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Inside the Scorpio Engine: the processor architecture deep dive

Paradicia

Member
So Pro is going to be like PS3 cell processor. Once developer get the hang of it that's when the magic is going to start happening. Checkerboarding will be a thing of the past. Sony always thinking about inefficiency vs MS short term brute force approach. Guess its that Japanese vs US mind set.

You make it seem like the PS4 Pro has some kind of mythical power hidden within the innards. At the end of the day it's all just silicon. What MS is doing is clever. Who wants to fool around developing for something when there's millions on the line when it comes to high end game development. It's common sense.
 

Colbert

Banned
I'm trying to find out what makes you so confident with your '6TFLOPS must suffice for everybody' (paraphrased).
Show me a quote where I even come close to say that. What you imply is hilarious at best.

Majority of what games? Current games and their sequels rendered at 4k?
Can you actually read? It is in the last sentences of my last response to you.

Btw thats my last response to you. Will not waste more time on that.

IgnoreList->Add(L"blu");
 
The sauce is no longer secret. Microsoft waited a year for nothing. Pro already was/is the world's most powerful console. Microsoft better be careful with their marketing.
So Pro is going to be like PS3 cell processor. Once developer get the hang of it that's when the magic is going to start happening. Checkerboarding will be a thing of the past. Sony always thinking about inefficiency vs MS short term brute force approach. Guess its that Japanese vs US mind set.
These arguments have not been made, and there's a danger with you inventing them sarcastically to pillory positions you either don't understand or refuse to treat with civility. You mischaracterize the thread for those reading cursorily, and increase the likelihood that in the future, it will be (mis)remembered that these positions were actually espoused seriously.

Just a quick estimate, but wouldn't an effective power of 5.6tf require somewhere around 20% of all the instructions being executed to be fp16.
No, that's 35% overall (with the low estimate being 10%). As an outlier it's very unlikely to be reached on the face of it. But developers have constantly surprised with the workarounds, shortcuts, and novelties they've achieved, so who knows? But of course even this high end is lower than Scorpio. It seems impossible for the gap to truly close; Microsoft will always have an advantage.
 

timlot

Banned
So has anybody started a list of upcoming FP16 double rate games for Pro yet? Seems like breakout feature that deserves its own thread.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Show me a quote where I even come close to say that. What you imply is hilarious at best.
Here, short memory is not a problem on a forum:
Technically he is correct and practically the usage of it limited if you already have the spec to do 4K without it.

<snip>

MS decided against it as they don't need it - they have enough GPU spec and memory speed - and favored dynamic color compression which benefits their requirements the most.

So, back to the subject..
Btw thats my last response to you. Will not waste more time on that.

IgnoreList->Add(L"blu");
Darn, Colbert took his ball and went home. Me sad.
 
So has anybody started a list of upcoming FP16 double rate games for Pro yet? Seems like breakout feature that deserves its own thread.
I don't know if RPM must be explicitly enabled, above and beyond just using FP16 floats. But it seems almost all games do the latter. So if it happens automatically due to the hardware, then making a thread for them would be like making a thread for which games get loading time improvements on Scorpio. Basically all of them.

Perhaps they are using the 16fp thing-a-magigy for the switch ? Doubling the power!!
Switch does have RPM, so both Nvidia and AMD think it's a good thing to put in a GPU. Perhaps this will convince you that it's not a fairy tale, and it does have uses?

Well i guess i can say that DX12 thing make Scorpio effective power up to ~8TF.
You could, but unlike the FP16 talk it would be totally false. DX12 is a layer of abstraction that sits between the game and the hardware. The faster/more efficient that layer is, the closer the hardware gets to its theoretical maximum power. So no matter how good the DX12 improvements in Scorpio, they're still just working up toward 6TF.

Packed math, on the other hand, raises the amount of work hardware can do in the same amount of time, versus FP32. Whatever improvements are made do raise the maximum throughput, though as far as we know it will be impossible to raise it anywhere near the 8.4TF theoretical maximum.
 
Console wars aside, it IS pretty disappointing that Scorpio doesn't have packed math/double rate FP16. Could have had the potential to really be something impressive.
 

Fredrik

Member
Interesting to see people desperately trying to downplay Scorpio, can't wait for E3 and later on the DF faceoffs :)
 
There's nothing wrong with saying that Pro is 8.4TF FP16, it's not a made up number
Thinking that the Pro will get even remotely close to that in an actual game is obviously ridiculous

Well you know, some people keep bring 8.4tf thing is just because they want to make themselves feel better.

Sony won't nervous about Scorpio since the sales gap between PS4/XB1 is huge, really huge, and even MS aware Scorpio isn't something to getting crazy sales in this holiday, unfortunately some people actually nervous about it lol.
 

tapedeck

Do I win a prize for talking about my penis on the Internet???
Here's a question:

Of the PS4 Pro games that will use double packed FP16 (all? some? few?)..what's a realistic estimation of the percentage of operations in said game that will utilize it?

Wouldn't this answer how much of a gap between Pro and Scorpio could really be bridged?
 

Colbert

Banned
Well i guess i can say that DX12 thing make Scorpio effective power up to ~8TF.

Claiming such things leads us nowhere. It was the same with ESRAM and Xbox One and now with FP16 double rate with PS4 Pro. Secret Sauce discussions are a pain in the ass and you have to deal with personalities you would not want to meet in your real life
(see above)
.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Console wars aside, it IS pretty disappointing that Scorpio doesn't have packed math/double rate FP16. Could have had the potential to really be something impressive.

So your asking for just a checkbox feature? It doesn't change what is by all definitions the most powerful dedicated gaming machine in the world at launch.
 

onQ123

Member
Here, short memory is not a problem on a forum:


So, back to the subject..

Darn, Colbert took his ball and went home. Me sad.

I think he only meant that Scorpio has what is needed to run most Xbox One games in 4K at or around the same graphical level.
 

malfcn

Member
Theoretical versus reality.

The Xbox One launched with theoretical numbers that got torn apart. Now PS4 Pro has theoretical numbers being preached?

6734d1ed2b469132ef10d35073a21803.png
 
Claiming such things leads us nowhere. It was the same with ESRAM and Xbox One and now with FP16 double rate with PS4 Pro. Secret Sauce discussions are a pain in the ass and you have to deal with personalities you would not want to meet in your real life
(see above)
.

Well, this thread already in nowhere after first few pages.
 

RowdyReverb

Member
I'm just glad that they designed the thing around the bottlenecks they noticed in the Xbox One's hardware. Should make things easier for devs than the usual hard reset with new console generations
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I think he only meant that Scorpio has what is needed to run most Xbox One games in 4K at or around the same graphical level.
Ok, and he could have answered so in his first reply to me. What about those games that run at sub-1080p on xbox one, though? What amazes me is his confidence that scorpio's specs are the end-all-be-all of current rendering pipelines at 4K, when we had enough backpedalling by engine vendors at the start of this gen, and scoprio does not really tip the balance that much at 4k.
 

onQ123

Member
Theoretical versus reality.

The Xbox One launched with theoretical numbers that got torn apart. Now PS4 Pro has theoretical numbers being preached?

thinking-face.png

You do know that theoretical numbers are what we have always gotten from these companies right?
 

Raide

Member
I'm just glad that they designed the thing around the bottlenecks they noticed in the Xbox One's hardware. Should make things easier for devs than the usual hard reset with new console generations

It is certainly a fascinating way to look at your weaknesses and improve on them. I like what MS is saying but i need to see the goods!
 

Tripolygon

Banned
Theoretical versus reality.

The Xbox One launched with theoretical numbers that got torn apart. Now PS4 Pro has theoretical numbers being preached?

6734d1ed2b469132ef10d35073a21803.png
All TF, Bandwidth numbers are theoretical, how close you get to it is the reality. You will never get 100% usage out of theoretical numbers.
 
Andandtech probably has the best summary on FP16 as it pertains to these mid gen refreshes.


While FP16 operations can be used for games (and in fact are in the mobile space), in the PC space they are virtually never used. When PC GPUs made the jump to unified shaders in 2006/2007, the decision was made to do everything at FP32 since that’s what vertex shaders typically required to begin with, and it’s only recently that anyone has bothered to look back. So while there is some long-term potential here for Vega’s fast FP16 math to become relevant for gaming, at the moment it wouldn’t do anything. Vega will almost certainly live and die in the gaming space based on its FP32 performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11002/the-amd-vega-gpu-architecture-teaser/2
 

Tripolygon

Banned
Fp16 is a minor thing, it helps PRO inches closer to Scorpio specs. Scorpio/PRO will be left behind once real next gen consoles appear with better CPUs.
It DOES NOT. It helps pro make better use of its GPU. Doesn't bring Pro any closer to Scorpio.

Lets stop with this narrative.
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
Packed math, on the other hand, raises the amount of work hardware can do in the same amount of time, versus FP32. Whatever improvements are made do raise the maximum throughput, though as far as we know it will be impossible to raise it anywhere near the 8.4TF theoretical maximum.

Raises the amount of work by halving the precision. I dunno why people are neglecting this downside as though it's irrelevant.
 

malfcn

Member
You do know that theoretical numbers are what we have always gotten from these companies right?

All TF, Bandwidth numbers are theoretical, how close you get to it is the reality. You will never get 100% usage out of theoretical numbers.

Was on mobile lunch, now I have to go.

I understand the meaning of theoretical. When Xbox One launched they were floating a bunch of numbers to minimize the power gap. Now I'm seeing double - t math saying pro is over 8tf.

That was all I meant.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
Raises the amount of work by halving the precision. I dunno why people are neglecting this downside as though it's irrelevant.
That's not a downside, that is exactly what it is used for. Calculations that do not require high precision can use fp16 and do it twice as fast with RPM.
 

timlot

Banned
Andandtech probably has the best summary on FP16 as it pertains to these mid gen refreshes.


While FP16 operations can be used for games (and in fact are in the mobile space), in the PC space they are virtually never used. When PC GPUs made the jump to unified shaders in 2006/2007, the decision was made to do everything at FP32 since that’s what vertex shaders typically required to begin with, and it’s only recently that anyone has bothered to look back. So while there is some long-term potential here for Vega’s fast FP16 math to become relevant for gaming, at the moment it wouldn’t do anything. Vega will almost certainly live and die in the gaming space based on its FP32 performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11002/the-amd-vega-gpu-architecture-teaser/2

Been waiting for someone to post some real pro/con info on FP16. Didn't know about the vertex shaders thing. I'm sure Sony has an answer for this. Cerny and co. are alway ahead of the game.
 

Colbert

Banned
It is certainly a fascinating way to look at your weaknesses and improve on them. I like what MS is saying but i need to see the goods!

We all need to see the prove of it by the actual games. Thats something I guess we all can agree on. But I think we also can agree on that there is a better perspective of seeing native 4K AAA (multi platform) games on Scorpio than on a PS4 Pro, right?
 

timlot

Banned
You make it seem like the PS4 Pro has some kind of mythical power hidden within the innards. At the end of the day it's all just silicon. What MS is doing is clever. Who wants to fool around developing for something when there's millions on the line when it comes to high end game development. It's common sense.

You gotta believe...
images
 
Wow some people are really struggling to accept the Scorpio is more powerful than the Pro, I don't see the big deal it's just natural hardware evolution, as soon as the ps5 comes out that will be more powerful until the next XB
console and so on
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
That's not a downside, that is exactly what it is used for. Calculations that do not require high precision can use fp16 and do it twice as fast with RPM.

Did I say it was a downside? I merely stated the fact that FP16 is half the precision of FP32. That's exactly what makes comparing 6TFLOPS 32bit to 8.4TFLOPS 16bit sort of stupid.

[edit] Errr yeah I did say it was a downside. LMAO. But yeah, I dunno why people are so keen to present these as directly comparable numbers when they simply are not.
 

Rodelero

Member
Raises the amount of work by halving the precision. I dunno why people are neglecting this downside as though it's irrelevant.

I'm sorry, who is actually doing this? Are you sure it's not a case of you not really understanding the practical differences between FP16 and FP32?

There will be places where you can utilise FP16 instead of FP32 where there will be no, or negligible difference in the result.

Did I say it was a downside? I merely stated the fact that FP16 is half the precision of FP32. That's exactly what makes comparing 6TFLOPS 32bit to 8.4TFLOPS 16bit sort of stupid.

But nobody is making that comparison. The only thing anyone is doing is pointing out that the double-speed FP16 capabilities of the PS4 Pro could be use to speed some things up. Nobody in this thread is saying that 8.4 > 6, therefore PS4 Pro is better.

DonkeyKong said:
Wow some people are really struggling to accept the Scorpio is more powerful than the Pro, I don't see the big deal it's just natural hardware evolution, as soon as the ps5 comes out that will be more powerful until the next XB
console and so on

Sorry - who? Who in here is suggesting that Scorpio isn't more powerful than the PS4 Pro?

You're creating a strawman. Nobody here (apart from those being blatantly sarcastic) has suggested that Scorpio is less powerful than the PS4 Pro.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Wow some people are really struggling to accept the Scorpio is more powerful than the Pro, I don't see the big deal it's just natural hardware evolution, as soon as the ps5 comes out that will be more powerful until the next XB
console and so on

the main takeaway

as far as i'm concerned most of this bluster is badly disguised back and forth between console warriors.

MS and Sony are just going to keep outdoing each other in this field, it literally is going to be like a tennis match back and forth
 

oldergamer

Member
Console wars aside, it IS pretty disappointing that Scorpio doesn't have packed math/double rate FP16. Could have had the potential to really be something impressive.
What makes you think that will have any significant impact on overall performance? You are latching onto one feature which already getsa significant boost due to faster hardware
 
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