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EDGE: "Power struggle: the real differences between PS4 and Xbox One performance"

Calm down cowboys, no need to rush in here and defend your dad. Just pointing something out that's been obvious with Edge. Reporting facts to me is actually naming your sources, but its something British journalist seem to get away with.

Agreed actually. Don't particularly care for the " unnamed sources" shit.
 
It's not about stupidity, it's about burning bridges. Microsoft is a huge company in gaming and in many other fields. You really want to be on good terms with them, not to mention that they might also aggressively money hat devs for parity and more exclusives.

I disagree, if as looks likely that the PS4 has a significantly larger install base than the XBO, it wouldn't make any financial sense to purposely hold back the version that has the most potential customers for buying your game.
 

Mandoric

Banned
Well the 360 uses ESRAM right? It might be more complicated than the PS4 but any multi plat developer should be familiar with it from working with the 360. That statement reeks of FUD.

Take this with a grain of salt, but it's my impression that the 360's eDRAM is used as an added bonus to a few particular things like AA that benefit from speedy access to tiny amounts of RAM. Meanwhile, using the Xbone's eSRAM needs to be wrangled into involvement in all memory transactions that aren't made directly with the slow DDR3.
 

pixlexic

Banned
naked-gun-facepalm.gif


People only believing what they want to believe. Wowsers!

I have been around for a long time.
edge has always aimed for controversy and tabloidesqe articles to sell the mag.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
One source even suggested that enforcing parity across consoles could become a political issue between platform holders, developers and publishers. They said that it could damage perceptions of a cross platform title, not to mention Xbox One, if the PS4 version shipped with an obviously superior resolution and framerate; better to “castrate” the PS4 version and release near-identical games to avoid ruffling any feathers.

This claim was later countered by a contact at a different studio. “It would be totally fine for us to make one version prettier without any political difficulties but it usually doesn’t make financial sense,” they said, “unless it’s a very simple tweak.”
That would be crazy considering what happened with PS3 this gen.

That said, I would imagine it would be hard to duplicate the same framerate dips and problems in both versions. The faster hardware should be able to power through those issues.
 
Really the only reason, yeah, but I really do think that the time of the super big triple a exclusives will come to an end at some point, especially if the tech isn't there. Those games hype always lived from great tech as well. When people just play slightly better looking Halo, a slightly better looking Forza etc. at some point, they will not care anymore or will care less.


Ok, seriously.. Stop.
 

DBT85

Member
Whats silly about saying the proof is in the pudding?

All this PR and tech war is meaningless, just as it was every other generation.

One one hand, yes you are right. The proof will be in the games.

On the other hand, we have never had a new generation with two machines that have the same basic CPU and GPU architecture before.
 
Except that this time there actually is power difference. Can't believe that it's so hard to grasp for some. PS3 and X360 both had their own advantages in hardware but PS3 maybe had little bit more juice. Now there is zero things that Xbox one could do but PS4 couldn't as they have pretty much same architecture but PS4 just has way more powerful GPU and better memory setup. It's nothing like last gen.

And if there is I will buy my single player multiplats on PS4. Mutiplayer titles will most likely still be Xbone as long as Live is still that much better than PSN. I am sure that both consoles will have awesome awesome exclusives. I am curious to see what Microsoft can pull off with the Power of the Cloud. Lol
 
- Funny that the power difference many of us were pointing out in February, is exactly the same in September.

- If developers choose to make both versions the same for "political reasons" my response is going to be "FUCK YOU". I bought the PS4 because it was more powerful. Let Microsoft live with their decisions.

- I'm particularly concerned about COD: Ghosts because of their DLC deal with Microsoft. Can you imagine Activision releasing a version of that game that looks/runs better on PS4? I can't.

- LOL at the comforting words about the cloud potentially making up the difference at the end of the article. "Please don't be mad at us Microsoft"!
 

DogMeat77

Member
I'll probably get crap for this, but when your publication does things like this, that doesn't exactly make you a trustworthy source for this kind of information.

E256-cover.jpg

This was right after E3 before Xbox 180. So yep... it was spot on. Hence the part about "...why the only option right now...".
 

SmokyDave

Member
I can't believe how much fuss is kicked up whenever it's pointed out that one console is more powerful than another, even when that much is blatantly obvious.
 

CLEEK

Member
I wonder if a majority of devs think using the Esram is also a pain

I've read comments that devs have to manually control what gets written/read to the eSRAM. So its nit controlled by the provided drivers, and is a huge bottleneck. It doesnt matter what the theoretical maximum bandwidth of a component is if devs are left to work out everything for themselves.

It all goes back to Cerney's comment around designing the PS4 to just use a single chunk of unified GDDR RAM. It removes a big puzzle that devs have to work out for themselves.
 

pixlexic

Banned
If the two consoles are greatly that much different we will see in multiplats. One should always run well and the other will barely be able to keep up. it will be a saturn vs playstation situation.
 
EDGE??

I don't know'em...



Well Played sir, I get it! lol









ON TOPIC: I am sure Albert will not respond to this article, but it would be nice to hear his side of the story on this. Well, or Major Nelson for that matter. I am sure they are in touch with developers as well, and would have a totally different opinion compared to this article.


This article does seem to have a lot of in depth info, and quite a few sources. Interested to see how this plays out in game development, especially in 3rd Party Multiplats.
 

Toski

Member
Whats silly about saying the proof is in the pudding?

All this PR and tech war is meaningless, just as it was every other generation.

Problem is both the X1 and PS4 will have mostly the same games. Simply put, Sony is doing a better job of selling their box to consumers & developers than MS and Nintendo.
 

softie

Member
This was right after E3 before Xbox 180. So yep... it was spot on. Hence the part about "...why the only option right now...".

Except it was AFTER the 180 and the article even mentions the 180 as not being massive gamechanger because of the huge fuckups MS made with the Xbone.
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
Unsurprising, lines up with virtually everything we've heard.

Xbox One does, however, boast superior performance to PS4 in other ways. “Let’s say you are using procedural generation or raytracing via parametric surfaces – that is, using a lot of memory writes and not much texturing or ALU – Xbox One will be likely be faster,” said one developer.

Xbone buyers better hope that next-gen games use lots of procedural generation or raytracing via parametric surfaces!
 

SmokyDave

Member
If the two consoles are greatly that much different we will see in multiplats. One should always run well and the other will barely be able to keep up. it will be a saturn vs playstation situation.

You're far likelier to see the differences in first party exclusives.

Whatever console has the higher install base, that other will have the gimped ports.
I'd say that's a safe bet.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Screw this political shit, make PS4 the lead console for development. I don't want Microsoft holding my games back!

I wonder if that's why Battlefield 4 for PS4 is 720p?! Microsoft may be throwing money EA's way for more than just timed exclusive dlc.
 

tzare

Member
Firstly where did i state which will sell more? I merely pointed out that history has never favored the most powerful console yet so many here are acting as if ps4's power is it's most important factor.

Secondly they are not equal in feature set, one comes with kinect.

the other one comes with touchpad in the controller for example. I wonder which feature do gamers may find more useful.

As for powerful consoles being sent to die in favor of weaker ones.... that is a very simplistic way to see how things are:
Wii was aimed at casuals and was cheaper than competition, but hasn't been relevant for a few years
PS2 launched more than one year before competition and followed PSone success.
PSone also launched way before n64 , was more powerful and cheap than saturn (or at least more friendly to developers than saturn)
Snes was 'more' powerful than Genesis (well, not exactly, but most games looked better on it)


ALso people comparing this to ps360 situation is lol worthy. PS3 was hard to develop for, everyone knows that, even being more powerful because of cell (gpu wasn't afaik)
Xbone and ps4 are very similar, and the main differences are raw power and how ram works, and this seems to make XBone a little harder to develop for, but nothing close to ps360 levels.

And then there's 100€ difference, and a significant difference in availability at launch
 

pixlexic

Banned
Are they typically off base with insider info to make them untrustworthy on an article like this?

they will take rumors and write them up as fact in a heartbeat. This is an article on everything we have heard so far. Nothing different they just added the "confirmed".
 

Hyunashi

Member
I'll probably get crap for this, but when your publication does things like this, that doesn't exactly make you a trustworthy source for this kind of information.

E256-cover.jpg




I won't go so far as to suggest that they're being paid, because that's a mighty big accusation to make, but you can't exactly blame anybody for questioning their credibility and motives, if he was even being serious, that is.

You totally put the cover out of perspective. For one, that was pre-180, when XB1 was 'all-in' for their shitty policies. And on the front of EDGE, yes lets just pretend those 3rd party devs dont exist.
 

Drencrom

Member
I don't understand how people on GAF keep acting like all these developers don't know what they're talking about. Wishing something away isn't going to change reality. Looking at even the most basic specs, we don't need anything else to tell us that the PS4 has a significant power edge for graphics. How is it even debatable or in any way surprising? When looking at the architecture it's quite likely easier to program for too, all things being equal.

It's denial at this point
 
I'm sure jumping around in front of the TV, making use of Kinnect,looking a complete prick will be ample compensation for XO users, knowing that in order to pay for that piece of junk, meant MS engineers had to put in a cheap, shitty GPU & RAM combination...
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Screw this political shit, make PS4 the lead console for development. I don't want Microsoft holding my games back!

I wonder if that's why Battlefield 4 for PS4 is 720p?! Microsoft may be throwing money EA's way for more than just timed exclusive dlc.

Edit: this happened in the 32-bit gen as well, where developers had to hold back on PSone games because of Saturn.
 

AngryMoth

Member
What I fear will end up happening is that in most cases devs will spend a lot more time optimising the xbone version and not bother putting in the extra effort on ps4. The way multiplats devs are being so diplomatic about the situation, at least in public, makes me think they don't want there to be discernible differences between the 2 platforms. Hope I'm wrong. The difference will probably become more pronounced later in the gen when devs are trying to do more with the hardware and if 1st party games put pressure on 3rd parties to step up their game
 
I disagree, if as looks likely that the PS4 has a significantly larger install base than the XBO, it wouldn't make any financial sense to purposely hold back the version that has the most potential customers for buying your game.

Why not?What are PS4 users going to do, not buy say Battlefield 4 because it's mostly the same as the xb1 version? I don't see that happening.
 

AutumnRay

Banned
Who Cares? Power meant nothing this gen. And as we see every generation, it is the quality of the games. I will get both though that way I have the best of both worlds.

I don't believe this at all. And never will. Power these days is utilized to provide the best immersion in games and like it or not even console peasants are pretty tired of their dirty clothes.
 

Perkel

Banned
I wonder if a majority of devs think using the Esram is also a pain

Leaving drivers library aside, it is if you look at it.

Naturally it is not that they doing something wrong. They are doing normal thing. ESRAM, eDRAM are common in console buisness and developers know how to use them.


Things is, PS4 changed that for better. They just give devs tons of fast ram and you don't need to copy between DDR3 and small fast memory pool.


Imo it is comparable to what Ati did with Xbox 360 compared to RSX. RSX wasn't "bad" it was normal. Ati just give Xbox360 latest innovation which at that time wasn't even in PC hardware.

Now PS4 have unified fast memory.
 
PS4's memory reads being so much faster could be something to do with MS's unsubstantiated claim of 204 GB/s 'peak theoretical bandwidth' of its 32mb ESRAM being, well, false.

The only source for this claim, which has been more or less accepted for some strange reason, is Richard Leadbetter iirc.
 
they will take rumors and write them up as fact in a heartbeat. This is an article on everything we have heard so far. Nothing different they just added the "confirmed".
No, you're wrong, there are examples in this article I haven't seen before. Since the info they are presenting in this article is likely right given their track record..what's your problem again?
 
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