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Avalanche CTO talks about the differences between PS4 & XB1's dev tools and hardware
- Thread starter stryke
- Start date
Kinect
... Windows Azure?
Either they got stuck, something happened during development on the management rank, or they did not want to release this year in the beginning and therefore they got stuck with an older prototype.
SatansReverence
Hipster Princess
Cloud computing latency is 100% down to users internet.
My internet, at best, gets a 23ms ping but on an average day it's around 45ms. That is simply too much. Add to that I only have a 15gb data limit with capped speeds of 64kbps. Cloud computing won't be becoming mainstream any time soon. Not until 95% of users have european or japanese internet.
KimonoNoNo
Member
I suppose it all comes down to resources and priorities.
Sony made ease of development on PS4 their number one priority and resourced it accordingly. Whereas to MS, I conjecture that Win8 was more important to them as a company and they took their eye off the ball.
Now that they need a spectacular E3 to try and get gamers back on their side, I wonder what state these new games are in.
That's what I am getting from this statement.
I would honestly NEVER have expected that. This is MASSIVE news. How did this happen? What were MS doing?
I really don't think that its so far fetched to be incredulous if you take a historical view of the companies. Development tools have always been MS' forte.
it is the same in the end, computers that do jobs and send data to local pc/consoles. The infrastructure is there. And latency depends on the internet and distance, not the servers.
not sure what your company develops, but real time gaming is probably very different because is very dependent on latency, so i doubt it will play a big role on gaming.
Unprecedented cloud partnership.
You are not really saying Gaikai is better than Azure? Because that would be hilarious.
BlazingDarkness
Member
Now I'm starting to believe those rumours which suggested that Microsoft's internal forecasts for development were six months behind - and the one which claimed a lot of internal projects had been scrapped and restarted.
It makes me pretty eager to see exactly what they show at E3, how much of those reveals are smoke and mirrors and not at all representative of the final product?
It makes me pretty eager to see exactly what they show at E3, how much of those reveals are smoke and mirrors and not at all representative of the final product?
Brad Grenz
Member
You're aware that's literally something Ken Kutaragi thought of 10 years ago and was one of the foundational ideas behind the Cell architecture? The whole programming paradigm behind the PS3 centers around chopping game calculations into tiny jobs that are easy to dispatch to be calculated on a processor with it's own discrete memory space (like an SPE) and have the results returned to be reintegrated with the main game loop. Krazy Ken imagined this happening not only on chip across many SPEs, but over a network as well so if the latency that torpedoed that dream wasn't still a huge roadblock, Sony would have tons of programmer experience, patents and institutional knowledge to make that real.
Glass Rebel
Member
$400m wasted on TV shit that they could have invested in dev tools.
So embarrassing.
So embarrassing.
BruiserBear
Banned
Devs saying what they can to help Microsoft save face.
Well, what if games are first made on PS4 and then ported to Xbox One? Then the devs would not have to put additional effort to make PS4 version better, but they'd had to cut some features / framerate / decrease IQ, etc to make the same game running on Xbox One.
However, with current multiplatform engines, where games are created on PC and automatically 'compiled' for other platforms, I simply expect the high-end PC to be 'lead' from which things will be scaled down to achieve desired performance on PS4, Xbox One, WiiU, etc.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
Well, thank goodness for that, it's the main reason why I still want their console, together with some franchises, but I don't think that Kinect alone can be held responsible for these misjudgements. A book on the making of Xbox One is going to be mighty interesting. Get on to it, Dean.
As hilarious as cloud computing erasing Xbone's power deficit?
I dont know what hardware is used for Azure but the Nvidia's GRID is cutting edge technology for cloud.
dragonelite
Member
There was a developer tweet going around gaf that said the same thing.
Is that's what they'll be using?
Azure machines are probably pretty generic. They don't offer GPU computing at the moment, AFAIK, suggesting probably most or all are fairly 'normal' servers focussed on CPU/Memory/Hard disk speed etc.
If Sony builds a network of machines for game streaming, their network will be specialised from the start for game processing on CPU or GPU. For the same kind of running cost they might be able to offer a more flexible processing budget to devs per user, if remote processing becomes 'a thing'.
Of course MS can also ramp up a network of more specialist machines. But Azure at the moment may not give them a great headstart here.
If it turns out that the rumours of online every day & no used games are true, then I'm happy as that's $400 million less they have to secure exclusives that would have to work within those prerequisites.
All you are saying is a product name of a specific cloud computing solution among many (one that isn't all that special and had quite a few embarrassing downtimes recently - Microsoft may want to be the internet's "cloud provider", but beyond marketing they aren't at this point in time).
These are not suited to the requirements of gaming, and it would be economically very unsound for Microsoft or any other publisher to compute calculations on their end - companies creating permanent and significant (cloud processing costs real money) operating cost beyond the necessity for products that are sold at a one-time fee is a real pipe dream. And cloud processing won't be able to overcome any of the very real drawbacks the Xbone has compared to the PS4.
Cloud computing makes sense for distributed applications, but not for real-time operations like local game rendering.
dragonbane
Member
I dunno, but I tried Gaikai in the past over their website and it worked a lot better than OnLive for example. It worked really well (tried Alan Wake and Mafia 2).
So I'm sure with the right technology (NVIDIA) and the amount of servers they should be able to pull off something great. Maybe not as good as Azure, but good. Their streaming tech seems to work really well at least.
Opus Angelorum
Member
It's astonishing.
Microsoft said they started working on this after the release of the Xbox 360. As of now it looks like the release of Windows 8, Windows Phone and various other things has stretched their resources too thin. Either that or they simply became arrogant.
Considering all of the other issues, and coming from the momentum of the Xbox 360 success...this initial launch of the Xbox One is an absolute disaster.
The hardware I love; but the lack of transparency and confidence shown in regards to the platform and ecosystem going forward is embarrassing.
Indeed, if Simcity taught us anything.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
512MB of ram and 200 gflop gpus gave us Halo 4 and Beyond. Fuck a spec sheet.
Man-is-Obsolete
Member
Is this real life? The one thing people didn't want out of the next Xbox was to be always online, and yet now people want it to use some mythical cloud computing to help run games, thus needing to have an Always on connection. This Cloud thing is going to be a self fulfilling prophecy in terms of always on for the Xbox. It's why I think EA dropped Online Pass and have become buddies with Microsoft.
In the end the benefit of cloud computing will be negligible, in truth I think there are ulterior motives at work.
In the end the benefit of cloud computing will be negligible, in truth I think there are ulterior motives at work.
Dragon1893
Member
Yeah right. They'll let you download more teraflops.
velociraptor
Junior Member
They did indeed, right at the very end. Both consoles were also quite evenly matched in terms of raw power.
Nevertheless, the PS4 is a more powerful machine when we are comparing specs.
Metalmurphy
Member
Like Onlive, only much better quality and latency. And it's much more then just streaming video...
Also you were talking about the investment into cloud servers.
And the Xbox ONE is doing this?
I'll believe it when I see it. Specially the physics and GPU calculations part...
As part of the rendering pipeline it can safely be dismissed.
I love Azure but as part of a realtime graphics solution the Cloud is useless with the exception of streaming.
flipswitch
Member
How are you going to play Xbone when the servers eventually shut down, like MS done with Xbox.
FlutterPuffs
Member
Why is Microsoft pulling a Kutaragi.
Let's hope there's a Riiiiiiiiidge Racer moment with Forza at E3.
Let's hope there's a Riiiiiiiiidge Racer moment with Forza at E3.
TBH I would expect any cloud computing to affect the CPU side of the equation in terms of mathematical routines and with that you maybe could MAYBE attain better procedural generation or better AI, as examples. But who knows...
But a percentage of the team moved over to Xbox division so who knows. But it wouldn't be most likely in place until 4 years into the generation to do anything of note.
No, so it's not directly comparable. However, we're doing some pretty heavy database stuff, as well as rendering of custom GUI's for Sharepoint. Not exactly gaming related, but it's powerful stuff.
maquiladora
Member
"Microsoft has some catching up to do" = "Microsoft will catch up"? Huh?
dragonelite
Member
I think microsoft is trying so much shit with the Xbox One it would requires a lot of different tools to debug with or api to design and documentation to write.
And internal struggles probably with multiple groups fighting for things to add or remove.
So my guess is vision to broad not focused on one big thing like sony is doing with gaming as their main driving force.. Sony vision was clear and precise Games,social and Sharing.
Microsoft vision im not sure Games,social,sharing,cloud,kinect,television etc.
I dont think those application are low latency input apps like games are.
In a application i can tolerate a 300~500ms latency but in games no thanks i already get pissed when you see killcam and the world isn't how it was on your screen because of p2p latency.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
Probably not, unless the whole cloud service shuts down. You don't use specific servers, you use general processing power randomly distributed in the cloud. If they upgrade the whole service, there's probably going to be a compatibility wrapper, but then again, who knows.
If Microsoft wants to use cloud-computing they should have just required a strong broadband connection before buying the console. Imagine games suddenly requiring that and thousands of players around the world buying games they can't play. Either lawsuits or just an abrupt loss in games sales from then on in those places.
It is just not feasible and no multi-platform game will take advantage of that. If Microsoft uses cloud-computing for exclusives they will be alienating a really big audience with bad connections (who unknowingly bought the console, since it isn't required).
Another horrific scenario would be Microsoft's attempt to let people with a bad internet connection be able to still play the game. It would have to be however, a lower res, lower framerate game, just to try and say they got everyone covered. If they bought the same console as everyone else, but have to play lesser games that is really unfair (and flat out wrong).
I for one live in an apartment in the capital and my internet connection is absolutely abysmal. I try to change it, but I merely pay the rent, cannot afford much better and the owner of the place wouldn't even let me. Cloud-computing is impossible for me at this stage.
It is just not feasible and no multi-platform game will take advantage of that. If Microsoft uses cloud-computing for exclusives they will be alienating a really big audience with bad connections (who unknowingly bought the console, since it isn't required).
Another horrific scenario would be Microsoft's attempt to let people with a bad internet connection be able to still play the game. It would have to be however, a lower res, lower framerate game, just to try and say they got everyone covered. If they bought the same console as everyone else, but have to play lesser games that is really unfair (and flat out wrong).
I for one live in an apartment in the capital and my internet connection is absolutely abysmal. I try to change it, but I merely pay the rent, cannot afford much better and the owner of the place wouldn't even let me. Cloud-computing is impossible for me at this stage.
This is not going to happen: The system isn't "always online" in a way that would allow games to rely on internet services (just in a way that suits DRM purposes), and "cloud computing" can't enhance most games in any meaningful way - the processing requirements aren't conductive to this type of operation, and the economics forbid it outright.
This is a desperate hope that is going to get bashed.
Any of the laggier rendering stuff they talked about would be better done on GPU...and a number of more general simulation tasks could be done faster and - critically - more power efficiently on GPGPU than on a bunch of big CPUs. Power efficiency is a big deal in provisioning cloud processing, and could determine your processing budget per user.
I do think if MS is going down this path, that a network of more specialised game machines is in the works. I don't think they'll be stuck with machines designed for web service processing. But Azure is skewed more toward the latter at the moment, and investment in game orientated cloud processing is probably more or less at the same point right now between Sony and MS.
Why would it be hilarious that an existing commercial enterprise actively serving up games via the cloud is better at game focused cloud computing than a service that is not currently serving up games via the cloud?
Azure does a lot of shit but Gaikai is currently the most proven commercial cloud computing endeavor focused on video games. I don't see why anyone would give MS the benefit of the doubt here when Sony's answer is actually something we can all go try out right now and their's isn't.
LowEndTorque
Member
Maybe not for multiplatform games, but exclusives will be another matter. A few years into the gen, studios like ND, SSM, GG and QD will probably be figuring out ways to squeeze every ounce of power out of the PS4 hardware, and the difference will likely be significantly bigger than it was with Sony's best looking first party games this gen on the PS3 vs 360.
Among other things, some of MS' dev tools are ridiculously good.
dead monkey uk
Member
This would be the ideal situation, as it would not result in one platform being held back by another, only time will tell. But will anyone be surprised if big cross platform games such as COD, FIFA and Destiny come out looking and performing very similar on both platforms.
Small resolution and framerate differences in cross platform games will not matter to most gamers. My COD:Ghost dog has better shadows than yours will not be important.
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