PS4 / Xbox One console war

[Stormwatch]

"Xbox, list games."

FALKEN'S MAZE
BLACK JACK
GIN RUMMY
HEARTS
BRIDGE
CHECKERS
CHESS
POKER
FIGHTER COMBAT
GUERRILLA ENGAGEMENT
DESERT WARFARE
AIR-TO-GROUND ACTIONS
THEATERWIDE TACTICAL WARFARE
THEATERWIDE BIOTOXIC AND CHEMICAL WARFARE

GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR

█

[stryc9]

It's like some sort of nightmare given console form.

Can't even imagine the COD retards getting excited over this - despite the dog.

TV sucks
Kinect is an awful control method
Call of Duty is for babies

Real winning combination we have here

[blackoak]

"Xbox, list games."

hahahaha. So true. I miss fighting cacodemons.

[Friendly]

Rumor: Microsoft seems to be having difficulties with the Xbone eSRAM (which they are using to make up for its comparatively slow DDR3 RAM). Apparently there are yield problems during production, and the eSRAM seems to get rather hot (which may be the reason why Xbone has an external PSU despite its large case). The yield issue could mean supply constraints (or MS could decide to downclock eSRAM or GPU). Well, or they could ship potentially broken consoles. But surely they wouldn't knowingly ship broken Xboxes, would they?

[Specineff]

Must... not... join... MS-bashing bandwagon... ah, screw it.

Is this how they're going to "kill Sony at E3"? By exposing them to excessive amounts of heat?

[Friendly]

TV,TV,TV,TV,TV
TELEVISION,TELEVISION,TV,TV,TELEVISION
SPORTS,SPORTS,SPORTS,SPORTS,SPORTS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifa9Q7ATfVA

Oh god, the stuttering of the GUI. That means the entire Xbone annoucement on May 21 was faked.

[sscamaro2010]

In Soviet Russia, XboxOne Kinect watches you

[Udderdude]

TV,TV,TV,TV,TV
TELEVISION,TELEVISION,TV,TV,TELEVISION
SPORTS,SPORTS,SPORTS,SPORTS,SPORTS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifa9Q7ATfVA

Oh god, the stuttering of the GUI. That means the entire Xbone annoucement on May 21 was faked.

The stuttering, low FPS, voice command lag (measured in seconds!), pleading from MS goober that it's still "being improved every day" .. it's a turkey and they know it.

[trap15]

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed it was running at like 5 fps. And the seconds of voice command lag. lol microsoft

[KAI]

GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR, SPORTS. This shit is too manly for me.

[Ed Oscuro]

In Soviet Russia, XboxOne Kinect watches you

What a company!

In the Soviet Union, there was a company everybody made fun of...that company was Microsoft.

[Friendly]

Seems plausible that Microsoft was indeed surprised by PS4's announcement in February and that they had nothing to show back then. A few months ago, there were reports (unconfirmed of course) that Xbone's software development was six months behind, and that the development of Xbone's hardware had only started in late 2010 (=long after Sony began to construct PS4). After all we have learned since Microsoft's press conference, this scenario is starting to look quite realistic.
Sony gambled on GDDR5 RAM becoming cheap enough in time to make using it in PS4 feasible, and they were right. Due to falling prices, they first managed to increase PS4's RAM specs from 2 to 4GB, and finally to 8GB. Microsoft on the other hand wanted to use 8GB right from the start, so apparently they decided to use DDR3 RAM right away. The problem with DDR3 is that it's relatively old (prototypes were announced in early 2005) and probably as cheap as it gets right now, which means there won't be much cost-saving later on, and it's quite outdated performance wise.
If Microsoft is indeed forced to downclock Xbone's GPU to ~900 gigaflops to prevent the eSRAM from overheating, then the result will be that PS4 ends up with 100% more graphical processing power (until now it looked like PS4 would "only" have 50% more power).

[Udderdude]

What a clusterfuck.

[trap15]

info.txt

Seems like a very plausible explanation. Well explained

[Ed Oscuro]

You don't usually expect the company that starts designing a system first to end up with the more up-to-date technology, and if the story is true (I didn't read about eSRAM overheating issue before, although the DDR3 / GDDR5 situation has been widely reported as stated here) then it's very nearly the perfect storm. They have apparently coupled a conservative design with a terrible software implementation - if you need 8GB of RAM just to waste 2-3GB of it on the OS, something is wrong. Even if they started software development later, I can't understand why their software would be so much worse-performing with respect to RAM. The stuff you'd expect to require RAM (encoding replays and so on) seem similar across both consoles. Xbox One's DVR-like functions aren't clear yet, if there are any.

It might not be a surprise if the unit shown at E3 is different in some ways from what they have now. At this point their best bet could be just to lock in the "original spec" games being developed and then try to find a way to work around that to get the system more up-to-date.

One thing that should be obvious from this is the idea of the console life cycle is flawed to begin with. Although PC hardware also has to condense disparate technologies into a platform, even Sony had to start out with a circa 2005 view of the technology that would be available now.

[louisg]

You don't usually expect the company that starts designing a system first to end up with the more up-to-date technology

I think that's happened a couple times, when one company has been designing something for a while and another company goes, "oh shit!" and tries to push something out really quickly. The Atari ST vs. Amiga comes to mind ... not getting into console wars here, haha

They have apparently coupled a conservative design with a terrible software implementation - if you need 8GB of RAM just to waste 2-3GB of it on the OS, something is wrong. Even if they started software development later, I can't understand why their software would be so much worse-performing with respect to RAM. The stuff you'd expect to require RAM (encoding replays and so on) seem similar across both consoles. Xbox One's DVR-like functions aren't clear yet, if there are any.

Yeah, pretty odd. I wonder if there maybe isn't some confusion of RAM vs. ROM..? I mean, that sounds *terrible*. But if they're thinking that the OS (watching movies) will be the primary draw, I guess I could see how they could have made that mistake. Hopefully there will be background tasks galore and it'll cause games to jerk around

Also keep in mind this is a generation where there were people saying, with a straight face, "This generation is future-proof! There will never be another generation!". I wonder if some people were drinking their own kool-aid.

[Friendly]

even Sony had to start out with a circa 2005 view of the technology that would be available now.

Sony started working on PS4 in 2008, afaik.

About the eSRAM problem, Microsoft doesn't have many options. A redesign of the eSRAM would take 6 months, which means they would not be able to start production in time.
A major redesign at this point is out of the question.

Looks like Microsoft would like to avoid any unfiltered questions. With 5 days to go until E3, they just cancelled their regular media round table:


What are the odds of Microsoft announcing the price at E3, let alone any technical details?

[Ed Oscuro]

eSRAM isn't going to be the problem, per se, it's what the inclusion of that does to the rest of the transistor budget. I still wonder if they couldn't either transition much of the rest of the memory to a faster type, which would still allow the eSRAM to be useful (just not at all optimal for the configuration, because it's taking away transistors from GPU functions, for example), or even just transition both the CPU and the memory type in tandem to a new design, and using performance gains from the new hardware to help smooth the transition of in-progress launch titles to the new format.

Even if people don't care about the used games scenario (I think it's just as likely that the ramifications of that just aren't widely understood), having a game look vastly inferior on the MS DVR bocks is going to be a significant problem for them, unless they're willing to price the console for a fraction of the Sony box.

[Friendly]

I don't think you understand, the eSRAM getting too hot is a huge problem (RRoD 2.0 incoming), as is the low production yield (=shortage of chips).
One way to solve it and to meet the targeted 2013 release date is to reduce the clockspeed of the GPU, but this could end up reducing Xbone's graphical power to 50% of what PS4 offers.

unless they're willing to price the console for a fraction of the Sony box.

That's the next problem, because as far as we know Xbone costs more to make than PS4. Bad chip production yields make it even more expensive.
Sounds to me like they screwed up royally.

[louisg]

having a game look vastly inferior on the MS DVR bocks is going to be a significant problem for them, unless they're willing to price the console for a fraction of the Sony box.

Kinda sounds like a Nuon minus the kick-ass Jeff Minter game.

[Ed Oscuro]

I don't think you understand, the eSRAM getting too hot is a huge problem (RRoD 2.0 incoming), as is the low production yield (=shortage of chips).

What I don't understand is why you think that's the main problem. No doubt that could be Very Bad News for Microsoft's bottom line for as long as it takes to get yields up - though it's unbelievable that they didn't know the heat envelope and this would cause heat-related failures (which is not to say that it can't happen or that memories can't be delivered DOA, but I recall speculation from way back when that some PS3 CPU cores could fail, too). This is a big potential problem for Microsoft's bottom line, but if they can keep the heat in check (I think you've misread the rumor here; it's just about yields, not heat failures. RRoD and YLOD failures typically aren't yield-related; you can call them "delayed yield problems" but there is something distinctly different in having a CPU not perform to spec, and having it fail when it's shoehorned in a too-aggressive design that can't adequately remove heat.), consumers might be none the wiser, right?

Wrong! As I say, the eSRAM is going to be a problem indirectly - because people will start picking up on the PS4 having better visuals due to its better use of its transistor budget. Years after Microsoft sorts out any yield problems, the system still won't be performing better than the PS4, and the faster-than-GDDR5 eSRAM will still be a bottleneck for most situations (I recall you saying something like this earlier).

Doubtless some current code would need to be totally redone to work with a replacement CPU, but where Microsoft is right now, the lead time necessary for AMD to produce a new chip might not crippling while Microsoft works to reposition its console so that it isn't completely squished by the competition. I'm sure that if they took a deep breath and decided to take some pain now and miss some development targets for the greater good of the platform's longevity that they could realize some real performance gains by ditching the eSRAM cache solution.

having a game look vastly inferior on the MS DVR bocks is going to be a significant problem for them, unless they're willing to price the console for a fraction of the Sony box.

Kinda sounds like a Nuon minus the kick-ass Jeff Minter game.

Needs moar G-Police. G-Police with G-Unit. Hell yez

[Friendly]

I didn't say that yield and heat were related. The heat of the eSRAM is caused by the performance of the GPU when it's running at full speed.
Low yield means that a high percentage of the eSRAM chips aren't working at full power (due to faulty transistors).
Now if you reduce the GPU clockspeed, you can use eSRAM chips with a higher percentage of faulty transistors AND they won't get as hot. Understand?

PS.
I don't think eSRAM is Microsoft's worst problem. Their problem appears to be terrible leadership. It has been their M.O. for decades to market and sell rushed and flawed products. From MS-DOS to Windows '95 to RRoD and Xbone. None of what's happening now is in any way surprising, especially consiering the brain drain at Microsoft's Xbox division: Virtually all of the most influential people who helped shape 360 and its success are gone now.

[Ed Oscuro]

You say that yield and heat aren't related...but then you say they are. Make up your mind please. (Answer: They are, or more precisely, they can be.)

I'm still not understanding what any of this has to do with my point, but you've made an error here in trying to outdo yourself with criticism of Microsoft, tying low yields to RRoD-like symptoms. Yield errors of this type can indeed result in lowered stable operating frequency (something very familiar to PC overclocking enthusiasts), and they can also suffer hard failures that prevent the device from working at all (I don't know which type is more common here). However, nothing causes us to think that simple CPU testing would miss heat-related stability problems, or that components would fail in an enclosure designed to provide adequate cooling for the device. (Of course, early 360 units were not adequately engineered to disperse heat produced by components in the system, and Microsoft seems to have decided to eat as much of the cost as it was forced to, and pass on to consumers whatever they could get away with - this was obviously not an engineering mistake so much as a flawed, or desperate, strategic decision, i.e. management BS).

The key point is that they are having these yield-related issues now, instead of during full manufacturing, at a point where they may be able to do something about it. In any hardware design, there is going to be a choice made about yield, and when you add an aggressively-designed hardware enclosure which limits thermal dissipation, that is going to narrow the range of frequencies available for the CPU anyway, which is tantamount to raising the temperature at which the CPU must stably operate. As the combined CPU and GPU will undoubtedly be the hottest part of the whole system, all they need to do is make sure they aren't having heat-related failures or stability problems centered around that part - and it seems easier to troubleshoot heat problems when it's all centered around one part, rather than running through the entire system and multiple joints and other points of failure as seen on the 360. In any of these cases, they just as well could solve the problems with a newly engineered thermal design, so that the CPU can operate at the same frequency while temperatures are not increased.

360 RRoDs appear to have been caused mainly by problems with lead-free solder, some GPU-related problems - and rumor points towards the original chips being designed by amateurs. The Xbox One's CPU and integrated GPU, both designed in a single-die package being designed by AMD, will not likely be prone to certain surface-mounting problems caused by Microsoft's amateur hour with the 360 (although nVidia has a pass at this kind of ineptitude some years back around the time of the 8600M GS), and the single-package design should allow it to tolerate heat better.

There is no particular reason to think that the CPUs will heat up beyond that specified by the design, so if the other components are well-designed enough to get by - even if flawed CPUs are not filtered out through the yield process - the result is that while the CPU might be an expensive boondoggle for Microsoft it seems quite wrong to state that it will likely cause failures in shipping units.

I should like us all to understand that there's a big difference between saying there are "heat related problems" and being able to talk about a CPU-related yield issue, as opposed to the yield of entire systems. Now, granted, they aren't supposed to be manufacturing yet, which makes it sound like they may well have just be having yield issues so that they want to scale back the clock

So I think that, aside from being wholly unnecessary, your attempt to make things real simple so even a fella like me can understand them is not really helpful when there's some aspects of the situation you yourself don't seem to grasp.

In fact one might be forgiven for wondering if this isn't just pre-release counter-espionage leaks. Don't you remember this? That's an IBM VP stating "you're lucky to get 10 or 20 percent," and the article also touches on something that should be familiar to you if you kept up with the PS3 release: Only seven of the eight cores in the Cell CPU were used, with the eighth core as a sacrificial buffer against defect-based attrition. Now, I haven't heard anything yet about cores in the Xbox or PS4 CPUs being sacrificed in this manner, but it's good to keep in mind that this isn't new ground being broken.

[Udderdude]

I hope no-one has to go through this again. http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/6 ... 0-coffins/

Actually, on second thought, maybe I do, seeing as I'm not planning on buying one ever and it would make things even more hilarious.

[BryanM]

Well, haven't found any good examples of how much of a difference there will be between DDR3 and GDDR5 in these things - as much as I can tell the graphical ram is built to have more bandwidth at the cost of latency but how much of a practical impact will it have at the end of the day?

Both are obviously already obsolete, but.... well... yeah. It is like a fight between two middle schoolers.

"This generation is future-proof! There will never be another generation!"

WiiU sales so far suggest it might be true.

Well... as the decade goes by I'm sure there'll be some adoption through attrition and kids being born.

[nZero]

Well, haven't found any good examples of how much of a difference there will be between DDR3 and GDDR5 in these things - as much as I can tell the graphical ram is built to have more bandwidth at the cost of latency but how much of a practical impact will it have at the end of the day?

Because the memory access patterns used for graphics favor high bandwidth and throughput over all else, given an equivalent pool of memory, you tend to see a non-trivial benefit in games, rendering, GPU compute, etc. applications from moving to GDDR5 and/or really pushing the clocks on DDR3 when it comes to graphics cards and (especially) APUs.

I'm having trouble finding the exact articles I want with a quick search, but these should give an idea:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ ... eview/1272
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mem ... 419-3.html

8GB of DDR3 with nearly half reserved for the OS doesn't sound so bad when you think your competition is targeting 4GB of GDDR5, but the reality turned out quite differently.

[lilmanjs]

Microsoft trying to outdo sega and atari for quickest console failure? They really want sony to kick their ass. lol

[Skykid]

Please stop changing the topic title.

[Friendly]

Xbox One DRM has a 'lot of advantages', says Microsoft
"...for Microsoft"

[xgunnBlaze]

In Soviet Russia, XboxOne Kinect watches you

In capitalist America, TV watch YOU!