Sony reveals PS4's CPU clock (1.6GHz) - 6 cores available to developers

[Deders]

Its a different but related problem. The issue isn't really performance to defrag (although that is certainly a concern) its that the program has an open connection to the bytes in question and requires them not to move because its pointing to them. Only highly abstracted memory models like Java's allow for defragging the memory space of a program.

Unlike on hard drives the problem isn't that files get split in multiple locations causing extra seeks. Instead its a problem of space wastage as small gaps between groups of objects appear and those gaps aren't reusable by the program as they are too small. Its called a similar thing to HDD fragmentation but it manifests and behaves very differently - its mostly a concern for programmers.

So is this an issue with PC's as well? I would have thought they would be able to assign data to any part of the available ram. didn't think it had to be contiguous.

 

[jhu]

So is this an issue with PC's as well? I would have thought they would be able to assign data to any part of the available ram. didn't think it had to be contiguous.

That's what I thought too that data could be placed anywhere in RAM, fragmented or not (but access will be slower if not aligned to certain boundaries). Here's an explanation. What I don't understand is that the OS and hardware are handling the virtual address space. So if I want to allocate a large contiguous chunk of memory that happens to physically not be contiguous, shouldn't the OS/hardware be able to handle that (ie OS gives me one contiguous piece of memory but physically it could be in 20 different chunks)?

 

[Pheran]

You may be right (especially with the Xbox One with it's weaker graphics side of the APU). But I don't think we should try and say based on titles that have only come out within the first ~four months since the consoles launched.

Yes we can. The GPUs in the PS4 and Xbox One have no hope of running games at 4K, period. The only exception might be some kind of arcade game that uses relatively trivial graphics (think Geometry Wars).

 

[podspi]

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw much quicker release schedules now. It would be pretty trivial to upgrade either the xbone or ps4 -- and maintain backwards compatibility.

My guess would be they'll even have games that will run on both generations from the same disc, and just look better on one or the other. This is the smartest way to go because then it allows you (similar to iPhone/iPad/Android) to build up an ecosystem that relies on more than one device and has some continuity.

The only issue I see is that both companies seem to want way too much for consoles that honestly should only be around for a year or two as the newest thing. These things lasting for the next 8 years is a joke.

 

[Erenhardt]

Games on that imaginary GTX980 machine will run at the at very similar detail level (-aa for consoles) but with higher resolution. All that good and shiny tech will be busy pushing all those pixel, which for most of the console users is a waste - just like it was in previous gen.

I think that cheaper and weaker consoles are good thing if it was done to shorten the livespan of console generation. 8 years (or whatever ps3/360 lifespan was) is too long for a gaming hardware. It's impossible to be competitive, even against current low-end, no matter how strong the hardware initially was.

Even if ps4/xbone would be 2 times faster than titan and had CPU faster than i7 series... Those improvements would find their way to desktop in no time, just like it was with xbox360. Give it 3 more years and this powerful console is obsolete regardless.

Short generations that make actual profit on the hardware is the way to go and that is what they are aiming.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Yes we can. The GPUs in the PS4 and Xbox One have no hope of running games at 4K, period. The only exception might be some kind of arcade game that uses relatively trivial graphics (think Geometry Wars).

I was responding to his comment about the PS4 and Xbox One running games today in HD (well, 1080P anyway). No way either are going to run anything meaningful at 4k.

 

[Pheran]

I was responding to his comment about the PS4 and Xbox One running games today in HD (well, 1080P anyway). No way either are going to run anything meaningful at 4k.

That makes sense, obviously I misunderstood your comment. I don't think the PS4 will have much trouble running 1080p games at 30 fps, or even 60 fps for many games once they get better at programming for it. The Xbox One is definitely going to struggle more.

 

[Makaveli]

Indeed. Even 8-cores @ 2GHz would be something like 3.9 - no better than a Haswell i3-4340. So much for the "8-core next gen consoles are going to DESTROY the i5 - quad-cores are DEAD!" fanboys. :biggrin:

that's what fanboys do talk crap when they know nothing.

Xbone and PS4 was suppose to be the final nail in the coffin for PC gaming.


.......Ya right!

 

[Arkaign]

that's what fanboys do talk crap when they know nothing.

Xbone and PS4 was suppose to be the final nail in the coffin for PC gaming.


.......Ya right!

Haha, more like a huge boost to PC gaming Especially with all the easy direct ports thanks to x86/GCN.

 

[Makaveli]

Haha, more like a huge boost to PC gaming Especially with all the easy direct ports thanks to x86/GCN.

Well said friend but the fanboys are blind to this fact.

 

[Rakehellion]

The PS2 and Xbox weren't really enough for HD when it was the' next big thing', too. I wouldn't expect the PS4 or Xbox One to be up to the task of 4K.

When the Xbox 360 was released, about 2% of people had 1080p televisions so it made no sense to program for them. That's how 4K is today.

 

[Rakehellion]

Yes we can. The GPUs in the PS4 and Xbox One have no hope of running games at 4K, period.

I'm sure they could run any PS3 or Xbox 360 games at 4K.

Your assertion of "at all, period" is a raging misunderstanding of how computers work.

 

[Makaveli]

I'm sure they could run any PS3 or Xbox 360 games at 4K.

Your assertion of "at all, period" is a raging misunderstanding of how computers work.

The Ps4 and Xbone are backwards compatible?

 

[Rakehellion]

The Ps4 and Xbone are backwards compatible?

A programmer for the PS4 and Xbox One can write software that does whatever they want.

 

[witeken]

5Ghz 8-Core/16-Thread Skymont-K 10nm $379

Off-topic, but Skymont doesn't exist . It's Cannonlake.

 

[Pheran]

I'm sure they could run any PS3 or Xbox 360 games at 4K.

Your assertion of "at all, period" is a raging misunderstanding of how computers work.

You are twisting my words, and this is exactly the reason I brought up the Geometry Wars exception that you conveniently deleted. Sure, if you cut out enough other detail (polygon count, etc.) you can render a crappy source at high resolution and probably a low frame rate. That won't make it a good-looking 4K game.

 

[BrightCandle]

That's what I thought too that data could be placed anywhere in RAM, fragmented or not (but access will be slower if not aligned to certain boundaries). Here's an explanation. What I don't understand is that the OS and hardware are handling the virtual address space. So if I want to allocate a large contiguous chunk of memory that happens to physically not be contiguous, shouldn't the OS/hardware be able to handle that (ie OS gives me one contiguous piece of memory but physically it could be in 20 different chunks)?

Memory allocation is really complicated and there is a lot to it, and programmers are the only ones that really understand the what, why and how of it all as its a large part of what we deal with. In essence different size objects create different sized holes in memory, when we no longer need the object we free the memory leaving a particular size hole. Unless future objects will fit perfectly into that hole between objects there will be space wasted in RAM. We also have to pack memory to various boundaries for performance reasons, both for caching behaviour and for read/write performance to RAM. But honestly I can't do the topic justice in a forum, I could write multiple books on the topic of memory fragmentation and the theory of how much memory is necessary and the trade offs of performance to space.

 

[Aikouka]

Haha, more like a huge boost to PC gaming Especially with all the easy direct ports thanks to x86/GCN.

Ugh... why do people keep bringing up the architecture similarities like they are guaranteed to make a difference? I'm going to get real with you right now... it doesn't necessarily mean jack diddly squat! What really matters is the two Ls: languages and libraries. For example, if I coded a program for Windows that uses C++ with only using the STL and OpenGL, I can easily port that Linux, because I used a standard C++ library (the STL) and a graphics library that has a Linux variant. The same could be true for the PS4 if I used DirectX so long as the PS4 supported it.

Now, you can bring up an architecture like that if people are coding straight to the hardware (i.e. using assembly). Unfortunately, for a console with a specific operating system, the architecture doesn't mean much if that OS isn't packaged with libraries that we care about.

So is this an issue with PC's as well? I would have thought they would be able to assign data to any part of the available ram. didn't think it had to be contiguous.

I believe it is possible to arbitrarily split up what should be contiguous pieces of data (e.g. an array), but that's not something that you usually handle when coding at a high level (high level means further abstracted from the underlying hardware not high level as in a high level of difficulty). It only takes a single pointer to jump to another spot in memory, which means two pointers can join two chunks of data.

Honestly, I've never done that sort of thing, but I've also never had much experience coding at a very low level.

 

[Makaveli]

A programmer for the PS4 and Xbox One can write software that does whatever they want.

That's not what I meant.

Can those system currently play ps3 and xbox games right now?

 

[moonbogg]

So if games are coded for 6 cores on the consoles, then a quad without HT would be ideal still?

 

[Ventanni]

So if games are coded for 6 cores on the consoles, then a quad without HT would be ideal still?

In most cases, yes, but not always. From my understanding it's always possible to run a thread on a logical (HT) core, but it's not always advantageous from a performance perspective, so developers may choose to utilize it at their own discretion. Same games, like BF3/4, see speed improvements by utilizing HT. Some games, like Planetside 2 (I believe), do not. Of course, any quadcore+HT is going to be an Intel based CPU, and you really can't go wrong with those for gaming.

I also may be completely wrong on this, so my entire argument could thrown down the toilet.

Overall though, game optimizations for the PS4/XB1 will largely involve better thread utilization, which will benefit PC's tremendously. This is probably the best console generation for PC gaming due to the similarity of the hardware and RAM sizes. I know PC's will surpass the RAM sizes that the consoles have, but it's really the first generation I've seen where consoles are at least at parity with PC's upon release.

 

[TeknoBug]

Yeah I figured the console CPU's are around 1.5-1.6GHz, my laptop has an A4-5000 "Jaguar" which is the same group as the console's CPUs. They're not bad for the low TDP.

Also my Moto X Android phone has 8 cores yet each set of cores has its own jobs (1 alive all the time for touchless control, 2 for GPU, 4 for CPU, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if that's how PC's will evolve a decade from now.

 

[Roland00Address]

Also my Moto X Android phone has 8 cores yet each set of cores has its own jobs (1 alive all the time for touchless control, 2 for GPU, 4 for CPU, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if that's how PC's will evolve a decade from now.

Those are not the cores you are looking for.

 

[escrow4]

Heh, a poky tablet CPU (6 cores usable) with 8GB RAM (5GB usable) - and that lasting for 8yrs? The horror! Look how crippled games are now with these old ass consoles with 512MB RAM - tiny levels, checkpoints, constant loading screens (I'm looking at you thief), low res everything. In less than 3yrs, once again, games will be held back. Again. "Next-gen" [barely] should have been packed with 16GB RAM out the box and with a way beefier CPU.

 

[crashtech]

I can only see this as good news for the PC. Even though those who desire a better gaming experience are no doubt a niche market, at least it's a niche that looks like it will survive and be something for which it is easy to make a case.