| freedquaker said: I am a bit surprised with the way that people are underwhelmed by the jump. I believe it's more to do with the diminishing returns to the perception of performance, rather than the actual technical achievement. Because I see that the jump is as big as it has always been, if not bigger... Such claims arise especially because of a much easier comparison to the PC architecture this time around instead of propriety and mystical designs, which are harder to prove otherwise. Let's remember that compared to the 7th Generation console designs, the vast majority of developers are relatively much happier this time around, and the technicalities aside, the PC ports to the next-gen consoles look relatively way better without serious sacrificies.
In short, the next gen consoles (or at least PS4) is not weak at all but more than capable, because... a) Those Consoles come with octo-core processors, which is well beyond the main stream pc with dual core. It's true that those cores have relatively poor single threaded performance but with the sufficient level of parallelism and low level calls, CPUs had never been this fast in relative terms (compared to PCs). So the CPU performance will never be an issue. Also keep in mind that the CPU performance improvements have slowed tremendously at the last decade. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey STEAM SURVEY RESULTS: Most Common Gamer PC (Not an average PC, which is way lower!): OS Version: Windows 7 64 bit Edit (2):
* Now on the console side, we have 1080p TVs, which usually cannot view more than 60 frames, so there absolutely is no point in producing better than that on Modern Consoles... * The CPUs, on the vast majority of the time, are not the bottleneck, and because those are gaming machines, not general purpose PCs, there is no point in putting a CPU on a console, that is faster than necessary, as long it is not a bottleneck on the games, and have sufficient performance for other tasks such as Bluray playback etc... * RAM is abundant. It's a 16x increase from the earlier generation, which is unprecedented. PS1 ( 2+1+0.5 MB) => PS2 (32+4 MB) => PS3 (256 + 256 MB) => PS4 (8 GB). If you go ahead and check, the relative PC RAM with each generation was... with PS1 : 8 MB, with PS2 : 128 MB, with PS3 : 1 GB, with PS4 : 4-6 GB... so you see, PS4, for the first time in history has more RAM than the mainstream PC! * Given that there is no point in producing an output greater than 1080p 60fps, the PS4 GPU has already shown that it's capable of 1080p and 60 fps, although not always at the same time, which will come by time. There really is no room beyond 1080p 60fps (which PCs may be capable of, but consoles just don't need)... _____
Edit (3)
I believe some of the reaction is due to the misunderstanding...
PS4 is easily outperformed by a relatively easy to configure desktop or a laptop today, nobody denies that. However, I am trying to explain that PS4 is not a weak console, and is actually much faster than all previous Playstations, relatively to the competition of their era. In other words, PC was and will always be faster than the consoles. However, the power gap with PS4 is not greater but actually smaller compared to the earlier playstations. To see that, just compare the games of each generation (PC to PS), especially the first generation. Playstation had never been this capable
------------ Edit (4) A PC Myth : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-myths,3694.html#xtor=RSS-998 Most people seem to ignore what I am actually saying and instead understand it the way they like it. Let me repeat, I am not claiming consoles have equal performance with high end PCs or there is no difference. Please read clearly.... The visible performance gap between PS4 and PCs at the maximum possibble resolution on the console of the era (dictated by the TV Standards, which is 1080p today, but was 720p last gen) is minimal. This gap used to be a lot larger with the PS3 vs PC, or PS2 vs PC, or PS1 vs PC. So, for its era, Playstation 4 is the most capable of all playstations. So yes, that is not a weak console at all, serves its purpose. And yes, although X360 had a really good GPU for its time, it still had a significant disadvantage compared to the PC for various reasons, even at 720p or lower (the standard of the time). The same is true for PS3. Once you settle for a highly reasonable 1080p to play, PS4 is way more than capable, and that is unless you want to go higher resolutions, which are just not possible on most TVs, and pointless for a console anyway. So if you don't game on a console any more, it's not because PS4 is weak (which it isn't) but it's because the common TV resolution is just not enough for you and/or you're spoiled by the ultra clarity provided to you by high end PC equipment. |
Interesting post. I do agree RAM is the one are where next gen went crazy, while the GPU is where it lacks. However I will address a few points, even though I like where you're coming from and can agree in some ways.
First, consider that the 8GB of RAM is actually 5GB for games. 3GB is reserved for OS and yes this is true on PS4 as well despite people dont like to admit it (I have back channel sources and have been keeping up with next gen tech for years, so I know, or just ask yourself why multiplats dont have much better textures on PS4). Second, the PC also has VRAM. Take my PC, kinda old, but I have 4GB system RAM but also a 6970 GPU with 2GB VRAM. So technically I have 6GB to play with versus 5 for the consoles, and I have an old PC! While steam stats are nice, most enthusiast PC's will be running 8 or 16GB of RAM, with a gfx card running 2-4GB more.
The RAM is definitely the area where next gen went whole hog though. Which is probably good, I think Crytek said RAM always ends up being the limiting factor on consoles years later. The thing is though I was an avid gamer back when 360 released, I dont really remember what PC RAM was like at the time. I am pretty sure 360 was relatively more behind PC in RAM at the time then PS4/XBO are at launch, though.
Another nitpick, 720P was never really much of a TV standard. It was like, half 720P half 1080P for a while, before HDTV even caught on. then 1080P quickly took over just a year or two into 360/PS3 life cycle, just as HDTV gained widespread adoption. Most of the life cycle 1080P was the norm last gen, and in fact there was never really a time when HDTV didn't equal 1080P imo, or at least it was very fleeting if there was.
For CPU, the problem is they are 8 cores at 1.6 ghz. Guess what, that is equal to 4 cores at 3.2 ghz (in a perfect world, the 8 cores are actually less due to innefieciency). And then guess what, they are low power laptop cores. In other words a AMD FX4300, which runs at like 4 ghz, beats the console CPU's easily, and it's a low end PC CPU. A high end Intel 4 core, clocked at 3ghz+, will crush and devestate PS4/XBO CPU. There is a programmer on B3D also who likened the console CPU's to maybe a dual core Intel 3.2 ghz in actual power. But, you should remember 360/PS3 CPU were in order and horrible to work with. The CPU's in next gen are a huge step up, even relative to PC I think. It's not that next gen CPU is great, it's that last gen CPU was worse than any of you suspect.
RAM being a 16X increase is also true, but remember the 360 lasted 8 years. Whereas prior gens lasted 4-6 years. So we were due for more of a leap.
Now you go on to compare GPU's, finding Xbox One wanting, but you deem PS4 ok? Here's the problem I have with that, XBO GPU is at least about 2/3 as powerful as PS4 GPU, looking at the specs. It just is. So I dont know, it's hard for me to arbitrarily say PS4 is good and XBO GPU is bad, when XBO is at least 66% as good. The fact is they are both rather low end by PC standards, sadly. But the are probably still 10X prior gen, yes even Xbox One, so they are at least a generation gap.
Finally, the Xenos GPU in Xbox 360, and this is fact, in 2005 WAS cutting edge. As a whole 360 probably wasn't as powerful as a well specced 2005 PC, but the GPU was about as powerful as anything out there! As of 2005. Of course in 2006 Nvidia released the 8800 GTX which was a gen ahead, but that's to be expected. PS3 was not as cutting edge simply because it released a year late, in 2006.
The GPU in PS4 is a HD 7850 basically, and that's nowhere near the power of top PC GPU's in 2013. So we see it's not comparable to as advanced as 360 was at time of release.
BUT I dont see it as a terrible thing. It's to be expected. Go google pictures of a 8800GTX or 7800 GTX, top PC cards of 2005. They look like a sound card. Todays top PC GPU's look like they could be used to bludgeon a man to death. They're fricken huge. Here, I'll do it for you, 7800 GTX, top of the line in 2005 http://www.sharkyextreme.com/img/2005/08/ex_guide/gf_7800gtx.jpg Nvidia 780 TI, top of the line in 2013/4: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/10/grx780.jpg
Do you see the difference? Believe me it's even bigger in person. Todays top video cards are ginormous, and they can draw close to 300 watts. Back in 2005 they drew much much less power. So basically it's just not as possible to put a top PC GPU in a console that needs to be 200 watts max including everything, any more (actually PS4 draws about 140 watts and XBO 120 watts total). Where in 2005 it was possible. Also, look how much more supply PS4 and XBO had than 360/PS3. Like 5X as much. Both PS3 and 360 were almost impossible to find at launch. They were cutting edge and therefore very hard to manufactore. Not so with PS4 and XBO. So that's another good advantage of not shooting for high end anymore.
Again, I like your post, just pointing out a few things. Like I say, RAM is the best area where you have a point, CPU is close too. GPU though is definitely lower end though in consoles. But I dont see this as a terrible thing, as illustrated, it had to happen. To me the important thing is generation leap. Granted, next gen had 8 years, but still on paper the next gen consoles are at least 8X-10X as powerful as their predecessors (yes including Xbox One) and that's what matters imo. So far I dont see as much gfx improvement as prior gen's, but I think it's because we have reached an area of diminishing returns, not the fault of the consoles themselves. Hell Crysis 3 on MY PC looks almost the same at a glance on low settings as it does on very high settings. Also, in 2-3 years when we get ground up next gen games, we will likely see more improvement. As somebody on B3D pointed out, it actually takes years to truly build an engine towards next gen hardware.
