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ARM: Mobile Graphics Will Surpass PlayStation 4, Xbox One In 2017 (venturebeat.com)

Posted by timothy on from the rooting-from-the-sidelines dept.

AmiMoJo writes with a report from Venturebeat on the state (and predicted future) of mobile-device graphics: ARM, the technology design company responsible for the popular ARM CPU architecture, is preparing for another big leap in computational power for smartphones and tablets. ARM ecosystem director Nizar Romdan explained that the chips that his company creates with partners like Nvidia, Samsung, and Texas Instruments will generate visuals on par with and then surpass what you get from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles by the end of 2017. PS4 can compute around 1.84 TFLOPS (tera FLOPS), with mobile chips approaching 2 TFLOPS by the last quarter of 2017. Romdan points out that virtual reality eliminates that form factor difference. Wearing a headset on your face is the same if you're tethered to a PC or using a phone.

90 comments

  1. Yeah, whatever ARM by CajunArson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I like how they subtly segue from "BETTER THAN CONSOLEZ!!" to VR in such a sneaky markety way.

    Considering that there is literally no way that these ARM parts are going to beat a GT4+ Skylake's GPU -- and that the GT4+ Skylake's GPU is going to be trashed as being completely worthless for VR -- I'm not holding my breath.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    1. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      However Consoles are uniformed in their Graphics, allowing game makers to make their games directly for the graphics hardware, taking advantage of all the new features.

      If you get the Latest and greatest GPU you have features that Game makers will not publish in decades, Thus you will have less of of an overall benefit from the upgrade.

      In terms of raw power your PC is almost always superior to the console. However Consoles tend to have better quality games because it can take advantage on what it has. Because not all gamers will shell out $10,000 for the ultimate gaming system that will be out of date next year.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 1

      Reddit's PCmasterrace would probably have some choice words for you.

    3. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It could be huge for Android. Many phones offer HDMI output and Bluetooth controller support. They combine the best of PC and console - powerful and constantly updated, but also a limited number of hardware variants and software configurations.

      Mobile devices could become as big as consoles for gamers.

      For VR, the key is low latency and high frame rate. Google Cardboard works amazingly well. You only need a monster CPU/GPU combo if you want to run games with equal graphical quality to normal PC games. I'm sure a lot of people would settle for not having to spend $600+ on a headset and $$$$ on a high end PC if they could run slightly less graphically intensive games on their existing phone.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Are you really trying to justify using obsolete hardware by claiming that standardization and wide adoption is better than, you know, actual performance?

      Using car analogy, you are saying out that using old Civic is better than Ferrari, because not everybody could handle driving a Ferrari? Well, I know which one I would rather drive.

    5. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by sinij · · Score: 1

      Dirty console peasants are at it again. Did they finally moved past 8-bit graphics?

    6. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      However Consoles are uniformed in their Graphics, allowing game makers to make their games directly for the graphics hardware, taking advantage of all the new features.

      I'm not sure what this means. Even the current generation of consoles which use AMD GPU chipsets are not uniform. The PS4 clearly has an advantage. On top of this, the development systems are clearly different so a game on one console is not really the same as another.

      If you get the Latest and greatest GPU you have features that Game makers will not publish in decades, Thus you will have less of of an overall benefit from the upgrade.

      Decades? No. A few years. Maybe a decade if you are lucky.

      In terms of raw power your PC is almost always superior to the console. However Consoles tend to have better quality games because it can take advantage on what it has. Because not all gamers will shell out $10,000 for the ultimate gaming system that will be out of date next year.

      That isn't the advantage of a PC. You can upgrade the hardware if you want. You cannot do that with a console. So consoles having better quality games is not a good argument. Console games are more consistent because the hardware is known for years. But a new PC game destroys a console version because the game maker has to adhere to older hardware on the console.

      Because not all gamers will shell out $10,000 for the ultimate gaming system that will be out of date next year.

      You contradicted what you said above.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    7. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using a car analogy, what he's saying is the performance of an old civic and a Ferrari are effectively the same, when driving on a really rough and badly potholed road. ;)

    8. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      allowing game makers to make their games directly for the graphics hardware

      and to make their graphics slightly too complex to allow continuously smooth frame rates, it usually seems.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    9. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      LOL gotta love the FUD the consolers cook up trying to justify buying a box with a netbook APU for $400 LOL. BTW that isn't hyperbole, the AMD Bobcat (which is all the Jaguar is, its a Bobcat with a die shrink gain) was designed for netbooks and tablets.

      As for "10,000 dollar ultimate gaming system" allow me to ROFL, considering you can throw together an AMD APU system that can do BF 4 at 30FPS (exactly the same as what consolers get) for around $400. Hell I play my games with bling bling out the ass, so much purty that I often get killed because I'm drooling over the graphics instead of watching what I'm supposed to be doing and the cost of this system? A hair under $600 after all the MIRs.

      And of course you ignored the biggest advantage the PCs have over the consolers, which is while the console will look dated as hell in 2 years or less (because unlike previous gens where they were having to code for exotic hardware like PPC and Cell which took awhile to get the most of this round its an AMD APU, a well known arch) mine and most other PC gamers will simply be able to upgrade our systems on the cheap. Just swap out our GPU, or better yet slap in a second one at a much lower price for CF/SLI and voila! Years of gaming goodness.

      This isn't even counting the lifespan of the systems which can be insanely long (heck my PC gaming system from 7 years ago is still able to play the latest games, the owner just stuck an R9 in it and away he went), the fact that they are the most backwards compatible system on the planet (You can easily play PC games from the early 80s and consoles from the mid 70s- the PS2 era), can do multiple functions without restrictions being put on by the manufacturer, and when you look at the TCO you WILL end up coming out ahead compared to consoles. in fact most studies I've seen had PCs the better choice at the 1 year mark thanks to the sales and quickly lowered prices compared to consoles.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    10. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using a car analogy, flying a plane is nice even if it is slightly slower than a Ferrari because it is not tethered to the ground.

    11. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by bytestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      [..]constantly updated, but also a limited number of hardware variants and software configurations.[..]

      Are we talking about the same Android? You seem to have enumerated where android is the weakest; poor vendor update frequency, many varied hardware platforms, a plethora of vendor or user customized software configurations.

    12. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      However Consoles are uniformed in their Graphics, allowing game makers to make their games directly for the graphics hardware, taking advantage of all the new features.

      I'm not sure what this means. Even the current generation of consoles which use AMD GPU chipsets are not uniform. The PS4 clearly has an advantage. On top of this, the development systems are clearly different so a game on one console is not really the same as another.

      I think what he's trying to say is that for a given generation of consoles, the internal hardware specs are usually the same or nearly so across the generation. Drop the game into any console and the developer can be confident the performance will be the same because the CPU/GPU/APU/whateverPU are the same.

      With PCs, the performance can have dramatic differences if it just has basic integrated graphics, entry level dedicated GPU, high end GPU, etc. The developer doesn't know how many shaders it has, what type of memory and how fast and how much, and on and on.

    13. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1

      The PS4 clearly has an advantage.

      From what we've seen so far, the advantage is negligible. Sony tends to go for the higher resolutions, but it more often than not kills the framerate, making you wonder how big that gap actually is, and if it's there at all.

    14. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      However Consoles are uniformed in their Graphics, allowing game makers to make their games directly for the graphics hardware, taking advantage of all the new features.

      I'm not sure what this means. Even the current generation of consoles which use AMD GPU chipsets are not uniform. The PS4 clearly has an advantage. On top of this, the development systems are clearly different so a game on one console is not really the same as another.

      I'm pretty sure the point was that all PS4 consoles have the same graphics hardware, which would allow the developers to eliminate one layer of abstraction that you would need for PCs that have a wide range of graphics hardware (particularly nVidia vs. AMD). In theory, having that abstraction layer comes at the cost of some amount of processing power, and removing that cost gives you better overall performance.

      I'm not a game developer, so I don't know offhand what that cost might be. It's quite possible (my guess would be that it's very likely) that the cost is zero, or close enough to zero as to make no noticeable difference.

    15. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      So instead of a Ferrari, buy one of the "Grave Digger" trucks. Won't feel a single pothole then. Might have a slight bump when running over the Civic tho.

    16. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by grahamsz · · Score: 1

      Perhaps i'm showing my age here, but is anyone else floored that you can buy a battery powered device that can fit in your pocket that outperforms something like ASCI Red. Obviously it lacks the same memory and memory bandwidth but that's still astounding to me. Of course ASCI Red would now be 20 years old, so maybe not that surprising.

    17. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by iusty · · Score: 1

      If you get the Latest and greatest GPU you have features that Game makers will not publish in decades, Thus you will have less of of an overall benefit from the upgrade.

      Decades, really? A couple of years a most.

      In terms of raw power your PC is almost always superior to the console. However Consoles tend to have better quality games because it can take advantage on what it has. Because not all gamers will shell out $10,000 for the ultimate gaming system that will be out of date next year.

      What? What are you smoking? First, a very solid PC (much better than a console) doesn't cost $10K, second, it's definitely not out of date next year, and third, opposite to consoles, a PC doesn't get obsolete "at once". You can upgrade components piece-wise, and keep your PC at whatever distance you want from the top of line.

      Either you're a troll or you don't understand the economics and IT aspects of PCs

    18. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Android hardware is actually fairly homogenous, especially at the top end. There are a handful of SoCs in use. The Android API is very stable.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    19. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by gameboyhippo · · Score: 1

      Why would I choose performance over the games I want to play?

      I mean given the choice of playing some generic "gritty" arena shooter or the highly innovative game "Splatoon", I would choose "Splatoon". It performs good enough and the graphics look pretty slick. I don't need to see an inkling's nose hair with realistic nose hair physics to enjoy the game. In fact I prefer to not be in the uncanny valley that caused the hardcore PC games of yesterday to age so poorly while the console games still look pretty good today.

      Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some "Fire Emblem: Fates" to play on my super low res 3DS.

    20. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is totally, absolutely, completely... correct. ARM is just spewing bullshit because they can. It probably won't net them anything either, I don't get what the purpose of this statement is. But it turned up on a bunch of news sites so the PR person that came up with it will probably get a bonus or something. Maybe they were inspired by Donald Trump?

    21. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It'll be nice and smooth going over the Ferrari, though, like driving over silk bedsheets.

    22. Re:Yeah, whatever ARM by DreadPiratePizz · · Score: 1

      On pretty much every console since consoles existed, the later games look better than the early games as developers figure out how to squeeze more and more out of the console. SO yes, you can upgrade your PC to get better graphics but consoles frequently get better graphics for free.

  2. What they don't mention... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... is that it's actually a cut down version of what you can find in consoles or PC's. That and the CPU won't have the horsepower to drive it.

  3. GPU tflops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anyone care how many tflops a GPU can perform? PS4 and the like are about pushing triangles, running procedural shaders, etc. Floating point is not entirely irrelevant, but it's not exactly the leading indicator of graphics performance.

    1. Re:GPU tflops by GuB-42 · · Score: 2

      Shader programs are almost exclusively floating point maths. And a big part of rasterization (drawing triangles) is interpolation, floating point maths again.
      The two big things that define the power of a GPU are floating point computing power and memory bandwidth. Which one is more important depend on the engine used, with possible tradeoffs between the two.

    2. Re:GPU tflops by mikael · · Score: 1

      A GPU consists of anything from four to thousands of processing cores. Each core in turn will have multiple logic units to handle integer operations, floating-point and vector instructions (linear algebra like dot and cross products), so that it can perform multiple instructions at the same time along with instruction pipelining. Add several layers of cache to minimize the amount of data read and written to main memory, and you get something like the Titan Z which can do 8 TeraFlops.
      The clock speed of the graphics board and data bus size dictates the number of pixel writes that can be done in one second, currently billions of pixels.

      Rendering is done through shaders, which are mathematical programs to do vertex transformation, perspective projection, parametric surfaces, subdivision, vertex removal, silhouette generation, doing shadowing tests, calculate ambient, diffuse, specular lighting, and many other advanced lighting models, texture mapping, and all sorts of other mathematics.

      --
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  4. power consumption by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so...better graphics throughput than what a console can do, but for how long? i game at a console for more than an hour at a time. until a phone can be comfortable and able to display these graphics for more than ten minutes, i don't expect any practical application.

  5. Try again... by wkwilley2 · · Score: 2, Informative

    All aboard the hype train.....not.

    It's not really an accomplishment considering the hardware in the PS4 and XB1 were already outdated when they released compared to what was available on a PC platform. Take also in to account that a GF970/RD290 is the baseline for VR gaming, ARM platforms won't be gaming at decent resolutions for a few more years at the minimum.

    --
    Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
    1. Re:Try again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's all about the power consumption.
      Unless they come up with some new radical semiconductor processes they can neither supply nor dissipate enough power to do anything really interesting.

    2. Re:Try again... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0

      Is it hype? People tend to update their phones regularly, while consoles remain fixed for many years and as you point out tend to start out fairly pedestrian in the first place. I can see Samsung releasing a dock to turn their phones into high end games consoles, complete with controllers and HDMI output.

      Sure, they will never complete with PCs, but neither do consoles. Performance hasn't been the main attraction of consoles since the early 90s.

      As for VR, considering that a reasonable PC set up with headset is going to set you back thousands of dollars, and that Google Cardboard gives you something that's 90% as good for immersion (I've tried both)... There is a reason why people buy "underpowered" consoles.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Try again... by wkwilley2 · · Score: 2

      I agree with you...mostly.

      Performance is still a primary factor for consoles. Without the proper hardware, you will never achieve the visuals desired at the resolutions wanted.

      Now for video playback and some AR, this won't be a problem, the amount of graphics horsepower required is fairly modest, but for any games that are pushing the envelope on graphics and physics, ARM will not do for quite some time.

      Also, I'm not bashing Google Cardboard or any of the other VR options out there, I think they all have their merits, but you are limited by your platform. Aside from watching videos in first person and possibly some cool AR, what else can you do with a Smartphone VR?

      --
      Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
  6. Re:This jerkoff again? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

    Hay, I'm a white man, I'm hardly going to blame myself!

    FYI, it's all the MRAs fault. The PS4 would be so much better if it wasn't full of toxic masculinity and employed more women. Our lady Sarkeesian told me to say that.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. The heat of the sun .. in your hand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, so a phone can keep up with a PS4 or Xbone... but for how long? I run my consoles sometimes for 4 - 8 hours. A phone is not going to be able to keep up that type of processing for those time periods without being plugged into a wall. And then after about 30 - 45 minutes the heat buildup will force CPU throttling and lower speeds will begin.

    Laptops can do bit-coin mining - but should they? The heat build up and keeping the processor under full load for long periods of time degrade the memory, controllers, and CPU.

  8. Im not sure by 2017... by voss · · Score: 1

    but eventually sure. Android boxes already do emulation of multiple consoles. Nintentdo, Super nintendo, N64, gameboy,etc.

  9. You aren't saying much either... by itsenrique · · Score: 1

    They custom ordered the designs by the millions? Why would it be a discrete card? Consoles have always had "integrated" graphics. You make it sound like the XbO and the PS4 have an Intel HD chipset or something.

  10. Of course it will. by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    Because by then, PS4 and XBone will be 4 year old technology.

    1. Re:Of course it will. by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      Or possibly discontinued for a newer model.

  11. Know what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's why I stopped buying games... I think they already have all technology already made, maybe taken from aliens,wo had awesome gadgets, even GTA to play. Of course this is proposterous. but do You know what is even more outrageous? The fact that You that You are making me believe that Athena is here in Brazil, that's all this fuzz is all about and why I cant hang out with You, because smoking cigarretes apparetly isn't not that bad, since You have been having fun doing cocaine with that true Playboy. Oh, BTW, that fact You hanged out witth that momma without a poppa boy, only makes the things worse, because make me know You both belongs to the same crap of world, which I prefer not belong to.

    1. Re: Know what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Br? Gibe me moniez pl0x, I report u.

  12. Who writes this crap? by schizrade4954 · · Score: 0

    Oh ARM does trying to sell chips. LMAO, right.

  13. PS4/XB1 are mid-range 2013 devices by AcidPenguin9873 · · Score: 2

    PS4/XB1's GPUs were already were considered fairly mid-range when they were released in 2013. With a few process node shrinks and 4 years of development, and given the increasing power budgets (and turbo/throttling that comes with that) afforded to mobile devices, I'm not surprised a mobile GPU from 2017 can match or exceed a mid-range GPU from 2013. So what's the point of announcing this? That consoles are going to die and be replaced by VR headsets running Android?

    1. Re:PS4/XB1 are mid-range 2013 devices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the PS4's 8GB of GDDR5 RAM.

      I think the ARM advert we have here is a piss-take of Indy games on the PS4. Anyone and their cat can make Unity 3D shovelware and get it on the PSN store regardless of how poorly it performs and the ZX Spectrum attribute blocks level of visuals. What's the connection to ARM? They all run like ancient mobile games on the PS4 as Unity's shitty engine only uses a single core and runs slower than Elan Enterprise's BASIC.

    2. Re:PS4/XB1 are mid-range 2013 devices by HideyoshiJP · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this is a ridiculous press release. It's not even like they've beat x86 in any meaningful way. These consoles were designed to meet a price point and, just as important, not bake themselves to death a la PlayStation3 and Xbox 360. This was four years ago. They only reason these chips will beat these consoles in 2017 is because the consoles stay standardized for ease of development, cost reduction, and die shrinking.

    3. Re:PS4/XB1 are mid-range 2013 devices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >PS4/XB1's GPUs were already were considered fairly mid-range
      They were considered bargain bin made for the 3rd world.

    4. Re:PS4/XB1 are mid-range 2013 devices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Based on a quick bit of googling the PS4 graphics chip/card was used in the HD 7870 which was an early 2012 model. So in 2017, it will be catching up with 5 year old graphics.

    5. Re:PS4/XB1 are mid-range 2013 devices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So in 2017, it will be catching up with 5 year old graphics.

      And at twice the price, or more, without a contract subsidy, most likely.

  14. VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by sbaker · · Score: 1

    The problem is that VR doesn't work for everyone...a very large percentage of people get nauseous when wearing a VR headset - especially for gaming.

    Most VR companies claim (perpetually) that the next rev of their tech will fix this by means of lower latency, brighter or higher resolution screens, improved lenses, better field of view.

    That's missing the problem. The problem is that we perceive distance by two mechanisms - focus and convergence. Everybody has fixed convergence - nobody has fixed the focussing issue.

    Our brains get conflicting messages - the focus system says "The object is at X distance" and the convergence system says "No, it's at Y distance"...our higher brain functions see an impossible contradiction...and the caveman part of the brain says "Oh no! We're hallucinating! Maybe we ate a magic mushroom!" - and we try to vomit it out of our system.

    Without fixing focus - a bunch of people will get sick - and that's going to prevent widespread acceptance of the tech.

    3D movies largely fix this by having control of content - but in games, that's largely impossible.

        -- Steve

    --
    www.sjbaker.org
    1. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by Junta · · Score: 2

      Note that for experiences with 1:1 movement, I've never seen anyone get sick as of the DK2 generation of VR. I have made people sick by having their character move without them moving, and that's a significant challenge, but I don't think the Magic Leap multi-focal approach does anything with sickness.

      And also, even for the locomotion problem, it's far from ubiquitous. There's also a decent chunk of folks who get nauseous seeing a FPS genre game on a monitor. Somehow that genre thrives in spite of that.

      3D movies have the same exact problem if it is a problem, inability for viewer to control the plane of focus.. Usual 3D movie viewing is more likely to give headaches, due to the ghosting from polarized/shutter glasses causing double images (though not a problem for technologies with dedicated screen area per eye, that's not how most 3D content is viewed).

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    2. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      I didn't think focus was the big problem - doesn't that just lead to headaches, not vomitting?

      I thought it was the imperfect timing of real movement to VR movement (or the lack of real movement for a VR movement) that brings on the chunders.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      IIRC, the problem with nausea is caused by lag and the apparent disconnection between head movement and display update. Carmack had a number of write-ups on this matter; it was basically the single most important problem the Occulus Rift team had to tackle during development.

    4. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      VR = lag, lag and more lag. It's another not-quite-ready toy that "gamers" are supposed to buy into. I was coding VR in the late 80s (with significantly shitter graphics for business projections), all the problems we had then exist today. The singular difference is what is being displayed. I.e. fuck all has change other that video processing power.

      Focus depth has nothing to do with it. That's a movie/TV scene control issue for directors, like POV for writers. It's a tool to control where the viewer/reader focuses. In the real world life is always focused when you look at it.

    5. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by John_Sauter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...The problem is that we perceive distance by two mechanisms - focus and convergence. Everybody has fixed convergence - nobody has fixed the focusing issue....

      There is a fix for the focusing issue, but it is quite expensive: Holography. You feed each eye with the same light waves that they would have received if they had been looking at the objects being depicted--two virtual images. I suspect this technology is too expensive for today's market, but it is the only good solution to the problem.

    6. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by NoZart · · Score: 2

      Its not just the convergence/focus system, balance and the missing g-forces also factor in.

      But it seems to me this can be "trained". when i got my set 2 months ago, i could play for about 15 minutes until i got sick, now i can go for about 2 hours before i get slightly uncomfortable

    7. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_field#Light_field_displays

      There are displays on the market which solve this the same way Lytro cameras do the inverse: massive oversampling with an array of nanoscale lenses projecting the same image at multiple focus settings.

      I'm not an optics/physics guy so maybe this falls under "Holography"?

    8. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably at the expense of your ability to walk a balance beam however. Thank you neuroplasticity!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaz2hxZLycY

      Just like you want to stretch out after lifting weights, you may want to get a balance beam to counteract this side-effect of your new ability to ignore your inner ear.

    9. Re:VR makes 25 to 50% of people sick by deek · · Score: 1

      Try a slackline instead. Good fun, and can be set up anywhere with two decent anchor points.

      Even better, try slacklining while wearing a pair of VR goggles. Best of both worlds.

  15. AAA Titles by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yep, now all we need is a handful of AAA titles and we're good to go!

    What?

    What do you mean I can't load all 48GB of Titanfall on my 16GB phone?

    I'll just put in this SD.... errrm where's the expansion slot? Guys?

    1. Re:AAA Titles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't need to load it all on your 16 gig phone. Now just wait a few minutes while we stream the next part of the game from the cloud. By the way how much monthly data do you have?

    2. Re:AAA Titles by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > What do you mean I can't load all 48GB of Titanfall on my 16GB phone?

      Most of that was uncompressed audio data. Before you go "that's dumb" they tried to justify it with this excuse:

      http://www.rockpapershotgun.co...

      "We have audio we either download or install from the disc, then we uncompress it. We probably could have had audio decompress off disc but we were a little worried about min spec and the fact that a two-core machine would dedicate a huge chunk of one core to just decompressing audio."

      "So... it's almost all audio... On a higher PC it wouldn't be an issue. On a medium or moderate PC, it wouldn't be an issue, it's that on a two-core [machine] with where our min spec is, we couldn't dedicate those resources to audio."

      I guess the dev's were too lazy to guarantee there there was a thread available and decompress it at run-time. Classic case of size vs speed. So it's not (entirely) incompetence.

    3. Re:AAA Titles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Six channel mp4 audio vbr and coud have avoided that. Why do you want looseless audio in a game of all things?

    4. Re:AAA Titles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      those 48GB are all of course extra bloat filler so you don't install any competing games on your PC.

    5. Re:AAA Titles by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > Six channel mp4 audio vbr and coud have avoided that.

      Partially. You still need code / library / middleware to implement if the hardware doesn't.

      > Why do you want lossless audio in a game of all things?

      Loss, not Loose. :-)

      Because it simplifies the audio mixing code.

    6. Re:AAA Titles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's true that Titanfall was a titanic example of wasted storage due to some poor choices (not only was the audio uncompressed, but the installer didn't allow for language selection, and installed all languages of audio). On the other hand even a game like this was 15GB without any audio, which is much more space than a AAA phone has available after the OS installed.

    7. Re:AAA Titles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd be more inclined to believe that if every other game in the history of the universe wasn't done the normal way.

    8. Re:AAA Titles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real reason why Titanfall has so much uncompressed audio is because they wanted to curb piracy. Having played the game a fair bit myself, it actually has very little content. But, it was one of the most massively hyped titles of 2014, and they knew they would be getting a lot of piracy otherwise. I bet you anything that Titanfall with compressed, English-only audio would be like 15GB, maybe 20 if that.

    9. Re:AAA Titles by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      In that specific case it was. But quite frankly are there any AAA titles that came out since midway last year under 20GB? Heck even some of the recompressed repacks are approaching that size now.

  16. Believe it when I see it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Today's mobile games are pretty bad and low quality.

    Even Nintendo 3DS with its inferior hardware has better games.

  17. The problem with ARM and graphics... by tlambert · · Score: 1

    The problem with ARM and graphics... is memory bus bandwidth.

    Apple has been addressing this in their CPU, but everyone else is 6-8 years behind the curve, even with the most recent nVidia offerings. Fast graphics engines are great, and all, but if you are limited to operating quickly only on what's in cache, and then you have to push across a slow memory bus to get that data to the frame buffer, you are going to be pretty limited in what you can accomplish.

    Please, please, please address the memory bus bandwidth issue before the end of the decade; yeah, the P.A. Semi guys that Apple bought had a lot of experience prior working on the DEC Alpha, but there *has* to be other engineers capable of solving the problem, right?

    1. Re:The problem with ARM and graphics... by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 2

      Well, there has to be something better than a bus to carry a lot at once. I'm proposing memory planes or memory boats.

    2. Re:The problem with ARM and graphics... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Elon Musk will beat all of that with his memory rockets.

    3. Re:The problem with ARM and graphics... by powerlord · · Score: 1

      Never undervalue the transfer power of a memory station wagon filled with bits.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  18. Whoopie Do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And 2017 should just about be the time the next generation of consoles come out. Even if they don't I would still rather play on my 73" TV than my 5.7" phone.

  19. Well even if that does happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mobile games will still be horse shit, won't they.

  20. Replacement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was pretty clear already that Xbox 1 and PS4 are EOL. Expect a replacement around then probably based on a semicustom K12 APU. Yeah, ARM.

  21. Buttons are the difference by tepples · · Score: 1

    Unless you're developing a game in an inherently point-and-click genre, such as adventure games or strategy games, there's only so much you can do with just a touch screen. The Nintendo 3DS works around that by including a directional control and fire buttons alongside the touch screen. There are controllers that clip onto a phone, such as BD&A's MOGA line, and there exist gaming tablets with buttons on either side, such as NVIDIA's SHIELD tablet and plenty of tablets made by JXD. But I haven't seen any sales figures for those products, and without sales figures, developers can't be sure that there's enough audience for a port of their games.

  22. But mobile controls won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try using a virtual touchscreen controller sometime.

  23. What good does that do us? by DaEMoN128 · · Score: 1

    What good does great graphics ability serve if the processors and input systems still suck? Lets be blunt, its not like office aps are brutal, but they're still a pain in the buttox to use on a tablet or phone.. Why? Because the input system isn't suited for that type of work. OK, we have graphics, which will probably mean games or vr. Well, thats gonna require a pretty hefty CPU behind it as well, something very few tablets can even start to claim to have. I just dont see a large market for a beefed up graphics system unless they're gonna also make the rest of the peripherals available, and when you start toting around a bunch of peripherals with your tablet or phone.. why not just get a laptop??

    --
    Stop signs are only Suggestions
  24. Introducing the Microsoft XPhone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What if Microsoft could put all the XBox stuff inside a phone... then you hook it up the the display dock (like those demos for the lumina) and now you got your xbox controller and screen, sound, etc.

    When you go to your friends place, if you want to play some games (that you bought) you could simply plug your phone into the dock and go. Think of it as a ridiculously super portable xbox.

    Now if you're a teenage boy who wants a phone and you're choosing between an iPhone and the "XPhone" that can play every xbox 360 game ever made and some xboxone games (and just needs a dock). Which are you going to pick?

  25. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Wearing a headset on your face is the same if you're tethered to a PC or using a phone"... Somone has been drinking their own Kool-Aid. Seriously, making a blanket statement like that is woefully ignorant at best. Implying the experience will be the same whether you use a phone or PC for your processing power is so suspect, that I would be inclined to ignore any facts the author makes in the statement.

  26. PC vs. Phone vs. Built-In is a big difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To say that wearing a head-mounted device (HMD) is the same whether it's plugged into a PC or plugged into your phone is absolutely false. If you have a phone-based or standalone VR device, you're not tethered to a 3-foot radius of the front of your PC. This lends itself to different sorts of games depending on the situation.

    Just my own uneducated theorizing, but it seems like the future market for VR HMDs will be split across three groups:

    1. PC-tethered VR devices (Oculus). Pros: Best graphics, widest adoption among games. Cons: Tethered in place.

    2. Cell-phone caddy VR devices (Cardboard, Gear VR). Pros: Relatively inexpensive since you're largely paying for a shell and some lenses. Cons: Limited by the capabilites of your phone, which is designed to run cool and conserve battery life, and is out of date within 12 months.

    3. "On-board" VR devices (GameFace, Vive). Pros: Notably better performance than cell-phone-based options, while not being tethered in place like with the PC-based options. Cons: A bit more niche. People might be willing to pay extra to play their existing PC games in stereo, and 3rd parties might not be willing to go to the trouble of developing their Android title specifically for your hardware.

    In any case, the market is still largely up for grabs with Oculus taking an arrow to the knee by way of their pricing for a non-standalone unit. I'm excited to see who winds up on top.

  27. 2 terraflops for 15 seconds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Current generation of mobile VR games are limited by inability of mobile devices to keep from melting into a pile of goo to say nothing of battery life.

    You can add all the teraflops you want to CPUs and GPUs but what is the point if people can't actually use this capability in the sustained way required for VR?

    I think backpack style VR is currently a much more practical goal for mobility without watering down experience given current state of technology.

    I think miniaturization and improved capabilities are awesome and all yet at this point I don't see any hardware vendors lining up anytime soon to release devices that have any prayer of dissipating thermal load on a sustained basis... they are much too busy battling each other for grams and fractions of millimeters at the expense of useful functionality.

  28. As Powerful, for about an hour... by BBF_BBF · · Score: 1

    To reach that level of performance, the mobile graphics processors will burn through the battery and make ones phone into a hand warmer. They're probably only practical larger tablets with large batteries.

  29. Mobile graphics will surpass PS4, Xbox One in 2017 by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    But Apple still won't put any dedicated GPU in their entry-level Macs.

    Granted, Intel integrated GPUs are getting better, but they still suck compared to even entry-level GPUs that are three years old.