[Techspot]- AC:Unity "too much" for console CPUs

[escrow4]

http://techreport.com/news/27168/assassin-creed-unity-is-too-much-for-console-cpus

Great idea to pack 8 atom equivalent cores for "next-gen"!

"According to Pontbriand, Unity is more bottlenecked by the CPU, which "has to process the AI, the number of NPCs we have on screen, all these systems running in parallel."

 

[monstercameron]

http://techreport.com/news/27168/assassin-creed-unity-is-too-much-for-console-cpus

Great idea to pack 8 atom equivalent cores for "next-gen"!

"According to Pontbriand, Unity is more bottlenecked by the CPU, which "has to process the AI, the number of NPCs we have on screen, all these systems running in parallel."

these cores, even though they are clocked low, still outperform their predecessors. The cpu performance was a scapegoat to hide the fact that they are designing or made a deal for parity. CPU bottleneck doesn't affect resolution that much, maybe the framerate.

 

[escrow4]

these cores, even though they are clocked low, still outperform their predecessors. The cpu performance was a scapegoat to hide the fact that they are designing or made a deal for parity. CPU bottleneck doesn't affect resolution that much, maybe the framerate.

Outperform yes, except it isn't enough. Think of the all the CPU calculations you could make a PC only AC do, all the NPCs, all the options, all the trimmings, now even though its next gen and PC only 8 slow cores simply can't cut it.

 

[monstercameron]

Outperform yes, except it isn't enough. Think of the all the CPU calculations you could make a PC only AC do, all the NPCs, all the options, all the trimmings, now even though its next gen and PC only 8 slow cores simply can't cut it.

We've all seen dev do alot with so few resources. What makes you think the cores can't cut it? what is enough? where does it end?

I don't believe the cpus are too slow, I believe they can't optimize their designs to the specifics of the consoles. This is just clever marketing and a way to shift the blame from their lack of innovation to a lack of performance.

Ai especially can be shifted to compute on the gpu, I am just to ignorant on how ai would affect the resolution to the point where they couldnt hit 1080p30 instead of 900p30.

 

[AtenRa]

They better upgrade their GameEngine first, if the new AC Unity has the same low CPU utilization/scalability as AC Freedom Cry, it is no wonder they cry for more CPU performance.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/assassin-s-creed-freedom-cry-test-gpu.htm

 

[ShintaiDK]

They better upgrade their GameEngine first, if the new AC Unity has the same low CPU utilization/scalability as AC Freedom Cry, it is no wonder they cry for more CPU performance.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/assassin-s-creed-freedom-cry-test-gpu.htm

You make it sound like other console ports just run better.

The weak console CPUs is a massive problem. Now we know why MS worked so hard to get a speedbump atleast before release.

 

[Erenhardt]

^and that explains why Xbone runs everything slower than ps4 despite 10% increased CPU speed, not.
SoM doesn't need that much CPU horsepower. Remember that with the CPU utilization you posted, the game runs around 150-200fps

While AC runs sub 60 fps on anything.
You know something is wrong when 6C 12T i7 is slower than 4C4T i5
I don't see any reason why this game would need more CPU than any other game.

 

[AtenRa]

You make it sound like other console ports just run better.

Havent seen others complaining about the CPU performance. Not to mention Middle-earth : Shadow of Mordor runs at 1080p 30fps on both PS4 and XBone.

The weak console CPUs is a massive problem. Now we know why MS worked so hard to get a speedbump atleast before release.

Then why SONY's PS4 CPU is at 1.6GHz ???

 

[ShintaiDK]

Havent seen others complaining about the CPU performance. Not to mention Middle-earth : Shadow of Mordor runs at 1080p 30fps on both PS4 and XBone.



Then why SONY's PS4 CPU is at 1.6GHz ???

Sony added more focus on the GPU.

And more devs have complained. Like the Project Cars devs.
http://gamingbolt.com/project-cars-...splitting-renderer-across-threads-challenging

 

[inf64]

While AC runs sub 60 fps on anything.
You know something is wrong when 6C 12T i7 is slower than 4C4T i5
I don't see any reason why this game would need more CPU than any other game.

The engine pretty much sucks :S.

 

[monstercameron]

Sony added more focus on the GPU.

And more devs have complained. Like the Project Cars devs.
http://gamingbolt.com/project-cars-...splitting-renderer-across-threads-challenging

they are making a wii u version. they have no grounds to complain.

 

[AtenRa]

Sony added more focus on the GPU.

So then, it is not CPU performance after all

And more devs have complained. Like the Project Cars devs.
http://gamingbolt.com/project-cars-...splitting-renderer-across-threads-challenging

The only thing he said was about single thread performance, but in the same interview he said they managed to split the work load to 4 cores. So again, CPU performance is not the problem, developers need to optimize their games to work with more cores in parallel.

“The bottlenecks are mainly in command list building – we now have this split-up of up to four cores in parallel. There are still some bottlenecks to work out with memory flushing to garlic, even after changing to LCUE, the memory copying is still significant.”

So they spend some time to optimize their engine so it could use 4 cores instead of one, no CPU bottleneck after that optimization

 

[ShintaiDK]

Why dont you link all the devs that celebrate the 6-8 weak cores? We have examples of devs complaining about they are too slow. So it would be nice if you can list those that think its the opposite.

And spending time to optimize for slow=more money, more time and more work. I am sure everyone loves that as well.

 

[monstercameron]

Why dont you link all the devs that celebrate the 6-8 weak cores?

why dont you cite other sources of devs downplaying the cpus?

 

[ShintaiDK]

why dont you cite other sources of devs downplaying the cpus?

There are already 2 examples now. 0 the other way. Cant be that hard to find devs cheering about the great CPU power can it? I mean obviously its more than enough when reading this thread.

Games surely isnt limited to 30fps and lowered/removed physics and AI due to low CPU power...

 

[Grooveriding]

More like Ubisoft has no idea what the hell they are doing and keep releasing unoptimized broken garbage.

 

[monstercameron]

There are already 2 examples now. 0 the other way. Cant be that hard to find devs cheering about the great CPU power can it? I mean obviously its more than enough when reading this thread.

Games surely isnt limited to 30fps and lowered/removed physics and AI due to low CPU power...

fair enough, i'll spare the 1st party dev sources and link to a eurogamer metro redux interview
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...its-really-like-to-make-a-multi-platform-game
this is what devs do, they optimize for the hardware given.

also why would physics be limited when gpu physics have been around for so long. also gpgpu ai is also a thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKOElcRtIvU

 

[AtenRa]

And spending time to optimize for slow=more money, more time and more work. I am sure everyone loves that as well.

Spending time to optimize for multi-core enables you to add more to your game making it even better. It is a win win for the developer, hardware is going forward so have the devs as well.

 

[CakeMonster]

Spending time to optimize for multi-core enables you to add more to your game making it even better. It is a win win for the developer, hardware is going forward so have the devs as well.

Well, if the CPUs are so weak that game developers just bypass trying to get anything running on them and just prioritize GPU, no one including PC users won't get much CPU benefit out of this generation.

 

[AtenRa]

Well, if the CPUs are so weak that game developers just bypass trying to get anything running on them and just prioritize GPU, no one including PC users won't get much CPU benefit out of this generation.

You cannot bypass the CPU completely, there are things the GPU alone cannot do. And it was already illustrated a few post above, Devs are forced to optimize their Game Engines for Multi-Core rather than Single thread performance. That way PC gamers are benefited as well not only in performance but newer games will have better and more content (better AI, more units on the screen, higher level of physics etc)

 

[ShintaiDK]

You cannot bypass the CPU completely, there are things the GPU alone cannot do. And it was already illustrated a few post above, Devs are forced to optimize their Game Engines for Multi-Core rather than Single thread performance. That way PC gamers are benefited as well not only in performance but newer games will have better and more content (better AI, more units on the screen, higher level of physics etc)

You cant just optimzie for more cores without a penalty. Also the cores are so weak we talk something compareable to a dualcore in PC terms.

Better AI? More Units? Higher level fo physics?

You do know thats exactly what the devs are cutting on the consoles now because the CPU is too weak.

 

[ShintaiDK]

fair enough, i'll spare the 1st party dev sources and link to a eurogamer metro redux interview
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...its-really-like-to-make-a-multi-platform-game
this is what devs do, they optimize for the hardware given.

Ubisoft is doing the exact same thing. That doesnt mean they are happy about it.

Well, CPU performance has essentially stalled due to various factors - economics being one of them. I'd say that PC game-makers should target console CPUs.

So what he says it, lower the CPU demand in games so it can run on weak consoles.

 

[AtenRa]

You cant just optimzie for more cores without a penalty.

And what penalty is that ??

Also the cores are so weak we talk something compareable to a dualcore in PC terms.

CPU performance with 8x 1.6GHz cores is way higher in MT loads than any dual core. When the software can leverage the performance of those 8x cores the performance is way higher than dual core CPUs even at high frequencies.
Not to mention you have way lower power usage with 8x 1.6GHz cores than High performance Dual Core at 4-5GHz. Take a look at Intel Haswell Pentium G3258 vs Intel 8x Core ATOM C2750. C2750 is always faster in MT loads even when you OC the G3258 to 4GHz+.

Example, C2750 (20W TDP) vs Core i3 4330 (55W TDP)

Or Cinebench, it takes a 4.8GHz G3258 to overcome the 8x C2750 ATOM.

Better AI? More Units? Higher level fo physics?

You do know thats exactly what the devs are cutting on the consoles now because the CPU is too weak.

Links ???

 

[JoeRambo]

Or Cinebench, it takes a 4.8GHz G3258 to overcome the 8x C2750 ATOM.

Sadly not every job is as parallel (and almost free of inter dependencies) as rendering or ray tracing. Those always have been super parallel.

Running real stuff, even with nominally paralellizable algorithms is going to incur overhead and sadly the less powerful the cores, the bigger overhead fraction becomes ( cause some stuff like getting data into caches, synchronization, extra copies etc have fixed cost).

One can't have too much CPU power and it is really disappointing that consoles are rather weak in this department.

 

[krumme]

The days of engines made for single cores is just over. With Mantle, DX12 and the new consoles the demands for programming have changed. There is ways to do it, its proven each day on the market, and we have been over it. Those companies that adapt and learn will survive - the rest will die.

Besides that; comparing the Jaguar core to the Atom for consoles is pathetic crying. Apart from the 15% advantage of IPC the FPU is simply another league. Use that if eg. using the GPU is to difficult.

Its about time the PS3 single core is gone - keeping development of all games stagnating and giving us bad ports.