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Forums - Microsoft - Xbox One Just went Super Saiyan with Unlocked CPU Power

Norris2k said:

If we are saying that this generation fails so far to go to an higher level than graphic improvements, I agree.

If you want to say that one more core for the XBone will lead to da real true next gen experience, and that the PS4 will not be able to, I think you are wrong. First, one more weak CPU for an already highly multithreaded program is not enough to make such a big difference. Second, it's not just about AI, and other improvements would take GPU power. Last, if it's just about giving one more CPU what ever the impact is, Sony can patch anytime.

I find your post quite biased as you talk about "PS4 developers" only polishing. Most developpers are multiplatforms, it's not a PS4/Sony problem. And that so far MS first party didn't get farer into next gen than Sony's first.


I didn't say that the Xone will lead to real true next gen experience as both designs are to similar. 

The PS4 has more on the GPU side whose potential might not live up as Cerny believes (I still remember those Cell statements) but will simply used for some better graphics and "physics topping" (like cloth animations).

The Xone has more on the CPU side which is more easily used for things like AI.

But still both fail to deliver on CPU power. It can go so far that the developers will settle for 30fps, trying to attract with more effects (which won't be possible in 60fps) at the cost of gameplay...



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DonFerrari said:
JustBeingReal said:
mine said:
JustBeingReal said:


See bolded comments of mine for my replies.


 You just confirmed what I said. The PS4 more "out of balance" than the XOne which are both not so well balanced compared to the Wii U.

LMFAO you haven't got a clue what you're talking about, I didn't confirm what you said, if you think that you don't understand the topic at hand at all.

PS4 is the most balanced out of all 3 consoles, it's GPU handles everything, RAM has just the right amount of bandwidth for the requirements of it's CPU and GPU.

XB1 lacks bandwidth to it's main memory,a standard 7770 requires 72GB/s from it's 1-2GB memory pool, it's 8GBs of DDR3 clocks in at 55GB/s of real world bandwidth, an 8 core Jaguar CPU requires about 20GB/s of bandwidth, so the GPU only gets about 35GB/s from it's largest pool of memory, that's a deficite of around 25GB/s, now you may say it's got 140-150GB/s from it's 32MB of eSRAM, you'd be right, if the size of that memory pool was sufficient, but it's not, it's tiny.

Wii U's main memory only supplies 12.8GB/s, it's GPU needs about 28.8GB/s of bandwidth from 512MB-1GB, but it's at a deficite of 10GB/s from it's 2GBs of storage, like XB1 yes it has a 32MB pool of cache, but it's tiny and it only runs at 70GB/s, once it's full it's not usable, can't do anything more until it's emptied for the next task, so developers are limited to the size of data they can put in it, it's fine for small render targets or some filtering, maybe selective effects or data storage, but not full frame buffers and tonnes of physics or AI data for GPGPU calc.

No Wii U isn't the most balanced, the facts don't agree in the slightest.


You can't move any code to the GPU. Even is AI is possible in theory, its a big difference to have it working in reality. This is because you'll need to "do something" with the computational results by moving them back from the GPU to the CPU which has to update the internal game world.

This has to be synchronized.

LOL yes you can, AMD's done it, they make the GPU tech, have the libraries of code, it's perfectly useful for physics and AI calculations.

It's all math data, it can be handled on the GPU, you just need the software to run it and AMD has that, they developed the libraries for it years ago. This whole back and forth thing is an invention you've made up.

And it is the synchroziation job which is the biggest challenge a devleoper faces on unbalanced hardware designs - besides having to get the core running at all.

LOL, just stop kid, you haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

As long as you have compute queues available developers can put their job in there, when compute units become available they can run the math, it's that simple, you just need stream processors to perform the process.

Developers need to code the thing, it has to be a task that their engine was written to perform on the hardware it's running on.

BTW: do you really think those people at Ubisoft aren't smart enough? That they wouldn't have the latest technology in compilers and tools for utilizing a GPU? That they didn't sign NDAs with every major GPU manufactor and have support beyond everything any of us here will be given?

Did I say that Ubisoft aren't smart enough?

It's a matter of whether the developers are given the time or resources to add the features to their engine.

If a game is due out by a certain time they have to focus on that, it's like Call of Duty now, Assassin's Creed is a yearly release, the devs are busy working on the game, creating new assets, all the models, environments and Unity was built on an old engine, which had most of it's development on last gen that wasn't GPGPU focused.

Look up AnvilNext, the fact Ubisoft said themselves that they're CPU limited for their AI says it all, considering they had GPU resources left over, to the point where (as they said) they could ACU at 100FPS, yet they're having issues even hitting 30FPS because of the AI.

It's a fact that GPUs can run large amounts of AI and Physics, you ignoring that doesn't make it untrue.


Of course they have that all. Every big player has. 

And it says something about the current situation and the hurdles to overcome if Ubisoft wasn't able to implement the AC:U AI on the GPU side...

It's because the engine is old, it's been built from the ground up for games like AC3, which were made with CPU focused AI, the environment's changed.

PC could have run AI fine on the GPU, but developers were using PS3 and 360 as their lead platforms, with AI on the CPU, evident by the situation we have with ACU.

I don't expect that to change soon or maybe ever - AI on GPUs shown by the vendors today is something totally different than "AI" on CPU utilized in games.

If all platforms, especially the market leader has a GPU capable of it then it makes perfect sense that the tech will get used, given the generation is early and Ubisoft were using an engine designed with 7th gen tech in mind I wouldn't expect this version of AnvilNext to use it, they can defnitely update it if the developers are given time.

AMD has the libraries for GPGPU physics and AI coding, hell Ubisoft showed that they can do physics coding, it wouldn't take long to add the feature into the engine, AI, physics, it's all math, a job that needs processing, they just need to incorporate AMD's libraries into their engine.

The fact that Ubisoft are more partnered with Nvidia probably has something to do with it.

Economics and politics have a huge effect here.

About the sales situation: it does matter from a developers perspective on what to bet their money on and what type of experiences they can deliver at which frame rate. They will try give you what is possible WITHIN THE LIMITS of the hardware and may find some "work arounds" by using 30fps or a sub-1080p resolution. They did excactly that on the PS3 and X360. And they already do it on PS4 and XOne...

The situation has changed from last generation, the ball is even more in Sony's court and the fact they have the most revolutionary technology, that is shared in some form by the other platforms can only be a benefit to the industry as a whole.

It's a great thing that PS4 is GPGPU focused, it benefits all parties.

 

 

Did you notice that Microsoft was always stating that the resolution of the XOne games are "enough" and Sony already "back paddeling" by giving up stating that the PS4 delivers 1080p/60? Just dropped those thing silently. 

Sony didn't stop talking about 1080p60FPS, Naughty Dog made a statement about how the PS4 is fully capable of running some very impressive graphics at that res and frame rate, the platform just needs to be optimized properly.

Hell the fact that Uncharted 4 is already running at a locked 1080p 30FPS with the heavy weight code it has in pre-alpha says it all really, between alpha and going gold a game's frame rate can often double, if not push further, with even more technical sparkle, this is what has happened with Bloodborne, it had a load of screen tear (Uncharted 4 doesn't suffer from that), ran between 10-20FPS when gameplay leaked around E3, now it's much better looking, runs at a locked 30FPS and has no tearing.

The Order is a similar deal, performance doubles as code gets refined a lot to free up resources.

 

This is as those dicussions hurt them both. Sony more than Microsoft. 

Why?

Who's hurt? Sales are great, far better than at this time last generation for both company.

People just have to keep their expectations in check.

Expecting that every developer will be able to achieve 1080p 60FPS with the best graphics around is going too far, but it can be done with the right amount of effort.

Expecting it in year 1 was going too far, because it requires optimization and learning the hardware, despite the fact that the platform holders are using X86 CPUs and PC GPU hardware there's still a learning curve.

Hell RISC has been the standard for console hardware for the longest time, it's also been in development for a lot longer than X86, so the libraries aren't as mature.

Because Microsoft is a OS company which happens to sell hardware at subsidized prices (aka "console") to have their OS and technology running in the living room. 

But nothing will hinder Microsoft to give their OS away for FREE to other manufactors as long they manage to get some - or my expectation even more - profit from it.

This only works if Microsoft actually starts to make games that they can sell to subsidize their free OS, right now there's no sign that they'll be giving away free OS for the PC market.


The two new AMD designs of which was speculated that the x86 one would be used by Nintendo - those are for Amazon (ARM) and FACEBOOK (x86).

Guess what? Microsoft is already flirting with Facebook to get their "Games Windows" on that true next-gen console which will run circles around the XOne AND the PS4 !!

Microsoft doesn't care if the Facebook console will be the next big console as long they have a stake in it...

 

All of this has nothing to do with the topic at the beginning of this discussion.

You inferred that Wii U is the most balanced (it's not) and we're talking about AI processing on GPUs, which is absolutely usable, the only reason it's not been used yet is because game engines need to be coded to allow for it, but given that PS4 is the market leader, it features the tech and every other 8th gen console does too (Wii U and XB1 are less capable than PC and PS4 in that area), along with PC we should see it used at some point in the not too distant future.

See reply in bold.


Ubisoft is so capable and knowledgeable that the same game runs completely worse on AMD compared to a similar Nvidia GPU.


Yep I think I mentioned that in my reply to Mine.

Ubisoft has a better relationship with Nvidia than AMD, so it would make sense that their games would run better on Nvidia hardware. Optimizing for Cuda would obviously be a bit different than AMD's Stream Processors. While there may be similarities in that they're clusters of small processors, lots of them to handle a lot of math, the designs are very different.

If Ubisoft wants to continue to sell decent numbers of their games they'll need to take the approach of actually making better use of the AMD hardware in every 8th gen console and a large chunk of the PC market. PC and console gamers won't keep putting up with their games performing like crap.

The lack of optimization is inexcusable, especially considering that it's a feature that every single current platform could use.

GPGPU is here, it can run AI and Physics on the GPU, devs have to build their engines from the ground up or update the features of them to take advantage of these commonalities between each platform.

 

It's not even like GPGPU is something unique to PS4, it's in XB1, Wii U and every modern PC, even NVidia GPUs have it, so the lack of support for it is pretty ridiculous.



mine said:
Norris2k said:
There is no way the XBone with 3 OS and virtualization requires less cpu than the lightweigh PS4's OS (BSD, that's light). So, this optimization will come to a high cost, or will happen on the PS4 as well.
Also it leaves the XBone with 2 bottlenecks compared to the PS4 : the GPU, and the memory bandwidth. And that not something one more cpu can change.

Oh that virtualizations costs are that high? really? 

Do you really think that all cores are switching at regular intervalles between host and virtualized client?

Nope - of course they don't do. Even on your desktop computer any virtualization won't do that as long you didn't manage to misconfigure it.

 

BTW: the PS4 has a CPU bottleneck. And thats something no GPU can change.

Both have a cpu bottleneck; they're cpu's are also basically identical, the X1's is just overclocked to be marginally, and i mean marginally, like 1.6 ghz vs 1.5 ghz irc, faster.

That being said, making a game that focuses on the weakest part of the system, i.e cpu intensive as opposed to gpu intensive doesn't make a lot of sense as as early as last gen GPU's were vastly more important.

Main reason being that CPU is mainly for OS and Virtualization, which makes sense considering the focus of the two systems pre launch.

CIP: GPU's are vastly more important for gaming in general, and is the reason GPUs have been progressing so much faster than CPUs in all realms of computing, see GPGPU and PC where it's been this way since last gen



In this day and age, with the Internet, ignorance is a choice! And they're still choosing Ignorance! - Dr. Filthy Frank

mine said:
Norris2k said:

If we are saying that this generation fails so far to go to an higher level than graphic improvements, I agree.

If you want to say that one more core for the XBone will lead to da real true next gen experience, and that the PS4 will not be able to, I think you are wrong. First, one more weak CPU for an already highly multithreaded program is not enough to make such a big difference. Second, it's not just about AI, and other improvements would take GPU power. Last, if it's just about giving one more CPU what ever the impact is, Sony can patch anytime.

I find your post quite biased as you talk about "PS4 developers" only polishing. Most developpers are multiplatforms, it's not a PS4/Sony problem. And that so far MS first party didn't get farer into next gen than Sony's first.


I didn't say that the Xone will lead to real true next gen experience as both designs are to similar. 

The PS4 has more on the GPU side whose potential might not live up as Cerny believes (I still remember those Cell statements) but will simply used for some better graphics and "physics topping" (like cloth animations).

The Xone has more on the CPU side which is more easily used for things like AI.

But still both fail to deliver on CPU power. It can go so far that the developers will settle for 30fps, trying to attract with more effects (which won't be possible in 60fps) at the cost of gameplay...


Well you haven't read the paper about how little the AI really takes of processing power on the CPU.... why do you think AC can have thousands of NPCs with individual AI in the game??? Make better AI don't need better HW at the moment, just better code...

And think what... look at most games completion rate (considering they are like 10x easier than NES/SNES era) with easy AI people already complain about how the game is hard (Dark Souls is almost a freak for some) so if AI was even better more people would complain. In fact in this article about how cheap AI consume on processor the guy goes to explain that for FPS they actually use AI as a way to dumb down the oponent, because the computer always knows where you are and where you are aiming so they need to make the AI worse so you can hit it.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Dr.Henry_Killinger said:
mine said:
Norris2k said:
There is no way the XBone with 3 OS and virtualization requires less cpu than the lightweigh PS4's OS (BSD, that's light). So, this optimization will come to a high cost, or will happen on the PS4 as well.
Also it leaves the XBone with 2 bottlenecks compared to the PS4 : the GPU, and the memory bandwidth. And that not something one more cpu can change.

Oh that virtualizations costs are that high? really? 

Do you really think that all cores are switching at regular intervalles between host and virtualized client?

Nope - of course they don't do. Even on your desktop computer any virtualization won't do that as long you didn't manage to misconfigure it.

 

BTW: the PS4 has a CPU bottleneck. And thats something no GPU can change.

Both have a cpu bottleneck; they're cpu's are also basically identical, the X1's is just overclocked to be marginally, and i mean marginally, like 1.6 ghz vs 1.5 ghz irc, faster.

That being said, making a game that focuses on the weakest part of the system, i.e cpu intensive as opposed to gpu intensive doesn't make a lot of sense as as early as last gen GPU's were vastly more important.

Main reason being that CPU is mainly for OS and Virtualization, which makes sense considering the focus of the two systems pre launch.

CIP: GPU's are vastly more important for gaming in general, and is the reason GPUs have been progressing so much faster than CPUs in all realms of computing, see GPGPU and PC where it's been this way since last gen


And when you question that people criticize Sony and to a lesser stance MS for putting weak CPU, while Ubi focused on the element even modern PC don't focus... so it is more on betting on the wrong horse and lousy optimization (that Ubi recognized by spreading the projects to more teams and giving more time to devs).



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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DonFerrari said:


Well you haven't read the paper about how little the AI really takes of processing power on the CPU.... why do you think AC can have thousands of NPCs with individual AI in the game??? Make better AI don't need better HW at the moment, just better code...

And think what... look at most games completion rate (considering they are like 10x easier than NES/SNES era) with easy AI people already complain about how the game is hard (Dark Souls is almost a freak for some) so if AI was even better more people would complain. In fact in this article about how cheap AI consume on processor the guy goes to explain that for FPS they actually use AI as a way to dumb down the oponent, because the computer always knows where you are and where you are aiming so they need to make the AI worse so you can hit it.


So Ubisoft lied when they said they expected more from both Xone and PS4... sure.

I also don't think that Ubisoft does write that bad code - otherwise they wouldn't have defined a genre by implementing a crowd simulation first.

Real AI isn't cheap at all. You need a dedicated GPU to implement some harder problems.

I suggest you take a look at the NVidia sites and presentations...



mine said:
DonFerrari said:


Well you haven't read the paper about how little the AI really takes of processing power on the CPU.... why do you think AC can have thousands of NPCs with individual AI in the game??? Make better AI don't need better HW at the moment, just better code...

And think what... look at most games completion rate (considering they are like 10x easier than NES/SNES era) with easy AI people already complain about how the game is hard (Dark Souls is almost a freak for some) so if AI was even better more people would complain. In fact in this article about how cheap AI consume on processor the guy goes to explain that for FPS they actually use AI as a way to dumb down the oponent, because the computer always knows where you are and where you are aiming so they need to make the AI worse so you can hit it.


So Ubisoft lied when they said they expected more from both Xone and PS4... sure.

I also don't think that Ubisoft does write that bad code - otherwise they wouldn't have defined a genre by implementing a crowd simulation first.

Real AI isn't cheap at all. You need a dedicated GPU to implement some harder problems.

I suggest you take a look at the NVidia sites and presentations...

Can you really say that with a straight face after Assassin's Creed Unity? 



Landguy said:
Xbox One Just went Super Saiyan with Unlocked CPU Power
 

Microsoft's Xbox One has captured the love of many gamers since its release in 2013. Since, its been the bearer of a number of really strong titles, and recently, the console even beat Sony's Playstation 4 for total sales in one month. It's a great time to be an Xbox gamer.

You'll be happy to hear that things are going to get even better!

During the Christmas Break, hacking group H4LT released a number of different documents containing sensitive material, all pertinent to Microsoft's Xbox One. In these documents were the development tools that studios now have access to, and we're pretty excited at one of these revelations...

Apparently, the latest development tools issued to studios allow those studios to use more of the Xbox One's power. Microsoft had previously relegated some of the console's processing power to running the background menus and such, but it looks like they might have overcompensated.

While this might result in improved gameplay from the console, there are a couple of things that developers will have to sacrifice in order to utilize this extra processing power.

These include:

  • Game-specific voice commands
  • Full Kinect functionality

Sure, it's a small list, but those are also part of Microsoft's visions for the Xbox One. Maybe we're learning that it's really just about the games, and less about the cool knick-knacks and peripherals.

 

Source : http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/25900/article/xbox-one-just-went-super-saiyan-with-unlocked-cpu-power/

Maybe kaioken, not super saiyan.



mine said:
DonFerrari said:


Well you haven't read the paper about how little the AI really takes of processing power on the CPU.... why do you think AC can have thousands of NPCs with individual AI in the game??? Make better AI don't need better HW at the moment, just better code...

And think what... look at most games completion rate (considering they are like 10x easier than NES/SNES era) with easy AI people already complain about how the game is hard (Dark Souls is almost a freak for some) so if AI was even better more people would complain. In fact in this article about how cheap AI consume on processor the guy goes to explain that for FPS they actually use AI as a way to dumb down the oponent, because the computer always knows where you are and where you are aiming so they need to make the AI worse so you can hit it.


So Ubisoft lied when they said they expected more from both Xone and PS4... sure.

I also don't think that Ubisoft does write that bad code - otherwise they wouldn't have defined a genre by implementing a crowd simulation first.

Real AI isn't cheap at all. You need a dedicated GPU to implement some harder problems.

I suggest you take a look at the NVidia sites and presentations...

Yep, they talk all kind of BS to prompt their own PR... why else would they push the blame on the HW instead of making sure the size of the game (AI included) wasn't bigger than computational power offered???

Yep, 200 bugs patched, 6.5Gb patches are all clear evidence of a good coded game.

You need a dedicated GPU, but X1 perhaps 10% stronger CPU and weaker 50% is better suited for the game? Want to rephrase that?

I took a look. And I also saw the games released for PS4 and X1, so I'll preffer to say talking is cheap, showing your talent is a lot harder... Infamous looked a lot better than AC and WD.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."