Sony has been pushing the fact that the PS4 is incredibly simple to develop for. The console will be receiving many many titles at launch from first and third-party developers. One of the main reasons for this compared to the PS3 is that it is easier to create a game on the PS4.
Mark Cerny, lead architect of the system, revealed a lot of information to the Japanese press (translated via GAF), and we have some details of that now.
“This will also lead to the main difference with the PS3 era,” he said. “The main difference is, we will have many titles for launch. Because game development is easier, there shouldn’t be a barrier as there had been previously.
“PS3 had the image that it was difficult to develop for. Even the PS2 wasn’t that easy. PS4 has a PC CPU and a GPU that’s been enhanced from a PC so the game lineup should become very rich.”
He also revealed that they are trying to replicate the SPU Runtime System of the PS3. If you remember the SPUs were able to do little tasks very efficiently and at lightning speed, reducing the load off the GPU. Since the PS4 doesn’t have the Cell processor, there needs to be a different way achieve the same effect. Cerny explains how they are trying to accomplish this.
“We’re trying to replicate the SPU Runtime System (SPURS) of the PS3 by heavily customizing the cache and bus,” he said. ”SPURS is designed to virtualize and independently manage SPU resources. For the PS4 hardware, the GPU can also be used in an analogous manner as x86-64 to use resources at various levels.
“This idea has 8 pipes and each pipe(?) has 8 computation queues. Each queue can execute things such as physics computation middle ware, and other proprietorially designed workflows. This, while simultaneously handling graphics processing.”
He also mentioned that developers probably won’t be using this functionality early on in the PS4′s lifecycle but later on this could become an extremely important function.
The PS4 will be launched this holiday season and more information will be released at E3. Mostdevelopers reacted positively at PS4 specs, and majority of them praised the 8GB GDDR5 RAM of the system.
