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Forums - Gaming - Valve Steambox could outpower XB1 and PS4, according to CGM

Tagged games:

 

Will you be buying one, or do you even care?

Hell yeah! 34 8.85%
 
Mabye 32 8.33%
 
Want to see some legit news first 75 19.53%
 
No 44 11.46%
 
Don't even care 72 18.75%
 
PS4 all the way! 92 23.96%
 
XB1 all the way! 15 3.91%
 
PC all the way! 18 4.69%
 
Total:382
Scoobes on 21 September 2013
Mnementh said:
Is this discussion now about emulation? And well, many posters don't know much but feel entitled to say something anyways. As a programmer I know something, but that something is enough that I know I can't decide if WiiU or PS4/XBO are easier to emulate. That said, it's not the difficulty alone that makes emulators possible or impossible, it is also the will of the community to do it. As many PS3/X360-games are also available on PC, I assume it will be similar with PS4/XBO. Nintendo on the other hand makes interesting games that don't come to PC, so the interest to build an emulator for Nintendo-platforms is much higher. That - and not technical reasons - will lead to an emulator of WiiU faster than for PS4/XBO.

Now to some technical stuff:
1. Many here are focusing on CPU. While it is right that CPU is part of the emulation, you aren't near a functioning emulator with CPU alone. There are many chips and architectural stuff, that needs to be emulated. So don't focus on CPU alone.
2. That said: while it is difficult to emulate the catastrophic x86/x64-design (that has backwards-compatibility to eons before), it isn't needed to do so, if your emulator runs on x86 (PC). Modern x86-CPUs allow to run code in an virtualized environment, so an emulator can use that. That's the case for PS4/XBO. So CPU-emulation you can see as basically solved without much loss of performance, but as I said in 1, that's not even near a full solution.
3. Architecture is VERY different on consoles. As an example I name unified memory on PS4 - that will be a burden to emulate. But all three have architectural details that will make emulation a hell.
4. What allenmaher says about emulating PowerPC-architecture is true: emulating that will be a big loss of performance. But that is true of all CPU-architectures. As I said in 2., that will not be so hard for PS4/XBO. BUT, that is not the only chip that is needed to emulation. As GPUs are very important for modern consoles, they will be the major technical difficulty in emulation. They execute code like CPUs, so it is not simply a matter of putting images to the display. I don't know if Nvidia and AMD have similar tech for running programs in virtualized environment, like x86-CPUs, but if they have I doubt it is very common with consumer-graphic-cards. So this part will mean a big loss of performance, expect some years before PC can emulate any of the three. Probably at the end of the gen.

Thanks for the info.

The latter half of point 4 was what I was trying to get across in my earlier post but didn't have the technical expertise to really elaborate. My line of thinking was that WiiU would be the easiest of the 3 to emulate due to the weaker GPU. We already have top end GPUs that are easily 10x more powerful and have more efficient architectures. Would that be a big plus for WiiU emulation?




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Pemalite on 21 September 2013
Mnementh said:
Is this discussion now about emulation? And well, many posters don't know much but feel entitled to say something anyways. As a programmer I know something, but that something is enough that I know I can't decide if WiiU or PS4/XBO are easier to emulate.


Depends what the target platform is going to be doing all the emulation.

It's easier to translate instructions from the Playstation 4 and Xbox One to PC, because well. They're all x86.
You don't have to cut and chop instructions, then translate it. Essentially what might take 1 Cycle to perform natively on PowerPC might take multiple on PC/x86 once you go through all those steps.
Intel actually had a good solution to that with it's Atom CPU's in Medfield: Binary Translation, of course it still comes with a performance penalty and it only translates ARM to x86.
Heck, you just have to take a look at the origional Xbox Emulators, they're stupidly fast, faster than PS2 emulators, granted most of the Origional Xbox's game library was released on PC anyway, but even when comparing the Console to PC games of the same era, there really wasn't a massive deviation in CPU  requirements at the time.

The GPU is a little different, in the PC space other parts of the GPU will take on the task of older generations fixed function hardware.
For example, the TnL unit in Direct X 7 graphics processors like the Geforce 256, was supplanted later on in successive generations of GPU's by performing the same functions in the Shader Hardware, same thing goes for the Vertex Shaders, so from a technical perspective that shouldn't be a drama.
It's when you start getting into the smaller details like the eDRAM on the Xbox 360 and the extra hardware in the GPU, that makes it a little less clear on it's ease of emulating.

The Graphics Core Next GPU's in the next generations should in theory be easier to emulate as they aren't as large of a deviation from their PC version in comparison if you were to compare the Xbox 360's GPU to the Radeon x19xx and Radeon 29xx series.

So in the end, the WiiU will be more difficult to emulate on PC than the Xbox One or Playstation 4 and the WiiU will also come with it higher hardware overheads.




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fatslob-:O on 21 September 2013
PigPen said:
fatslob-:O said:
cheesecake said:
fatslob-:O said:
PigPen said:
This I would love to see.

Go get a PC to do it now. It will probably be able to emulate the WII U in like 3 years ? That way you can have the ultimate platform compared to a company that likely won't compete for next generation.


funny you should say that. the PS4/Xbox One will most likely be easier to emulate due to the simple fact that there is nothing stopping the hackers, no Cell/PowerPC arch, no foreign arch, they're PCs with Sony/MS taped on them.

Except none of you guys here know about emulation. The WII U's cpu is almost exactly the same as the WII's but only this time it has 3 cores instead of one and a bumped up clock while featuring a slightly more modern istruction set architecture. As for its GPU it has an insanely low bandwidth while also coming from the old crappy VLIW5 architecure. The only issue I see here is the EDRAM.

As for the PS4 and xbone I don't think any PC's could hope to emulate either of them let alone PS4 because DDR3 has a low bandwidth. Even though xbone features DDR3 it has a bigger bus width giving it the ability to have more bandwidth than what PC's feature everyday on DDR3.  

So when all is said and done the WII U is by far the easiest to emulate disregarding the lack of documentation ofcourse.


Wii U has a Multi-Core (3) CPU.   Sports a High Definition GPU, not a VLIW5 architecure.  I wouldn't begin to ask what that is you made up.  It does sport lots of EDRAM in a customize chip.  Capital was used for R&D to make the Wii U a specially designed console.  Developers will to have to use the Wii U hardware a special type of way to make games.  The Wii U console punches above it's weight.  

Valve Steambox could very well outpower the PS4.  The thought that some other hardware can be the powerhouse other then the PS4 got your panties in a bunch. And you know nothing about emulation, I can tell.

@Bold Somebody here has being skipping classes in computer architecture. 

And what would a layman like you know about computer architecture ? (You haven't even touched the innards of a PC yet so if anything you want to make yourself more credible.)



fatslob-:O on 21 September 2013
Pemalite said:
Mnementh said:
Is this discussion now about emulation? And well, many posters don't know much but feel entitled to say something anyways. As a programmer I know something, but that something is enough that I know I can't decide if WiiU or PS4/XBO are easier to emulate.


Depends what the target platform is going to be doing all the emulation.

It's easier to translate instructions from the Playstation 4 and Xbox One to PC, because well. They're all x86.
You don't have to cut and chop instructions, then translate it. Essentially what might take 1 Cycle to perform natively on PowerPC might take multiple on PC/x86 once you go through all those steps.
Intel actually had a good solution to that with it's Atom CPU's in Medfield: Binary Translation, of course it still comes with a performance penalty and it only translates ARM to x86.
Heck, you just have to take a look at the origional Xbox Emulators, they're stupidly fast, faster than PS2 emulators, granted most of the Origional Xbox's game library was released on PC anyway, but even when comparing the Console to PC games of the same era, there really wasn't a massive deviation in CPU  requirements at the time.

The GPU is a little different, in the PC space other parts of the GPU will take on the task of older generations fixed function hardware.
For example, the TnL unit in Direct X 7 graphics processors like the Geforce 256, was supplanted later on in successive generations of GPU's by performing the same functions in the Shader Hardware, same thing goes for the Vertex Shaders, so from a technical perspective that shouldn't be a drama.
It's when you start getting into the smaller details like the eDRAM on the Xbox 360 and the extra hardware in the GPU, that makes it a little less clear on it's ease of emulating.

The Graphics Core Next GPU's in the next generations should in theory be easier to emulate as they aren't as large of a deviation from their PC version in comparison if you were to compare the Xbox 360's GPU to the Radeon x19xx and Radeon 29xx series.

So in the end, the WiiU will be more difficult to emulate on PC than the Xbox One or Playstation 4 and the WiiU will also come with it higher hardware overheads.

You realize that the WII U cpu's isn't much different from the WII's right ? Otherwise it would break compatibility like a b#tch LOL.

We already have a WII emulator called Dolphin so I don't know if the programmers their could modify the cpu modules a bit to act like the WII U. 

@Bold Are you forgetting about the raw bandwidth (in the main memory ofcourse) requirements to emulate the xbone or PS4. Hell I don't even think DDR5 will solve the issues of bandwidth and I wouldn't underestimate the memory set up of the PS4 also considering that APU has more in common with Kaveri rather than Llano or kabini and the xbone's secondary cache is pretty damn fast.



PigPen on 21 September 2013
Scoobes said:
PigPen said:
fatslob-:O said:

Except none of you guys here know about emulation. The WII U's cpu is almost exactly the same as the WII's but only this time it has 3 cores instead of one and a bumped up clock while featuring a slightly more modern istruction set architecture. As for its GPU it has an insanely low bandwidth while also coming from the old crappy VLIW5 architecure. The only issue I see here is the EDRAM.

As for the PS4 and xbone I don't think any PC's could hope to emulate either of them let alone PS4 because DDR3 has a low bandwidth. Even though xbone features DDR3 it has a bigger bus width giving it the ability to have more bandwidth than what PC's feature everyday on DDR3.  

So when all is said and done the WII U is by far the easiest to emulate disregarding the lack of documentation ofcourse.


Wii U has a Multi-Core (3) CPU.   Sports a High Definition GPU, not a VLIW5 architecure.  I wouldn't begin to ask what that is you made up.  It does sport lots of EDRAM in a customize chip.  Capital was used for R&D to make the Wii U a specially designed console.  Developers will to have to use the Wii U hardware a special type of way to make games.  The Wii U console punches above it's weight.  

Valve Steambox could very well outpower the PS4.  The thought that some other hardware can be the powerhouse other then the PS4 got your panties in a bunch. And you know nothing about emulation, I can tell.

VLIW5 is AMDs older GPU architecture which, based on some pictures of the WiiU insides is likely what the GPU in WiiU is based on. The "High Definition GPU" is marketing talk as most mobile phone chips sport "High Definition GPUs". 

He's probably right about the emulation. The CPUs in all three next gen consoles are all fairly weak and relatively easy to emulate in raw power terms. The core architecture is supposedly the same for WiiU (from Wii) so even with its multi-core nature, it'd be relatively simple to do. The GPUs and emulating the specific drivers for each console's GPU is more problematic. As he said, bandwidth would also be an issue and generally, the hardware you're running an emulator on needs to be significantly more powerful compared to the device you're emulating. Therefore, WiiU as the weakest of the 3 would be the easiest to emulate.

I don't think anyone would bother though.

You are very wrong indeed.  The "Wii U" has a Power Based Multi - Core CPU. The GPU is in fact a GPGPU, and it's the first time ever used in a console.  While not new to PC's, it's not old how you trying to make it seem.  You talk like you really know what you're talking about.



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SubiyaCryolite on 21 September 2013

A Half Life or Left 4 Dead targeting this spec would be amazing though



I predict that the Wii U will sell a total of 18 million units in its lifetime. 

The NX will be a 900p machine

fatslob-:O on 21 September 2013
PigPen said:
Scoobes said:
PigPen said:
fatslob-:O said:

Except none of you guys here know about emulation. The WII U's cpu is almost exactly the same as the WII's but only this time it has 3 cores instead of one and a bumped up clock while featuring a slightly more modern istruction set architecture. As for its GPU it has an insanely low bandwidth while also coming from the old crappy VLIW5 architecure. The only issue I see here is the EDRAM.

As for the PS4 and xbone I don't think any PC's could hope to emulate either of them let alone PS4 because DDR3 has a low bandwidth. Even though xbone features DDR3 it has a bigger bus width giving it the ability to have more bandwidth than what PC's feature everyday on DDR3.  

So when all is said and done the WII U is by far the easiest to emulate disregarding the lack of documentation ofcourse.


Wii U has a Multi-Core (3) CPU.   Sports a High Definition GPU, not a VLIW5 architecure.  I wouldn't begin to ask what that is you made up.  It does sport lots of EDRAM in a customize chip.  Capital was used for R&D to make the Wii U a specially designed console.  Developers will to have to use the Wii U hardware a special type of way to make games.  The Wii U console punches above it's weight.  

Valve Steambox could very well outpower the PS4.  The thought that some other hardware can be the powerhouse other then the PS4 got your panties in a bunch. And you know nothing about emulation, I can tell.

VLIW5 is AMDs older GPU architecture which, based on some pictures of the WiiU insides is likely what the GPU in WiiU is based on. The "High Definition GPU" is marketing talk as most mobile phone chips sport "High Definition GPUs". 

He's probably right about the emulation. The CPUs in all three next gen consoles are all fairly weak and relatively easy to emulate in raw power terms. The core architecture is supposedly the same for WiiU (from Wii) so even with its multi-core nature, it'd be relatively simple to do. The GPUs and emulating the specific drivers for each console's GPU is more problematic. As he said, bandwidth would also be an issue and generally, the hardware you're running an emulator on needs to be significantly more powerful compared to the device you're emulating. Therefore, WiiU as the weakest of the 3 would be the easiest to emulate.

I don't think anyone would bother though.

You are very wrong indeed.  The "Wii U" has a Power Base Multi - Core CPU. The GPU is in fact a GPGPU, and it's the first time ever used in a console.  While not new to PC's, it's not old how you trying to make it seem.  You talk like you really know what you're talking about.

No the cpu is just an ibm broadway processor with 3 cores and a higher clock, it's almost exactly the same as the Wii processor but with 3 cores at a higher clock. LOL GPGPU existed since the DX 10 era. Just because it's the first in gpgpu doesn't mean that it's any good in fact that's why I said VLIW was weak and that was because of its compute performance oh and BTW PS4 and xbone will blow it out of the water.



VGPolyglot on 21 September 2013

I thought they already did announce the price a while ago?



Gehirnkrampf on 21 September 2013

i hope it is a small cheap device.
a friend of mine always wants to play indies and other games online via steam. but it's just... i hate windows gaming. it's not that i am casual and don't know how to handle a pc. i simply hate caring for drivers, caring if/how good/ a game runs and all this shit you went through with pcs. i work on a PC all day. even worse: i am programming, so all i do the whole day is caring about shit that doesn't work. when i am at home, i just want to play the fucking games.
i'd buy a steambox if it enables multiplayer with windows steam users and doesn't cost more than 300€ - focused on smaller games. steam sales. easy communication. hardware optimized games with a certificate like "runs on steambox 1". pretty small device. this are my hopes for a steambox.



must-have-list for platforms i don't own yet:

WiiU: Donkey Kong

XBone: Dead Rising 3, Ryse

dahuman on 21 September 2013

Woohoo another off topic thread! Anyways, PS4 and X1 wouldn't be hard to outpower lol.... In a year you can easily get hardware much more powerful at the same price and if SteamBox is Linux based then efficiency will be good as well.