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[SenjutsuSage]

The real fun begins when clerks at Wal Mart try to explain this.

"PS4 has 32 ROPes. Xbox One has 16 ROPes. I guess games have to do more climbing to achieve decent graphics on the PS4, hence the need for a greater number of ropes, so that would probably give the Xbox One the edge." Something like that perhaps

It is a 900p title. You are honestly saying it looks better than Killzone / Infamous both which are doing incredible things on screen while rendering 41% more pixels?

Yea, that 900p game looks more impressive graphically than Killzone and Infamous to me. Listen, this isn't me saying Killzone and Infamous look like shit. They look fucking unbelievable. Unbelievable. I just think Ryse looks more crazy graphically. It doesn't matter to me what resolution it's doing it at. All that matters is what I see, and how I think it registers with me on a visual level, and Ryse's SP looks quite stunning. If people want to believe that Killzone and Infamous seriously look 44% or 50% superior graphically then that's their business.

Even at this early stage, I'd say the games are indeed showing the difference. Not just in terms of graphical features etc they're pushing, but also in the different resolutions and frame rates being achieved by the platforms. All of Sony's exclusives being 1080p, whilst exclusives on the Xbox One are struggling to keep that resolution, already with games releasing at 720p, 900p and one at a potential dynamic resolution.

Not that it matters much since launch games aren't indicative of much. Both consoles will have games that look far better than the launch stuff.

See, I think this is fair. I may disagree on the ultimate conclusions, or on the impact of resolution, something that none of us would have known either way without pixel counting or an outright admission (example, nobody knew either killer instinct or ryse weren't 1080p until somebody said something), but I think there's absolutely nothing necessarily wrong with your conclusions. You are entitled to those opinions, and I respect them. It's true that both systems will have games that look far better than the launch stuff, and that brings us to an interesting dynamic. What are we really talking about? The fact that the PS4 is the notably stronger machine? We know that already. The real issue is that I feel people, unfairly, label the Xbox One as weak and incapable, and all I'm trying to say is that weaker than the PS4 doesn't make it weak. I think the biggest difference between the two machines will be resolution. I think performance will more or less be up to snuff on Xbox One titles, as will the visual fidelity, even if the PS4 has an edge. The real thing that's up for discussion is just how big will that edge be. How noticeable will it be? I can't say, I just don't think it will be massive. Others do. I guess we'll find out.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

"This here PS4 is the most powerful console ever made. This here Xbox One is the most balanced console ever made. Which one you want?"

 

[artist]

It is a 900p title. You are honestly saying it looks better than Killzone / Infamous both which are doing incredible things on screen while rendering 41% more pixels? When we have high quality footage of (several!) multiplatform titles then we can make some proper, first comparisons.

44% or if you ask Senju it's 30.5% less.

 

[Brad Grenz]

I was basing what I said on the idea that they did get better performance from the upclock, it is very much possible that what you said is right and that it is just a yield thing.

Well they go to pains to avoid how much cost played into all the decisions they made. When they say GDDR5 gets you into an "uncomfortable place" they mean cost and capacity. As we've known all along they bet on DDR3 because they weren't sure high capacity GDDR5 would be available or cheap enough for their particular goals. Sony lucked out and this leaves them flat footed. The upclock versus 14CUs is just them trying to pretty up another cost benefit analysis. They could get a small performance increase across the board for little to no cost, or a larger increase in just shader performance at huge expense. They made the right call for the silicon they have, of course, but it doesn't help them gain any ground on the PS4, or excuse them for aiming so low to begin with.

 

[cchum]

The real fun begins when clerks at Wal Mart try to explain this.

Tried to reserve the Iphone 5s there, and 2 clerks didn't understand the difference between the 5c and 5s. True story

 

[Impeccable]

It is a 900p title. You are honestly saying it looks better than Killzone / Infamous both which are doing incredible things on screen while rendering 41% more pixels? When we have high quality footage of (several!) multiplatform titles then we can make some proper, first comparisons.

He's not in the game of numbers.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

See this is a problem I said in the last thread and bish damn near choked my ass. I said we wouldnt see a lot difference at launch yet...it seems people expect there will be...What, who do I believe? I find this interesting because the answer is never clear to me. :/

 

[StuBurns]

Ryse looked pretty good at E3, but the video coming out of TGS looks like shit.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

44% or if you ask Senju it's 30.5% less.

Thanks, I just corrected it.

 

[Plinko]

See this is a problem I said in the last thread and bish damn near choked my ass. I said we wouldnt see a lot difference at launch yet...it seems people expect there will be...What, who do I believe? I find this interesting because the answer is never clear to me. :/

For multiplats, @yosp already said on Twitter that some third partes are keeping them the same for whatever reason.

 

[nib95]

It is a 900p title. You are honestly saying it looks better than Killzone / Infamous both which are doing incredible things on screen while rendering 41% more pixels? When we have high quality footage of (several!) multiplatform titles then we can make some proper, first comparisons.

Not only (imo) does Shadow Fall look a good degree better, to me it's doing so much more, eg has better textures, shaders, more complex geometry, more light sources, more particle effects and a greater variety of effects, better shadowing, more going on screen, superior animations and animation blending etc. I'd say the only thing Ryse really does better to me personally is depth of field, which seems more accurate to real world aperture, but they're certainly over using it in areas.

The kicker is the multiplayer we've seen of Killzone Shadow Fall is running at 1080p/60fps. That's 44% more pixels than Ryse is rendering, and DOUBLE the frame rate. That's a substantial difference right there.

If anything, that's a much greater difference than the originally discussed 50% raw performance number suggested, or than most people actually even expected.

 

[Impeccable]

See this is a problem I said in the last thread and bish damn near choked my ass. I said we wouldnt see a lot difference at launch yet...it seems people expect there will be...What, who do I believe? I find this interesting because the answer is never clear to me. :/

I mean the simple answer to me is Microsoft is trying to, at every possible corner to convince us there won't be a difference and how their system is equal to the PS4.

On the other hand, I can't recall a time when Sony went out of their way to PR that it'll be better or even equal. They don't have to - they have the facts on their side and are probably confident they don't need to even speak up on the matter. Seems the plan is to let the games do the PR.

 

[Log4Girlz]

I :lol'd

Why can't I stop watching this.

 

[Sakura]

So, if I understand correctly, when they are saying the XBO is "balanced", they are saying that no one component is acting as a bottleneck over another, right? But doesn't that also just mean that all the components are kind of equally as weak? What is so great about that? And are they saying the PS4 is unbalanced then? Does the PS4 have some bottleneck that makes it unable to perform better than the XBO? If not, then why would it matter if it is unbalanced or not? I'm confused.

 

[AdmiralPain]

All the evidence and numbers point to the contrary, so not sure why you have that opinion besides the fact that it's the one Microsoft's PR is touting and wants you to believe, for obvious reasons.

Because the games we've seen so far don't show any significant difference. If that changes in the future my opinion will change as well.

What is 'appreciably' though? Is 900p versus 1080p appreciable?

No, not for the vast majority of gamers.

 

[StuBurns]

MS shouldn't have ever revealed the specs. Just do the Apple thing of vague 'eight times better' or whatever. It'd be kind of a show of weakness, but it's better than revealing actual weakness.

 

[cyberheater]

Good article.

I think real world performance of Xbox One and PS4 is going to be close.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

For multiplats, @yosp already said on Twitter that some third partes are keeping them the same for whatever reason.

EA for sure.

 

[chris0701]

It seemed like from the article that one of Microsoft's main defenses of their less powerful GPU was that most games are CPU limited anyways so that the extra power of the GPU would not matter. My question is "Is this true? Are most console games really CPU limited?"
​

Because AMD Jaguar CPU core is fairly slow. Both Sony and MS choose Ultrabook level CPU for their future console gaming product.

At best, 8 cores Jaguar could rival with 2 sets of Core i5 3317U CPU (total 4Cores), clocked at 1.7Ghz.

The latest Anandtch iPhone5s review also reveals how AMD Jaguar 4 cores perform.

 

[AdmiralPain]

So, if I understand correctly, when they are saying the XBO is "balanced", they are saying that no one component is acting as a bottleneck over another, right? But doesn't that also just mean that all the components are kind of equally as weak? What is so great about that? And are they saying the PS4 is unbalanced then? Does the PS4 have some bottleneck that makes it unable to perform better than the XBO?

The CPU.

 

[Whiteshirt]

MS shouldn't have ever revealed the specs. Just do the Apple thing of vague 'eight times better' or whatever. It'd be kind of a show of weakness, but it's better than revealing actual weakness.

The thing is that what Apple says may be vague but their SoCs are bloody insane in every way.

As Anandtech's 5S review shows, the A7 fucks over every other SoC on the market by a country mile. Especially in GPU benchmarks, its like a GTX Titan vs. GTX770 difference.

The CPU.

There's two solutions to the problem of having shit processors. Microsoft has overclocked it; Sony has chosen to focus on GPGPU computing.

Looking at the future, I think Sony has chosen the right decision by giving developers the right tools to dump anything that works well with parallel computing to the GPU. The GCN architecture lends itself well to this sort of thing too.

 

[Amir0x]

Dude, Ryse stands right now as, imo, the most amazing looking game on either system. I don't need to focus on all these multi-platforms that I haven't seen yet. Dude, I've seen Fifa on both PS4 and Xbox One. Do you see a huge difference there, either? That's one game we can talk about that's multi, right? Oh, but there's a catch, I know. It's FIFA

Whatever the case, I'm not living and dying on the numbers. We already know sony's kicking MS ass on the raw numbers. Nobody denies. Nobody is even denying that it will have an impact. Sony's console is stronger, period. But just how much will that show up in the real world is the question. That's all I'm saying. Personally, I would love if the PS4's advantage shows up every bit as much as the raw numbers indicates, because I'm going to own the system. However, realistically, I don't think it's going to happen. Call me one of those stubborn people that have to see it before I believe it. Is that so wrong?

You have to understand how this sounds, right? You're basically trying to appeal to an unscientific method of analysis to try to determine just how much more powerful PS4 really is. Anybody can compare, for example, a string of multiplatform games with low effort put into them and say "See!? The difference isn't that big! Therefore, obviously, our own eyes tell us PS4 and Xbox One aren't THAT different in power!" That isn't how anyone determines how much more or how much less powerful something really is.

I mean you talk of Ryse being the best looking game of any system, but that's 900p. If this is the method we're going to be using, it's not going to be very effective by any measure. Everybody will have their own game in this fight.

The important thing, then, is to gather the data we have and make reasonable conclusions based on that information. Not wade into the murky world of confirmation bias and subjective opinions because we don't like to hear the results.

 

[KidBeta]

Good article.

I think real world performance of Xbox One and PS4 is going to be close.

It depends on what your doing, there are going be situations where they are going to be close and there are going to be situations where one beats the other I just think that theres going to be a lot more situations where the PS4 beats out the XBONE by a significant amount.

 

[Oemenia]

OMG teh Leadbetter bias!

Spoiler

Except the negative stuff

 

[RoboPlato]

GDDR5 "uncomfortable"?

Bringing up the 14+4 CUs thing that was proven false months ago?

Microsoft really shouldn't have tried to talk about specs again. They've just been embarrassing themselves on that front after having finally gotten some of their shit together after E3 and Mattrick's departure. There's no info in this article, just a reiteration of nebulous phrases like balance that some people have already latched onto in discussing power differences with no insight into what they mean.

 

[Daffy Duck]

Can't wait for the fallout when killzone is still the same boring experience.

Gameplay over graphics.

I don't care for specs, Forza 5 looks amazing and so does Ryse, as does infamous.

The first two are launch titles so it's a nice place to be starting from.

If I wanted 1080p aa at insane resolutions I'll get a high spec PC. The fact BF4 is toned down on both consoles says everyone is in for a bit of a reality check.

 

[Sakura]

The CPU.

I thought they were both using pretty much the same CPU? 8 core AMD Jaguar or something?

 

[Unknown One]

Ryse doesn't have much going on. It's almost like Heavy Rain where you upped the character models because of it.

 

[kitch9]

I have no idea what MS's strategy is.

Sony has the right mentality. They already have the pre-release mind share, but still have aggressive pricing. It's going to be another long generation.


Don't know reading discussions on Neogaf. GPGPU can only take over certain types of CPU calculations. Depending on the type of game the weaker CPU can get in the way. Don't get me wrong PS4 will be better for all games with a significant margin. Especially if you factor in the RAM that really suits gaming purposes.


That you don't have overpowered parts that get bottlenecked by other parts. It's pointless for example to have an amazingly good CPU, if your GPU isn't up to snuff.

Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[shinra-bansho]

For multiplats, @yosp already said on Twitter that some third partes are keeping them the same for whatever reason.

GopherD made a post about it, iirc, something along the lines of third parties aren't going to go out of their way to gimp ports - and really there's no real incentive for third parties to do that. At the same time they want to keep both platform partners happy. He did mention that there could be differences even from launch I believe - like resolution, frame rate locks.

By pretty much all accounts the PS4 is easier to develop for and with a more mature toolchain. And there are some reports that developers need more effort to get the XB1 versions up to scratch. The corollary being that you can get a PS4 SKU in a shippable condition, but may need to invest more time into getting the XB1 version up to parity, so you're not going to be taking the time to necessarily utilise the extra power available in the former. Deadlines are already tight getting these games ready for launch.

 

[nib95]

The CPU.

A 9 flop CPU advantage makes virtually no difference in the grand scheme of things. Especially when we're talking 1943 Gflops (PS4) versus 1422 Gflops (Xbox One).

 

[AdmiralPain]

I thought they were both using pretty much the same CPU? 8 core AMD Jaguar or something?

It's a weak CPU and it bottlenecks the GPU as Microsoft said in the article. MIcrosoft boosted the clock of its CPU by 150 MHz.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

44% or if you ask Senju it's 30.5% less.

Yes, tell me how much you can see that 44% edge that Killzone and Infamous have over Ryse graphically. That's where this whole discussion becomes hilarious. You won't have an actual quantifiable answer outside of resolution. You'll be left with art preference or a preference of game type whether you choose to acknowledge that fact or not.

You have to lean more on numbers you want to believe are producing like you expect them to more so than what your eyes are telling you. Placebo in effect for the next gen. I feel it. Ryse? Quantum Break? Even Forza 5 60fps looking like it does. Hell, just look at what that wave race section in Kinect Sports rivals looks like. The games are painting a different story about the capabilities of the hardware. Nobody denies Infamous and Killzone are some of the most unbelievable looking games ever made. I have nothing against them; I'll own both. Already paid for Killzone, something that I didn't want to do, but was pushed into it out of a desire to have something major that looked incredible for the PS4 at launch. Personally, Infamous is more my style of game, but I would still give Killzone the edge over it graphically.

Am I not allowed to also think Ryse looks amazing and is comparable to those games because it's on the "weaker" platform? Serious question.

 

[Riky]

So are they basically saying the memory bandwith will be comparable to PS4 but is going to take a lot more work for devs to manage it?

 

[RoboPlato]

GopherD made a post about it, iirc, something along the lines of third parties aren't going to go out of their way to gimp ports - and really there's no real incentive for third parties to do that. At the same time they want to keep both platform partners happy. He did mention that there could be differences even from launch I believe - like resolution, frame rate locks.

By pretty much all accounts the PS4 is easier to develop for and with a more mature toolchain. And there are some reports that developers need more effort to get the XB1 versions up to scratch. The corollary being that you can get a PS4 SKU in a shippable condition, but may need to invest more time into getting the XB1 version up to parity, so you're not going to be taking the time to necessarily utilise the extra power available in the former. Deadlines are already tight getting these games ready for launch.

Yeah, people are kind of going nuts with those comments. They just mean that devs aren't going to write shaders specific to the PS4 versions. There will be differences, they just won't fully exploit the PS4.

 

[kitch9]

Because AMD Jaguar CPU core is fairly slow. Both Sony and MS choose Ultrabook level CPU for their future console gaming product.

At best, 8 cores Jaguar could rival with 2 sets of Core i5 3317U CPU (total 4Cores), clocked at 1.7Ghz.

The latest Anandtch iPhone5s review also reveals how AMD Jaguar 4 cores perform.

The APU supports GPGPU and huma. It has so much more general compute power than the fucking iPhone it is not even funny.

People need to stop looking at these chips as a separate cpu and gpu which do their own jobs it's simply just not like that anymore.

 

[liquidtmd]

'Our games may not look as good but underneath the system is more balanced and happier'?

I got nothing.

 

[kitch9]

So are they basically saying the memory bandwith will be comparable to PS4 but is going to take a lot more work for devs to manage it?

No.

 

[AdmiralPain]

So are they basically saying the memory bandwith will be comparable to PS4 but is going to take a lot more work for devs to manage it?

It's not a lot more work, this situation isn't even remotely the same as the ps3-360 situation. Sure the PS4 might be a bit easier to program for but the XB1 is at least as easy if not more to program for than the 360, a console that was praised for that reason.

 

[LIMB]

People who develop on these platforms every day is saying PS4 is better so unless MS is keeping stuff hidden from people making games for their console for no reason I don't see how X1 could be more powerful.

 

[Hydrargyrus]

If XBo is balanced, what is PS4, hyperbalanced??

 

[SenjutsuSage]

So are they basically saying the memory bandwith will be comparable to PS4 but is going to take a lot more work for devs to manage it?

I thought that was always obvious. Even if people choose to believe the 204GB/s or whatever is totally bogus, that 109GB/s is real. That 68GB/s is real. Both pools of memory can work together simultaneously helping one another. That's real. It will probably be notably more difficult to leverage that over the PS4's more ideal setup. Developers have a more serious challenge on the Xbox One. Those things are real.

Microsoft has regularly been pretty damn good about giving developers the tools they need to develop incredible games on their platforms. They will likely get up to speed, if they aren't already, and make developer's lives much easier. This is not pie in the sky. This is what they've always done. So, yea, said what I needed to say. Don't want to go around in circles on this thing. I say the same thing. Others same the same thing. We all have our opinions. That's cool and that's the way it should be.

It's not a lot more work, this situation isn't even remotely the same as the ps3-360 situation. Sure the PS4 might be a bit easier to program for but the XB1 is at least as easy if not more to program for than the 360, a console that was praised for that reason.

Easier than the 360, harder in comparison to the PS4. Anybody that denies that much is simply not being realistic. Microsoft's bandwidth figures, even ignoring the high point for ESRAM, are real. And they add up to comparable bandwidth to the PS4. People can choose to ignore that fact or embrace it as a reality. Yes, we know it's going to be harder to leverage, but it's real and it's there, and developers will eventually manage to get the most out of it. Microsoft will be helping make that happen.

 

[chris0701]

If you really think that the CPU in iPhone 5S will outperform a X86 Jaguar then I recommend you to stop posting in tech threads.

A7 iPad will get better Geekbenchmark than AMD A4-5000, because both iPhone 5s and AMD A4-5000 get 3000 scores.

 

[TheD]

The CPU.

But CPUs do not have an effect on graphical effects (like higher res, better shaders, textures, better models ect.), what they do effect is framerate when the GPU is not being feed the amount of data telling it what to render for a given frame rate (CPU limited). So games would still look better.

It's a weak CPU and it bottlenecks the GPU as Microsoft said in the article. MIcrosoft boosted the clock of its CPU by 150 MHz.

If they really wanted a better CPU they should of used Piledriver, a small upclock is not a huge deal.

 

[Whiteshirt]

It's a weak CPU and it bottlenecks the GPU as Microsoft said in the article. MIcrosoft boosted the clock of its CPU by 150 MHz.

There are some problems with this line of thinking:

You can increase the clock speed of the processor (in the case of Microsoft, by barely anything) or you can facilitate ways to offload tasks that are far more suited to parallel computing to the GPU. Sony's chosen the method where you use the GPU to supplement the CPU so while the CPU is weaker, utilisation of the APU might actually be better.

Furthermore, having a weak CPU doesn't invalidate the purpose of having a strong GPU. Even if we ignore the GPGPU focus the PS4 has, you've still got more grunt room to output better graphical effects that aren't impacted by CPU performance.

 

[Dizzy]

Can't wait for the fallout when killzone is still the same boring experience.

Gameplay over graphics.

I don't care for specs, Forza 5 looks amazing and so does Ryse, as does infamous.

The first two are launch titles so it's a nice place to be starting from.

If I wanted 1080p aa at insane resolutions I'll get a high spec PC. The fact BF4 is toned down on both consoles says everyone is in for a bit of a reality check.

Gameplay over graphics? Lol I would hope Ryse is not favoured over Killzone then. I doubt there will be any fallout over killzone. The people lookinh forward to it are those thay liked 2/3, both of which have a respectable gamerankings/metacritic average so they can't be that bad.

 

[jet1911]

The article is a good read, and quite insightful about the choices Microsoft made. But it doesn't address how they are going to close the performance gap, for obvious reasons.

What they are saying is that the "balance" of the X1 is what will bring them closer to the PS4 than what people think. I guess.

 

[Boogalogist]

Lol. "Balance". Can't even balance on its side.

 

[lherre]

I thought that was always obvious. Even if people choose to believe the 204GB/s or whatever is totally bogus, that 109GB/s is real. That 68GB/s is real. Both pools of memory can work together simultaneously helping one another. That's real. It will probably be notably more difficult to leverage that over the PS4's more ideal setup. Developers have a more serious challenge on the Xbox One. Those things are real.

.

8 GB vs 32 MB

 

[onanie]

That there are other weak parts to complement the weak parts of the X1.

LOL