Why isn't anyone talking about Next Gen? (1 Viewer)

Predict your next gen future:

  • OMG! I'm getting the Bone - give me Kinect and used games!!

    Votes: 6 15.8%
  • PS4 - love me some rootkitz

    Votes: 9 23.7%
  • BOTH@!! MOAR, MOAR, mAOR!!

    Votes: 4 10.5%
  • PC Games 4 lyfe

    Votes: 5 13.2%
  • Pfft

    Votes: 6 15.8%
  • (vote at your own risk - option to be edited later)

    Votes: 8 21.1%

  • Total voters
    38

buzd

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With the recent conclusion of E3 and announcements by some of the leaders in the videogame industry of brand new technology and features in the gaming industry, I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread on the VG about this.

Both M$ and rootkit-leader Sony have released the specs of their new systems showing them to be nearly identical:
  • Both systems feature multicore processors of roughly 2-20 cores
  • Both systems have DDS5+ memory with speedy interfaces
  • Bluray
  • Both systems allow used games sales and laugh in the face of DMR
  • Fanboys on both sides of the aisle are holding hands and declaring both consoles "winners" and "awesome"
  • Rumors of "cross controller compatibility" abound

It seems that the main differentiator between the system will be the hefty price tag difference - $100 more for the Bone) - thought that purportedly includes some media-integration features, as well as an always on camera that links directly to your local government representatives. PS4 of course will likely have rootkits as DLC.

What say you VG? Have you heard of these new systems? Are they on your radar? What are you going to do?


Poll forthcoming.
 
not really interested in jumping to next gen without a game that is compelling enough to justify it. i don't really need the entertainment integration because because I've accomplished all i need with my Mac and Apple devices.

i'd likely just stick with the 360 and the step kids PS3 until such time i have no other choice but to upgrade.
 
bono_zps69e0a0e2.jpg
 
No one really wants to spend 400-500 dollars for the next generation when the current generation can go for a few more years. There is still moar crying to do. This isn't quite the upgrade that the Ps2 to PS3 - Xbox to 360 was either.

“Although we’re very excited about Xbox One, we remain dedicated to Xbox 360 now and for years to come. In fact, we are expecting some of the greatest blockbusters of 2013 and 2014 to come out on Xbox 360.”

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20130614/OFFDUTY02/306140030
 
With the recent conclusion of E3 and announcements by some of the leaders in the videogame industry of brand new technology and features in the gaming industry, I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread on the VG about this.

Both M$ and rootkit-leader Sony have released the specs of their new systems showing them to be nearly identical:
  • Both systems feature multicore processors of roughly 2-20 cores
  • Both systems have DDS5+ memory with speedy interfaces
  • Bluray
  • Both systems allow used games sales and laugh in the face of DMR
  • Fanboys on both sides of the aisle are holding hands and declaring both consoles "winners" and "awesome"
  • Rumors of "cross controller compatibility" abound

It seems that the main differentiator between the system will be the hefty price tag difference - $100 more for the Bone) - thought that purportedly includes some media-integration features, as well as an always on camera that links directly to your local government representatives. PS4 of course will likely have rootkits as DLC.

What say you VG? Have you heard of these new systems? Are they on your radar? What are you going to do?


Poll forthcoming.

#1. Both system employ the AMD 8 core Jaguar chipset
#2. PS4 uses 8gb of GDDR5 Ram/Xbox One Uses DDR3 Ram(which is slower)
#3. Correct
#4. Mostly correct, especially after MS just came off the DRM issue.
#5. Ok, whatever.

Hardware

Technically, they are hugely similar: eight-core processors (both reported to be running at a frequency of 1.6GHz), custom AMD graphics processors, Blu-ray drives. But there are some fundamental differences. The two GPUs employ AMD's latest Graphics Core Next architecture, which is divided into working blocks known as Compute Units. The PS4 version has 18 CUs generating 1.84 teraflops of processing power, while the Xbox one has only 12 CUs; which, in theory , gives Sony's machine a 50% advantage in terms of raw shader performance (for example, lighting and other graphics effects). It's never quite this simple because other design and technical elements of the SoC can affect performance, but it's certainly an indication that there is more graphics grunt there for PS4.

Sony's machine also uses 8GB of GDDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 176GB/sec as opposed to the Xbox One with its 8GB of DDR3 RAM. GDDR5 memory is optimised for high bandwidth, which is perfect for use in graphics calculations, but also has higher latency than DDR3 RAM, which would be a problem for a general purpose CPU. However, because the PS4 architecture places the GPU and CPU on the same die, the latency between the two may be minimalised. In short, the adoption of a graphics-friendly form of memory may work to PS4's advantage as a games-targeted machine – even though GDDR5 is more expensive to implement. There's a thorough summing up of the system design here.

It's also worth reading the detailed overview of the technologies at AnandTech, though. The exhaustive article points out that the Xbox One architecture is designed with a variety of considerations beyond gaming – especially implementation with other MS platforms – and this shows in the tech specs.

A developer's view
We asked an experienced games coder about the differences between Xbox One and PS4's approach to system memory. He has asked to remain anonymous, but this is what he wrote...

"Memory-wise there are really deep areas you can get into on how Sony has optimised certain paths to access the RAM. Microsoft will hopefully be doing similar stuff to that, I imagine – we're only disclosed on PS4 so I don't know for sure, they're not dumb though.

"Regarding the RAM type, however, GDDR5 equals 176gb/sec, DDR3 equals 68gb/sec – I don't know the exact numbers for the Xbox One RAM but it'll be around that. GDDR5 is slightly higher latency, which means the time between requesting a piece of data and getting it to the CPU/GPU to work with can be slightly longer than with DDR3. This latency can be hidden by well-written code on CPU and normally is hidden well by GPUs due to how their pipelines work (which is why GDDR is normally found on GPU's).

"Ultimately though, that 2.5x faster bandwidth number means that a larger amount of data can be taken from RAM, processed by the CPU (or more importantly on these new architectures, the Compute Units on the GPU) and spat back out to RAM to either process again or render. At the end of the day, everything in games comes down to: 'grab information'; 'transform that data somehow'; 'spit it back out' – so being faster at this is a very good thing.

"Microsoft is winning bandwidth back for the GPU through the 32MB ESRAM (102gb/sec I believe, and assuming you're using this RAM a lot, it means that the total Microsoft bandwidth is 168gb/sec); this will even things back out a bit but require a bit of extra management by developers and it is only 32MB which limits the amount of uses.

"This kind of architecture with faster RAM for the GPU to use for framebuffers (the block of data storing the image being rendererd out or nowadays temporary graphic buffers storing lighting/material information) is something developers are used to working with, but it's more complex than the approach needed on the PS4."

As posted from: Xbox One v PS4: the complete comparison | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Which just updated 4 hours ago.
 

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