Games will play the same, as long as we don't see a true upgrade in CPU power Next-Gen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjjRdrVAHCQ&t=3s

People must wake up to the fact that the jump from xbox/ps2 to X360/ps3 was much bigger than from x360/ps3 to Xbone/ps4 , mostly due to the giant leap in CPU power. A good example to look at would be the GTA series. GTA 5>GTA 4>>>>>>>GTA Andreas (in terms of world interaction & physics)

The way we interact in our game world is highly CPU dependant. Improved simulated physics & AI can provide the alive worlds we've been craving for.

So why do Publishers keep touting the importance of the GPU over the CPU for gaming? Because very little games are developed with complicated CPU's in mind. The PC market is sadly console bound, so high budget PC exclusives demanding good CPU"s are pretty much non existent.

The Scorpio can deliver a beautiful 4K reskin, but it does not innovate. So demand a next gen console with Ryzen, or refuse to buy one if it doesn't and build a decent pc instead. Let's not drag gaming further into reskin hell.

ideal Next gen console specs:

Ryzen 1600/1700X (3x the power of jaguar @2.3ghz)

10 Tflop GPU
18GB shared GDDR6 (14gb available for gaming)
1TB SSD + 3TB HDD
500$ sold with a loss at first.

@Q4 2019-Q4 2020 this should be do-able.

discuss.

1tb would not be well liked next gen. You would have to purchase a external drive right away.

Gotta aim for a 399$ price. Not 599$.

Would 4tb be good enough for storage?

@GameboyTroy: be a good start. Wouldnt surprize me if games are 200 gigs or more next gen.

@GameboyTroy: 4TB sounds lovely but those drive speeds just won't do. Textures and audio files are the biggest size hogs right.

Games play the same because they follow trend setters that make money. EA's targeting sandbox online games not because of limited hardware but because they are far more viable for microtransactions and phat loot.

Indie games that run on a toaster, even mimicking 3+ decade old titles can and do innovate.

I think 4T will suffice for storage. I am also using 4T

Updated the specs. But I am honestly more interested in what people think about what an upgraded cpu could mean for gaming.

Consoles do not hold back PC gaming. That would only be true if all PC games were multiplatform games but most of the PC gaming library are exclusives and non has reached the production levels of a console exclusive. The best selling games on PC are not demanding on hardware yet people just keep pretending that the majority of PC gamers care about specs. Just like console gamers, gamers just don't give a damn about what happens behind the scenes of the game they are playing. Games are where they at because it sells not because of some CPU limitation.

@Pedro: Hence why I referred to big budget exclusive pc gaming that is non existent. Your point is the same as mine. Big budget games actually sell on consoles, multiplatform games make the most revenue. Battlefield 1 / GTA V / Assassins Creed f.e. all need to have a graphics engine that the 8 core jaguar can handle.

If consoles didn't exist, developers could draw the cpu line by themself. I can guarantee that the battlefield 1 community on pc are Hardware fiends, so that community is definitely being held back by current console specs.

The money is being made on consoles. Consoles with a better cpu gives big budget developers a lot more headroom to get creative with physics, simulations and AI. I can bet you on this.

@metalboi: people dont like the file sizes now. And didnt a developer state before, 343i i think, that too much compression can create performance problems?

Also, it should be no surprise that the recommended specs for multiplatform games on pc are so low compared to games from 10 years ago. 10 years ago you needed a top of the line cpu for a multiplatform game, now you need just an i3.

The market likes reskins. Pure eye candy. Deeper shaders, textures , geometry, environmental effects. It all looks phenomenal, but it's beginning to feel very superficial.

In general, the games their skeleton has remained the same for 11 years now. The core 2 quad 6600 and jaguar 8 core arent too far off. A midrange Ryzen 5 is 3.5x the speed of jaguar. Another unsprising fact is that 2d side scrollers have seen the most innovation over the years. It was the only genre that had the resources to innovate.

A cpu upgrade in consoles can safe this industry, I can also guarantee this.

Thats a huge assumption on your part. This recent focus on CPU as of late seems rather random. I am not sure where this is stemming from. Physics in games are generally cosmetic which goes right back to the GPU. Simulations are now being moved to the GPU and AI is still juvenile in software. So, the claim that we need stronger CPUs to get different and better games is lacking an real basis.

I won't argue that the next round of consoles need a serious cpu upgrade. It would allow some gameplay innovation that isn't happening currently.

I do find it curious that the heavy hitters such as AC, GTAV, and Battlefield all push CPU's to their limit on consoles.

No one acts like a majority of PC gamers care of specs. We know we are a minority to ALL PC gamers combined. As a majority of PC gamers are playing these cheap or free games. These developers aren't going to make a game that requires a lot of power as in it won't sell as well because a majority of PCs out there aren't made for that. They are going to target something that is equivalent to consoles because most CPUs in a majority of PCs (notebooks, cheaper laptops or desktops) don't have the greatest CPUs. I could see that an increase in CPU power coming soon next gen as this has been a CPU year and prices are going down on them vs performance. We could have a bigger revolution of gameplay mechanics next gen due to this as we face resolution this gen as the important factor. My concern though is with a controller. As I feel like we are getting to a point that there is only so much you can do with a controller. Do not get me wrong as I love my controller. I use one on my PC to play all my games (even multiplayer).

@Pedro: Fair reaction. A lot more CPU processes are becoming more of a GPU processes. Open world games with big rendered maps could benefit the most. I guess my preference of gaming is biased towards those kind of games.

The number of objects drawn on screen and amount of npc/AI being actively processesed is still CPU calculated. As is destruction, most character animations, volumetric particle effects (unless PhysX is used, which is patented by Nvidia the bastards), dynamic mesh (hairworks, clothes physics, geometry & terrain deformation),

In my personal opinion, games look pretty but lack immersion because to me the interaction with the game world has not changed much.

The problem with the coming generation is that they have the Pro and X1X to compete with and the time between the two releases will not give you hardware for £399/$399 that will surpass it. Its just not possible unless they sell at a loss.

I like the way games play... I'm fine if the trend continues next gen.

Honestly? I don't even like it this gen. I think you can replace the hard drive on some of these consoles though which I am considering for my Xbox.

4TB for next gen would be preferable.

Per clock, Ryzen is about 2X resource (math units, integer units, load units, decode rate) over Jaguar. X1X's CPU only advantage over Ryzen is slightly larger TLB cache (resolving cache data to physical memory location cache). To fake Ryzen, it needs two Jaguar cores.

The problem with Ryzen 1600/1700X is TDP, hence mobile variant would be employed, but Raven Ridge's mobile Ryzen is not Jaguar cheap. High performance mobile CPU has premium profit in X86 PC world.

X1X was design to be bias towards GPU resolution capability i.e. Digital Foundry's XBO resolution gate vs PS4.

Jaguar was design to beat IBM's PPE replacement which is PowerPC A2 and similar era ARM Cortex A15(Jaguar still beats ARM Cortex A57/72). AMD designed Jaguar to beat embedded CPU solutions from non-X86 CPU vendors.

SSD drives for next gen would be great for speeding up read access for textures and other game data.

CPU power though has almost hit a stand still these last few years. Single core speeds really haven't improved much and now all the CPU manufacturers are aiming for more cores, which doesn't necessarily help with gaming. I mean, if a game has it's physics and other engine components multithreaded it will help, but some thigns just can't be multithreaded and require a linear progression through their rendering process which forces a single thread.

if next gen really wants to push vr and 4k gaming then a mere 10TF gpu isn't gonna cut it

they gotta aim for 15 or so

I can promise you the X and PRO will be the last Jaguar based consoles. There is no need to worry about that.

Would anyone be able to give me a personal review of the simushiftknob product?

part of it i guess but I assume it's more about the trend and related to how it's easier to market prettier games. Might not have much market on a very sophisticated and challenging game.

Can't remember the exact article but wasn't there an AAA action game where they used a very smart AI and the testers didn't like it?

Not exactly the most imaginative here but I also think genres have slowed down as well so mostly a mish mash and polishing of existing mechanics.

I don't imagine they'll ever use an ssd. But even a faster sata 3 2.5 inch hdd would work, such as the WD Black series. It's very fast and easily good enough for gaming. Not convinced consoles make the best use of an ssd.

They just need to focus on moving a lot of the stuff over to GPGPU to free the CPU up..... There's no reason at all why CPU's these days are used for physics when the GPU can do it much much faster.

The PC have had the advanced CPUs since forever. What are some examples of advanced games do we have now?

Obviously, it would have to be PC-exclusives since they're not supposed to be doable on consoles.

Actually PC does get big budget exclusives its just that most of them are MMOs or RTS so they may not look as graphically impressive as a FPS or Third Person action game because the scales of the games demand a lot so devs can't focus too much on graphics because those games have to render way more on screen than most other types of games but they're still technically impressive if you realize their genres and scales. Even then you don't need a AAA budget to make a good looking PC game. Some examples are Escape From Tarkov, Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem, Lichdom: Battlemage, Dreadnought, The Bard's Tale 4, The Forest, Assetto Corsa, PAMELA and The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter.

PUBG has sold over 20 million copies and it is a pretty demanding game. So there is a market for demanding PC games it just may not be as big as for lower end games obviously. To me it seems that most demanding PC games don't generate as much of a hit/desire to get people to want to play them like their lower end counterparts. PUBG is a sensation so its able to cultivate the type of sales you'd normally only see on low end PC games.

Heck at one point before the 8th gen consoles came out F2P PC games like Blacklight Retribution, Mechwarrior Online, Hawken and Planetside 2 were starting to look better than most console games. Especially Planetside 2 and it was even more impressive with its large scale battles. Some of these games like Hawken and Planetside 2 can still hold their own against some of today's games. Black Desert Online is easily one of the best looking PC games or games in general to date and its F2P in Asia and Russia although its Buy To Play in the West but at a very low price.

Here is another upcoming PC game that is an MMO that looks just as good if not better than most console exclusives,

Not from mah recent experience with my spanking new Mighty X1X. Going from playing my games on X1 to X1X is like playing a whole new game, everything feels and runs much smoother and overall better and the games looks, Unholy cowzerz.... phenom!!!

Dang these Pee Salty Seas peasants these dayzzz. :P

Because they want to maximize GPU resources for the graphics.

I have a GTX 1060 6 GB. So I use my old GTX 750 Ti as a PhysX card. Mainly for the Batman games I guess. In some PhysX tests the GTX 750 Ti was at 60% dedicated to PhysX, while the GTX 1060 was at 100% focusing on the graphics.

Keep in mind that the GTX 750 Ti is roughly as powerful as a PS4 or Xbone, and keep in mind that consoles are sold on the premise of graphics, because they're the easiest thing to communicate as a form of progression to joe average. Games are purposefully set at 30 fps, so that developers can push graphics, and at a time when they're trying to push 4K... So I think the chances of developers offloading significant CPU jobs to the GPU on consoles, is a bit unlikely imo.

Async compute should alleviate most of that.....

i think this is more of a developer issue. a lot of the more interesting games today can run on a pretty crap CPU. as for the AAA sector: again i dont think the CPU is the problem. i think the cost of production is the problem.

outside of the graphics workload the only other major CPU killer is physics. AI, surprisingly, is not really demanding on the CPU. its really really complicated to develop but it doesnt bring a CPU to its knees. there are some very old games that did some very interesting things with AI and they could run on a pentium 3. the jaguar cores and even the arm cores in the switch can do some pretty snazzy AI. the developers just has to do it.

i do think they should switch from many lower clocked jaguar type core to fewer stronger cores though. given the choice i think developers would prefer 2 higher clocked ryzen cores (with SMT) compared to 6-7 jaguar cores. i dont know much silicon real estate 2 ryzen cores would takes compared to 8 jaguar cores though. heat should be manageable but it would upp the cost of the console. itll be interesting to see how the X1X does...will people accept a 500 price point?

@jahnee:

It depends on AMD's non-X86 CPU competitors e.g. PowerPC, MIPS and ARM.

AMD's Jaguar was design to beat IBM PowerPC A2(PPE successor) and ARM Cortex A15.

In IceStorm physics benchmarks, Jaguar still beats Cortex A57/A72/A73.

AMD is an ARM licensee, hence they know ARM's road map.

AMD is competing against CPU/GPU competitors in the game console price segment i.e. max bang per buck.

Prior to AMD Bulldozer, PowerPC has FMA math advantage. Intel Haswell delivered FMA math features hence removing PowerPC's advantage.

Prior to Intel Core 2, Pentium III/IV has 64bit SIMD hardware while PowerPC G4 has full 128 bit Altivec SIMD hardware. AMD K8 Athlon 64 has 128bit FADD and 64 FMUL SIMD hardware hence not fully 128bit SIMD hardware, but delivered respectable math IPC when compared PowerPC G4/G5. Intel Core 2 delivered full 128bit SIMD hardware for X86 CPU market.

My point, PC CPU hasn't been advance with math features.

With start of 1st gen Intel Core i7, FMA advantage is nearly useless when PowerPC's memory write latency is inferior Intel's low memory write latency (the killer feature to drive the GPU at the highest fps).

My concern with PowerPCs has been NB/MCH quality.

Intel's SIMD extension run away with AVX-512 bit wide extension (for SkyLake X) leaving the competition for dead.. AVX-512 also has 32 register model just like PowerPC's 32 register model.

X86's smaller register model has a workaround with "register window" tricks. A lot of hardware tricks to make X86 instruction set sing...

Async compute gains gets allocated for max resolution.

PS5 / Xbox Next will not use the current first gen RyZen.

They will use Zen 2, most likely a mobile variant.

The current Raven Ridge APU is not a good indicator of next gen consoles, as it uses Zen 4 core / 8 thread CPU coupled with a low-end Vega GPU.

Next gen consoles will use Navi GPU architecture as their base, and may or may not have forward looking features that'll be part of AMD's post Navi GPU architecture.

Navi will use 'nextgen' memory, which could mean anything including GDDR6, HBM3 or HMC (Hybrid Memory Cube, another 3D stacked DRAM solution that competes with HBM). But I don't think AMD has the licence for HMC presently, so GDDR6 or HBM3.

Next-gen consoles, at minimum, will use 8 Zen 2 cores, a 12 TFlop GPU and no less than 24 GB memory (20 GB for games, 4GB for OS).

Disagree.

$400 is too little to bring about significant advancement. Next Gen needs to be $500 - $600 and give us much better CPU's.

I'd be happy with Sony coming in at the best they can do at $500 and MS giving us a Beefier console fully packaged at $600. This way cheapskates can buy their PS4's while people that don't mind paying a little more for a console can get the better HW.

Yet, Nintendo managed to change open world genre with a game released on an underpowered console/handheld.

What exactly did Nintendo do that wasn't already done in a game like the Witcher 3 for instance?

What advances are we looking for in games? Are there examples (esp single-player games) existing on the PC or console right now? If the PC is advanced enough, there should be concrete example of games that feature these advances.

I don't know if this is a good example. But, I think the damage model in Cliffs of Dover is pretty good:

Besides good gameplay? I mean, this topic seemed to have been settled for good since the game came out.

If Witcher 3 was Wolfenstein 3D, then BOTW would be Duke Nukem 3D.

Power and heat ristrictions... A 65w CPU at 4Ghz is not going to happen, that doesn't even include the price of the part.

The next consoles will more or less look like the following based on the fact that the consoles are probably in some form of development or RND and will release within the next 2 years with a price target of $400-500:

• Vega 56 level of performance from the GPU (the GPU will not be a substantial increase of the X1X due to the price and time difference between the release of the coming generation and it at best it will be 30-50% faster)
• A Zen Raven Ridge APU with a 2-2.5Ghz clock with 4c/8t
• 16GB GDDR5
• 1TB HDD

I have said it before this mid/late generation upgrade has ruined the chances of the next generation being a substantial performance increase. IT will be the smallest performance gap we have seen. So if you think the PS4 and X1 where disappointing you wait for the PS5.

2 years is not enough time for the industry to produce a GPU twice as good as the X1X for the same manufacturing costs required by a console.

It took 5 years for us to go from

• 12 CU to 40 CU
• 768 SU to 2560 SU
• 16 ROPS to 32 ROPS

A 2 year difference?... It will look like this

• 40 to 50+ CU
• 2560 to 3000+ SU
• 32 to 64 ROPS

Its not going to wow anyone. The 5 year generational gap is NEEDED in order to see a substantial advancement in not just raw horse power but features and technologies.

At best you will be looking at native 4K with 30/60FPS depending on the developers choice of framerate. The coming generation will be disappointing to say the least and not only that but WONT cost $399 that the X1 and PS4 launched with.

Its not a crystal ball, its just logic. Console hardware is restricted to power and price and the industry wont advance far enough to provide the performance that we usually expect with a console gap due to the introduction of the mid/late cycle console releases.

@Grey_Eyed_Elf:"I have said it before this mid/late generation upgrade has ruined the chances of the next generation being a substantial performance increase. IT will be the smallest performance gap we have seen. So if you think the PS4 and X1 where disappointing you wait for the PS5."

Some value points. But you think these mid gen upgrades will hold off PS5/Xboxwhatever longer?

Well rumours are already circulating that developers are predicting that the consoles are a minimum of 2 years away. Either way it won't be 5 more years which is needed to see that boost.

Even if its 3 years its still not enough time. The industry usually needs two generations for a High end GPU performance to be matched by Mid level GPU's... Since console require mid level GPU's due to power and cost restrictions, 2-3 years is not enough time to get a GPU that is 3-4x as powerful.

At best it will be twice as powerful on paper witch would equate to 1.5x(50%) more raw performance in terms of framerates.

Also when you factor in the state of the technology manafacture's expecting to see price increase in manufacturing costs to go up then I do not see how a the next generation will even be as big of a increase as PS4 Pro is to the X1X when you counter in the price's and manufacturing costs of those consoles and time difference between their releases.

The only way we would see a substantial increase is if the console launch at £599 like the PS3 did and sell at a loss, then it MIGHT be a acceptable performance increase, but at £399... 2-3 years?... with power limitations along with heat restrictions?... No chance.

AMD has burnt it's bridges with Micron i.e. hence no HMC and Micron defined GDDR5X.

AMD and SK Hynix has developed HBM and HBM2.

Intel and Micron has developed HMC. My point, Micron is associated with Intel Corp!

Minus 32MB ESRAM and Kinect, XBO's 363 mm2 chip size could have 28 CU. PS4's 347 mm2 chip size is indicative of AMD's GPU bias APU at 347 mm2 without Kinect distraction. 32MB ESRAM would have supported another 14 CUs.

XBO actually has 14 CU with 2 CU being disabled for yield issues.

PS4 actually has 20 CU with 2 CU being disabled for yield issues.

X1X GPU has 44 CU with 4 CU being disabled for yield issues. 28 CU to 44 CU is almost 2X CU count which maps with 28 nm to 16 nm scaling. 14 nm is slightly smaller than 16 nm.

X1X follows PS4's APU plan with 359 mm2 size chip and 16 nm FINFET tech, and it doesn't have Kinect distraction..

X1X 's GPU chip area size is about 283 mm scale from 16 nm would be about 2.2X density hence looking at 96 CUs. X1X GPU already has 2MB L2 cache and 2MB render cache, hence 7 nm version could yield 8 MB version.

VEGA 64 has 45 MB SRAM cache with high bandwidth cache (HBC) which is almost pointless for gaming i.e. VEGA 64 has Hollywood/Bollywood distractions.

Removing Raja Koduri from RTG removes Bollywood distractions.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2017/05/25/baahubali-tech-wizard-raja-koduri-discusses-making-movie-and-vr-magic/#45b15545c921

http://www.animationxpress.com/index.php/latest-news/vfx-is-the-next-big-thing-in-india-believes-amds-raja-koduri

596 mm2 = Fury X with 64 CU...

564 mm2 = Vega 64 with 64 CU... wtf happened between 28 nm Fury X to 14 nm Vega 64?

~283 mm2 = X1X's GPU with 44 CU with 16 nm.