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[BrokenIcarus]

Yes.

Eh, GPGPU applications on PC are kinda tough, when you constantly have to copy data from the System RAM to the VRAM. PS4 definitely has the advantage there.

Not a lot of PC games use real time GPGPU applications except for Nvidia PhysX.

 

[avaya]

Yeah, I'm just saying that avaya is full of shit when he says "there's more money in consoles so logically the best talent is already there". It's a bollocks assumption which is predicated on the incorrect notion that the most talented coders value money over everything else.

It isn't bullshit, but you are welcome to indulge in your own biases. There maybe some people that value other things in PC development but if someone is waving a significant pay increase in your face there are very few people who would resist that temptation. Most people will move for more money, it's the same across any industry, this is not rocket science.

 

[serversurfer]

1. They are not only using 4 cores, they said that they had to split command list generation across 4 cores.
2. GPGPU is not magic, only some types of loads are suited to it.

1) Ah, I think I get it now. Thanks. <3
2) Well, sure. It just seemed odd that this guy didn't mention its benefits for his physics simulation, and instead just spent the whole time complaining about multithreading. /shrug

Yes.

Fair enough, though I'd argue "pound for pound," the PS4 is more capable WRT GPGPU than a comparable PC. (i.e. you won't get the same level of performance from a generic 7850 as you will from a PS4) Sometimes I forget that "PC" is assumed to always be a high-end rig, making all comparisons apples to oranges.

 

[Ciastek3214]

So you can get bullshots simply by running a console game on PC? I don't disagree, and perhaps that is why you are impressed by pCars.

Uhhh, no, I mean consoles have their own specialized devkits, which happen to be PCs, me being impressed with PCars has nothing to do with that.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

It isn't bullshit, but you are welcome to indulge in your own biases. There maybe some people that value other things in PC development but if someone is waving a significant pay increase in your face there are very few people who would resist that temptation. Most people will move for more money, it's the same across any industry, this is not rocket science.

Working on AAA console games means stupidly long hours away from your family, shitty job security and an average salary which is equivalent or lower to coders who are doing far easier work in other sectors. Not everyone wants to trade their quality of life for that, particularly not people with children.

If you think most people will trade happiness and quality of life for more money, you're naive or being disingenuous to prove your point.

 

[Armaros]

It isn't bullshit, but you are welcome to indulge in your own biases. There maybe some people that value other things in PC development but if someone is waving a significant pay increase in your face there are very few people who would resist that temptation. Most people will move for more money, it's the same across any industry, this is not rocket science.

If the devs were all about just money, they could make more money in other IT industries compared to the games industry.

With less turnover, and volatility, and the razor thin margins.

 

[KKRT00]

Eh, GPGPU applications on PC are kinda tough, when you constantly have to copy data from the System RAM to the VRAM. PS4 definitely has the advantage there.

Not a lot of PC games use real time GPGPU applications except for Nvidia PhysX.

Which is still plenty. And actually highend CPUs allow for bypassing GPGPU utilization in many cases.

New Physx demos are very promising, they seems to handle syncing with CPU pretty well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD5n49H4bxE

 

[TheD]

1) Ah, I think I get it now. Thanks. <3
2) Well, sure. It just seemed odd that this guy didn't mention its benefits for his physics simulation, and instead just spent the whole time complaining about multithreading. /shrug

Just because a GPU is good at calculating the physics for a lot of basic particles does not necessarily mean it is well suited for the physics of tires contacting the road in a racing sim.

 

[avaya]

Working on AAA console games means stupidly long hours away from your family, shitty job security and an average salary which is equivalent or lower to coders who are doing far easier work in other sectors. Not everyone wants to trade their quality of life for that, particularly not people with children.

If you think most people will trade happiness and quality of life for more money, you're naive or being disingenuous to prove your point.

We are comparing PC game developer vs. console game developer.
I'm not talking about other sectors.
I'm not talking about everyone. I'm talking about most people.
I'm not talking about your run of the mill coder either. I'm talking about the top-talent.

Your own preferences are clouding a fundamental element of the labour market. Higher compensation will attract top talent. It happens in every industry and videogame developers are no different. There is literally no arguing this point and I am confused why you seem so vehemently opposed to the notion.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

I'm looking forward to Your comparison of game physics calculation in next-gen racing titles. It should be interesting.

That's really not going to tell us much , there are so many aspects of what makes a racing sim ( tires , handling , suspension etc etc ) that your never going to get a clear winner when it comes to physics .
Also while the cpu is consoles not great i don't think they going to cause much problems for consoles devs.
Compare to PS3 where the cpu also had to be use for gfx , sound and whatever else the work load on these new cpus should be less .

 

[Serandur]

Saying the single core speed of the PS4 is slower than a high-end PC is putting it lightly unless the "high-end PC" part is followed by "from 2008". These consoles have really weak CPUs that in a diifficult best case scenario of all 8 cores being fully utilized still have only half the computational power of an i5-3570K at stock speeds. Given the progression of high-end CPU performance in the past half a decade or so, that difference is huge and again is only an unlikely best possible case scenario given the difficulty of parallelizing CPU workloads. Even the latest Atoms have significantly better single-core performance than current Jaguars.

Frankly, it's very disappointing for the supposed next-gen baseline development target platforms.

 

[Ciastek3214]

We are comparing PC game developer vs. console game developer.
I'm not talking about other sectors.
I'm not talking about everyone. I'm talking about most people.
I'm not talking about your run of the mill coder either. I'm talking about the top-talent.

Your own preferences are clouding a fundamental element of the labour market. Higher compensation will attract top talent. It happens in every industry and videogame developers are no different. There is literally no arguing this point and I am confused why you seem so vehemently opposed to the notion.

Why would you ignore other sectors, why are they not valid here? Do you want us to ignore that to make your point seem more true?

 

[Clear]

We are comparing PC game developer vs. console game developer.

There is no difference between the two. None. Zero. Zip.

If you can do one, you can do the other. Familiarity with particular API's helps, but no coder worth his or her salt is ever going to say "I can't do that".

The job is about solving problems, if you can't do that you won't last.

 

[avaya]

Why would you ignore other sectors, why are they not valid here? Do you want us to ignore that to make your point seem more true?

You can add other sectors if you want. Doesn't make it any less true.

 

[Ciastek3214]

There is no difference between the two. None. Zero. Zip.

If you can do one, you can do the other. Familiarity with particular API's helps, but no coder worth his or her salt is ever going to say "I can't do that".

The job is about solving problems, if you can't do that you won't last.

I guess I could've said that in the beggining, but it never occured to me.

Anyway, this guy is right.

You can add other sectors if you want. Doesn't make it any less true.

It does nullify your point because if coders choose consoles over PCs for the sake of money, then they might as well choose banking, or government sectors, because there's simply more money to be had there.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

We are comparing PC game developer vs. console game developer.
I'm not talking about other sectors.
I'm not talking about everyone. I'm talking about most people.
I'm not talking about your run of the mill coder either. I'm talking about the top-talent.

Your own preferences are clouding a fundamental element of the labour market. Higher compensation will attract top talent. It happens in every industry and videogame developers are no different. There is literally no arguing this point and I am confused why you seem so vehemently opposed to the notion.

Because I'm a programmer who continuously sees the most talented people I know and have worked with make the decision to sacrifice money for quality of life, my experiences not my preferences are clouding my judgment. And compensation comes in all forms, Google employees get paid well but the ones I know value the workplace culture over their pay and could all be earning more elsewhere. They don't leave because they like working there, despite people offering them more money all the time.

Again, you are naive to the point of total ignorance of the real world labour market. It's not a sim-game, where more cash units equals better workers.

 

[phosphor112]

And shit stinks. Who woulda thought?

 

[Armaros]

Why would you ignore other sectors, why are they not valid here? Do you want us to ignore that to make your point seem more true?

Because, the real world works like the Internet says it does, and programmers are forever locked into platform wars. And they evaluate your salary based on what platform you code for and not your credentials.

Also obviously the Top professionals in any industry limit themselves to petty Internet arguement regarding where they work and what system they work on.

 

[serversurfer]

Just because a GPU is good at calculating the physics for a lot of basic particles does not necessarily mean it is well suited for the physics of tires contacting the road in a racing sim.

Err, are you saying it's not well suited for that? PhysX seems to provide an entire library for vehicle simulation. Granted, their particular implementation might not be up to pCARS' exacting standards, but I don't see why GPGPU wouldn't benefit pCARS in general.

 

[KKRT00]

That's really not going to tell us much , there are so many aspects of what makes a racing sim ( tires , handling , suspension etc etc ) that your never going to get a clear winner when it comes to physics .
Also while the cpu is consoles not great i don't think they going to cause much problems for consoles devs.
Compare to PS3 where the cpu also had to be use for gfx , sound and whatever else the work load on these new cpus should be less .

Sure, but not many racing games on current gen platforms run in 60hz and current-gen platforms had twice as fast cores in terms of frequency. Jaguars have more IPC and OOE, but maybe its all about latency in physics engines working in 240hz. Critical systems were probably not heavily parallel even on current-gen systems and higher frequency made it a little easier to handle.

 

[Ciastek3214]

Because, the real world works like the Internet says it does, and programmers are forever locked into platform wars. And they evaluate your salary based on what platform you code for and not your credentials.

Also obviously the Top professionals in any industry limit themselves to petty Internet arguement regarding where they work and what system they work on.

So I was ultimately right. Humility would really fix most of Internet's problems.

 

[rafbanaan]

Get back to me when their talent reach 5% of ND.

True that.

 

[Ciastek3214]

True that.

Here we go again I guess.

 

[Armaros]

Here we go again I guess.

To do anything else, would require reading the entire thread, and who has time for that?

Welcome to the internet.

 

[Ciastek3214]

To do anything else, would require reading the entire thread, and who has time for that?

Welcome to the internet.

Trust me, I'm not new to all this.

 

[phosphor112]

Saying the single core speed of the PS4 is slower than a high-end PC is putting it lightly unless the "high-end PC" part is followed by "from 2008". These consoles have really weak CPUs that in a diifficult best case scenario of all 8 cores being fully utilized still have only half the computational power of an i5-3570K at stock speeds. Given the progression of high-end CPU performance in the past half a decade or so, that difference is huge and again is only an unlikely best possible case scenario given the difficulty of parallelizing CPU workloads. Even the latest Atoms have significantly better single-core performance than current Jaguars.

Frankly, it's very disappointing for the supposed next-gen baseline development target platforms.

Yeah, the CPU is probably the most disappointing aspect of the console.

Anyway, I wonder how much the clock rate affects the performance. At the minimum, the PS4 is at 1.75ghz, at most, it's 2.0ghz.

 

[vpance]

These consoles have really weak CPUs that in a diifficult best case scenario of all 8 cores being fully utilized still have only half the computational power of an i5-3570K at stock speeds.

This doesn't mean very much if the i5 itself isn't efficiently utilized in game either.

And there is no "difficult best case scenario", it's the only scenario. Devs will always max out the console hardware sooner or later. We'll see some interesting results now that the baseline is raised and they are forced to multithread to 8 cores.

 

[KKRT00]

At the minimum, the PS4 is at 1.75ghz, at most, it's 2.0ghz.

I wouldnt count personally at anything, but 1.6ghz we knew of. Every other leak was correct and Sony never announced or corrected CPU frequency [they've corrected info about memory for example], even after Microsoft PR announcement about upclock.
That graph has so little data that You cant judge anything about frequency out of it. We need more data or tech paper from multiplatform game for any concrete information.

 

[Felix Lighter]

Ahhhh never mind. Forget it.

 

[fatgamecat]

Saying the single core speed of the PS4 is slower than a high-end PC is putting it lightly unless the "high-end PC" part is followed by "from 2008". These consoles have really weak CPUs that in a diifficult best case scenario of all 8 cores being fully utilized still have only half the computational power of an i5-3570K at stock speeds.

The A4-5000 is a 4 core part clocked at 1.5GHz. On Xbox there's 6 cores for games at 1.75GHz and PS4 not sure but it's apparently performing better than Xbox, estimated 6-7 cores for games and 1.6-2.0GHz. Those extra cores and clockrate should put them closer to an i5 when multithreaded and optimized for the platform.

 

[prag16]

I'd go with netbook rather than laptop.

Yeah, was gonna say. Laptop is generous. My work laptop rocks a 2.8 ghz quad core i7...

 

[Serandur]

This doesn't mean very much if the i5 itself isn't efficiently utilized in game either.

And there is no "difficult best case scenario", it's the only scenario. Devs will always max out the console hardware sooner or later. We'll see some interesting results now that the baseline is raised and they are forced to multithread to 8 cores.

The A4-5000 is a 4 core part clocked at 1.5GHz. On Xbox there's 6 cores for games at 1.75GHz and PS4 not sure but it's apparently performing better than Xbox, estimated 6-7 cores for games and 1.6-2.0GHz. Those extra cores and clockrate should put them closer to an i5 when multithreaded and optimized for the platform.

Jaguar IPC is half that of an Ivy Bridge i5 and assuming a clock speed of 1.8 GHz just for the sake of comparison (rumors have been 1.6), it's clock speed would be half of the 3.6 GHz a 3570K maintains at full load across all cores at stock. This means each individual core is roughly 1/4th the speed of that of the stock 3570K. That's a significant consideration for developers to take into account given CPU workloads are not scalable at all like those on GPUs across multiple cores. Each individual thread is bound to a single core in this case and therefore a processor with cores 4 times as strong at the minimum has a significant efficiency advantage.

Distributing the workload able to be done on two i5 cores with time to spare across eight Jaguar cores isn't simple in games and in such a case, it is far more difficult to "max out" all eight cores in a manner that doesn't bottleneck the rest of the system. This also presumes all eight cores are available for running game code as opposed to being reserved for background operations and doesn't even take into account the advantages i7 hyperthreading or general ease of CPU overclocking provide. Discounting all these and presuming the CPU runs at a higher clock speed (1.8-2.0 GHz as opposed to 1.6) than we've been led to believe is certainly a best-case scenario and that leads to a total half-speed figure.

 

[TetraGenesis]

This thread would be interesting if the title were "PS4 Single Core Speed Slower Than Netbook PC". Otherwise it's just 'duh' territory.

 

[Nafai1123]

I wouldnt count personally at anything, but 1.6ghz we knew of. Every other leak was correct and Sony never announced or corrected CPU frequency [they've corrected info about memory for example], even after Microsoft PR announcement about upclock.
That graph has so little data that You cant judge anything about frequency out of it. We need more data or tech paper from multiplatform game for any concrete information.

The numbers match up a little too perfect to be skeptical of an upclock from the testing done. Can you explain how a 1.6ghz CPU would outperform a 1.75ghz CPU of the same type?

 

[Contra11]

Yeah, the CPU is probably the most disappointing aspect of the console.

Cerny said that they asked the developers for what they want form the next gen and they said : powerful GPU with any CPU

Unless the game is a port of PC version , Jaguar is fine CPU for consoles needs

 

[twobear]

Cerny said that they asked the developers for what they want form the next gen and they said : powerful GPU with any CPU

Unless the game is a port of PC game , Jaguar is fine CPU for consoles needs

Well I think that any developer would prefer the PS4's setup to another baroque horror like Cell.

 

[Loofy]

Even the latest Atoms have significantly better single-core performance than current Jaguars.

Frankly, it's very disappointing for the supposed next-gen baseline development target platforms.

What about that A10, that things a beast.

 

[SparkTR]

It'll be interesting to see how things progress, there hasn't been a generation before where PC hardware had such a large advantage right out of the gate.

 

[Serandur]

What about that A10, that things a beast.

Sorry, I should have clarified. The A10 is based on Bulldozer cores, the A4's Jaguar.

 

[Armaros]

Sorry, I should have clarified. The A10 is based on Bulldozer cores, the A4's Jaguar.

It would be a completely different story if the consoles had A10s

 

[staticneuron]

Seems to me he thinks the consoles are supposed to be really hard to develop on, especially with the x86 architecture, and other stuff, while developing on PC is childishly easy, and making a game look like PCars in its current state on PC is nothing compared to the difficulties others go through while making games on consoles, like, say, Naughty Dog.

That is an interesting comment to make. Considering the last product we seen from ND was on the PS3 and was not on x86 but was on the Cell which every dev I have seen talk about it, makes it seem like it wasn't easy at all.

But trying to equate the two, is like trying to say all artist can produce the same art regardless of medium, or on musician can create the same as another.

Truth is, Devs are presented with problems and some seem to make greater strides than others when working in the same environment. There is alot of fuss being made when a dev would say something isn't possible and get proven wrong by a product made by another dev.

I am not knocking on the devs of pCars, but the talk you and lot of others seem to be making in this thread makes it seem as if ND, given the limitations they worked within, didn't do anything special.

I don't buy that people can put forth this point of view without seriously expressed intent to downplay ND.

 

[Shungin12]

sony and microsoft should have went for something a little better than a jaguars
so if the jaguar is based off a4 then the watts are between 6-8
so going with a a10 may have been to much heat for the system watts 35
also the a10 cost more as well so yeah
If I wrong please help

 

[Demon Ice]

A lot has changed for the studio since that announcement, with the visuals of the game being compared to the likes of Forza Motorsport 5 and Drive Club.

Those are two very, very different levels of graphical quality.

 

[timlot]

There are still some bottlenecks to work out with memory flushing to garlic, even after changing to LCUE, the memory copying is still significant.”

Can anyone explain why there would be bottlenecks with memory flushing to garlic? Garlic I'm assuming is the 176GB bus from memory to gpu. Are they saying the flushing and copying of memory is too significant hence the bottleneck?

 

[kyser73]

So this has veered off into a motivation to work discussion?

Ok, my tuppence.

Video game coders work in videogaming because they like making games.

Corrinne Yu programmed on the Space Shuttle & designed experiments on LINAC. No doubt there are others who've worked in banking/finance (which is where most of the big bucks are - certainly there are a truckload of physicists & mathematicians working for hedge funds & other high risk investment companies) but who don't like those environments either (no job security & long hours being the norm in banking for IT.

In respect of the challenge of writing within a fixed but limited technical environment, I would imagine those who like to hone & optimise what they do are happy to push their code on consoles because that's where they feel the can be most creative, whereas those who find those limitations stifle their creativity probably work on PC where you can always throw more power at a problem.

So, does anyone know how SMG are solving their issues? Have they reached out to Sony/MS for technical help? You know, stuff that would be far more fucking interesting than the car wreck this thread is.

 

[dragonelite]

Can anyone explain why there would be bottlenecks with memory flushing to garlic? Garlic I'm assuming is the 176GB bus from memory to gpu. Are they saying the flushing and copying of memory is too significant hence the bottleneck?

Im pretty sure its the 20gb/s line between cpu and gpu cache?

 

[Chobel]

Im pretty sure its the 20gb/s line between cpu and gpu cache?

That's onion/onion+ bus.

 

[iamshadowlark]

I wouldnt count personally at anything, but 1.6ghz we knew of. Every other leak was correct and Sony never announced or corrected CPU frequency [they've corrected info about memory for example], even after Microsoft PR announcement about upclock.
That graph has so little data that You cant judge anything about frequency out of it. We need more data or tech paper from multiplatform game for any concrete information.

Corrected? I can't think of an technical leak that they actually addressed..

 

[StratJ]

Regarding CPU clock speed, that is no shit. I mean come on guys, why are people talking about this?

The interesting parts are the development quotes around re-mapping the engine to work efficiently with threading rather than single core speed. It makes me laugh at people like Cerny who made the PC port remark. It's ridiculous.

I'm interested in the bottlenecks they're referring to. Can we haz expansion please?

 

[maneil99]

Never said it isn't good. Just wouldn't call it a 'high end' CPU when there's i7's and Ivy Bridge-E and everything available.

You mean the CPU's that are 340$-600$ and are 5% faster in games and overclock worse ( Haswell )?