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Forums - Microsoft - Looming question: Will XB1 be able to close the gap to PS4 in holiday 2014's big multiplatform games?

whatever on 03 January 2014
TheLastStarFighter said:


I'm not parroting anything.  I'm not a fan of the XBOne.  But you don't need to look far to know that the lack of ESRAM on PS4 negates much of the benefit of going with GDDR5.  As I said above, even Mark Cerny said as much.  Or click the link above that It_Dan was mistakenly referencing which compared the theoretical system bandwidth.  Or Wired's examination of the topic.

You PS passion blinds you into reading what I wrote as being pro-XBox, because it's not completely licking the ass of the PS4 in all regards.  I'm not pro-XBox.  If I were to buy one of the systems, it would be the PS4. It's cheaper and better.  But it's techincal supperiorety is mostly due to the graphics chip, and much less due to the additional RAM.  I also suspect that XBOne's OS is much less optimized and efficient for games than PS4, but that's just speculation on my part based a little bit on insider information that I can't get into.

The reason the GPU is much better on the PS4 is because MS had to use a lot of the die space on the CPU/GPU chip for the ESRAM.  It's all connected.  To say that a lack of ESRAM hurts the PS4 while touting it's GPU advantage means you didn't dig deep enough.

MS chose to add ESRAM to offset it's slow DDR3 memory.  This caused them to have to decrease it's GPU power so it could fit the ESRAM on the same chip.  It was a design choice that MS made so it could use the cheaper DDR3 memory.  It will be a problem for the entire generation.



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lt_dan_27 on 04 January 2014
TheLastStarFighter said:
lt_dan_27 said:
TheLastStarFighter said:
lt_dan_27 said:


You're funny. the xbox and ps4 will probably both make their OS more efficient. But let me break down the power for you. It's not speculated that the ps4's CPU is clocked at 2ghz vs the xbox one's 1.75. They're essentially the same cpu, so that's a 14% plus over the xbox one. The gpu's are 1.84tflops vs 1.23tflops. Which creates is a 49.6% difference. The PS4's memory bandwidth is about 3 times higher than the xbox one's. On top of all of this, the ps4 has a seondary chip that takes care of side tasks during gaming. On top of this, 10% of X1's power is reserved for the kinnect. So, with all of this, the only thing the x1 has over the ps4 is 32MB esram. Let me put 32mb in perspective for you. The xbox one's total pool of ram has 8224MB of ram. That means the esram makes up a woping .39% of the system's total ram. The esram isn't even that much faster the the ps4's gddr5 either. I think it's 170GBps  vs 190GBps. So about an 11% differnce in speed. Also, if you want to keep telling yourself the resolution makes no noticable difference, you can keep telling yourself that. It's pretty easy to see if you have eyes. Why do you think most PC gamers will lower other settings to get a higher resolution? It makes the most noticable difference. Also, all of those games you mentioned with the ps4 having a higher resotuioin, the resolution isn't the only difference. Look at screenshots of the ps4 and xbox one versions of BF4. The xbox one version has lower res, less AA, lower texture details, washed out shadows. This is also applicable for every game you mentioned. And those are details I could spot from compressed videos. That means the difference in graphics is even easier to tell in person because it will make the better graphics look worse because it can't show as much detail from it. So if you want to keep fooling yourself into believing that the eSRAM is going to make the xbox one twice as powerful, you can keep fooling yourself into believing that. 

This comment indicates that you have no idea what ESRAM is, how fast it is, or what it's used for.


I'm putting into persectve how little influence it actually will be. The esram will probably be used for frame buffers and fxaa. Sorry, I was off by 2gb/s, 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-xbox-one-memory-better-in-production-hardware

You're really confused and talking over your head here.  The ESRAM really is very significant.  Not enough to make the XBOne more powerful, but it nearly bridges the gap in bandwidth between the memory types in the two systems.  The numbers you're quoting aren't the speed of ESRAM and GDDR5, respectively, but the bandwidth of the two gaming systems.  Think about this:  The 8 Gig of GDDR5 gives around 176 GB/sec while just 32 MB of ESRAM gives around 100 GB/sec. ESRAM is exponentially faster than GDDR5, and having this buffer makes the difference of the slower 68.3GB DDR3 system memory in the XBOne almost insignificant.  The two systems use different approaches to the same problem, and even Mark Cerny admits the best approach is debatable.

The PS4 is more powerful, but mostly due to the GPU.  You clearly want the PS4 to be the better system, and I'm sure it is so you should be happy with that.  But talking about tech stuff that you don't really understand weakens your argument.


From what we can tell so far, the esram is not making that big of a difference. Over the next two years or so, it will reach its full potential. Then there will be a decline in its usefulness because at some point 32mb just won't be enough to make a significant difference. From what I can tell, the xbox one is an excellent 720p console. 



theprof00 on 04 January 2014

Easy answer.
PS3 and 360 were roughly equal in power.
We saw a big difference in first party because of the architecture.

Now ps4 is CONCLUSIVELY more powerful, and has the architecture lead on top of it too.
The differences will get bigger and bigger, especially as it becomes the lead platform (since every dev says it's actually the easier machine to program for).

Next question?



thismeintiel on 04 January 2014

Of course devs will improve on the Xbox One. However, they'll improve on the PS4, as well. And in a few years, when there are no more multi-gen games, that's when devs will really want to push these systems. Considering the One is built more like a multitasking system, with gaming not really being the main focus, the gap is just going to continue to show. Maybe even increase. And this time, MS doesn't have the sales to strictly enforce parity anymore.



 

SubiyaCryolite on 04 January 2014

They will, but I expect the X1 to stick to 900p, which is pretty respectable regardless.



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

The NX will be a 900p machine

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michael_stutzer on 04 January 2014

I expect that around 2017 Xbone will have a significant lead in graphics. The cloud processing power is not really being utilized right now. Think about it, there are three servers for each Xbone sitting idle at the moment. When they are powered on every Xbone suddenly will have 4x the power as long as you are connected to the internet. PS4 simply can't compete with that. That cloud setup is probably upgradable as well. A few years down the road you will be able to pay MS 100$ and have your graphics card on the cloud upgraded. 1080p will be a joke at that point because most people will be able to play in 2k or maybe 4k.



SandyVGina on 04 January 2014

This layman can't imagine how there would be enough hidden power in the Xbox One to go from a 720P COD to a 1080P COD....





prayformojo on 04 January 2014

It's possible but seeing the latest charts, it's going to be difficult. I didn't expect the PS4 to beat the Xbone by as much as it is in the US. In order for Xbone to catch the PS4, it's going to have to double PS4 in the US because it's going to lose by a wide margin everywhere else.



whatever on 04 January 2014
michael_stutzer said:
I expect that around 2017 Xbone will have a significant lead in graphics. The cloud processing power is not really being utilized right now. Think about it, there are three servers for each Xbone sitting idle at the moment. When they are powered on every Xbone suddenly will have 4x the power as long as you are connected to the internet. PS4 simply can't compete with that. That cloud setup is probably upgradable as well. A few years down the road you will be able to pay MS 100$ and have your graphics card on the cloud upgraded. 1080p will be a joke at that point because most people will be able to play in 2k or maybe 4k.

Talk about lala land.  Yikes.



gergroy on 04 January 2014
bananaking21 said:
i dont understand why people think that developers will know the Xbox One better and improve performance on it but wont do the same for the PS4? anyways, it could go either way, depends on what the dev choses to do. The PS4 version of every game should perform better or look better, or probably both. if the devs want to push their games to the fullest extent, then the PS4 versions will look better. if they want parity then that is what will happen.


Well, my understanding is the x1 is slightly more difficult to program for with its esram than the ps4.  So it isnt unreasonable to thinking additional time and learning would benefit the x1 more than the ps4.  However, the ps4 is a more powerful system so games should look better on it.  I dont think multiplat games will be as dramatically different in the future as they were at launch though.