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

Suke on 04 April 2013

Can we all just agree that the Wii U and PS4 are next gen systems.



“Don’t follow the hype, follow the games”

— 

Here a little quote I want for those to keep memorize in your head for this coming next gen.                            

 By: Suke
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Raze on 05 April 2013
VGKing said:
Raze said:
So, PS4 is 2 PS3's duct taped together? ;)

It's a console, its not going to match a PC, not even a mid-range PC. This is expected. My 2 yr old $600 gaming rig is slightly more powerful than a PS4, that's the way technology goes in console land.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. PS4 will match or even surpass mid-range PCs. The reasons for this are obvious, but I feel like you need to hear them.

-PS4 is a clsoed-sytem. Specs will remain the same throughout its life.
-Performance will improve over time as devs push the console more and more.
-APU design w/  unified 8GB GDDR5 RAM. GAMES WILL ACTUALLY BE BUILT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS.

PS4 isn't a mid-range PC. It's much more. It is a high-end console. There isn't a direct comparison to PC. So no, your 2 year old $600 gaming rig isn't more powerful than the PS4 unless you're counting pure unoptimized raw power. Can I ask you to post your specs? Screenshot would be best.

I wrote that backwards, I meant PS4 is slightly more powerful than my 2 yr old PC.

I can answer you quicker than I can get screen grabs at the moment,as the buidl is still fresh in my mind:

AMD Phenom II X6 3.2ghz

16 GB DDR3

Radeon 6790 2GB 256-bit GDDR5

3TB SATA 6

I do love how you feel "I need to hear them", reminds me of the people that "need" to come to my house on Saturday mornings because I "need" to hear about their faith. =D

Telling me that the PS4 is a closed system is simply telling me its a console, they're all closed systems. This is why when they are manufactured, the PC market has already surpassed them. When they commit to specs, it takes about 2 years to get the finished product ready to be mass produced, which means that the best computer 2 years ago is what they're basing their tech off of. This has always been the case.

Of course, as with all consoles, the quality will improve over time, this has been going on for 20+ years now.

How much ACTUAL ram is in the PS4? The 8GB GDDR is nice and all, but how about the bottleneck to the processor via the actual RAM, which I believe is DDR3?



The Carnival of Shadows - Folk Punk from Asbury Park, New Jersey

http://www.thecarnivalofshadows.com 


Hynad on 05 April 2013
Raze said:
VGKing said:
Raze said:
So, PS4 is 2 PS3's duct taped together? ;)

It's a console, its not going to match a PC, not even a mid-range PC. This is expected. My 2 yr old $600 gaming rig is slightly more powerful than a PS4, that's the way technology goes in console land.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. PS4 will match or even surpass mid-range PCs. The reasons for this are obvious, but I feel like you need to hear them.

-PS4 is a clsoed-sytem. Specs will remain the same throughout its life.
-Performance will improve over time as devs push the console more and more.
-APU design w/  unified 8GB GDDR5 RAM. GAMES WILL ACTUALLY BE BUILT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS.

PS4 isn't a mid-range PC. It's much more. It is a high-end console. There isn't a direct comparison to PC. So no, your 2 year old $600 gaming rig isn't more powerful than the PS4 unless you're counting pure unoptimized raw power. Can I ask you to post your specs? Screenshot would be best.

I wrote that backwards, I meant PS4 is slightly more powerful than my 2 yr old PC.

I can answer you quicker than I can get screen grabs at the moment,as the buidl is still fresh in my mind:

AMD Phenom II X6 3.2ghz

16 GB DDR3

Radeon 6790 2GB 256-bit GDDR5

3TB SATA 6

I do love how you feel "I need to hear them", reminds me of the people that "need" to come to my house on Saturday mornings because I "need" to hear about their faith. =D

Telling me that the PS4 is a closed system is simply telling me its a console, they're all closed systems. This is why when they are manufactured, the PC market has already surpassed them. When they commit to specs, it takes about 2 years to get the finished product ready to be mass produced, which means that the best computer 2 years ago is what they're basing their tech off of. This has always been the case.

Of course, as with all consoles, the quality will improve over time, this has been going on for 20+ years now.

How much ACTUAL ram is in the PS4? The 8GB GDDR is nice and all, but how about the bottleneck to the processor via the actual RAM, which I believe is DDR3?

The PS4 uses an APU with 8GB of GDDR5. It doesn't have an other type of RAM for system. It's all unified. Literally.

Maybe you should consider catching up to 2013.



Machiavellian on 05 April 2013
Hynad said:
Kynes said:
theprof00 said:
Slimebeast said:
Hynad said:

When did Epic say that, exactly?

That article is misleading and missed something really important in Digital Foundry's analysis.

A nice update directly from Epic themselves:


Update: Brian Karis, senior graphics programmer at Epic Games adds some more insight in the comments below, explaining some of the more obvious differences - particularly in terms of the very different lighting schemes. At the technical level, the two demos are closer than it seems:

"The biggest changes actually came from the merging of two separate cinematics, the original Elemental and the extended Elemental we showed at PS4's launch event. Each had different sun directions and required some compromises to join them. This resulted in some major lighting differences that aren't platform related but were due to it being a joined cinematic. Another effect, in the original you could see the mountains through the door where in the merged one we made the view through the door white since the mountains outside were no longer the same. Same deal with the mountain fly by. The old mountain range doesn't exist in the new one. These changes from the merge make direct comparisons somewhat inaccurate.

"Feature wise most everything is the same, AA resolution, meshes, textures (PS4 has tons of memory), DOF (I assure you both use the same Bokeh DOF, not sure why that one shot has different focal range), motion blur.

"Biggest differences are SVOGI has been replaced with a more efficient GI solution, a slight scale down in the number of particles for some FX, and tessellation is broken on ps4 in the current build which the lava used for displacement. We will fix the tessellation in the future."

So yeah, this article is bullcrap, and fishing for clicks at the expense of integrity.

No it's not. It's a perfectly valid conclusion to draw when you realize what features are missing from the PS4 demo compared to the PC demo, and your quoted statement by Epic shows they were unable to deny that. Instead it confirms exactly those missing features that Epic, just like all gamers, had high hopes for:

* lack of SVO global illumination 

* and less particles on the PS4 version

See bolded


Non real time global illumination is always more efficient, but much less realistic. It's not a good thing having to use pre-baked illumination, it's used because it has much less performance penalty, not because it is better visually. That alone tells us that the performance difference is there, but anyone with hardware knowledge could have said it before any tech demo.

Yet GI can look just as good as SVOGI depending on what the content is and how it is implemented. SVOGI is neat, but not having it in games isn't a game breaker. Games will still look gorgeous. In fact, I don't think most people will notice any significant difference between the 2 methods.

And the judge is still out on whether or not that feature is possible on the PS4 down the line. When engines for the console get mature.


I am going to have to go with Spin on Epic part.  You take out a feature that does add a level of visual fidelity better than GI then because people have disected your demo, you need to make some type of comment as damage control.  I watch the PC and PS4 demo a lot and the SVOGI just looks better.  Not enough to make any real difference but a noticable difference. 

In the end who really cares, the PS4 looks good enough and as people have stated by the time the PS4 catch its wind it probably will be able to meet the PC level or better in that demo.  I guess the key thing is, that the PS4 does not have that much headroom where it can grunt through unoptimized code.



1337 Gamer on 05 April 2013
Cyborg13B said:

Oh come on that's just as good!  Considering the price of the GTX680: 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130768

 

$500.  And the price of the entire Playstation 4 alone is $400.  That's a pretty remarkable amount of detail.  A very minor loss of detail.  Plus consider that Epic Games didn't design it from the ground up for Playstation 4 - a radically different architecture from the PC.  Why not try porting Killzone 4 to the PC?  Far more detai would be lost!

I completely agree with you except for the bolded above!

Really you think that a PC with a 680 wouldnt be able to run Killzone 4? When right before it you said that the 680 was much more powerful? Please, if they really wanted they could easily port over Killzone 4 to the PC without any "lost details". Infact I would be willing to bet that it would look better than it does in the PS4. Simply because PCs have access to $500 GPUs.

Now obviously its not going to happen but I hate when people make ignorant comments like this.

OT: THe PS4 is a solid piece of hardware. The engine demonstrations were impressive to say the least. This article is poorly written and even more poorly titled.



I mostly play RTS and Moba style games now adays as well as ALOT of benchmarking. I do play other games however such as the witcher 3 and Crysis 3, and recently Ashes of the Singularity. I love gaming on the cutting edge and refuse to accept any compromises. Proud member of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race. Long Live SHIO!!!! 

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NYCrysis on 05 April 2013

Just wondering guys svogi, and more particles on screen... Is it really needed? I was hoping that next gen would involve the evolution of gaming immersion through major physics and bigger worlds. For me next gen would be open world uncharted graphics in 1080p 60fps with battlefield like physics. I could do 30fps sp but mp has to be 60fps.



Kynes on 05 April 2013



Mr Puggsly on 05 April 2013

Fewer particles and flat lava? They better sell this console for under $200.



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Pemalite on 05 April 2013
NYCrysis said:
Just wondering guys svogi, and more particles on screen... Is it really needed? I was hoping that next gen would involve the evolution of gaming immersion through major physics and bigger worlds. For me next gen would be open world uncharted graphics in 1080p 60fps with battlefield like physics. I could do 30fps sp but mp has to be 60fps.


I would say extra particles is needed.
What's the point in complex physics if nothing is going to show it off? All well and dandy to have a couple of large chunks of rubble being influenced by physics...

But with thousands of particles influenced by physics (Something PC users have been able to appreciate for years), it truely does looks awesome, just a shame the PS4 isn't going to have the performance to be able to do it unless developers set-aside some GPU compute time which will take away from other effects, the pathetic processor sure ain't up to the task that's for sure.

Think about it, imagine rain or hail bouncing off vehicles, roads, houses, even other characters or snow in tree's that falls realistically, smoke that instead of being static and going through solid objects actually follows a path outside...

If the relatively "average" graphics of uncharted gets your socks off, just wait a couple more years for developers to take advantage of the new consoles.



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

justinian on 05 April 2013

Is it really fair to compare a dedicated graphics card that cost  £400 to £500 (Nvidia GTX 680) with a console that will likely cost less and expect the same results?