Pimpbaa
Member
It isn't because they don't want to use many cores, it's because so many people still only have dual core or even single core PCs. Same reason why there are so few dx10/11 only games (many still with xp or dx9 GPUs).
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Xbox World Rumor: Xbox 720 Devkit Specs Detailed, Includes 16-Core Processor
- Thread starter Globox_82
- Start date
It isn't because they don't want to use many cores, it's because so many people still only have dual core or even single core PCs. Same reason why there are so few dx10/11 only games (many still with xp or dx9 GPUs).
GPU is what is hauling most of Crysis. CPU is improtant with PCs, sure, but with many games it's only a matter if the CPU is a bottleneck compared to the importance of the GPU.
CadetMahoney
Member
Gameplay is day 1 DLC.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
If they actually have a 16 core CPU then devs are probably going to dump a lot of graphics processing back on the CPU, like first party PS3 devs tend to do.
Future PhaZe
Member
Impressive if true. 360 was my favorite console this gen but I'm getting a headache thinking about going through the whole new console process...paying a kings ransom for hardware that's sure to get a redesign down the road, waiting for the games to trickle in...I'm just going to build a high class PC.
First of all, "16 cores", without any further information, isn't as unrealistic in terms of cost as many are assuming - not at all. If they just took e.g. 16 of the 360 cpu cores, that would require fewer transistors than a quad core i7. Of course, such an architecture (not exactly that, that wouldn't make any sense, but similar in spirit) would be harder to optimize for, but, similarly to Cell, it would also be able to achieve a much higher peak performance than just slapping four highly complex x86 cores in there. I personally wouldn't mind seeing something like that.
GPGPU's are better at that stuff than CPU's so you kinda helped his augment.
??????
Civs 5 uses more than 1 core. It requires a dual core minimum and it also supports multithreading on the GPU for DX11.... most games now do NOT use 1 core on the cpu anymore. Dunno where you get that myth from
4D stacking is the future present.
BruiserBear
Banned
It's like the creators of these rumors are just trying to troll everyone now.
16 cores? lol
16 cores? lol
Nemesis121
Member
16? lol, the system will be $1500....
Beerman462
Member
I saw a post earlier and now I can't find it that made me think of this. Maybe the "16 core cpu" is some kind of APU. The low end Kinect only system would house the APU and system memory to run Live Arcade Games and Kinect.
The Full system would have The APU, system memory and the GPU with video memory.
The Full system would have The APU, system memory and the GPU with video memory.
Dark_AnNiaLatOr
Member
I'm sad that we will most likely not, imo, get info about either ps4 or nextbox at this year's E3. Last year at E3 2011, I told myself that in one years time, I will feast my eyes upon at least one shiny new box.
joshwaan
Member
16 Cores for Next Xbox to last until 2019, 2020 sounds about right. I mean come this time next year most people computers will be running 6 to 8 cores CPU, a lot of peoples computers have this now.
I welcome Microsoft going fucking nuts. I like Microsoft and console they created I just don't want Kinect to be the way we play ever single goddamn game, if they do this I'm going Wii U and PS4 only next gen.
I welcome Microsoft going fucking nuts. I like Microsoft and console they created I just don't want Kinect to be the way we play ever single goddamn game, if they do this I'm going Wii U and PS4 only next gen.
Captain Tuttle
Member
It blows my mind that people actually think this will happen. People disregard the always online rumor because it would cut out a large userbase. Going Kinect only for the controller would obliterate all of the mindshare that MS has developed this gen. There is absolutely no way that this would happen. Next box will have a controller that is very close to the current one packed in. Guaranteed.
joshwaan
Member
BruiserBear
Banned
Agreed. I can't believe some people actually think that's possible.
Ugh I am only going to say this once.
Core count means nothing.
Phones have 4 cores, but I am pretty sure my 5 year old 4 core pc performs a lot better...
Heck. Nvidia GPU's have 1500 'cores'.
The next xbox could have a million cores, but if they are crappy, the performance won't be there.
Core count means absolutely nothing by itself, it's all about what those cores can do.
So saying it isn't possible because of the number of cores is stupid as fuck, the figure means nothign
Core count means nothing.
Phones have 4 cores, but I am pretty sure my 5 year old 4 core pc performs a lot better...
Heck. Nvidia GPU's have 1500 'cores'.
The next xbox could have a million cores, but if they are crappy, the performance won't be there.
Core count means absolutely nothing by itself, it's all about what those cores can do.
So saying it isn't possible because of the number of cores is stupid as fuck, the figure means nothign
I'm basing this off late game large maps with many civs. It gets really slow on my i7 2600, I go to task manager, and sure enough it's 12.5% CPU usage railed (which is 25% correcting for hyper threading). In other words, it's effectively limited by a single core.
You could say it's multi-core, but that's like saying a Xilinx compiler is multi-core.
I don't know what they're doing wrong. I'm a software developer that's not in the video game industry. Seems like Civilization is basically OOP programming in game form. Should be easy to schedule tasks to multiple threads to divy up the tasks.
Out of curiosity, are there similar games that do do those calculations across multiple threads? I'm no programmer, but it almost makes sense a calculation such as that would need to be done with a single thread to prevent things from breaking.
Captain Tuttle
Member
I hope ya right mate
Oh I'm right, you can count on it.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
16 cores... 4 cores with 4 threads each... whatever the case is I'm glad it sounds like MS and (hopefully) Sony are giving us a proper next-gen console with a true generational leap in technology.
btw, nice job omitting the part of the sentence before that which makes your quote completely out of context.
Developers/producers have to pay the bills and if that means scrapping hardcore games that hardcore gamers end up not buying and instead making a Kinect game than how can we blame them?
dragonelite
Member
So far that i can think about it making Civ thread save is kinda hard because everything depends on what other Ai and the player do. But then i dont know their Ai loop.
I have only 8 lessons of concurrent with java worth of knowledge.
So im far from a expert.
They will not port entire windows kernel to PowerPC architecture.
Most likely they will make some compiling engine for one of the many coding languages desktop MetroUI supports. That way some applications could be shared.
Proelite
Member
I won't comment on the 16 cores CPU, because having 16 cores isn't a good indication of processing power. As I said before, single thread or core performance multiplied by the number of threads or core gives a better indication.
If MS is going for dual GPUs, with two GPUs that are mirror images of another, I would imagine it's to get around the financial constraints of having dies sizes great than 300 mm^2 in a console.
Manufacturing 10,000 200mm^2 gpus would be cheaper than 5,000 400mm^2 due to better yields rates on the smaller die, and if they can get two smaller GPUs to perform close to the large one, they'll save a lot of money right of the gate. They easily combine the two when the node process allows them too.
They're probably pushing the 720 to be a graphical monster (better than PCs), if that's the case.
The second theory is a set-up like the rumored Orbis set-up, which I think isn't going to be as cutting edge as the set-up above.
The third is two SOCs, which I really can't make judgement on.
If MS is going for dual GPUs, with two GPUs that are mirror images of another, I would imagine it's to get around the financial constraints of having dies sizes great than 300 mm^2 in a console.
Manufacturing 10,000 200mm^2 gpus would be cheaper than 5,000 400mm^2 due to better yields rates on the smaller die, and if they can get two smaller GPUs to perform close to the large one, they'll save a lot of money right of the gate. They easily combine the two when the node process allows them too.
They're probably pushing the 720 to be a graphical monster (better than PCs), if that's the case.
The second theory is a set-up like the rumored Orbis set-up, which I think isn't going to be as cutting edge as the set-up above.
The third is two SOCs, which I really can't make judgement on.
what about Internet Explorer? or would that break the applications design?
Angelus Errare
Banned
BTW, why is 16 cores crazy? Wasn't the 360 sporting more cores than high end PCs when it launched? Now the mainstream is quad core. So Octo-core with dual threading wouldn't be that crazy. And considering they'll spunk a bunch of power on running kinect, and the OS in the background etc.
Maybe this gets around the issues with not enough RAM. They won't need much ram with that much processing power - just have the whole machine run a giant Scribblenauts engine. The designer just describes each level and the 720 draws it for you, no need for textures at all.
Maybe this gets around the issues with not enough RAM. They won't need much ram with that much processing power - just have the whole machine run a giant Scribblenauts engine. The designer just describes each level and the 720 draws it for you, no need for textures at all.
Mainstream is quad right now, but hex and octo core cpus are readily available at affordable prices. They just don't get put into laptops because of heat/power usage. If you want to build an 8-core desktop right now, you don't have to break the bank. 18 months from now when Xbox is rumored to launch, 16 will seem aggressive, but reasonable.
In theory, throwing lots of relatively weak/specialized cores at gaming is amazingly powerful (see: Uncharted.)
In practice, throwing lots of relatively weak/specialized cores at gaming causes developers to use only as many as the competition has, and they're weaker (see: pretty much every PS3 multiplat.)
An unorthodox design like that is basically an extremely risky bet that you'll have PS2-scale dominance and developers will be forced to cater to it.
Does anyone know how technologically advanced/ahead GPU's and CPU's are, in the research/development sector, compared to the public market?
Or how advanced/powerful custom GPU's/CPU's can be?
I wouldn't really be surprised if they were like 1 year ahead cause of unfeasible prices/software, like it's pointless to release something twice as powerful when it would only raise FPS/only marginally increase performance by a few points, and only serve a noticable difference in framerate to people with 7680x4320 resolution or something.
Or how advanced/powerful custom GPU's/CPU's can be?
I wouldn't really be surprised if they were like 1 year ahead cause of unfeasible prices/software, like it's pointless to release something twice as powerful when it would only raise FPS/only marginally increase performance by a few points, and only serve a noticable difference in framerate to people with 7680x4320 resolution or something.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Many core users don't want a Wii repeat. I don't mind the Kinect but I do like that I can pick and choose when I use it and it isn't forced on every game.
What do you need all those CPU cores for exactly in a home gaming console? Suppose you also combine this with the oher rumor that the console sports a dual GPU. What is the rationale? What are all the concurrent processes in there that need so many multiple core usage?
Death Dealer
Member
I think people like Carmack get hardware samples a few years before mass production.
The two major GPU companies have designs on paper for plans 4-5 years in the future. But it's just not feasible to use a custom GPU in a console that far ahead of the current mainstream. I'll be plenty impressed if Xbox 720's GPU has an infusion of HD8000 GPU technologies.
This is the way forward for general CPU development. Desktop processors have been stuck at 3-3.5 Ghz for close to 10 years. The only way to get dramatically more performance is through parallel processing.
The fact is games do lend themselves to concurrent processing because there's so many well-defined subsystems (ai, audio, physics, lighting, etc). But that doesn't even matter. To get the best performance going forward, processing will be divided in discrete 'jobs' which are scheduled across all available cores.
I'm surprised this is such a controversial topic on GAF. We're currently gaming on a tri-core cpu and a 1+7 core heterogeneous CPU, both clocked at 3.2 GHz. If the next consoles are 6-8x more powerful for an obviously visible improvement, what do you propose? 8Ghz clocks? That's not where CPU design is headed.
Proelite
Member
If the 720 GPUs follow the same development path as Xenos, they'll be closer to HD9000 series than HD8000 series.
Processors don't just get faster from increasing the clock frequency. A sandy bridge i7 2600 is about twice as fast per core as a Intel CPU core from 2005.
Not controversial, it just sounds like a terrible idea to me. With PC gaming, sure you could get a Sandy Bridge E (6 core) or Xeon 8 core or 16 core processor dual socket system. It will only slow down the game because these processors per core are slower than an i7 2600, and I don't think many games even use more than 4 cores.
On the other hand, a faster GPU almost always significantly improves performance in PC games.
Are both PS4 and Xbox 3 going to use directX? Similar API as PC developers do? Then a console with a design that focuses on a faster GPU is going to lead to performance gains for all developers. I much rather see that than some overly complicated architecture that allows only developers like Naughty Dog to output something really high end.
For example, compare game performance in Crysis Warhead:
1. Between CPUs.
2. Between GPUs.
I don't see the need for more than 1 core dedicated to the OS. Metro on Windows 8 runs fine on one core.