If I were to design a console

[cmdrdredd]

This is all fun and all but if you bothered to look up on the development of the PS4 Mark Cerny specifically says that the number 1 feature developers wanted in the PS4 was unified memory which pretty much throws your design out the window.

Yes because as I recall they said it is a lot easier to have one big pool to use rather than swap in and out.

 

[badb0y]

I don't listen to PR. Developers are not happy with these consoles especially the CPUs.

Google "Sucker Punch PS4 cpu" or "Battlefield 4 PS4 cpu"

Are you a moron? That wasn't from PR, that was from a developer conference.

EDIT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHXrBnipHyA#t=2098
I suggest you watch this before designing a console lol.

 

[futurefields]

Its from the designer of Sony PS4 who is a paid employee of Sony do you think he is ever going to say anything bad or critical about PS4? Please dont ask me if I am a moron.

 

[Fulle]

I suppose it would be easiest from a development standpoint if a console just had 1 big ol' beefy CPU core, that ran at a high frequency, and allowed them to just dump everything in 1 thread.

But, working that sort of CPU core into an APU design wouldn't be practical, it's not going to be power efficient at all, and then you're going to have to deal with a lot more heat.

Developers always complain that parallel programming is more difficult, but that doesn't necessarily mean a multi-core CPU is a bad design choice.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Without unified memory. There is no need to use an AMD CPU either to penalize the consoles performance. And you would still just use 1 CPU for everything rather than 2.

And suddenly you find yourself sitting with a steam machine.

 

[Rakehellion]

futurefields got his Computer Science degree at Google University.

 

[Rakehellion]

Oh, yeah, the Wireless chip was another area that was cheaped out on a tad too much. I would have liked to see a bit higher end WiFi on a machine that's supposed to last as long as Sony intends. Dual Band, 11 AC, and 5GHz support, should have been included in the chip they sourced. And it would have likely only cost a few dollars extra. A slightly higher end Bluetooth adapter, would have also been smart for better headset support.

With my adjustments, I figure the PS4 would have cost an extra 20 dollars to produce... and would eliminate much of their common complaints about the system.

$20 is 5% of the retail price of the system, which ain't no chump change. All that fancy stuff will make it into the PS4 slim three years from now.

I don't listen to PR. Developers are not happy with these consoles especially the CPUs.

Google "Sucker Punch PS4 cpu" or "Battlefield 4 PS4 cpu"

Funny you bring up CPUs when replying to a comment about memory. You understand those are two different parts, right?

 

[lamedude]

FWIW if this is correct Xbone's RAM cost $60 and PS4's cost $88. Going to 4GB of each saves $14. Not bad, but not worth a 5 page debate. Since the high density GDDR5 Sony is using is newish that cost should go down a bit with time.

 

[futurefields]

They have the XB1 APU listed as more expensive than PS4. That can't be right as the cpu in both is the same and the gpu portion of PS4 has more compute units and double the rop's.

 

[ChronoReverse]

It's almost certainly true actually as the ESRAM in the X1's APU is very expensive.

 

[futurefields]

Oh right, forgot about the ESRAM they put too little of.

 

[toughtrasher]

Oh right, forgot about the ESRAM they put too little of.

Damn lol

 

[lamedude]

363mm2 for Xbone; 348mm2 for PS4.

 

[badb0y]

Its from the designer of Sony PS4 who is a paid employee of Sony do you think he is ever going to say anything bad or critical about PS4? Please dont ask me if I am a moron.

It's from the designer of the PS4 who also happens to be a game producer, director, engine architect, with about 32 years of experience in the industry. He specifically states that he met with teams internally and second/third parties who requested unified memory to be priority. You design would have been thrown out of the Window before you even hit the drawing board.

 

[Rakehellion]

FWIW if this is correct Xbone's RAM cost $60 and PS4's cost $88. Going to 4GB of each saves $14. Not bad, but not worth a 5 page debate.

 

[futurefields]

Why exactly is it a troll thread? Because I posted how I would design a console? How on Earth is that trolling?

You seem to have a serious issue. Maybe stay out of this thread.

 

[futurefields]

It's from the designer of the PS4 who also happens to be a game producer, director, engine architect, with about 32 years of experience in the industry. He specifically states that he met with teams internally and second/third parties who requested unified memory to be priority. You design would have been thrown out of the Window before you even hit the drawing board.

That's fine, I mean the memory isn't really the main issue on PS4, it's really the XB1 that is suffering from a low performance memory design. PS4 is a good console but I have my doubts about the CPU's ability to handle next-gen game simulation.

 

[Shaydza]

I would have a pure core i5 with no built on chip graphics. This gives me multiple energy efficient cores to work with. Whatever the Maxwell equivalent of the gtx 760 ends up being and 8 gb of unified memory. All soldered onto 1 board.

This would comfortably pump out 1080p for at least the next couple of years and while energy efficient off the mark would get even more so with die shrinks.

I have a feeling this would do you perfectly for the next 5 to 7 years of 1080p. And would probably be around the cost of the PS4 at the start.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Why exactly is it a troll thread? Because I posted how I would design a console? How on Earth is that trolling?

You seem to have a serious issue. Maybe stay out of this thread.

Because you think you know better than Mark Cerny?

And you don't have any statements from developers supporting your claims that unified memory is a worse solution than two pools of memory? You only have conjecture.

And you say that the CPUs are too weak, but you can't show us any examples of what it does poorly. And you also don't understand the business reasons for picking that CPU design.

In short, you ignore the thousands of man hours of engineering that went into these consoles because you think you know better.

 

[futurefields]

I don't think I "know better" than Mark Cerny. Where do I say that?

I understand that these consoles are great from a cost saving, power saving, and marketing perspective. They just aren't great in terms of pushing the bar forward, in the way the original Xbox or Xbox 360 did. They are comparitevely less of a "leap forward" largely due to the CPU's and also the memory design on XB1.

 

[Timorous]

That's fine, I mean the memory isn't really the main issue on PS4, it's really the XB1 that is suffering from a low performance memory design. PS4 is a good console but I have my doubts about the CPU's ability to handle next-gen game simulation.

With the way the PS4 is designed the CPU will not really be handling next-gen game simulation as that will be done by the GPU. They have designed it such that if you have idle SPs while rendering those SPs can be used for compute tasks. They also beefed up the ACE units so they match Hawaii.

At the moment a lot of games are cross gen so the engines that are being used do not really take advantage of it but once the game makers switch to next gen only titles you will see games take better advantage of the compute functionality as it will be required to work around the weak CPUs.

The reason the 'leap forward' is much lower this time around is because PC graphics cards have massively increased in terms of power requirements. Back when the 360 launched the TDP of a top GPU like the 7800GTX or the X1800 XT was around 100-130 Watts. Fast forward to the PS4 launch and a 150 Watt TDP is mid range and gets you an R7-265.

There was no way at all that a closed box games console was going to get anywhere near a top end PC in terms of performance because the cost and the power requirements are just too high.

 

[shortylickens]

Actually, my Roku XS is pretty powerful for being so small. But I never felt like looking for games.

 

[futurefields]

With the way the PS4 is designed the CPU will not really be handling next-gen game simulation as that will be done by the GPU. They have designed it such that if you have idle SPs while rendering those SPs can be used for compute tasks. They also beefed up the ACE units so they match Hawaii.

At the moment a lot of games are cross gen so the engines that are being used do not really take advantage of it but once the game makers switch to next gen only titles you will see games take better advantage of the compute functionality as it will be required to work around the weak CPUs.

The reason the 'leap forward' is much lower this time around is because PC graphics cards have massively increased in terms of power requirements. Back when the 360 launched the TDP of a top GPU like the 7800GTX or the X1800 XT was around 100-130 Watts. Fast forward to the PS4 launch and a 150 Watt TDP is mid range and gets you an R7-265.

There was no way at all that a closed box games console was going to get anywhere near a top end PC in terms of performance because the cost and the power requirements are just too high.

So the GPUs are doing everything, but the GPUs arent strong enough to do everything and push the bar forward at the same time. They are in the case of XB1 leaning on the equivalent of 7770 with DDR3 memory to drive all those next gen graphics and physics

 

[futurefields]

Timorous basically you are saying we are past the point where consoles can hope to keep up with PC.

 

[Timorous]

So the GPUs are doing everything, but the GPUs arent strong enough to do everything and push the bar forward at the same time. They are in the case of XB1 leaning on the equivalent of 7770 with DDR3 memory to drive all those next gen graphics and physics

Well the XB1 is underpowered and overpriced, even the reduced price kinect-less version. The GPU will not be doing everything but I expect it will do more.