Sony: Developers Requested x86 Architecture for PS4

[ps3freak18]

Cell was a great piece of tech but I think it's for the best they are moving towards a more common tech with the PS4. More dev friendly can never be a bad thing.

[Jabjabs]

While big developers are winners, smaller companies and indies are the real big winners on all these new machines. Wii U, Ps4 and Xbox 3 are all geared towards the easiest development that developers have ever had on a console.

Code slow sloppy, pointer riddled, branchy code and all these machines will make it sing regardless and that's a good thing.

[ps3freak18]

While big developers are winners, smaller companies and indies are the real big winners on all these new machines. Wii U, Ps4 and Xbox 3 are all geared towards the easiest development that developers have ever had on a console.

Code slow sloppy, pointer riddled, branchy code and all these machines will make it sing regardless and that's a good thing.

Absolutely! The little guy seems to be the one gaining the most. The most common tools available to work on the most common architecture. This gen is looking to be very exciting. We are in for a treat IMO.

[Bigdoggy]

With the PS4 it will show if the developers are really crappy, getting paid to sabotage said game on certain console or whatever else. I'm looking right at EA and every said game branch within EA. If any of those companies dork the development process like on the PS3, they are going to stick out like a big red sore thumb with a sign above their head that says "we are rookie developers even though we've been developing for over 6+ years".

[mickice]

It is a high figure but look at what Sony has shown so far, an easy to code for system with high graphics and overkill for ram. Social functions, game recording and streaming, a headset in every box. Not only have they coined all the good features of the 360 but they have smothered Sony esque chocolate sauce all over the top of that bad boy not forgetting Sony's 15 world class studios.

[WayFastWhitey]

If developers requested this architecture, there had better not be one game come out with only 720p as its highest resolution. The PS3 sucks for that. Sure, the PS3 has some badass hardware, but nearly every game has only 720p. I didn't spend $800+ on a badass 600hz Plasma TV with 1080p and only have a handful of games that have 1080p support. Now with the PS4 having some severely high horsepower under its metaphorical hood, I'll be literally fire breathing mad if the games only come out with 720p as the highest resolution. YOU CAN NOT FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAMING GODS TOUT A POWERFUL CONSOLE AND FLOP ON THE HIGH DEFINITION RESOLUTION OF 1080p!! COME ON, SONY! jeez! grow up! some of us really enjoy the "omfgs" resolution that 1080p offers!! And some of this talk about 4k resolution for movies! wtf??!! make the games the focus of the higher resolution. NO ONE, repeat, NO ONE, has a 4k TV! why focus on movies having that when you have a gaming console??!! i don't care about the movies having that. i want the freaking games to have 1080p support! jeez! how hard is it??!! the ps4 will surely wipe the floor with the PS3 and even the new xbox. now it's time to prove the claims. step up to the plate and beat the hell out of our tv's with the jaw dropping eye candy that 1080p provides.

[PeanutButterMunky]

Paragraphs are really beat things.

Also, I think we'll be seeing a lot more games in 1080p this gen.

[Lefein]

I have no doubt there will be 720p games, but they will in all likelihood have some redeeming factor like incredibly complex physics or animation systems which warrant using the compute units in the GPU for something other than rasterization.

[Sufi]

I honestly think there's a pretty good chance of that.

It would be crazy not to port the games now. Not unless it doesn't make sense...like games that have heavy modding and KB/M use or they just don't have the infrastructure/resources to port.

[jj03]

If developers requested this architecture, there had better not be one game come out with only 720p as its highest resolution. The PS3 sucks for that. Sure, the PS3 has some badass hardware, but nearly every game has only 720p. I didn't spend $800+ on a badass 600hz Plasma TV with 1080p and only have a handful of games that have 1080p support. Now with the PS4 having some severely high horsepower under its metaphorical hood, I'll be literally fire breathing mad if the games only come out with 720p as the highest resolution. YOU CAN NOT FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAMING GODS TOUT A POWERFUL CONSOLE AND FLOP ON THE HIGH DEFINITION RESOLUTION OF 1080p!! COME ON, SONY! jeez! grow up! some of us really enjoy the "omfgs" resolution that 1080p offers!! And some of this talk about 4k resolution for movies! wtf??!! make the games the focus of the higher resolution. NO ONE, repeat, NO ONE, has a 4k TV! why focus on movies having that when you have a gaming console??!! i don't care about the movies having that. i want the freaking games to have 1080p support! jeez! how hard is it??!! the ps4 will surely wipe the floor with the PS3 and even the new xbox. now it's time to prove the claims. step up to the plate and beat the hell out of our tv's with the jaw dropping eye candy that 1080p provides.

Jesus..just enjoy the fucking games man....

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[IWAO]

Well they got what they wanted so they better put their games on the PS4.

[LightningBlade]

Well they got what they wanted so they better put their games on the PS4.

This.

It is a high figure but look at what Sony has shown so far, an easy to code for system with high graphics and overkill for ram. Social functions, game recording and streaming, a headset in every box. Not only have they coined all the good features of the 360 but they have smothered Sony esque chocolate sauce all over the top of that bad boy not forgetting Sony's 15 world class studios.

Agreed. I think the system is looking fantastic.

[Nucleus]

Double post

[Nucleus]

No not really, it just gave PS3 some of the nicest looking games this gen and removed disc swapping, something I haven't done for over a decade.

Sony should have gone x86 this gen but it doesn't matter...it has learned from its mistake. Dev friendly tech + Sony's passion for providing bar raising content will make for a good 8th gen on PlayStation.

Yes, but at what cost? Well, loading and mandatory game install times that eclipse the time it takes me to get up and change the disc.

[Foraeli]

Is x86 really that much better for language programming or is it the fact that x86 is more associated with OOOE processors that makes it more appealing?

[Morganator]

Is x86 really that much better for language programming or is it the fact that x86 is more associated with OOOE processors that makes it more appealing?

A small part is that bit of fact. The bigger part is that the x86 architecture has been around for almost 40 years now and it's really hard to screw up when there are literally millions of years of man hours spent coding for the said architecture. Honestly, all of this confirms my initial thoughts I had at the beginning of this generation. Developers are fucking lazy and if you don't literally spoon-feed them, they bitch and whine. Publishers are fucking stupid people who only understand the word, "MILK".

As far as I'm concerned, there should not be one single game with a maximum resolution lower than 1080p at 60Hz and there should be absolutely no whining considering the difficulty level of programming for the consoles. They wanted their easy button moment and they've received it. Now it's time to actually PRODUCE!

[Foraeli]

A small part is that bit of fact. The bigger part is that the x86 architecture has been around for almost 40 years now and it's really hard to screw up when there are literally millions of years of man hours spent coding for the said architecture. Honestly, all of this confirms my initial thoughts I had at the beginning of this generation. Developers are fucking lazy and if you don't literally spoon-feed them, they bitch and whine. Publishers are fucking stupid people who only understand the word, "MILK".

As far as I'm concerned, there should not be one single game with a maximum resolution lower than 1080p at 60Hz and there should be absolutely no whining considering the difficulty level of programming for the consoles. They wanted their easy button moment and they've received it. Now it's time to actually PRODUCE!

That's kind of a poor way of looking at it. It's not about laziness. It's about efficiently doing your work better and faster. There's a saying "Work smarter, not harder!" and it means to try and find the 'best way' to do something rather than stubbornly struggle to do it 'your way.' x86 is just the much better way of doing things. And I myself as someone who has dabbled in computer graphics, I can proudly say you really have no freakin idea how difficult and frustrating this stuff can be. I'm sure some programmers spent weeks just to get a few lines of code to work because Sony's debugging tools and programming language were just plain incompetent. I would personally never call someone who developed a game for the PS3 lazy by any regard.

[Sufi]

The issue is that we didn't have x86 architecture and so you have to make do with what you have.

I think the CPU architecture wasn't the real issue, the real issue was the split RAM. Though I feel that since CPUs have their own library of tools and so it helps having a more known one.

I'm not going to blame developers but I say, stop whining, it is what it is, either go through with it or don't involve yourself. I'll leave with a quote,
If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going - Winston Churchill

[Foraeli]

Another way to look at it is that the Cell processor is a push lawnmower and an x86 processor is a riding lawnmower. With the push mower, it takes the farmer 5 hours to mow the field and a lot of strenuous effort, leaving little time to do the rest of his daily chores. But with the riding lawnmower, requires only a tenth of the strength to do to the same work in only just an hour. Developers this generation have done so many hours of zero-pay overtime to just meet deadlines to finish the games, and this has never been so prominent in the video game industry than it is today. I'm sure all this overtime has lead to divorces, mental and physical health issues, and plenty more. The word is "lazy" is about the most insulting this you can say about their hard work and effort.

[Sufi]

imo the problem with cell was that it was "needed" to be tamed in order to get the most out of the PS3 because you can't access the other 256MB RAM if you don't utilize it. So if the PS3 had a unified RAM structure, everyone could've easily just ignored the Cell and utilized the RAM more efficiently...you'd still have to work with the weaker RSX though.

[Jabjabs]

Another way to look at it is that the Cell processor is a push lawnmower and an x86 processor is a riding lawnmower. With the push mower, it takes the farmer 5 hours to mow the field and a lot of strenuous effort, leaving little time to do the rest of his daily chores. But with the riding lawnmower, requires only a tenth of the strength to do to the same work in only just an hour. Developers this generation have done so many hours of zero-pay overtime to just meet deadlines to finish the games, and this has never been so prominent in the video game industry than it is today. I'm sure all this overtime has lead to divorces, mental and physical health issues, and plenty more. The word is "lazy" is about the most insulting this you can say about their hard work and effort.

That analogy is half correct. To make it more accurate you could say the hand mover can potentially mow twice as much at the same time. Still a pain to do but there is cause for a potential reward in the end. That said if I was the developer I would take the ride on mower any day.

Is x86 really that much better for language programming or is it the fact that x86 is more associated with OOOE processors that makes it more appealing?

It has some of the most hardened and toughened tool available, it is a well known standard. The most predictable a system is the more it will be favored. Personally I would loved to see a pure PowerPC system (as most developers would) but there is a whole host of issues other than the ISA that hold back that platform.

Developers are fucking lazy and if you don't literally spoon-feed them, they bitch and whine.

Not really, game development is incredibly complex. Having to get literally hundreds/thousands of independent bits of software to work flawlessly with each other is an achievement in itself. Anything that can make this process easier is a very welcome addition.

[Foraeli]

That analogy is half correct. To make it more accurate you could say the hand mover can potentially mow twice as much at the same time. Still a pain to do but there is cause for a potential reward in the end. That said if I was the developer I would take the ride on mower any day.

My analogy wasn't about processing power tho. It was just an analogy for the time and effort needed to write working code.

[Jabjabs]

My analogy wasn't about processing power tho. It was just an analogy for the time and effort needed to write working code.

True but it's also a factor that shouldn't be ignored personally.

[Robardian]

Psh... I feel ya. And that moment when Kurosaki Ichigo...

...achieves Final Getsuga

Hell yeah.

Sent from my HTC-PG762 using Tapatalk 2

[unicron7]

A small part is that bit of fact. The bigger part is that the x86 architecture has been around for almost 40 years now and it's really hard to screw up when there are literally millions of years of man hours spent coding for the said architecture. Honestly, all of this confirms my initial thoughts I had at the beginning of this generation. Developers are fucking lazy and if you don't literally spoon-feed them, they bitch and whine. Publishers are fucking stupid people who only understand the word, "MILK".

As far as I'm concerned, there should not be one single game with a maximum resolution lower than 1080p at 60Hz and there should be absolutely no whining considering the difficulty level of programming for the consoles. They wanted their easy button moment and they've received it. Now it's time to actually PRODUCE!