But perhaps the biggest takeaway I had from the meeting with Mark Cerny was the insight into how Sony views the console generations. PS4 Pro and Project Scorpio have been seen as the beginning of the end of the jump to a new, more capable wave of hardware in favour of intermediate upgrades. What's clear is that Sony isn't buying into this. Cerny cites incompatibility problems, even moving between x86 CPU and AMD GPU architectures. I came away with the impression that PS5 will be a clean break, an actual generational leap as we know it. I do not feel the same about Project Scorpio, where all the indications are that Microsoft attempts to build its own Steam-like library around the Xbox brand, with games moving with you from one console to the next - and eventually, maybe even to the PC
onQ123 is a visionary! He said something along these lines.
I'm not talking about 2 main GPUs I'm talking about the APU that's being used for the PS4 base mode + the new GPU.
APU as the CPU + the GPU
One of the features appearing for the first time is the handling of 16-bit variables - it's possible to perform two 16-bit operations at a time instead of one 32-bit operation," he says, confirming what we learned during our visit to VooFoo Studios to check out Mantis Burn Racing. "In other words, at full floats, we have 4.2 teraflops. With half-floats, it's now double that, which is to say, 8.4 teraflops in 16-bit computation. This has the potential to radically increase performance."
PS4 mode 1.84TF of FP32 operations vs Neo mode 4.2TF of FP32 or 8.4TF of FP16 operations.
Neo mode has a goal of reaching 4K so it could make sacrifices in precision to get there.
It's cool to see how they can be smart to circumvent power limitations, and I totally agree with him that power is not the end goal, but rather what this power enables, but it seems ps4 pro is such a half assed upgrade on anything but raw gpu size that it's struggling to deliver even with all the clever tricks going on.
I though that all checkerboard rendered games were for sure rendering natively at 2x1080p, but as the article points out, turns out *most* aren't. They are below that target, being slightly upscaled to 1920*2160p and then checkerboarded to 4k.
Nice about the hardware buffer for tracking geometry and objects, though, seems like it's a requirement to make the upscale good look, having the titles rendering with amazing IQ at the native res to reduce the effects of the upscale.
But, I'm not expecting any native 4k games, except for games that ps4 itself had no trouble going well over 1080p
Nice cross-post from eurogamer comments. I think I'll take Richard fucking Leadbetter's opinion over yours.
4K will give people competitive advantages already (increased clarity). And any multiplayer worth a damn will already perform near their respective framerate caps.
With future titles requiring Pro modes, this is only hurting back catalog titles.
Thanks for pointing out the reason. It's disappointing to hear and it makes some sense. Let's just hope they start learning how PC games deal with hardware changes.
Wouldn't that give BF4 players on Pro a slight advantage over vanilla players in MP? I'm sure there was a lot they considered. It's not like you can boost SP and not MP modes....Yea this is disappointing. I really hope Scorpio does not implement this kind of stuff. Playing bf4 etc at a steady 60 fps rather than the erratic performance now would be a great bonus.
Isn't the Xbox one s the first 4K console?
What so great? Seems fairly rudimentary way to handle code on 2 different settings. V1 on old V2 on new hardware. What would be good is progressive enhancement, similar to how X1 BC games are handled, I was hoping something similar would take place here.
This option here is really the minimum id expect but not the preferred method.
Yeah some awesome details about Polaris and even Pro specific features.Great read..I'm actually more hyped for the Pro now than I was before
Maybe but MS need to say more than 6TF because if they are using a Vega GPU 6TF could mean 3TF FP32 / 6TF FP16 or it could mean 6TF FP32 / 12TF FP32.
Other then the fact that it doesn't render anything at 4k...sure...
Wouldn't that give BF4 players on Pro a slight advantage over vanilla players in MP? I'm sure there was a lot they considered. It's not like you can boost SP and not MP modes....
Other then the fact that it doesn't render anything at 4k...sure...
This is the kind of stupid stuff that got you juniored.
Wouldn't that give BF4 players on Pro a slight advantage over vanilla players in MP? I'm sure there was a lot they considered. It's not like you can boost SP and not MP modes....
8.4 TF wth am i reading? maybe it´s too late for me.
I don't know where to begin honestly. I've heard of wishful thinking... but this is something else
Technically it doesn't output in 4K, correct?
Nothing is stupid about that, also me getting juniored was about me making 4K threads 4 years ago.
whats wishful thinking about it? its actually a 100% factual statement if you take it in the context in which it was said
8.4 TF? What? Can this system even handle the thermal and wattage output to handle that?
From the 'why isnt there hype for the ps4 pro' thread to this thread.
The hype train lives on. 20 days!!
i still don´t get it.
Isn't the Xbox one s the first 4K console?
i still don´t get it.
Imagine some artist who can paint a nicely detailed painting in X amount of time. This is FP32 4.2TF mode.
Then imagine the same artist forced to paint the same painting but with less care, cutting some corners here and there. You may or may not notice depending on which part you're looking at. It looks similar to the original but he took half the amount of time. This is 8.4TF FP16 mode.
"One of the features appearing for the first time is the handling of 16-bit variables - it's possible to perform two 16-bit operations at a time instead of one 32-bit operation," he says, confirming what we learned during our visit to VooFoo Studios to check out Mantis Burn Racing. "In other words, at full floats, we have 4.2 teraflops. With half-floats, it's now double that, which is to say, 8.4 teraflops in 16-bit computation. This has the potential to radically increase performance."
Found this quote very interesting. This means that in reality Ps4pro's actual TFLOPS performance will be somewhere between 4.2 and 8.4, depending on how much is 16bit half-floats and how much is 32bit full-floats. In reality this Tflops number will be closer to 4.2, otherwise the visuals will take a big hit, but I think some effects do not need more than 16bit variables anyway. Every time the variables ends up with a result in 32bit that is equal in 16bit, power is wasted. I think this explains why Mark Cerny says there is more power under the hood than what the 4.2TFLOPS is suggesting.
I believe it does. It can also render SOME games natively in 4K. Like, less complex games.
You'll never see an Uncharted rendering in 4K natively on it.
It is. MS would not be waiting a year and a half to go the half assed approach when they could do that right now.
I was saying that MS need to give us more information then just the flop number because 6TF could be 6TF FP32 or 6TF FP16 because this is the way AMD & NVIDIA was going even for bigger GPUs in the future.
I'm not saying that this is what MS is doing but they wouldn't be lying if they called 6TF FP16 6TF.
TLOU Remaster is at native 4K so there's no technical reason UC1-3 Remaster couldn't either.
UC4 OTOH...
I don't know where to begin honestly. I've heard of wishful thinking... but this is something else
Days Gone in particular seems to have really good AF so hopefully that becomes more common on the Pro. It'll be more obvious at higher resolutions.
Yeah not UC4 but it will be a heck of a lot better looking regardless.But of course, they could also just as easily be at "12TF" right?
I kinda meant UC4 given it's a current gen game.
he's fine as a presenter. that playstation meeting stream probably would have been underwhelming regardless of who presented it if the approach stayed the same.
Looks like the PS4 Pro is a worthy upgrade for those with PS4's after all.
It's especially fantastic for those like myself who doesn't own a PS4 yet.
If you do calculations using 16 bit (half precision) floating variables the GPU allows developers to do two operations in the same time it takes to do a single operation using a 32 bit (standard precision) variable. So if the Teraflops in standard precision are 4.2 you get 8.4 in half precision.
It's really nothing complicated. Same way usually if you use 64 bit precision the Teraflops would become 2.1
The point is when and where it's feasible for developers to use 16 bit precision to get more performance. Usually 32 bit is required for most tasks hence why 32 bit is the standard precision.
Its almost st as if you haven't read the article linked in the OP...