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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Why is 4K and the new Playstation 4 so vague?

Sony is particularly bad about over promising when they are launching a new console
 
I thought they've stated they're going to wait until the Xbox "720" specs/announcement so they can one-up them on hardware. Like they're aiming to deliver the hardware later too...something about 'why rush to get it out the door when you can wait a little bit to see the competition's hand.'

But yeah, 4k (3840x2160) is expected in order to push Sony's 4k tvs. Also, apparently it's going to be 4k 2D games, but 1080p for 3D... Although that's speculated.
 
Mike P. said:
I thought they've stated they're going to wait until the Xbox "720" specs/announcement so they can one-up them on hardware. Like they're aiming to deliver the hardware later too...something about 'why rush to get it out the door when you can wait a little bit to see the competition's hand.'

But yeah, 4k (3840x2160) is expected in order to push Sony's 4k tvs. Also, apparently it's going to be 4k 2D games, but 1080p for 3D... Although that's speculated.
Click to expand...

I'm skeptical about 4k games, the PS3 Promised full 1080p games and rarely delivered it so it seems unlikely that this could deliver 4k graphics that said it is uncertain what the hardware is capable of.
 
A bit underwhelmed by the announcement. Sure the games look great and as a gamer its a must have, but as a content producer the lack of mention of 4K as well as the blu ray spec- announced only as a "faster drive"- sounds really strange from Sony. This was obviously a gamer focused event so the multimedia features seemed a bit sidestepped. I think this approach is to somehow make this machine more gamer relevant than the PS Vita lacklustre announcement and launch.

I'm sure it will do 4K. The current PS3 hardware can output 4K, this one could easily handle some form of 4K content. I think however what is interesting is the streaming aspect of the machine. Are Sony planning some sort of network streaming of 4K playstation movies in the near future? What type of encoding? I envision this PS4 as Sony's own "Apple TV" competitor. It will be interesting how they market the PS4 outside of the gamer market, because they will have to do it.

Also, very disappointed with the 720p bundled "eye toy" (or whatever its called right now). This could be at least a 1080p or 3K capable camera to highlight the possibilities of 4K...
 
Sergio Perez said:
The current PS3 hardware can output 4K
Click to expand...
Not really, no. All it can do is stream hires photos to a 4K display, with the help of a dedicated photo-viewing software which slices up the photos into chunks small enough to pass through PS3's limited-to-1080p HDMI. I doubt even the latest revision of PS3 has the mandatory 3GHz HDMI 1.4 transmitter required for 4K video.
 
Petri Teittinen said:
Not really, no. All it can do is stream hires photos to a 4K display, with the help of a dedicated photo-viewing software which slices up the photos into chunks small enough to pass through PS3's limited-to-1080p HDMI. I doubt even the latest revision of PS3 has the mandatory 3GHz HDMI 1.4 transmitter required for 4K video.
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True. One interesting point of the new announcement is that the PS4 has "A dedicated video encoding chip". This could be key, just like hardware acceleration on apple tablets and iOS devices for h264 content...
 
The only reason I got a PS3 originally was for it's flash card slots, usb ports, and how robust of a media system it was. It's also a killer device to watch dailies, view photos, and films and stuff on. The PS4 best be supporting 4k res or I really have no reason to get it. Also, as far as "games" go, I have a computer for that ;)
 
Sergio Perez said:
True. One interesting point of the new announcement is that the PS4 has "A dedicated video encoding chip". This could be key, just like hardware acceleration on apple tablets and iOS devices for h264 content...
Click to expand...

The dedicated Video Encoding chip is for the gaikeieeeieiiii streaming service. It's so that you can telecast your games to friends and share replays. It also streams games to the Vita over your wifi. All that needs a live transcoding to a streamable codec.
 
We have Android and PC why do we need another closed system. We had an programmable ps2 with basic computer language over here originally, and linux was available. Maybe they should consider bringing back Linux in Ubuntu form or Android, or Java to the PS4, with limited functionality for non encrypted games (no gpu interface in Linux and android, or no native code in Java, which is slow enough). I don't think it is likely, but if they do, I will be happy to find a miniature chocolate hat for myself and eat it.

There shortly will be nearly a 100 core ARM processor that could be matted to an impressive GPU and Open CL, which would make an impressive Android system. With such power you could emulate a PC. There might be an 100 core ARM with impressive cores, and still smaller than a PC processor. Arm is just the one in a good position, there are many other processing solutions out there. I'm onto one of these solutions myself, for a third world computer system. The game market is ready for it's own Red like moment. So, it is important at this stage to pick the right direction to head them off and compete.

Now, why downplay specs, they probably want to finalize at the last moment and grab the most enthusiasm closer to launch.
 
Sony's product unveilings are usually very underwhelming. They let their fanbase churn the hype machine for them. Usually works quite well for them... and for others many of us here might have a fondness for.

PS4 does indeed have UHD 3840x2160 support. I wouldn't expect too many games to really use it to its fullest. The system is lacking the RAM and horsepower to truly pull it off. Similar to how the current PS3 can't really churn out too many visually complex games that do better than 720p, even within a 1080p construct. We'll see plenty of UHD/2160p support as more displays and supporting titles roll onto the market, but 3D scenes are still going to be constructed with 2K/1080p oriented textures and processing methods. It's just a limitation on what the unit is going to be able to do. Do expect sharper edges, better full-scene AA and other processing effects, things like that. The system is indeed more powerful and we're going to see more detailed environments, characters and that sort of thing. Fine by me, I prefer more of the resources be concentrated there than on trying to deliver less visual splendor in exchange for much higher resolution textures and effects to capitalize on the greater screen resolution.

I think at this point, Sony is right not to play up on a lot of the features. I'm expecting PS4 to once again be a huge force for delivering video content to home viewers. Sony intends to have an electronic distribution network capable of supporting 4K media. That was stated in their launch of their 4K display products for this year, namely the 84" 4K LED. They had no more details on that, but the PS4 seems like the most logical solution and their underlying PlayStation network already has a good start on the necessary infrastructure.

For movies, cut-scenes in games or whatever, UHD/4K is going to be easy-peasy on the PS4. The real trick is securing the content for delivery... RED seems to have a good product with REDRAY, unfortunately they're going to be battling other 4K players by the end of this year and we already know that PS4 and the upcoming 4K ROKU will be priced a heck of a lot less than REDRAY. RED has to deliver the goods in the form of content and/or quality. One of their biggest assets will be the ability for anyone to channelize and publish on the REDRAY / ODEMAX system. To me, that is the game changer. OTOH, YouTube is attacking on that front with their subscription services....

Consumers are going to have too many choices, IMO.
 
4K is a major upgrade to Sony, right? The graphics still look the same to me but who knows? The graphics can be way better when you actually play. Might have to think twice when purchasing for my son.
 
Wayne Morellini said:
We have Android and PC why do we need another closed system. We had an programmable ps2 with basic computer language over here originally, and linux was available. Maybe they should consider bringing back Linux in Ubuntu form or Android, or Java to the PS4, with limited functionality for non encrypted games (no gpu interface in Linux and android, or no native code in Java, which is slow enough). I don't think it is likely, but if they do, I will be happy to find a miniature chocolate hat for myself and eat it.

There shortly will be nearly a 100 core ARM processor that could be matted to an impressive GPU and Open CL, which would make an impressive Android system. With such power you could emulate a PC.
Click to expand...

Modern Quad core ARM processors use about 1/2 of the power of the latest i-series mobile processors while only delivering about 1/10th the power. A 100 core ARM system would be lousy for most applications. Most applications aren't very well multi-threaded (otherwise they would run on CUDA and use thousands of cores). And 100 ARM cores would consume 50x the power of an intel i-series CPU while only delivering 5x the performance of a laptop chip. At that point you might as well use a desktop i7 processor get your 5x+ performance and only triple your TDP wattage.
 
Sorry Gavin, I was meaning compared to a full desktop CPU in size, my mistake should have stated that. I am not meaning today's will be good at emulating past what a basic PC CPU can do, but as long as it can do applications, native ARM mode can be used for games. A future high end arm CPU in 100 cores, however, will offer significant advantages over what ever they are planning now. As far as your break down of PC emulation, it holds a little truth. Each process in the operating system, which are many, other parts of the system and chipset, and each application set of processes would benefit from more than 100 cores under this parallel emulation scheme.

As for arm versus PC comparisons, don't trust them. This has been going on over many iterations for many years . The atom, one of the more recent attempts, was supposed to be nearly there, and clearly superior within years but did not. The superior low power process Intel chips use, rather than the efficiency of the old x86 architecture, is the only way they are as good as they are. To resolve this issue Intel is designing a new superior low power consumption processor. There are also a variety of Arm processors out there, and a variety of power to performance envelopes. The nvidias are probably not the best example to use in comparison. Some measure thirty or so thousands transistors each, likely to be able to be made to run at ghz these days and less natively at smidgen power level. Now, most cpu's in an array with only need to be at this level maybe with help full coprocessors, and only a few need the bells and whistles to control everything and hook over to the best fit gpu you can find. Native management keeps them all in order, and that is how an pc emulator code would do it, the PC code not seeing the hardware is kept in check by emulated security. Various sections can then be programed to emulate os or pc hardware functionality in native code, rather than emulated, greatly speeding up emulation. As you can see I have thought a lot about this for my own work. Now, the bit you may not be aware of, not only can you fit more arm cores for the space but as you run them at lower frequencies the power consumption drastically drops off. Things like desktop PC processors and high end Arm chips are clocked up in speed causing more power consumption. Now when you can close down most of the cores and clock down the remaining arms to their native speeds you have very low power consumption for most applications, only needing to boost up when needed. Plus, if you are dumping the gpu and other bits and pieces not wanted on a lower speed much lower energy cores, that would benefit even more on Intel production process, resulting in much more performance per watt compared to the nvidia. Do your native applications better then you can take much better advantage of that power compared to PC programs, their weakness for a long time. I am out of the game a lot, but I pick up enough dribs and drabs to know that arguing about this is like arguing about apples and oranges unless you put a lot of research into correctly evaluating it.

A summary, as I have to get back to work otherwise I could research this a bit more myself.

Would you agree Gavin?
 
Wayne Morellini said:
As for arm versus PC comparisons, don't trust them.
Click to expand...

Why not? The whole "x86 is inefficient" myth has been definitively busted, now that we have many Linux distros, Android/Chrome OS and even Windows running on both ARM and x86, and several tools and benchmarks to evaluate the theory. Both Anandtech and Tomshardware ran a comprehensive series of articles late last year on the matter. The result is Clovertrail Atom cores are worst case as good as Snapdragon S4 Krait cores in terms of performance-per-watt efficiency, best case much superior; and has a performance advantage in all areas. Similar conclusion comparing Exynos 5250 (only Cortex A15 SoC currently and Intel equivalents on Chrome OS) No, it is not due to Intel's process advantage - in fact Clovertail was fabbed on Intel's previous gen 32nm, while Snapdragon was on TSMC's latest 28nm, so a disadvantage if anything. And the Clovertrail architecture isn't even good, they are still lagging behind AMD's Bobcat from 2 generations ago! Jaguar (to get back on topic, the same architecture used by PS4) would only widen the gap further. The off-the-shelf Jaguar SoCs will use exactly the same process as many Cortex A15 / Krait SoCs (TSMC 28nm LP) as well, so we should hopefully see this myth vanish further in the coming months. To take this matter further, Intel's Ivy Bridge is even more efficient, as Gavin pointed out, but of course those were not designed to fit into sub-5W power envelopes. But if one added higher clocks and more cores to make an ARM based SoC match Ivy Bridge performance, be rest assured it would use way more power than Ivy Bridge in getting there.
 
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