How the PlayStation 4 is better than a PC

[SlickR12345]

The PS3 and Xbox360 were about on par with high end PC's at the time and within 12 months got absolutely destroyed.

This time is the same, the PS4 and probably Xbox720 will be on par with high end PC's, but within 12 months will be far behind.

The only thing that I'd say is significant is the GDDR5 unified memory, but the standard these days is 8GB DDR3 memory at 1600MHz so I don't see that advantage lasting too long or being too significant.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

A small and inexpensive console beating an mammoth and expensive gaming pc is not anything new. I already provided links to Carmack explaining how old consoles could compete with 10x more powerful PCs.

He's talking about draw calls, meaning cpu, not gpu.

 

[showb1z]

Timothy Lottes seemed to believe most games would just be DX11 ports at the beginning.

Killzone is a 1st party PS4 exclusive, as far as launch titles goes it won't get better than that.

 

[Spjut]

Killzone is a 1st party PS4 exclusive, as far as launch titles goes it won't get better than that.

But your example was about Thief 4, which is third party.

 

[Imp]

The PS3 and Xbox360 were about on par with high end PC's at the time and within 12 months got absolutely destroyed.

This time is the same, the PS4 and probably Xbox720 will be on par with high end PC's, but within 12 months will be far behind.

The only thing that I'd say is significant is the GDDR5 unified memory, but the standard these days is 8GB DDR3 memory at 1600MHz so I don't see that advantage lasting too long or being too significant.

Sounds about right for the timelines. Regardless, fingers crossed!. Means I can get a new PC in the next year or two that will last... forever.

 

[showb1z]

But your example was about Thief 4, which is third party.

Think you missed something. (Third time I'm quoting this, but hey galego must've quoted Carmack 15 times by now.)

Roy's comments reflect those made by id programmer John Carmack last year, who predicted that "a lot of next gen games will still target 30 fps".
Other PS4 games, including Guerrilla's first-person shooter Killzone: Shadow Fall, also appear to be targeting 30fps.

Killzone 30fps

 

[Spjut]

Think you missed something. (Third time I'm quoting this, but hey galego must've quoted Carmack 15 times by now.)
Killzone 30fps

This was the one I intended to answer to. Killzone 3 will never be ideal for comparison with more powerful PCs, since that game won't ever be released on anything else than Sony's devices.

Yes, that is the reason, but since some people claim the PS4 has the same performance of 3 GTX680's I find it rather strange that it would need to be limited to 30 fps to get the same quality.

30 FPS in itself doesn't say anything about the hardware's capability though. Even if you stick 4 Titans in the PS4, a game at 30 FPS will always be able to look better than if it were running at 60 FPS.

 

[galego]

Oh look, another baseless claim. Prove it, or don't bother.
I'll save you the trouble: PC= 1080p, 60fps, more detail

No, you are confused. I was mentioning the elemental demo used in the PS4-PC comparison, not the new infiltrator demo... Look at the same link that you give us. Search "PS4" or just look at the images just below the paragraph. The two images of the king; one with the label "PC" and the other with the label "PS4" correspond to the elemental demo.

The elemental demo is so complex that was running sub-1080, 30 fps on the GTX-680 (paired with an i7 + 16 GB RAM)

http://www.unrealengine.com/file/misc/The_Technology_Behind_the_Elemental_Demo_16x9_(2).pdf

 

[futurefields]

Prove it. Looking at specs on paper does absolutely nothing if the developer does nothing with it. What you have on PC in the last 5 years are just console ports with the options of graphical enhancements like higher res, AA..etc. Those are not graphics, just graphical enhancements.
The initial batch of new console games will look better or as good than the average PC game for a little while.

I agree with pretty much everything here.

For example, Far Cry 3 Ultra on PC still looks like a PS3/Xbox 360 console game, just with much higher-res shader fx added on. It still more or less looks the same, and more importantly, things like draw distance, LOD, draw-in/pop-in still suffer due to the engine design.

I also agree that the new batch of console games will look better than anything that came before, in terms of graphics quality. Because they have a much better baseline configuration to work with. The graphics outta be a lot more "seamless" with less obvious draw-in/pop-in, less obvious LOD loading etc...

That being said, these new games should also port over fairly well to high-spec gaming pc's since they are running on x86 cpu and GCN-based gpu.

PC gamers have been held back due to the large variance between current gen console hardware and PC hardware. The extra horsepower in PC's has been used to an extent, but not used well or efficiently in most cases. That should change quite a bit next generation.

 

[RichUK]

Lol. Geek fest.

 

[futurefields]

Haha. Dork poster.

 

[Erenhardt]

The PS3 and Xbox360 were about on par with high end PC's at the time and within 12 months got absolutely destroyed.

Ever asked yourself why? Xbox had first unified shader architecture GPU. MS worked with AMD on this one throwing $$$ on it. Later new tech made it into desktop GPU, only bigger and better.

This time is the same, the PS4 and probably Xbox720 will be on par with high end PC's, but within 12 months will be far behind.

Not as far as Xbox360/ps3. If PS4 and nextbox bring something new that can't be so easily translated into deskrop PC.

The only thing that I'd say is significant is the GDDR5 unified memory, but the standard these days is 8GB DDR3 memory at 1600MHz so I don't see that advantage lasting too long or being too significant.

That unified memory and APU design may be a next big thing... we shall see

 

[HeXen]

Most PC titles seem to be stuck on 32bit, 3GB's ram usage max. However it's likely most of the PS4/720 multiplat titles will be more direct ported than ever before with all being x86 and likely look more similar than ever before as well. There is no incentive whatsoever these days to push the latest PC tech, hell it backfired for Crytek when Crysis first came out but the only advantage PC will have over the next half a decade will be head room with nothing to take advantage of it and lower game prices and deals.
We'll be right where we are sitting now except the higher resolutions/AA/AF advantage gap won't be so wide.

What everyone should be pushing for more is advanced A.I., sound and physics, not graphics. We seem to be hitting some points of diminishing returns in graphics with the latest graphic features becoming less and less noticeable or relevant.

 

[galego]

Carmack and Lottes should be unbiased, but can you really say the same of the other developers you refer to?

Therefore when Lottes claim that PS4 performance will be years ahead of PCs that is fine but when Quantic Dream claims the same they are biased?

What MikeR says could be true, but he hasn't backed up his claims. Here is a post he made after his comments on the UE4 demo. His information could be true, but note that he denies working at Epic.
http://beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1713046#post1713046

Personally, I had estimated about a 5x factor and MikeR comments imply about 6x or 7x. Therefore his comments look reasonable for me. And if you google a bit you can see lost of sites accepting them as reasonable as well.

Perhaps I've missed something, but the only official comment I've seen Epic make on the UE4 demo is this

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-unreal-engine-4-ps4-vs-pc


It's good if they are close, but note that he doesn't say anything about how "much" of the PS4 they used

Evidently they will not make an official statement explaining "how much" they used. This would be against them by evident reasons.

It's also fully possible that we'll get a new OpenGL or DirectX that decreases the PC's overhead

Yes it is possible. But the console will always have less overhead, because uses a light OS and because allows direct-to-the-metal access, unlike the PC.

Timothy Lottes seemed to believe most games would just be DX11 ports at the beginning.

Agree that most first gen games will be easy and direct ports. Only latter games will be optimized for the console hardware and will be using their full potential.

 

[galego]

The PS3 and Xbox360 were about on par with high end PC's at the time and within 12 months got absolutely destroyed.

This time is the same, the PS4 and probably Xbox720 will be on par with high end PC's, but within 12 months will be far behind.

Precisely, Quantic Dream says the PS4 is as a gaming PC of 2014 or 2015.

The only thing that I'd say is significant is the GDDR5 unified memory, but the standard these days is 8GB DDR3 memory at 1600MHz so I don't see that advantage lasting too long or being too significant.

Most gaming PCs have about 1-2 GB VRAM. The PS4 has 8 GB.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Killzone is a 1st party PS4 exclusive, as far as launch titles goes it won't get better than that.

Watch Dogs is a launch title...I'll put money on it being a much better game than Killzone.

Precisely, Quantic Dream says the PS4 is as a gaming PC of 2014 or 2015.



Most gaming PCs have about 1-2 GB VRAM. The PS4 has 8 GB.

That 8GB is not dedicated. It has to share it with the CPU doing network functions, background stuff for the OS, all the apps and stuff loaded, the game that is loaded up etc.

Who knows how much will really be left for the GPU. I'll take 2-6GB Dedicated over 8GB shared if I don't know what will be using it and how much.

 

[galego]

He's talking about draw calls, meaning cpu, not gpu.

The 10x overhead is for the GPU

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/2

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Can you link to something that isn't coming from the horses mouth?

Love it though, 10x the power, 10x the overhead, evidently todays GPU's only provide 360 level IQ according to this AMD PR spinbit.

I'm glad that's enough for you, but I'm going to need something that is on this side of reality.

 

[notty22]

Personally, I had estimated about a 5x factor and MikeR comments imply about 6x or 7x. Therefore his comments look reasonable for me. And if you google a bit you can see lost of sites accepting it as reasonable as well.



Evidently they will not make an official statement explaining "how much" they used. This would be against them by evident reasons.

Yes it is possible. But the console will always have less overhead, because uses a light OS and because allows direct-to-the-metal access, unlike the PC.

To predict something that will be #X times better than what we have now, in PC gaming, is immature at best. What constitutes 5x better? A similar or lower res than high end gamers are currently running? I guess not.
The idea of 60fps and now rumors of 30fps? I guess that again is not 5x better. It's not even equal to what many gamers are running. What aspect is going to be 5X greater. In the delusion of whoring this unreleased product, trolls are lost in grandeur descriptions.

 

[toyota]

Precisely, Quantic Dream says the PS4 is as a gaming PC of 2014 or 2015.



Most gaming PCs have about 1-2 GB VRAM. The PS4 has 8 GB.

lol and you think 8gb of ram in that system will be used for vram. and adding all the vram in the world means nothing if the gpu itself is not fast enough.

and most GAMING comps have at least 4gb with 8gb to 16gb being the norm for real gaming comps.

 

[toyota]

The 10x overhead is for the GPU

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/2

lol more nonsense. they say the same thing with current consoles too but all it takes is a 9600gt to exceed the same experience as on consoles. and a 9600gt is not quite even twice as fast as the gpu in the ps3.

 

[galego]

Most PC titles seem to be stuck on 32bit, 3GB's ram usage max. However it's likely most of the PS4/720 multiplat titles will be more direct ported than ever before with all being x86 and likely look more similar than ever before as well. There is no incentive whatsoever these days to push the latest PC tech, hell it backfired for Crytek when Crysis first came out but the only advantage PC will have over the next half a decade will be head room with nothing to take advantage of it and lower game prices and deals.
We'll be right where we are sitting now except the higher resolutions/AA/AF advantage gap won't be so wide.

Precisely Epic commented about that. They said that many PC games are limited to 32 bit address.

What everyone should be pushing for more is advanced A.I., sound and physics, not graphics. We seem to be hitting some points of diminishing returns in graphics with the latest graphic features becoming less and less noticeable or relevant.

This is what AMD said about physics effects

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/...l-have-the-best-physics-of-any-platform-18615

No technical details are given, therefore I don't know if it could be hype or fact.

Havok physics demo on PS4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPnwmsTokso

 

[Rakehellion]

Wii U really does 1080p? With what level graphics detail?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wii+u+games

 

[AnandThenMan]

lol and you think 8gb of ram in that system will be used for vram. and adding all the vram in the world means nothing if the gpu itself is not fast enough.

The worlds fastest GPU is wasted if the OS is bloated, not to mention if the communications between the CPU/GPU is relatively slow with high latency.

Unified memory space offers far greater flexibility and speed potential than the divided PC architecture we use now.

 

[toyota]

The worlds fastest GPU is wasted if the OS is bloated, not to mention if the communications between the CPU/GPU is relatively slow with high latency.

Unified memory space offers far greater flexibility and speed potential than the divided PC architecture we use now.

and? that does not make the 7850 level of graphics some magical gpu that can utilize 8gb of ram. wait until games come out and this thread will be looked back on as a joke. that will be especially true in a few years when what little technical advantage the ps4 has at launch will likely be surpassed on even mobile devices.