Xbox One & Plastation 4 - Hardware

[Zonder]

XBox One
8 Core AMD APU (Theoretical 1.23 TFLOPS)
8Gb DDR3 Unified Ram (68.3 GB/s) (3Gb Reserved to System)

Playstation 4

8 Core AMD APU (Theoretical 1.84 TFLOPS)
8Gb DDR5 Unified Ram (176 GB/s)

Anyone else wonder what MS is doing releasing a slower machine? especially after sony announced first I would have ramped up the power to match at least :S

[AlexeyKnyshev]

I think that's not important how many TFlops have each processor. Because listed hardware is more then enough for good developer. The most impressing thing is new Kinect 2.0 developed for XBox One.

[Herb]

What's more comical is Microsoft indicating the new xbox will have 3 different operating systems running on it at the same time....

From Wikipedia:

Operating system
The device will run three operating systems: Xbox OS, an OS based on the Windows kernel, and another OS that will allow the other two operating systems to communicate by virtualisation (as a hypervisor). Such integration will include features like snapped Skype calls while in game.
The Windows edition on the Xbox will not be compatible with standard Windows apps, though developers will be able to port them over with little effort

[betajaen]

That is a very strange decision.

Why not just only have a version Windows 8 on there only? Not only for Skype and other applications, but for the games too. Surely using a Windows 8 operating system and APIs would be easier for development?

[AlexeyKnyshev]

Virtualization is quite good thing. But not in exaggerated form like dalvik in Android and so on.
Personally I hate Windows due to strange roadmap since Vista.

[Zonder]

I suspect the reason for multiple os is to allow games to have a separate SDK which you have to pay for. And the other OS to allow anyone to develop for using a store.

The os tying them together will be windows 8 based kernel I suspect it would not make sense for them to back track in the unified platform roadmap

I do think myself the performance drop from ps4 is important you only have the 1 chip to do the processing on it's not like you have a separate physics processor unless I missed something. The other factor is developing a game for PS4 will mean possibly putting out an inferior title on the xbox or put the same title out but not at it's full potential on both.

[Klaim]

If we focus on the hardware, there have been some surprising comments on Twitter which indicate that in practice there is a huge difference in performance and ease of use between the two "consoles":

(Jonathan Blow is the guy behind "Braid" and the coming "The Witness")


(This guy works at Unity3D if I remember correctly)


That's a bit surprising to me, but maybe from a dev. point of view having a game devhad a lot of positive impact.

[TheSHEEEP]

Wow, I was already suggesting that consoles will be dead or become replaced by actual home entertainment systems (or PCs that do that job), but MS actively working for that? Nice
Might as well put Xbox One on The Daily WTF.

[Zonder]

Interesting read so it does seem like I suspected there is a big difference between them. Well I think that's good tbh nothing like a good old console war lol

[Klaim]

Also, as it have been apparently officially confirmed that KillZone on PS4 will be 30fps, I'm a bit sceptical about why it will not be 60fps. Is it really that hard to have 60fps for on this kind of architecture with this kind of game (I never worked on a realistically looking game so far).

[bstone]

And there were rumors that the new Xbox would have had 4GB before Sony announced their new specs. The presentation also lacked the oomph compared to PS4's. I'm inclined to think we have a clear winner here. Good thing it's now an x86 platform too.

[Zonder]

And there were rumors that the new Xbox would have had 4GB before Sony announced their new specs. The presentation also lacked the oomph compared to PS4's. I'm inclined to think we have a clear winner here. Good thing it's now an x86 platform too.

I am thinking that too.

At least with the xbox we know Ogre should port easily, microsoft will be using a custom DX for it. Sony I don't know what they will do maybe there existing PSGL is portable and will continue using it or maybe they will go full pure opengl.

But at least in both situations we know ogre is x64 architecture compatible

[AlexeyKnyshev]

And there were rumors that the new Xbox would have had 4GB before Sony announced their new specs. The presentation also lacked the oomph compared to PS4's. I'm inclined to think we have a clear winner here. Good thing it's now an x86 platform too.

I believe in x86 death in current decade. It's quiet old architecture with many archaic "features".

• 1. Instructions count overhead (fucking rare and slow CISC).
  2. Hack with "safe mode flag"
  3. "Hell-known" A20 address line
  4. Low common registers count
  5. Real/Unreal mode hell
  6. Ugly SMM
  7. Unused hardware multitasking (I know... I know... Have been got rid in x86_64)
  8. and so on...

On the other hand, on x86 target we have the most stable dev-kits (it's a very big advantage)

PowerPC (RISC) processors were very good in performance/(tdp*clock) ratio. In value for money, if you want.
In my opinion, the most stupid thing which exists in our PCs is dedicated GPU and GRam. Transferring data from cpu to gpu is the very first bottle neck for good graphic programmer. Last thing to say...
Throwbacks like glsl, hlsl, cg and others exists only because of nvidia/amd blobs.
Yes, you're right! I want to write a program in one language (I think it doesn't sound stupidly for you). I'm a programmer and my work time is expensive.

[bstone]

I believe in x86 death in current decade. It's quiet old architecture with many archaic "features".

I think I hear that since the days PowerPC was announced, RISC this, RISC that... just keeps coming I favor vectorized processing over both.

In my opinion, the most stupid thing which exists in our PCs is dedicated GPU and GRam.

I better have a dedicated GPU than none at all. Intel wouldn't have even bothered with integrated GPU chips before NVidia exploded the market. It's just the way stuff evolves. Pretty normal. And by the way from what I got PS4 will have both CPU and GPU on the same bus with direct access to all RAM. What not to like there?

[AlexeyKnyshev]

I believe in x86 death in current decade. It's quiet old architecture with many archaic "features".

I think I hear that since the days PowerPC was announced, RISC this, RISC that... just keeps coming I favor vectorized processing over both.

In my opinion, the most stupid thing which exists in our PCs is dedicated GPU and GRam.

I better have a dedicated GPU than none at all. Intel wouldn't have even bothered with integrated GPU chips before NVidia exploded the market. It's just the way stuff evolves. Pretty normal. And by the way from what I got PS4 will have both CPU and GPU on the same bus with direct access to all RAM. What not to like there?

Direct access to Ram can significantly improve processing speed. But virtualization in xbox will compensate boost

[bstone]

I was talking about PS4. Not interested in the new video player with Internet Explorer

[Zonder]

I believe in x86 death in current decade. It's quiet old architecture with many archaic "features".

I think I hear that since the days PowerPC was announced, RISC this, RISC that... just keeps coming I favor vectorized processing over both.

In my opinion, the most stupid thing which exists in our PCs is dedicated GPU and GRam.

I better have a dedicated GPU than none at all. Intel wouldn't have even bothered with integrated GPU chips before NVidia exploded the market. It's just the way stuff evolves. Pretty normal. And by the way from what I got PS4 will have both CPU and GPU on the same bus with direct access to all RAM. What not to like there?

I would prefer a dedicated GPU & the CPU + GPU combination. GPU for the graphics and the CPU + GPU for a AI and Physics. Infact why not just have a CPU with 2 GPU on chip

[Klaim]

I wish thez had totally separated the game-allocated hardware from the OS-and-other-stuffs hardware. On PS4 they did part of it apparently but I didn't find info on if game devs are able to exploit fully the APU until os asks to displays omething, or have to share it. On xbox it's known the resources are shared so performance might be fluctuant.

[Zonder]

Well I have to say Microsoft shouldn't force a kinect on you, I can't use a kinect so will never want it and wouldn't pay the extra. The prices of the consoles would be about the same without it I think Microsoft can probably under price it compared to the PS4 as well.

Well it pushes me to the PS4 purchase wise at the moment see what happens down the line.

[Klaim]

Microsoft said there is an option to deactivate Kinect but I feel like it's not a perfect option. Certainly it prevent may usages of the console.

[Zonder]

Well I have damage to my back so that prevents me using it. I did read as well it can be deactivated for the privacy issues a lot of people are concerned about.

[Zonder]

Had another though I wonder which will get jail broken first and someone puts linux/windows/osx on it lol. I am actually betting the PS4 I don't think Microsoft is going to make the mistake they did with the 360 again

[betajaen]

Although the camera aspect of Kinect has a ton of issues; privacy, standing up to play, etc. To me the microphone seems the better of the two in terms of features. From watching the Kinect from the Xbox 360 videos you can talk to the Xbox and make it do things - it seems pretty accurate and can obviously be improved upon via firmware updates - voice recognition has improved quite a bit since I last used it several years ago.

Microsoft to me is trying to market the Xbox as a home centre device that can play your games, watch TV and to some degree chat and use the web. It would make sense that simply talking to the Xbox to do things; Turn on the news channel, Open a Skype call to my Sister, etc. Would be more beneficial than looking for the controller, or a remote - and then use a complicated button combination. I would love something like this in my normal Xbox, but without the massive kinetic 'robot head' thing - perhaps a microphone in the console.

I also think turning the Kinect on/off is a grey area and not black/white as other seem it to be, obviously it should be off when the Xbox is off, but you should have fine control of when you want the camera and microphone on. Having it the camera on during games, or not at all, and having the microphone on when you want it on. Microsoft should be completely open on what the camera and microphone is doing to help with trust. It seems to me, that this stuff won't go away so it's best to make peace with it and come up with a solution that is good for both parties.

[Zonder]

Wikipedia has got some detailed hardware specs now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... eration%29

Got to say disappointed with the GPU's on both :S

[Klaim]

Wikipedia has got some detailed hardware specs now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... eration%29

Got to say disappointed with the GPU's on both :S

Well, consoles always have cheap hardware anyway, nothing surprising there really. Did you know the NDS run with 333mhz main processor?