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[enzo_gt]

Well some devs have said that they don't have a MS kit at all. I'm sure some of the larger devs may have them by now. It isn't completely unbelievable that the dev kits may not have arrived to everyone as of yet.

Maybe not the beta kits, but if they don't have Alphas, I think there is something else at play that's worrying.

Is it feasible that big publishers got Betas early? But even still, why the hold up instead of giving developers what they want/need ASAP? Is this some twisted world where MS is saving their beta/projected specs for their announcement and most devs are being kept in the dark and suffering as a result?

 

[Xamdou]

Honestly not that big of a tech head so admittedly a lot of this conversation goes over my head.

But you are right - something isn't adding up here.

Specifically, I've heard devs/websites mention that the two systems are close in power, however leaked specs don't show any real "closeness" in power, they show a significant advantage to PS4. You hear estimations that MS is going in a different direction with this system, yet they use a significantly overpowered card (7970) in dev kits (compared again to our leaked specs). Why would they do that if they don't expect their performance to be anywhere near that?

I'm not expecting a sudden reveal where the 720 is SUPER-ULTRA powered...it just seems like we are missing a piece to the puzzle, given the information we currently have.

Unfortunately, till the official reveal, we won't know for sure, and MS seems perfectly content in their silence right now.

Link to the dev kits sporting the 7970?

 

[dragonelite]

Honestly not that big of a tech head so admittedly a lot of this conversation goes over my head.

But you are right - something isn't adding up here.

Specifically, I've heard devs/websites mention that the two systems are close in power, however leaked specs don't show any real "closeness" in power, they show a significant advantage to PS4. You hear estimations that MS is going in a different direction with this system, yet they use a significantly overpowered card (7970) in dev kits (compared again to our leaked specs). Why would they do that if they don't expect their performance to be anywhere near that?

I'm not expecting a sudden reveal where the 720 is SUPER-ULTRA powered...it just seems like we are missing a piece to the puzzle, given the information we currently have.

Unfortunately, till the official reveal, we won't know for sure, and MS seems perfectly content in their silence right now.

Me neither but 1.2 Tflops is really sad. Even ps4 doesn't feels like Next gen to me.
I think we could have had a next gen wow if the consoles had something like 2.5Tflops.
1.2 Tflops isn't even half that mark.

And then the E3 bait and switch rumor it is really holding me back to preorder the next xbox. Just to be save. Im not interested in a castrated pc service box. Because i have too many gadgets that can do that already.

Link to the dev kits sporting the 7970?

I believe thuway mentioned it and i can vaguely remember some alpha rumors last year could have been 7970m.

 

[AgentP]

Honestly not that big of a tech head so admittedly a lot of this conversation goes over my head.

But you are right - something isn't adding up here.

Specifically, I've heard devs/websites mention that the two systems are close in power, however leaked specs don't show any real "closeness" in power, they show a significant advantage to PS4. You hear estimations that MS is going in a different direction with this system, yet they use a significantly overpowered card (7970) in dev kits (compared again to our leaked specs). Why would they do that if they don't expect their performance to be anywhere near that?

I'm not expecting a sudden reveal where the 720 is SUPER-ULTRA powered...it just seems like we are missing a piece to the puzzle, given the information we currently have.

Unfortunately, till the official reveal, we won't know for sure, and MS seems perfectly content in their silence right now.

They are close in power. They will have similar sized APUs from the same generation of AMD tech. They just have different designs in a few areas. You are falling into the classic conspiracy theory trap. Throwing away obvious information that is trustworthy, and combing the fringe for data that confirms what you want to believe. There is no conspiracy, MS has a very smart design. They are not aiming for a powerhouse that breaks the bank.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

Microsoft could certainly change things at the last minute. Hell, it won't be the first, If I'm not mistaken Sega Saturn overhauled its design by adding an extra CPU after hearing of the Playstation's capabilities.

The only problem is that it'll be a big risk to everyone involved.

 

[dragonelite]

They are close in power. They will have similar sized APUs from the same generation of AMD tech. They just have different designs in a few areas. You are falling into the classic conspiracy theory trap. Throwing away obvious information that is trustworthy, and combing the fringe for data that confirms what you want to believe. There is no conspiracy, MS has a very smart design. They are not aiming for a powerhouse that breaks the bank.

If rumors are true then i wouldn't call 600 Gflops close in power.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

thuway has simply lost all credibility with the claim and his follow up post.

It almost comes off as damage control. Disappointed.

 

[AgentP]

If rumors are true then i wouldn't call 600 Gflops close in power.

What is "close"? that is a subjective term. What decides relative performance is what developers can do with each machine. They will be close enough that porting between them will be trivial and games will look similar to the layperson. FLOPS as a single metric is not a smart way to compare game consoles.

 

[TRios Zen]

Link to the dev kits sporting the 7970?

Check Thuway's post on previous pages, not something I personally am pushing as fact.

They are close in power. They will have similar sized APUs from the same generation of AMD tech. They just have different designs in a few areas. You are falling into the classic conspiracy theory trap. Throwing away obvious information that is trustworthy, and combing the fringe for data that confirms what you want to believe. There is no conspiracy, MS has a very smart design. They are not aiming for a powerhouse that breaks the bank.

I am not putting forth any conspiracy theory, sorry. I am also not claiming MS has a bad design, nor am I mewling for a huge power increase to suddenly blow out the PS4. I'm only saying that the circulating information I've heard from reputable sources: dev/website comments on how they stack up, VG leaks docs and THuway's comments on the card in devkits, don't add up for me.

I am even willing to acknowledge that I could be missing something.

 

[CrunchinJelly]

You know it is kind of crazy how accurate it appears that leak from June last year of a 2010 presentation is looking like being.

Three years ago... Mad.

 

[AgentP]

Check Thuway's post on previous pages, not something I personally am pushing as fact.



I am not putting forth any conspiracy theory, sorry. I am also not claiming MS has a bad design, nor am I mewling for a huge power increase to suddenly blow out the PS4. I'm only saying that the circulating information I've heard from reputable sources: dev/website comments on how they stack up, VG leaks docs and THuway's comments on the card in devkits, don't add up for me.

I am even willing to acknowledge that I could be missing something.

I don't see the confusion. We know the leak specs, straight from MS docs from late 2012. They have been confirmed by devs and insiders off the record, not one single person has come out to say they look wrong in an significant manor. The alpha kits are just PCs, they don't mimic the final system very well, they are to get devs going with the tool chain, all of it to be refined on beta and final kits later.

I'd love to hear the thought process of anyone going outside of this evidence.

 

[KageMaru]

Microsoft could certainly change things at the last minute. Hell, it won't be the first, If I'm not mistaken Sega Saturn overhauled its design by adding an extra CPU after hearing of the Playstation's capabilities.

The only problem is that it'll be a big risk to everyone involved.

They really can't change much this late in development, not unless they wish to delay the launch until late next year (if not later).

What Sega did was last minute and poorly implemented, which resulted in utilizing both CPUs a major pain in the ass.

If rumors are true then i wouldn't call 600 Gflops close in power.

You're right, it doesn't seem close on paper, but unfortunately as power grows for hardware, it takes a lot more to see a difference on the screen.

So while 600GFLOP difference looks huge on paper, the difference won't be reflected in the actual games or performance.

 

[JJD]

Of course I have that info. And so do you if you're on the Internet. You realize that each corporation publicly states their earnings each and every year, right? And LOL at "moving goalposts". Success in business isn't measured by volume. It's measured by profit.

Please, share your findings with us. Every now and then someone comes up with this claim but I've never seem concrete data. Unless you can provide some you're just speculating.

You were not talking about profit because MS Xbox division still lost more money than they made since the first Xbox, you were talking about volume since they sold way more this gen than the last one. That's why you're moving the goalposts.

 

[Klocker]

Besides, their behavior regarding next gen is bizarre at best..

I realize we live in this attention deficit world of ours where people spew every thought that pops into their heads to the world, but...

holding your cards when your competitor is laying theirs down and following YOUR plan instead of being prodded to reveal that plan...is considered pretty damned smart, shows discipline and confidence.


Timing is everything and it is not nearly too late... it is early.

 

[JaggedSac]

The current devkits have 7970's inside them. If games were designed using that part, when moving to beta devkits (which btw most third parties don't have yet, and are quite pissed about) they will receive a downgrade of some form.

This is interesting. And seemingly bad form for MS to do this to devs.

 

[Master_JO]

DICE says:
Speaking with CVG, Bach said, “I don’t know if anyone has the next-gen hardware to be honest – really. There are versions of it, but does anyone have the final hardware? Do we really know what the final hardware will be?

“There are specs and alpha hardware, but nobody knows exactly what it will be. The only thing I can say about what we’re building is that we’ve set the bar with what we can do and we can scale it down to 360 and PS3.”

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/28/ps4-xbox-720-final-hardware-specs-still-a-mystery-says-dice/

Thoughts?

no one knows what the specs are?

 

[BlackJace]

A 7970? Loooool, what happened to the noticeably weaker Durango?

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

The real problem is, that you can't compare graphical output by the flop count of the used GPU. Just see it this way : 1.2 TFlops GPU in a closed environment >>> 1.2 TFlops in a PC.

Much rather have 3.8TFlops in a closed environment. I want my eyes to melt! Lol

 

[KageMaru]

DICE says:
Speaking with CVG, Bach said, “I don’t know if anyone has the next-gen hardware to be honest – really. There are versions of it, but does anyone have the final hardware? Do we really know what the final hardware will be?

“There are specs and alpha hardware, but nobody knows exactly what it will be. The only thing I can say about what we’re building is that we’ve set the bar with what we can do and we can scale it down to 360 and PS3.”

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/28/ps4-xbox-720-final-hardware-specs-still-a-mystery-says-dice/

Thoughts?

no one knows what the specs are?

They are referring to specifics like clock speeds. They know the target, but they don't know for sure what will be in the boxes since targets are never final until final hardware is out.

Both Sony and MS had changes made from earlier targets to final hardware this gen. MS had to lower the clock of the CPU, go from OoO to IO, and doubled the memory. Sony lowered the clock of the GPU and the GDDR3 memory pool.

 

[Klocker]

DICE says:
Speaking with CVG, Bach said, “I don’t know if anyone has the next-gen hardware to be honest – really. There are versions of it, but does anyone have the final hardware? Do we really know what the final hardware will be?

“There are specs and alpha hardware, but nobody knows exactly what it will be. The only thing I can say about what we’re building is that we’ve set the bar with what we can do and we can scale it down to 360 and PS3.”

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/28/ps4-xbox-720-final-hardware-specs-still-a-mystery-says-dice/

Thoughts?

no one knows what the specs are?

Even Sony said they are still working on finalizing the box and anything being used to show results now is made to simulate the result.

As I said above...it is EARLY yet.

 

[Pug]

This is interesting. And seemingly bad form for MS to do this to devs.

You do realise this is complete an utter nonsense don't you? And even if developers are working 7970's development kits (big if) they will be working to well considered guideline and specification. If you really think MS is going to show games in real time then downgrade for launch you're all nuts. Thuways story is complete an utter nonsense.

 

[Master_JO]

They are referring to specifics like clock speeds. They know the target, but they don't know for sure what will be in the boxes since targets are never final until final hardware is out.

Both Sony and MS had changes made from earlier targets to final hardware.

when a developer who is making games and are in the business says that he doesn't know what the final specs are then all we have now regarding next Xbox is not written in stone like someone here want's it to be.

 

[KageMaru]

when a developer who is making games and are in the business says that he doesn't know what the final specs are then all we have now regarding next Xbox is not written in stone like someone here want's it to be.

I don't think anyone believes things are written in stone. Nothing is final at this stage, but the likelihood of any major changes is rather low. If anything does change, it'll likely be a downgrade over what we think we're getting and not the other way around.

 

[Klocker]

You do realise this is complete an utter nonsense don't you? And even if developers are working 7970's development kits (big if) they will be working to well considered guideline and specification. If you really think MS is going to show games in real time then downgrade for launch you're all nuts. Thuways story is complete an utter nonsense.

yea :lol this is how nonsense rumors get started and people come in here an lap up the half baked comments...

i.e. "downgrade" could be a few lines of resolution and technically he would be right, but people hear downgrade and it fuels their power trip

 

[enzo_gt]

You know it is kind of crazy how accurate it appears that leak from June last year of a 2010 presentation is looking like being.

Three years ago... Mad.

No kidding. Most of that has been corroborated by other leaks since. Of note:

- Always on/low power state mode
- Running multiple games and apps at once
- ESRAM option

Things that are different:

- Kinect v2 supporting 4 players instead of the rumoured 6
- Xbox 360 BC through hardware, not there in rumours or hardware reports
- No mention in rumours of streaming AAA games to any device, may just be lack of info
- Biggest rumours seem to state Durango will need to always be online, whilst the document emphasizes no cloud processing should be required at all on launch

It's quite intriguing really. The Durango announcement will be very interesting. We haven't heard shit about the cool stuff like the adaptive UI or the game/app switching and integration.

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

The weirdest thing for me is that 6-8 months from launch the Durango devkits still seem to be high end PC's with the SDK on them. Not even interim final hardware seems to be in (any?) dev's hands yet.

If we believe the rumours, PS4 has had interim final hardware since January. I guess Microsoft are comfortable holding back final hardware until ~3 months before launch (like the 360)

 

[Klocker]

The weirdest thing for me is that 6-8 months from launch the Durango devkits still seem to be high end PC's with the SDK on them. Not even interim final hardware seems to be in (any?) dev's hands yet.

If we believe the rumours, PS4 has had interim final hardware since January. I guess Microsoft are comfortable holding back final hardware until ~3 months before launch (like the 360)

at the PS4 reveal last month this is exactly what was said to be running the demos. So they are both in the same boat.

 

[gaming_noob]

Stinkles, come out come out wherever you are...we know you're browsing this thread...

You're bald

 

[Master_JO]

I don't think anyone believes things are written in stone. Nothing is final at this stage, but the likelihood of any major changes is rather low. If anything does change, it'll likely be a downgrade over what we think we're getting and not the other way around.

since you are a member here I think you have read it million times that people are 100% sure things can't be changed. All am saying is that since someone like DICE doesn't nor have the final kits then things is not written in stone when it comes to Durango. Before vgleaks rumors we had tons of rumors about different versions of next Xbox with different specs and performance. Why do we choose vgleaks before others and acting like those are in deed final?

 

[phosphor112]

DICE says:
Speaking with CVG, Bach said, “I don’t know if anyone has the next-gen hardware to be honest – really. There are versions of it, but does anyone have the final hardware? Do we really know what the final hardware will be?

“There are specs and alpha hardware, but nobody knows exactly what it will be. The only thing I can say about what we’re building is that we’ve set the bar with what we can do and we can scale it down to 360 and PS3.”

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/28/ps4-xbox-720-final-hardware-specs-still-a-mystery-says-dice/

Thoughts?

no one knows what the specs are?

Considering the specs for PS4 are public. This guy is full of shit. If you want to talk semantics sure, they don't know the EXACT things just yet, but they know what to expect.

 

[Subitai]

My ISP and home network just aren't reliable enough for this. I really hope MS reconsiders allowing developers to have an offline option.

 

[Klocker]

Considering the specs for PS4 are public. This guy is full of shit. If you want to talk semantics sure, they don't know the EXACT things just yet, but they know what to expect.

nothing is for sure until chip yields reveal exactly what is possible in the real world for fabricated cost effectiveness compared to paper

 

[CrunchinJelly]

No kidding. Most of that has been corroborated by other leaks since. Of note:

- Always on/low power state mode
- Running multiple games and apps at once
- ESRAM option

Things that are different:

- Kinect v2 supporting 4 players instead of the rumoured 6
- Xbox 360 BC through hardware, not there in rumours or hardware reports
- No mention in rumours of streaming AAA games to any device, may just be lack of info
- Biggest rumours seem to state Durango will need to always be online, whilst the document emphasizes no cloud processing should be required at all on launch

It's quite intriguing really. The Durango announcement will be very interesting. We haven't heard shit about the cool stuff like the adaptive UI or the game/app switching and integration.

Yeah some of the dates are off but you would expect delays.

Still waiting on the 361, though. Interesting to see if it even plays discs or has storage for a decent amount of GoD.

 

[Galacticos]

when a developer who is making games and are in the business says that he doesn't know what the final specs are then all we have now regarding next Xbox is not written in stone like someone here want's it to be.

The latest (and 100% credible) information is the famous Edge article: PlayStation 4 revealed (Edge)
Why famous? because when the internet was arguing about 4GB GDDR5 vs 8GB DDR + 32mb eSRAM, Edge was first to mention that Sony is pushing for the final PS4 RAM to match up to Microsoft’s 8GB.

And since everything in that article checked out (so far), we can assume that this part is true as well:

One source familiar with both platforms tells us that in real terms Sony’s console is “slightly more powerful” and “very simple to work with”.

 

[Master_JO]

Considering the specs for PS4 are public. This guy is full of shit. If you want to talk semantics sure, they don't know the EXACT things just yet, but they know what to expect.

since ps4 specs are known that leaves????

did you ever considered that he couldn't mention Xbox only and had to mention both of them?

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

I don't see the confusion. We know the leak specs, straight from MS docs from late 2012. They have been confirmed by devs and insiders off the record, not one single person has come out to say they look wrong in an significant manor.

Name of the devs and their studio of employment?

 

[KageMaru]

since you are a member here I think you have read it million times that people are 100% sure things can't be changed. All am saying is that since someone like DICE doesn't nor have the final kits then things is not written in stone when it comes to Durango. Before vgleaks rumors we had tons of rumors about different versions of next Xbox with different specs and performance. Why do we choose vgleaks before others and acting like those are in deed final?

I think context is the missing thing here. Things can be changed, but only by the smallest margin, unless they want to delay the launch. They aren't going to be able to make any major changes like swapping out DDR3 for GDDR5 or change the GPU.

 

[AgentP]

I think the main reason the 7970 was used is because the kits went out in Jan 2012 and the 7970 was literally the first GCN card released, in early Jan 2012. They could have downclocked them or disabled features via drivers, but they needed GCN GPUs to introduce the architecture to devs.

 

[Uno Venova]

A 7970? Loooool, what happened to the noticeably weaker Durango?

still taking things with a grain of salt

 

[Master_JO]

The latest (and 100% credible) information is the famous Edge article: PlayStation 4 revealed (Edge)
Why famous? because when the internet was arguing about 4GB GDDR5 vs 8GB DDR + 32mb eSRAM, Edge was first to mention that Sony is pushing for the final PS4 RAM to match up to Microsoft’s 8GB.

And since everything in that article checked out (so far), we can assume that this part is true as well:

I must have been living under a rock lately. Did Microsoft reveal their console ? Or do you work at Microsoft? I mean since we are comparing a revealed console with no reveals at all?

 

[artist]

since you are a member here I think you have read it million times that people are 100% sure things can't be changed. All am saying is that since someone like DICE doesn't nor have the final kits then things is not written in stone when it comes to Durango. Before vgleaks rumors we had tons of rumors about different versions of next Xbox with different specs and performance. Why do we choose vgleaks before others and acting like those are in deed final?

Because Lawd SuperDAE said he's given them his docs. Plus other sources like Edge, Digital Foundry, VG247 etc. have all got the same info that VGLeaks has posted thus far.

 

[AgentP]

Name of the devs and their studio of employment?

Off the record. Leadbetter has his sources for DF, he claims all the specs are up to date and have been verified. bkilliian is another that has given a silent nod. Not to mention there are hundreds of developers who have these documents and kits and none has said the VGAleaks are erroneous.

 

[Master_JO]

Because Lawd SuperDAE said he's given them his docs. Plus other sources like Edge, Digital Foundry, VG247 etc. have all got the same info that VGLeaks has posted thus far.

so now superdae is accurate and trusted? What about the rumors before that? Semiaccurate as an example?

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

at the PS4 reveal last month this is exactly what was said to be running the demos. So they are both in the same boat.

I'm sure they did use the PC based dev kits. But my point is that Sony seem to have a dev kit out there that has the actual SoC that is going in PS4 rather than a PC that has Intel Xeon chips like the Durango Alpha kit. (not sure what's changed in the Beta kit)

Microsoft did a similar thing with the 360, so I guess it is par for the course for them. I just would have thought it better to have final/near final HW out there in dev hands for as long as possible before release.

 

[Angelus Errare]

You know it is kind of crazy how accurate it appears that leak from June last year of a 2010 presentation is looking like being.

Three years ago... Mad.

What's even more maddening is how often the year changes on when these leaks are from.

If you comb over GAF there have been several years posted

2010
2011
2012
Early 2013

That's crazy

 

[artist]

so now superdae is accurate and trusted? What about the rumors before that? Semiaccurate as an example?

I dont know. I was just speculating that the group that wants an overhaul/upgrade are big believers of SuperDae.

In regards to Semiaccurate, Charlie isnt that reliable when it comes to consoles. I also dont know which semiaccurate article you are referring to.

 

[Master_JO]

Off the record. Leadbetter has his sources for DF, he claims all the specs are up to date and have been verified. bkilliian is another that has given a silent nod. Not to mention there are hundreds of developers who have these documents and kits and none has said the VGAleaks are erroneous.

When thuway says that many developers still use the alpha kits and dice doesn't know where did you get those 100 from? And Dice isn't a small one.

 

[KidBeta]

I don't know why people assume that because a alpha dev kit has massively powerful card that there will be downgrades.

They probably picked the card that made the most sense at the time, theres nothing saying it doesnt have a custom bios giving it a closer performance to the final product.

 

[Baconsammy]

Off the record. Leadbetter has his sources for DF, he claims all the specs are up to date and have been verified. bkilliian is another that has given a silent nod. Not to mention there are hundreds of developers who have these documents and kits and none has said the VGAleaks are erroneous.

And not a single dev interviewed said they knew about the extra ram in the PS4. Not even Sony's own internals. The specs are final when Microsoft and Sony say they are. No matter how much people wish they were something else.

so now superdae is accurate and trusted? What about the rumors before that? Semiaccurate as an example?

If you're going to believe one rumor, why would you dismiss another? Especially when he's been the source for many of the rumors that people claim are correct. The only time some people dismiss SuperDAE is when he says the rumors about always having to be connected to the Internet just to play games and the no-used games thing are bullshit. That's when people claim his info is "biased".

 

[tinfoilhatman]

I think context is the missing thing here. Things can be changed, but only by the smallest margin, unless they want to delay the launch. They aren't going to be able to make any major changes like swapping out DDR3 for GDDR5 or change the GPU.

If it's true that Durango developers(for launch games) are being forced to write to a strict custom DX API then what does it matter what the end hardware is as long as it's as or more powerful than the hardware their coding on?