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Forums - Sony Discussion - (Poll) PS4 Standby mode.

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Standby Mode or No Standby Mode

No Standby Mode 54 35.29%
 
Standby Mode 80 52.29%
 
clicky clicky 17 11.11%
 
Total:151
greenmedic88 on 26 December 2013

I only recently turned standby mode on for the PS3 (not the PS4) in the interest of playing with remote play via the PS Vita. I did this back when I bought a PSP and promptly stopped using it, but I figured why not try again.

What I noticed with the PS3 is that the little green activity light stays on and the fan spins at the lowest speed. I couldn't figure out what that noise was in my living room when nothing else was on and it turns out it was the PS3. I didn't bother plugging it into the WattsUp to see how much more current it was drawing in sleep mode and ended up just shutting off Remote On. I never take the PSV anywhere anyway.

On the PS4, I think it's mostly useful for automatic updates, charging a controller (which the PS3 couldn't do in standby), and leaving off from where you stopped before going into standby, which I generally don't do and strikes me as being kind of lazy, but everyone has their own habits. If I'm done playing a session, I'll shut the console off.

I normally don't use standby mode on the PS4; just when it needs to be in standby.

It seems to take just as much time to wake from standby mode as it does to start up from power off mode, so no time saved there.



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Solid-Stark on 26 December 2013

My PS4 has been on standby since the day I got it.



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mutantsushi on 26 December 2013
SvennoJ said:
mutantsushi said:

...XBone has much lower "standby mode" power draw than the current PS4...

Does the standby power use depend on what features you enable?
Or do you mean it uses more power when it's downloading in standby mode?

Yeah, I guess I wasn't as clear as I should be, the latter is the case: Sony always intended for downloads to happen in "standby mode" (thus an advantage of that mode), but their ARM auxiliary CPU wasn't sufficient, so they are currently relying on the main CPU for background downloads in a "low power" (but nonetheless pretty high power) mode, although they apparently may attempt some hardware fix to allow future console revisions to have a real "standby mode" download ability.

here is a link explaining that and citing the (in Japanese) source which was a Sony manager: http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/11/15/ps4-consumes-70w-while-downloading-in-standby-because-it-uses-the-main-apu-and-not-just-the-arm-chip/

Honestly, I don't see any major benefit of background download and standby mode as a whole (as opposed to turning the unit off completely), just because that can also happen in the background while you are playing games... (Possibly the auxiliary ARM CPU /is/ sufficient for handling downloads when the main CPU is running the OS and other background tasks (and/or active game))



vizunary on 27 December 2013

I love the fact my ps3 does all its updates and downloads while I'm doing something else



SvennoJ on 27 December 2013
mutantsushi said:
SvennoJ said:
mutantsushi said:

...XBone has much lower "standby mode" power draw than the current PS4...

Does the standby power use depend on what features you enable?
Or do you mean it uses more power when it's downloading in standby mode?

Yeah, I guess I wasn't as clear as I should be, the latter is the case: Sony always intended for downloads to happen in "standby mode" (thus an advantage of that mode), but their ARM auxiliary CPU wasn't sufficient, so they are currently relying on the main CPU for background downloads in a "low power" (but nonetheless pretty high power) mode, although they apparently may attempt some hardware fix to allow future console revisions to have a real "standby mode" download ability.

here is a link explaining that and citing the (in Japanese) source which was a Sony manager: http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/11/15/ps4-consumes-70w-while-downloading-in-standby-because-it-uses-the-main-apu-and-not-just-the-arm-chip/

Honestly, I don't see any major benefit of background download and standby mode as a whole (as opposed to turning the unit off completely), just because that can also happen in the background while you are playing games... (Possibly the auxiliary ARM CPU /is/ sufficient for handling downloads when the main CPU is running the OS and other background tasks (and/or active game))

Ah that makes sense. Basically like the ps3 nightly auto updates. System wakes up to check for and download updates. I assume it goes back to low power mode after the download has completed, so it shouldn't use that 70 watt for long.

Anyway I also don't see the point. So far updates have all been automatic in the background and fast enough that it's done before I get to reading the notification. Cold boot is very fast too, with auto sign in last user enabled it's seamless as well. I disabled all the standby functions like you suggested, so it turns off completely with the power button. Perfect.



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ghettoglamour on 27 December 2013

No suspend resume mode, no trophy upload (Yes, my PS4 was like 4-5 days in a row on and no trophies would be updated), almost instant play after download/installing a game, almost instant system updates = standby mode worthless.



Game of the year 2017 so far:

5. Resident Evil VII
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
3. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
2. Horizon Zero Dawn
1. Super Mario Odyssey

JoeTheBro on 27 December 2013
mutantsushi said:

Leaving the console in standby is a waste of power, that costs you directly in power bills, and drives up costs for all electricity consumers as well as any effect of energy production like pollution, global warming, etc.

But the fact remains that people will choose to not turn their console off for every moment they are not using it, whether that be for 30 minutes, 2 hours, 1 day, or 2 weeks. Having standby mode is better than not having any such mode for such scenarios.

Sony (and MS AFAIK) has an ARM CPU that is auxiliary to the main AMD CPU/GPU, that is meant to handle background downloading, instant on/off (standby), and other such features which are less demanding than actual gameplay/internet browsing/movie streaming/etc.

Unfortunately, at least with the current OS/software, the ARM CPU that Sony chose seems underspecced for the job, which seems to be forcing them to NOT use the ARM chip but instead keep the main AMD CPU powered on even in 'standby' mode. This means they can't lower the energy draw drastically, as they intended to. So in the current unit, there simply isn't a dramatic power savings for entering "standby mode", it's mostly a sham. You can read articles on site like AnandTech which go into the detail for that, comparing actual power draw and so on.

Since Sony was motivated to design a standby mode in the first place, and include a discrete CPU for that task (even if it wasn't up for the task), it is almost certain that they will "fix" this feature in future units, which will most likely mean including a beefed up ARM CPU that is powerful enough to handle all "standby" functions including background downloading. Such a CPU might draw slightly more power than the originally specced ARM CPU, but drastically less than the main AMD CPU currently used... And improvements in manfacturing may even mean that a beefed up CPU on new manufacturing process may use less power than the weaker CPU on the old manufacturing process.

But whatever they do with that, current consoles with the weak/underspecced ARM CPU will not be able to rely on the ARM CPU for standby, and so they will continue to draw excessive power during "standby".

Oh no that's not right at all.



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Porcupine_I on 27 December 2013

I leave it on standby with powered USB ports so i can charge the controllers.



“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”

- George Orwell, ‘1984’

UltimateUnknown on 27 December 2013

I don't see the benefit to standby. When I turn on my console from standby, it turns on a few seconds faster but it still has to boot up the game from scratch just as if it wasn't on standby. It doesn't start the game from the point I left it on standby. I don't know if Sony lied or I'm doing something wrong, but standby mode is pointless to me right now.



 

mutantsushi on 27 December 2013

Charging controllers seems about the only good reason to use standby on PS4.
It really should be able to stay in standby until the controllers are charged, and then turn off completely.
If it can't do that automatically upon recognizing the controllers are fully charged,
at least it should let you set a timer to fully shut-down after X minutes of inactivity, X minutes = time to fully charge controllers.


I guess XBone is slower in things like booting up and loading games, so that makes standby seem nicer,
but really, if speed is an issue for you: just buy the faster console.