digoutyoursoul
Member
Are some of these Pastebin posts made by members from GAF ? 
Kotaku Rumor: Microsoft 6 months behind in game production for X720 [Pastebin = Ban]
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
I just want to reiterate that the leaked specs for Durango are not bad for a closed box console. Over a 6x raw power increase from the 360 and a ton of architectural and efficiency boosts over current gen. New featuresets will go even farther than ever before considering how many new processes have been developed in recent years that have gone completely unutilized. Durango won't have a problem running next gen games, it'll just have a few compromises compared to the PS4 versions. It won't be anything like some of the atrocious PS3 ports that happened this gen. A lot of people that have only owned Xboxes for the past couple gens are probably just not used to almost universally having the best versions of multiplatform games
Napalm_Frank
Member
James Sawyer Ford
Banned
I don't think PS3's ports were THAT atrocious, though.
In many instances, lower resolution, lower framerate, less texture fidelity.
Those are all things that could happen next-gen for Durango, only the resolution bar will be raised. So when discussing differences it will be a deviation from a higher standard (i.e., 1080) versus the current standard (720)
I was just referring to a couple specifically bad ones (Skyrim, Bayonetta, etc)
Of course the rumoured specs are not bad per se, and no doubt we will see some amazing looking games. Yet, 6 times is pathetic taking consideration the fact that this generation is 8 years old at the time the new consoles will release. That is relatively terrible, when you compare it to the development seen in other high-tech products like mobile phones, tablets, and such. Again, one can argue for diminishing returns, yet that is untrue to some extent, as e.g. unreal engine has had to cut some features (i.e. SVOGI lightning) due to lackluster performance.
also if the specs r not bad in a closed system for this and the next year...(1-2)
the thing that sound really weird to me is that UE4 minimum requirements to work "good" is 1+tf
unreal engine is one of the most used engines and is produced by epic a company that is very very close to ms...
"What is the target platform for UE4? What kind of hardware are gamers going to need to run UE4 based games?
Tim Sweeny: Unreal Engine 4’s next-generation renderer targets DirectX 11 GPU’s and really starts to become interesting on hardware with 1+ TFLOPS of graphics performance, where it delivers some truly unprecedented capabilities"
i dont think ms is pointing to stay on the market for 5/6 years (i hope the next generation cycles is shorter than the last x360/ps3 one) with a console that is so close to the minimum requirements of one of the most used engine
also coz the version of the engine will improve during this years...(as their ue3 did) asking more and more flops...ue3 had .9 subversions before it switched to ue4
another point....the new Directx Blue ...(or dx12 whatever)...r coming out in 2014..or maybe 2015 ..graphics engines and gpus will follow the market and upgrade themself to the new dx...and u must admit that being on the market with that 1+tf isnt a future proof idea....
(before someone start with that theory that there will be no dx12)
http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-cuts-down-another-directx-shutdown-rumor
and being the dx developed by ms i think we will find some of them inside the durango (like they did including some dx10 extensions in the x360)
for this and many many other thing no ..sorry i never did and ill continue to dont drink the 1.2tf rumor...expecially if sony is going out with 1.84tf in a shot.. without spendind lots of billions in r&d...(like they did with the cell)
would like if amd betrayed ms...and honestly having a longer LONGER partnership i dont think is possible (and i think amd is more interested in ms than sony ..having ALL their products being on the pcs market)
it could be 1.79 (stock 7790 perfomance)+move engines and esram efficiency vs 1.84 ...not less (IMHO)
SVOGI is brutal as it is -- even on better PCs. I agree that it is somewhat disappointing but nobody wants to make a console that takes a $200 loss on every unit sold anymore. What might work out is a quicker turnover for PS5.
This entire post is dumb and wrong, but the idea that "UE3.9" has anything to do with how many iterations UE3 has is the turd icing on a butt-chocolate cake.
(I'd love to hear what flights of fancy the name "UE 3.975" sets you off on, though.)
The fact that rumours of Durango and PS4 are so close to each other is used as evidence that they are reacting to each other.
But the simpler and IMO more likely explanation is - applying a similar price and thermal restrictions to a closed box, with some similar business restrictions (eg SoC) - it isn't surprising that both are in the ballpark of each other.
I doubt very much MS are worrying about Sony. They might be frustrated that Sony bumped the RAM so late, which would make them more directly competitive, but little differences in power they'd just ignore. MS will have faith in
1) their tool chain to be better than Sony, encouraging developers to lead in their platform
2) developer relationships being better coming out of the current gen
3) marketing spend bridging any perceived gap in performance (I expect Ms to outspend Sony here a lot)
4) moneyhts for 3rd party exclusives.
As much as I like the look of the PS4, and plan to get one day one - I don't see anything to have MS quaking in any boots. Whether that is arrogance or confidence is still to be seen though.
Edit: one interesting thing to consider is whether MS/Sony (or even Nintendo but less likely) do a short run this gen and bring out something new sooner rather than later (eg 4 years rather than 6-7).there are some interesting tech developments coming along that might make that interesting
samaritan demo was done with ue3.9
gear of war was done with the first ue3
or maybe is better if u check the tech demo of the ue3 in 2004 maybe u see some difference
clearly the engines follow the release of apis and gpus tech
if u add an particles effect to the engine in a .1 version (and this effect start ot be vastly used in games) have u an idea of how many gflops the engine will require more than the previous version?
I don't doubt it'll be shorter, but 4 years is really pushing it unless we start getting back to $250 MSRP boxes with no supply crunches. People can only buy so many games a year and that just isn't enough time with a 2-3 year rampup to mass-market.
OTOH it is a good opportunity for Nintendo; in retrospect the Wii U really should have been a $200 box in 2010 to disrupt the profit-making (well, breaking-even) cycles of the 360/PS3, and a series of major tech jumps over the next year or two would give them the opportunity to come out swinging in 2016 while still letting their core fanbase be satisfied with the software support Wii U got assuming two tentpole titles a year.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
'We're only making a Kinect app at our place, but thanks to all the other developers I've talked to, the nextXBox sounds amazing!'
I want to believe!
I can actually see MS releasing (subscription based) new consoles every four or so years. This long gen was an anomaly with a worldwide recession, very late profits if any on hardware for two out of three manufactures thanks to RRoD and Sony's insane BoM and a market leader with terrible third party support that was on life support for at least two years of the generations while the PS3 and 360 started to actually make money. MS seems to expect strong brand loyality from Live users and with a very US centric approach where subscriptions or giant monthly cable bills and buying with CCs are common enough not to push away customers, why not try and chase some of that iPhone/Pad upgrade money.
Whatever is in the next Xbox will have been Microsoft's choice and specification, not a result of 'AMD betrayal'. If it is 1.2Tflops, it because that's what MS wanted. And they'll have made that choice knowing the probability that Sony might be going higher, but MS would have their own reasoning, their own tradeoffs, their own priorities.
For example, is eSRAM on-die? If so, that could be a straightforward explanation of why their GPU might be smaller than PS4's.
Unknown Soldier
Member
You would be mad if you found out that Apple and Samsung regularly keep 4-5 different prototypes of their next flagship smartphone in development concurrently and then decide which one actually reaches the market after a certain point during the process, which is estimated to take 18 months.
This is one reason why "leaks" of future Samsung and Apple devices frequently turn out to be wrong until very close, often as late as only a month, before launch. Some people believe Apple and Samsung purposely allow the "wrong" prototype to "leak" after the decision has been made to go forward with the final product just to toy with the various websites which report on these things.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Yea...cellphone hardware development and console hardware development are not even remotely the same in terms of complexity. And in terms of guessing hardware, I can't remember the last time I've read anyone be completely off on guessing Apple's hardware. Especially considering how formulaic Apple is when it comes to their hardware updates and the internals used. Same applies to Samsung to a lesser extent, you'd have to be very out of sync with mobile hardware developments to be completely off in your guesses.
i dont think ms just choice from their own...
they talked for sure with devs of engines, epic and crytek and we know that both of them r givin to durango exclusives
crytek is famous for their bold talk and request about specifications.......and that they already talked bad about ps4 specs
im sure they talked with amd about the best they could have in the years of the launch
im sure they had to ibm to help them
and im sure they invest billions in r&d
now....i dont know if ms didnt listen crytek , epic, amd..and gamers.......but if they did also at 50% they will not come out with a 30/40% less power console than ps4
i dont undersatnd why ppl think that ms is just looking at casual market ...when they can have easly both of them (1.84 tf nowdays isnt hard to reach)
Sure, they consult with others, my point was just that they don't go to AMD and say 'come back in a couple of years with a good chip'. It's not like AMD got this order from MS and Sony and decided to give one a more powerful chip just for the heck of it. They worked to low level specifications from MS and Sony. If the next Xbox's chip has a GPU with x amount of power it'll be because that's what MS requested.
This is purely speculative, but if the eSRAM is on-die (I'm not sure...is it?), 1.84TF might not be as easy to reach as you think without breaking the bounds of volume manufacturability.
Here's a suggestion. Microsoft decided a key priority was 8GB of RAM (for whatever reason - game developers, OS, whatever). When this was decided, they figured DDR3 was the only economical route to reach that amount of RAM. This created a bandwidth deficit, and so MS eyed a design that used embedded memory again, but in a more flexible setup than on 360. The presence of this memory on the die created constraints on the size of other components. Sony's die doesn't have this pressure. MS's die may even be bigger than Sony's, but still only have room for a smaller GPU because of memory demands. But there's a limit to how big a die can be before it becomes problematic or far too costly for volume manufacturing. As I type this I'm reminded of rumours that MS was behind Sony in terms of getting back working silicon, which may point to a larger die and more complicated die setup, even if the GPU real estate is smaller.
So, when you have a relatively large amount of memory on a die, squeezing in a given number of other components may not be all that trivial.
Chocolate & Vanilla
Fuck Strawberry
I've read a few of your posts now in different threads and the one thing I hope you take from this one and only post I'll make in reply to you is, you need to stop focusing on tflops. Consoles have always been about their overall architecture and to keep beating that tflops drum is pretty short sighted.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
The interesting thing is, why didn´t MS also waited/betted on the same memory as Sony did? I mean, people say that Sony took a chance and "hoped" that 8Gb of GDDR5 would be feasable and that this somehow caught MS off guard.
I think that MS also is aware, as much as Sony is, on the developments of memory-density and whatnot. Obviously one is cost but again, some say that ESRAM is more expensive to have than GDDR5, so then why would MS go that route?
There must be other reason for MS to go with DDR3 and ESRAM, reasons that we don´t know about yet.
Most likely, MS wanted as much bang for buck and in this, they wanted to have flexibility with price as well as offer something competitive. But then, is DDR3 + ESRAM the way to go, to get more bang for buck, if what people say is true (that GDDR5 would have been cheaper plus the extra bandwidth?)
I think Microsoft is in a good position in that they know Sony's specs already and they know Sony can't afford to significantly subsidize their console like they did with PS3. I think it's possible that Microsoft will be able to offer their less costly hardware, even with Kinect 2.0, at a price $50 cheaper than PS4. This would likely mean eating $50-100 of the cost of each unit at launch, but they could afford it and it wouldn't even be as much as they likely lost on every 360 at launch.
I doubt both will launch at $499. One will try to edge out the other in price. And I think it's Microsoft that's in the better position to do that.
I doubt both will launch at $499. One will try to edge out the other in price. And I think it's Microsoft that's in the better position to do that.
i dont think that a nice architecture would help the wii u ina comparation with the ps4 specs no?
but maybe u r right im looking too much into it
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
And most likely, Sony knew MS specs as well, somehow and has reacted to that.
It would be so cool to know the design philosophy and the idea/thought with Durango.
The videogame business has changed so much and to have an "all in one"-machine is more accepted now. The company who has the best approach to all-in-one is most likely the one that will succeed the best.
Absolutely, breadth of features will be a determining factor. But price will be equally important. And I think Kinect will be seen as a value-add to most people, even if many on this board are turned off by it.
My guess is that Microsoft knew from very early on that they wanted 8GB of RAM, and the only way they could guarantee that at a reasonable projected BOM back in 2010 or whenever was to go with DDR3 RAM.
I don't think Sony 'hoped' that 8GB GDDR5 RAM would be feasible, they probably just wanted the bandwidth and would have gone with 4GB if they needed to (or, perhaps, split the RAM pools if they were that concerned by Xbox having a memory advantage). Then they got lucky in that they could feasibly put 8GB of it in as well.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
That is the part I don´t understand.."They got lucky". I don´t quite get the luck comment, what was the lucky thing that happened that allowed Sony to splurge in the full 8Gb?
If I can speculate a bit on MS HW approach.
Most likely the VGLeaks are true.. but that MS left some headroom from the beginning, for improvements that would not need for a complete re-design. So whatever Sony would announce/show, MS could increase/add some things to "catch up" or at least close the gap. Sony perhaps did not leave that headroom and well, MS delay of the announcment was to give Sony less time to react to whatever MS did increase..
Because all we know are just rumors, we don´t know or can´t tell if MS reacted to Sonys HW after the announcment or if it was planned from the beginning.
Dean Takahashi MUST write another book about the Durango development!!!
They got lucky in that they were able to incorporate the other 4 GB without a performance penalty. Also, RAM makers began mass production in Q1 2013, just in time to make it into the final product.
It also won't take up any extra space on the motherboard, since the extra 4 GB will be incorporated onto the bottom of the board, directly opposite the first 4 GB (exactly like on the 360). But it still sounds like a costly move.
Also, I think we are very lucky. And can thank MS that Sony added the other 4 GB. If there weren't rumours that MS was going to do 8 GB Sony would have never added the extra 4 GB
RAM of the right density hit a sensible price point. We can be pretty certain at this point that Sony's decision to go to 8GB of RAM was a last-minute choice, which suggests that during the planning stages Sony were more interested in the bandwidth of GDDR5 than in having a very large RAM pool.
I can imagine that it would have been frustating for Microsoft and their engineers to see their hard work trying to get round bandwidth limitations somewhat mitigated by Sony getting lucky with the cost of GDDR5 chips.
Durango as I presume the PS4 is DX11.5/x/whatever. Most of the add ons are coming as stuff such as texture tiling, etc.
ThisWreckage
Banned
Not really. They can get away with 8GB of RAM because they don't have to worry about Blu Ray drives or the Cell processor this time around. The RAM will be the most expensive aspect, but at the same time it won't drastically drive the price of the console up.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
My point is with this "luck" comment is..
When MS was designing Durango, they must have checked what was available and what would be available and the cost of implemeting it. Doing this, they must also have had some checks with memory suppliers on where they are and what are their projections on when X type of memory would be availble (density wise) etc etc.
I cannot believe that MS got surprised by the whole "Ohh now its possible to have GDDR5 memory" situation. Most likely they knew about the availability (and specs of the memory) and still went with DDR3 and ESRAM to gain some benefits (cheaper? Allowing Durango to be more efficient etc etc)..
Because if MS really got surprised, wow.. then they need to hire new project managers, process managers etc etc..
I don't think that's how console design really goes down. I suspect Sony already long anticipated the availability of 4Gbit in Q1 2013 in talks with Samsung, Hynix or whoever but didn't get their 100% guarantee and only told 4GB to developers as a contingency "just in case". Imagine developers being told their RAM allocation would be cut in half 9-10 months before release.
I guess the notion of developers being surprised would make people believe it was "last minute"; I just think it was played very close to the chest.
I'm not saying Microsoft were surprised. I'm saying that you can't look three years down the line, as though you have a crystal ball, and predict perfectly the cost of doing something in 3+ years time. They obviously decided early on (perhaps through discussion with developers) that they wanted 8GB of RAM. Then they looked at the cost of implementation with DDR3 vs. GDDR5 and decided that for the amount of money they wanted to spend, they'd rather guarantee that they could have 8GB of RAM than risk spending more money or increase the complexity of the hardware putting in double the number of chips.
Sony obviously prioritised the bandwidth, which is why they decided to go with GDDR5. But they fairly recently realised that they could upgrade to 8GB, so they did.
I don't think this is particularly difficult to grasp: Microsoft wanted 8GB of RAM, and they weren't willing to gamble that possibility by taking a risk on GDDR5 being mature at exactly the right time, so they went with DDR3 with various pieces of custom silicon to mitigate the bandwidth problems.
This is still higher risk, though, that's all I'm saying. There's no technical barrier at all to MS planning to include 8GB of GDDR5 all along, irrespective of the available density at launch. The point is that they have to weigh up the cost too.
So I suppose it would be fairer to say that the factors that I take to have influenced the decision are the uncertainties of the maturation of GDDR5 technology when viewed from a distance of 3 years, and the amount of money Microsoft would be willing to bank on that degree of uncertainty. If Microsoft knew for certain in 2010 that 4Gbit GDDR5 chips would be available in three years time, they would have gone for an architecture virtually identical to Sony's. Why wouldn't they? All of the custom silicon is there to mitigate the DDR3 bandwidth problems. That's just spending money fixing a problem that doesn't exist if they'd gone with higher bandwidth to start with.
If it were clear that Microsoft had gone with DDR3 for some other reason than a guarantee three years ago of the quantity they wanted at a price they were willing to pay, it would be clear now.
Hopefully it will not drive the price up but there is 8gb GDDR5, the dual shock 4 with the touch pad and there is also the eyetoy camera which I don't think we got any information if it will be included in the system but if it's also in it may affect the price.
I don't think we'll see a $600 price for the PS4 but $500-520 is pretty possible IMO.
Clearly Microsoft had access to the same information as Sony regarding RAM forecasts. But they chose DDR3 because their priorities were competitive pricing and including Kinect with every console. And I think that was the right move for them and the audience they want to reach.
If I had to guess, the original Kinect cost them around $100 to produce. The new one might cost around the same or a little more. So they had to defray some of that cost with lesser hardware, and perhaps they'll defray more through subsidization.
If I had to guess, the original Kinect cost them around $100 to produce. The new one might cost around the same or a little more. So they had to defray some of that cost with lesser hardware, and perhaps they'll defray more through subsidization.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
The point I want to make is, there never was an element of surprise for MS regarding GDDR5 memory. They knew about it or the possibilities of it but still did not go with that, for their reasons (price, performance, cost)
And when it comes to designing hardware, I find it a bit hard to believe that they, 3 years ago, set everything in stone on what kind of memory they would have, speeds of CPU etc etc. Most likely they had an aim or idea, based also on what kind of price they wanted to sell the machine... but specific details of what kind of memory and such, was not set in stone 3 years ago. Desired amount perhaps, but never ever what type..
But yeah, my point is.. I cannot believe that there was an element of surprise and that MS design the machine with DDR3 and ESRAM, for their own reasons, because it fitted their goals/pricepoints and scaleability..
Good post.
Pretty much.
Sony was not at all assured of being able to go with 8GB, and for a long time it looked like 4GB was the most they could try for.
When target specs first circulated for PS4, they said '2GB GDDR5, trying for 4GB'. 8GB seemed to be off the table.
I think Sony did get lucky to a certain extent. Microsoft's approach was far more bankable for 8GB, back when the decisions around this were being taken. I think MS wasn't willing to tolerate the uncertainty about GDDR5 and needed assurance upfront about 8GB being viable, I think it was much more of a non-negotiable for MS than for Sony. Yes, they knew the possibilities of GDDR5, but 2, 3 years ago that meant uncertainty about capacity-to-cost ratios...there was no knowledge of where things would be by the time of launch. DDR3 was a more mature technology with a more certain roadmap.
I'm not saying there was an element of surprise, though. I'm saying it was an element of uncertainty that Microsoft were clearly aware of. It's good forecasting to be aware of uncertainty. It's bad forecasting to be surprised by things.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
Brad Grenz
Member
Well, you'd be wrong. These were bets everyone was placing 3-4 years ago. No RAM supplier in the world could have told them GDDR5 in 4Gb densities would go into mass production Q1 in 2013. Semiconductor production schedules get fucked up ALL THE TIME. 8GB of GDDR5 would have looked super-risky. And you can't sit on a decision as important as your memory interface. That is fundamental to a system design (just look how much additional work was required in Durango adding ESRAM to the APU, plus the Move Engines!). MS took the sure thing with 8GB DDR3. Sony bet on unified, high memory bandwidth and were prepared to make due with on 4GBs because that was the only thing anyone could say with any confidence would be possible for a fall 2013 launch. By the time 8GB of GDDR5 started to look viable everyone was locked into their silicon already. By chance, a quirk of GDDR5 allowed Sony to upgrade the PS4 to 8GB without changing anything about their chip or motherboard. MS was 3 years deep in a DDR3/ESRAM design and couldn't change anything without setting themselves back by a year at least.
How? There is nothing to back it up except his own speculation.
I disagree, I think it would have been planned ahead of time if the 4Gb chips became available. I mean these chips don't just randomly get made one day, years of research and manufacturing costs go into these production plants, Sony would have known beforehand that they were likely to be ready around now or even late in the year if there were problems.
And I'm pretty sure your wrong with the chip placement, Sony has supposedly already designed the board so the chips could be swapped out. The 2Gb chips were already clamshelled on the board so that a literal swap would double the memory, it wouldn't make sense that they had 4GB memory from 2Gb densities just on one side as they could have just clamshelled them to reach 8GB already before 4Gb densities were available.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Gaiz, I read a pastebin that said the current specs were right, but MS is going to add 16GB of DDR3, a blitter and a VTE to Durango.
Shits going to be an amazing system that B-L-O-W-S the lolstation4 out da water!
Shits going to be an amazing system that B-L-O-W-S the lolstation4 out da water!
Can Crusher
Banned
It's disappointing that MS decided to take their fans on this ride, Nintendo style. The core of Xbox fans care about tech and graphics, so it's a shame that they have to suffer through this.
So many hoping for more, it's gonna be a rough launch.
So many hoping for more, it's gonna be a rough launch.
Relax dude. First world problems.
Lets not overdramatise videogames. I just watched The Impossible and hearing you speak like this about games just sounds...fucked up to be quite frank.