[DF] Metro Redux: what it's really like to develop for PS4 and Xbox One

[Solid-Stark]

Intrinsic said:

walsufnir said:

Oh yes, if you compare this in this way, sure. But GPUs alone can't do anything. They have to be "fed" and this involves CPUs which are the same on both systems. Even more confusing and confusing the imaginary comparison totally is the fact that nowadays consoles run a fully fletched multitasking system which eats up 2 cores and 3gb of ram on both systems. So the scheduler on both systems (which also takes cpu-time) has to handle the game (which of course runs at highest priority) and has to deal with other programs that eat up cpu time. Furthermore there are caches and so on which no one takes into consideration when talking about real life performance of the consoles.

People only mention GPU and GDDR5 and conclude known percentages of advantage while you only see a part of the whole picture where all those other facts rely on.

Again, this is true but.....

Both consoles have the same CPU. And as far as games are concerned, CPUs do very specific things especially when designing on hardware so similar. But going off what he said in the interview, its clear that the APIs and drivers that govern the function and efficiency of the CPU is further along on the PS4 than it is on the XB1 as MS seems to be trying really hardto bring its APIs up to at least aprity with the PS4.

As I said, every single factor if looked at sincerely points to the PS4 not being just marginally more powerful. Like everything that could be said about the game development process or enviroment will lean in favour of the PS4. And all these little things while great on their own, has to add up in someway not somehow overall detract. The PS4 has

 

• Better APIs (CPU realted) and a better closer to the meatl shader language
• more GPU cores (50% more) and higher GPU compute capability (300% more)
• while both consoles give devs access to 5GB RAM, the PS4 has an overall larger pool of fatser RAM all under onc address.
• 100% more Render output units
• Over 30% more texture mapping units

 

Any one of those things should give the PS4 a slight advantage, and some of them should give it a really big advantage. But somehow, everyone seems to want us to believe that all of thses things combined doesn' amount to much? I am not saying that the PS4 gives 100% perfomance 100% of the time, but neither would the XB1. 

All I really care to know is what stuff like what I mentioned above means for the respective dev platforms. I dunno, I just think that the PS4 should be capale of a lot more than a resolution bump and more framerate stability.

This is possibly as clear as it gets, and not just on paper. Everytime I have read about a developer claiming the difference isn't much it has been a third party developer. First party developers, or exclusive games, will always be more optimized to really show what the hardware is capable of. Removing any form of customizations (in other words, yes generalize), these developers claim a 260 and 270 are vitually on par, when real world performance show they are not. On that note, if we look at how games are performing, only multiplatform games seem to show a minor difference where as exclusives, in particular Infamous, have shown why it is not minor but clearly better. Why third party games show a minor difference is a topic that looks to go on a tangent.