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Is Sony missing the point of hardware upgrades?

Izuna

Banned
anyone who homebrewed their PSP know that this is fucking bullshit

these games could run better but they prefer to lock yous out of that ability
 
Well can't they just sort off this fucking thing on their side?

They could simply test every game that came out and boost the ones that do not show any compatibility issues and restrict the ones that do. We're talking about 700 games. It wouldn't be that long for 20 peoples to test all of them in a way that covers most of the gameplay technicalities. We're not talking about beta testing each game from top to bottom, wall to wall either. Seriously, if they can potentially enhance 90% of the games freely with no "apparent" sign of compatibility issues, I'm glad to take that chance and risk encountering a weird bug one time or another in a game that was enhanced and supposedly bug-free.
Good grief...
 
Quoting staticneuron from the other Thread:

The Xbox One S increased the GPU clockrate from 853MHz to 914MHz not the CPU. So comparisons about the issue presented with CPU increased speed don't even apply.

The PS4pro 500MHz CPU increase, The GPU increased speed by 111MHz and has double the computational units and you are using the S which only increased speed of GPU alone by 61 MHz as a point of comparison?

You really don't see the issue with that?
 

Jumeira

Banned
Now I can't wait for Scorpio to come out and disappoint.

I think I even have a perfect name for a thread "Is MS missing the point of hardware upgrades"

Yep, we should create that thread if Scorpio is unable to enhance original X1 games, atleast greater than what X1 S currently achieves.

Phil did say expect some games to see an upgrade out the box but this is based on methods used by devs,.
 

eFKac

Member
Yep, we should create that thread if Scorpio is unable to enhance original X1 games, atleast greater than what X1 S currently achieves.

Phil did say expect some games to see an upgrade out the box but this is based on methods used by devs,.

Well that doesn't sound very encouraging, does it? Some games?

Basically confirms that most won't just like in case of the Pro.
 
From what I understand (keep in mind, I don't have a Pro devkit), it would be exceptionally easy for us to add Pro support to our game, we would just have to test it to make sure nothing weird happens. Of course, given the nature of our game (retro-style with 480 x 270 default resolution), Pro support probably wouldn't do much of anything other than lower load times (which are already rather fast) & ensure that we don't drop from 60 fps. In any case, I'm guessing most developers are in the same situation and will test their game on Pro when they get the opportunity and patch accordingly.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
It does seem overly conservative to have the CPU and GPU clock the same in unpatched games. Microsoft seemed to manage minor boosts just fine.


Perhaps it is the API though, GNM may still be lower level than DX12.

Making patches for Pro free for developers would alleviate all this...
 

Palmer27

Member
So the ps4 pro apparenty has two hardware modes. One base mode which actually lowers the clock speed and one pro mode with higher speed.

Yes they actually lower the clock speed when running ps4 native titles

Think about this for a minute.

is sonys api that talks to the hardware REALLY that fragile so they dont dare let ps4 games use that extra gpu/cpu?

Imagine if your new iphone 7 actually clocked down to run apps developed for iphone 5.. because well? Stability?

Now look at Microsoft. Even the modestly upgraded XbS improves existing titles framerates. It just works

Look at pc

Look at android devices

Etc

They all handle hardware upgrades smoothly and the software just works and runs better

Why is Sony really clocking down the ps4 pro? Imo it seems their os/api is not trustworthy enough. What other reason could it be?

So this means basically identical performance on unpatched games. Was seriously considering upgrading :(
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Wait what?! I totally missed this. If unpatched games run exactly as they did on the normal PS4, then that significantly decreases the value of the PS4 Pro for me. Yeah, I think it does miss the whole point of upgraded consoles.

I was hoping that Bloodborne, even without a PS4 Pro patch, would run at a smoother framerate on the Pro. According to this it'll run the same? This isn't the way any other platform with multiple form factors works.

Fairly early on in iOS's lifespan there were games that ran kind of shitty on the latest iPhone model when they came out but automatically ran much better on later models without any changes from the developer. The Xbox One S already runs some games slightly faster or with slightly more stable framerates. The whole idea on consoles was supposed to be like upgrading a PC from an HD 7870 to an RX 480. Sure some games would be deliberately optimized to take better advantages of the stronger hardware, but all games would get some kind of performance boost.

If the issue is instability, I think what happened is Sony didn't really prepare for this path the same way Microsoft and Apple did. Sony talks about the PS4 Pro as a mid-generation refresh, Microsoft talks about the Scorpio as if it's a blurred transition to a new hardware generation. It seems as if Sony is still, in some slight way, stuck on the old way of designing game consoles.
 

Jumeira

Banned
Well that doesn't sound very encouraging, does it? Some games?

Basically confirms that most won't just like in case of the Pro.

I read it as a range of improvements, negligible to noticeable. But thats better than 'no-improvements' when hardware is available to be taken advantage of without a patch. We'll see, but yeah, id be hugely disappointed if this was handled like PS4 Pro.
 
anyone who homebrewed their PSP know that this is fucking bullshit

these games could run better but they prefer to lock yous out of that ability

What benefit would they get out of locking you out of the ability to do this just cause? It would be a damn selling point if it helped increase performance for all PS4 games, more people would buy. They aren't blocking it just for fun.
 

NoPiece

Member
Look at pc

Look at android devices

Etc

They all handle hardware upgrades smoothly and the software just works and runs better

Are you old enough to remember the turbo button?

zAaK1HM.jpg

It was kind a misnomer, because it was really a "slow down" button that you would occasionally use to lower the speed on your PC to deal with games that broke when running too fast.
 

joebruin

Member
not going to pretend how any of this works but the difference between xbox and ps4p doesn't seem like a straight 1:1 comparison. sounds more like overclocking (xbox s) versus upgrading the hardware (ps4 pro)

on pc you generally won't have any software issues with the former (outside of stability if you don't have proper cooling) versus if you swap out the hardware you might need new drivers and/or patches for the game.

i generally don't replay games i've beaten very often though...so as long as all new releases are going to be improved on pro...this isn't that big of a deal to me.
 
as a dev, serious lolz.

i've been out of the loop for a while and was looking to buy a pro. didn't know they had this "restriction".

I'm surprised to hear that a software developer (I'm guessing that's what you mean by 'computer dev'?) supports locking software performance forever so that it can't take advantage of hardware improvements. Does that mean you agree with console ports being locked to 30fps on PC?

These aren't PC games we are talking about. These are 700 PS4 games which can have a multitude of tweaks for the specific PS4 hardware. And if the clock is not right it can have numerous bugs. Bugs that simply cannot be found by a team of 20 QA people like someone said here because games are huge and have numerous months with a huge number of QA people finding all the bugs. If Sony feels its best to lock the clock then its for the best. It is easy for devs to patch their games for the Pro so its up to them to test and see if it is worth to make the upgrade
 
Man bloodborne could really use those extra cycles. From's probably not going to patch it. I see no reason for me with my 1080p tv to buy this until Horizon comes out.
 

Mediking

Member
From what I understand (keep in mind, I don't have a Pro devkit), it would be exceptionally easy for us to add Pro support to our game, we would just have to test it to make sure nothing weird happens. Of course, given the nature of our game (retro-style with 480 x 270 default resolution), Pro support probably wouldn't do much of anything other than lower load times (which are already rather fast) & ensure that we don't drop from 60 fps. In any case, I'm guessing most developers are in the same situation and will test their game on Pro when they get the opportunity and patch accordingly.

You don't sound motivated or even excited about doing that and you're a developer.
 

Kayant

Member
Yes this is my point.

Basically Sonys api must not be very well designed
Does not bode well for eventual backwards companility with ps5 etc

Yes

That Sony shuts down part of the gpu and downclocks gpu/cpu because they are afraid of compability problems is just.. well laughable

These issues have been handled by the os/api on x86 platform since 20+ years ago

Suddenly Sony acts like forward compabilty has not been done before on this exact platform. Like it "is not possible"..

yeah well look at xbox s and i bet scorpio (it basically runs windows 10 and it just works on pc with new hardware + drivers)
Hmmm you sound like an expert so how many games have you made?
 

ethomaz

Banned
So this means basically identical performance on unpatched games. Was seriously considering upgrading :(
It is impossible do be identical.

Polaris alone add about 10% in performance increase for the GPU.

Pro's GPU disabled half units and running at the same clock than PS4's GPU will at 1-3 fps to some games.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
So I looked at the DF article. I understand the reasoning behind keeping CPU performance the same for older games, but I still think locking down the GPU as well might be playing it a bit too safe. That GPU upgrade by itself could make a significant difference for a lot of existing games.

Once again, it feels like Sony didn't really plan this out from the beginning, and still believes in the idea of traditional console generations cut off from each other. Or maybe future PlayStation consoles will be upgraded models that will be backwards compatible with all legacy games, but those legacy games won't see any benefit from the new hardware.
 

daman824

Member
Don't we already know that games played on Scorpio will simply run better. Games with dynamic resolutions won't drop as often (halo 5, gears 4, ect.).
 
Just read the Digital Foundry article. Jesus fuck.

Lack of 4k Blu-Ray is something I couldn't care less about, but this forced downclocking has me riled up. I was so looking forward to play Bloodborne at a more stable performance.

Whatever Microsoft is achieving is apparently too much for Sony to pull off.
tumblr_mr3eydxxep1qj6xu1o1_500.gif

Sony wants you to double dip to get that sweet FPS
 
You don't sound motivated or even excited about doing that and you're a developer.

Our game runs well on the Vita so the regular PS4 is already overkill. I'd be happy to test the game for the PS4 Pro and see if it improves things any, but I'd need a new devkit and I'm guessing there are a lot more pressing places to send PS4 Pro devkits than to me. :)
 
Wait what?! I totally missed this. If unpatched games run exactly as they did on the normal PS4, then that significantly decreases the value of the PS4 Pro for me. Yeah, I think it does miss the whole point of upgraded consoles.

I was hoping that Bloodborne, even without a PS4 Pro patch, would run at a smoother framerate on the Pro. According to this it'll run the same? This isn't the way any other platform with multiple form factors works.

Bloodborne's problem is poor frame pacing. That is an issue on From Software's end. The Pro wouldn't fix that anyway.
 
Well games won't run any worse, so at least they will all work. Even the Xbox One S doesn't improve every game, so its not a guaranteed thing anyway and the ones that it does improve, its only a minor boost.

The CPU / GPU clock in the Pro is a much bigger boost, compared to the small boost of the Xbox One S. Maybe that bigger boost on Pro can cause issues for older games, as they were built to run on a fixed hardware spec.
 
So I looked at the DF article. I understand the reasoning behind keeping CPU performance the same for older games, but I still think locking down the GPU as well might be playing it a bit too safe. That GPU upgrade by itself could make a significant difference for a lot of existing games.

Once again, it feels like Sony didn't really plan this out from the beginning, and still believes in the idea of traditional console generations cut off from each other. Or maybe future PlayStation consoles will be upgraded models that will be backwards compatible with all legacy games, but those legacy games won't see any benefit from the new hardware.

According to Cerny

"For variable frame-rate games, we were looking to boost the frame-rate. But we also wanted interoperability. We want the 700 existing titles to work flawlessly," Mark Cerny explains. "That meant staying with eight Jaguar cores for the CPU and pushing the frequency as high as it would go on the new process technology, which turned out to be 2.1GHz. It's about 30 per cent higher than the 1.6GHz in the existing model."

"I've done a number of experiments looking for issues when frequencies vary and... well... [laughs] I think first and foremost, we need everything to work flawlessly. We don't want people to be conscious of any issues that may arise when they move from the standard model to the PS4 Pro."

It implies that issues were found so they couldn't just to a blanket upgrade across all titles. Since they cannot they leave it up to devs.



How can you not know? You posted in the DF thread. This is you right?

That's horrible, what a silly decision. For multiplayer parity reasons maybe? My goodness. So unpatched titles won't have any benefit ;(


The article is in the first post of that thread.
 
Insuring complete compatibility for 700+ games by default downclocking and leaving it up to the developers to update their titles on a case by case basis seems pretty reasonable, especially since they tested it:

"I've done a number of experiments looking for issues when frequencies vary and... well... [laughs] I think first and foremost, we need everything to work flawlessly. We don't want people to be conscious of any issues that may arise when they move from the standard model to the PS4 Pro."

There are a lot of insights if you actually read the article and don't scan it for blurbs you can meltdown over.
 
Quoting staticneuron from the other ThreadOriginally Posted by staticneuron
The Xbox One S increased the GPU clockrate from 853MHz to 914MHz not the CPU. So comparisons about the issue presented with CPU increased speed don't even apply.

The PS4pro 500MHz CPU increase, The GPU increased speed by 111MHz and has double the computational units and you are using the S which only increased speed of GPU alone by 61 MHz as a point of comparison?

You really don't see the issue with that?

You're not allowed to have any sort of intelligence or reading abilty here. I thought you knew that.
 

Izuna

Banned
How can you not know? You posted in the DF thread. This is you right?

My bad. I assumed all the important stuff from the link made its way into the OP quote. That being said... I'd still repeat my post. That reasoning is disappointing.

I guess this just outlines one difference between the UWP platform. The thing is, I don't know of any issues that arose from using the extra power for overclocking the PSP games. What issues could there be?
 

Izuna

Banned
it's encouraging but doesn't necessarily say that all older games get boosts

All games will receive a boost where they fail to reach their targets. By how much depends on the title, but it's not farfetched to say that whatever improvements we see with the S model will be further improved with Scorpio. BC titles, for example, performing better than their OG 360 versions can reap those benefits too.

I don't see why this can't happen with the Pro. If anything, I'm still waiting to see, I don't believe it'll have performance parity with the older title (on unpatched titles)
 

Bsigg12

Member
it's encouraging but doesn't necessarily say that all older games get boosts

I never said they would? The comment was about games using a dynamic resolution and Microsoft is already saying devs can use it with it being capable of working seamlessly with the Scorpio.
 

joebruin

Member
Wait what?! I totally missed this. If unpatched games run exactly as they did on the normal PS4, then that significantly decreases the value of the PS4 Pro for me. Yeah, I think it does miss the whole point of upgraded consoles.

I was hoping that Bloodborne, even without a PS4 Pro patch, would run at a smoother framerate on the Pro. According to this it'll run the same? This isn't the way any other platform with multiple form factors works.

Fairly early on in iOS's lifespan there were games that ran kind of shitty on the latest iPhone model when they came out but automatically ran much better on later models without any changes from the developer. The Xbox One S already runs some games slightly faster or with slightly more stable framerates. The whole idea on consoles was supposed to be like upgrading a PC from an HD 7870 to an RX 480. Sure some games would be deliberately optimized to take better advantages of the stronger hardware, but all games would get some kind of performance boost.

If the issue is instability, I think what happened is Sony didn't really prepare for this path the same way Microsoft and Apple did. Sony talks about the PS4 Pro as a mid-generation refresh, Microsoft talks about the Scorpio as if it's a blurred transition to a new hardware generation. It seems as if Sony is still, in some slight way, stuck on the old way of designing game consoles.

often times those apps require updates for both hardware and ios updates no? its not that dissimilar if ps4 pro requires a patch to the game as well. albeit sony may do well to help out with this. at least for the popular titles where they have metrics about how many players are still playing them.
 

GLAMr

Member
Are you old enough to remember the turbo button?



It was kind a misnomer, because it was really a "slow down" button that you would occasionally use to lower the speed on your PC to deal with games that broke when running too fast.

This. Many games developed before the advent of widespread real time clocks would behave erratically or fail when run on hardware at the wrong clock speed.

A more recent example would be Dark Souls 2. Weapon durability was tied to framerate on consoles running at 30fps. When the game was able to run at 60fps on PC, weapons would break twice as fast. These kinds of shortcuts and tricks are quite common when coding something as complex as a game. Tying a simple variable refresh to an existing timer like framerates, cpu clock or RTC requires less code and saves precious CPU cycles since you don't have to run an additional timer just for updating something like weapon durability.
 

Izuna

Banned
often times those apps require updates for both hardware and ios updates no? its not that dissimilar if ps4 pro requires a patch to the game as well. albeit sony may do well to help out with this. at least for the popular titles where they have metrics about how many players are still playing them.

afaik, when you could jailbreak an iPhone 4 way back when, you could "overclock" it an obtain better performance. that's just how mobile platform works though... and every platform ever

I've only ever heard of emulation not taking advantage of more powerful hardware for when they want to achieve the exact same experience (slow-downs and all). Underclocking the PS4 Pri is a strange decision and I'd like to hear more about why.

This. Many games developed before the advent of widespread real time clocks would behave erratically or fail when run on hardware at the wrong clock speed.

A more recent example would be Dark Souls 2. Weapon durability was tied to framerate on consoles running at 30fps. When the game was able to run at 60fps on PC, weapons would break twice as fast. These kinds of shortcuts and tricks are quite common when coding something as complex as a game. Tying a simple variable refresh to an existing timer like framerates, cpu clock or RTC requires less code and saves precious CPU cycles since you don't have to run an additional timer just for updating something like weapon durability.

Games programmed that way (even games had Titanfall (pre-patch) and Fallout 4 had issues when unlocked framerate was used) still have locked framerates on the console itself. Unpatched Dark Souls 2 will still have a 30fps cap on the PS4 Pro, underclocked or not.
 
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