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[BruiserBear]

lol at Reiko becoming an "insider" again, but quickly back peddling from it moments later.

These discussions are getting better by the week. It's going to be amazing to see the reactions, back peddling, anger, etc when the Durango specs are finally official.

 

[USC-fan]

Their info checks out so far.

So what else is there? Seems they have went over everything.

 

[Reiko]

lol at Reiko becoming an "insider" again, but quickly back peddling from it moments later.

These discussions are getting better by the week. It's going to be amazing to see the reactions, back peddling, anger, etc when the Durango specs are finally official.

Seeing one piece of info does not make one an insider.

And I'm not going around posting carrots for GAF. A month ago I told GAF the specs weren't different from what VGleaks posted.

So what else is there? Seems they have went over everything.

I would like to see more info on the CPU and the specialized audio hardware.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Seeing one piece of info does not make one an insider.

And I'm not going around posting carrots for GAF. A month ago I told GAF the specs weren't different from what VGleaks posted.

Why are you expecting Microsoft to release something dramatically different then?

 

[Reiko]

Why are you expecting Microsoft to release something dramatically different then?

Wishful thinking.

 

[Aasir Osu]

So aside from the document that came from this Durango conference, what, if any, takeaways did developers have from the actual conference? With so much of the conversation dominated by how Durango falls short in comparison to the PS4, I'm curious as to how devs felt about MS's explanation for the Durango design choices. And what was the nature of that conference - was it a one day meeting? More of a workshop?

Have devs, off the record of course, expressed disappointment with the Durango design in comparison to the PS4 - even knowing the Durango specs for over a year now (since they haven't changed); and let's remember, the consensus here even before the ram increase was that the PS4 was more powerful, due to its GPU and bandwidth. The leaks seem to be spec focused only, and yet you would think that if devs had a problem with Durango, they would have been groaning about it since the Feb. 2012 conference, especially since its been also suggested that Sony had a general idea of what they were doing in the same timeframe. I wonder if Sony held a similar conference, and if not, why MS felt the need to do so.

And about that Durango CPU.......

 

[Respawn]

lol at Reiko becoming an "insider" again, but quickly back peddling from it moments later.

These discussions are getting better by the week. It's going to be amazing to see the reactions, back peddling, anger, etc when the Durango specs are finally official.

Ive had him on ignore for a while now. I saw through his bs long ago.

 

[KidBeta]

So aside from the document that came from this Durango conference, what, if any, takeaways did developers have from the actual conference? With so much of the conversation dominated by how Durango falls short in comparison to the PS4, I'm curious as to how devs felt about MS's explanation for the Durango design choices. And what was the nature of that conference - was it a one day meeting? More of a workshop?

Have devs, off the record of course, expressed disappointment with the Durango design in comparison to the PS4 - even knowing the Durango specs for over a year now (since they haven't changed); and let's remember, the consensus here even before the ram increase was that the PS4 was more powerful, due to its GPU and bandwidth. The leaks seem to be spec focused only, and yet you would think that if devs had a problem with Durango, they would have been groaning about it since the Feb. 2012 conference, especially since its been also suggested that Sony had a general idea of what they were doing in the same timeframe. I wonder if Sony held a similar conference, and if not, why MS felt the need to do so.

And about that Durango CPU.......

I have heard from someone privately that certain devs have privately said things about Durangos performance not being upto par but never publicly.

 

[Painraze]

if you aren't going to post the document then please stop the attention whoring and stfu about it.

 

[Reiko]

Ive had him on ignore for a while now. I saw through his bs long ago.

smh

Despite me being honest you put me on ignore. Good call Respawn.

 

[iMax]

Theres way to watermark that would be preserved with print screening.

OK, so just rebuild the whole thing from scratch in InDesign or something

 

[iMax]

smh

Despite me being honest you put me on ignore. Good call Respawn.

How did you get it, by the way?

 

[Stillmatic]

Is B3D poster that mentioned the dual APU system the main source for the Durango spec increase? If so they also mentioned we'd hear more on the 6th right? If nothing comes from that then we can bury that rumor for good, and continue with the most reliable info, VGleaks/leaked investor doc etc.

In the unlikely event something does leak on the 6th that supports his post, then damn, things are going to get crazy around here.

 

[Reiko]

How did you get it, by the way?

I'll PM you.

 

[onQ123]

I have heard from someone privately that certain devs have privately said things about Durangos performance not being upto par but never publicly.

Do you know what you have just done?



now your post is going to be the unnamed source for some website trying to get hits saying that a unnamed source has told them that the NextBox isn't performing much better than the Wii U.

 

[Aasir Osu]

I have heard from someone privately that certain devs have privately said things about Durangos performance not being upto par but never publicly.

So when they say not up to par, do they mean compared to the PS4 (which would be obvious going by the specs)? Or do they mean Durango, as a gaming system, is not up to par? Being less powerful than the PS4 I don't see as an issue (and that's how I've always felt, so I'm not sure what stage or phase that puts me in), but if the inherent architecture is flawed in some sense, I would be curious as to dev reasoning on that, since I would assume the Durango engineers didn't design the system in isolation - the need to fulfill OS ambitions notwithstanding.

edit for spelling

 

[Phonomezer]

Don't put Reiko on ignore ;_;

 

[KidBeta]

So when they say not up to par, do they mean compared to the PS4 (which would be obvious going by the specs)? Or do they mean Durango, as a gaming system, is not up to par? Being less powerful than the PS4 I don't see as an issue (and that's how I've always felt, so I'm not sure what stage or phase that puts me in), but if the inherent architecture is flawed in some sense, I would be curious as to dev reasoning on that, since I would assume the Durango engineers didn't design the system in isolation - the need to fulfill OS ambitions notwithstanding.

edit for spelling

I do not see a issue either. From what I recall its that Durango couldn't keep up performance wise.

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

dual APU would probably make it more powerful.

And also probably make it cost $600+.

why would it be 600?

the Yukon design had a dual apu and estimated system cost of $225.

 

[KidBeta]

why would it be 600?

the Yukon design had a dual apu and estimated system cost of $225.

The Yukon design also used DDR4, there projection for Yukon was far off the mark and probably one of the reasons it was scraped.

 

[seattle6418]

Xbox 360's 512MB of RAM was much more last minute compared to PS4's ram change.

Just saying.

Of course they can go to 16gb DDR3, but given the whole design, it wouldn't matter much.

nib95, with all due respect, name me one...just one of the supposed "confirmed" developers who is "on the record" regarding this subject. Failing that, name me one who is even "off" the record.

I haven't seen a single developer even acknowledge Durango's existence, let alone comment on anything related to Durango's specifications.

C'mon guys, now we're pretending we are not following every little bit of leak in these last couple of months? Things are very clear to all who read everything that has been dissected so far, so much that the whole PS4 presentation was just a check-check-check confirming of things we already knew or were expecting.

Every level headed gamer here in Neogaf already know what to expect from Durango.

 

[MaulerX]

No you're getting mixed up. The document I'm mentioning is old.

We have no idea if someone actually has new up to date info from the conference.

Thanks for the clarification. So the "possibility" of something changing still exists. I gotta admit, this is one hell of a soap opera we have going. Lol

 

[onQ123]

XBOX GOLD & ENTERTAINMENT

 

[Reiko]

So that Xbox Gold thing is still going through.

I wonder if that's the name of the rumored "Loop" model?

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Xbox Gold will be the name of the subsidised model, I think.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Wishful thinking.

That's what I'd call believing in the dual-APU rumor AND the "100% efficiency" claim...

 

[Reiko]

That's what I'd call believing in the dual-APU rumor AND the "100% efficiency" claim...

The first one is on my part.

The 2nd you should be saying that to AMD.

 

[Mrbob]

The new Entertainment Division for MS is either going to be awesome or a spectacular failure. I don't see any in between.

 

[Reiko]

The new Entertainment Division for MS is either going to be awesome or a spectacular failure. I don't see any in between.

Yeah, someone made a good point on that in another thread. I agree.

 

[phosphor112]

Theres way to watermark that would be preserved with print screening.

manual recreation of data.

Not saying it should happen, but it can.

How did you get it, by the way?

Lol, that's what I'm wondering.

No offense to Reiko, he doesn't seem as the responsible type the way he's been throwing around info that he has these docs. Aegies didn't imply he had them until he kept on being dumped on to say that he did. No real reason to say you have them.

 

[Baconsammy]

The new Entertainment Division for MS is either going to be awesome or a spectacular failure. I don't see any in between.

Content and services, as always, will determine who is and isn't profitable/successful. They definitely have the right person in control of the media side of things. If she can't get it done, it's not getting done.

 

[mrklaw]

I just can't see MS letting Sony getaway with a clear spec advantage. All the momentum they have built this gen could be lost if the PS4 games start to look better (first party) or perform better. I expect them to go all out with the GPU, CPU overclocks and then switch with 8 GB of GDDR5 IMO

Development of both machines are influenced by the same technology landscape. Some things can be tweaked late in the game (clocks, ram amounts sometimes), but if MS and Sony started out on relatively divergent paths, then no amount of tweaking will bring those together.

No point MS putting GDDR5 in, it would reduce the value of the esram, which in turn has reduced the number of CUs due to space used up. Overall bandwidth is probably very balanced for what is inside Durango.

Right now this all just sounds like wishful thinking more than anything.

 

[Krilekk]

I have heard from someone privately that certain devs have privately said things about Durangos performance not being upto par but never publicly.

My ex-girlfriend sleeps with a MS rep and says your friend of a friend is wrong.

 

[mrklaw]

if Sony is continuing with the powerful Vector Units like what was in the PS1, PS2 & PS3

PS4 could actually end up close to 2X as powerful as the Xbox 3.

I know crazy thought but Eurogamer said



"However, there's a fair amount of "secret sauce" in Orbis and we can disclose details on one of the more interesting additions. Paired up with the eight AMD cores, we find a bespoke GPU-like "Compute" module, designed to ease the burden on certain operations - physics calculations are a good example of traditional CPU work that are often hived off to GPU cores. We're assured that this is bespoke hardware that is not a part of the main graphics pipeline but we remain rather mystified by its standalone inclusion, bearing in mind Compute functions could be run off the main graphics cores and that devs could have the option to utilise that power for additional graphical grunt, if they so chose."

Guy on Arstechnica said:

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1193497&start=440



& when the guy was on B3D saying that the CPU has been clocked to 2GHz someone asked him about the 2nd chip he called it the "specter vector"

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1714789&postcount=828








I know it's all rumors but every PlayStation has had the Vector co-processors helping out & I don't see why they would leave it out this time around when it's using low powered Jaguar cores for it's CPU.

most devs will probably over look them like they did with the SPE's so it might not mean much for 3rd party games.


also the old VGLeaks page said that the PS4 would be 10X as powerful as the PS3 but the PS4 without the Vector co-processor is far from 10X as power as the PS3 in raw power.

Plus the multiple ACEs in the GPU for better compute/graphics handling/scheduling. Seems fairly customised throughout the APU.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

My ex-girlfriend sleeps with a MS rep and says your friend of a friend is wrong.

I honestly cannot wait for Microsoft to reveal their console so we can finally put an end to this 'insider information' plague that's infected discussion about next generation.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

I think it is quite interesting that Microsoft seems to have chosen a design, which cant be scaled up easily. I mean they must have known that there is at least a chance that Sony will use a more powerful design, and if they wanted to match it, they would have chosen a different design which has room for improvements. This makes me believe that they never intended to build a system which is exactly as powerful as the PS4, so why would they change their mind now?

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

I think it is quite interesting that Microsoft seems to have chosen a design, which cant be scaled up easily. I mean they must have known that there is at least a chance that Sony will use a more powerful design, and if they wanted to match it, they would have chosen a different design which has room for improvements. This makes me believe that they never intended to build a system which is exactly as powerful as the PS4, so why would they change their mind now?

may have variations of the hardware as is....

 

[w1y!]

Why are people crying so much about specs. People are acting like the games aren't going to be any better than the 360.

Also is it not possible that ms had multiple variations of the Durango spec wise allowing them to choose depending on sonys announcement.

Also why do people act like it isn't a free market. You can choose to buy the other console if it is preferred

 

[mrklaw]

So when they say not up to par, do they mean compared to the PS4 (which would be obvious going by the specs)? Or do they mean Durango, as a gaming system, is not up to par? Being less powerful than the PS4 I don't see as an issue (and that's how I've always felt, so I'm not sure what stage or phase that puts me in), but if the inherent architecture is flawed in some sense, I would be curious as to dev reasoning on that, since I would assume the Durango engineers didn't design the system in isolation - the need to fulfill OS ambitions notwithstanding.

edit for spelling

Likely in comparison to PS4

think positively though. If Durango is relatively underpowered, and if most Multiplatform games are slightly better on PS4, MS might be forced to support it for longer with quality first party exclusives, rather than ramping down halfway through the gen.


Of course, all those tech specs could be undermined if MS spends a billion dollars marketing Durango and offers subsidised models in the US and subsequently crushes PS4 in sales..

 

[c0de]

I think it is quite interesting that Microsoft seems to have chosen a design, which cant be scaled up easily. I mean they must have known that there is at least a chance that Sony will use a more powerful design, and if they wanted to match it, they would have chosen a different design which has room for improvements. This makes me believe that they never intended to build a system which is exactly as powerful as the PS4, so why would they change their mind now?

Oh, Gemüsepizza, I even have to read your posts in GAF ... it's so sad that you have an account and marcan doesn't... But we'll see what Durango will offer in terms of power. The fact that you don't see Microsoft's intention building the hardware the way they'll do does not mean that the hardware will be bad - it will most probably sufficient for their intention and they will have tested it for several months.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Plus the multiple ACEs in the GPU for better compute/graphics handling/scheduling. Seems fairly customised throughout the APU.

Are we sure that the 4 CUs with extra compute functions in the VGLeaks article and the 'Compute Module' alluded to in Eurogamer are the same thing?

Leadbetter said specifically he was 'assured' this Compute Module was 'not part of the main graphics pipeline'. Yet the 4 CUs certainly would be, being inside the GPU itself?

Perhaps he was confused and this separate bit of hardware is something like a Vector Unit.

There is a good possibility something else is there.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Oh, Gemüsepizza, I even have to read your posts in GAF ... it's so sad that you have an account and marcan doesn't... But we'll see what Durango will offer in terms of power. The fact that you don't see Microsoft's intention building the hardware the way they'll do does not mean that the hardware will be bad - it will most probably sufficient for their intention and they will have tested it for several months.

I did not say the hardware is bad, and I am pretty sure that Microsoft has a very clear idea of what they are doing, and I guess it could be an interesting approach. Not sure what your point is, I made just an observation as a layman. To me, the leaked design seems to be limited in terms of scalability. For example, you can't just double the RAM and have a more powerful console. Or increase the size of the GPU. What I meant is that they knew that when they did chose that design, and they knew that they can't scale it up much, so I guess they never intended to match the PS4 exactly. That's of course not necessarily bad. Maybe they can have success this way.

 

[c0de]

I did not say the hardware is bad, and I am pretty sure that Microsoft has a very clear idea of what they are doing, and I guess it could be an interesting approach. Not sure what your point is, I made just an observation as a layman. To me, the leaked design seems to be limited in terms of scalability. For example, you can't just double the RAM and have a more powerful console. Or increase the size of the GPU. What I meant is that they knew that when they did chose that design, and they knew that they can't scale it up much, so I guess they never intended to match the PS4 exactly. That's of course not necessarily bad. Maybe they can have success this way.

Doubling RAM does never increase the power of a console - less RAM weakens/limits the computational units but more RAM does never increase the power of the computational units. Also keep in mind that MS *and* Sony both worked closely together with AMD - both got information from the opponent for sure so be sure neither was "surprised" by any spec of the other one. But talking on "facts" by now and even judging those is as rational as reading your horoscope in your daily newspaper and behave based on its random text.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Doubling RAM does never increase the power of a console - less RAM weakens/limits the computational units but more RAM does never increase the power of the computational units.

I did not say that more RAM would increase processing power, so please stop pretending I did say that. But more RAM can of course make a console more "powerful", if it makes sense regarding bandwidth etc.

Also keep in mind that MS *and* Sony both worked closely together with AMD - both got information from the opponent for sure so be sure neither was "surprised" by any spec of the other one.

I don't think they got their information about what the other company does from AMD, I guess it is more likely they got it from third party devs. And I doubt that MS knew about the 8 GB GDDR5 RAM - but I guess they could have expected something like this. Which is what I have said above.

But talking on "facts" by now and even judging those is as rational as reading your horoscope in your daily newspaper and behave based on its random text.

This is a speculation/rumor thread where people are - surprise - speculating. I think everybody knows that. So what's your point?

 

[Fafalada]

Perhaps he was confused and this separate bit of hardware is something like a Vector Unit.

So they spent money customizing GPU for efficient compute, and then they decided to spend more money on "separate hw" doing the exact same thing.
Even Kutaragi's Sony wouldn't go that far.

 

[Socky]

So, if the consensus is that a RAM increase is one of the few improvements in spec possible at this stage, and with it having been historically increased on both X360 and PS4, does anyone with some tech knowledge want to weigh in on the likelihood/implications of a Durango increase from 8 GDDR3 to say 12 or 16? I can't see any reason to go 16 besides it being a straight doubling, but an increase to 12 might help the rumoured specs match up to PS4s probable 7-7.5GB game-usable, taking Durango from a possible 5-6 to a more equitable 9-10GB?

I have no horse in this race particularly, but if the consensus is that very few elements are alterable now, we may as well speculate on what is possible rather than implausible, no?

 

[intheinbetween]

afaik, those waiting for PS4's Jaguar being @ 2.0GHz are going to be disappointed.

 

[specialguy]

Of course they can go to 16gb DDR3, but given the whole design, it wouldn't matter much.

Sure it would, dont kid yourself. Hell, it would be a megaton day on GAF same as the 8GB RAM in PS4 was.

 

[c0de]

I did not say that more RAM would increase processing power, so please stop pretending I did say that. But more RAM can of course make a console more "powerful", if it makes sense regarding bandwidth etc.

I don't pretend it, I interpreted it. And no, it does make a console more powerful. The bandwidth does not increase, just the amount of RAM. And if RAM with high bandwidth but also higher latency is better or worse is a topic (not specialized to RAM) that is discussed since "ever" - remember when we had dial-up internet? 56k-modems were only 8k "slower" than ISDN but given that ISDN had much better (lower) latency and in fact ISDN felt much faster than dial-up-internet (given that GDDR5 actually has higher latency than DDR3 which I only read elsewhere).

I don't think they got their information about what the other company does from AMD, I guess it is more likely they got it from third party devs. And I doubt that MS knew about the 8 GB GDDR5 RAM - but I guess they could have expected something like this. Which is what I have said above.

So we have different opinions here, good.

This is a speculation/rumor thread where people are - surprise - speculating. I think everybody knows that. So what's your point?

There is a difference speculating about a rumor and trying to judge and downplay a system, especially when the overall performance is yet to be shown and seen, but inferring a "winner" is already set.

 

[specialguy]

I think it is quite interesting that Microsoft seems to have chosen a design, which cant be scaled up easily. I mean they must have known that there is at least a chance that Sony will use a more powerful design, and if they wanted to match it, they would have chosen a different design which has room for improvements. This makes me believe that they never intended to build a system which is exactly as powerful as the PS4, so why would they change their mind now?

Neither design can be scaled up any more than the other. Sony cant suddenly decide to go to 24 CU's without a year delay...

Sony changed RAM, and in the easiest possible way too, by simply doubling chip density (IE, no bus widths changed). This is similar to when MS switched 360 from 256 MB to 512 MB back in the day too, it's not without precedent.

The other factor that can probably be changed late is clock speeds. CU's cant be added, but you might be able to clock the GPU 100mhz faster or whatever (it should just hit yields=money, and then you'll need to have adequate cooling, there's other complication but I think mostly those).

Since we dont even have any official clocks on Orbis/Durango the clock thing is more nebulous. Sony said they have 18 CU's, but they didn't say the GPU is clocked at 800 mhz. They did say near 2 TF's, which most people assume is the rumored 1.84 TF's, from which you can work out the GPU clock is 800 mhz.

But if lets say, Durango suddenly comes out at 1ghz GPU, you wont be able to say clocks changed because there was never any official clocks for either system yet.