Sony's Next Generation Portable unveiling - PSP2 in disguise

[Npl]

So, Vita will only support this proprietary media cards?

Opposed to the similar licence and royality bound non-open SD-Cards?
Theres nothing propietary about Memory Stick (that aint valid for SD aswell), you can use and build them aslong as you pay licenses - just look at Sandisk. And on top of that they dont need new revisions and readers after 4GB, 32GB "barriers"

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Opposed to the similar licence and royality bound non-open SD-Cards?
Theres nothing propietary about Memory Stick (that aint valid for SD aswell), you can use and build them aslong as you pay licenses - just look at Sandisk. And on top of that they dont need new revisions and readers after 4GB, 32GB "barriers"

OTOH, SD cards are driven by an aggressive competition from tenths (hundreds?) of manufacturers, driving their price/GB a lot lower than any competition we've seen so far.


So yeah, I'd rather see a SD card slot in the Vita. Even if the console did a pre-check of the card's read\write speeds and only accepted cards with a speed above a certain threshold.

Bet all you want that, at Vita's release time, a 32GB SD Class 10 card will be substantially cheaper than a "Vita Card".

 

[onQ]

so still no new info on the CPU/GPU clock speeds or the cameras?

 

[Lazy8s]

All indications from dev comments are that the GPU is being planned at 200 MHz.

 

[onQ]

All indications from dev comments are that the GPU is being planned at 200 MHz.

so that Quad-core PowerVR SGX543+ isn't even breaking a sweat with those Uncharted Graphics which makes me wonder what Imagination Technologies had planned for the 16 core PowerVR SGX5 that never made it's way into use, because that was potentially 8 times the out put of what Vita is doing no way that was planned for a mobile device.

I really think Vita is just a look at what PS4 is going to be like with a Multi-Core PowerVR GPU because it just seem so perfect for a next-gen console

Cheap , Small , Low Powered & Easy to develop for.

 

[Gitaroo]

vita also has the sony media engine 2 processor right? Is that only for video playback?

 

[Ailuros]

so that Quad-core PowerVR SGX543+ isn't even breaking a sweat with those Uncharted Graphics which makes me wonder what Imagination Technologies had planned for the 16 core PowerVR SGX5 that never made it's way into use, because that was potentially 8 times the out put of what Vita is doing no way that was planned for a mobile device.

I really think Vita is just a look at what PS4 is going to be like with a Multi-Core PowerVR GPU because it just seem so perfect for a next-gen console

I don't know what SONY is planning for it's next generation console, but if they have or are considering an option like that they obviously wouldn't consider something from the Series5XT (SGX544/554) family but rather Series6/Rogue. ST Ericsson's A9600 is delivering according to ST from the GPU alone >210GFLOPs, >350M Tris/s, >5.2GTexels/s. For the FLOPs you'd need either 16 SGX544@400MHz or 8 SGX554@400MHz (give or take). The Rogue in A9600 isn't obviously a single core either, but it's in all likeliness only 2 or 3 cores. Now imagine what comes out at the other end if you go for a high number of Rogue cores at a high frequency.

Cheap , Small , Low Powered & Easy to develop for.

I can't know what IMG would charge in theory for a N amount of Rogue cores in terms of royalty per chip. I don't know what SONY is paying per console for the RGX, but rumor has it that they're paying more than Microsoft pays to AMD for Xenos. Xenos could be $4-5 for each console.

If true not that expensive either and I doubt the difference in terms of royalties for GPU IP is like night and day. Die area for a single Rogue core is blank for the moment and it'll probably take a long time before we find out (probably when the first devices integrating the Rogue IP appear).

 

[onQ]

I don't know what SONY is planning for it's next generation console, but if they have or are considering an option like that they obviously wouldn't consider something from the Series5XT (SGX544/554) family but rather Series6/Rogue. ST Ericsson's A9600 is delivering according to ST from the GPU alone >210GFLOPs, >350M Tris/s, >5.2GTexels/s. For the FLOPs you'd need either 16 SGX544@400MHz or 8 SGX554@400MHz (give or take). The Rogue in A9600 isn't obviously a single core either, but it's in all likeliness only 2 or 3 cores. Now imagine what comes out at the other end if you go for a high number of Rogue cores at a high frequency.



I can't know what IMG would charge in theory for a N amount of Rogue cores in terms of royalty per chip. I don't know what SONY is paying per console for the RGX, but rumor has it that they're paying more than Microsoft pays to AMD for Xenos. Xenos could be $4-5 for each console.

If true not that expensive either and I doubt the difference in terms of royalties for GPU IP is like night and day. Die area for a single Rogue core is blank for the moment and it'll probably take a long time before we find out (probably when the first devices integrating the Rogue IP appear).

I know it wouldn't be the Series5 I was just saying maybe that's what IT had planned for the 400MHz 16 core Series5 tp shop it around to console makers if they would have made a new console before the Series6 came along,

the reason I said cheap is because the Series6 will be used in other devices so it should be a lot cheaper in the long run than a GPU that's made for a next gen console & only that next gen console. & isn't the PowerVR GPU's made backwards compatibly so when the Series7 come out they could also use that without breaking any games?

 

[Lazy8s]

It'll be backwardly compatible through the APIs and the texture compression, at the least.

Not sure they were targeting home consoles specifically with a 16 core configuration; just making themselves available to higher power markets.

 

[Arwin]

vita also has the sony media engine 2 processor right? Is that only for video playback?

Usually yes, but for instance in the PSP a game could also use that processor if they wanted to. I don't know that this will be the same for Vita - that depends on stuff like the OS being able to run your own music during games/apps, say (I hope they get that right).

 

[Ailuros]

I know it wouldn't be the Series5 I was just saying maybe that's what IT had planned for the 400MHz 16 core Series5 tp shop it around to console makers if they would have made a new console before the Series6 came along,

From what I can tell (but would like to stand corrected if wrong) Series5XT MP16 sounds like the maximum latency of the design. More simple: you can connect up to 16 cores and performance still increase as you'd expect. At this point I'd be very surprised if we see anything >MP4 from today until Series6 ships but could be wrong.

the reason I said cheap is because the Series6 will be used in other devices so it should be a lot cheaper in the long run than a GPU that's made for a next gen console & only that next gen console. & isn't the PowerVR GPU's made backwards compatibly so when the Series7 come out they could also use that without breaking any games?

Well you'd have to know what kind of graphics performance ballpark console makers are targetting in the first place and then how high Rogue/Series6 could scale. I wouldn't think that if a potential licensee requests for example 8 cores that they'd charge 8x times the royalty of a single chip, but don't expect a high number of cores being "that" cheap either especially if we're talking about a new generation.

The older an IP core is the cheaper it would be obviously in terms of royalties. However if for instance SONY should have been interested in a GPU IP license from IMG they must have signed the deal already or being close to signing it. In other words it would be IMG's newest and most expensive IP core for the time of licensing.

Here's the announcement which I still believe was for SONY's NGP: http://imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=412 It doesn't specify when the deal has been signed exactly, but there's still some time between public announcement of the license (albeit unnamed) and the actual announcement from SONY about the NGP containing IMG GPU IP.

 

[Gitaroo]

Usually yes, but for instance in the PSP a game could also use that processor if they wanted to. I don't know that this will be the same for Vita - that depends on stuff like the OS being able to run your own music during games/apps, say (I hope they get that right).

ya I hope they can use it for the background stuffs instead of reserving 1 of the CPU core.

 

[Exophase]

Usually yes, but for instance in the PSP a game could also use that processor if they wanted to. I don't know that this will be the same for Vita - that depends on stuff like the OS being able to run your own music during games/apps, say (I hope they get that right).

PSP games couldn't use it.

 

[Nano]

They probably want to control the minimum read/write speeds of expansion memory so they don't have to worry about downloadable games being played off dog-shit slow microSD cards...

My thinking too.

The size and proprietary nature means we don't have to waste money on tiny, generally slow MicroSD chips. Sony also save on licensing fees tied to MicroSD.

I'm also hoping to see a 64GB variant, as I'm considering going for downloading titles as opposed to boxed products. I prefer a mobile device to have all the games installed to it.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The SoC will be made in 45nm, by Samsung:

http://kotaku.com/5825854/report-the-ps-vita-is-powered-by-samsung

45nm...

 

[Lazy8s]

A good choice, though I wouldn't have minded Renesas in the least.

Not sure why some expect better than 45/40nm, as if ambitious new fab processes by companies not named Intel would actually meet their projected schedules.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Not sure why some expect better than 45/40nm, as if ambitious new fab processes by companies not named Intel would actually meet their projected schedules.

How about GF's 32nm?

 

[rpg.314]

How about GF's 32nm?

It's SOI, too costly, and too capacity limited.

 

[tangey]

Are they implying its a samsung design, or that its coming from Samsung's foundry ?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Are they implying its a samsung design, or that its coming from Samsung's foundry ?

According to Japan's Semiconductor Industry News, Samsung is manufacturing the 45 nanometer processor that will power the PS Vita's central processing unit.

Foundry for sure.
I wouldn't know about design, but wouldn't Sony have the workforce (and competence) for that task?