PS4 graphics to be PowerVR Series 6 ?
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From: parallax-scroll on 25 Nov 2009 12:34 It still seems way too early to be talking about the PlayStation 4 and yet, rumored news continues to pop up everywhere. The latest is big, if it proves true: according to European source PS3Clan, it seems SCEI "has officially chosen" the technical setup for their next PlayStation iteration, which supposedly - depending on if you believe the translation - will launch in 2012. The choice? The PowerVR Series 6 by Imagination Technologies that utilizes a technology known as "TBDR," which is "3-5 times better than a competitive level nVidia/ATI Graphics card." Evidently, Sega used TBDR to help power the old Sega Dreamcast and if you remember, that console was definitely ahead of its time in the visual department. But perhaps the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will retain the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of advanced technology from Imagination will work with the Cell. The quote in question is as follows, although you may wish to take it with a grain of salt without any official information: "The PlayStation 4 shall use a high end variant of the 6 Series line. Performance, specifications and features are at this time unknown. The Series 6 shall receive an official announcement from IMGTEC sometime in 2010, with initial models targeting the smartphone and netbook sector." On top of which, the rumor gets bigger by saying that SCEI has furthered opted to work with IMGTEC for the next iteration of the PSP; the new handheld will get the benefit of the Series 5XT. All of this may sound like complete gibberish unless you're really into hardware or programming but if it's all true, this is the first solid piece of technical information we've seen concerning the PS4. The only doubt we have is whether or not it'll be available by 2012... However, if you think about it, the time frame would be in line with the last generation; the PS2 launched in late October and the PS3 launched in November of 2006. So you never know. http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/6173.html http://playstationlifestyle.net/2009/11/24/ps4-to-use-superior-graphics-card/ http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/11/18/gpu-chosen-for-ps4-out-in-2012/ Sounds like 1997-1998 all over again, I mean, Sega Dreamcast...It was, at first, rumored to use a high-end variant of PowerVR Series 2, then it really happened. Now supposedly PS4 in 2012 with PowerVR Series 6 (and apparently PSP2 with Series 5) ?? Amusing if true. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
From: Benjamin Gawert on 25 Nov 2009 12:56 * parallax-scroll: > The choice? The > PowerVR Series 6 by Imagination Technologies that utilizes a > technology known as "TBDR," which is "3-5 times better than a > competitive level nVidia/ATI Graphics card." Evidently, Sega used TBDR > to help power the old Sega Dreamcast and if you remember, that console > was definitely ahead of its time in the visual department. Yes, at a time when the 3Dfx Voodoo2 was a top-of-the line 3D graphics card for PCs. However, it is not 1998 any more, and while AMD and Nvidia invested lots of ressources into advances in the performance and capabilities of their GPUs, the PowerVR today is merely a low-power GPU for handheld devices as their "grownup" versions never left the prototype stage. Sony would be mad if they choosed PowerVR for the PS4. > But perhaps > the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will retain > the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of advanced > technology from Imagination will work with the Cell. The PS4 is very unlikely to be Cell based as IBM as stopped all development for this architecture. Cell is dead. Benjamin
From: Yousuf Khan on 25 Nov 2009 18:04 Benjamin Gawert wrote: >> But perhaps >> the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will retain >> the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of advanced >> technology from Imagination will work with the Cell. > > The PS4 is very unlikely to be Cell based as IBM as stopped all > development for this architecture. Cell is dead. Yup, Cell is definitely not going to go any further, however, the current Cell chip might still be sufficiently powerful for the next generation of PS console. Most of the computing is coming out of the GPU nowadays anyways. IBM Cans Next-Generation Cell Processor, Plans to Change Cell Concept - X-bit labs "Current PowerXCell 8i chip aimed at servers and supercomputers features radically improved double-precision floating-point performance (compared to typical Cell processor found inside Sony PlayStation 3) on the SPEs from a peak of about 12.8Glops to 102.4Gflops total for eight SPEs. Potentially, the PowerXCell 8iv could achieve about 500Gflops double-precision floating-point performance. However, it might make little sense for IBM to release such a chip since, for example, modern graphics processing units (GPUs) are already achieving such speed levels at lower cost: IBM has said numerous times that Cell chip had insufficient yield." http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20091123233555_IBM_Cans_Next_Generation_Cell_Processor_Plans_to_Change_Cell_Concept.html Yousuf Khan
From: Miles Bader on 25 Nov 2009 19:10 Benjamin Gawert <bgawert(a)gmx.de> writes: > Sony would be mad if they choosed PowerVR for the PS4. Sony hasn't exactly shown a whole lot of good judgement in designing their past systems either... -Miles -- ((lambda (x) (list x x)) (lambda (x) (list x x)))
From: First of One on 25 Nov 2009 21:53
"parallax-scroll" <parallaxscroll(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:1fbd0fbf-a94c-4eac-8e19-ccce9767a753(a)d10g2000yqh.googlegroups.com... > The latest is big, if it proves true: according to European source > PS3Clan, it seems SCEI "has officially chosen" the technical setup for > their next PlayStation iteration, which supposedly - depending on if > you believe the translation - will launch in 2012. The choice? The > PowerVR Series 6 by Imagination Technologies that utilizes a > technology known as "TBDR," which is "3-5 times better than a > competitive level nVidia/ATI Graphics card." Either the rumor is false, or Sony had lost its mind again. TBDR became irrelevant as soon as the Geforce3 and Radeon came along and did a simpler form of hierarchical-Z culling that required far less video memory. Besides, the nVidia and ATi GPUs nowadays have fill rate to spare, to such an extent it's no longer heavily advertised. For example, my year-old GTX 285 does 56 Gtexels/sec, 4x that of the PS3, 7x that of the X360. > Evidently, Sega used TBDR to help power the old Sega Dreamcast and if you > remember, that console was definitely ahead of its time in the visual > department. Yep, ahead by about a year, until the PS2 came along. And the derivative Neon250 graphics card was simply forgotten in the PC market. > But perhaps the most interesting part about all of this is that Sony will > retain the Cell processor currently in all PS3s; this new piece of > advanced technology from Imagination will work with the Cell. The quote in > question is as follows, although you may wish to take it with a grain of > salt without any official information: Whatever. CPU speed is simply not as relevant in today's games. For the PS4, it would actually be sensible to shrink the existing PS3 CPU to something like 28 nm and increase the clock speed. Keeping the same CPU architecture definitely makes backward compatibility easier. According to John Carmack, at least one of the next-gen consoles won't have an optical drive. Who's up for 25GB game downloads? :-) -- "War is the continuation of politics by other means. It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed." |