With all this complicated stuff, how is consistent performance achieved? With the APU, is it a binary system that works or fails? I don't understand how everything works together, but if transistors or communication channels for bits aren't all the same stuff would be garbage after awhile.
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TRUTHFACT: MS having eSRAM yield problems on Xbox One
- Thread starter chubigans
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bigboss370
Member
ok, we know they're having eSRAM and yield problems, but we don't know that the GPU is being downclocked. What would the potential solution to their problem be if not downclocking?
Since the MS throwing money at 3rd partys thread is closed:
https://twitter.com/BriProv/status/342420193437417472
Provinciano is the creator of Retro City Rampage.
If the rumors about Microsoft paying for developers not presented at the conference of Sony are true, would be a huge show of weakness on the part of Microsoft.
Show that they don't have any confidence in their "15 exclusives" games.
Moreover, it would be a stupid waste of money, unless it were "real" exclusive games.
Sony can make a great show with their own exclusives and some other loyal partners like Bungie.
Microsoft? I really doubt it... now even more.
Throw away all the faulty chips which would be VERY expensive. They could also delay the launch altogether till things are sorted out. I'd go with the former.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Same exact amount reserved on the 360. Also, the rendering of the UI will be separate from game rendering, which will be an important improvement compared to the 360, because system UI rendering will be done on one of the console's 3 display planes.
http://www.vgleaks.com/durango-display-planes/
Simple, wait till yields improve. Launch with what you have, just like they did with the 360. The Xbox 360's GPU with its daughter die of EDRAM also had yield issues, which led to low stock on launch that wasn't decently replenished until December 2005, and then there was a stretch where it took close to E3 the following year before a 360 was easily available in most places in the USA. The solution to the problem is time.
When I think MicroSoft I think of all the times I have had to reinstall Windows because it has inexplicably shat itself and of all the times I've been waiting for an install to complete at 2am in the morning while cursing Bill Gates. So I have no qualms about the schadenfraude I feel whhen reading about the XBox troubles. But really it doesn't help me as someone who invests a lot of money into gaming (like pr0n, it's not a hobby. It's a lifestyle choice.).
How many multi-plats aren't going to fully utilise my PS4? How many exclusives are MS going to have to moneyhat to save their market share? Ultimately noone wins from this.
But is still enjoyable to watch.
How many multi-plats aren't going to fully utilise my PS4? How many exclusives are MS going to have to moneyhat to save their market share? Ultimately noone wins from this.
But is still enjoyable to watch.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
Windows phone is a decent phone os.
Problem is that it was late to the party. That and the negative view windows mobile left many people with.
Microsoft has been late to the party a lot in the last 10 years that has led to some rushed products that make little sense the way they are implemented. For instance windows 8 and its dual ui which basically is two different OSs. The Window 8 start menu is pretty freaking great on a touch device like a tablet. It was stupid to implement it in a desktop though.
The xbone is Microsoft trying not to be late to the party. They built one device that can handle all the media stuff and play games before Apple or Google or some other competitor enters the market with a media device that can play games.
That is where the problem stems from. They have a philosophy problem to address and they are doing a piss poor job of addressing.
It's obvious the xbone has the 'xbox' brand name simply to piggy back on name itself. It's a media device with gaming capabilities.
Personally, I still think they should have gone with a two sku approach. One media based, the xbone, and the real Xbox for people want the high end console specs and are willing to spend the cash. Or better yet, why not allow for a limited customizable console.
SneakyStephan
Banned
No, the ps4 gpu isn't going to be overheating either, the equivalent gpu in laptops (with higher clocks and 2 more cus) barely consumes 80watts, even when they don't cherrypick low voltage parts like for laptops it's barely going to be a 100w gpu at very most.
xbox 360 was due to shitty solder and bad design for the clamp that kept the cooler onto the motherboard. People run 300W gpus all day every day for 10 hours a day for years on end and their failure rate is ten times lower than xbox 360's.
In general gpus and cpus that are running at normal voltage with functional cooling are incredibly durable, they last for ages.
It's everything that has moving parts that is prone to breaking easily: like disc drives, hard drives, controllers etc.
Bias and damage control.
painful fart
Member
Interesting! How did you find out?
So with Sony it is loyalty (despite the fact they made a killing on the 360) but with MS any love is all "dirty money" and underhanded deals?
TheVampire
Banned
Yeah, really doubt it'd be a successful strategy. I mean, first, we'd have to assume this is a late state strategy. Microsoft probably wouldn't be doing this if their reveal was a huge success, so by default this has to be a late game strategy. This means there's limited space to affect the various presentations each company is putting out anyway.
Additionally, how many publishers out there are going to be willing to strain their relationship with Sony? Not many, if I had to guess.
Most importantly however, whats to keep journalists from just, asking what platforms a game is going to be released on? When it comes to E3 News, most people experience it through game news sites, and its common practice to ask what platforms a game is intended for. Regardless of whether they show the games running on the PS4's or not, the fact that they're multi-plats are going to come out immediately.
So, yeah, seems like a silly wasteful strategy.
FlutterPuffs
Member
Yeah this. Not a fan of Windows 8 but I love the Metro UI implementation in the Windows phone. The only problem is like Slick said, it was too late to the party.
could but probably won't
first of all yield problems do not mean auto downclock and secondly, there is a lot to still come in the next 4 weeks
6mos
SneakyStephan
Banned
It's still 20 percent smaller (and much more powerful)
Yields go down exponentially as die size increases so it probably makes a good amount of difference.
(not that I like the concept of an APU)
isn't the prevailing gaf wisdom that ps4's extra gpu oomph ~= the sram in die size?
This is what happens when you put a marketing guy in charge of a tech company. Money > Tech
In my opinion, this is "dirty money", at least they pay for "real" exclusives, like they'll maybe do with Dark Souls 2. I can't accept that, even when I think is awful. Other thing is paying for not being on the rival show. That's pathetic.
And when I say "lotalty", I think if a dev don't take easy money like this, would be only for loyalty, nothing more.
Dat clowd.
Seriously, this "I saw xxx on B3D" needs to stop. If you have gained any understanding/knowledge from there, better formulate your opinion and post it. Reiko also used "I saw xxx on B3D" card way too often.
It sure is, but then this is all par for the course. Nintendo and the Wii-U was just one disappointment after another..
And funny he mentions the PS3, because $599 was the only the tip..
- Delaying the console to get Blu-ray included
- Having to throw in a seperate graphics card when the Cell was 'underpowered'
- All the agressiveness about 'next gen doesn't start until we say so'
- The debable over lack of rumble.
- Removing Linux
etc, etc
People are acting like this level of crap hasn't happened before..
Not that it excuses MS, but take away the over-reaction and you are left with a level of incompetence that I sadly think is rife in the industry.
It's also sad to see this almost witchhunt shit going on lately.. yield problems are nothing new, we don't know what the outcome is for sure do we? So why are people jumping on a bandwagon so quickly? Everything MS do is being taken negatively whether it's rational or not.. (DRM is rational, cancelling a round table without further info is irrational)..
iamvin22
Industry Verified
source?
famousmortimer
Banned
"If you're backwards compatible you're backwards" also makes a run at "rumble is last gen" as the most pathetic attempt at spin ever.
Lol, are you seriously trying to day GTA4 on the PC wasn't streets ahead of the console versions when it came out?
Someone needs a dose of reality.
Very true, but they should've thought up on the all-in-one media device for the living room a long time ago before 360 even came, at least, when this idea was in it's infancy, just like tablets, etc. were. Now it's too late, as there are tons of other devices all around the world that can do whatever Microsoft is cooking up with the Xbox One.
And a lot of people aren't going to shell out $400-$500 plus a Xbox Live subscription just to do the same things that they could already do on those devices for much less, especially when they don't care about gaming.
FFS ESRAM does not accommodate the difference in raw gpu power.
Where to people get this shit from?
Erm, I read his post twice, he's saying the PC versions required more horsepower for the same graphics. That does not mean that it wasn't able to be graphically superior with even more horsepower.
Nothing controversial about that observation at all. It's fairly true. And the JC2 comparison was apt, since it is super well done, and much older hardware trounces it.
GK104 isn't big by any stretch. It was supposed to be a mid range part until the market got bent out of shape so Nvidia decided to cash in.
GoofsterStud
Member
The Cloud
It will certainly mitigate the performance/bandwith disadvantage compared to vanilla graphic cards to some extend, especially for some scenarios. I don't think he was suggesting that it brings XBone on par with PS4.
What people forget, though, is that PS4 also has "special sauce", for instance, control over cache bypassing and modified rendering/compute scheduling.
Evolution_1ne
Banned
that moment when a spelling error makes a post better or I laughed way harder at that than I should have
AstroZombie
Banned
This forum.
People on one hand completely exaggerating the role RAM plays in graphical power both in quantity and speed, and then those on the other hand who claim it does next to nothing, and then the very special ones who derisively refer to it as blast processing, secret sauce etc etc.
this.
The PC version will always need more horsepower for the same results of a closed box.
The apis have to accommodate thousands of different hardware combinations to they are going to be less efficient and less optimised.
Only thing is that you didn't need to have much of a pc to smoke the consoles out of the park. A quad core, 4gb+ of ram and a reasonable gpu saw GTA4 running at 1080p with 30fps and high detail.
But ...what about the wizard jizz?
The ESRAM isn't there to mitigate the performance difference between the PS4 and XBone GPU. The ESRAM is there as patchwork to compensate for the woefully low bandwidth of the inferior DDR3 memory the XBone is using. And even with the ESRAM, it's not enough to make up the difference in memory speed.
MazingerDUDE
Member
WiiU has the same amount of EDRAM attached to its GPU to compensate its slower memory, (roughly half the b/w compared to the PS3 & 360), and it didn't work as the majority of multi-platform games on WiiU runs worse than the other 2 platform even with more powerful GPU. I doubt it's gonna work for Xbone either.
Hydrargyrus
Member
It seems like this hole never ends for Microsoft. They are going deeper and deeper each day
phosphor112
Banned
There are different types of eSRAM.
I know. My point was not about comparing the raw compute power of XBone's and PS4's GPU. But that also was not the point of the poster that started this sub topic.
It was about the validity of comparing XBone/PS4's GPU to vanilla graphic cards.
Comparing the XBone/PS4's GPU to a graphics card with similar main memory setup, CUs, clock and ROPs is just not really accurate. Of course, ESRAM ist not a game changer, but it certainly (and only to some extend) mitigates the overall performance disadvantage of XBone compared to a graphics card that has only DDR3 and nothing else.
MazingerDUDE
Member
doing the same job.
RAM bandwidth plays a massive part in graphical quality. The PS3's ram can supply around 2GB of data to the GPU per frame in a 60fps game, whilst the Xbone's less than 1GB when there is no post processing done.
The ESRAM will help when it comes to adding post processing effects after the first render pass on the frame is completed by the GPU etc but it won't really help by getting more data to the GPU when the raw frame is actually being put together, apart from maybe the odd tweak here and there. Post processing as a second render pass on the frame can take a lot of frame time as it is GPU and bandwidth heavy so the ESRAM will definitely help there, but again the GPU is a big part of the equation in this, and its not like the PS4 will be bandwidth starved in this area either and it has a faster GPU to process the changes.
Its becoming a doubt as to whether the 360's GPU could actually process 1GB of data per frame anyway as its looking to become the bottleneck itself looking at the specs of it.
Games on the PC have regularly been hitting 2GB of unique data per frame at 1080p recently so you can see the logic behind the PS4's design, and the non logic behind the Xbox ones.
This is in basic terms of course as every engine is different in its hardware requirements.
I also agree. It isn't exactly the same like it is for PS3 by using both it's GPU plus the cell architecture to get the most out of the hardware (graphics-wise) when it came to most of their 1st/2nd party titles (& some 3rd party titles from 3rd party publishers as well).
No, he was saying the games weren't optimized properly and needed far more power to get respectable framerates than needed on PC.
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