PS4 has 50% More Raw Power in Graphics than the Xbox One

[Foxi4]

Well the CPU is underclocked at about 50%, but for the most part you are right. One thing you are leaving out is that there is a ton of cache, a common tradeoff these days for clockspeed. However, I don't know how that compares to the PS4/X1. We'll probably need to wait till they are released.

One thing that frustrates me about Nintendo is that they always have to do the "weird thing". This time it's a slow CPU and moderate GPU with a ton of extra cache. They get to say "we have something that nobody else has", but it's also always something that developers don't seem to want. Having a standard makes it easy to develop something for all consoles. They seem to expect third party developers to want to do something special for their system. It's probably why exclusives generally look a lot better on Nintendo systems. They are designed for it and nothing else.

I can see what they were trying to do, to be honest.

The assumption was that the huge amount of cache will allow developers to send tons upon tons of floating point calculations, calculations the Wii U's CPU is terrible at, to the GPU and back fast and seamlessly, decreasing the need for a strong CPU.

The problem that surfaced later was that the GPU turns out to be "acceptable, but nothing to write home about" when it comes to the XBox One and the PS4. The latter two machines won't have to resort to GPGPU and even if they will, they'll have spare wiggle room. The Wii U will have to rely on it, so the already somewhat inferior GPU will only have more work to do outside of graphics. Moreover, developers are not used to GPGPU yet and unless the SDK does it automatically, they'll just forget about it at times - this will lengthen the optimization process. Similarly developers weren't 100% ready for 64-bit development in the early days of the Nintendo 64, nor were they ready for specialized multicore development in the early days of the PS3.

 

[JoostinOnline]

I can see what they were trying to do, to be honest.

The assumption was that the huge amount of cache will allow developers to send tons upon tons of floating point calculations, calculations the Wii U's CPU is terrible at, to the GPU and back fast and seamlessly, decreasing the need for a strong CPU.

The problem that surfaced later was that the GPU turns out to be "acceptable, but nothing to write home about" when it comes to the XBox One and the PS4. The latter two machines won't have to resort to GPGPU and even if they will, they'll have spare wiggle room. The Wii U will have to rely on it, so the already somewhat inferior GPU will only have more work to do outside of graphics. Moreover, developers are not used to GPGPU yet and unless the SDK does it automatically, they'll just forget about it at times - this will lengthen the optimization process. Similarly developers weren't 100% ready for 64-bit development in the early days of the Nintendo 64, nor were they ready for specialized multicore development in the early days of the PS3.

Agreed. I think it's pretty obvious that Nintendo wants to be the cheap alternative to other consoles (that's what they were with the Wii). They went with using cache and GPGPU so they could cheaply offer backwards compatibility. It's effective when used properly. But it's still only one method.

Now that I think about it, this offers a good explanation for the mixed reports that developers give about the Wii U. If developers do things the way they are used to, the Wii U isn't going to do very well. If they do things differently (and without making mistakes), it's going to be great.

 

[Foxi4]

Agreed. I think it's pretty obvious that Nintendo wants to be the cheap alternative to other consoles (that's what they were with the Wii). They went with using cache and GPGPU so they could cheaply offer backwards compatibility. It's effective when used properly. But it's still only one method.

Now that I think about it, this offers a good explanation for the mixed reports that developers give about the Wii U. If developers do things the way they are used to, the Wii U isn't going to do very well. If they do things differently (and without making mistakes), it's going to be great.

This is where Nintendo comes in. If they want the Wii U to reach peak performance, they need to inform the developers about this requirement time and time again. Even better, they should upgrade the development kit so that it either suggests to send a floating point-based calculation over or does it automatically when the operation is based on floating point. Hell, they can even add a flag to functions which require floating point - 1 for send, 0 for leave it in the CPU. If they show the developers that things they assumed are impossible are indeed possible without costing developers an arm and a leg as far as development time is concerned, they just might get more support.

 

[heartgold]

Xbox One 40x more powerful than 360 with the cloud, Only 10x without the Cloud.

http://stevivor.com/2013/05/microsoft-xbox-australia-on-some-of-todays-lingering-xbox-one-questions/

This is too funny, I'm not even going post another topic. I'm laughing my head off. The cloud is the secret source. Internet on 24/7 for Xbone for those advance computing behind the cloud.

 

[edwardbirkholz05]

A nice theory except for 2 minor details: - The "huge amount of cache" you're talking about is L2 cache - it's inside the CPU and can't be accessed by any other part of the system. - Espresso is not bad at floating point operations (it has at least twice as many FPRs as an x86 CPU and doesn't have to put up with the constraints of SSE programming). Relying on the GPU to do the number crunching would be a waste of resources due to the time required to constantly feed/poll data to/from the GPU, especially when you consider it's already doing twice the amount of work of a normal GPU for the two (main and gamepad) displays.

 

[cdoty]

... and the WiiU was twice (or was that four) times as powerful as the 360 and PS3. It's like deja-vu all over again.

 

[Foxi4]

A nice theory except for 2 minor details: - The "huge amount of cache" you're talking about is L2 cache - it's inside the CPU and can't be accessed by any other part of the system. - Espresso is not bad at floating point operations (it has at least twice as many FPRs as an x86 CPU and doesn't have to put up with the constraints of SSE programming). Relying on the GPU to do the number crunching would be a waste of resources due to the time required to constantly feed/poll data to/from the GPU, especially when you consider it's already doing twice the amount of work of a normal GPU for the two (main and gamepad) displays.

GPGPU has been implemented for a reason - it's not a waste of time when you have a lot of floating point operations to deal with, for example when handling physics engines.

As for floating point performance of the three CPU's, I'd like to see some numbers because you're talking out of context. Now, x86 and x86_64 aren't the best architectures for floating point, but that doesn't mean that they don't top the Wii U's CPU when they have 5 more cores to spare if they feel like dealing with it.

As for relying on the GPU to do the number crunching, it's not a waste of time - that's how PhysX was born and that's why there are PCI-E cards specifically dedicated for "number crunching", such as the NVidia TESLA. GPU's are just "better" at those tasks and the benefits of performing them there outweigh the cons.

 

[TripleSMoon]

Let me rephrase that...

"Eww! The XBox One and the PS4 play games and have other features! That's disgusting, they would be so much better if they just played games (had less features for the same price)! I'm not going to buy them now rather than refrain from using features I don't feel like using like a reasonable person!"


Oh, and by the way... Everybody's climaxing over WaraWara/MiiVerse, everybody hates on PS4's/XBox One's social. That's not a double-standard at all.

I was thinking the exact same thing myself, and I'm a hardcore Nintendo fan. Why is it OK if Nintendo offers a robust social network (awesome as it may be), but not OK if Microsoft does the same thing?

Then again, Nintendo often has a different fan base than the other two companies (though not always, as evidenced by myself, for example). So that might have something to do with it, rather than just hypocrisy.

... No, they're not getting a new console because of it's weaker power in comparison to another console, because it doesn't have backwards compatibility, because Kinect is an integrated feature that basically functions so as long as its plugged in and that's a little bit disturbing, because you have to be online often just to play, because the look of the console is awful, and because you have to pay a fee for used games. And that's not even just it.

No one is ragging that the social and multimedia features are bad, it's the fact that they've put so much emphasis into them that the gaming side is a overshadowed. And what's left of the gaming side is awful.

I'm not saying there aren't good reasons to dislike the Xbox 1. In fact, I agree with many of the reasons you just listed. But just look at the comments here. WAY too many of them go "ew, social features!" Or else make kind of baseless claims like, "gaming isn't even the main focus!" Even when the social features aren't the only reason they list, the fact that they list it at all is kind of ridiculous.

I could understand if the comments were like "well, I don't give a crap about social and media features, so that's not really a selling point to me." But that's not what's happening. They're listing social and media features as this negative thing that somehow makes the console worse.

 

[VMM]

I find myself really not caring about the next Playstation or XBox. I feel they are focusing too heavily on power and features, and less on games and FUN. My allegiance this gen is Nintendo by far. The Wii U has the games I like to play (I've put well over 100 hours into Monster Hunter, and I'm not done. Plus I love Mario and Scribblenauts), its features actually fit my family's gaming style (letting the kids watch a movie while I play on the gamepad...wonderful), and Nintendo is still just trying to make gaming fun.

You're getting the thing wrong.
It's not Sony and MS that are investing too much on hardware, it's Nintendo that isn't.
It's similar to what happened with Wii.

Investing in power and features do not mean not investing on games and fun,
to say the truth, I believe investing in power is indirectly investing in fun,
since the platform will be supported by third party developers and it will have new games for it's whole life-cycle,
which clearly didn't happen on Wii, and I bet will be similar on WiiU.

I know many people that used their Wii for like 6 months and simply stoped because there wasn't a wide variety of games to play,
and since then, it's collecting dust.

PS: I'm not questioning your opinion, if WiiU satisfies you, good for you.

 

[TripleSMoon]

You're getting the thing wrong.
It's not Sony and MS that are investing too much on hardware, it's Nintendo that isn't.
It's similar to what happened with Wii.

Investing in power and features do not mean not investing on games and fun,
to say the truth, I believe investing in power is indirectly investing in fun,
since the platform will be supported by third party developers and it will have new games for it's whole life-cycle,
which clearly didn't happen on Wii, and I bet will be similar on WiiU.

I know many people that used their Wii for like 6 months and simply stoped because there wasn't a wide variety of games to play,
and since then, it's collecting dust.

PS: I'm not questioning your opinion, if WiiU satisfies you, good for you.

This. I personally liked the Wii's offering, but there's no denying that so much more could and would have been done with it if it was closer in power to the competition.

 

[Obveron]

GDDR's high transfer rate is to deal with feeding a hungry GPU. Graphics data flow is very structured and predictable for parralel graphics transformations. But it's not ideal in more dynamic CPU computing where access times and latencies are important.
If GDDR was better for CPU tasks it would be available as RAM for PC's.

The PS4 has super fast GDDR5 which may be overkill if the GPU isn't able to put that bandwidth to good use. Asynchronous and varrying CPU tasks may be slightly impacted by latencies of GDDR.
On the other hand, XB1 may be starving its GPU with DDR3, it has significantly lower bandwidth and it will be hard to use the E-SRAM to improve performance. but the CPU may slightly benefit from having DDR instead of GDDR.
Such is the compromise with shared memory systems.
PS4 has the advantage, but it remains to be seen if graphics memory will be an important bottleneck.
"50% more powerful" is hardly accurate.

Driver performance and the quality of the SDK and supporting dev tools will be a bigger factor to developers.

I'm willing to wager that, despite the performance gap, most games will look and feel about the same on both consoles. Differences will need to be spotted by those fussy few over at the lense of truth.


MS is really missing the mark with their new strategy on used games and online DRM. However, Sony hasn't really shown that they won't do something just as bad.

 

[VMM]

This. I personally liked the Wii's offering, but there's no denying that so much more could and would have been done with it if it was closer in power to the competition.

Every console has it's amazing titles no matter how bad the console sold.
PS1 outsold N64 by far, yet N64 had amazing first party titles and some nice third party like Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Turok, Resident evil 2, Bomberman 64, the star wars titles etc
I'm not a Wii owner but I can see some nice first party and some nice JRPGs, but overall it still had just too few multiplats.

I believe that the game library of WiiU will be similar to Wii one,
but I don't believe WiiU will sell so much as Wii sold,
having a tablet controler doesn't seem to me like something as revolutionizing as motion controllers.
Also using a tablet controller kind of kill the motion controller, at least for 1-player games.

I like Nintendo franchises, but sometimes it looks like Nintendo has, that Apple manner, of try to be different by any cost.
Catridges on N64, the mini-dvd on gamecube, demos with limit of usage, no achievements, realesing underpowered consoles with gimmicks to atract casual players etc;
sometimes I just want Nintendo to keep it simple, and oriented to gamers.

I was thinking the exact same thing myself, and I'm a hardcore Nintendo fan. Why is it OK if Nintendo offers a robust social network (awesome as it may be), but not OK if Microsoft does the same thing?

Then again, Nintendo often has a different fan base than the other two companies (though not always, as evidenced by myself, for example). So that might have something to do with it, rather than just hypocrisy.

Well, that's GBATemp

 

[Sop]

The hardware difference will not affect games itself that mutch. 90% or more of Xbox and PS games are not exclusives. Fifa (sports, sports, sports, sports...) will look like the same on both consoles, as well as Call of Duty. Fifa/Madden + Call of Duty = Full game library of 75% of the gamers.


They say things about that stuff of graphics vs fun, ya know... The fact is that Nintendo has less strength (money if you want) on R&D and another reason is that Nintendo has its focus on kids, and who buy stuff for kids are the parents, and parents use to choose the less expensive console, and that's the marketing positioning of Nintendo, it is always the cheapest deal (from wii onwards at least).

Nintendo always tried to have good prices, but it's only recently they've stopped caring about hardware.

 

[grossaffe]

You're getting the thing wrong.
It's not Sony and MS that are investing too much on hardware, it's Nintendo that isn't.
It's similar to what happened with Wii.

Investing in power and features do not mean not investing on games and fun,
to say the truth, I believe investing in power is indirectly investing in fun,
since the platform will be supported by third party developers and it will have new games for it's whole life-cycle,
which clearly didn't happen on Wii, and I bet will be similar on WiiU.

I know many people that used their Wii for like 6 months and simply stoped because there wasn't a wide variety of games to play,
and since then, it's collecting dust.

PS: I'm not questioning your opinion, if WiiU satisfies you, good for you.

I disagree. Launch prices for consoles in the US historically been in the $200 range. The deluxe NES bundle launched at $200 and included two controllers, a zapper, a R.O.B., Gyromite, and Duck Hunt, the SNES launched at $200 and came with Super Mario World, the N64 launched at $200, the Gamecube launched at $200, the Wii launched at $250 and included Wii Sports. And now the deluxe bundle of the Wii U is launching at $350 and comes with Nintendo Land. Seems Nintendo's been using the same level of technology in relation to the times throughout while Sony and Microsoft have been going more expensive technology for the era. The huge jump in hardware cost in the last generation, I think, have set people up for disappointment this generation because in order to create an equal jump that th PS3/360 provided would require even more expensive hardware, and considering that those consoled were selling at a loss, meeting those expectations just isn't feasible. So some say Nintendo is cheating out, but to me it seems they're just letting the technology advance naturally rather than trying to skip ahead by overspending.
Is it really worth spending an extra $200 to advance the console generation's technology one year for every generation to come from now on? Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I'd rather let the technology advance naturally than artificially skipping a year or two by paying a big premium for every console from here on out. If I'm to spend $500+ on a console, I may as well just build a PC that does more than a console and games are cheaper.

 

[Nemix77]

I'm sticking with the Wii U and PS3 with my budget for next gen.

If I had the money though, I'd probably get a PS4 (if there's no fees for per-owned games) and Wii U combo while still keeping a current gen console like the PS3 or 360.

 

[Foxi4]

I disagree. Launch prices for consoles in the US historically been in the $200 range. The deluxe NES bundle launched at $200 and included two controllers, a zapper, a R.O.B., Gyromite, and Duck Hunt, the SNES launched at $200 and came with Super Mario World, the N64 launched at $200, the Gamecube launched at $200, the Wii launched at $250 and included Wii Sports. And now the deluxe bundle of the Wii U is launching at $350 and comes with Nintendo Land. Seems Nintendo's been using the same level of technology in relation to the times throughout while Sony and Microsoft have been going more expensive technology for the era. The huge jump in hardware cost in the last generation, I think, have set people up for disappointment this generation because in order to create an equal jump that th PS3/360 provided would require even more expensive hardware, and considering that those consoled were selling at a loss, meeting those expectations just isn't feasible. So some say Nintendo is cheating out, but to me it seems they're just letting the technology advance naturally rather than trying to skip ahead by overspending.
Is it really worth spending an extra $200 to advance the console generation's technology one year for every generation to come from now on? Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I'd rather let the technology advance naturally than artificially skipping a year or two by paying a big premium for every console from here on out. If I'm to spend $500+ on a console, I may as well just build a PC that does more than a console and games are cheaper.

...you do realize that $200 dollars in the times of the NES isn't "worth" $200 by today's standards, right?

A dollar isn't "just a dollar" - the value of currency in relation to other currencies and in relation to its own value from the past is in constant fluctuation. Due to inflation alone, the $200 you'd pay for a NES way back in 1985 is actually worth $436 "dollars of today".

http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

...and that's just inflation. You also have to consider the changes in wages over the years, the Yen and Yuan appreciation rate (Nintendo and Sony are Japanese companies and manufacturing mostly takes place in China so both currencies are to be taken into consideration) and our recent economical crisis as factors. What I'm saying here is that perhaps you paid $200 for a NES way back in 1985, but the money was much more valuable - you could buy "more" for $200 than you can now, making the "$200 over the years" argument sort of pointless.

On top of that, the NES was actually a killer back then - it had great graphics for the time and it gave Atari systems a run for their money. It literally had no equivalent until SEGA entered the game with their Master System, but by then Nintendo had a big slice of the market due to expert marketing and, well, great hardware.

...the Wii U is not a killer today. It would've been if it was released 3-4 years earlier than it was, but right now it's trailing behind the PS4/XBox One, far behind.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony are "artificially" pushing the technology forwards - their systems are both based on cheap, Netbook-grade technology. It's just that they're consoles, so they can squeeze much, much more out of it. They'll be "behind" PC's specs wise upon release, but on par or even a bit ahead when it comes to real life performance precisely because they're consoles and don't have to bother with PC OS'es and libraries. This is the natural relation between console-PC at launch, it's the way it should be - allow gamers to play the same games at similar quality with more bang for the buck. The Wii U isn't in such relation - it's just way behind both PC's and Next Generation systems.

 

[emigre]

Foxi got a like for pointing out inflation. Cuz people forget/ don't understand the importance of inflation.

 

[Rizsparky]

I'm sticking with the Wii U and PS3 with my budget for next gen.

If I had the money though, I'd probably get a PS4 (if there's no fees for per-owned games) and Wii U combo while still keeping a current gen console like the PS3 or 360.

I'm in exactly the same boat, when developers stop supporting current gen consoles (might be a while) I'll jump ship to the PS4, otherwise I'm content with my PS3/WiiU

 

[KingdomBlade]

Seems Nintendo's been using the same level of technology in relation to the times throughout while Sony and Microsoft have been going more expensive technology for the era. The huge jump in hardware cost in the last generation, I think, have set people up for disappointment this generation because in order to create an equal jump that th PS3/360 provided would require even more expensive hardware, and considering that those consoled were selling at a loss, meeting those expectations just isn't feasible. So some say Nintendo is cheating out, but to me it seems they're just letting the technology advance naturally rather than trying to skip ahead by overspending.

The technology that Nintendo uses is comparable to a decent PC that you could get about 6-8 years ago. So no. Absolutely not. If you paid attention to the specs, it'd be really obvious that the technology that Nintendo uses is greatly outdated and outclassed by virtually every other form of modern mid-range hardware. Even the PS4/X1 is still outclassed by older high end gaming PC's, even taking into account the fact that the consoles are optimized for gaming, so I think that the idea that Nintendo is going with the natural flow of technology is ridiculous. Consoles use outdated technology that is optimized for gaming use, and that's why they run games as well as they do; fact of the matter is, Nintendo is even more outdated than Microsoft and Sony due to them targeting a more budget conscious and family based market, which allows them to keep the price down. But no, Nintendo is NOT in relation to the times at all when their gaming device has as much RAM as a smartphone.

 

[VMM]

...you do realize that $200 dollars in the times of the NES isn't "worth" $200 by today's standards, right?

A dollar isn't "just a dollar" - the value of currency in relation to other currencies and in relation to its own value from the past is in constant fluctuation. Due to inflation alone, the $200 you'd pay for a NES way back in 1985 is actually worth $436 "dollars of today".

http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

...and that's just inflation. You also have to consider the changes in wages over the years, the Yen and Yuan appreciation rate (Nintendo and Sony are Japanese companies and manufacturing mostly takes place in China so both currencies are to be taken into consideration) and our recent economical crisis as factors. What I'm saying here is that perhaps you paid $200 for a NES way back in 1985, but the money was much more valuable - you could buy "more" for $200 than you can now, making the "$200 over the years" argument sort of pointless.

On top of that, the NES was actually a killer back then - it had great graphics for the time and it gave Atari systems a run for its money. It literally had no equivalent until SEGA entered the game with their Master System, but by then Nintendo had a big slice of the market due to expert marketing and, well, great hardware.

...the Wii U is not a killer today. It would've been if it was released 3-4 years earlier than it was, but right now it's trailing behind the PS4/XBox One, far behind.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony are "artificially" pushing the technology forwards - their systems are both based on cheap, Netbook-grade technology. It's just that they're consoles, so they can squeeze much, much more out of it. They'll be "behind" PC's specs wise upon release, but on par or even a bit ahead when it comes to real life performance precisely because they're consoles and don't have to bother with PC OS'es and libraries. This is the natural relation between console-PC at launch, it's the way it should be - allow gamers to play the same games at similar quality with more bang for the buck. The Wii U isn't in such relation - it's just way behind both PC's and Next Generation systems.

That text was almost flawless, you said everything I could and more.

Just a little detail, netbooks, you mean notebooks right, cause the day I find a netbook with these configurations,
I'll probably be playing my PS5.