AMD: Xbox 720 to Have Avatar-level Graphics

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Thumbed down for why? Telling historical truths to formulate a likely prediction of future performance?

No, just a lot of console fans with a lot of butthurt =) I agree with you.

 

[Zen911]

I hold the belief that consoles are around 5x the efficiency of PCs. Run a PC game @ 720p with no AA, you'll need a GPU 5x the performance of the Geforce 7800 GTX, which a similar counterpart exists in the PS3, to get the targeted 30 fps which the consoles will be doing easily. I believe next Gen Consoles will be produced in 2013, which means they will be constructed on the next manufacturing node (28nm probably), so expect something in the power of a GTX590 running next gen consoles. Now this is a HUGE leap from the current consoles graphics, not to the extent of avatar SGI-quality of course, but expect it to be totally stunning. (add the support for a keyboard and a mouse please, develop games as hardcore as the witcher 2 and i'll be no more a PC gamer)

 

[cdirtydevil]

I think Neal Robison meant if we were to smoke wacky weed and play Xbox 720 at the same time ;-D

 

[makaveli316]

I'd still rather upgrade my pc than spending 500-600 cash for a console.

 

[demonnn]

cgi movies need render farms to render a single frame ... how will a console that comes out in a couple of years do that in real time at 30fps ? Maybe in 50+ years

This is just marketing. I bet the graphics will have little difference from 360 and instead they will focus on controls

 

[cryogenic]

[citation][nom]demonnn[/nom]cgi movies need render farms to render a single frame ... how will a console that comes out in a couple of years do that in real time at 30fps ? Maybe in 50+ yearsThis is just marketing. I bet the graphics will have little difference from 360 and instead they will focus on controls[/citation]

The graphics of games are not entirely rendered by the GPU. Game companies have massive render farms where they pre-render graphics, textures, lightning maps, shadow maps, all kings of other stuff.

What the GPU does is simply take all these prepared/prebacked graphical asses and composes them into a scene.

So the GPU does only part of the job namely composing the scene of already available graphics assets. This means a sufficiently powerful GPU can get "close" to avatar level graphics because behind the scenes there will still render farms doing the heavy lifting of preparing the graphics and packaging them for the consumption of the GPU.

 

[Guest]

oh god someone save me....

the average cinematographic scene for a cgi movie contains 100s of 1000s of elements (not talking about triangles here), it has a ridiculous depth of field, the greater the detail the more palatable it is to the audience

the average game has maybe in the upper 100s of elements the more detailed one might just barely have 1000 with a very limited depth of field, just taking radiosity calculations into consideration it becomes obvious that the machine needed to calculate the radiosity for the cgi scene would be exponentially more powerful then the realtime game scene.

No game designer in his right mind would decide to plonk a whole forest of trees into the game environment to add realism, he would use the absolute minimum required to give the illusions of a forest, he will then use fog and limit the field of view and let the gamers fill in the blanks

it is not inconceivable that a powerful modern gfx solution would be able to attain the same rendering capabilities of a server farm for a much much much smaller and more controlled scene in realtime

 

[captaincharisma]

i wonder if for the 720 if they are going to keep the commonly seen red ring of death or have some other kind of way to tell you that the console has failed.

 

[captaincharisma]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Thumbed down for why? Telling historical truths to formulate a likely prediction of future performance?[/citation]

if you really care about something as pointless as that you really need to get a life

 

[schmich]

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]so are we now to be forced into choosing bullet or physx based on the game we buy?.[/citation]
How the heck do you get thumbs ups?? Having physics in a game doesn't mean necessarily mean physx... -.-

 

[Jeteroll]

I think that the only restrictions that they have is getting that kind of graphics in an xbox, size and heat.

 

[Guest]

That's cool, but considering the price level of these devices, will it also do everything a regular PC can? That would make a big splash imo.

 

[jbm715]

That is a scary bridge to cross moonshire. I also believe there is no way that this new xbox will have the ability to push avatar like games in real time. This must be marketing's fault.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]Zen911[/nom]I hold the belief that consoles are around 5x the efficiency of PCs. Run a PC game @ 720p with no AA, you'll need a GPU 5x the performance of the Geforce 7800 GTX, which a similar counterpart exists in the PS3, to get the targeted 30 fps which the consoles will be doing easily. I believe next Gen Consoles will be produced in 2013, which means they will be constructed on the next manufacturing node (28nm probably), so expect something in the power of a GTX590 running next gen consoles. Now this is a HUGE leap from the current consoles graphics, not to the extent of avatar SGI-quality of course, but expect it to be totally stunning. (add the support for a keyboard and a mouse please, develop games as hardcore as the witcher 2 and i'll be no more a PC gamer)[/citation]You hold that belief because you don't have enough information to draw reasonable conclusions. If you take a game for PS3 that's ported to PC and run it on low settings at 720p, many games will pull 30fps with an 8800GTX--which is about the level of $40 graphics cards nowadays and 2x as powerful as a 7800GTX (PS3). That puts a console at about 2x as powerful as PCs for their hardware, which I think is an overestimation. Your 5x isn't based on any real math, just a number you pulled out of the air. If that were true, it would take a GTX 460 1GB to match a PS3--which isn't remotely close to true.

I don't expect a GTX 590, a $700 graphics card, to fit into a $500 console by next year. Even at 28nm, it's not gonna be magic--it still will require 2/3 as much power or about a 400W PSU--more than they put in consoles. Then again, I'm not throwing out an alternative, so I guess you should take my opinion with a grain of salt. Price/performance, I'd target dual GTX 560Ti's since that's only $400 of hardware today--but I doubt any console will risk compatibility issues of dual graphics. Realistically, I expect something more like a die shrink of the 5870 w/ 6000 series features (like 3D), since we know it'll be Radeon.

 

[Filiprino]

[citation][nom]dalauder[/nom]You hold that belief because you don't have enough information to draw reasonable conclusions. If you take a game for PS3 that's ported to PC and run it on low settings at 720p, many games will pull 30fps with an 8800GTX--which is about the level of $40 graphics cards nowadays and 2x as powerful as a 7800GTX (PS3). That puts a console at about 2x as powerful as PCs for their hardware, which I think is an overestimation.[/citation]
I can play ported games at 60FPS or more at 1280x720 with an 8800GTS 320MB: Bioshock (with DX10 on), Mass Effect 1 and 2, Dead Space... at the highest setting available in game.
If I go up to 1680x1050 then it goes down to 30-40ish FPS.

 

[bv90andy]

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[thetinyshiloh]

Yeahh, let's improve graphics*! And nothing else! Right.


*Sort of.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]Filiprino[/nom]I can play ported games at 60FPS or more at 1280x720 with an 8800GTS 320MB: Bioshock (with DX10 on), Mass Effect 1 and 2, Dead Space... at the highest setting available in game.If I go up to 1680x1050 then it goes down to 30-40ish FPS.[/citation]I meant more demanding games, but yeah...you'll pull 60fps in most of those ports on the same detail settings the consoles use (low).

 

[xcamas]

If they opt to go with super sample aa, games might look good, and given consoles usually output 30fps it wont be that difficult, they might be cooking the next xbox with the 6870. avatar like is out of the question, but i believe that they will look nice.

 

[10hellfire01]

[citation][nom]bv90andy[/nom]I'll believe it when I see it.[/citation]
You do also have to keep in mind the console games are brutally optimized so they can run many games without that "lag".

Now back to the original article, I have something in my mind telling me the consoles won't even par up to my overclocked GTX 580. Will they be pretty damn close? Perhaps. But I don't see it possible for a console to run Avatar-movie like graphics. Like someone else said, that took tons and tons of servers/enthusiasts workstations. My PC alone would fry if it tried that and I can run every game on the market max with all the eyecandy possible with the resolution xD

 

[10hellfire01]

[citation][nom]dalauder[/nom]I can play ported games at 60FPS or more at 1280x720 with an 8800GTS 320MB: Bioshock (with DX10 on), Mass Effect 1 and 2, Dead Space... at the highest setting available in game.
If I go up to 1680x1050 then it goes down to 30-40ish FPS.[/citation]

^Meant to copy that....weirdness with the quoting system going on...

 

[Guest]

Well I am getting a Wii u for sure, since I'm a die hard Nintendo fan! And I will get the next xbox console. (they better not call it 720, what a lame name) I just hope they get rid of the disc tray, and just make the drive like wii and ps3. Disc trays are easy to break.

 

[jonnyrb]

Seems like they are going to rush it out again before the PS4 and fail. Also sounds like a very bizzare naming scheme

 

[NITB605]

I'm no programmer so I can't speak to the level of effort it takes to create CGI such as Avatar but wouldn't one assume that many hardware advancements in today's technology is surpassing the ability to write software that keeps up with hardware performance. I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to wait 10 years for software developers to create a game that at the very least would get 1 hour of game play. I know software engines are improving but seriously how long did it take to create CGI for Avatar. Can a software developer create a game in which that environment allows a user to make choices and follow a plot that can be presented in hours of game play at those graphics? Seems like we are years away from consoles really taking graphics a step further than high-end pc gaming.

 

[kristoffe]

I've developed VR for 10+ years and noticed really good equipment not pick up, but it made the gaming experience so much more enticing. Flock of birds glove set systems, vr headset lcd mono and stereo systems, force feedback, motion capture and analysis, voice activation, eye movement capture, and thought control from lie detection algorithms to 3d matrix fielding. I wish it would come together sooner, because the gpu processing is as important in a.i. and interactive calcs as are millions of polys per frame with reflections. clouds compute gaming maybe next, similar to an ssd with rotating platter hd tech hybrids. that could easily make a world avataresque, but i see 1024-2048 cuda cores (NV style) in a multicore gpu print with tons of cache l1 l2 l3 to produce really incredible interactive experiences. these claims fuel our dreams and requests to make it real. beam me up, scotty