Next console generation hardware speculation

[QUOTE="GummiRaccoon"]

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"] "Direct to metal" does not mean anything for a gpu's processing abilities by its design limits. Also consoles still use API's like Pc's( ie direct x and opengl). And the overhead with Pc's using modern OS's like widows vista/7/8 is not bloated, as you say they are. Fact is that an old x1950 can run well coded games with same or better quality as the 360. Coding for a standardize piece of hardware can have its benefits being able to get the hardware to nearly use all its abilities and resources however there is still limits. Once you hit the wall where optimization can not allow any more wiggle room to use less resources to do the same job as before its all but compromises.

This console generation has shown us the the shift from SD to HD however now near the end of their life cycle many games have went back to below HD standards and barely keep the 30 fps standard to be able push certain graphics and or to have a set frame rate. The next set of consoles will not be that powerful and them only using low to medium ranged gpu's even with "Direct to metal" coding will not be able to bypass the fact that the gpu's aren't able to do full blown tessellation or more advanced shader workloads compared to gpu's that are multiple times faster. These upcoming console will start out with 1080 but will trickle back down to 720 to be able to produce certain graphical effects and or have a set frame rate as time goes on.

Kinthalis

explain then how carmack is wrong

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/John-Carmack-Interview-GPU-Race-Intel-Graphics-Ray-Tracing-Voxels-and-more/Intervi

"I don't worry about the GPU hardware at all. I worry about the drivers a lot because there is a huge difference between what the hardware can do and what we can actually get out of it if we have to control it at a fine grain level. That's really been driven home by this past project by working at a very low level of the hardware on consoles and comparing that to these PCs that are true orders of magnitude more powerful than the PS3 or something, but struggle in many cases to keep up the same minimum latency. They have tons of bandwidth, they can render at many more multi-samples, multiple megapixels per screen, but to be able to go through the cycle and get feedback... fence here, update this here, and draw them there... it struggles to get that done in 16ms, and that is frustrating."

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/641/641662p2.html

You've alredy been schooled. But let me keep the ball rolling.

Carmack is mainly tlaking about dated API's on the PC - ie DX9, the most used API currently.

DX11 and newer version of openGL (combined with much better support for it on the driver side) do a MUCH better job at optimizing many of the rendering pathways. From runnign common lighting/shadowing code a LOT faster, to introducing multi-threaded rendering.

With DX1 and DX11.1 the difference between beign able to optomize at a very low level and having to reply on the PC API's is MUCH, MUCH smaller. We're tlaking a difference of 10 to 25%, and that's for the incredible optimization we'll see 4 years after the consoles hit the market,

I was talking to him. I got all my direct to hardware info from Carmack, so if Carmack is incorrect, I'd like to know.

These upcoming console will start out with 1080 but will trickle back down to 720 to be able to produce certain graphical effects and or have a set frame rate as time goes on.

04dcarraher

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

These upcoming console will start out with 1080 but will trickle back down to 720 to be able to produce certain graphical effects and or have a set frame rate as time goes on.

superclocked

[QUOTE="superclocked"][QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

These upcoming console will start out with 1080 but will trickle back down to 720 to be able to produce certain graphical effects and or have a set frame rate as time goes on.

04dcarraher

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"][QUOTE="superclocked"]Actually, the opposite happens as time goes on. As game engines shrink and get optimized for the specific hardware, the resolution, framerate, amount of detail, and complexity of effects actually go up...superclocked

Halo 3 was using a modified engine from Halo 2 ODST was also a continuation of the the Halo 3 engine however Reach and 4 were are new engines designed with modern assets for the 360.

Call of duty series has never reached HD native resolutions because the focus on graphics and trying to get 60 fps average. also Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 = 1024x600 (2xAA) while Call of Duty: Black Ops = 960x544 (2xAA), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 = 1280x720, Battlefield 3 = 1280x704, Gears of War 2 = 1280x720 (2xAA,) Gears of War 3 = 1280x720 (no AA). as you can see the more demanding the game's effects are the AA and resolution get knocked back. \

The PS3 was awful to code for and the limitation in memory and the RSX prevented the console to match up to the 360. It took first party dev's to make use the PS3's SPE's to help offload some the workload off of the RSX. Also release/early games never use most of the resources available.

As I stated, once the resources are being fully used there nothing to do but go backwards.

[QUOTE="superclocked"][QUOTE="04dcarraher"] Not when the hardware and resources get maxed and optimization cant do more. Even today developers have to decide focus on graphics/resolution or a preferred frame rate. and if 60 fps is the target. Resolution is the first thing to get lowered. 04dcarraher

Halo 3 was using a modified engine from Halo 2 ODST was also a continuation of the the Halo 3 engine however Reach and 4 were are new engines designed with modern assets for the 360.

Call of duty series has never reached HD native resolutions because the focus on graphics and trying to get 60 fps average. also Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 = 1024x600 (2xAA) while Call of Duty: Black Ops = 960x544 (2xAA), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 = 1280x720, Battlefield 3 = 1280x704, Gears of War 2 = 1280x720 (2xAA,) Gears of War 3 = 1280x720 (no AA). as you can see the more demanding the game's effects are the AA and resolution get knocked back. \

The PS3 was awful to code for and the limitation in memory and the RSX prevented the console to match up to the 360. It took first party dev's to make use the PS3's SPE's to help offload some the workload off of the RSX. Also release/early games never use most of the resources available.

As I stated, once the resources are being fully used there nothing to do but go backwards.

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

[QUOTE="superclocked"]Halo 3 / Halo 3: ODST - 640p w/ short draw distance and no AA Halo Reach - almost 720p ,2xAA, improved effects, but still short draw distances Halo 4 - native 720p, graphically superior to it's predicessors in every way.. Call of Duty has seen similar improvements through this generation, and PS3 games obviously look much better today than when the console was released...superclocked

Halo 3 was using a modified engine from Halo 2 ODST was also a continuation of the the Halo 3 engine however Reach and 4 were are new engines designed with modern assets for the 360.

Call of duty series has never reached HD native resolutions because the focus on graphics and trying to get 60 fps average. also Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 = 1024x600 (2xAA) while Call of Duty: Black Ops = 960x544 (2xAA), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 = 1280x720, Battlefield 3 = 1280x704, Gears of War 2 = 1280x720 (2xAA,) Gears of War 3 = 1280x720 (no AA). as you can see the more demanding the game's effects are the AA and resolution get knocked back. \

The PS3 was awful to code for and the limitation in memory and the RSX prevented the console to match up to the 360. It took first party dev's to make use the PS3's SPE's to help offload some the workload off of the RSX. Also release/early games never use most of the resources available.

As I stated, once the resources are being fully used there nothing to do but go backwards.

[QUOTE="superclocked"][QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

Halo 3 was using a modified engine from Halo 2 ODST was also a continuation of the the Halo 3 engine however Reach and 4 were are new engines designed with modern assets for the 360.

Call of duty series has never reached HD native resolutions because the focus on graphics and trying to get 60 fps average. also Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 = 1024x600 (2xAA) while Call of Duty: Black Ops = 960x544 (2xAA), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 = 1280x720, Battlefield 3 = 1280x704, Gears of War 2 = 1280x720 (2xAA,) Gears of War 3 = 1280x720 (no AA). as you can see the more demanding the game's effects are the AA and resolution get knocked back. \

The PS3 was awful to code for and the limitation in memory and the RSX prevented the console to match up to the 360. It took first party dev's to make use the PS3's SPE's to help offload some the workload off of the RSX. Also release/early games never use most of the resources available.

As I stated, once the resources are being fully used there nothing to do but go backwards.

04dcarraher

THIS.

You don't know what they had to depricate or compromise on in order to make it run.

[QUOTE="superclocked"][QUOTE="04dcarraher"] Not when the hardware and resources get maxed and optimization cant do more. Even today developers have to decide focus on graphics/resolution or a preferred frame rate. and if 60 fps is the target. Resolution is the first thing to get lowered. 04dcarraher

Halo 3 was using a modified engine from Halo 2 ODST was also a continuation of the the Halo 3 engine however Reach and 4 were are new engines designed with modern assets for the 360.

Call of duty series has never reached HD native resolutions because the focus on graphics and trying to get 60 fps average. also Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 = 1024x600 (2xAA) while Call of Duty: Black Ops = 960x544 (2xAA), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 = 1280x720, Battlefield 3 = 1280x704, Gears of War 2 = 1280x720 (2xAA,) Gears of War 3 = 1280x720 (no AA). as you can see the more demanding the game's effects are the AA and resolution get knocked back. \

The PS3 was awful to code for and the limitation in memory and the RSX prevented the console to match up to the 360. It took first party dev's to make use the PS3's SPE's to help offload some the workload off of the RSX. Also release/early games never use most of the resources available.

As I stated, once the resources are being fully used there nothing to do but go backwards.

3rd party devs EA's Battlefield 3 has SPU based defered shading(1).

1. http://www.slideshare.net/DICEStudio/spubased-deferred-shading-in-battlefield-3-for-playstation-3

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

slipknot0129

Not even remotely close.

[QUOTE="slipknot0129"]

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

hartsickdiscipl

Not even remotely close.

[QUOTE="hartsickdiscipl"]

[QUOTE="slipknot0129"]

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

slipknot0129

Not even remotely close.

[QUOTE="hartsickdiscipl"]

[QUOTE="slipknot0129"]

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

slipknot0129

Not even remotely close.

[QUOTE="hartsickdiscipl"]

[QUOTE="slipknot0129"]

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

slipknot0129

Not even remotely close.

Based on what information?

Are you using AMD Gaming Evolved titles?

[QUOTE="hartsickdiscipl"]

[QUOTE="slipknot0129"]

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

slipknot0129

Not even remotely close.

[QUOTE="hartsickdiscipl"]

[QUOTE="slipknot0129"]

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

slipknot0129

Not even remotely close.

Now you're insane too.

Im just going to guess about the new xbox.

they should go with an amd 7850 gpu, theyll skimp and go with a 7750.

they should go with 4gb of ram, theyll skimp and go with 2gb.

they should go with a quad core cpu clocked at 3.6ghz or higher, theyll skimp a bit and go quad core around 3.2ghz

they should go with bluray, theyll skimp and go with some modified dvd that holds around 15-16 gigs.

they should have a standard ssd around 64 gigs for saves and to more efficiently run games like the original xbox had and have usb and external hdd handle the rest, theyll skimp and go with another proprietary 250 gig hdd.

even with all they should do that they wont it should be a pretty damn good console, 1080p should be easily attainable with later games being 1080p and 60fps.

Im just going to guess about the new xbox.

they should go with an amd 7850 gpu, theyll skimp and go with a 7750.

That's one place that Microsoft has never "skimped," the GPU..

they should go with 4gb of ram, theyll skimp and go with 2gb.

You may be right here, but RAM is dirt cheap, so I hope that they go with 4GB..

they should go with a quad core cpu clocked at 3.6ghz or higher, theyll skimp a bit and go quad core around 3.2ghz

The old Xenon is clocked at 3.2GHz. They'll probably use a CPU with a turbo feature that overclocks to 4.2GHz or so when needed..

they should go with bluray, theyll skimp and go with some modified dvd that holds around 15-16 gigs.

Why would they waste tons of money on a proprietary DVD format? I'm pretty sure that they'll just pay the licensing fees and go with blu-ray, especially since it won the movie format war..

they should have a standard ssd around 64 gigs for saves and to more efficiently run games like the original xbox had and have usb and external hdd handle the rest, theyll skimp and go with another proprietary 250 gig hdd.

The 360 has been using internal flash memory for saves for years, with the external hdd handling the rest..

even with all they should do that they wont it should be a pretty damn good console, 1080p should be easily attainable with later games being 1080p and 60fps.

I'm pretty sure that you were wrong on all other accounts, but I do agree that the next XBox will be developed with the intent to run games at 1080p/60fps...

TellDaddy

Im just going to guess about the new xbox.

they should go with an amd 7850 gpu, theyll skimp and go with a 7750.

they should go with 4gb of ram, theyll skimp and go with 2gb.

they should go with a quad core cpu clocked at 3.6ghz or higher, theyll skimp a bit and go quad core around 3.2ghz

they should go with bluray, theyll skimp and go with some modified dvd that holds around 15-16 gigs.

they should have a standard ssd around 64 gigs for saves and to more efficiently run games like the original xbox had and have usb and external hdd handle the rest, theyll skimp and go with another proprietary 250 gig hdd.

even with all they should do that they wont it should be a pretty damn good console, 1080p should be easily attainable with later games being 1080p and 60fps.

TellDaddy

[QUOTE="TellDaddy"]

Im just going to guess about the new xbox.

they should go with an amd 7850 gpu, theyll skimp and go with a 7750.

they should go with 4gb of ram, theyll skimp and go with 2gb.

they should go with a quad core cpu clocked at 3.6ghz or higher, theyll skimp a bit and go quad core around 3.2ghz

they should go with bluray, theyll skimp and go with some modified dvd that holds around 15-16 gigs.

they should have a standard ssd around 64 gigs for saves and to more efficiently run games like the original xbox had and have usb and external hdd handle the rest, theyll skimp and go with another proprietary 250 gig hdd.

even with all they should do that they wont it should be a pretty damn good console, 1080p should be easily attainable with later games being 1080p and 60fps.

godzillavskong

[QUOTE="TellDaddy"]

Im just going to guess about the new xbox.

they should go with an amd 7850 gpu, theyll skimp and go with a 7750.

they should go with 4gb of ram, theyll skimp and go with 2gb.

they should go with a quad core cpu clocked at 3.6ghz or higher, theyll skimp a bit and go quad core around 3.2ghz

they should go with bluray, theyll skimp and go with some modified dvd that holds around 15-16 gigs.

they should have a standard ssd around 64 gigs for saves and to more efficiently run games like the original xbox had and have usb and external hdd handle the rest, theyll skimp and go with another proprietary 250 gig hdd.

even with all they should do that they wont it should be a pretty damn good console, 1080p should be easily attainable with later games being 1080p and 60fps.

godzillavskong

PS3's CELL XDR (72 bits wide) only has 25.6GB/s of total memory bandwidth and it(i.e. CELL) has no support for hardware 3DC+ texture compression.

NVIDIA RSX doesn't support hardware 3DC+ texture compression.

XBox 360 has hardware 3DC+ texture compression support. 3DC+ was invented by ATI and was made part of DX10.

Info on 3DC+ from http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/radeon-x1000_8.html

One more technology which directly affects the image quality has also been improved further in the new RADEONs. We mean the normal map compression (3Dc). Its new version has acquired a plus sign in the name and can compress textures that are used, for example, as lighting and shadow maps, HDR textures, material properties, etc. 3Dc+ provides a compression coefficient of 2 to 1 with such textures and 4 to 1 with two-channel textures. If you dont know what its all about, heres its purpose in brief: the 3Dc (and now 3Dc+) technology helps to improve the level of detail of 3D models by using high-resolution normal maps rather than increasing the number of their polygons. Why 3Dc but not something else? The DXTC technology, for example, provides an 8 to 1 texture compression, but it doesnt suit for normal maps where per-pixel precision is necessary. The quality of the final rendering would suffer.

[QUOTE="GummiRaccoon"]

[QUOTE="Kinthalis"]

Bottom line will come down tocost and TDP limitations.

In order to match a current high end PC you're looking at at a 500+ watt TDP. That's NEVER going to happen on a console form factor. You can't cool those types of components efficiently in there, and how are you going to power that? You'd need a power birck the size of.. wlel the size of an ATX power supply, complete with large cooling fan.

And do you really think Sony and MS are going to take a 50% hit on a $300 console for the next 2 years?

I expect a top of the line quad core APU paired with a low-mid range (or the equivalent of a mobile (laptop) mid-range GPU). I expect DX 11 + 720p + 30 FPS but a serious bump in imgae quality. Much larger worlds, much more detailed 3D meshes, better textures, tripple buffered Vsync + better FXAA.

In other word,s all the creature comforts we PC gamers are used to + some higher quality lighting and shadowing but minus the higher resolution fo the PC.

Mark my words. The most impressive game son console will be runnign at 720p. They realize console gamers don't care about 1080p, and per-pixel effects suffer huge drops in performance at higher resolutions.

PC will still be the place to get multi-plats.

JigglyWiggly_

If you think these games will be running at 720p you are high

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"][QUOTE="GummiRaccoon"]

If you think these games will be running at 720p you are high

mitu123

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"][QUOTE="GummiRaccoon"]

If you think these games will be running at 720p you are high

mitu123

[QUOTE="mitu123"]

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"] I think this gen started the same way. Weren't a lot of the early games in 1080p? Then the res went lower and lower.JigglyWiggly_

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]

[QUOTE="mitu123"] Literally no early game was in 1080p.

superclocked

Beyond3D's game console resolution list http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241

[QUOTE="mitu123"]

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"] I think this gen started the same way. Weren't a lot of the early games in 1080p? Then the res went lower and lower.JigglyWiggly_

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]

[QUOTE="mitu123"] Literally no early game was in 1080p.

superclocked

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

slipknot0129

[QUOTE="slipknot0129"]

He's right about gtx 680 being the base level for the consoles.

darksusperia

What about his wrong?

what was he right about? 2 Tflops puts us right at 7850/7870....darksusperia

He was pointing out the grammatical error in using your instead of you're.

[QUOTE="darksusperia"]what was he right about? 2 Tflops puts us right at 7850/7870....GummiRaccoon

He was pointing out the grammatical error in using your instead of you're.

[QUOTE="GummiRaccoon"]

[QUOTE="darksusperia"]what was he right about? 2 Tflops puts us right at 7850/7870....darksusperia

He was pointing out the grammatical error in using your instead of you're.

It doesn't change the huge grammar error.

i doubt the new consoles will use any hardware that is way over the top any more.  What nintendo did with the wii was show microsoft and sony that you could sell a ton of hardware even if your specs are crap.  For that reason MS and Sony probably have less motivation to lose money upfront on their consoles than they did before the Wii was released.  

The specs of next gen will probably be a 7850 coupled with some sort of octo core AMD processor.  This is really going to help out AMD, since if console games are going to be optimized for their cpus, then porting them over to the pc will probably carry over that optimization and their cpus might be seen as viable again.  

Also the fact that all console makers are using AMD gpu's isn't suprising,AMD has always had the best bang for buck video cards...lets face it, nvidia over charges for weak arse hardware.  Always has and always will.  The ps3's gpu is a prime example, it is so weak sauce that developers were complaining every day.  Sony almost became bankrupt and lost boat loads of money on the ps3.  The fact that microsoft and now sony as well as nintendo all use AMD hardware is just proof of that fact.

[QUOTE="darksusperia"]what was he right about? 2 Tflops puts us right at 7850/7870....04dcarraher

The PS3 has 8GB ram so I am sure next year we all would need 16GB ram lol.

The PS3 has 8GB ram so I am sure next year we all would need 16GB ram lol.

Gambler_3

[QUOTE="Gambler_3"]

The PS3 has 8GB ram so I am sure next year we all would need 16GB ram lol.

04dcarraher

[QUOTE="Gambler_3"]

The PS3 has 8GB ram so I am sure next year we all would need 16GB ram lol.

04dcarraher

I think whats more likely is that next year you can say goodbye to 1GB GPUs cutting it at anything other than low. I also expect minimum resolution supported to rise in quite alot of games.

Anyways I am very happy with the specs of the PS4, finally going to be worthwhile to spend a truck load of money on a PC.

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"][QUOTE="Gambler_3"]

The PS3 has 8GB ram so I am sure next year we all would need 16GB ram lol.

Gambler_3

I think whats more likely is that next year you can say goodbye to 1GB GPUs cutting it at anything other than low. I also expect minimum resolution supported to rise in quite alot of games.

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"][QUOTE="GummiRaccoon"]

If you think these games will be running at 720p you are high

darksusperia

i doubt the new consoles will use any hardware that is way over the top any more.  What nintendo did with the wii was show microsoft and sony that you could sell a ton of hardware even if your specs are crap.  For that reason MS and Sony probably have less motivation to lose money upfront on their consoles than they did before the Wii was released.  

The specs of next gen will probably be a 7850 coupled with some sort of octo core AMD processor.  This is really going to help out AMD, since if console games are going to be optimized for their cpus, then porting them over to the pc will probably carry over that optimization and their cpus might be seen as viable again.  

Also the fact that all console makers are using AMD gpu's isn't suprising,AMD has always had the best bang for buck video cards...lets face it, nvidia over charges for weak arse hardware.  Always has and always will.  The ps3's gpu is a prime example, it is so weak sauce that developers were complaining every day.  Sony almost became bankrupt and lost boat loads of money on the ps3.  The fact that microsoft and now sony as well as nintendo all use AMD hardware is just proof of that fact.

blaznwiipspman1

[QUOTE="darksusperia"][QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"] I think this gen started the same way. Weren't a lot of the early games in 1080p? Then the res went lower and lower.Elann2008

[QUOTE="Elann2008"][QUOTE="darksusperia"] nope. They were always 720p upscaled to 1080p. Which is nothing more then artificial as there is no pixel increase. There are a handful of native 1080p games but they are mainly sports, puzzle or fighters (tekken).mitu123

[QUOTE="mitu123"]

[QUOTE="Elann2008"] Actually some console games ran at a lot less than 720p. Halo 3 was running at a little over 500p. Vanquish was the same.Elann2008

[QUOTE="Elann2008"]

[QUOTE="mitu123"]Actually Halo 3 is 640p and Vanquish is 1024x720.

mitu123