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John Carmack on PS4 vs. Xbox One Specs: They're 'Very Close'
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
- Start date
This ladies and gentlemen seals the deal.
FranXico
Member
He criticised both the 360 and the PS3, but emphasized how the PS3 was needlessly more complicated to program for. He did say something about Blu-Ray storage being an advantage.
GoofsterStud
Member
He did but the PS3/360 were a lot closer to each other in power.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
We still did manage to get 8 pages outta it, bwhaha
Chobel
Member
So he never compared the performance or the specs... All this fuss because nobody watched the damn video (ironically neither did I).
The title need to be changed, it's very misleading.
Just_myles
Member
Truespeed said:
Still not buying it. We won't notice any differences in 3rd party games anyway. If you like to go on about each systems architecture, then go ahead. I'm done.
Btw, my not buying an xbone was never because of any kind of graphical difference anyway.We should be looking at other things.
FranXico
Member
So, he is comparing the architecture without any considerations for performance?
MrCunningham
Member
Most important part of that quote....
Carmack: "Now obviously, I am still under NDA. So I can't talk about the juicy technical details... but there is enough out there in public records that there will still be discussion about it"
and.....
Carmack: "We can discuss the different memory architectures, but bottom line is that they are both AMD multi-core with AMD graphics, it's almost weird how close they are"
So, he was basically commenting on the AMD architecture? How did someone like Kotaku who had a writer at the event extrapolate what he said to mean that they had similar power?
AdventureRacing
Member
And? They are pretty much the same.
Then he goes on to talk about the types of architecture that could have been in the consoles, framing the context of them being 'very close'. But for system warriors every comment obviously has to fit an agenda.
Chobel
Member
he also said "it's almost amazing how close they are in capabilities, how common they are and uh that the capabilities they give are essentially the same" but the word "capabilities" is open to many interpretations and from my understanding he meant it as console development APIs.
hooijdonk17
Member
As an owner of the 360 kinect which saw use only for dance games for the significant other, I have to say Carmack is right on the money about Kinect.
Fuck it.
Fuck it.
MrCunningham
Member
Yeah, pretty much, he did mean they are close to each other in capabilities, but as you have said, that is pretty open to interpretation. He was treading around the topic lightly.
alexandros
Banned
Heh. After the " 8GB GDDR5!" argument lost steam with the whole OS RAM issue, hopefully it's time for the "coding to the metal" thing to die off.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
Kinect1 yeah
Kinect2, not so much.
It is vastly improved from previous, the sensitivity, more powerful sensors and the higher transfer speed does make quite the difference.
I argue that Carmack has not tested Kinect2 yet.. ohh sorry.. he has not "benchmarked" it yet..
I don't think you'll find many PC gamers on GAF who aren't happy that the generation transition will raise the baseline. In fact they've been kind of asking for it for around 2 years now. We're all gaming enthusiasts so it's not surprising that gamers from all sides would want to be in on the discussion. People can't rant and rave about the "substantial" power difference between the PS4 and 180 and expect a whole section of the community (PC gamers) to not chime in. It just doesn't work like that. The WiiU gets trolled nonstop for it's graphical abilities by people who plan on buying a PS4/180 and in return PC gamers laugh at those who wear that 1.8tf like a badge of honor. I don't see what's wrong with that.
I preordered the PS4 for a lot of reasons, price and power being chief amongst them. I like new hardware and it beats my current PC by a good bit. But I understand that there are people out there with multiple Titans which means that powerwise my PS4 ain't shit. So if I decide to get cocky because Watch_Dogs for PS4 wins a DF faceoff I expect someone with better hardware to find that funny. That's fair play.
I've seen lag in a video of a demo for Kinect 2.0. Not as bad as the first Kinect but noticeable. Granted I was actively looking for it...
FranXico
Member
phosphor112
Banned
Of course it isn't magic. It's secret sauce.
I don't get why people think this kind of stuff.
Mark Cerny talks, It's gospel!
MS talk, it's lies (probably true lol) Major nelson can't catch a break lol
Anyone who is working on both is basically being nice to both, even though they have always been honest about things. I've always trusted Carmack, He never bullshits. He has no horse in this race. I don't get why he wouldn't just tell it like it is.
basically, the only person we can trust is Mark Cerny
By the way I am not targeting this post at you. It's at the people with that general consensus
FranXico
Member
Remember last gen?
Sony exec/developer/PR talks: ZOMG Phony liars!!!!
MS exec/developer/Nelson talks: It's gospel!
If you were not ok with this last gen either, you would "get" why people think this kind of stuff.
Yeah, the dude hates latency and loves buttons. Listen to him talk about Rift to see how religious he gets about latency.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
FranXico
Member
If he hates latency then he most LOVE the ESRAM solution in XBox One.. *smirk smirk*
I bet he does... because it solves something that would been a problem... in the XBox One
People championing the port superiority of PS4 over the Xbone are setting themselves for a huge meltdown on launch.
The majority of the portfolio of both systems consists basically of cross gen titles. With studios developing for four to six platforms, some versions will most assuredly be farmed to other teams. The only thing the Xbone version needs to have an edge is to be developed by the A team and get the PS4 version to be farmed to a B team. Think with me, The Crew Xbone version is supposed to be developed by the main studio, while the PS4's one is being farmed to another devs. If the Xbone version performs better, in this case, will anyone be surprised?
Nevertheless, some people will remember what Thuway and others said and will use these exemples to undeservedly shit on them.
The majority of the portfolio of both systems consists basically of cross gen titles. With studios developing for four to six platforms, some versions will most assuredly be farmed to other teams. The only thing the Xbone version needs to have an edge is to be developed by the A team and get the PS4 version to be farmed to a B team. Think with me, The Crew Xbone version is supposed to be developed by the main studio, while the PS4's one is being farmed to another devs. If the Xbone version performs better, in this case, will anyone be surprised?
Nevertheless, some people will remember what Thuway and others said and will use these exemples to undeservedly shit on them.
I see absolutely zero reason for 180 versions of multiplat games to run better than PS4 versions. If it happens I'd probably just assume that the devs were incompetent at some part of their job. 2 consoles, same basic architecture and one of them is more powerful in multiple ways. There's no excuse, really.
FranXico
Member
Well, if studios remain in bed with Microsoft, of course no amount of superior hardware will matter. Then, it will probably be like last gen all over again. Moneyhats will decide which version looks best. MS will of course win with their nigh limitless resources, with Sony managing to buy off perhaps a couple of superior ports.
Hooflung128
Banned
The same way the xbone gaf brigade came to this thread accusing people the ps4 defense brigade they just want to see the xbone be slower essentially out of spite then start lifting Carmack up as god's own prototype and put words into his sanctified pie hole and dismiss fact for wishful thinking.
Console wars have already taken its toll on intellectual honesty in 2013.
He said both were Ferraris. Turned out to be right.
FranXico
Member
Intellectual honesty in console wars has been absent a long time ago, even before 2005.
To claim that this only is the case now in 2013 kind of proves this point.
Well, if studios remain in bed with Microsoft, of course no amount of superior hardware will matter. Then, it will probably be like last gen all over again. Moneyhats will decide which version looks best. MS will of course win with their nigh limitless resources, with Sony managing to buy off perhaps a couple of superior ports.
Are you trying to imply that the reason games last gen performed better on the 360 was because the studios were in bed with Microsoft?
Liabe Brave
Member
Even if Carmack was talking about performance--the quotes aren't very precise with their language--then "very close" might just be a relative thing. From what we think we know, PS4 seems more powerful than One to the tune of, in one example, 600 Gflops on the GPU. Since the One's rumored GPU is only ~1200 Gflops total, in console terms a 600 Gflop difference seems substantial at 50%.
But if you have long experience with PCs like Carmack, and continue to build games for that platform, then you're used to handling much larger gaps. Your game needs to run on, say, a GTX 550 Ti, and also on a GTX 770--a relative Gflop difference of about 450%, and an absolute difference double the Gflops of the entire One GPU.
But if you have long experience with PCs like Carmack, and continue to build games for that platform, then you're used to handling much larger gaps. Your game needs to run on, say, a GTX 550 Ti, and also on a GTX 770--a relative Gflop difference of about 450%, and an absolute difference double the Gflops of the entire One GPU.
FranXico
Member
"in bed" == used to their tools, etc. Developers get used to a set of toolkits and find it difficult to switch back and forth.
A few cases may have been like real moneyhats, though. Most obvious example: the Portal 2 port looked like a moneyhat from Sony. There was absolutely no reason for that game to look so bad on the 360. Similar situations may have happened the other way around.
Disclaimer: this is all obviously speculation.
Well, it is.
We don't need Carmack or Person XYZ telling us which system is more powerful.
Exactly, this generations gap isnt even that big from a PC point of view.
And from a developer standpoint, do you thinking they will put in the extra effort, manpower, money and time to make the PS4 slightly better ?
You will only see first party getting every inch out of the console.
And it will be Gears vs Uncharted war all over again.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
For most publishers most the money comes from consoles.
I don't remember the exact quote, but he said that the PS3 has a little bit more raw power, but was more difficult to program for. Fair assessement.
Waiting for his opinion once he gets the possibility of comparing both the PS4 and the Xbox-One on a technical level, past the obvious underlying similarities, that is.
Liabe Brave
Member
I'm not sure that necessarily follows. The machines this gen are more alike than they have ever been, which will lower the effort necessary to get better results on the better hardware. Fiddly specializations like the PS4's Garlic/Onion busses or the One's eSRAM and DMEs may not get tapped out by third parties, but even they should easily find uses for extra compute units.
It remains to be seen how different the end results may be, though.
Gemüsepizza
Member
Still doesn't tell us how he defines "very close".
Chobel
Member
OK, I really need to shut up and watch the damn video.
Hes on the money with kinect, we are being forced a bit of tech that they have shown fucking zero reason why. I can shout at my tv right now with the pos kinect one, and my tv has built in voice and face detection ive used it once. I have a feeling kinect 2 is going to end up like kinect 1, a bit of plastic i have around my tv that gets used twice a year when family is around.
He said similar things...the most he differentiated on, on a 'capability' front was that if - in theory - you were doing something very simulation heavy, and you put in a lot of sweat equity, you might get better performance out of PS3.
I think most would agree that masked a more complicated picture reflected in general multiplatform performance and exclusives. At least if you're picky about relative quality.
I think at this point - and this was already the case in the last generation - Carmack is far more concerned with how a machine fits into their production process than anything else. Once your machine can run the game he wants to make, he's way more concerned with how easy/cheap it is to work with. That drove the majority of his commentary around PS3 and 360, the majority of his criticism of PS3. That he now doesn't appear to endorse one dev environment over the other with PS4 and Xbox One is a big improvement for Sony.
I think you'd really have to be showing something that's multiple times more powerful than a competitor for Carmack to particularly care about the difference. A 50% difference, for example, is not very much if elsewhere (like in their PC targets) you're dealing with a range of performance that can be separated by an order of magnitude or more.
Anyway, it was an interesting talk as always.
I disagreed with his commentary around the used games 'witch hunt'...
The stuff about displays and persistence was illuminating.
His commentary on motion controls was interesting, and a change vs before. I think he's saying now what some of us were saying a couple of years ago. Back then I think he kind of lumped them all into one category, but I guess the advent of HMDs and VR again has allowed him to appreciate the differences and appreciate what PS Move is doing. 'A no-button high latency mouse' is an eloquent short hand for Kinect's most fundamental shortcomings
His talk about OSes and paging...made me think slightly of Sony exposing some FreeBSD virtual memory functionality in PS4. Dunno if that's opening a window on some of things he wants there, but thought of that while he spoke.
Looking forward to his rendering talk.
curlyfriski
Banned
Figures GAF would obsess about the most uninteresting part of his speech.