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[Felix Lighter]

A quick question for the educated, how do you see this seemingly lower powered console effecting multiplatform development? Will this be the lowest common denominator that the devs target and will the excess power of the Orbis allow for framerate and IQ improvements, since the architecture seems so similar this time? I guess, the real question I'm asking is, does the Durango seem so weak that it will ultimately be holding devs back or should scaling up and down be relatively easy this time around?

I guess if the power advantage allows for the long neglected framerate and IQ aspects of console games to improve on the Orbis, maybe an underpowered Durango isn't such a bad thing, as long as, the power difference isn't so great that the vast majority of games never take advantage of the excess power.

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

I would suggest setting your expectations bar at 720p/30fps for both of them and being pleasantly surprised if anything else happens.

Not even 720p/60 frames? :|

I'm wishing for 1080p/60 frames, be fine with 720p/60 frames.

Doesn't the Xbox and PS3 run at 560p/30 frames? If next gen only run 720p/30 I'd be so disappointed.

 

[grimshawish]

It's still a piece of shit though.

.

 

[sTeLioSco]

I feel ashamed for even believing all the BS they were spouting. They should be called out for what they said.

aegis will probably get a dedicated thread

 

[FordGTGuy]

Good advice. 3rd party developers don't give a crap about 60FPS.

I'm fine with butter smooth locked 30 fps(example would be Horizon) but variable 30 fps is going to suck on new consoles. We should at least make 30 fps locked a standard and I think we will at least see a few 1080p native games.

 

[Derrick01]

I would suggest setting your expectations bar at 720p/30fps for both of them and being pleasantly surprised if anything else happens.

Yup this is what I've been saying no matter what the power level is for these games. Devs like to push as much graphics as possible so anything higher than that takes away from that goal. Personally I'd prefer at least the 60fps but it won't happen for most games.

 

[UrbanRats]

What software?

What are you talking about even, you think some facebook app or whatever will make a difference?

The big things are already in there. Online and ability to watch T.V and movie content in it. Communities will be entirely dependent on games now, because nobody is gonna boot their console just to go on facebook and talk with somebody.

It's about the games, and then everything else.

Not facebook plain and simple, but they probably have some sort of more advanced feature up tehir sleeves.
Maybe some sort of WiiUplaza thing, either way i think a big part of it will simply be the popularity of the XboxLive brand, people who had a Gold account and friends on x360, will probably just shift on Durango to not lose that community.

 

[Uno Venova]

Interested to see aegis make sense of all this. The narrative from a wash, to 100 dollars cheaper happened quick i must say.

 

[iMax]

It's still a piece of shit though.

People still buy it, people still read it, and people still presumably believe its content.

edit: Perfect Timing. Right as I posted this, this happened...

 

[dragonelite]

Dam would have though it would be more like 5~10% not a 30+% difference.
Maybe CPU has some wizard jizz in its balls..

 

[Karma]

I have no idea. Ask them.

If what you say is true then be afraid of Microsoft going into panic mode. They are not going to let the US market go without a fight. They will start buying exclusives left and right.

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

Any link to source ? (leak ?) I mean i didn't see anywhere SoC mentioned for Durango (but it is possible) and i am preatty sure i didn't miss anything.

Here is the post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=46417857&postcount=2217

 

[Pagusas]

So wait GAF.

What can I expect from Durango? Can I expect 1080p at 60 frames?

What can I expect from Orbis? 1080p at 60 frames?

No one here can tell you what to expect, truth be told we know nothing until they make an official announcment, and beyond that very few here are developers, and none here controll an entire project or have seen a final game for these systems. Some games will be 1080p at 60fps, some games will be less than 1080p at sub 30fps, it will all depend on the developers and what they push and how much time they spend polishing things.

At the end of the day games will look awesome for both systems and in 5 years they will look even more awesome.

 

[amstradcpc]

Good advice. 3rd party developers don't give a crap about 60FPS.

By these specs if you make a game at 720p30fps on Durango, the same game code without many changes will run at near 720p60fps only by double rops and bandwidth ( without even considering GPU flops advantage ).

 

[Mileena]

Graphics don't matter, it's all about that vast stable of first party titles from Microsoft.

And now there's coffee all over my monitor. Thanks jett!

 

[EloquentM]

Not even 720p/60 frames? :|

I'm wishing for 1080p/60 frames, be fine with 720p/60 frames.

Doesn't the Xbox and PS3 run at 560p/30 frames? If next gen only run 720p/30 I'd be so disappointed.

Did you miss the other replies to your post? It all depends on how complex developers choose to make their games. There have been a handful of 1080p/60 games this gen though they weren't complex as other games.

 

[shinobi602]

Doesn't the Xbox and PS3 run at 560p/30 frames? If next gen only run 720p/30 I'd be so disappointed.

What the hell are you talking about? It depends on each individual studio and what they want out of their game.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

By these specs if you make a game at 720p30fps on Durango, the same game code without many changes will run at near 720p60fps only by double rops and bandwidth ( without even considering GPU flops advantage ).

It really isn't as black and white as that, at all.

 

[Raven77]

What software?

What are you talking about even, you think some facebook app or whatever will make a difference?

The big things are already in there. Online and ability to watch T.V and movie content in it. Communities will be entirely dependent on games now, because nobody is gonna boot their console just to go on facebook and talk with somebody.

It's about the games, and then everything else.

In a perfect world my son....in a perfect world.

 

[Orayn]

So... What/where is the secret sauce? Is it really the compressed AA?

Any estimates yet on the Wii U GPU stats and all that?

600 GFLOPS is the number I used to hear getting thrown around a lot, but apparently it's less than that.

 

[UrbanRats]

I would suggest setting your expectations bar at 720p/30fps for both of them and being pleasantly surprised if anything else happens.

I'm cool with 30 fps (for most games) but i won't spend a lot of money on a console that will have 720p as a standard.
Reason why i won't get a wiiU until there's a serious price cut.

720p it's just too fucking blurry for me.

 

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

1st party MS titles will look best on Durango

1st party Sony titles will look best on Orbis

Who'd have thought it...


Everything else will depend on who has the best dev tools and cheapest licensing costs.

Sony doesn't have a particularly good record on the last bit.

If these specs are confirmed, there's no denying the PS4 has more potential to deliver better looking/performing 3rd party games, will that potential be realised though.?

It's by no means guaranteed.

 

[DieH@rd]

It really isn't. 32MB ESRAM won't come cheap, in fact it will be very expensive and lower yields as it needs to be on-die.

32MB ESRAM is 1.5 billion transistors, aka ~120 mm2 on 28nm tech. THATS INCREDIBLY MASSIVE.

We heard from some sources that Durango's SoC/APU will be monolithic, and this is the reason why.

 

[gofreak]

By these specs if you make a game at 720p30fps on Durango, the same game code without many changes will run at near 720p60fps only by double rops and bandwidth ( without even considering GPU flops advantage ).

Only assuming the game was ROPs or bandwidth bound and that didn't change as you threw more ROPs or bandwidth at the game... and that's a non-negligible assumption.

If the game was heavily shader bound for example, there wouldn't be such a big improvement, or if it became shader bound as the ROPs/bandwidth bound was relieved, that would cap potential improvement sooner.

 

[amstradcpc]

It really isn't as black and white as that, at all.

By these specs? yes. I´ll wait to know something new.

 

[Angry Fork]

I really hope the plunge into high tech hardware works out for Sony, and they make sure to put out a lot of games that show the capabilities of it within the launch window.

With PS3 everything within the first 2-3 years was like tech demos all over the place. 'Potential' for this, 'possibilities' with that, every 6 months they'd talk like that. Microsoft walked the walk and provided the games in the beginning, but Sony has stepped up with their own IPs this gen so maybe they can finally make it work with PS4. It would really suck if Sony exits the gaming industry.

 

[SneakyStephan]

I'm not convinced that the difference will translate to more than fps and something like 1080p vs slightly sub 1080p resolution. If we were talking about a 7770 level of performance vs a 1GHz 7970 where the flop count was almost 400% more instead of 50% more, sure I think the differences would be much more noticeable.

One being 60-70 percent more powerful as the other is a big gap... (still talking about the pc gpus they are being compared to)

Lots of pc gamers spend 400-500 euros to get that kind of performance increase when they buy a second gtx680 for SLI...

Anyhow, bang for buck putting a 7850 equivalent in your console seems a lot more reasonable and interesting than a 7770 equivalent.
And we'll see how people think about that performance difference (that you downplay because it's not a generational leap or something) when one multiplatform game dips at under 30 fps and tears and the other is smooth. Or when one gets vsync locked at 30 fps because the devs couldn't reach a solid 60 and the other gets locked at 60.

 

[KAL2006]

1st party MS titles will look best on Durango

1st party Sony titles will look best on Orbis

Who'd have thought it...


Everything else will depend on who has the best dev tools and cheapest licensing costs.

Sony doesn't have a particularly good record on the last bit.

If these specs are confirmed, there's no denying the PS4 has more potential to deliver better looking/performing 3rd party games, will that potential be realised though.?

It's by no means guaranteed.

Why not, I thought PS4 leaked specs seem more easier to develop for than Durango? And on top of that more powerful

 

[Rad-]

I was already disappointed in the PS4 GPU, and the 720 GPU is even worse? Oh wow.

Anyways, I think there's 2 things that MS is betting on:

1: 720 will be cheaper.
2: They probably expect most multiplatform games to lead on 720.

 

[Apophis2036]

Equivocating the Wii's success to the PS2 or PS360's success is disingenuous.

The PS2 didn't reach 100M in the 6th gen because of SingStar and EyeToy. It did so because it had traditional third party support exceeding its contemporaries giving it a catalog of like 1000+ games. The audience didn't need to be lured by gimmicks. When those came they were simply additional revenue generating peripherals.

The expanded audience that drove the success of the Wii by and large didn't drive the success of the PS2.

And by and large the 360's success has been built on the same audience for traditional console games as the PS2. Kinect later simply allowed an extension of the lifecycle by drawing away marketshare from the Wii in the new expanded audience market - which has essentially collapsed anyway.

The PS2, PS3 and 360 had "casual gamers" sure. They have gamers that only get the annual COD or Madden or FIFA. But they're installed bases weren't built on the basis of a Wii like phenomena bringing in people who didn't previously play on consoles.

I think the biggest reason PS2 sold so much was down to the DVD playback (at a time when DVD popularity exploded) tbh, i would agree that third party support played a massive role with regards to getting the core gamer to bite though. Having the likes of GTA, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil and MGS as exclusives was a massive pull.

 

[yon61]

Banned

What happened?

 

[Jonboy]

Orbis: Harry
Durango: Ron
Wii U: Dudley

Nailed it.

 

[Tratorn]

So with all things considered orbis should be 30-40% better than durango? Isn't really much I would say.
Besides some more frames or little things there won't be any difference in multi-games.

 

[MGR]

A quick question for the educated, how do you see this seemingly lower powered console effecting multiplatform development? Will this be the lowest common denominator that the devs target and will the excess power of the Orbis allow for framerate and IQ improvements, since the architecture seems so similar this time? I guess, the real question I'm asking is, does the Durango seem so weak that it will ultimately be holding devs back or should scaling up and down be relatively easy this time around?

I guess if the power advantage allows for the long neglected framerate and IQ aspects of console games to improve on the Orbis, maybe an underpowered Durango isn't such a bad thing, as long as, the power difference isn't so great that the vast majority of games never take advantage of the excess power.

I'd be happy if 3rd party games target 30fps on Durango and simply run a higher clip on Orbis, without any IQ enhancements.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

By these specs? yes. I´ll wait to know something new.

If we have learnt anything from current any previous generations, what's possible on paper and what's actually attained is never predictable.

 

[Reiko]

What happened?

"Going meta on why a thread exists"

 

[Ken Masters]

I was already disappointed in the PS4 GPU, and the 720 GPU is even worse? Oh wow.

Anyways, I think there's 2 things that MS is betting on:

1: 720 will be cheaper.
2: They probably expect most multiplatform games to lead on 720.

but if the PS4 is as easy to develop for as rumors make it out to be, PS4 will be seeing superior ports as opposed to a generation of inferior ports

 

[shinra-bansho]

So... What/where is the secret sauce? Is it really the compressed AA?

Apparently that's just a standard feature...

 

[KAL2006]

I was already disappointed in the PS4 GPU, and the 720 GPU is even worse? Oh wow.

Anyways, I think there's 2 things that MS is betting on:

1: 720 will be cheaper.
2: They probably expect most multiplatform games to lead on 720.

Even if 3rd parties do lead on Durango, can't they just uport their games to PS4, I thought the hardware between the 2 consoles are much more similar.

 

[The Omega Man]

What happened to Microsoft? I thought they'd go for the jugular and built a better spec'd box than SONY, if you would have asked me 1 month ago if SONY would have had the better spec next-gen console I would have said "no way".

I can't wait to se those first party SONY titles, my god...

 

[nib95]

I really hope the plunge into high tech hardware works out for Sony, and they make sure to put out a lot of games that show the capabilities of it within the launch window.

With PS3 everything within the first 2-3 years was like tech demos all over the place. 'Potential' for this, 'possibilities' with that, every 6 months they'd talk like that. Microsoft walked the walk and provided the games in the beginning, but Sony has stepped up with their own IPs this gen so maybe they can finally make it work with PS4. It would really suck if Sony exits the gaming industry.

Except Orbis is not really that high tech hardware. Microsoft is just going low key. Not embarrassingly low key a la Wii U, but still conservative. Having said that, even Sony has been coy this time around. About the only thing surprising or especially potent in the PS4 is the 4GB GDDR5 (which is not yet confirmed).

 

[Orayn]

Why not, I thought PS4 leaked specs seem more easier to develop for than Durango? And on top of that more powerful

The hardware is so similar that Microsoft and Sony's toolchains will make a bigger difference in ease of development than anything else. Many developers would probably prefer Orbis' faster GPU and greater memory bandwidth, but at that same time I would bank on Microsoft providing better tools for developers.

 

[Can Crusher]

It is exactly what happens. PS3 was ~ $800 to produce at the start, blue violet laser diodes were not that expensive, it was Cell, XDR and RSX that cost a lot. Notice that for those three specs Sony have gone in a completely different direction, no custom parts, all off the shelf and easily available. Plus Blu-ray drives are not much more expensive that DVD drives now so Orbis won't have that problem either.

32MB ESRAM will add a significant amount to the APU die which will raise costs and lower yields.

You are talking about launch models that came with PS2 hardware BC for example. Not taking into account that Ps3 is in fact a stronger machine, let's not spin it the other way now because this has been said for the whole generation, and the Sony 1st party has always been shown as proof.

The reason why PS3 was expensive was because Sony went for "more" not "less". You are comparing it to Durango, a system that is "less" and releasing at the same time, and isn't spending budget on a new media format.

Sorry but current console usage and demographics say different....

For instance many people buying android tablets for Christmas this year went with Jelly Bean only devices because the software is just that much better. I'm not saying it wasn't the only factor but it was definitely a factor. I'm also not saying it's going to be a big factor in these two consoles selling because it's not but saying software and multimedia capabilities won't make a difference is silly.

Many people bought the PS3 because it could play blu-rays not because of the games.

Man are you really comparing phones to consoles?

My girlfriend will buy a phone and worry about the software in it, but she won't buy a gaming console. Doesn't matter if it has the same features as her phone, it ain't a phone.

Ps3 has blu ray like you said, and well in fact it didn't deliver Sony a better core audience than MS, which has a console stuck in the DVD generation. Think about that.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

What happened to Microsoft? I thought they'd go for the jugular and built a better spec'd box than SONY, if you would have asked me 1 month ago if SONY would have had the better spec next-gen console I would have said "no way".

Aside from the GPU, the PS3 was superior to the Xbox 360 across the board.

The only reason the PS3 didn't show it's true prowess (outside of some first party titles) was due to the complex CPU.

 

[Tratorn]

Even if 3rd parties do lead on Durango, can't they just uport their games to PS4, I thought the hardware between the 2 consoles are much more similar.

Why should they do this? They'll be happy to achieve the same like on durango with less work.

 

[Perkel]

If there is no resolution jump in the generation after this, would it be incorrect of me to assume RAM will become increasingly optimised in its current form? A bit like processors seem pretty generic? If I make sense. Just to get an understanding of the current allocation in Orbis.

Don't get why you say there will be no resolution jump. From this gen to next will be resolution jump same as to next next generation.

As of how it relate to orbis. IMO. MS choose DDR3+SRAM because alone DD3 ram is to slow for their spec and GDDR5 is to fast for their spec. With this spec if their DDR3+SRAM works well then there would be no upgrade in performance (generaly) if they would upgrade spec to GDDR5.

To describe it simpler: MS choose 6 nails for their 6 nails work. If they would choose 12 nails for their 6 nails work then other 6 nails would be unused.

Using GDDR5 for Durango with that spec would be just waste of resources imo and that was probably their motive.


So any info about Durango and SoC ?

 

[aegies]

I would be more interested to see developers explain the "it's a wash" comments, since they're the ones making them. I never said "secret sauce." I said additional hardware to help performance, which is in the diagram. Also, numerous comments and hints I made were validated by the diagram. I've never said the GPU put out more flops than Orbis's solution. I haven't even said Durango was more powerful for quite a while (which disappeared once I got flop numbers for both and the "they aren't representative" talk).

I've said repeatedly there's hardware to get around the memory bandwidth limitations, that it targets efficiency, and that developers seem to like it. None of that is disproven or declared "bullshit" by this. I feel like I've tried pretty hard not to get into the power-pissing contest. I've only gone on record as saying the systems aren't far apart (which I continue to hear), and that Durango isn't "weak" by any definition. I understand that there's a desire to lump everything every person who has had something positive to say about the system together into one meta-poster, but that's not the case.

And yeah, the diagram and specs are accurate as of last February, though it isn't the exact diagram I've seen. I don't know if VGLeaks made it themselves based on their own conjecture or not.

Edit: also, they're still not talking about the hardware display planes (there are three, one is reserved for the OS, and each can render at a different resolution), which are definitely a thing, and the move engines, which are also a thing.

 

[mrklaw]

Yeah it seems like Orbis will be more gamer focused but obviously that may not work out for them in the long run if they can't match the non gaming features Durango will have. As much as that makes a lot of us cringe they pretty much have to do it now.

I think it's becoming a lot safer to say that Sony's 1st parties will be a step ahead yet again though. Specs don't lie.

Sony was already doing a lot of the rumoured stuff with PS3 and 50MB OS. DVR in the background while playing games, streaming media services, DLNA local media playback, bluray. It was a great media centre and TBH all I'd like them to do would be to combine that into a more coherent experience, and add some cross-service searching like google TV does and I'd be very happy.

I hope MS have some amazing stuff for the living room planned (that is relevant to outside the US) because I can't think of anything that justifies the potential memory and CPU reservations they are making.

 

[FourMyle]

Wow.. sucks for Durango fans. 720p and under is going to be the norm for this platform.

 

[Ken Masters]

The hardware is so similar that Microsoft and Sony's toolchains will make a bigger difference in ease of development than anything else. Many developers would probably prefer Orbis' faster GPU and greater memory bandwidth, but at that same time I would bank on Microsoft providing better tools for developers.

I remember hearing some rumors that Microsoft wouldn't allow devs to make the Sony port be better in any way, but that could be BS