[iamshadowlark]

because alot of game support mouse and keyboard. This would allow them to port it easier from PC to Steambox where you can use a keyboard and mouse setup should you choose to.. Also PC games cost less..

A shit load of games support K/B mouse on PS3 too. Sony has been very open with things like that. What do you mean by "PC to Steambox"?

For games that are PC only, or have ports for older systems, like the PS3 or PS2. And older games. Indie bundles as well, even if some of the games might have a PS4 port, chances are you're not going to get a PSN key with the bundle. PS4 with Linux should be able to run basically everything on gog.com, almost none of which has a PS3 port or will have a PS4 port.

You would be alot better suited to just buy a cheap laptop or something.

[kidfresh718]

Best guess Sony is disclosing what's possible next generation and may not announce the PS4. Also the PS3 and Vita are getting major firmware updates this year in a number of areas. PS3 advanced features but partially supported because of hardware limitations leads into full support with the PS4 (same for the Xbox360). Sony countdown clock and E3 Live video http://www.sceainvites.com/show.php http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/bonusround/605?ch=1

The ps3 hasnt had an update since feb 15 its now may something is cookin...

[StevieP]

Its its the only thing, but it would certainly get me to pay a lot more than I would for just a PS4. I have been wanting a Steambox for a while now, and I am getting close to just building an HTPC Steambox if E3 does not reveal anything.

Start building the HTPC now, because H_Prestige is exactly right:

It's not in Sony's interest to put a competitor's gaming service on their gaming console. They get nothing from that, they only lose. It doesn't make sense from a Steam fan's perspective either. Just use Steam on an actual PC. Isn't one of the draws being able to upgrade your hardware? You won't be able to upgrade your ps4. Also, Steam and Steam games only run on Windows and Mac. Doubt ps4 will be running either OS.

[jeff_rigby]

Start building the HTPC now, because H_Prestige is exactly right:

In AMD presentations there are references to DRM (Blu-ray) and built-in control points. A special "simpler" Linux kernel could limit features. I don't know how this will play out.

Linux is moving toward a smaller more efficient Kernel with routines copied from Android and OpenGL incorporating features from OpenGL ES as well as making Xwindows support optional (Wayland/Westin). This should be ready by PS4 release and it makes sense that the PS3 could use the same smaller, faster and more efficient kernel.

Sony is rumored to now be VERY consumer oriented and wants back the good will it has lost over the last few years.

You and Brain-stew were correct about Cell being dropped and AMD X86 being used. You were 30 days ahead of most of us in realizing this. Neither of you mentioned HSA Fusion as a reason for current version of Cell not working in a AMD HSA OS. I assume you had part of the story from inside information. Anything more you can be definite about?

Edit: 2011 "Cell vision" = AMD HSA IL with Fabric computing memory model (common memory address virtual memory model) and JIT compiler. OS has to support this and a simplified Linux kernel could support this in Software which would provide advanced features that would have many Linux libraries as optional components. PS4 and PS3 getting Linux Other OS support at the same time and Google TV more easily supported by the latest Linux kernel makes me believe the "Cell Vision" will be supported by the Linux OS on the PS3 and PS4.

[phosphor112]

Here we go!

PS4 Mentioned on LinkedIn CV

[androvsky]

Here we go! PS4 Mentioned on LinkedIn CV

Well, like it was said in the other thread, the fact that his team developed the Vita voice chat libraries but maintained the PS4 libraries suggest it's a typo.

[Hydrogen Bluebird]

Here we go! PS4 Mentioned on LinkedIn CV

[phosphor112]

Well, like it was said in the other thread, the fact that his team developed the Vita voice chat libraries but maintained the PS4 libraries suggest it's a typo.

But they mention PS3 input and output audio in the line before.

[jeff_rigby]

But they mention PS3 input and output audio in the line before.

It's really not a knock on you for posting it. I find it interesting but the wording does seem to give us information.

Maintained (Past tense) Voice Chat library for PS4 is probably a Typo for PS3. It can also indicate no new voice or audio chat or audio library is coming for the PS3. But "4" as a typo could mean he is working on PS4 projects and instead of PS3 types PS4; very weak but it could be used in addition to all the other rumors to support Sony is working on PS4.

Next generation Game consoles are going to be possible 2013-2014 because the Consortium 3D stacking makes SOCs & 3D stacked memory economically practical and AMD HSA (Fusion) makes very powerful CPUs economically practical which will be used with CPU bound game engines. 3D stacking also supports building GPUs, Memory, FPGAs with smaller pre-checked building blocks which increases yield and lowers price. These are industry changers not just game console, think about that...they make 4K AV equipment economically practical within 2 years except for the screen.....OLED is supposed to address display screen cost.

Lots of hindsight prediction possible now. Xbox360 getting a browser is now supported with rumored features and obvious in hindsight. A browser is now a standard feature found in all high end living room AV; Blu-ray, TV, PS3 and soon Xbox360. Xbox360 and PS3 because they are more powerful than most current TVs can and probably will eventually support more features to make browsing easier for the 10 foot web site standard which we have been seeing on more and more web sites (needed for living room viewing).

[nofi]

It's really not a knock on you for posting it. I find it interesting but the wording does seem to give us information. Maintained (Past tense) Voice Chat library for PS4 is probably a Typo for PS3. It can also indicate no new voice or audio chat or audio library is coming for the PS3. But "4" as a typo could mean he is working on PS4 projects and instead of PS3 types PS4; very weak but it could be used in addition to all the other rumors to support Sony is working on PS4. .

The profile has been updated to indicate it was indeed a typo. Wrote a quick bit on it here.

[jeff_rigby]

The profile has been updated to indicate it was indeed a typo. Wrote a quick bit on it here.

Typo was a given due to the past tense but what kind of typo? To get a handle on that we would have to understand that as a programmer he should be very accurate with a keyboard. As a manager he would be generating reports and talking to management about Playstation 4 or PS4, this more than Playstation 3 or PS3 now that we are Past tense about audio support on the PS3. Hitting a 4 instead of 3 because he is now in PS4 mode for anything Playstation associated would be a typical typo mistake.


There is also a NeoGAF thread here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthre...+playstation+4

In the thread and in your link it's assumed he could get into trouble for mentioning PS4. Sony and Microsoft have to wait for 3D stacked memory and a new full HSA GPU which won't be ready till late this year, it's not possible to create in quantity a powerful next generation console to compete with the WiiU lower performing SOC. All could take advantage of SOC efficiencies to release early @ 32nm but for 28nm, Full HSA GPU, 3D stacked memory and the economies in the Consortium building block 3D stacking they must release nearly a year after WiiU. Given the realities of a WiiU release nearly a year ahead of the PS4, leaks and presentations on what's going to be possible next generation will probably be happening and this is more fodder to keep us all speculating and interested in next generation Playstation and Xbox.

Didn't think of this until now but a Full HSA GPU and 3D stacked memory are key to next generation support and are the limiting factor in a release date. A SOC design with HSA efficiencies and GDDR5 speed memory (multiple DDR3 controllers and 4 banks or more of interleaved DDR3) has been possible and with such a design, redesign to support lower die size as well as economies using the consortium building blocks can be implemented in the near future but 3D stacked memory and HSA GPU could not be incorporated later as they drastically change how the next generation game consoles will be designed and massively impact it's performance.

[nofi]

Typo was a given due to the past tense but what kind of typo? To get a handle on that we would have to understand that as a programmer he should be very accurate with a keyboard. As a manager he would be generating reports and talking to management about Playstation 4 or PS4, this more than Playstation 3 or PS3 now that we are Past tense about audio support on the PS3. Hitting a 4 instead of 3 because he is now in PS4 mode for anything Playstation associated would be a typical typo mistake. There is also a NeoGAF thread here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthre...+playstation+4

Agreed - I'm not 100% saying it's a typo, more saying that's what he's saying, if that makes sense.

I know about the other thread. =)

[blu]

blu you don't have any juicy tidbits to share on next-gen?

Nothing gaf-appropriate. Still debating when/whether to get my vita suite (will need to get a vita first, and some guest windows).

[jimi_dini]

PS4 rumored to have other OS Linux support and at PS4 release a firmware update to the PS3 will enable Other OS Linux support. The first part, providing Linux support as Other OS in the PS4 makes sense as it did with the PS3, an effort to expose heterogeneous computing and Cell and with the PS4, to expose AMD's Open Source HSA and OpenCL to as many programmers as possible. The second part, enabling other OS support for the PS3 would be a marketing (sales) effort or perhaps support for Linux.

If I understand this right: why should they enable Linux again on PS3, especially right after the release of PS4. It doesn't make sense. Assuming PS4 isn't cell-based anymore, it even makes less sense. PS4+PS3 won't share the same firmware, so why enable Linux again at that point. If they had locked it down by now, they would enable it now. But they don't. And it would be pretty difficult (if not even impossible) to lock it down against hardware tampering as well, which was the way Hotz got in.

I also seriously doubt that they will support Linux ever again, because smuggling in own code via Linux got the PS3 hacked in the first place (got the hypervisor hacked via code + hardware tampering, that way they got a memory dump, that way they found exploits in the firmware, that was even the reason to drop Linux support, why try it again). They wouldn't give full access to all of the hardware, so hackers would have a reason to break in again. I mean even if they would (which I doubt), hackers would find some other reason to do it.

[jeff_rigby]

If I understand this right: why should they enable Linux again on PS3, especially right after the release of PS4. It doesn't make sense. Assuming PS4 isn't cell-based anymore, it even makes less sense. PS4+PS3 won't share the same firmware, so why enable Linux again at that point. If they had locked it down by now, they would enable it now. But they don't. And it would be pretty difficult (if not even impossible) to lock it down against hardware tampering as well, which was the way Hotz got in. I also seriously doubt that they will support Linux ever again, because smuggling in own code via Linux got the PS3 hacked in the first place (got the hypervisor hacked via code + hardware tampering, that way they got a memory dump, that way they found exploits in the firmware, that was even the reason to drop Linux support, why try it again). They wouldn't give full access to all of the hardware, so hackers would have a reason to break in again. I mean even if they would (which I doubt), hackers would find some other reason to do it.

All good arguments; possibly because the PS3 is at the end of it's life it's not as much of a risk to enable Other OS support and the horse is out of the barn and efforts to lock the gate now are pointless.

Biggest key here mentioned that impacts my view is that PS4 and PS3 will get other OS Linux support at the same time! And there is a new smaller Linux kernel coming that has more support for embedded Linux (eLinux) as well as a Kernel that is exactly the same as Android's...that's right, the Linux kernel was changed recently to support the changes made by Google for Android. Running Google TV on the PS3 and PS4 will be easier and having access to a Sony-Google TV store for applications will generate more revenue for Sony. Just a guess but I expect Google TV is opensource coming to the new embedded Linux kernel.

The equations for Sony have changed. If Cell is dead then there is no need to protect the Cell and PS3 OS. FPGA and AMD control points can keep the PS4 SOC secure. Also, 3D consortium stacking is going to reduce the cost of SOCs allowing even more powerful AV equipment that can run eLinux OSs.....Sony, Samsung, LG, Google, and others know this and are behind the scenes (Tim Bird of Sony) steering Linux to support new opportunities. (Glib is getting some routines replaced by Android routines. Gstreamer and GTK toolkit require Glib support. Gstreamer 1.0 and Glib rewrites may be why Sony has delayed implementing Commercial DASH and is still using AVM+ for non-commercial DASH)

Multiple technologies discussed in 2008 have been developed over the last 5 years and are to be implemented this year. Nov-Dec 2011 saw published news articles including on the Software side Khronos openMax IL 1.2 which was delayed from 2008 till Nov 2011. h.265 is to be published Jan 2013, Webkit is now nearing full HTML5 <video> and WebGL support with Google-Microsoft-Netflix recently proposing a DRM scheme for HTML5 <video>, Gstreamer 1.0 is now ready for release and Sony used Gstreamer in their Google TV.

Sony Playview first shown in 2009 and then in 2010 will be soon seen in multiple applications. Soon a player will be ported to the PS3 with bindings to Cairo and then HTML5 <video>, Playview, Commercial DASH IPTV player and a new version of DLNA will be supported on Vita and PS3. The player should be what is the default player for Linux, Gnome's Mono, Firefox and Opera for HTML5 <video>:

PlayView is the name given to a technology that is similar to a webpage in structure, but presented as a page with information that you can zoom into almost infinitely. This information can be anything you can also find on the internet, like text, pictures, videos (and yes, even advertisements), and it can have just as deep and complex a structure as web-pages. Advantages of this technology over the internet is the quality of the print, and the scaleability to various display types and sizes (from small handhelds to big TVs). New for this year is that the technology was used to show and zoom into a 3 giga-pixel image (eat that, pesky mega-pixel scale cameras) at a resolution of 34.800x92.300 pixels. Using a PlayStation Move. .

[jeff_rigby]

Assuming the PS4 actually gets Linux, and also assuming it lets us use at least one of the GPUs this time, it should be able to run pretty much any PC game, either native Linux ones or through Wine or Dosbox. I'd be very pleasantly shocked if Sony tries again though.

My assumption is that Sony will support WebGL on the PS3, Vita and PS4. That opens the platforms to a class of games that should exceed PSP and PS2 quality but NOT native quality PS3 or PS4. There are multiple game changers coming that are going to re-define the market. Sony should have accepted this and defined a new strategy around higher quality more native feature games and applications only available from Sony on their platforms.

For example, Voice control or Motion control supplied by the Xbox or Playstation Operating Systems can be limited to only games sold through the correct channels.

For the next few years, software coming for PS4 and next Xbox should be leading the PC market in features and accessories. To keep that lead, Sony and Microsoft are going to have to work harder producing accessories and SDKs. They will have AMD helping in this.

Take all the future vision statements we have heard since 2004 and re-look at them as everything is just about in place to support most of them. The long delays seen from 2008 have now been explained....it's starting this year.

[Clear]

I still say that if Sony don't offer compatibility to PS3 era PSN software they are dead in the water. It'll alienate existing users and leave them building a new online library from scratch putting them at a critical competitive disadvantage.

Unrecoverable imho. Especially if they are the first to market with this new hardware cycle leaving MS to promise a continuance of support for extant 360/XBL titles, they'll wreck PS3 sales also.

Which makes me wonder what they have in mind to deal with this; the reality is that many people have a significant cash investment in PSN software and telling them that although they can keep their movies and music games are a no-no for technical reasons simply isn't going to fly.

BC by streaming perhaps?

[jeff_rigby]

I still say that if Sony don't offer compatibility to PS3 era PSN software they are dead in the water. It'll alienate existing users and leave them building a new online library from scratch putting them at a critical competitive disadvantage. Unrecoverable imho. Especially if they are the first to market with this new hardware cycle leaving MS to promise a continuance of support for extant 360/XBL titles, they'll wreck PS3 sales also. Which makes me wonder what they have in mind to deal with this; the reality is that many people have a significant cash investment in PSN software and telling them that although they can keep their movies and music games are a no-no for technical reasons simply isn't going to fly. BC by streaming perhaps?

Ditto. Possibility I mentioned before was:

1) Allow a PS3 on a wired network to communicate with a PS4 and provide BC, only blu-ray drive, control and display data sent through network.
2) Plug in adapter for PS4 $99.00 (no drives, case, power supply needed).

3) Remember that Sony's Phyre Game Engine was supposed to be PC compatible. Anything written for it would be mostly portable to PS4. Same for other major engines. Moving a game from Xbox360 or PS3 to a more powerful platform has fewer issues and no need to optimize for smaller memory and slower processor. It would be possible for the most popular games to also be available on PS4 with little effort?

PSP and PS1 -games are provided via a emulator engine and porting the engine only is needed.

[phosphor112]

I still say that if Sony don't offer compatibility to PS3 era PSN software they are dead in the water. It'll alienate existing users and leave them building a new online library from scratch putting them at a critical competitive disadvantage. Unrecoverable imho. Especially if they are the first to market with this new hardware cycle leaving MS to promise a continuance of support for extant 360/XBL titles, they'll wreck PS3 sales also. Which makes me wonder what they have in mind to deal with this; the reality is that many people have a significant cash investment in PSN software and telling them that although they can keep their movies and music games are a no-no for technical reasons simply isn't going to fly. BC by streaming perhaps?

Agreed. I'm not getting a PS4 otherwise. Unless they can emulate it (simulation wouldn't be fast enough) this won't be acceptable at all for a lot of consumers.

I'm not sure how advanced FPGA's can get but someone mentioned them a few pages back. Just wanted to point out (again) FPGA's can be used for hardware emulation. To the extent of the cell? That's something I know nothing about.

[phosphor112]

Latest UE4 info, pics shown.

Few snippets.

Like so many games, the demo begins with what’s known as a cinematic, a noninteractive scene meant to wow players with all the punch of a blockbuster movie trailer. In this case, it’s as if H. R. Giger and George R. R. Martin took peyote together. And had a baby. And that baby had a fever dream. But it’s not just empty spectacle—it’s a crystal ball. Every pixel is spent on visual effects that are impossible in today’s games because of hardware limitations. But those limitations could be overcome: In an impressive departure from the usual practice of such demos, this one is running on a single consumer-level graphics card—Nvidia’s new Kepler GTX 680.

In one 153-second clip, the Epic team has packed all the show-off effects that have flummoxed developers for years: lens flare, bokeh distortion, lava flow, environmental destruction, fire, and detail in landscapes many miles away. Plus, it’s breathtakingly photo-realistic—or would be if demon knights were, you know, a real thing.

In the past, game developers employed a trick known as staged lighting to give the impression that light in a game was behaving as it would in the real world. That meant a lot of pre-rendering—programming hundreds of light sources into an environment that would then be turned on or off depending on in-game events. If a building collapsed in a given scene, all the light effects that had been employed to make it look like a real interior would remain in place over empty space. Shadows would remain in the absence of structure; glares that once resulted from sunlight glinting off windows would remain floating in midair. To avoid this, designers programmed the light to look realistic in any of that scene’s possible situations—one situation at a time. “You would have to manually sculpt the lighting in every section of every level,” Bleszinski says. “The number of man-years that required was astounding.” UE4 introduces dynamic lighting, which behaves in response to its own inherent properties rather than a set of preprogrammed effects. In other words, no more faking it. Every light in a scene bounces off every surface, creating accurate reflections. Colors mix, translucent materials glow, and objects viewed through water refract. And it’s all being handled on the fly, as it happens. That’s not realistic—that’s real.

[kuroshiki]

So I'm just wondering,

What would you guys do if Sony releases premium PS4 which has mini PS3 built in for backward compatibility for like $100 more than 'regular' PS4 without backward compatibility?

Because I would just pay less and get cheaper PS4.

[phosphor112]

So I'm just wondering, What would you guys do if Sony releases premium PS4 which has mini PS3 built in for backward compatibility for like $100 more than 'regular' PS4 without backward compatibility? Because I would just pay less and get cheaper PS4.

If I can have less devices under my TV, I'd go for the more expensive one. I hope I can just grab my old HDD from the PS3 and plug it in... The data transfer for PS3 is trash.

[jimi_dini]

What would you guys do if Sony releases premium PS4 which has mini PS3 built in for backward compatibility for like $100 more than 'regular' PS4 without backward compatibility?

If this also includes a mini PS2, so that the playstation is again 100% hardware-backward-compatible, then yes. Although if this would mean 600$ or 700$ or whatever, they can go to hell.

[Ashes1396]

UE4 full unveil in june?

Oh boy! Somebody is kick starting next gen this June.

[phosphor112]

UE4 full unveil in june? Oh boy! Somebody is kick starting next gen this June.

Not necessarily.

"Thirty people file into a windowless conference room to watch Epic’s demo. Around their necks hang badges advertising the names of their employers: Nvdia, Microsoft, AMD, Sony."

Nintendo isn't there, and I HIGHLY doubt MS will reveal in 2012...

[Donnie]

Not necessarily. "Thirty people file into a windowless conference room to watch Epic’s demo. Around their necks hang badges advertising the names of their employers: Nvdia, Microsoft, AMD, Sony." Nintendo isn't there, and I HIGHLY doubt MS will reveal in 2012...

The demo has little relevance to next gen consoles anyway, it won't be possible on any of them.

UE4 itself may be unveiled fully in June, who knows.

[kuroshiki]

The demo has little relevance to next gen consoles anyway, it won't be possible on any of them.

Then what the heck is point of inviting them?

[Graphics Horse]

Epic have said they're working on a PC game, haven't they? That could be the first UE4 game.

[jeff_rigby]

UE4 full unveil in june? Oh boy! Somebody is kick starting next gen this June.

Combine that with Sony at E3 showing "the future of gameplay and innovation." as well as AMDs developer meeting in June. . I wonder what will be leaked at these meetings?

The demo has little relevance to next gen consoles anyway, it won't be possible on any of them.

Epic is describing in one paragraph AMD's bundled Ray tracing and that will be supported in PS4. I expect parts of the UE4 engine will be supported on next generation Game Consoles and part only on $2000 gaming PCs.

[Donnie]

Then what the heck is point of inviting them?

To show off what the engine can do at its peak on the best hardware out at the moment, that doesn't mean the demo they used on it will be representative of what's possible on MS/Sony's machines. Its running on a high spec PC with a GTX680 after all.

Maybe they even think Sony/MS would be crazy enough to bump up the power of their consoles significantly based on what they see, can't see it though.

[Ashes1396]

Combine that with Sony at E3 showing "the future of gameplay and innovation." as well as AMDs developer meeting in June. . I wonder what will be leaked at these meetings? Epic is describing in one paragraph AMD's bundled Ray tracing and that will be supported in PS4. I expect parts of the UE4 engine will be supported on next generation Game Consoles and part only on $2000 gaming PCs.

Sony's show is already packed with the stuff they have already shown. With the floor space, they have, I doubt they'll be the ones revealing. Microsoft might.

With all this talk about power, you know, there's more to performance than just Pixel pushing chips. SSDs are the new standard of premium gaming.

[jeff_rigby]

Sony filed a patent for a Method and apparatus for achieving multiple processing configurations using a Multi-processor System Architecture.

Let Me rephrase that; Sony patented a 1PPU and 4SPU module with cache that could be combined with Cache crossover switch into a 4 module HSA Cell (Figure 7). So as of Dec 2010 Sony was going with a 4 PPU 16 SPU HSA CPU for the PS4.

The design is an updated Cell with only 4 SPUs with a rato of PPU to SPU of 1:4 and no ring cache buss. All the whitepapers I read confirm ratio and 4 SPUs with a common cache as the optimum number before they step on one another with memory access requests.

So we have proof that rumors were probably correct early on that Sony was going with a 16 SPU CPU and Barcelona Super Computer was working on the Operating system. What changed? 4 PPUs + 16 SPUs is apx equal to the AMD Fusion 4 X86 CPUs and 300 GPGPU math elements. I've mentioned this before but now we have proof the rumor was accurate as of Dec 2010.

The PS3 cell design could NOT be included in a AMD HSA SOC but the 1PPU 4SPU modules in the patent could be, may still be in a PS4.

How accurate are the rumors for the PS4? How many SPUs would be needed to emulate the PS3? Are there still plans to add one or two SPU HSA modules? They can't be connected via PCIe, they have to be connected to the main memory buss and that's not going to be a plugin.

These 1PPU-4SPU modules connected to a memory buss were early on not understood. Now with AMD HSA and reading how the 4 X86 CPUs in a AMD fusion are connected to cache and memory we see the same crossover switch as in this patent to connect 4 (1PPU+4SPUs) modules. Further, it appears that Sony was taking the same approach with "Building blocks" that could be used in multiple applications and platforms as AMD is doing with the Consortium and 3D/2.5D stacking.

Sony publishes a patent just before they are going to use it. A Dec 2010 publish fits the 2.5 year lead time AMD/Global Foundries has said they need for custom designs (at least before the New Consortium "building blocks" 3/2.5D stacking coming on line in 2013 which is supposed to reduce time to market and reduce costs to produce SOCs).

The Fusion APU rumored in Developer platforms is nearly identical in CPU performance to the 4PPU 16SPU (figure 7). That tells us that CPU performance for next generation was chosen early on (by both AMD and Sony) to support a CPU bound next generation (UE4) in addition to older GPU bound depending on the second GPU performance.

I'd guess it's all economics....but what if the new 4SPU building block was also to be used in a new Slimmer Slim PS3 with 3D stacked memory (supposed to eventually be cheaper) as well as other platforms. Is that still on? There are many changes in economic equations with Sony going with AMD X86.

Edit: In reading the Sony patent, the "PPU is a new ground up implementation of core with extended pipelines to achieve a low FO4 to match the SPU." IBM and Sony must have been working on improving the PPU to work with SPUs in 2010.

[jonabbey]

So I'm just wondering, What would you guys do if Sony releases premium PS4 which has mini PS3 built in for backward compatibility for like $100 more than 'regular' PS4 without backward compatibility? Because I would just pay less and get cheaper PS4.

I'd totally buy the more expensive one.

And twice on Sunday.

[Ashes1396]

If anyone is interested, there was a GPU tech conference earlier this week by Nvidia. Some of the keynotes, should have a replay up on the website. Worth a watch.

http://www.gputechconf.com/page/home.html#

[jeff_rigby]

AMD sees fusion a viable option for PS4 and Xbox 720 - March 30, 2011 -

Neal Robison, Head of Software Developer Relations Department at AMD admitted in an interview with the XBIT Labs on record that he considered a Fusion APU as a basis for a powerful next generation console as appropriate (extract): "I think a merger-based system makes a huge amount of sense for next-generation consoles. If you are looking at a system that can Provide a great deal of horsepower, the Fusion architecture certainly makes sense. With the processing power on its CPU in addition to just general graphics performance, I think it is really interesting because it gives a bit of headroom [...] It makes a lot of sense for the next-generation consoles "

Combine the 3/30/2011 statement from AMD and the Sony patent published 12/2010 and it tightens up the timing window where Sony must have made their decision.

"Llano". Appears as early as 2012, according to current roadmaps "Llano" successor "Trinity" with up to two bulldozers modules (four cores integer) and a flotteren DX11 graphics unit. Since at present the upcoming next-gen consoles for no earlier than 2013, are more likely, however, expected 2014/2015 are up to that SoC ("System on a chip") is possible from the fusion line, make today's upper-class PCs to shame. The hardware in a console should easily allow 1080p at 60 fps and finally jumps in the graph - if Microsoft and Sony are willing to re-focus on optics.

So In March 2011 the information was out there to speculate, we are very late to the party.

Nvidia is up to that but certainly want to have a say, because even in 2013/2014 "Project Denver" is expected, which combines the next-generation GPUs "Maxwell" with multiple ARM cores. Nvidia sees applications from notebooks to desktops to servers and supercomputers, consequently, a next-gen console would come into question. Maybe we'll see in a few years so AMD and Nvidia in the form of consoles again compete against each other - at least the last duel should go to Atis Xenos in the Xbox 360, because Nvidia RSX ("Reality Synthesizer", a GF7 derivative) is only thanks the powerful Cell processor and exclusive titles to optical highs in the position - at least for the circumstances of a Playstation 3

[phosphor112]

Any idea what type of power we might get from a ~100-150W Fusion design in 2014? (as in 2013 chips)

I know that current Trinity gets 700GFLOPS. How would Northbridge implementations with embedded RAM and a smaller Fusion design fair?

Can we see CLOSE to a 10 fold increase over current gen? We've got 250GFLOPS so far...

[i-Lo]

AMD sees fusion a viable option for PS4 and Xbox 720 - March 30, 2011 - Combine the 3/30/2011 statement from AMD and the Sony patent published 12/2010 and it tightens up the timing window where Sony must have made their decision. So In March 2011 the information was out there to speculate, we are very late to the party.

Looks like there may be a chance of all this coming true but at the moment nothing more than hopeful specification regarding the ramification.

At the end of the day, I feel like the limiting factor might end up being the RAM (overall) which proves to be the bane of every console. Even next gen, it's going to be the same story and the only difference will be how far can the devs go before they've to start sacrificing something significant. In recent memory, ME3's lack of holstering animation (and maybe grain filter) comes to mind.

Epic I'm certain are pushing for 4GB and the question then becomes, by the end of 2013 when production should be near full force for a Q1 2014 launch, can Sony deliver or whether they'd even consider improving the weakest link in the chain?

[jeff_rigby]

Looks like there may be a chance of all this coming true but at the moment nothing more than hopeful specification regarding the ramification. At the end of the day, I feel like the limiting factor might end up being the RAM (overall) which proves to be the bane of every console. Even next gen, it's going to be the same story and the only difference will be how far can the devs go before they've to start sacrificing something significant. In recent memory, ME3's lack of holstering animation (and maybe grain filter) comes to mind. Epic I'm certain are pushing for 4GB and the question then becomes, by the end of 2013 when production should be near full force for a Q1 2014 launch, can Sony deliver or whether they'd even consider improving the weakest link in the chain?

I kinda think 3D stacked memory will be expensive in the short term....cheaper in the long term. How much is Sony willing to subsidize the first year or so. How fast is the Sata interface, how fast the blu-ray drive and Hard disk? CPU bound game engines will be dealing with smaller assets so they won't need as much memory, I believe that's correct.

[Erebus]

Looks like there may be a chance of all this coming true but at the moment nothing more than hopeful specification regarding the ramification. At the end of the day, I feel like the limiting factor might end up being the RAM (overall) which proves to be the bane of every console. Even next gen, it's going to be the same story and the only difference will be how far can the devs go before they've to start sacrificing something significant. In recent memory, ME3's lack of holstering animation (and maybe grain filter) comes to mind. Epic I'm certain are pushing for 4GB and the question then becomes, by the end of 2013 when production should be near full force for a Q1 2014 launch, can Sony deliver or whether they'd even consider improving the weakest link in the chain?

Wait, ME3's lack of holstering was due to memory constraints?

[Infinite Justice]

Wait, ME3's lack of holstering was due to memory constraints?

That was the statement given by Bioware.

Mainly due to how precious it can be on the consoles.

[jeff_rigby]

This is 100% opinion with lots of questions:

I have read that AMD is betting the farm on HSA. HSA designs are not efficient (and cheaper) unless software is properly written for them. Intel has gone with more homogeneous designs concentrating on the CPU that does not use for the most part calls that AMD has released as open source for parallel computing. This results in a fork for developers, who's libraries do they use and do they write more parallel code to take advantage of GPUs or write their software as they have in the past. Since this is familiar it's also probably easier.

To get developers to write applications that can take advantage of AMD hardware they must convince programmers that it's to their advantage to do so. Without applications that take advantage of the efficiencies in HSA designs people's hardware choices will turn to the hardware that is faster though more expensive (Intel).

AMD needs at least one of the next generation consoles to have a full AMD design with HSA fusion. They need to demonstrate it's both easy to develop games as well as applications and those games and applications are exceptional because of AMD hardware and HSA.

The 4PPU-16SPU CPU in the Sony patent would be as powerful as the AMD Fusion CPU-GPU but should be cheaper because Sony has the IP rights to the SPU. Sony already has libraries and staff that can use SPUs and developers are familiar with SPUs. Further SPUs will have have a lower latency than GPUs and while AMD X86 CPUs are better at general purpose computing I believe IBM PPUs are better at Game code. OpenCL would make writing for Sony's SPU design much easier than writing for the PS3.

What convinced Sony to go with a 100% AMD solution? Timing as put forward by Gofreak, to release at the same time as Microsoft and both because of the WiiU pushing their timetables ahead maybe 6 months to a year. Or could it be AMD gave Sony a deal so good they couldn't refuse. Guaranteeing them 2014 designs and memory for a late 2013 launch as well as subsidizing the first year or so costs?

It goes without saying if I am correct that AMD will guarantee a VERY attractive (powerful) PS4 to both us and developers as well as make it affordable. Sony for it's part will cooperate with AMD to get HSA accepted (Khronos) as a standard...it fits Sony's vision in any case.

The downside for Sony would be not getting the economy of scale generated by using the 1PPU 4SPU building blocks described in the patent (HSA design likely designed to plug into a Consortium SOC) in a Next Generation Game console and possibly a future PS3 refresh. Backward compatibility is also an issue if no SPUs in the PS4.

The PS4 should support 8KX4K as mentioned by the Sony CTO as that will be a standard during the life of the PS4 just like 4K will be a standard during the life of the PS3. SPUs can support 8K codecs and video...so I expect an effort by AMD to do the same in their 2014 design.

My opinion based on reading the Sony patent is that early plans had called for 4 PPU4SPU modules to be included in AMD/Consortium SOCs. Such a design would need MUCH faster memory than the PS3 memory XDR1. I believe 3D Stacked memory was always planned for the PS4.

All the above assumes the rumors of a X86 in the PS4 are true.

[jeff_rigby]

3D stacked memory PDF from Georgia Tech Best, latest paper and hopefully part of next generation Game Console. The GSA Memory conference PDF (page 21) stated that the memory mentioned in the GATech paper would be available to use in Game console SOCs in 2013. Edit: Just some form of embedded or ultra wide I/O embedded memory, it doesn't specify 3D stacked. The Ga Tech paper does mention 1 gig wafers able to stack.

a recent study demonstrated that a quad-core processor could have as many as sixteen layers of DRAM stacked on top of it without exceeding the maximum thermal limit [24]. In this study, each DRAM layer contained 1GB of memory for a total of 16GB in the stack, more than enough storage to act as the entire main memory for netbook, laptop, and desktop systems.

Memory bandwidth, shared by processor cores, GPGPUs, and accelerators, is looming as a major bottleneck for scaling up the performance of modern applications. As more cores are integrated onto a single die [4, 14, 37, 51], the demand for memory band-width will grow to unprecedented levels. To alleviate this issue, architects have replaced the traditional, intensely contested and congested front-side bus with new interfaces such as integrated memory controllers, AMD’s HyperTransport, and Intel’s QuickPath Interconnect. In spite of these innovations, the bandwidth available to future processor will continue to be restricted by the limited number of pins in the processor’s package. According to the ITRS, the number of package pins will not grow much in the coming decade due to cost and power constraints and most of these additional pins will be delivering power, not data. Therefore, new architectural innovations must be discovered. One promising solution to this problem is the 3Dstacked-DRAM. For single-threaded memory-intensive applications, the SMART-3D architecture achieves speedups from 1.53 to 2.14 over planar designs and from 1.27 to 1.72 over prior 3D designs. We achieve similar speedups for multi-program and multi-threaded workloads on multi-core and multi-socket processors. Furthermore, SMART-3D can even lower the energy consumption in the L2 cache and 3D DRAM for it reduces the total number of row buffer misses. our 3D stacked DRAM is also simpler to design than traditional DRAM. Overall, our technique is a very simple design with very high effectiveness, more than halving program execution time on the average.

2014 design AMD GPU and CPU should take advantage of this. AMD must prove it's designs and my opinion is they will use the PS4 to do so. 2014-2020 AMD SOC designs will use this technology, DRAM is already a part of the SOC building blocks (it's in a quote from AMD) and use of anything other that 3D stacked memory in a SOC would be shooting yourself in the foot.

http://www.infoneedle.com/posting/100175?snc=20641 The standard has been published, 3D stacking is going on-line at IBM so it's possible but it's still not confirmed that 3D stacked memory will be in the PS4, some very fast DRAM will likely be in the SOC in any case.

[LCGeek]

Some of you guys are arrogant people who don't understand how video game development will scale over the years that the next-gen systems will arrive. 6670/7670 are not the most powerful GPUs out there today. In fact, they are of the low-end PC build today. However, they are still plenty times more powerful than what you see in the current consoles. Just don't expect great anisotropic filtering and/or true 1080p gaming if this is true (since the 6670/7670 are not great in those aspects). You will still notice a big bump in IQ. Aside from texel and pixel rate, a 6670 is pretty close to a 9800GT in terms of performance. That alone should give you an idea of how much more powerful that card is compared to current-gen consoles. A 6670/7670 also uses a lot less power than the 9800GT. Also to note, the manufacturers of the consoles will most likely heavily modify the card. It might end up being something very different from a 6670/7670, but the basic architecture and form will still be there. Another important thing is that Sony will not utilize DX11. They'll opt for some other API (OpenGL), which can still do what DX11 can do, mind you. If this is true, don't expect true 1080p games next-gen, either.

Considering benchmarks and how these companies are fairly smart about thigns on the pc side already it boggles me they are considering this gpu as the basis for a console. My friend just built a pc with this and chugs on diablo 3 at certain points which isn't all that much for a I5 2500k. I know console are closed box and it gives far more performance to work with but it's just dumb to start from the near bottom than from a place that actually is able do to the job.

[jeff_rigby]

Considering benchmarks and how these companies are fairly smart about thigns on the pc side already it boggles me they are considering this gpu as the basis for a console. My friend just built a pc with this and chugs on diablo 3 at certain points which isn't all that much for a I5 2500k. I know console are closed box and it gives far more performance to work with but it's just dumb to start from the near bottom than from a place that actually is able do to the job.

From a cost standpoint, the larger the GPU size/power the lower the yield and higher the cost. Taking a mid-range GPU and allowing it efficiencies increases performance without increasing cost. My post above showed that using a eventually cheaper 3D stacked memory in the SOC can double performance without increasing cost. So take developer specs and double them, we are now above the 2.5 TFLOPS next generation goal provided the PS4 is a 2014 SOC design with 3D stacked memory and the same number of Compute units and CPUs as in Developer platforms.

There is the other possibility that final PS4 designs will have half the number of CPUs and GPU compute units and the same performance as developer platforms. The PS4 would be much less expensive. This is a Sony marketing decision but AMD will want a powerful platform if it's to point to it and boast "Made with AMD HSA SOC building blocks".

[Giant Panda]

Imagine if they actually went with 16GB Ram lol. Crytek crying tears of joy, and Newegg making billions of dollars confirmed :P (I realize that not how it really works).

Jeff, there is one thing I wonder about though. If the PS4 is to be AMD's HSA banner carrier, what do you think of that one poster's leak that AMD had made the next Xbox's components higher priority?

[jigglywiggly]

Not sure if this is news-worthy or not, but...

Sony have just put a competition live where UK gamers can win a trip to E3 with the PlayStation crew to get some amateur coverage from a member of the community.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdYUW-2QftQ

The interesting thing is the tags for the video include "ps4" and "orbis".

Possibly going to be at E3 after all? :o

[H_Prestige]

Not sure if this is news-worthy or not, but... Sony have just put a competition live where UK gamers can win a trip to E3 with the PlayStation crew to get some amateur coverage from a member of the community. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdYUW-2QftQ The interesting thing is the tags for the video include "ps4" and "orbis". Possibly going to be at E3 after all? :o

LOL, Sony is so incompetent.

[FlyingTeacup]

Not sure if this is news-worthy or not, but... Sony have just put a competition live where UK gamers can win a trip to E3 with the PlayStation crew to get some amateur coverage from a member of the community. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdYUW-2QftQ The interesting thing is the tags for the video include "ps4" and "orbis". Possibly going to be at E3 after all? :o

good find!

[Proelite]

I think that's just the uploader trolling.

[jigglywiggly]

They've commented on it.

Don't read into that - it's just a few terms that are being searched very regularly :)

Boo.