Guess I need a reality check, because the lowest GPU I see MS/Sony using for the next gen systems is 6970 (2.7TFlops) or its equivalent. I laughed at IGN's rumor where they were saying the 720 would use 6670. These systems are coming out in 2013 or later, why aim so low with your expectations? By 2013 they can fix the power usage and it could be efficient.
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Epic Reveals Samaritan Processing Requirements: 10x 360 at 1080p, (4.4x 360 at 720p)
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Brad Grenz
Member
Never forget!
My favorite part is "And it's coming to the N64..."
If your argument is "derp, we always got 10-fold power increases, so we have to again!" then you need to do some reading up on modern technology instead of talking about reality checks. This argument of "we always had 10x the power" is only used by people who don't know what they're talking about.
What's more is that a 5-10x increase in shader power definitely doesn't mean we're getting comparable increases in fillrate performance or general purpose computing power either. That will only be modest steps.
@AB12: please tell me what magic technology Microsoft will use for 'fixing the power usage'.
For late 2013? Die shrinks. It's pretty magical.
Okay. Tell me which fab is planned to go smaller than 28nm before 2014. Hint: there is only one, and they won't be making console chips.
A chip comparable to Cayman on 28nm is not going to work in a console.
I blame it on all the lens flares.
The face changing looked the best,but is not far from pc Mass Effect.Still is enough and is just an early tech demo.
That's why focusing on visuals would be a bad bad idea for the next bunch on consoles. As much as Epic wants to. I'm pretty sure consoles will do worse than the current ones anyway with how the world is changing. But if MS is going for the home entertainment box they might have a winner.
The 'we want 10x more power' comment from Epic makes sense now, if that's what is needed to run their fancy engine.
Addition: Xbox used a custom Nvidia GPU that was on par with a Geforce 3 Ti500. Launch of the PC graphics card: October 2001. Launch of the Xbox: November 2001.
Xbox 360 uses a custom AMD GPU that is between R520 and R600 tech. X1800/R520 launch: late 2005. Launch of Xbox 360: November 2005.
They have always used state-of-the-art hardware and they turned it into a 3+ billion profit with Xbox 360. They'll just keep doing for worked for them this gen. I'm expecting a HD7xxx GPU in the next Xbox. Or two high end HD6xxx GPUs.
A 6950 uses 140W at 40nm to push 2.25 TFLOPs. Surely it would be possible to use a similar architecture customized for console use to push 2.7 TFLOPs at ~100W on 28nm.
bigtroyjon
Member
Your points lose all meaning when you keep throwing in bullshit stuff like this 3 billion dollar profit number.
EvilDick34
Banned
Count me among the people who thought samaritan was ok at best. I thought textures we're pretty unimpressive along with the main guys hair, it looked spray painted on.
Indeed, the trend is clear
They will probably have a custom AMD chip based on their next line of card, 8000 probably and high end of course
I wonder if they will also introduce DX12 along with xbox720 too
manzo
Member
I blame it on all the lens flares.
The face changing looked the best,but is not far from pc Mass Effect.Still is enough and is just an early tech demo.
Oh god, the smoke is coming out of his skin, not from his mouth or nose. Cannot unsee!
Brad Grenz
Member
Yeah, it's called Pitcairn that AMD is about to launch on 28nm as the Radeon 7870. ~6970 level performance at about the same die size and thermal budget as the RSX had at launch. An easy 10-12x improvement over the 360 for a $400 targeted console in the 2013 time frame. DCKing just has a mental block about this stuff.
I really hope its the 8000, but it is very unlikely, maybe they could use a hybrid of 7000 and 8000 tech.
That is what i meant really
, when i said based on 8000 Something based on the their next gen of tech for 8000 series, like they did on 360 with the unified shaders architecture etc
PC parts differ from custom console GPUs anyway, 360 for example had a trade off of raw power with a unified shader array with auto balancing which more efficiently used the shader pipeline
Oh god, the smoke is coming out of his skin, not from his mouth or nose. Cannot unsee!
YOU ARE RUINING THE NEXTGEN!
also cant unsee
You cannot argue based on historical trends. Technology has changed since 2001, and has changed since 2005. Stop doing this, please. Of course the chip will be cutting edge. But it will not be powerful compared to PC tech. People will also stop taking you seriously when you are suggesting a dual GPU console.
That is right. But we're already scaling back now - 2.25 TFLOPS isn going to render Samaritan in 1080p. If you read my first post is that I said that 2.5 TFLOPS would be 'barely possible' if they were powerhouse consoles and I still mean that. Although I do contest that the shrinking and 'optimizing' would leave a comparable GPU at 100W, I do think that if Sony and Microsoft would explore the edges of what's possible in the confinements of a console it might just be possible.
The notion that Sony and MS are actually doing that is quite silly however - it's based on wishful thinking rather than reality. Releasing a console like that would most definitely result in a console that's both larger in size and power consumption than the original 360 (which was quite bad by itself), as well as far more difficult to shrink down as die shrinks become ever more complex and slower in progress. We have seen two manufacturers taking huge losses on their consoles (at least very substantially for Sony), and we have seen many problems in scaling down the hardware and getting down the price. Furthermore, we've seen that graphics really don't matter: both high powered consoles have been flat out beaten by a console that was a rehash of the previous generation that even barely had third party support. Furthermore, sales of both of those consoles have only increased later on while their technology was heavily outclassed by budget PCs. Releasing a high powered console has stopped making business sense.
My expectation based on rumours, statements and current technology: Wii U: 0.8-1 TFLOPS (AMD engineer supposedly said 1+ TFLOPS, but let's see about that first), Xbox 3 if SoC 0.7-1.3 TFLOPS or else 1.2-1.8 TFLOPS, PS4 1.5-2.0 TFLOPS.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Never forget!
I can't believe we once thought those were mindblowing graphics.
I went berserk when i first time saw texture filtering on a Voodoo 1 card running Tomb Raider 1. That was the moment when 3D games became flagship products of video game industry.
Annoying Old Party Man
Member
I'm not sure how to process this information. Does this mean Wii U will be potentially very close to the other 2 new consoles? Will the next Unreal Engine be very scalable with a low entry point? Does it mean that Nintendo is probably shooting after all for a system just slightly better than Xbox 360?
I doubt the target for next gen systems will be 1080p
Samaritan will run in 720p and maybe have even better visuals and the hardware to do it can easilly be on xbox 720 next gen
The best part is that Epic is close to MS, even influence their hardware with 360 and i am sure the graphics they want for the next excluisve for 720 will be MS target too
As for comparing it to PC, of course even if 720 is a bit more beefy than a 2013 PC, it will still be surpassed in months
But we cant really compare, since this hardware will be
1. custom made for removing bottlenecks
2. will be sqeezed out of performance and tricks to the last drop after launch
Comparing it to PC is meaningless
If we compared a 7800GTX SLI to Xenos back then, who would have though Xenos would still be very relevant runing Witcher 2, Crysis 1-2 etc with amazing visuals and (for the most part) steady frame rates at a tiny fraction of the cost
MrTroubleMaker
Member
Thanks, I like these presentations that John and Tim do occasionally.
Always-honest
Banned
I rather see them making games in 720p and use the extra power for framerate, anti aliassing, textures and stuff
When MS designed the 360, they had an interest that in cutting edge technology and exclusive games because they needed that to make a difference in the market for their second console. Things have changed, and I think that Microsoft will have other interests in this case to be listening to Epic in the same way again. (Besides, expanding on the RAM is nice and all but it's a comparatively easy update to make - there is no way Epic influenced substantial parts of the CPU/GPU design or that they will for the next Xbox. Going from e.g. 2 to 3 GB in the next Xbox really isn't going to be helping that much in rendering high end graphics).
This comparison assumes squeezing out every little bit of power a console GPU will have, just like Epic squeezed out the power of the triple GTX580s used for rendering the Samaritan demo. We're not comparing PC visuals to console visuals, which cannot be compared well. We're comparing PC raw power to console raw power, which are the same FLOPS achieved using the same tech.
bigtroyjon
Member
No, we've seen one make a lot of money, one make some money with the potential for a lot more and a third lose a lot.
And both of the powerful consoles are still selling while the lower powered one is dead due to the launch power of those consoles allowing them to have a long life.
The comparison to PC's is pointless. Consoles are mainstream because of how easy they are to use for the average video game consumer.
Not a chance that the WiiU baseline is higher than the xbox 3 or that the PS4 baseline is double the xbox 3.
LOL
All indicators show that people don't care about graphics. The Xbox 360 doesn't still sell because the graphics are still 'acceptable', it sells because it has the games people want.
Of course, because it's Nintendo lol.
No, I'm actually serious
ugh, no. vfx maybe but dropping resolution to gain some aa and framerate, never.
Opus Angelorum
Member
A game running at 720p with a static frame-rate and good levels of AA/AF will almost always look better.
bigtroyjon
Member
Those games people want wouldn't be possible on a lower powered system. Many of them struggle to run on the 360/PS3 as it is now. And people do care about graphics, they just don't care enough to deal with the extra trouble PC gaming brings to the table for the average user.
Microsoft has gotten a ton of benefits from a longer generation, you can bet they will attempt to do that again.
edit-The first Gears of War wouldn't have sold to 1/3 of the 360 user base if people didn't care about graphics. People may not care about all the silly nuances that graphic whores break down or the exact resolution but they care about good looking games.
By what Epic suggested, seems like they did not much optimize for the 580 at all
They actually said that they could do it with a single 580 with optimization
My guess is that they created a GPU array with enough power to run the demo, than optimize the demo code, based on what they said
Plus i think only the 1.5GB VRAM of one of those cards was used in the demo and not the combined VRAM of the 3 GPUs
Also MS always has an interest in bringing the spectacular factor in their systems, it is what made 360 so successfull in the first place, so why would they try the risky unknown approach that they have never taken before ?
Wii success was a one in a million thing imo and MS does not seem like the kind that would go that way at all, why risk loosing everything, when can go the safe way with a very strong system that will eventually drop in price and a very cheap 360 on the market to also partly cover for the possible losses until 720 takes off
Indeed
What Epic, CD Rpoject and Crytek are doing right now is performing optimization miracles with 360, but if it was lower and had 256MB ram those would have stopped with Gears 2, which would not even look that good
The main reason 360 tunred profitable in a big way and sells so well, is that games remained relevant even in 2012
In what world is releasing a low power cheap system more of a risk than a high power system?! How could they lose everything? In what way is the Wii a one in a million thing? (Were the PS2 and all of Nintendo's handheld systems one in a million things as well?!)
Some very big assumptions are made in this thread about what would have happened if the 360 was less powerful.
Handheld systems are not home consoles
Also PS2 was rather impressive visually for its time, it was not anything like Wii case i guess
A cheap system that wont last and will offer far inferior visuals to PC and PS4 would only make core gamers move to other systems, xbox would totally loose its brand power
For example after buying my Wii, i have hated Nintendo so much that i would never buy a WiiU until far later in its life and even that is questionable, Nintendo definaly lost me with Wii
Of course they could make a casual gamer only system and xbox be destroyed completly as a real gaming system, but that would be a crazy move imo for MS standards
CAN NOT UNSEE! XDDOh god, the smoke is coming out of his skin, not from his mouth or nose. Cannot unsee!
lol
Do you have any indication that you (or any agreeing GAFer) is actually a good example for the gaming market? We're not arguing personal preferences here, but we're trying to speculate on real world stuff.
Come on. Because we're not getting a "high power system" it doesn't automatically mean some crazy low power (dur dur casual dur dur) system. It's going to be a good jump to next gen, it's just not going to be the fantasy land people are expecting.
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
Make it 10x more powerful, MS. 720p would be a joke!
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I think you got it slightly confused. PICA does have Shader Model 2.0 vertex shader units. You're right that the fixed shading pixel units perform typical PS2.0 tasks. /off-topic
So we finally have some ALU performance metrics for Samaritan? Good.
I dont think anyone expects fantasy land
A better than 580 GPU and Samartian graphics in 2 years is not fantasy, is expected and is something that would make a big clear difference to current gen
Also why not plan a system with lasting power than will not be irrelevant 3 years after launch and stop getting 3rd party games completly, when it is proven that it can turn very profitable in the end
I dont know how profitable Wii was comparing to 360, but the lack of 3rd party support i suppose would hurt profits of any console system
As for Wii, indeed that was my personal opinion, but since i was a huge Nintendo fan and was so dissapointed with Wii, i guess i cant be alone
What? I thought they've stressed the point that it was unoptimized back then on 3 580s.
bigtroyjon
Member
You wrote that you think it could be outputting .7 TFLOPs when the 360 8 years earlier did .25. How is that a good jump or not crazy low power?(and yes, I know that's not all that goes into it but you seriously think that after 8 years they can't get a graphics card with 3 times the output?)
The only fantasy land in this thread is you suggesting that the lowest possible outcome for the WiiU still has it being above a possible xbox 3 output.
You can repeat this 30x times and there are still be people that will think that You actually need to many processing power ;\
Because profitable from the start and lasting 5 years can be even more profitable (e.g. almost every Nintendo console ever)?
The only reason this gen has lasted so long is precisely because MS and Sony could start covering their losses. The fact that they're making money now is good on them, but it's only covering for the horrible first years they had. Don't pretend MS and Sony have found a miracle business plan, they only found a good way to make up for their earlier mistakes (mistakes from a business perspective).
Okay, fair enough. That doesn't mean you could simply remove two GTX580s and hope that 'optimization' is going to save you though.
I find is strange too that 720 is supposed to be weaker than WiiU, when 360 has so much stronger than Wii, even with one year ealrier release, WiiU has a huge screen in the pack that means a huge ammount of the retail price will go there than graphics and when 720 is coming a year or more later
And 720 has developers like Epic and Crytek that will definalty want something beefy to push too
If anything, by all the above, i would expect 720 to do Samaritan in 1080p easilly, if WiiU can do it in 720p
Yes, i agree, even though i dont know the profit comparissons between Wii and 360, but in the process they keep their name and relevance to core gaming, i dont think anyone can deny how Wii was for core gamers this generation, it was definatly not 360 or PS3
And if Epic says it can be done on one 580, then why not ? I am sure the code was very unoptimized and they confirmed it too
Plus the custom 720 GPU will not be an exact 580, will be a custom chip using latest 2013 tech and probably a lot better
And GPUs dont scale 3x when you add more, unless they made some very custom design and busses, which i doubt, they even used only one of the 1.5GB VRAM banks in the demo as confirmed
And of course the demo was not 720p, 30fps that will be the target for next gen consoles, in fact they could remove the 2 GPUs and run it at that resolution with one with minor optimization (if at all)
Yes, You can. There were many things unoptimized in this demo, whole bokeh, tessellation, MSAA, 3x580 were there to ensure there was no drop below 60fps, so its quite possible etc. Also 3x580 doesny give 300% of 580, but more like 200-220%.
McHuj
Member
I believe it was running at a resolution of 2560x1440 as well.
AMD's 2013 APU, Kaveri, is supposed to have a GPU on the SOC that's 1 TFlop. That will be a processor that around that has a TPD of around 100W and a retail price of around $100. If MS is going with a SOC, I bet they'll have one easily as capable as it will be tuned more for gaming versus general purpose.
Assuming those theoretical flop requirements are close enough, I have no doubt that the next xbox will be able to have Samaritan graphics at 720p. 1080p is open to debate, but not out of the realm of impossibility, but it would have to be with a discrete GPU and not an APU.
herzogzwei1989
Banned
This thread is certainly interesting to read. I don't have anything to add right now, just wanted to say I'm following this stuff closely.
Of course it's about what you define crazy low power. I though the Wii was crazy low power for example. A 0.7 TFLOPs console would definitely have a noticeable leap over the 360, considering not only the tripling of raw computing power but also stuff like more memory + EDRAM removing some bottlenecks, and some new stuff like tesselation will create some nicer effects.
And why is that? Last I checked the only available rumours had the next Xbox pegged had a SoC or a discrete chip based on an HD6670 and the Wii U at HD4830 (which is more powerful). Now you may not believe that (and I too think it's very likely the next Xbox 3 is more powerful), but based on actual evidence at this time it actually is a scenario that may happen. I'm sorry for trying to reason with actual evidence instead of "how it should be done" or "how it turned out last generations" (both of which are invalid), but these rumours are the only thing we have to go by at this point.
That's the whole point of that Epic is saying, isn't it? The thing is that it needs to be scaled down. That's not called optimization. That's scaling stuff down. Nobody's arguing against Samaritan like graphics on the next gen consoles, but it will definitely be scaled down when compared to the actual thing.