Next gen PS5 and next Xbox launch speculation - Secret sauces spicing 2019

Samanosuke Akechi · Jan 30, 2019

A coworker today explained ray tracing to me and showed me this video.

I was quite impressed by it.

Do these graphics seem possible to y'all on the new consoles or are these too advanced for the rumored specs?

Sorry, I'm kind of a noob when it comes to this stuff.

KOHIPEET · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
Some comments of Albert Penello on the Digital Foundry video about expectations for next gen ...

Interesting. Wasn't Penello more bullish about power in the past?

BreakAtmo · Jan 30, 2019

KOHIPEET said:
I wonder if they need an 8 core processor. Wouldn't 6 cores clocked higher be enough for gaming?

The cost difference would likely be minimal, and having 8 cores would probably make PS4 BC simpler.

TheThreadsThatBindUs · Jan 30, 2019

Putty said:
I predict the following components. Cpu/Gpu/Mem/Psu and a case to cram it all in. The TF figure I expect to be around the numbers amount,

Numbers Tflops? R u srius?

If next-gen doesn't launch with numbers + arbitrary amount Tflops then it'll be a dissaster. Gamers will abandon consoles and buy a WiiU.

klik · Jan 30, 2019

Xbox Scarlett with Arcturus GPU leak?

Deleted member 12635 · Jan 30, 2019

Some interesting info on the SSD front that could explain 1TB SSD rumors for consoles:
Samsung Unveils 1TB eUFS Storage for Smartphones
https://wccftech.com/samsung-unveils-1tb-eufs-storage/

As it is embedded universal flash storage at a whopping 1000MB/s read speed it could also find its way into consoles as I suspect a good price per gigabyte ratio here.

KOHIPEET said:
Interesting. Wasn't Penello more bullish about power in the past?

I wouldn't say so. He was just excited about the product they sold with the Xbox One X when he worked with Microsoft. And rightfully so imo.

Fatmanp · Jan 30, 2019

KOHIPEET said:
I wonder if they need an 8 core processor. Wouldn't 6 cores clocked higher be enough for gaming?

It really depends on the game. Games on the Frostbite Engine really hammer the CPU and benefit greatly from more cores/threads. For example an equally clocked i5 7600k vs i7 7700k in Battlefield will see major gains on the i7 due to it having more threads.As games are becoming more open world and/or having lots of systems in play the requirements for higher core counts is becoming more frequent.

Samanosuke Akechi · Jan 30, 2019

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Numbers Tflops? R u srius?

If next-gen doesn't launch with numbers + arbitrary amount Tflops then it'll be a dissaster. Gamers will abandon consoles and buy a N-Gage.

FTFY.

TheThreadsThatBindUs · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
Some interesting info on the SSD front that could explain 1TB SSD rumors for consoles:
Samsung Unveils 1TB eUFS Storage for Smartphones
https://wccftech.com/samsung-unveils-1tb-eufs-storage/

As it is embedded universal flash storage at a whopping 1000MB/s read speed it could also find its way into consoles as I suspect a good price per gigabyte ratio here.

Great find. Looks promising.

KOHIPEET said:
Interesting. Wasn't Penello more bullish about power in the past?

I think he's just being more cautious after what happened last time. I don't blame him.

Folks easily mistake the passion and enthusiasm of people on the inside for concrete promises of hardware performance.

It's the unfortunate lunacy of fandom, tbh.

Samanosuke Akechi said:
FTFY.

Lol, N-Gage... now that's a blast from the past. I remeber being obsessed with it, thinking it was gonna be massive. Ended up being utter shit.

eso76 · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
News alert. I mean Digital Foundry Alert ...

Focus being on the chair instead of Richard's eyes the whole time is annoying me to no end for some reason.
But really, it's just a lesson in common sense for the most part; I was expecting a more detailed analysis on what's feasible and what isn't.

NoTime · Jan 30, 2019

chris 1515 said:
PICA PICA can use RTX GPU and it is not full path tracing like Quake 2 but an hybrid rendering demo for Volta and Turing but it runs much better on Turing. And it is a demo on a tiny scene.

https://fr.slideshare.net/mobile/DICEStudio/siggraph-2018-pica-pica-and-nvidia-turing

Edit: The leak is fake L4 seriously. SMT disabled. Bus 352 bits.

This is hilariously fake.

Welp nobody said it will be full on pathtracing even turing can't do it in full blown modern games. I don't get what do you mean 'tiny scene'? The size of the objects got nothing to do with how hard it is to render, it's all about polygon count and scene complexity. This demo is proof of concept that you can do real-time raytracing/hybrid rendering and have a better image with RT GI, then with the prebaked solution. Also, better transparency. I belive we will get this kind of RT on next-gen consoles.

Samanosuke Akechi · Jan 30, 2019

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Lol, N-Gage... now that's a blast from the past. I remeber being obsessed with it, thinking it was gonna be massive. Ended up being utter shit.

God wasn't it though? I remember the tiny screen hurting my eyes.

VX1 · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
Some comments of Albert Penello on the Digital Foundry video about expectations for next gen ...

This seems to me that people should get more realistic even about expensive Anaconda model.

Darkstorne · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
News alert. I mean Digital Foundry Alert ...

He's so right. Every single console reveal I can recall has been met with frustration and concerns from hardware enthusiasts. And yet every console gen has produced phenomenal results with said hardware.

Thinking about it... while the Pro and X have 4-6 TF the games they run look equally gorgeous on the respective 1-2 TF machines. If 8 TF becomes the new baseline now instead of 1.3 TF... coupled with more RAM and a colossal CPU upgrade (the one thing we are guaranteed lol) there really isn't anything to worry about. Devs will still produce mindblowingly gorgeous games, and maybe checkerboarding will just still be a thing for performance profiles trying to hit higher frame rates.

Deleted member 12635 · Jan 30, 2019

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Great find. Looks promising.

As I understand it the eUDF package even contains the SSD controller, so that would make perfect sense for a console. Though there is one caveat that people may not like. You cannot change the internal drive anymore. But on the other hand you gain opportunities to reduce the size of the form factor. If they can't shrink the form factor because of an optical drive they may offer a drive bay to upgrade hdd storage on your own. That would be the best solution for me.

BreakAtmo · Jan 30, 2019

Darkstorne said:
He's so right. Every single console reveal I can recall has been met with frustration and concerns from hardware enthusiasts. And yet every console gen has produced phenomenal results with said hardware.

Thinking about it... while the Pro and X have 4-6 TF the games they run look equally gorgeous on the respective 1-2 TF machines. If 8 TF becomes the new baseline now instead of 1.3 TF... coupled with more RAM and a colossal CPU upgrade (the one thing we are guaranteed lol) there really isn't anything to worry about. Devs will still produce mindblowingly gorgeous games, and maybe checkerboarding will just still be a thing for performance profiles trying to hit higher frame rates.

A new baseline isn't magic. Remember, even if you assume the mid-gen consoles are going underused, and keep in mind the big CPU jump that's coming, going from a 1.84TF baseline to an 8TF baseline is still one of the smallest GPU jumps ever relative to previous generations, combined with one of the biggest resolution jumps ever.

chris 1515 · Jan 30, 2019

NoTime said:
Welp nobody said it will be full on pathtracing even turing can't do it in full blown modern games. I don't get what do you mean 'tiny scene'? The size of the objects got nothing to do with how hard it is to render, it's all about polygon count and scene complexity. This demo is proof of concept that you can do real-time raytracing/hybrid rendering and have a better image with RT GI, then with the prebaked solution. Also, better transparency. I belive we will get this kind of RT on next-gen consoles.

I like the demo but it is nowhere as complex as a scene for a modern game.. BF5 is a much better example. After shading is not optimize for raytracing. All modern engine have tons of specialized shaders and it is a problem for cache instruction. For raytracing they need only a few generalized shaders and it will improve performance but currently we can't have multple rt effect with software raytracing on the same time. It is a demo at 1080p and the GDC demo on Volta was running with 1 ray per pixel when you improve the quality with more ray per pixel it becomes to be difficult for Volta.

Reading devs they expect raytraced shadow and raytraced ao for next generation. Because it is the easier to do and shadow secondary ray are memory coherent(cache friendly).

With Power VR solution Raytraced shadows are two times faster than shadow maps with better quality. Imo ugly shadow maps artifact are the worst artifact in real time rendering:

https://www.imgtec.com/blog/ray-traced-shadows-vs-cascaded-shadow-maps/

Other artifacts non solved by raytracing are undersampling, motion blur quality, depth of field quality and much better geometry complexity*.

* in Dreams you can do much better hair, round object and better foliage easily compared to current rasterization

EDIT: Explanation about shaders and raytracing by a dev

BreakAtmo · Jan 30, 2019

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Great find. Looks promising.

Imagine if we got a 1TB cache. Overkill, but 'I dig your style' overkill.

chris 1515 · Jan 30, 2019

If I remember tomorrow it will be 6 years, Sony send the PS Meeting invitation. Probably one more year to wait.

MrKlaw · Jan 30, 2019

BreakAtmo said:
A new baseline isn't magic. Remember, even if you assume the mid-gen consoles are going underused, and keep in mind the big CPU jump that's coming, going from a 1.84TF baseline to an 8TF baseline is still one of the smallest GPU jumps ever relative to previous generations, combined with one of the biggest resolution jumps ever.

Also potentially one of the smallest Ram jumps too - maybe as little as 2x? Playstation has been 8x every gen since the start (although PS4 isn't 8x usable due to OS)

So 3-4x CPU, 2-3x GPU (vs pro), 2-3x Ram.

I mean, stuff will still look great - but it'll be more like helping devs to make their current engines work more smoothly than suddenly giving them a huge amount of breathing room that will take years to fully exploit.

modiz · Jan 30, 2019

MrKlaw said:
Also potentially one of the smallest Ram jumps too - maybe as little as 2x? Playstation has been 8x every gen since the start (although PS4 isn't 8x usable due to OS)

So 3-4x CPU, 2-3x GPU (vs pro), 2-3x Ram.

I mean, stuff will still look great - but it'll be more like helping devs to make their current engines work more smoothly than suddenly giving them a huge amount of breathing room that will take years to fully exploit.

why do it against the pro? you need to compare against a whole generational leap, not against a half leap.

BreakAtmo · Jan 30, 2019

MrKlaw said:
Also potentially one of the smallest Ram jumps too - maybe as little as 2x? Playstation has been 8x every gen since the start (although PS4 isn't 8x usable due to OS)

So 3-4x CPU, 2-3x GPU (vs pro), 2-3x Ram.

I mean, stuff will still look great - but it'll be more like helping devs to make their current engines work more smoothly than suddenly giving them a huge amount of breathing room that will take years to fully exploit.

Yeah, of course everything will definitely look better, but PS5 games looking better than PS4 games is really kind of the bare minimum we can expect. It all depends on what you compare it to as well. Do you compare it to current-gen consoles? To the Pro and X? To the competition? To a hypothetical more powerful version that could've been made?

At least the small RAM increase might be at least partially made up for by dedicated OS RAM and/or HBCC.

RevengeTaken · Jan 30, 2019

So Scarlet GPU based on VEGA?! i think that rumor was true about Sony's exclusivity for NAVI in PS5!

MrKlaw · Jan 30, 2019

modiz said:
why do it against the pro? you need to compare against a whole generational leap, not against a half leap.

well the mid-gen consoles have skewed things a bit - so I'm using pro as a '4k' baseline which I think is reasonable. If you go back to original gen then the GPU increase is more, but you'll burn a chunk of that getting to the same 4k (native/checkerboard) level

MrKlaw · Jan 30, 2019

BreakAtmo said:
Yeah, of course everything will definitely look better, but PS5 games looking better than PS4 games is really kind of the bare minimum we can expect. It all depends on what you compare it to as well. Do you compare it to current-gen consoles? To the Pro and X? To the competition? To a hypothetical more powerful version that could've been made?

At least the small RAM increase might be at least partially made up for by dedicated OS RAM and/or HBCC.

is PS4 8GB, 5.5GB usable (6GB on pro?). So a top end estimate of 24GB could be 4-4.5x increase in usable (depending if there is separate ram for OS and if some of the main ram is still needed for OS)

Miniature Kaiju · Jan 30, 2019

Another interesting bit about the Arcturus thing is that it continues the "brightest stars in the sky" naming scheme AMD adopted with Polaris and Vega (that was kinda sorta dropped with Navi).

If I were to bet, I'd say Arcturus would be a product code name for a Vega derivative.

MrKlaw · Jan 30, 2019

Miniature Kaiju said:
Another interesting bit about the Arcturus thing is that it continues the "brightest stars in the sky" naming scheme AMD adopted with Polaris and Vega (that was kinda sorta dropped with Navi).

If I were to bet, I'd say Arcturus would be a product code name for a Vega derivative.

I've basically given up expecting any significant architectural changes from AMD until we actually see it in the flesh. Everything is tweaks and variations on a theme for a long time now. I'd love for them to come up with their equivalent of Maxwell for example, but I don't know where it'll come from.

BreakAtmo · Jan 30, 2019

MrKlaw said:
is PS4 8GB, 5.5GB usable (6GB on pro?). So a top end estimate of 24GB could be 4-4.5x increase in usable (depending if there is separate ram for OS and if some of the main ram is still needed for OS)

I'd say the best case scenario, based on what DukeBlueBalls said to me, is where we get 16-24GB of GDDR6, with a NAND flash cache that both doubles RAM efficiency and also makes it so the OS only needs to use about 1GB of RAM. That could make the overall RAM package of the PS5 effectively 5-8x better overall.

Deleted member 12635 · Jan 30, 2019

RevengeTaken said:
So Scarlet GPU based on VEGA?! i think that rumor was true about Sony's exclusivity for NAVI in PS5!

No idea where you took this idea from!?

Miniature Kaiju · Jan 30, 2019

MrKlaw said:
I've basically given up expecting any significant architectural changes from AMD until we actually see it in the flesh. Everything is tweaks and variations on a theme for a long time now. I'd love for them to come up with their equivalent of Maxwell for example, but I don't know where it'll come from.

I believe that their next proper microarchitecture will be considerably different and, quite possibly, revolutionary. Their patents kinda point at something with much more flexibility. If I'm correct (and I might very well NOT be), each SP (or whatever they'll call them) will be able to behave a bit like the RT cores, so, in thesis, the entire GPU could be leveraged for RT acceleration instead of using fixed function units.

I don't expect it any time before 2021, though.

RevengeTaken · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
No idea where you took this idea from!?

Why would they stay with 64 CU? those gpu specs look like Vega64 to me!

Deleted member 12635 · Jan 30, 2019

Miniature Kaiju said:
I believe that their next proper microarchitecture will be considerably different and, quite possibly, revolutionary. Their patents kinda point at something with much more flexibility. If I'm correct (and I might very well NOT be), each SP (or whatever they'll call them) will be able to behave a bit like the RT cores, so, in thesis, the entire GPU could be leveraged for RT acceleration instead of using fixed function units.

I don't expect it any time before 2021, though.

I don't think it will revolutionary. I assume they widen the CUs to 128 stream processors but this also have an impact on the inner structures as they can't stay with that 4x4x4 internal structure that way.

RevengeTaken said:
Why would they stay with 64 CU? those gpu specs look like Vega64 to me!

To give you complete picture:
a) this leak is fake AF
b) Any GPU can have 64CUs. The number of CUs doesn't tell you the architecture at all.
c) The main theme of the leak is that Scarlett is using AMDs Next-Gen architecture which assumed code name is "Arcturus".
d) If you look into the screenshot the "fake leak" als talks about "Arcturus Engines". If Vega would be a base the screenshot would talk about "Vega engines".
Summary: If, the leak would tell that the GPU is based on anything else but Vega ;)

modiz · Jan 30, 2019

RevengeTaken said:
Why would they stay with 64 CU? those gpu specs look like Vega64 to me!

this is fake though. really no reason to believe it.

pswii60 · Jan 30, 2019

RevengeTaken said:
So Scarlet GPU based on VEGA?! i think that rumor was true about Sony's exclusivity for NAVI in PS5!

Where are you getting the VEGA thing from?

Darkstorne · Jan 30, 2019

BreakAtmo said:
A new baseline isn't magic. Remember, even if you assume the mid-gen consoles are going underused, and keep in mind the big CPU jump that's coming, going from a 1.84TF baseline to an 8TF baseline is still one of the smallest GPU jumps ever relative to previous generations, combined with one of the biggest resolution jumps ever.

But it will also be a colossal CPU jump next gen, which will do wonders for scene complexity, draw calls, AI, NPC count, physics etc. Combine that with a baseline GPU improvement of 1.3 TF to 8 TF (and that's worst case scenario remember) as well as at least doubling RAM to 16GB (which likely means around triple RAM availability to devs, assuming the OS will use roughly the same, maybe another 1-2GB), and I still think that puts us on course for games that will look truly next gen. Regardless of how that shapes up % wise to previous gen over gen upgrades.

We've got to remember that God of War, Spider-Man, Uncharted 4, and Horizon Zero Dawn, all run on 1.8 TF machines with a god awful CPU, and look absolutely stunning. If an 8 TF machine means we'll still need dynamic res with checkerboarding until another mid gen refresh... honestly I don't think that's so bad at all.

EDIT: And I wouldn't be surprised if this is Microsoft's strategy with multiple boxes: Here's the 8 TF baseline box that upscales. Here's your 12 TF native 4K box, but you'll be paying a lot more for it...

Deleted member 12635 · Jan 30, 2019

pswii60 said:
Where are you getting the VEGA thing from?

I am already on it ;) See below my response ...

Colbert said:
To give you complete picture:
a) this leak is fake AF
b) Any GPU can have 64CUs. The number of CUs doesn't tell you the architecture at all.
c) The main theme of the leak is that Scarlett is using AMDs Next-Gen architecture which assumed code name is "Arcturus".
d) If you look into the screenshot the "fake leak" als talks about "Arcturus Engines". If Vega would be a base the screenshot would talk about "Vega engines".
Summary: If, the leak would tell that the GPU is based on anything else but Vega ;)

Apathy · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
Some comments of Albert Penello on the Digital Foundry video about expectations for next gen ...

Sounds like he's saying temper your expectations

Yautja_Warrior · Jan 30, 2019

Darkstorne said:
He's so right. Every single console reveal I can recall has been met with frustration and concerns from hardware enthusiasts. And yet every console gen has produced phenomenal results with said hardware.

Thinking about it... while the Pro and X have 4-6 TF the games they run look equally gorgeous on the respective 1-2 TF machines. If 8 TF becomes the new baseline now instead of 1.3 TF... coupled with more RAM and a colossal CPU upgrade (the one thing we are guaranteed lol) there really isn't anything to worry about. Devs will still produce mindblowingly gorgeous games, and maybe checkerboarding will just still be a thing for performance profiles trying to hit higher frame rates.

Yep, it's like people get carried away with their predictions and comparing to PC specs, wanting powerful monster consoles, which will never happen and they will then complain the specs are weak when it's lower than expected. Next gen will be a balance of power and affordability, like consoles always are.

Even if the base line turned out to be 8TF, while it will seem weak (ish) compared to high end PC's, for a games console it's gonna produce some pretty amazing results. Just look what they did with PS4's 1.84TF GPU power, 8GB RAM (with only around 5GB available for games) and a crappy mobile Jaguar CPU, producing some pretty stunning looking games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Detroit, God of War, Uncharted 4.

So start with a 8TF GPU, a lot more RAM and a massively quicker Ryzen CPU, it's going to produce some amazing looking games and if it's more than 8TF, that's a bonus.

Locuza · Jan 30, 2019

anexanhume said:
[...]
It greatly enhances pJ/bit and the peak transfer rate is much higher, making GDDR6 solutions competitive with low stack count HBM2 solutions.

~16% more efficiency (14Gbps G6 vs. 8Gbps G5) isn't quite something I would describe as greatly in that case.
It's a real issue to increase the BW by a large amount without burning much more power for it and GDDR6 isn't helping much.
HBM2 should still consume far less power per bit.

Page 20:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...03_gddr6.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1ZDqxPE8e9qHzHC9GWRUae

Colbert said:
I don't think it will revolutionary. I assume they widen the CUs to 128 stream processors but this also have an impact on the inner structures as they can't stay with that 4x4x4 internal structure that way.

Which arguments speak for 128 ALUs per CU?

Deleted member 12635 · Jan 30, 2019

Locuza said:
Which arguments speak for 128 ALUs per CU?

The competition uses a similar approach and proved that it can be very efficient!?

Vitamin_B_Complex · Jan 30, 2019

Ok guys, I'd like to know what you think about the state and future of PC gaming when the new consoles arrive. With Nvidias inflated prices and the general cost going up, do you think many people will switch to consoles with the coming gen?

Lets assume PS4 8TF and 3,2ghz CPU at 399 and Anaconda 10TF and the same CPU at 499. Would mid tier PC around the same price point as anaconda even be able to compete? A 2060 alone costs 350 and lets assume Nvidia does not increase this price for the 2260 in 2020 it still is basically an entire PS5. I feel like PC gaming is gonna take a substantial hit as console are finally able to catch up because of AMD's better tech.

Because AMD had nothing major to offer Sony and MS at the beginning of this gen, PC's could be built around the same price point that could outshine consoles easily. I remember Digital Foundry building a 400 dollar PC that run Fallout 4 at 60FPS but as time went on and with the introduction of the Xbox One X the same experiment became almost impossible.

What do you think will happen?

Miniature Kaiju · Jan 30, 2019

One thing I'm pretty sure is that, with next gen consoles packing much more capable CPUs, PC gamers will find it's much harder to achieve the ridiculous frame rates they're used to without considerable compromises.

anexanhume · Jan 30, 2019

Locuza said:
~16% more efficiency (14Gbps G6 vs. 8Gbps G5) isn't quite something I would describe as greatly in that case.
It's a real issue to increase the BW by a large amount without burning much more power for it and GDDR6 isn't helping much.
HBM2 should still consume far less power per bit.

My point about power efficiency was in relation to GDDR6 versus 5. My comment about bandwidth was GDDR6 versus HBM2, which is why I cited the stack count. If you normalized the speed, the efficiency would be even higher than 16%. The fact that it can run at twice the speed at lower voltages than GDDR5 is significant. It also has a granularity advantage. It's a game-changing difference between the technologies. If we were still stuck with GDDR5, we'd be wringing our hands about how even with a 384-bit bus, we still can't feed Vega/GCN derivatives with the bandwidth they obviously seem to need based on desktop parts.

MrKlaw · Jan 30, 2019

PC will be interesting (I doubt many people engrained in the PC space will move to console though)

Jaguar was relatively weak so even badly threaded PC code could brute force decent performance - but we still ended up with some cases like eg Forza on Windows being impacted by not properly multi-threading.

Add Ryzen into the mix - if you have a decent 3Ghz 8c/16t CPU then you are significantly increasing the baseline. 'normal' 4 core or even mid-high end 8 core PC CPUs may struggle, and certainly won't have the headroom to casually throw around higher framerates etc. So I think you'll see both a requirement from devs to be much more multi-core efficient (which helps you get the best from what you have), and a likely increase in minimum/recommended specs - I can see 4c/8t i7s being a minimum pretty quickly, and 8c/16t being recommended.

Will that make things like threadripper or big 12-16c CPUs worth getting to get PC gamers' preferred high frame rates? Who knows - will engines take advantage that well?

16GB or higher GDDR6 will also affect less I think - although you'll start to see 8GB GPUs on PC maybe start to fall behind after a couple of years. We're already seeing games that really need to be running from an SSD so that will be much more common - especially if consoles have SSD or equivalent flash cache available to devs as standard

Vitamin_B_Complex · Jan 30, 2019

Miniature Kaiju said:
One thing I'm pretty sure is that, with next gen consoles packing much more capable CPUs, PC gamers will find it's much harder to achieve the ridiculous frame rates they're used to without considerable compromises.

Good point, the weak CPU of the consoles allowed for 144fps to flourish because the game complexity was made for consoles and not for i5 or i7. Does this mean that high end on PC will become even more expensive?

Locuza · Jan 30, 2019

Colbert said:
The competition uses a similar approach and proved that it can be very efficient!?

Obviously there is a lot which goes into the design of a compute unit than the amount of ALUs.
The competition just went down to 64 ALUs per compute unit with Turing and the perfromance/watt was retained.
The performance/mm² decreased a lot but Turing also has twice as many registers and larger caches, together with Tensor and Ray Tracing cores.
You could cut that down and you would improve the perf/mm² , at least for current applications.

Deadlast · Jan 30, 2019

BreakAtmo said:
A new baseline isn't magic. Remember, even if you assume the mid-gen consoles are going underused, and keep in mind the big CPU jump that's coming, going from a 1.84TF baseline to an 8TF baseline is still one of the smallest GPU jumps ever relative to previous generations, combined with one of the biggest resolution jumps ever.

I feel like he was kind of hinting at the 8TF range for the next gen as being basline.

Deleted member 38397 · Jan 30, 2019

If they can get 4K60 for the vast majority of games, I doubt I'd upgrade my PC. I want a capable system to fully drive that new VRR OLED TV I'll eventually purchase. I'm not interested in unique PC things like >60fps gameplay or 21:9 displays, for example.

Vitamin_B_Complex · Jan 30, 2019

MrKlaw said:
PC will be interesting (I doubt many people engrained in the PC space will move to console though)

Jaguar was relatively weak so even badly threaded PC code could brute force decent performance - but we still ended up with some cases like eg Forza on Windows being impacted by not properly multi-threading.

Add Ryzen into the mix - if you have a decent 3Ghz 8c/16t CPU then you are significantly increasing the baseline. 'normal' 4 core or even mid-high end 8 core PC CPUs may struggle, and certainly won't have the headroom to casually throw around higher framerates etc. So I think you'll see both a requirement from devs to be much more multi-core efficient (which helps you get the best from what you have), and a likely increase in minimum/recommended specs - I can see 4c/8t i7s being a minimum pretty quickly, and 8c/16t being recommended.

Will that make things like threadripper or big 12-16c CPUs worth getting to get PC gamers' preferred high frame rates? Who knows - will engines take advantage that well?

16GB or higher GDDR6 will also affect less I think - although you'll start to see 8GB GPUs on PC maybe start to fall behind after a couple of years. We're already seeing games that really need to be running from an SSD so that will be much more common - especially if consoles have SSD or equivalent flash cache available to devs as standard

Of course the hard core crowd won't switch but I can see casual mid tier switching because the upkeep will be quit expensive.
Imagine next gen games baseline to be at least 10 gigs of GDDR6, 3,2Ghz 8C/16T CPU and 8TF. That is high end PC gaming at this point. I cannot believe that the next 2 years of PC advancements to bring the performance and price to a level where they are comparable with consoles again. It's gonna be interesting to see what Nvidia and AMD will offer to keep their PC base. I imagine DLSS to become a standard to raise FPS and graphics fidelity.

gofreak · Jan 30, 2019

Analysts turning their attention to the next generation... and they're team (late) 2020 for PS5.

https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/30...earnings-as-console-battle-reaches-next-level

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd are expected to score strong quarterly earnings this week, as the Japanese gaming giants battle through the next stage in the lifecycles of their consoles.

At Sony, analysts estimate operating profit grew 10 percent in September-December versus the same period a year prior to 388 billion yen (2.71 billion pounds), with its games segment supported in recent quarters by a string of exclusive hit titles such as "Marvel's Spider-Man".

However with Sony's PlayStation 4 (PS4) console approaching its sixth year on the market, hardware sales have crested with the gaming unit's sales expected to peak in the current financial year ending March.

That has left investors eager for any hint from Sony, which announces its quarterly earnings on Friday, about a successor console seen by many analysts as hitting the market in late 2020.

"The PS4 is an absolute smash-hit and destroyed Sony's direct competition, Microsoft, in this console generation," said Serkan Toto, founder of Tokyo-based game industry consultancy Kantan Games, referring to Microsoft Corp's Xbox.

"Everyone is waiting for the PS5 now," he said.

Sony earnings are coming up, although I doubt there'll be any direct hints in there about PS5/timing etc.

Next gen PS5 and next Xbox launch speculation - Secret sauces spicing 2019

When will the first 'next gen' console be revealed?

First half of 2019

Second half of 2019(let's say post E3)

First half of 2020

2021 :^)

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Prophet of Truth

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