How the PlayStation 4 is better than a PC

[sontin]

Xenos was in whole other world than the APU in the PS4. Xenos delivered more GFLOPs than anything on the pc in November 2005.

Right now a Titan is able of more than 4,5 TFLOPs. That is nearly 2,5x more than the PS4. And next year you will get twice of that or 5x more performance.

 

[Cerb]

Now for those of you that still believe that a 1.84 TFLOP on a PC is the same than a 1.84 TFLOP on the PS4, and for those of you still negating the overhead mentioned by Carmack, Huddy, Lottes and many others... could you name some seven year-old gaming PC with 512 MB (RAM + VRAM) and same GPU that can play crysis 2 or equivalent quality game?

So, those that haven't posted in this thread should try to point something out that isn't relevant, about a limitation that's gone in games not supporting XP?

And, what's with the screen shot pollution (aside from maybe showing how bad upscaling looks, and how poor the console's lighting is)?

 

[Cloudfire777]

If you ask me, it speaks volume that a 2006 PS3 can play a top notch 2011 game like that. Despite having huge hardware limitations like 256MB DDR3 and only 256MB VRAM on the GPU. Crysis 2 itself demands atleast 2GB DDR3 and 512MB VRAM on a PC. Thats the minimum requirements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtHAPJulgh0

 

[Makaveli]

If you ask me, it speaks volume that a 2006 PS3 can play a top notch 2011 game like that. Despite having huge hardware limitations like 256MB DDR3 and only 256MB VRAM on the GPU. Crysis 2 itself demands atleast 2GB DDR3 and 512MB VRAM on a PC. Thats the minimum requirements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtHAPJulgh0

Maybe i'm missing something but you won't be playing crysis 2 at the same level of detail as you will on a PC not to mention the lower res on the console I would expect it to require less power to run.

what gpu would be required on the PC side if you had to run it at console level quality settings?

I also just viewed youtube video the consoles do a good job considering how old the hardware is.

 

[galego]

i think that, nobody in this thread really doubts that consoles are more efficient in the same FLOP counts...

Several posters negate the existence of any efficiency gain and continue claiming that "the PS4 is at least 3x less powerful than a titan", in despite several posters, including a developer, wrote in this thread:

But there will also be a lot of things that PS4 will be able to do that Titan can't. I'm a dev, although I don't work in games at the moment. Draw call overhead is a real thing. It's very telling that a lot of what AMD and Nvidia are doing right now is about reducing that overhead. hUMA and Maxwell's unified virtual memory are aimed directly at this.

This was several dozens of pages ago, and still I can find posters who continue to say today that a Titan is 3x faster.

but how it's equivalent to a >3 TFLOP GPU is the problem

Ok. We can discuss about the ratio PS4/PC. According to Huddy, Carmack, and others devs. the API/driver overhead is at least 2x

1.84 TFLOP + overhead = 3.68 TFLOP ~ 3.09 TFLOP (GTX-680).

Precisely Epic has selected a GTX-680 for all their PS4-PC comparison demos.

But this 2x factor is ignoring other advantages of the PS4 over the traditional PC architecture.

My bet is:

1.84 TFLOP + overhead + HSA + hUMA + GDDR5 = 9.2 TFLOP > 4.5 TFLOP (GTX Titan).

This is a 5x factor, which is in agreement with data leaked by MikeR about the AH used in the elemental demo.

Of course, 5x is only an crude estimation, it could be more or could be less, depending of lots of factors (including programmers laziness).

 

[galego]

And, what's with the screen shot pollution (aside from maybe showing how bad upscaling looks, and how poor the console's lighting is)?

It is not about how a 10x more powerful modern PC from 2011 can do it better than an ancient console from 2006, but how you couldn't obtain the console quality using a comparable PC with the same hardware.

Consoles run 2x or so better than equal PC hardware, but it isn’t just API in the way, focus a single spec also matters.

 

[Enigmoid]

Several posters negate the existence of any efficiency gain and continue claiming that "the PS4 is at least 3x less powerful than a titan", in despite several posters, including a developer, wrote in this thread:

This was several dozens of pages ago, and still I can find posters who continue to say today that a Titan is 3x faster.



Ok. We can discuss about the ratio PS4/PC. According to Huddy, Carmack, and others devs. the API/driver overhead is at least 2x

1.84 TFLOP + overhead = 3.68 TFLOP ~ 3.09 TFLOP (GTX-680).

Precisely Epic has selected a GTX-680 for all their PS4-PC comparison demos.

But this 2x factor is ignoring other advantages of the PS4 over the traditional PC architecture.

My bet is:

1.84 TFLOP + overhead + HSA + hUMA + GDDR5 = 9.2 TFLOP > 4.5 TFLOP (GTX Titan).

This is a 5x factor, which is in agreement with data leaked by MikeR about the AH used in the elemental demo.

Of course, 5x is only an crude estimation, it could be more or could be less, depending of lots of factors (including programmers laziness).

The problem with this is that it does not cohere with existing knowledge. Current consoles do not have anything like a 5x advantage over pcs (again made the point about gflops on mobile gpus and ports such as skyrim or dishonoured). PS3, Xbox360 advantage isn't anything close to 5x (looking strictly at flops). In fact a gpu with around 2-2.5x the brute power of the xbox 360 absolutely demolishes it in any straight port.

 

[Aikouka]

Ok. We can discuss about the ratio PS4/PC. According to Huddy, Carmack, and others devs. the API/driver overhead is at least 2x

1.84 TFLOP + overhead = 3.68 TFLOP ~ 3.09 TFLOP (GTX-680).

I don't think you understand what overhead means if you think that twice as much overhead means twice as much raw performance.

1.84 TFLOP + overhead + HSA + hUMA + GDDR5 = 9.2 TFLOP > 4.5 TFLOP (GTX Titan).

Oh, man... I sure do pity those people with SLI Titans that can play games at 2560x1440 at the highest settings when a PS4 will have just as much computational power!



You really need a reality check, galego. No one is saying that PS4 games will look like utter rubbish, but thinking that all of the features will magically grant it the ability to crunch numbers twice as fast as a GTX Titan... that's just ludicrous. It may be able to do certain things in certain ways faster than a standard PC, but it will not magically overpower a desktop with a $500+ GPU.

 

[finbarqs]

I'm just excited because it seems that console usually gets these awesome adventure games that I've yet to see on the PC. it's funny, with the consoles being a few generations behind already, yet they come out with these amazing graphics. Of course, when they port it to the PC, it'll be better on the PC. But it came out on the console first, wow'd us and the PC will perfect it. But it isn't as much "wow" anymore on the PC as we've seen it for a while now.

For example, like the that one Kill Zone game. wow. They sure know how to impress!

 

[finbarqs]

i don't think you understand what overhead means if you think that twice as much overhead means twice as much raw performance.



Oh, man... I sure do pity those people with sli titans that can play games at 2560x1440 at the highest settings when a ps4 will have just as much computational power!



You really need a reality check, galego. No one is saying that ps4 games will look like utter rubbish, but thinking that all of the features will magically grant it the ability to crunch numbers twice as fast as a gtx titan... That's just ludicrous. It may be able to do certain things in certain ways faster than a standard pc, but it will not magically overpower a desktop with a $500+ gpu.

1k gpu

 

[BrightCandle]

I'm just excited because it seems that console usually gets these awesome adventure games that I've yet to see on the PC. it's funny, with the consoles being a few generations behind already, yet they come out with these amazing graphics. Of course, when they port it to the PC, it'll be better on the PC. But it came out on the console first, wow'd us and the PC will perfect it. But it isn't as much "wow" anymore on the PC as we've seen it for a while now.

For example, like the that one Kill Zone game. wow. They sure know how to impress!

The other way to look at this is that the games graphics have been utterly crippled by targetting and incredibly old piece of hardware and it would have looked considerably better had it been developed for the PC to begin with. Console ports are always limited by starting on a console and you got a vastly inferior product because they chose a very old platform that was pretty underpowered by the time the game was released.

 

[Aikouka]

1k gpu

That last remark is referring to all high-end GPUs (7970+ and 680+) not just GTX Titan.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I just hope Epic makes an Unreal Tournament IV

 

[Carfax83]

Galego, you're like a broken recorder repeatedly bringing up the draw call issue, despite the fact that myself and others have pointed out that the draw call limitations for PC was directly related to DX9.

DX11 pointedly addressed the draw calls issue, to the point where object or LOD pop in is virtually nonexistent now in native DX11 titles like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 due to command lists and multithreaded rendering.

If you were a PC gamer that has actually played PC games, you would know this already.

Yet on consoles, which are supposed to support much faster draw calls than PCs, object and detail pop in is positively rife!

 

[2is]

Galego, you're like a broken recorder repeatedly bringing up the draw call issue, despite the fact that myself and others have pointed out that the draw call limitations for PC was directly related to DX9.

DX11 pointedly addressed the draw calls issue, to the point where object or LOD pop in is virtually nonexistent now in native DX11 titles like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 due to command lists and multithreaded rendering.

If you were a PC gamer that has actually played PC games, you would know this already.

Yet on consoles, which are supposed to support much faster draw calls than PCs, object and detail pop in is positively rife!

In addition to that, he's been shifting goal posts for the last few pages. Initially it was consoles will beat PC's with twice as much power, and 2.5 times as much power, and 10x as much power. Now he's saying that consoles are more capable than PC's with similar hardware configurations, which no one is really debating.

 

[Spjut]

Galego, you're like a broken recorder repeatedly bringing up the draw call issue, despite the fact that myself and others have pointed out that the draw call limitations for PC was directly related to DX9.

DX11 pointedly addressed the draw calls issue, to the point where object or LOD pop in is virtually nonexistent now in native DX11 titles like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 due to command lists and multithreaded rendering.

If you were a PC gamer that has actually played PC games, you would know this already.

Yet on consoles, which are supposed to support much faster draw calls than PCs, object and detail pop in is positively rife!

In the Bittech article though, note that the DX11 improvements are pointed out, but that it's still a problem

Battlefield 3 is confirmed to not even use multithreaded rendering, it apparently didn't help performance for their case. It's not said if Crysis 3 uses multithreaded rendering either.
Far Cry 3 did have it at first, but it was patched away because it caused instability. The only game known to use multithreaded rendering and have increased performance is Civilization V.

Regarding pop-ins, yeah, let's totally forget that the current consoles make do with a total of 512MB RAM. Early 360 games also had to stream of the disc.

Time will tell how good the PS4 stacks up, but don't neglect the overhead cost on the current PCs.

 

[Carfax83]

In the Bittech article though, note that the DX11 improvements are pointed out, but that it's still a problem

Can you link me to that article please?

Battlefield 3 is confirmed to not even use multithreaded rendering, it apparently didn't help performance for their case. It's not said if Crysis 3 uses multithreaded rendering either.

Are you sure about this? The pre-release information about Frostbite 2 included references to parallel dispatching:

DX11 rendering in Battlefield 3 (look at slide 33)

Apparently DICE really wanted that feature badly, but neither Nvidia nor AMD had it enabled in their drives. Of course, things have changed now, and Nvidia has it enabled. Not sure about AMD though.

Regarding pop-ins, yeah, let's totally forget that the current consoles make do with a total of 512MB RAM. Early 360 games also had to stream of the disc.

I know, but the point is, both Crysis 3 and BF3 PC have no discernible pop in when run at appropriate settings despite having a much higher visual fidelity than the console versions.

 

[Spjut]

Can you link me to that article please?



Are you sure about this? The pre-release information about Frostbite 2 included references to parallel dispatching:

DX11 rendering in Battlefield 3 (look at slide 33)

Apparently DICE really wanted that feature badly, but neither Nvidia nor AMD had it enabled in their drives. Of course, things have changed now, and Nvidia has it enabled. Not sure about AMD though.



I know, but the point is, both Crysis 3 and BF3 PC have no discernible pop in when run at appropriate settings despite having a much higher visual fidelity than the console versions.

This is the article, same as galego has referred to multiple times
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/2

Here, repi confirmed it on beyond3d.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1603707&postcount=1822

repi has also said on his twitter a few times that multithreaded rendering doesn't work for them.

 

[Carfax83]

This is the article, same as galego has referred to multiple times
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/2

Here, repi confirmed it on beyond3d.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1603707&postcount=1822

repi has also said on his twitter a few times that multithreaded rendering doesn't work for them.

OK thanks.. Strange that it doesn't work for BF3, but does wonders for Civilization V..

Perhaps it comes down to how well it's optimized?

 

[futurefields]

If you ask me, it speaks volume that a 2006 PS3 can play a top notch 2011 game like that. Despite having huge hardware limitations like 256MB DDR3 and only 256MB VRAM on the GPU. Crysis 2 itself demands atleast 2GB DDR3 and 512MB VRAM on a PC. Thats the minimum requirements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtHAPJulgh0

It's not that the PS3 is able to keep up with a 2011 gaming PC, in terms of power. What happened is the PS3 held back the 2011 gaming PC by requiring developers to build engines that use streaming technologies to make up for the lack of memory. PS3 and Xbox 360 games have to use funky engines that pop stuff in to a ridiculous level. Almost every game has draw in. Even MP COD maps have draw-in, and they are like, tiny.

In order to fully utilize the power of the 2011 gaming PC that you speak of developers would have to completely rewrite the engines for the PC platform. They dont have the time for that when PC gaming generates so little revenue for them, compared to consoles. So they tack on higher resolution shader effects, more anti-aliasing options, they basically put lipstick on a pig, and that's the state of most multiplatform games on PC. Pigs with fancy lipstick on.

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

Several posters negate the existence of any efficiency gain and continue claiming that "the PS4 is at least 3x less powerful than a titan", in despite several posters, including a developer, wrote in this thread:

This was several dozens of pages ago, and still I can find posters who continue to say today that a Titan is 3x faster.



Ok. We can discuss about the ratio PS4/PC. According to Huddy, Carmack, and others devs. the API/driver overhead is at least 2x

1.84 TFLOP + overhead = 3.68 TFLOP ~ 3.09 TFLOP (GTX-680).

Precisely Epic has selected a GTX-680 for all their PS4-PC comparison demos.

But this 2x factor is ignoring other advantages of the PS4 over the traditional PC architecture.

My bet is:

1.84 TFLOP + overhead + HSA + hUMA + GDDR5 = 9.2 TFLOP > 4.5 TFLOP (GTX Titan).

This is a 5x factor, which is in agreement with data leaked by MikeR about the AH used in the elemental demo.

Of course, 5x is only an crude estimation, it could be more or could be less, depending of lots of factors (including programmers laziness).

You just pulled that figure out of your backside. Come on, be realistic. You can already see that the UE4 demo on the PS4 is pushing less than the PC version. Overhead or not, we're not going to get the situation where the PS4 can produce visuals that top current PCs cannot.

 

[galego]

The problem with this is that it does not cohere with existing knowledge. Current consoles do not have anything like a 5x advantage over pcs (again made the point about gflops on mobile gpus and ports such as skyrim or dishonoured). PS3, Xbox360 advantage isn't anything close to 5x (looking strictly at flops). In fact a gpu with around 2-2.5x the brute power of the xbox 360 absolutely demolishes it in any straight port.

Current consoles do not have anything as HSA + hUMA + GDDR5... How many consoles do you know with a volatile bit? How many have an extra GPU bus that bypass CPU synchronization bottleneck?

Moreover the 5x for the PS4 seems to agree with the details leaked about the AH used in the Epic demo. The famous 27-29% gives something as 6-7x.

 

[galego]

I don't think you understand what overhead means if you think that twice as much overhead means twice as much raw performance.

I don't think you understand Carmack quote:

Consoles run 2x or so better than equal PC hardware, but it isn’t just API in the way, focus a single spec also matters.

 

[galego]

Galego, you're like a broken recorder repeatedly bringing up the draw call issue, despite the fact that myself and others have pointed out that the draw call limitations for PC was directly related to DX9.

DX11 pointedly addressed the draw calls issue, to the point where object or LOD pop in is virtually nonexistent now in native DX11 titles like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 due to command lists and multithreaded rendering.

If you were a PC gamer that has actually played PC games, you would know this already.

Yet on consoles, which are supposed to support much faster draw calls than PCs, object and detail pop in is positively rife!

You are who repeat the same misguided point without reading what was said in the thread.

DX9 had a big overhead and this was reduced in DX11 to something as 2x. Read some of the bit-tech links given before...

 

[galego]

In addition to that, he's been shifting goal posts for the last few pages. Initially it was consoles will beat PC's with twice as much power, and 2.5 times as much power, and 10x as much power. Now he's saying that consoles are more capable than PC's with similar hardware configurations, which no one is really debating.

You are very confused. I have tried to explain this to you many times, but I see that my efforts were useless.

It will be better if you stop from making this kind of third-party comments because they add really nothing.