Is 4k for real or just another Atari jaguar

Sony and Microsoft keep telling us their consoles have 4k so is this real 4k or is it just like when Atari kept telling us the jaguar was 64 bit

@jim1174: The Atari. Haha the good old days!

Poor man's 4K

^ ^ This.

If you really want true 4K invest in PC gaming.

@mjorh: I thought 4K was 4k.

No, the consoles will upscale most of their "4K" games from 1440p. They can run native 4K on less demanding games or games with settings dialed down but if you really want true native 4K with good performance and settings on AAA games you're going to have to invest in PC gaming. The PS4 Pro and Scorpio are too underpowered for true 4K gaming. The PS5 and Xbox (Two) may be able to achieve proper 4K gaming whenever they release.

I thought the Atari Jaguar was really 64 bit

I miss my Atari :(

This isn't true, PlayStation 4 Pro is too underpowered for native 4K, Scorpio is not, don't bundle these systems together as if they're the same thing, we can all see what you're doing.

Scorpio's GPU is as powerful as a factory overclocked 390X which can handle modern games at 30 FPS on Ultra/Very High settings, with custom console configurations added to the mix the performance will be even better.

The Scorpio prob will be able to play 4k games for real, the PS4 has to upscale it.

4K as a TV format is here to stay. 4K gaming this gen will work but as others have stated, probably won't be true 4K. IMO, the real upgrade is HDR which is included in many 4K TV sets now and will be available in all PS4s and most X1s.

I hope Nintendo puts HDR support in the NX. Their games are usually so colorful.

well, Sony's HDR update to vanilla PS4s isn't really HDR

I honestly question why they are pushing the 4k format at the moment.... its as if they think consumors wouldn't appreciate an overall gaming/graphics/framerate improvement on its own... now they have to Half-ass a resolution that they just cant pull off with any decent graphics.

All this bullcrap of native and up scaled is just nonsense because the fact remains that at the distance the content is being viewed, the difference would be indiscernible. So, both systems(Scorpio and pro) would be able to satisfy customers. All this hoopla is just that, hoopla.

^^ Pretty much sums it up.

For now, it's just smoke and mirrors on Consoles. On PC it's also pretty expensive but I expect it to become mainstream few years later. Games will have to be made with 4k in mind, which means more polys and UHD textures meant to be showcased at native 4k.

To be fair Sony didn't pretend for a sceond it was native 4k.

Question is if that would be a sensible use of the hardware for a 6 TF machine? I guess no. Would be much smarter to upscale and use the extra resources elsewhere. If MS try to push this as a 4k native console, it would harm the games imo.

@dynamitecop: The last of Us remastered is confirmed to be "Native 4k" so that's not entirely true.

you have point there though, but 4k is more important than 64 bit back then. It's not like the advantage of 4k can't be seen today, it will be more important with vr and ar of course, so like I said you have a point there.

Atari Jaguar has a design flaw in the memory controller which prevents code execution on main system RAM hence developers has to micro-manage the game logic in small chucks and RISC processors are complicated to use hence most developers used 32bit 68000 CPU to drive game logic.

Atari effectively only provided stock Atari XL Libraries and in order to utilize the APU and DSP properly, developers effectively has to create their own APIs. The same problem was repeated for Saturn and PS3. Sony themselves provided Basic API Libraries 2-3 years into it's lifecycle.

Both Atari Jaguar and Sega Saturn was badly designed chips with design flaws e.g. chip-to-chip communication has design flaws.

Looks for real in the sense that native resolutions on Pro and especially Scorpio will tick up over 1080p on some games, a few might end up being truly 4k. I'm really not a fan of it, is just wasting resources imo. 1080p/60 is just fine. I'd rather see a console's power directed at making a game amazing at 1080p/60 than doing it at 4k/30. I just don't see myself noticing that extra resolution as much as I would all the extra effects and other eye candy stuff they could add in if they stuck to 1080p/60.

Upscaled 4K and most likely in 2 years the machine will look greatly outdated if they keep pushing higher resolutions.

Depends on how literal you want to take the term "4K resolution".

Neither the Pro nor the Scorpio's theoretical specs are high enough to push a 4K monitor with a native 1:1 image at the screen for games running at high settings and that is the plain reality of the matter. Just look at the hardware needed to throw at a PC to do the same thing and then shave whole teraflops off of that if you want to claim super special console sauce into the equation and there will still be a gulf of perdormance there. It is an entirely unrealistic expectation.

However. If you want to look at Neo and Scorpio as the PS3 and 360 of 4K gaming, you would also be low-balling them. That is because you can't leave HDR out of this equation. It is a FACT that you will see more graphical fidelity out of a game that uses HDR on a 4K monitor than if you stick to your 1080p TV and original PS4 or XBone. So, in a sense, you won't be getting some half-baked textured mess spitting out at a high pixel count like you did with the previous generation but instead, see a whole lot more of the detail in the texture work as a result. Nevermind the leap in detail due to shaders.

So, to go back to the original question, the answer is actually a Yes. It is a very real deal as long as you have a display that takes advantage of the tech inside these mid-engine upgrades. It will be the difference between a half step in the gen and getting an entirely new system that happens to play all of the same games. I'm no marketeer, I just know the technology and Digital Foundry has also weighed in heavily on the subject.

I think the PC gamers are in the best position to tell us about this.

@jim1174: trine developer said they managed to run trine 2 (not a very ugly game) in 4k 30fps in the ps4, so any console can output 4k or have internal 4k resolution even the ps2, the thing is what kind of games will be playable on 4k on the ps4 pro,

we already know that not a single current gen game will run in real 4k even on 30fps on ps4 pro, only past gen remakes or sub low settings versions on current games

any graphics card, even a $30 graphics card can output to a 4k tv, with internal resolution of 720p or 900p a $30 card can run a game and upscale it to 2160p, thats basically what the pro does, but instead it upscales from 1080p or 1440p or 1800p (very unlikely)

another totally separated thing is the upscaling technoques that are being used on pc and consoles in games like RS: Siege, this has nothing to do with the ps4 pro and already exits in the old ps4 xbox and pcs

Why wouldn't it be real? It's progression not a gimmick.

@leandrro: Also a key thing is how much did they dumb down the game to achieve native 4K. Id love to compare these so called native 4K games to their counterparts.

Rise of the Tomb Raider for example comes in 3 modes. 4K Resolution, High Framerate, and Enriched Visuals. I bet anything the developers will sacrifice enriched visuals to achieve 4K just so they can say they did. Its easy to downgrade a game for native 4K, they do it all the time.

Rise of Tomb Raider for example. Its Enriched Visuals edition is only 1080p 30fps, it wont be in 4K. Dont let them fool yall guys. There is a price for everything.

Man you people really jump on the band wagon. 4k isn't new you know...

The Last of Us Remastered is a now a one and a half generation old game....

Ummm you have no idea if the Scorpio will be able to do native 4k.....it's a faceless box right now. Until it is released or we get official specs no one has any idea how the scorpio will run games. All we can go off of is the PS4 Pro and PC gaming today. Even with 6TF the scorpio will probably have a hard time running native 4k games. It's probably going to be upscaled as well for some more demanding games.

Its just a resolution. I assume its going to be the standard in a few years

Resolution is the new bits. Back in the days, it was all about 16-bit, 32-bit and 64-bit. Nowadays, it's all about 720p, 1080p and 4K.

The Atari Jaguar was a hybrid 16/32/64-bit console. It had a 16-bit CPU, a hybrid 32/64-bit GPU, and a shared 64-bit data bus. The 16-bit CPU and the shared data bus were huge bottlenecks, while the 32/64-bit GPU was great for 2D sprites but wasn't well-designed for 3D polygons. It was a great 2D system, but a terrible 3D system, outclassed by the 3DO and 32X in that regard.

The PS4 Pro and Scorpio would almost certainly support native 4K, but only for games that aren't graphically intensive. They certainly have the power to run older games at native 4K. But for more recent games, they wouldn't have the power for native 4K, but rather native 1080p or 1440p upscaled to 4K. It depends on how graphically intensive the game in question is.

@Cloud_imperium: Apparently it's pretty dam good smoke and mirrors though.

Again, this shows how little you know, the GPU in Scorpio is the equivalent of a factory OC'd 390X, a card that manages 30 FPS on Ultra/Very High settings in 4K on modern games.

Like I said to QuadKnight, why do you people keep bundling PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio together as if they're the same thing and capable of the same things... I see a severe need to drag Scorpio down to make it appear as weak as the Pro, PS4 Pro is not even 3/4 as capable of a device as Scorpio.

@dynamitecop: Wat?

You are talking about a product over 12 months out in the present tense based off of supposed leaked specs brought to us by a company that had to go in the hole over a billion dollars because they made a product that could not withstand heat tolerances on a class action lawsuit scale.

..and you want to question what exactly?

What leaked specs? They flat out told us what it is when they announced it, it's got a 6 Teraflop GPU, 320gbps memory bandwidth and an 8 core CPU which is no doubt considerably more powerful than the current Jaguar and likely Zen based.

According to the information Microsoft gave the community directly, it's a native 4K capable console as a baseline.

4k is just like 1080p back in 2005. Of course its real. Will it be real on the PS4Poo? Of course not... 4k is for PS5 IF its strong enough... there's small hope.

You know. I'm gonna bite.

Will you tell us all, citizens of the System Wars, that Scorpio will deliver all native 4k games full stop? That Digital Foundry will give the almighty Scorpio a resounding pass when this thing comes out all across the board? No baked shadows. No tomfoolery. Just rock-solid native 4K gaming bliss?

What I am saying is this, the PlayStation 4's primary resolution is 1080p, that is its primary rendering resolution for that console, there is some deviation from this for certain titles but the vast majority are 1080p, given Scorpio's specifications the same for 4K will apply to it.

This is all x86 PC hardware and spec'd hardware of the same magnitude is directly available for comparison, we have things to go off of, and at Ultra/Very High settings Scorpio spec'd hardware is capable of 30 FPS at native 4K.

Baseline was the wrong word for me to use, but for most accounts you can expect native 4K rendering on Scorpio for modern titles.

You, too. Can I hold you to it? No ifs ands or buts? Scorpio is going to be native 4k from bottom to the top? No game left behind?

No, what you were saying is that PS4 Pro's scaling was a negative and it was booboo. Are you, or are you not, going to tell us all that Scorpio is a 4K Native gaming machine?

I am not going to take minced words as an answer here. If the Neo/Pro is going to get thrown under a bus, it better be a bus with a coherent driver. Either that scaling is a mortal sin or go home. If that's not the case, then we are just getting into pedantry.

True 4K is hard to run. I am running 4k on a GTX 1070... more powerful than both 4K consoles and genuinely feel like selling it the moment the 1080 Ti arrives.

Scorpio's GPU and effective memory bandwidth solution slightly above a stock R9-390X which is like a factory overclocked R9-390X.

Math

R9-390X's effective memory bandwidth: (384 GB/s x R9-290X's 81 percent efficiency) = 311 GB/s with 5.9 TFLOPS

Scorpio's effective memory bandwidth: (320 GB/s x Polaris 10's 75.78 percent efficiency) x Polaris memory compression factor of 1.36X = 329.8 GB/s with 6 TFLOPS

Checkerboard rendering is not considered as up-scaled nor native i.e. you still have 4K frame buffer with even or odd pixel not being rendered and interpolated to create the missing pixel. This is far superior to line based interpolation e.g. Killzone Shadow Fall

With checkerboard rendering 4.2 TFLOPS GPU is effectively similar to a GPU with ~8.4 TFLOPS brute force.

Gaming PCs can also use this checkerboard rendering speed up method and reach even higher frame rates, resolution and details.

Checkerboard rendering could have delivered PS4's The Order into full 1920x1080p.

4K is blast processing.

The PS4 Pro will have a standardized sub native 4K primary rendering resolution based upon its capabilities, something most games will operate at, it will likely be somewhere around 3000x1688 with upscaling to 4K, it's not capable of native 4K rendering under any conditions for modern games. For Scorpio it is powerful enough given its specifications and known PC hardware to have a primary rendering resolution of 3840x2160, and like the PlayStation 4 for example, in certain instances it will fall below this whether it be for 60 FPS game or some specific type of graphical fidelity pushed that requires it to be dialed back slightly.

No one is throwing anything under the bus, one system is an entire PlayStation 4 more powerful than the other so there's obviously going to be a large discrepancy in resolution capabilities.

@ronvalencia said:

@Shewgenja said:

@dynamitecop said:

@Shewgenja said:

@dynamitecop: Wat?

You are talking about a product over 12 months out in the present tense based off of supposed leaked specs brought to us by a company that had to go in the hole over a billion dollars because they made a product that could not withstand heat tolerances on a class action lawsuit scale.

..and you want to question what exactly?

What leaked specs? They flat out told us what it is when they announced it, it's got a 6 Teraflop GPU, 320gbps memory bandwidth and an 8 core CPU which is no doubt considerably more powerful than the current Jaguar and likely Zen based.

According to the information Microsoft gave the community directly, it's a native 4K capable console as a baseline.

You know. I'm gonna bite.

Will you tell us all, citizens of the System Wars, that Scorpio will deliver all native 4k games full stop? That Digital Foundry will give the almighty Scorpio a resounding pass when this thing comes out all across the board? No baked shadows. No tomfoolery. Just rock-solid native 4K gaming bliss?

Scorpio's GPU and effective memory bandwidth solution slightly above a stock R9-390X which is like a factory overclocked R9-390X.

Math

R9-390X's effective memory bandwidth: (384 GB/s x R9-290X's 81 percent efficiency) = 311 GB/s with 5.9 TFLOPS

Scorpio's effective memory bandwidth: (320 GB/s x Polaris 10's 75.78 percent efficiency) x Polaris memory compression factor of 1.36X = 329.8 GB/s with 6 TFLOPS

Checkerboard rendering is not considered as up-scaled nor native i.e. you still have 4K frame buffer with even or odd pixel not being rendered and interpolated to create the missing pixel. This is far superior to line based interpolation e.g. Killzone Shadow Fall

With checkerboard rendering 4.2 TFLOPS GPU is effectively similar to a GPU with ~8.4 TFLOPS brute force.

Gaming PCs can also use this checkerboard rendering speed up method and reach even higher frame rates, resolution and details.

Checkerboard rendering could have delivered PS4's The Order into full 1920x1080p.

How about a simple yes or no piechart king.

Well. At least we are being honest here. 4K being 4x as many pixels as 1080p, it sounds like what we are both saying is that a lot of games are going to be falling short of that native 4k rendering pipeline without some very creative rasterization techniques like what RonV pointed out. We're talking about a difference of 1/8th the resolution field of the 4K screen in a fill-rate bound situation.

So, the real question remains. Will 1/8th of a 4k screen be a war worth waging in November 17th? Guess we shall find out.

No, what I am saying is that absolutely every modern game on the PlayStation 4 Pro will fall short and have to use rendering tricks to reach its 4K target, whereas on Scorpio for most modern games it will render natively at 4K without need for rendering compromises.

Scorpio has a 43% more powerful GPU, this is very much an Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4 situation, only in reverse and for much higher resolutions.

If we are believing in 4k from both MS and Sony then we will all be disappointed.

4k is real and is here to stay ,these console however are not

You need at least 12Tera flops of processing power for true 60fps 4k gaming(and that's not even at ultra settings)

even the mighty Titan X(pascal) can't run every game at 4k/60fps

With checkerboard rendering, PS4 Pro should be able to render at 4K/30 fps. Any PC GPUs higher than PS4 Pro would have high frame rates e.g. 4K/60 fps.

Left hand side picture is the original.

Middle picture is the missing pixels picture.

Right hand side picture is result from interpolated process.

With checkerboard rendering yield very close to the original picture with superior edge reconstruction when compared to line based interpolation process.

The pictures next to checkerboard neighbors interpolation is comparing line based interpolation vs checkerboard neighbors interpolation.