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TRUTHFACT: MS having eSRAM yield problems on Xbox One

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Drek

Member
Off topic, but someone really should put Miyamoto in the corner and tell him the truths. His games are great but he should work with the limitations of the hardware, not force the hardware design to fit a very specific way of programming. He literally killed the N64. He moved Nintendo from a trend setter to a niche market on subsequent consoles. Overall, it is a failure.

But who's going to do that? Iwata? He's embattled himself at this point, and when he first came in he wasn't going to push Miyamoto aside.

This is what's so impressive about Kaz Hirai's new pivot within Sony. They were a dyed in the wool hardware company controlled by the hardware guys. Now a software guy is leading the design of their new flagship hardware with their engineering teams following his lead.

If Miyamoto would just step aside and focus on the games Nintendo could forgo the in-box costs of things like the Wii U tablet, the Wiimotes, etc. and sell them via their super-strong first party IPs to disseminate them. This would allow for stronger hardware in the box without eating big losses. Nintendo is the only first party who can get ubiquitous acceptance of a peripheral via software bundling, but they keep pushing peripherals in-box because Miyamoto and company have a handful of quirky uses for it.
 

Zophar

Member
Im not a huge techie like some of you guys, so its my understanding that the PS4 and XBO were pretty similar in terms of architecture. So why are we only hearing of issues coming from MS and not Sony? Is Sony just tighter with leaks this time around? Is there some kind of major difference between the two (the ESRAM?) that is causing all of this? Can we expect similar problems from Sony? Is Mark Cerny a god-like creature sent from heaven to guide Sony on a path of revengeance?

It's the ESRAM.
 

Donnie

Member
No the WiiU does not support the UE4. Repeated a few weeks ago by Mark Rein on twitter.
The UE4 according to information given by Epic takes 1+ Tflops.

No, Rein said they wouldn't be looking to port the engine to WiiU, he also said if a third party wants to put UE4 on WiiU its totally possible. There is no magic 1tflop number required to run the engine, its an engine not a game.
 
Would a delay until 2014 really be more catastrophic than a last-minute reduction in specs (which would likely mean that a bunch of launch-window titles would have to be drastically retooled at the last minute)?

I feel like MS would be much, much better off with a delay than with downclocking their ESRAM so late in the game.
 

MogCakes

Member
Personally, I have the feeling you're full of BS. But even so, I do not believe you should have to divulge your source to anyone. And if you were asked to, my opinion of gaf would dramatically plummet. Truth will come out eventually. You'll either become a gaf insider with established credibility, or another sad console war martyr.

I'm leaning towards the latter. The sources in the OP are verified - Senjutsu is not. He can't ask us to take his word for it without an established history, that's not how GAF works. His constant aggression towards anyone questioning him says as much. Had he not had a history of rushing to the Xbox One's defense, and had just posted his 'leak' without making a fuss, he'd be in better standing.
 

Vormund

Member
Ugh. I think at this point they should've just made a supercharged 360. Same vendors etc, just more ram and more powerful.
 

stryke

Member
Im not a huge techie like some of you guys, so its my understanding that the PS4 and XBO were pretty similar in terms of architecture. So why are we only hearing of issues coming from MS and not Sony? Is Sony just tighter with leaks this time around? Is there some kind of major difference between the two (the ESRAM?) that is causing all of this? Can we expect similar problems from Sony? Is Mark Cerny a god-like creature sent from heaven to guide Sony on a path of revengeance?

bingo
 
Im not a huge techie like some of you guys, so its my understanding that the PS4 and XBO were pretty similar in terms of architecture. So why are we only hearing of issues coming from MS and not Sony? Is Sony just tighter with leaks this time around? Is there some kind of major difference between the two (the ESRAM?) that is causing all of this? Can we expect similar problems from Sony? Is Mark Cerny a god-like creature sent from heaven to guide Sony on a path of revengeance?
I'm not a techie either but I think I understand it so I'll try to translate this into dudebro or close:

They use different ram. Sony uses 8gb gddr5 which is super fast. MS uses 8gb ddr3 which is slow + has 32mb of esram on board that helps make it faster, but the problem is is that the 32mb esram is almost 2 billion transistors (total X1 transistors is 5 billion). The more transistors these computer chips have the worse the yields will be (meaning more consoles on the assembly line will turn out to be duds that you can't sell). PS4 has 3 billion transistors so Sony is sitting pretty because it's a lot easier to get better yield with 3 bil than 5 bil, goes without saying.

Is that about right?
 
By confirming the yield issues it almost confirms downclocking as well. The latter follows the former in order to boost yields. MS will have a stated cost structure in place for Xbone, if the main APU yields are poor (and rumours suggest they are) then the solution is to either fuse off more CU's, CPU cores or lower clocks to ensure more usable parts, thus increasing the yield to an acceptable figure.

The problem with this is that unlike Nvidia or AMD with regular GPUs, MS can't exactly release what they have onto the market then refresh the line up 6-9 months later when the chip has been respun and clocks can be increased. If they release a 700MHz GPU then it will be 700MHz for the whole cycle.

The choice seems to be this:

1. Fuck it, stick to the plan, deal with the costs and stock issues (even delays) caused by poor yields later.

2. Lower the clockspeed, get more usable dice per wafer, lower costs, no chance of delays and no serious stock issues. Play down the power aspect and hope the public don't notice the gulf in between Xbone and PS4.

Of those the former is what I think a hardware company like Sony would choose, but the Xbox division seems to be run by bean counting suits, so I expect they have chosen the latter. Waiting for a respin just seems out of the question right now as it would delay the console into 2014.

It really depends on A.) the size of the failed yields (10%, 20%, etc...) and B.) the amount of a DC necessary to bring the yield up to acceptable. Being those two are big variables, either option is equally plausible from our point of view.
 

Risible

Member
Anyone even considering getting an Xbone at launch after the whole RRoD fiasco is nuts, MS has proven they are willing to launch a broken console if it means launching asap.

THIS. There's no way in hell I'm being a guinea pig for Microsoft again. I'll let the other suckers do that and buy the new and improved console when it comes out.
 
Im not a huge techie like some of you guys, so its my understanding that the PS4 and XBO were pretty similar in terms of architecture. So why are we only hearing of issues coming from MS and not Sony? Is Sony just tighter with leaks this time around? Is there some kind of major difference between the two (the ESRAM?) that is causing all of this? Can we expect similar problems from Sony? Is Mark Cerny a god-like creature sent from heaven to guide Sony on a path of revengeance?

At the time MS envisioned XBox One, it was decided that 8 GB of RAM was needed. At the time, only DDR3 had a decent speed, decent yield, and decent size. However, DDR3 is much slower than the GDDR5 found in graphics cards, so there needed to be an ultrafast cache to make up for the slowness of the RAM. Thus, eSRAM was incorporated into the design. However, the XBOX one is getting low yields because of the eSRAM.

Sony went a different route. The plan was originally 4 GB of GDDR5 RAM. 4GB was chose cause that was what they could fit on their APU design. Well, a few months back Sony's GDDR5 manufacturer had a breakthrough. They could allpw for twice as much RAM through a clamshell design. Thus, Sony's initially conservative RAM amount gave them good yields, and a pre-mass manufacturing breakthrough gave them an awesome upgrade.
 

gcubed

Member
It really depends on A.) the size of the failed yields (10%, 20%, etc...) and B.) the amount of a DC necessary to bring the yield up to acceptable. Being those two are big variables, either option is equally plausible from our point of view.

i dont know... MS had no problem launching the 360 with almost no stock available for months from release. Not sure why they'd have a problem doing the same thing here (unless they felt that much pressure from Sony)
 
I'm not a techie either but I think I understand it so I'll try to translate this into dudebro or close:

They use different ram. Sony uses 8gb gddr5 which is super fast. MS uses 8gb ddr3 which is slow + has 32mb of esram on board that helps make it faster, but the problem is is that the 32mb esram is almost 2 billion transistors (total X1 transistors is 5 billion). The more transistors these computer chips have the worse the yields will be (meaning more consoles on the assembly line will turn out to be duds that you can't sell). PS4 has 3 billion transistors so Sony is sitting pretty because it's a lot easier to get better yield with 3 bil than 5 bil, goes without saying.

Is that about right?

ESRAM only helps the GPU but that is about right.
 

Perkel

Banned
No, Rein said they wouldn't be looking to port the engine to WiiU, he also said if a third party wants to put UE4 on WiiU its totally possible. There is no magic 1tflop number required to run the engine, its an engine not a game.

I don't see a reason porting UE4 to Wii U if UE3 will do the same things. Porting UE4 to Wii U would mean that Wii U would have fewer resources than using UE3. There is always bottom (minimum spec) line that needs to be first taken care off. But yeah UE4 can be on WiiU but there is simply no point in it if there is UE3.5
 

War Eagle

Member
Im not a huge techie like some of you guys, so its my understanding that the PS4 and XBO were pretty similar in terms of architecture. So why are we only hearing of issues coming from MS and not Sony? Is Sony just tighter with leaks this time around? Is there some kind of major difference between the two (the ESRAM?) that is causing all of this? Can we expect similar problems from Sony? Is Mark Cerny a god-like creature sent from heaven to guide Sony on a path of revengeance?

I am not either, but from what I gather, the one big difference the two consoles do have is the RAM. Sony's GDDR5 RAM is superior to MS's DDR3+32Mb of ESRAM, and yet MS's RAM seems less stable (their ESRAM, but not normal 8 GB DDR3 RAM).

Or something like that. I'm sure someone will say I'm a moron and correct me.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
Wii had gfx card issues, spikes on the screen

The biggest issue was just how poorly WiiConnect was implemented. Wii ran at 50 percent power load when turned off (but WiiConnect enabled). That's why the GPU was getting fried. It was running way too hot for a fanless state.
 

Salaadin

Member
It's the ESRAM.


I'm not a techie either but I think I understand it so I'll try to translate this into dudebro or close:

They use different ram. Sony uses 8gb gddr5 which is super fast. MS uses 8gb ddr3 which is slow + has 32mb of esram on board that helps make it faster, but the problem is is that the 32mb esram is almost 2 billion transistors (total X1 transistors is 5 billion). The more transistors these computer chips have the worse the yields will be (meaning more consoles on the assembly line will turn out to be duds that you can't sell). PS4 has 3 billion transistors so Sony is sitting pretty because it's a lot easier to get better yield with 3 bil than 5 bil, goes without saying.

Is that about right?

At the time MS envisioned XBox One, it was decided that 8 GB of RAM was needed. At the time, only DDR3 had a decent speed, decent yield, and decent size. However, DDR3 is much slower than the GDDR5 found in graphics cards, so there needed to be an ultrafast cache to make up for the slowness of the RAM. Thus, eSRAM was incorporated into the design. However, the XBOX one is getting low yields because of the eSRAM.

Sony went a different route. The plan was originally 4 GB of GDDR5 RAM. 4GB was chose cause that was what they could fit on their APU design. Well, a few months back Sony's GDDR5 manufacturer had a breakthrough. They could allpw for twice as much RAM through a clamshell design. Thus, Sony's initially conservative RAM amount gave them good yields, and a pre-mass manufacturing breakthrough gave them an awesome upgrade.

Thanks to everyone for the information.
 
i dont know... MS had no problem launching the 360 with almost no stock available for months from released. Not sure why they'd have a problem doing the same thing here (unless they felt that much pressure from Sony)

I personally think they would go with lower stock unless the yield issue is catastrophic (under 50%).

But they should've known ~yield % in LRP and not this late. If there is a problem surfacing, I actually think it is AMD's fault here (they've screwed up before on the PC chip side a few times).
 
I am not either, but from what I gather, the one big difference the two consoles do have is the RAM. Sony's GDDR5 RAM is superior to MS's DDR3+32Mb of ESRAM, and yet MS's RAM seems less stable (their ESRAM, but not normal 8 GB DDR3 RAM).

Or something like that. I'm sure someone will say I'm a moron and correct me.

Discounting these yield issues, technology aside we'll have to see the boxes out in the wild before you can really state which solution is better. I think people put way too much stock in GDDR since the memory controllers for it aren't that great. Still great (best) RAM for video only processes though.
 

longdi

Banned
crazybuttocks has been verified legit. He has confirmed all this. So there you go.

what did he say? which site?
how about the other non-verified "insiders", do they get a free run?
maybe something is up that the admin/mod have heard and that is why they are allowing this thread to run wild.
im just trying to play the devil advocate.
 
However, AMD has done this before on the PC component side of things of under delivering an engineering promise, so......

Can't really blame AMD for this, MS is the one that decided on the chip budget.

And I can't really blame Microsoft either, they just got unlucky, like how Sony got lucky with 8GB GDDR5 RAM being available.
 

onQ123

Member
The reality of it all is that Gamers have been used by MS from the start as a gateway to getting their ecosystem in the living room & stopping Sony from owning the living room & being a threat to Windows but along the way Apple & Google became MS biggest threats so now they are trying to make sure that things like AppleTV & GoogleTV don't take over the living room.
 
It really depends on A.) the size of the failed yields (10%, 20%, etc...) and B.) the amount of a DC necessary to bring the yield up to acceptable. Being those two are big variables, either option is equally plausible from our point of view.

Yes, I have had one of our semi-conductor analysis team get in touch TSMC to see if anyone we know can let us know the yield range. Obviously we'll have to wait until tomorrow morning now, but they have been very helpful in the past.
 

Razgreez

Member
I personally think they would go with lower stock unless the yield issue is catastrophic (under 50%).

But they should've known ~yield % in LRP and not this late. If there is a problem surfacing, I actually think it is AMD's fault here (they've screwed up before on the PC chip side a few times).

Definitely AMD's fault. They designed the APU afterall...
 

1-D_FTW

Member
Would a delay until 2014 really be more catastrophic than a last-minute reduction in specs (which would likely mean that a bunch of launch-window titles would have to be drastically retooled at the last minute)?

I feel like MS would be much, much better off with a delay than with downclocking their ESRAM so late in the game.


Semi-Accurate (which despite sucking, does have good AMD sources) was talking about horrible yields as far back as September 2012. And who knows how long that had been taking place before they printed things.

I'm sure they've made changes and respun things numerous times since. What makes you sure they're finally just one more revision away from finally solving things?
 

DBT85

Member
what did he say? which site?
how about the other non-verified "insiders", do they get a free run?
maybe something is up that the admin/mod have heard and that is why they are allowing this thread to run wild.
im just trying to play the devil advocate.

Buttocks is always right and he also types like he fell asleep drunk on his keyboard. Which means he is both interesting and amusing.

The other insiders here that others are talking about have all been accurate enough to suggest that either they should all do my lottery numbers because they are very lucky, or they know someone.
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
Semi-Accurate (which despite sucking, does have good AMD sources) was talking about horrible yields as far back as September 2012. And who knows how long that had been taking place before they printed things.

I'm sure they've made changes and respun things numerous times since. What makes you sure they're finally just one more revision away from finally solving things?

If they are one spin away from resolving things now its probably too late, they should already be manufacturing shouldn't they?.
 
Would a delay until 2014 really be more catastrophic than a last-minute reduction in specs (which would likely mean that a bunch of launch-window titles would have to be drastically retooled at the last minute)?

I feel like MS would be much, much better off with a delay than with downclocking their ESRAM so late in the game.

They don't want Sony beating them to market. I just don't see how they couldn't have planned this better. 360 came out in 2005. If anything they should be launching first.
 

eastmen

Banned
At the time MS envisioned XBox One, it was decided that 8 GB of RAM was needed. At the time, only DDR3 had a decent speed, decent yield, and decent size. However, DDR3 is much slower than the GDDR5 found in graphics cards, so there needed to be an ultrafast cache to make up for the slowness of the RAM. Thus, eSRAM was incorporated into the design. However, the XBOX one is getting low yields because of the eSRAM.

Sony went a different route. The plan was originally 4 GB of GDDR5 RAM. 4GB was chose cause that was what they could fit on their APU design. Well, a few months back Sony's GDDR5 manufacturer had a breakthrough. They could allpw for twice as much RAM through a clamshell design. Thus, Sony's initially conservative RAM amount gave them good yields, and a pre-mass manufacturing breakthrough gave them an awesome upgrade.

its not a break through , its a doubling of the size of the chip. So if they were able to make a 100 chips at x density they will only be able to make 50 at x density. Since a single chip now takes up twice the room its going to yield not only half as much but will also loose more chips to defects in the process.

So sony felt they needed to increase ram sizes at an increase in price. IT be akin to MS coming out and saying oh hey guys we decided to upgrade to 12gigs of ddr 3. Its not a break through they will just be spending more money
 

Minions

Member
That would just corroborate what we already heard from, say, Jonathan Blow the other day. That there's performance difference between the machines. But we pretty much know that's going to be there, regardless of downclock. That still doesn't confirm they are degrading anything.

IMO, unless there really is downclock going, low yield won't affect us, the end user in any meaningful way. It will be more expensive for MS to manufacture this, they may not be able to ship as much initially as they hoped, but that's the only thing that will be affected.

Price of the console will/can be affected.... to say that won't affect the end user is crazy.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
If they are one spin away from resolving things now its probably too late, they should already be manufacturing shouldn't they?.

I don't know the timelines on these things. I'm just saying it's not that easy as delaying it. And if MS knew exactly what was causing them such issues, they would have already solved things. A delay into 2014 is a lot more catastrophic than turning down shadows a little bit on launch software. Especially since a delay into 2014 doesn't really guarantee anything anyways.
 

eastmen

Banned
Semi-Accurate (which despite sucking, does have good AMD sources) was talking about horrible yields as far back as September 2012. And who knows how long that had been taking place before they printed things.

I'm sure they've made changes and respun things numerous times since. What makes you sure they're finally just one more revision away from finally solving things?

I wouldn't think any single respin would magicly fix the problems. I think it will be a slow steady progression towards better yields. Both with respins and with tuning at the fab.

The rumors don't state much at all except downclocks but are they down clocks on an older batch of chips so that devs would have hardware to work on or are they downclocks on the final respin of the chip.

Remember mass production of xbox 360 chips didn't start until the sept of launch. So MS still has a few months to go before these chips will be made.

They can start producing these chips and and slowly build up stock of working chips at targeted specs or they could be doing a respin / tuning of the fab . But yields could change drasticly in 4 months. We've seen it with video cards and other cpus before.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Price of the console will/can be affected.... to say that won't affect the end user is crazy.
I believe, maybe foolishly, that MS has by now (because of 3rd party partners) committed to a pricing structure that they won't break out of regardless of yields. They'd probably rather just swallow the cost and/or ship less unless the process improves.
 
Semi-Accurate (which despite sucking, does have good AMD sources) was talking about horrible yields as far back as September 2012. And who knows how long that had been taking place before they printed things.

I'm sure they've made changes and respun things numerous times since. What makes you sure they're finally just one more revision away from finally solving things?
I don't know about "resolving things," but this close to launch, it's not like they can keep changing things up a bunch of times. Specs need to be finalized a certain amount of time prior to launch if they want launch titles to actually be done on time.

They don't want Sony beating them to market. I just don't see how they couldn't have planned this better. 360 came out in 2005. If anything they should be launching first.
I'm of the opinion that a later (but reasonably solid) launch would be better for them than a horribly bungled launch with low inventory, launch titles that are buggy because developers got specs changed on them at the last minute, et cetera.
I don't know the timelines on these things. I'm just saying it's not that easy as delaying it. And if MS knew exactly what was causing them such issues, they would have already solved things. A delay into 2014 is a lot more catastrophic than turning down shadows a little bit on launch software. Especially since a delay into 2014 doesn't really guarantee anything anyways.
Do you think a delay into 2014 would really be such a huge catastrophe? I guess it's true that MS would then miss out on this fall's CoD release (and Madden), and that'd be a pretty huge problem for them.
 

eastmen

Banned
I don't know the timelines on these things. I'm just saying it's not that easy as delaying it. And if MS knew exactly what was causing them such issues, they would have already solved things. A delay into 2014 is a lot more catastrophic than turning down shadows a little bit on launch software. Especially since a delay into 2014 doesn't really guarantee anything anyways.

2014 would allow them to most likely use 22nm process. Also if they commit to the delay early enough they could make design changes to the chip. Replace the ddr 3 memory controller with a ddr 4 or gddr5 controller. They could even up the cu's / rops

But that's assuming a fall 2014 launch.

22nm would most likely allow them to clock the chip higher. 2ghz jaguar 8 core with 1.2 or 1.4 ghz gpu would change things a bit. But who really knows


My guess is they just launch at 1.6/800mhz and just suffer through shortages which are going to plague both consoles.
 
I don't know the timelines on these things. I'm just saying it's not that easy as delaying it. And if MS knew exactly what was causing them such issues, they would have already solved things. A delay into 2014 is a lot more catastrophic than turning down shadows a little bit on launch software. Especially since a delay into 2014 doesn't really guarantee anything anyways.

It's not turning down the shadows on launch software, it's turning them down for good. They can't launch with a 700MHz GPU then magically upgrade that to 800MHz down the line once they fix the yield problems. It would cause a shit ton of performance issues for early adopters, the one group of buyers companies hate to piss off.

I wouldn't think any single respin would magicly fix the problems. I think it will be a slow steady progression towards better yields. Both with respins and with tuning at the fab.

The rumors don't state much at all except downclocks but are they down clocks on an older batch of chips so that devs would have hardware to work on or are they downclocks on the final respin of the chip.

Remember mass production of xbox 360 chips didn't start until the sept of launch. So MS still has a few months to go before these chips will be made.

They can start producing these chips and and slowly build up stock of working chips at targeted specs or they could be doing a respin / tuning of the fab . But yields could change drasticly in 4 months. We've seen it with video cards and other cpus before.

And that lead to massive shortages as well as poor QA ending up in the whole RROD fiasco and $1bn pissed away in extending warranties by three years. A repeat performance would kill Xbone, MS already has a reputation for poor hardware.
 
What's going on with this? i was reading through the thread last night but i don't remember where I left off. So were there any new developments?
 
2014 would allow them to most likely use 22nm process. Also if they commit to the delay early enough they could make design changes to the chip. Replace the ddr 3 memory controller with a ddr 4 or gddr5 controller. They could even up the cu's / rops

But that's assuming a fall 2014 launch.

22nm would most likely allow them to clock the chip higher. 2ghz jaguar 8 core with 1.2 or 1.4 ghz gpu would change things a bit. But who really knows


My guess is they just launch at 1.6/800mhz and just suffer through shortages which are going to plague both consoles.



DDR for Fall 2014? Nope.

Also, delaying to Fall 2014 would probably be breaking contracts all over the place for all the 3rd party exclusives they have supposedly signed.
 

Hermii

Member
I don't see a reason porting UE4 to Wii U if UE3 will do the same things. Porting UE4 to Wii U would mean that Wii U would have fewer resources than using UE3. There is always bottom (minimum spec) line that needs to be first taken care off. But yeah UE4 can be on WiiU but there is simply no point in it if there is UE3.5

The point would be easier porting of UE4 games and a better development enviroment. not necesarily better graphics.
 
Delaying xbone means an automatic fifa, cod timed exclusives for ps4. Its just not gonna happen, it would be good for hardcore gamers as we would love to see a better spec xbone but its not possible for ms.
 

eastmen

Banned
It's not turning down the shadows on launch software, it's turning them down for good. They can't launch with a 700MHz GPU then magically upgrade that to 800MHz down the line once they fix the yield problems. It would cause a shit ton of performance issues for early adopters, the one group of buyers companies hate to piss off.



And that lead to massive shortages as well as poor QA ending up in the whole RROD fiasco and $1bn pissed away in extending warranties by three years. A repeat performance would kill Xbone, MS already has a reputation for poor hardware.

Actually the international laws on lead free soder lead to the whole RROD fiasco.

Aside from that consoles like the psone and pstwo suffered from major problems also . It doesn't really matter , if there is a flaw in your system it will come out at some point. Look at all the ps3 problems with bluray drives poping up after a couple of years.
 
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