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Mark Cerny: When making consoles, we're not trying to build low-cost PCs

Zathalus

Member
They are basically PCs with one or two extras put in. Compare a PS5 vs PC you can buy today to a PS2 vs a PC back in 2003.
 

splattered

Member
You can't speed up development time due to the complexity of making video games.

Making a 2000 game is easy now. But making a 2020 game is hard, because of all the new technology and trainings that you need to do.

And what is worse is that you get new tech every 2-3 years, which increases your development time.

AI might make the development easier, but it will increase the complexity of the development as you need to track of everything and make sure it works very well.

don't worry we will soon have AI to QA AI soon enough :p
 

Fabieter

Member
This is just more 'we believe in generations' type pandering.

Both consoles are essentially low cost PCs. Nothing wrong with that, just got to own it.

Yes its fine just be honest with it and don't gaslight people into thinking you still care ;)
 

Xyphie

Member
So can we install Windows 10/11, Ubuntu/Manjaro and play all PC games and emulators?

Sure. Google "AMD BC-250" or 4700S and buy that board with the PS5 SoC and you have something that allows you to run any software you'd like.

To be serious though, the point is that there's very little bespoke or novel about the PS4/PS5 hardware compared to previous generations of console hardware, because it's just no longer feasible to do anything but a cost-optimized PC running a different software stack as a console.
 
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Very interesting new information. We know the first prototype PS5 APU (Ariel) was actually lacking hardware RT and here he confirms they actually included RT quite late into PS5 development! Xbox Series could have had a big hardware advantage if they had not included RDNA2 RT into PS5 at the last minute! Another great decision by Cerny here.
I have been very surprised by the degree to which developers are using ray-tracing. Putting that in, that was a big decision and actually a rather late one.
 

SHA

Member
He's hinting for the Secret Sauce cause the hardware industry is running out of choices to push Moores law, it's obvious.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
You think this is some gotcha when it just further shows my point. There's nothing novel about what's the Switch 2 is going to be, it's just generation n-1 ARM and nVidia IP.
So, not a "PC".
It took Cerny 4 years to build PS5.
It took me an afternoon to build my PC 🗿
What took you so long? CPU cooler or the power switch jumper?
 
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skit_data

Member
Sony made av very wise decision to have Cerny be their system architect. They were also a bit lucky because there's probably not that many people that has the same first hand experience working from top to bottom of the development pipeline. It's quite enouraging to know he still keeps a foot inside actual development still as a producer, it's effevtively a live input from one of the most effective studios in the business.
I find his comments on developers going for 60fps and the usage of ray-tracing a bit funny tbh, mostly due to the context of him being the producer of Spider-Man 2.
Since it's one of the games that manages to check both those boxes in one single graphics mode it's like a subtle humble brag or something xD
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
They did tho, PS5 performs as a 6600 XT at most, with dips due to very weak CPU and high latency RAM, which is great for graphics for not so much for CPU stuff.

In my opinion that is great because that means better cross compatibility with other systems, and in theory, better ports for PC but that ain't happening sometimes lol, I guess for engine engineers it's still way better to deal with less variables and with more similar ones in the systems.
 

FeralEcho

Member
Could've fooled me considering that since the PS4 days that's how it is lmao.

why you always lying GIF


Did someone castrate all these Sony execs and employees? Someone please bring their balls back cuz all I hear are fucking lies.
 
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Hudo

Member
They didn't.
A PC is not defined by its components. What defines the entire Wintel system concept are the standards and interfaces that connect and bind the components together.

Change them, and its no longer a "PC".
So Macs aren't PCs either?
 

SonGoku

Member
I'll be very curious to see the direction he sets for next gen. Big NPUs are a given with a lot more game AI, neural upscaling, perhaps vocal conversations being a cornerstone of next gen gaming. What else? Does he still focus on SSD performance or has it just been fine since PS5?
Next gen there will be a big push for path tracing i believe, and hopefully R* does some crazy interactive world to entice publishers to create more complex interactive worlds and AI
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
create more complex interactive worlds and AI
This is what I want more so. More interactive worlds and insane physics with everything in the world. That will do more for graphics than shinier paint. Look how we were wowed at the physics from HL2 Source demos back in the day.

Dial that shit up to 1,000.
 

Dorago

Member
Running off an x86-64 AMD APU is the definition of low cost PC architecture. The PS3/360 era was the last time consoles were anything special with their custom RISC Power-PC architectures. The Steam Deck even has the same style APU that the console do. A real console will do it different.
 
Cerny is brilliant. I agree there is definitely a place for consoles, and I applaud his efforts in favor of making Playstation consoles dev-friendly. He definitely understands that some kind of exclusive feature needs to be part of a PS console in order to make devs choose it as their target platform. But if Sony confirms too closely to the generic PC spec and unique features aren't widely utilized, it only hurts their position as a platform owner. When given the choice, studios almost always choose whatever takes the least amount of effort to port - especially at times like these where dev costs get under control. Write once, run anywhere does not necessarily yield the best end-result.
 
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