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

[KungMartin90]

Talk about promoting PS4 lol!

We dont care!
Just show off more PS4 games!

Have some patience, jesus!

[BoyBettaKnow]

Talk about promoting PS4 lol!




Have some patience, jesus!

Patience?

We are gamers! We don't know patience!

[Sufi]

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

Ok, so I've given numerous examples and "proofs" and that's not enough? Why don't you give me examples of what I'm asking then? You guys have no substance and yet you say that we don't know what we're talking about? lol.

Ok ok jokes guy, as the neighbourly Canadians would say.

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.

We're obviously wasting our time here. I'm appalled to see some very intelligent people not understand this simple concept. What's more interesting is that this concept can be applied to anything...not just gaming.

[BoyBettaKnow]

PC's are more powerful but consoles benefit of games being made specifically for the hardware within. A PC gets it's graphics from brute power, a console gets its graphics from efficient coding.

That's how i see it anyway.

[Sufi]

PC's are more powerful but consoles benefit of games being made specifically for the hardware within. A PC gets it's graphics from brute power, a console gets its graphics from efficient coding.

That's how i see it anyway.

You're already way ahead of most nay-sayers here.

Now what this article is talking about is that [while PCs are more powerful overall and will always be due to their evolving nature], the average PC will likely not overpower the PS4 in the coming years [due to efficiencies by through a closed-box like a console and the amount of RAM it will have to utilize fully vs an inefficient PC]. If people understood these two things, this thread would come to an end.

[Rekmon]

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

Oh that Devil 13? Nice card dude...but once again that's only 3gb/gpu

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 understand console optimizations...but you're jumping to the conclusion that what you saw in Deep Down was even game play. You should wait till we have official listed hardware specs, and certain verified game play, before trying to come to conclusions.

And FWIW: Yes consoles do more with what they have compared to a similarly equipped PC, yay for optimization for the platform. On the other hand: PC doesn't have to worry about that, we just throw a ridiculous amount of sheer horsepower at it. A year or so after the consoles release PC parts to out do them will be relatively affordable.

It's always been this way, every gen it fluctuates back and forth from console to PC...has been since the NES came out.

[Sufi]

I understand console optimizations...but you're jumping to the conclusion that what you saw in Deep Down was even game play. You should wait till we have official listed hardware specs, and certain verified game play, before trying to come to conclusions.

Ok, point taken. But Killzone: SF is still a very good example of what it can achieve. Supposedly that’s un-optimized code, and it was for lesser RAM than what was later confirmed.

And FWIW: Yes consoles do more with what they have compared to a similarly equipped PC, yay for optimization for the platform. On the other hand: PC doesn't have to worry about that, we just throw a ridiculous amount of sheer horsepower at it. A year or so after the consoles release PC parts to out do them will be relatively affordable.

It's always been this way, every gen it fluctuates back and forth from console to PC...has been since the NES came out.

And I’m not arguing about that, in fact, I’m saying the same thing as you, the brute power of PC is what moves it forward, and that’s where the problem comes in when comparing two similar specs. The result will not be the same. Not even close. Think about how it was even possible to run such amazing-looking games on a 4MB VRAM of PS2 and then see what exactly I’m talking about.

Do not underestimate the power of efficiency.

[Fijiandoce]

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.

and you've said it yourself now, what PC comes with 8GB GDDR5 RAM? more RAM is more RAM. Keefy posted a link a few pages back and ~30% of PCs still only have 1GB

but again, this isn't a "PC"
why you insist on perpetuating it is quite confusing, all the pieces do is move ones and zeroes around. consoles are more efficient at doing that than desktop PCs

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.

please quote where i implied this?

i simply said it would be better than the drivel you consider it to be. the fact that i came in here with the notion of post process AA filters proves this, whereas you are now backtracking and contradicting yourself. answering questions with questions.

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.

not shit, it's a fixed machine o_O

if you dislike consoles so much....are you trolling?

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.

i buy consoles for the games, period.

because i praise the tech does not make me blind to its limitations. a misconception you seem to be carrying.

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?

i bring up FXAA and you rebut with your talk of overheads, fair enough. but now you're going on about MSAA???
what is the overhead on that?
is there a point to you bringing this up or are you trying to dazzle me with your profound knowledge of internal system limitations?
you think im unaware of all that you're showing me? not once have i said PS4 will destroy top end PC's o_O
and if i were to indulge, i haven't said FXAA is the best solution to have ever existed either. further more, considering where i sit in my living room, i couldn't care less for that 5th pole down.

8GB RAM is GOOD, that is irrefutable for a closed system.

current games have done amazing with only 512MB RAM. skyrim still looks beautiful with its current draw distance. 8GB will only serve to better that experience, especially considering the graphical leap wont be as great this time around.
the reason the Dev in the OP is as optimistic as he is is because he understands how far a console can be pushed. you seem to prefer the inefficient PC solution of throwing MOAR at a problem rather than working out a better solution.

Uncharted, MGS4, Infamous, Killzone....you think you're the only one who games on PC? i also game on PC, you can check out my screenshot in our forums PC screenshot thread. yet having said this, PC's do not offer the same experience as a console. those games i just listed? i haven't seen anything on PC -with their 8GB DDR3 RAM, 3.7 GHz i7 CPU, and GTX 690's- that does anything close to what those games do with 512MB RAM, 3.2 alien tech, and gtx 7800.

so why are you so down on the system?
i love the 8 cores, this will benefit PC games in future.
i love the unified 8GB RAM still unavailable on a PC,
and i love that the GPU seems extremely competent.

those are very good specs for a console. im not sure what your stance is, but you've either misunderstood the developer, or simply wish to flout your knowledge

either way, its quite tiring to see such pessimism on a Playstation centric site.

HellsJester puts it quite nicely

We dont care!
Just show off more PS4 games!

[Coconut_Crunch]

I believe AMD already has an 8 core, it's the Vishera 8350 which is pretty beefy and done by actual user benchmarks it does an excellent job compared to the intels, in fact for the money it's better to get the 8350 for a PC. For gaming there is no denying that more tricks are used, more patience and time is used to make console games look really good. Even Logan from razetheworld mentioned the PS4 and he was....I'll just post the video right here. Logan also did benchmarks for the 8350 vs a few i7's and the 8350's seam to do very well for streaming games. Which means that the jaguar if made properly will be able to stream games using gaiki with good frames per second.


foward to 34:50 and it's there. anyway he talks about the titan and all those other computer things with other news. I subscribed to the guy because both him and the camera man are very interesting.

[Rekmon]

Ok, point taken. But Killzone: SF is still a very good example of what it can achieve. Supposedly that’s un-optimized code, and it was for lesser RAM than what was later confirmed.

It did look good, believe me I'll be in line to pick a copy up and put it next all my KZ stuff

I'm sure with some tweaking it will look even better.

And I’m not arguing about that, in fact, I’m saying the same thing as you, the brute power of PC is what moves it forward, and that’s where the problem comes in when comparing two similar specs. The result will not be the same. Not even close. Think about how it was even possible to run such amazing-looking games on a 4MB VRAM of PS2 and then see what exactly I’m talking about.

Do not underestimate the power of efficiency.

Ah, I see. You say efficiency: I say optimization (which I think is a much better word for it)

I've made the exact same argument before as well.

Either way: the supposed hardware specs look good IMO, I think all of my console gaming buddies will drool over the results. Myself: I'll be more than content with it, and I'll always have a gaming pc to screw around with as well

[admartian]

and you've said it yourself now, what PC comes with 8GB GDDR5 RAM? more RAM is more RAM. Keefy posted a link a few pages back and ~30% of PCs still only have 1GB

but again, this isn't a "PC"
why you insist on perpetuating it is quite confusing, all the pieces do is move ones and zeroes around. consoles are more efficient at doing that than desktop PCs


please quote where i implied this?

i simply said it would be better than the drivel you consider it to be. the fact that i came in here with the notion of post process AA filters proves this, whereas you are now backtracking and contradicting yourself. answering questions with questions.


not shit, it's a fixed machine o_O

if you dislike consoles so much....are you trolling?


i buy consoles for the games, period.

because i praise the tech does not make me blind to its limitations. a misconception you seem to be carrying.


i bring up FXAA and you rebut with your talk of overheads, fair enough. but now you're going on about MSAA???
what is the overhead on that?
is there a point to you bringing this up or are you trying to dazzle me with your profound knowledge of internal system limitations?
you think im unaware of all that you're showing me? not once have i said PS4 will destroy top end PC's o_O
and if i were to indulge, i haven't said FXAA is the best solution to have ever existed either. further more, considering where i sit in my living room, i couldn't care less for that 5th pole down.

8GB RAM is GOOD, that is irrefutable for a closed system.

current games have done amazing with only 512MB RAM. skyrim still looks beautiful with its current draw distance. 8GB will only serve to better that experience, especially considering the graphical leap wont be as great this time around.
the reason the Dev in the OP is as optimistic as he is is because he understands how far a console can be pushed. you seem to prefer the inefficient PC solution of throwing MOAR at a problem rather than working out a better solution.

Uncharted, MGS4, Infamous, Killzone....you think you're the only one who games on PC? i also game on PC, you can check out my screenshot in our forums PC screenshot thread. yet having said this, PC's do not offer the same experience as a console. those games i just listed? i haven't seen anything on PC -with their 8GB DDR3 RAM, 3.7 GHz i7 CPU, and GTX 690's- that does anything close to what those games do with 512MB RAM, 3.2 alien tech, and gtx 7800.

so why are you so down on the system?
i love the 8 cores, this will benefit PC games in future.
i love the unified 8GB RAM still unavailable on a PC,
and i love that the GPU seems extremely competent.

those are very good specs for a console. im not sure what your stance is, but you've either misunderstood the developer, or simply wish to flout your knowledge

either way, its quite tiring to see such pessimism on a Playstation centric site.

HellsJester puts it quite nicely

I can't rep you but GOOD POST, SIR!

[Sufi]

It did look good, believe me I'll be in line to pick a copy up and put it next all my KZ stuff

I'm sure with some tweaking it will look even better.



Ah, I see. You say efficiency: I say optimization (which I think is a much better word for it)

I've made the exact same argument before as well.

Either way: the supposed hardware specs look good IMO, I think all of my console gaming buddies will drool over the results. Myself: I'll be more than content with it, and I'll always have a gaming pc to screw around with as well

Yea, the better word is optimization. I'm not a programmer but I understand the basics...unlike some people in this thread *cough*

[The Sith]

Personally if next gen consoles can't run PhysX/Tesselation/MSAA hell even TressFX haha, Then PC will always be superior for gaming and willl be the preferred choice for developers.

But yea obviously at the start of every new generation the graphics are a lot closer to PC, and for a lot of people, it will be more powerful than their PC.

[Aquanox]

There's a reason why the PS4 has 8GB of vRAM... but it's not that clear yet. Ok the reason is because durango also had it... but what I'm talking about is that there must be something, probably EPIC is working on, to take advantage of this massive RAM even when the horse power of the consoles might not be in the same neighbourhood (Considering that, for example, a Titan features 6GB)

I'm really willing to see that working but it's probably something that wont be directly translated to PC Games. I mean, they will probably rely more on horsepower for PC games instead of massive vRAM to have things working.

If someone's gonna show what you can do with 8GB of Ram FIRST, it won't be the PS4... It will be the next Xbox.... considering games are being made from scratch thinking on that much memory. (Well probably not from scratch, but very early in development) something PS4 devs didn't enjoy and will have to catch up with later on.

I bet on EPIC being the first to show what you can do with it, just like they did with the Xbox 360. (Remember them bragging about pushing MS to feature 512MB on the Xbox 360?)

[GreatSpaceKoaster]

Wow... a lot of huge posts and figures being thrown.

Bottom line... PS4 is x86, has a good graphics chip, 8GB of RAM and is a fixed hardware configuration. Fun times ahead. The 8GB of RAM is what I'm most excited about in both the PS4 and the Xbox 720. It's gonna make a world of difference!

[Rekmon]

Yea, the better word is optimization. I'm not a programmer but I understand the basics...unlike some people in this thread *cough*

I'd like to think that cough wasn't directed at me

ANyways...yeah. Optimization of code for a specific platform makes a world of difference.

[Jabjabs]

Wow... a lot of huge posts and figures being thrown.

Bottom line... PS4 is x86, has a good graphics chip, 8GB of RAM and is a fixed hardware configuration. Fun times ahead. The 8GB of RAM is what I'm most excited about in both the PS4 and the Xbox 720. It's gonna make a world of difference!

Out of everything that was announced with Ps4 the huge RAM is the one thing I am really interested in. More CPU and GPU is all well and good but having such a huge amount of storage is where game developers are going to win in a very big way. I can see a lot of indie developers just dumping their entire games into RAM and then running it all from there never touching the storage during play, that is going to be amazing to see.

We are venturing into the world of diminishing returns on visuals so at the very least the memory can be put to better use making the actual gameplay run smoother through more memory freedom rather than trying to JUST feed the graphics pipeline.

[mynd]

You have no friggin' idea what SLI is, do you? Here's a link to the gaming laptop you're referring to:

http://www.originpc.com/gaming/lapto...ue&systemid=18

"Crank those graphic settings to the maximum with the EON17-SLX powered by NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680M video card(s) in SLI or AMD's 7970M in CrossFire. With 4GB's of GDDR5 video ram, NVIDIA's PhysX and CUDA technology, top performance isn't something you seek, it's a way of life."

Two of those together = 8 GB of GDDR5, not one GPU with 8 GB of GDDR5. Even the NVIDIA Titan card only has 6 GB of GDDR5.




Edit:


This doesn't change the fact that what you said is wrong.

1/ To be fair, hes said plural GPu's

2/ The PS4 doesnt rock 8 gddr fo rthe GPU alone. It has the OS (Upwards of 2gb+ I don't care WTF people believe_, plus the CPU.

Realistically, you are going to be rocking a GPU with maybe 4gb memory dedicated to it.

[PeanutButterMunky]

1/ To be fair, hes said plural GPu's

Yes.

2/ The PS4 doesnt rock 8 gddr fo rthe GPU alone. It has the OS (Upwards of 2gb+ I don't care WTF people believe_, plus the CPU.

We know that... it's unified memory.

Realistically, you are going to be rocking a GPU with maybe 4gb memory dedicated to it.

This statement has no basis.

[mynd]

Yes.


We know that... it's unified memory.



This statement has no basis.

Assuming you think I'm referring to dedicated to the GPU as being 4gb, please read below, if you think I'm talking about total usable memory..then no I mean just dedicated to the GPU functions.

PBM, seriously, you need to go have a look at a few things.

1/ History of games on PC with memory:vram ratio
2/ Even ignoring the (bloated) O/S figure, you still end up with at most a 1.5:1 ratio required for memory vs vram
3/ There is more to games than a few hundred textures.

VRAM=models and textures.

MOST devs will tell you that the extra ram will allow for better AI, more NPC characters, bigger worlds (ahem Dishonored devs) etc etc.

NONE of that has anything to do with textures and models.

Oh I also suggest you look up my job history if you don't think I know what sort of ratios of VRAM to CPU memory you require.

[PeanutButterMunky]

I'm not suggesting you don't know what you're talking about, nor am I questioning your credibility, I just think everyone is jumping the gun prematurely.

[mynd]

I'm not suggesting you don't know what you're talking about, nor am I questioning your credibility, I just think everyone is jumping the gun prematurely.

At most it will be something like 2gb for CPU, 4gb for Vram, 2gb for O/S. (probably 3/3/2)

With streaming from disc, there isn't really a huge need to have massive VRAM beyond your cache and frame buffer.

[Jabjabs]

At most it will be something like 2gb for CPU, 4gb for Vram, 2gb for O/S. (probably 3/3/2)

With streaming from disc, there isn't really a huge need to have massive VRAM beyond your cache and frame buffer.

There is a lot of truth to this, except in some rare cases where there is a large amount of unique/geometry combined within tight areas then there can be some VRAM limitations but these are rare. even if games get limited to 2Gb for textures that should be more than enough to keep the detail very high for the coming generation.

[greystuff]

Reading this thread forced me to open account here...

Does anybody here really thinks GPU inside PS4 will use 8GB of any-type ram? Or 6GB? 4GB?
Does anybody here thinks that PC GPUs don't have more ram because its expensive?

For anyone who works with GPU and game programming it should be clear that amount of GPU ram depends on power that GPU has.
We know how much power PS4 gpu has, and by that you can be sure it will not use more then 2GB of ram for resolutions up to 1920x1200.

Then why 8GB in PS4 you may ask...?
Draw distance, AI, some limited effects, CPU support to GPU (something like Cell help in PS3) and OS in the end.



You can add 50GB of GDDR5 but it will still be 7850 GPU, texture details, model details etc are limited by power of specific GPU.
Here is example of what happens when you add 100% more GDDR5 on GTX670 (from 2GB to 4GB):

(By xbitlabs)

Conclusion

Increasing the amount of memory on board of GeForce GTX 670 and GTX 680 cards translates to obvious performance benefits only in specific unique cases, such as triple-monitor set-ups with 3240x1920 resolution and enabled antialiasing. Metro 2033: The Last Refuge and Sniper Elite V2 are the only games that need more than the standard 2 GB of graphics memory, but the contemporary High-End graphics cards are anyway too slow in these games even with 4 GB of video memory. In the rest of our games we could hardly see any difference between GeForce GTX 670s with 2 and 4 GB of memory in 3240x1920 and no difference at all in 2560x1440. So, purchasing a 4GB card wouldn't be worth the investment unless you've got a triple-monitor configuration. But if you do have one, 4GB graphics cards really make sense for 2-, 3- and 4-way SLI configurations and playing contemporary games at high resolutions. In this case, the increased amount of memory would not become the bottleneck.

[Aquanox]

Oh that Devil 13? Nice card dude...but once again that's only 3gb/gpu

No. It depends on the Multi GPU technique the game uses. An old game like GTA for example, can recognize and use all 2GB of vRAM of my HD5870(1GB) x2 Crossfire.

No vRAM shortages for High end PC Gamers in the next few years..