PlayStation 4 Pro SoC Discussion

[therealnickdanger]

The amazement was pretty short lived though.

As soon as you started playing the games? Haha, oh man, I remember being so underwhelmed by my 32X... but then it was only about a year later that I was playing Saturn. Panzer Dragoon II made the Saturn worth every penny. I can still hear the menu music to the sampler disc.
https://youtu.be/NGEw0h6y_m8

 

[jpiniero]

Yeah, that's the thing - pretty much every add on to a console has been a bust. This includes Kinect and probably PSVR.

 

[sxr7171]

4K is so silly.

The entire industry messed up.

HDTV should have been 720p then 1440p. 1080 should have never existed. 4K exists because it's easy for manufacturers of 1080 panels to make them, not because the 4K resolution is something particularly special.

1440 is plenty for HDTV, given normal viewing distances. For console gaming it would also be fine.

People should have focused on important factors, like contrast ratio, input lag (a huge problem with HDTVs), color gamut, and the like — instead of obsessing about pixel density. 1440 offers plenty of density considering the requirements for pushing very high-quality graphics at that size.

Until the people and environments start looking like real life then 1440 is plenty. We don't need low-grade graphics at 4K. Seeing a pixel is not as much of an issue as the quality of the gameplay and graphical realism/complexity.

4K is OK for monitors because people sit closer but it's overkill for console gaming. But, since we were fed 1080, a stupid standard, we're locked into the 4K overkill. As a result, no one is very happy with the state of console gaming. They're currently too weak for 1080 and getting to 4K is going to cost too much.

I agree with everything you say but 1080p isn't that bad. It shows its weakness only when you get up to 93" and above. It was even used in earlier digital cinema and I think some digital movie theaters are still 1080p.

I think this 4:0:0 chroma subsampling is more of a let down than the resolution itself. However I can't deny that 1440p would have been a lot better. It would have been perfect for pretty much all reasonably possible screen sizes in a home theater or even commercial theater. It would have been future proof for a very long time.

The reason 4k sources look good downsampled is mostly because the extra pixels restore all chroma information back to 1080p signal 4 pixels -> 1 pixel.

 

[BigDaveX]

Yeah, that's the thing - pretty much every add on to a console has been a bust. This includes Kinect and probably PSVR.

The Xbox 360 incarnation of Kinect was only a bust insomuch as the games for it weren't hugely impressive. In sales terms it was such a big hit that it almost certainly made up for the loss that MS made on the RRoD fiasco. In fact, Kinect really didn't become a bomb until the Xbox One version... which technically wasn't an add-on, but a standard part of the system.

 

[Blitzvogel]

In my opinion, what is happening is that the PS4/Xbone series came out just too underpowered for the generation...especially the Xbone. The GPU's are probably just fine but the CPU's were just terrible.

I actually am quite fine with the PS4. Yes, I'd consider the Xbone's graphics underpowered, but this needed to be a generation about refining what made the last one so good while being reasonable about ease of development and being mindful of design choices and expenses. What amounts to the equivalence of a 3+ GHz Sandy Bridge i3 (the 8 Jaguar Cores) really isn't that bad. Whether the "PS4k" is just Sony's push for 4k media content or a legitimate case for a half-generational leap and/or for better VR performance, I can see it being successful if marketed correctly. Though, I'm also in favor of shorter console cycles if the console companies are going to act like medium-end PC gamers, who can often afford to upgrade more regularly because they never go with the best or even second-best solution available.

 

[itsmydamnation]

4K is a myth for modern day eye candy. Tone it down a bit, 4K is pretty reasonable.



In my opinion, what is happening is that the PS4/Xbone series came out just too underpowered for the generation...especially the Xbone. The GPU's are probably just fine but the CPU's were just terrible.

CPU's are terrible based on what? The echo chamber of anandtech cpu and oc section? Yes its pretty narrow, but it has good floating point capabilities a short pipeline and low latency of instruction execution. If anything the CPU jump from the old consoles to the new is far bigger then the GPU, i dont know what "IPC" is like these days for jaguar ( with devs coding specific for it) but general purpose code on jaguar vs handcrafted Xenons code at launch the "IPC" was around 5 times higher then Xenon.

if CPU performance was that big of an issue they would have just added more cores. The 4cpu/L2 block is tiny compared to the size of the entire SOC of both PS4 and X1.

looking at the throughput number of Xenons and cell isn't close to reality for general purpose code, especially because its in order.

I imagine this refresh is solely for VR/AR attachments.

Part of the reason console games performed so much more reliably then PC games was because developers could expect 100% of the games would run on the exact same hardware. If Console developers start messing with that, it is going to ruin the appeal.

Yes but both Sony and MS can have forwards compatibility if they choose to go down a 4.5 path, that's something very different to the past. the Average console developers already target minimum 3 platforms, having an extra two that are forwards/backwards compatible really isn't this massive deal.


Also consider console manufactures , developers and publishers dont want to see what happened at the backend of last gen happening again.

 

[JDG1980]

For real 4K you would need something closer to Fury X. Way too expensive.

More realistic would be to add the 4K decoding block, 50% more GCN 1.1 shaders, and up the clocks on the CPU and GPU a bit? It'd be Doable on 14FF and would make VR work a bit better.

I would be surprised if they stick with GCN 1.1 instead of going up to Polaris. This would have the side effect of encouraging developers to write low-level code that works well on all GCN architectures (except perhaps 1.0), which AMD will want for DX12. They won't want Hawaii to beat Polaris 10 because lazy console devs optimized for one specific sub-architecture. As for existing code, the new GPU will be much more powerful than the existing one, so a moderate hit in relative (per-shader) performance would still result in a solid increase in absolute performance.

Presumably the CPU cores will still be cat cores - which means AMD will likely be porting these to 14LPP. Seems a shame to just drop the architecture after all that work...

The PS4 APU contains the equivalent of a Pitcairn GPU (1280 shaders), though only 1152 are active, presumably to maximize yields. Going from GloFo 28SHP to Samsung/GloFo 14LPP should allow doubling that figure, which would mean 2304 active shaders out of 2560 on-die. Coincidentally, that figure (2304 shaders) matches the rumors floating around for Polaris 10. In other words, we'd see a jump from Pitcairn-level to Hawaii-level performance, perhaps a bit more depending on how architectural gains and/or clock speeds pan out.

With Hawaii-class graphics, 4K @ 30Hz becomes feasible. I expect many games to offer the user a choice between resolution and framerate: 1080p @ 60Hz or 4K @ 30Hz.

 

[Shivansps]

I whould be suprised if they even upgrade the APU at all... at best its gona get a UVD 6, AT BEST, they may even use a $3 ARM chip for that.

Im not even conviced they gona go with HDMI 2.0, they may add DP and thats it and later on sell a separated DP to HDMI 2.0 adapter.

 

[itsmydamnation]

the other thing to consider if they are only telling some devs now maybe they are still 12-18months away, thats would make ~ 5 years since launch. But i think its either going to be extremely limited changes or a complete upgrade, there is no point going a middle ground.

 

[JDG1980]

I whould be suprised if they even upgrade the APU at all... at best its gona get a UVD 6, AT BEST, they may even use a $3 ARM chip for that.

Im not even conviced they gona go with HDMI 2.0, they may add DP and thats it and later on sell a separated DP to HDMI 2.0 adapter.

What basis do you have for this prediction? Why would Sony produce a unit that isn't a meaningful upgrade over what they have now, and which wouldn't drive new sales?

 

[Shivansps]

What basis do you have for this prediction? Why would Sony produce a unit that isn't a meaningful upgrade over what they have now, and which wouldn't drive new sales?

Easy, Sony does not care about games, 8 years of PS3 that could barely play anything after some severe crippling, shows this.

What they want is not to loose ground in multimedia over to its rivals, multimedia was always one of PS strong points, now behing out of date due to fast adoption of 4K and BD 4K...

That what they will want to do is add BD 4K support, for that they need 2 things, new BD drive and 4K HEVC hardware support, thats a MUST have, one of these is simple, just a new drive, the second one needs either order AMD to upgrade its APU to UVD 6 or add a hardware decoder on the PS4, they may do this is a cheap low end ARM chip, and they already have one onboard for something else, so they may update it, so it depends of what cost less.

HDMI 2.0 is optional, they may even go with just 4K@30fps, remember how they sell the "human eye cant see more than 30fps" crap to its customers anyway.
they may pick to add DP, maybe an onboard DP to HDMI 2.0 or just stick with 1.4.

Games at 4k? they just gona upscale it!!!! they just DO NOT CARE.

Thats all they need, they can even sell a pop in a box, people just gona go and buy it.

 

[itsmydamnation]

yes because X1 has done so well with that logic.......

 

[Shivansps]

yes because X1 has done so well with that logic.......

Thats a complete different issue.

That does not look like a good update to you? it will add BD 4K support as well as 4K game support whiout doing any APU upgrade, the rest are details that most of their customers cant even hope to understand and even defend it to the death.

 

[StinkyPinky]

The hardware has to be similar....surely. Otherwise they're fragmenting their own market. It will just have some added features but the raw performance won't be any different (or minimal).

The first option is so vastly different it's a new console and they may as well call is PS 5 and be done with it

 

[jpiniero]

I would be surprised if they stick with GCN 1.1 instead of going up to Polaris. This would have the side effect of encouraging developers to write low-level code that works well on all GCN architectures (except perhaps 1.0), which AMD will want for DX12.

Sony's not going to care about that. Polaris is too big of a difference. I have to figure the real purpose is to maintain current graphic levels while doing VR; and increasing clocks and maybe adding a few more shaders wouuld do that.
I imagine it'd be the kind of thing where games would have to explicitly request the additional resources but would have to be developed in a fashion where it would only improve frame rates and/or resolution and not much else.

Of course it would need to support 4K and the UHD codecs.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Thats a complete different issue.

That does not look like a good update to you? it will add BD 4K support as well as 4K game support whiout doing any APU upgrade, the rest are details that most of their customers cant even hope to understand and even defend it to the death.

if it happens like that i wouldn't call that a 4.5, its just an update and as i said before i think either that will happen or it will be a complete overhaul. if its released this year it will be what you say, if next year i think its more likely to be a complete overhaul.

 

[Sweepr]

Something in the lines of Polaris 11 would probably be small, power efficient and faster than PS4/X1 - but as far as I know Nintendo never adopted a cutting edge manufacturing process / architecture in their home consoles. Let's see how it plays out.

Guys, I don’t know anything about NX’s inputs except that there will be more than one option. I was clued in about it being powerful.
All I know is that “more powerful than PS4/Xbone” is *technically* accurate, that it’s easy to develop for and optimized for gaming.
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The controller reports are to the best of my knowledge bogus. The horsepower rumors are true. I complained for years about the Wii U’s horsepower being the reason it failed, and a couple people clued me in that NX was powerful.

 

[Shivansps]

if it happens like that i wouldn't call that a 4.5, its just an update and as i said before i think either that will happen or it will be a complete overhaul. if its released this year it will be what you say, if next year i think its more likely to be a complete overhaul.

PS4.5 IS an updated PS4, im not saying they do not going to touch the APU, they might, but i whould not expect anything more than updated UVD block and native HDMI 2.0, thats the more cost effective things i could think off.

They are forced to stay with the same CPU cores and GCN 1.1, and adding just a few more CU will not make a game run much better with that on 4K, so why bother? And thats if Sony even cares about it.

Other changes may include things that reduce overrall cost, but does not add any real value.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I haven't even thought to consider the NX and where it sits in relation to the PS4K if it becomes a reality. I will assume that Nintendo went to AMD and it will mean another GCN platform. It's possible AMD might've been the ones to encourage Sony to consider a mid-gen refresh to better compete against the NX on top of having a better platform for VR.

 

[DeathReborn]

How big would the PS4 APU be @ 14nm? I wonder if adding more CU's (and other bits) would be needed to keep the 256bit GDDR5 bus @ 14nm.

 

[JDG1980]

Easy, Sony does not care about games...

Sorry, my mistake; I thought we were having a serious discussion, but I guess you're just trolling.

 

[JDG1980]

Sony's not going to care about that. Polaris is too big of a difference. I have to figure the real purpose is to maintain current graphic levels while doing VR; and increasing clocks and maybe adding a few more shaders wouuld do that.
I imagine it'd be the kind of thing where games would have to explicitly request the additional resources but would have to be developed in a fashion where it would only improve frame rates and/or resolution and not much else.

Of course it would need to support 4K and the UHD codecs.

Sony may not care, but AMD cares a great deal. Porting GCN 1.1 to 14LPP would be a non-negligible fixed expense that AMD probably hasn't done already, and would have no reason to do for any other client. Polaris, unless something strange is going on, should be backwards-compatible with GCN 1.1 even on most low-level code; there is no good reason not to use it. And as I have noted, from a strategic perspective, AMD doesn't want console developers to get too attached to one specific, now-outdated iteration of the architecture.

 

[JDG1980]

How big would the PS4 APU be @ 14nm? I wonder if adding more CU's (and other bits) would be needed to keep the 256bit GDDR5 bus @ 14nm.

The PS4 APU is 328mm^2. That may have changed slightly when they moved production from TSMC to GloFo later in the production run.

14LPP is supposed to have about 2.2x the density of TSMC 28nm. So a straight die-shrink would be about 149mm^2. But the days of straight optical shrinks are over; we're really talking about engineering a new part on a smaller process, even if all the stats remained the same. Some components (memory controllers, I think, are among them) can't be shrunk to the same extent as logic blocks.

My guess (and this is pure speculation) is that the PS4K APU will still have a 256-bit bus, but it will be using GDDR5X instead of plain GDDR5. That would allow nearly double the bandwidth at the same bus width, more than enough to feed the CPU and a Hawaii-class GPU at the same time. They may also want to go up from 8GB to 16GB.

 

[jpiniero]

Sony may not care, but AMD cares a great deal.

AMD has no say in this. They really don't. This is purely a one-sided transaction.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1202462

Well...

The OP here is "confirmed" by Neogaf's moderators, meaning he works somewhere in the gaming industry, still could be absolutely fake.

Related info from a meeting we had yesterday was waiting for it to be approved before posting.

Price is currently $399.99 they were discussing a better CPU which would raise the price to $499.99 we were guaranteed the price will be no higher than $499.99 (He mentioned the CPU upgrade quite a bit almost as if they haven't really decided on a final spec could be a pricing issue.) also there is currently no plan for any type of trade in program for current PS4 users but that could change.

They stated that the GPU is twice as powerful as standard PS4 and much faster. They did not say exactly how fast but that is was running at a higher clock speed while being much smaller than the original.

It will have a 4k blu ray player and will upscale games that are not natively 4k.

Also there was talk of some sort of VR lounge for the media player app which is supposed to be getting a substantial upgrade.

It was stated plainly and with no room for interpretation that there are developers that already have development kits for the PS4K and that they are making games that will directly target and take advantage of the higher specs of the PS4K. It was also stated that these games will in fact work for the PS4 but with considerable sacrifices made to performance.

It was also made very clear that current games would not be getting any type of performance upgrades by being played on the system and any benefits to older games would come via patch per game and per developer. When asked if this was going to happen the response was "Its a possibility but doubtful with the exception of a handful of games."
We were also given a list of games that will be available at launch that will directly take advantage of the PS4K where the differences are and I will quote him "Significant."

For the PSVR

Eve Valkyrie
Robinson
GT Sport

For the PS4K

Deep Down (Thought this was dead)
GOW4 (This was the exact abbreviation on the sheet I can only assume its god of war 4)

There were more games on the list but these are the ones that stood out to me.



That's all I can remember off the top of my head I'll see if I can get any more information.