Technical Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[almighty]

I have been thinking the same

PC games must work perfectly with just 2 GB of system memory + 1 GB of graphics memory. Windows XP is still widely used, and there is a 32 bit version of Windows Vista, 7 and 8. You can't just drop support for all of these operating systems. Also most players are using a 1080p display, but 70% of the players (according to Steam Survey) have 1 GB of less graphics memory. PC games must support 1080p flawlessly on graphics cards that have only 1 GB of memory.

Bottom line: A PC game must work perfectly with just 3 GB of memory (total). All current PC games do so.

I can think of so many games that are unplayable on 1Gb VRAM at 1080p..

 

[scf]

Who cares about PC version problems for a console game?

 

[almighty]

There is enough RAM even with the bloated OS. If these were the simle game boxes of old, they likely would not feel it necessary to stick 8GB in there.

There's never enough RAM.... any developer will say the same... I bet if Sony/MS asked the developers if they wanted a basic OS with loads of spare RAM or a big useless OS and less RAM for games...

Wonder which one they would pick..

 

[BRiT]

Who cares about PC version problems for a console game?

Any non-first party developer or publisher. This means a substantial portion of all the developers and publishers who will target the largest return on their investment; they need to be able to release their games on the PC as well.

 

[BRiT]

There's never enough RAM.... any developer will say the same... I bet if Sony/MS asked the developers if they wanted a basic OS with loads of spare RAM or a big useless OS and less RAM for games...

Wonder which one they would pick..

You'd have to factor in the potential install base size. There's chances that if they provide simply a basic OS then the console won't have as large of an install base since it appeals to a smaller market. ie: a specialized gaming box that sells only 5 million versus a more rounded box that sells 20 million. Wonder which one they would rather target.

 

[dagamer]

I have been thinking the same

PC games must work perfectly with just 2 GB of system memory + 1 GB of graphics memory. Windows XP is still widely used, and there is a 32 bit version of Windows Vista, 7 and 8. You can't just drop support for all of these operating systems. Also most players are using a 1080p display, but 70% of the players (according to Steam Survey) have 1 GB of less graphics memory. PC games must support 1080p flawlessly on graphics cards that have only 1 GB of memory.

Bottom line: A PC game must work perfectly with just 3 GB of memory (total). All current PC games do so. A 2+ GB graphics card is only needed for super high resolution gaming (2560x1440+), and less than one percent of gamers have monitors like that.

Games already require DX11, which kills XP support. And a generational shift is the best way to say "Nope, sorry, you need to upgrade your software". No one running a modern rig is using XP or Vista at this point.

I expect the fact that newer games will be designed with a more modern x64 CPU in mind to basically draw a line in the sand with what is supported or not. PC SKUs rarely sell enough to care, and when they do, it's all high-end shooters which it doesn't matter anyway.

 

[warb]

There's never enough RAM.... any developer will say the same... I bet if Sony/MS asked the developers if they wanted a basic OS with loads of spare RAM or a big useless OS and less RAM for games...

Wonder which one they would pick..

Yep, but we've likely the big OS and multimedia multitasking to thank for 8GB in the new consoles. There'd be less available with 4GB, even with the tiniest system reserve.

 

[almighty]

You'd have to factor in the potential install base size. There's chances that if they provide simply a basic OS then the console won't have as large of an install base since it appeals to a smaller market. ie: a specialized gaming box that sells only 5 million versus a more rounded box that sells 20 million. Wonder which one they would rather target.

It has Sony and Playstation printed all over it.... It would do fine as a basic machine..

PS1 and PS2 were very basic machines and out sold everything....

Even if they used something like Android, they would have all the functionality like apps and web surfing but at a quarter of the memory use.

 

[warb]

PS3 had a bigger OS footprint than Xbox 360, and I'm sure the DVD and BD drives sold a few Playstations. Sony are going to try to offer features similar to X1.

 

[almighty]

PS3 had a bigger OS footprint than Xbox 360, and I'm sure the DVD and BD drives sold a few Playstations. Sony are going to try to offer features similar to X1.

Sony spent a lot of time trying to reduce the OS foot print and give developers more RAM to play with...

The OS was 120Mb on launch and that was eventually dropped to 50Mb...

There's no way that a new OS offers enough new features over what PS3 can do to warrant such a massive increase in RAM use.

 

[ninelven]

Uhm, how much RAM do you think games will use when they will still mostly support PC gaming which is run primarily on 32bit OS where there is a limit of 2GB for application space?

Umm... 64bit OS is over 70% share on steam. And I would wager it is only going to continue to rise.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

 

[BRiT]

Yes, 64bit OS but the games are still compiled with a 32bit target.

 

[ninelven]

Are you expecting X1 and PS4 games to be compiled to 32 bit targets?

 

[BRiT]

Are you expecting X1 and PS4 games to be compiled to 32 bit targets?

When they're ported to the PC, yes, I expect them to target 32bit OS.

 

[ninelven]

And if the work has already been put in to compile to 64bit, you think they will not include an x64 executable?

BTW, you did not answer the actual question.

 

[BRiT]

And if the work has already been put in to compile to 64bit, you think they will not include an x64 executable?

That won't matter if they still have to make it work on 32bit targets.

I would love nothing more than to see everyone shun the 32bit OS and 32bit targets. I've been wishing that was the case starting with Windows Vista, where it was 64bit only. Unfortunately that has not been the case. It's still not the case with Windows 8. Stupid silly 32bit support can GDIAF.

 

[Qrius]

Improved fill rate and texture sampling rate needs extra bandwidth in addition to ROPs and TMUs. Otherwise it's going to become bandwidth limited. If you compare Radeon 7770 -> 7850, there's +113% extra bandwidth to feed that +72% fill rate and +38% texture sampling rate.

In your chart the worst case return is %3 (bandwidth). This occurs if the engine is already bandwidth bound.

A 7870 has exactly the same bandwidth as a 7850, has higher ALU, texture and fillrate throughput, yet still posts higher results in every game you throw at it. Which to me suggests very few games, at 1080p, are bound by bandwidth, or else the results would fail to scale.

My 'guess' is that comes from having to deal with current gen consoles meager bandwidth and, as you say, I'd expect it to change a lot once compute enters the picture in any significant fashion.

But for the game engines out there, right now, at 1080p - bandwidth doesn't appear to be the limiting factor?

 

[ninelven]

Sure it matters. I work on a project, and we make 32bit and 64bit builds as there are compelling reasons to use 64bit if possible.

For games, you would essentially limit 32bit builds to "medium" settings, while "high" is available if you run the 64bit executable.

The marketshare for 64bit is already over 70%, and that statistic probably includes a large number of casual PC gamers. I would wager a guess that of the more serious PC gamers the figure is probably more like 90%+. But that is just my intuition.

 

[Rangers]

it's "interesting" to me sebbi calls out 200 gb/s xbone bw sourced from ms tech panel when presumably he could have just as easily sourced 170 gb/s from vgleaks...

 

[Rangers]

Sure it matters. I work on a project, and we make 32bit and 64bit builds as there are compelling reasons to use 64bit if possible.

For games, you would essentially limit 32bit builds to "medium" settings, while "high" is available if you run the 64bit executable.

The marketshare for 64bit is already over 70%, and that statistic probably includes a large number of casual PC gamers. I would wager a guess that of the more serious PC gamers the figure is probably more like 90%+. But that is just my intuition.

most latest pc games are still 32 bit afaik.