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Hardware wise, the PS5 is a combination of the PS1-3 and PS4 eras

Jubenhimer

Member
With PlayStations 1-3, Sony developed their consoles using the same mentality. Develop entirely custom-made hardware designed to do impressive graphics and engines, use a new media format to leverage said hardware, and then use said format as a trojan horse for other types of media. The PlayStation had the CD format, along with its then impressive 3D graphics. The PlayStation 2 had the Emotion Engine combined with the DVD format, and the PlayStation 3 had its Cell processor with the Blu-Ray format. While Sony built machines with impressive tech, it often came at the cost of ease of use for developers. The PlayStation 3 in particular, was an overly complex pain in the ass to work with thanks to its completely foreign architecture, which combined with other things, resulted in its infamous $599 US Dollar launch price.

With the PlayStation 4, Sony went in with a different mindset. Instead of building a lot of impressive custom tech, they instead focused on getting the most out of cheaper, off-the-shelf hardware that was simple, and easy to use. While the PS4 was pretty run-of-the mill in terms of specs, this strategy never the less paid off, with the PS4 being far more profitable than the massive money sink the PS3 was.

Now we're at the PlayStation 5 and for this generation, Sony from what's been known so far, is going for a middle ground between the PS1-3 and the PS4 mentalities. Like the PS4, the PS5 is built on the same, off-the-shelf x86 architecture that powered its predecessor. It's cheap and its common. However, it's everything surrounding that architecture that sort of goes back to the PS1-3 era of building impressive custom technology, notably with the heavily customized SSD I/O and the Tempest 3D audio tech. It's a solid compromise between the "build the most impressive tech on the market" approach of the first 3 PlayStations, and the "lateral thinking, withered technology" approach of the PlayStation 4. But this is just my observation.
 
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DESTROYA

Member
JjY17By.gif
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Nah. It's still essentially an off the shelf PC. A custom SSD controller isn't some amazing exotic thing, especially when it can be essentially skipped over just by adding a faster SSD. "Tempest" is just their Dolby Atmos competitor. Nothing revolutionary or exotic, just another thing bound to only ever be used by Sony in the one console and not adopted anywhere else since Dolby Atmos is the market leader and does the same thing.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
It's incredible how people have to justify, what they like...in such sophisticated manner.
 

PhaseJump

Banned
Why not just say PS1-4 eras instead of PS1-3 and PS4?

Because OP believes the secret sauce that made up the 1-3 customized hardware, is somehow less remarkable compared to the secret sauce that the PS4 had going on.

Sony buying x86 parts from AMD somehow makes everything "just a PC" to people who don't know what they're talking about. Sure, the parts are readily available and similar to the open computer platform everyone uses. That doesn't mean the console isn't heavily customized in it's implementation. You can't easily install a POSIX compliant operating system on it. There were standard clock (a lack of one IIRC) issues. It's been a while since I looked at it and I honestly don't care to, but I suggest everyone go look up how the PS4 was reverse engineered a few years ago. Hackers cut into the PCIe bus between the APU and one of the co-processors or whatever it was that Sony put into the setup to handle the I/O, and they probed it in both directions to map things out.
 

Jubenhimer

Member
Because OP believes the secret sauce that made up the 1-3 customized hardware, is somehow less remarkable compared to the secret sauce that the PS4 had going on.
I didn't say the PS4 wasn't impressive for what it was. I was merely trying to point out that it was much more reliant on stock hardware than any other PlayStation.
 
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Romulus

Member
If thats true, preorder canceled. Anything remotely associated with the ps3 might as well be a steaming pile of trash. All other sony consoles were great.
 

Piku_Ringo

Banned
Nah. It's still essentially an off the shelf PC. A custom SSD controller isn't some amazing exotic thing, especially when it can be essentially skipped over just by adding a faster SSD. "Tempest" is just their Dolby Atmos competitor. Nothing revolutionary or exotic, just another thing bound to only ever be used by Sony in the one console and not adopted anywhere else since Dolby Atmos is the market leader and does the same thing.

:messenger_ok::cool:
 

EDMIX

Member
If thats true, preorder canceled. Anything remotely associated with the ps3 might as well be a steaming pile of trash. All other sony consoles were great.

Pretty much. I love the games we got for PS3, but the cell was just the wrong choice. PS4 using x86 makes a lot of sense even if we miss out on PS3 BC because of it. It would literally be easier for them to just port all their best titles to PS4 as remasters, then to really repeat mistakes like using anything like Cell on PS4 or any system for that matter.

I don't buy what OP is saying either as calling what they are doing "custom" like trying to make some argument its like Cell is silly. "custom" doesn't always mean its as bad as cell as many times you can customize a series of components not made by you. This is how all systems are made anyway, it would be like saying the PS5's UI is clearly "custom" and you should be worried or something. So long as its x86 and they have AMD doing those components, Idgaf.
 

PhaseJump

Banned
I didn't say the PS4 wasn't impressive for what it was. I was merely point out that it was much more reliant on stock hardware than any other PlayStation.

What makes it "stock hardware" though? A parallel PC component market that uses similar hardware, cutting down costs? You think saving a buck is somehow a different "mentality" at this tech corporation. The real refinement over the years has been in middleware and tools getting easier to use, and game engines making your software more portable.

Show us the stock hardware in the 360 generation? Both the Cell and the Xenon were similar. Their implementations were different, and the reason 360 kicked the PS3's ass for a while was because Direct X was better, and the consumer price for the console was unreasonably high.

The argument you present is kind of silly. All consoles are running stock hardware, or off the shelf components from various vendors and are compatible with the latest and greatest standards for storage/bus/IO/networking etc.

To the original point, the PS1 was a CD Rom add-on for the SNES, following the NEC PC Engine CD, and the Sega CD add-ons. They went ahead without Nintendo and lucked out by focusing on 3D development as Sega over-engineered the Saturn with multiple processors. Sony got lucky, and blew the market wide open. I would never in a million years ever claim that Sony made things harder for developers to use and pair it with a statement based on their "mentality". With the PS3, since they launched it without proper support in the wake of Microsoft's Direct X on the 360, it was harder to develop for. Picking up with the PS4, they simplified everything. It was still a heavily customized console, and not an off-the-shelf PC.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Pretty much. I love the games we got for PS3, but the cell was just the wrong choice. PS4 using x86 makes a lot of sense even if we miss out on PS3 BC because of it. It would literally be easier for them to just port all their best titles to PS4 as remasters, then to really repeat mistakes like using anything like Cell on PS4 or any system for that matter.

I don't buy what OP is saying either as calling what they are doing "custom" like trying to make some argument its like Cell is silly. "custom" doesn't always mean its as bad as cell as many times you can customize a series of components not made by you. This is how all systems are made anyway, it would be like saying the PS5's UI is clearly "custom" and you should be worried or something. So long as its x86 and they have AMD doing those components, Idgaf.

Go back and listen to any of Mark Cerny's presentations; the mantra is always efficiency, accessibility, versatility and ultimately productivity.

Basically its a point-by-point repudiation of the worst errors of the Kutaragi era as epitomized by PS3. It might not be the most "sexy" way to sell a piece of hardware to the general public, but its music to the ears of those who will be working with it, and crucially should make for better games.

Its a far bigger deal than any of the hoopla about teraflops and such. The faster you get something that just "works" the more time you have to make it even better. Time is the most valuable currency in game-dev because as with all code nothing is ever truly finished, just abandoned.
 

Jubenhimer

Member
I don't buy what OP is saying either as calling what they are doing "custom" like trying to make some argument its like Cell is silly. "custom" doesn't always mean its as bad as cell as many times you can customize a series of components not made by you. This is how all systems are made anyway, it would be like saying the PS5's UI is clearly "custom" and you should be worried or something. So long as its x86 and they have AMD doing those components, Idgaf.
I agree that "Custom" doesn't necessarily mean bad, but having too much custom tech can lead to over-complicating things more than necessary.

Cell was by no means a bad architecture, it just wasn't practical for a gaming console, which is why developers had a hard time with it.

What makes it "stock hardware" though? A parallel PC component market that uses similar hardware, cutting down costs? You think saving a buck is somehow a different "mentality" at this tech corporation. The real refinement over the years has been in middleware and tools getting easier to use, and game engines making your software more portable.

The reason Sony focused more on PC-based parts for the PS4 was to make the system not only cheaper at launch, but way easier to develop for, as the PS3's Cell, while impressive, was notoriously difficult to work with.

Show us the stock hardware in the 360 generation? Both the Cell and the Xenon were similar. Their implementations were different, and the reason 360 kicked the PS3's ass for a while was because Direct X was better, and the consumer price for the console was unreasonably high.

Xenon and Cell were similar, but Cell was way more exotic and propriety than Xenon was. Xenon was a simple, 3 core processor, while the Cell was a weird combination of a master PPE and 8 sub-cores that were very difficult to use efficiently. Like I said, Cell was an impressive piece of engineering. But it wasn't really the most practical chip for a consumer gaming platform.

The argument you present is kind of silly. All consoles are running stock hardware, or off the shelf components from various vendors and are compatible with the latest and greatest standards for storage/bus/IO/networking etc.
Sure, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying the PS5 this time around, strikes a pretty good balance between utilizing a very simple, reliable x86 base, while having enough proprietary-built tech to let it do some unique stuff.
 

-Arcadia-

Banned
It’s interesting to see them return to these stranger, more untraditional designs, even if, as the OP mentions, it’s still very much in that ‘safe’ off-the-shelf hardware space.

As someone who enjoys following the hobby, when things get a little weirder, ingenious, and a little more creative, those tend to be the most fun products to watch in that sense.

I particularly like how Sony kept costs down with some innovative thinking on their chip design and cooling, resulting in a model that could be $400 (probably still taking a hit, though), as well as choosing to spend so much money and time in truly dedicating the hardware and system architecture to bring us cartridge-level speeds.

Series X is full of a lot of great design, but PS5 is a bit of an oddball, and I love it for that.
 

onQ123

Member
Nah. It's still essentially an off the shelf PC. A custom SSD controller isn't some amazing exotic thing, especially when it can be essentially skipped over just by adding a faster SSD. "Tempest" is just their Dolby Atmos competitor. Nothing revolutionary or exotic, just another thing bound to only ever be used by Sony in the one console and not adopted anywhere else since Dolby Atmos is the market leader and does the same thing.

What off the shelf PC has the cache scrubbers & I/O system with a large amount of SRAM? (Not including the new RDNA2 GPUs that have 128MB of infinity cache)
 
Great insight, OP.

For as successful as PS4 was, it’s easily the least “PlayStation” feeling console of them all.

I suppose Sony needed a safe console after PS3’s struggles, but PS5 seems like a return to form.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
What off the shelf PC has the cache scrubbers & I/O system with a large amount of SRAM? (Not including the new RDNA2 GPUs that have 128MB of infinity cache)
Little things like that don’t make it exotic. It’s still just PC parts with little tweaks here and there.
 

onQ123

Member
I guess the Xbox is exotic too then lol.
Both consoles essentially use off the shelf pc parts with minor deviations, like I said.

Yes it's exotic because it's the only RDNA2 chip with more than 10 CUs in the each shader engines & it's the only RDNA2 chip with only 64 ROPS & it's the only RDNA2 chip without a large pool of SRAM (so far) we only know that Xbox Series X has a total of 76MB of SRAM across the whole SoC 12MB for the CPU 5MB of l2 cache for the GPU I'm not sure what the smaller caches all over the SoC make up but there isn't much infinity cache if it is there.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Yes it's exotic because it's the only RDNA2 chip with more than 10 CUs in the each shader engines & it's the only RDNA2 chip with only 64 ROPS & it's the only RDNA2 chip without a large pool of SRAM (so far) we only know that Xbox Series X has a total of 76MB of SRAM across the whole SoC 12MB for the CPU 5MB of l2 cache for the GPU I'm not sure what the smaller caches all over the SoC make up but there isn't much infinity cache if it is there.
So like I said, it's essentially off the shelf PC parts with minor changes. Great. Just like the PS5.
 
Pretty accurate perspective.

My guess is they invested in and developed a custom I/O controller because the speed performance they wanted for next-gen wasn't going to be available from AMD and off-the-shelf SSD's at launch. Given that Sony makes their own hardware, it makes sense that they would create their own thing (i.e. exotic shit) to achieve the performance that they wanted.

Obviously, they didn't go full Kutaragi with the PS5 and instead, they went ball's out in a much more fiscally responsible manner. To be honest, the more videos and impressions I see of the DualSense the more I'm thinking that they may have sorta pulled a fast one. I think they knew all along that ray traced this and zero loading that would be sweet, but I also think they knew that if all they brought to the table was a more powerful console then they would run into significantly less consumer interest -- especially coming on the heels of the PS4 Pro. So I think they knew that the controller was the key to delivering a next-gen leap, and that's why that thing is radically different than any other PlayStation/non-PlayStation controller in the market. Or to word that mess ^ differently, the real exotic shit this time is in their controller.
 
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