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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.

15 of 90 comments (clear)

  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.

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 Because not all gamers will shell out $10,000 for the ultimate gaming system that will be out of date next year.

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    2. 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.

    3. 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.

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    4. 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.

  2. 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.

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    1. 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?

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  3. 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.

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  4. 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?

  5. 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).

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  6. 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?

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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