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And PlayStation boss, John Kodera, admits that the PS4 is nearing the end of its lifecycle.
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Read more.Quote:
And PlayStation boss, John Kodera, admits that the PS4 is nearing the end of its lifecycle.
Up coming NIVIDA would have been the better choice. imo
Why?Quote:
Originally Posted by ETR316
To make it harder for Nintendo to make a traditional STB style console again is the only reason I can think of, given the Switch is an Nvidia chip so an updated Nvidia SoC could use the existing Nintendo development ecosystem.Quote:
Originally Posted by afiretruck
For Sony or MS, it would mean a switch from AMD64 to ARM instruction set as well as the switch from AMD to Nvidia graphics cores, and whilst Jaguar would have been fair game I haven't heard of Nvidia making a CPU as fast as Ryzen.
Seeing as you know next to nothing about the upcoming Nvidia hardware like the rest of us, that's a pretty broad claim. Additionally, Sony/MS would want to stay within the AMD ecosphere so they don't have to rearchitect everything from scratch again and they will be able to do backwards compatibility easily if they stay with AMD. Lastly, they get CPU+GPU from AMD, which far outstrips the Shield technology from Nvidia (except in power consumption), rather than having to settle for sub-par/multiple vendors.Quote:
Originally Posted by ETR316
So no, it's highly likely it would not have been a better choice.
I think if you put a Xavier into a console it wouldn't be at all bad. Nvidia ARM designs aren't slow, the die size at 14nm is the same as a PS4 used at 28nm so crams a lot of transistors, and that is an awfully wide RAM interface it has.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabbykatze
https://wccftech.com/nvidia-drive-xavier-soc-detailed/
So whilst I agree it doesn't make sense for Sony to use an Nvidia SoC, someone probably will once the orders from car makers for self driving cars fall apart (like they did for car entertainment systems and phones before then, Nvidia always find a way to hack off manufacturers).
That's a fair point, I seem to have found that the majority of articles about Tegra require a lot of code optimisation to the bare metal which is not altogether a bad thing, it just sounds like the effort/return is very low. Whereas building off a known x86 platform means you have everything coming out your ears ready to rock and roll.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix
yup ready to rock and roll and meltdown. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabbykatze
Only if it's Intel :PQuote:
Originally Posted by ik9000
*shots fired*
(Meltdown joke...vulnerability...I'll see myself out)
Lots of neural-network fat to trim on xavier before it'll make a good console. Only 512 graphics cores is less than a 1050, whereas PS4 pros should outperform a 1060! If directX13 adds support for AI-assisted graphics then it'd make sense (You make up textures on the fly for infinite texture compression, or use the image analysis parts to recreate the eyetoy)Quote:
Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix
Fair cop, looking over the numbers I hadn't appreciated quite how AI targeted that chip is. According to https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/nvidia/drive/xavier it can manage 1.3TFLOP single precision. So yes, it would need Nvidia's next gen to be interesting assuming they will do a gaming part next (it seems about time).Quote:
Originally Posted by Xlucine
The whole point of using x86 in a console was to make cross platform development easier in the first place.
Anyone who can't cope with swapping from amd64 to armv8 should step away from the compiler and let a programmer take over. The things that bite you like data alignment on a risc chip tank your performance on PC chips so you should care deeply about them anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Sony have a reputation for having bonkers hardware in their consoles which are hard to program, but they could just as easily add those extensions to an x86 based machine, throw in a wacky memory layout, make 80% of the x86 cores unable to access main memory and voila we have a new x86 based PS3 or PS2. I can't see how it was ever about the instruction set. Stuff like graphics API is going to be wway more important.
It could be argued that having an ARM chip with a console that looks like an Android platform complete with Vulkan libraries would be more relevant to modern platforms.
It still does not change the fact that its cheaper to have pcs and consoles being as close as possible together in hardware and actually talking to a dev who developed cross platform games on the Xbox,ps4 and pc it was easier this gen.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix
Even MS ditched its ESRAM with their latest console,so everything hints at them simplifying things to the extent the consoles are more like PCs built to only run games on.
Going arm is pointless in this case as it will cost more money since you are using unproven cores,and adds more hurdles especially since cores like Zen are still faster than anything in large scale deployment on the arm side especially since they are low frequency designs.
Sony learnt its lesson so all the hardware enthusiasts will probably be whining again when the ps5 probably will be essentially a midrange PC.
Given the choice between tried and tested hardware and an unproven CPU core,especially with the history of Nvidia overstating their CPU performance I can see more chance of an Intel chip being in a high performance console.
Not really - the performance was just better for the price this time around since designs weren't so different from an existing product stack. Cross platform development is a minor plus but it's not one the console makers treat as a priority. Ease of development is good, but cross platform compatibility is just one route to achieve that.Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
No more than the Dreamcast was built much like a midrange PC, albeit with an SH4 cpu in it. The barrier to easy porting is Windows and the fact you might have to contend with Intel integrated graphics. The PC isn't really a standard, it is just a collection of parts made by companies that detest each other.Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
If you go back and read my post #4 you can see I am quite OK with the idea that Sony should use Ryzen, it is a good choice. But that is on merit of silicon area vs performance, not because it runs amd64 instructions. Indeed if AMD had gone ahead with their version of Ryzen that ran ARMv8 instructions then the cleaner instruction set would probably have made it smaller and faster and a better choice, but history has robbed us of that so Intel compatible it is.
Having written commercial code that runs on all major and most minor computing platform operating systems and processors it is really just Windows that has been the thorn in my side. HP-UX sucked pretty majorly, but Windows is the killer. Right now I am writing code for 64 bit Linux on the PC which also runs in 32 bit Linux on ARM, as a programmer they are just Linux so there is really zero friction moving between the two.
The devs who I spoke to said ease of development was an important consideration though(and the newer consoles were better in that regard than the older ones),and worked on some reasonably largish cross platform titles - the last two generations of consoles were made with ease of development in mind including having games cross platform on console and PC,and even MS is trying to unify the gaming experience on PC and console.Games cost more nowadays to make,and ease of development across platforms is a consideration especially with the timescales involved,and also the margins - look at how poor pay can be in the games industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
The last generations were more difficult to develop for and making versions across platforms was more difficult,and that was bourne out by various devs complaining last gen about the PS3,etc having non-standard hardware which needed more fiddling around with which cost more money and time - the specs looked great on paper,but in reality getting them to perform anywhere close to their theoretical performance level(especially in the case of the PS3) was a pain. So its no fluke that BOTH Sony and MS have gone towards relatively more off the shelf PC hardware this time,with some customisations.
Having each newer console generation,being a similar uarch but with faster hardware makes things easier too,especially regarding backwards compatability,or even having a hi-lo mix for graphical settings on the newer and older consoles.
Lots of PC enthusiasts are bemoaning the fact that the newer consoles are not pushing things - they won't be as its about reducing hardware costs,dev costs and risk.
Sony and MS could easily have gone for a PowerPC based CPU in any of the last few consoles,as IBM has some decent cores over the last few years,which in theory would have been more powerful than AMD Jaguar,but they didn't.
Just because the internet thinks that some custom ARM/MIPS/PowerPC core might be a better fit,has no bearing on what Sony/MS want in their home consoles.
The 7th generation consoles went that way,and it was way too much risk(and cost) in terms of hardware and software,and this is why they lasted so long so to recoup their costs.
Plus even Sony said so:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/Pl...ure,21479.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrick.../#6d5729fc2185Quote:
Originally Posted by Developers Requested x86 Architecture for PS4
That is from the horses mouth(and a few others in the realworld too)! ;)
So I don't agree with you this time,and we can leave it at that.
You need to really speak to some devs about the pecularities of each console,and it is interesting on what things were limitations.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix
In fact look at the consoles,how they have one by one dropped lots of the unusual design oddities like the ESRAM(the comments I heard about it were interesting) - each generation is moving more and more towards hardware which is more and more closer to what is in the PC.
There are improved costs sharing hardware with PCs,instead of expensive fully custom hardware,which means more frequent and cheaper updates and lower dev costs,since a lot of the hardware is already a known quantity to some degree.
Sure a high power ARM/MIPs/PowerPC core might work,but again most large scale available ARM cores,are designed for mobile use,so probably don't scale well with clockspeeds and additional power,and some of the desktop class non-X86 cores(the ones being developed in China and the IBM ones) are not in widespread use. But again why should Sony and MS bother funding a custom desktop class ARM core,when they can go off the shelf with a proven core,which probably has less potential bugs(validated by use in PC) and is a known quantity.
MS/Sony are essentially very close to each other in hw uarch with their consoles,and they are close to PC.For two companies who are fighting each other in gaming,to BOTH go that way is not a fluke. In terms of costs and dev feedback they obviously think its more efficient going the "close to PC hardware" way.
If it had no advantages like a few of you are trying to imply,they wouldn't be going the way they are.
Even if there are automated tools to generate different builds on different uarchs,optimisation is still going to be a major consideration though - look how long it takes for most early access games to get proper performance optimisations. Now imagine if the PlayStation,Xbox and PC were all very different uarchs!!
Even the one major ARM based console,uses an off the shelf SOC which was the best part of two years old and is not that powerful,and outside its own titles,Nintendo has had poor 3rd party games support,and the ones which made it to the platform are years old anyway,and have made their money back on PC and the Sony/MS consoles. Even the ports of some PC games like PUBG to mobile,are not really ports but different versions which are substantially different from their PC/home console equivalents.
I am not saying we won't see a non-mobile orientated ARM console from MS/Sony,but seriously you would need such a desktop class core to enter the desktop market in the first place,and then for Sony/MS to adapt the tech. I cannot see them funding such a core unless they intend to make a mobile/home hybrid console like the one Nintendo has made,a PSP replacement or a replacement for the Vita TV. In all these scenarios they would be giving up processing power for lower power consumption,so expect lots of enthusiasts to moan about it.
The other scenario is if a new actor enters the fray like Apple with another console or Amazon,who wouldn't care about compatability with PC,and was more worried about their phones and tablets.
I also think going from a few of the posts I see on Hexus,some of you just don't like Windows(and by extension X86 which via a fluke got linked with it),and then are trying to downplay the PC as a platform,even though game dev is still done on PCs. After all I wonder what platform all those nice pre-release videos are running on and what platform all the initial dev kits tend to be? ;)
I don't see this conversation going anywhere,so we can leave it at that! ;)
Blimey you might as well just say "You smell so we can just leave it at that", you can't mike drop on wild assumptions :D
Oh come off it, MS are trying to lock everyone into the MS ecosystem as much as possible by unifying Xbox and Windows. If they really cared about portability, then they would have thrown their weight behind Vulkan rather than re-invent it to no benefit in DirectXQuote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Fair cop I don't like Windows because I am a developer (I don't need to talk to one). Right now I am on a PC and it is running Windows because I was gaming last night, so I do see the benefits as a user. In a minute I will boot into Linux so I can get some programming done, because I have wasted enough of my life trying to get Microsoft products to be productive :)Quote:
some of you just don't like Windows(and by extension X86 which via a fluke got linked with it)
I am in no way confusing x86 and Windows because most of the time I use x86 in embedded or Linux environments, and thankfully these days C/C++ compilers are good enough that I don't really even remember the CPU I am targetting. Heck, even Windows back when it was NT was written for MIPS and not 386 to make sure it was multi platform. So I'm not peeing on x86, at the high end it makes sense as the cisc overhead isn't that great, but any programmer who says there is an advantage to x86 in porting would be like talking to a cyclist who says there is an advantage in having stabilizers, it's a huge waving red flag to those of us who know what we are doing that we might be talking to someone who isn't very good at writing code.