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Hardware for Media Hub features in both the XB1 and PS4 "kinda confirmed"

Edit: Continuation of this thread from 7/2013 now partially proved as about 80% accurate.

Hardware being used to support Media Hub & OpenVX features in both the XB1 and PS4

Found by onQ123 but he didn't realize what he found. I didn't either till I investigated Kavari supporting h.265 with a Xtensa processor (In Wiki pages). Panajev2001a apparently got it and also that it's likely in the ARM secondary chip as Southbridge " Those slides are very interesting and kind of confirm that the secondary ARM processor and the DPU we see mentioned are quite the same thing basically.".

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-orbis-unmasked-what-to-expect-from-next-gen-console said:
PS4 Additional hardware: GPU-like Compute module, some resources reserved by the OS
"However, there's a fair amount of "secret sauce" in Orbis and we can disclose details on one of the more interesting additions. Paired up with the eight AMD cores, we find a bespoke GPU-like "Compute" module, designed to ease the burden on certain operations. We're assured that this is bespoke hardware that is not a part of the main graphics pipeline but we remain rather mystified by its standalone inclusion, bearing in mind Compute functions could be run off the main graphics cores and that devs could have the option to utilise that power for additional graphical grunt, if they so chose." For the PS4 we know Tensilica DSPs are in the PS4 likely in the ARM Southbridge and maybe Xtensa IVPs.

Durango additional graphics hardware - "rumours have circulated for quite some time that it is some way behind Orbis, but equally there has been the suggestion that the GPU itself is supplemented by additional task-specific hardware. We could not confirm this, but an ex-Microsoft staffer with a prior relationship with the Xbox team says that two of these modules are graphics-related."
The above quote seems to imply that Xtensa IVP DPUs are in the XB1 and PS4 for Video.

Xtensa audio DPU HiFi DSPs are in the PS4 and XB1 to support Game audio, speech recognition, voice synthesis, audio codecs, blu-ray and more. This has been acknowledged.

AMD's Kaveri uses a Xtensa IVP DPU for the UVD 4 software decoder codec (supports h.265) and a Xtensa HiFi DSP DPU for TrueAudio.

Xtensa IVP flyer with use cases and block diagrams.

In Kaveri and the XB1 they are on an AXI ARM buss inside the APU and in the PS4 they are in the Southbridge on a AXI ARM bus (Not acknowledged or proven yet).

What features do they offer? A Software codec engine as IVP DPU can support multiple video codecs and as HiFi multiple audio codecs. Microsoft has released the codecs and file types the XB1 DLNA will support and they encompass just about every major and near future standard including Apples MOV. A media hub should support everything and trans-code to a common standard coming with DLNA 2.0 = DLNA CVP2 and HTML5 <video>. Not mentioned is h.265 which the XB1 and PS4 will support for both 4K Blu-ray and to support IPTV streaming. All these and h.265 can be supported with software using a Xtensa IVP(s) (XB1 apparently has two IVPs).

Xtensa IVP and Hifi can provide all the LOW POWER features needed by a STB and Blu-ray player including acting as a second smaller GPU. They can do AR and VR as well as gesture and voice recognition.

diagram-dataplane-xtensa.png


diagram-dataplane-n-sm.jpg


The following is from a Sony presentation and the block to the right of the CPU/GPU would be in the PS4 southbridge. Notice the functional blocks in the above slide match the Sony slide.

HSA+ARCHITECTURE++.jpg


AMD bought a Licence to use Xtensa DPUs in 2004 and Sony in 2007 for their blu-ray players.

From Tensilica Xtensa literature:

"Tensilica DPUs can provide the 2D and 3D graphics support required to drive the TV menu system and play games." = second smaller GPU that both Microsoft and Sony had patents for and was mentioned as needed in the leaked Xbox 720 powerpoint and by Sony in letters to Energy Star and EU on Game Console power modes.

Clearly DPUs can also support software video codecs, Playready and WMDRM10 (DTCP-IP) as well as HDCP 2.X.

Blu-ray Disc Players and Set-Top Boxes

Blu-ray Disc&#8482; players and recorders require extensive digital signal processing&#8212;and Cadence® Tensilica® dataplane processors are right in there, doing the heavy DSP processing. Just look at the things that need to be engineered in a Blu-ray Disc player:

Audio Processing
Video/Graphics Processing
Security/DRM
Wireless
Applications Processing

Sony considers the PS4 as Key to owning the living room and one of it's features is as a Media HUB for the ATSC 2.0 media hub model and DLNA CVP2 ecosystem. It will:

Remote play Blu-ray through the home network
Play Blu ray and 4K or transcoded 4K to a HDMI connected TV
Accept a h.265 stream over the internet and trans-code to h.264 to serve media to other platforms in the home.
Act as a STB for media streamed from a Cable TV DVR DLNA Server or DLNA served from a OTA DLNA tuner (ATSC 2.0)
Act as a DVR for media streamed from a Cable TV DVR or a OTA Tuner and serve to other platforms in the home
Skype STB or something similar with a common standard accepted by the industry.
Must do the above with less than 21 watts and in doing so must also support:
1) Network standby power mode Key phrase detection to turn on the PS4.
2) All voice recognition and gesture recognition
3) audio codecs
4) Audio chat
5) Voice synthesis
6) Decode Multiple Video codecs like h.265, h.264, MOV and more which requires a software Codec engine (Xtensa IVP)
7) Act as a second smaller low power GPU

A ARM southbridge containing DPUs can do the above and in addition can support AR and VR as well as Move and gesture control in game without impacting game GPU or memory.

This is a 2010 Sony white paper that was presented to the ATSC committee on what would become Sony Media fusion.** Features in it should become part of Playstation Vue.to 1080P and 4K TVs using the HEVC codec. The PS4 is designed to support this.
 

Blanquito

Member
I'm trying to understand exactly what a DPU is. Let me know how far off my understanding of it is:

It appears to be a chip that can handle a multitude of different tasks, and new features/abilities can be added to that DPU through updated firmware/software instead of needing to redesign and include a new chip.

Is that about right?
 
I'm trying to understand exactly what a DPU is. Let me know how far off my understanding of it is:

It appears to be a chip that can handle a multitude of different tasks, and new features/abilities can be added to that DPU through updated firmware/software instead of needing to redesign and include a new chip.

Is that about right?
Yup but no FPGA. Supporting multiple codecs or AR or a Move controller and camera all through software but with multiple accelerators in the DPU.
 
Accept a h.265 stream over the internet and trans-code to h.264 to serve media to other platforms in the home.
Act as a STB for media streamed from a Cable TV DVR DLNA Server or DLNA served from a OTA DLNA tuner (ATSC 2.0)
Act as a DVR for media streamed from a Cable TV DVR or a OTA Tuner and serve to other platforms in the home
Help me understand this part (I'm in over my head), so if I'm a cable subscriber, I can use a console as a remote tuner? Xbox360 could do this with Windows Media Player, but for some dumb reason they didn't capitalize on this for these"next Gen" consoles. So the techs there inside my console but not activated?
 
Help me understand this part (I'm in over my head), so if I'm a cable subscriber, I can use a console as a remote tuner? Xbox360 could do this with Windows Media Player, but for some dumb reason they didn't capitalize on this for these"next Gen" consoles. So the techs there inside my console but not activated?
Yes, DLNA CVP2 = DLNA 2.0 = Vidipath = RUI Lots of names used to describe the same thing. Vidipath White Paper

A better place to get information on this is: Game Consoles to replace Cable boxes and the connected home starts in 2014
 

Donos

Member
Reading rigby threads is like listening to a beautiful french woman. I understand nothing but it's still fascinating.
 
Implications if Xtensa IVP DPU is in the PS4

Post processing for Anti Alias would be done by the DPU when APIs are provided by Sony and the Firmware is updated (likely Share 2.0) => GTAV.

Move and camera processing done by the DPU with no overhead on the GAME APU likely coming with Share 2.0 = GTAV

Additional Floating point accelerators (GPGPU) that could be used for the game. Collision detection
Ray-casting intersection calculations for lighting

Because of the above, the DPU gives the PS4 and XB1 an additional advantage over dGPUs in PCs.


TensilicaFigure1.jpg


http://www.bdti.com/InsideDSP/2013/03/14/Tensilica
 

Oppo

Member
omg

they found the secret chip and it was in the X1 and the PS4?!?

;)

very interesting as always Jeff
 
omg

they found the secret chip and it was in the X1 and the PS4?!?

;)

very interesting as always Jeff
And in Kavari....and likely in most of the ARM game consoles and more powerful Cell Phones designed to support Goggle Glasses.

XB1 may have an advantage for AR & VR as the DPU(s) are in the APU with access to the 32 meg SRAM rather than the 256K multi-bank data memory....the Move engines might be the DMA Transfer engines in Xtensa IVP DPUs (in the above diagram uDMA bottom left).
 

Blanquito

Member
If the DPU can do the camera processing without affecting the main APU, and the Xbox has a DPU, then why was kinect2 taking up 10% of the Xbox GPU resources?

Was the system not yet utilizing the DPU fully or is there something I'm missing?
 
If the DPU can do the camera processing without affecting the main APU, and the Xbox has a DPU, then why was kinect2 taking up 10% of the Xbox GPU resources?

Was the system not yet utilizing the DPU fully or is there something I'm missing?
Yes, the firmware was unfinished and likely GTAV and coming games can't be released until a firmware update as they use the DPU. Look at PS4 GTAV clips generated on a PS4....unbelievable AA processing.
 

Cornbread78

Member
As always in a Rigby thread I'm completely lost, but it sounds good for both Ps4 and XB1 in regards to DNLA/Multi-media functions.
 

Hexa

Member
Major find. Surprising that no one noticed it before. The slides are pretty clear lol.

As far as I understand it, DPUs are essentially just hardware that processes data that we haven't quite given a name to yet. Like being called a CPU or GPU have their own uses and requirements, but if the hardware doesn't fall under that and is designed for a different purpose they're just called DPUs. Right?

I don't see your logic for the parts about how it would be used in games. Not doubting it. Just asking for you to elaborate a bit.
Also by Share 2.0 you mean the 2.0 OS? I don't see why you think it seems that its coming then. As they've left it alone for so long I would expect the delay is DLNA2.0 I think they would have announced that by now if it was. Not sure what the hold up is however, because as a member they clearly have certification.
Though at the same time it would make a lot of sense I suppose. This could be what has been taking up all the time and effort of the OS team as they've always been somewhat slow, so I'd expect faster updates in the future. This update absolutely does warrant a full number for the upgrade, as I'd expect a lot more media apps in the future as well.
It just comes down to when it hits though.
 
Do you have sources or is this just speculation?
No source but follow the logic:

1) Kaveri uses a Xtensa DPU for multiple codecs including h.265, For TrueAudio and for Gesture recognition. The multiple codecs is key, you can use the accelerators in the DPU but it's still a software codec so it can support all the codecs and containers Microsoft released as supported for DLNA including h.265 which wasn't finished when the hardware for the XB1 and PS4 was being designed.

Audio and video need to be time-stamped and synced because they take a different amount of time to process, with multiple codecs each may take a different time so you need to support this as well as what's called Fusion or including sensor data in the stream with video and audio. If you are using Xtensa HiFi for Trueaudio then you will use Xtensa IVP for the video or you can't use the libraries already written.

Then if you read on what the Xtensa DPUs support, it's an elegant solution to everything that is in the Leaked Xbox 720 powerpoint that is coming for the XB1 and PS4.
 
Major find. Surprising that no one noticed it before. The slides are pretty clear lol.

As far as I understand it, DPUs are essentially just hardware that processes data that we haven't quite given a name to yet. Like being called a CPU or GPU have their own uses and requirements, but if the hardware doesn't fall under that and is designed for a different purpose they're just called DPUs. Right?

I don't see your logic for the parts about how it would be used in games. Not doubting it. Just asking for you to elaborate a bit.
Also by Share 2.0 you mean the 2.0 OS? I don't see why you think it seems that its coming then. As they've left it alone for so long I would expect the delay is DLNA2.0 I think they would have announced that by now if it was. Not sure what the hold up is however, because as a member they clearly have certification.
Though at the same time it would make a lot of sense I suppose. This could be what has been taking up all the time and effort of the OS team as they've always been somewhat slow, so I'd expect faster updates in the future. This update absolutely does warrant a full number for the upgrade, as I'd expect a lot more media apps in the future as well.
It just comes down to when it hits though.
DPUs are stream processors with all that implies.

For game AA see this link page 2. It also answers JaggedSac's question better than my reply except for my speculation that GTAV is using the DPU for AA. I can't see any other reason for it being delayed a year and timed for after a major firmware update. The combination of Move support and AA being so perfect tied with what a DPU can support just fits too well.

Read the links I provided in the OP.
 

boeso

Member
Very interesting *scratches chin*.

So when are we likely to see new games gain some sort of graphical advantage using this, or does it depend what they choose to do with it? After 2.0 could they just patch in support?

How in the hell do you know what GTA V looks like?
 
http://ip.cadence.com/news/507/330/Partner-Release-Khronos-Finalizes-and-Releases-OpenVX-1-0-Specification-for-Computer-Vision-Acceleration said:
October 20th, 2014, &#8211; The Khronos&#8482; Group today announced the ratification and public release of the finalized OpenVX&#8482; 1.0 specification, an open, royalty-free standard for cross platform acceleration of computer vision applications.

An OpenVX developer expresses a connected graph of vision nodes that an implementer can execute and optimize through a wide variety of techniques such as: acceleration on CPUs, GPUs, DSPs or dedicated hardware,

&#8220;Cadence is integrating OpenVX into our Tensilica® Imaging/Vision Library software development kit to enable higher performance and power optimization for our scalable and configurable IVP-EP DSP cores,

it is clear that the optimal way to meet the stringent performance and power requirements of computer vision applications is to offload CV processing to a dedicated processor. OpenVX enables this for developers in a seamless manner
Nvidia and AMD have licensed Xtensa DPUs.

And here is the answer! OpenVX APIs will be released for use after October 20th. Sony and Microsoft have likely already provided them to select developers but won't firmware update the consoles to allow a game to ship using them till after the standard was released. So PS4 Firmware 2.0 if it contains OpenVX APIs couldn't be released till after October 20th and GTAV if it uses OpenVX APIs can't ship till Firmware 2.0 is released.

AMD and Nvidia will have to provide OpenVX APIs for their GPUs and this may be why GTAV for the PC is delayed till next year.

OpenVX &#8211; Power Efficient Vision Acceleration
Out-of-the-Box vision acceleration framework
Enables low-power, real-time applications
Targeted at mobile and embedded platforms
Functional Portability
Tightly defined specification
Full conformance tests
Performance portability across diverse HW
Higher-level abstraction hides hardware details
ISPs, Dedicated hardware, DSPs and DSP arrays, GPUs, Multi-core CPUs &#8230;
Enables low-power, always-on acceleration
Can run solely on dedicated vision hardware
Does not require full SOC CPU/GPU complex to be powered on

Look at this page on Khronos: https://www.khronos.org/openvx/

"OpenVX Graph optimization opens up possibility of low-power, always-on vision acceleration"...face recognition or detecting people entering or leaving the room at EU -Energy Star allowed power levels. This might be a planned feature for XB1 and PS4 as well as Ultra low power key phrase detection (Voice Recognition).


openvx-provisional-release-5.png


Now read the Leaked Xbox 720 power point again.
 

onQ123

Member
Nvidia and AMD have licensed Xtensa DPUs.

And here is the answer! OpenVX APIs will be released for use after October 20th. Sony and Microsoft have likely already provided them to select developers but won't firmware update the consoles to allow a game to ship using them till after the standard was released. So PS4 Firmware 2.0 if it contains OpenVX APIs couldn't be released till after October 20th and GTAV if it uses OpenVX APIs can't ship till Firmware 2.0 is released.

AMD and Nvidia will have to provide OpenVX APIs for their GPUs and this may be why GTAV for the PC is delayed till next year.



Look at this page on Khronos: https://www.khronos.org/openvx/

"OpenVX Graph optimization opens up possibility of low-power, always-on vision acceleration"...face recognition or detecting people entering or leaving the room at EU -Energy Star allowed power levels. This might be a planned feature for XB1 and PS4 as well as Ultra low power key phrase detection (Voice Recognition).


openvx-provisional-release-5.png

I think Sony made a smart move going with StereoVision for the PS4 Camera because it's smaller & cheaper than Kinect 2.0 so it will be easier for Sony to bundle it in with the PS4 as a standard without affecting the price much. Cameras really should be a standard part of all these consoles right now.

openvx-provisional-release-4.png
 
I think Sony made a smart move going with StereoVision for the PS4 Camera because it's smaller & cheaper than Kinect 2.0 so it will be easier for Sony to bundle it in with the PS4 as a standard without affecting the price much. Cameras really should be a standard part of all these consoles right now.

openvx-provisional-release-4.png
3D Skype is coming. Now that OpenVX APIs are in play I expect Skype or something like it will make it's way into the PS4..more casual games like Start the Party...Move controller will start being part of games. This is a big deal. I can understand why Sony is calling the firmware update Masamune
 

Blanquito

Member
I would think, that if Sony were utilizing the DSP for camera processing, then Just Dance 2015 would have waited for update 2.0, right? But that was released a couple days ago, ahead of 2.0. Thoughts?
 
I would think, that if Sony were utilizing the DSP for camera processing, then Just Dance 2015 would have waited for update 2.0, right? But that was released a couple days ago, ahead of 2.0. Thoughts?
You can call OpenCL and OpenVX using the CPU and GPU, I think you have to provide your own routines supporting OpenVX. What happens after Firmware 2.0 allows the Sony OpenVX calls that use the DPU rather than CPU and GPU. This does not take performance away from the game and makes including in features like the Move controller much easier.

GTAV for the PS4 is using 100% of the GPU at times and including Move support would take away GPU time while Dance Party is using, for arguments sake, 50% of the GPU so there is room to use the GPU for it.

Dance studio is a cross platform game and since there was no OpenVX support you can count on by platform owners, they would have to use the GPU. That changes as of Oct 20th as game engines on platforms that support OpenVX should now use the dedicated hardware if available (Xtensa DPU in PS4, XB1, AMD and Nvidia GPUs). If dedicated hardware is not available then a fallback to using the CPU and GPU.

On PCs I don't think you can count on there being dedicated hardware to support OpenVX so Rockstar would have to support using the GPU for OpenVX and dedicated hardware OpenVX calls if available. The OpenVX hardware would be in the dGPU so Nvidia and AMD would have to provide the OpenVX APIs and I think the Windows OS would have to know about them. So when is there an update to Windows to support OpenVX?
 

Blanquito

Member
You can call OpenCL and OpenVX using the CPU and GPU, I think you have to provide your own routines supporting OpenVX. What happens after Firmware 2.0 allows the Sony OpenVX calls that use the DPU rather than CPU and GPU. This does not take performance away from the game and makes including in features like the Move controller much easier.

GTAV for the PS4 is using 100% of the GPU at times and including Move support would take away GPU time while Dance Party is using, for arguments sake, 50% of the GPU so there is room to use the GPU for it.

Dance studio is a cross platform game and since there was no OpenVX support you can count on by platform owners, they would have to use the GPU. That changes as of Oct 20th as game engines on platforms that support OpenVX should now use the dedicated hardware if available (Xtensa DPU in PS4, XB1, AMD and Nvidia GPUs). If dedicated hardware is not available then a fallback to using the CPU and GPU.

On PCs I don't think you can count on there being dedicated hardware to support OpenVX so Rockstar would have to support using the GPU for OpenVX and dedicated hardware OpenVX calls if available. The OpenVX hardware would be in the dGPU so Nvidia and AMD would have to provide the OpenVX APIs and I think the Windows OS would have to know about them. So when is there an update to Windows to support OpenVX?

That makes sense.

Also, just noticed that Singstar for ps4 is being released a day after 2.0. Since it's a PlayStation exclusive, it's possible they are using the DSP and had to wait for the update.
 

Blanquito

Member
Sorry for the double post.

Another question, Jeff. How much would the DPU be able to actually do at a time? Comparable to a small APU?

Because you have mentioned that you think it may help with the OS, with apps, with audio, video, camera, and with games. However, it seems like if it were trying to do all of that at once (the PS4, for example, can have a game and an app running at the same time, in addition to the OS and audio and camera) the game probably wouldn't have enough resources to do anything intensive on it with everything else vying for compute time.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Sorry for the double post.

Another question, Jeff. How much would the DPU be able to actually do at a time? Comparable to a small APU?

Because you have mentioned that you think it may help with the OS, with apps, with audio, video, camera, and with games. However, it seems like if it were trying to do all of that at once (the PS4, for example, can have a game and an app running at the same time, in addition to the OS and audio and camera) the game probably wouldn't have enough resources to do anything intensive on it with everything else vying for compute time.

I do not think Sony will follow MS's model of snapping two applications side by side. While it might work on a Tablet and works on a PC, I do not think it works on a TV using a gamepad as input. I do not think the user can really interact well with both applications running at the same time, it can be distracting in my opinion just like a lot of other pushes to massive multitasking we have daily... You also lose valuable screen estate for your main content without gaining enough for the secondary app IMHO.

If switching between apps is fast enough it is better to do that than snapping, each fore grounded app can have all the available resources dedicated to it (the OS reserved RAM and CPU cycles dealing with the needs of the backgrounder processes wether they are sleeping or active).
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
PS4's next software update, Masamune, will be available on 10/28

OpenVX 1.0 was released by Khronos on 10/20. 10/20 was a Monday and Firmware 2.0 comes one day and a week on Tueday 10/28, the second Tuesday after the Khronos release of OpenVX 1.0 (Tueday is a typical update day). Playstation store updated on 10/21 and they may have scheduled the Firmware 2.0 update on the first free Firmware update day.

It would be quite a record for a vendor to have support so soon after the specs and reference implementation are 100% approved and live. Hopefully they deliver support in FW 2.0 :).
 

kyser73

Member
Lemme get this straight:

The launch SDK and OS don't allow devs (gaming & app) access to parts of the PS4 hardware.

This hardware is specifically built around video, and covers everything from DLNA/IPTV stuff to some graphics techniques in games. This can enable some processes that are currently run through the CPU & GPU to be offloaded onto this hardware, freeing up resources elsewhere.

Not so much 'secret sauce' more 'sauce that was locked in a cabinet that you didn't have a key for'?

Am I on the right track here, Jeff?

If I am on the right track, where would the bandwidth used for something like AA or AF come from? It's all well & good taking calculation load away from the CPU/GPU but it's still all got to fit into the 176GB/s, correct?
 

Withnail

Member
DPUs are stream processors with all that implies.

For game AA see this link page 2. It also answers JaggedSac's question better than my reply except for my speculation that GTAV is using the DPU for AA. I can't see any other reason for it being delayed a year and timed for after a major firmware update. The combination of Move support and AA being so perfect tied with what a DPU can support just fits too well.

Read the links I provided in the OP.

Jeff I enjoy your posts and you dig up interesting information, but I think you're way off base with this GTAV thing. It wasn't delayed a year and November is always the big month for game releases. 2+2!=5
 

Leb

Member
Do you have actual working knowledge of their specific implementations? Because all I'm seeing here is a bunch of white papers and what reads like wild conjecture unsupported by actual empirical observations.
 

Clockwork

Member
Welcome to a jeff_rigby thread.

That said, some of what he is talking about always comes true, so its woeth a read anyway.

It's all speculation.

If you throw enough darts at a dartboard eventually you'll get a bullseye.

These threads should always be taken with a grain of salt.
 
Lemme get this straight:

The launch SDK and OS don't allow devs (gaming & app) access to parts of the PS4 hardware.

This hardware is specifically built around video, and covers everything from DLNA/IPTV stuff to some graphics techniques in games. This can enable some processes that are currently run through the CPU & GPU to be offloaded onto this hardware, freeing up resources elsewhere.

Not so much 'secret sauce' more 'sauce that was locked in a cabinet that you didn't have a key for'?

Am I on the right track here, Jeff?

If I am on the right track, where would the bandwidth used for something like AA or AF come from? It's all well & good taking calculation load away from the CPU/GPU but it's still all got to fit into the 176GB/s, correct?
Right track and the ARM Second custom chip as Southbridge has it's own memory and runs it's own OS so there is no memory bandwidth issue (DPUs are stream processors with many accelerators and their own internal SRAM memory so they can operate at low clock speed and still handle AA on a video stream or encoding/decoding a video stream). It contains the trustzone DRM processor and custom designed Xtensa DPUs. Since it also is used as a trusted boot manager for the X86 CPUs and GPU, Sony will not allow anyone access to code running on that chip; every use will be through APIs.
 
Interesting read but tbh I am not sure whether I fully understand, hah.

What I find strange is wouldn't the use of a DPU make the work for devs more domplicated? Instead of working with only one gpu now they have to think about two chips. Wonder whether some devs just will say "screw it" and just don't use DPU at all and offliad everything on gpu?! I mean historically mostly only first-party devs cared about fully "exploiting" special hardware feautures in consoles.

Beaides that, how can you say that GTAV looks really good in AA? Did you see unknown media?
Well, the dates you mentioned (ps4 firmware, licensing) do give room for speculation. Just hope for some more insight.
 
So could this be the reason why Sony are seemingly slow to get the PS4's media capabilities up and running? I mean if they knew this was coming down the line then it kind of makes sense why they have been holding off on everything until it was all ready as what would be the point in wasting development time on it at launch if they would have access to something much better 12 months down the line.
 

Clockwork

Member
I'll add that threads like this always make me a little upset because people gather information from them and then repeat it as though its gospel.

There is nothing new here and there is no secret sauce. Sure, there is built in logic for decoding audio/video/peripheral support but that is totally commonplace and expected in any modern hardware (seriously, look at a block diagram for any modern SoC).

You aren't going to see more power unlocked or crazy AA solutions. That's just nonsense.

If you want s real idea what the second ARM CPU is for just go back to the original PS4 unveiling:

G02kSex.jpg
 
J

JoJo UK

Unconfirmed Member
And in Kavari....and likely in most of the ARM game consoles and more powerful Cell Phones designed to support Goggle Glasses.

XB1 may have an advantage for AR & VR as the DPU(s) are in the APU with access to the 32 meg SRAM rather than the 256K multi-bank data memory....the Move engines might be the DMA Transfer engines in Xtensa IVP DPUs (in the above diagram uDMA bottom left).
wow really? Is there any real confirmation that MS to even considering going down the AR or VR road? I remember reading something random about 'kinect shades' but that was months ago.
 
wow really? Is there any real confirmation that MS to even considering going down the AR or VR road? I remember reading something random about 'kinect shades' but that was months ago.
Gesh where you been. From earliest to latest:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=62038 (2010 leaked powerpoint)

Microsoft Is Working With Virtual Reality, Too

The race for VR headset gaming is on, Microsoft spends $150m to take on Facebook and Oculus

Edit: The following was a April Fools post I didn't catch.
http://www.roadtovr.com/breaking-microsofts-project-neo-vr-headset-one-xbox-one/ said:
- 640×480 LCD Screen
&#8211; 37 degrees Field of View
&#8211; Custom 2DOF Tracking System called &#8220;DOF Mode&#8221;.
&#8211; Exclusive to the Xbox One
&#8211; Minesweeper VR to be launch title

Microsoft Corporation&#8217;s Mind-Bending Plans for Virtual Reality

Room Alive
 

onQ123

Member
Interesting read but tbh I am not sure whether I fully understand, hah.

What I find strange is wouldn't the use of a DPU make the work for devs more domplicated? Instead of working with only one gpu now they have to think about two chips. Wonder whether some devs just will say "screw it" and just don't use DPU at all and offliad everything on gpu?! I mean historically mostly only first-party devs cared about fully "exploiting" special hardware feautures in consoles.

Beaides that, how can you say that GTAV looks really good in AA? Did you see unknown media?
Well, the dates you mentioned (ps4 firmware, licensing) do give room for speculation. Just hope for some more insight.

It's not for the devs to code for, it's OS level'
 
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