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Microsoft and Sony Are Debating Over Whose Console Really Offers 'True 4K' (arstechnica.com)
Sony's PlayStation 4, which will go on sales in two months, comes loaded with rendering pipeline and some proprietary upscaling techniques that can improve lower resolution base signals to take fuller advantage of a 4K display. Microsoft is seemingly upset with how Sony is marketing this, and it is not shying from telling people that no amount of upscaling can fill in those missing 4K pixels and the hardware inefficiency to produce native and "true 4K" images that the Project Scorpio, its gaming console that is coming next year can. Microsoft has also said that any game that it will launch during the Scorpio timeframe will "natively render at 4K." But the debate is anything from over because Microsoft keeps reminding everyone that the processor and GPU in its upcoming console is more powerful. As ArsTechnica explains: With Scorpio, Microsoft seems to be arguing that every first-party game at launch will be able to generate and render nearly 8.3 million pixels (four times as many as a 1080p game) at an acceptable frame rate (i.e., at least 30 times a second). That would be quite an achievement. As we noted back at E3, it currently takes pricey, high-end PC graphics cards like the Nvidia GTX 1080 or the AMD R9 Fury X -- cards that run $300 or much higher -- to "barely scrape by" with a native 4K, 30fps game. And those PC cards seem to have significantly more raw power than what is being claimed by Microsoft -- 9 and 8.4 teraflops, respectively, vs. a claimed 6 teraflops for Scorpio (and 4.2 teraflops for the PS4 Pro).Microsoft's head of Xbox planning, Albert Penello said, "I know that 4.2 teraflops is not enough to do true 4K." In an interview with Eurogamer, Penello adds:I think there are a lot of caveats they're giving customers right now around 4K. They're talking about checkerboard rendering and up-scaling and things like that. There are just a lot of asterisks in their marketing around 4K, which is interesting because when we thought about what spec we wanted for Scorpio, we were very clear we wanted developers to take their Xbox One engines and render them in native, true 4K. That was why we picked the number, that's why we have the memory bandwidth we have, that's why we have the teraflops we have, because it's what we heard from game developers was required to achieve native 4K.
... the question on everyone's minds is, "why can't they both lose?"
Penis length comparison, rather.
Seriously, anyone giving a shit about higher resolution? What I care about is sensible gameplay and fun. You remember fun? Try to put it back into games and I'll bother buying some again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Meanwhile most console gamers have already picked a side and will probably just upgrade whichever system they've already invested in.
Wait so the new PS4 is not actually rendering at 4k, it's just interpolating/upscaling? *sigh*.
This reminds me of the same dirty tricks TV manufacturers used when HD was the next big deal. Tons of LCD TVs being sold as "HD-ready" and "Blu-Ray compatible" yet their panels had native resolutions much lower than 1080.
My crappy game runs at a higher resolution than your crappy game!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Only LUDDITES who buy LUDDITE games use LUDDITE 4K. Modern app appers use APPS that app other apps while apping other apps, NOT LUDDITE 4K!
Apps!
The Xbone didn't have true HD games when it launched and Sony mercilessly took a huge chunk of the market share away from them for it.
This seems like a lot of whining from Microsoft considering they marketed the XBOX 360 as a 1080p machine, though almost all the games rendered in 720p (the PS3 had many more games rendering in higher resolutions that generation). Since the PS4 Pro will play 4K video and render at higher than 1080p (then do some extrapolation tricks), I’d say Sony can call it a 4K Box.
Letter To Iran
Just remember who has the money in this world. Not that we'll be spending much of it on games...I buy bargain bin on GOG and Steam and run everything in a nicely optimized 1920x1080, at most.
The second-rate cards will support 4K in a shitty way but will do 1080p just grand. So keep on arguing about higher resolution graphics/wasting money on cutting edge stuff and in the old age home here, we can reap the benefits on our fixed incomes.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Not many people have 4k sets, HDR isn't standardized, and by the time things get sorted out and these end up in peoples' homes, the next generation will be upon us and ready to fully exploit 4k. As it is now, both of these consoles will be struggling to do 30fps at 4k, much less 60fps like people want to see.
These are stop-gap consoles and as such should focus on enhancements that can be appreciated at 1080p like 60fps and additional geometry.
And I don't think this is the start of a rolling console hardware future, which would force console manufacturers to stick with particular APU vendors and perhaps be hamstrung when it comes to compatibility that would allow for hardware iterations.
Anyhow, the Scorpio, MS's console, is still a year away and the PS4 Pro is launching this November, there will be a year head start and all that press going to Sony, anyone trying to wait will have a hard time ignoring all the enhanced games.
When MS's offering is here we will already be 4 years into the current generation, and the gap between Sony and MS would have an additional year to grow. All the games for these stop-gap consoles will have to remain compatible with the older hardware, so we can't really stretch things out to another 8 year generation again.
The fact that Scorpio is a year away makes me think MS were caught with their pants down and are scrambling to have an offering, but I don't think it will have much of an impact before we start hearing about the PS5, which Sony has stated is an eventuality.
Twinstiq, game news
It may rhyme with sootfit.
Are there going to be enough people out there with 4k systems to take advantage? I just installed a projector in my basement on a 135" screen, at 1080p I think it looks pretty darn good even on such a large screen. I'm sure 4k would look amazing but I'm not going to spend that much on a 1st generation 4k projector. I'm not sure there'd be a significant difference upgrading our 50" 1080p tv to 4k.
This might be a big deal in 5 or 6 years when very large 4k displays are more common.. just don't think the general public is ready to give a shit about this yet.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I mean, corporate persons fighting over their dick size.
Yes, it will take microscopes to determine the true winner.
Why don't they focus on 1080p@60fps?
Their games won't run natively at 4k, there's just no way that they can do so, while still looking even remotely acceptable, on a system like that.
http://frisuren-2017-haar.blogspot.com/
4K is useless. The next step for gaming and entertainment is VR (or AR). But for usable VR, which we don't have yet, the display needs to render 3D graphics 6K at 120 fps. Current VR technology (Oculus Rift/HTC Vive) is at 2K at 90fps. Anyway .. my point is that Scorpio which comes out next year is at the minimum even for todays technology, so it's just an incremental update to the Xbox that may be slightly sub par even for today's high end gaming. If we are to have true vomit-free VR, headsets need to incorporate a 6K display running at 120 fps .. which means a 12 teraflop system (double that of Scorpio) is absolutely the MINIMUM required. Microsoft should have waited until 2018 or 2019 when such a GPU would become available.
The sony console cant play 4k blurays. INSTANT PASS. and ive been ps since the ps2 (dvd). and the ps3 (bluray)
None of these consoles is actually 4K.
The term "4K" is originally the name of a cinema standard, which has 4096*2160 pixels.
A 4K image is either 4096 pixels wide or 2160 pixels high (or both), but a 4K screen must have the full 4096*2160 to be compliant to the standard.
The television standard's real name is "Ultra High Definition", abbreviated as "Ultra-HD" or "UHD". It is only 3840*2160.
Some 4K images do fit inside that, but not all. A UHD screen is therefore not a 4K screen.
A "4K TV" is just a marketing term to sell UHD TVs, because it is in the "same order of magnitude as 4K" or "about the same as 4K".
Real 4K monitors do exist, but they are often very expensive, and they also tend to have better support for the colour space in the cinema standard.
The only somewhat affordable screen I know of that is 4096 pixels wide is the one inside of the late 2015 21.5" Apple iMac, at 4096*2304 pixels. It even has support for cinema colour space.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
PCs don't have problems rendering 4k if you leave everything at normal settings. Sure, if you want to set everything to "insane" levels then that's what you're going to get... insanely low fps. Consoles will have an easier time because they know the capabilities of the hardware and will just use the settings that deliver acceptable frame rates. What would be nice though would be an option in all console games to set "1080p or 4k" along with a target frame rate of "30 fps or 60 fps"
Nobody is really going to care for the next 5+ years, until 4K televisions fall to a reasonable price.
But call me when you can render a moving scene in 4K VIDEO at a minimum of 40 FPS with varying lighting sources and textures that make use of that resolution. Doing all this while keeping up with the necessary game play and physics modeling to make what I'm seeing somewhat realistic....
/sarc off
Seriously, who cares what the physical hardware is capable of displaying in some static test image, it's about being able to model the game play realistic enough and fast enough to be believable while showing a related visual representation of the same without having the user's subconscious be nagging them that something's not right... So where it is obviously better to have higher resolution, if you don't have the ability to use that resolution though lack of horse power, memory bandwidth etc, it doesn't matter.
Comparing raw video resolution is a fools game. It's all for marketing. Sort of like the idiots who somehow claim they can actually hear the difference between 0.1 and 0.01 % THD in their home stereos... Looks good on paper, but you might as well start a fire with that marketing brochure.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I pretty much expect they will show UHD videos in their native resolution and use some form of upscaling for games.
"Native" 4K gaming currently takes cards in the range of 500 $/euro and upwards (a 1070 or a 1080 in the range of 700 or 800 $) (TFA speaks of 300ish, which is ridiculously low) there is no way they make fluent 30 fps gaming possible with anything they can afford in a console. They will render the game internally lower than the final resolution and upscale that to 4K, which their marketing-department will call "native 4K gaming".
They have done that with FullHD before, if the game was too demanding, the game was not rendered in the full 1920*1080 pixels but in a (partly) significantly lower resolution and then blown up to "FullHD".
The generation after the next one might do 4K native.
In PC gaming we are currently at "native 4K with stable 30 to 40 fps (on average!)" when you spend like 800.
The next generation will move that down in the range of like 400 to 500. And then the console makers can think about getting a graphics solution that can do it in their console (note that current CPU/GPU combinations in consoles are very, VERY close to what AMD can make for the PC sector).
Are gamers asking for 4K? If not, what are they asking for?
Personally, I want:
* 60fps and up
* Better motion control
The motion control era died when Nintendo made the Wii U and Microsoft released the Kinect. Both were essentially inferior, more costly versions of what came before them. That's too bad, because I was excitedly waiting for the next generation and it never came. But I think I'm in the minority on this.
Maybe what ms is saying is correct, but can the end user tell the difference?
If he can't, it doesn't matter.
More powerful hardware is really only useful to the devs, and then, only if they make use of the increased capabilities, since it's only by the software that such things are made apparent. Otherwise it's just a big black box of pixie dust and unicorn horns.
Of course, even if all that they're saying is true, if it doesn't have the games you want to play, it's not worth jack!
This reminds me of other kids arguing over whether the TurboGrafx 16 was a 'real' 16-bit console or not. Turns out the '16' was only a part of the American name, it was called the PC Engine in Japan and France, and the TurboGrafx elsewhere.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The fact that Scorpio is a year away and the gap between PS4 and Xbox One can only widen until then makes me think that Microsoft did not see this coming, and are boasting now to hope people will wait an entire year to make any console purchasing decisions. That seems highly unrealistic.
When the 360 was released a year ahead of PS3, Sony was still boasting about the power of the PS3, hoping people would wait. It didn't work, the launched later with a more expensive system and they had to fight the entire generation for game parity and mindshare. Here we have the Scorpio coming a year later, and many speculating that by then PS4 Pro will be $300 and Scorpio will be $400, some thinking even more due to the hardware punch Scorpio is packing.
As we see now with PS4 and Xbox One though, even with the power gap between the two, third party games are still more or less the same on both now, with only Sony/MS titles pushing the hardware. My guess is when Scorpio is out things will be similar, with Scorpio games mainly having slightly higher resolution or more anti aliasing.
It seems like MS is just launching Scorpio so that they don't have nothing at all to compete with until PS5/Xbox Two are out.
See my other post for more thoughts here
Twinstiq, game news
No, because the PS4/XO still must run every title that PS4 Pro / Scorpio will run, including VR. So VR is still hamstrung by the old hardware. But then this supposes VR will sell systems. No, because there are no games. We are not seeing weekly reviews of amazing VR games, not even monthly. I believe VR will hit its stride much later, now is only a gimmick. VR needs to find its killer apps.
Twinstiq, game news
I sincerely hope it gains traction, too bad they castrated it by not having defined hardware specs and let 3rd parties just do whatever.
If they had defined specs devs would have to stick to, we'd see highly optimized and well tested games, something PC and console enthusiasts both want. Instead we have PC games broken out the gate with varied performance across the board.
If we could have a reference spec for PC games it would make such a box highly attractive for gamers who just want to enjoy games hassle free and know ahead of time what performance will be like on their systems
Twinstiq, game news
You PC gamers. Get with the times. You could've had HDR games for a while now, probably at least a year, but decided to just wait until consoles lead the way again. No PC games support 10-bit panels yet but very well could have. Why did you do that?
But you don't hear about any amazing VR games on review sites. Maybe VR needs to get games before it goes out boasting that it's the future. Show me that VR has enough to satiate a hungry gamer. Sorry but now is not the time for VR.
Don't you guys remember them having this argument already once? Neither of them even have current consoles capable of doing that at 1080p in all games. What makes anyone think either of them will be capable of actually doing it at 4k? Buy a Nintendo ffs. Ignore these goons.
AC's right, though. What AC described is a far better circumstance than what the kids have allowed the game machine vendors and game vendors to sell them. Having made that bed, now everyone gets to lie in it. It's really a shame.
Luckily, my XBox still works, so not stuck with this shite.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
nither one does....
if it is not a full 4096X2160 at 60hz it is NOT 4K
i am tired of the bullshitting of these device makers lying about their 4K support
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I can't really see the point of the argument to begin with, I have a "run of the mill" LED TV that I believe maxes out at 1080 from a few years ago. You have to stand within a couple feet of it to begin to see any pixelation in HDTV programs. The whole "4k experience" would seem to be moot unless you have one of those TVs that is 10' wide (and sets your bank account back tens of thousands of dollars).
Spoilers -- both consoles fall short of 4k. 4k require's 300% more GPU power to provide 300% more pixels than 1080p. Say goodbye to Anti Aliasing and hello to choppy objects. Spoilers Alert #2 - Max GPU power isn't the golden star selling point it used to be in 2004.
it's just the chicken-or-the-egg problem in regards to Linux support for games.
Well, given the current repertoire available for Linux on Steam :
it's more like there a giant flock of tiny hummingbirds who are happily laying eggs all together in Linux nest.
Only a couple of huge ostriches are too smug to lay their giant eggs there, or are only able to lay hideously deformed linux eggs.
There are currently thousands of Linux games on Steam. Most are indie games.
Of the triple A big studios, only a few run on engines that already have good Linux ports (hi, Ryan Gordon !)
The rest are either doing extremely crappy ports relying on aweful middle-ware for the windows-to-unix adaptation,
or completely ignore the non-Windows/non-DirectX market.
----
That's a gap that Vulkan could eventually close one day:
unlike the OpenGL vs DirectX opposition, Vulkan is the same API everywhere.
Including Windows, including Linux, including other hardware.
Also, Vulkan *drivers* are much lower-level and simpler than OpenGL or DirectX (because most of the advanced management is moved out of the driver and into the game engine. That's the whole point of giving low-level access to the devs : to help them have better control on the hardware by letting them handle all the small management details) - that also means that the Linux world can produce Vulkan drivers at a faster pace with less bugs (see the fully open-source RADV driver for Radeon hardware). Less playing "catching up" than current OpenGL revision in Mesa or DirectX compatibility layers in Wine.
And for game makers, it means most of the heavy optimisation done in the game engines (and these are going to be much heavier optimisation due to the bigger role played by game engines) can be leveraged much more easily on anything running Vulkan (that includes Linux and Valve's SteamBoxen) than used to be before (where a DirectX-developped game engine needed to be ported to whatever runs on the port target. Means usually rewriting the engine to run on some PlayStation's low-level API. And a Mac OS X/Linux port means yet another rewrite to OpenGL)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
When MS put out a lower performing console for a higher price, with a very expensive microphone/camera that had a handful of games, with an aimless overall strategy, of course they were snubbed. It's more nuanced than penis length, you're buying into a strategy and ecosystem.
Twinstiq, game news
People who are clued in KNOW how Scorpio (to be sold as a high end gaming PC, NOT a console) hits its NATIVE 4K target.
Current computer games are massively influenced by Nvidia, even though all hardware in current conosles is made by rival AMD. Nvidia encourages massively wasteful and innefficient rendering methods to 'sell' the advantage of its current high-end PC solutions (like the 1080), and needs to do this since the vast majority of gamers game at 1080P- where cheaper solutions do fantastically well when running engines not ruined by Nvidia's bribery.
To render well at 4K, one's GPU needs several qualities.
1) High finished pixel fill rates - which is determined by the ROP count and frequency.
2) Lots of triangles (especially if tesselation is used)- which is determined by the triangle issue units (and freq).
3) LOTS of shader power
4) Good memory bandwidth (or compression) and lots of texture memory.
AMD can easily and cheaply provide 1 and 2. 4 costs money, but advances in memory tech (GDDRX- as used in the 1080) make this doable.
3 has traditionally been the BIG problem. However, AMD and later Nvidia are going to full implementation of half-precision shaders that run at TWICE the rate for a given GPU than normal shaders. Nvidia PAYS devs at the mo to NOT use 1/2 precision shaders, cos AMD currently has a tech advantage there. But on the Scorpio, devs will swap (where possible) to maths that is TWICE as fast.
Eliminate Nvidia GAMEWORKS, and produce game engines optimised for the new AMD GPU in the Scorpio, and native 4K is obtainable for even quite ambitious game engines. When Scorpio has well coded games, Nvidia's crippling of the PC division of gaming will mean the PC will need approximately THREE times the power of the Scorpio to run equal- hopefully this fact will lead to an anti-Nvidia revolt amongst PC gamers.
They simply must be compared at some point, not everyone is going to buy all the systems.
If they have incremental hardware steps some people will stay behind until forced to upgrade, we'll actually truly reach the point where mom can say "Why do you need a Super Nintendo? You already have a Nintendo!"
Twinstiq, game news
I'm happy to get 1080p with 60fps to my 4K TV and just let it do the scaling. Looks pretty flipping good IMHO. Heck, I've given up the idea of buying UHD Blu ray because the TV is only 55" and from where I sit an upscaled BD looks excellent so I'll pass until I upgrade my projector from the current 1080p to 4 or even 8K in another five years or so. For now, just getting a console to do full HD without it stuttering is more than enough and these 4K upgraded versions are just a fudge. I don't need a scaler in the console any more than I needed the 4K upscaler in my Oppo BD player. The TV handles that task just fine.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
So, what is their plan about the awful input lag a lot of televisions do at the proposed 4k/HDR mode they're pushing?
I might be getting old, but I don't care, at all, about 4K gaming consoles. 1080p upscaled on my 4K looks very nice. I'd really just appreciate games coming with manuals again, and maybe games you could learn how to play in a session, rather than a week. I don't want to dedicate part of my life to any video game.
If you have an Xbox One you might get a PS4 Pro to get access to the other system's library and vice versa
Twinstiq, game news
Microsoft is making a valid point why people should not buy any XBOX units until Scorpio because that upcoming model is going to be much better than the XBOX of today. This is the same philosophy that appeals to people who want to wait many years to get the next best thing... not a major portion of the buying public this Holiday season.
Sony is saying that what they have today is better than what they had last year and they think it's great.
Despite the marketing, when you're playing the games, you're not counting pixels, you're looking at image quality. For example, even though these consoles use modelling shortcuts instead of real-time ray-tracing, the image quality is sufficient. And people that want a console now don't feel the need to wait for many potential image quality improvements.
So which message will appear most compelling to someone shopping for a console this year?
To me, it seems that Microsoft is shooting it's Holiday sales in the foot.