PlayStation 4 Pro SoC Discussion

[seitur]

In a time where people dont have much money. Telling people to buy a new console to replace one that isn't old is not what I would do. Specially not when you earn money on games and not hardware.

I would presume it is targetted at new clients + old clients that have funds.

Majority of old PS4 clients are expected to stay at PS4 1.0


I wonder if they will adopt Vulkan heavily if they will go for newer GCN in new PS4. Vulkan while generally low level is definately higher level than current PS4 API.

 

[Headfoot]

Not integrating the VR bit is only going to hurt VR acceptance (if true). Talk about nickles and dimes, they have to buy a new PS4 that apparently cant even do this other cool new thing, which I have to go buy separately in addition to some box that comes with it that I also have to buy. Dumb.

Now I also have to buy a 4k BluRay Player unless I only want to stream 4k via the new PS4k.

I hope they aren't that dumb, and they're just saving those pieces to be revealed at E3

 

[ShintaiDK]

I would presume it is targetted at new clients + old clients that have funds.

Majority of old PS4 clients are expected to stay at PS4 1.0


I wonder if they will adopt Vulkan heavily if they will go for newer GCN in new PS4. Vulkan while generally low level is definately higher level than current PS4 API.

PS4 already got 2 APIs. GNM and GNMX. Vulkan offers nothing there.

 

[JimmyH]

As a current ps4 owner, day one purchase! ps4k just gonna make my xim4 even better. ps4k + xim4 + BB gamer's club is just a game changer. Been PC since QuakeGL but its just so nice to have huge lobbies and still use mouse and keyboard. Throw in actual discs I can resale for sometimes more than bought them for and my PC gaming is near non-existent.

My entire group of fps PC players have made switch to ps4 and xim4. Nobody has gone back to PC and the only thing we wished for was the need to scratch the upgrade itch. Talking lifetime PC players with very solid rigs (eg 980ti FuryX) that just collect dust. Many out of upgrade habit went nuts on headphones, amps (eg mixamp pro to soundblaster x7) and even switched out 144hz gaming monitors for IPS 60hz. PS4k will be day one for everyone I currently play with. Just lil better fps on Destiny will immensely help out xim4.

 

[William Gaatjes]

As a current ps4 owner, day one purchase! ps4k just gonna make my xim4 even better. ps4k + xim4 + BB gamer's club is just a game changer. Been PC since QuakeGL but its just so nice to have huge lobbies and still use mouse and keyboard. Throw in actual discs I can resale for sometimes more than bought them for and my PC gaming is near non-existent.

My entire group of fps PC players have made switch to ps4 and xim4. Nobody has gone back to PC and the only thing we wished for was the need to scratch the upgrade itch. Talking lifetime PC players with very solid rigs (eg 980ti FuryX) that just collect dust. Many out of upgrade habit went nuts on headphones, amps (eg mixamp pro to soundblaster x7) and even switched out 144hz gaming monitors for IPS 60hz. PS4k will be day one for everyone I currently play with. Just lil better fps on Destiny will immensely help out xim4.

Interesting that xim4.

www.xim4.com


edit:
But i see there is one drawback, i must check for compatibility to see if there is support for a given game before i can buy that game.

 

[JimmyH]

Interesting that xim4.

www.xim4.com

I can tell you from personal experience. I play FPS w/ about 20 peeps since about 1996 (QuakeGL). Only 1 of the twenty stuck w/ PC after trying it and he's a more hardcore CS:GO player. Its just that good. Today is Blops3 DLC 2. If u own that on PC u get to do jack shit w/ it unless u like core TDM. Tonite we will be 3 groups strong on ps4 / xim4 playing Hardcore Kill Confirmed / Domination whatever we want for as long as we want. On games like CoD and Battlefront (frostbite) its damn near perfect. I wish i could change my ballistics curves on my pc mouse.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

I don't know why people think this, going from hand coded optimised code for 360/PS3 code to jaguar saw around 5-6 times IPC jump to unoptimized code for jaguar. Now while jaguar isn't clocked that high it has some really interesting capabilities like 2 cycle AVX add/mul etc, on bulldozer/haswell it's 5 cycles. So there are some real opportunity to optimise on jaguar compared to what you see in generic x86 benchmarks for critical paths.

a PS4 = 16x128 AVX units @ 1.6ghz and if rumor is true now 2.1, it has solid IPC, honestly what is going to do better for gaming workloads. Dev's have spent the last 10 years working with parallel code, more IPC and less AVERAGE throughput is not a win.

Interesting features are great, but there is no substitute for true IPC. The PS4 can't handle games that are developed for it like Just Cause 3 (almost unplayable), Assassin's Creed Unity (consistently under 30 FPS), Dark Souls 3 (frame pacing issues, trouble areas) or Fallout 4 (stutters, trouble areas, poor visuals), none of that is due to GPU bottlenecks either. None of those games even look that good, and the Xbox one generally wins in those games thanks to its 10% CPU clock speed advantage, despite its 40% GPU performance deficit.

Much less low-threaded Unity ports like Broforce or Firewatch, the former is unplayable and it's a 2D pixel game.

I'm nearly convinced that IPC is way more important than parallelism. Games tend to only use 6 cores anyway, give us 4 cores with a 30% IPC bump and you'd see better performance across the board.

 

[Erenhardt]

I can tell you from personal experience. I play FPS w/ about 20 peeps since about 1996 (QuakeGL). Only 1 of the twenty stuck w/ PC after trying it and he's a more hardcore CS:GO player. Its just that good. Today is Blops3 DLC 2. If u own that on PC u get to do jack shit w/ it unless u like core TDM. Tonite we will be 3 groups strong on ps4 / xim4 playing Hardcore Kill Confirmed / Domination whatever we want for as long as we want. On games like CoD and Battlefront (frostbite) its damn near perfect. I wish i could change my ballistics curves on my pc mouse.

And there are less cheaters on console. Actually, Mouse+keyboard on a console seems like cheating 😛

 

[tential]

In a time where people dont have much money. Telling people to buy a new console to replace one that isn't old is not what I would do. Specially not when you earn money on games and not hardware.

Yes because the ps4 is completely obsolete and games aren't being made on both ps4 and neo. It's the same game just different graphics.

I guess 980ti owners play a different game than you by your definition.

Just lol

 

[JimmyH]

And there are less cheaters on console. Actually, Mouse+keyboard on a console seems like cheating 😛

Much less cheating going on consoles. I've not seen an obvious cheat on console compared to the numerous wallhacks, aimbots, god mode seen on PC. M & kb certainly have an advantage at range on consoles. Up close not so much as u can max out turn and be at disadvantage vs controller aim assist. There are honest to god good controller players. Bumper-Jumper Scuff tryhards that can give us a challenge. We actually play w/ some controller players and their fine w/ us except for the occasional "wtf! is all that clacking" lol Nothing that some nice gaskets on the ole mechanical keyboard can't fix.

TLDR: Never seen cheater on consoles except those pesky mouse and KB players 🙂

 

[superstition]

I'm nearly convinced that IPC is way more important than parallelism.

That's always true. Parallelism is just used instead because of the growing difficulty in increasing IPC in a cost-effective manner.

If cost were not king then consoles would have GaAs-type chips in them not low-end silicon, especially not AMD's low-end silicon.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I guess 980ti owners play a different game than you by your definition.

Just lol

Lol indeed, that you show a lack in understanding what the purpose of a console is. 🙂

 

[JDG1980]

In a time where people dont have much money. Telling people to buy a new console to replace one that isn't old is not what I would do.

It's been 3 years now. That's starting to get old.
Current word is that Sony will require all games to be backwards-compatible (no NEO-only titles). Most likely this means either we'll see higher image quality/resolution settings on the new console, or higher frame rates, or some combination thereof. I suspect a lot of games will end up doing 900p-1080p @ 30Hz on the old PS4, and 1080p@60 with higher IQ settings on PS4 NEO. 4K at 30Hz is a possibility, though for some games that might be a stretch.

 

[jpiniero]

Typical console lifetime is 5-6 years. Most games that aren't VR will probally just up the resolution (from 1080p to maybe 1440p upscaled to 4K). And yes, the console devs will be unhappy about this, especially if it's not GCN 1.1.

 

[dark zero]

That's a bold or stupid move by Sony. Time will tell.

I wonder if they keep GCN 1.1 for graphics, else they have a compatibility issue. They can always down clock CPU and GPU for legacy support.

Sony moves and MS moves too. Expecting something similar from MS side.

BTW is a big shame that 28 NM will be still being used.

 

[SPBHM]

I can see the old PS4 starting to get a lot of 720P games which will run at 1080P on the new ps4...
because that difference in GPU speed can be huge.

now, I wonder what MS is going to do... the Xbox One GPU will be a joke compared to the new PS4, it's already weak compared to the current PS4...

it would be great if MS released a new Xbox with a faster CPU, which would probably make the Xbox 360 emulated games run 100%.

 

[RussianSensation]

Lol indeed, that you show a lack in understanding what the purpose of a console is. 🙂

Are you saying Nintendo's New 3DS fragmented the 3DS market?

Keep it up, almost a perfect track record of incorrect predictions on AT; more or less a perfect one for predicting console hardware choices. :thumbsup:

I remember a certain member on these forums almost went against the entire AT console sub-section claiming PS4 will have an evolution of the Cell/IBM CPU setup and never a chance in hell that they would ditch the amazing Cell for a far inferior x86 APU setup. He even tried to tell us to buy a book on Amazon about how far ahead of its time the Cell was....Fair to say that guy no longer posts on here.

With higher GPU demands for VR and 4K TVs becoming more popular, a Nintendo NX console that may be more powerful than PS4, the timing works for Sony to try something new with limited risk since they are a market leader. If this strategy fails, they still won this generation already and won't have to take as much risk during the PS5 generation. OTOH, if it works, it could change the way consumers think about consoles.

 

[showb1z]

While the reaction of the uninformed masses is to be expected, I find it hard to understand why anyone on here has a problem with this. Makes perfect sense to me.
Nintendo is coming out with more powerful hardware soon. Sony/MS aren't just going to allow the "kiddy" console to run all 3rd party games better.

 

[Silverforce11]

Sony moves and MS moves too. Expecting something similar from MS side.

BTW is a big shame that 28 NM will be still being used.

Yup, already devs are saying that MS is testing several new Xbox Next prototypes and will pick one soon to move towards.

All these new consoles, NX, PS4K and Xbox Next will undoubtedly use 14nm APU with Polaris as the GPU.

Smartphones have a short generation, no reason consoles can't do the same... well, there was a major reason, but now it's solved: backwards compatibility.

 

[cytg111]

They want to get ahead of the VR curve. Understandable! It is problary THE one hand you dont want to slowplay in this decade.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I can see the old PS4 starting to get a lot of 720P games which will run at 1080P on the new ps4...
because that difference in GPU speed can be huge.

I agree, this is just going to make the PS4 into a real 1080p console. The target they originally missed.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I agree, this is just going to make the PS4 into a real 1080p console. The target they originally missed.

I don't think Sony missed as much as developers did in general. For the 2013 time frame, and for the problems experienced last generation, the PS4 hardware made a ton of sense. I think people have put too much emphasis on the hardware, and not enough on the developers, who have recycled game concept after game concept with not as much innovation.

 

[Silverforce11]

Many games of late on PS4 run at 1080p. It hasn't missed it's mark much.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Many games of late on PS4 run at 1080p. It hasn't missed it's mark much.

Yes, all the way down to 15FPS in some cases.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Many games of late on PS4 run at 1080p. It hasn't missed it's mark much.

its actually pretty well documented, publisher thought consoles were dead, it was micro transactions, phones, pay to win and PC gaming. This was because the previous gen went for way to long, generation fatigue . New consoles came out, sold boat loads and now publishers and gaming house had no full length games ready and so they had to rush, hardware gets blamed ()🙂. Many of these choices are only just being recovered from now.

People who ignored this industry though, rockstar for example didn't seem to have so many problems, also prob why GTA5 is still in the top software sales each and every month. Its also the reason there were so many HD remakes...

I dont really have any games on the PS4 that i think are struggling performance wise.