• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

EDGE: "Power struggle: the real differences between PS4 and Xbox One performance"

This is my one major gripe with these two consoles. If they aren't the same, multi platform games will suffer on the superior console because devs won't make one noticeably better than the other. I play some exclusives but the majority of my games are multiplatform.
 

ViciousDS

Banned
Im referring more specifically how this article points out the esram is not being used effectively yet and/or is hard to use.

The article itself says that xbox it is still possible of being "closer" to parity if esram and helper chips can be used well

ah ok, yes thats basically what its going to come down to, is how well ESRAM is going to be utilized but due to its structure and small size
(32MB?) is going to tell how far it can go before it hits cap compared to the PS4 straight up before they start using the API, Compute and just even the ROP/core numbers alone is going to be a huge factor.
 

beast786

Member
By doing what? Not buying next Dragon Age or Mass Effect is not even an option for a lot of gamers. Buying them Xbone and PC, that will just re-enforce that notion that multiplatforms do not sell as well on PlayStation. It is not like the games on PS4 are going to run worst than Xbone. If that happened, then I will join in the boycott gladly.

sorry, but I have options. If NFS gimps I expect people to pick up DC, if battlefield than I expect people to get KZ.

I don't want them to reinforce that gimping will be rewarded. I rather reward dev who worked hard to make a product best to compete. Kind of how capitalism works.
 

Klocker

Member
The games in a year or two will tell the story

So if we see that they are close, it won't mater if I am right and the xbox is better at rendering games than many here are expecting or if devs gimp because it's better politically

It will just be what it is

If best first party games on xbox never get crushed by the best first party on ps4 then maybe we will know


Until then we are all guessing and assuming based on paper specs and way too early rumors
 
Well with some concessions obviously which for all intents and purposes will go unnoticed.

People still underestimating the efficiency of the design over the brute force... that's fine

We have been all having this same argument for two months now so no surprise at all the posters who are going to tell me ps4 is more far powerful on paper :Lol

A lot of that power will be mitigated

What are you talking about? What exactly is inefficient about the PS4?
 

Iacobellis

Junior Member
This is my one major gripe with these two consoles. If they aren't the same, multi platform games will suffer on the superior console because devs won't make one noticeably better than the other. I play some exclusives but the majority of my games are multiplatform.

How do you know? A number of games looked better on Xbox than PS2.
 

Showaddy

Member
The games in a year or two will tell the story

So if we see that they are close, it won't mater if I am right and the xbox is better at rendering games than many here are expecting or if devs gimp because it's better politically

It will just be what it is

If best first party games on xbox never get crushed by the best first party on ps4 then maybe we will know


Until then we are all guessing and assuming based on paper specs and way too early rumors

No offence but this sounds a lot like denial...

Edit: And your efficiency post is really funny as well, you'v got it the wrong way round.
 
This is my one major gripe with these two consoles. If they aren't the same, multi platform games will suffer on the superior console because devs won't make one noticeably better than the other. I play some exclusives but the majority of my games are multiplatform.
Maybe you should play more exclusive games, especially when many of them are goty.
 

jaypah

Member
So we are literally going to go from "lazy devs" to "MS money-hat" this Gen if games aren't significantly different between the 2 consoles? How are we even supposed to know if it was the "Devil Money"? What is the agreed upon power difference? How should it manifest in actual games? Should PS4 games have 50% more frame rate? Effects? Resolution? What's the line that we draw and say "MS must have paid for this" versus a developer just not having the time/resources? If a 180 game is 30 fps locked should the PS4 version be 50 unlocked? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all. Otherwise it seems like an all too easy easy "Must be MS!" for any game that looks similar between the two consoles.
 

Joemoe

Neo Member
I wouldn't be surprised if Yosp doesn't know much more than we do about which developers would "castrate" their games to look the same on both consoles. These "political issues" are vastly overstated imo. The developer quoted in the article is probably a special case (i.e. working for a MS moneyhat like EA, if they're even trying to force parity) or just talking out of his ass.

As a developer you should have every reason to make your game look and play as good as absolutely possible. Publishers shouldn't really care about whether you use the full potential of one platform or not, because outside of hardcore circles people have never really given a shit about comparing graphics between consoles (unless it uses up too much time and money, but with the "ease of development" stuff we know about the PS4, it shouldn't).
 
Gemüsepizza;82236613 said:
If a company will do this, we will know it and they will be called out and publicly shamed. Simple as that.
But how can anyone prove it? The article even has one dev saying players would never know a version was gimped for parity.
 
So we are literally going to go from "lazy devs" to "MS money-hat" this Gen if games aren't significantly different between the 2 consoles? How are we even supposed to know if it was the "Devil Money"? What is the agreed upon power difference? How should it manifest in actual games? Should PS4 games have 50% more frame rate? Effects? Resolution? What's the line that we draw and say "MS must have paid for this" versus a developer just not having the time/resources? If a 180 game is 30 fps locked should the PS4 version be 50 unlocked? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all. Otherwise it seems like an all too easy easy "Must be MS!" for any game that looks similar between the two consoles.

That's the problem to be honest

Without insider info we'll never truly know why a game turns out like it does on either side

A game looking worse on PS4 then XB1 though that would be pretty telling considering the power difference and everything we've heard about how easy it is to develop on the PS4
 

Showaddy

Member
How can a post that says "hey wait until devs figure out how to use the tools before declaring how the games will look" be denial?

Its called patience and not jumping to conclusions

No it's called desperately clutching at straws. The writings on the wall lol, the PS4's more powerful and easier to develop for.
 

Tesseract

Banned
guys i'm taking a dump and have a thought. what if xbone is gohan beam struggling kamehames versus ps4 cell and xbone gohan is losing then kinect vegeta gaves xbone gohan extra power to eliminate ps4 cell.

this is only an opinion, i've not yet run experiments to validate my hypothesis.
 
How can a post that says "hey wait until devs figure out how to use the tools before declaring how the games will look" be denial?

Its called patience and not jumping to conclusions

there are no "efficiency in design" in the xbone.

even if there were, it was built efficiently for microsoft's vision for the platform. hardware is there for things other than gaming.
 
How can a post that says "hey wait until devs figure out how to use the tools before declaring how the games will look" be denial?

Your points aren't wrong from the perspective of how games will look, but not on other stuff.

Cell also required devs to figure out how to use the tools, and as proven with first-party games, efficient use of those tools allowed games to look stellar.

Despite that, it did not make PS3 a more efficiently designed system.
 

jaypah

Member
I wouldn't be surprised if Yosp doesn't know much more than we do about which developers would "castrate" their games to look the same on both consoles. These "political issues" are vastly overstated imo.

I can't imagine devs sharing their "MS money hat" scenarios with him so I agree, he probably doesn't know. But he DOES know how to play to his audience. His twitter is great if you like PS products and want to get hype about your purchase. When he tweeted about the NFS game I got giddy thinking how nice it'll probably look and I hadn't even considered buying it at the time! I was looking for DC to hold me down on the racing front. Thankfully I can try out DC with PS+ and hopefully get a demo of NFS. Or at the least read Gaffers opinions of NFS.
 

stryke

Member
How can a post that says "hey wait until devs figure out how to use the tools before declaring how the games will look" be denial?

Its called patience and not jumping to conclusions

You're the one going about proclaiming of esram optimisation mitigating the power difference and now as soon as you meet resistance you retreat to the "let's wait and see" highground while accusing others of jumping to conclusions.
 

GetemMa

Member
Or jumping to conclusions :)

I wouldn't bank on dev tools to give MS much of an advantage in the next gen, even if they are thought of as superior, which is hasn't been really touched upon by anyone.

These new consoles are repurposed off the shelf PC parts sporting system architecture that devs are already incredibly familiar with. It isn't like 360 and PS3 where they had to learn a totally custom design. Basically, there isn't a whole lot to figure out except how to use the raw power available to them most efficiently.

Devs are saying PS4 has more raw power available for them to work with. Great dev tools can't make up for that, no matter how easy they are to use.
 

beast786

Member
I can't imagine devs sharing their "MS money hat" scenarios with him so I agree, he probably doesn't know. But he DOES know how to play to his audience. His twitter is great if you like PS products and want to get hype about your purchase. When he tweeted about the NFS game I got giddy thinking how nice it'll probably look and I hadn't even considered buying it at the time! I was looking for DC to hold me down on the racing front. Thankfully I can try out DC with PS+ and hopefully get a demo of NFS. Or at the least read Gaffers opinions of NFS.

tell me technical reason why ps4 game would perform worse than XB1? because there isn't any. it will be purely due to politics or dev decision.

exactly the same way if PS4 version would perform better than PC.

Both case it would be political or dev decision . not hardware related
 

daman824

Member
So let me get this straight, people are now arguing that Microsoft is paying publishers millions of dollars to gimp their ps4 versions of games in an attempt to please the tiny percentage of people who can notice and care about the difference between 1080p and 900p with a less taxing form of AA?

giggle.gif
 

jayu26

Member
sorry, but I have options. If NFS gimps I expect people to pick up DC, if battlefield than I expect people to get KZ.

I don't want them to reinforce that gimping will be rewarded. I rather reward dev who worked hard to make a product best to compete. Kind of how capitalism works.
To that I say...what about people who really want to play next Dragon Age or any other EA game? And they want to play it not because EA made it, but because the game is actually good.

So we are literally going to go from "lazy devs" to "MS money-hat" this Gen if games aren't significantly different between the 2 consoles? How are we even supposed to know if it was the "Devil Money"? What is the agreed upon power difference? How should it manifest in actual games? Should PS4 games have 50% more frame rate? Effects? Resolution? What's the line that we draw and say "MS must have paid for this" versus a developer just not having the time/resources? If a 180 game is 30 fps locked should the PS4 version be 50 unlocked? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all. Otherwise it seems like an all too easy easy "Must be MS!" for any game that looks similar between the two consoles.

Ah! Technically speaking power difference should manifest itself in all multiplatform games. How big is it going to be is the only real question. But, if it is substantial, it will only take couple of developers to shame others into using it. For example, if Witcher 3 pushes PS4 and shows the power difference (and I think nothing will stop CD Projekt RED from pushing either systems), then Dragon Age, Fallout, Elder Schrolls and others will also have to push PS4.
 

jaypah

Member
tell me technical reason why ps4 game would perform worse than XB1? because there isn't any. it will be purely due to politics or dev decision.

exactly the same way if PS4 version would perform better than PC.

Both case it would be political or dev decision . not hardware related

You have never heard me say 180 games might perform better than PS4 games. I'm just saying I doubt he would be privy to any "sabotage money" deals. I don't care about the fanwank so maybe I should just bounce.
 

Odrion

Banned
So let me get this straight, people are now arguing that Microsoft is paying publishers millions of dollars to gimp their ps4 versions of games in an attempt to please the tiny percentage of people who can notice and care about the difference between 1080p and 900p with a less taxing form of AA?

giggle.gif
The Edge article, if you bothered to read, said that some companies are avoiding platform disparity to avoid ruffling Microsoft's feathers. Yosp said that NOT ALL companies are doing that, more or less implying that the article is correct.
 
So let me get this straight, people are now arguing that Microsoft is paying publishers millions of dollars to gimp their ps4 versions of games in an attempt to please the tiny percentage of people who can notice and care about the difference between 1080p and 900p with a less taxing form of AA?

I'm not sure I believe it but I also don't discount it entirely

Perhaps MS doesn't have to pay for it?

Just give discounts to publishing or something
 

daman824

Member
The Edge article, if you bothered to read, said that some companies are avoiding platform disparity to avoid ruffling Microsoft's feathers. Yosp said that NOT ALL companies are doing that, more or less implying that the article is correct.
That's not what I'm reading from some posters in here....
 
Im referring more specifically how this article points out the esram is not being used effectively yet and/or is hard to use.

The article itself says that xbox it is still possible of being "closer" to parity if esram and helper chips can be used well

Why do you assume that Microsoft will approach parity through optimization? Do you think that the ps4 will not become more optimized as the years go on? This type of thinking relies on the assumption that X1 will become better as time goes on while PS4 stays the same.
 

beast786

Member
So let me get this straight, people are now arguing that Microsoft is paying publishers millions of dollars to gimp their ps4 versions of games in an attempt to please the tiny percentage of people who can notice and care about the difference between 1080p and 900p with a less taxing form of AA?

giggle.gif

yep, very tiny.

And yet still, MS cares enough to give a PR statement about the power difference regarding all the dev speaking power difference, yet still braging about cloud power , 5 million transistor and PR mouth here in GAF going point by point.

XB1 is 25% more expensive . They can't afford the perception of being a weak console that is 25% more expensive . especially initial years when hardcore buys at premium price instead of casual that wait for price drop.
 

Joemoe

Neo Member
The Edge article, if you bothered to read, said that some companies are avoiding platform disparity to avoid ruffling Microsoft's feathers. Yosp said that NOT ALL companies are doing that, more or less implying that the article is correct.

Or Yosp learned about it through this article like the rest of us and is instead implying that he knows developers who will be taking advantage of PS4 hardware.
 

Codeblew

Member
People said MS paid off people not to show the same games on PS4 at E3. Now people are saying that MS is going to make it where multi plats are going to be gimped.

I find it amusing.

It is amusing especially when most of the 3rd party games have been shown on PS4 or PC. Hell even some of the exclusives have been shown on PC. *cough*

Where has this narrative come from that the X1's design is more inherently efficient than the Ps4.

Special sauce. Believe!

No offence but this sounds a lot like denial...

Edit: And your efficiency post is really funny as well, you'v got it the wrong way round.

Self-denial. There is a lot of that going around lately. It is going to get worse then next few months.
 

Odrion

Banned
yep, very tiny.

And yet still, MS cares enough to give a PR statement about the power difference regarding all the dev speaking power difference, yet still braging about cloud power , 5 million transistor and PR mouth here in GAF going point by point.

XB1 is 25% more expensive . They can't afford the perception of being a weak console that is 25% more expensive . especially initial years when hardcore buys at premium price instead of casual that wait for price drop.
And according to the article, some developers think the PS4 is powerful enough that if they do take advantage of the PS4's power for their multiplatform titles, they would look better enough to piss off Microsoft and their chances as making a deal with them.
 
So let me get this straight, people are now arguing that Microsoft is paying publishers millions of dollars to gimp their ps4 versions of games in an attempt to please the tiny percentage of people who can notice and care about the difference between 1080p and 900p with a less taxing form of AA?

giggle.gif

LOL. You know, its funny for some people to create amazing conspiracy theories and actually believe that they are true...


1227067288xEattX7.jpg



...got it? :p
 
Yeah, when worst case scenario is that the game is identical on the cheaper system it's pretty simple to decide which console to get for multiplatform games. Even with all settings the same, PS4 versions will be less likely to tear or drop frames.

This is absolutely true. If you ignore everything else and were solely goin to buy a console based on multiplatform games the choice is absolutely clear.

IMHO I do not like Xbox exclusives historically and most of my friends play on the play station brand so the choice is absolutely clear to me but if both or just one of the above was different I could see harder choices would need to be made.
 

Odrion

Banned
I thought one of the big things people were talking about was how easy the PS4's dev tools were to use.

Warframe took only three months to port!
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
There's not been a generation yet where multiplat devs overwhelmingly ignored the power discrepancy between platforms and simply refused to put it to use. Not when marketshare split was as close as it was this past gen or much further apart as in previous gens. There will always be some exceptions who choose to ignore and/or level out whatever disparity in performance that may exist, but I wouldn't be too concerned about what the vast majority will do.

However, by their very nature, multiplat devs aren't out to eke every last drop of performance out of any platform they develop for anyway. They're not a great metric for that sort of thing.
 

Averon

Member
Where has this narrative come from that the X1's design is more inherently efficient than the Ps4.

There's always something that will wipe the technical advantage the PS4 has over the Xbone.

Special sauce
2nd, hidden GPU
ESRAM magic
Double APUs
Xbone's super duper audio hardware
The 'crippling' latency the PS4 has to deal with

It's always something.
 

nib95

Banned
All I know is, Microsoft the last few weeks has clearly had the task of downplaying the differences in power between the PS4 and 360 at the very forefront of their PR campaign. Through Penello, Major Nelson, the random Microsoft (PR) dev on Reddit and so on. It's been one of their main focuses as far as discussion has been concerned. During which they've spouted all sorts of misinformation, and now that's failed they're doubling down on the games will show it all thing, which is the complete opposite of what we've been hearing from several other devs and insiders, so it's plausible they may have a hand in at least ensuring some level of parity between certain releases.

My guess is if it is the case at all, it'll only really be EA and maybe Activision (with COD since the XO version has been the primary public show case platform for it) that's guilty of it. Can't see it being the case with some of the others. Hell, the guys behind NFS Rivals even came out to say one version would be slightly different.

I guess we'll see. That said, irrespective of any such notions, I never expected big differences in launch games anyway. I've always stated as much for the longest time.

It'll be post launch window that things start to get juicier.
 

Klocker

Member
Dude this whole article is about PS4 being more efficient and powerful. there is already quote from Dev that ps4 tools are more mature than XB1.

What are you basing your call upon?

Alberts post?

seriously. i Want to know

The tools are currently more mature on ps4 yes and the ps4 is obviously more straight forward

Listening to the engineers in the ms architect talk, in the original reveal, the posts of several engineers and developers on b3d including one who worked on ps4 game, reading various articles over these many months.

According to all of them yes the esram and system with dedicated hardware chips (all debunked here every day as nothing special like the move engines and sound processor) all combine to lead me to believe that it HAS THE POTENTIAL TO POSSIBLY be more efficient than many are expecting. For those of you reaching for the reply button before finishing reading notice "I never said equal to or greater than ps4" I'm not blind.

I'm also led to believe that although XBO is less powerful, in real world programming games can be made to look and play very very similarly to ps4 games to most people and will not be a wide divide. As the games we have seen so far prove by and large.


The real key is if that continues over the next year or two or if a gap starts to show.

Also no need for everyone to try to convince me how all those helper chips and esram are crappy substitutes for the real deal...I have been reading here since 2005 and have heard it all from the best of them including when they all told me ps3 would dominate the 360 like a ragdoll.

I'll wait for the games, trust that my hunch based on all the facts I've read may be correct and will gladly concede if it turns out to be completely wrong in about a year or two
 
Top Bottom