there's also the question of cost. intel would charge way, way more for even a mildly customized SoC compared to AMD.
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Introducing the Potato Masher "Pro" (PC priced at PS4 Pro price)
- Thread starter Lister
- Start date
there's also the question of cost. intel would charge way, way more for even a mildly customized SoC compared to AMD.
Calling buying a budget PC dumb in a world where many people are happy with playing just Dota 2 or Civilization 6 for example is not something I'd do. Different people different needs. You don't need to drop $800 to have good experience while gaming on PC.
For example build the PC in the video. Grab Steam Controller from sale. Hook up your PC to your existing TV.Go crazy and way overblow your budget anyway buying stuff from Steam Autumn Sale.
For example build the PC in the video. Grab Steam Controller from sale. Hook up your PC to your existing TV.
ISee
Member
Hmm... Not sure about the blu ray drive. Even Sony doesn't think their first UHD console needs an UHD drive (a mistake imo).
64bitbros
Member
I'm not talking about UHD, just a normal Blu-ray drive. If we were to look at value, you'd want to try to compare apples with apples as much as possible. UHD makes no sense as there aren't even any UHD PC drives readily available, if any.
The high quality of the games happened because PS+ launched three and a half years after the PS3 so there was already a backlog of old, good games that no longer had a retail presence.
Even then, there were no AAA games on the service till December 2011 when Tomb Raider Underworld was added.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Instant_Game_Collection_games_(North_America)
Take the rose colored glasses off.
LordRaptor
Member
A BluRay drive makes no sense for gaming though, as there are barely any purchases made for Pc at retail, and those that are still tend to come on DVDs
LordOfChaos
Member
Indeed. Hard to make Intel margins on a console part while being competitive, and Intel loves to protect it's fat margins.
There are several other business reasons for it not happening, but my point was, it's not for a lack of GPU capability at Intel.
I've heard, actually, that the Intel Gen graphics guys really wanted to do a dedicated graphics card (not the 'lets just stack x86 cores' larrabee), but Intel upper management just wasn't interested.
They really do have an adequate GPU architecture, it would be a matter of scaling it up and providing adequate bandwidth. I personally would love ot see it, just to throw some new blood into the GPU race.
64bitbros
Member
The Ps4 is also a normal Blu-ray player for movies. So that budget PC should also have that same functionality. You not only build a pc with the same graphical power as the Ps4 Pro. This is not a pick and choose comparison thats fits the narrative of which "side" you are on. Ps4 Pro has a 1TB hd and a Bluray drive, that should be in the PC. Apples vs Apples.
LordRaptor
Member
This would assume that most BluRays don't give you a free digital copy making the actual BluRay part of watching movies irrelevant though.
e:
So... came back to comment on the meta comment, but left the original comment unanswered. jlawokay.gif
Equanimity
Member
This is absolute tosh because my comments in this thread prove otherwise. Plus, one hand can't clap.
Believe as you may. Good day.
He's making a gaming capability comparison. Are we gonna start holding it against the PS4 Pro that it can't run Adobe Photoshop or other similar irrelevant things? Blu Ray is a gaming delivery method in the PS4 but not on PC, hence not needed. If playing physical blu ray movies is that important for you then obviously a PS4 is what you get (o a blu ray player), but this is not the purpose of his videos. Wasn't last year, and isn't during this revision, where it is more about updating his PS4-like PC to the new capabilities of the Pro.
It isn't actually an apples vs apples comparison, it is about price vs performance in gaming, i.e. can you have a PC for the price that plays the game at a similar or better performance? That said, I do agree that HDD capacity should be at a similar size.
jobrro
Member
Certainly has some nice advantages like being able to play older games with the newer horsepower. There are some titles from the past I would love to play with no PS4 Pro support which hinders my desire to purchase them. I don't tend to replay games, so while a few of the game I have finished already have Pro patched I probably won't replay them. Stuff like Infamous looks better, but not mindblowing on Pro, which can probably be expected given the low man power given to some of these Pro ports.
Also like devs will tailor make games for the PS4 Pro, sure there might be a torn frame here or there but they will give it their best.
Potato Masher Pro would be awesome if you are happy to customize your experience. If you need to reach 60FPS+ on every game PC is for you.
It's good there is some decent options out there.
Also like devs will tailor make games for the PS4 Pro, sure there might be a torn frame here or there but they will give it their best.
Potato Masher Pro would be awesome if you are happy to customize your experience. If you need to reach 60FPS+ on every game PC is for you.
It's good there is some decent options out there.
Lister
Banned
Yep, never been a better time to be a gamer.
Abilidebob
Member
As already said, this is comparing both as gaming systems. If we REALLY wanna go that way, we need to add to the Pro the price of more USB ports, the price of jailbreaking it and installing Windows, and so on.
Yeah, you can't watch BDs on that PMP, but you can do so much, much, much more with it than with a PS4 Pro. But I can't see the dude in the video using those PC advantages against the Pro, because they don't make sense when comparing both in a gaming sense.
The 1TB drive does make sense, tho.
The Potato Masher is also a personal computer and can install and run a metric fuckton of software that can extend its functionality far beyond playing video games and watching movies. If we did an apples to apples comparison like you suggest, the PC would stomp the PS4 from orbit based on sheer utility alone.
Liabe Brave
Member
This very video shows that PS4 gamers can get the exact same benefit from the Pro.
I don't see how you take away that second part from this comparison at all. He only tests two games and both of them run at a very, very solid 60fps on PS4 Pro. How is the CPU holding it back?
But it only really performs better at 1080p. For players with 4K displays, PS4 Pro performs notably better in one case (and slightly worse in the other). I'd be willing to bet this trend will continue, since Sony's console has been tailored to produce higher resolutions especially.
This is true! PC gaming has some giant advantages over consoles (as well as some disadvantages), but I think the video is another piece of evidence that Sony's decision to introduce Pro provides a valuable choice for console gamers looking for an upgrade.
This is exactly it and not everyone who wants to play games on a PC wants to be a PC enthusiast. The PC he built offers a ton of value. The games he showed looked great, ran great and for most people that is good enough.Some people like myself love indie games and I can think of a better platform than Steam. The Steam sales also offer a ton of value to PC gaming where you can get a lot for very little and of course other perks like free online play, a huge catalog of games new and old that you'll always have and there are a ton of people who love emulation.
I would have thought it'd be more likely the 1060 would have the edge even at higher resolutions because of the underclocked Gpu in the pro.
I hope this stays with consoles and devs do not start relying for it on PC. Checkerboard rendering introduces quality reducing artifacts to the final picture. This is probably fine when you are using a tv that's further away but with PC, those artifacts would be really noticeable.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Yes... But a game running on low just to get it running at 30fps at 4K isn't really living.
Lister
Banned
And these too are Canadian prices:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...BESTMATCH&Description=ps4+pro&N=-1&isNodeId=1
In other words the PS4 Pro isn't $400 there either. Everythign is more expensive in Canada, which sucks. Now the UK prices on Pc parts relaly are out of whack. Wouldn't be surprised if that's a big reaosn why the UK is so big into consoles.
Lister
Banned
Nah, as an option I think it would be great. Already a couple of games are doing it. I doubt it would take much time to implement if the game is doing it on the PS4 Pro. Of course Native 4K is better, but options are never a bad thing.
Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
This is a cool idea. Thanks for sharing, OP.
LordRaptor
Member
Isn't it a hardware feature on the Pro?
Meaning I guess potentially AMD GCN cards might be a driver update away from enabling it, for whoever is buying AMD cards.
I've never used my PS4 for blu-ray watching since launch. If you are someone who does that, then obviously this article isn't for you because you demand more media capability from your machine. For a majority who just use it for games, the comparison is valid.
Lister
Banned
There might be hardware for accellerating the checkboard upscaling on Sony's modified AMD GPU's, but it's not something that requires it. You can do it without dedicated hardware, I doubt the performance penalty would be big.
Liabe Brave
Member
As I said, my surmise is that PS4 Pro is tuned--both by hardware and SDK--to put a greater portion of its graphical power toward increasing resolution. The 1060 and other PC GPUs spread their capacity over more aspects. That's why the PMP pushes better shadows, particles, etc.
Not a driver update, I think. My understanding is that AMD only introduced the hardware with the Vega design, so nothing out yet (besides PS4 Pro) can use it. Soon, though.
Checkerboard rendering is not upscaling. You should stop calling it that.
The dedicated hardware isn't about decreasing resolve time (though I'm sure it does that too). Rather, the ID buffer is to allow perfect tracking of objects and triangles, leading to far more accurate reprojection. This greatly reduces artifacts (which is why even trained and perceptive observers have had a hard time distinguishing 2160c and 2160p from any distance). Previous software solutions had a harder time, with more artifacts; just throwing bigger PC grunt at it wouldn't improve that.
Inevitably, PC will eventually do checkerboard rendering better than PS4 Pro; this is true for all techniques, given the continual rise of computing power. But console ecosystems, with their strong financial incentive, can still serve as breeding ground for unusual tools and techniques (such as checkerboard rendering, distance field rendering, etc.).
Sad Affleck
Member
Are you sure you want to go down that road? If you are, please add to the console price a few years of ps plus and the price of the desktop PC or laptop you'll need to match the PC's full functionality. I think that comparing consoles and PCs based on their gaming features is much easier.
Lister
Banned
It is absolutely up-scaling. You are interpolating pixels, you are upscaling. I understand that there's no changing of the frame size, I've had this conversation with the Sony faithful already. Cerny be praised and all that, but please, it's an up-scaling technique. Fantastic when it comes to IQ to performance ratio, but it's upscaling.
Also, is the ID buffer really seperate dedicated hardware?
Just this month I got Dirt 3 Complete Edition (humble store) and Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon (uplay) for free.
Lister
Banned
A 1060 is an upgrade, especially the 6 GB model, but, asusming you're selling your 970, I'd go for the 1070 for an upgrade you are really going to appreciate.
It's a decent upgrade. I'd say 1060 for 1080p 60fps gaming, and 1070 if you are planning on higher resolutions at high+ detail.
backbreaker65
Banned
Stopped watching when he said he can't do the 4k stuff, pointless at that point. Will wait for the do over.
CornBurrito
Member
Can I purchase the Potato Master "Pro" prebuilt?
Hows that mod support going on the ps4?
Sad Affleck
Member
It's a custom build with mostly old parts so I guess you would have to buy something similar and pay someone to install a gtx1060. It shouldn't be especially hard. Check out the following builds as a starting point.
http://pcpartpicker.com/guide/
Here's one I scrounged up using new parts.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mzqfFd
Diablohead
Member
The first gen 750 i5 is borderline, a friend had that cpu but not over clocked and it was a real bottleneck for modern games like overwatch and dark souls 3, at one point he even paired it u with a 1080! He's good now though.
Liabe Brave
Member
No, it absolutely is not, and your insistence on calling it that shows you don't understand. You know how normal rasterization works, right? There's an idealized scene with 3D objects which are defined mathematically. The purpose of a rendering engine is to determine what luma/chroma values projected to a quantized 2D plane would most faithfully represent the scene.
So the defined position of the object and its faces determines a base pixel value. This is then refined by adding textures, shaders, and lighting. Often, further adjustments are made based on things like the values of adjacent pixels in a buffer.
What does checkerboard rendering do? Well, the defined position of the object and its faces, carrying texture/shading/lighting augmentations from its prior-frame position, determines a base pixel value. Then, further adjustments can be made based on things like the values of adjacent pixels in a buffer.
What does scaling do? The values of adjacent pixels in a buffer determine the final values.
So the technical details of the methods clearly indicate checkerboard is a type of rendering, not a type of scaling. But there's even more reasons that's true:
1. In certain situations, checkerboard can produce results identical to native rendering.
2. Checkerboard can produce luma/chroma values outside the range of surrounding pixels.
3. The inventors and users of the method refer to it as "checkerboard rendering", not any type of upscaling. So does every dev I've seen on GAF.
In short, the case is closed. Checkerboard rendering is just that, and not a type of scaling.
Sad Affleck
Member
Did you watch the video? He did exactly what you said.
no, I'm at work. I think I misread Lister's original post and assumed he spent $400 on the GPU.
Now I'm one of those posters ;_;
There is the problem.
I still have one, oc'ed to 3.9Ghz and it still works with everything i played.
Liabe Brave
Member
It's much like it, but gives better results partially due to specialized hardware in the PS4 Pro. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably not derived from Ubisoft's tech though. More likely, it's a similar but superior method derived from Killzone Shadowfall's TIR (which was also the progenitor of Siege's method).
grandwizard
Member
I had it up until a few months ago and it was a beast. OC'd to 3.6 it still ran all new games great.
And checkerboarding is a fancy upscaling technique. As long as you are not having the real pixel data for the full frame and having to use whatever algorithm to fill in that data, it will not be thought of as native 4k. No matter what the Sony PR campaign says.
You know damn well it would be thought of as upscaling if it was used to get all those 900p Xbone games to res parity with the PS4.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Eh, I think it does okay at 4GHz.
Whether you call it rendering or upscaling, to me, it doesn't matter. It's not native 4K and will never look as good as native 4K.