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[Reiko]

There were stories from November claiming Sony sent out dev kits with 16GB RAM alongside one with 8GB, and EDGE said last month they would bump PS4's RAM up to 8GB if they could. 2 sources on 2 occasions and 95% of tech-GAF chose not to believe them. The point I'm making though is the information had been out there.

Maybe (hopefully) Microsoft is a fortress and we're not getting all of the info. I hope so, because the thought of this gen being held back slightly (publishers will cater to the lowest common denominator) to cater to cable companies etc is a little frustrating.

Well the CPU spec bump leaked out to bgassassin.

And then there's this:

"Further Xbox 720 media leaks unlikely; Microsoft operates like a damn mafia"

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=508412

We are reading leaks from early 2012, so that statement does hold credence.

 

[Spongebob]

16GB of DDR3 + 64MB eSRAM. With an AMD GPU that has 24CU

Believe!

GPU would be bandwidth starved.

 

[brain_stew]

People think they do, as far as we know the rumored specs are pretty damn old meaning anything could've changed by now.

No, after a certain point many specs are "locked in." Outside of memory amounts, the PS4 specs were proven to be correct to the smallest minute detail, why then would Durango's be any different?

Is too late for Microsoft to design a completely new SOC with a brand new memory controller. We're getting DDR3.

 

[SneakyStephan]

i dont think they can change to DRR5 as it need to change the hardware design to accept it.

but they sure can upgrade to 16Gig if they want to. thats at least... easier than switching to DRR5

16GB would be beyond pointless What are you going to do with all that ram and no bandwidth?
People have a hard time imagining what 8GB will be used for (pc levels of multitasking during games,, game recording, tons of precaching might get you there).

Maybe they can change clockspeeds on the gpu (trade for lower yields) and that's about it?
Doubling the ESRAM would do the thing a world of good but that means redesigning the entire apu die, lowering yields further (had to have an all in one APU huh...) and increasing cost by a noticable amount.

 

[JohnnySasaki86]

16GB of DDR3 + 64MB eSRAM. With an AMD GPU that has 24CU

Believe!

With 2.26gb data available per frame, less than 2gb real performance, at 30fps, and 1.13gb at 60fps, and much less than 1gb real performance. 16gb would be pointless. If they didn't have the esram, 8gb would be pointless at 30fps. Even then it's only 32mb. Which is still pretty useless at 60fps(~1gb per frame, at ~100gb/s).

There no point in having all that memory if you don't have the bandwidth to support it.

edit: hence why I think they don't care that there reserving a rumored 3gb of memory for the OS. There bandwidth availability works out much better with 5gb/s of RAM. It's all starting to make sense...

 

[Toski]

Hence why,I've suggested Sony is trying to smoke Microsoft out.

What is there to "smoke out?" Sony drew their line in the sand and said they're focusing on gamers, at least in the short term. I don't think they're concerned with MS's specs as much as they're focused on MS's marketing strategy.

The real question is what will MS do to keep their current core loyal? I can see them putting the Xenon on die for BC, and as a bullet point over Sony.

 

[DieH@rd]

Or go to 16GB like the devkits and just boost ESRAM.

Any change of APU right now is impossible if they want release in 2013. Console would be pushed to summer/autmn of 2014, and that's a long time away from PS4 launch.

 

[Chaos Theory]

16GB would be beyond pointless What are you going to do with all that ram and no bandwidth?
People have a hard time imagining what 8GB will be used for (pc levels of multitasking during games,, game recording, tons of precaching might get you there).

Maybe they can change clockspeeds on the gpu (trade for lower yields) and that's about it?
Doubling the ESRAM would do the thing a world of good but that means redesigning the entire apu die, lowering yields further (had to have an all in one APU huh...) and increasing cost by a noticable amount.

it can be 12 Gig of ram. 8 and 4.

to be honest if xbox stays @ 8 gig ram of they are in trouble. there is already 2 gigs gone for kinect and OS.

6 gig of DDR3 will make the console look like a little advanced over the Wii U.

however 2 things to consider.
1- Sony specs are not final. they might be bluffing. and RAM goes back to 4GIG.

and they already did that with the early ps3 showcase. 2 HDMI ports 3 Ethernet ports etc etc.

2- no one really knows how powerful is the new xbox. i believe MS isnt stupid. and they will not sacrifice the advantage they have in power.

Xbox 360 was released 1 year ahead of the PS3 and it still was able to manage to get a better hardware than PS3. they are amazing software company and know how to utilize the hardware based on the software tools they create. so do not rule out MS in terms of power till both systems are out.

 

[darkistheway]

At the end of the day, most developers are going to be multiplatform. And just like the last gen, that will means MS will be lead platform. Most of the games will not really take advantage of the extra oomph.

 

[demolitio]

Begun the console wars have.

I just wish they'd reveal the damn thing already so all the picking and choosing on which rumors to believe can be done with. No matter if a guy is proven to be 100% accurate, people are going to discredit him if it doesn't fit with their own person opinions and then cling to another rumor as 100% true while saying not to trust other rumors at the same time. It's proof that there's a rumor out there for everyone!

We'll have to see what happens, but right now it's a lot more subjective discussion than objective.

To me, it sounds like MS is going to try and launch at a cheaper price as the PS4 and position itself as a compromise between the other platforms of being powerful enough but cheap enough. Whether or not it works out is the question, but that's just my opinion and I'm not looking to get into a "fact" war.

 

[Terra Firma]

At the end of the day, most developers are going to be multiplatform. And just like the last gen, that will means MS will be lead platform. Most of the games will not really take advantage of the extra oomph.

Why would MS be the lead platform? The PS3 wasn't the lead platform as it was different from PC and the 360 and it was more difficult to work with. Everything we've seen of the PS4 is similar to a glorified mid to upper range PC.

 

[nib95]

Any change of APU right now is impossible if they want release in 2013. Console would be pushed to summer/autmn of 2014, and that's a long time away from PS4 launch.

Sony just changed their ram from 4gb to 8gb. It's not a simple switch, as it requires complete re-workings on the board. Anything is possible. The 16gb is pointless, but for Esram would be welcome.

 

[HooYaH]

Begun the console wars have.

I just wish they'd reveal the damn thing already so all the picking and choosing on which rumors to believe can be done with. No matter if a guy is proven to be 100% accurate, people are going to discredit him if it doesn't fit with their own person opinions and then cling to another rumor as 100% true while saying not to trust other rumors at the same time. It's proof that there's a rumor out there for everyone!

We'll have to see what happens, but right now it's a lot more subjective discussion than objective.

To me, it sounds like MS is going to try and launch at a cheaper price as the PS4 and position itself as a compromise between the other platforms of being powerful enough but cheap enough. Whether or not it works out is the question, but that's just my opinion and I'm not looking to get into a "fact" war.

I hope at E3 Ballmer comes out of Sony's press conference and say SURPRISE!

 

[Angelus Errare]

GPU would be bandwidth starved.

With 2.26gb data available per frame, less than 2gb real performance, at 30fps, and 1.13gb at 60fps, and much less than 1gb real performance. 16gb would be pointless. If they didn't have the esram, 8gb would be pointless at 30fps. Even then it's only 32mb. Which is still pretty useless at 60fps(~1gb per frame, at ~100gb/s).

There no point in having all that memory if you don't have the bandwidth to support it.

edit: hence why I think they don't care that there reserving a rumored 3gb of memory for the OS. There bandwidth availability works out much better with 5gb/s of RAM. It's all starting to make sense...

I was being very sarcastic.

 

[Monty Mole]

Why would MS be the lead platform? The PS3 wasn't the lead platform as it was different from PC and the 360 and it was more difficult to work with. Everything we've seen of the PS4 is similar to a glorified mid to upper range PC.

Lowest common denominator.

See: PS2.

Still, I'm surprised people have such little faith in Microsoft, given that Xbox 360's architecture still stands well on its own feet against PS3 - despite us having these same threads about 360 vs PS3 back in 2005/6.

 

[Reiko]

Lowest common denominator.

See: PS2.

That was last gen. This gen introduced some very graphically ambitious third party games, more so than the current consoles could handle.

One look at Capcom's next gen game compared to a PS4 exclusive should give everyone a hint.

 

[thomasmahler]

Lowest common denominator.

See: PS2.

Always been that way. The new Xbox will be the baseline and devs will port to PS4. Only exclusives will really use the PS4 to its fullest and how many of those do we get in a consoles lifecycle?

That tech shit doesn't really matter. It's been 8 years. Those boxes have 10x more power than the old ones, should be plenty enough for everyone for the next 4-5 years.

 

[Chaos Theory]

Always been that way. The new Xbox will be the baseline and devs will port to PS4. Only exclusives will really use the PS4 to its fullest and how many of those do we get in a consoles lifecycle?

That tech shit doesn't really matter. It's been 8 years. Those boxes have 10x more power than the old ones, should be plenty enough for everyone for the next 4-5 years.

even if that was the case. multi platform games will look alot better and perform better on ps4. give me a reason why we would buy it on xbox if we are multi platform owners ?

later on developers will switch. since the game will be selling much better on ps4, it will be the base console and then downgrade it Durango

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

That was last gen. This gen introduced some very graphically ambitious third party games, more so than the current consoles could handle.

One look at Capcom's next gen game compared to a PS4 exclusive should give everyone a hint.

How much of Capcom's game was real gameplay?

 

[Reiko]

How much of Capcom's game was real gameplay?

I dunno.

Seeing their graphical output from this gen, should they really be questioned?

MT Framework was already cutting edge.

 

[Neko Mimi Mode]

since the game will be selling much better on ps4

Better hardware doesn't mean better software sales.

 

[The_Lump]

People seem to be assuming too quickly that 8GB GDDR5 is available to developers. Why doesn't Sony's Eye Toy upgrade cost RAM like Kinect does?

Also, why are we assuming Microsoft needs GDDR5 to compete? Sure, the bandwidth is higher but the latency is considerably higher too. Swings and roundabouts!

Bottom line is, if microsoft (and their first/2nd party devs and close 3rd party devs) think they need the faster bandwidth then they'd recommend it and it will be in the console or it will be worked around.

It's not a d*ck measuring contest for anyone else except fanboys.

 

[Ydahs]

It'd be an idiotic and destabilizing move at this point. Besides, Microsoft know that specs don't sell platforms. Marketing, games and price do. They'll be fine in all regards.

With that said, more RAM would be nice, but the majority of developers won't even be using anywhere near the full capacity and don't need to anyway. I'm more concerned about the more important factors, such as GPU and CPU. MS would want those to be comparable or else they might be worse off with multiplatform games.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Lowest common denominator.

See: PS2.

Still, I'm surprised people have such little faith in Microsoft, given that Xbox 360's architecture still stands well on its own feet against PS3 - despite us having these same threads about 360 vs PS3 back in 2005/6.

Seriously?
I had an xbox 1: it had a built in HDD (automatic installs, good loading times) and was built like a brick shithouse.

Along came xbox 360: tard pack meant no mandatory HDD, no texture streaming for years, many games not designed around using hdd so longer load times.
No hdmi port at launch (lol), worst built quality of any console I've owned.

MS have a tradition of trying hard to get into a market or regain market share but once they feel a bit comfortable they will shit on you if you let them.

 

[Big Shirtless Ron]

I dunno.

Seeing their graphical output from this gen, should they really be questioned?

MT Framework was already cutting edge.

Didn't they show a BS RE5 trailer back in 2005? Or was that for DMC4?

 

[scently]

Lol, the fact that most people think that MS need to change their RAM setup just shows how uninformed we really are in these matters. Their RAM setup is fine, if anything, I think Sony upgraded theirs to match the space afforded by MS memory setup. As it is, most bandwidth and latency sensitive operations will be done on the eSRAM, which will also act as a large cache.

Oh, another thing, most cpu operations, and compute jobs for that matter, are latency sensitive, which is why cpus normally use ddr tech as it is relatively low latency when compared to gddr tech. My point is the system is fine as it is. It has its own set of advantages. Things are not as clear cut as it might seem. My surprise when Sony announced the 8gb gddr5 RAM was more of a cost reasoning.

 

[Reiko]

Didn't they show a BS RE5 trailer back in 2005? Or was that for DMC4?

You mean the RE5 reveal trailer? EDIT: Maybe it was in engine?

The real RE5 went for a photorealistic/CG look.

DMC4 reveal trailer was a slightly older Dante from DMC3 in design.

 

[darkistheway]

Why would MS be the lead platform? The PS3 wasn't the lead platform as it was different from PC and the 360 and it was more difficult to work with. Everything we've seen of the PS4 is similar to a glorified mid to upper range PC.

As others have mentioned, lowest common denominator is a big factor. Right now the new Xbox looks to be 'weaker' so if a dev wants good performance on their game, they program it to run nicely on the weaker platform.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, is that western developers in particular, prefer Microsoft platforms over Sony's. This seems to be related to tools and documentation - Sony's effort with the PS4 are mostly about aligning with developers interests, ie making a glorifed PC. Microsoft already does it and they, by all accounts, do it very well. Ironically, given the rumors, the new Xbox may be more complicated architecturally; I highly doubt that they will launch without really good tools in place, making the complexity problem moot (probably).

 

[ekim]

As others have mentioned, lowest common denominator is a big factor. Right now the new Xbox looks to be 'weaker' so if a dev wants good performance on their game, they program it to run nicely on the weaker platform.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, is that western developers in particular, prefer Microsoft platforms over Sony's. This seems to be related to tools and documentation - Sony's effort with the PS4 are mostly about aligning with developers interests, ie making a glorifed PC. Microsoft already does it and they, by all accounts, do it very well. Ironically, given the rumors, the new Xbox may be more complicated architecturally; I highly doubt that they will launch without really good tools in place, making the complexity problem moot (probably).

Lead platform will be the one which is more easy to develop on. It was the same this gen.

 

[Reiko]

Lead platform will be the one which is more easy to develop on. It was the same this gen.

It went from mostly on 360 to PS3 this gen since porting from 360 to PS3 has been problematic.

 

[J-Rzez]

I still doubt that MS is going to let Sony get away with this. I mean last gen they were "convinced" by a third party that they needed more than 256mb of RAM, ironically matching the year later released PS3. I'm sure they got wind of this well in advanced. Now, if they give a shit or not I guess is the point. Will they scramble to match, will they release at a cheaper price, or will they get cocky and the 3rd console curse hits them hard?

 

[darkistheway]

Lead platform will be the one which is more easy to develop on. It was the same this gen.

That was my second point.

 

[kmag]

If we're lucky maybe we'll see a 50MHz GPU clock boost.

Yep, I doubt they'll be able to clock the CPU much further, but you could see a boost to the GPU at this stage. If (and these are two big if's) the GPU has CU's disabled for yield purposes and there is the thermal headroom in the design then they could take perhaps take the hit and enable any disabled CU's. Although there's been no indicate that the design has redundant CU's.

 

[Cuth]

In this generation having a cheaper console with similar performance worked well for MS. It's possibile they're trying to do the same for their next console.
Given how much 8 GB of GDDR5 RAM seems to cost and what EDGE wrote (the PS4 is slightly more powerful bit) it's possibile they'll manage to reach that goal.

 

[MattKeil]

I still doubt that MS is going to let Sony get away with this. I mean last gen they were "convinced" by a third party that they needed more than 256mb of RAM, ironically matching the year later released PS3. I'm sure they got wind of this well in advanced. Now, if they give a shit or not I guess is the point. Will they scramble to match, will they release at a cheaper price, or will they get cocky and the 3rd console curse hits them hard?

Does it matter? The most powerful hardware hasn't won a gen since the SNES, and Genesis fans will debate that all day long, too.

 

[demolitio]

I still doubt that MS is going to let Sony get away with this. I mean last gen they were "convinced" by a third party that they needed more than 256mb of RAM, ironically matching the year later released PS3. I'm sure they got wind of this well in advanced. Now, if they give a shit or not I guess is the point. Will they scramble to match, will they release at a cheaper price, or will they get cocky and the 3rd console curse hits them hard?

That's the thing. People are debating whether or not it's theoretically possible for upgrades rather than debating whether or not Microsoft will WANT to match Sony or if they're comfortable where they're at. Some seem to think there's only one strategy involved and that's throwing more power into the machine than the competitors when we don't know if that's what Microsoft was even aiming. Maybe they want to just be comparable enough to Sony in certain areas and making concessions in others so they can launch cheaper and expecting third parties not to care enough about the power difference.

They might be trying to position themselves in a position where it's a balance between price to performance to a certain extent so they could appeal to a bigger market right away.

No matter what, we just don't know what they're thinking even if some people pass opinions off as facts. We might know a lot of the specs and features, but that doesn't automatically mean that they were just going for all power and simply got bested by Sony. Like I said, maybe they were willing to make concessions to fit a different strategy in mind for this generation, especially when they talk about owning the living room so much for all forms of entertainment.

In the end, taking sides is stupid because ALL gamers win, even PC gamers who finally get to see their machines get tested with games that improve in all aspects graphically instead of just certain areas due to console games. Higher geometry being a big one along with view distances, interactivity and immersion in the worlds thanks to new consoles not holding open worlds back, pop-in, native high resolution textures, view distances, etc.. We all have a choice so the people acting like personal soldiers for a company are missing the fun and excitement of a new generation. It doesn't matter what system you get as it's truly all up to the individual, whether it's due to price, graphics, exclusives, friends, etc. The blind loyalty to companies and shitting all over the hype other people have for a different console does no good.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Durango has been designed around DDR3, hence the embedded SRAM. It would be silly to abandon DDR3 for GDDR5...MS will eventually start putting the pressure on Sony by lowering prices.

 

[Eusis]

Gigabytes of RAM are the new Bits.

The irony is that they're actually deeply connected: a 32-bit OS/CPU actively limits how much RAM you can have, but the limit in that case is 4 GB. Only now have 64-bit CPUs become undeniably necessary for consoles, though I can't recall immediately the other advantages going 64-bit has beyond RAM. Perhaps more complex code and larger numbers being crunched, but once we moved past 16-bit that didn't seem to remain a big deal given how many games on PC run in 32-bit mode still.

 

[KidBeta]

The irony is that they're actually deeply connected: a 32-bit OS/CPU actively limits how much RAM you can have, but the limit in that case is 4 GB. Only now have 64-bit CPUs become undeniably necessary for consoles, though I can't recall immediately the other advantages going 64-bit has beyond RAM. Perhaps more complex code and larger numbers being crunched, but once we moved past 16-bit that didn't seem to remain a big deal given how many games on PC run in 32-bit mode still.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Architectural_features

 

[EGM1966]

Lead platform will be the one which is more easy to develop on. It was the same this gen.

You're actually better leading on the harder platform - and most developers switched to either lead on PS3 or have no lead and have separate teams on each version once they realized the reality of getting code/performance parity on PS3/360.

By the mid-point of this gen no major developers were leading on 360 so far as I know as the results of leading on easier platform are poor parity on the harder platform. Judging by Skyrim I wouldn't be surprised if Beth were one of the odd ones out still leading with 360 and look how that turned out.

From the specs so far released PS4/Nextbox won't be the same scenario anyway - both look like being relatively easy to develop for and I doubt we'll see the same impact of leading on one vs the other we saw this gen.

The issue will be more will any difference in specs lead to third party developers settling on lowest specs as the target for content?

On Topic - of course MS could change the memory configuration but depending on where they are currently this could result in minor to major delays to the current release schedule so I doubt they'll change anything major with the design unless they feel it is critical. I doubt MS would like PS4 to be available for a holiday peak without Nextbox for competition.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Regarding Bgassassin and PS4 specs:

I couldn't find the original thread where he first said 18CU, but I found this from back in May of 2012.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37629794&postcount=1553

The first time we heard about that 1.843TFLOPS # other than bgassassin (he mentioned the number before this article) was in June of 2012.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=477540

Have I proved my point?

No. He's not even the first person in that thread to mention 18 CUs. And the other guy is referencing an earlier leak from brain_stew.

Literally all this stuff showed up in Pastebins or posts well before BG repeated any of it. Here's the famous one from 2011 that actually correctly identifies both code names and the 8 core 64 bit CPU and 1.2 TF for Durango. Your faith in him is utterly misplaced.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

I don't know what changes are possible ect but I hope MS bumps the specs up. Closer the specs between PS4 and Durango are the better looking games we all get.

 

[Zwei]

I don't see why MS couldn't change their RAM. It's pretty cheap at Newegg.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

If the XBOX is 200 € cheaper than the PS4, and 3rd party developers go for the lower common ground, than people may decide to go for the XBOX instead of the PS4.

Guess, that's their strategy.

 

[rudieboy77]

The only ones who really know are Microsoft, guessing about what is in the console or if it is too late for a hardware update or anything else is practically pointless. I try to never assume anything until I know for sure, and what we do know is that Microsoft got to see what Sony is offering, before they have announced what they are offering.

The majority opinion here recently was that the PlayStation will have either 2 or 4GB DDR5, but that wasn't true either.

 

[BruiserBear]

People think they do, as far as we know the rumored specs are pretty damn old meaning anything could've changed by now.

Yes, because the PS4 specs were completely different from the specs that were rumored over the past several months.

 

[Donnie]

Biggest surprise for me during PS4 event has to be "8 GB of unified GDDR5 ram". I went WOW, I could hardly believe. Just a few months ago we were talking about 2GB.

Now this is great proof that rumours about MS spec might as well not be true, because I think only Kotaku recently mention 8GB of ram for PS4 but mostly it was 4GB GDDR.
Rumor about nextbox is 8GB of GDDR3 while 1-2 GB being for Kinect 2. Not only is RAM slower but Kinect seems to eat up a lot.

Nothing is set in stone yet, sony might be lying, while MS final spec might be different.

But if this is all true, does MS have time or is it possible to update and switch to GDDR5?

Its DDR3 not GDDR3 and there's no reason for MS to change it. They have 8GB DDR3 (68GB/s) + 32MB low latency embedded memory (100GB/s) for a total memory bandwidth of 168GB/s. Certainly the single pool of GDDR5 in PS4 is the better option in terms of bandwidth (more so than 168GB/s vs 172GB/s would suggest), but its nowhere near as superior as it seems if you just ignore the embedded memory in XBox3 and compare only main RAM. GDDR5 + high bandwidth embedded memory would be massive overkill!

 

[Phonomezer]

It depends on the validity of the current rumours (which are rumoured to be 12 months old - inception.gif).

They could've changed the hardware 3 months ago for all we know. They're running a tight ship this time around and it isn't surprising considering we knew practically nothing about the last hardware they developed until the day it was announced (Surface).

 

[BibiMaghoo]

As someone that has no intention of buying the new Xbox, I hope to god that they do increase the specs.

If not, multiplats will most likely fall to the middle ground, meaning PS4 advantages will not be used in 3rd party titles.

It is actually better for everyone - maybe not nintendo - if MS boosts the specs a little.

 

[powermastergamer]

I think people just have to come to terms with the fact that there is going to be a big power disparity this generation. There will be 3 clearly separate tiers of graphics.

Microsoft's entire Durango design was built to accommodate 8GB of slow DDR3 RAM. To switch to GDDR5 would basically obsolete all the R&D they've done so far. It would also negate any price advantage they would have over the PS4.

Microsoft is just going to go for a lower price, $150 to $200 cheaper most likely, and focus a lot on Kinect novelty to try to capture the Wii audience that didn't buy a Wii U. They'll probably sell more Xbox than PS4 with this strategy too.

But how many consumers will realize that GDDR5 and DDR3 is any different? PS3's got 8GB, Xbox has 8GB, that's what it's going to come down to to consumers.