Timothy Lottes the inventor of Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA) has given his thoughts on the upcoming next gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft:
Orbis
Assuming a 7970M in the PS4, AMD has already released the hardware ISA docs to the public, so it is relatively easy to know what developers might have access to do on a PS4. Lets start with the basics known from PC. AMD’s existing profiling tools support true async timer queries (where the timer results are written to a buffer on the GPU, then async read on the CPU). This enables the consistent profiling game developers require when optimizing code. AMD also provides tools for developers to view the output GPU assembly for compiled shaders, another must for console development. Now lets dive into what isn’t provided on PC but what can be found in AMD’s GCN ISA docs,
Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE) :: Specifically “parallel operation with graphics and fast switching between task submissions” and “support of OCL 1.2 device partitioning”. Sounds like at a minimum a developer can statically partition the device such that graphics can compute can run in parallel. For a PC, static partition would be horrible because of the different GPU configurations to support, but for a dedicated console, this is all you need. This opens up a much easier way to hide small compute jobs in a sea of GPU filling graphics work like post processing or shading. The way I do this on PC now is to abuse vertex shaders for full screen passes (the first triangle is full screen, and the rest are degenerates, use an uber-shader for the vertex shading looking at gl_VertexID and branching into “compute” work, being careful to space out the jobs by the SIMD width to avoid stalling the first triangle, or loading up one SIMD unit on the machine, … like I said, complicated). In any case, this Dual ACE system likely makes it practical to port over a large amount of the Killzone SPU jobs to the GPU even if they don’t completely fill the GPU (which would be a problem without complex uber-kernels on something like CUDA on the PC).
Dual High Performance DMA Engines :: Developers would get access to do async CPU->GPU or GPU->CPU memory transfers without stalling the graphics pipeline, and specifically ability to control semaphores in the push buffer(s) to insure no stalls and low latency scheduling. This is something the PC APIs get horribly wrong, as all memory copies are implicit without really giving control to the developer. This translates to much better resource streaming on a console.
Durango
My guess is that the real reason for 8GB of memory is because this box is a DVR which actually runs “Windows” (which requires a GB or two or three of “overhead”), but like Windows RT (Windows on ARM) only exposes a non-desktop UI to the user. There are a bunch of reasons they might ditch the real-time console OS, one being that if they don’t provide low level access to developers, that it might enable a faster refresh on backwards compatible hardware. In theory the developer just targets the box like it was a special DX11 “PC” with a few extra changes like hints for surfaces which should go in ESRAM, then on the next refresh hardware, all prior games just get better FPS or resolution or AA. Of course if they do that, then it is just another PC, just lower performance, with all the latency baggage, and lack of low level magic which makes 1st party games stand out and sell the platform.
To read the full article, visit the source here:
Timothy Lottes Blog
01-24-2013
03:08 PM
Right when I saw the title of this thread... I was like... "Who's Timothy Lottes and why is he important?" and my question was answered in the very first sentence, ha!
01-24-2013
03:17 PM
My brain hurts, so much technical speak.
01-24-2013
03:35 PM
durango is a DVR and runs windows? O_o
01-24-2013
03:49 PM
So, in short, according to him, the PS4 is better atm?
01-24-2013
03:51 PM
This is a perfect read for all those noobs who keep saying...
"WhAt A PiEcE oF Sh11 My Pc hAs BeTtEr SpEcS ThAn ThIs I wIlL NeVeR BuY ThE NeXt GeN CoNsOlEs ThEy ArE WeAk!!!"
It annoys the living fothermucking crap out of me when people who know nothing about technology/hardware openly throw their lack of knowledge on people who do know what they are talking about. And then they still argue with you.
Its technology like Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE), that will make consoles fast. Its tech like that that PC cant have. PCs will always be graphically better and more powerful, but consoles can afford to have slightly less hardware specs because of it being a closed system only mainly meant for gaming therefore can have its own special proprietary way of working with games.
01-24-2013
03:52 PM
he is basing his ideas on guesses so far.
until both are unveiled thats all anyone can do i guess
01-24-2013
03:55 PM
Consoles should ONLY be capable of gaming. I'm talking... you turn it on, and it's immediately asking for you to insert a game. You sign into the online service and THAT'S IT. You play a game, and turn it off.
01-24-2013
04:03 PM
As I said yesterday in some other thread, sadly I can picture our grand kids giggling one day when we tell them that back in our day consoles were gaming devices only. By then it will probably be classified as a home entertainment system
01-24-2013
05:09 PM
He might know anti aliasing technologies...
But he knows sweet FA about DVRs.
2-3GB for DVR duties....yeah whatever mate.
XBMC can do it in about 512MB and that's including a fully featured base OS now designed specifically for any kind of specific functionality.
...I wouldn't ask the dude that invented the toilet for advice on the best brand of bleach to use either.
01-24-2013
05:09 PM
I dont mind they being a "all-in-one" (despite i dont use it as such, for media center i use my pc...), my only concern is that when they take too much resources to make it work in the overall product and then neglect the gaming part.
And thats the time we think "why dont they use all the focus on gaming?".
01-24-2013
05:13 PM
Gaming stopped being gaming with the Wii/PS3/Xbox 360
01-24-2013
05:34 PM
Thinking of it now, wow, I can't believe the 80's is actually 30 yrs ago now... That's a lot of time passed.. Seems like it was only just yesterday.