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Forums - Sony Discussion - Inside the PlayStation 4 With Mark Cerny

BloodyRain said:
lol I have no clue what most of that article even says. So what does all that mean in layman terms?The only thing I got from that was that the ps4 is going to be awesome xD

Basically, it means that they studied how PC games actually run on a PC system (they probably had a state machine in their lab that analysed some modern games down to the last clock cycle). The key bottlenecks in PC gaming are a) when cpu and gpu have to talk with each other, they basically use "morse code" - incredibly slow by today's speed standards (a single, unique "command" thread has to talk to the gpu over the PCIe-bus). b) your typical gpu on a pc graphics card may show a high number of TFlops raw power on the advertisement sheet. However, up to a quite high percentage of that incredible power cannot be used at various moments, depending on what you do (because that giant TFlop number is basically calculated as "when all transistors are switching" - basically a state that doesn't exist at any time during a game).

So the solution to a) is build a separate data path between cpu and gpu (apparently 20GB/s which is very fast. A solution to b) doesn't exist, obviously, because graphics processing can't be reeinvented. However what you can do is use ALL the spare gpu time to do compute tasks like physics, for example, or preprocessing graphics (like the spus on the cell). This way the gpu operates at close to maximum raw power.



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drkohler said:
BloodyRain said:
lol I have no clue what most of that article even says. So what does all that mean in layman terms?The only thing I got from that was that the ps4 is going to be awesome xD

Basically, it means that they studied how PC games actually run on a PC system (they probably had a state machine in their lab that analysed some modern games down to the last clock cycle). The key bottlenecks in PC gaming are a) when cpu and gpu have to talk with each other, they basically use "morse code" - incredibly slow by today's speed standards (a single, unique "command" thread has to talk to the gpu over the PCIe-bus). b) your typical gpu on a pc graphics card may show a high number of TFlops raw power on the advertisement sheet. However, up to a quite high percentage of that incredible power cannot be used at various moments, depending on what you do (because that giant TFlop number is basically calculated as "when all transistors are switching" - basically a state that doesn't exist at any time during a game).

So the solution to a) is build a separate data path between cpu and gpu (apparently 20GB/s which is very fast. And it doesn't mess with the 176GB/s you have to the gddr5). A solution to b) doesn't exist, obviously, because graphics processing can't be reeinvented. However what you can do is use ALL the spare gpu time to do compute tasks like physics, for example, or preprocessing graphics (like the spus on the cell). This way the gpu operates at close to maximum raw power.

ahh alright thanks for the explanation. 



I love Kaz but this gif is EPIC!!!



So when people say they can build a ps4 from low to medium spec off the shelf parts, their full of s&@%?



Jicale said:
So when people say they can build a ps4 from low to medium spec off the shelf parts, their full of s&@%?

Pretty much.



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Damn if the guy doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

Also, has any console manufacturer ever been this transparent about their technology? Heck, we probably know more about the PS4 than we do the Wii U.



pokoko said:
Damn if the guy doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

Also, has any console manufacturer ever been this transparent about their technology? Heck, we probably know more about the PS4 than we do the Wii U.

GAF users are talking about the same thing... Cerny seems to be open to talk about the system and it customizations... I think that happened just because it is a game developer and not only a machine engineer.

It is good in live interviews too.



ethomaz said:

Mmmfishtacos said:

Yes, Now that they've told us so much about the system already, what are they going to show at the next event and E3? There's got to be a bomb shell in there somewhere.

Sony is holding to show the PS4 desing, the games, date and price... so there are a lot yet lol.


I know, but there's two more shows at least theres rumored to be another before e3. At their E3 will be at least 2 hours long, I'm sure all they stuff you said could be done in 1 show. So theres got to be something that we arnt thinking about.



Well that was a slap to the face of microsoft for going the easy option and using eDRAM for xbox720. Love Mark cerny!

 



I love this stuff, more and more pumped every day about the ps4 :D