PlayStation 4’s Seventh Core Now Unlocked For Developers

[epobirs]

Already maxing out the hardware two years into its lifespan? I suspect this generation of consoles will not be able to last the seven years the last one somehow did.

It doesn't have to.
It's more or less generic PC-hardware and can rather easily be upgraded.

I agree. I think the way the hardware is, they will not have such long cycles now. If they were clever they could have even made an add on box for extra gpu power, call it a 4K box to render games at 4k.

Such concepts have a wretched history in the console business. More likely we'll see successor generations that use improved versions of the APU while remaining fully backward compatible. The new machine could be labeled 'Level 2' with accompanying labels on software that will only run on it. Some software will chose to go the scaling route and be labeled accordingly, indicating that not all features are available to Level 1. Less ambitious products will continue to target Level 1 and thus reach both generations.

I suspect we may see some improved models come out that don't change things from the developers' perspective. For instance, upgrading the USB host to 3.1 would enable much faster storage. Also, 4K playback for UHD Blu-ray discs and streaming services. Games would be rendered at 1080p or less and scaled on this inbetween generation. The improvements to the APU would be fairly cheap to add during a major die shrink (in transistor real estate terms, not the work required) and would lay the foundation for the successor platform that required separate development efforts to fully exploit.

 

[epobirs]

5 cores for the developers, 7 cores available for everything for both PS4 and Xbox1? Why not all 8 cores?

Sony is just now allowing 5 cores to be used by developers? What is the point in not allowing it, if the rest of the system can run fine on the remaining cores?

Have you noticed how nicely the current generation handles background tasks like downloading during gameplay? This is thanks to dedicated resources that would once have been sold as a entire system. Consider: the reserved resources in an Xbox One exceed those of an original Xbox, leaving aside the GPU which doesn't enter into background operations.

Things like the social networking, video recording, and other extended features rely on those reserved resources. The trick is allocating the right balance to not detract from game quality.

 

[Johan Kryger Haglert]

I think they made the right choice when they realesed the consoles only 1080 capable. I dont know where youre buying your Gpus, but u cant buy one that runs 4k for 200 in playable fps. Actually, you cant find a single card configuration that can run ir properly, and multiple Gpus bottlenecks when they get to the micro. So, its easier said than done doing 4k in Pc, so its stupid aiming that high in a console, and 1440p TVs dont exist, so 1080 is fine stop the nonesense.

You don't need 200 FPS.

Dual GTX 980 would do 4K decently now.

Four TitanX on X99-motherboard with 5930K or better would do it better.

He meant $200.. No company is going to throw dual GTX 980s in a console and expect people to pay $1000 for it.. nor try and cool it all in a box the size of a toaster. Your final statement.. just nope.

Of course it would do it better.
I was never talking about putting it in a console.

I read the statement as one regarding 4K gaming in general and as one with a demand of 200 FPS. The consoles doesn't even cost $200 - but yeah, a $200 graphics-card won't do 4K gaming well.