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Mark Cerny speaking on stage about the PS4
- Thread starter Roxas
- Start date
Ploid 3.0
Member
Small correction, the hypothetical PS4 would have used GDDR5 + eDRAM. GDDR5 would have been 128bit bus and not 256bit, as seen here:
Lol at everyone trying to turn it into a dig at MS, it's not.
This setup would have been more complected to program for. They just choose to go with the easier to progrom for model, and added a few things that developers would need to explore as time moves on.
The reason I said my piece about "Xbox One more complex" was because it's not unified memory and they use a similar setup to try to get more out of their ddr3 setup, making it harder to develop for in the process, something Sony didn't want to do. I made that comment as it was streaming live.
King Tubby
Member
That was a fantastic presentation. The bit about "Time to Triangle" stood out to me. Decreasing the development complexity/time so dramatically from PS3 to PS4 should have a major effect on development cost (I'd love if anyone could elaborate more on that, though). If the PS4 is both more powerful and less complex than the competition I imagine that also makes the platform more appealing for developers.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
The thing is, they did add some things to compensate for that. Or that's what I understood at least.
The biggest takeaway from that presentation I think, is that the system is incredibly flexible while also requiring no hoops to jump through to get your game up and running. None of that takes into account a developers ability to fully optimize their games taking absolute full advantage of the hardware.
razgriz417
Member
Pretty sure some of those Indie devs they brought on stage during e3 said that it took them only a month to get a build of their game running on the PS4 (was it the octodad guys or the dudes right out of college?), that's a huge departure from trying to port something from pc to ps3 hardware, definitely more appealing
TacticalFox88
Banned
Please tell me I'm not the only one who secretly wishes this man was my HS teachers/university professor?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Probably. But like he said, at the time he was so focused on solving those puzzles and was really in no place to tell them that the CPU they had already chosen was difficult to work with. So he stayed silent. But at least it taught him the importance of easy development capabilities for when he was out in charge of PS4.
It's really kinda something you've gotta watch. A lot of personal anecdotes and stories that only make sense to hear them.
Mark Cerny's contrast between Ken Kutaragi and himself was interesting. Some brilliant engineers get promoted into management and get distracted from the core product. Cerny doesn't have to write annual reviews for any staff, doesn't manage budgets, and doesn't have formal responsibilities or a boss. He's free to do what he does best.
A unique guy like Cerny doesn't work to make money, he works on whatever he wants. He left Universal to work with talented people at Naughty Dogg and Insomniac. And now he's working with his buddies Shuhei Yoshida and Andrew House. You can't just pay a person like that to join your team, you have to get them interesting stuff to work on.
I can't wait to see what those things are.
A unique guy like Cerny doesn't work to make money, he works on whatever he wants. He left Universal to work with talented people at Naughty Dogg and Insomniac. And now he's working with his buddies Shuhei Yoshida and Andrew House. You can't just pay a person like that to join your team, you have to get them interesting stuff to work on.
I can't wait to see what those things are.
hokagespit
Member
only 1 - 2 months before games can start being made this time around. wow im impressed. great talk cerny. im excited about tall the titles devs will be churning out this gen
Mass Effect
Member
That was really, really interesting to watch. I really liked hearing about his past experiences as well as the company history of Sony.
I do wish other companies were this transparent when it comes to business philosophy and console hardware design.
It does seem like he would make a really interesting professor/teacher. I wonder if he'll ever teach, because it does seem like he needs to eventually.
I do wish other companies were this transparent when it comes to business philosophy and console hardware design.
It does seem like he would make a really interesting professor/teacher. I wonder if he'll ever teach, because it does seem like he needs to eventually.
User Name Here
Member
256-bit bus/ GDDR5
176 GB per second
128-bit bus/ GDDR5
88 GB per second
1 TB per second
uh....
176 GB per second
VS
128-bit bus/ GDDR5
88 GB per second
+
Small eDRAM1 TB per second
uh....
That kind of ram bandwith would have been insane. Damn. Would games even be able to take advantage of all that?
TacticalFox88
Banned
User Name Here
Member
Probably not right away since they would need to figure out how to utilize that combination properly. But hell, devs needed to figure out aspects of the ps2 and ps3 architecture before they could use it properly too...
-Cerny was really angry with the way the PS3 turned out, and at one point couldn't handle it anymore.
-He burst into Ken Kutaragi's office and said I'M IN CHARGE NOW MOTHERFUCKER.
-After doing several lines of cocaine with Shuhei Yoshida he jotted down the entire spec design of the PS4 on a cocktail napkin.
-He mentioned something about brainwashing, and Phil Harrison, but the audio cut out so I couldn't quite get that part.
That's about it I think.
beautiful
Thanks for the link. Missed the original stream from earlier today.
googleplex
Member
ReturnOfTheRAT
Member
That was very interesting. Cerny was more detailed on the thought process that went into the philosophy change on the gaming side than at the meeting in February.The forthrightness about the hassle the Cell caused is nice to hear. It explained many of the problems ports faced. Mark is also proud of his accomplishments and I think they're going about things the right way by stating they have a plan in place and there is proper direction now to get them to where they want to be.
I thought that was the most interesting aspect about the choices they made with the PS4. I love the Ken Kutaragi anecdote he mentioned and then said, "I'm not Ken Kutaragi" Ken likely/possibly would have went the 1088GB route, but I like Mark's reasoning for why going with 176GB/s route will ultimately be better for the platform as a whole, across every developer being better able to build games quicker and push the platform forward faster.
the_batman
Banned
when you think about it, doesn't this kind of go against his thinking of quality over quantity?
Hs anyone uploaded this to youtube yet?
Edit Dammit GAF, answering my own questions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJW5...VFM&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_89211
Edit Dammit GAF, answering my own questions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJW5...VFM&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_89211
User Name Here
Member
Ohhhhhh. I missed the part where he said you can only get 1TB if the data is in eDRAM. But couldn't you just stream data to it often or something?
Zombie James
Banned
Thanks!
But you'd have to micromanage exactly what is in eDRAM and normal RAM at all times and swap between them and ultimately it's just trickier to develop for than one big pool of RAM, which is why they decided against it. I'm guessing the PS3 taught them a big lesson in favoring "fast enough but easier to develop for" over "more potentially powerful but requires more effort to achieve those results".
Weyland Y.
Member
I think it depends on how you look at it. With the PS4 it takes way less time to create a fully functional engine and they can spend more time now on making the games more polished and be more creative, rather then fighting with the complexity of the PS3 architecture itself.
Development costs for games should be more efficient now, they can still take some time to complete a game. Not because of the hardware but they now have more time to actually deliver a better and more polished game.
Not too odd, or at least surprising given how intelligent he is. I started attending college at 15 and saw plenty of other people who were just as young. Regardless of all that, loved his presentation and honesty about the PS3.
Really really good presentation from Cerny. I just love his passion for games and how it shows whenever he talks about them. If he wasn't such a busy guy, I'd want him to just spend 30 minutes a day talking about games and game related topics.
We could just call it the Cerny Show and have House and Yosh show up from time to time.
We could just call it the Cerny Show and have House and Yosh show up from time to time.
Sort of, yeah. Though unlike the method used with the PS3 with the cell, which took a long time to crack and could be used to push things in interesting ways if you took the time to do it, with PS4 he seemed to be saying, "we're going with the philosophy of 'easy to utilize, hard to master'" Its the latter end of that saying, hard to master, that will tell the tale of what Sony's first party studios do with the hardware that might yield a detectable difference from XB1's best titles. I think easing the ramp up to getting games running on PS4 architecture won't necessarily yield low quality titles, that'll depend on any given dev, but I'm far more interested in what happens when devs fully push the PS4's envelop in a few years down the road.
One of the first things I said after his little talk at the PS4 unveiling
Wishmaster92
Member
Oh so thats it. If they went that route it would've meant cutting the bus in half and the only way you could get that monster bandwidth depended on the size of the edram. So if it was 32mb that was the only space saturated with bandwidth, then the rest is 88gb across the system instead of a constant 176. NO THANKS!!!
Truespeed
Member
Great presentation. I'm surprised he never mentioned his initial claim to fame - Marble Madness!. But, deconstructing the development process back to its fundamental basics (the Cerny Method aka Method) with no exotic hardware to get in the way was a major win. It's almost an oxymoron for a system as powerful as the PS4 to be so easy to develop for - at least for a Sony console. The Time to Triangle time matching that of the PS1 was also a revelation.
But, I was surprised at one thing, though, and that was the internal competition the internal studio's were waging on the third party studio's before it suddenly dawned on Sony that they should all be working together and sharing as much code and technology as possible for the good of the platform.
But, I was surprised at one thing, though, and that was the internal competition the internal studio's were waging on the third party studio's before it suddenly dawned on Sony that they should all be working together and sharing as much code and technology as possible for the good of the platform.
Ken Kutaragi sat alone in his luxurious office, feet propped on his massive oak desk, and sipped Henri IV Dudognon Heritage cognac from a fine etched crystal snifter. He had put in a long day of fucking up Sony's PR campaign for their new PlayStation 3 console, and he deserved a break. The building was mostly empty, save for some janitors and a few kiss-asses putting in extra hours in a vain attempt to be noticed when an executive position opened up. Susan, his eager and naive young receptionist was one such ass kisser. "Maybe if she ever puts her mouth to better use than just answering the damn phones," he chuckled to himself.
The door to his top-floor office burst open suddenly and he nearly spilled his drink. Charging toward him was Mark Cerny, a bright young programmer working somewhere in the company on game development or some such nonsense. Ken was too busy driving the bus off the cliff to pay attention to what the passengers were doing.
Ken stood to meet his visitor, but before he could react, Cerny had him by the throat. "You fucked up, Ken," he spat between gritted teeth. His breath reeked of cigarette smoke and rage. "The PS3 is a fucking mess. Developers can't get the damn thing to work right and the price is too goddamn high."
Ken wriggled beneath Cerny's iron grip, sweat pouring down his brow. He managed a wry smile, attempting to show a confidence instantly betrayed by his trembling lips. "People w-will work a second job to--"
Cerny's free hand swept through the open air and connected with a smack across Ken's face, his wirey frame giving no indication of the strength within him. "No more bullshit, Ken."
Ken swallowed hard. Fire burned behind Cerny's eye, and Ken knew he meant business. "Mark," he choked, "you don't know people the way I do. They'll happily pay whatever price we set. We're Sony, for fuck's sake. People trust us because people are idi--"
Before he could close his mouth, Cerny jammed the end of a pistol into it. "Be real fucking careful about the next words you speak."
He stared into the endless black of Cerny's dilated pupils. The only sounds in the room were those of his heart pounding and his teeth chattering against the gun's muzzle. Cerny was right to be angry and there was nothing he could say to fix what he had done. So he started to cry. Cerny relaxed his grip and holstered his gun. "Get out of here," he said.
"You want me to leave my own office?" Ken asked, still sobbing.
Cerny took the open bottle of cognac from Ken's desk and shot back a slug. "No Ken," he grinned, "I want you out of my office."
Yes, just like you did with SPUs on Cell.
Each SPU had 256kB of fast local memory with ~51.2 GB/s bandwidth.