think they pretty much have to follow the standard colour space for 4k hdr, otherwise people will have to have one set of calibration settings for watching movies and another set of calibration settings for games. If I were took hook up my PS4 Pro to a 4k HDR tv, I'd calibration it to the HDR standard. That's Rec.2020, I think. Standard HDTV is Rec709.

I'm assuming, and hoping, that Rec709 content that's displayed on a tv calibrated to Rec2020 will look correct.

 

[xz321zx]

Surely lasers are the only real contender for HDR projections?

Intensity isn't the problem , but how you get >10bit log with a PWM adressed display with its panel switching at a limited rate. Without multiple panels.

shouldn't the frequency be orthogonal to the PWM signal? the width of the 'up' should define the amount of steps, not the frequency.

the difference between plasma and dlp grayscale is that plasma is usually limited by phosphors and dlp is limited by resonance frequency of micromirrors where they are easy to drive. This sets the available # of subframes per frame, and the two levels become X "bit equivalent" . BTW , JVC's LCOS is said to be PWM like DLP, and ferroelectric LC can be faster than micromirrors.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

And my recent experience of building a 4K gaming PC to hook up to my TV, is that a good 1440p upscale is indistinguishable from native 4K in most games. I was running many games in 4K at 60Hz now I've just set all games to 1440p at 60Hz. I simply can not tell the different at the distance I sit from the TV and the PC runs cooler.

This didn't take too long...

Yeah, if only I hadn't posted this after finishing my PC build in June. Why give the fanboy bullshit narrative a break, eh?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

So dose the new ps4 pro let u have better gfx if you are still on a 1080p display?

Yes.

I even wonder if actually having that extra gpu power concentrated on 1080p is better than focussing on rendering 4k pixels.

4k rendering per se is probably never going to be used except maybe for 2D games or 3D games with very detail.
What developers will be doing is rendering at around 2560*1440p and then use a good quality upscaler that has dedicated hardware for it.

If you're on a 4K TV, you'll probably enjoy the extra detail.

 

[novcze]

I think they pretty much have to follow the standard colour space for 4k hdr, otherwise people will have to have one set of calibration settings for watching movies and another set of calibration settings for games. If I were took hook up my PS4 Pro to a 4k HDR tv, I'd calibration it to the HDR standard. That's Rec.2020, I think. Standard HDTV is Rec709.

I'm assuming, and hoping, that Rec709 content that's displayed on a tv calibrated to Rec2020 will look correct.

I doubt the developers are using Rec.2020 displays to create art for the games, best TV sets are covering some 70% of Rec.2020 btw.
Maybe PS4Pro will use Rec.2020 as a "container" for a content that is actually in sRGB/Rec.709, that's why I ask someone who can know.
For UHD movies, it can be different because DCI-P3 standard have wider gamut than Rec.709 and can be used in Rec.2020 container.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Still so butt hurt with the omission of UHD bluray playback, it's a very non Sony thing to do!

This is new Sony. You can bet your arse that Sony looked at this carefully, probably looking at usage of PS4 for Blu-ray disc playback and perhaps even pulling data from PS4's about whether they are connected to 4K TVs. This will almost certainly have just come down to Sony not thinking the bite on their profit margin was not worth it given they likely had a specific price point in mind.

 

[MrFox]

JVC keeps improving their LCOS native contrast, I think they have the best shot at this. With HDR there's 10 times more brightness headroom, a normal image have 10 times less contrast compared to the same non-HDR setup. So JVC have so much native contrast that they are the only ones in a position to pull it off.

But brightness is absolutely a big issue. HDR has a 1000 nits reference brightness. That means the final mastering is done on monitors where a 1024 pixel value is 1000 nits. A typical home projector is 70 nits, meaning any HDR data would have to be compensated by 10 times, clipping highlights by 10 times, and thus provide no advantages.

I saw an article saying the reference is actually 4000 nits, and even 10,000 nits for Dolby Vision. Most films are mastered at 1000 nits anyway because 4000 is an impossible level with current or near future technology.

 

[sebbbi]

4k rendering per se is probably never going to be used except maybe for 2D games or 3D games with very detail.
What developers will be doing is rendering at around 2560*1440p and then use a good quality upscaler that has dedicated hardware for it.

Hardware upscalers are so last season

Who would want to have simple interpolated (blurred) hardware upscaling when you could generate some of your data (such as depth buffer) at 4K resolution and do smart reconstruction (using current and previous frame dsta).

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Who would want to have simple interpolated (blurred) hardware upscaling when you could generate some of your data (such as depth buffer) at 4K resolution and do smart reconstruction (using current and previous frame dsta).

Activision?

 

[Heinrich4]

PS4 Pro has 2.25x speed up over the previously fastest console, if that's not worth it, then 1.5x of scorpio over PS4 Pro should be even less noticeable in games. To make up for the 4x resolution, keeping the same per pixel quality, we'd actually need 7.2TFlops (considering everything scales perfectly linear)

Maybe you're right, but note that Microsoft might use the same features , same techniques the 4x4 checkerboard,Temporal etc + hardware dedicated for upscale and still have almost 2 extra TFLOPS for more shaders effects, tessellation, folliage etc.

I have the impression we all discussed this before, but still should be noted that Scorpio (if scale linearly*) will reach about 4+ time more power than the xbox one OG and something like 3.3 * more than ps4OG and this might bring some impact if some games have focus on 1080P /30fps "ultra" like new Tomb Raider.

I'm really appreciate the evolution going to 4k and all its attractive( 4*1080P,HDR,more deep colours etc) and I want one, but I've impression is big a risky,It's a gamble that Sony and Microsoft are playing and I have talked about 1080/30fps "ultra / high" whateaver,because IMO,I don't believe in the relevance of flat panels market 4k growt for at least 2 years.

For xbox one OG consumers scorpio is a much more interesting choice than ps4pro for Sony users. For all consumers It might be more interesting if "ps4 pro+" coming in 2017 ( march?) with 5/5.5Tflops for 3 times more performance than the ps4 OG and still approach the scorpio power.

* Im unfortunately not finding the article here, but it seems for current games that is not necessarily required 4x more power processing 1080P to achieve 4k,maybe developers can help us here.

 

[xz321zx]

Hardware upscalers are so last season

Who would want to have simple interpolated (blurred) hardware upscaling when you could generate some of your data (such as depth buffer) at 4K resolution and do smart reconstruction (using current and previous frame dsta).

... in the Ubisoft literature they note how they had problem with "short" datasets like flickering lights , so maybe it makes sense to add those seperately as well, just like stuff like particles I suppose. A boost of particle count , especially if fine grained, could be spectacular, especially after what seems to happen in Fallout4 (mods for reduced particle count).

 

[expletive]

This is new Sony. You can bet your arse that Sony looked at this carefully, probably looking at usage of PS4 for Blu-ray disc playback and perhaps even pulling data from PS4's about whether they are connected to 4K TVs. This will almost certainly have just come down to Sony not thinking the bite on their profit margin was not worth it given they likely had a specific price point in mind.

What's odd about this is that Sony has NO UHD disc player in its electronics lineup. I thought for sure the absence of a stand alone player at the format's launch was a signal they'd be using it to buoy PS4 Pro sales, but now I have no idea what they are thinking. They sell UHD TVs and Projectors, and also publish the movies but have no way for you to play one of their UHD discs on one of their UHD TVs. The hardware and licensing costs must have been excessive relative to the rest of the BOM?

 

[BRiT]

Looks like i missed it all.
So dose the new ps4 pro let u have better gfx if you are still on a 1080p display?

It's up to the DEVS but it can only increase framerates for Single-Player modes. Supposedly MultiPlayer modes can not increase frame rates.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

What's odd about this is that Sony has NO UHD disc player in its electronics lineup. I thought for sure the absence of a stand alone player at the format's launch was a signal they'd be using it to buoy PS4 Pro sales, but now I have no idea what they are thinking. They sell UHD TVs and Projectors, and also publish the movies but have no way for you to play one of their UHD discs on one of their UHD TVs. The hardware and licensing costs must have been excessive relative to the rest of the BOM?

I thought Sony did have a player but Ike corrected me. Sony are still rebuilding financially so the days when they could just manufacture tons of crap and hope it sells are gone. Unless a product is going to have a return, it's far less like Sony will make it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It can mean 80% GCN 1.1 (vanilla PS4), 10% Polaris features and 10% something beyond Polaris. Importantly, it's not Polaris based, only with some of the the features. And if that's for BC, that bodes ill for PS5. If variations in GPU architecture of the same family can throw out BC without a decent API abstraction, Sony's long-term platform is screwed. That's the point MS really wants to start making - no games are left behind! Because it's looking more like Sony won't be able to offer that. And if in MS's ecosystem you can take the games to Pc as well, it really is the only future-proof platform (because you can take your Windows games from their shite, constantly screwed-with OS to a working console... )

 

[Rikimaru]

It can mean 80% GCN 1.1 (vanilla PS4), 10% Polaris features and 10% something beyond Polaris. Importantly, it's not Polaris based, only with some of the the features. And if that's for BC, that bodes ill for PS5. If variations in GPU architecture of the same family can throw out BC without a decent API abstraction, Sony's long-term platform is screwed. That's the point MS really wants to start making - no games are left behind! Because it's looking more like Sony won't be able to offer that.

It seems strange that Sony did not want to make some OS hacks for old games support. Maybe they thought mid-cycle upgrade should play og games perfectly.

And if in MS's ecosystem you can take the games to Pc as well, it really is the only future-proof platform (because you can take your Windows games from their shite, constantly screwed-with OS to a working console... )

If only MS made some games
Third-party won't do that.

 

[MrFox]

Cerny's patent about fine-grain clocking scheme to account for different GPU architecture in future consoles, and have perfect BC performance, seems to point to the contrary. At least partially.