The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

Just so we're clear, downclocks happen all the time to fix yield issues; as systems have become multicore, assuming not all the cores work has become common as well (the PS3 only assumes 8 out of 9 Cells work, and even the PS4 I believe assumes only 18 out of 20 compute units work).

The issue with the X1 is that the ESRAM physically takes a huge chunk of space, so the odds that something goes bad there (and thus that chip has to be tossed) are high. I can't imagine MS gives Christmas to PS4, so they will downclock (again, that is common bordering on expected) until the yields are acceptable.

And as the article says, all sorts of 360 games didn't even internally render at 720; a lot of users won't care (or even notice) if the X1 mostly renders at 720 this time around. (You can assume both systems won't render at 1080 by the late teens anyway).

Still, barring massive price or game differentials, another reason to go with PS4 this holiday.

Am I right to assume Sony will not have these yield problems because they went for faster ram and faster bus instead of ESRAM on the chip?

Szlia_sl said:

Am I right to assume Sony will not have these yield problems because they went for faster ram and faster bus instead of ESRAM on the chip?

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Correct, since they don't have to deal with the ESRAM fitting on the APU they're not having the yield problems (+ their hardware is supposedly more mature/started engineering on it sooner).

The bottom of the post about all that here has an explanation about the manufacturing stuff:http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=576869

I really enjoy playing the hardware specs game on my PC. When I build a new one I always research the shit out of every possible component and make sure I get the best possible specs for my cash.

With consoles... I just don't really care. The benefit of a console to me is the plug and play nature. I could care less what the specs are, both the Xbone and PS4 use comparatively low end hardware other than the memory setup (yes yes you can "code to the metal" but most devs are just going to use the best tools/api's provided). I could care less if something is native 1080p, or 720p with a ton of AA and cool post effects as long as it looks cool when I fire up a game. All I really care about is a stable framerate and some quality gameplay.

I am almost 100% certain I will buy a PS4 at launch as long as I see some cool stuff at E3, which it sounds like is going to happen. I know its the cool new thing to hate on MS right now but I really liked a lot of the games they put out on the 360, and all of this entertainment focused stuff at least has my attention. I really don't care if it ends up being even 25% as powerful as the PS4, if it has cool stuff at E3 and going forward I will still be interested in it. With the way information gets out these days, it is going to be impossible for them to release something with none of the features they showcase.

Honestly, the last thing I want is another generation of "HDtwins"... If the Xbone ends up being the "Summer Blockbuster/AAAAAA" box and cool entertainment apps, and the PS4 turns into the hardcore gamer and indie box I really think that will be better for us in the long run.

From what I understand of the 2 designs, Sony got really lucky with the 1gb chips of GDDR5 becoming available for mass production. MS wanted 8 gigs of ram from the start, Sony wanted fast ram from the start. If rumors are correct, the original design was for 4gb of GDDR5 vs 8gb of DDR3. The original performance difference was going to be more ram vs faster ram and it probably would have come out to MS's favor because the 8gb allows devs to do a lot more things. At some point late last year 1bg chips of GDDR5 became available and Sony was able to get their cake and eat it too with 8bg of fast ram which just blew the specs race away.

So now MS is stuck with more complicated hardware with no appreciable benefit. Sucks to be them =(

Thorne: That's a really positive viewpoint and you might have just turned me around on hating on the XBone - I really hope your theory of diverged focus is accurate, could make a really healthy generation that way. It would feel weird with only one "hardcore gamer console" since at my heart that's my focus, but that would be a nice excuse to end up getting both since they wouldn't overlap completely at that point.

Alkorin_sl said:

If any dev creates a game thatrequires8GB of RAM to do "things", I hope the game catches on fire and dies. Not "on fire" as in sells well. I mean, the warehouse catches on fire and destroys any and all copies of said game, purely out of spite.

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Well yeah that would be a lot!! But it gives them a lot more headroom for the OS and media functions. But now that's out the window with the ps4 having an equal amount

Alkorin_sl said:

If any dev creates a game thatrequires8GB of RAM to do "things", I hope the game catches on fire and dies. Not "on fire" as in sells well. I mean, the warehouse catches on fire and destroys any and all copies of said game, purely out of spite.

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Eh there are plenty of useful things that can be done with 8 GB of RAM. High resolution textures and objects being rendered with high resolution textures farther in the distance immediately comes to mind. The easiest way to see the benefits of a high amount of RAM is to mod Skyrim.

Cor_sl said:

First up, some video footage turned up on Wired's Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifa9Q7ATfVA) showing the Xbox One's UI in action, and it isn't anywhere as smooth as it looked in Microsoft's presentation. The obvious conclusion to draw is that the presentation was faked. Still, they've got 4-6 months 'til release; that should, hopefully, be enough time to smooth things out.

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I thought it was pretty clear during the presentation that it was faked. He was giving TV commands and and said go to ESPN which was playing a NBA regular season game with fantasy updating. Too bad it was the NBA playoffs, ESPN wasn't showing a replay of a random regular season game, and their fantasy shit definitely wasn't updating itself.

On the other topics, how did MS get caught with their pants down so badly?

Alkorin_sl said:

No game should require that kind of memory out of the gates

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Why not?

Seriously, why not? It's cheap and plentiful, why shouldn't they take advantage of it? RAM is to the point in PCs now you can just ramdisk everything it has gotten so cheap to run 24+gb.

You can't really mod a console game.

Alkorin_sl said:

Sure you can. You can install games to HD on both X360 and PS3, so there's no reason why you wouldn't be able to download approved mods and install them.

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People have also modded console games on hacked consoles.

I'm also pretty sure my point went over everyone's head. The Skyrim example was to show that massive amounts of RAM, like you have on the PC, can be put towards readily visible results. I'm also sure game devs will be a bit more creative, too.