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Next-Gen PS5 & XSX |OT| Console tEch threaD

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pasterpl

Member
The only thing I think people are confused about is the Tempest Engine in PS5. Digital Foundry said they took a Navi RDNA GPU Compute Unit and modified to act more like an SPU (like PS3 Cell) so it has no caches etc. If this is true, then Tempest Engine should be able to do audio ray tracing since it began as a RDNA 2 GPU CU.

Microsoft’s chip for XSX seems more traditional. It is discussed as freeing up CPU and memory by Ninja Theory. Nothing to do with the GPU, where audio ray tracing would be handled if the dev wanted to do it. (Reverb calculations, etc.)

IF, keyword, if the Xbox GPU has to handle any audio ray tracing because the Microsoft Audio chip doesn’t have any hardware capability to accelerate audio ray tracing, this could be the difference some are saying.

It appears as though the PS5 GPU will not need to accelerate w/ hardware any audio ray tracing IF the Tempest Engine can do that for it. I’m not sure but I think this is the debate/question.

 

ethomaz

Banned
They clearly say they did the SOC and API design with Microsoft... But sure if you don't believe that this GPU which is only available in the XSX is co-developed with the people selling the console, then we'll just agree to disagree even though AMD clearly says otherwise.
Yeap the DXR 1.1 is co-developed by AMD and MS.

The CPU and GPU not.

AMD was very clear about that.

There are custom functions in the APU from Sony and MS but the GPU and CPU are AMD work only.
 
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geordiemp

Member
"Xbox Series X is the biggest generational leap of SoC [system on a chip] and API design that we’ve done with Microsoft, and it’s really an honor for AMD to be a trusted Microsoft partner for this endeavor," AMD's Sebastien Nussbaum said.
Source

LOl AMD say that for all their customers, I believe co operate means Sony or MS choosing which parts they want mostly.

If Sony or MS did design anything it would be exclusive to them, hence the API software

Art least Sony and MS give the software fancy names like VRS, or emotion engine or GE engine or special DX Vulkan whatever. Sounds good.
 
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liviopangt

Neo Member
guys we know that and rdna 2 as the concept of efficiency we know that they are 36cu 10teraflop we know about the geometry egine, of this GE however we know nothing about how much it occupies (mm2) and how powerful it is (more powerful than vrs from certain sources) intersections egine (dedicated to custom raytracing) of all this we stopped at only 36cu in addition it has a mega cache scubbers connected directly connected to the i \ o custom that we do not know what it does if I recycle assets I feed the cu and egine directly from ssd. of the apu could be bigger than 350mm2 7nm + with the same construction 7nm + could be 400mm2 who knows?
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Dreams are free.

No, $39.99

147965.jpg
 
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SonGoku

Member
XSX chip does the RAM/CPU work, PS5 does the GPU work. As simple as that.
From what i read 3D audio and other audio calculations wil be done on the audio chip, but audio RT in particular will be done by dedicated RT hardware that also handles visuals.
BTW the tempest audio engine is more than likely is proprietary since Sony based it and improved upon the CELL's SPU design for the redesigned CU
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned

Short:

Project Acoustic: chip < RAM/CPU
Tempest: independent GPU CU < GPU
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
From what i read 3D audio and other audio calculations wil be done on the audio chip, but audio RT in particular will be done by dedicated RT hardware that also handles visuals.
BTW the tempest audio engine is more than likely is proprietary since Sony based it and improved upon the CELL's SPU design for the redesigned CU

That's why he mentions PS3, it can be that with no RT integrated.
 
PS5 solution is an AMD GPU-based compute unit stripped naked to only needed parts and modified, it works solely on Audio, leaving a great amount of room for the main GPU for visuals. I doubt it has anything to do with RAM/CPU.

XSX solution is a chip that processes the offloaded work from RAM/CPU, freeing both from that headache.

Both are very different, but Sony's is VERY critical and gives a big room for the main GPU to work more as if you've added up to 20% power by freeing the audio spot.

I hope that makes sense, you may go back to the main sources and you'll easily sum that up.
I will give that point in the use of gpu in XSX side but not the percentage , not make sense that scale in proportion of how many TF or CU you have.

Is the dev who decides how much CU to reserve until a max of 25%.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12407/amd-valve-introduce-trueaudio-next-support-for-steam-audio

I only some place where say use 4 CUs and that is less than 8% in the worst scenario for XSX also they just can decide to have worst audio.

https://gpuopen.com/amd-trueaudio-next-and-cu-reservation/

Even AMD looks like remove this in the last GCN cards because was very expensive.

 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
We're at the point now where arguing about specs is useless until we have real time tests of mulitplat games running on each machine.

So basically between now and December this thread is going to be an absolute shit show.
If the GPU has dedicated RT HW, audio RT won't affect performance , Cerny said it'd take less than a million rays per sec


They can go with RDNA2 CU, it's not like that expensive to sacrifice. It's most likely RDNA2 anyway but we need more details.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I will give that point in the use of gpu in XSX side but not the percentage , not make sense that scale in proportion of how many TF or CU you have.

Is the dev who decides how much CU to reserve until a max of 25%.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12407/amd-valve-introduce-trueaudio-next-support-for-steam-audio

I only some place where say use 4 CUs and that is less than 8% in the worst scenario for XSX also they just can decide to have worst audio.

https://gpuopen.com/amd-trueaudio-next-and-cu-reservation/

Even AMD looks like remove this in the last GCN cards because was very expensive.



Sounds like like a complicated matter. We need to see PS5 in action to see how it reacts, but I think that how OB got his 12.4-13% number from if the can't open the devkit open and only measure by some kind of app.
 

B_Boss

Member
How?

the man said it himself that other devs he talked to practically built this damn console with their input!

man I don’t get this thread at all now, gonna wait for a proper reveal for us GAMERS and then see how this unfolds!

I will never understand that line of reasoning either dude....again, Cerny touched base with devs. (remember MS? “Developers, developers, developers!!”) and so, in essence, the PS5 is a developer’s console. Cerny and his team just went further because....well their brains.

He created a console that the developers wanted. I’ve seen theory and speculation about Sony’s budgeting, he dealt with financial constraints, etc. I haven’t seen any proof of that, even circumstantial. If Sony wanted to create a “12TF console” they could have. That was not what the developers wanted it seems.

What I’d love to see? A concise PS documentary on his meeting with those devs.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
He wrote something like "calm down dude" in Arabic.
And Arabic is read backwards (from right to left) or am I retarded? Also Arabic text is really small and I can't see how you can read it normally. Well, it's not the hardest language on the planet for no reason, I guess : )
 

SgtCaffran

Member
Right. It REALLY feels like people are just talking past each other. (I'm also looking at you Bo_Hazem Bo_Hazem , maybe drop the spam a little?)

Both PS5 and XsX have an audio chip but both appear to be for very different purposes. Now remember we do not have the full story for both!

The PS5 chip called the Tempest Engine is a modified RDNA2 (I assume) CU that works similar to a PS3 SPU. Cerny says it is as powerful as all eight Jaguar cores of the PS4 CPU combined. The goal is to process hundreds of audio sources with HRTF, head related transfer functions. This is a method to simulate how our ears change the incoming sounds so that we can pinpoint the location of their source. This works best with simple stereo headphones where the Tempest Engine will convert mono audio from all directions and locations into a combined stereo mix where you should be able to hear the direction and feel the presence (3D audio or binaural audio). However, this does not have anything to do (at least from what has been currently shared) with sound reflections and reverb in rooms.

The Xbox solution already exists and is called project Acoustics. The XsX appears to have a new hardware block meant to work on this solution. The goal of project Acoustics is to calculate the reflections, absorptions and wave interactions of sounds waves in a particular room by means of voxels and the Azure cloud compute servers. These calculations are then simplified by using probes and interpolation for the actual game so that the full calculations do not have to be used. This should give a good representation of actual sound behaviour in rooms and worlds. However, this does not have anything to do with how we perceive 3D audio or binaural audio. The resulting mix will be a "simple" stereo, 5.1, 7.1 or Dolby Atmos signal.

TL;DR
PS5 Tempest Engine
- DOES provide real 3D audio simulation of our ears (sounds direction, locality, presence, PSVR)
- DOES NOT provide room reflections, reverb (indoor, outdoor, caves, etc)

XsX project Acoustics
- DOES provide room simulation for reflections, reverb, etc (indoor, outdoor, caves, etc)
- DOES NOT provide real 3D audio simulation of our ears (sounds direction, locality, presence)

I think the XsX solution can be considered a replacement of raytracing for audio.

Hope this clears some stuff up. If anybody has some more insight please let me know!
 
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Short:

Project Acoustic: chip < RAM/CPU
Tempest: independent GPU CU < GPU
Hardware Accelerated DirectX Raytracing (DXR)From improved lighting, shadows and reflections as well as more realistic acoustics and spatial audio, raytracing enables developers to create more physically accurate worlds. For the very first time in a game console, Xbox Series X includes support for high performance, hardware accelerated raytracing. Xbox Series X uses a custom-designed GPU leveraging the latest innovation from our partners at AMD and built in collaboration with the same team who developed DirectX Raytracing. Developers will be able to deliver incredibly immersive visual and audio experiences using the same techniques on PC and beyond.

Acoustics appears to be done with the GPU, Audio Processing is done with a Chip. Lightening the load on the CPU. Similar to the way Tempest is doing it.
 
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D

Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
Yeap the DXR 1.1 is co-developed by AMD and MS.

The CPU and GPU not.

AMD was very clear about that.

There are custom functions in the APU from Sony and MS but the GPU and CPU are AMD work only.
Do you know what it means to design a chip? The thing AMD said they did with Microsoft.
 

SonGoku

Member
They can go with RDNA2 CU, it's not like that expensive to sacrifice. It's most likely RDNA2 anyway but we need more details.
Yeah, after watching the video again Cerny mentioned audio occlusion and reverb calculations when talking about audio raytracing
Earlier in the presentation he also mentioned the Tempest Engine can also handle convolution reverb and other algorithms that are computational expensive or need high bandwidth

Im not so sure anymore, will wait for more details
But im 99% confident Tempest Engine is propriety
 
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liviopangt

Neo Member
guys we know that and rdna 2 as the concept of efficiency we know that they are 36cu 10teraflop we know about the geometry egine, of this GE however we know nothing about how much it occupies (mm2) and how powerful it is (more powerful than vrs from certain sources) intersections egine (dedicated to custom raytracing) of all this we stopped at only 36cu in addition it has a mega cache scubbers connected directly connected to the i \ o custom that we do not know what it does if I recycle assets I feed the cu and egine directly from ssd. of the apu could be bigger than 350mm2 7nm + with the same construction 7nm + could be 400mm2 who knows?
 
Hey guys, quick question that's unrelated to console hardware and that jazz. But what are your thoughts on gamers like ColtEastWood and Dealer-gaming? Would love to hear what your outlook for them is. Let me have it!!! 😉
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Yeah, after watching the video again Cerny mentioned audio occlusion and reverb calculations when talking about audio raytracing
Earlier in the presentation he also mentioned the Tempest Engine can also handle convolution reverb and other algorithms that are computational expensive or need high bandwidth

Im not so sure anymore, will wait for more details
But im 99% confident Tempest Engine is propriety
Convolution Reverb as in here, which is already very high-level implementation (on top of the Max for Live SDK), barely takes up 1% of CPU, while playing sound from Reveal Sound Spire 1.1 VSTi. I tried to scale that up x100 an got like 3% of CPU time. Zen2 3900x.
convolution_reverb_update.jpg__600x600_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg


Link

Edit: 4% on Intel Core i5-8257U on MacBook Pro 2019. So YEAH, not a big deal.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
You are assuming the project is the final setup by ms in the Xbox which isn’t by the way seems like ur a hard line ps fanboy living in dreamland.

How about you go talk to them and ask them where are they currently with their project? And yes, I'm a PS fanboy. Go help them out seems they don't know what they're doing with what they've explained in-depth, you must know more.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Acoustics appears to be done with the GPU, Audio Processing is done with a Chip. Lightening the load on the CPU. Similar to the way Tempest is doing it.

Probably Acoustic as a collective engine, as you must still use the GPU. My matter was only the dedicated chip. It's a different approach, it's more like flipped. Sony's is doing a dedicated CU from AMD GPU-based compute unit and stripped it to what's needed and modified it to work solely on audio and release that stress off the main GPU. Does it need CPU/RAM? Does it do some of that? I guess some, but what happened here is:

XSX is short in ram/CPU so they freed it.
PS5 is short in GPU so they freed it.

Smart from both, but totally different methods with different outcomes.
 

CJY

Banned
Hopefully RDNA2 architecture efficiencies plus any optimizations Sony added to aid bandwidth will make it a non issue or hopefully they switch to 16Gbps chips last minute
Ngl it kinda feels like bandwidth will be next gen weakness just like this gen cpu was the weak point or ram volume the gen before


The thing is the 5700xt which is less powerful has that much bandwidth and is starved in 4k.
Hopefully RDNA2 is much more efficient

Link to the video you mentioned? timestamp pretty please
Here you go bro. Timestamped. He speaks slowly, so watch at 1.5-2x



Upon listening to what he has to say again, he's basically uncertain about whether PS5 will be bandwidth starved, and that data compression is possibly what will help mitigate any bandwidth limitation.
 
Probably Acoustic as a collective engine, as you must still use the GPU. My matter was only the dedicated chip. It's a different approach, it's more like flipped. Sony's is doing a dedicated CU from AMD GPU-based compute unit and stripped it to what's needed and modified it to work solely on audio and release that stress off the main GPU. Does it need CPU/RAM? Does it do some of that? I guess some, but what happened here is:

XSX is short in ram/CPU so they freed it.
PS5 is short in GPU so they freed it.

Smart from both, but totally different methods with different outcomes.
I think I understand what you mean at this point.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Not that. The Audio calculation usually takes up to 20% of GPU power, so PS5 made a dedicated GPU compute unit, modified works outside the GPU with complex audio more powerful than all 8 jaguar cores in the PS4 combined to be capable of up to 5,000 sound sources, but instead they'll stick with complex hundreds instead of that overwhelming count.

Meaning, freeing the GPU of that workload, and making it work only on visuals and potentially only ray traced audio through RT cores of the GPU. So that is an equivalent of roughly 12.4TF. Reminds you of something? Yes, @OsirisBlack . The only problem the didn't know about this Secret Sauce.

I can see @OsirisBlack being redeemed. It's a hidden 12.4TF that caught Xbox off guard.

EDIT: THEORETICAL! It's still 10.28 in the GPU side, but collectively it is equivalent to up to 12.4TF by freeing potential 20% of audio work.

No that’s just not a fair reflection of the info, and on the Playstation side of the argument, I’d much rather acknowledge facts, and speculate in the information gaps than look like we’d just say anything to support believing the engineering in PS5 will produce a better games system.

Cerny at about (30mins 40sec IIRC) talks about Ray-traced audio on the Geometry engine(AKA the GPU) – a slide was used with far left blue: Audio RT. Green: Global illumination(RT). Yellow: Shadows (RT). Orange: Reflections (RT) and finally Red: Full RT.

And he stated about 1Million Rays/s would be enough to do Audio RT, a bit more for GI, and conceivably hundreds of Millions, so 100-999 Million Ray/s for Shadows and Reflections.

So just enough vague info to make it impossible to do a regression to extrapolate a guestimate (upper/lower bound) of how many Giga Rays/s the Geometry Engine can do. However, this Audio RT still needs sent to the Tempest 3D AudioTech (Tempest Engine hardware + “proprietary” algorithms to convert from virtual world data in a 3D game into real-world audio signals that constructively interfere in the analogue domain to convincingly recreate that sound stage inside the listener’s ears.

I think what is important to remember is that the Tempest Engine – named independently of the Tempest 3D AudioTech when he spoke - can be used for other things that would suit an SPU...maybe like RT with the IBM real-time Ray tracer did on PS3 back in 2006, but how useful this might be and how much more versatile as an intelligent RT accelerator this might be than the Geometry Engine isn’t something we can extrapolate from the info given.

Why they’ve named the chip after a violent storm ‘a tempest’, or the Shakespearean play ‘The Tempest’ (I’m not familiar with the play). So it could be the chip being like sorcery for what it can do, or might be a reference to the play-within-a-play, as it being a chip-within-a-chip, maybe?
 

Mynd

Neo Member
Ugh, so I re-watched the Tempest portion of the Deep dive again.
He literally states that the primary goal of the engine is 3d audio, and that they can "even help out with some of the games audio. Like convoluted reverb"
46:08 on the official deep dive video.

But he then retsates that its primary goal is translating the audio to 3d space.

This thing has virtually nothing to do with actual game audio.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
No that’s just not a fair reflection of the info, and on the Playstation side of the argument, I’d much rather acknowledge facts, and speculate in the information gaps than look like we’d just say anything to support believing the engineering in PS5 will produce a better games system.

Cerny at about (30mins 40sec IIRC) talks about Ray-traced audio on the Geometry engine(AKA the GPU) – a slide was used with far left blue: Audio RT. Green: Global illumination(RT). Yellow: Shadows (RT). Orange: Reflections (RT) and finally Red: Full RT.

And he stated about 1Million Rays/s would be enough to do Audio RT, a bit more for GI, and conceivably hundreds of Millions, so 100-999 Million Ray/s for Shadows and Reflections.

So just enough vague info to make it impossible to do a regression to extrapolate a guestimate (upper/lower bound) of how many Giga Rays/s the Geometry Engine can do. However, this Audio RT still needs sent to the Tempest 3D AudioTech (Tempest Engine hardware + “proprietary” algorithms to convert from virtual world data in a 3D game into real-world audio signals that constructively interfere in the analogue domain to convincingly recreate that sound stage inside the listener’s ears.

I think what is important to remember is that the Tempest Engine – named independently of the Tempest 3D AudioTech when he spoke - can be used for other things that would suit an SPU...maybe like RT with the IBM real-time Ray tracer did on PS3 back in 2006, but how useful this might be and how much more versatile as an intelligent RT accelerator this might be than the Geometry Engine isn’t something we can extrapolate from the info given.

Why they’ve named the chip after a violent storm ‘a tempest’, or the Shakespearean play ‘The Tempest’ (I’m not familiar with the play). So it could be the chip being like sorcery for what it can do, or might be a reference to the play-within-a-play, as it being a chip-within-a-chip, maybe?

You should know that you understand this matter much more better than me. But what I can add, what if they are testing it to later on add it to their TV's? Or even other TV's and go head-to-head with Dolby Atmos? Sony as a major player in music and movies should invent something like that.
 
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Mynd

Neo Member
You should know that you understand this matter much more better than me. But what I can add, what if they are testing it to later on add it to their TV's? Or even other TV's and go head-to-head with Dolby Atmos? Sony as a major player in music and movies should invent something like that.

The tempest engine takes audio signal generated by the CPU/GPU and puts in at a position in the game, that position is also generated by the CPU/GPU.
YOu are still goign to need game logic and processing power to decided wher ehte voice is coming from and what it is saying.
 
Yes, hardware-based, but a vanilla chip level, supplementary with standard workload, nothing ground breaking.

“It’s extremely exciting,” senior sound designer Daniele Galante said of the new console. “We’re going to have a dedicated chip to work with audio, which means we finally won’t have to fight with programmers and artists for memory and CPU power.”

So it's supplementary for the CPU and memory as it's already starving with 10GB, the GPU will still do the math, hence 20% workload.



ETmoYvkXQAE2kzC


Persuasive Microsoft wording, as usual.

We still don't know the exact details behind MS's audio chip solution though.

Oh come on there's no need for this. It's fake and a sad attempt to hurt Sony fans by stoking their expectations for a non existent thing.
Well, when you're in quarantine, not much else to do than gaming, arguing, etc :)
Well my friend I am a PS fan too but you may try to play more games and less arguing in these trying times.
Here you go bro. Timestamped. He speaks slowly, so watch at 1.5-2x



Upon listening to what he has to say again, he's basically uncertain about whether PS5 will be bandwidth starved, and that data compression is possibly what will help mitigate any bandwidth limitation.

People also do not think about an improvement could be made on Delta Color Compression so that BW requirements go down even more in the next gen...
 
You should know that you understand this matter much more better than me. But what I can add, what if they are testing it to later on add it to their TV's? Or even other TV's and go head-to-head with Dolby Atmos? Sony as a major player in music and movies should invent something like that.
I don't know if it would make much sense unless it was for receivers. But real-time 3-Dimensional audio doesn't work in the video space as much as it would work for the gaming / VR space, honestly. But if they figure it out, I don't see how that would be a bad thing. But considering if PC's and Other consoles could take advantage, that would be a huge sell, but all that processing is happening on the PS5 within the game engines. So again, I'm not sure it makes much sense.

Perhaps a Sony PCI card for PC's does make sense?

EDIT:
A mix of Tempest and DXR sounds like the best of both worlds in one spot. 3D Audio with proper Ray-Traced acoustics seems like an audiophiles dream. Why can't Sony and Microsoft just make one console?
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
I don't know if it would make much sense unless it was for receivers. But real-time 3-Dimensional audio doesn't work in the video space as much as it would work for the gaming / VR space, honestly. But if they figure it out, I don't see how that would be a bad thing.

They have this already:




It can help? Along with their visual, superior chip X1 Ultimate? Maybe the PS5 is the testing ground.
 
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