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[GavinGT]

I wish it was sooner, because then all of this nonsense (born of rumour) would go away.

It really is crazy that people are getting so riled up about features that haven't even been announced.

 

[nelsonroyale]

They will if MS mandates them to. I can see it happening.

At launch perhaps, I don't think MS has the pull to do that subsequently. What I mean is I don't think it would be that financially sound down the road. The difference will likely be there, but games are likely going to look impressive on both systems to such an extent that with most releases, visuals aren't going to be the main selling point.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Not only this, but realistically, the only differences between the two systems IF they do have similar hardware:

1. Framerate
2. Resoloution
3. Available memory
4. Available cpu cycles.

if both systems end up using these cpu's and gpu's. that's all it's really going to come down to. That's really all it came down to this current generation. the only difference in games between xbox and ps3 was one or a combination of those points above. There's no graphical effect one system is capable of that the other system is not.

But they can have better effects, of course.

 

[Maximilian Kolbe]

I wish it was sooner, because then all of this nonsense (born of rumour) would go away.

You should notice there still lots of hardware rumors for PS4 even after PS meeting

 

[Opus Angelorum]

It really is crazy that people are getting so riled up about features that haven't even been announced.

I'm all for discussion on the possible strengths/weaknesses of the PS4 (as we now know the hardware design), but for people to simply write off Microsoft based on documentation that could be well over a year old is crazy.

You should notice there still lots of hardware rumors for PS4 even after PS meeting

Indeed, but at least we have a confirmed baseline to go from.

 

[oldergamer]

But they of course can have better effects.

Better effects meaning what exactly? There's nothing one system can render the the other can't a a lower resolution or frame rate. Again, just like this gen with ps360

 

[Gemüsepizza]

I'm all for discussion on the possible strengths/weaknesses of the PS4 (as we now know the hardware design), but for people to simply write off Microsoft based on documentation that could be well over a year old is crazy.

If this documentation is false, why are there no other leaks?

Better effects meaning what exactly? There's nothing one system can render the the other can't a a lower resolution or frame rate. Again, just like this gen with ps360

More particles, better lighting, better shadows, better tesselation...

 

[HardtopMental1]

I've been thinking a similar thing. Also these CPU's listed for ps4 and rumored in 720, are they even fully DX11 capable ( supporting all the DX11 features? Why wouldn't ms be targeting something beyond DX11 like they did with the xbox 360 GPU.

yeah I mean thats the sensible thing to do more so then ever they need to have and extremely powerful console becuse they want to run overlay of applications and games. you need a lot of raw processing power and ram to do that especially with a revamped Ui thats suppose to be using speech recognition software see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c1gKTOQfuo&list=UUCb9_Kn8F_Opb3UCGm-lILQ&index=8

also being able to run all the Augmented reality stuff they have planned for kinect and their Ar glasses stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re1EatGRV0w

if anything what they're designing is going to be a beast!

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Well this was probably more due to one machine being more difficult, not less powerful.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. We have two big players with similar architectures, one of them more powerful (by how much we'll probably see in April) and both have the same 3rd party support.

Neither was ever in such a position since they entered the console business.

Come April won't really mean much i expect MS to have better looking games there since they had more time .
Even at E3 we won't get the whole picture don't expect to see what devs going to do with each system until a year later .
This not counting cross gen stuff that might hold back PS4\ 720 also .

Better effects meaning what exactly? There's nothing one system can render the the other can't a a lower resolution or frame rate. Again, just like this gen with ps360

Truth but this gen it's also the reason why mutli consoles owners bought the 360 version .
Which is more royalties for who ever has the better version which can add up in the long run .

 

[GavinGT]

But they of course can have better effects.

Since both systems will be capable of producing similar looking effects (just with different CPU burdens), I imagine they would try to match these effects on both consoles and just scale things like resolution and framerate. The average consumer doesn't have an eye for minor differences in resolution and framerate.

 

[xenorevlis]

Killzone : Shadow Fall was running on a 1.5GB development kit so it might suggest the final hardware only came together very recently.

Pretty sure that was their VRAM usage. Still, it suggests they were working with 4GB in mind total, and if the game is split down the middle memory usage wise like on PS3 (256+256MB) it could mean 3GB was used for the game, 1GB reserved for OS.

With the jump to 8GB (assuming OS remains at 1GB) that's more than double the available ram for them to play with.

 

[dead monkey uk]

I wish it was sooner, because then all of this nonsense (born of rumour) would go away.

Do you really think so? I am sure the MS reveal will start new nonsense and rumors. IF the Xbox is behind the PS4 in spec as rumored I am sure the reveal will give very few firm details on the spec.

 

[Arrogant Menace]

Vgleaks wouldn't know any modifications infos old

 

[KimonoNoNo]

They will if MS mandates them to. I can see it happening.

Surely if a game is to be released concurrently on both consoles they would have to go to cert at the same time to both.

How would MS know that the game sent to Sony for cert has better performance than the game sent to them.

 

[Maximilian Kolbe]

If this documentation is false, why are there no other leaks?

Can this count as leak?

Also i remember last week when i visited 2ch(Japanese BBS) Durango thread,they found out there are 8 IBM persons joined MS at 2010 or 2012,And 4 of them are about PPC A2
Not saying MS will use PowerPC,but it's pretty wired,maybe for BC?
http://www.logsoku.com/r/ghard/1360665976/776
http://www.logsoku.com/r/ghard/1360665976/779

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Since both systems will be capable of producing similar looking effects (just with different CPU burdens), I imagine they would try to match the effects on both consoles and just scale things like resolution and framerate. The average consumer doesn't have an eye for minor differences in resolution and framerate.

If the game already is in 1920x1080, they can't increase it any further. And afaik it's not helpful if a game has a framerate somewhere between 30 and 60fps, because of tearing etc., so maybe they will lock the framerate. And changing the intensity of effects isn't very hard, they probably only have to flip a few switches in their tools.

 

[coldfoot]

Now wait, it's totally possible for some algorithms to be much more efficient thanks to the on-die low latency memory. It's just unlikely that this would be enough to offset the overall rumored power difference, which would apply throughout all graphics processing.

Do you know of any real world situations where the data set size is between 4MB(L2) and 32MB (ESRAM) and the low latency would help? Serious question...

 

[GavinGT]

If the game already is in 1920x1080p, they can't increase it any further. And afaik it's not helpful if a game has a framerate somewhere between 30 and 60fps, because of tearing etc., so maybe they will lock the framerate. And to change the intensity of effects isn't very hard, they probably only have to flip a few switches in their tools.

I'm saying they'll scale down the resolution on the weaker console in order to produce the same visual effects.

 

[Kill Your Masters]

Come April won't really mean much i expect MS to have better looking games there since they had more time .
Even at E3 we won't get the whole picture don't expect to see what devs going to do with each system until a year later .
This not counting cross gen stuff that might hold back PS4\ 720 also .

Yeah I know, I was refering more to the specs. We still don't have a clear picture. Durango specs are from February 2012, and while VGLeaks was spot on so far with the PS4, it's still all speculation till we gat a official spec sheet from MS.

3rd party games will probably be pretty identical at least in the early stages of the generation.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

If this documentation is false, why are there no other leaks?

It's possible Microsoft became aware of the leak and closed the hole.

Do you really think so? I am sure the MS reveal will start new nonsense and rumors. IF the Xbox is behind the PS4 in spec as rumored I am sure the reveal will give very few firm details on the spec.

There will be more nonsense, but I firmly believe Microsoft will show some titles that are equally as impressive.

 

[Chrono]

I keep reading that the jaguar processor is nothing special and in a discussion on the PS3 graphics card many were also disappointed. All of these judgments come in comparison to current PC tech; can someone tell me how do these consoles (PS4/X720) compare to the old ones? Is the PS4's processor or GPU as big of a leap from the cell as the console's 8GB memory? If not, how much of a difference?

 

[Gemüsepizza]

It's possible Microsoft became aware of the leak and closed the hole.

All of them?

 

[tipoo]

Hopefully the people who were saying the 8 core Jaguar was worse than the previous gen CPUs will read this. Nothing really new to see in the article, but at least it explains why they won't be worse.

Each of the PS3s SPEs didn't even have branch prediction, limiting many tasks to the single PPE core. For all the theoretical FLOPS lead, in real world performance it won't be better than this Jaguar. Shit, if you just look at FLOPS, the Cell would be better than a Core i7, which it certainly is not.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

All of them?

As far as I'm aware all of the technical rumours are based on the same document.

 

[specialguy]

Do you really think so? I am sure the MS reveal will start new nonsense and rumors. IF the Xbox is behind the PS4 in spec as rumored I am sure the reveal will give very few firm details on the spec.

Yeah it will be interesting how they handle that.

Big kudos to Sony for revealing many pertinent PS4 specs. Personally I expected the days of companies giving out any specs was over.

 

[amstradcpc]

As far as I'm aware all of the technical rumours are based on the same document.

Yeah, and they will launch a 400mm2 chip. Come on...

 

[GavinGT]

I keep reading that the jaguar processor is nothing special and in a discussion on the PS3 graphics card many were also disappointed. All of these judgments come in comparison to current PC tech; can someone tell me how do these consoles (PS4/X720) compare to the old ones? Is the PS4's processor or GPU as big of a leap from the cell as the console's 8GB memory? If not, how much of a difference?

Read the article in the OP. It describes how the Durango processor surpasses the 360 processor by more intelligently handling the instructions it's being fed.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

*waits for Digital Foundry to pounce*

More like waiting for MS to reveal the specs because these leaks are now getting boring as its the same shit but said in a different way.

 

[Maximilian Kolbe]

As far as I'm aware all of the technical rumours are based on the same document.

Sound like internet version of Operation Bagration

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Well this was probably more due to one machine being more difficult, not less powerful.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. We have two big players with similar architectures, one of them more powerful (by how much we'll probably see in April) and both have the same 3rd party support.

Neither was ever in such a position since they entered the console business.

Yes but now one looks less powerful AND harder to develop for because of the split memory.

 

[amstradcpc]

Sound like internet version of Operation Bagration

And Lherre that knows the kits evolution say specs have not changed. So Operation Denial.

 

[Dead Prince]

kinda want to hear the kinect 2.0 spec and see where their shift in focus is

 

[CaptainFalafel]

Not only this, but realistically, the only differences between the two systems IF they do have similar hardware:

1. Framerate
2. Resoloution
3. Available memory
4. Available cpu cycles.

Pretty much this, and I believe it will only be the first two.

The success of PS4 and Durango will be based on the services they will offer that no other device can. We have already seen that Sony will be focusing on Gaikai and streaming this gen, so it will be interresting to see what Microsoft will bring to table to compete with that.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

And Lherre that knows the kits evolution say specs have not changed. So Operation Denial.

I'll wait for the console to release before I believe any insider knowledge, thanks.

 

[HeLLKnight]

still special sauce?. If ESRAM is 1,5 billion transistors forget about changes. ESRAM + 7770 + cpu is the size of a GTX 680. Or they go for something big like titan or this is what it is.

ESRAM couldn`t be that expensive/big. From by3d:

Scaning around the internet it seems that 64MBit SRAM chips have been produced on TSMCs 28nm process with a cell size of 0.127mm2/Mbit.

For standard 6T-SRAM that's 32.5mm² for 32MB. And for 1T-SRAM it would be 6mm².
On 28nm 32MB of eSRAM would be 33mm² for 6T, and about 6-10mm² for the 1T variant.

Nowhere near 120mm².

 

[KidBeta]

Not really you give them a parameter of what to expect and what you want them to design around now you can bump up specs or lower them remember original 360 games where being developed on pc hardware based on what Microsoft told developers the final gpu where not made available to developers till late 2005 couple months before the system launched which is why most people where complaining 360 games didn't look next gen at the time only looking like high res xbox games especially the launch games which is why gears was pushed back lot of people forget this.

If they didn't have a locked down spec nearly a year ago the dev kits wouldn't have shipped recently.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

As far as I'm aware all of the technical rumours are based on the same document.

I don't think that is correct.

One example is Eurogamer and their Orbis v Durango comparison article.

Blacksmith of the Future Leadbetter wrote that their information (which matches this) was gleamed from 3 separate sources. And he was keen to reiterate the sources were different.

I'd find you the quote if I wasn't on my phone.

 

[HardtopMental1]

If they didn't have a locked down spec nearly a year ago the dev kits wouldn't have shipped recently.

You or I or any media would not know whats in those final dev kits till Ms reveals their console This is the craziest they've been about information and if those kits are out there they're limited and and leak would be sure to point to where it came from. So no one would even dare to leak that info and Ive heard nothing about them locking down anything yet. if anything wont be till summer when they go in mass production so not really.

 

[oldergamer]

More particles, better lighting, better shadows, better tesselation...

Again, the hardware is basically the same there are no hard limitations to give one gpu a feature advantage over the other. Each graphic chip is capable of rendering the exact same things, what i said still stands.

the only differences between the two systems IF they do have similar hardware:

1. Framerate
2. Resoloution
3. Available memory
4. Available cpu cycles.

 

[meta4]

Atleast from the playstation side it is good to know that the hardware has Cerny and Carmack's seal of approval. No more pesky development trouble for dev's. Hopefully 720 has the same level of power so that people can just focus on what console they want based on exclusives and services.

 

[KidBeta]

You or I or any media would not know whats in those final dev kits till Ms reveals their console This is the craziest they've been about information and if those kits are out there they're limited and and leak would be sure to point to where it came from. So no one would even dare to leak that info and Ive heard nothing about them locking down anything yet. if anything wont be till summer when they go in mass production so not really.

True, but we do know the beta dev kit has the final GPU in it

 

[Drek]

It's possible Microsoft became aware of the leak and closed the hole.

They have what needs to be near-final dev kits in the wild at this point. You can't close that level of leakage. If there was anything particularly new to unveil a 3rd party developer somewhere would have leaked it by now.

 

[HardtopMental1]

Remember for all those saying final dev kits are out 360 final dev kits were going out in late august of 05 same time production began on the final skus so Im not buying any of this crap.

 

[Osiris]

Remember for all those saying final dev kits are out 360 final dev kits were going out in late august of 05 same time production began on the final skus so Im not buying any of this crap.

You should calm down, you've not been here long enough for this level of meltdown yet

 

[TheOddOne]

They have what needs to be near-final dev kits in the wild at this point. You can't close that level of leakage. If there was anything particularly new to unveil a 3rd party developer somewhere would have leaked it by now.

Usually they work with spec dev kits, not final, right?

 

[Arrogant Menace]

Im assuming Vgleaks must not have a source for Durango's dev kits?

 

[The Omega Man]

Is it pretty safe to assume that at this point MS's next console is going to be weaker than SONY's, what worries me is that featuees such as kinect can potentially take more cicles out of Durango's proccessing power and criple it even more

 

[Krabardaf]

So no real surprises... I'm still waiting for a proper reveal. Hope MS will be competitive for gamers.


Anyway, AMD must be extremely happy. All next gen CPU/GPU are provided by them(except Espresso). Pretty crazy.

Intel/Nvidia must have it bad. But AMD needed it more than them for sure.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Remember for all those saying final dev kits are out 360 final dev kits were going out in late august of 05 same time production began on the final skus so Im not buying any of this crap.

Calm down.

There will be loads of games being developed right now for the Xbox 3's launch, and those devs are using dev kits that will be more or less identical to the final set-up in terms of performance.

 

[HardtopMental1]

True, but we do know the beta dev kit has the final GPU in it

You forget in 05 the 360 had ati most power gpu that came out for pcs in 06 dev kits went out late so 360 games never started to look good till 07 all the games that came out like king kong madden gun all didnt look good. which is why gears was pushed back now its different pc tech is super advance now especially with silicon so devs might have and idea of what to develop for based on a design input because you have pcs with Gcs that can do it doesnt mean the final dev kits with the final gpu is in it its suppose to be a custom gpu super powerful im sure they want to super test that thing before putting it out or having info leak before they annouce so im not buy it.