Witcher 3 dev: No major power diff. Hidden XBO power?

[incendy]

Resources are only as powerful as the developers taking advantage of them. Out of the box, the Xbox is doing more with their resources. The first party games on Xbox One are better, the system OS actually does multitasking that is useful, their voice clarity online is unprecedented, their voice command system is the best ever created on any platform, their cloud computing is being used very well for drivatars which are a game changer in single player racing career formulas and on top of that they create the first completely hands free all in one remote. You can argue numbers all day, but I like to look at the results. Xbox One is groundbreaking.

[trooper11]

This thread is definitely on the edge of worth at this point.

I think you guys have laid all the technical details you can and argued about their implementation. The back and forth arguing just proves that no one here really knows how it will all shake out.

No one can settle the argument, because that would require waiting years and see the games that come out. All this talk about late patches and games being released in a poor state all point to a rushed launch. As I said before, anyone that wants to hold up a launch title as proof of something needs to look at the reality of the situation. Rushed ports to the next gen do not show the potential in the hardware.

At this point, I see two consoles that are capable of great looking games. The question will be down to multiplatform titles and if the X1 versions end up very close to ps4 versions, or noticeably different. Last gen, it was the ps3 version of many games that had noticeable issues, but that was usually down to frame rate problems, not necessarily a resolution problem. So far this gen, the X1 multiplatform titles that are different are not suffering from frame rate issues, just running at a lower res. It'll be interesting to see if this holds true going forward or if it was a result of rushed launch titles.

[Andre S. Veteran]

1.XBO audio chip has dedicated hardware for audio processing,enough power as one full CPU core. In your link, cerny talks about using GPU for audio processing. Also,if not using GPU,you will use CPU.

2.CPU core has a few meg chunk of ESRAM. Audio works with esram. This is a pretty big deal. Ever look at benchmarks of chips with more cache? Yeah,i thought so.

3.CPU is upclocked.

4.Moves engines do compress/decompress of data on the fly.Bandwidth saver

5.XBO has 200GB/S ESRAM + 68GB/S DDR3 ram that can be used simultaneously,for a total theoretical throughput of 268GB/S,much more than 176GB/S. Fact is, you can have a thread doing work on the DDR3,while the GPU is working on the ESRAM. No blocking,no stalling,no waiting,completely two different memories.

6.compressed render targets again maximize bandwidth

And i leave you with a quote from master cerny,from your own article you posted,that you probably didnt read,that discredits the suggestion that the GPU is build with 18CU for better graphics. even the sony docs acknowledge that the system is balanced for 14CU. why keep denying this?

the xbox gpu clock increases make the 12CU perform higher than 14CU at the original 800mhz clock,according to microsoft engineers.

1. PS4 has TrueAudio which is a dedicated audio DSP with its own memory. No advantage there for Xbox One.

2. CPU on PS4 is less cache dependent because the main memory is so much faster. The entire point of ESRAM on Xbox One is to prevent having to access the main memory too much because it's slow. ESRAM on Xbox One uses lots of die space at the expense of shaders. No advantage there for Xbox One.

3. Yeah it's about 9% faster. 

4. Xbox One needs all the bandwidth savers it can because of DDR3 RAM. As I already pointed out, Move Engines on Xbox One are to make up for the slow main memory. 

5. Practical, measured bandwidth is about 200GB/s as pointed by a Microsoft engineer in this interview. What you fail to grasp is that 99% of the memory cannot be accessed at anywhere near that bandwidth, and this is a real limitation. It's much faster to access large datasets (i.e. > 32MB) on PS4. And again, you restate your point of threads stalling while they wait for main memory which is completely false as I've already pointed out.

6. And who said these couldn't be used on PS4?

 

My point from the start has been that the PS4 has significantly more computational power than the Xbox One. So far it seems to translate into higher resolutions in PS4 games, which would be the most straightforward way of taking advantage of them, but perhaps that'll translate into different sets of advantages as developers take advantage of the extra CUs for GPGPU. However developers take advantage of the extra power, the extra power's there, and does and will keep benefiting games in significant ways.

 

I find it amazing the zeal with which some will defend that the Xbox One cannot possibly have inferior graphics to its competitor - both in theory and in practice so far, all data points that it does: it has a significantly weaker GPU, and games run at lower resolutions on average so far. Yet... Microsoft engineers said that it was "balanced", so has to be that the PS4 is "imbalanced"! And that resolution differences are just the result of poor coding on the part of Xbox One game programmers! Well, ultimately, I guess you can believe that if you really want to. I'll stick to the straightforward conclusion every professional critic has made about these consoles.

[HawkMan]

 

I find it amazing the zeal with which some will defend that the Xbox One cannot possibly have inferior graphics to its competitor - both in theory and in practice so far, all data points that it does: it has a significantly weaker GPU, and games run at lower resolutions on average so far. Yet... Microsoft engineers said that it was "balanced", so has to be that the PS4 is "imbalanced"! And that resolution differences are just the result of poor coding on the part of Xbox One game programmers! Well, ultimately, I guess you can believe that if you really want to. I'll stick to the straightforward conclusion every professional critic has made about these consoles.

 

But Actual game graphics and performance is showing that the PS4 doesn't have an advantage.the only advantage we're seeing there now is more time with the SDK.

[vcfan]

1. PS4 has TrueAudio which is a dedicated audio DSP with its own memory. No advantage there for Xbox One.

2. CPU on PS4 is less cache dependent because the main memory is so much faster. The entire point of ESRAM on Xbox One is to prevent having to access the main memory too much because it's slow. ESRAM on Xbox One uses lots of die space at the expense of shaders. No advantage there for Xbox One.

3. Yeah it's about 9% faster. 

4. Xbox One needs all the bandwidth savers it can because of DDR3 RAM. As I already pointed out, Move Engines on Xbox One are to make up for the slow main memory. 

5. Practical, measured bandwidth is about 200GB/s as pointed by a Microsoft engineer in this interview. What you fail to grasp is that 99% of the memory cannot be accessed at anywhere near that bandwidth, and this is a real limitation. It's much faster to access large datasets (i.e. > 32MB) on PS4. And again, you restate your point of threads stalling while they wait for main memory which is completely false as I've already pointed out.

6. And who said these couldn't be used on PS4?

 

My point from the start has been that the PS4 has significantly more computational power than the Xbox One. So far it seems to translate into higher resolutions in PS4 games, which would be the most straightforward way of taking advantage of them, but perhaps that'll translate into different sets of advantages as developers take advantage of the extra CUs for GPGPU. However developers take advantage of the extra power, the extra power's there, and does and will keep benefiting games in significant ways.

 

I find it amazing the zeal with which some will defend that the Xbox One cannot possibly have inferior graphics to its competitor - both in theory and in practice so far, all data points that it does: it has a significantly weaker GPU, and games run at lower resolutions on average so far. Yet... Microsoft engineers said that it was "balanced", so has to be that the PS4 is "imbalanced"! And that resolution differences are just the result of poor coding on the part of Xbox One game programmers! Well, ultimately, I guess you can believe that if you really want to. I'll stick to the straightforward conclusion every professional critic has made about these consoles.

1.non programmable,must use cpu/gpu. xbox ones SHAPE audio is programmable, and it isnt just a DSP. It has hardware codecs,dedicated mix buffers,equalizer. also has some esram. Advantage XBOX

2.Less cache dependent? HUH? that is funny. Do you know how much of a penalty there is for a cache miss and going out to the memory controller? having a few meg chunk of esram cache for the CPU is huge. same for audio.

3.exactly

4.right,it helps the DDR3, but the DDR3 is not the only memory. its called esram.

5.real world performance for esram is 150GB/S, DDR3 is 50GB/S. real world performance of 176GB/S GDDR5? probably 120GB/S. about memory stalls, do you not understand that if the memory is being used,and there is a cache miss, stalling occurs? geez. advantage....XBOX

6. who says they are supported?

sorry ,but sony engineers also said the system is balanced for a similar amount of CUs,theres on denying that. its in the SDK,and the lead engineer even suggest you dont put that many shaders if you're targeting graphics. Its a fact that XBOX has dedicated hardware that doesnt rely on shaders,whereas PS4 lead engineer suggests you use these shaders for non graphical processing.

[trooper11]

I find it amazing the zeal with which some will defend that the Xbox One cannot possibly have inferior graphics to its competitor - both in theory and in practice so far, all data points that it does: it has a significantly weaker GPU, and games run at lower resolutions on average so far. Yet... Microsoft engineers said that it was "balanced", so has to be that the PS4 is "imbalanced"! And that resolution differences are just the result of poor coding on the part of Xbox One game programmers! Well, ultimately, I guess you can believe that if you really want to. I'll stick to the straightforward conclusion every professional critic has made about these consoles.

Ill ask you again in that case:

Based on your points, do you believe then that the X1 will not improve its position against the ps4 graphics wise at all as this generation progresses? As in, will more and more X1 games come out at 1080p?

You guys keep arguing about which has higher performance, which its clear that the ps4 has the edge in the gpu shader department. I'm getting from you that that advantage is basically the only advantage that really matters, so in that case, what is the floor performance wise for the X1 and ps4?

Is it reasonable to expect mostly 1080p support for both the X1 and ps4 as it goes along, or will the X1 have far fewer such titles?

Is the ps4 already being properly utilized thanks to its more straightforward approach, or do you feel like it will see healthy jumps as well going forward? Could we see all ps4 games running 1080p/60 or even higher?

[Showan]

Both of these consoles will pump amazing visuals for games.

If PS4 games look slightly better, then so be it. It is what it is.

Ryse, FORZA, NBA2K14, let me know that the Xbox will be more than ok when it comes to visuals. Even Kinect Sports Rivals looks good.

I think TitanFall, Halo, Quantum Break, Sunset OverDrive, and hopefully Fable, will help ease the "these graphics suck" pain...

Edit: and hopefully all developers will take advantage of Microsoft's dedicated and Compute server services as well for all future games

[trooper11]

Yeah I really don't think people need to get overly upset about it. The fact is that both consoles are several times more powerful than the last gen and that means both consoles will have great looking games.

It may turn out to be sort of like last gen where X1 exclusives look better on average then multiplatform titles, which end up looking a bit better on the ps4. So maybe we will see multiplatform titles sell better on the ps4 because of that.

I remember similar arguments over the 360 and ps3, where the 360 had the better gpu, while the ps3 had the better cpu. Now the ps3 was also hampered by a very difficult programming model. Luckily the X1 doesn't have that issue. Its different from the ps4 yes, but its not completely foreign either. It combines a pc-like architecture with some design choices from the 360 (i.e. the use of esram).

I'm just excited to have these consoles personally. I think both can do well, I just don't see the need to argue over this stuff. I do like reading the tech behind these things in great detail, but beyond that, this back and forth just seems tiresome.

[Jarrichvdv]

I love how the hypothetical argument right now is developers unlocking more power with the One as the time goes on, but the PS4 will remain the same.

PS4 is much easier to develop for, meaning the developers are most likely already tapping in most of the potential of the PS4 with little effort, which makes for less room for improvement. This is not the case with Xbox One. Many XO games are not yet fully optimised for the more complex nature of the hardware.

That argument is actually not as silly as it sounds.

[JonnyLH]

1. PS4 has TrueAudio which is a dedicated audio DSP with its own memory. No advantage there for Xbox One.

2. CPU on PS4 is less cache dependent because the main memory is so much faster. The entire point of ESRAM on Xbox One is to prevent having to access the main memory too much because it's slow. ESRAM on Xbox One uses lots of die space at the expense of shaders. No advantage there for Xbox One.

3. Yeah it's about 9% faster. 

4. Xbox One needs all the bandwidth savers it can because of DDR3 RAM. As I already pointed out, Move Engines on Xbox One are to make up for the slow main memory. 

5. Practical, measured bandwidth is about 200GB/s as pointed by a Microsoft engineer in this interview. What you fail to grasp is that 99% of the memory cannot be accessed at anywhere near that bandwidth, and this is a real limitation. It's much faster to access large datasets (i.e. > 32MB) on PS4. And again, you restate your point of threads stalling while they wait for main memory which is completely false as I've already pointed out.

6. And who said these couldn't be used on PS4?

 

My point from the start has been that the PS4 has significantly more computational power than the Xbox One. So far it seems to translate into higher resolutions in PS4 games, which would be the most straightforward way of taking advantage of them, but perhaps that'll translate into different sets of advantages as developers take advantage of the extra CUs for GPGPU. However developers take advantage of the extra power, the extra power's there, and does and will keep benefiting games in significant ways.

 

I find it amazing the zeal with which some will defend that the Xbox One cannot possibly have inferior graphics to its competitor - both in theory and in practice so far, all data points that it does: it has a significantly weaker GPU, and games run at lower resolutions on average so far. Yet... Microsoft engineers said that it was "balanced", so has to be that the PS4 is "imbalanced"! And that resolution differences are just the result of poor coding on the part of Xbox One game programmers! Well, ultimately, I guess you can believe that if you really want to. I'll stick to the straightforward conclusion every professional critic has made about these consoles.

To be honest, I think you've took a lot of the quotes from the engineers out of context around the X1. Like vfchan I've got to clarify some of the points you made.

 

1. The "TrueAudio" technology is around Encoding/Decoding only, this is all the chip is capable of. I'm presuming the "TrueAudio" support is a correct hardware implementation of that. Whereas, in the X1 it has a 8 core DSP processor which offloads all audio processing from the CPU/GPU. Its contrary belief that audio sampling in games doesn't take up too much, but obviously that is game depending. When I'm producing, I can easily max my i5 with not many VST effects.

 

2. CPU's don't care about the sheer speed of memory, they care about the latency. The Jaguar APU has a 32 bit bus to the RAM from the CPU and mix that with Onion which is sharing with the GPU, you're going to be potentially waiting on returns which can miss clock cycles and really add some development head aches to frame ticks. Hence a lot of focus on GPGPU.

 

4. You're not going to see many applications maxing out RAM constantly especially with tiling which was brought in with DX 11.2. The real application BW of the RAM is higher than of the PS4's thanks to concurrent R/W to the eSRAM and seperate buses to the RAM's which means the BW isn't shared between the 2 architectures even though they use the same page tables. The 'Move Engines', which are really 2 more DMA's, are there not to speed up the RAM but to ensure clock cycles aren't wasted from the CPU by moving bits of data between them. Especially when the CPU has slow access to the eSRAM which means that if the DMA's weren't there they'd have to be picked up by the GPU. DDR3 is perfect for tilled resources which, if you google Build 2013, provides some excellent results. eSRAM is perfect for the frame buffer, the only problem is that you won't be able to post-process a full 1080p frame on the eSRAM, and you'll have to use DMA's to move buffers around depending on what needs post.

 

5. I don't get what you're saying here. He clearly said that this was real code which set these speeds, that cannot be argued with. 

 

Regarding the resolution differences this early, the PS4 will be superior due to the architecture and how that matches the PC engines which will of simply been ported over and coded to use whatever API. I sincerely doubt multi-plats are excluding mid-tier API's this early on. Where as, if you do the same on the X1, you've got custom hardware which isn't being used, eSRAM not properly being utilized and the differences you're seeing. 

[HawkMan]

PS4 is much easier to develop for, meaning the developers are most likely already tapping in most of the potential of the PS4 with little effort, which makes for less room for improvement. This is not the case with Xbox One. Many XO games are not yet fully optimised for the more complex nature of the hardware.

That argument is actually not as silly as it sounds.

 

This is a half truth.

 

at the moment, the ESRAM and move engines and some other features of the APU is either inaccessible or have to be specially optimized by the developer.  This is not how it's going to be down the line. while developers will be able to choose to manually optimize these features, with later versions of the SDK it will automatically take advantage of all these features for the developers and optimize for them without them needing to do anything.

 

This just wasn't ready for launch, but anyone who knows about MS and their development tools know that it's some of the best and easiest to use you can get, if not THE best and easiest. Just because the hardware is more complex, doesn't mean the dev tools have to be. 

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

<snip>

 

2. CPU's don't care about the sheer speed of memory, they care about the latency. The Jaguar APU has a 32 bit bus to the RAM from the CPU and mix that with Onion which is sharing with the GPU, you're going to be potentially waiting on returns which can miss clock cycles and really add some development head aches to frame ticks. Hence a lot of focus on GPGPU.

 

<snip>

 

This isn't strictly true. It really depend on the usage pattern. Bandwidth could be important, bandwidth could not be important for the CPU. Looking at the PS4 briefly, supposedly there is a separate bus for the CPU and memory caches in the CPU bus which will alleviate many of the issues associated with the higher latency of GDDR5. Speaking of, GDDR5 doesn't inherently have higher latencies if you look at the module specifications. I'm seeing talk on the web stating that issue typically stems from the controller. So I'm wondering if you configure DDR3 with 256-bit buses if it also has high latencies at the controller. Anyone have any insights on this? Or a study that discusses the latency issues origins?

[Prosidius]

The PS4 is more powerful on paper but who cares?  The tiny difference in power wont mean anything.  The PS3 is more powerful than the Xbox 360 and that didn't change anything for graphics.