Avalanche Studios exec: 'PS4 will out-power most PCs for years to come'

[BoyBettaKnow]

Debatable...really depends on the end user. Somebody running super high resolutions or multi-monitor setups could easily cause a Titan to struggle. Typical gamers: Nah, not going to happen.





It's an anomaly in the game engine for MP3, and it wouldn't surprise me if GTA4 did the same thing (same devs...same engine...)

Grab EVGA precision or MSI Afterburner and put on Vram logging, then go fire a game up

Ha, you were right (again!)

I never knew that. So what is it actually doing, just splitting the tasks between the two of them?

[PeanutButterMunky]

my mistake, i knew it was at the higher end just not where exactly

No worries... the official specs still have yet to be announced anyway. I'm sure the bandwidth will be similar, if not the same, though.

[Rekmon]

Ha, you were right (again!)

I never knew that. So what is it actually doing, just splitting the tasks between the two of them?

lolz, sorry wasn't trying to show you up or anything. I just see people getting that misconception here and there and I just have to correct it!

Anyways...like I said each card has the same data in the frame buffer (card#2 mirrors card#1's memory)
but each card is only concentrating on rendering half of the frame buffer. Pretty sure they must have the same data in memory or the image would get disjointed/torn/screwed up somehow.

And to answer your next question: If you mix n match two different cards the total vram will be set to the limit of the card with less vram.

[BoyBettaKnow]

lolz, sorry wasn't trying to show you up or anything. I just see people getting that misconception here and there and I just have to correct it!

Anyways...like I said each card has the same data in the frame buffer (card#2 mirrors card#1's memory)
but each card is only concentrating on rendering half of the frame buffer. Pretty sure they must have the same data in memory or the image would get disjointed/torn/screwed up somehow.

And to answer your next question: If you mix n match two different cards the total vram will be set to the limit of the card with less vram.

I didn't take it as you trying to show me up. I genuinely was under the impression that the ram was added together. Odd thing is i knew that if you mixed two different cards they would work at the same rate as the weaker card - i should've guessed it from that really

[Sufi]

Well they may be able to have higher res textures since the unified memory will allow it. Not many video cards have more than 2GB VRAM on a PC.
1GB is pretty much the standard thesedays.

A good rule of thumb I think is to look at the steam stats page, millions of peoepl submit their reults each month.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

40% have 1GB (including the 1023MB as well)

If you are a developer why bother caterign to the minority 0.6% with 3GB VRAM

And LOL @ persons with 128MB vRAM tin this day and age.

Thank you. That's exactly the problem PC devs face.

Debatable...really depends on the end user. Somebody running super high resolutions or multi-monitor setups could easily cause a Titan to struggle. Typical gamers: Nah, not going to happen.

How is running inefficient code to make a card struggle the same as actually utilizing it?

You could make a game that requires 8GB and it could look like crap and still require that much RAM or power.

Do people really not get it? lol. I'm not even a programmer.

[Rekmon]

How is running inefficient code to make a card struggle the same as actually utilizing it?

You could make a game that requires 8GB and it could look like crap and still require that much RAM or power.

Do people really not get it? lol. I'm not even a programmer.

Who said anything about inefficient code? Take a well coded game, pop it up to a high resolution (say 5670x1080) and then apply 8xMSAA to it...a single titan will struggle. Nothing to say about bad coding!

Or as an example: My buddy is running 2xTitans SLI. At 1080p and 8xMSAA he will average about 75 FPS in Crysis 3. I guarantee you if he bumped the resolution up 1440p or 5670x1080p his frame rate will tank a good bit. Would definitely be playable at 1440p but I think at the latter resolution frame rate he'd probably hit sub 20 FPS.

So would a typical pc gamer with a single Titan running on one 1080 monitor ever fully utilize the gpu? Nah...
The guy next door with 3 monitors at high rez would. That was my point.

[VTEG_PT]

I hope to end this once and for all, first yes i can build a pc u outperfomes any consoke i just have to spend 1500 euros or more yes ps4 will be superior to pcs as much powerful as they are and you know why the same reason Ps1 Ps2 Ps3 the games, i have a friende with 3000 euros pc great for him i can play skyrim bf3 wow. i have journey Uncharted 1 2 3 infamous LBP Gow 3 + Ascencion gran turismo and a never ending of exclusives, so will get my ps4 and knack infamous second son uncharted 4 etc and anyone can build a 10 000 euros pc they will never have those games for the price of a super pc i will get a ps4 and lots of games

[keefy]

When using multi GPUs the CPU usage increases as well which can create a bottlekneck right?

[PeanutButterMunky]

When using multi GPUs the CPU usage increases as well which can create a bottlekneck right?

Not necessarily... but some games are more CPU-intensive than others... and if your CPU isn't up to snuff it can be a big issue.

[Sufi]

Who said anything about inefficient code? Take a well coded game, pop it up to a high resolution (say 5670x1080) and then apply 8xMSAA to it...a single titan will struggle. Nothing to say about bad coding!

Or as an example: My buddy is running 2xTitans SLI. At 1080p and 8xMSAA he will average about 75 FPS in Crysis 3. I guarantee you if he bumped the resolution up 1440p or 5670x1080p his frame rate will tank a good bit. Would definitely be playable at 1440p but I think at the latter resolution frame rate he'd probably hit sub 20 FPS.

So would a typical pc gamer with a single Titan running on one 1080 monitor ever fully utilize the gpu? Nah...
The guy next door with 3 monitors at high rez would. That was my point.

Ok I'm confused now lol. I think I know what you're saying but you were agreeing with me?

Yes, the card could choke and that's somewhat related to what I was saying. Inefficiencies in coding causes these graphics cards to not reach their theoretical limit. I think that's what you were saying, right?

[Rekmon]

Ok I'm confused now lol. I think I know what you're saying but you were agreeing with me?

Yes, the card could choke and that's somewhat related to what I was saying. Inefficiencies in coding causes these graphics cards to not reach their theoretical limit. I think that's what you were saying, right?

Not exactly...If a well coded game is running the gpu at 100% then IMO it's being used efficiently. Just because improvements can be made doesn't mean it's inefficient, only that there is room for improvement. I'm not even trying to get into badly coded games at all!

Or: You say a card like Titan won't be fully used in current games...I disagree and say that it really depends on how it's being used (as in what resolution, how many screens, are we looking for average frame rate or are we judging by minimum frame rate, etc)

[jlippone]

I'm quite sure that this is more about a minimum power developers can use for a game.
Especially when thinking about minimum CPU and memory requirement.

This is the biggest jump when compared for PC games.
Not many games use more than max 4GB of memory and crash if one tries to go above the limit, now we have console that has ability to have more memory used just for main gameplay.

Also texture data is not only thing to use memory for GPU either.
Especially now as virtual texturing can be used to reduce texture memory usage to constant amount, independent from texture variety or resolution.

[Old Man Gamer]

With faster chips coming out all of the time this just isn't true. Sure the PS4 is a beast, but I think we need to stop believing the "most powerful thing ever created" statements that are being thrown around.

[podsaurus]

We dont care!
Just show off more PS4 games!

The games make or break a system. Nothing else matters. I don't care how powerful it is, if the games suck who cares?

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Hehe Sony has made awesome games for near on 2 decades...if I were a betting man, I'd wager on that tradition maintaining and augmenting its momentum.

[podsaurus]

I should mention if someone working with the next Xbox said something similar I would say the same thing.

It's like cars. You can put 800hp in there if you like but if the steering is twitchy, the gearbox sticks and the seats are uncomfortable that 800hp doesn't matter much.

I don't think the PS4 games will be bad but these boastful statements about power... If the PS4 can compete and outpower PC's next thing you know they'll say the PS5 is a PC killer.

[Coconut_Crunch]

It's probably marketing to get people to buy the system. It is powerful but they are trying to hype it up to get more people to buy it.

[Completely Average]

wut?

care to list a mid range GPU alone with an equal bandwidth?

The HD 7950 has 240 Gbps bandwidth and can be bought for less than $300.

The HD 7870 has 153.6 Gbps and can be bought for about $230. Once you deduct the CPU bandwidth from the PS4 this will be very similar in performance.

This card will average less than 40 FPS in Crysis 3 with the Very High graphics settings selected at 1080p. You will get sub-30 FPS dips in frame rate. That's with a current game already on store shelves using a GPU with similar bandwidth limitations to the PS4.

this will mean better AA and AF
and with FXAA and AF taking next to no performance hit or resources i don't see why this is even an issue....

Did you actually just say that?

FXAA is a horrible solution. Sure, it is a shader operation and uses almost no memory bandwidth, but it also results in blurring of the entire frame. If image quality is a concern then you would be better off running no AA at a higher resolution than using FXAA.

And you do have to use the shaders to run FXAA, which means you have to have the overhead to spare. If you were planning on using a lot of shader ops you may have to reduce those ops to leave the overhead for FXAA.

As far as Anisotropic Filtering goes, AF is and always will be a memory bandwidth hog. Each pixel sample requires 4 bytes of data for AF. 1080p @ 30 FPS with 16X AF requires around 4 Gbps just for the AF samples.


The PS4 isn't going to be crippled, but it's only about equal to a current mid-range PC card in memory bandwidth. There are limits there and that means there will be sacrifices made to stay within those limitations. Especially when you consider this is what they will have to work with over the next 6-10 years.

[Aquanox]

By "Out-Power" he refers to memory specs, not horse power. Obviously, current high end PC Setups will outperform a PS4 in raw power, though the PS4 will enjoy better optimization and more memory than most.

I.e. In terms of raw power, I expect the PS4 graphical power to be similar to a GTX 670 or so... a GTX 680 would be more powerful in theory, but problem is... Games aren't optimized for a particular hardware so in heated battles, with lots of explosions and other effects, the powerful 680 can drop well below 30fps (Crysis 3 is a good example of this) even when the average framerate is around 45-50 fps (higher than console games)

In PS4, developers will have a fixed hardware, so they can use techniques like removing demanding effects like AA during explosions and keep the framerate much more stable by hardly sacrificing visual fidelity, or at least doing it in moments when they're hardly noticeable.

Adding more memory doesn't directly translate to power, however, It does help developers make more vivid worlds because you can use it, for example, to buffer a certain amount of frames, textures, etc. (See Far Cry 3 on PC as a good example of this)

In other words, PS4 is likely to compensate horsepower with memory size and speed whereas PCs will not need as much memory to achieve similar results in terms of visual fidelity. However, they WILL need more horsepower in order to achieve stable framerates.

This is basically the reason why I've just bought a 6GB videocard... more powerful than Titan by the way (80+ fps average on Crysis 3 Maxed Out) :P

[Sufi]

Not exactly...If a well coded game is running the gpu at 100% then IMO it's being used efficiently. Just because improvements can be made doesn't mean it's inefficient, only that there is room for improvement. I'm not even trying to get into badly coded games at all!

What you’re saying is true but when you’re comparing two things where one is probably using it a lot more efficiently than the other then you can make this distinction.

Meaning, what you can run on PC graphics card that is similar to what the PS4 has, you will “never” see the kind of graphics PS4 will be putting out. The way PCs are setup, just never going to happen.

Or: You say a card like Titan won't be fully used in current games...I disagree and say that it really depends on how it's being used (as in what resolution, how many screens, are we looking for average frame rate or are we judging by minimum frame rate, etc)

lol, that’s what I said earlier, but not to you directly. Yes, you can use it but that doesn’t mean you’re using its full potential, you’re using its raw power to see the better frame rate/AF/AA/smoke etc.

The HD 7950 has 240 Gbps bandwidth and can be bought for less than $300.

The HD 7870 has 153.6 Gbps and can be bought for about $230. Once you deduct the CPU bandwidth from the PS4 this will be very similar in performance.

No it won’t be similar in performance. You’re starting out wrong. You’re judging the PS4 based on what we see on PC…that’s probably the worst way to compare it.

This card will average less than 40 FPS in Crysis 3 with the Very High graphics settings selected at 1080p. You will get sub-30 FPS dips in frame rate. That's with a current game already on store shelves using a GPU with similar bandwidth limitations to the PS4.

The PS4 isn't going to be crippled, but it's only about equal to a current mid-range PC card in memory bandwidth. There are limits there and that means there will be sacrifices made to stay within those limitations. Especially when you consider this is what they will have to work with over the next 6-10 years.

Let me give you one example, which I said to Rekmon earlier. You take the HD 7870 and if you can show us results that are even halfway close to what the PS4 is going to be putting out (did you see how Deep Down looks like?), please come back and post those results because I can guarantee you that this card will not output that on PC.

[Fijiandoce]

The HD 7950 has 240 Gbps bandwidth and can be bought for less than $300.

The HD 7870 has 153.6 Gbps and can be bought for about $230. Once you deduct the CPU bandwidth from the PS4 this will be very similar in performance.

This card will average less than 40 FPS in Crysis 3 with the Very High graphics settings selected at 1080p. You will get sub-30 FPS dips in frame rate. That's with a current game already on store shelves using a GPU with similar bandwidth limitations to the PS4.

Did you actually just say that?

FXAA is a horrible solution. Sure, it is a shader operation and uses almost no memory bandwidth, but it also results in blurring of the entire frame. If image quality is a concern then you would be better off running no AA at a higher resolution than using FXAA.

And you do have to use the shaders to run FXAA, which means you have to have the overhead to spare. If you were planning on using a lot of shader ops you may have to reduce those ops to leave the overhead for FXAA.

As far as Anisotropic Filtering goes, AF is and always will be a memory bandwidth hog. Each pixel sample requires 4 bytes of data for AF. 1080p @ 30 FPS with 16X AF requires around 4 Gbps just for the AF samples.


The PS4 isn't going to be crippled, but it's only about equal to a current mid-range PC card in memory bandwidth. There are limits there and that means there will be sacrifices made to stay within those limitations. Especially when you consider this is what they will have to work with over the next 6-10 years.

as sufi said, you're looking at it wrong. this isn't a PC.

im not sure what you expect the console to do, your posts are extremely negative o_O

its as if 176GB/s is a bad thing o_O
in fact it could be inferred from your posts that the PS4 is so bad an AA solution with minuscule performance impact is in some way major to the systems overall performance.

[Completely Average]

No it won’t be similar in performance. You’re starting out wrong. You’re judging the PS4 based on what we see on PC…that’s probably the worst way to compare it.

GPU bandwidth is GPU bandwidth. It works the exact same way and has the exact same limitations on every GPU made. The PS4 doesn't have some kind of magic GPU memory bandwidth from it's ATI GPU that works entirely different from the GPU bandwidth of other ATI GPUs that use the same GPU and same GDDR5 memory.

Suggesting that it does just shows how little you know about the hardware.

Let me give you one example, which I said to Rekmon earlier. You take the HD 7870 and if you can show us results that are even halfway close to what the PS4 is going to be putting out (did you see how Deep Down looks like?), please come back and post those results because I can guarantee you that this card will not output that on PC.

I can guarantee you that this was rendered using PC cards two years ago.




Now, I know you would just love to believe the PS4 is some kind of magical machine that can defy the laws of physics and nature to outdo PCs despite the fact that it's built using PC hardware. Go ahead and believe that if it helps you sleep better at night.

Here in the real world we know that an ATI GPU with 176 Gbps of memory bandwidth will do what an ATI GPU with 176 Gbps of memory bandwidth can do, regardless of the name of the box it's mounted in. It's still an ATI GPU, it's still using the exact same GDDR5 memory that other ATI GPUs use, it's still bound by all of the limitations of an ATI GPU with that memory bandwidth. It's not magic.

as sufi said, you're looking at it wrong. this isn't a PC.

Yes it is.

That's what you don't seem to understand. It's a PC CPU with a PC GPU and PC RAM on a PC motherboard. It's all straight off the shelf AMD tech. Sure, there are a few tweaks made so it fits what Sony wants, but not one single piece is a fully customized part, it's all PC parts.

The ONLY real difference is you don't have the memory overhead of a Windows OS on the system, but that doesn't sit in GPU memory on a PC either. When you are playing a game 100% of the GPU and 100% of the video memory is dedicated to that game, just like in the PS4.

im not sure what you expect the console to do, your posts are extremely negative o_O

I'm not sure what you expect a $400 console to do. You seem to expect it to be better than a $1000 PC that uses the same tech and parts inside.

I expect that you'll get what you pay for. Something that is essentially a stripped down budget gaming PC built in 2013 and will continue to have those limits for the next 6-10 years. If you're expecting something different you will end up disappointed.

I've been gaming on PCs and Consoles for more than two decades. I won't be disappointed with a console that doesn't match a proper gaming PC. I have yet to see one that does. I buy consoles for the console exclusive games, not to try to beat PC gaming.

its as if 176GB/s is a bad thing o_O
in fact it could be inferred from your posts that the PS4 is so bad an AA solution with minuscule performance impact is in some way major to the systems overall performance.

That AA with miniscule performance impact has a very large visual quality impact.



Just look at the street lights. By the 3rd pole the FXAA already shows very noticeable degradation. By the 5th pole the only thing you see are lights floating in space. Look at the trees on the right. Notice how much detail is lost with FXAA?

Why switch to 1080p if your AA solution degrades the image that much?

[Sufi]

GPU bandwidth is GPU bandwidth. It works the exact same way and has the exact same limitations on every GPU made. The PS4 doesn't have some kind of magic GPU memory bandwidth from it's ATI GPU that works entirely different from the GPU bandwidth of other ATI GPUs that use the same GPU and same GDDR5 memory.

Suggesting that it does just shows how little you know about the hardware.

lol omg.

I can guarantee you that this was rendered using PC cards two years ago.

Yes because that’s a tech demo which utilizes a video card completely. You really don’t get it, do you? Lol. Why don’t you show comparison videos of games that are utilizing these cards, side-by-side with this tech demo. Please, go on.

Now, I know you would just love to believe the PS4 is some kind of magical machine that can defy the laws of physics and nature to outdo PCs despite the fact that it's built using PC hardware. Go ahead and believe that if it helps you sleep better at night.

haha, I can’t stop laughing. Because it seems to me that you are somehow implying (and I thought I heard you say this before too) that just because it’s using PC hardware, that somehow it doesn’t have magic anymore?

Meaning, that it should have magic if it were using a completely custom hardware? Dude…really shows how much you know about hardware and its use.

I don’t know how much people can try to explain this to you, it’s just not getting in there. I don’t know how else I can explain this. Would it help if I held a puppet in my hand and explained it in smaller sentences?

Here in the real world we know that an ATI GPU with 176 Gbps of memory bandwidth will do what an ATI GPU with 176 Gbps of memory bandwidth can do, regardless of the name of the box it's mounted in. It's still an ATI GPU, it's still using the exact same GDDR5 memory that other ATI GPUs use, it's still bound by all of the limitations of an ATI GPU with that memory bandwidth. It's not magic.

Wow…do you really believe that? It’s pretty obvious at this point that you do not understand the difference between a closed-box configuration as opposed to an open-box configuration.

Yes it is.

That's what you don't seem to understand. It's a PC CPU with a PC GPU and PC RAM on a PC motherboard. It's all straight off the shelf AMD tech. Sure, there are a few tweaks made so it fits what Sony wants, but not one single piece is a fully customized part, it's all PC parts.

The ONLY real difference is you don't have the memory overhead of a Windows OS on the system, but that doesn't sit in GPU memory on a PC either. When you are playing a game 100% of the GPU and 100% of the video memory is dedicated to that game, just like in the PS4.

Because it’s dedicated to the game, doesn’t mean that it’s being utilized efficiently. It’s basically using the raw power of the card but nowhere near using its potential. A similar effect can appear on consoles but depending on the developer, they can push the system as much as they possibly can (if that’s their will). That’s something PC developers can’t and won’t do due to market penetration issues. The higher the utilization is, the lower sales it will likely get. I think I’ve said that about 5x now within this thread.

I'm not sure what you expect a $400 console to do. You seem to expect it to be better than a $1000 PC that uses the same tech and parts inside.

A game like deep down, to play it on today’s PC, it would definitely cost far more than a $1,000. In a year or whenever the game comes out, it wouldn’t be crazy to think that a $1,000 PC would be needed to play that game as good as it looks. Where the PC pays off is that it does much more than just games, which is potentially its own downfall when it comes to games only but that’s to be expected.

I expect that you'll get what you pay for. Something that is essentially a stripped down budget gaming PC built in 2013 and will continue to have those limits for the next 6-10 years. If you're expecting something different you will end up disappointed.

I've been gaming on PCs and Consoles for more than two decades. I won't be disappointed with a console that doesn't match a proper gaming PC. I have yet to see one that does. I buy consoles for the console exclusive games, not to try to beat PC gaming.

1. No one is saying that PS4 is going to beat PC.
2. no one is saying that it will match a proper gaming PC (as that will evolve with time).

Let me give you another example. Show me a PC that can run MGS2 or any of the GT games on PS2 (as good as they looked) with a 4MB video card. Now, don’t get your panties in the bunch, it doesn’t mean that a PC is inferior but it’s the inefficiency of coding that is the problem here.
If you can show me that, then you have won this argument. I didn’t expect a console with 4MB of video to display that either but I’ll say, “Welcome to the magical world of efficient coding!”

[baho]

Fun thread.

Although i didn't post back when the PS3 was unveiled, i still read these forums. And this thread gives me the exact same vibe that i had back then, with blind fanboys expecting 'magical' results from a console built with 'magical' hardware. I love the PS3 and i will surely love the PS4, but that will NEVER stop me from being realist about what it can do.

Anyway, believing in things like Santa is magical, the joy of our childhoods. I envy those that still have this joy

[Shibby]

Yes it is.

That's what you don't seem to understand. It's a PC CPU with a PC GPU and PC RAM on a PC motherboard. It's all straight off the shelf AMD tech. Sure, there are a few tweaks made so it fits what Sony wants, but not one single piece is a fully customized part, it's all PC parts.

The ONLY real difference is you don't have the memory overhead of a Windows OS on the system, but that doesn't sit in GPU memory on a PC either. When you are playing a game 100% of the GPU and 100% of the video memory is dedicated to that game, just like in the PS4.

No it's not. The major difference is that in every PS4, you have the same PC CPU, the same PC GPU, and the same RAM, on the same PC motherboard. Knowing every one of your customers has the same exact machine goes a long way toward being able to optimize your game.