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Xbox boss says hardware analysis between consoles is meaningless
- Thread starter Elginer
- Start date
But based on what we know ( those numbers ), the PS4 is superior hardware. You might refuse to agree with that but others are free to state the facts we already know. You're free to wait for software to prove it, but others are free to express their opinion on the specs and are not required to show you or anyone proof other than "some numbers".
I'm an engineer, but not in computer science
I know almost nothing about how this stuff works, but the impression I have from several posters who are a lot more knowledgeable than me is that PS4 doubling its RAM pool should not really have any effect on resolution or framerate. Memory architecture may affect this, but RAM amount should not be important (unless, possibly, if we are talking about orders-of-magnitude differences).
More RAM should allow for stuff like larger levels/worlds and more detailed textures though. Possibly it could also theoretically allow for stuff like more advanced AI routines and more complex computations, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to say whether practically RAM amount would make a difference here.
Edit: I found a post from someone who actually knows what he is talking about:
From this thread
Thank you for this expanded explanation. Very easily digestible. I am still not entirely convinced it won't be of some help in making other tasks more doable and thus allowing the engine to have a smoother framerate, but it does sound like it wouldn't be of a substantial benefit either way.
We'll see, I s'pose.
What a slut
Wait until you see the hole SEGA left
During the Forza 5 event At E3 a journalist was put in "Microsoft Jail" for taking pics of "..a laptop and a bunch of wires." Was this ever discussed?
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/06/i-got-thrown-in-microsoft-jail-for-taking-pictures-of-nothing/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/06/i-got-thrown-in-microsoft-jail-for-taking-pictures-of-nothing/
Put in "Microsoft Jail"? What the hell is that lol
Still, I think Forza 5 is running on hardware dev kits, don't know why they wouldn't be. Seems the game that is most furthest along out of the bunch.
FunkyPajamas
Member
You have defeated me with logiks.
They make you play Halo 3's Cortana on Legendary for 48 hours non-stop.
I don't know. That whole incident sounds really fishy. I mean he was the only one to see the laptop with tons of cables, and the only to take a picture of it? I don't buy it.
oh god ... just give me the death penalty instead. it's not worth it!
FunkyPajamas
Member
Nobody else made it out alive.
LMAO. MS Jail = Alcatraz?
Roland1979
Junior Member
Sim City ?
FunkyPajamas
Member
I was thinking more along the lines of Hotel California, but sure, Alcatraz is good too.
lastflowers
Banned
I am cunning and devious, after all
haha seriously though, I've been called a Nintendo fanboy, a Sony fanboy and a Microsoft fanboy all at some point through my tenure here, so I suspect that means I'm doing something terribly wrong or terrible right lol
I think it's mainly because the nature of your posts come across as very, very bombastic. There isn't a lot of mediation many times. That sort of bombastic nature is associated with the console warriors. This is from recollection, but I see them as very binary with no shades of grey.
It would be easy to misconstrue the passion for console warriorness, when it's more videogame warriorness...if you get my meaning. This is not a bad trait, per se.
I suppose a real world console example is NFS: Most Wanted.
Frame rate was pretty much same across PS3, 360 and WiiU, but the WiiU's having twice the memory allowed it to have the high resolution textures from the PC version and a few memory related effects added. The slow down found on the PS3 and 360 version when there was excessive alpha effects (memory bandwidth is key here) were also reduced on the WiiU.
Roland1979
Junior Member
Uh-huh...
lastflowers
Banned
Diablo 3?
D3 could have been done locally - instead Blizzard decided to let servers handle some tasks for cheat protection...
Console versions will work offline...
Roland1979
Junior Member
Infinitely powerful. That's the reason it can come to the PS4, coz of teh powurr.
lastflowers
Banned
Fine, I'll re-quote one of my old posts, which is one of the reasons I'm genuinely excited for a console that encourages developers to use 'da klawd' and an innately connected console to enhance single-player gameplay experiences:
I don't know about power, but I do think that having 'da klowd' can enhance gameplay in interesting ways by expanding the interconnectivity of gamers.
This is something that took me just 10 minutes or so to come up with, and I really want game developers to utilize 'da klawd' to make more interesting gameplay experiences. I've been playing the same RPGs and Platformers and Shooters for the vast majority of my life. I'd must prefer to see new ways of gaming, and I think interactivity is the one of the most interesting ways of 'altering' a typical playthrough.
Jagerbizzle
Neo Member
Great examples, it's nice to see that some people are excited about the possibilities. This just scratches the surface of what devs will be able to do.
It's such a pointless PR mess they created on the Cloud front too - instead of just being straightforward about the limited applications for such a thing and not trying to imply that it in some magical way allows their inferior specs to compete with vastly superior tech, they flubbed a simple underlined asterisk for their products that would have just made people think 'that's neat.'
Instead, now it's a punchline, everyone pretty much knows it's the type of 'advantage' that can be erased (or matched) in a second if its competitors decided to invest (even though technically that is already erased and then trampled upon by the significantly superior PS4 power advantage). It was just silly poor messaging everywhere from MS. They kept tripping themselves up for no reason. Really good Mattrick is leaving.
Arkam
Member
What limitations are those? Its additional computing power... its really only as limited as your imagination and technical prowess. Is it the holy grail? No! But it is a resource I would have KILLED for last gen. Yes Sony could easily do the same thing... but they haven't yet. Doing and making it a standard feature is world different than "can do". If it is not a STANDARD feature it really does not matter in the world of game development. (well unless SOny/MS/Nintendo "moneyhat's", usually with marketing support. I know thats how we put M+, Move, and Kinect into our game. Each of those were "paid for")
And its only a punchline among those who get their "facts" from the internet. Talk to an online engineer actually working on the platform. I talk to my old team all teh time and they have so many great ideas they are in the infancy of developing.
The ONLY thing i'd knock MS for (at this point) is for having subpar PR dept that couldn't present the info properly.
Limits as in virtually anything that is bandwidth prohibited, which is the vast, vast majority of gaming engine tasks. Like I said, they tried to make it seem like it'd make the Xbox One 40x powerful, like it'll skyrocket past the competition - despite its comically inferior specs - simply by gliding gracefully upon its little fluffy imagined skyscape of magical bullshit technology.
I knew it was PR, virtually everyone on NeoGAF called them on it and the media called them on it, and they're just now finally getting back to reality and more honestly explaining the actual benefits. Shit, it actually took Respawn Studios to really do it best for them, as they explained it a simple, straightforward fashion that didn't require colorful obfuscating language in attempts to deceive the consumer.
Yeah, I'm really going to go to the teams intimately invested in shit they've been working on for years for accurate information regarding the potential applications. No offense, the MS team in its entirety has been shoveling shit into the face of gamers all year, they sort of are on probation when it comes to taking anything they say at face value. That said, I already know the benefits of Cloud, the point is not that there are zero benefits, it's that the benefits are limited and, of course, given that all users (thank Allah) no longer have to be online, must be such that the impact on the engine and gameplay is most of the time going to remain relatively limited. No dev (edit: or should I say MOST devs... some online-only games will certainly use it more) is going to force a large portion of their userbase out of the equation for some feature that only has super limited functionality that will be noticed only at the small scale most of the time. (31 million Xbox 360 users virtually never connected to the internet; countless more did the same on PS3 and Wii. These are no small percentages).
Like I said, it's a neat asterisk. it doesn't make Xbox One particularly special and it doesn't dig them out of the technological hole they've put themselves in, but it's neat.
Wow:
EDIT: lol, I thought he misspelled 'probably', I now see he used the verb to prove.
Happypwnstar
Banned
I thought that's why it was a console...for gaming ya know...? Ill just go out and buy a blu-ray player for gaming.
What do you honestly think the cloud is capable of? Cause by the way you're psyched for it, I can pretty much say the cloud can't do that.
And Sony has a cloud too. They didn't put it to the forefront like MS did because ITS NOT A BIG DEAL.
Arkam
Member
This is me taking the first thing off the top of my head...
GTA. The city you are walking around in is being run by the servers. So it is a 100% living city. NPCs do not disappear around the corner. They may not be rendered in game when not in view, but their movement and such is non stop. All the console is doing is rendering what you see and sending your inputs to the servers. Think about that for a second. How much more "real" and "alive" would that world be? No more people/items/cars randomly generating,
Is this going to happen, no clue. But just one use of having dedcated servers for extra computing.
and thats off teh top of my head.
Edit: Oh and sony could do the exact same thing if they wanted. Its just a matter of doing it actually. Hope they do.
This is going to be another problem MS faces in the future for the few people that DO have unrealistic expectations for The Cloud. It can do some stuff not so dependent on latency, but you're still not going to get it to somehow 40x the power of the 360 compared to 10x. I said this earlier that they just set themselves up for a punchline since they never emphasize on it and only limit its talk to PR terms and the only real information came from Respawn and that still wasn't a lot. If they came out and said that it means more dedicated servers for your favorite games with more functionality in some of them, people would take that as it is instead of saying it somehow boosts the console's power to infinite numbers (which is 40x compared to 10x I guess? lol).
The shot themselves in the foot when it should be a good thing that can't really be complained about, yet they made it into an unattainable goal using PR terms so now it's never going to live up to their hype. If they can do more computing on there, that's great but it's still limited by A LOT of factors that have been listed time and time again that won't ever equate to somehow magically boosting performance of the hardware to such an extreme level. Hell, some PC games have used dedicated servers for minor computing too but they know their limitations as well since there's only so much you can do with the internet today.
It could be a lot more important in the future, but today it's not going to live up to the hype the created for it but they keep pimping it as the great equalizer. I was happy with how many Sony exclusives on the PS3 used dedicated servers so of course I'm excited at the prospect of MS even making it just a little bit easier for devs to switch to dedicated servers for their MP games. It's the main reason I bought COD over and over again on PC and stopped once they started messing with dedicated server rights on there. It's a must for a twitch shooter.
GAF 2013 reminds me so much of the 2006 edition, except the target of jabs was Sony at the time.
Still, I don't think the specs advantage will matter that much at all. As proven by games like Quantum Break, the One is really a powerful machine, capable of producing AMAZING visuals. The differences will be minimal, imo, and won't convince a Halo fan, for exemple, of changing camps.
Still, I don't think the specs advantage will matter that much at all. As proven by games like Quantum Break, the One is really a powerful machine, capable of producing AMAZING visuals. The differences will be minimal, imo, and won't convince a Halo fan, for exemple, of changing camps.
And what happens when you decide to play the game offline?
Pistolero said:
Argh, as proven by nothing you mean. That is not evidence you can produce at trial for the substantive difference in power for these two systems. lol
Oh geez.
Liabe Brave
Member
If you're talking singleplayer, you don't need dedicated servers or the cloud for that. All you need is a table of possible behaviors/moods for the actors, and a design that requires them to persist. This can easily be stored on disc and run locally. For example, Morrowind did it on the original Xbox.
If you mean one persistent identical city for multiplayer to use, then yes that requires dedicated servers, to keep all the actors in sync for all the player clients. But in that case there's nothing new about it; any multiplayer game with bots has done it already.
I'm not saying your idea is bad, or that some games wouldn't be improved. It's just that due to bandwidth, using the cloud for true local singleplayer will almost always be inferior to on-disc assets. Using the cloud for multiplayer on the other hand is truly useful--even indispensable sometimes--but not novel.
Arkam
Member
Sadly for that you would have to require an online connection. Though maybe you could have an offline mode that was a "free play" mode that let you play the game but didnt save progress since it wasnt the "real" world you are in. I mean i guess.
Thats why it would be prefered to have a platform require a connection instead of the game. Prevents developers from holding back on certain features because they think will only reach a fraction of an install base. "Only X% of players connected to our game servers or our last game, so this time we shouldnt put as much efort into those features" <-- That Happens
No its not the end of the world for your game to say it requires something extra, but lest hurdles is always appreciated.
BigJoeGrizzly
Neo Member
That will probably be an example of a game that is online-required.
Arkam
Member
I agree It can all be done with less and much locally. But why make that sacrifice when MS is going to offer you the ability to offload X amount to some servers. Its not novel just as you say. What is though, is having the amount available and the idea of thinking of that resource as a standard feature, NOT something you or you publisher would have got pay for and add to a potentially long term cost.
Again I dont think its the most amazing thing since sliced bread. But it really is a potentially dope resource. I just think some people are being a bit too critical of this and should rethink the benefits.
Yeah it's a dope feature--in a post you agree with the guy comparing it exactly to dedicated servers like we have now.
Lol.
I didn't come up with that exemple to gauge the difference in power between the two machines. I'm well aware that the PS4 comes on top, though it remains to be seen how that delta will materialize on the screen. I was simply insisting on the fact that the Xbox One is a very capable piece of hardware that will produce some impressive results.
Don't trounce me, pliz!
Wishmaster92
Member
Lol i love this post. Poor superdae.
Ah, therein lies the catch. For most of the 'big ideas' that people are suggesting, the game will be always online required. And there absolutely can and should be a market for that. But most games are never going to go down that route because too many consumers still exist at least in some form in a partially offline state. 31 million Xbox 360 owners never even got a Silver account and hardly went online at all; 31 million! The number is similarly large for Wii and PS3, and their shit is free.
Now there will clearly be some sizable chunk of game that sees the risk inherent in such a direction and chooses to take it. Some reward in there too, to be sure. But for the most part, developers are going to want to make sure that their games can be accommodated by the larger potential percentage of system owners, and the only way to do that is to not lean on things that require a persistent, stable and blazingly fast internet connection.
The main memory is slower, but the EDRAM on the WiiU is faster (I think - I can't find the actual bandwidth numbers) and bigger than the 360, and faster than the VRAM on the PS3.
Liabe Brave
Member
Except it is something you and your publisher have to pay for. Respawn confirmed it's not free, even for Titanfall which is a platform exclusive. It may open options for devs, but as with anything there's tradeoffs. They could:
1. Use local data, which takes more CPU load but is always there and has no ongoing cost.
2. Use cloud data, which frees CPU resources but could be interrupted by network problems and costs real money whenever it's used.
Certainly some game designs will choose the latter, and some of those will be better for it. But I hope you can see that it's not a slamdunk; some games will be better off avoiding the cloud.
This is correct to a certain point. Once the resolution gets high enough it's starts taking a toll on the VRAM (or in this case the unified memory pool) but if a game was running 1080p at 60 FPS at 4 GB going to 8 GB will not help the frame rate at all on the other hand if a game was running at 1080p with 30 FPS and the VRAM was tapped out at 4GB than adding VRAM definitely helps the framerate.I'm an engineer, but not in computer science
I know almost nothing about how this stuff works, but the impression I have from several posters who are a lot more knowledgeable than me is that PS4 doubling its RAM pool should not really have any effect on resolution or framerate. Memory architecture may affect this, but RAM amount should not be important (unless, possibly, if we are talking about orders-of-magnitude differences).
More RAM should allow for stuff like larger levels/worlds and more detailed textures though. Possibly it could also theoretically allow for stuff like more advanced AI routines and more complex computations, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to say whether practically RAM amount would make a difference here.
Edit: I found a post from someone who actually knows what he is talking about:
From this thread
A good way to see this is with the multi-monitor setups people have or the new 4K displays. Most of the current gen cards run out of VRAM before the processing power is tapped out. Take a look at these benchmarks http://www.anandtech.com/show/7120/some-quick-gaming-numbers-at-4k-max-settings , you can see that in a lot of these benchmarks the 7950 performs better than a GTX 680 even though GTX 680 is the faster card, the reason that is happening is the 2 GB VRAM is too little to drive those resolutions.
Back to the PS4, I don't think we will have VRAM problems until the GPU starts doing some heavy duty compute processing. Cerny said in his presentation that they specifically made the RAM easy to work with so developers don't have to feel like they are solving a puzzle. On the other hand Sony doesn't want the console to stop evolving within the first few years so they beefed up the GPU so that the developers who want to go the extra mile have an option to push the system further. Cerny specifically mentioned modifications to the GPU was to make the compute performance stronger.
As for going to 8 GB over 4 GB of RAM, Sony should absolutely thank Gearbox for talking some sense into them. With only 4 GB of RAM I think Sony's console would have been tapped out in ~2 years. Some games on the PC are already pushing VRAM usage to 3 GB+. I know BF3 and Skyrim with mods has some really high VRAM usage and those games bring even the strongest systems to their knees.
I have no idea what the Xbox One has planned because they are so secretive about their consoles specifications.
Transistor count per se does not dictate yield. But each added element does provide something else that can go wrong. The number of each type of element and the design rules followed for the element dictate its contribution to an aggregate value for what is called critical area. For example, if you have two parallel lengths of wire, the critical area related to a short defect will be proportional to the length across which they run parallel. And, if you decrease the wire separation, a short is more likely, so the critical area would increase, even though you could possibly decrease the area of a chip by decreasing wire separation. The critical area will straightforwardly dictate yield unless there is some defect tolerance, but that is confined to very regular structures that could admit defect tolerance with limited space overhead and limited effect on critical paths in the circuitry, large memories being the main candidates for that treatment.
Your measure of critical area will decrease as the production process matures. Essentially critical area is akin to the expectation for the number of defects per chip. If you have a chip with 70% yield and you start adding stuff to it, so that the critical area doubles, the yield wouldn't become 49% though. That would only happen if alpha were infinity, where alpha is a fab line parameter that can drift over time. You would expect better than 49% yield, because the quality of fabrication that each chip experiences varies, partly due to wafer-to-wafer variations in defect density, and partly due to intra-wafer defect correlation. I am addressing what are essentially random defects. There are also systemic yield losses due to wafers that fail parametric testing and due to masks that have problems that cause particular chips to very likely fail on each wafer. These things might or might not be big troubles depending on the process and product. Anyway they can be worked on over the lifetime of the product's use of the line. Even after the production is mature, the fab's process will experience variations, so the line is monitored and adjusted to keep yields from falling.
I see that I have deemphasized systemic yield losses too much. The quality of fab lines is so strong these days that the systemic yield losses are very irritating for typical products. That is relatively speaking, because typical products have very low critical areas these days. But in this thread we are talking about products with lots of transistors, wiring, and vias.
Are people forgetting PS4 will also have "the cloud"? Gaikai ring a bell?
Bornstellar
Member
Gaikai's "cloud" has nowhere near the same capacity.
Source?
EDIT: You do realize Gaikai is a cloud-based service, right? Their entire business is "the cloud."