The description I typed above the image of the dev kit I posted I typed the word final in inverted commas i.e. "Final" to emphasis the ever changing nature of these kits.
Ohhh! I thought it was a response to whether or not Neo had been submitted to the FCC! lol
For me the main aspects of the specs are the APU/SoC and RAM and I have to disagree with you when you say the specs of PS4 dev kits less than a year before release were nowhere near final. I say the pictures I've posted show a dev kit with the SoC looking identical to the retail one along with even the motherboard as a whole, that dates back as far as January 2013 (11 months before release) or before. Now some devs that weren't working on a launch/launch window game may still have had a older kit even near PS4 launch and that could confuse things as far as specs were concerned.
Well, no. While the pics you posted seem to show final hardware,
that's not what they sent out in January. Also,
this seems to say that SlimBone took about a month for FCC approval. If Sony submitted the final hardware for PS4 at the beginning of July 2013, then it'd be the beginning of August 2013 before devs finally got their hands on them, which is only ~3 months before launch. So up until that point, devs were building and testing their code using four, dual-core Bulldozers rather than two, quad-core Jags. So Sony completely changed the hardware on devs about two months before launch games would be due for submissions. Sounds pretty catastrophic, eh?
Well, no, because the "main specs" namely, the architectures they were using
were locked down, and didn't change. Moving from Jag to Zen "at the last minute" will be no more drastic a change than moving from Bulldozer to Jag at the last minute, and for the same reasons it's basically the same architecture and more importantly, Sony write the kernel, which mediates all access to hardware.
It's impossible for developers to communicate directly with the hardware. They instead make system calls and the kernel then relays those generic commands to the specific hardware it's managing, and reports the results back to the applications in user space. Sony's last minute change from Bulldozer to Jaguar wasn't disruptive because they sent out a new kernel to go with the new hardware. If and when Sony move to Zen, they will make the appropriate tweaks to the system software, just as they've already done for GCN2->GCN4. Said tweaks are probably already written, and are waiting for final hardware from AMD so they can be re-tested, debugged, and rolled in to the main trunk. Sony will already have all of the Zen documentation from AMD, so all they need is the errata.
Could be Q1 but I doubt it changes anything as far as specs are concerned. If the CPU upgrade is Zen rather than Jaguar then that is a big change and I can't see how it is compatible that less than a year before launch devs have Jaguar dev kits that some (according to the leaked docs) will be submitting game code for in August.
Why do you assume that going with Zen would be the change? It's not really how it was presented to Osiris, but perhaps using Zen was always meant to be the primary option. I've said all along that the most reasonable plan would be "Launch whenever Zen is ready, and if push comes to shove, we can just slap another Jag in there." I've yet to see any compelling arguments for deviating from such a plan. Nobody was really expecting a mid-gen refresh, so why would the timetable be anything
other than "when the new tech is ready"?
Again, kinda backwards from how it was presented to Osiris, but obviously you set expectations low and then over-deliver. But by extension, you'll never over-deliver if you don't initially aim for that higher bar.
Like I said before if Sony have played a blinder here and fooled DF, GB and game retail (Osiris) then well done them. I doubt all three of the aforementioned have been fooled, though.
I'm really not sure what you mean here, because Osiris was told back in March that there were two options on the table and that the more powerful option was "mentioned quite a bit almost as if they haven't really decided on a final spec," and was told very recently post E3 that Sony feel launching in Q1 is the best way to hit $499, even with the more powerful hardware. We also have VRWorld reporting Neo will sport eight "Zen lite" cores, whatever that may be.
So frankly, it seems a bit disingenuous to try to suggest that a more powerful Neo wasn't always an option, or that it doesn't remain an option to this day; Osiris was
just told they were still considering the more powerful option, and that launching in Q1 was the best way to make that happen, along with the $499 price point.
Idk. But I know a raw 1440p image categorically looks better than a raw 1080p image on my native 1440p monitor I use on my gaming PC.
I'll admit it's been more than a decade since I've tried to run a monitor at non-native res, but don't they typically have a dried piece of poo in place of an actual scaler? I'm not sure that's really giving you the best sense of 1080p's IQ. Even if your scaler did somehow produce results just as good as a 1:1 mapping, your apparent display size is likely much larger than the typical TV setup, which would also magnify the effect of any resolution difference.
There is a limit to frame rate and explosions. At 1440p there would still be enough grunt to run everything at ultra spec.
Sure, until we modernize our definition of Ultra.
It's not much of a stretch to think that customers buying a 4K console will have a 4K tv when there is a cheaper console without 4K features. Also Sony themselves said they want to keep people from going to gaming PCs mid gen. These multiplatform people would probably have a 4K monitor as well.
Perhaps, but in the end, we'll need to see what balance devs strike. It just seems like boosting res is the least effective thing you can do with the additional power, and I suspect that will be doubly true if you can't boost the res all the way to 4k-native.
For the developers a resolution bump would be orders of magnitude more simple than cranking up the graphics to 11 then scaling them back for the base console.
I suspect most users will see a simple upscale as a lazy use of Neo's power, causing them to think poorly of said dev. I think they'd rather see settings go from Medium to Ultra, and/or frame rate increases. I suppose boosting frame rates is similarly lazy, but it probably has more effect on gameplay.
Perhaps Neo games will let users choose between Medium-4k25 and Ultra-1080p60.
