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Sony Unlocks PlayStation 4's Previously Reserved Seventh CPU Core For Devs (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Toward the beginning of the year, it was revealed that Microsoft was going to "unlock" the seventh core on the Xbox One's processor, enabling developers to eke just a bit more performance out of the console and offer more flexibility at resource utilization. It appears that Microsoft's move would inevitably be followed by Sony, as reports are now coming in that this will be made available on the PlayStation 4 as well. This subtle change was highlighted in the latest changelog for the FMOD sound engine which is labeled as a "LowLevel API." While the unlocked core could take on FMOD duties if developers want it to, it's now not going to be tied to any single purpose. Developers could make use of this core, for example, to boost AI performance, or any other process that has a heavy computation requirement. It could also be used to simply help ease overall system load.
The PS4 and Xbox One both have "8 core" AMD CPU's.
Previously only 6 cores for both systems were available to game developers.
I have one question about this...
WHIY?!
WHY in the HELL would these companies, that are fighting each other over which system is better, hobble their systems by disabling processor cores? Aren't the games multithreaded? Wouldn't two more cores, or approximately 25% of the processor power of the system, be useful to gamers that want better gameplay?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yes, optimizations have been made to the operating system to make it less resource-hungry in game mode such that one CPU core will suffice leaving an extra one free for games.
Exactly. The "PC Master Race" seems to forget that piracy has really killed games on PC, at least the AAA titles. Indies are huge on PC (as they are on mobile), so that's all left.
Sorry, what did you say? I can't hear you over the sound of The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Just Cause 3, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3... (some of which got console ports, but none of which were developed before the PC version)
Otherwise why else would developers subject themselves to content approvals and all sorts of other things when they can release on PC for free.
Because:
1) Releasing on PC isn't free if you're distributing through a major platform like Steam or GOG, which you'd be a fool not to do.
2) The cost of content approvals and other such things is more than worth the amount of money the console ports will bring in.
You're not wrong about developers doing multi-platform releases to make as much money as they can, but in the end piracy hasn't made a dent in PC games. Steam's DRM is effective enough that it stops casual pirates; the only people who pirate PC games are those who were never going to buy them in the first place. Then you've also got publishers are GOG, who are completely DRM-free, and somehow they still seem to be doing quite well for themselves.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Christ, whilst it looks like you're trolling because you're one of Slashdot's premier PC master race guys and displaying a certain arrogance towards the guys who designed these consoles assuming they must just be less competent for only producing a primitive OS (when the reality is they're undoubtedly smart guys, making smart choices), I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer.
It's got nothing to do with one being more primitive than the other. On the contrary, because consoles can do away with all the legacy and general processing cruft that PCs have to be able to cater, coupled with the fact you're looking at dedicated hardware fulfilling a specific goal if anything the opposite is true - console OS are less primitive, because they don't have to cater to decades of previous software like Windows has to. It doesn't matter though because primitive is an entirely subjective term anyway. A lightweight cutting edge OS written yesterday might be primitive because it's lightweight and it lacks features, or it might be cutting edge because it was written yesterday.
The reason is simply that the two systems are different, neither is superior to the other, both have different purposes and goals and that inevitably results in different design decisions being made.
Consoles perform a lot of background services, and whilst talk of console cost-performance ratios inevitably involves some smartass pricing up some PC components that they claim are superior for the same price the reality is that they never are as they typically exclude everything in the box from the game controllers, through to the very bespoke hardware that achieves certain types of processing more efficiently than an equivalently priced PC ever good. The Xbox One for example constantly handles background processing of gesture recognition, voice recognition, multi-user voice chat, friends list, constant recording of games with the ability to save off the last 5 minutes of that record to disk, streaming of said video across the internet, as well as background apps including things like live TV display and so on. The reality is that you cannot build for £250 a PC that can do all that whilst still pulling off 1080p, 60fps or equivalent with other areas of high graphical fidelity.
Which isn't to say that you can't pay more and build a PC that does all that and then some - that's not my point, I'm not saying one is better than the other, merely making the point that there is nothing inherently deficient about console hardware for the price. It's good at what it does, it gives you the best gaming processing for that amount of money, but certainly if you have money to spare then yes, absolutely, a PC can do you all that and then more without a doubt.
So with that out the way, to answer why they reserved cores, the answer is that it's about user experience, yes, I know that's a wishy-washy term, but bare with me. On a PC you're in charge of the system, you're in control and that means you've both in control in terms of having flexibility of what you want to do, but also have to take responsibility when you fuck things up - if you decide to farm bitcoins whilst trying to play a game and either or end up crawling to a halt and being useless then that becomes your problem, you have to make a concious choice to do one or the other, or to restrict one or the other to do both. Consoles don't give you that choice nor are they meant to, they're meant to be easy to use and for you to not have to have any hassle with that, and as such the Xbox team has to make different design choices to the Windows team - whilst the Windows team gives you full control of your system, the Xbox team needs to make sure the system can always perform it's minimum baseline without fail and that anything the developers do or don't do doesn't break that.
And this is where it comes to a head, essentially if you fuck something up that impacts performance of a game or a background task on a PC then that's your problem, but if on a console a game stutter