AMD and the big 3

[Manicdan]

isnt on consoles because the cpu can run it?

if you "properly" use phsyx it would be too much for them, even cell chips right?

[Frodin]

You ever think that these companies don't want to be tied down to propietary hardware? Nvidia has commanded some royalties from people before but AMD is much more willing to play with MS and Sony and whoever. Not to mention that Nvidia's hardware failures in the mobility sector might have left some of them a sour taste

Also, Nvidia's current offerings are too compute focus. That said, I doubt they've secured all 3 already - then again, the consoles are in development so it would be soon when we find out, one way or another.

Not to mention that Nvidia is seriously lacking in performance per watt, ATI/AMD GPUs are 30-40% faster per watt in all resolutions: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...870_X2/28.html

[crash5s]

isnt on consoles because the cpu can run it?

if you "properly" use phsyx it would be too much for them, even cell chips right?

The CPU can run it but keep in mind that nvidia specifically gimped CPUs running it on the PC end of things, there isn't even properly multi-threaded support, yet.

PhysX however is optimized to run the CPUs of consoles and does so just fine, probably because nvidia can't shovel more cards onto people by not doing so and thus there is no reason to.

[SKYMTL]

What passes for news these days is just beyond belief. Now these so called jounalists back up their assertations with "some people we know who may or may not have jack all information told us that....". It has come down to sites literally throwing darts at a board and hoping one will stick. Even if one doesn't stick, they'll still come out ahead and mysteriously delete the offending article at a later date.

[MaddMuppet]

What passes for news these days is just beyond belief. Now these so called jounalists back up their assertations with "some people we know who may or may not have jack all information told us that....". It has come down to sites literally throwing darts at a board and hoping one will stick. Even if one doesn't stick, they'll still come out ahead and mysteriously delete the offending article at a later date.

But if they didn't do that, they would have nothing to write. Better to make up something than have no news at all. One only has to look at what News of the Day did.

[AKM]

AMD: Xbox 720 graphics will look like Avatar
By Daniel Landis, Game News Examiner


Technology company AMD, who supplied the graphics hardware for the Xbox 360, claims that the next Xbox will be capable of the level of graphical detail seen in James Cameron's movie Avatar. Even on PC, that kind of technology just isn't here yet, but AMD claims the Xbox 720 will launch with it.

While AMD would not confirm they were actually working on the 360's successor, director of ISV relationships at AMD, Neal Robison, stated that gamers have a lot to excited about.

Robison also mentioned that the A.I. and physics capabilities of the next-gen hardware will allow for every pedestrian in a game such as Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row to have a totally individual mentality, meaning when you shoot a gun or run someone over they don't all just do the same thing. There will be no more mob mentality, where everyone just screams and runs away; every NPC will actually be an individual character.

Whoa.

Source: August issue of OXM (U.S.)

http://www.examiner.com/game-news-in...#ixzz1SMcwzkyy

[AKM]

While this is a certain exaggeration at lest it confirms that the next xbox will pack some serious hardware.

[Motiv]

While this is a certain exaggeration at lest it confirms that the next xbox will pack some serious hardware.

Yeah, get past the PR blurb and you get the next gen XBOX is AMD again.

[K404]

Good news for AMD!

GREAT news!

Guaranteed and steady source of sales and game developers will be coding for AMD optimisation, so when we get our average-at-best PC game ports, AMD should have a performance lead unless their hardware is seriously lacking against nVidias offering at a given time.

[Vardant]

...game developers will be coding for AMD optimisation...

Yes, because if anything, the last generation has shown us, that it definitely works like that...

[K404]

Stronger relationship means more influence, we can hope so anyway

[crash5s]

While this is a certain exaggeration at lest it confirms that the next xbox will pack some serious hardware.

Of course it's an exaggeration. But keep in mind how much more consoles can do with less. They don't suffer the massive drawbacks and ineffeciencies that PCs do, they aren't crippled like PCs are. So while they are probably chest thumping a bit (someone trots out the "it will be CGI" mantra each time) I wouldn't be shocked at all if the results were pretty amazing.

[Manicdan]

think back a little, when the PS3/360 came out, sli/xfire was just getting started. now games are being demoed with 2-3 gpus and over 2000$ worth of hardware. the next console that comes out will have to cost over 1000$ just to match what PC can do at the same time. even if things are more efficient on a console, its not like they get 10x better perf/watt or anything. the current consoles run at really crappy resolutions but not many notice it i guess due to sitting 20ft away from their tv.

a 6950 shrunk to 28nm would be around the power envelope as a console. so lets call it a 7770 is about equal to the gpu power a console will have. add in optimization, and how much better can it look than 7870s in xfire?

[Hornet331]

Guaranteed and steady source of sales ....

Not if it is like the current deal. Amd gets no royalits for there gpu in the xbox. MS paid amd to design it then then bought all the rights and is manufactoring it on its own.

[crash5s]

think back a little, when the PS3/360 came out, sli/xfire was just getting started. now games are being demoed with 2-3 gpus and over 2000$ worth of hardware. the next console that comes out will have to cost over 1000$ just to match what PC can do at the same time. even if things are more efficient on a console, its not like they get 10x better perf/watt or anything. the current consoles run at really crappy resolutions but not many notice it i guess due to sitting 20ft away from their tv.

a 6950 shrunk to 28nm would be around the power envelope as a console. so lets call it a 7770 is about equal to the gpu power a console will have. add in optimization, and how much better can it look than 7870s in xfire?

Put it this way, take some of the multi platform games, shove them in a PC and then try to run them at 720p 30-60fps, mid details, with an nvidia 7800 and 256mb RAM and see what happens, hell, fudge the RAM up to a gig and see what happens. It's not going to be pretty. Yet consoles can routinely pull that off or much better. In many cases with newer games the consoles get better results with their anemic GPUs then you can get on a PC with an 8800 or 9800, it's really comical.

Companies can optimize the crap out of a game for a console. So while it's true you won't have some tri-fire system (but even then how many PC gamers are going to plunk on 3 400 buck GPUs, not many) they'll find a way to do more with less.

[Motiv]

Put it this way, take some of the multi platform games, shove them in a PC and then try to run them at 720p 30-60fps, mid details, with an nvidia 7800 and 256mb RAM and see what happens, hell, fudge the RAM up to a gig and see what happens. It's not going to be pretty. Yet consoles can routinely pull that off or much better. In many cases with newer games the consoles get better results with their anemic GPUs then you can get on a PC with an 8800 or 9800, it's really comical.

Companies can optimize the crap out of a game for a console. So while it's true you won't have some tri-fire system (but even then how many PC gamers are going to plunk on 3 400 buck GPUs, not many) they'll find a way to do more with less.

Sorry, can't agree with you here.

Put any console game on a PC, run it at 720p with low settings and med textures (no AA for PS3) and you'll get far far more FPS that a console could ever dream of.

low res and low settings are all that is required for the current gen consoles, but as TVs increase in resolution, the next gen consoles will need to come out.

[Manicdan]

how much worse do you expect it to be? a console MIGHT get double the framerate of equal pc hardware, but that just means a mid range gpu used for a console is beaten by a high end of the same generation. and ive seen many console games get killed in framerate by their own design. also look at the price of a console when it first comes out, vs pc. not many people buy a console in the first year due to the price, just like not many people buy high end pc hardware. move forward 2 years and the console comes down 25-33% in price, and the gpus come down 50% or more.

nomatter how much something is optimized, there are still physics they cannot get around. and it seems the console is looking to be closer to that of PC hardware anyway and so optimizations will be much less due to that.

[Hornet331]

Put it this way, take some of the multi platform games, shove them in a PC and then try to run them at 720p 30-60fps, mid details, with an nvidia 7800 and 256mb RAM and see what happens, hell, fudge the RAM up to a gig and see what happens. It's not going to be pretty. Yet consoles can routinely pull that off or much better. In many cases with newer games the consoles get better results with their anemic GPUs then you can get on a PC with an 8800 or 9800, it's really comical.

Companies can optimize the crap out of a game for a console. So while it's true you won't have some tri-fire system (but even then how many PC gamers are going to plunk on 3 400 buck GPUs, not many) they'll find a way to do more with less.

512MB is enough to run 1920x1080P with 2aa (on pc cards) so 256Mb is more then enough to run 1280x720 (its half the resolution). Just look what a 9600gt with 512mb can pull off. or hell cheack out some of the 7800gtx review from back then... most of the time the crad managed to pull 80fps+ in 1600x1200 (also double the resolution of 720p)

Texture wise pc games dont consume more then console games, which is no real suprise there since they use the same compression.

[Sesto Sento]

off course it's easier to run games on a console than on a pc...
Consoles, don't have a bull called windows running on the background...
it's all run on hardware level on a console, no software between the hardware...
so even with crappy hardware, they can run games properly (with borked graphics compared to pc off course...)

But even so, to run games as a console runs, it's really not needed no special hardware @ all...
Gaming @ 1280x720 with 30 fps with medium graphics, even my girlfriend's laptop can do it EASILY (core i3 330, hd5650)

[tbone8ty]

Well you gotta figure since the Wii2 is gonna have a 4870 variant. That the xbox720 and ps4 will have something much faster!

[Manicdan]

the developer hardware has a 4870, but the console has something probably very customized. id hope they slap in some dx11 if they are planning to survive very long

[tajoh111]

Sorry, can't agree with you here.

Put any console game on a PC, run it at 720p with low settings and med textures (no AA for PS3) and you'll get far far more FPS that a console could ever dream of.

low res and low settings are all that is required for the current gen consoles, but as TVs increase in resolution, the next gen consoles will need to come out.

512MB is enough to run 1920x1080P with 2aa (on pc cards) so 256Mb is more then enough to run 1280x720 (its half the resolution). Just look what a 9600gt with 512mb can pull off. or hell cheack out some of the 7800gtx review from back then... most of the time the crad managed to pull 80fps+ in 1600x1200 (also double the resolution of 720p)

Texture wise pc games dont consume more then console games, which is no real suprise there since they use the same compression.

I think both of you guys are forgetting a consoles runs on 256mb of ram with an additional 256 mb of video memory. 256Mb of ram is nothing for pc nowadays. Run a game with 256 of ram(not videocard memory) and you will run into so many bottleneck problems and frame rates dropping to 0 that any game will be unplayable. Heck, its below most system requirements, even windows 7 requirements.

Add in many games don't even require you to install files for a console and simply let you play off the disk, shows how much they are utilizing consoles. Not having access to virtual memory and having everything played on the disk would make a pc with console like specs nowadays, a terrible computer, let alone a gaming pc.

[Hornet331]

I think both of you guys are forgetting a consoles runs on 256mb of ram with an additional 256 mb of video memory. 256Mb of ram is nothing for pc nowadays. Run a game with 256 of ram(not videocard memory) and you will run into so many bottleneck problems and frame rates dropping to 0 that any game will be unplayable. Heck, its below most system requirements, even windows 7 requirements.

Add in many games don't even require you to install files for a console and simply let you play off the disk, shows how much they are utilizing consoles. Not having access to virtual memory and having everything played on the disk would make a pc with console like specs nowadays, a terrible computer, let alone a gaming pc.

Sry but the "needs no install plays of disk" isn't rue anymore for consoles most AAA title strongly reccomend to install it (no suürise when they deliver also now patches for consoles). Also you are comparing oranges to apples. Console and the os itself is designed to work that way, taking away the virtual memory on windows causes all sort of problems. Also its not like a windows app wont be able to run off a cd, they only problem would be temporary files (if there are any).

Also if you use a slim *nix os in the sub 10mb range there should be plenty of ram for the game itself. TF2 e.g. @ 720p medium setting needs ~400-450mb on the windwos platform and i bet you easly can shave down another 100 or so if you dont need to run a program in the windwos envrionment.

[tajoh111]

Sry but the "needs no install plays of disk" isn't rue anymore for consoles most AAA title strongly reccomend to install it (no suürise when they deliver also now patches for consoles). Also you are comparing oranges to apples. Console and the os itself is designed to work that way, taking away the virtual memory on windows causes all sort of problems. Also its not like a windows app wont be able to run off a cd, they only problem would be temporary files (if there are any).

Also if you use a slim *nix os in the sub 10mb range there should be plenty of ram for the game itself. TF2 e.g. @ 720p medium setting needs ~400-450mb on the windwos platform and i bet you easly can shave down another 100 or so if you dont need to run a program in the windwos envrionment.

A consoles runs on 256 Mb of ram. 400-450 is well above that figure.

The xbox 360 has 512, but this is split between and shared as system and video memory. So imagine adding video memory to that figure you listed. Consoles make due for so little.

From what I have seen, most consoles don't have the mammoth pc install requirements. I.e the xbox 360 cheap editions have only 4gb of hard drive space, the large harddrive is completely optional for the system. Early xboxs didn't necessarily come with long term storage memory. It is not close to becoming mandatory to have to install a game.

Consoles are designed to work without the burden of a real OS and can do so much more with their hardware than a Computer can.

When a game designer doesn't have to worry about sharing resources with an OS and designing a game for only one or two hardware configurations and not have to worry about scalability, potential driver problems and using a hardware to its maximum configuration, they can do so much more.

[SKYMTL]

Here we go again....

PS1: "movie-like realism"
XBox: "movie-like realism"
PS2: "movie-like realism"
PS3: "movie-like realism"
XBox 360: "movie-like realism"

And now again with this same crap. Allow me the first to say: yea, right.