Damn, MS must have an ace in the hole...
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VGLeaks Durango specs: x64 8-core CPU @1.6GHz, 8GB DDR3 + 32MB ESRAM, 50GB 6x BD...
- Thread starter Shikoro
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Damn, MS must have an ace in the hole...
That's what I know about the block. (Afaik it's only 1 block)
phosphor112
Banned
16 ROPS would be embarrassing compared to the 32 that Orbis has though... What you say SOUNDS right but... 16 ROPS?
Single cycle 4xMSAA and full-speed FP16 have been part of Radeons for a long while now.
No grass in multiplatforms. >:3
Brad Grenz
Member
Is that the same as being free?
You'll always run into bandwidth problems. Speaking specifically about the RBEs, yes, outputting 4x sample rate and FP16 has no penalty. Of course, that means nothing if you don't have sufficient bandwidth.
phosphor112
Banned
MSAA sucks these days with the techniques being used by devs. It kills the processes when working in a deferred rendering engine. Also, DDR3 isn't quite fast enough for a very much filtering.
Half the ROPS isn't good at all >_<
How do we come to that conclusion that there are 16 ROPS?
Let me put it this way...
It is a standard feature in graphics cards. In fact, it was already a feature of Xenos, iirc. It means there is no penalty in the number of pixels the GPU can fill per cycle for up to 4xMSAA, but it still consumes bandwidth. Nothing to be excited over.
IF the rumors are true, MS is betting on Kinect, services, or price because graphics wasn't the focus with Durango. I have my own (uneducated/outsider) theories, but I wouldn't be surprised if $199 w/o Kinect cameras comes to fruition.
phosphor112
Banned
I asked about this earlier, since 'depth/color blocks' sounded just like ROPs. Albeit, I'm sure, they are different vs Xenos ROPs to account for 1) general improvements since and 2) the different memory setup. Compression might have been noteworthy in documentation since Xenos ROPs didn't use any (having a crap-ton of bandwidth to work with, it wasn't necessary).
Ditto with Display Planes. It was heralded as something big, with more info sounded quite boilerplate, then upon questions...silence.
I will await from information on both these things but I have sneaking suspicion that some have conflated documentation of low level topics with things being 'special'. I'd invite Proelite and Aegies to, again, give us some information about why these things are actually notably 'special'. I mean, these ROPs might be tweaked, they might be different vs vanilla GCN, I've no idea, but if they're just ROPs...splitting them out into separate 'special blocks' that sound additional to the norm doesn't seem appropriate. If that's the case every GPU has gazillions of 'special blocks'.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
yeah, but where did he get that number from. He was looking at the gcn diagram not the durango diagram afaik.
Brad Grenz
Member
Yeah, like I've been saying all along, there was always a strong possibility that the people who actually saw stuff just didn't understand whether the features they were reading about were actually remarkable or unique.
Anyway, here's what a Render Back End from the R770 looks like. You can see it basically has a "depth" or "Z" half and a "color" half.
Anyway, here's what a Render Back End from the R770 looks like. You can see it basically has a "depth" or "Z" half and a "color" half.
You know, it does make sense. When two massive consoles are releasing so close to each other, I guess a good way to ensure you don't completely cannibalise each others markets is to offer quite different alternatives. I could see Microsoft's console being more casual and media orientated, and a good $100 or so cheaper, whilst Sony's goes after a more traditional core market.
I highly doubt that, or MS really hiring so many people to work on AAA games for a "media box"
Price is a main selling point and a 720 SKU at launch at 199 would be huge and sellout immediately, but in the long run if there is a big gap in the graphical capabilities between Orbis and Durango MS will suffer in the mid to long run.
Microsoft won't be able to pull out a Wii and come first place next gen with Kinect alone. They will need the horsepower that the Nintendo console lacked.
Or maybe their bet on Live services pays out I don't know. I think they have a good chance in the US at least. I don't know about the rest of the world.
Anyway I hope Durango and Orbis are evenly matched.
phosphor112
Banned
This guy seems to know what he's talking about more than me. Idk though 16 seems paltry.
Yeah, like I've been saying all along, there was always a strong possibility that the people who actually saw stuff just didn't understand whether the features they were reading about were actually remarkable or unique.
Anyway, here's what a Render Back End from the R770 looks like. You can see it basically has a "depth" or "Z" half and a "color" half.
FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU.
If true what a difference in approach compared to the early 360 days :S
Where's Aegis at?
Maybe they can do more per clock than regular GCN ROPs.
It would be interesting to check how many ROPs you might typically need with either 70GB/s or 100GB/s of bandwidth though.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
oh, k, nvm, just an assumption.
Even if Durango is considerably weaker than Orbis it could still have AAA games...
Hell even the Wii had some IMO.
MS is hiring a lot of people because frankly they had no one to work with until some time ago. They were not investing in big first party games.
phosphor112
Banned
It's clearly a GCN. Exact same SIMD units, vector processor units, etc etc.
Why would be consistantly get that it is a wash between them? Heck the Edge report says the PS4 is slightly more powerful.
Brad Grenz
Member
I was looking at this:
4 DBs, 4 CBs. Since you need both the color and depth blocks to form a "Render Back End" as AMD calls it, you have 4 RBEs depicted in the diagram. And typically for AMD each RBE actually contains 4 ROPs. 4*4=16 ROPs.
Yes, but the diagram shows the right number of Shader Cores, the right number of Data Move Engines, etc. I'm assuming based on that.
phosphor112
Banned
I honestly hope this is wrong. I don't want PS4 held back more than it would be if Durango was just "slightly" weaker.
Why would you break out compute commands and graphics commands like that? The ACEs are one unit that schedule tasks based on brands or compute. But these are pulled out separately. Maybe MS found the ACEs inefficient and chose to have discrete sections like Sony? It does suggest there isn't any additional compute units, unless those are outside the GPU
I think 'slightly' does not mean 'insignificant'. Everything that has been revealed suggests that Orbis is significantly more powerful, just not a generational leap kind of situation like between Durango and Wii U.
phosphor112
Banned
That's possible.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
thats a jump, somehow slightly now means significantly?
But having them where they are - directly hooked up to SRAM would suggest they have access to all the bandwidth they'll need, so it could be essentially free.
Don't know why there are only 16 ROPs. Perhaps it's just balanced and 32 would be overkill for 12 CUs
That is not a jump if you looked at the leaked specs.
Absolutely. They already did that with the OG Xbox.
For one I would be completely up for a shorter console cycle if the starting price is not that high.
199, 299 and 399 bucks every 4-5 years? I'm fine with that.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
I was looking at this:
4 DBs, 4 CBs. Since you need both the color and depth blocks to form a "Render Back End" as AMD calls it, you have 4 RBEs depicted in the diagram. And typically for AMD each RBE actually contains 4 ROPs. 4*4=16 ROPs.
Yes, but the diagram shows the right number of Shader Cores, the right number of Data Move Engines, etc. I'm assuming based on that.
but why would they diagram them seperately, unless it's 4x4 cb + 4x4db which would be 32 no?
I was thinking the same thing. So similar in a way to Xenos and its eDRAM but not embedding the logic in it would allow the eSRAM to be more useful and serve more purpose. And since this a modern gpu it would be able to compress it data and as such would not need the amount of bandwidth 360 eDRAM has, which was needed as it does not compress. So 102gb/s might be enough to feed it.
Evolution_1ne
Banned
Sony's first parties are going to have that covered, GG, PD, ND and SSM and various PC exclusive developers will melt faces next gen, it's multiplats that may suffer
though I still doubt we got the whole picture, best wait until tomorrow and more importantly and official announcement before we judge
I mean if the gap was so huge, we would have heard something. If people close to situation can classify it as "slighty" more powerful and multiple people saying that Durango is powerful in it's own right (Read: does not say it's better than Orbis) than people really don't have anything to be worried about.
Evolution_1ne
Banned
7970 is 32 for 32. 7850 is 16 for 32. PS4 is 18 for 32? It's possible. Maybe they wanted to save space.
If orbis is ahead of Durango in sales, but Durango is still selling well, and giving MS penetration in media and services, they might not give a shit
Do you mean that from the consumer point of view or from the developer POV (increasing development costs)?
Most console cycles lasted 5, 6 years until the last one. 5 is a good number! =)
Brad Grenz
Member
It is 4x4 + 4x4 but you have to /2 because a color block and a depth block individually is only half a ROP. You need both components paired together to get one ROP. I don't know why they diagrammed them separately. That was weird, but they also renamed every unit in the GCN architecture for no discernible reason. Maybe so they could trace leaks?
You mistake me. By being media centric, I don't mean to say that it won't have it's core focus on games. Imo the PS3 was also quite media centric, Blu-ray, large HDD, great DVD playback, iPlayer, ITV player, 4oD player, PC streaming etc etc, but it's main focus was still games.
All I'm saying is that this time around, Microsoft will likely put heavy emphasis on non game related features too. UI, OS, cross platform (PC/Mobile) related stuff, Windows apps, Kinect, etc etc. I still think that's why they've taken a hit on memory bandwidth in order to secure 8GB DDR3. A large amount of GDDR5 ram being wasted on the OS would have made no economic sense at all. And using both types of ram would have been costly and complex.
I guess we'll have to wait and see. But I doubt it'll matter much, because from what I've read and heard, Microsoft are going to come guns blazing with the games. One or two of the games they have lined up are sure to have a few patient fans brimming with joy.
Damn...didn't think about that. It's possible. It's a much more valuable market.