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[PapaJustify]

Im pretty sure MS own an actual codec for Bluray playback (VC-1)...

Wikipedia says the following:

Although widely considered to be Microsoft’s product, there are fifteen member companies within the VC-1 patent pool (as of August 17, 2006). As an SMPTE standard, VC-1 is open to implementation by anyone, although implementers may be required to pay licensing fees to the MPEG LA, LLC licensing body or directly to its members, who claim to hold essential patents on the format (since it is a non-exclusive licensing body).

 

[clav]

The unique part would be... and this is if Microsoft is able to nail it... the complete seamless "Apple-like" integration where even Grandma could get it to work. No one has come close to that. Microsoft is aiming to create the future of entertainment accessibility for $400-$450 where if you see it at your friends house and how easy it is to use, you're going to want it too. We'll see if they succeed. It's interesting, nonetheless.

PS4 seems to be more brute force, PSN integration, Vita integration, plus a new controller with a touchscreen of some sort. Seems more "games" focused but that doesn't mean the Xbox won't have compelling games too. You can see the difference in approach by the two companies. Verrrrry interesting!

Yeah I've heard of people wanting to buy PS3s as Blu-Ray players for their parents/grandparents, but are reluctant since PS has too many nagging screens to update+accept. Usability basically sucks on XMB.

 

[thegodsend]

After seeing the specs, the WiiU owners:

Not really. I still believe Durango / Orbis games will look much better. I just think that because of the in many respects similar architecture, for Wii U owners there's a better change to get downports than I would have assumed before.

 

[fluffydelusions]

Seems like Orbis > Danjango to me.

I'm no expert, but with the OS memory allocation etc. It seems devs will be able to get more out of the Orbis.

Doesn't mean they will though. Just like this gen games could have looked better on PS3 in many cases but didn't just because dev/pubs wanted graphical parity.

 

[DieH@rd]

So, those consoles are absolutely perfect for third parties right ?

There was one rumor long time ago that both MS and Sony got together and agreed on a plan that will make Wii U undesirable [this was before WiiU was launched, during times when there was rumors about upgrades to WiiU ahitecture]. They formed loose plan on creating very similar consoles that will enable easy life for 3rd party.

I remember reading it and thinking about how focusing ong AMD can create something like this.

 

[cyberheater]

Because of technical specs (RAM / CPU as the bottleneck!?) or because of business reasons (which is another huge factor...)?

Business reasons primarily. Which is a shame. I've got a WiiU and would love to see 'em but I really doubt we will.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

After seeing the specs, the WiiU owners:

http://www.abload.de/img/raptorjesuscamprzzgd.gif[IMG][/QUOTE]

Eh. It'll get the same amount of ports that Wii got. It may not be a pretty sight but it will get something. It's a common cycle: smaller dev team in charge of downporting a game so they can learn the architecture/engine/process and make original titles down the line.

 

[Y2Kev]

So I do wonder what we're missing if everyone keeps implying they are very close. Will be interested to see.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Doesn't mean they will though. Just like this gen games could have looked better on PS3 in many cases but didn't just because dev/pubs wanted graphical parity.

Because it took considerably more effort to achieve better results on the PS3 by fully utilizing the Cell. But this is not the case here. Xbox 3 and PS4 seem to be a lot more similar than the old generation.

 

[Gaz Pwnage]

Wikipedia says the following:

Amounts to pennies for Microsoft. The original point was, there is no way that it will NOT feature BluRay playback as someone was suggesting earlier. Afterall, this has been touted a a Media box rather than a Pure Game playing Console

 

[Reiko]

Doesn't mean they will though. Just like this gen games could have looked better on PS3 in many cases but didn't just because dev/pubs wanted graphical parity.

Well PS3 missed the mark for Crysis 2 and Far Cry 3. That imaginary RAM must have not been available.

 

[thegodsend]

Business reasons primarily. Which is a shame. I've got a WiiU and would love to see 'em but I really doubt we will.

Yeah I'm afraid I'm with you on this one...

 

[Eideka]

There was one rumor long time ago that both MS and Sony got together and agreed on a plan that will make Wii U undesirable [this was before WiiU was launched, during times when there was rumors about upgrades to WiiU ahitecture]. They formed loose plan on creating very similar consoles that will enable easy life for 3rd party.

I remember reading it and thinking about how focusing ong AMD can create something like this.

You were right, and this is victory for us, gamers.

 

[Zen]

So, those consoles are absolutely perfect for third parties right ?

The CPUs aren't. All those cores and threads, but relatively speaking it's a big improvement over what Cell was for them.

Doesn't mean they will though. Just like this gen games could have looked better on PS3 in many cases but didn't just because dev/pubs wanted graphical parity.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Snubbers]

HDMI IN?
NUI Always Present?

I think the 3Gb / 2 Cores is also going to pan out to be true

I so desperately wanted Durango to be within 10% or so of Orbis, but even assuming EDRAM offsets enought of the RAM Bandwidth to allow that to occur, the reserved resources plus the 50% deficiency in GPU CU's means that I can't see how practically we aren't going to have considerably different render targets.. (the video/audio blocks mean crapola, and the DME or whatever it is just isn't going to be the 'daves insanity sauce' required to gain back that lost ground.

The issue I have is Sony's dire approach to software on the PS3, it took me 4 hours to get GT5 installed from scratch again, not to mention the 2 hours trying to fix error 8002f281 which resulted in having to reformat the HDD etc.. But Vita shows that they are improving rapidly.. so perhaps I can have faith that Orbis is going to be choice for most gamers.

I can't imagine too many people on here sticking with MS when the face-offs are ridiculously in favour of Orbis.. And if Sony get XGC and other core OS features right (like in-game music selection etc) then I'm happy with that..

The thing with all this set top box crap is that it only works in a subset of regions, and you are really trying to overcome things like iPADs in delivering content to people in the front room, which has the added benefit of having it's own screen.. if my missus popped up facebook stuff while I'm watching Formula 1, or any other overlaid shit, I'd throw the thing out the window..

 

[charsace]

Doesn't mean they will though. Just like this gen games could have looked better on PS3 in many cases but didn't just because dev/pubs wanted graphical parity.

That wasn't the reason why.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

So I do wonder what we're missing if everyone keeps implying they are very close. Will be interested to see.

Maybe some are more refering to the architecture, not necessarily the power?

 

[gofreak]

Wait, the ESRAM in the Durango is nearly half the speed of the main ram in Orbis?

I think it refers to the interconnect between parent GPU and eSRAM module, not between ROPS and memory inside the eSRAM module. The same bus in 360 was 32GB/s. 10MB-> 32MB = 3.2x. 32GB/s x 3.2 = 102GB/s

 

[Reiko]

Maybe some are more refering to the architecture, not necessarily the power?

Definitely power. They would have to be in the same ballpark in ports to be close.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

So I do wonder what we're missing if everyone keeps implying they are very close. Will be interested to see.

I'm still hearing they are relatively close in power as well so I guess we will see.

 

[quest]

The unique part would be... and this is if Microsoft is able to nail it... the complete seamless "Apple-like" integration where even Grandma could get it to work. No one has come close to that. Microsoft is aiming to create the future of entertainment accessibility for $400-$450 where if you see it at your friends house and how easy it is to use, you're going to want it too. We'll see if they succeed. It's interesting, nonetheless.

PS4 seems to be more brute force, PSN integration, Vita integration, plus a new controller with a touchscreen of some sort. Seems more "games" focused but that doesn't mean the Xbox won't have compelling games too. You can see the difference in approach by the two companies. Verrrrry interesting!

I think it is giant risk especially until there is a price drop or 2 to get casuals on board. If core gamers are turned off by a kinect in every box and all the extra fluff it could be a very slow first 12-18 months for MS. If a few of those awesome sony first/second party can show a few games that take advantage of that brute force at E3 you could very well see the next xbox dreamcasted. They show those games off and go on about how much more powerful the PS4 is on paper good luck MS. This is a complete reversal of last time for MS where they locked up the core gamers first then went after casual gamers. This time around they are going after casual gamers off the bat at the risk of losing core gamers.

 

[StevieP]

Finally a leak straight out of the docs.
Edit: They are not going to end up being completely vanilla Jaguars, btw, folks. Not that it's going to make much of a difference. Still a netbook/tablet CPU at heart.

 

[op_ivy]

sounds like the rumors going around were basically spot on (unless of course this article is sourced from neogaf...). i'm not a techie, but if this can run ue4/smaritan/agni's philosophy (as demoed) and its roughly as powerful as what sony will offer up, i'm happy. based on the same sources that leaked these specs on gaf, the above two "requirements" are a go.

now bring on the games so we can REALLY nitpick and wage war! or, just to see that gaming isnt about performance numbers.

 

[thiswasavailable]

It is not 16 threads. This is what the article was talking about.

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/08/28/amd-let-the-new-cat-out-of-the-bag-with-the-jaguar-core/


Luckily for coders, Jaguar has two ALU pipelines to process those instructions on the integer side, so no bottle-necking here. The Int unit also has a Load Address Generation Unit (LAGU) as well as an independent Store AGU (SAGU). This is exactly the same as Bobcat, the differences are in how each unit executes those instructions. Of these optimizations the most comprehensive is the divide unit, it is more or less lifted from Llano.

This allows Jaguar to speed up that instruction from one bit processed per clock to two, a huge increase if you have divide heavy code

Which indicates that we should consider the clock speed with some care because depending on how the above is utilized each core can output much more than we might expect otherwise.

For a next gen console, this CPU, in my opinion is not a disappointment. However I do expect 1-2 cores be set aside for the OS and for Kinect.

I would say that if utilized heavily, this would give the Wii U some problems where porting is concerned especially considering the RAM difference and GPU spec. Fully harnessed, I think it is fairly safe to say that the gap here is very wide. If only because the RAM amount alone is very significant. Even in a worst case scenario where 4GB of the 8 is allocated to the OS (and I very much doubt it will be that high) - 1GB vs 4GB of RAM is just far too much of a gap.

I feel confident in saying that the Wii U has been trumped by a significant margin and I think as everyone explores the key differences here that most will agree.

 

[Chuck Norris]

HDMI IN?
NUI Always Present?

I think the 3Gb / 2 Cores is also going to pan out to be true

I so desperately wanted Durango to be within 10% or so of Orbis, but even assuming EDRAM offsets enought of the RAM Bandwidth to allow that to occur, the reserved resources plus the 50% deficiency in GPU CU's means that I can't see how practically we aren't going to have considerably different render targets.. (the video/audio blocks mean crapola, and the DME or whatever it is just isn't going to be the 'daves insanity sauce' required to gain back that lost ground.

The issue I have is Sony's dire approach to software on the PS3, it took my 4 hours to get GT5 installed from scratch again, not to mention the 2 hours trying to fix error 8002f281 which resulted in having to reformat the HDD etc.. But if Vita shows that they are improving rapidly.. so perhaps I can have faith that Orbis is going to restore Sony to good financial health..

I can't imagine too many people on here sticking with MS when the face-offs are ridiculously in favour of Orbis.. And if Sony get XGC and other core OS features right (like in-game music selection etc) then I'm happy with that..

The thing with all this set top box crap is that it only works in a subset of regions, and you are really trying to overcome things like iPADs in delivering content to people in the front room, which has the added benefit of having it's own screen.. if my missus popped up facebook stuff while I'm watching Formula 1, or any other overlaid shit, I'd throw the thing out the window..

You make a good point. The whole set top box thing works really well for Americans, but the rest of the world doesn't get even a dribble of the amount of content available to US customers. It's nowhere near as compelling.

 

[FrankT]

- from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec

Heck yea. Might be day one now MS. Really like what I'm seeing here now. Just bring the software.

 

[Grief.exe]

There was one rumor long time ago that both MS and Sony got together and agreed on a plan that will make Wii U undesirable [this was before WiiU was launched, during times when there was rumors about upgrades to WiiU ahitecture]. They formed loose plan on creating very similar consoles that will enable easy life for 3rd party.

I remember reading it and thinking about how focusing ong AMD can create something like this.

You realize that's illegal right?

 

[Kagari]

I'm still hearing they are relatively close in power as well so I guess we will see.

Yep, although some are saying PS4 has more brute strength in terms of power - definitely more ideal for third parties, especially Japanese ones.

 

[Mario007]

So from reading these, pretty much the only department where Durago is doing better than Orbis is RAM total amount. There seems to be no hyped up secret sauce that would make this machine suddenly on the same level as the Orbis rumored specs that we have. It seems MS is going for living room functionalities and using the Xbox brand as a trojan horse there, but I'm not sure if they'll be successful. Their latest OS and UI building efforts have been horrible and that is one of the most important things when it comes to accessible living room boxes.

So far it looks like Orbis will clearly be better than Durago, and that's said without knowing what additional chips does Orbis pack along with the Compute chip.

 

[Horse Armour]

sounds like the rumors going around were basically spot on (unless of course this article is sourced from neogaf...). i'm not a techie, but if this can run ue4/smaritan/agni's philosophy (as demoed) and its roughly as powerful as what sony will offer up, i'm happy. based on the same sources that leaked these specs on gaf, the above two "requirements" are a go.

now bring on the games so we can REALLY nitpick and wage war! or, just to see that gaming isnt about performance numbers.

Nope, no amount of optimisation will bring you what you saw in those demos. Both Sony and especially MS have said goodbye to high end console gaming that would be on the same level the 360 was in 2005.

 

[Jadedx]

general consensus is all over the place

2 camps:

1. Orbis > Durango >>>WiiU

2. Orbis = Duragno

I think more people are in camp 1 than camp 2

Well that is just general Gaf armchair, but the Gaffers who seem to know anything have said different.

I remember bro. Seriously guys Thuway has been right on with all these specs if you have been paying attention. Definitely a poster to watch out for.

Thuway also said this, it was from a year ago but still.

If developers are happy and are applauding Microsoft's design choices, I think you don't have to worry too much. The crop of rumors from early last year have suggested Microsoft had the power edge, but this isn't what is important. It will be mostly similar.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=46444685#post46444685

Karak and Proelite have both hinted that the 720 has a slight edge in the above thread.

 

[Spongebob]

Mmm it sounds reasonable ...

The final nail in the coffin.

 

[gofreak]

So I do wonder what we're missing if everyone keeps implying they are very close. Will be interested to see.

Developers can be more or less exacting, depending on what exactly they aim to achieve with a system. Some of the differences might look big to you or me and might be kind of irrelevant to a developer who can do what he wants on both, and who perhaps wants to be diplomatic. If there are differences between the two they're more likely to manifest in digital foundry teardowns and in exclusives than in smack talk from third party devs.

We're not talking about a capability gap here ala Wii and PS360. If we were, then devs might talk about significant differences. If a system is capable of hosting their software, for a lot of devs that's as far as they care.

 

[Ashes]

So I do wonder what we're missing if everyone keeps implying they are very close. Will be interested to see.

Data move engine seems like cpu and memory related.

The only thing really now is major architectural differences between the gpu in the PS4 and the X3.

e.g. would have to be:

x3 >2014 gpu.
PS4>2012/13 gpu...

yes?

Other wise... I can't see parity. But the devs keep on insisting so I don't have a clue.

 

[onQ123]

Didn't you also come up with secret Sauce? Where's your secret sauce now?

The Purple Blocks

 

[apana]

When I see the graphics will I say wow?

 

[ghst]

a barely scientific GPU comparison chart using 3D mark/TFLOPs/equivalent on current AMD architecture:

 

[open_mouth_]

yeah, and that is very interesting. But pulling off what you have in your imagination will be challenging (at least if its anything like my imagination). But it is the golden goose of the living room IMO, and apple will certainly be pushing for it.

My biggest concern with this is the limited global coverage of the 'perfect' solution. You'd want a DVR with network control and possibly deals with the DVR makers and/or channel suppliers for IPTV.

So for FIOS consumers in the US you may get the ultimate experience, but others in the US less so, and even worse in other countries.

Maybe thats enough, for the halo effect (no pun intended) to sell units and they'll roll out deals in the upcoming years?

What if they were able to get it to work with *every* DVR/Cable box out there that has HDMI out? Theoretically, it can be done

 

[i-Lo]

Yep, although some are saying PS4 has more brute strength in terms of power - definitely more ideal for third parties, especially Japanese ones.

Kindly elaborate.

 

[shinra-bansho]

2 instructions per core x 8 cores x 1.6 x10^9 Hz = 25.6 GIPS

Is this right?

From what I can find Xenon was 19.2 GIPS. The Cell PPE was 10.2 GIPS.

Is this good?

 

[derFeef]

The final nail in the coffin.

What are you talking about? Nail in the coffin?

When I see the graphics will I say wow?

Of course. People say wow on todays console games.

 

[meta4]

Well that is just general Gaf armchair, but the Gaffers who seem to know anything have said different.

Thuway also said this, it was from a year ago but still.



http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=46444685#post46444685

Karak and Proelite have both hinted that the 720 has a slight edge in the above thread.

I think that was before the recent news of Sony upgrading to 4GB DDR5

 

[Eideka]

For a next gen console, this CPU, in my opinion is not a disappointment. However I do expect 1-2 cores be set aside for the OS and for Kinect.

Jesus no, please no.

 

[charsace]

Nope, no amount of optimisation will bring you what you saw in those demos. Both Sony and especially MS have said goodbye to high end console gaming that would be on the same level the 360 was in 2005.

Both systems will runthose demos.

 

[Horse Armour]

Both systems will runthose demos.

Not at anywhere near the level that was shown.

 

[Hana-Bi]

What are you talking about? Nail in the coffin?

For him: 720 a better Blu-Ray player with no gaming intentions at all.

 

[Phonomezer]

I am just surprised at how much closer to the wii u this is than what I was expecting.

 

[clav]

When I see the graphics will I say wow?

Hope MS keeps the tradition of showing games, not prerendered trailers.

 

[Reiko]

Not at anywhere near the level that was shown.

It will.

 

[Ashes]

The Purple Blocks

Where's you sauce now? : Where's your god now?