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- May 18, 2007
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[citation][nom]NuclearShadow[/nom]So, it's a PC but with heavy limitations and closed platform. "Enhanced PC GPU" this is clearly a poor marketing term to make it sound like it's actually superior to what a PC could provide right now.[/citation]
Consoles allow games more direct access to hardware which enables programmers to use optimization tricks that are not possible on PCs both due to abstraction layers and unpredictable hardware configuration.
With a PC game, programmers need to write CPU code for various iterations of Intel and AMD CPUs if they want the best possible result, they need to write GPU-specific shaders if they want to get the most out of the GPU too. They also need to worry about supporting multiple OS versions, multiple OS patch levels, various driver versions for all your hardware, etc.
On a console, everyone has almost exactly the same hardware (give or take a few chip respins, die shrinks and minor feature additions/subtractions) and exactly the same OS so programmers can put all their optimization efforts in the reference design instead of worrying about infinite hardware variations.
The console hardware may not be as powerful but programmers can afford to put a lot more effort into it since they know exactly what they are working with.
Consoles allow games more direct access to hardware which enables programmers to use optimization tricks that are not possible on PCs both due to abstraction layers and unpredictable hardware configuration.
With a PC game, programmers need to write CPU code for various iterations of Intel and AMD CPUs if they want the best possible result, they need to write GPU-specific shaders if they want to get the most out of the GPU too. They also need to worry about supporting multiple OS versions, multiple OS patch levels, various driver versions for all your hardware, etc.
On a console, everyone has almost exactly the same hardware (give or take a few chip respins, die shrinks and minor feature additions/subtractions) and exactly the same OS so programmers can put all their optimization efforts in the reference design instead of worrying about infinite hardware variations.
The console hardware may not be as powerful but programmers can afford to put a lot more effort into it since they know exactly what they are working with.
Non-Euclidean
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- Nov 5, 2009
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[citation][nom]soulprovider[/nom]As a panel manufacturer and content provider themselves, it would make sense for Sony to market this for 4K - in a similar vein as they did with Blueray on PS3 given they manufactured the IC logic. [/citation]
Or not!
Maybe the company with financial issues, needs to produce something that doesnt hit the market with a ridiculous price tag that slows down adoption. Maybe they should spec it for the display devices that 99% of the market will have, not the 4K ones that .001% of the market will own and 100% of the tech fanboys are rubbing themselves over.
If 4K starts taking off in 2-4 years they can release a new version of the PS4 which supports it. Or maybe a software update of some sort.
Or not!
Maybe the company with financial issues, needs to produce something that doesnt hit the market with a ridiculous price tag that slows down adoption. Maybe they should spec it for the display devices that 99% of the market will have, not the 4K ones that .001% of the market will own and 100% of the tech fanboys are rubbing themselves over.
If 4K starts taking off in 2-4 years they can release a new version of the PS4 which supports it. Or maybe a software update of some sort.
master_chen
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- Jun 20, 2012
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How old are you and since what age are you immersed into this thing? I'm 29 (will be 30 this march) and I play video games since 1987.
Also, I began examining video game industry on a more serious level (not just as a gamer/consumer only, but as a serious analytic too), as a whole, since 1996.
Hellstalker
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- Mar 21, 2012
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Soooo... somebody at Sony finally saw the cost-reduction light, huh? With this move Sony will be reducing PS4 cost dramatically since there will be little to no need to engineer/fabricate custom hardware while also reducing costs game development... that also means that we, PC gamers, can expect a full PS4 emulator in the near future that will run flawlessly 
TeraMedia
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The specs on that APU look fantastic, and perhaps a bit fantastical. An 8-core CPU AND a 78x0-level GPU on a single die? I suppose if they're using a low-power mobile-oriented CPU module (which theory the 1.6 GHz seems to support) with something like a 65W power cap, then there might be enough leftover cooling headroom to support a 78x0 GPU module on the same die.
The memory BW looks amazing. Rather than bolting a GPU onto the CPU, it looks like they did the opposite and bolted a CPU onto the GPU and its memory bus. The only concern I have with this approach is memory latency. GPUs are not impacted as much by latency because the latency is effectively divided across the 1000-odd threads that are simultaneously running. But we've seen in recent THG articles that CPUs - especially AMD CPUs - are susceptible to reduced performance from high latency. AMD doesn't have the fast, high-volume L1 and L2 cache systems that Intel has, so they depend more on the memory performance. And if the memory is high-bandwidth but high latency, this can have an adverse effect on the performance of CPU-bound processing such as AI and other linear processing threads. I hope AMD included a good, large, fast L3 cache on this thing.
The memory BW looks amazing. Rather than bolting a GPU onto the CPU, it looks like they did the opposite and bolted a CPU onto the GPU and its memory bus. The only concern I have with this approach is memory latency. GPUs are not impacted as much by latency because the latency is effectively divided across the 1000-odd threads that are simultaneously running. But we've seen in recent THG articles that CPUs - especially AMD CPUs - are susceptible to reduced performance from high latency. AMD doesn't have the fast, high-volume L1 and L2 cache systems that Intel has, so they depend more on the memory performance. And if the memory is high-bandwidth but high latency, this can have an adverse effect on the performance of CPU-bound processing such as AI and other linear processing threads. I hope AMD included a good, large, fast L3 cache on this thing.
getting back to the thread subject ps4 ... anyone know if the HHD is replacable ? like on the ps3?
ubercake
Splendid
- Oct 28, 2009
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[citation][nom]master_chen[/nom]How old are you and since what age are you immersed into this thing? I'm 29 (will be 30 this march) and I play video games since 1987.Also, I began examining video game industry on a more serious level (not just as a gamer/consumer only, but as a serious analytic too), as a whole, since 1996.[/citation]
I have been PC and console gaming since the Timex Sinclair 1000, Commodore 64 and the Magnavox Odyssey. Look them up if you want to get an idea of my age. To sum it up, I've been gaming longer than you've been alive.
I am definitely not a serious analyst of the gaming industry, but I've been seriously gaming for decades and am pretty demanding and critical - based on my experience with every gen of PC and console hardware - of every game I play and every system I've played on. I've experienced the evolution of the PC and console gaming industry. I have been building my own PCs for around 12 years. I'm a non-gaming programmer by trade. I don't live in my mom's basement.
I have been PC and console gaming since the Timex Sinclair 1000, Commodore 64 and the Magnavox Odyssey. Look them up if you want to get an idea of my age. To sum it up, I've been gaming longer than you've been alive.
I am definitely not a serious analyst of the gaming industry, but I've been seriously gaming for decades and am pretty demanding and critical - based on my experience with every gen of PC and console hardware - of every game I play and every system I've played on. I've experienced the evolution of the PC and console gaming industry. I have been building my own PCs for around 12 years. I'm a non-gaming programmer by trade. I don't live in my mom's basement.
When it comes to consoles, you have to understand how they work.
If you take a car, and strip everything off that is not nessary, it becomes a lot "faster". You can say that a car with a 500hp engine is faster than a car with 300hp, but if that 500hp has to pull a 2 ton car, vs a car with 300hp but is at 1/2 ton, then the 300hp car will destroy the 500hp heavy car.
Consoles are stripped down to the point where a 7870 could out do a 7970 in terms of FPS.
If you take a car, and strip everything off that is not nessary, it becomes a lot "faster". You can say that a car with a 500hp engine is faster than a car with 300hp, but if that 500hp has to pull a 2 ton car, vs a car with 300hp but is at 1/2 ton, then the 300hp car will destroy the 500hp heavy car.
Consoles are stripped down to the point where a 7870 could out do a 7970 in terms of FPS.
in_the_loop
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- Dec 15, 2007
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More info:
Sony claims the GPU features 18 compute units, which if this is GCN based we'd be looking at 1152 SPs and 72 texture units (source : Anandtech)
This is right between the 7850 (16 compute units) and 7870 (20 compute units).
Combine this with the fact that the memory bandwidth is superior to even the 7870 with 176 GB/S compared to 7870;s 153.6GB/s!
And that it has a lot (8GB) of GDDR5 memory to begin with.
And this in a console where you can optimize much more than for the more general pc.
Most top end Pc cards are (or should be) used in multiscreen configurations with extreme resolutions, so for a console running on a single 1080p screen, this is more than enough!
Much better than I anticipated and good for Pc gaming when the bar is considerable raised for a console!
Sony claims the GPU features 18 compute units, which if this is GCN based we'd be looking at 1152 SPs and 72 texture units (source : Anandtech)
This is right between the 7850 (16 compute units) and 7870 (20 compute units).
Combine this with the fact that the memory bandwidth is superior to even the 7870 with 176 GB/S compared to 7870;s 153.6GB/s!
And that it has a lot (8GB) of GDDR5 memory to begin with.
And this in a console where you can optimize much more than for the more general pc.
Most top end Pc cards are (or should be) used in multiscreen configurations with extreme resolutions, so for a console running on a single 1080p screen, this is more than enough!
Much better than I anticipated and good for Pc gaming when the bar is considerable raised for a console!
master_chen
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- Jun 20, 2012
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I don't need to. I got the picture instantly. %)
My very first platform was MSX 2. %)
I've made my very first own build back in late 1997, so you can say that I'm not the "Doom"-guy. %)
Neither do I. %)
I don't even have a basement... >.>
master_chen
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Yeah. It's good to be hardcore. It's even better to know that there are still "hardcore-enough" people near you, on Tom's...because there's just soooo much utter noobs and casuals these days...I feel like I'm an endangered species, or something. >_>
Seriously, I bet if I'd make a poll on Tom's gaming section right now, asking "Do you like Anachronox/Clock Tower/Another World/Full Throttle?", the first comments I'll get from 95% of people would be "What's [strike]Anachronox[/strike] a Paladin?", or "Another World? Isn't that a TV show?".
Seriously, I bet if I'd make a poll on Tom's gaming section right now, asking "Do you like Anachronox/Clock Tower/Another World/Full Throttle?", the first comments I'll get from 95% of people would be "What's [strike]Anachronox[/strike] a Paladin?", or "Another World? Isn't that a TV show?".
Hellstalker
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- Mar 21, 2012
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[citation][nom]master_chen[/nom]Yeah. It's good to be hardcore. It's even better to know that there are still "hardcore-enough" people near you, on Tom's...because there's just soooo much utter noobs and casuals these days...I feel like I'm an endangered species, or something. >_>Seriously, I bet if I'd make a poll on Tom's gaming section right now, asking "Do you like Anachronox/Clock Tower/Another World/Full Throttle?", the first comments I'll get from 95% of people would be "What's Anachronox a Paladin?", or "Another World? Isn't that a TV show?".[/citation]
Then dont even dare ask if they loved Barbarian, Sun Tzus Ancient Art of War and Art of War at Sea... Hell, they will even have to look up what was Spectrum Holobyte´s G.A.T.O, the original Falcon or Muse´s Escape from Castle Wolfenstein if you were an Apple IIe player... Flight Simulator on the ZX80? Yeah, I have the t-shirt... ,)
Then dont even dare ask if they loved Barbarian, Sun Tzus Ancient Art of War and Art of War at Sea... Hell, they will even have to look up what was Spectrum Holobyte´s G.A.T.O, the original Falcon or Muse´s Escape from Castle Wolfenstein if you were an Apple IIe player... Flight Simulator on the ZX80? Yeah, I have the t-shirt... ,)
ubercake
Splendid
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Played that! Sun Tzus was great and revolutionary. NFL Challenge anyone?
Anyone remember the original Wizardry on the IIe? That's what got me hooked on PC games (post-Commodore 64 and Beach Head or Telengard). From that, it was kind of hard to go to text-only Zork on PC and better when King's Quest came out with it's hoity toity graphics and all.
Strangely enough, there are no true turn-based RPGs anywhere out there any longer (unless someone can please help me find one?) and I've been hooked on BF3 on PC since the alpha testing phase.
bluestar2k11
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- Feb 1, 2011
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Well, if you believe Steams survey from Janurary 2013, a combined 72.3% of users have at least a DX10 capable video card with a capable OS.
21.77% have a capable GPU, but not a supported OS.
While steam doesn't account for Every PC gamer, I'd imagine across the board of PC gamers, the numbers are still above 60% for DX10+ capable systems with supported OS.
So while you could still argue there's a good portion holding gaming back, you could also argue, they may not find a need to upgrade to DX10+ because nobody uses it hardly, least not truly supports it, since primarily the console market seems to now drive gaming, and they don't use DX10+, so why dump money into something that isn't yet used?
Not every gamer, as we all know, can just drop money to future proof themselves, there has to be a need to do it, with DX11 GPU's coming in the new console generation, perhaps that need will arrive in a few years.
But the system itself is ever decreasing in the amount of how much it holds PC gamers back, mostly it's developers now, which means the console hardware is the problem more and more.
[citation][nom]wedouglas[/nom]Of all the PC gamers, how many have latest generation video cards? A fraction of them. Unless every PC gamer upgrades to the latest and greatest every year, you'll never see games taking total advantage of your video card.[/citation]
21.77% have a capable GPU, but not a supported OS.
While steam doesn't account for Every PC gamer, I'd imagine across the board of PC gamers, the numbers are still above 60% for DX10+ capable systems with supported OS.
So while you could still argue there's a good portion holding gaming back, you could also argue, they may not find a need to upgrade to DX10+ because nobody uses it hardly, least not truly supports it, since primarily the console market seems to now drive gaming, and they don't use DX10+, so why dump money into something that isn't yet used?
Not every gamer, as we all know, can just drop money to future proof themselves, there has to be a need to do it, with DX11 GPU's coming in the new console generation, perhaps that need will arrive in a few years.
But the system itself is ever decreasing in the amount of how much it holds PC gamers back, mostly it's developers now, which means the console hardware is the problem more and more.
[citation][nom]wedouglas[/nom]Of all the PC gamers, how many have latest generation video cards? A fraction of them. Unless every PC gamer upgrades to the latest and greatest every year, you'll never see games taking total advantage of your video card.[/citation]
cptnjarhead
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- Jun 22, 2009
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Its sad to see sony going the way of "off-shelf" design. im sure from a developers perspective, its a blessing and from a design standpoint it is very cost effective, but i was excited to see what "exotic" hardware they were going to come up with next. As if current games were not "cookie-cutter" enough, now the consoles will be too.
On a positive side, maybe developers will actually use some of that power for real "AI" and someday, we can play games with NPC's that are self aware, instead of scripted.
CPU : x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores
GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon™ based graphics engine
All that power and we will still have NPC's saying a million times. ... “I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.”
On a positive side, maybe developers will actually use some of that power for real "AI" and someday, we can play games with NPC's that are self aware, instead of scripted.
CPU : x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores
GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon™ based graphics engine
All that power and we will still have NPC's saying a million times. ... “I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.”
susyque747
Honorable
- Jan 12, 2013
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[citation][nom]abbadon_34[/nom]"PS1, PS2, and PS3 games will be supported in that they'll be streamed from the cloud."So in other words, NO. And begs the question, is "alway connected" required?[/citation]
If so it will never see my house.
If so it will never see my house.
bluestar2k11
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How about just NPC's with real-time scripted environmental awareness?
I'll pass on the self-aware part. Last thing I need is Skynet building inside Killzone 4 and believing me to actually be attempting to kill it, and in turn attempt to kill me and every other player running the game. ^^
[citation][nom]cptnjarhead[/nom]On a positive side, maybe developers will actually use some of that power for real "AI" and someday, we can play games with NPC's that are self aware, instead of scripted.[/citation]
I'll pass on the self-aware part. Last thing I need is Skynet building inside Killzone 4 and believing me to actually be attempting to kill it, and in turn attempt to kill me and every other player running the game. ^^
[citation][nom]cptnjarhead[/nom]On a positive side, maybe developers will actually use some of that power for real "AI" and someday, we can play games with NPC's that are self aware, instead of scripted.[/citation]
cptnjarhead
Distinguished
- Jun 22, 2009
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[citation][nom]bluestar2k11[/nom]How about just NPC's with real-time scripted environmental awareness?I'll pass on the self-aware part. Last thing I need is Skynet building inside Killzone 4 and believing me to actually be attempting to kill it, and in turn attempt to kill me and every other player running the game. ^^[/citation]
funny. but today's game npc's are a joke and all this talk about "physics, polygons, triangles, tessellation, T-flops and bla bla blah" just gives us better eye-candy without substance.
quote from south park "You'll buy it, what ever!"
funny. but today's game npc's are a joke and all this talk about "physics, polygons, triangles, tessellation, T-flops and bla bla blah" just gives us better eye-candy without substance.
quote from south park "You'll buy it, what ever!"
WithoutWeakness
Honorable
- Nov 7, 2012
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[citation][nom]is_amd_genius_or_still_dying[/nom]is this a victory for amd? margins on game console hardware are usually razor thin... and the prices fall sharply every year. most profit comes from the games. maybe that explains the stock... or perhaps this will force game developers to target amd hardware for game optimizations, perhaps benefiting amd's PC hardware sales. maybe the benchmarks will start tilting toward amd for the most popular games?still trying to figure this out...[/citation]
Margins are usually razor thin but that's because Sony/Microsoft eats the cost of making the consoles in order to make money off selling the games. AMD gets paid the same flat rate for each CPU/GPU/APU they sell to manufacturers. AMD doesn't lose money if Sony drops the price of the PS4 in a year or two after launch. Sony buys the chips for the same price and then sells the consoles for minimal profit (sometimes at a loss) while recuperating that small margin by selling tons of games.
Margins are usually razor thin but that's because Sony/Microsoft eats the cost of making the consoles in order to make money off selling the games. AMD gets paid the same flat rate for each CPU/GPU/APU they sell to manufacturers. AMD doesn't lose money if Sony drops the price of the PS4 in a year or two after launch. Sony buys the chips for the same price and then sells the consoles for minimal profit (sometimes at a loss) while recuperating that small margin by selling tons of games.
[citation][nom]stalefish85[/nom]what about backwards compatibility?[/citation]
they already said it won't be backwards compatible. It makes sense considering the ps3 architecture is so different. But since it is a PC now, third party support might be cool
they already said it won't be backwards compatible. It makes sense considering the ps3 architecture is so different. But since it is a PC now, third party support might be cool
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