Here we are talking about consoles with hardly any API overhead and crazy devs like Naughty Dog that optimize on a binary level. But you keep talking about consoles like if they were a PC where most of the potential of the HW is never tapped.
Wrong, API overheads on pc are all on the cpu, and most pc cpu's made in the last 5 years are much faster making the argument of API overhead pointless.. and even then Direct x overhead mind set of people on SW is overblown still thinking of dx 9 comparisons stated by people like Carmack. Now NG cant code in binary for the PS4 like they did for PS3 SPE's, with the PS4 you have to go back to the high level of coding. The reason why you compare console cpu's to pc cpu's is because the problem is that they have a common instruction set aka x86. even if software programmers use assembly language to write highly optimised code, they are still issuing x86 Opcode to be decoded by the CPU decoder. Which means there is overhead even on the consoles. While yes pc hardware never gets 100% of the resources used, however this new generation is in the same boat now with having some overhead, and having a processor that cant keep up with the gpu so really you will never see the full potential of the PS4 hardware neither.
@04dcarraher: Yeah, I understand, but I still think that not many devs are utilizing GPU compute yet. And the PS4 is designed to do that without sacrificing graphics. Cerny said that devs won't be utilizing that properly in the first years. Sony took an opposite approach this time around, both the PS2 and PS3 had a strong CPU, a slow GPU, and little memory. The PS4 has a slow CPU, strong GPU, and more than enough memory, and that is a better approach, the GPU is still the most important hardware in games. Though, because of financial decisions, power and heat limitations, the total power/performance jump isn't as big as previous gens.
Depending on what they allocate on the gpu on the PS4 you will still see sacrificing in graphics and or framerates. Look at Tomb Raider:DE as a prime example of using gpu based physics engine. even then that version compared Pc version's 1.0 had less effects and PS4 still experienced fluctuating fps in certain scenarios. Both MS and Sony should have spent abit more in power and cooling to allow even 2.4 ghz jaguar which only adds a whole 15-20w TDP and even 3.2 ghz the jags would only be around 65w TDP. Having it at 2.4 ghz would have been alot better, and at 3.2 ghz would be perfect.
@04dcarraher: Yeah, I understand, but I still think that not many devs are utilizing GPU compute yet. And the PS4 is designed to do that without sacrificing graphics. Cerny said that devs won't be utilizing that properly in the first years. Sony took an opposite approach this time around, both the PS2 and PS3 had a strong CPU, a slow GPU, and little memory. The PS4 has a slow CPU, strong GPU, and more than enough memory, and that is a better approach, the GPU is still the most important hardware in games. Though, because of financial decisions, power and heat limitations, the total power/performance jump isn't as big as previous gens.
Depending on what they allocate on the gpu on the PS4 you will still see sacrificing in graphics and or framerates. Look at Tomb Raider:DE as a prime example of using gpu based physics engine. even then that version compared Pc version's 1.0 had less effects and PS4 still experienced fluctuating fps in certain scenarios. Both MS and Sony should have spent abit more in power and cooling to allow even 2.4 ghz jaguar which only adds a whole 15-20w TDP and even 3.2 ghz the jags would only be around 65w TDP. Having it at 2.4 ghz would have been alot better, and at 3.2 ghz would be perfect.
Yeah, physics is a must to run on the GPU, because it can easily demand more processing power than the fastest CPU's out there, and that will give you sacrifices in graphics. But smaller stuff like animation and A.I can also be done on the GPU I believe, but at the moment it's not. GPU's are getting so powerfull compared to CPU's that in the future we will see GPU's with they're own CPU's. But I agree that they should have gone for a similar TDP to the PS3 instead of the low 250 Watt TDP in the PS4.
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