[Eurogamer\DF] Orbis Unmasked: what to expect from the next-gen PlayStation.

Which would mitigate the problems of PS4 not having 8GB of RAM.

16GB of Flash + 3.5 GB of super fast GDDR5 would be able to work wonders....Orbis will be in no way RAM starved if they go this route.

Which is why I think the flash rumor is absolutely true. PS3 devs used the standard hard drive all the time.

Can a flash drive really serve as a long term substitute of RAM, and be used constantly by games?

Also I don't see how a HDD would mitigate lack of ram in the way you describe. These sound like way too simple explanations, why would anyone need 8GB on a system then?

For example, if Sony releases the system with 8GB of ddr3 instead of 4GB of GDDr5, and they have a flash drive then...it's as if you had 16 Gb of ram?

Just curious because for example the WII U has 8GB of flash, so maybe that system has much more capability in terms of memory than we were lead to believe.
 
To do this, not completely lose the support of third parties and to still keep the initial price point within $100 of Sony Microsoft will likely release a box that is slightly less capable at playing AAA games than the next Playstation but provides much more than just the gaming + streaming video services the 360 provides.

I'd like to hear thoughts/feedback on this thesis.


If MS release a weaker gaming console, that also cost's substantially more than Sony's next console then the nextbox will be in big trouble. Maybe not so much in the U.S? but certainly in the ROTW.
 
That's read speed. No, this can't be used as RAM. That was a cute attempt at downplaying the supposed advantage of the nextbox on that front, though. ;-)

It can't be used as RAM, but as a cache for streaming data. 3,5 GB GDDR5 RAM alone would be much better than 5 GB DDR3, if you add a small SSD to this equation, it would be absolutely superior.
 
it's not about whether Sony can make a decent OS; it's about whether they can make one that can compare to one made by the biggest, most influential OS developer of our time.

and the answer is no, they can't. The question will be how far behind their OS will be. Or, how many more features the Xbox will have that the PS4 does not. There are still a number of features the PS3 hasn't been able to match that the 360 has, now several years later.



lol.

The good thing is that neither Apple or Google are making a game console.
 
No one was downplaying anything, just trying to figure out if it could be used to counter the scenarios where Orbis would have a disadvantage because of a lower RAM number.

I don't wanna be rude but no one was talking to you. James can reply himself.

It can be used for STREAMING. Which is what plenty of PS3 exclusive developers have been using the standard hard drive in the PS3 for.

It acts as a very large pool of very slow RAM.
Yeah that makes sense. Much like a hybrid HDD.
 
The good thing is that neither Apple or Google are making a game console.

As a Mac owner: you're funny. If you're too delusional to understand, acknowledge and accept Microsoft's place at the top of the OS development heap, we have nothing to discuss. It's not a debate. It's simply a question of whether you're ready to acknowledge that the sky is blue or not.
 
Who is saying that?

Everyone usually praises Vita's OS and speculates a similar iteration will be available with PS4.

This entire thread is plagued with comments like "ms make software sony make hardware, and sony cant compete".

Sony aren't competing on the OS front, granted the OS and its functionality is going to play a big part next gen but vita os and to an extent ps3 os are good achievements considering where sony came from with ps2.
 
Gemüsepizza;46676691 said:
It can't be used as RAM, but as a cache for streaming data. 3,5 GB GDDR5 RAM alone would be much better than 5 GB DDR3, if you add a small SSD to this equation, it would be absolutely superior.

Cute. Any math behind this? ;)
 
That's a good point.

the vita OS is a definite step in the right direction. they load times are great and the general impression is that the OS is well put together with a lot of thought having gone into it. now if Sony can dedicate the same level of attention to the ps4 OS and make it more cohesive, they'll be onto a sure-fire winner.

the question is though, will that be enough? microsoft won't be standing still, they will be evolving their OS, will sony be able to match this evolution, whatever it may be?
 
I agree it's good, very good in fact but it's still very fragmented. they need a more cohesive OS, one that seamlessly melds things like trophy sync and messaging into one and not individual apps or settings. this is where microsoft leads and rightly so, but sony need to realise how important cohesiveness is in an OS.

I actually like the way it is setup on the vita. Not a fan of the vita's visual aesthetics too much but functionality wise it fits in perfectly and i'll be damned if it isn't very smooth. If i gain a new trophy it pops up in the messages tab - and i'm not interested in trophies at all personally so i've only checked this once or twice and things could have changed with the updates. Click on it there and it automatically goes to/opens the trophies app and the trophy is usually already there in the list since the trophies seem to update in real-time as long as you have a live connection

Somebody sends you a message? Same thing, it takes you straight to the messages app. It's synonymous with the way all my other devices work so it just feels natural

As a Mac owner: you're funny. If you're too delusional to understand, acknowledge and accept Microsoft's place at the top of the OS development heap, we have nothing to discuss. It's not a debate. It's simply a question of whether you're ready to acknowledge that the sky is blue or not.

I don't know which world you are living in but ms's OS monopoly only exists on PC's and is not experiencing any growth right now. They're in a far less rosy position than you seem to be aware of which is why they are now pursuing other directions with their current/latest OS ecosystem
 
That's on the lower end of GDDR5 bandwidth.
Thats based on the assumption of a 256bit bus and fully clocked chips. Someone just put the desktop 680 number in the rumor.

The desktop 7870 memory speed is 154GB/s. Consoles will most likely run with less, we are likely to get about 1000mhz memory clock. Which would be 128GB/s.

Im guessing in the range of 128-160GB/s max.
 
I think the inclusion of flash memory may also have something to do with Sony pushing digital downloads from Day 1.

If the Blu-Ray drive is faster than anticipated Hard Drive speeds (a possibility given 6-8X Blu-Ray speeds vs. hard drive speeds, unless someone can correct me), then digital downloads may be compromised a bit by worse loading.

Flash storage would help improve loading times for Blu-Ray titles and Digital downloads, while also improving streaming capabilities.
 
the vita OS is a definite step in the right direction. they load times are great and the general impression is that the OS is well put together with a lot of thought having gone into it. now if Sony can dedicate the same level of attention to the ps4 OS and make it more cohesive, they'll be onto a sure-fire winner.

Interesting perspective. I've found the Vita OS to be hideous at best, and I strongly dislike the corny approach to game icons. Performance is good, though, as is how apps suspend in the background unless they're closed.

So yea under the hood it seems to be solid, I agree. The UI itself is an abomination, though. Sorry. I don't want that shit anywhere near my PS4.
 
I read something about flash memory may suffer from reliability issues from "over" usage. I am not certain how accurate that assessment would be with it being created in 2013.

However, a part 16GB could be a boon for streaming assets from. HDD -> X GB of 16GB flash -> 3.5GB GDDR5 RAM.

20nm MLC flash has reliability of around 1000 writes so at least 16TB of writes and you can also buy more expensive higher binned flash or go with SLC which has order of magnitude or two higher reliability.

It should be enough for years.
 
Thats based on the assumption of a 256bit bus and fully clocked chips. Someone just put the desktop 680 number in the rumor.

The desktop 7870 memory speed is 154GB/s. Consoles will most likely run with less, we are likely to get about 1000mhz memory clock. Which would be 128GB/s.

Im guessing in the range of 128-160GB/s max.

Why are you comparing Orbis directly to a desktop chip?
 
This entire thread is plagued with comments like "ms make software sony make hardware, and sony cant compete".

Sony aren't competing on the OS front, granted the OS and its functionality is going to play a big part next gen but vita os and to an extent ps3 os are good achievements considering where sony came from with ps2.

You can flip the coin and come out with the exact same about hardware.

Wishful thinking by some that the OS of X will be better/bloated and the OS of Y will be worse/super light. It's the same for hardware. It's just wishful thinking at this point.

I think the inclusion of flash memory may also have something to do with Sony pushing digital downloads from Day 1.

If the Blu-Ray drive is faster than anticipated Hard Drive speeds (a possibility given 6-8X Blu-Ray speeds vs. hard drive speeds, unless someone can correct me), then digital downloads may be compromised a bit by worse loading.

Flash storage would help improve loading times for Blu-Ray titles and Digital downloads, while also improving streaming capabilities.

How would writing from HDD to Flash and then to RAM be faster than from HDD to Ram?
 
Thats based on the assumption of a 256bit bus and fully clocked chips. Someone just put the desktop 680 number in the rumor.

The desktop 7870 memory speed is 154GB/s. Consoles will most likely run with less, we are likely to get about 1000mhz memory clock. Which would be 128GB/s.

Im guessing in the range of 128-160GB/s max.

I am not so sure about that. This is unified memory which needs to be accessed by the CPU, too. And this RAM is quite expensiv, it makes sense to use it's potential maximum speed in a console with tight budget.
 
Neither of those can touch Microsoft.
True, none of them can touch them when it comes to building bloated OS.

As a Mac owner: you're funny. If you're too delusional to understand, acknowledge and accept Microsoft's place at the top of the OS development heap, we have nothing to discuss. It's not a debate. It's simply a question of whether you're ready to acknowledge that the sky is blue or not.

I'm sure you've reviewed all the source code and kernel for all operating systems out there. That's the only reason why an opinion like yours can become factual and make this non debatable. If they are so good, then why have they failed to make a mobile OS that gains traction in the market? What about The KIN? what about all the other Mobile OSs that they had to put to pasture? They're good, but not as this untouchable monster that you claim they are.

Spare us the hyperbole please.
 
Here's a potentially stupid question: It's GGDR5 SDRAM and not GGDR5 SGRAM used in Orbis in this speculation context, right? Or is it vice versa?

The only standard regarding GDDR5 I can find is the JESD212 and that is for the mentioned SGRAM (Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory). It doesn't provide much in terms of bandwidth but there's a lengthy list of features:

2.1 FEATURES
• Single ended interface for data, address and command
• Quarter data‐rate differential clock inputs CK/CK# for ADR/CMD
• Two half data‐rate differential clock inputs WCK/WCK#, each associated with two data bytes (DQ, DBI#, EDC)
• Double Data Rate (DDR) data (WCK)
• Single Data Rate (SDR) command (CK)
• Double Data Rate (DDR) addressing (CK)
• 8 or 16 internal banks
• 4 bank groups for tCCDL = 3 tCK and 4 tCK • 8n prefetch architecture: 256 bit per array read or write access
• Burst length: 8 only
• Programmable CAS latency: 5 to 36 tCK • Programmable WRITE latency: 1 to 7 tCK • WRITE Data mask function via address bus (single/double byte mask)
• Data bus inversion (DBI) & address bus inversion (ABI)
• Input/output PLL/DLL on/off mode
• Address training: address input monitoring by DQ pins
• WCK2CK clock training with phase information by EDC pins
• Data read and write training via READ FIFO
• READ FIFO pattern preload by LDFF command
• Direct write data load to READ FIFO by WRTR command
• Consecutive read of READ FIFO by RDTR command
• Read/Write data transmission integrity secured by cyclic redundancy check (CRC‐8)
• READ/WRITE EDC on/off mode
• Programmable EDC hold pattern for CDR
• Programmable CRC READ latency = 0 to 3 tCK • Programmable CRC WRITE latency = 7 to 14 tCK • Low Power modes
• RDQS mode on EDC pin
• Optional on‐chip temperature sensor with read‐out
• Auto & self refresh modes
• Auto precharge option for each burst access
• 32ms, auto refresh (8k cycles)
• Temperature sensor controlled self refresh rate
• Optional digital tRAS lockout
• On‐die termination (ODT); nominal values of 60 ohm and 120 ohm
• Pseudo open drain (POD‐15) compatible outputs (40 ohm pulldown, 60 ohm pullup)
• ODT and output drive strength auto‐calibration with external resistor ZQ pin (120 ohm)
• Programmable termination and driver strength offsets
• Selectable external or internal VREF for data inputs; programmable offsets for internal VREF
• Separate external VREF for address / command inputs
• Vendor ID, FIFO depth and Density info fields for identification
• x32/x16 mode configuration set at power‐up with EDC pin
• Mirror function with MF pin
• Boundary scan function with SEN pin
• 1.5V +/‐ 0.045V supply for device operation (VDD)
• 1.5V +/‐ 0.045V supply for I/O interface (VDDQ)
• 170 ball BGA package
 
it's not about whether Sony can make a decent OS; it's about whether they can make one that can compare to one made by the biggest, most influential OS developer of our time.

and the answer is no, they can't. The question will be how far behind their OS will be. Or, how many more features the Xbox will have that the PS4 does not. There are still a number of features the PS3 hasn't been able to match that the 360 has, now several years later.



lol.

I'd like to know why that's an lol statement too. The Vita OS is crazy fast, it installs much faster than PS3, it can have 5+ tabs open and you can instantly pause any game and snap between tabs and back to the game with no lag or loading times.

It's easily better than what 360 and PS3 have. It's just not as flashy and bloated as what 360 has.
 
I agree it's good, very good in fact but it's still very fragmented. they need a more cohesive OS, one that seamlessly melds things like trophy sync and messaging into one and not individual apps or settings. this is where microsoft leads and rightly so, but sony need to realise how important cohesiveness is in an OS.

Maybe they should consolidate a bunch of the apps into a PSN app.
 
True, none of them can touch them when it comes to building bloated OS.



I'm sure you've reviewed all the source code and kernel for all operating systems out there. That's the only reason why an opinion like yours can become factual and make this non debatable. If they are so good, then why have they failed to make a mobile OS that gains traction in the market? What about The KIN? what about all the other Mobile OSs that they had to put to pasture? They're good, but not as this untouchable monster that you claim they are.

Spare us the hyperbole please.

You say they're unable to make traction in the mobile market, but you forget that Google doesn't even have a competent desktop OS. You act like Microsoft is the only company to have an unsuccessful product. Need I remind you of the many failures other companies have had?
 
You sound snooty about this subject, obviously you can answer this question. What is the purpose of 16GB of Flash RAM?

As stated by a previous poster, it could be used to house the OS/firmware/system updates.

Even the PS3 and 360 had flash memory (although in a much smaller quantity) for this.
 
Interesting perspective. I've found the Vita OS to be hideous at best, and I strongly dislike the corny approach to game icons. Performance is good, though, as is how apps suspend in the background unless they're closed.

So yea under the hood it seems to be solid, I agree. The UI itself is an abomination, though. Sorry. I don't want that shit anywhere near my PS4.

I can understand not liking the aesthetics but it has such a small footprint on the system and is so efficient. Ever since they made it so you can open a browser and continue running your game I almost have no excuse to leave the thing.
 
Yeah the 360 dashboard is a mess. It feels like a focus group design made of compromises.

Yeah, I'm not worried at all about Sony making a better OS than what Microsoft's efforts been like for the past new years, especially when looking at how great the Vita OS is. I'm just wondering if MS has any huge features under wraps I'll be interested in.
 

Also, the PS4 will have a special place for patches, OS etc this is stored on an internal 16 GB of flash storage.

Doesn't seem like it's gonna be used as some sort of magic bullet to substitute ram...

Yeah the 360 dashboard is a mess. It feels like a focus group design made of compromises.

I always thought it looked a bit too complicated. But I have no idea how it actually is these days.
 
Can a flash drive really serve as a long term substitute of RAM, and be used constantly by games?

No. You can use a hard drive for caching data, so that it doesn't have to be loaded from the slower DVD/Blu-ray every time it's needed. Flash can be used in much the same way, it basically acts as a very fast hard drive, but it can't really replace RAM which is still much faster.
 
You say they're unable to make traction in the mobile market, but you forget that Google doesn't even have a competent desktop OS. You act like Microsoft is the only company to have an unsuccessful product. Need I remind you of the many failures other companies have had?

At least Chrome OS has a small footprint, and a single focus, I cannot say the same for MSFT. Also he's the one that claimed MSFT was the gold standard for OS design, not me.
 
Yeah the 360 dashboard is a mess. It feels like a focus group design made of compromises.

I really do miss the blades. As far as OS designs go on gaming machines I just need them to be responsive and snappy and do their job, which is what the Vita OS and the blades do. Unfortunately there's been a trend in the tech industry where everything needs to be super flashy and unorganized and if it's slow and laggy then who cares? It's pretty looking.
 
well, it's a little more interesting than just FLOPS. rumours suggest durango will house 32MB of eDRAM which would roughly translate to 100 GB/S of bandwidth. this would mean each frame can contain a maximum of 3.3GBs of data at 30FPS or half that at 60FPS.

while modern high end GPUs can push 300 GB/s, it's rumoured that the orbis is capable of 192 GB/S, facilitated by its plentiful fast ram and wide bus. what does this mean? it means that combined with the greater render grunt that a 1.8TFLOP GPU provides over a 1.2TFLOP GPU based on the same architecture, theoretically the same amount of data can be carried nearly twice as fast (higher framerates), or twice the data can be carried in one trip (higher resolutions/image complexity).

What if Durango was 1gb/frame?

The 192GB/s is most definitely wrong.

PS4 will do all last years tech demos at 1080p 60fps. GTX680 running them with minimal optimization means a 7850 can run them at half FPS without optimization. With some optimization you will have 99% of the quality at 1080p 60fps.

These specs are better than the needed specs for 60fps at 1080p for current generation games. Next generation games should be able to target much better image quality at 60fps at 1080p or AMAZING graphics at 30fps 1080p.

No no no... Can we stop with all this magic hardware that's better than...itself somehow, locked resolutions/frame rate and secret sauce stuff?
 
360 OS is shit now. I'm just hoping the next Xbox goes for functionality and responsiveness over whatever the hell they were thinking with that piece of crap.
 
Despite what people are saying, 3.5GB is PLENTY of RAM.

3.5GB is 3.5GB. Its enough for what 3.5 GB will get you.
quote-640k-ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody-bill-gates-69066.jpg
 
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