I'm sure you do.
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PS4 Architect Mark Cerny: 'Cloud won't work well to boost graphics'
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I'm sure you do.
Alx
Member
It depends who you ask I suppose, but I remember from the beginning (during the technical keynote of the May reveal) the developers being quite clear about the difference between latency sensitive tasks, and the difficulties like handling packet loss...
Most of the "cloud boosting graphics" theories are just wishful thinking or just silly declarations by non-tech people. I think it's quite clear there are some interesting things that can be offloaded to servers, just like it's clear there are things that cannot be done there.
MS seem to believe in that technology, and their main benefit in that field is probably that their environment, API and cloud services have been prepared from the beginning to handle it.
Yeah I read those, and it still didn't read to me like they said the cloud would make graphics better.
They never said ti would increase polygon counts, texture detail, particle effects or post processing.
They also said "an example might be".
Seems like given the mode everyone is in right now and given this is a Cerny interview, everyone just jumps in.
ShinKagato
Neo Member
"the power of the cloud" is just another misused buzzword, it can be used for a lot of things, dedicated servers, downloadable content etc but its never going to be a good way to offload any kind of realtime data. One day when the world has the internet we have all been promised then sure, ill believe it, but for now its something that is useful as a tool to aid a console, but its not currently good enough to be the physical part of a game.
Maybe ill be proven wrong, id acutally like to see it work they way Microsoft claim, but it just sounds like more smoke and mirrors like Sony's emotion engine on PS2.
Maybe ill be proven wrong, id acutally like to see it work they way Microsoft claim, but it just sounds like more smoke and mirrors like Sony's emotion engine on PS2.
travisbickle
Member
You and Dragonelite have said the same, and I have never heard anything like this before?
I'm no tech expert, but I do pop into the "build a PC' thread that's on GAF because it interests me. And they always talk about upgrading your GPU to improve the graphics, getting drivers to improve capabilities, overclocking/cooling for efficiency. But I've never heard anyone say "why don't you offload some computations to a second computer, you know to free up your system to do other things?"
sankt-Antonio
:^)--?-<
Actually yes, PR should be about the truth, they may make the bad news "sound" better then it is and the good better then it is - but they should never lie. lying to a costumer is not PR its fucking lying, period.
backbreaker65
Banned
Read Post #18
I feel as if both Sony and MS are avoiding a lot as to what their next gen cloud servers can do. I really want to know more about Gaikai for PS4 but it feels like I'm missing something important about it. :x
Granted it still won't change my interest of said consoles (just a big "meh" right now.), but it'd be nice to know!
Granted it still won't change my interest of said consoles (just a big "meh" right now.), but it'd be nice to know!
perineumlick
Member
Wow. People getting turnt up over these clouds....
Uhm, I never take any PR to heart. There is always something that they are being coy about or rephrase to make it sound or look better. Never, ever, trust, somebody who wants to sell you something.
That's just me though.
A modern gpu can churn through a couple of hundred GB every second. Anyone believing that a couple of MB/s (if you are lucky) from the "Cloud" will make any meaningful improvement to the graphics, is living in a dreamworld...
Hmmm, I guess Microsoft chose the blue pill... LOL
Hmmm, I guess Microsoft chose the blue pill... LOL
CambriaRising
Member
It's you, and some other people. But the vast majority just drink it down and accept it.
That's the problem, that is what upsets people.
Sounds like selective pardoning. 'Might be' in this instance means it's something that could benefit from cloud computing, and in the context, it's absolute rubbish.
And lol at drawing a distinction that separates lighting as an element of graphics...
Alx
Member
That's because a software has to be designed from the beginning to have tasks offloaded somewhere else, it's not as easy as upgrading a CPU or GPU so that the same task can be done faster.
But there are many situations on PC too where there are benefits to use distant computations. Many developers would rather have their program compiled on another machine than have it slowing down their work station for example. Things like voice recognition or auto-completion are better done on a server than on your machine, both for resource usage and access to a larger/evolutive database.
But I don't think people should consider cloud computing as an alternative to "boosting your performance". It's more a set of additional features than available raw power.
Well, if it frees up system resources, sure it can.
not_so_special
Banned
a lot of people believe it..even some journos
Hmmm, seems to me that you chose the blue pill too..
Read carefully through what I wrote and think it through before replying.
Realistically we are still several years away from any meaningful graphical improvements, let alone 40x, which is just silly IMO. a PS4 can churn through 176GB/s , how in the world can a couple of MB/s from the cloud outpace that by 40x.... It can't. Sometimes it really is that simple. Do not believe everything big companys tell you. They are really in it JUST to make money, and if telling you a little white lie every once in a while, the why not...
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
not really, cloud computing is pretty exciting for me when talking about the non-gaming space, what pisses me off is some douchebag stomping around and claiming I should be 'actively monitored for spreading fud' when saying MS has a better cloud capability than Sony do.
They fucking do, they are one of the largest cloud players, rival to google, Sony is not.
What is unproven is how well this will impact gaming. Of course a spokesman for Sony will claim that it's 'not a big deal' and he might be right. But time will tell for both of em and Sony is obviously looking into the possibilities as well.
Neuromancer
Member
Mr.Monitor
Member
Edit: beaten
Whiteshirt
Member
I'm fairly sure people like Arthur Gies definitely believed Microsoft's claims for cloud computing. And the problem is that such people are ultimately influential no matter what you think of them.
People get upset because you have some guy spewing crap all over the place and people actually believe it, whether intentionally or unintentionally. If Intel started spewing lies about how AMD processors are physically unsafe and the mass public believe these claims, you would see people get "mad".
SneakyStephan
Banned
He is right...
and dedicated servers aren't new, welcome to pc gaming since the early 90s, enjoy the view.
Probably one of the most desperate GAF mini-memes I've seen in the last few months.
I'm sure some do, that's always the case with everything. You can't fight somethings.
However, as somebody who regularly visits forums, this cloud business is bullshit and should really put no real stock into it. Getting mad seems detrimental.
Ugh, I've derailed this thread enough. If anybody wants to debate this further PM me.
Uhm, most of them get that through PR though. Just saying, they are a logical extension to the media coming out.
Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
First off, let me thank both of you for even responding to such an unintelligible post. Holy shit.
Speaking of holy shit: Holy shit, the things that pass for memes these days.
Huh? Come on mate, don't be like that. If the Xbox One/PS4 can offload non time-vital tasks (e.g. AI, crowds, etc...), they can use those freed system resources for other time-vital tasks. Make sense?
perineumlick
Member
That's all fine and good, but it's not worth a possible ban for name calling or whatever. I almost got caught up like that myself; it's not worth it to get that upset over gaming; shit's supposed to be fun! ; )
mangochutney
Member
Except Azure is a commercial product available for anyone - including Sony if they wanted - to purchase.
In addition you have other cloud operators available, Sony currently use Amazon for certain things on PSN.
it seems to me that if you're genuinely interested in 'getting out the truth' or whatever in a company's PR then you should probably set up a website and write articles (or freelance for an existing one) instead of making posts on a webforum that is predominantly read by people who already agree with what you're saying
I actually think this is really interesting, I wonder if MS offer incentives to developers/publishers to use Azure even for cloud computing services on PS4
I actually think this is really interesting, I wonder if MS offer incentives to developers/publishers to use Azure even for cloud computing services on PS4
They have Gaikai, which will have sort sort of GPU emphasised clusters since running games is it's primary use. Azure on the other hand is more CPU and virtual server emphasised, with very little in terms of GPU gaming capabilities. So I wouldn't necessarily say Microsoft is well ahead of the curve simply because they have Azure. Azure is not designed for the kind of computing you think it is, at least in relation to graphics and GPU intensive tasks. Having said that, Azure is something that is set up for wide use. I doubt they will or can even afford to just use it's infrastructure primarily for the Xbox One.
Your reaction to his post is quite telling.
That would be hilarious.
dragonelite
Member
Because games and devs don't support it.
If i could connect my gaming laptop with a ethernet cable to my desktop to get an extra 2 Tflops of compute i would. What do you think those super computer clusters are doing.
GI from the sun is hardly dynamic in anyway.
Update how sunlight propagate through a level every minute for 120 min day night cycle.
When deferred render engines can almost render unlimited amounts of point lights. You can have an spatial data structure send from the cloud that tells the game engine to put x amount of point lights with y color at z location to simulate GI from a big light source like the Sun or Moon.
You haven't been in many cloud related threads I see.
Why not. Having someone who actually has knowledge is better for forum. Could you tell us what is your job about exactly ?
But isn't the reaction to the GI and light completely dynamic? That is, dependant on the variable location of the character, world, angle, objects etc, and requiring constant updates (latency sensitive).
The console can make a AI profile of you and send it to the cloud, and then download the AI profile of all your friends, and that sounds cool and all, but... This is not a graphical improvement, even though it might improve your experience a lot. Graphical improvements is processing Graphics online in the cloud for you like the GPU does in the console itself. Therefor a couple of MB/s is not enough to make any meaningful improvements, due to the fact that the most powerful next gen console can churn though a maximum of 176 GB/s (the speed of the GDDR5). even if normal graphical operations were only to run at 50-100 GB/s, my point still stands.
Before you go further down the rabbit hole and wasting your time arguing with dragonelite be mindful that he tried to sell the MS cloud service as the reason they now have waves in Battlefield 4 multiplayer.
Would be great if you went back into the thread where 7 people asked you to clarify your statement. Right now that thread tells quite a different story from what you say now.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
not sure what you mean by the last line, Ideally for me both products will be killer and games will be everywhere and we will all shout hooray. MS doesn't have my money this time around, it's most likely sony will get it.
However, just because I don't want to support the xbox doesn't mean I'm going to readily jump on the 'haha cloud is such a bullshit term' bandwagon. MS has a lot of resources, they appear to be allocating a LOT of resources from their very large and powerful cloud system to the Xbox one and telling everyone how great it is.
I'm not really to believe they are that stupid that it's all just marketing. The fact that Sony also appears to be taking it seriously with this Gakai thing is also pretty telling that both companies see some benefits to it.
Also I though microsoft themselves said that they weren't attempting to offload GPU stuff to the cloud. I'm pretty sure at least some of the PR said they want it only for 'latency insensitive operations' which graphics processing isn't?
edit: also isn't gakai fundamentally different? Seems more like that gaming service 'onlive' where the games are streamed from the servers, so everything is occuring server side except user input.
I apologise. I'm aware better lighting is something that enhances the visuals of a game, but maybe I'm a little simpler than most. When I think 'better graphics', I just instinctively go to the old increased poly count, better textures, better effects.
I'm aware there's more to it than that, but those 3 were always the main ones for me. So I guess that could be why I didn't interpret those quotes as better graphics as a result of the cloud.
Again, I still didn't read the lighting quote as 'better lighting', I read it as offloading it.
Right lol...
But the reason I don't think what he's suggesting would work (unless it was baked), is because even if GI from the sun moves at a relatively slow rate (if they made the cycle slow), it still has to react in a very dynamic way dependant on the position of the player, the world, objects, obstacles etc. So it's not static and completely pre-calculated as he suggests it could be. Having GI and then having a completely pre-calculated or pre baked variables is sort of counter intuitive to the idea behind it, which is more realistic and dynamic lighting, as evidenced recently by Evolutions own Global Illumination and dynamic lighting engine in for example, DriveClub.
If I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected, but that is my understanding of it.
dragonelite
Member
Ever seen an shadow from the sun be dynamic that if you stared at the for like a minute changed significantly. Im mostly talking about lighting which in deferred rendering isn't that hard and could save some computation. Shadowing is more a computational intense task.
If it means you can offload the sun gi to the cloud and render more shadows then it will boost graphics a bit.
Off course you have to plan for it you could just disable GI when there is no connection to the cloud.
That is not what i said. I said they could use server to sync or run the simulation for the waves on.
But every shadow skews and warps depending on the players position. And can change completely at any given time if obstructed, or another object is put in it's way, completely switching it up in a dynamic way. It is not in any way fixed and cannot be completely pre-culculated unless it is completely pre-baked and non variable. That is why what you are suggesting can not work (unless pre-baked), and is still dependant on a latency sensitive process.
rakkadakka
Member
I don't recall reading any official source saying that it would.
