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[Skeff]

Ms is saying that in some cases, for a 1080p/60fps title that they might be ROP bound during a time slice of the frame... That means that for all the other times it's not ROP bound, they could get away with even less ROPs... So yeah, double that number might be an overkill?

Not to mention the interesting point they made about ROP/Bandwidth ratio...

it might be overkill on xb1 yea, but on PS4? You can't just say it is based on one machine. If you could base it on just one machine let's look at other GPU's made by AMD they certainly don't find 32 ROP's overkill when you have a bandwidth of 176gb/s, in fact they use 32 ROP's with much less:

7850 32 ROP's 156gb/s
7870 32 ROP's 156gb/s

The only "evidence" they have is that somebody who works at Microsoft is saying in the XB1 they are only sometimes limited by ROP's.

Let's look at that Bandwidth example closer shall we?

8 bytes write 4 byte read for a total of 164gb/s which pretty much saturates their esram bandwidth, sounds a little odd to me.

Let's quote Goosens himself speaking about the esram:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-the-xbox-one-architects

you don't get to spread out your bandwidth and so that's one of the reasons why in real testing you get 140-150GB/s

If you're only doing a read you're capped at 109GB/s, if you're only doing a write you're capped at 109GB/s

Now bear in mind this information comes from the same interview but in a different article. 164 is bigger than 140-150 In fact, i'd say he's a little off with his "pretty much" saturates the esram bandwidth, but wait, there's more.

What is the esram's maximum theoritcal bandwidth in write only? 109gb/s
What are his bandwidth numbers again? 164 with a split of 8:4 between write and read, which would be a total of: 109.333333gb/s write and 54.6666gb/s read what do you notice? It's higher than the 109gb/s maximum theoretical peak

Why Am I the only one doing this math, why isn't Richard Leadbetter? In one interview he has gone from 140-150 to suddenly using 164 and over the maximum theoretical write speed.

That is why this does not pass my smell test.

 

[MichaelC]

Uh who just upclocked their CPU and GPU again?

It's like talking to a brick wall

And does that require a hardware change?

 

[NTIETS13A_Superiority]

As I've said before, it has. The PS2 was more in price than the GameCube upfront.

That doesn't even put into factor the add-ons that a decent amount of gamers got for features that came standard on the competition.

Many didn't care though -- it was all about the games as well as the PS2 having DVD playback.

And you seem to be happily ignorant that ps2 came way before GC and Xbox. Ps2 hype destroyed Dreamcast and the race was over.

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

As I've said before, it has. The PS2 was more in price than the GameCube upfront.

That doesn't even put into factor the add-ons that a decent amount of gamers got for features that came standard on the competition.

Many didn't care though -- it was all about the games as well as the PS2 having DVD playback.

The gamecube came out ~18 months later. Power or price didn't matter by the time microsoft and nintendo came into play. Sony had already curb stomped sega and had almost every 3rd party developer on board.

 

[Bgamer90]

PS2 was one of the best consoles ever made because of its exclusives. Especially those who like Japanese games, the MGS series, all the JRPG's, etc... PS2 had a WAY better library than the competition did. Period.

Agreed. Don't think we will ever see the variety again though sadly.

The digital games are helping a lot though -- but in terms of the big budget games, the variety has really gone down.

The PS2 was also the only console where you could play EA games online; at least for the majority of the gen. Greatly helped when it came to people not caring about the games looking worse on the PS2.

 

[SwiftDeath]

As I've said before, it has. The PS2 was more in price than the GameCube upfront.

That doesn't even put into factor the add-ons that a decent amount of gamers got for features that came standard on the competition.

Many didn't care though -- it was all about the games as well as the PS2 having DVD playback.

Not to be pedantic but you could always add the qualifier "same release date"

I.E. wasn't the gamecube released around 18 months after the PS2?

Never before has the cheaper console been more powerful and released at the same time

Probably needs more qualifiers though lol

Wonder if the PS2 architecture was complex or were Sony just being greedy if PS2's were really more expensive then GC's at GC's launch

And does that require a hardware change?

You said "specs"

You do realize that by upclocking the CPU and GPU, MS changed the specs on their console right?

 

[Bgamer90]

And you seem to be happily ignorant that ps2 came way before GC and Xbox. Ps2 hype destroyed Dreamcast and the race was over.

The gamecube came out ~18 months later. Power or price didn't matter by the time microsoft and nintendo came into play. Sony had already curb stomped sega and had almost every 3rd party developer on board.

You guys say this when yet the majority of people who bought a PS2 did so AFTER the GameCube launched -- that therefore doesn't negate what I said about content.

That's not to say that release date didn't play a role though since it did, however there were far more important/bigger things about the PS2 that made it completely dominate the competition.

 

[MichaelC]

You said "specs"

You do realize that by upclocking the CPU and GPU, MS changed the specs on their console right?

I meant specs as in hardware lock down, like the DDR3. That was the whole discussion.

 

[Nafai1123]

I meant specs as in hardware lock down, like the DDR3. That was the whole discussion.

Yes, MS had their RAM specs locked down earlier and that's why we are where we are.

 

[RoboPlato]

Feels like yesterday eh? Aaron Greenberg gave the PS4 reveal back in Feburary a rating 6 out of 10. How far up his ass was he knowing what he knew about the Xbone...? LOL

Which MS guy was it that was trying to act like not showing the console at the PS4 reveal was a huge mistake? I know several people on here and in the press was saying that was going to cost Sony.

 

[SwiftDeath]

I meant specs as in hardware lock down, like the DDR3. That was the whole discussion.

You should really specify then as Specs =/= hardware choices

Anyways I really don't know why MS choosing their priority of multimedia features over additional power for games early somehow makes it better?

Sony has worked hard to make devs happy with the PS4 after the clusterf*ck that was developing on the PS3

They increased the ram size as availability allowed and as devs desired them to

 

[TheGreyHulk]

it might be overkill on xb1 yea, but on PS4? You can't just say it is based on one machine. If you could base it on just one machine let's look at other GPU's made by AMD they certainly don't find 32 ROP's overkill when you have a bandwidth of 176gb/s, in fact they use 32 ROP's with much less:

7850 32 ROP's 156gb/s
7870 32 ROP's 156gb/s

The only "evidence" they have is that somebody who works at Microsoft is saying in the XB1 they are only sometimes limited by ROP's.

Let's look at that Bandwidth example closer shall we?

8 bytes write 4 byte read for a total of 164gb/s which pretty much saturates their esram bandwidth, sounds a little odd to me.

Let's quote Goosens himself speaking about the esram:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-the-xbox-one-architects





Now bear in mind this information comes from the same interview but in a different article. 164 is bigger than 140-150 In fact, i'd say he's a little off with his "pretty much" saturates the esram bandwidth, but wait, there's more.

What is the esram's maximum theoritcal bandwidth in write only? 109gb/s
What are his bandwidth numbers again? 164 with a split of 8:4 between write and read, which would be a total of: 109.333333gb/s write and 54.6666gb/s read what do you notice? It's higher than the 109gb/s maximum theoretical peak

Why Am I the only one doing this math, why isn't Richard Leadbetter? In one interview he has gone from 140-150 to suddenly using 164 and over the maximum theoretical write speed.

That is why this does not pass my smell test.

yeah, the numbers looked fishy to me too. i'm not even on top of my game when it comes to getting super technical, but i do know that the numbers they've spit out have never been consistent and have always been misleading because they don't like the real 109 GB/s on 32 MB eSRAM vs 176 GB/s 8GB GDDR5 comparison.

 

[ShadowRunner]

I wonser how much of the 10% is for Kinect and if it can be allocated to other apps if Kinect is not in use.

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

But reiko said there were no leaks! Lmao, may seems so long ago.

God bless Reiko, I kinda liked the guy. He was somewhat delusional about the performance of these machines, but in a tolerable way.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Not sure I agree with the notion of graphical differences not being important to the majority of customers.
Directly, they might not, but I'm sure the sentiments expressed by those who can tell the differences might influence the less knowledgeable buyers.

That's on top of whatever other potential advantages the PS4 might have over the Xbone (such as price).

We're in a unique position to witness a clearly superiour HW being sold at a lower pricepoint than a competing product. Not sure that has ever happened in previous console gens.

Some consumers definitely respond to the general perception of a product without even understanding what any of it means.

 

[gaming_noob]

Which MS guy was it that was trying to act like not showing the console at the PS4 reveal was a huge mistake? I know several people on here and in the press was saying that was going to cost Sony.

None other than Major Nelson: https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/304396492314128385

 

[RoboPlato]

God bless Reiko, I kinda liked the guy. He was somewhat delusional about the performance of these machines, but in a tolerable way.

He refused to listen to reason, got his expectations set through the roof, and riled up a whole lot of fans to be excited for a spec megaton that was never going to happen.

 

[MichaelC]

You should really specify then as Specs =/= hardware choices

Anyways I really don't know why MS choosing their priority of multimedia features over additional power for games early somehow makes it better?

Sony has worked hard to make devs happy with the PS4 after the clusterf*ck that was developing on the PS3

They increased the ram size as availability allowed and as devs desired them to

I personally think its blown out of proportions to be honest. Most casual gamers sticking to Xbox will want something similar but more powerful than the 360. This is definitely that. Could it have been more powerful, of course. I believe they were taken by surprise and didn't expect Sony to invest so much in their hardware. No one did.

At worst all this will do is have them release another console, but much earlier.

 

[skdoo]

Agreed. Don't think we will ever see the variety again though sadly.

The digital games are helping a lot though -- but in terms of the big budget games, the variety has really gone down.

I think you might with the PS4... It looks poised to completely wax the competition this Holiday. And it will be superior for multiplatform, and has all the Indie developers as well. We'll see

 

[Iacobellis]

Which MS guy was it that was trying to act like not showing the console at the PS4 reveal was a huge mistake? I know several people on here and in the press was saying that was going to cost Sony.

Major Nelson was the one who tweeted about it.

 

[SwiftDeath]

None other than Major Nelson: https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/304396492314128385

Gotta love the internet

Nothing is ever truly dead and buried is it?

I personally think its blown out of proportions to be honest. Most casual gamers sticking to Xbox will want something similar but more powerful than the 360. This is definitely that. Could it have been more powerful, of course. I believe they were taken by surprise and didn't expect Sony to invest so much in their hardware. No one did.

At worst all this will do is have them release another console, but much earlier.

This is a gaming enthusiast website

Of course EVERYTHING is blown out of proportion

That being said for those of us who are informed about all this unless their is truly compelling games for us on the XB1 there is little other reason to get the XB1 at launch

It just doesn't make sense from a value proposition standpoint

PS4 is significantly stronger than the XB1 and cheaper

Combined with the lack of paywalls of multimedia apps?

This is of course going off topic though

 

[RoboPlato]

None other than Major Nelson: https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/304396492314128385

Major Nelson was the one who tweeted about it.

Oh yeah. Of course it was Nelson.

 

[NTIETS13A_Superiority]

You guys say this when yet the majority of people who bought a PS2 did so AFTER the GameCube launched -- that therefore doesn't negate what I said about content.

That's not to say that release date didn't play a role though since it did, however there were far more important/bigger things about the PS2 that made it completely dominate the competition.

Your ignorance is ashtonishing. You know what came with earlier release. GAMES. It was bitch to develop for at start (or so said devs back then) but even then there was metric shit ton of shovelware and crap... Hype and being dvd player played biggest roles at start and after that it just dominated. There were lot of third party exclusives back then too.

 

[Iacobellis]

Oh yeah. Of course it was Nelson.

So... Does Microsoft leave him severely uninformed until public announcements. I mean, you look at him bagging on Sony, and now Microsoft has become the laughing stock on the Internet.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

You guys say this when yet the majority of people who bought a PS2 did so AFTER the GameCube launched -- that therefore doesn't negate what I said about content.

That's not to say that release date didn't play a role though since it did, however there were far more important/bigger things about the PS2 that made it completely dominate the competition.

Serious question. Do you beleive that if the 360 had launched within a week of the PS3, even with every other factor being the same it would of had the same level of success, especially outside of the US?


Time on the market is a huge factor when you factor in not only install base but maturity of tools. This influences choice of lead platform more than you think. That meant games ran better and coupled with the userbase, layed the grownwork for the 360s success.


whatever happens, its going to be a much closer race in some ways, but the power advantage of the PS4 is going to become apparent alot faster than the PS3's supposed advantages, whixh actually didnt hide its drawbacks with multiplatform engines and Sonys lack of investment in the online side of things.

 

[Beerman462]

You guys say this when yet the majority of people who bought a PS2 did so AFTER the GameCube launched -- that therefore doesn't negate what I said about content.

That's not to say that release date didn't play a role though since it did, however there were far more important/bigger things about the PS2 that made it completely dominate the competition.

Yes but by that time it was to late. PS2 was the console to get because of 3rd party support, DVD and exclusives.
What does Xbox 1 have that PS4 doesn't besides a handful of exclusives?

 

[MichaelC]

Gotta love the internet

Nothing is ever truly dead and buried is it?



This is a gaming enthusiast website

Of course EVERYTHING is blown out of proportion

That being said for those of us who are informed about all this unless their is truly compelling games for us on the XB1 there is little other reason to get the XB1 at launch

It just doesn't make sense from a value proposition standpoint

PS4 is significantly stronger than the XB1 and cheaper

Combined with the lack of paywalls of multimedia apps?

This is of course going off topic though

Paywalls don't matter. 360 proved that. The price will though. And Sony definitely have that on their side.

 

[Bgamer90]

Your ignorance is ashtonishing. You know what came with earlier release. GAMES. It was bitch to develop for at start (or so said devs back then) but even then there was metric shit ton of shovelware and crap... Hype and being dvd player played biggest roles at start and after that it just dominated. There were lot of third party exclusives back then too.

You say I'm ignorant when yet I've said many times that games and DVD were the main reasons why the PS2 dominated the competition throughout its respective gen even though it was the weaker console.

Also, outside of SSX, Madden 2001, and Tekken, there really wasn't much else to play during the PS2's early months that was actually decent and/or good. Things didn't really turn around until Gran Turismo 3 and then after that the PS2 got a TON of good games on a consistent basis. The last half of 2001 was insane.

 

[TheGreyHulk]

stick to talking about games MS. the non enthusiast core gamer, those who don't frequent online game boards and what not, just wants a xbox successor or ps successor. the xbone still is a decent upgrade over the 360 and will provide some decent looking games.

i beleive ms won't let it go though because they're so desperate to keep the hardcore following. sony has the upper hand in hardware and it's a clear advantage. they also have a system that's $100 cheaper. i think the reason they're concerned is because the casual core gamer pretty much works on word of mouth and buys what their buddies have so they can play together and all that. many enthusiasts will buy the consoles at launch and many ps4 guys will be telling people to roll with the ps4 because it's $100 cheaper and will have the better looking multiplatform games. they're scared of losing their audience and are trying so badly to hide the power difference.

 

[SeventhSon]

If the specs cited in this thread are accurate: wow!

I'm a technical layman, and I had heard the PS4 was more powerful, but this really looks like a huge difference in comparison. Obviously, it will be up to the games to show the real difference, but it certainly looks like PS4 versions will have no problem looking/performing better.

 

[Chibits12]

All of this Xbox One GPU talk just makes it more and more like Microsoft needs to prove something about the system spec-wise. Just let the games speak for themselves, isn't that what we're all after?

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

You say I'm ignorant when yet I've said many times that games and DVD were the main reasons why the PS2 dominated the competition throughout its respective gen even though it was the weaker console.

Also, outside of SSX, Madden 2001, and Tekken, there really wasn't much else to play during the PS2's early months that was actually decent and/or good. Things didn't turn really turn around until Gran Turismo 3 and then after that the PS2 got a TON of good games on a consistent basis. The last half of 2001 was insane.

All ties into maturity of developer tools and being the defacto lead platform due to the power difference and install base.

It wasnt devs writing for the lowest common denominator, it was devs writing for the most successful one so far. Success breeds success.

likewise the WiiU is going to havr far more mature games than the first year of the PS4 and Xbox one but do you really think its a factor in many developers decisions?


If the PS4 starts to pull ahead of the Xbox one, it will become the lead platform for exclusives. Once that happens, the userbase will begin to follow. Its as simple as that and has happened damn near every generation.

 

[RoboPlato]

All of this Xbox One GPU talk just makes it more and more like Microsoft needs to prove something about the system spec-wise. Just let the games speak for themselves, isn't that what we're all after?

Honestly if MS had just left it at that and got their tools together it wouldn't be much of an issue. They were the ones that started talking specs again and have just been digging themselves into a deeper hole when people who aren't fooled by the BS they've been spewing.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Oh yeah. Of course it was Nelson.

Ah life before E3

 

[MichaelC]

All of this Xbox One GPU talk just makes it more and more like Microsoft needs to prove something about the system spec-wise. Just let the games speak for themselves, isn't that what we're all after?

They also added ram in the 360 late in the design process to bump it to 512mb. They always seem to have something to prove i guess.

 

[Nafai1123]

Honestly if MS had just left it at that and got their tools together it wouldn't be much of an issue. They were the ones that started talking specs again and have just been digging themselves into a deeper hole when people who aren't fooled by the BS they've been spewing.

People around here might not be fooled, but other parts of the internet are strange places. I think they are doing exactly what they want to be doing, spreading FUD and giving fanboys enough "evidence" to keep them excited.

 

[frizby]

I've seen some funny stuff today.

This is the funniest.

Holy crap.

 

[Bgamer90]

Serious question. Do you beleive that if the 360 had launched within a week of the PS3, even with every other factor being the same it would of had the same level of success, especially outside of the US?

For the most part, yes. It was $200 cheaper and had more appealing exclusives in the opinion of many during its first few years. That's not to mention how much Xbox Live took off.

I mean, we are talking about the system that competed against the successor to the PS2.... the PS2. It couldn't have ate into that success simply due to releasing first and nothing more -- especially given the position the Xbox brand was in before 2006.

 

[Last Hope]

My speculation.

This can't be good. They see that PS4 is more powerful and cross platform games will show it so they are trying their hardest to squeeze out as much hidden power as they can so when cross platform games do come out, they will not perform subpar on the Xbox and they won't be noticeably different in the IQ area.

So far they have upped the clock speed of the CPU and the GPU and now they are releasing the GPU's power that was reserved for the OS and now allocating it towards the games.

This can't be good. There is nothing I hate more than slow interfaces and or pauses to reallocate/power balance things that were poorly designed in the first place. This may be the reality.

Instead of all this magic to catch up to the PS4, maybe they should just release a new version (One.1) in a year with twice the power but the same OS and architecture so that it can play last year's games.

Better watch out what I wish for though, this thing could be come very costly to own if they go down that route.

 

[BigDug13]

They also added ram in the 360 late in the design process to bump it to 512mb. They always seem to have something to prove i guess.

Which is interesting when you see the similarities between MS in designing the 360 and Sony designing the PS4. MS got developer input when designing the 360 and after Epic told them they really needed to bump the RAM up to 512, they did it. This time Sony was getting developer feedback and got told by Gearbox that they needed to up the RAM from 4GB to 8GB and they did it.

 

[SHADES]

TBH I'm not even sure you'd want to put the entire gbuffer in the esram most of the time... The low latency might be suitable for some screen space calculations, but in those you are probably just using the depth buffer, that by itself is not that big... The final render target, specially if there's too much transparency might be generally a better fit to go in the esram.

But it's definitely a possible, and performant, scenario. All the leaks points to this, and also was an example given by Ms themselves on good utilization on esram.



What about the all the articles before? Where they "bashed" xboxone for being weak spec wise, to have high level apis that carried the legacy burden of directx, or how was Ms was using the cloud to take people's mind attention out of the weak specs of the console?

Look at the articles in the order they were published. He was very much certain about Ps4 being significantly faster at first, but once he started hearing feedback from developers and testing things himself he started changing tone. Unless he is lying about being told to the stuff he claims to be, there's nothing fishy about these articles at all.


Ms is saying that in some cases, for a 1080p/60fps title that they might be ROP bound during a time slice of the frame... That means that for all the other times it's not ROP bound, they could get away with even less ROPs... So yeah, double that number might be an overkill?

Not to mention the interesting point they made about ROP/Bandwidth ratio...

Ok, key words were, since E3 & DF trend lately,in the articles I mentioned Leadbetter played down the gap between PS4 & XBone and that's what I was pointing out as the original "perceived" bias in response to which I quoted.

 

[MichaelC]

Which is interesting when you see the similarities between MS in designing the 360 and Sony designing the PS4. MS got developer input when designing the 360 and after Epic told them they really needed to bump the RAM up to 512, they did it. This time Sony was getting developer feedback and got told by Gearbox that they needed to up the RAM from 4GB to 8GB and they did it.

Ya, but i have a feeling the similarities will end real quick when people realize who has more consoles sold in the world right now.

 

[IHaveCandy]

Microsoft is talking out of both sides of their mouth. At one moment they say that 50% difference is not an issue, and the next moment they say a 6 to 10% increase is newsworthy.

 

[RoboPlato]

People around here might not be fooled, but other parts of the internet are strange places. I think they are doing exactly what they want to be doing, spreading FUD and giving fanboys enough "evidence" to keep them excited.

I know and that's why it's driving me nuts. I wish they would just have the confidence to put forth their product as they designed it and leave it at that. The obfuscation and FUD is tiring, makes it seem like they have no confidence, and just draws more attention to the fact that XBO is weaker and more expensive. The difference is big enough that MS can't even deny it, they're just saying it won't be that big which is not a good argument.

Show us the games, OS, Kinect, and how they combine to make a unique experience that will make the system worthwhile. They have not done a good job of selling what seem to be their intended main features of their system and the hardware PR fluff isn't doing any favors.

 

[Portugeezer]

low
7750
7770

mid
7850
7870

high
7950
7970

enthusiast
hd 7990

is how I always thought the tiers went.

To me it's more about what the average gamers has or what the recommended specs for games? It always felt like the most important as to what is high end in terms of gaming and what isn't.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

People around here might not be fooled, but other parts of the internet are strange places. I think they are doing exactly what they want to be doing, spreading FUD and giving fanboys enough "evidence" to keep them excited.

Muddying the waters is always effective

 

[spisho]

For the most part, yes. It was $200 cheaper and had more appealing exclusives in the opinion of many during its first few years. That's not to mention how much Xbox Live took off.

A lot of that had to do with the PS3 delay. If they launched at the same time, it's possible developers would have led with the PS3 version, despite developer tools not being mature at the time, because of the success of the PS2.

XBL would have made the Xbox very competitive at the outset, price less so since Sony were touting free online.

 

[NTIETS13A_Superiority]

You say I'm ignorant when yet I've said many times that games and DVD were the main reasons why the PS2 dominated the competition throughout its respective gen even though it was the weaker console.

Also, outside of SSX, Madden 2001, and Tekken, there really wasn't much else to play during the PS2's early months that was actually decent and/or good. Things didn't really turn around until Gran Turismo 3 and then after that the PS2 got a TON of good games on a consistent basis. The last half of 2001 was insane.

And it all ties to being released earlier. Hype and dvd carried it over start and game was already over. ps2 was defacto console already. And third party exclusives played big role back then as they were way more common (sans indies this gen) also devkits were really expensive. Point being there is reason why it got its great games library.

 

[IN&OUT]

For the most part, yes. It was $200 cheaper and had more appealing exclusives in the opinion of many during its first few years. That's not to mention how much Xbox Live took off.

PS3 outsold 360 in total WW sales after releasing 18 months later at a higher price ($200).

Do you honestly want me to believe that 360 would've similar success if PS3 released at the same time? please dude, use some logic there.

PS3 would have led by 30+ million units in such scenario, easily.

 

[N.Domixis]

Ah life before E3

Ah, yes. When Xbox fans said microsoft had all the momentum and how there was no way they would let Sony have a more powerful and cheaper console. Let's not forget how every third party game was going to be exclusive. Good times.