GameAddict411
Member
absolutely.
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Digital Foundry: the complete Xbox One architects interview
- Thread starter Chobel
- Start date
absolutely.
GPGPU isn't that hard if the algorithm your working with maps well to the GPU paradigm and your programmers know enough about the architecture to be competent. Its when you try and port things that don't map well the paradigm that you end up in trouble.
SHADES
Member
it's one of the only buzzwords left that can be used in PR without it being incorrect or pulled apart because it's such a non statement.
After the reveal most of MS PR has been ragged silly so they effectively need a new angle so "Balance" IMO seems like PR damage limitation more than anything else, actually thinking about what other buzzwords could they use without creating more negative PR?
"The best next gen experience" PS4 trumps
"The most powerful console" PS4 trumps
"Best graphics" PS4 trumps
"best games" debatable
I'm struggling to think of a buzzword or slogan they could use, anyone else?
Knowing how cheap an ARM SoC can be (Under $10), it wouldn't surprise me.
Make a new thread, so we can finally talk about it
We don't know enough info about the ARM chip/SoC in the PS4 (other than what Cerny told us at the PS4 event in February) to make a new thread about it. It would just be us speculating.
But the algorithms would have to be new algorithms created by the devs is kind of my point.
The Devs could use current gen techniques or they would have to write their own GPGPU algorithms to really get the benefit, which would of course be a more costly solution.
EDIT: to clarify, I'm not talking about moving over current techniques which are in use but creating more advance techniques which only become possible with the added grunt of GPGPU.
I guess that essentially comes down to a semantic issue. It reminds me of the 'consoles hold back PC gaming' argument. If the system has a strong enough ecosystem to warrant the development, great, but if it's only viable because it has peers in it's performance group, then that's the bag it's in with.
Some people would say 'XBO is limiting PS4', but it's more logical to say the PS4 install base is limiting PS4. The blame shouldn't fall on MS, the fact there is a similar spec console is actually very good for PS4. The fact it's lower spec is not inherently bad either, it means at least some comfortable headroom on every multiplatform release, even if they're not taxing the machine to it's knees every time.
I guess we'll see, we've had notably more powerful systems before, (PS2 to Xbox), but they didn't have such similar libraries, and there was a huge install base difference on the side of the weaker system. If PS4 handily out sells the XBO, I think you'll see plenty of developers push the system as hard as they can, regardless of the compromises that will mean to the XBO SKU of a game.
I don't really think the same parts of the team take care of current gen and next-gen. That would be highly inefficient.
FranXico
Member
Hopefully we will see the PS4 install base become much larger than XB1 so that we do get these multi platform games to be the best experiences we can get, though of course regardless of install base, some games will lag behind (yearly installment cash cows, but that's pure greed more than anything else)
I wasnt really defending Albert there, sorry my post was not clear that I was sarcastic. It's plainly obvious what Albert tried to do with the numbers.
DatI've already heard quite a bit about latency from someone already programming for the system. I don't need an article reinforcement. Thanks for your consideration though.
pseudo-
No they don't, but resources are shared.
I wasnt really defending Albert there, sorry my post was not clear that I was sarcastic. It's plainly obvious what Albert tried to do with the numbers.
Datinsider card!pseudo-
My bad, Sarcasm is becoming more difficult to spot, I did find it strange with your avatar though.
BRUTALBOWN
Banned
Reminds me of that song from Thomas Dolby...........
I'm mostly serious right now. I haven't finished reading all the former GAF threads yet but, I'm starting to develop a small fear of Sony getting wrapped up in corporate espionage or something court cases in a few years. A man that worked with Playstation since it's inception, leaving after handling the last hand-off for the PS4, going to Atari mostly to pick up a buddy, then going to Gaiki, serving on the board (Sony buys Gaiki relatively shortly afterwards), and then leaves for Microsoft. In the games division.
TL;DR : Starting to think Agent Harrison is seriously real.
All the other stuff I don't understand is interesting too.
LukasTaves
Member
Don't like this interview. They talk a lot about really a very efficient system, where you can get most out of each component, but never go in deep enough to explain why (and even less so to explain why other system aren't).
The compute part is the most jarring... They literally have said nothing about how the system is able to run compute jobs not taking a huge hit on the graphics tasks... It was like: Ok, so Sony decided to give a little extra ALU to allow compute, we had a different approach which is .
Why not? 32Mb is a better deal for 1080p than the 360 got with 10mb for 720p.
And this time, it should be easier to alleviate the impacts from tiling, so like 360 that should be able to hold bigger buffers, but with less performance drain.
The compute part is the most jarring... They literally have said nothing about how the system is able to run compute jobs not taking a huge hit on the graphics tasks... It was like: Ok, so Sony decided to give a little extra ALU to allow compute, we had a different approach which is .
Why not? 32Mb is a better deal for 1080p than the 360 got with 10mb for 720p.
And this time, it should be easier to alleviate the impacts from tiling, so like 360 that should be able to hold bigger buffers, but with less performance drain.
BruiserBear
Banned
Well, if you think about it for a moment, it makes sense that competitive consoles are in Ledbetter's best interests. Competition breeds clicks for his face-off articles. You don't want one guy to be declared the loser from day one.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
What is even there to call inaccurate? They said nothing about it, other than they haven't made statements about latency. Even though they talk about latency a few times in that very article, but just not in the context of specifically referring to ESRAM. They do, however, talk about it in documents to developers. I've regularly in talking about latency acknowledged, precisely as they did, that, yes, GPU's are latency tolerant, but that in no way suggests that you don't benefit from lower latency memory at all.
It's also mentioned in the leaked vgleaks info, which came from official documentation, unless people want to tell me that information isn't accurate?
http://www.vgleaks.com/durango-gpu-2/2/
See how this works? I'm sorry, but you people can't have it both ways. If the architects say something people don't want to hear, it's instantly bullshit or PR damage control. If they say something that people believe helps reinforce their already negative or pessimistic view of the system, then somehow you can take what they said to the bank, and ignore official documentation highlighting the ESRAM's low latency (although they don't specify just how low that is.) I'm not saying the architects are wrong like so many on here have said numerous times. I'm just taking all of what they say in the context of how they've presented it, in addition to how leaked official information has presented it, and what I've heard from a friend coding for the console.
I've already said on here many times that I have a friend in first party development for the system, and I've heard what I would consider very good things about the implication of the ESRAM's latency on actual, real world performance. If you want to believe I'm making that up, go right ahead, it doesn't bother me. And because there's that level of distrust, I've even posted direct quotes from an actual game developer, such as this one here
http://beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1738762&postcount=3325
where they explain some of the potential implications of low latency on chip memory. You might then be asking yourself "Well, how do you know the ESRAM is on chip memory and low latency." If nothing else, the architects have confirmed in these eurogamer articles that the ESRAM is built very close on chip with that GPU, and is, in fact, internal memory. It's also confirmed to be SRAM, so that means it's quite low latency by default. The architects don't need to say that the ESRAM is low latency, because it's already said in official Microsoft documentation that it is, and that it's one of the benefits or implications of the ESRAM being included in the system. The Xbox One ESRAM is a fast on chip memory scratchpad exactly as described in that post by the game developer.
Comments by architects that I think largely imply the ESRAM is much closer to the execution units of the GPU, thus making it rather low latency, are in plain site in the eurogamer articles that have been put out. They say explicitly multiple times that ESRAM is internal memory and DDR3 is external memory. They, I believe, say that very thing 4 different times. I don't want to bother pointing it out to people, because it's in this article.
And I'll leave it at that, because I'm already explicitly aware of what kind of crowd I'm dealing with. I swear speaking with a positive outlook on this system is almost like insulting people's mothers or something.
I said the same thing to a friend actually working with just GPGPU he nearly smacked me. It all depends on the person in question, he had apparently been breathing this code so it became second nature to him and he found it wasteful to not utilize it when given the chance.
Then again as you point out later, it probably is a "cost waste" in the publishers eyes seeing as tools and engines needs to be made to take advantage of it. Maybe down the road, lets say 2-3 years?
bigboss370
Member
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
'Close but no Cigar'?
Chobel
Member
Who is sebbbi?
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
He messed up Sony in the same way while he was there, it points to blinkered incompetence rather than espionage, if you ask me.
IAmRandom31
Banned
point taken, ESRAM is low latency. No shit because it is on chip memory lol. GPU threads are not affected by latency in the first place. Why? Because in the end all of those assets have to be post processed, rendered and put onto the screen so the calculations going on in the background have extra time to get pushed through. So latency really means jack diddly when your talking about rendering. Which is why you know, every single GPU hardware manufacturer uses GDDR5. Not 2GB of DD3 with 16-32MB of eSRAM for the GPU. Doesn't make sense.
We have been seeing a 7 year generation of art assets that had to be compressed to hell and low resolution to keep the size of the game and poly counts up due to RAM limitations. Now developers have enough space to throw out high resolution, highly textured, post processed to hell art assets. So those assets are going to grow in size in a massive way over the next 5 years. 8MB is far too small for a frame buffer this gen, which is what essentially the eDRAM was in the 360. Frame buffer and assisted in AA ( free AA as MS puts it ).
I seem to remember reading something awhile back, about him being really difficult to work with. I could just be imagining that though.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
Albert 'sebbbi' Penello.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
A confirmed videogame developer that posts over there from time to time. He has coded for released Xbox 360 titles, and I believe other systems also. I use to know in more explicit detail which games those were, and a bunch of other details the work he has done, but I no longer have my old browser bookmarks which would point me more clearly to that information, and I definitely don't want to go searching it out.
Sorry, but your opinion is obviously highly uninformed when experienced professionals that do this stuff for a living say otherwise. Seriously. To believe what some people are saying, you would have to genuinely believe that game programmers that have been in this business for longer than some people here have probably been alive, don't know what they're talking about. If left with a choice to believe a poster whose knowledge on the subject is questionable (that includes me too. I don't exempt myself) or to believe videogame developers, but more specifically graphics programmers that have done work in released games that people have been able to play and appreciate, I will choose to believe those programmers 10 times out of 10. And that's my final point on the matter, because we've had these discussions hundreds of times by now.
BruiserBear
Banned
For me, the face-off to watch come launch week is gonna to be Call of Duty: Ghosts. This is THE multiplatform franchise most closely linked to the Xbox. If any developer is going to have pressure on them to gimp the PS4 version, it's this one. It would be particularly embarrassing for Microsoft to have paid all that money for their DLC deal, and marketing plans, and then have the PS4 version acknowledged as the better version of the game.
BigJoeGrizzly
Neo Member
I think both next-gen consoles are going to be awesome, and as a gamer I've very excited for the new gaming experiences both will bring. At this point, that's all that should really matter. I grow very tired of all the console-wars and dick-measuring contests that ensue every time there's an article pointing out positive info or tech analysis of various consoles (especially when its Xbone related, which seems to be the scapegoat du jour currently). We should be evangelizing the unique technical capabilities that each console brings, rather than condemning them for not being EVERYTHING we want them to be.
Did you miss what they said in article ?
Why ESRAM ?
because:
- better production value (in APU instead of daughter die)
- it was necessary because DDR3 bandwidth was too small.
When DF asked specifically about latency:
- GPUs don't need low latency so lower latency is useless
- CPU does not have good connection to ESRAM and they suggest it is slow being used by CPU. Which points that latency again won't give CPU boost.
They choose it because of production values not for its latency. End of story. If there were some latency boost they would tell about it. You just don't hide advantages if you are asked about it.
Chobel
Member
Unless you are the experienced professional, then you're using "appealing to authority" fallacy. You yourself don't understand it but you make it look it's fact based on what few professionals said.
Sword Of Doom
Member
It's not like this all came out of the blue. The tech people on here looked at the specs and came to the conclusion that there would be a significant power gap. The edge article and the tweet from Adrian only reinforced what the specs already told us.
IHaveCandy
Banned
So what is uncomfortable about gddr5 ram?
$$$ = unbalanced.
A confirmed videogame developer that posts over there from time to time. He has coded for released Xbox 360 titles, and I believe other systems also. I use to know in more explicit detail which games those were, and a bunch of other details the work he has done, but I no longer have my old browser bookmarks which would point me more clearly to that information, and I definitely don't want to go searching it out.
Sorry, but your opinion is obviously highly uninformed when experienced professionals that do this stuff for a living say otherwise. Seriously. To believe what some people are saying, you would have to genuinely believe that game programmers that have been in this business for longer than some people here have probably been alive, don't know what they're talking about. If left with a choice to believe a poster whose knowledge on the subject is questionable (that includes me too. I don't exempt myself) or to believe videogame developers, but more specifically graphics programmers that have done work in released games that people have been able to play and appreciate, I will choose to believe those programmers 10 times out of 10. And that's my final point on the matter, because we've had these discussions hundreds of times by now.
I don't think you understand where the skepticism comes from. Pardon me in advance for being blunt.
"Believing" is conditional on several things. First, that your interpretation of what this person is saying is correct. Second, that this person, who is a first party developer, is being completely, 100% forthcoming to you.
Penello himself completely botched information that was supposedly given directly to him by the technical fellow when bringing it over to GAF. Why should we trust you, again, with your multiple bans over the past few months? And with a plethora of fairly crude technical misstatements you've made in this period? And I'm operating under the assumption that you are being completely honest, by the way.
killatopak
Member
Some Hollywood stuff right there.
Secret sauce doesn't discover by AMD and Nvidia.
Exactly. By inference, their not mentioning it when questioned directly about latency suggests that it is not important to them.
ProfessorMoran
Member
Nothing, it's awesome RAM. Sony was very lucky that all the stars aligned and they were able to put 8GB GDDR5 in the box instead of 4GB, sometimes you have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Harrison also started the Xbone policy drama.
James Sawyer Ford
Banned
It made Microsoft uncomfortable about their design decisions when Sony revealed the 8GB of GDDR5 megaton.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
It's not very nice to sit on.
They didn't ignore it. They said that GPU don't need low latency. That itself tells you everything.
If they planned ESRAM because of low latency and it would be serious thing for GPU they would say it from start after that question.
Ofcourse there is second side to it. They could specially hide that fact about low latency being big boost.
For what purpose ?
killatopak
Member
Should have been a follow up question.
If Harrison was responsible for it we would see him in Zynga not Matick.
killatopak
Member
That's it. He really is a real agent. Nope, there's no doubt. Some agent 007 and mission impossible stuff right there heck maybe even better. Hats off to you Agent Harrison.
He coerced Don Mattrick! I knew it!
eddfromtheriver
Banned
I love that post because... higher numbers equal better right? (don't hate, i'm not a tech guru like some of you guys), if so... then the PS4 is clearly superior.
IHaveCandy
Banned
I mean the messaging.
Chobel
Member
Harrison was responsible but he framed Mattrick for that so MS would fire their best Xbox division president they ever had.
Genuinely made me laugh. Thanks for that.
Darknight34
Member
Lay off my mom man, you're asking for a fight.