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PS4: new kits shipping now, AMD A10 APU used as basis
Developers are currently taking receipt of a new PlayStation 4 dev kit, VG247 has been told today, with a final version slated to appear in January. Yes, it’ll have Blu-ray. No, it isn’t being made in Japan. Multiple sources have confirmed today that a new version of the Orbis kit is now shipping to developers, and that it’s housed in a normal PC case.
There are to be four versions of the dev kit, we were told. A previous version was essentially just a graphics card. The version shipping now is a “modified PC,” and the third version, appearing in January, will be close to final spec. A final version will be delivered to developers “next summer”.
Some US developers attended a “disclosure meeting” at Sony’s offices this week, with a further meeting to take place in the coming weeks. The purpose of the meeting is for Sony to tell studios what the machine is designed to do, to detail hardware and to show a set of presentations.
Our source told us that Sony is only calling the machine Orbis, and is not using the words “PlayStation 4? in these meetings at all.
Orbis, we were told today, is based on the AMD’s A10 APU series. An APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) is a combined CPU and GPU.
PS4's APU was described today as a “derivative” of existing A10 hardware. The hardware is “based on A10 system and base platform”.
The “ultimate goal” for the hardware, we were told, is for it to be able to run 1080p60 games in 3D with “no problem,” to create a machine that’s powerful enough for “today and tomorrow’s market”.
The dev kits have “either 8Gb or 16Gb of RAM. Deduce from that what you will.”
The hardware is not being made in Japan, it was said.
When asked if PS4 will have an optical drive, specifically Blu-ray, our source responded: “Of course it has.” We’ve been told the hard drive will be 256Gb “as standard,” but it’s not clear if it’ll be a normal HDD or a solid state drive.
We were told that Sony’s aim with Orbis is to avoid problems involved in launching PS3 by creating something “very affordable” but that “isn’t a slouch”.
The machine has WiFi and Ethernet connectivity and HDMI out. Our source said the was “no difference” between PlayStation 3 and Orbis input/output.
The UI, however, has been revamped. It was said today that players will now be able to press the PS button mid-game and travel “anywhere” on the system. An example given was buying DLC from the PS Store mid-game then seamlessly returning to play.
“They’re trying to make it as fluid as possible,” our source said.
We were also told that the machine will be designed to accept system and product updates in the background, and that it’ll “always be in standby mode”. When you set the console up, we were told, you’ll be asked if you want to allow background downloads. You can, of course, disallow them.
No details have been given on the pad as yet. Confirmation is expected this month.
Orbis is expected to be announced at an event “just before E3? next year.
Ven0m
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#4446568 Posted on: 11/03/2012 11:51 PM
The current consoles have something like GeForce 7800 and around 512MB RAM for the whole system - A10 should eat it for breakfast. The today's console games look ok because they're really well-optimized for the target platform, with some for-bare-metal programming and access to tons of draw calls (many more than what PCs can offer - because of DX architecture).
I'll be amazed if they pull that off with an AMD a10
The current consoles have something like GeForce 7800 and around 512MB RAM for the whole system - A10 should eat it for breakfast. The today's console games look ok because they're really well-optimized for the target platform, with some for-bare-metal programming and access to tons of draw calls (many more than what PCs can offer - because of DX architecture).
UnrealGaming
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#4446646 Posted on: 11/04/2012 03:43 AM
Draw calls advantage only gets you so far tho. AMD A10 has a weaker CPU than PS3. So you will hit that wall a lot faster. And the next gen games are also expected to have better AI, physics etc... which can all be very CPU intensive tasks.
i7 920, 6 GB of RAM and a gtx470 could match 360 ( or ps3 ) in draw call performance. And then out do it with its GPU shading and other capabilities, and of course memory advantage. And we've come a long way in GPU performance since then, and even CPU.
An A10 based system doesn't sound like something that can deliver Metro 2033 maxed out @ 1080p 60fps in 3D, at all. No matter how close to metal you code.
Still looking forward to seeing the final specs, and whether they can really pull it off.
If they can achieve something like that, at 300-400$, that would be amazing.
Draw calls advantage only gets you so far tho. AMD A10 has a weaker CPU than PS3. So you will hit that wall a lot faster. And the next gen games are also expected to have better AI, physics etc... which can all be very CPU intensive tasks.
i7 920, 6 GB of RAM and a gtx470 could match 360 ( or ps3 ) in draw call performance. And then out do it with its GPU shading and other capabilities, and of course memory advantage. And we've come a long way in GPU performance since then, and even CPU.
An A10 based system doesn't sound like something that can deliver Metro 2033 maxed out @ 1080p 60fps in 3D, at all. No matter how close to metal you code.
Still looking forward to seeing the final specs, and whether they can really pull it off.
If they can achieve something like that, at 300-400$, that would be amazing.
Yxskaft
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#4446652 Posted on: 11/04/2012 03:50 AM
This shows how big the CPU overhead in DX11 is.
http://timothylottes.blogspot.se/2012/03/dx11-vs-gl-driver-overhead.html
Then we have comments such as those from AMD
On consoles, you can draw maybe 10,000 or 20,000 chunks of geometry in a frame, and you can do that at 30-60fps. On a PC, you can't typically draw more than 2-3,000 without getting into trouble with performance, and that's quite surprising - the PC can actually show you only a tenth of the performance if you need a separate batch for each draw call.
But it's still very hard to throw tremendous variety into a PC game. If you want each of your draw calls to be a bit different, then you can't get over about 2-3,000 draw calls typically - and certainly a maximum amount of 5,000. Games developers definitely have a need for that. Console games often use 10-20,000 draw calls per frame, and that's an easier way to let the artist's vision shine through.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/2
This shows how big the CPU overhead in DX11 is.
http://timothylottes.blogspot.se/2012/03/dx11-vs-gl-driver-overhead.html
Then we have comments such as those from AMD
On consoles, you can draw maybe 10,000 or 20,000 chunks of geometry in a frame, and you can do that at 30-60fps. On a PC, you can't typically draw more than 2-3,000 without getting into trouble with performance, and that's quite surprising - the PC can actually show you only a tenth of the performance if you need a separate batch for each draw call.
But it's still very hard to throw tremendous variety into a PC game. If you want each of your draw calls to be a bit different, then you can't get over about 2-3,000 draw calls typically - and certainly a maximum amount of 5,000. Games developers definitely have a need for that. Console games often use 10-20,000 draw calls per frame, and that's an easier way to let the artist's vision shine through.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/2
fr33k
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#4446670 Posted on: 11/04/2012 04:42 AM
sounds like sony is going to play it safe this next Christmas and release hardware that developers actually know how to utilize.
Smart yes... disappointing just a bit.
Orbis = code name. No one gonna want to buy something called playstation orbis. Blu-ray was a no brainer even though its gonna be slow loading... AGAIN. Sony has to push blu-ray or else anything they did to destroy HD-DVD will be for nothing.
OKAMA GAMESHPERE!!!
sounds like sony is going to play it safe this next Christmas and release hardware that developers actually know how to utilize.
Smart yes... disappointing just a bit.
Orbis = code name. No one gonna want to buy something called playstation orbis. Blu-ray was a no brainer even though its gonna be slow loading... AGAIN. Sony has to push blu-ray or else anything they did to destroy HD-DVD will be for nothing.
OKAMA GAMESHPERE!!!
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Sony, as before, and as nintendo and microsoft have both done, do not need to settle with what we currently have as end users, they're a big enough manufacturer to order custom chips and for amd to oblige, which considering the amount all 3 will order, they will be more than happy to.
A10 GPU and an extra 100 shader cores? more memory bus width? custom fast memory type? whatever, who knows