AMD: Xbox 720 to Have Avatar-level Graphics

[fonzy]

Will the Xbox 720 or PS4 have AMD's 7xxx series cards that are supposed to come out later this year?

I remember Cevat Yerli of Crytek suggesting they put atleast 8Gb's of ram in Xbox720 and PS4... I wonder how much ram it will have.

 

[slabbo]

haha, good one. Avatar-level graphics detail. are they aiming for a 2030 release date?

 

[wiinippongamer]

hugely exaggerated or not, it will make the wii games look like crap.... again.

 

[Guest]

I think they are only speaking of the cut-scenes... The cut-scenes have always been prettier than actual play...

 

[cobra5000]

Can he be held libel after the console comes out?

 

[nonoitall]

Definitely a complete exaggeration. Even with a 10,000 square foot server farm and like 40,000 state-of-the-art processor cores at their disposal, CGI films like Avatar still can't be rendered in real time. It seems more than a little over-optimistic to believe that technology has advanced so far in the few years since Avatar was produced that Joe Average can drop a few Benjamins at Walmart and get the same power in one little box.

 

[mcd023]

considering that Avatar took 10,000 quad core processors 3months of non-stop rendering and in some of the action scenes needed 100 hours to render 1 frame (1/24th of a second), I think there might be some compromises. But, most ppl wouldn't notice. And it won't be doing 2 2K images for 3D. I bet it will be impressive though.

 

[jacobdrj]

[citation][nom]TEAMSWITCHER[/nom]Total BS. The 3D models used in Avatar likely had 100 times the triangles of modern games. Plus they used a completely different rendering technology. Better graphics....maybe. Avatar level....no chance in hell.[/citation]

Meh. Avatar was shot for 3D IMAX. Scaling the resolution down from 12,000 × 8,700 to 1080p should mean that a properly optimized console should be able to render well enough to achieve the same scaled down appearance as one would on full IMAX.

 

[bustapr]

goes to show ISV relationships know snot of what the graphics in their company can produce.

 

[songemu]

I'm calling BS.You're not going to render thousands of trees, complex mountain geometries, and atmospherics in real time on a console gaming system. You can *cut corners and come close*... but to say that you can match the server farm that rendered Avatar in a box is both an insult to the movie, and an insult to the public. Play Battlefield 3 better than a PC, and then I might forgive you. Until then... you're a moron.

 

[rohitbaran]

Crysis 2 with DirectX 11 patch is the best looking game out there and it can be handled by a Radeon 6870 at max settings and 720p. So if Xbox 720 has something like that, it can probably manage graphics as good as Crysis 2. But avatar level graphics are doubtful.

 

[Filiprino]

[citation][nom]jeffjwatts[/nom]Not the answer is True. Consoles are consistent platforms and developers are able to economically tweak their code to perform better. A modern PC with the exact same hardware as an XBox360, would be far crappier. It is true that developers often create crappy games, but it's also true that the games designed for consoles tend to be better optimized than all but a few PC games.At the same level of hardware a console is almost always going to be a better platform for gaming. The Achilles heel for consoles is the enforced low cost and the long term standardization, which allows PC gamers to spend much more money and buy more modern hardware and usually beat consoles.[/citation]

I'm sorry but you are not telling the truth. Most consoles run games at crappy resolutions (1024x600-1280x720) and at 30FPS or near 60FPS at best. That can be done on PCs with the same hardware level as consoles.

Tweaking is also done on PC, although to a lesser extent, and they can economically do it because it's cheaper to develop on PC and it's an architecture known for 30 years already. Newer hardware in PC will always give you more power with the same code without any specific optimization for the newer architecture (imagine what they could achive if they optimized the code carefully), while on consoles you need to start from zero to make the same game on a new console and of course developers need that time to optimize better their code.
The truth is that on PC those optimizations aren't needed that much, and hardware manufacturers already do optimizations for better performance with new drivers and such.
Even more, Xbox360 is DX9, same API as PC, so the code rests the same for the most part. The usual different requirement for PC is having an SSE2 capable CPU. That was added on the Pentium 4 era. If they started to ask for SSSE3 or even SSE4.1 (2008 hardware) even more performance could be added with the same CPUs, but that does not mean that PC hardware from the same time as consoles can't play the same games with the same level of detail. Of course, there are always some beefed up requirements just to sell more hardware.

 

[Guest]

I'm surprised nobody pointed out that Avatar-quality graphics resolution (4320p+) are not on the same playing field as our puny resolutions scaled up to 720p!!

 

[brownmonkey123]

Most "pc games" are console ports at heart. Make a game from DX11 ground up, and huge leaps in graphics can easily be seen... Crysis 2 was a complete failiure, as it was dx9 ground up, with a "patch-on" dx11, which is just not the same thing. However, the game still looked decent. Battlefield 3 is going to be the true specimen as of now.. as it is a dx10 ground up game, and already looks better than anything out on the market as of now, Crysis 1/2 INCLUDED. Sorry Crysis fans. Just look at the tank sim demo. Nothing comes close to that.

AMD's new GPU's will feature a 28nm process, thats almost 50% more than the current line of GPU's running at 40nm... you are talking about nearly doubling the transistor count.

Are avatar level graphics possible? I indeed believe so. They will need a little more grunt to run... im thinking AMD Radeon 7990.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]Julius 85[/nom]Could anyone tell me why would anyone in his right mind thumb this guy down?I'm getting sick of intelligent comments getting thumbed down and hidden.[/citation]It got thumbed down because it wasn't intelligent, it was ill-informed. Did you pay any attention to the other comments? Avatar level graphics are well out of reach for the next Xbox because the hardware does not exist on a consumer level to generate Avatar level graphics real time.

Consoles can't exceed PC graphics by more than about 2x--and that's being generous assuming PC's actually have that high of overhead (okay, maybe some Vista PCs do?). Now if you put $1500 of graphics into a $2200 PC (3x GTX 580), you cannot get Avatar level graphics (maybe 1/3 avatar level at most). So how is a $500 console with AT MOST $400 in graphics going to achieve what $1500 in graphics falls short of by a large margin? To save you trouble on the math, that's 2(console factor)x$400 < $1500x3(Avatar graphics shortfall). $800

 

[dalauder]

Continuing (scripting error cut me off)...$800 < $4500.

So when you can fit $4500 worth of today's graphics into a console, then it might achieve Avatar level graphics if my generous factors (in favor of consoles) were accurate. That's at least 5 years away if graphics power rise and prices fall like they have since the release of the 7800GT. 7 to 8 years, or nearly two console generations is more realistic.

The next Xbox/PS4 might have great graphics, but it won't beat a PC that costs twice as much and it won't do anything I haven't already seen in a tech demo before 2014.

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]vaughn2k[/nom]Lets wait for the console, then we judge, shall we?[/citation]
NO! Let's all make claims based on absolutely no knowledge of the chips that will end up in the final unit!

 

[areszues92]

yeah..and by 2012 Nvidia and AMD would have released their next-gen gpu's that will pawn any console..again..

 

[kikireeki]

Cut off the nonsense AMD, and show us some Bulldozer benchmarks!

 

[upgrade_1977]

Doesnt matter, pc's will always be more powerful. Whats it gonna cost $800? Might as well buy a pc then.

 

[invlem]

Remember, MS hasn't actually confirmed launch, we may see a glimpse of the 720 at E3 2012, chances are it will be at least 1 - 1.5 years after the initial showing before the console actually hits market.

I'd be willing to bet the chip that goes into the 720 hasn't been developed yet, It would most likely be the successor to the HD6800 series (whatever that is going to be).

So lets say 1.3-1.4x the power of a 6870, that's about 4 times faster than the current 360 is capable of. Might not be avatar level, but for a console that's a massive leap forward.

 

[fonzy]

[citation][nom]Invlem[/nom]Remember, MS hasn't actually confirmed launch, we may see a glimpse of the 720 at E3 2012, chances are it will be at least 1 - 1.5 years after the initial showing before the console actually hits market.I'd be willing to bet the chip that goes into the 720 hasn't been developed yet, It would most likely be the successor to the HD6800 series (whatever that is going to be).So lets say 1.3-1.4x the power of a 6870, that's about 4 times faster than the current 360 is capable of. Might not be avatar level, but for a console that's a massive leap forward.[/citation]

Doesn't it take at least 2 years to develop a game? If the 720 is going to be released in the next couple of years then wouldn't developers have to have the hardware already?

Could Microsoft already have had samples of 7xxx southern islands for developers?

 

[JOSHSKORN]

Just throw in two AMD 6990s, a CPU comparable to an 8 core Ivy Bridge and call it a day.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]Just throw in two AMD 6990s, a CPU comparable to an 8 core Ivy Bridge and call it a day.[/citation]Haha! A $1500 console? I doubt it! The market that the 3D0 went to 20 years ago would buy computers now so that's not gonna happen.

Besides, I'm pretty sure none of the next-gen consoles will have more than quad cores. The only question in my mind is whether they will have modified mobile PC chips (from Intel or AMD) or whether they'll do something weird like the IBM triple core in the Xbox--that is since we pretty much know it's roughly AMD 6000 series on the graphics hardware.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Graphics cards that launched 2 years ago that required extra power cables and massive heatsinks have since been revised down to single slot cards with small fans and bus powered, whilst at the same time being less than a quarter of the cost.Do you have any reason to doubt that a GTX580 will be revised down the same in the time it takes to release the next Xbox?[/citation]
Thumbed down for why? Telling historical truths to formulate a likely prediction of future performance?