The Real Differences Between PS4 and Xbox One Performance

[next-Jin]

Not to mention ray tracing will be faster on the XBox one and that notion has been supported by a Dev.

People are doing nothing but looking at high level numbers, and thinking they can draw conclusions like "the ps4 is clearly 50% faster". In terms of actual memory bandwidth? yeah maybe, will it be realizable in practice? probably not.

Individual components, especially the speed of memory does not determine an overall systems performance.

Considering triple Titans would still have a bitch of a time with Ray Tracing that statement is pointless.

 

[next-Jin]

And your last statement was asinine.

 

[pcjunkie]

It makes sense given my statement, it's predictable given overall design and implementation. It's effectively the same thing they did before taken up a notch. In which case it didn't help the platform at all.

It did not lead to better looking games and it had a superior GPU. What does that say now that they used a similar approach with a much weaker GPU?

I'm not saying one is going to be 1080p/60 while the One is 720p/30, but I don't think anyone would suggest parity between the two.

So exactly what are we going to use Ray Tracing for?

 

[mesyn191]

IMO being much faster at ray tracing isn't much of an advantage this gen.

Neither console has the processing power to really do all that much of it so I doubt it'll get used much. IIRC it usually gets used for stuff like AI bots to help them "see" the player/objectives in a more realistic fashion rather than just aiming/seeing through everything.

I'd agree though that most people seem to be only looking at the more obvious specs of each console (ie. CPU clock speed, GPU performance, main memory bandwidth) and ignoring everything else. This overly-simplistic assessment is causing them to over estimate PS4's performance advantage to silly levels IMO.

 

[VladDracule]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4/3

You don't magically get 200+ GB/s bandwidth from a combination of 68 GB/s DDR3 RAM and 102 GB/s from the eSRAM and then another 30 GB/s from CPU-GPU. You have two different types of memory here and different data buses. You have CPU <-> RAM via northbridge. You have CPU <-> GPU via northbridge. And, you have GPU <-> eSRAM and GPU <-> DDR3 RAM via the GPU's own memory bus. Adding all of that, of course, gets you 200+ GB/s of bandwidth. However, you're talking about different components on a system board passing and moving data along.

Like the example I gave above, it's like an interstate highway. You have a car going at the max speed limit of 100 MPH (eSRAM) entering the highway interchange to get onto a highway with a max speed limit of 60 MPH (DDR3 RAM). Developers have to get around this to ensure there are no perceived bottlenecks at any location of the data bus. And, hopefully, D3D tiled resources (DX 11.2) and other software tricks and compression algorithms will get around that limitation.

There will be bottlenecks and it's going to depend entirely on developers on getting around that. You can't magically shove 300 MB of texture data into 32 MB of eSRAM unless you have some very good compression algorithms, and you can't turn 68 GB/s of DDR3 RAM into 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth when it's not there.

But, you can't deny the fact that there is a slight processing advantage of the GPU in the PS4 compared to the Xbox ONE. Numbers are numbers. We know this from hardware reviews even those on [H]ardOCP and other review sites. You can't magically expect a game like Metro Last Light to perform the same on a Radeon 7850 and then on a Radeon 7770 at the same settings and resolution. If you were to take that game and set it to 1920x1080, AAA (Very High settings), and tessellation set to Very High, I assure you that the Radeon 7770 will not do it at a high enough framerate at 1080p. The 7870 GHz Edition already averages 42 FPS under those settings in [H]ardOCP's testing. Other reviews peg the 7770 at around 10 FPS less on those same settings, and higher settings dropping the framerate to just below 30 FPS.

Concessions and sacrifices in quality settings have to be made, as well as resolution at which the game is rendered. In the PS3 and the 360, this was done at smaller resolutions then upscaled. 540p? 768p? ... then expanded or contorted to 720p or 1080p. I would not be surprised developers will do this again on the Xbox ONE. We'll most likely see the first batch of games on the system at 720p, 60 FPS average and upscaled to 1080p. And, more than likely, PS4 ports will be the same for the first year or so. Thus, taking away any clear advantage the PS4 has in terms of GPU hardware and performance. We'll probably see very few 1080p titles but not at 60FPS, more than likely at 30FPS in the first year, and I would not be surprised some will be rendered at a lower resolution such as 960x540 then upscaled to 1920x1080.

Again, it's going to take some sort of software engineering and programming feat to get around the various components of the Xbox ONE. The games that do so will be the most noticeable to players.

And, any of us that have read reviews of AMD's APU since Llano know that memory bandwidth is the biggest issue, if not so. This is why the highest end Haswell mobile processor has eDRAM on-die at up to 128 MB of it. DDR3 RAM cannot provide the necessary bandwidth for high resolution gaming with many of the settings turned on. Again, hardware reviews between a video card with DDR RAM and GDDR RAM show the differences. It is also why for a more straightforward approach, Sony most likely went with the higher bandwidth GDDR5 over DDR3 regardless of the latency. More than likely hoping bandwidth usurps latency, which even I would know will not likely happen. Microsoft gets around this with various ICs called move engines, if you believe VG Leaks at all and the Digital Foundry articles posted after. They're less of a co-processor and more of a hard-coded PHY memory interfaces to get around the bandwidth limitations of the console to receive/decode data going from one memory type to another. Why? Maybe, again assumption, to prevent perceived bottlenecks within the system.

But, when you think about it-- the hardware setup in the PS4 is simpler compared to the Xbox ONE. It's more straightforward and looks almost as similar as various budget AMD APU-based computers-- APU, RAM, hard drive, etc. It's more of a console-ized PC dedicated to gaming and media services running a Linux-distro.

As for hUMA, that's entirely assumption as you said so yourself. But, given that AMD licensed the modular Jaguar modules to OEMs in a similar fashion to ARM licensing their designs, there is still a small, very small, possibility that Microsoft and Sony added hUMA support outside the modules themselves. Regardless if either system supports it or not is something only those with a dev kit and the companies themselves-- AMD, Sony and Microsoft-- will know for sure. hUMA support in the consoles would, in my opinion, be a great benefit for AMD and for us on desktop PCs. It'd be a great way to showcase and demonstrate what HSA and hUMA can do. Unfortunately, there's no way to confirm if either console supports it or not. If they do support it, developers will have to program games to specifically use it.

What your saying is both true and untrue. Depending on how memory is used, how it is addressable, whether or not it can allow read/write cycles simultaneously, whether or not you can use the same memory pointers across multiple components (cpu/gpu) it can and is valid to add their bandwidths, especially across memory pools.

hUMA "like" implementation is just, that hUMA like, or maybe even partial depending on how you word it. If the eSRAM is in fact only addressable to the GPU, it doesnt matter whether or not the other cache memory is directly addressable by both CPU/GPU it will never truely meet the definition of hUMA. Same goes for the PS4, just because they share the same memory pool and can both access it that doesnt mean the same pointers can be used for both, and it is so far as we know not truely hUMA but "hUMA like" which makes its implimentation and memory access no different from the XB1. Thats only if the information we have to this day is accurate and it may not be.

As for the up scaling issue its known that Ryse will only be running at 900p, and will upscale to 1080p (obviously) but that doesnt indicate the XBox one being that significantly weaker. Forza will run native at 1080p. That either means the graphics rendering in Forza is much much simpler (very possible), it better optimized (I would also say this is very likely, because while games running on the crytek engine look phenomenal, they underperform. To this day modern hardware struggles with Crysis 1, because of its poor optimization.). It can also mean that the drivers in the XBox One arent up to snuff yet, which according to multiple sources they arent. But drivers are drivers, they can and will change and will get better with time, along with game engines ability to use this a relatively new memory structure in both the PS4 and XBox One.

My point this whole time has been simple. You cannot draw a definitive conclusion with the information we have. You just simply cant, you can say that certain things are a clear advantage one way or another, but thats only if the entire system architecture is able to support it.

Another thing with DPS...it can take as much or as little processing power as you want to throw at it. A dedicated DSP chip using 7 co processors allows what could be a fairly large amount of CPU usage to be offloaded. This will mean 2 things, either the CPU advantage tilts more in the favor of the XB1, or the XB1 first party games will have better audio. Im not going to assume 3rd party devs will really take advantage of it and put better audio in one version over the next because historically they just dont do that.

but if first party XB1 games have better audio, including native 7.1 support, thats a major advantage to gamers like me who have very robust audio systems. You can spend thousands on DSP equipment alone, so dismissing this advantage in the XB1 is fullish

 

[VladDracule]

So exactly what are we going to use Ray Tracing for?

Killzone 4 supposedly uses ray tracing to do real time reflection. Ray tracing can and will be used in most next gen games to a certain extent. So no, it is not irrelevant. The same dev also said that procedural generation than the PS4

 

[mesyn191]

It makes sense given my statement, it's predictable given overall design and implementation.

Well if its predictable then what is the xb1's effective total system bandwidth and performance? We already know the peak numbers so it should be easy to tell right?

It did not lead to better looking games and it had a superior GPU.

But it also had a much weaker CPU in comparison to the PS3, so you're still effectively making a apples to oranges comparison. That the X360 had a better GPU doesn't matter, especially with the PS3's Cell often being used to augment the RSX's performance. That the X360 often had games that looked just as good if not better than PS3 games despite a significant hardware deficit strongly suggests MS had a good hardware model in the X360.

I'm not saying one is going to be 1080p/60 while the One is 720p/30, but I don't think anyone would suggest parity between the two.

I think the difference will be close enough that outside of a few 1st party titles you won't be able to see it. And even that may be questionable IMO.

 

[pcjunkie]

If the PS4 can do 1080P @ 60fps and the XBone 1080P @ 30fps then its plain as day which is the better hardware. That's a big IF for now though...just have to wait and see.

 

[VladDracule]

If the PS4 can do 1080P @ 60fps and the XBone 1080P @ 30fps then its plain as day which is the better hardware. That's a big IF for now though...just have to wait and see.

Even if thats true early on that doesnt mean it will always be the case. 3rd party games ran better on the 360, plain and simple. Especially things like Skyrim at its initial console release.

 

[pcjunkie]

Even if thats true early on that doesnt mean it will always be the case. 3rd party games ran better on the 360, plain and simple. Especially things like Skyrim at its initial console release.

If its true early on then it will be true later on....you can't add hardware to make it run faster...I guess you could halve the textures? Either way we'll find out eventually.

 

[next-Jin]

Well if its predictable then what is the xb1's effective total system bandwidth and performance? We already know the peak numbers so it should be easy to tell right?


But it also had a much weaker CPU in comparison to the PS3, so you're still effectively making a apples to oranges comparison. That the X360 had a better GPU doesn't matter, especially with the PS3's Cell often being used to augment the RSX's performance. That the X360 often had games that looked just as good if not better than PS3 games despite a significant hardware deficit strongly suggests MS had a good hardware model in the X360.


I think the difference will be close enough that outside of a few 1st party titles you won't be able to see it. And even that may be questionable IMO.

It had better looking/running games that were third party because of the split nature of the memory and difficult cell utilization.

The same cannot be said with this generation, the main difference being the embedded esram and ddr3 vs just straight ddr5.

The GPU differences this upcoming Gen are more pronounced yet they are in the same family. I think a reasonable assessment is the 900p vs 1080p comparison with third parties and major differences between 1st party titles.

Both consoles are extremely similar with one having more throughoutput and a more powerful GPU. The embedded memory is not some blackhole as someone stated earlier.

 

[octoberasian]

Even if thats true early on that doesnt mean it will always be the case. 3rd party games ran better on the 360, plain and simple. Especially things like Skyrim at its initial console release.

I believe a lot of it was not only hardware compared to the complex CELL processor but due to the dev kit and API for the 360.

Developers are more familiar with DirectX API and its related libraries than the proprietary ones that came with the PS3. It was easier to develop, maintain, and optimize code for the Xbox 360 than it was for the PS3. So, in the end, games ran better on the 360 because of this. Unfortunately, many developers that ported games to the PS3 did so very poorly. We see that in many PS3 titles that were ported from the 360 to the PS3.

The biggest detriment to all of this was PC gaming. A lot of PC games are DirectX 9-based. Very few titles and AAA titles use DirectX 10 and 11 API and take advantage of newer PC hardware. I'm afraid this is going to repeat itself again with this upcoming generation of console hardware. On the other hand, I think that the minimum system requirements of games will probably bump up just a little. Most games released still can run on an old Radeon 2000/3000/4000 series or Nvidia 200 series cards as long as it was DirectX 9 compatible. I'd like to see that bumped up to Radeon 5000/6000 series and Nvidia 400/500 series at minimum with this upcoming generation of consoles. Lingering on older hardware is not going to help PC gaming move forward.

But, between the PS4 and the Xbox ONE, regardless of the performance difference and capabilities between the two, I think this is no longer which platform is easier to develop for but which API developers are willing to use to develop their games for-- OpenGL-based or DirectX 11-based? Most developers are still unwilling to develop and port games to Linux-based distros and OSX even, or even use OpenGL for that matter. I fear that we won't get quality titles for the PS4 from third party developers at all, and that they will remain very similar in graphics quality, gameplay, and performance to their Xbox ONE versions.

I'd honestly like to see more OpenGL titles for the PC come out of this next generation of console games. Forget what Gabe has been spouting about Linux, but OpenGL is about as good as (if not better than) DirectX and a lot of good games can be developed with it if developers are willing to use it.

Again, it's going to look like Linux/OpenGL (PS4) versus Windows/DirectX (Xbox ONE) this generation of console games.

 

[JoeUser]

Even if thats true early on that doesnt mean it will always be the case. 3rd party games ran better on the 360, plain and simple. Especially things like Skyrim at its initial console release.

You do realize that this discussion is about next-gen consoles right? 3rd party games running better on the 360 is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT and has absolutely NO point being in this discussion.

Doesn't matter how you try and spin it, the PS4 is superior. Sure the Xbox One has it's little quirks and what not, but it isn't like the PS4 doesn't. Even then the advantages that the Xbox One has still doesn't really matter THAT much. Sure it might do ray tracing better or at least faster than the PS4 but ray tracing is taxing as hell and has yet (to my knowledge) even been used for an entire game. Plus the ~7770 GPU is too weak to properly run ray tracing to begin with so even if the Xbox One is faster at it, does it matter?

Ryse is running at 900p at 30fps. Considering that it's a Xbox One EXCLUSIVE and was designed and built SOLELY for the Xbox One means that every bit of performance could be or was squeezed from it. Exclusive AAA game...900p/30fps...think about that...

 

[Semantics]

You do realize that this discussion is about next-gen consoles right? 3rd party games running better on the 360 is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT and has absolutely NO point being in this discussion.

Doesn't matter how you try and spin it, the PS4 is superior. Sure the Xbox One has it's little quirks and what not, but it isn't like the PS4 doesn't. Even then the advantages that the Xbox One has still doesn't really matter THAT much. Sure it might do ray tracing better or at least faster than the PS4 but ray tracing is taxing as hell and has yet (to my knowledge) even been used for an entire game. Plus the ~7770 GPU is too weak to properly run ray tracing to begin with so even if the Xbox One is faster at it, does it matter?

Ryse is running at 900p at 30fps. Considering that it's a Xbox One EXCLUSIVE and was designed and built SOLELY for the Xbox One means that every bit of performance could be or was squeezed from it. Exclusive AAA game...900p/30fps...think about that...

Only irrelevant if you believe the reason was over difficulty of using the hardware not difficulty of using their api + what their O/S does on it's own. Instead of explaining that you chose to bash the Xb1? Octoberasian made a much better argument btw.

Except to the end ionno about the ps4 but the ps3 no developers used OpenGL directly it required you to use an opengl wrapper on top of an emulation layer it was slow and messy. But LibGCM isn't all that horrible to use.

 

[VladDracule]

You do realize that this discussion is about next-gen consoles right? 3rd party games running better on the 360 is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT and has absolutely NO point being in this discussion.

Doesn't matter how you try and spin it, the PS4 is superior. Sure the Xbox One has it's little quirks and what not, but it isn't like the PS4 doesn't. Even then the advantages that the Xbox One has still doesn't really matter THAT much. Sure it might do ray tracing better or at least faster than the PS4 but ray tracing is taxing as hell and has yet (to my knowledge) even been used for an entire game. Plus the ~7770 GPU is too weak to properly run ray tracing to begin with so even if the Xbox One is faster at it, does it matter?

Ryse is running at 900p at 30fps. Considering that it's a Xbox One EXCLUSIVE and was designed and built SOLELY for the Xbox One means that every bit of performance could be or was squeezed from it. Exclusive AAA game...900p/30fps...think about that...

Tell me a single launch game for the ps3 that looked like the last of us? Tell me a single launch 360 game that looks like the latest gears of war.

Just becauee a game is running at 900p right now, at launch, with potentially a shorter development time means it absolutely does not draw out the potential of a console. It means the driver support for the hardware isnt optimized. It means lower level libraries in utilizing the eSRAM are also most likely far from a finished state. It means the cry engine is not optimized for this hardware.

Your trying to tell me that launch games show the real potential of a console when that has NEVER occured at a launch?

 

[VladDracule]

Also for the record in its current state ray tracing is a more extensive CPU load than GPU which is whu developers have directly stated the xbox one has an advantage in that area

 

[VladDracule]

If its true early on then it will be true later on....you can't add hardware to make it run faster...I guess you could halve the textures? Either way we'll find out eventually.

Again. No it is not always going to be true. You under estimate the value or drivers. When company of heroes was released or hell any pc game that is released the performance of them increases sometimes exponentially when the drivers are updated to better interpret the compiled code

 

[pcjunkie]

Again. No it is not always going to be true. You under estimate the value or drivers. When company of heroes was released or hell any pc game that is released the performance of them increases sometimes exponentially when the drivers are updated to better interpret the compiled code

You talking pc drivers vs coding on the console...whole different ballgame when they can already "code to metal" so to speak with uniform hardware. You will not see those huge gains on consoles. Now when ther SDK's get better we me see some improvement but I don't foresee 1080p @ 60fps being really a good option for the XBone without reductions in textures, AA, or other settings.

 

[wonderfield]

Franky, your an idiot.

lol

 

[mesyn191]

It had better looking/running games that were third party because of the split nature of the memory and difficult cell utilization.

So better looking is a fairly subjective thing. Some people think Halo 4 is the best looking game period of this generation for instance. Which you might disagree with because you think xyz game on PS3 looks better, etc. IOW not worth discussing. What is are actual performance numbers under specific conditions...and by all accounts from developers the X360 held up quite well vs the PS3. Also it should be noted that both X360/PS3 had split memory architectures of sorts. X360 had the eDRAM + GDDR3 main memory and the PS3 XDR + GDDR3.

The GPU differences this upcoming Gen are more pronounced yet they are in the same family. I think a reasonable assessment is the 900p vs 1080p comparison with third parties and major differences between 1st party titles.

But why is it reasonable? Because a supposed developer said so? There are other developers saying that the 2 consoles are actually pretty similar in terms of performance. Why are their comments to be considered worthless? Or do you have an answer to the question I asked you earlier: what is the xb1's effective total system performance and bandwidth? If you don't know the answer to that question then you're down to just effectively picking and choosing which developer to believe for no good reason.

 

[Ocellaris]

But why is it reasonable? Because a supposed developer said so? There are other developers saying that the 2 consoles are actually pretty similar in terms of performance. Why are their comments to be considered worthless? Or do you have an answer to the question I asked you earlier: what is the xb1's effective total system performance and bandwidth? If you don't know the answer to that question then you're down to just effectively picking and choosing which developer to believe for no good reason.

While this sounds quite reasonable, I believe there has been precisely zero leaked information to indicate that XBox One is going to offer better performance. The only people saying things in MS's favor have been either MS or someone working elusively on a One title. And even then, MS hasn't offered information beyond "We got this under control, trust us!"

So either this whole thing is a grand conspiracy by Sony, or the reality is simply that Sony's more powerful GPU and DDR5 bandwidth outweigh MS's 32MB of ESRAM and possible software advantage.

 

[mesyn191]

I believe there has been precisely zero leaked information to indicate that XBox One is going to offer better performance.

Which is something I haven't been saying even vaguely so why this sort of reply to me? I mean that is just about as clear case of whacking at straw men as you're going to get, you don't think anyone else will notice? Really?

The only people saying things in MS's favor have been either MS or someone working elusively on a One title.

Carmack is one developer who has publicly stated his opinion on both consoles performance and is also working on games for both consoles.

So either this whole thing is a grand conspiracy by Sony, or the reality is simply that Sony's more powerful GPU and DDR5 bandwidth outweigh MS's 32MB of ESRAM and possible software advantage.

Or people have have bought into the hype just like they did last time with Cell or eDRAM before that. I think a big clue that this is true is the way most everyone just focuses on the relatively simple straight forward specs that are easily comparable and then pretty much ignores the eSRAM and all the task dedicated CPU's/DSP's. It'd be like talking about PS3 vs X360 while ignoring the Cell's SPU's which would be a mistake.

 

[Ocellaris]

Or people have have bought into the hype just like they did last time with Cell or eDRAM before that. I think a big clue that this is true is the way most everyone just focuses on the relatively simple straight forward specs that are easily comparable and then pretty much ignores the eSRAM and all the task dedicated CPU's/DSP's. It'd be like talking about PS3 vs X360 while ignoring the Cell's SPU's which would be a mistake.

It isn't 2005 anymore.

 

[mesyn191]

It also wasn't 2000 anymore in 2005.

People falling for hype never goes away with time.

 

[JoeUser]

Franky, your an idiot. Tell me a single launch game for the ps3 that looked like the last of us? Tell me a single launch 360 game that looks like the latest gears of war.

Just becauee a game is running at 900p right now, at launch, with potentially a shorter development time means it absolutely does not draw out the potential of a console. It means the driver support for the hardware isnt optimized. It means lower level libraries in utilizing the eSRAM are also most likely far from a finished state. It means the cry engine is not optimized for this hardware.

Your trying to tell me that launch games show the real potential of a console when that has NEVER occured at a launch? Go crawl back under your rock

Besides the ESRAM in the Xbox One (which according to developers is a pain in the ass) the new consoles are basically PC's in a box. There isn't going to be "hidden" power unlocked on down the road. We're dealing with x86 processors and now standard GPU architecture. There WILL NOT be the graphical jump in graphics like there was with the current generation...there just isn't enough to be learned. At least with current gen they had an excuse...Cell processor in the PS3, unified shaders in the Xbox 360, multi-core CPU architecture, how best to utilize 512MB of RAM, etc.

The new consoles? Yeah, no so much.

But I forget...you're some ultra engineer right? So no arguing with you over actual game developers...forgot...sorry...

 

[JoeUser]

Carmack is one developer who has publicly stated his opinion on both consoles performance and is also working on games for both consoles.

From reading Carmacks response I believe he was talking about what each console was capable of technically and no so much about which was faster.

I mean, each console is rather similar in terms of what they can DO such as GPU computing, graphical effects, etc but what can each console do better than the other...that's the question. That's something I don't think Carmack was referring too.

He isn't stupid, he know's his tech. I couldn't imagine him saying what he said in the context of the consoles actual POWER.

 

[next-Jin]

It also wasn't 2000 anymore in 2005.

People falling for hype never goes away with time.

Previous consoles were very different and anything but off the shelf (Xbox) being the exception. Because of the world economy things are very different this time, they are using off the shelf technology based off x86.

We have never had two consoles so easily comparable.

It's not 2005 anymore, or 99 or 92 or 86.

 

[mesyn191]

I couldn't imagine him saying what he said in the context of the consoles actual POWER.

It seemed pretty obvious to me that he was. After all, if both consoles are capable of the same effects but those effects are only effectively possible on one of them due to performance issues that would be a pretty big distinction!

 

[mesyn191]

they are using off the shelf technology based off x86....We have never had two consoles so easily comparable.

The CPU's are identical sure but there is a lot more hardware in both consoles than just a CPU. If the PS4 and xb1 are so easily comparable what is the exact difference between the 2 in terms of GFLOPs and bandwidth? BTW remember that we've also only been given the PS4's peak numbers as well.

For instance outside of pathological conditions which are irrelevant to in game performance the PS4 won't get 176GB/s of bandwidth out of its main memory. Just like the xb1 won't get 2xxGB/s out of the eSRAM in game either.

 

[JoeUser]

It seemed pretty obvious to me that he was. After all, if both consoles are capable of the same effects but those effects are only effectively possible on one of them due to performance issues that would be a pretty big distinction!

No, each console is capable of the same effects...it's just a matter of which can do MORE. Each console can do GPU computing for physics for instance, however, do you really think the Xbox One could do 15,000 particles while maintaining the SAME graphics and performance of the PS4 that's also doing 15,000 particles, same graphics, etc?

So unless Carmack knows something we don't I don't think he meant the PERFORMANCE is the same. Simply that each console is capable of the effects. The 360 could do tessellation which the PS3 couldn't among some other things...THOSE consoles were DIFFERENT.

 

[JoeUser]

The CPU's are identical sure but there is a lot more hardware in both consoles than just a CPU. If the PS4 and xb1 are so easily comparable what is the exact difference between the 2 in terms of GFLOPs and bandwidth? BTW remember that we've also only been given the PS4's peak numbers as well.

For instance outside of pathological conditions which are irrelevant to in game performance the PS4 won't get 176GB/s of bandwidth out of its main memory. Just like the xb1 won't get 2xxGB/s out of the eSRAM in game either.

This is kind of a dumb question.

360 = Unified memory architecture, triple core PowerPC CPU, ATI GPU with unified shaders, DVD-ROM, etc.

PS3 = Discrete memory architecture, single PowerPC PPE and six accessible SPEs, Nvidia GPU with discrete vertex and pixel pipelines, Blu-ray, etc.

THOSE consoles are SUBSTANTIALLY different. Bout the only thing they have in common is that the CPU's are IBM (but totally different architecture).

Next-gen consoles = EXACT same CPU (varying clock rates), same GPU architecture, unified memory pools, Blu-ray, etc...

Sure the RAM setups and bandwidth are different...but come on, thats just pulling at straws when talking about OVERALL similarities.

 

[VladDracule]

While this sounds quite reasonable, I believe there has been precisely zero leaked information to indicate that XBox One is going to offer better performance. The only people saying things in MS's favor have been either MS or someone working elusively on a One title. And even then, MS hasn't offered information beyond "We got this under control, trust us!"

So either this whole thing is a grand conspiracy by Sony, or the reality is simply that Sony's more powerful GPU and DDR5 bandwidth outweigh MS's 32MB of ESRAM and possible software advantage.

http://www.videogamer.com/xboxone/m..._power_difference_is_minimal_says_kojima.html

Kojima one of the biggest names in the gaming industry said the performance difference are minimal.

You talking pc drivers vs coding on the console...whole different ballgame when they can already "code to metal" so to speak with uniform hardware. You will not see those huge gains on consoles. Now when ther SDK's get better we me see some improvement but I don't foresee 1080p @ 60fps being really a good option for the XBone without reductions in textures, AA, or other settings.

Your trying to say drivers have nothing to do with Game Console development? Your trying to say that programming techniques wont change with these consoles?

That is an absolutely gigantic mistake. Your saying that because these are x86 based architectures then the development wont see any optimization? You realize that multi-threaded programming is extremely new in relationship to when dual cores first hit the market. Microsoft itself didnt have much of a handle on multi-threaded operation of an OS until windows 7, YEARS after multi core processors came out. These consoles have not only 8 threads (from 4 cores) but also co processors and unified memory architectures that havent been around for very long. Your also implying that SDK's dont include things like drivers and low level libraries, which is also false.

Which is something I haven't been saying even vaguely so why this sort of reply to me? I mean that is just about as clear case of whacking at straw men as you're going to get, you don't think anyone else will notice? Really?


Carmack is one developer who has publicly stated his opinion on both consoles performance and is also working on games for both consoles.


Or people have have bought into the hype just like they did last time with Cell or eDRAM before that. I think a big clue that this is true is the way most everyone just focuses on the relatively simple straight forward specs that are easily comparable and then pretty much ignores the eSRAM and all the task dedicated CPU's/DSP's. It'd be like talking about PS3 vs X360 while ignoring the Cell's SPU's which would be a mistake.

This is what ive been saying this entire thread, you simply cannot look at some high level numbers and draw legitimate performance conclusions, end of story.

Besides the ESRAM in the Xbox One (which according to developers is a pain in the ass) the new consoles are basically PC's in a box. There isn't going to be "hidden" power unlocked on down the road. We're dealing with x86 processors and now standard GPU architecture. There WILL NOT be the graphical jump in graphics like there was with the current generation...there just isn't enough to be learned. At least with current gen they had an excuse...Cell processor in the PS3, unified shaders in the Xbox 360, multi-core CPU architecture, how best to utilize 512MB of RAM, etc.

The new consoles? Yeah, no so much.

But I forget...you're some ultra engineer right? So no arguing with you over actual game developers...forgot...sorry...

Same comment as above. Just because these are using x86 architecture DOES NOT mean the development for them is going to be the same as PC's. The only reason the PS3 could even handle a game like the last of us is its ability to Offload. Offloading will still be a huge optimization process in these consoles because of their increased hardware complexity. A familiar architecture != standardized programming techniques. Software optimization is always ALWAYS an ongoing process. Your also trying to say that programmers right off know how best to utilized this unified memory set up when it doesnt exist in PC's. What about this dedicated Audio Chip on the XBox one? the 8 vs 15 co processors? Having to write code to utilize 8 cores to relatively close to saturation levels?

Clearly you havent ever had to write multi threaded applications because the complexity is gigantic, and it is in no way, to this day mastered, by ANYBODY.

Previous consoles were very different and anything but off the shelf (Xbox) being the exception. Because of the world economy things are very different this time, they are using off the shelf technology based off x86.

We have never had two consoles so easily comparable.

It's not 2005 anymore, or 99 or 92 or 86.

Off the shelf components that are in no way identical. Both companies highly customized the APU's and due to NDA's we dont even know the customization in the chips which means this is an absolutely bogus assumption

This is kind of a dumb question.

360 = Unified memory architecture, triple core PowerPC CPU, ATI GPU with unified shaders, DVD-ROM, etc.

PS3 = Discrete memory architecture, single PowerPC PPE and six accessible SPEs, Nvidia GPU with discrete vertex and pixel pipelines, Blu-ray, etc.

THOSE consoles are SUBSTANTIALLY different. Bout the only thing they have in common is that the CPU's are IBM (but totally different architecture).

Next-gen consoles = EXACT same CPU (varying clock rates), same GPU architecture, unified memory pools, Blu-ray, etc...

Sure the RAM setups and bandwidth are different...but come on, thats just pulling at straws when talking about OVERALL similarities.

Again, your saying there is no customization of these chips, which is bogus

 

[pcjunkie]

Your trying to say drivers have nothing to do with Game Console development? Your trying to say that programming techniques wont change with these consoles?

That is an absolutely gigantic mistake. Your saying that because these are x86 based architectures then the development wont see any optimization? You realize that multi-threaded programming is extremely new in relationship to when dual cores first hit the market. Microsoft itself didnt have much of a handle on multi-threaded operation of an OS until windows 7, YEARS after multi core processors came out. These consoles have not only 8 threads (from 4 cores) but also co processors and unified memory architectures that havent been around for very long. Your also implying that SDK's dont include things like drivers and low level libraries, which is also false.

You are grossly overstating things while telling me I said/implied things I never did. You think that your going to get some magical 100% increase just due to drivers is ridiculous. Also I inferred better sdk's could help performance so where the hell is that coming from? You seem to think that the XBone is going get so much better over time but seem to forget that so will the PS4? You quote so many posts that maybe you should slow down and think about what you type out first...just because its x86 doesn't make it magical hardware capable of increasing performance at 20-30% a crack per update. You must not have much faith in MS's early xbone sdk kits?

 

[VladDracule]

You are grossly overstating things while telling me I said/implied things I never did. You think that your going to get some magical 100% increase just due to drivers is ridiculous. Also I inferred better sdk's could help performance so where the hell is that coming from? You seem to think that the XBone is going get so much better over time but seem to forget that so will the PS4? You quote so many posts that maybe you should slow down and think about what you type out first...just because its x86 doesn't make it magical hardware capable of increasing performance at 20-30% a crack per update. You must not have much faith in MS's early xbone sdk kits?

Your implying that the devs of a game like ryse know 100% how to program for the X Box One and the fact that their 900p number indicates the XBox Ones performance which is in no way true. Drivers alone can provide substantial upgrades so can software optimization. The Cry engine used in Ryse is designed for older hardware set ups and is in no way optimized for these consoles. If your going to judge an entire console on one release lets do the same for ps4. Knack looks like dog shit I.e the ps4 sucks and isnt capable of 1080p 60 hz. Oh lets also note that killzone isnt even running at 1080p 60 hz

 

[pcjunkie]

Your implying that the devs of a game like ryse know 100% how to program for the X Box One and the fact that their 900p number indicates the XBox Ones performance which is in no way true. Drivers alone can provide substantial upgrades so can software optimization. The Cry engine used in Ryse is designed for older hardware set ups and is in no way optimized for these consoles. If your going to judge an entire console on one release lets do the same for ps4. Knack looks like dog shit I.e the ps4 sucks and isnt capable of 1080p 60 hz. Oh lets also note that killzone isnt even running at 1080p 60 hz

Sure, I'm implying all those things. You've addressed everyone of the points I made

 

[mesyn191]

No, each console is capable of the same effects..

Some effects are more hardware intensive than others making them effectively impracticable. The PS2, Xbox, X360, and PS3 have all had the capability to do ray tracing for instance but none of those consoles used it very much for anything. This is also true of certain IQ capabilities as well BTW. The X360 could in theory do nearly free 4x FSAA, in practice that never really panned out either.

So unless Carmack knows something we don't I don't

Of course he knows something we don't. He has actual dev kits from both consoles to compare to.

 

[JoeUser]

Your implying that the devs of a game like ryse know 100% how to program for the X Box One and the fact that their 900p number indicates the XBox Ones performance which is in no way true. Drivers alone can provide substantial upgrades so can software optimization. The Cry engine used in Ryse is designed for older hardware set ups and is in no way optimized for these consoles. If your going to judge an entire console on one release lets do the same for ps4. Knack looks like dog shit I.e the ps4 sucks and isnt capable of 1080p 60 hz. Oh lets also note that killzone isnt even running at 1080p 60 hz

How long have you worked for Crytek again?

Also have you seen Ryse? In my eyes what they have graphically is QUITE impressive given the hardware it's running on. I don't see how it could THAT much better really...

 

[mesyn191]

360 = Unified memory architecture, triple core PowerPC CPU, ATI GPU with unified shaders, DVD-ROM, etc.

You left off the 10MB eDRAM. What the heck is with people and ignoring large fast caches that are outside of the CPU, GPU, and main memory?! Do you think they're worthless or something?

Sure the RAM setups and bandwidth are different...but come on, thats just pulling at straws when talking about OVERALL similarities.

If you think that memory architecture and bandwidth can only be minor differences than why don't you disable the L1 or L2 cache on your CPU and pull the DIMMs out of 1 memory channel while your at it and see just how fast your computer runs.

 

[JoeUser]

You left off the 10MB eDRAM. What the heck is with people and ignoring large fast caches that are outside of the CPU, GPU, and main memory?! Do you think they're worthless or something?


If you think that memory architecture and bandwidth can only be minor differences than why don't you disable the L1 or L2 cache on your CPU and pull the DIMMs out of 1 memory channel while your at it and see just how fast your computer runs.

Dude really?

 

[mesyn191]

If all you're going to do is roll your eyes then the answer is "yes really", because as you know, a rolleye isn't a reply.

Also I really like how many people have been unable to give even a prediction to what the xb1's total effective bandwidth and performance are yet still claim that performance is easily predictable. The cognitive dissonance is so strong that people are even able to ignore Kojima's comments on the subject and still talk as if the PS4 will have a huge performance advantage over the xb1.

The difference is small, and I don&#8217;t really need to worry about it. When you come right down to it, the PS4 is cheap (laughs). Though, I wonder about the inclusion of the camera&#8230;

Kojima is a respected and experienced developer but you'd be hard pressed to tell if you were unfamiliar with his games given the comments in the article!