Note: I do NOT want this thread to become a total war between Scorpio and PS4 Pro. That's not what this is about. Take fanboyism elsewhere please!
So by the end of November (probably) this year we will have two mid gen console refreshes from MS and Sony on the market. Both have taken a different strategy:
Sony have gone with a safer, cheaper option which uses increased GPU power and favours the rendering technique known as "checkerboarding" to help increase graphical resolution. They have done this while keeping the architecture of the PS4 Pro very similar to the original, which allows for very easy backwards compatibility with older titles. Pro is capble of running games at 4k native, however there is a clear emphasis on use of checkerboarding for most new, AAA games.
Microsoft have gone down a slightly different route - they have made much more radical changes to the OG Xbox One's architecture, changing it's RAM system from DDR3 and ESRAM to a big chunk of GDDR5, similar to that found in PS4 only more of it. They have also made various customisations to the Jaguar CPU as well as increasing the clock speeds. Exact details of how much faster the CPU is than the original Jaguar aren't exactly clear yet to my knowledge.
MS' goal is simple - focus on native 4k where possible and if there's any performance overhead then either use it to lock the framerate or add more bells and whistles. Sony clearly are betting heavily on checkerboarding as PS4 Pro has less raw graphical grunt and various bits of hardware which make checkerboarding more efficient.
Therefore, the question is going to be: Checkerboard 4k Vs native? Obviously native will be a sharper image, there is absolutely no denying this. How much more demanding is native 4k than CB 4k, however? Is the difference in image quality worth the performance loss?
Would you prefer a game which achieves 4k through checkerboarding and is then able to utilise better graphical effects such as sharper texture filtering / shadow maps etc, or which dials back some of these effects in order to reach a true, native 4k? If given a choice, which would you pick? Is Checkerboard 4k "good enough" in your opinion and so developers should focus on other effects? Or is truly native 4k, even if it means slightly fewer bells and whistles or slight frame drops, always the best option?
So by the end of November (probably) this year we will have two mid gen console refreshes from MS and Sony on the market. Both have taken a different strategy:
Sony have gone with a safer, cheaper option which uses increased GPU power and favours the rendering technique known as "checkerboarding" to help increase graphical resolution. They have done this while keeping the architecture of the PS4 Pro very similar to the original, which allows for very easy backwards compatibility with older titles. Pro is capble of running games at 4k native, however there is a clear emphasis on use of checkerboarding for most new, AAA games.
Microsoft have gone down a slightly different route - they have made much more radical changes to the OG Xbox One's architecture, changing it's RAM system from DDR3 and ESRAM to a big chunk of GDDR5, similar to that found in PS4 only more of it. They have also made various customisations to the Jaguar CPU as well as increasing the clock speeds. Exact details of how much faster the CPU is than the original Jaguar aren't exactly clear yet to my knowledge.
MS' goal is simple - focus on native 4k where possible and if there's any performance overhead then either use it to lock the framerate or add more bells and whistles. Sony clearly are betting heavily on checkerboarding as PS4 Pro has less raw graphical grunt and various bits of hardware which make checkerboarding more efficient.
Therefore, the question is going to be: Checkerboard 4k Vs native? Obviously native will be a sharper image, there is absolutely no denying this. How much more demanding is native 4k than CB 4k, however? Is the difference in image quality worth the performance loss?
Would you prefer a game which achieves 4k through checkerboarding and is then able to utilise better graphical effects such as sharper texture filtering / shadow maps etc, or which dials back some of these effects in order to reach a true, native 4k? If given a choice, which would you pick? Is Checkerboard 4k "good enough" in your opinion and so developers should focus on other effects? Or is truly native 4k, even if it means slightly fewer bells and whistles or slight frame drops, always the best option?