Melchiah
Member
Not really a correct way of alerting about possible film spoilers; if you highlight the spoiler, it's already too late.
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Kotaku Rumor: Microsoft 6 months behind in game production for X720 [Pastebin = Ban]
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
Not really a correct way of alerting about possible film spoilers; if you highlight the spoiler, it's already too late.
Haha not it isn't. In terms of what you see, it's going to be a Gamecube vs XBOX 1 situation. People thinking there is going to be some massive difference are in for a shock.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Not even that really, more like 360 vs PS3.
MightyHedgehog
Member
I'm not even expecting that much of a difference considering the similarity of hardware.
Melchiah
Member
This fact is in the description of the film and on the back of the box.
Ah, my bad. =)
That's not what the rumor is saying. It's saying that several key first party launch games are six months behind schedule. It's not referring to third party games and it's not saying that there will be any delays, just that progress isn't where they want it.
That's not the rumor he's referring to I don't think?
The rumor talked about on this page.
Well considering the licensing stuff sounds like horseshit, it's an easy mistake to make since it's the same six months
The hardware is similar in architecture, but there's a noticeably bigger gap in raw performance between the PS4 and Xbox 720 versus the current gen. I'd say that the similar architecture would actually make it more obvious in practice, as they would both have similar strengths and weaknesses. A difference in the 15-20% range I agree wouldn't really be a huge deal and you'd get feature parity (with maybe a higher resolution or framerate on the PS4, not a dealbreaker), but with a difference of 33%/50%, it's enough to have a big gap. That is a lot of extra horsepower.
BloodMoney
Banned
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!!
MightyHedgehog
Member
The differences aren't going to be as easy as looking at two different, but similar computer rigs. One, we don't know the final actual difference between the two until enough games are there to put side by side, and, historically, it's always down to the developer to put the work into maximizing the specific use of the hardware and software development options. It may be years into the generation before seeing a consistent difference that highlights performance disparity in the end results. Two, we don't have any good understanding of the hardware customizations that each hardware maker has specified for a reason. They're not going to spend money, talent, and time doing these things without good reason. Three, flops are worthless as a metric of complex software performance when there are so many potential differences that come into play.
FLOPs are not worthless when your comparing architectures that are nearly identical. And I wouldn't bet the farm on large amounts of customisations.
MightyHedgehog
Member
Are you assuming that developers won't suit their games to better-fit the hardware if they're looking to reach parity or maintain a desired level of critical performance? There have been considerable efforts made to get drastically different architectures to match up in final software in every generation prior to this, despite potential sales not quite justifying the work. Why would that change now?
The thing is that some things may straight out not work on one of the consoles due to a restriction after all of there efforts, you would have to drop it on the other console but theres no reason to drop it on the one it works on just because 'parity' that makes no sense.
MightyHedgehog
Member
Yet, this is what we're seeing with PS3 and X360 and PC over and over again. A nebulous possibility of "some things" not working out the same has never prevented developers from finding alternatives to reproducing the end result since we're talking about highly programmable platforms that support many different solutions to many of the same results.
Lol. I'd recommend stepping away for a while. Don't ask for further explanation!
Ninja Moomin
Banned
History tells us the simplest architecture tends to be the one they lead with.
Orbis is both simpler and more powerful - to our current knowledge at least.
The only wildcard could be if MS have had two architectures in dev in parallel and we only know about one.
But the real question is - how much more could they put in the box and keep the price competitive anyway?
InsaneZero
Member
Gaming Economics 101:
1. Buy all the games
2. Add all the hardware
3. Rush all the production
4. Absorb all the cost
5. ?????
6. i dunno lol
Usually that's because different platforms usually have different strengths and weaknesses. The PS4 and 720 will have similar hardware architecture, and there's a possibility that the 720 will have no strengths over the PS4. So any solution developers come up with for the 720 would be something they could do on PS4 just as well, if not better.
Meh. Had to try. If you're gonna go down, go down swinging.
MightyHedgehog
Member
Actually, I don't think that's true across the board at all. PS2, PS3. Both of those became the lead for many developers for many reasons despite the hardware/software being less capable and more complicated by comparison to other platforms that received work done there first. In many cases, the hand-me-down platforms actually got better versions through this Playstation-first approach.
Possible. But we don't know. Also, we're assuming that there are not any differences in strength and weaknesses besides bandwidth and a dry FLOP count. Similar architecture should mean a closer end result, but we don't know how the final software fares just yet and shouldn't be too hasty to assume we know anything about final hardware performance.
Pastebin post that's sure to pop up here one way or the other so here we go TALES FROM MY ASS part 6 or is it 7?
http://pastebin.com/CiKCVeiA
http://pastebin.com/CiKCVeiA
Hi, I am a developer at a big studio (we are currently working on titles for the next generation of consoles) and I want to give you all an update about the current situation regarding the Xbox. I obviously can't tell you who I exactly am and where I work, and I have to be a little careful about what I say, because I fear some of the documentation and even the hardware our studio has received, contains individual values and terms which can be traced back to my studio in case of leaks, which would be very unpleasant for us.
I think at some time in the second half of 2012 Microsoft must have realised that their vision of a console powered by an APU with 1.23 TFLOPS graphics processing power will have a hard time competing with the PS4. It also became seemingly clear at that time, that Sony could quite easily upgrade the RAM in their new console, due to new chips being available with higher capacities. Although I guess they didn't *know* that Sony would really go with 8 GB at that time, they knew it was a possibility. The problem was, they were running out of time. Their old design was not very flexible, so they had to come up with something new.
So they completely scrapped the APU approach, and basically rebuilt the whole architecture from scratch with even more off-the-shelf parts. The current kits we have received a while ago have a discrete CPU and a discrete GPU. The CPU is still x86, has 8 cores and has still relatively low clocks, but it's not Jaguar as far as I am aware. I guess they did choose a CPU with a slightly bigger die now, because size isn't as important anymore as it was on the APU, but I don't know exactly because the cases are sealed and I can't take a look inside. The GPU is also new, and it is not GCN1, at least that's what I heard from our programmers. More about the GPU further down. There was also a big change regarding memory architecture: It is no longer a unified memory solution. There are now two memory pools: One with 8 GB DDR3 RAM (34 GB/s, 4 GB available for games), and one with 6 GB GDDR5 RAM (192 GB/s, all available for games). eSRAM is GONE! Technically the devkit has 16 GB DDR3 RAM, but the Xbox will ship with 8GB DDR3 (and 6GB GDDR5). The downside of going with a discrete CPU/GPU is loosing some of the APU synergy effects, but I guess it's not too bad and it was the only way to update the specs, because designing a new custom chip was certainly not possible in that time frame.
There is currently some confusion about clock speeds and processing power, I cannot give you exact numbers, because they are... a little bit odd right now, and as I wrote above I suspect it's a way of tracking leaks. When we received the kits, we where a bit suprised because they had the same cases as the old ones, which seems strange because a discrete CPU/GPU with split RAM obviously needs a little bit more space / cooling. And they where loud. Really loud. Shortly after we received the kits we got an update which reduced clock values slightly, because some devs have reported problems with heat. As it stands now, the GPU has ~2.3 TFLOPS (it was ~2.7 when we received the kits - again, sorry for not giving you the *exact* number). I have no idea if this is the final number or if they will work on a better cooling solution or something like that. It probably could even go further down, I don't know, so don't be too excited - our games are currently built with lower specs in mind. A personal theory of mine is that they postponed the reveal to work on an updated case, which is better suited for the updated specs.
Kinect has received some updates, but we only have implemented a few voice commands for our game. Not sure if they will include Kinect with every console. Would make sense so that more games use this, but in the end it's Microsoft's decision. Our dev kits are currently "always-on", meaning they need a internet connection to start and all, but I am not sure if this will carry over to the final Xbox, I guess it's just a way for Microsoft to track dev kits right now. Our game doesn't need to be always-on. Which doesn't mean it won't be there on a OS level, I just don't know. I also have no idea how Microsoft will price this thing, I guess $500, as rumored, makes sense somehow. I don't have much insight into their internal strategies. I hope I could give you a nice sneak peak at the reveal, our game will also be there, too, and it's a secret title, very excited!
Some of these are parodies.
They only work in areas when Adam Orth would like to live.
I'm laughing at DDR3 and GDDR5 RAM being used together.
Xbox Fusion
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
That pastebin is probably the most laugh worthy thing.
It seems like some fan made it up.
It seems like some fan made it up.
$399 with $15/mo XBL subscription
for the rest of the buyer's life
doritos/dew copromotions to cease, they'd make it too short to be viable
Maximilian Kolbe
Member
pastebin sure make everyone's developer dream come true
I'm sure the person who made it is lurking NeoGaf waiting for it to pop up as a new leak. & I have a feeling that this thread is what made them make this story up after hearing about the devkits being hot.
Heh.
SniperHunter
Banned
rumor confirmed
More like confusion, you know the scene from the start up of old Scooby Doo cartoons where Scooby moves in 4 different directions and come back to middle. We are living that section.
No doubt.
SniperHunter
Banned
PS4 can go over 2 TFLOPs if Sony increases the CPU speed to 2.0 GHz (I think they have done this already) and GPU core to 1 GHz (memory clocks will also have to be increased).
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