Digital Foundry: PS4 vs Next Box (Orbis vs Durango)

[Morganator]

Both don't seem impressive in the least. The statement that sums up both consoles is in the article and justifiably so.

products of the era of austerity.

I look at these specs and I'm thinking, WEAK.

[Two4DaMoney]

^stick to pc gaming or become one if you aren't. These companies are not trying to lose a ton of money again and they have to fit in with the wattage regulations.

I dunno, it seems like "Durango" is going to be an "Entertainment (Not so)Supercomputer" and the PS4 is going to be the better games machine. Funny how things change from one gen to the next.

Do you see 720's split memory vs Ps4 unified memory as possibly being a problem?

[radgamer420]

How legit are these specs though? EDIT: Ok so I guess these are pretty accurate after reading the article lol. But my problem is that even if Sony tries to up the visual performance, how will it be utilized when developers don't want to spend more time to customize the games for each consoles as that would mean more money. Lower common denominator is the issue here.

No doubt it will be Sony's first party games that really show off the hardware capabilities. Much like the PS3.

[mynd]

Bad news for those rooting for Durango. "The 'secret sauce' debate" Lol. and apparently Move Engine on next box does not improve its GPU but only CPU.

Sure it doesnt, LOL.
Why bother putting memory access to and form the ESRAM, and tile able memory texture functions in there?

If they are doing what I think they maybe doing, which is translating the render que buffer setup into the esram, you guys have to understand that at an one given particular time, from frame to frame most texture fetches change very little.

[Sufi]

No doubt it will be Sony's first party games that really show off the hardware capabilities. Much like the PS3.

See that wouldn't benefit me much because I generally play third party games.

[radgamer420]

See that wouldn't benefit me much because I generally play third party games.

Fair enough. So in your case it wouldn't really matter then. I mostly play 3rd party too but there are certain 1st party ips that I'm a big fan of plus Sony always introduces new IPs as well.

[Lefein]

^stick to pc gaming or become one if you aren't. These companies are not trying to lose a ton of money again and they have to fit in with the wattage regulations.
Do you see 720's split memory vs Ps4 unified memory as possibly being a problem?

Did it mention dedicated VRAM to the GPU? Or are you considering the ESRAM a separate pool? I don't think it would function quite the same way, so it's hard to draw that determination.

[FableMaster]

See that wouldn't benefit me much because I generally play third party games.

Lets hope that its easy enough on PS4 that third party devs will take advantage of it. We do not know how devs will take or dont take advantage of it yet.

Sure it doesnt, LOL.
Why bother putting memory access to and form the ESRAM, and tile able memory texture functions in there?

If they are doing what I think they maybe doing, which is translating the render que buffer setup into the esram, you guys have to understand that at an one given particular time, from frame to frame most texture fetches change very little.

But here we do see some intriguing enhancements that are Durango-specific. Its 'Data Move Engines' carry out hardware compression as well as decompression (and support for JPEG too - perhaps to handle Kinect camera streams), while there is also support for texture swizzling. However, the main takeaway here is that core elements of the Move Engine functionality are apparently designed to extract the best performance from a RAM set-up that is much more complex (and slower) than its Orbis equivalent. Elsewhere, most of the custom hardware works to ease the CPU burden, not to improve GPU performance, so those hoping for 'secret sauce' to overcome Orbis's theoretical graphics advantages are probably going to be disappointed.

From Digital Foundry. Sorry but no special sauce for you.

amazing how many people are clinging to this special sauce argument... this is like my third time i have to point out to other people.

[chrisw26308]

Its funny if most of the speculation is true.

Sony is being touted as a hardcore, dev friendly, gaming beast.

Durango is coming off as kinect and media centered. (I know it will play games). With split ram.

Sony got bashed for trying to be a media center this gen.

It seems like they are just trading places at the start of this gen.


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[PSTrey]

February 20th can't get here fast enough. Looks like just about every "source" has the PS4 being more powerful than next xbox. Not surprising.

[radgamer420]

February 20th can't get here fast enough. Looks like just about every "source" has the PS4 being more powerful than next xbox. Not surprising.

Agreed. PS3 was more powerful than 360 this gen so it really wouldn't be surprising to see PS4 be more powerful than 720 next gen.

[Sufi]

Its funny if most of the speculation is true.

Sony is being touted as a hardcore, dev friendly, gaming beast.

Durango is coming off as kinect and media centered. (I know it will play games). With split ram.

Sony got bashed for trying to be a media center this gen.

It seems like they are just trading places at the start of this gen.


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Where is the split RAM? Durango will extend as a gaming console but that doesn't mean it's for Kinect and media mainly as you're implying.

Regardless of the console architecture, Sony will likely bring more games to the table but that doesn't mean that MS won't give enough games to play like they did this generation.

imo though, I think MS needs to change their strategy because they were clinging on last generation and beating Sony due to price (bundle deals) and the behemoth that is Live...as it gave you some features that were essential to gamers (X-game-chat, unified system), now that we will likely get that with the basic PSN as Vita did with its OS, I personally would not see a reason to consider the next Xbox just for their services.

It would have to do more than just give me a fully blown media center. It has to be relevant to gaming. I get my media needs elsewhere.

[itachi73378]

See that wouldn't benefit me much because I generally play third party games.

I predict that third party games will run 2-4 fps faster on orbis with better AA solutions (much like this gen with the superior 360 versions for early games)

Did it mention dedicated VRAM to the GPU? Or are you considering the ESRAM a separate pool? I don't think it would function quite the same way, so it's hard to draw that determination.

So far out of the 70 million rumours and reports, not a SINGLE one has mentioned a dedicated VRAM pool. There is no point of the ESRAM and data move engines if they had separate VRAM (assuming DMEs were intended to work around the bandwidth issues). Wii U is using the same memory config (DDR3 + EDRAM).

[chrisw26308]

Agreed. PS3 was more powerful than 360 this gen so it really wouldn't be surprising to see PS4 be more powerful than 720 next gen.

One thing about sony, they are a hardware company. They always go the xtra mile to put out great hardware. I bet they wished they had all that money back from R&D on the cell.





They always put out quality

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[Lasombra]

I'm not too concerned about the tech. The tech is just tech, and as long as its an improvement over the previous gen it is all good. All I care about are the games, games, sweet succulent games. Its pretty easy for me to say early I'll get the PS4 considering most of the games I really like are Japanese and they won't be coming to the XBox.

[itachi73378]

I'm not too concerned about the tech. The tech is just tech, and as long as its an improvement over the previous gen it is all good. All I care about are the games, games, sweet succulent games. Its pretty easy for me to say early I'll get the PS4 considering most of the games I really like are Japanese and they won't be coming to the XBox.

Show me persona 5 and I'll get it day 0

[Sufi]

February 20th can't get here fast enough. Looks like just about every "source" has the PS4 being more powerful than next xbox. Not surprising.

Agreed. PS3 was more powerful than 360 this gen so it really wouldn't be surprising to see PS4 be more powerful than 720 next gen.

I'm quite surprised actually, I didn't think Sony would've gone this route, if they did that is. Though I can see MS going this route as they can get a lot of leverage from their plethora of software engineers that make Windows products (and Windows).

In return, they can leverage their PC business due to Durango's success. Sort of like what Sony tried to do with their Bravia TVs and PS3...or the Blu-Ray.

If they deliver something amazing, I could see it being very popular with the mainstream. Sony, on the other hand, does not have this wealth of experience or expertise. They are better with making good hardware that gets cheaper quickly so you can get the bang for your buck.

For that reason, I can see these rumors being true or close to being true.

However, I am still surprised that Sony, at least, did not go lower as they hurt a lot with the PS3...especially in the early years and with the Tsunami disaster affecting them, I'm quite surprised they're being bold here but both strategies by these companies makes sense.

[itachi73378]

Just saw thuway's post on GAF (insider)

The event on the 20th we will see some fun things. The one thing that has surprised me most is the size of the machine

I haven't seen PS4 people. -_-

This is the last major leak from me, and honestly, it's all I know:

25 x 14 x 10
external psu

Figure the dimensions out yourself and get to drawing .

[ps3freak18]

I wonder what the hell that could mean.

[radgamer420]

External psu? Seriously?

[Rekmon]

I wonder what the hell that could mean.

It's the size of the PS4...25 inches by 14 inches by 10 inches. Cripes...10 inches tall?!

[Sufi]

External PSU? Boo lol.

[PSTrey]

One thing about sony, they are a hardware company. They always go the xtra mile to put out great hardware. I bet they wished they had all that money back from R&D on the cell.





They always put out quality

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2

This is why I hope Sony wins back their fanbase this upcoming gen that switched to the 360. I want them to do good financially, so there will be a PS5, PS6 etc.. They've been my favorite console maker since the PS1. Sony does put out great hardware. I can't imagine a console generation without the Playstation brand.

I think this past gen was more about Sony's frick ups more than Microsoft actually gaining ground. The price of the ps3, releasing a year later, making the console hard to develop for etc. It hurt'em big time.

[itachi73378]

External PSU? Boo lol.

I'd take external psu if it makes the internal cooling less expensive and the over all system smaller

It's the size of the PS4...25 inches by 14 inches by 10 inches. Cripes...10 inches tall?!

its cm not inches

[ps3freak18]

I don't know if that's inches. Only America uses the standard measuring system so I'm thinking metric. But that in centimeters would be tiny. Don't like the sound of external psu. Hated it on original 360. But whatever.