Game Developer at Team Blur Games on Xbox Series X: You're going to hear a lot about why SFS (Sampler Feedback Streaming) is such a big deal

That makes no sense but thank you for contributing precisely dick to the thread.

I'll post back tomorrow when the Sony engineer gets back to me about whether he can talk about this or if it's NDA bound.

For now, do whatever it is you people seem hellbent on doing I guess?

you talk nonsense on the topic, I respond at the same level and you respond by becoming victimized.
closed the circle of the passive aggressive
 
Quick question, did you had a hands on time with ps5 dev kit and xbsex one? Just wondering how do you know if ps5 will not have SFS equivalent?

also in regards to SFS, did you had a chance to actually experiment with it And this is what you are basing your tweets on?
Lol No he hasn't. It's just tales from the ass in this case.
 
Dial back the meta drama and personal attacks towards each other. If you can't discredit the information and must resort to attacks on one's character, then remove yourself from the conversation all together.

MoW has games to play, kids! Thank you.
Just burn down this thread my mod lol.
Then you can play your games in peace.
 
Update 2: he's actually going to get back to me tomorrow with further clarification if he can actually tell me If it's hardware or software based. You can't ask for more than that can you?
Since you need new GPU architecture for this, wouldn't it be hardware based? Only RDNA2 and Turing support this at the moment.
 
Lol No he hasn't. It's just tales from the ass in this case.

maybe, but his ass seems to have hands on experience with games development so his understanding of many things is much greater than 99% of people shitting on him in this thread. He confirmed that his tweets are based on published information about xva and ps5, he clarified that he doesn't have access to xbsex dev kit. I don't understand why people are so triggered about industry professional sharing his take on this new tech. Chill people.
 
Since you need new GPU architecture for this, wouldn't it be hardware based? Only RDNA2 and Turing support this at the moment.

It was my understanding that it's rdna 2 for the more advanced features we spoke about (like taking not just lower quality mips and discarding the rest as needed but also taking only what is drawn from the mip into memory for even more optimisation), yes.

And this is where it gets... fuzzy. Because this has dedicated hardware to do so on XSX, yet on ps5, it's currently unknown, but *assumed* that it's software. The reply I had earlier from Sony also painted, to me at least, the picture that it may indeed be possible on software only from their end.

As you know, doing this in software via shaders is a hell of a lot slower than doing it with dedicated hardware that supports it native.

A follow up DM I had from the Sony engineer was that PS5 is a sort of mish-mash of RDNA 1 with RDNA 2 elements. This could be one of those, but the way it was phrased made it seem possibly not, especially coupled with the "it doesn't matter people won't notice" type response.

So while not concrete by any definite means, at THIS stage, we know for sure that both consoles support it, however one supports it 100% with dedicated hardware, and the other supports it with shader based software implementations. We can't confirm ps5 at this point using hardware.

Now that's quite a big thing in itself, because while you would assume that just supporting it is enough, the fact that it could be software makes the whole process massively slower and causes other potential issues.

Hence why I'm hoping he will get back to me later and I can make a clearer follow up post. But sadly Sony seem to not want to divulge a lot of things, while other things they give out freely. That speaks volumes to me personally, because to me that that's what you do when you skirt around an issue. I think we are way beyond the competition getting an upper hand now.

Let's wait and see what he says.
 
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But sadly Sony seem to not want to divulge a lot of things, while other things they give out freely. That speaks volumes to me personally, because to me that that's what you do when you skirt around an issue. I think we are way beyond the competition getting an upper hand now.

Let's wait and see what he says.
Thanks for your efforts. I wish Sony would share informarions in regards to PS5 in more transparent way but in reality they dont need to launch more powerful console, because they will still win the whole generation. Xbox One X is faster compared to PS4P, but still sony exclusives looks the best despite hardware disadvantage. Sometimes talent is more important than HW power.
 
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Thanks for your efforts. I wish Sony would share informarions in regards to PS5 in more transparent way but in reality they dont need to launch more powerful console, because they will still win the whole generation. Xbox One X was faster compared to PS4P, but still sony exclusives looks the best despite hardware disadvantage.

Yeah I have to agree. Sony will still own this generation hands down, unless there's a major unforeseen cock up in some way. That's a safe bet for sure, but really as long as we all enjoy what we play, who cares about sales really unless your an exec.
 
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But hold, new secret sauce....

Nm9iSp6.jpg


Oops, thats ps4 manual lol
There is a whole patent by Microsoft describing why SFS is better than standard PRT.
The hardware implementation of SFS in Xbox Series X for feedback streaming and how Sampler Feedback differs from standard Partially Resident Textures(PRTs) is described in patent US10388058B2.
Graphics processing units(GPUs) include various internal hardware components, such as processing stages, memory elements, and other pipelined processing elements. There are various internal stages to process graphical data into rendered images. In many GPUs, these internal stages comprise a graphics pipeline that can take representations of scenes or user interfaces and render these into images for output. Among these stages are texture mapping stages that provide graphical details, surface textures, colors, or other elements for portions of rendered images. User content that is rendered by GPUs, such as video game content, is expected to continue growing in complexity over time, but graphics hardware constraints such as bandwidth and memory capacity are not expected to grow at a similar rate.
This patent provides improved efficiency in usage of residency maps for GPUs. The layout of the residency maps here provides for viable hardware implementations, leading to faster and more efficient rendering of graphics for computing systems. Texture mapping process can be memory intensive, so Partially Resident Textures(PRTs) are used to aid in this process. PRTs partially map texture data only to portions of objects presently needed to be rendered, such as due to viewpoint characteristics of a user, obstruction by other objects, proximity to a viewer, or other factors. Mip mapping can also be included in this process to pre-compute a series or set of smaller and smaller texture representations to suit different levels of detail for the textures. This mip mapping can aid in anti-aliasing as well as provide less processor-intensive renderings.
Migrating elements of texture streaming implementations from mip-based streaming(i.e., loading entire levels of detail) to tile-based streaming and partial residency can be an effective mitigation to performance issues. Techniques using partial residency can allow content complexity to continue to grow without a corresponding increase in load times or memory footprint. Tiled resources can be improved so that these PRTs can be widely adopted while minimizing implementation difficulty and performance overhead for GPUs. These improvements include hardware residency map features and texture sample operations referred to herein as "residency samples", among other improvements.
The first enhancement includes a hardware residency map feature comprising a low-resolution residency map that is paired with a much larger PRT, and both are provided to hardware at the same time. The residency map stores the mipmap level of detail resident for each rectangular region of the texture. PRT textures are currently difficult to sample given sparse residency. Software-only residency map solutions typically perform two fetches of two different buffers in the shader, namely the residency map and the actual texture map. The primary PRT texture sample is dependent on the results of a residency map sample. These solutions are effective, but require considerable implementation changes to shader and application code, especially to perform filtering the residency map in order to mask unsightly transitions between levels of detail, and may have undesirable performance characteristics. The improvements herein can streamline the concept of a residency map and move the residency map into a hardware implementation. This is the custom hardware portion that performs feedback streaming in XSX.
A second enhancement includes an enhanced type of texture sample operation called a "residency sample". The residency sample operates similarly to a traditional texture sampling, except the part of the texture sample that request texture data from cache/memory and filters the texture data to provide an output value is removed from the residency sample operation. The purpose of the residency sample is to generate memory addresses that reach the page table hardware in the graphics processor but do not continue on to become full memory requests. Instead, the residency of the PRT at those addresses is checked and missing pages are non-redundantly logged and requested to be filled by the OS or a delegate. This describes how Sampler Feedback is an improvement over standard PRT.
And you guys still keep saying its the same thing as PRT. I thought we already had this discussion.
 
There is a whole patent by Microsoft describing why SFS is better than standard PRT.

And you guys still keep saying its the same thing as PRT. I thought we already had this discussion.
We did, posted patents and all, but that doesn't change the fact some people want to diminish the impact this could have in hardware. The "oh its just texture filters" response specifically.

Im with Gavin on this one. if sony had the exact same hardware, MS would not be pushing it like they had. Sony would flat out say, hey we have it too. Can ps5 do it in software? Sure but what cant be achieved in software without a performance penalty or some other tradeoff.

Im also thinking the ps5 gpu was more 1.5 then it was 2. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
 
While I applaud you trying to turn it into something more positive, fact remains you don't know and the PS guy on Twitter didn't tell you. It's not sensible to then talk about private messages that you can't show us.

But now you are saying for sure it's peak speeds etc once again you are now coming from a place of authority even though you don't have access to either of them. This is the problem you keep falling into.

Next time avoid the comparison, otherwise it looks exactly like what it looks like.
 
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We did, posted patents and all, but that doesn't change the fact some people want to diminish the impact this could have in hardware. The "oh its just texture filters" response specifically.

Im with Gavin on this one. if sony had the exact same hardware, MS would not be pushing it like they had. Sony would flat out say, hey we have it too. Can ps5 do it in software? Sure but what cant be achieved in software without a performance penalty or some other tradeoff.

Im also thinking the ps5 gpu was more 1.5 then it was 2. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
The worst part is arguing about SFS not being PRT with the same guys we had at some point in the XVA thread, and now they are bringing the same thing again. Worst the posts are formatted in a way to give the impression that Sony invented PRT with PS4,and Microsoft copied it with SFS(I saw some posts in the Next Gen Speculation thread spreading that nonsense). I feel really dumb to be explaining the same thing to the same group again.
 
It was my understanding that it's rdna 2 for the more advanced features we spoke about (like taking not just lower quality mips and discarding the rest as needed but also taking only what is drawn from the mip into memory for even more optimisation), yes.

And this is where it gets... fuzzy. Because this has dedicated hardware to do so on XSX, yet on ps5, it's currently unknown, but *assumed* that it's software. The reply I had earlier from Sony also painted, to me at least, the picture that it may indeed be possible on software only from their end.

As you know, doing this in software via shaders is a hell of a lot slower than doing it with dedicated hardware that supports it native.

A follow up DM I had from the Sony engineer was that PS5 is a sort of mish-mash of RDNA 1 with RDNA 2 elements. This could be one of those, but the way it was phrased made it seem possibly not, especially coupled with the "it doesn't matter people won't notice" type response.

So while not concrete by any definite means, at THIS stage, we know for sure that both consoles support it, however one supports it 100% with dedicated hardware, and the other supports it with shader based software implementations. We can't confirm ps5 at this point using hardware.

Now that's quite a big thing in itself, because while you would assume that just supporting it is enough, the fact that it could be software makes the whole process massively slower and causes other potential issues.

Hence why I'm hoping he will get back to me later and I can make a clearer follow up post. But sadly Sony seem to not want to divulge a lot of things, while other things they give out freely. That speaks volumes to me personally, because to me that that's what you do when you skirt around an issue. I think we are way beyond the competition getting an upper hand now.

Let's wait and see what he says.
So you don't really know.

ok.
 
I have an indie studio, which was created while working for a very long time in a professionally capacity, due to me becoming ill. I can't do everything all by myself, because who can animate, model, texture, code, do sound design etc? And yet you think this some how makes my experience any less qualified to answer questions, or chat about tech? I love the fact you think I'm a painter in my bedroom. This is brilliant. I wish I was.

But please, continue to run rings around everything just to avoid the actual topic of discussion, because, I dunno, you seem to feel threatened that it's not pro Sony? I dont know, what exactly is your angle here with this post?

Essentially you appear to be trolling, again, another thread that talks anything positive about Xbox. To the point you even stalk my own forums, which aren't even active, for ammo. Sounds a little... insecure to me?
you wasted your time answering that clown, he is clueless.
 
Dont start the nonsense again. I dont feel its going out on a limb to say that unless sony says otherwise, they dont have what ms patented in hardware.

You are giving him this because you really want what he's saying to be true on all accounts.

Im also thinking the ps5 gpu was more 1.5 then it was 2. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.


Like this. Yet even though he himself acknowledges Matt, who has weighed before on these matters, you won't give Matt that authority.

You just agree with what you want to be true.

Once again we have people who prefer a certain brand spreading misinformation, it has been a constant pattern. Now it's RDNA 1.5, peak speeds etc You guys are fucking embarrassing.
 
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You are giving him this because you really want what he's saying to be true on all accounts.




Like this. Yet even though he himself acknowledges Matt, who has weighed before on these matters, you won't give Matt that authority.

You just agree with what you want to be true.

Once again we have people who prefer a certain brand spreading misinformation, it has been a constant pattern. Now it's RDNA 1.5, peak speeds etc You guys are fucking embarrassing.
The irony of your attacks on him as he keeps saying he doesn't know and is assuming until he hears different, whereas you guys act like you know and aren't assuming shit. You still have brought nothing to the conversation except empty attacks.. NADA. Instead of the attacks, why don't you provide some evidence to counter his assumptions? Or atleast something relatively constructive... Anything.
 
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You are giving him this because you really want what he's saying to be true on all accounts.

Don't pretend to know my reasoning. I think its fairly simple really. If its a MS patented feature, or a custom addition to something outside of DX12 ultimate. Without a license from microsoft, there is no possible way they could have the same feature in hardware.


Like this. Yet even though he himself acknowledges Matt, who has weighed before on these matters, you won't give Matt that authority

You just agree with what you want to be true.

Once again we have people who prefer a certain brand spreading misinformation, it has been a constant pattern. Now it's RDNA 1.5, peak speeds etc You guys are fucking embarrassing.

I honestly don't know why you mention or who "matt" is. I also don't care. Use some logic. MS isn't having any issues with heat, doesn't require custom or large cooling, isn't using boost/overclocking and they still have higher specs. There is a flat out difference in the capabilities of the the GPU in each console. If they are both RDNA 2, they why aren't the base specs closer to each other? Those are the questions that make me wonder.
 
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MS isn't having any issues with heat, doesn't require custom or large cooling,

images

giphy.gif


Xbox One X
teardown_12.jpg



Microsoft has a huge fan in the Series X plus they designed it for maximum airflow.

What do you think will happen if they made it a small compact box with a small fan?

Truth is Microsoft won't have any heating issues because they designed a large custom cooling solution for their system. Thats a good thing BTW.

As for Sony there's no evidence that they have overheating issues with the PS5. Absolutely no proof that the system runs hot and loud. We will find out once it comes out but the good news is that they talked about fan noise and the cooling so there's hope that the system runs cool and quiet.
 
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I have to agree. This has gone so far off the track, I feel like racing horses.

I think the mods should just start to apply reply bans to those that are just crapping up the thread. This definitely isn't a bad thread but it's bound to create a ton of debate and people crapping it up. Just like any other technical thread.
 
The irony of your attacks on him as he keeps saying he doesn't know and is assuming until he hears different, whereas you guys act like you know and aren't assuming shit. You still have brought nothing to the conversation except empty attacks.. NADA. Instead of the attacks, why don't you provide some evidence to counter his assumptions? Or atleast something relatively constructive... Anything.

We have been talking about hardware for months. SFS has been plenty dissected. Fact of a matter is that he's not bringing anything new to discussion, and his tweeter convo only got traction because he went about it by turning it into a vs PS5. Faint praise preceded and followed by taking jabs at PS5. I ask for receipts, factual information on his basis for comparing the way he has and he has, as you say, NADA.

Nothing he said about SFS is new.

If they are both RDNA 2, they why aren't the base specs closer to each other? Those are the questions that make me wonder.

This is such a ridiculous conclusion I don't even know where to begin.
 
images

giphy.gif


Xbox One X
teardown_12.jpg



Microsoft has a huge fan in the Series X plus they designed it for maximum airflow.

What do you think will happen if they made it a small compact box with a small fan?

Truth is Microsoft won't have any heating issues because they designed a large custom cooling solution for their system. Thats a good thing BTW.

As for Sony there's no evidence that they have overheating issues with the PS5. Absolutely no proof that the system runs hot and loud. We will find out once it comes out but the good news is that they talked about fan noise and the cooling so there's hope that the system runs cool and quiet.
I think you are denying reality. The cooling system in xbox is not huge by comparison to fans on pc. They difference the vapor chamber isnt even that unique. Only thr shape and how they designed it to draw hear out.

Even looking at the teardown i wouldnt call the hardware use custom but the overall design of th e system was. No idea why you bothered to show a one x. Its not relevant to the conversation.

I didnt say ps5 now has heating issues, but we all saw reports that devkits were overheating long before the final design of the console was shown. That is what was said to push them towards a custom cooling solution. You can deny it if you want. Up to you.
 
We have been talking about hardware for months. SFS has been plenty dissected. Fact of a matter is that he's not bringing anything new to discussion, and his tweeter convo only got traction because he went about it by turning it into a vs PS5. Faint praise preceded and followed by taking jabs at PS5. I ask for receipts, factual information on his basis for comparing the way he has and he has, as you say, NADA.

Nothing he said about SFS is new.



This is such a ridiculous conclusion I don't even know where to begin.
You still have brought nothing new to the table except criticism. Nothing. He has told everybody why he is making his assumptions, has labelled them assumptions, and has attempted to get clarification. You brought nothing. Since you seem to think he is full of shit, why don't you show the receipts that he is?
 
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I think you are denying reality. The cooling system in xbox is not huge by comparison to fans on pc. They difference the vapor chamber isnt even that unique. Only thr shape and how they designed it to draw hear out.

Even looking at the teardown i wouldnt call the hardware use custom but the overall design of th e system was. No idea why you bothered to show a one x. Its not relevant to the conversation.



I didnt say ps5 now has heating issues, but we all saw reports that devkits were overheating long before the final design of the console was shown. That is what was said to push them towards a custom cooling solution. You can deny it if you want. Up to you.

Which rumors are you talking about? Because when it comes to overheating the one from YouTube was fake. I remember that OsirisBlack OsirisBlack mentioned that as well but I really don't know if he had good info after that happened.

Edit: Since you mentioned dev kits the design of the kits is very different than the retail console.

ps5-render-group-withnotice-01.jpg

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With that said even though they might have had overheating issues with the dev kit doesn't mean that they will have them with the retail console. In addition the chassis of both are pretty different so it's easy to assume that the cooling system is also different. I don't think that Sony would choose that form factor if it would cause extreme overheating issues.
 
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We have been talking about hardware for months. SFS has been plenty dissected. Fact of a matter is that he's not bringing anything new to discussion, and his tweeter convo only got traction because he went about it by turning it into a vs PS5. Faint praise preceded and followed by taking jabs at PS5. I ask for receipts, factual information on his basis for comparing the way he has and he has, as you say, NADA.

Nothing he said about SFS is new.



This is such a ridiculous conclusion I don't even know where to begin.
You are in total denial if you think sfs doesnt bring anything new. That is the dumbest thing anyone in this thread has said. Period.
 
You still have brought nothing new to the table except criticism. Nothing. He has told everybody why he is making his assumptions, has labelled them assumptions, and has attempted to get clarification. You brought nothing. Since you seem to think he is full of shit, why don't you show the receipts that he is?

Well for example he makes it so that Sampler Feedback is not something that exists outside SFS. So by talking about SFS in such terms, a technique like sampling the previous to determine exactly what's needed, and what's only needed for the next, becomes somehow exclusive to SFS. This



You see?

You are in total denial if you think sfs doesnt bring anything new. That is the dumbest thing anyone in this thread has said. Period.

What I said was that he didn't bring any new information or understanding. And his convo only got traction because he states as matter of fact how PS5 compares, even though later admitting he doesn't know.
 
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Well for example he makes it so that Sampler Feedback is not something that exists outside SFS. So by talking about SFS in such terms, a technique like sampling the previous to determine exactly what's needed, and what's only needed for the next, becomes somehow exclusive to SFS. This



You see?



What I said was that he didn't bring any new information or understanding. And his convo only got traction because he states as matter of fact how PS5 compares, even though later admitting he doesn't know.

I still don't see the slight. He explains a MS patented process, SFS, and how it fits into the velocity architecture. Sony defendors come on here and cry PS5, PS5 and he attempts to get clarification on the PS5. You guys throw insults in an effort to discredit him after he tries to get clarification... Yet you make claims that you can't back up. Show us the receipts yourself on how the PS5 accomplishes something similar to SFS.
 
I still don't see the slight. He explains a MS patented process, SFS, and how it fits into the velocity architecture. Sony defendors come on here and cry PS5, PS5 and he attempts to get clarification on the PS5. You guys throw insults in an effort to discredit him after he tries to get clarification... Yet you make claims that you can't back up. Show us the receipts yourself on how the PS5 accomplishes something similar to SFS.

You gotta be kidding. He's the one who brought the PS5 into the discussion, and he's the one who said what it can or not do. You don't get to lay that on me. I didn't claim anything as fact, deal with it. We're done.
 
Gavin, your Sony friend confirming PS5 will not have ML, that is big...
Any form of performance saving AI upscaling is off the table ?
 
You gotta be kidding. He's the one who brought the PS5 into the discussion, and he's the one who said what it can or not do. You don't get to lay that on me. I didn't claim anything as fact, deal with it. We're done.
You're done because you know you aren't bringing anything to the conversation. He attempted to get clarification, and said it may be able to do similiar but he wasn't sure if it was software/hardware like MS or just software. You just keep spewing "show me the receipts" without really saying anything constructive. You keep insinuating that the PS5 will perform something similar to SFS.. so where is your proof? Like him you have none.. the only difference is he is trying to find out and you are just being confrontational.
 
I literally have a software engineer from Sony replying above. He's waiting to get back to me if he can answer the question without breaking NDA. How hard is that to understand?

Here is one you will love as well that ain't FUD. He's just confirmed again what I reported on earlier in the year, that PS5 is a mixture of rdna 1 and 2 (with a few custom bits) but not full 2. Is that fud too?
Gavin can you elaborate about the ps5 being a mixture of RDNA 1 and 2? I had assumed so because of the RDNA terms primitive shaders and geometry engines instead of mesh shaders etc...like in RDNA 2.
 
Gavin can you elaborate about the ps5 being a mixture of RDNA 1 and 2? I had assumed so because of the RDNA terms primitive shaders and geometry engines instead of mesh shaders etc...like in RDNA 2.

Hopefully they can elaborate, as you've asked.

Personally it took until I realized Geometry Engine and Primitive Shaders were already AMD nomenclature used for RDNA1 to connect the dots, and it also lines up with the Ariel/Oberon leaks (including Ariel iGPU profile testing on Oberon). Both system, IMHO, are not "full" RDNA2 as in having the exact same feature set as the PC RDNA2 GPUs; they don't need all of that stuff. So essentially they're both "custom" RDNA2.

[let me preface the following by saying this is just speculation...]

But I think it's likely Sony went with using RDNA1 as their base and then integrating RDNA2 feature support selectively either in hardware or software compatibility, with things like RT for example. But the ratio probably favors RDNA1 with some notable modifications on things like Geometry Engine and Primitive Shaders to bring forward some of the benefits of Mesh Shaders, for example.

Meanwhile MS is more or less using RDNA2 as their base, leaving out features their design doesn't need and adding in things they'd need for it. Since they don't rely on hardware BC with XBO the way Sony does for PS4 (I know RDNA2 can run in a mode that's more or less compatible with GCN microcode but that isn't as efficient as literally having GCN-compliant hardware in the GPU design, and would require a lot more testing. Though that could explain the consistent regression tests on Oberon revisions), that does free them up in ways, though their BC method has also imposed some hard standards on their design too of course (such as for example the memory set-up; the slower pool of 336 GB/s RAM perfectly fits with the One X's bandwidth plus 10 GB/s for instance).

Most of the big RDNA2 features I'd expect them both to have, but it could vary in levels of implementation. The bigger question is what features of RDNA2 are generic/standardized, and how. For example Mesh Shaders are "standard" in a sense but I'd be inclined to think the push for Mesh Shader support on RDNA2 came from MS as they determined Primitive Shaders were not sufficient enough for compatibility in DX12/DX12U. And for Nvidia to implement Mesh Shaders meant they'd need to have worked with MS in determining implementation in DX12/DX12U being they're one of the major GPU partners MS works with on PC to ensure there's driver/GPU compatibility and ease of utilization. That could also explain why Sony is using Primitive Shaders instead, since that would be wholly AMD and therefore easily licensable from them, but they of course have done some customizations to the Primitive Shader logic in PS5 (even if it might still principally operate the same conceptually).

Also there's rumors both systems could have RDNA3 features or better to say, have influenced parts of the roadmap to where generic/standard RDNA3 features may be inspired by work done on the consoles. Cerny literally said as such in Road to PS5 on their end, but there's rumors that've been floating around suggesting some similar things from Microsoft (or at least, they might've pulled standardized features of RDNA3 forward from the roadmap into the Series systems).
 
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Sounds like marketing talk to me. Software can't outperform dedicated hardware.
You can have the best hardware in the word, but if software is not optimized correctly then hardware cant be pushed to it's full potenial.

Look at UE5 tech demo, they arnt using HW RT for GI, yet game looks better than any RTX tech demo.
 
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But I think it's likely Sony went with using RDNA1 as their base and then integrating RDNA2 feature support selectively either in hardware or software compatibility,

Meanwhile MS is more or less using RDNA2 as their base, leaving out features their design doesn't need and adding in things they'd need for it

Oh come on mate... 😞 why this again?

You are very good at speculation and with words, but building a castle on top of it does not make the foundations necessarily strong. What is the basis for this?
 
Oh come on mate... 😞 why this again?

You are very good at speculation and with words, but building a castle on top of it does not make the foundations necessarily strong. What is the basis for this?

Trust me, this is nothing malicious on my end. When I say "using RDNA1 as the base", that isn't the same as saying it's RDNA1. I'm just saying architecturally they mayve started with RDNA1 and then integrated RDNA2 (and maybe even RDNA3) features into the design and, perhaps, outside of clear things like Mesh Shaders there may not be many massive architectural changes between the two (aside from frontend improvements which I'd assume Sony have included a lot if not all of as well...that may or may not explain the cache scrubbers though).

I'll just list the main things that make me think RDNA1 is at least some of the basis for PS5:

1): Explicit mention of Geometry Engine and Primitive Shaders by Cerny. Less so Geometry Engine; I assume RDNA2 has GE too so that doesn't really tell us anything, but mentioning Primitive Shaders sticks out to me. We know those are on RDNA1 so....?

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe, they've tailored the GE to a point where they don't need Mesh Shaders and sticking with Primitive Shaders was more cost-efficient for their spec? That at least would lend to the idea that RDNA2 is serving as the base here but they stuck with using RDNA1 Primitive Shaders and customizing them to bring in some of the benefits of Mesh Shaders.

2): Ariel being RDNA1. I know a lot of people want to think otherwise but to me this and Oberon are more or less the PS5 GPU, particularly Oberon. And I know a reason some people dismiss Oberon is because it still listed RDNA1 in a Rogame tweet, but I've seen theories on B3D saying that was more likely a reference to Ariel iGPU regression profile testing, which makes a lot of sense. Therefore those benchmarks weren't exposing the full Oberon chip. Other reasons of dismissing it come down to the clock in the leaks being wrong, but then again so was the clock in Arden (speaking of, the final active CU count there was wrong but it mirrors the Scorpion > One X situation of deactivating 4 cores for the final GPU).

I just have to ask though, why would Sony need to test an RDNA1 chip at all? The only conclusion I can draw from that is they were in some way using RDNA1 as a base of their design, even if they also clearly intended to blend in RDNA2 roadmap features from the get-go. Then you add in the rumors of a 2019 launch that were going around a while ago and the first date of the first Oberon revision conveniently being June 2019 (it may've been tested earlier than the logged date). I personally just think there's too much smoke there but again, it's not me trying to bring up RDNA1 here in the way some other folks might.

3): Hardware-based BC. I know RDNA2 has a compatibility mode for RDNA1 and therefore the GCN support that architecture had, but maybe the way RDNA2 (at its base) handles that isn't as optimal as RDNA1 with its literal GCN hardware support built into the silicon?

Actually this is also a reason I say the Series systems are "custom" RDNA2; although MS's solution is much more software emulation based for BC, is it 100% software-based? If not they might've still needed some small bits of GCN hardware in the GPU, so maybe that could be a bit of RDNA1 they have in their silicon, too. I'm just speculating, though.

So those are the three main reasons, but I think people are just strongly reacting at the mere mention of RDNA1 here because they're inferring it with being inferior to RDNA2. Even if PS5 is leveraging a notable bit of RDNA1, I expect it's been refined over the PC RDNA1 GPUs, such as with the Primitive Shaders, and have deeply integrated hardware support for RDNA2 (and maybe RDNA3 if some of those fringe rumors are correct) features in the hardware, too. Same as Microsoft; I just think there's enough circumstantial evidence to think Sony might have a higher weight of RDNA1 features in their design, that's all.

Even so, I'd say they're both on the same process node, 7nm DUV enhanced, so they both benefit from the IPC gains. And among whatever are the common/generic RDNA2 features I'd expect them both to have the majority of them, even if in some cases at different "weight". For example the current rumor PS5 doesn't support ML? I don't buy that. I don't see why Sony would skip ML support on PS5 when the PS4 Pro had FP16/INT16 ML support. Now they may not have the INT8/INT4 ML support MS has, that's a possibility. But I'd at least expect them to have FP16/INT16 and will be extremely surprised if it turns out they don't.
 
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