By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sony Discussion - PS4 'isn't quite as powerful as Epic was hoping for,' Digital Foundry reports

ethomaz said:
drkohler said:
ethomaz said:

... the CPU have only 20 GB/s access to the RAM...

where does that number come from?

GDC.

"While the GPU has full access to 176GB/s, one source tells us that the CPU is more constrained at around 20GB/s - still pretty good at around two-thirds the level of bandwidth available to Intel's Ivy Bridge."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-playstation-4

In any case no CPU have this high access to RAM even in PC... 20GB/s is twice the bandwidth used in the TOP Intel CPU in the market. 


Doesn't the cell have like 25gb/s of bandwidth from the xdr memory in the ps3?



Around the Network

NYCrysis said:

Doesn't the cell have like 25gb/s of bandwidth from the xdr memory in the ps3?

Yeap... Cell in PS3 have a better bandwidth than the GPU RSX but the Cell do graphics tasks in PS3 at the same time that share RAM with the GPU (the 256MB XDR can be accessed by the RXN using the Cell like a Data Move).

The CPU in PS4 can't do graphcic tasks and it don't need to share RAM with GPU... it is all unifed.



DieAppleDie said:
Im the only one that thinks GDDR5 and lack of eRam is gonna bite Sony in the ass?
Of course PS4 is going to be the most powerful system this upcoming gen, no doubt about it.

Well considering that out of almost all the developers that have come out and said something about the ps4 have said that Sony having 8GB gddr5 is really great.  Anyway your probably not the only one, but I'm going with the developers on this one.



Final ps4 hardware is more powerful then beta kits



VITA 32 GIG CARD.250 GIG SLIM & 160 GIG PHAT PS3

DieAppleDie said:
Im the only one that thinks GDDR5 and lack of eRam is gonna bite Sony in the ass?
Of course PS4 is going to be the most powerful system this upcoming gen, no doubt about it.

Well the eDRAM or eSRAM have a purpose... try to avoid the bottleneck caused by the low bandwidth communication between GPU and RAM... Wii U needs that, the Nextbox seems to need that but PS4 with 176GB/s bandwidth between GPU and RAM? No... for PS4 32MB eSRAM or eDRAM can make the things worse than access directly the RAM.

That is the technical explanation... the GPUs on PC didn't use eDRAM/eSRAM too because they have 150, 200, 300 or 400GB/s bandwidth.



Around the Network
ethomaz said:

Sony itself said at GDC... there are a lot of articles about and I linked the DigitalFoundry one.

GPU max bandwidth: 176GB/s
CPU max bandwidth: 20GB/s

Taking that eurogamer reference in the previous post, it is actually a "we heard that..." story and nothing even remotely concrete, could be a simple guesstimate like mine above. I don't see a technical reason to cripple cpu access to 1/9 of gpu access



ethomaz said:

The CPU in PS4 can't do graphic tasks and it don't need to share RAM with GPU... it is all unifed.

You might rephrase that statement. The point is there is only one address bus to ram, so yes, cpu and gpu "share ram", all of it...

This is essentially the point of NextBox using edram memory. The gpu can talk to the edram while somebody else can talk to the main ram, at the same time - different address busses. We will see how developers are actually going to use the edram. For starters, my suspicion is that developers will simply use the edram as a frame buffer and call it a day..

Of course the PS4 could also have edram like NextBox. Apart from getting really expensive at some point, this would obviously increase performance. However, since you have two memory pools now. you the developer has to take care of managing the two pools efficiently. Sony went for a very expensive, easier to handle single memory pool, MS went with a very cheap memory pool, and harder to handle small expensive memory pool. The nd result will be the same performance for both consoles, give or take an fps, once developers figured it all out. 



drkohler said:

You might rephrase that statement. The point is there is only one address bus to ram, so yes, cpu and gpu "share ram", all of it...

This is essentially the point of NextBox using edram memory. The gpu can talk to the edram while somebody else can talk to the main ram, at the same time - different address busses. We will see how developers are actually going to use the edram. For starters, my suspicion is that developers will simply use the edram as a frame buffer and call it a day..

Yeap.... I think what I said can be understood in the wrong way.

What I meam is the RSX to use more than 256MB RAM it need to ask to Cell to address and share the RAM... so it need use bus between RSX and Cell and SystemRAM... in PS4 the GPU and CPU have access to all the RAM.

About the eSRAM I think MS will try to make this transparent to developers.



ethomaz said:

Pemalite said:

Which is enough for 1080P gaming for a year or two before games will be forced back into 720P land again.
GPU's in the PC space already have 288Gb/s at the high end, next generation will boost it to 384Gb/s if the rumours of the hardware are to go by and that's memory bandwidth JUST for the graphics card.

Also, what about the other components? CPU is taking 20Gb/s, what about the optical drive? mechanical drive? I/O processors, they all take some too, so the GPU will still end up less than 154Gb/s of memory bandwidth, making it end up probably with less than a Desktop Radeon 7850's memory bandwidth, ouch.

lol no... 200GB/s, 300GB/s, 400GB/s, etc is more for super high resolutions with super high AA filters... 1080p with 4xAA is fine with less than 170GB/s.


Rubbish.
You think texture's, effects, geometry data doesn't take any bandwidth? The more bandwidth, the more you can dial up those effects, regardless of resolution.
You are also forgetting that the PS4 is fixed hardware, it's not going to magically get any speed increases in it's life time, 170GB/s is fine now, but how amenic isn't it going to look in a few years time?
Hell, the Playstation 2 could in theory do 1080P with 4x Anti-Aliasing, but guess what? The games are going to look horrible as sacrifices to other things will have to be made and the PS2's memory bandwidth isn't anywhere near even a PS4.

ethomaz said:
drkohler said:
ethomaz said:

... the CPU have only 20 GB/s access to the RAM...

where does that number come from?

GDC.

"While the GPU has full access to 176GB/s, one source tells us that the CPU is more constrained at around 20GB/s - still pretty good at around two-thirds the level of bandwidth available to Intel's Ivy Bridge."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-playstation-4

In any case no CPU have this high access to RAM even in PC... 20GB/s is twice the bandwidth used in the TOP Intel CPU in the market. 


Actually, my processor is hitting almost 70GB/s in memory bandwidth, quad-channel DDR and all.
The memory controller certainly isn't that crap.

ethomaz said:

NYCrysis said:

Doesn't the cell have like 25gb/s of bandwidth from the xdr memory in the ps3?

Yeap... Cell in PS3 have a better bandwidth than the GPU RSX but the Cell do graphics tasks in PS3 at the same time that share RAM with the GPU (the 256MB XDR can be accessed by the RXN using the Cell like a Data Move).

The CPU in PS4 can't do graphcic tasks and it don't need to share RAM with GPU... it is all unifed.


Again, Rubbish.

The Cell is a low-performance cheap processor as it's a chip going into a cost-sensitive device, the "graphics" processing can be done on any modern processor just as good or significantly better than the Cell.
Besides, most of the graphics effects the Cell does is usually frame-buffer effects and even games like Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 had that.

The PS4 can certainly do everything the PS3 can, it's faster and superior in every way. But, I beleive it could have still been better in the CPU, memory bandwidth and memory amount department, it's still slower than a several year old PC.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

This stuff is crazy and nitpicky.

The PS3 and 360 both had better graphical models than the Wii this current generation.

Which device has the most sales to date? Wii...

What software sold the most? WiiSports...

WiiSports and the Wii was not at all a graphical powerhouse. It introduced "motion control".

The generation will be won and lost with the timing and release of games that are relevant to what the consumer community wants. That's how Wii won this current generation and that's how every generation has been won to date.

Wii U is not doing anything because the games aren't innovative enough. PS4 game showings so far have not shown innovation in gameplay. The next gen is up for grabs until someone comes up with a game that everyone says, "I haven't seen anything like that, and it is something I must have!".