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[kodecraft]

I don't know... 4K doesn't look like it's that big of a deal. I'd rather just have 1080p with all the bells and whistles and smooth gameplay if I was on a lower end machine and/or PS4Pro

Yep.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Kind of disingenuous, don't you think, considering that the "4K" here in the Pro isn't really true 4K? I wouldn't be surprised if a computer using a GTX 1060 (at $299) can achieve similar "PS4 Pro 4K" results running at solid 30 FPS.

I doubt it as the Polaris GPU cores in the PS4 Pro are customized with some kind of hardware checkerboard upscaler:

Up until now, we've seen it as a software post-process upscale, but in actual fact, it's one of a number of new custom features backed into the PS4 Pro's GPU and as such comes with zero cost to game developers. We also understand that while it is a hardware feature, game-makers do seem to have a certain level of control

There is no dGPU you can buy on the market quite like it so don't expect to be able to enjoy the same type of visual output with a 1060. Of course you can try native 4K with that card but at low settings/framerates.

 

[Forever Changes]

Yep.

You can't really judge 4k until you see it on a 4k screen.

 

[Dictator93]

I doubt it as the Polaris GPU cores in the PS4 Pro are customized with some kind of hardware checkerboard upscaler:

There is no dGPU you can buy on the market quite like it so don't expect to be able to enjoy the same type of visual output with a 1060. Of course you can try native 4K with that card but at low settings/framerates.

Everything you typed here is assuming and supposing too much, way too much.

All we have seen from these upscaled images is them just looking like upscaled images.

 

[Iztok Mravlja]

Looks notably worse on the PS4 pro, which is unusual as I often struggle to see real differences in these comparisons.

And keep in mind you'd need to compare these on a 4k display, running and not screenshots/video, in which case the differences will be even more pronounced.

This comparison is not doing the PS4pro any favours.

 

[Tadie]

Mhh yes, 4k may be awesome.

But I need a really huge TV and sit close to it.

Am I wrong?

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Everything you typed here is assuming and supposing too much, way too much.

All we have seen from these upscaled images is them just looking like upscaled images.

I'm not assuming, Eurogamer are saying it is a hardware upscaler baked into the GPU. Unless there is a dGPU releasing in the next 6 months with the same customizations (there isn't) you won't be able to enjoy the same type of faux-4K. I'm not saying it's superior. There are some large advantages to performance enjoyed by consoles compared to off-the-shelf PC components.

 

[Durante]

I don't think you fully appreciate just how cheap upscaling (even smart upscaling) is compared to the rest of the rendering pipeline.

Off topic but Mankind Divided screenshot was released and it's not pretty:

Similar from PC for comparison:

Whoa that's fugly.

THat combination of sub-native rendering, artifacts and sharpening... brrr.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

I don't think you fully appreciate just how cheap upscaling (even smart upscaling) is compared to the rest of the rendering pipeline.
.

Ok well I'm waiting to enjoy faux-4K on a RX 470 then.

 

[Durante]

Ok well I'm waiting to enjoy faux-4K on a RX 470 then.

Good news! You already can in Quantum Break and Rainbow Six: Siege.

 

[SaberEdge]

For those who are reasonable in threads like this, I'd say that there are 2 issues being discussed:
1) Is the marketing accurate? In this case, the marketing is pushing 4K gaming but are these native renders or some kind of upscale? From what we've seen in this thread, it seems that Tomb Raider uses some kind of upscaling technique. This revelation allows many to temper their expectations when it comes to AAA games. You might think that this should have been obvious but there are many who might believe the hype and marketing that a 4.2 TF console could render modern-looking games at 4K with playable frame rates.

2) Is the PS4Pro good value compared to alternatives, such as a gaming PC? This is much more subjective since people value different things. Some prefer the more hassle-free experience of consoles while not minding the load times and blurry image quality while others need 60 fps, pristine images, and mods and could only stand playing on PC. This leads to a lot of apparent "goal post shifting" as people point out the things that they value.

As for my own opinion on this, I already have a desktop to build off of so I only really use the GPU price for value comparisons, especially since CPU requirements for games haven't increased anywhere near as quickly as for GPUs. For $399, you can get a GTX 1070. Pop that into an existing desktop and you'll have something far superior to the PS4Pro:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...4125875&cm_re=gtx_1070-_-14-125-875-_-Product

If you don't already have a desktop to build from, I quickly put together a reasonable system that would probably be equivalent or slightly better than the PS4Pro for games at comparable settings. It costs ~$660 for the entire computer, including a decent case as well as a keyboard and mouse, so, for $250 more, you get a full computer that, in the future, you can build off of. It can also do "4K" at 30 fps. It's more expensive but it also does a lot more. For me, this is better value than a PS4Pro and most consoles:
http://pcpartpicker.com/list/bR4qRG

This was a great post. I think the PS4 Pro is going to offer a nice upgrade over the standard PS4, but I do easily notice the difference between the two screenshots. I have always noticed and appreciated these kinds of differences in quality. For example, my eyes detect a substantial difference between a 4k stream from Netflix and an UHD Bluray right away and it's something that does have a significant impact on my enjoyment of what I'm watching.

I've never felt, though, that screenshot comparisons of games do a very good job of representing the experience of actually playing those games on the different platforms. To the average casual observer screenshots from the PC, PS4 AND Xbox One versions of a game would likely all look "pretty close". However, when I actually play a game on the various platforms the differences are immediately noticeable and have a palpable effect on my experience of playing the game.

I plan on getting the PS4 Pro to enjoy the PS4 exclusives with enhanced fidelity, but I will continue to do most of my gaming on PC where I can get both high framerates AND high resolutions and have more control to tweak the visuals to my liking.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Looks notably worse on the PS4 pro, which is unusual as I often struggle to see real differences in these comparisons.

And keep in mind you'd need to compare these on a 4k display, running and not screenshots/video, in which case the differences will be even more pronounced.

This comparison is not doing the PS4pro any favours.

maybe the OP should add a native 1080p frame and compare that too

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Looks notably worse on the PS4 pro, which is unusual as I often struggle to see real differences in these comparisons.

And keep in mind you'd need to compare these on a 4k display, running and not screenshots/video, in which case the differences will be even more pronounced.

This comparison is not doing the PS4pro any favours.

Traditional gaming media simply can't capture and communicate the quality of the imagery I saw today, as there's no real way to showcase HDR meaningfully. And this is actually a key component of the PlayStation 4 Pro experience. 4K is impressive and a worthy upgrade in its own right, but HDR takes it to the next level.

I'd like to see this with my own eyes first. Doesn't look notably worse in that comparison though at all.

 

[Rotch Crot]

maybe the OP should add a native 1080p frame and compare that too

This.

 

[Dictator93]

I'm not assuming, Eurogamer are saying it is a hardware upscaler baked into the GPU. Unless there is a dGPU releasing in the next 6 months with the same customizations (there isn't) you won't be able to enjoy the same type of faux-4K.

This is your main presumption that falls incredibly short as I think you are missing as to what checkboarding is.

It is a way of spatial upscaling in a single frame that apparently has dedicated hardware to it in the PS4pro GPU (GPUs already have hardware bilinear filtering for example, this is probably similar enough.. just with a different end product ala bi-cupic or Lanczos producing different end products). How and what information is fed into that hardware unit (which is only working on 1 frame from all we know at this moment) at the end for it to upscale is probably different from game to game. That is where the actual interesting part occurs.

Some game could feed it pixels from per-frame alternated patterns, another game could feed it pixels composed of coverage samples from MSAA (think R6: Siege), another game could feed it...

Do you get my point? It is far more likely that dedicated scaling hardware in the PS4pro is not responsible for good examples of fauxK or whatever we are calling it. Rather one final step in a longer pipeline of engine decisions which produces an image.

 

[dan2026]

I don't really understand why they are trying to hit 4K anyway.
I doubt may PCs are managing to render that high with a stable frame rate.

Wouldn't it be best to just go stable 1080/60 with all the bells and whistles in every game?

 

[Steel]

I don't really understand why they are trying to hit 4K anyway.
I doubt may PCs are managing to render that high with a stable frame rate.

Wouldn't it be best to just go stable 1080/60 with all the bells and whistles in every game?

Eh, anything at the level of a 470($150 card) could do 4k30 with a few settings turned down depending on the game.

 

[Rotch Crot]

I don't really understand why they are trying to hit 4K anyway.
I doubt may PCs are managing to render that high with a stable frame rate.

Wouldn't it be best to just go stable 1080/60 with all the bells and whistles in every game?

Gotta keep up with the latest buzz words.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Mhh yes, 4k may be awesome.

But I need a really huge TV and sit close to it.

Am I wrong?

Whoever made these charts should be proud of how often they come up on video games forums.

 

[Caayn]

Whoever made these charts should be proud of how often they come up on video games forums.

Shows how easily incorrect information spreads.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

This is your main presumption that falls incredibly short as I think you are missing as to what checkboarding is.

It is a way of spatial upscaling in a single frame that apparently has dedicated hardware to it in the PS4pro GPU (GPUs already have hardware bilinear filtering for example, this is probably similar enough.. just with a different end product ala bi-cupic or Lanczos producing different end products). How and what information is fed into that hardware unit (which is only working on 1 frame from all we know at this moment) at the end for it to upscale is probably different from game to game. That is where the actual interesting part occurs.

Some game could feed it pixels from per-frame alternated patterns, another game could feed it pixels composed of coverage samples from MSAA (think R6: Siege), another game could feed it...

Do you get my point? It is far more likely that dedicated scaling hardware in the PS4pro is not responsible for good examples of fauxK or whatever we are calling it. Rather one final step in a longer pipeline of engine decisions which produces an image.

Yes but my post originally was in response to the poster that said this:

I wouldn't be surprised if a computer using a GTX 1060 (at $299) can achieve similar "PS4 Pro 4K" results running at solid 30 FPS.

My point if you read it was a PC with a GTX 1060 won't be able to achieve the same kind of 4K as it doesn't have the same hardware (or software) customizations, whether the hardware upscaler is responsible or not no-one knows. I'm not Mark Cerny, I don't know what wizardry has gone into the customizations of the APU inside the PS4 Pro that allows it to output these visuals. It appears to be punching above its weight, would you agree? The sentiment with some appears to be this can easily be achieved on a cheap PC. If that were the case, it's not punching above its weight in terms of performance. So what is it?

The larger point is that this appears to be pretty damn sweet for a $400 machine, and you wouldn't be able to achieve the same with a $400 PC. I think that is pretty inarguable.

 

[Durante]

My point if you read it was a PC with a GTX 1060 won't be able to achieve the same kind of 4K as it doesn't have the same hardware (or software) customizations

But there is nothing stopping PC implementation of plenty of similar techniques.

We know that there is nothing stopping that, because two distinct techniques have already shipped, and more are in development. And since the actual process of accumulation, extrapolation and upsampling in all of those is just a tiny part of the frame rendering cost, any hardware acceleration of those seems quite inconsequential.

 

[Dictator93]

My point if you read it was a PC with a GTX 1060 won't be able to achieve the same kind of 4K

That "same kind of 4K" you mention is not even going to be internally consistent on the PS4pro. The appearance (due to post-processing, the base resolution, the info is fed to the upscaler leading to its final output) will all be different from game to game.

as it doesn't have the same hardware (or software) customizations, whether the hardware upscaler is responsible or not no-one knows. I'm not Mark Cerny, I don't know what wizardry has gone into the customizations of the APU inside the PS4 Pro that allows it to output these visuals.

These hardware customisations, which from all we know only encapsulate a single-frame spatial upscaler using a different method than bilinear, are not going to be the deciding factor.

It appears to be punching above its weight, would you agree?

"Punching above its weight", along with "brute force", "secret sauce", etc. are all silly ways to point out things in hardware and software. They lack the nuance to capture what is happening and lead to flaming, fanboy conceptualisations of phenomena.
So no. What we have seen sits well within visibile differences one would expect given the spec differential from the PS4. It looks like a 4.2TF GPU rendering images at sub-native 4K. This falls inline with what I expected actually if I were to share with you some PMs I have had with other GAF members.

I imagine the resolution and upscaling comparisons upon release in DF will confirm that it looks similar to worse than RX480 class hardware given parity conditions in settings.

The sentiment with some appears to be this can easily be achieved on a cheap PC.

This sentiment is kind of irrelevant and you should not let it get under your skin. Yes... there is nothing preventing you from buying a 4K screen, a RX470 and running multiplatform games at sub-native res and allowing the GPU driver to upscale the image. Yeah that is what I consider a "cheap PC". But who cares what I consider or what sentiments and resintements there are? If you want a PS4pro and you think it gives you value for your money and priorities, then that is great.

If that were the case, it's not punching above its weight in terms of performance. So what is it?

Correction here. You mean price/performance, I assume? Not performance?

The larger point is that this appears to be pretty damn sweet for a $400 machine, and you wouldn't be able to achieve the same with a $400 PC. I think that is pretty inarguable.

If you are into the games that will get benefits from PS4pro and are willing to spend the money, then yes that is pretty sweet. The actual cost of a PC giving you a very similar appearance (maybe with the end difference being something like bilinear filtered upscaling vs. checkerboard).. is something I cannot begin to guess at.

 

[Durante]

"Punching above its weight", along with "brute force", along with "secret sauce" are all silly ways to point out things in hardware and software. They lack the nuance to capture what is happening and lead to flaming, fanboy conceptualisations of phenomena.

I think I'll have to write this one down.

 

[plagiarize]

Mhh yes, 4k may be awesome.

But I need a really huge TV and sit close to it.

Am I wrong?

Yes. HDR makes these charts completely wrong until 1080p sets get the feature.

 

[chromatic9]

Is there any PC 2880x1620 comparison to PS4 pro 4k upscale?

Having owned a GTX 970 for 2 years I've played 1620p and 1800p a lot and will go for 2160p when possible.

Looking quickly I'm seeing something way off native 4k for PS4 pro in the same manner as playing straight 1620p upscaled, ie impressive but not 4k impressive, a big jump from 1920x1080 hence why I play at 1620p or 1800p on PC, its very impressive but not 4k impressive.

With everyone saying how incredible it is for a $400 box at the end of 2016, you can already do this on a £240 GPU from 2014 which sells for under £200 now and my i7 930 is about £30 on ebay for many years now. I don't really find it that incredible for a company to mass produce a mid range spec GPU system that's been well known to be 1440-1620p capable and do a bit of upscaling/checkerboarding. Everything is expected with the GPU spec.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Looks decent. Not great but decent, and pretty good for the relatively weak hardware the PS4 Pro has. I'm not sure it's a great upgrade for anyone already owning a PS4, but definitely the model to buy if you don't yet have a PlayStation. Especially so if you have a 4K TV.

 

[thelastword]

Kind of disingenuous, don't you think, considering that the "4K" here in the Pro isn't really true 4K? I wouldn't be surprised if a computer using a GTX 1060 (at $299) can achieve similar "PS4 Pro 4K" results running at solid 30 FPS.

On the TR interview after the event, the dev said there's a native 4k mode, even if it's just upscaled or checkerboarded, I think the results are not far apart considering the hardware you need to get the game running in 4K on PC. I mean, is it that far apart to you?

I'm pretty sure the 1060 would be able to do the same, but the 1060 is not a console and it was not designed to pull this off like the .Pro can. The only thing the 1060 can do is to render at 4k and lower settings to achieve 30fps. Perhaps if games start implementing solutions like checkerboarding on PC we can probably do some comparisons.

 

[Conkerkid11]

Still can't believe they're shooting for 4k before they can even manage a stable framerate at 1080p in most games.

 

[jmga]

On the TR interview after the event, the dev said there's a native 4k mode, even if it's just upscaled or checkerboarded, I think the results are not far apart considering the hardware you need to get the game running in 4K on PC. I mean, is it that far apart to you?

I'm pretty sure the 1060 would be able to do the same, but the 1060 is not a console and it was not designed to pull this off like the .Pro can. The only thing the 1060 can do is to render at 4k and lower settings to achieve 30fps. Perhaps if games start implementing solutions like checkerboarding on PC we can probably do some comparisons.

If you compare a 2K screenshot upscaled to 4K and this checkerboard rendering result, they are much closer than checkerboard rendering is to native 4K.

 

[Summer Haze]

On the TR interview after the event, the dev said there's a native 4k mode, even if it's just upscaled or checkerboarded, I think the results are not far apart considering the hardware you need to get the game running in 4K on PC. I mean, is it that far apart to you?

Is this the new 'you realize you will see every game in 1080p as your output right?'

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

.

"Punching above its weight", along with "brute force", "secret sauce", etc. are all silly ways to point out things in hardware and software. They lack the nuance to capture what is happening and lead to flaming, fanboy conceptualisations of phenomena.
So no. What we have seen sits well within visibile differences one would expect given the spec differential from the PS4. It looks like a 4.2TF GPU rendering images at sub-native 4K. This falls inline with what I expected actually if I were to share with you some PMs I have had with other GAF members.

This sentiment is kind of irrelevant and you should not let it get under your skin. Yes... there is nothing preventing you from buying a 4K screen, a RX470 and running multiplatform games at sub-native res and allowing the GPU driver to upscale the image. Yeah that is what I consider a "cheap PC". But who cares what I consider or what sentiments and resintements there are? If you want a PS4pro and you think it gives you value for your money and priorities, then that is great.


Correction here. You mean price/performance, I assume? Not performance?.

Lol it's not getting under my skin I'm smiling here getting paid to do nothing. It's you who is spending the time picking apart every few lines in my post. Relax and enjoy yourself. I love my PC as much as any hardware enthusiast

What you seem to be saying I don't agree with - you are essentially saying there are no performance advantages that a console enjoys over off the shelf components in a PC. There's no way on earth you can match the performance on offer here with a similarly priced PC, therefore 'punching above its weight' is the term I would use, I'm not going to argue phraseology here.

 

[dr_rus]

These hardware customisations, which from all we know only encapsulate a single-frame spatial upscaler using a different method than bilinear, are not going to be the deciding factor.

The only h/w customization which would help with checkerboard rendering that I can think of is some sort of temporal frame accumulation on the video out. It is likely to produce awful results for quickly changing scenes however and b/c of this would not be a good fit for PC h/w. Everything else would not be "dedicated" / "customized" any more than an additional regular CU would.

 

[LordRaptor]

I don't really understand why they are trying to hit 4K anyway.

To sell new TVs.

 

[Älg]

Mhh yes, 4k may be awesome.

But I need a really huge TV and sit close to it.

Am I wrong?

Can't believe that these stupid graphs are still circulating.

 

[Parsnip]

Can't say I'm terribly surprised by the softness.

 

[Outrun]

Gotta respect 4K native.

 

[kinoki]

Can't believe that these stupid graphs are still circulating.

Good thing that a little variable like eye sight isn't even accounted for.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

ok, so I took some screenshots from ROTTR - the same screenshots at 1080p, 1440p and then 4k. i then upscaled the 1080p and 1440p shots to 4k in photoshop (default scaler), and I have taken the .tif files from Squeenix' press site for the PS4Pro shots. all saved out as very high quality JPGs (excellent quality but not massive file size like PNGs).

so it goes 1080p, 1440p, 4k, PS4pro

and again - 1080p, 1440p, 4k, PS4pro

I feel like in both shots it looks closest to the 1440p upscale.

 

[gofreak]

I feel like in both shots it looks closest to the 1440p upscale.

Nice job. It seems a good bit better than the 1440p though, still. The aliasing on more distant geometry is a good deal better in the Pro shots (e.g. on the spears in the skeleton piles etc).

I would expect it to fall between the two, 1440p and 4K, given the likely techniques and base resolutions involved. A good boost over the 1080p clarity/IQ.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

Nice job. It seems a good bit better than the 1440p though, still. The aliasing on more distant geometry is a good deal better in the Pro shots (e.g. on the spears in the skeleton piles etc).

I would expect it to fall between the two, 1440p and 4K, given the likely techniques and base resolutions involved. A good boost over the 1080p clarity/IQ.

I think so

i'm looking forward to triple dipping on it when I get my Pro.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Some more info on the hardware checkerboard rendering in the Pro from someone working with it:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=216326199&postcount=74

I think it depends on the particular game and engine. Different rendering pipelines are structured differently; for some pipelines, the cost of adding checkerboard rendering would be very low, because they are already computing a lot of the information that checkerboard rendering needs. For other pipelines the cost might be higher. In our case we're just not sure of the total cost yet, but we think it is probably high enough that we may prefer to do a straight upscale. But we're not completely sure.

(It is true that, as Sony has announced, the PS4 Pro provides hardware support for checkerboard rendering that makes it faster than it would otherwise be. I think in some places I have seen the rumor that checkerboard is completely free, but I would consider that an exaggeration: the cost is going to vary per game. Unfortunately due to NDAs I can't provide details; I can't say anything more about Sony technologies than what they have announced. It is definitely true that if you had a game running on the original PS4, and the developer wants to do the most straightforward thing to make the game look better on the Pro, that developer could enable checkerboard rendering and the game will look better and run faster; so it's "free" in that sense. But if you are going to get picky about how you are spending the GPU memory and bandwidth of the new machine, then there are tradeoffs here, like with anything.)

 

[DooMAGE]

So PS4 Pro is not a native 4k machine?

 

[ViolentP]

So PS4 Pro is not a native 4k machine?

Nope. Yet they still market it as such. No idea why there isn't more outcry.

This is like putting a Ferrari body on a Toyota and selling it as a Ferrari.

 

[Harp]

I love the break down of every bit of the ps4 pro image and the standard pc dismissal of just get this card that cost just as much as a ps4pro and get the same thing. Yet I have never been able to achieve the simple just pop in a new card and everything works perfect.

I also wonder if pc is always so plug and play why is there a pc performance thread for any pc release. We go from how great pc is up until a games is released only to find out all the issues of pc gaming. Which of course are all blamed on it being a console port.

Here is the thing every person that purchases a ps4 profile get a great looking game along with high to ultra pc settings. While most people that run out and buy that 1070 will be hit with the hard reality of your only going to get slightly better performance then the 970 you bought a year and a half go and actually playing a modern game at 4k is not realistic.

 

[ViolentP]

I love the break down of every bit of the ps4 pro image and the standard pc dismissal of just get this card that cost just as much as a ps4pro and get the same thing. Yet I have never been able to achieve the simple just pop in a new card and everything works perfect.

I also wonder if pc is always so plug and play why is there a pc performance thread for any pc release. We go from how great pc is up until a games is released only to find out all the issues of pc gaming. Which of course are all blamed on it being a console port.

Here is the thing every person that purchases a ps4 profile get a great looking game along with high to ultra pc settings. While most people that run out and buy that 1070 will be hit with the hard reality of your only going to get slightly better performance then the 970 you bought a year and a half go and actually playing a modern game at 4k is not realistic.

You really should educate yourself on subjects you choose to speak of.

 

[Harp]

Nope. Yet they still market it as such. No idea why there isn't more outcry.

This is like putting a Ferrari body on a Toyota and selling it as a Ferrari.

It more like putting a Ferrari body on a Nissan GTR.

 

[Broadbandito]

So PS4 Pro is not a native 4k machine?

Nope. Yet they still market it as such. No idea why there isn't more outcry.

This is like putting a Ferrari body on a Toyota and selling it as a Ferrari.

There will be a few games that can run at native 4k like The Last of Us. 99% of other titles will use the checkerboard rendering that will deliver like 90% of the 4k resolution.

 

[PeterLegend]

Ps3, xbox 360, ps4 and xbox one were marketed as full hd systems and not all of their games run at 1080p

 

[vpance]

It more like putting a Ferrari body on a Nissan GTR.

McLaren 675 in a McLaren P1 body IMO.