Poor console CPU performance, claim game devs

[Avalon]

Here's the AT article that just went up a short while ago. I hope this isn't a repost.

*removed*

It seems like the next generation consoles will be systems using modified G70s/R520s(R420s?) with a CPU that is equivalent in performance to a 1.4 Tualatin. I guess some of you aren't going to be as eager to dump your gaming PCs and buy all these next gen consoles now. Those who said there was a lot of hype clouding these new consoles were exactly right.

*Edit*
Since the article disappeared into thin air, here is a working copy provided for thanks to TalonOP.

*removed*

I decided to remove the links to the copy of this article. I realized that it would be best to help Anand out by not posting this all over the place. He doesn't want his insider to get in trouble.

 

[RussianSensation]

1. R520 has nothing to do with R500 in xbox 360
2. nowhere in the article does it say cpus perform as fast as 1.4 P3. It says they will be slower in single-threaded games than top of the line P4 and A64 processors now. However, as expected in the beginning, console games wont be much better than now. It'll take about 2 years until we see something really beautiful. At this point, the multi-core processing power will start to play an important role and the processors in those systems will be utilized to a better degree.
3. theoretical specs mean one thing, but games are another. It's a person's opinion whether he/she likes console games or prefers FPS and MMORPGs and strategy on the PC. Either way, if you want to talk about bang for the buck, nothing on the PC even comes close to $300-$400 gaming system that will last 5 years. The whole cost of producing PS3 is less than $599 G70 that is slower than the gpu in the PS3. And it'll retail for $399. If you want out of the box gaming, with no bugs and so on, PCs will never match consoles.

.....But let's just wait for the games and what they look like.

 

[blckgrffn]

Wow.... disapointing though. Think if MS would have put even a dual core amd 1.8 ghz in there, how much more powerful it would have been...

Can't believe they have such GPU power and no CPU to back them up! Crazy...

:thumbsdown:

 

[blckgrffn]

No, the point is that floating point performance sucks. A lot. Like a P3, which is said. And FP performance drives games, no matter how many threads are used. 720P is NOT that high of a resolution, if that is all they wanted then I am sure ATI could have a done a nice .90 version of the 9800 and that would have done it. The sad thing is that we are seeing a R500 and the G70 completely hamstrung by seemingly ill-conceived platforms.

*edit - my first post was started midway through the article, and then I finished and RS had already posted, so I am not trying to contradict myself or anything *

 

[BenSkywalker]

Tim Sweeney- known for bringing extremely poor visuals to the consoles at framerates so low you would swear they should look good.....

It's obvious Anand talked to a few PC centric western dev houses and surprise, surprise- their generic code doesn't work well on either platform. Shocked, to be sure. Wait to see what TeamNinja and Polyphony release on these consoles.

Also I like his comment about Halo dropping below 30FPS in split screen sometimes- has he ever seen the game played? It is extremely rare to be able to get the game to run @30FPS in single player mode staring at a wall- single digit framerates are not too uncommon playing split screen single player.

Some other random comments- he talks about most devs targetting 720p on the PS3 instead of 1080p due to the performance of the RSX- if the CPUs are so d@mn weak how the he!l is it that they are running into performance issues? We have seen plenty of evidence that a single GTX is more then a match for even the AFX-57 right up to 1600x1200x4x16- now all of a sudden devs can't push 1920x1080 because they are performance limited by the GPU on these extremely slow processors......?

It doesn't come close to adding up. If the processors in the consoles were only twice as fast as Anand is making them out to be then the RSX would be able to easily handle 1080p w/AA all the time.

 

[ZobarStyl]

Thank God, at least console fanboys will stop the "Death of PC Gaming is Nigh!" threads.

 

[Beiruty]

I do not believe that 3 cores running a 3.2Ghz will not match 2x crapy PIII running a 700 Mhz.
BTW, has anyone looked at the core of the Xenos and compare it to that of PIII? MS and Sony has the money and capacity to hire leading CPU architectures that can evaluate the real CPU performance, and pick wisely. THEY ARE NOT IDIOTS!
I think those devoloppers are only stating their disappointment of porting their wares to the new plattform. It is to be rebuilt from scratch.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: blckgrffn
Wow.... disapointing though. Think if MS would have put even a dual core amd 1.8 ghz in there, how much more powerful it would have been...

Can't believe they have such GPU power and no CPU to back them up! Crazy...

:thumbsdown:

think how much more expensive it would of been, and that fact tht microsoft wanted the keys to the designs so they could make them. no chance

 

[imported_X]

The one thing I like about the next gen consoles is that they will help push developers in the direction of coding for multithreaded games. Given that the pc market is also moving in that direction, it can only help both pc and console gamers in the end.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Beiruty
I do not believe that 3 cores running a 3.2Ghz will not match 2x crapy PIII running a 700 Mhz.
BTW, has anyone looked at the core of the Xenos and compare it to that of PIII? MS and Sony has the money and capacity to hire leading CPU architectures that can evaluate the real CPU performance, and pick wisely. THEY ARE NOT IDIOTS!
I think those devoloppers are only stating their disappointment of porting their wares to the new plattform. It is to be rebuilt from scratch.

i think cost has something to do with it

those 3 cores take up half the space of a 90nm prescott core like anand says, i can fully see the real world performance being about twice the PIII since the majority of the games wont make use of the 6 threads the cpu offers

 

[ZobarStyl]

Yeah, the thing the console fanboys never factored in was that if there's some beautiful CPU that's multiple times faster than what we have on desktops, it's either a) going to cost a lot of money or b) going to be modified for desktop use as well. Believing that a company is going to create a super-CPU and sell it only to console gamers at a loss is asking for dissappointment. I do, however, think that they still have a lot of room to work with for future games, but it sure as hell doesn't secure the death of the PC.

Edit: Also, see Otis' post above: if the CPU is half the size of a single core Prescott, where do you expect to put all this magical performance? Did someone come up with a way to pack twice the performance per transistor, but decide "Let's only play games on it!" Which reminds me of the old 3DFX commercials, and we know what happened to them, lol.

 

[blckgrffn]

Do you understand anything about processor architechture? I think not. Those cores are effectively junk according to anand in real world code. Are Sony and MS stupid? No. Are they in this to make money? Yes. Like it has been said before, these cores are tiny and evidently not effiecient.

Remember how the PS2 was supposedly so powerful and now we can look back and say that it is junk? Well, this time we can say it from the get go. With any luck it won't be the slowest console of the generation again, but who knows at this point.

Try putting your 7800 GTX in a computer with say, a prescott 2.4A, which would significantly perform better than the PPCs (according to Anand) in the xbox and see how well you can game. Even today's high end titles would choke, that just isn't enough CPU to do everything. Anyone who has had an AXP with a really high end AGP card has seen this already, poor D3 and HL2 performance, heck Painkiller stuttered every time I knocked open a crate and the coins bounced, and that was all physics and had little to do with the video card. 720P with AA should be doable based on raw GPU power, but unless we see some really multithreaded apps (developers are saying 3-5 years before we see this) they will already be inferior to what we can see on the PC. I am not trying to champion the PC here, I have a console too (GC, laugh now but games like mario party and kart are fun and easily accessible for many) and I really thought that we would some really good reasons to game on consoles for a year or too. Sadly, this won't be the case for me. I might buy them in 3 years when they are cheap and games are plentiful, but not right away at what I feel are exorbant prices to begin with.

I think that 1080P support is a pipe dream for these consoles and MS is wise not to advertise it. You realize that is like, what, 1920*1080? That a lot of pixels, batman! That's complex! A year from now, the top end hardware that we currently have on the PC will not be able push that kind of resolutions on the newest games, how can we possibly think that these consoles will fair better? If they had spent the money on more raw, easily usable CPU power they would have much greater longevity and more OMG factor coming out of the box than it looks like they will currently posses.

Lastly, if MS had wanted a dual core AMD or Intel, they would have had one. A dual core Yonah w/512k cache would have fit the bill nicely - and I bet Intel would have worked it out to be dirt cheap, too. Right now we laugh at the P3 in the XBOX, but don't forget how much those cost when the xbox came out and when it was in development. It was damn expensive, but if enough are guaranteed sold now and for the next five years, profit margin does not have to be huge. The biggest problem was that MS wanted to own the design, and thus precluded them from getting a real processor...

Just MHO and $.02

Nat

 

[BenSkywalker]

Remember how the PS2 was supposedly so powerful and now we can look back and say that it is junk? Well, this time we can say it from the get go. With any luck it won't be the slowest console of the generation again, but who knows at this point.

The PS2's GS was junk- the CPU is still doing quite well for itself. Check out GT4 and compare to current PC racers- not looking too d@mn shabby for a little 300MHZ MIPS(the GS is a very basic rasterizer, most of the effects we think of being done on the GPU now are offloaded to the CPU in the PS2).

You realize that is like, what, 1920*1080?

1920x1080= 2,073,600
1600x1200= 1,920,000

Think of how the 7800GTX performs running 1600x1200 even with AA+AF- the majority of the time it is CPU limited in even the most demanding titles. The RSX is going to be ~22% faster then the GTX(that is more then enough to cover the gap in pixel throughput).

Believing that a company is going to create a super-CPU and sell it only to console gamers at a loss is asking for dissappointment.

They design processors that will be super powerful for gaming- and they actually do tend to sell hardware at a loss(they make their money on software royalties).

 

[Continuity27]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

Believing that a company is going to create a super-CPU and sell it only to console gamers at a loss is asking for dissappointment.

They design processors that will be super powerful for gaming- and they actually do tend to sell hardware at a loss(they make their money on software royalties).

I think his point was, if they had a super-CPU they wouldn't just sell it in consoles where it must sell at a loss, they would likely try and sell it as other kinds of cpus, where they could make better returns.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I think his point was, if they had a super-CPU they wouldn't just sell it in consoles where it must sell at a loss, they would likely try and sell it as other kinds of cpus, where they could make better returns.

A good gaming CPU doesn't make a good all around CPU though. Look to the upcoming PPUs as an example of this

 

[Todd33]

Interesting. They will either both suck or both be good. I'm not sure how they claim the Xbox360 is easier to program for, I thought the PS3 was going to be opengl/linux and it only has one CPU, but I guess there are no real devkits yet.

 

[ZimZum]

I agree with Ben. If you read the article, in the case of the Xbox 360's CPU it isn't that the the performance wasn't there its that the Devs they talked to weren't writing multi-thread code to take advantage of its multi-core design. Using PC ports and lazy coding is hardly the best way to gauge performance of next gen Consoles. Wait till we see some games written from the ground up to take full advantage of what the Xbox360 and the PS3 have to offer.

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: Todd33
Interesting. They will either both suck or both be good. I'm not sure how they claim the Xbox360 is easier to program for, I thought the PS3 was going to be opengl/linux and it only has one CPU, but I guess there are no real devkits yet.

The Xbox 360 is easier to program for as the CPUs are closer to what desktop CPUs are.

While the PS3 CPU is completely and totally different which will take a lot of time for devs to figure out.

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Tim Sweeney- known for bringing extremely poor visuals to the consoles at framerates so low you would swear they should look good.....

You are being sarcastic?

As in the poor visuals and bad frame rates. As i still havent figured out how to read sarcasm from the internet posts...

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: Drayvn

Originally posted by: Todd33
Interesting. They will either both suck or both be good. I'm not sure how they claim the Xbox360 is easier to program for, I thought the PS3 was going to be opengl/linux and it only has one CPU, but I guess there are no real devkits yet.

The Xbox 360 is easier to program for as the CPUs are closer to what desktop CPUs are.

While the PS3 CPU is completely and totally different which will take a lot of time for devs to figure out.

Did you read the article? Of course not... The Cell CPU is the exact core that the Xbox 360 has (but has more of them).

 

[Genx87]

I have a feeling when all is said and done that all the games will run fine and nobody again will care what specs these things are.

As long as it plays the game like the dev and consumer expects. They could have a vacuum tube in the thing and I wouldnt care.

 

[mooncancook]

people wouldn't be so critical if Sony didn't claim how powerful their cell processor is in the first place. :thumbsdown:

 

[johnnqq]

doesn't the p3 have a 3 3.2ghz processors?

 

[BenSkywalker]

You are being sarcastic?

As in the poor visuals and bad frame rates. As i still havent figured out how to read sarcasm from the internet posts...

Most certainly not kidding. I have an enormous amount of respect for what Epic has done on the PC side- I consider the Unreal engines second behind only Carmack's offerings in terms of most performance with the least hardware- but his console ports have been horrible at best. The visuals fall significantly short of even games built on top of his engine(SC as an example) as does the performance(SC again). Epic has yet to show they are a mid tier console dev in terms of performance and visuals, and the same could be said about id.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
1. R520 has nothing to do with R500 in xbox 360
2. nowhere in the article does it say cpus perform as fast as 1.4 P3. It says they will be slower in single-threaded games than top of the line P4 and A64 processors now. However, as expected in the beginning, console games wont be much better than now. It'll take about 2 years until we see something really beautiful. At this point, the multi-core processing power will start to play an important role and the processors in those systems will be utilized to a better degree.
3. theoretical specs mean one thing, but games are another. It's a person's opinion whether he/she likes console games or prefers FPS and MMORPGs and strategy on the PC. Either way, if you want to talk about bang for the buck, nothing on the PC even comes close to $300-$400 gaming system that will last 5 years. The whole cost of producing PS3 is less than $599 G70 that is slower than the gpu in the PS3. And it'll retail for $399. If you want out of the box gaming, with no bugs and so on, PCs will never match consoles.

.....But let's just wait for the games and what they look like.

1) Anand himself mentioned both the RSX and the R500 are somewhat similar to their G70/R420 counterparts, albeit with some noticeable modifications. That was all that I meant, and you should have known that.

2) I dunno, twice as fast as a 733mhz P3/celeron hybrid sure sounds theoretically like what a 1.4 Tualatin would put out to me.

3) I'm not telling people to believe anything, so don't act like it. All I did was point out that many game devs are claiming that these systems are not so perfect that everyone makes them out to be. I'm getting tired of people saying they are going to throw out their PCs for an Xbox360/PS3.

If I wanted to talk about bang for the buck, I'd mention that all a person has to do is throw a video card into their existing computer to turn it into a gaming system. A PC isn't just for gaming, and you know that. For the few people who don't already have a relatively modern computer, your point stands.

If you're going to compare prices for entire new systems and consoles, maybe you should compare the usefulness of each as well.

*Edit*
I think I meant to say R420. Fixed.