Its probably banked, such that you can perform read and writes to separate banks which is why they don't reach the peak bandwidth even in there numbers which have pretty much ideal scenarios.
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EDGE: "Power struggle: the real differences between PS4 and Xbox One performance"
- Thread starter Musiol
- Start date
Its probably banked, such that you can perform read and writes to separate banks which is why they don't reach the peak bandwidth even in there numbers which have pretty much ideal scenarios.
Foghorn Leghorn
Unconfirmed Member
That doesn't really matter. The bus is 1024-bits wide -- all data goes over the bus. The bits of the bus would be split along the banks if there are banks. You still only get 1024-bits a cycle.
Hydrargyrus
Member
This device is balanced by the balance fellow
eh dont bother the senjitsu guy is very pro ms for some reason and doesnt resond to juniors ... i made very pertinent replies to him in a different thread a week back or so ... either he feels juniors arent supposed to be responded to or just is very pro xbox ... either case pointless
Liabe Brave
Member
Okay, let's talk about eSRAM bandwidth on One, using the "real world" numbers that Microsoft has provided in this article.Nice try leaving out the bandwidth figure on the 360's eDRAM also in an attempt to try and cover what your real intentions were for leaving out the embedded memory bandwidth on the Xbox One.
In all cases on One, DDR3 can be read/written at 55 GB/s. It doesn't matter whether the data is coming from or going to any combination of the CPU, GPU, or Move Engines--the total of them all is still 55 GB/s. The difference is all in the eSRAM. As far as I can see, here are the possible states:
Code:
eSRAM System
GPU writing, GPU reading 150 GB/s 205 GB/s
No writing, GPU reading 109 GB/s 164 GB/s
DME writing, GPU reading 25.6 GB/s 80.6 GB/s
DME writing, no reading 0 GB/s 55 GB/sI don't know anything about game programming, but any fool can see from this what devs have been saying and what gofreak pointed out above: on One bandwidth is extremely variable depending on work done, and you have to put in the time to manage it. On the PS4 you just get 140 GB/s all the time. It's true that the highs on One are higher...but the lows are lower. To take advantage, you have to write cleverer code, which equates to time and money.
And because these modes are mixed, the added bandwidth can't be simply compared to PS4. Not only are the lows lower, they're further below PS4 than the highs are above it. I have no idea what the real-world proportions of these four regimes would be. But obviously the second and fourth one should be much rarer, since the eSRAM is so small. If each of those occurs 5% of the time, and the others each occur 45% of the time, the resulting theoretical bandwidth for One becomes roughly equal to PS4. Not the article's naive "200 versus 176" comparative.
[Sums up my perspective as well, and on a much more broad level than just performance. Seemed MS believed that either Sony would be totally asleep at the wheel or that they themselves could throw out whatever device they wanted and the masses would lap it up thanks to the Xbox brand. I wonder if higher-ups at MS thought they had a chance at becoming the Apple of the living room and failed to notice they totally missed their mark./quote]
This!
Edit: Messed up the quote
agree ms and google have been trying to be the apple and fb of things for a while now ... doesnt work . just as apple has nothing on office and fb has nothing googles ad matching currently.
Sword Of Doom
Member
The fact that we are still debating the power difference between the two consoles means that Albert Penello did his job. The numbers don't lie. The PS4 is more powerful.
It's what you do in marketing when the facts are not in your favor. You speak nonsense and you spread doubt and those in denial eat It up.
It's what you do in marketing when the facts are not in your favor. You speak nonsense and you spread doubt and those in denial eat It up.
The problem I have with that is that the age of "lead platform" seems to be coming to a close. We are seeing more and more games developed to an engine's capabilities, not a single systems, and then they work to make that game work on each platform to the best of their ability. I think this is what people mean by the lead platform being PC. You can't really have a lead PC platform because every PC is different. What you get is the developer building an engine with a target in mind, and then fitting the product to each platform. It is as if each version of a game on a console has become a locked in graphical setting of a PC game.
If anything we are going to see this trend continue with the PC like architecture of both next gen platforms. It simply doesn't make sense to make one platform the lead anymore, I just don't think it works that way. You can make the least common denominator the lowest target point, sure, but that doesn't mean other platforms are going to be held back from presenting the end product in a cleaner, more refined way.
The only way a PS4 game will look and perform identical to the same game on the Xbone is if the developer does it on purpose. They will have to purposely not use the added GPU power of the PS4. It's not like we are going to see massive differences in how each version is rendered or anything, and I don't think anyone would argue that it will turn out that way. We aren't going to see baked in lighting in one version while the other gets global illumination or anything like that. What we are going to see are things like higher resolutions, higher framerates, longer draw distances, better AA, sharper textures, and cleaner shadows. There just isn't a reason for a developer not to make use of the added GPU power for those kinds of things.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Some great info in this article that, in my opinion, cuts through a lot of the noise focused on trying to make ESRAM sound like a terrible inclusion.
Real information with real examples. Reading this sounds in stark contrast to a lot of the arguments that were being made around here. 32MB is useless for this or that, or too small for this. The render target argument was thrown around quite heavily actually, but they clearly point out that you can mix and match your render targets quite easily between the two pools, sticking specific things in the right pool to maximize utilization of the ESRAM, and that they've improved on popular compressed render target formats that were used regularly on the 360. See, there's nothing wrong with thinking this is less optimal than Sony's design, which has been acknowledged on more than one occasion, but people that have tried to make it look like Microsoft just slapped this thing together with no idea what the fuck they were doing, or without a clear plan to get the most out of it, if those people even pay attention to some of the facts presented in this article, then they'll see that there's a little bit more to it than that.
Anyway, I like the article, and will add to my favorites, just like I've done with the awesome PS4 articles also written on this same site, many of which are, ironically, written by the same person.
No, you CHOOSE to see the Xbox One's eSRAM as not being a bonus and a crutch, despite the very clear evidence presented of how it is a serious improvement on the more limiting eDRAM on the Xbox 360. Seriously, this is coming straight from the people that worked on this system. They are actually presenting some real facts about the limitations on the Xbox 360 compared to the limitations that have been lifted on the Xbox One, and even then people continue to say "No, they're wrong. We know better." Come on. Anyway, I'm done.
Real information with real examples. Reading this sounds in stark contrast to a lot of the arguments that were being made around here. 32MB is useless for this or that, or too small for this. The render target argument was thrown around quite heavily actually, but they clearly point out that you can mix and match your render targets quite easily between the two pools, sticking specific things in the right pool to maximize utilization of the ESRAM, and that they've improved on popular compressed render target formats that were used regularly on the 360. See, there's nothing wrong with thinking this is less optimal than Sony's design, which has been acknowledged on more than one occasion, but people that have tried to make it look like Microsoft just slapped this thing together with no idea what the fuck they were doing, or without a clear plan to get the most out of it, if those people even pay attention to some of the facts presented in this article, then they'll see that there's a little bit more to it than that.
Anyway, I like the article, and will add to my favorites, just like I've done with the awesome PS4 articles also written on this same site, many of which are, ironically, written by the same person.
Gemüsepizza;83107733 said:
No, you CHOOSE to see the Xbox One's eSRAM as not being a bonus and a crutch, despite the very clear evidence presented of how it is a serious improvement on the more limiting eDRAM on the Xbox 360. Seriously, this is coming straight from the people that worked on this system. They are actually presenting some real facts about the limitations on the Xbox 360 compared to the limitations that have been lifted on the Xbox One, and even then people continue to say "No, they're wrong. We know better." Come on. Anyway, I'm done.
dont really feel that many people are on the fence about it. i believe its turned from what is more powerful to a
i believe one is more powerful you belive the second isnt underpowerd ... i try to tell you this is better cause of this this this .. you say balance this this ...
essentially the power issue has already been kind of extablished with the tech oriented ppl ..... not its more a spin war ... you spin i spin ... everyone argues over spin ... at the end of the day the games will matter and the difference should become readily apparent.
Some great info in this article that, in my opinion, cuts through a lot of the noise focused on trying to make ESRAM sound like a terrible inclusion.
Real information with real examples. Reading this sounds in stark contrast to a lot of the arguments that were being made around here. 32MB is useless for this or that, or too small for this. The render target argument was thrown around quite heavily actually, but they clearly point out that you can mix and match your render targets quite easily between the two pools, sticking specific things in the right pool to maximize utilization of the ESRAM, and that they've improved on popular compressed render target formats that were used regularly on the 360. See, there's nothing wrong with thinking this is less optimal than Sony's design, which has been acknowledged on more than one occasion, but people that have tried to make it look like Microsoft just slapped this thing together with no idea what the fuck they were doing, or without a clear plan to get the most out of it, if those people even pay attention to some of the facts presented in this article, then they'll see that there's a little bit more to it than that.
Anyway, I like the article, and will add to my favorites, just like I've done with the awesome PS4 articles also written on this same site, many of which are, ironically, written by the same person.
No, you CHOOSE to see the Xbox One's eSRAM as not being a bonus and a crutch, despite the very clear evidence presented of how it is a serious improvement on the more limiting eDRAM on the Xbox 360. Seriously, this is coming straight from the people that worked on this system. They are actually presenting some real facts about the limitations on the Xbox 360 compared to the limitations that have been lifted on the Xbox One, and even then people continue to say "No, they're wrong. We know better." Come on. Anyway, I'm done.
Why didn't they add JPEG decoding to the TMU's?
Liabe Brave
Member
The article doesn't change the render target argument at all. The fact that render targets can be split across eSRAM and DDR3 actually confirms what many here on GAF have been saying, that eSRAM is a scratchpad and not a cache. I don't recall anyone saying that 32MB is a hard limit for render targets, just that exceeding this means you have to use the (much) slower main memory. And that's exactly what Microsoft are saying.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Simple, it would probably be incredibly invasive and risky, bordering on stupid levels of experimentation at a time when you need certainty, particularly with all the hard won optimizations AMD has done to modify and improve those TMUs from Cypress to Cayman, and to where they now find themselves with their latest architectures. Don't rock the boat, just go the safer route and put in place separate dedicated hardware to handle that. Let the TMUs do what they do best.
This would be almost akin to when AMD experimented with changes to VLIW5 when they went to VLIW4. They actually ended up limiting their shader processors (Correction: their SIMDs) in some very important ways with that decision, even hurting their transcendental performance. They spent time on that, even dedicating their driver teams to working up solutions for that, and they abandoned it immediately in their follow-up architecture. Hard not to see that as valuable time wasted. Microsoft worked with AMD directly. AMD likely wasn't eager to repeat their Cayman mistakes on as important a project as the one they were working on with Microsoft. According to Dave Baumann, a project worth upwards of, I think, $3 billion to AMD.
You can say it a much shorter way.
Its a stupid idea. Because games don't use it.
polyh3dron
Banned
yep, consider those waters muddy.
EventHorizon
Member
It seemed like from the article that one of Microsoft's main defenses of their less powerful GPU was that most games are CPU limited anyways so that the extra power of the GPU would not matter. My question is "Is this true? Are most console games really CPU limited?"
I have a suspicion that this might be true for Microsoft because they want to be able to run other apps while a game is running.
I have a suspicion that this might be true for Microsoft because they want to be able to run other apps while a game is running.
This generation the CPU's will be less important than any before, not only because the GPU's will be taking on much of the functionality, but also because the CPU's in both consoles are actually quite underpowered. They're actually considerably lower in flop performance power than the CPU's in the PS3 and 360.
Dictator93
Member
Some great info in this article that, in my opinion, cuts through a lot of the noise focused on trying to make ESRAM sound like a terrible inclusion.
Real information with real examples. Reading this sounds in stark contrast to a lot of the arguments that were being made around here. 32MB is useless for this or that, or too small for this. The render target argument was thrown around quite heavily actually, but they clearly point out that you can mix and match your render targets quite easily between the two pools, sticking specific things in the right pool to maximize utilization of the ESRAM, and that they've improved on popular compressed render target formats that were used regularly on the 360. See, there's nothing wrong with thinking this is less optimal than Sony's design, which has been acknowledged on more than one occasion, but people that have tried to make it look like Microsoft just slapped this thing together with no idea what the fuck they were doing, or without a clear plan to get the most out of it, if those people even pay attention to some of the facts presented in this article, then they'll see that there's a little bit more to it than that.
Anyway, I like the article, and will add to my favorites, just like I've done with the awesome PS4 articles also written on this same site, many of which are, ironically, written by the same person.
No, you CHOOSE to see the Xbox One's eSRAM as not being a bonus and a crutch, despite the very clear evidence presented of how it is a serious improvement on the more limiting eDRAM on the Xbox 360. Seriously, this is coming straight from the people that worked on this system. They are actually presenting some real facts about the limitations on the Xbox 360 compared to the limitations that have been lifted on the Xbox One, and even then people continue to say "No, they're wrong. We know better." Come on. Anyway, I'm done.
You realize that saying they need special color and HDR formats which are less precise shows the problems... right?
Same problem with eDRAM. Having to have less precise HDR in games like battlefield 3 is actually evident.
EventHorizon
Member
Since the CPUs are less powerful doesn't that mean that they really could be the bottleneck.
Whiteshirt
Member
Yes but GPUs are basically the core of any gaming device these days. It has been this way in gaming outside of strategy simulation games.
Furthermore, for the PS4 at the very least, a strong GPGPU focus can bolster the weak CPU performance. I, like many others, do not see how the PS4 is a very unbalanced console. If anything, its more balanced.
Unknown One
Member
Games would probably just be designed with the weak CPU in mind. Since both consoles have the same CPU or similar there won't be much of a difference on that end.
What he's talking about is still a compromise, though. I'm sure that no developer would choose to have render targets split between eSRAM and main RAM if they didn't have to because of eSRAM size limitations.
It doesn't explain why MS didn't go with a larger eSRAM capacity. In fact it's practically a tacit admission that 32MB isn't enough eSRAM, because they're having to mitigate hardware problems through software workarounds (letting developers split render targets).
So, yes, clearly there has been some thought put into the eSRAMbut in this instance, it's how to best mitigate the shortcomings of putting too little eSRAM in the APU. So I still think it's entirely baffling why MS would go with 32MB of eSRAM instead of a larger amount that wouldn't have caused issues with having different render targets split between eSRAM and main RAM.
That's the 32mb of ESRAM plus all the various caches. It's a funny meaningless number except the 32mb of ESRAM. As a number 47mb is just meaningless out of context. The caches will be copies of various things in the esram or main memory.
It's like if I said my computer has 1,008,000 mb of digital space. How is that divided? Is it 1TB of ram? Is it 1TB of HDD + 8 GB of RAM + a 48mb? Is that 1 TB of HDD, 4 GB of ram and a 4GB memory stick?
CadetMahoney
Member
MS is just scrambling because they know they will lose all face-offs for the entirety of this gen and need to comfort buyers to validate a $500 purchase and paying the same $60 as another person but getting an inferior product.
LukasTaves
Member
Gemüsepizza;83107225 said:
That you got the Ps3 bandwidth wrong? (It's almost double that for the GPU).
Just a crazy thought but:
What if the PS4 GPU is modified HD 7870 & the yields was so good that they decided to use all 20 CU's?
I ask this because a Dev told someone that his Devkit was 10% slower than the new Devkits.
18 CU's is 10% slower than 20 CU's so I can dream a little until November.
Edit: Also this would explain why it's still 50% faster than the Xbox One.
What if the PS4 GPU is modified HD 7870 & the yields was so good that they decided to use all 20 CU's?
I ask this because a Dev told someone that his Devkit was 10% slower than the new Devkits.
18 CU's is 10% slower than 20 CU's so I can dream a little until November.
Edit: Also this would explain why it's still 50% faster than the Xbox One.
The PS4's GPU isn't off-the-shelf. There isn't an exact match with AMDs current PC range, due to the customisation changes made by Sony. For instance, the HD7870 only has 2 ACEs for instance, while the PS4 has 8.
I haven't read anything that suggested the PS4's APU has been fabbed with redundant CUs, cores, or anything else. Without the eSRAM complicating things, the PS4's APU should be far less tricky to fab, seeing as it is all based on a mature process. I would bet MS were hedging their bets with having 2 redundant (disabled) CUs, due to the yield issues of their APU.
Nope. PS3 has split ram architecture (256mb system ram and 256mb video ram) across XDR and GDDR3. PS3's XDR ram is 25.6 GB/s and the GDDR3 VRAM is 22.4 GB/s.
The PS3's GPU can read from both pools and full speed or nearly full speed though.
user8503492
Banned
I'm still floating between GAF and Xbox heavy influenced forum and trying to wrap my head around the "tech" talk.
Basically, I think, what I'm getting from info over thier is that thr Xbox is a balance of components that will, if I'm correct, will make it stronger?
While the PS4 is unbalanced with power in some parts but weak in others, there for making it unbalanced and in reality weaker.
I heard them refer to it as using a powerful hammer to swat flys instead or a fly swatter, or in terms of horspower in a car as a metaphor. ..saying as they go faster the PS4 actually loses power due to bottlenecks..
Is this nonsense? What exactly is the bottom line between these two?
Basically, I think, what I'm getting from info over thier is that thr Xbox is a balance of components that will, if I'm correct, will make it stronger?
While the PS4 is unbalanced with power in some parts but weak in others, there for making it unbalanced and in reality weaker.
I heard them refer to it as using a powerful hammer to swat flys instead or a fly swatter, or in terms of horspower in a car as a metaphor. ..saying as they go faster the PS4 actually loses power due to bottlenecks..
Is this nonsense? What exactly is the bottom line between these two?
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
But it's still limited to the ram amounts (256mb each). It's a similar issue to the Esram (can be super fast but it's still limited to 32mb. Comparatively the 360 has a unified ram set up of just a full 512mb GDDR3 plus the 10mb faster Edram.
thunder_snail
Member
Nope, this is flat out wrong. I'd advise against reading those xbox centric sites with anything more than a grain of salt. By all accounts it's the PS4 that actually seems like both the more powerful AND better balanced console hardware wise for actual games. Easier to work with, more useful customisations, better bandwidth, unified ram, more GPGPU forward thinking functionality, more creative bandwidth management etc, on top of more raw hardware performance.
A better comparison would be that the Xbox One is a small fly swatter whilst the PS4 is a larger fly swatter more effective at swatting flies.
SwiftDeath
Member
What bottlenecks does the PS4 have that the XB1 does not?
I have yet to hear any clear advantage the XB1 has architecture-wise over the PS4
The peaks of memory bandwidth perhaps?
Has there been any breakdown given as to what percentage of the time XB1's memory bandwidth will be usable at any specific bandwidth?
I know PS4's is supposedly at least 140GB/s at any given time
Other than that I fail to grasp any other real advantages the XB1's architecture truly has
Liabe Brave
Member
Stronger than if they hadn't made those enhancements, yes. But...
...definitely not so strong that it surpasses or even catches the PS4. For one thing, there's no evidence that PS4 is unbalanced in any aspect compared to One. The customizations detailed by Cerny and others do the exact same type of things that many One enhancements do: maintain high bandwidth, boost the relatively weak CPU, etc. As far as can be told, all the Microsoft enhancements that Sony doesn't have, Sony doesn't need--they're only there to make the eSRAM a better option (in itself, not in comparison to PS4).
The bottom line is, Microsoft might be able to achieve parity in some specs, but overall the gap is just too big to close appreciably. Think of it this way: would you ever buy a lower-model GPU card and expect to get better results out of it than its big brother? Of course not, no matter how much balancing and tweaking engineers have done to the lower model.
Yea, I notice something alright. You're playing the traditional console warrior card of not even mentioning the very real bandwidth that is on the ESRAM. Nice try leaving out the bandwidth figure on the 360's eDRAM also in an attempt to try and cover what your real intentions were for leaving out the embedded memory bandwidth on the Xbox One.
The eSRAM isn't anything like the eDRAM.
LOL, where did you get this shit from?
What's with all the B3D hate lately? everyone there isn't saying all this crazy stuff & most of the one's who are there saying crazy stuff are people who used to be on NeoGaf until they was banned.
shinra-bansho
Member
Nope, see Bonaire.