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Albert Penello puts dGPU Xbox One rumor to rest

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chano

Member
TketXxg.gif
 
MS seems really adamant about these power rumors being false. I can't wait for the DF face offs this fall.

I expect PS4 to win the face-offs easily and it will be mighty embarrassing for MS. If the differences are small they still lose, because optimization. PS4 fans get the superior game and customer satisfaction, get to say games will continue to be optimized down the line as devs "get to grips / huma etc" so the face-off gaps will widen. Whilst bone fans will have no comeback.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
You think it will be more or less of a difference? If you think more I think you are in for some disappointment. From a dev's perspective, what's the point of making the PS4 version a lot better? Resolution tuning is cheap and easy.
I think it will be much less. I think it's more likely you will be disappointed if you think 720p on one version and 1080p will be the standard.
 

Curufinwe

Member
And the 360 vs PS3 stuff wasn't a big deal either for the most part. Mostly just fanboy wars.

I don't agree with that. I bought a 360 primarily because it ran multiplatform games like Bayonetta and Assassin's Creed 2 better than the PS3 did.

I'm not a COD guy, but I read a lot about how the PS3 versions always lagged behind in terms of performance and networking and that contributed to that game selling more on 360.
 

IN&OUT

Banned
I'm inclined to believe the PS4 is substantially more powerful based on the spec sheets alone. Also a few brave developers dropping a hint here and there.

However, Microsoft designed a very smart console in the Xbox 360. They had foresight on many fronts when designing that console, which allowed them to update their OS over time, and add things like party chat, etc. So part of me doesn't believe Microsoft would design a console that puts them at a substantial disadvantage.

The CPU clock increase likely gives the XB1 a minor advantage in that area, and I believe it also has more memory bandwidth available to the CPU.

It's NOT MS decision at all. MS are responsible for their console only.

Let's put it this way:


Is X1 powerful console? Yes, it is.

Is X1 more powerful than PS4? HELL NO

Why X1 is weaker than PS4?

MS designed X1 to be perfectly balanced and powerful according to their vision.

It's just happen to be that Sony was more ambitious (regarding power) and they were able to outdo MS efforts in this area.
 

Truespeed

Member
A friend of a friend who works in the HR division at Microsoft confirmed that there's a second GPU hidden in the external power supply that's currently dormant and will be lit up with a future firmware update when the need arises.
 

artist

Banned
"Perf. differences are greatly overstated."

how could he say this if he don't know the changes that Sony done to their SoC?


the changes Sony made could have been a lot better than the changes that they made so the differences could be bigger than what people think.

just a thought.
Penello just keeps digging his hole ..STHAP
 

Finalizer

Member
But my understanding as far as the PS3 was that it was that way because it had goofy architecture. The Xbox One and PS4 have almost the same architecture so I wouldn't imagine that the games would be that different.

Jury's out on how much of a visual disparity there will be, but my takeaway is that you shouldn't worry about seeing things turn out like PS3 versions of Fallout or Skyrim. Thanks to the similar architecture, porting is far more straightforward no matter which system ends up being the lead development platform. (assuming PC doesn't remain so)
 
With all due respect, I don't believe Albert. Compare the 7850 (1.76TF) with the 7770 (1.28TF). The performance difference is staggering. Now both the PS4 and Xbox One have better GPUs than the aforementioned (1.84 vs 1.31). However, the gap between the two console GPUs is greater than the gap between the two AMD GPUs that I have just mentioned.

Here is badb0y's writeup:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=74541511&postcount=621

I do not see how Microsoft will mitigate that gap unless they're using some sorcery.

Or there is a huge difference between PS4 One.
 
I agree that the average consumer won't notice the graphical differences.
You can bet your ass they will notice that $100 price difference though! lol

I'm not so sure that's what Albert is talking about. I believe he's going to argue that their console is "tuned" and "balanced" better than Sony's. That when you add it all up in the real world, the differences will be trivial in most cases.

Yeah, I'm not speaking for Albert.

To be honest, for many games I think the differences will be less than 720p vs 1080p but it's an easy metric to throw out there to help frame the discussion.


I think it will be much less. I think it's more likely you will be disappointed if you think 720p on one version and 1080p will be the standard.


We agree on less differences.
 
I agree that the average consumer won't notice.
You can bet your ass they will notice that $100 price difference though! lol

I'm not so sure that's what Albert is talking about. I believe he's going to argue that their console is "tuned" and "balanced" better than Sony's. That when you add it all up in the real world, the differences will be trivial in most cases.

Right, but unless Microsoft has spies working on Sony's hardware dev team, there's no way he could know what tweaks Sony's people have made to their hardware while Microsoft was tweaking their own. His past insistence that Microsoft has some of the best engineers IN THE WORLD does nothing to change the fact that Sony's engineers seem to be pretty damn knowledgable themselves, at least judging by the word we've been getting here and there from devs regarding the power difference.
 

Mrbob

Member
It's NOT MS decision at all. MS are responsible for their console only.

Let's put it this way:


Is X1 powerful console? Yes, it is.

Is X1 more powerful than PS4? HELL NO

Why X1 is weaker than PS4?

MS designed X1 to be perfectly balanced and powerful according to their vision.

It's just happen to be that Sony was more ambitious (regarding power) and they were able to outdo MS efforts in this area.

This really is the perfect response and there isn't much more discussion to add.

One could argue MS developed a better overall system with 360 versus PS3. This time, Sony looks to have built the better system in PS4. Don't know how this is that hard to grasp. Then in 5 to 7 years we'll do it all over again.
 

gaming_noob

Member
It's time to start showing more to prove your point. Give us Perfect Dark Zero 2 that looks close to Killzone: Shadow Falls.
 

Klocker

Member
Penello is still adamant that the power disparity between the two consoles is still not as huge as commonly believed. Based on the data we currently know, do you tech savvy guys believe there is any feasible way that he could be correct or are his arguments just damage control?

Our local tech guys can not know... based on what they know, they can give their perspective but they do not know what Albert knows.

so they can state all the "facts" they want about how they think it will work but it can not be known until we learn more about how the system can be leveraged in real games not theory and until the games are out and until the devs start to get digging into the machines.

Albert knows.
 

Vizzeh

Banned
I wish MS would start backing up what they say with facts and figures instead of PR sentences such as the power is overstated. But then again its possibly unrealistic.

The Dgpu was a random pipe dream, never seen its logic.
 

Skeff

Member
I think it will be much less. I think it's more likely you will be disappointed if you think 720p on one version and 1080p will be the standard.

Yea we're looking at 900p vs. 1080p at a maximum, which isn't to be scoffed at, I mean if we get 1280x1080 and 1920x1080 the PS4 is pushing 50% more pixels.

There's going to be a noticeable difference but lets keep things under control people.
 

R3TRODYCE

Member
It's NOT MS decision at all. MS are responsible for their console only.

Let's put it this way:


Is X1 powerful console? Yes, it is.

Is X1 more powerful than PS4? HELL NO

Why X1 is weaker than PS4?

MS designed X1 to be perfectly balanced and powerful according to their vision.

It's just happen to be that Sony was more ambitious (regarding power) and they were able to outdo MS efforts in this area.
I'm impressed.
 

Bsigg12

Member
Penello just keeps digging his hole ..STHAP

He's not really digging a hole. If you were on a team that was working on a multi year project that was about to come out at the same time as a competitor's new thing, you too would be defending your work. There's nothing wrong with standing behind your work and supporting it.
 
He isn't claiming the power disparity is less, he is saying the disparity in output won't be as evident as people seem to think. The PS4 is obviously more powerful on paper, but the systems are more than the sums of their parts. To me, the PS4 launch games look a little better but there isn't a huge disparity so far. I wouldn't be surprised to see that disparity grow, but I also still remember all the "Xbox 1.5" bullshit from 2005

This is a subtle point but in this sense I think you would be right: graphically the launch games of both consoles appear (from what we have seen so far) to be similar. Once the digital foundry comparisons are released we will see conclusively. However, your argument rests on a certain interpretation of the word 'performance': as you say, you see it is a reflection of the games released, but it could also easily and justifiably be interpreted as the raw power (performance) of the machine.
It is in this sense that I am curious as to whether the Xbone could feasibly compete with PS4.
 

statham

Member
I expect PS4 to win the face-offs easily and it will be mighty embarrassing for MS. If the differences are small they still lose, because optimization. PS4 fans get the superior game and customer satisfaction, get to say games will continue to be optimized down the line as devs "get to grips / huma etc" so the face-off gaps will widen. Whilst bone fans will have no comeback.

Kinect buddy, I can arrange my weapons layout with my hands and shit.
 

NBtoaster

Member
"Perf. differences are greatly overstated."

how could he say this if he don't know the changes that Sony done to their SoC?


the changes Sony made could have been a lot better than the changes that they made so the differences could be bigger than what people think.

just a thought.

He's probably not speaking based on theoretical performance from leaked specs.
 

FINALBOSS

Banned
But how clearly would that be in a multiplat comparison shot? I have terrible vision and sometimes can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.

If you have that bad of vision then the answer is "who knows".

There will certainly be straight performance differences (i.e. fps) and there will also be effects differences (i.e. AA, AF, effects missing).

You are looking to much into what he said. He is just trying to clarify things.

Is he?

Albert/Major literally say that every time power discussion comes up.
 

Piggus

Member
That's what panello implied - read what I quoted again. How else could he arrive at the conclusion that a 40% difference in paper specs will be balanced out in the end?

Except that it's false. By pretty much all accounts, Sony made better choices when it comes to the hardware. Why do you think they went around to so many devs asking for input? The memory setup is a good example of how Sony chose a risky but developer friendly solution whereas MS took the safe route with DDR3.

I'm going to ask Albert again: What hardware features does the Xbox One have that supposedly close the power gap? You know the PS4 has a more powerful GPU. So what makes up for that in your system? It's a little frustrating to get such vague answers, especially when you're making pure assumptions about your competition without anything to back it up.
 

Skeff

Member
He's not really digging a hole. If you were on a team that was working on a multi year project that was about to come out at the same time as a competitor's new thing, you too would be defending your work. There's nothing wrong with standing behind your work and supporting it.

Well of course but their are different ways to support it, talk about things your project can do that the opposition can't, don't continue to bring up the raw power aspect as it's a losing battle.
 
I don't agree with that. I bought a 360 primarily because it ran multiplatform games like Bayonetta and Assassin's Creed 2 better than the PS3 did.

I'm not a COD guy, but I read a lot about how the PS3 versions always lagged behind in terms of performance and networking and that contributed to that game selling more on 360.


We'll agree to disagree. Did you know Bayonetta sold better on the PS3?

Also, the 360 got earlier COD DLC and in the beginning of the console life cycle had better online support.
 
It's NOT MS decision at all. MS are responsible for their console only.

Let's put it this way:


Is X1 powerful console? Yes, it is.

Is X1 more powerful than PS4? HELL NO

Why X1 is weaker than PS4?

MS designed X1 to be perfectly balanced and powerful according to their vision.

It's just happen to be that Sony was more ambitious (regarding power) and they were able to outdo MS efforts in this area.

tumblr_lpr0pcvkeg1qjr6in.gif


I get the "vision" thing. I even get the "balancing" it to do certain things better, but he keeps running that whole "power difference is overstated" schtick. It's not. The PS4 is objectively a more powerful system, and every time he refutes that instead of actually hyping the vision of the XBO, it just seems like it's their PR team running scared.
 

velociraptor

Junior Member
I agree that the average consumer won't notice. I'm not so sure that's what Albert is talking about. I believe he's going to argue that their console is "tuned" and "balanced" better than Sony's. That when you add it all up in the real world, the differences will be trivial in most cases.
Let me give you an analogy. You can have two cars.

One car is a BMW 335i, a 330hp coupe. You have tuned the suspension settings. The gear ratios are perfect. The tyres have the 'right' pressure and width. The torque, camber, ride height, aerodynamics are all 'balanced' - you get the picture.

The other is a BMW M3. It has no such tuning. but is packing a 414HP V8 engine.

What will you place your bets on?
 

Derrick01

Banned
Yeah, I'm not speaking for Albert.

To be honest, for many games I think the differences will be less than 720p vs 1080p but it's an easy metric to throw out there to help frame the discussion.

I don't think the differences will be resolution, at least not to the level of 720p vs 1080p. It'll probably be true 1080p versus something close to it if it's resolution related at all.

What I do think will happen as the generation stretches is we'll see some framerate differences, we'll see games who want to keep the framerate the same in both but have to lower a good number of details or maybe ditch any AA they have planned to get the Xbox version to stay at 30. Maybe an open world game will have less detail in some areas or less particles. There's any number of things that can happen with the tech difference, it's up to the devs to decide what they're going to change/lower.
 

FINALBOSS

Banned
Let me give you an analogy. You can have two cars.

One car is a BMW 335i, a 330hp coupe. You have tuned the suspension settings. The gear ratios are perfect. The tyres have the 'right' pressure and width. The torque, camber, ride height, aerodynamics are all 'balanced' - you get the picture.

The other is a BMW M3. It has no such tuning. but is packing a 414HP V8 engine.

What will you place your bets on?

What a dogshit comparison.

So in this scenario, Sony basically threw powerful components in a box and called it a day?

Lol. Come on brotha.
 
To be fair to Microsoft, you can't really expect their PR to be like, "Yeah, we done fucked up. There's a 40% difference here, you guys. Did you hear me?? Forty fucking percent! Where's my whiskey bottle?"

Well, the trick would be to not draw attention to the power difference at all. Saying the difference is 'greatly exaggerated' is still admitting that there is a difference at all.
PR should focus on aspects which sell the system (Kinect etc)
 

USC-fan

Banned
It's NOT MS decision at all. MS are responsible for their console only.

Let's put it this way:


Is X1 powerful console? Yes, it is.

Is X1 more powerful than PS4? HELL NO

Why X1 is weaker than PS4?

MS designed X1 to be perfectly balanced and powerful according to their vision.

It's just happen to be that Sony was more ambitious (regarding power) and they were able to outdo MS efforts in this area.

Sony got lucky too with the 8Gb of gddr5 ram modules. It was really the perfect storm with the PS4.

MS double down on kinect for hardware. Yet they really do not have any big games that use kinect. Seems like a bad move right now.
 

Toki767

Member
Let me give you an analogy. You can have two cars.

One car is a BMW 335i, a 330hp coupe. You have tuned the suspension settings. The gear ratios are perfect. The tyres have the 'right' pressure and width. The torque, camber, ride height, aerodynamics are all 'balanced' - you get the picture.

The other is a BMW M3. It has no such tuning. but is packing a 414HP V8 engine.

What will you place your bets on?

It's a silly comparison because that would imply that Sony doesn't tune the PS4's system for maximum performance too.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
We'll agree to disagree. Did you know Bayonetta sold better on the PS3?

Also, the 360 got earlier COD DLC and in the beginning of the console life cycle had better online support.
That would be because 360 has no presence in Japan and Bayonetta bombed elsewhere.
 

x-Lundz-x

Member
I just wish MS would say WHY the power difference doesn't matter? At what point DOES it matter? Obviously a difference of .5TF doesn't matter so what does? .75, 1.0??? Tell me why raw power doesn't matter. I'm sure Sony has some great software engineers working for them too MS and can make use of that.
 

velociraptor

Junior Member
What a dogshit comparison.

So in this scenario, Sony basically threw powerful components in a box and called it a day?

Lol. Come on brotha.
It's a silly comparison because that would imply that Sony doesn't tune the PS4's system for maximum performance too.

You've missed the point.

Either way, for however much 'optimisations' Microsoft can do with the Xbox, Sony could probably also do the same with the PS4.

The message I am getting from Microsoft seems to be that the Xbox One is extremely well designed and thus games will look similar.
 
I see my statements the other day caused more of a stir than I had intended. I saw threads locking down as fast as they pop up, so I apologize for the delayed response.

I was hoping my comments would lead the discussion to be more about the games (and the fact that games on both systems look great) as a sign of my point about performance, but unfortunately I saw more discussion of my credibility.

So I thought I would add more detail to what I said the other day, that perhaps people can debate those individual merits instead of making personal attacks. This should hopefully dismiss the notion I'm simply creating FUD or spin.

I do want to be super clear: I'm not disparaging Sony. I'm not trying to diminish them, or their launch or what they have said. But I do need to draw comparisons since I am trying to explain that the way people are calculating the differences between the two machines isn't completely accurate. I think I've been upfront I have nothing but respect for those guys, but I'm not a fan of the mis-information about our performance.

So, here are couple of points about some of the individual parts for people to consider:

• 18 CU's vs. 12 CU's =/= 50% more performance. Multi-core processors have inherent inefficiency with more CU's, so it's simply incorrect to say 50% more GPU.
• Adding to that, each of our CU's is running 6% faster. It's not simply a 6% clock speed increase overall.
• We have more memory bandwidth. 176gb/sec is peak on paper for GDDR5. Our peak on paper is 272gb/sec. (68gb/sec DDR3 + 204gb/sec on ESRAM). ESRAM can do read/write cycles simultaneously so I see this number mis-quoted.
• We have at least 10% more CPU. Not only a faster processor, but a better audio chip also offloading CPU cycles.
• We understand GPGPU and its importance very well. Microsoft invented Direct Compute, and have been using GPGPU in a shipping product since 2010 - it's called Kinect.
• Speaking of GPGPU - we have 3X the coherent bandwidth for GPGPU at 30gb/sec which significantly improves our ability for the CPU to efficiently read data generated by the GPU.

Hopefully with some of those more specific points people will understand where we have reduced bottlenecks in the system. I'm sure this will get debated endlessly but at least you can see I'm backing up my points.

I still I believe that we get little credit for the fact that, as a SW company, the people designing our system are some of the smartest graphics engineers around – they understand how to architect and balance a system for graphics performance. Each company has their strengths, and I feel that our strength is overlooked when evaluating both boxes.

Given this continued belief of a significant gap, we're working with our most senior graphics and silicon engineers to get into more depth on this topic. They will be more credible then I am, and can talk in detail about some of the benchmarking we've done and how we balanced our system.

Thanks again for letting my participate. Hope this gives people more background on my claims.
 

Skeff

Member
Let me give you an analogy. You can have two cars.

One car is a BMW 335i, a 330hp coupe. You have tuned the suspension settings. The gear ratios are perfect. The tyres have the 'right' pressure and width. The torque, camber, ride height, aerodynamics are all 'balanced' - you get the picture.

The other is a BMW M3. It has no such tuning. but is packing a 414HP V8 engine.

What will you place your bets on?

I think it's a little comical to suggest, with this analogy, that the PS4 has no tuning.

Also, you'd need to use a car with 462HP engine instead of the M3 to be at the right power ratio.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Why did you unlock this thread!?

I deleted half of it. I think I need to do it again.

edit: Albert, I just don't understand how you have the details on Sony's hardware to make these statements. What am I missing?
 

The Flash

Banned
Exactly, I never understood the concern. If anything, people should want both consoles to do well because competition promotes innovation. I don't want to live in a world deprived of choice, where all we have is one console.

I just want great games, graphical fidelity isn't everything. Both consoles will be capable of rendering amazing looking textures. Give me games!

Precisely. Take State of Decay for example. Frame rate issues, tearing, glitches, and all but it was a fantastic game. It was first and foremost a fun game and that's what matters to me. Something like Second Son visually looks really good but if it isn't fun then that's it, game over. For me at least it's "I had fun playing this game, it's a really good game" > "look how many particle effects we can put in at one time". Sometimes when I get on here I feel like I'm the only one that thinks along these lines.
 

Metfanant

Member
Let me give you an analogy. You can have two cars.

One car is a BMW 335i, a 330hp coupe. You have tuned the suspension settings. The gear ratios are perfect. The tyres have the 'right' pressure and width. The torque, camber, ride height, aerodynamics are all 'balanced' - you get the picture.

The other is a BMW M3. It has no such tuning. but is packing a 414HP V8 engine.

What will you place your bets on?

the M3 is stock off the showroom floor??? the M3 wipes the floor with the 335i all day long
 

Eusis

Member
With all due respect, I don't believe Albert. Compare the 7850 (1.76TF) with the 7770 (1.28TF). The performance difference is staggering. Now both the PS4 and Xbox One have better GPUs than the aforementioned (1.84 vs 1.31). However, the gap between the two console GPUs is greater than the gap between the two AMD GPUs that I have just mentioned.

Here is badb0y's writeup:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=74541511&postcount=621

I do not see how Microsoft will mitigate that gap unless they're using some sorcery.
I actually think a lot more of that will depend on what framerates they're going to lock games at more than anything else. Quite a few of those are above 30 on the weaker card, but under 60 on the stronger, and others are under 20/over 30 and would probably be in the same situation as the other games once optimized for consoles. If they opt to just lock at 30 FPS then you'll have consistent performance as far as most people can see, even if perhaps the PS4 version has fewer FPS dips.

IF developers either didn't bother with v-sync, or exclusively went with triple buffering, then there'd be an easily seen difference unless they were exceeding 60 FPS in the first place.
 
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