The new top GPU created by AMD will incorporate the enhancements and costomizations made by Sony for the PS4.
Like you can see the new chip is yet based in GNC 1.x and it will feataure 8 ACEs / 64 queueds that Sony customized for PS4 GPU making both close in term os specs and features.
At PS4 reveal Cerny talked with Gamasutra about thee "major modifications" that Sony did over the AMD APU architecture to support the vision create over PS4. One of these modification was the ACEs / Queueds:
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Thirdly, said Cerny, "The original AMD GCN architecture allowed for one source of graphics commands, and two sources of compute commands. For PS4, we’ve worked with AMD to increase the limit to 64 sources of compute commands -- the idea is if you have some asynchronous compute you want to perform, you put commands in one of these 64 queues, and then there are multiple levels of arbitration in the hardware to determine what runs, how it runs, and when it runs, alongside the graphics that's in the system." http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/191007/inside_the_playstation_4_with_mark_.php?print=1 |
AMD hinted some modifications made by Sony put the PS4's APU difference from the A-series APUs... they worked in partnership.
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While Sony revealed some information about the AMD APU that will power the Playstation 4, the details that were made public were all about AMD's technologies rather than Sony's. AMD told The INQUIRER that the APU used is a custom A-series part that has a mix of AMD and Sony technology. |
What happened?
I'm guessing now AMD and Sony had some kind of deal that the modifications can be used by AMD in the future GPUs but they can't show that for the competitors... so Xbone didn't support these enhancements.
BTW the AMD worker that made part of Beyond3D said that...
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Since Cerny mentioned it I'll comment on the volatile flag. I didn't know about it until he mentioned it, but looked it up and it really is new and driven by Sony. The extended ACE's are one of the custom features I'm referring to. Also, just because something exists in the GCN doc that was public for a bit doesn't mean it wasn't influenced by the console customers. That's one positive about working with consoles. Their engineers have specific requirements and really bang on the hardware and suggest new things that result in big or small improvements. http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1761150#post1761150 |
It is interesting that PS4 tech lead the development of the future AMD GPU on PC.
Cerny works is even more impressive.
There are more enhancements... I'm curious to see what Sony did... stay tunned.
