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[Pseudo judo]

You need to understand what's going on before making that claim. Seriously. No no... Seriously.

To be honest there isn't much more today then there was from the thread that got locked yesterday. There's some specifics like the snap feature crashing the console but online party issues were a known problem. In fact the only thing that wasn't clear yesterday that is clearer today is that these problems aren't as bad as first believed and probably would be fixed by launch or very soon after.

 

[DopeyFish]

No I think he's technically right - the actual bottleneck is DDR3 - ESRAM is just there to lessen the impact of DDR3's low bandwith....

Wrong on both counts.

 

[Freki]

Wrong on both counts.

Please explain where my statement is wrong?

 

[ShapeGSX]

Of course it a bottleneck. You have to use esram or you get terrible performance. the most limiting thing is the very small size. It is the same size as the wiiu..

It not hard to see how this would be a nightmare to program for.....

Listen to what you are saying. In a given system, if you get better performance when you use something than when you don't, then by definition it can't be a bottleneck.

 

[jroc74]

No, FUD was when MS warriors assured us that Sony's DRM would be just as bad.

Zing.

I never was into the orig Xbox and PS2, PS3 launches....so most of this is new to me. But the PS4 vs XBO threads, info has replaced soap operas. Some bad luck has me on the sidelines for getting either system at launch or this year. I plan on getting both one day. If this turns out true...it would be mind boggling since the UI, OS on the 360 was so smooth, relatively problem free.

 

[VladDracule]

A bottleneck is any point that can lead to slowdowns in the system. It's clearly there to alleviate the more obvious bottleneck of main memory bandwidth, but it can still be a bottleneck if it turns out that a large amount of time is spent managing it.

For example, if you have to do a excessive amount of swapping of things into and out of ESRAM to point where your ALUs can starve, then that is most certainly a bottleneck.

aside from the fact that it isnt nearly big enough to cause that type of a bottleneck? Depending on how its addressable by the GPU then the GPU can theoretically move a full up amount of information in and out of it at a minimum of 2 clock cycles which will not starve the rest of the ALU for resources.

 

[RawRebel]

These rumours are total BS. Last ditch efforts to derail the Xbox brand before launch. It's not working. I'm still buying one and it will have a better OS and online service than my PS4 in every way that matters. I have 100% confidence in that.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

I think some Microsoft fans look to finally be having mental breakdowns.

Seems like a 9,000% increase in denial today.

 

[Randolph Freelander]

Wake me up next November when these things are getting year 2 releases and let me know how it's going.

 

[Slashlen]

Seriously, explain how an additional resource is a bottleneck? Tell me how a dev who chooses not to use the additional memory will still be bottlenecked by it? its that absolute truth, being difficult to use does not mean it will not improve with drivers and low level API support. Stating it as a life long bottleneck, is FUD at its very core

It's still the bottleneck if it's the slowest/weakest thing in the chain. The fact that it's faster than nothing is irrelevant. The bottleneck is what's holding things up. It's holding things up, which makes it the bottleneck.

 

[coolasj19]

edit: removed

Why is a tweet like this thread worthy when another tweet saying the PS4 OS is just as, if not more problematic not thread worthy?

Second, the esRAM IS NOT A BOTTLENECK and conceptually CANT BE A BOTTLENECK. It is an ADDITIONAL resource available to devs, it is not required which means it will absolutely NEVER be a bottleneck to the system which makes the second tweet utter bullshit.

The fact is I've heard that the bottleneck is at least 3 different things, which means nobody actually knows what the bottleneck in the system is.

Nobody has made one yet. But, they are free to do so. We've seen the PS4 OS running in the wild plenty.

Wow... WOW.

 

[perineumlick]

Why is a tweet like this thread worthy when another tweet saying the PS4 OS is just as, if not more problematic not thread worthy?

Second, the esRAM IS NOT A BOTTLENECK and conceptually CANT BE A BOTTLENECK. It is an ADDITIONAL resource available to devs, it is not required which means it will absolutely NEVER be a bottleneck to the system which makes the second tweet utter bullshit.

The fact is I've heard that the bottleneck is at least 3 different things, which means nobody actually knows what the bottleneck in the system is.

What are you talking about?

 

[Project Alice]

So the OS of an unreleased console is not functioning 100%? Shocker. Does anyone expect MS to release a console that crashes all the time? It would be suicide.

 

[danwarb]

You need to understand what's going on before making that claim. Seriously. No no... Seriously.

It really does seem like it though. Especially when various intheknows here seem to be quoting the same furious source and smashing every positive X1 note on cue, while others are saying it's not actually too bad at the moment.

Panello's comments were reasonable and somewhat reassuring.

 

[Kssio_Aug]

Ops... wrong topic.
But then, about this one, thats pretty bad if true! lol
Sorry btw!

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Thanks to CBOAT for the info and the guys translating, certainly helps after a few beers

 

[NoirVisage]

Anything else think We should start a church dedicated to CBOAT And worship / pray to him on Sunday ? And offer him sacrifices ?

Tread carefully with that, you know you're sarcasm trolling.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

So the OS of an unreleased console is not functioning 100%? Shocker. Does anyone expect MS to release a console that crashes all the time? It would be suicide.

 

[LollipoPReapeR]

aside from the fact that it isnt nearly big enough to cause that type of a bottleneck? Depending on how its addressable by the GPU then the GPU can theoretically move a full up amount of information in and out of it at a minimum of 2 clock cycles which will not starve the rest of the ALU for resources.

By your logic, the DDR3 should be used on its own. Do you know what's happens in a DDR3 vs DDR5 fight where MS is trying to achieve parity? Curb stomping. Ends with MS lying its own pool of blood

 

[Amir0x]

So the OS of an unreleased console is not functioning 100%? Shocker. Does anyone expect MS to release a console that crashes all the time? It would be suicide.

hahaha, i get it... see because Microsoft released a 360 which broke half of the time lol

 

[fallagin]

Second, the esRAM IS NOT A BOTTLENECK and conceptually CANT BE A BOTTLENECK. It is an ADDITIONAL resource available to devs, it is not required which means it will absolutely NEVER be a bottleneck to the system which makes the second tweet utter bullshit.

I agree on this, if anything is a bottleneck then it would be the bandwidth to the main system ram. The esram is a plus for the system, but it cant really make up for the ram bandwidth.

Edit: perhaps when they say that esram is a bottleneck they mean that having it instead of extra bandwidth to main ram is a bottleneck? Perhaps they mean that it is a bottleneck for game development at the moment because of it's difficult use. I don't know.

 

[shinobi602]

i'm not saying he's lying, but it reads like he's trying to 'soften' the blow, and lumping the PS4 in there (which seems to have become some sort of renewed running theme...) isn't very promising.

i mean yes, we are hearing that PS4 has some negligible issues (the type you usually see in the run-up to a major launch), but Xbone is sounding like a complete clusterfuck beyond compare.

CBOAT pretty much said the same thing in a roundabout way:

Today, snap is broken. Fact. Maybe (and probably) fixed for launch
Today, Live connection and party is broken. Fact and maybe fixed before launch.
Today, esram is a problem and tools will help down the road. Hardware will always be gimped in comparison. This can never be changed without new hardware. Fact. Get mad at who you should be getting mad at.

Perhaps they just perceive the word 'broken' differently? Maybe a fairly sluggish snap feature is considered broken to cboat? Maybe to the dev I talked to it's not necessarily broken, just needs fixing.

 

[USC-fan]

Listen to what you are saying. In a given system, if you get better performance when you use something than when you don't, then by definition it can't be a bottleneck.

compare to a system that uses gddr5. You are not comparing it to a system that have the same ram[ddr3].

Building game on both systems the small esram will be a huge bottleneck and pain in the ass. Sameway the cell was in the ps3...

You could have just said you have no clue about anything CS related. Would have saved so much unnecessary keystrokes.

seem very salty...

 

[Finalizer]

Second, the esRAM IS NOT A BOTTLENECK and conceptually CANT BE A BOTTLENECK. It is an ADDITIONAL resource available to devs, it is not required which means it will absolutely NEVER be a bottleneck to the system which makes the second tweet utter bullshit.

"I don't know what ESRAM is used for."

 

[borghe]

Why is a tweet like this thread worthy when another tweet saying the PS4 OS is just as, if not more problematic not thread worthy?

Reliable tweets? Care to point them out?

Second, the esRAM IS NOT A BOTTLENECK and conceptually CANT BE A BOTTLENECK. It is an ADDITIONAL resource available to devs, it is not required which means it will absolutely NEVER be a bottleneck to the system which makes the second tweet utter bullshit.

Sort of right, sort of wrong. The bottleneck is technically the RAM bandwidth as devs get to work with GDDR5 in both PC and PS4 but only DDR3 on XBONE. The eSRAM was meant to alleviate that bottleneck but has instead turned it a difficult/complicated element, compounded by devs now getting 8GB of GDDR5 on PS4 and whatever mix of DDR3/GDDR5 on PC (but probably at least 2GB GDDR5 today and near future).

The fact is I've heard that the bottleneck is at least 3 different things, which means nobody actually knows what the bottleneck in the system is.

While this may be true, or not, the point is it doesn't matter. This system is complicated and clunky to work with and MS can't do a damn thing about it without new hardware. They can minimize it and good devs possibly even minimize it further, but at the end it still puts a gulf between XBONE and PS4.

 

[VladDracule]

A bottleneck is any point that can lead to slowdowns in the system. It's clearly there to alleviate the more obvious bottleneck of main memory bandwidth, but it can still be a bottleneck if it turns out that a large amount of time is spent managing it.

For example, if you have to do a excessive amount of swapping of things into and out of ESRAM to point where your ALUs can starve, then that is most certainly a bottleneck.

By your logic, the DDR3 should be used on its own. Do you know what's happens in a DDR3 vs DDR5 fight where MS is trying to achieve parity? Curb stomping. Ends with MS lying its own pool of blood

So what your saying is the esRAM improves and or closes the gap between DDR3 and GDDR5? Therefor it increases the overall memory performance? Therefor it absolutely is not the bottleneck? thanks for the clarification!

 

[ThisWreckage]

Why is a tweet like this thread worthy when another tweet saying the PS4 OS is just as, if not more problematic not thread worthy?

Second, the esRAM IS NOT A BOTTLENECK and conceptually CANT BE A BOTTLENECK. It is an ADDITIONAL resource available to devs, it is not required which means it will absolutely NEVER be a bottleneck to the system which makes the second tweet utter bullshit.

The fact is I've heard that the bottleneck is at least 3 different things, which means nobody actually knows what the bottleneck in the system is.

 

[Rich!]

So the OS of an unreleased console is not functioning 100%? Shocker. Does anyone expect MS to release a console that crashes all the time? It would be suicide.

They released a console that had a near 100% hardware failure rate (RROD).

Releasing a console that crashes all the time? Sure - worse has happened.

 

[xaosslug]

Wrong on both counts.

why don't you correct VladDracule, instead?

 

[Ascended Saiyan]

Tread carefully with that, you know you're sarcasm trolling.

I'm being dead serious no sarcasm

He will go down as legend for years to come

 

[AlphaDump]

Wrong on both counts.

Actually I agree. the ESRAM is fast, just 32MB. the 8 gigs of RAM is the bottleneck because it is 60 gb/s vs. PS4's 170 gbs

if the ESRAM was 8 GB then xbox winrar.

 

[DopeyFish]

why don't you correct VladDracule, instead?

He's correct, actually.

 

[astraycat]

aside from the fact that it isnt nearly big enough to cause that type of a bottleneck? Depending on how its addressable by the GPU then the GPU can theoretically move a full up amount of information in and out of it at a minimum of 2 clock cycles which will not starve the rest of the ALU for resources.

That it's tiny is the very reason you'd have to do an excessive amount of swapping. Essentially ~66 - ~80% (depending of which numbers you pick as the truth) of your entire system bandwidth that you'd want to use for rendering is devoted to 0.4% of your entire system memory. Thus, you'll want to be swapping whatever you need into it as often as possible, and you'll have to wait for that swap. Swapping the memory means you'll have to do things like flush the GPU caches, and adds a lot of potential synchronization points.

Its use is not free.

 

[mdtauk]

I suspect the only reason the eSRAM decision is being considered a bottleneck, is because the Playstation 4 does not implement the same RAM allocations.

It could only be considered a bottleneck by studios working on multi-platform titles who will now have to write memory managers which distinguish between the platforms the build is compiled for. Something which is already accounted for and much more so with the current gen platforms which are much more differentiated.

The engine designers will account for this, and internal engines can be written with this in mind. Then the games themselves can just send their Memory I/O calls to the manager, which will handle the correct and optimised procedures.

Basically anything that is vastly different between the two platforms could be considered a bottleneck to those writing the code which handles the interop between hardware/drivers and the rendering code.

 

[Tookay]

So the OS of an unreleased console is not functioning 100%? Shocker. Does anyone expect MS to release a console that crashes all the time? It would be suicide.

Sup.

 

[ShapeGSX]

compare to a system that uses gddr5. You are not comparing it to a system that have the same ram[ddr3].

Building game on both systems the small esram will be a huge bottleneck and pain in the ass. Sameway the cell was in the ps3...

Then the DDR3 is the bottleneck, not the ESRAM.

 

[Wurdfurd]

So what your saying is the esRAM improves and or closes the gap between DDR3 and GDDR5? Therefor it increases the overall memory performance? Therefor it absolutely is not the bottleneck? thanks for the clarification!

It bottlenecks the potential of the console. The way you're brain is working is like its not a bottleneck because its better than DDR3. No one is arguing that point. What we are saying is that it bottlenecks the potential power of the hardware its packed with.

 

[FranXico]

They released a console that had a near 100% hardware failure rate (RROD).

It was closer to about 30%, which is by all means unacceptable. But 100% is an exaggeration.

 

[Loudninja]

It really does seem like it though. Especially when various intheknows here seem to be quoting the same furious source and smashing every positive X1 note on cue, while others are saying it's not actually too bad at the moment.

Panello's comments were reasonable and somewhat reassuring.

His job is PR.

 

[badcrumble]

So what your saying is the esRAM improves and or closes the gap between DDR3 and GDDR5? Therefor it increases the overall memory performance? Therefor it absolutely is not the bottleneck? thanks for the clarification!

I totally get what you're trying to say (and I think a good amount of the people laughing at you aren't 100% sure what they're talking about), but the *size* of the ESRAM (32MB) is the bottleneck in question, not its bandwidth. Using the ESRAM is basically necessary, but, as I understand it, a lot of the things you'd want to do with something like that are obstructed by its sheer smallness.

I suspect the only reason the eSRAM decision is being considered a bottleneck, is because the Playstation 4 does not implement the same RAM allocations.

It could only be considered a bottleneck by studios working on multi-platform titles who will now have to write memory managers which distinguish between the platforms the build is compiled for. Something which is already accounted for and much more so with the current gen platforms which are much more differentiated.

The engine designers will account for this, and internal engines can be written with this in mind. Then the games themselves can just send their Memory I/O calls to the manager, which will handle the correct and optimised procedures.

Basically anything that is vastly different between the two platforms could be considered a bottleneck to those writing the code which handles the interop between hardware/drivers and the rendering code.

Also this.

 

[Slashlen]

It really does seem like it though. Especially when various intheknows here seem to be quoting the same furious source and smashing every positive X1 note on cue, while others are saying it's not actually too bad at the moment.

Panello's comments were reasonable and somewhat reassuring.

The problem is Penello's a MS PR guy. It's his job to make you feel better. The reason things get swatted down so fast is that this has already happened several times, and people here have figured out who they can trust and who blows smoke.

 

[borghe]

So what your saying is the esRAM improves and or closes the gap between DDR3 and GDDR5? Therefor it increases the overall memory performance? Therefor it absolutely is not the bottleneck? thanks for the clarification!

I guess you missed that whole part where he said "unless it's difficult or tasking to manage"

 

[krypt0nian]

These threads do more to make me hate the PS4 than they do the X1.

There is no end to the crazy here.

 

[Dragon]

CBOAT pretty much said the same thing in a roundabout way:

Perhaps they just perceive the word 'broken' differently? Maybe a fairly sluggish snap feature is considered broken to cboat? Maybe to the dev I talked to it's not necessarily broken, just needs fixing.

Seems like semantics to me.

 

[LollipoPReapeR]

Sort of right, sort of wrong. The bottleneck is technically the RAM bandwidth as devs get to work with GDDR5 in both PC and PS4 but only DDR3 on XBONE. The eSRAM was meant to alleviate that bottleneck but has instead turned it a difficult/complicated element, compounded by devs now getting 8GB of GDDR5 on PS4 and whatever mix of DDR3/GDDR5 on PC (but probably at least 2GB GDDR5 today and near future).

So what your saying is the esRAM improves and or closes the gap between DDR3 and GDDR5? Therefor it increases the overall memory performance? Therefor it absolutely is not the bottleneck? thanks for the clarification!

There's your answer Vladdy. Sorry for the weird order. Cba changing them though

 

[xaosslug]

He's correct, actually.

OK.

lol, mess.

 

[DopeyFish]

His job is PR.

Actually, he's a group manager which has nothing to do with PR.

What he's doing here is entirely on his own.

 

[DangerMouse]

So the OS of an unreleased console is not functioning 100%? Shocker. Does anyone expect MS to release a console that crashes all the time? It would be suicide.

Hmm...

Oh wait...they have done that before:

 

[TimeEffect]

I'm being dead serious no sarcasm

He will go down as legend for years to come

Does that make you an ass kisser?

 

[Loudninja]

Actually, he's a group manager which has nothing to do with PR.

What he's doing here is entirely on his own.

Ohhh I feel silly now,thanks for the correction.