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[CLEEK]

The power thing isn't true, hence why I bring it up.

As one of the mods asked early on in this thread, how do you know this is you don't know the technical details of the PS4?

On paper, there is most definitely a power different. FLOPs on the PS4 is 50% higher than the FLOPs on the One. The PS4 is designed for hUMA, and correct me if I'm wrong, the One isn't.

Your earlier post seems to be that you were arguing that the power difference wasn't a great as people are making out, but now you seem to be saying there is no power difference at all? The former is subjective (and the proof of the pudding will be in eating the DF articles post launch), but the latter is out right false.

 

[Art Teitlebaum]

Sorry, but I was fooled by "Do the math!" before. Never again.

I wish Pennello would explain his fuzzy calculations a little bit better. As long as he doesn't comment on his calculus, there will always be a shadow of the doubt over his messages. Which is kinda sad, cause he seems to be quite a nice fella.

 

[Doodis]

This is actually something I would like answered.

Penello.

Is Microsoft trying to enforce any kind of frame-rate / resolution parity policy between xbox and PS4 games next gen?

We know some of that shit went on this generation. Maybe Sony was the one doing it to make ps3 look a little better though. No one really knows.


Please answer Penello. I would like to know.

You think that he would just come out and tell you if this was true? Good luck with that.

 

[funkystudent]

how do you know it happened and how will they have power to make that decision?

Well Jeff over the GiantBomb has been dropping that line for the last few weeks, He was told a platform holder paid to cap the performance on multiplat games in order to make games on there platform look better the past generation.

And that kind of shit happened in different ways this gen. On disc content for multi plat games has to be the same. its why stuff like Kratos in MK is a download code and not on the disc for example.

Knowing those 2 things I dont think a platform holder demanding the same resolution / frame rate as the other console even if it means making the other version look worse would be far fetched.

And if the on paper gap is as big as it might be I wonder if MS would try to make up the gap by enforcing a performance parity clause for multiplat games.

If we see some suspiciously equal performing multiplatform games and knowing what we know about both consoles? Well that would look mighty suspicious.


I do admit its a bit conspiracy theory..y but hey. Thats what these threads or for. LETS GO! Lets get into it.

It would just take a yes or a no from Albert. Or did I just scare him off?

 

[Ricky_R]

I have a question: was that expert someone who worked on the Xbox One? & do he/she work for MS or AMD? if it's MS wouldn't that mean that he only know 1/2 the story because he wouldn't know how good or bad the PS4 preforms with the changes that was made to it's processors?

And even if it's someone from AMD do you think he is going to say "hey man look I'm sorry we made the PS4 chip a lot better than we made your chip" ?

I'm guessing that the expert told you about the enhancements that was made to the Xbox One Chip & letting you know how much better it preforms compared to a off-the-shelf part.

He claimed that they have talked to -anonymous- third party devs that have recent info at hand about PS4 hardware specs. If I'm not mistaking.

 

[miDnIghtEr20C]

I believe this is now 5 posts from you narrowly focused on this. After nearly each one, Albert has posted a response that indicated he is reading posts that follow his. Yet he hasn't specifically answered you (nor many other specific criticisms/questions that have been brought up). I find your determination hilarious, but I'm starting to become concerned for your well being. It's time to take the hint, fellow gaffer.

ha ha ha. I thought a bit the same.

 

[N.Domixis]

Liers at Microsoft? Lordy.

Yes they are liars. Trying to push people into believing that the multiplats will be the same.

 

[nib95]

yea but isnt that their loss?

Yes, I doubt they'd ever do that. Only thing I can see them doing is ponying up some money, or having it be a part of other exclusive deals, whether on modes, DLC, release exclusivity or whatever. Sounds far fetched, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.

I mean, lord knows how much the Fifa deal cost them. If they threw in a bit about versions having parity along with that deal, I doubt EA would refuse it. But we'll have a better idea once we start comparing versions and comparing multiplatform games to the first party efforts.

 

[fatgamecat]

18 CU's vs. 12 CU's =/= 50% more performance.

It is in fact 50% more CUs. Whether that translates to 50% more performance is in question, which so far hasn't been clarified. We know it won't be exactly 50%, but likely somewhere between 20-30%. Furthermore, it's not just 50% more CUs, but 50-90% greater in other important GPU specs as well such as ROPs.

Adding to that, each of our CU's is running 6% faster.

Same difference. This is a non-statement in regards to the GPU upclock.

We have more memory bandwidth.

Bandwidth numbers between DDR3, ESRAM, and CPU/GPU do not "add up" like that. This is probably the most inaccurate claim in your post.

We have at least 10% more CPU. Not only a faster processor, but a better audio chip also offloading CPU cycles.

Sony has never officially stated their CPU speed. If you're talking about 1.6GHz, that's a number from vgleaks - are you implicitly confirming those leaks are real? Regardless, the 9-10% CPU boost is marginal and Sony could very well overclock their CPU/GPU as well if they determined it was safe for launch systems. Yes the X1 audio chip is larger to handle kinect tasks, but it won't provide much real world performance to games if the chip is constantly tied up assisting the kinect. It depends how much the chip needs to constantly dedicate to kinect.

We understand GPGPU and its importance very well.

That's nice, but Sony put more hardware features into the PS4 to handle GPGPU tasks. I'm sure your engineers are super geniuses, but they can't squeeze blood from a stone. Going by vgleaks, the Onion buses are as good if not better for GPGPU compute. Also consider GDDR5's greater CPU+GPU unified memory access potential.

 

[Neuromancer]

Damning. Sorry Albert but this guy made Bulletstorm, I can't not believe him.

 

[Iacobellis]

Yep if I start typing all the things they are doing wrong with PR it will be one huge ass essay. It boggles the mind really.

It boggles the mind even more that this is the same company that absolutely dominated the core space for most of this generation.

 

[Kuro]

Wow I did not see that spec comparison by Penello. Biggest load of FUD I have seen since Reiko's crazy theories.

 

[Pseudo judo]

It will happen this gen, 360 had the better multiplats last gen, ps4 will have them this time and I like it. No more garbage multiplats tainting the play station brand.

The difference in the later half of the console cycle was virtually nonexistent. That comparison supports Alberts claims rather then disproves them.

 

[benny_a]

2. If it comes out after we launch that the difference between 3rd party games is maybe single-digit FPS between the two platforms, will I get an apology or concession?

You also said this:

so we took the opportunity to bump the GPU. I get it’s only 6% or so, but that could translate to a few FPS in the real world.

So a meager 6% GPU boost will net you a few FPS increase in real world huh?

Good point.

6% GPU power increase gives a few FPS. (A few is 3-5 for me.)
But an additional ~40% only makes up the rest of single-digits? (4-7 using my assumption.)

And all this when GPUs scale well. Math doesn't check out.

 

[lostsouldier]

Damning. Sorry Albert but this guy made Bulletstorm, I can't not believe him.

Seriously. I'd really like to hear his (al) response on that, because its straight from the horse's mouth.

 

[CoG]

The Xbone peak bandwidth calculation is beyond bullshit. A) It's for only 32MB B) It needs to be managed by the dev C) Some crazy bi-directional voodoo math went into calculating the "peak".

Never forget

 

[Duxxy3]

You think that he would just come out and tell you if this was true? Good luck with that.

Until it is answered it doesn't matter what he says. If the multiplats are exact or the PS4 has a slight edge we can easily argue that it is because of the content policy, and not the technical abilities of both systems.

 

[PSGames]

Yes they are liars. Trying to push people into believing that the multiplats will be the same.

He didn't say they would be the same. He said differences would be hard to see to the average person. Why not wait until you can see for yourself before calling them liars?

 

[Oemenia]

So is the GPU power difference bigger than what we saw with the PS3 and 360?

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Yes they are liars. Trying to push people into believing that the multiplats will be the same.

They say they will be pretty much the same. We have yet to see if its lying or not.

 

[rjinaz]

This is what sets GAF apart from the n4gs and gamefaqs. Its scary and I need an adult.

Ha, great timing with that. You made me laugh despite the heated discussions occuring in the thread.

 

[neobiz]

Liers at Microsoft? Lordy. These are just electronics man. If they really wanted to spread fud they would be hitting up the media. Not making one off comments in a gaf thread. I think he's really just trying to engage and participate in the community.

Making the media rounds like Reddit, IGN and sites that feed off that info?

 

[CLEEK]

So is the GPU power difference bigger than what we saw with the PS3 and 360?

Depends who you ask. Anyone at MS: No. Anyone else: Yes.

 

[FINALBOSS]

Albert, we want to hear the exact calculations to get your ram bandwith

Because right now, the number you quoted is less than the god damn 360 (according to you guys of course)

 

[B.O.O.M]

It boggles the mind even more that this is the same company that absolutely dominated the core space for most of this generation.

I guess the issue rises from different people being in charge now compared to back then :S Different vision, plan, pr etc etc

 

[nib95]

The difference in the later half of the console cycle was virtually nonexistent. That comparison supports Alberts claims rather then disproves them.

Because it took time, money and resources for many devs to properly implement the PS3's superior CPU to offload some of the GPU load on to the SPE's bringing versions back up to parity with the 360, which had the better GPU. Things are very different this time. Very similar architecture, but a relatively large performance and bandwidth advantage to the PS4. None of this, one console does this considerably better and the other console does that. PS4 has nearly every single hardware advantage bar potentially a very slightly slower cpu (but still exactly the same architecture unlike Cell versus the 360's cpu).

 

[N.Domixis]

He didn't say they would be the same. He said differences would be hard to see to the average person. Why not wait until you can see for yourself before calling them liars?

I just can not trust them after what they tried to pull. Obviously, the multi platform games will not be miles better. They will just perform in the same way 360 versions were slightly better than ps3 versions. That is all I want.

 

[artist]

I have a question: was that expert someone who worked on the Xbox One? & do he/she work for MS or AMD? if it's MS wouldn't that mean that he only know 1/2 the story because he wouldn't know how good or bad the PS4 preforms with the changes that was made to it's processors?

And even if it's someone from AMD do you think he is going to say "hey man look I'm sorry we made the PS4 chip a lot better than we made your chip" ?

I'm guessing that the expert told you about the enhancements that was made to the Xbox One Chip & letting you know how much better it preforms compared to a off-the-shelf part.

There were two separate teams from AMD that worked on the Xbone and PS4 APUs. It was mentioned in an interview I posted today.

 

[Zombie James]

This, above all others, is a fair discussion. We have to prove out that value, I agree. I don't mind at all having that debate and I'm using the product a lot and believe in that value.

But on the other point (about power) I don't want to acquiesce a feature if I don't have to. The $100 is real and it's our job to make it worth it. The power thing isn't true, hence why I bring it up.

We have Xbone specs and we have PS4 specs. One is better than the other. How is it not true? In past generations we've had consoles with very specialized hardware like the vector units on the PS2 and SPU's on the PS3, and given enough software talent that could make up for deficiencies in other areas, but that's not how things are shaping up this coming generation. Both consoles are using more generalized PC hardware with some modifications, nothing too drastic or requiring out-there thinking. Unless there's intentional gimping going on, no game running on (roughly) the same architecture is going to perform the same or better on a system with less bandwidth, less texture units, less stream processors. and less ROPs. To put it another way, no amount of software magic is going to make my 660 TI perform better than a 780.

 

[Neuromancer]

Can't say I ever recall a time where MS have embellished the power of their consoles. Neither Xbox or 360 let me down on that front. Looking elsewhere though..

In a way, things have never been so desperate for them as they are now. Their backs are against the wall for sure.

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

1) A PR guy trying to sell us on his console
or
2) A known dev (one that worked on an 360 exclusive game no less) who has no interest at all in which platform has the beefier hardware

I know who I trust more.

For me, it's this way.

1) A Microsoft employee knee deep into the Xbox One, who asked a developer of the Xbox One, and got a posted his response, a response which was well written and explained in a way, that to me, having no knowledge in hardware, made sense.
2) A developer in a smallish company who helped make Gears of War Judgment and BulletStorm, who probably has no experience with both systems, and who's source is his developer friends who claim a 50% speed difference. Claim is already vauge, RAM speed? CPU speed? GPU speed? Overall speed (I'm guessing this?) the 50% claim, which is already above and beyond the 30%/40% claim used on GAF, and since people like to exaggerate, and he presented no in detail explanation as to why it's 50%, and since we also don't know what company his friends work for (I'm guessing Epic, since People Can Fly and Epic are pretty close), we aren't sure his friends are even credible and have used and compared both systems.

on the other hand, we also have developers like Carmack say both systems are very close, and he HAS benchmarked them.

I know who I trust. ;P

 

[KidBeta]

It is in fact 50% more CUs. Whether that translates to 50% more performance is in question, which so far hasn't been clarified. We know it won't be exactly 50%, but likely somewhere between 20-30%. Furthermore, it's not just 50% more CUs, but 50-90% greater in other important GPU specs as well such as ROPs.
Same difference.

Its funny that he mentions the corner cases of the eSRAM but ignores the corner case of super linear scaling for the extra CU's.

Super linear scaling doesn't happen on a lot of problems or often, but it does happen.

What it means is that you can more then x times speed up when you add in x extra processors generally due to caching effects or something similar.

 

[benny_a]

on the other hand, we also have developers like Carmack say both systems are very close, and he HAS benchmarked them.

Source? According to the latest discussion on GAF he explicitly hasn't benchmarked them.

 

[Neo Ankh]

All the numbers and calculations in the world won't matter when we see the games.

Show us the games Albert!

P.S.
If the PS4 multiplats are better this time then that's the version I'm buying.

 

[psrock]

Why are some of you guys angry. He works for MS, why would he put down his company. He's just doing his job.

We all know, including Albert, The PS4 is more powerful than the Xbox, if it wasn't Ms would have told us already.

But we are waiting for employees of the company to admit it, good luck, especially one that does PR work.

Frankly, they are both powerful consoles and finally , at least , 3rd party games wont be a mess as it was on the PS3.

 

[KingSunIsFree]

This is actually something I would like answered.

Penello.

Is Microsoft trying to enforce any kind of frame-rate / resolution parity policy between xbox and PS4 games next gen?

We know some of that shit went on this generation. Maybe Sony was the one doing it to make ps3 look a little better though. No one really knows.


Please answer Penello. I would like to know.

I think the bigger question Is will they even have the pull this gen to enforce this

 

[super-heated plasma]

Albert, I respect what you're trying to do and understand it's your job. However, as one of Xboxes biggest fans, I must say I am certainly disappointed in how you guys have handled the One. I was there in line for launch day of the original Xbox. I was there for the midnight launch of the 360. And up to 2012 I was damn sure I'd be there day one for the One.

But then came 2013.

I've been gaming since the Atari 2600 and the 360 is my favorite console of all time. I own a PS3 ,Wii, and 360, and 99% of my game time the past several years has been on the 360 only. I never touch the Wii at all anymore, and my PS3 I use basically for Blu-ray movies. When I heard that the One had Blu-Ray, I was excited. I figured, "OK, maybe I don't need to own all the consoles this generation. Xbox has had me covered for years, and will again."

Unfortunately that is not the case. Sony has you beat on specs, AND price this time. And while I have no issues with Kinect, and would own one anyway, because my family likes the games, the DRM fiasco left a bad taste in my mouth, especially after being such a loyal Xbox gamer who never pirated a single game and spent god knows how much money over the years on Xbox products.

The one undeniable advantage(to me at least) was that I much, much, prefer the 360 controller over the PS3 controller. But now indications are Sony has redesigned their controller so it is a huge improvement from before.

I love the One's launch lineup and think it's superior to PS4, without a shadow of a doubt, and I'm too big of a Halo fan too,which now means I will end up having to but both consoles. The only question is, which one first. A year ago, it was a no-brainer, Xbox first. Now I may just get a PS4 first and wait for a price drop for the One. sigh.

The point of this post is, if someone like me, who was one of your biggest fans has doubts about the One, then what does that say about MS' hardware decisions and policies lately?

 

[lostsouldier]

For me, it's this way.

1) A Microsoft employee knee deep into the Xbox One, who asked a developer of the Xbox One, and got a posted his response, a response which was well written and explained in a way, that to me, having no knowledge in hardware, made sense.
2) A developer in a smallish company who helped make Gears of War Judgment and BulletStorm, who probably has no experience with both systems, and who's source is his developer friends who claim a 50% speed difference. Claim is already vauge, RAM speed? CPU speed? GPU speed? Overall speed (I'm guessing this?) the 50% claim, which is already above and beyond the 30%/40% claim used on GAF, and since people like to exaggerate, and he presented no in detail explanation as to why it's 50%, and since we also don't know what company his friends work for (I'm guessing Epic, since People Can Fly and Epic are pretty close), we aren't sure his friends are even credible and have used and compared both systems.

on the other hand, we also have developers like Carmack say both systems are very close, and he HAS benchmarked them.

I know who I trust. ;P

Talk about reaching, godamn.

 

[SwiftDeath]

Man digitial foundry comparisons can not come fast enough

 

[Zornack]

For me, it's this way.

1) A Microsoft employee knee deep into the Xbox One, who asked a developer of the Xbox One, and got a posted his response, a response which was well written and explained in a way, that to me, having no knowledge in hardware, made sense.

But half of it was untrue. That doesn't raise alarm bells for you? The people here who DO have knowledge in hardware are calling out the bluffs and he has no response to them.

All the information he provided was relayed in a nice way for those unknowledgable in tech to understand, yes, but most of it simply isn't factual. 30 GB/s vs. 10, 6% per each CU being different than overall, 274 GB/s, 10% over Sony on the CPU, all of these are either mistruths or misleading.

 

[Ricky_R]

For me, it's this way.

1) A Microsoft employee knee deep into the Xbox One, who asked a developer of the Xbox One, and got a posted his response, a response which was well written and explained in a way, that to me, having no knowledge in hardware, made sense.
2) A developer in a smallish company who helped make Gears of War Judgment and BulletStorm, who probably has no experience with both systems, and who's source is his developer friends who claim a 50% speed difference. Claim is already vauge, RAM speed? CPU speed? GPU speed? Overall speed (I'm guessing this?) the 50% claim, which is already above and beyond the 30%/40% claim used on GAF, and since people like to exaggerate, and he presented no in detail explanation as to why it's 50%, and since we also don't know what company his friends work for (I'm guessing Epic, since People Can Fly and Epic are pretty close), we aren't sure his friends are even credible and have used and compared both systems.

on the other hand, we also have developers like Carmack say both systems are very close, and he HAS benchmarked them.

I know who I trust. ;P

hahah Oh my...

 

[CLEEK]

Can't say I ever recall a time where MS have embellished the power of their consoles. Neither Xbox or 360 let me down on that front. Looking elsewhere though..

Never embellished the power of their consoles?

You must have missed these gems. The 'part 2' is the best, where patented MS Math proves the Cell is weaker than the 360's CPU.

http://majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox-360-vs-ps3-part-1-of-4/
http://majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox-360-vs-ps3-part-2-of-4/
http://majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox-360-vs-ps3-part-3-of-4/
http://majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox-360-vs-ps3-part-4-of-4/

XBOX 360 / PLAYSTATION 3 PERFORMANCE COMPARISON

SUMMARY
Now that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 specifications have been announced, it is possible to do a real world performance comparison of the two systems.

There are three critical performance aspects of a console:
? Central Processing Unit (CPU) performance.
o The Xbox 360 CPU architecture has three times the general purpose processing power of the Cell.
? Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) performance
o The Xbox 360 GPU design is more flexible and it has more processing power than the PS3 GPU.
? Memory System Bandwidth
o The memory system bandwidth in Xbox 360 exceeds the PS3′s by five times.

The Xbox 360′s CPU has more general purpose processing power because it has three general purpose cores, and Cell has just one.

Cell’s claimed advantage is on streaming floating point work which is done on its seven DSP processors.

The Xbox 360 GPU has more processing power than the PS3′s. In addition, its innovated features contribute to overall rendering performance.

Xbox 360 has 278.4 GB/s of memory system bandwidth. The PS3 has less than one-fifth of Xbox 360′s (48 GB/s) of total memory system bandwidth.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

I don't really work for Aquafina lol.

Wow.

 

[theviolenthero]

So when these systems are released and the multi-platform games for both look virtually identical, what will the response be?
Lazy developers?
MS paid 3rd parties to gimp multi-plats?
Digital Foundry is biased?

 

[Iacobellis]

I guess the issue rises from different people being in charge now compared to back then :S Different vision, plan, pr etc etc

Pretty much. No more J or Peter.

 

[chadskin]

For me, it's this way.

1) A Microsoft employee knee deep into the Xbox One, who asked a developer of the Xbox One, and got a posted his response, a response which was well written and explained in a way, that to me, having no knowledge in hardware, made sense.

Adding memory bandwidth makes sense to you? I'm no expert either but it should still be obvious you can't just add the bandwidth of the 8 GB DDR3 RAM and the bandwidth of the 32 MB eSRAM to one single number. It does not work. That said, neither MS nor Albert can explain how the total bandwidth number came together anyway.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

So when these systems are released and the multi-platform games for both look virtually identical, what will the response be?
Lazy developers?
MS paid 3rd parties to gimp multi-plats?
Digital Foundry is biased?

This is what I want to know.

 

[Neuromancer]

For me, it's this way.

1) A Microsoft employee knee deep into the Xbox One, who asked a developer of the Xbox One, and got a posted his response, a response which was well written and explained in a way, that to me, having no knowledge in hardware, made sense.
2) A developer in a smallish company who helped make Gears of War Judgment and BulletStorm, who probably has no experience with both systems, and who's source is his developer friends who claim a 50% speed difference. Claim is already vauge, RAM speed? CPU speed? GPU speed? Overall speed (I'm guessing this?) the 50% claim, which is already above and beyond the 30%/40% claim used on GAF, and since people like to exaggerate, and he presented no in detail explanation as to why it's 50%, and since we also don't know what company his friends work for (I'm guessing Epic, since People Can Fly and Epic are pretty close), we aren't sure his friends are even credible and have used and compared both systems.

on the other hand, we also have developers like Carmack say both systems are very close, and he HAS benchmarked them.

I know who I trust. ;P

But did those other guys make a game where you can grab a dude with an electric whip, kick him into the the air, and then shoot him in the dick for points?

I know who I trust.

 

[Syphon Filter]

This is what I want to know.

didnt the nfs dev say one will look better?thats a launch game right?

 

[Pseudo judo]

Because it took time, money and resources for many devs to properly implement the PS3's superior CPU to offload some of the GPU load on to the SPE's bringing versions back up to parity with the 360, which had the better GPU. Things are very different this time. Very similar architecture, but a relatively large performance and bandwidth advantage to the PS4. None of this, one console does this considerably better and the other console does that. PS4 has nearly every single hardware advantage bar potentially a very slightly slower cpu (but still exactly the same architecture unlike Cell versus the 360's cpu).

So knowing this do you believe that PS4 will show a viable difference in the visible fidelity of games from launch and will continue to widen the gap over time? I just don't believe that will be the case.

It'll be interesting to see what devs like 343 and Naughty Dog can get out of their respective consoles come the debut of their first games on the system. The hardware spec sheets only speak of ideal potential which means jack shit because it's neither playable or very compelling if your core interest is playing games.