EDGE backs up PS4 "50% faster" story

NFL GREAT

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Sep 12, 2013
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http://www.edge-online.com/news/pow...erences-between-ps4-and-xbox-one-performance/

PlayStation 4 is currently around 50 per cent faster than its rival Xbox One. Multiple high-level game development sources have described the difference in performance between the consoles as “significant” and “obvious.”

Our contacts have told us that memory reads on PS4 are 40-50 per cent quicker than Xbox One, and its ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) is around 50 per cent faster. One basic example we were given suggested that without optimisation for either console, a platform-agnostic development build can run at around 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM,” concluded one developer.

Microsoft is aware of the problem and, having recently upped the clock speed of Xbox One, is working hard to close the gap on PS4, though one developer we spoke to downplayed the move. “The clock speed update is not significant, it does not change things that much,” he said. “Of course, something is better than nothing.”[\quote]
 
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Just read it, what's this ray tracing the xb1 can do? Is it an advantage?

I know PS4 is more powerful but 50% is hard to believe.
 
Lowest common denominator confirmed once again...negligible cross platform differences in graphics, it then comes down to services, online stability, matchmaking, where your friends are, and console exclusives of which both will have greatness. Not worried, getting both.
 
The poor graphics drivers made it difficult to push either console. Interesting..
 
There's another thread about this in the Xbox discussion, maybe we can get them merged?

I'll also say here what I said there, this sounds awfully similar to what Adrian was saying on GAF that other day after his tweet, not to hard to figure out who their 'sources' are.
 
Instead of "backs up" I think the title should be "re-packages". More sterling work from the official semi-official Playstation Magazine.
 
I really wish people would stop taking articles seriously that use 'anonymous sources', they are nothing more than rumours, and most often just fabricated for the page clicks. The state of internet journalism lately has been horrendous, so many rumours and half truths
 
I really wish people would stop taking articles seriously that use 'anonymous sources', they are nothing more than rumours, and most often just fabricated for the page clicks. The state of internet journalism lately has been horrendous, so many rumours and half truths

Didn't an 'anonymous source' give us the story of the 20th century, Deep Throat.
 
Well, people tend to give credence to inforrmation that supports opinions they already hold, and they tend to dismiss information that runs contrary to those opinions. I'm sure this information is being well received by people who think PS4 is significantly more powerful, and I'm sure it's being discounted by those who don't think that. That's people for you.
 
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The big problem with gaming "journalism" today is they will fish for the answer they want, rather than dig for the real answer. Or they will just make it up and write total BS and try to validate it by claiming "anonymous" sources. That way no one can fact check them.
 
The poor graphics drivers made it difficult to push either console. Interesting..

Does this have more to do with how custom built these systems are? I've never seen so many articles about FPS and optimization problems than with this upcoming generation.
 
I feel like I'm in one of those Mastercard commercials because in my head I can hear that guy in the ads saying "...and owning the X1, PS4, Wii U and a beefy PC, priceless"

Sorry.
 
If graphics mattered all that much to me, I wouldn't be planning to get a Wii U. It's all about games. With games looking as good as they do these days, the artistic style of a game makes more a difference to me than slight resolution and texture differences.

Nevertheless, I'm sure whatever notable power difference the PS4 has is probably overstated by misguided fanboys who in real life probably have no idea how the tech behind gaming specs even work. All they hear is, "50% more POWAAAAHHHH!!!!"

And btw, considering they literally endorsed the PlayStation 4 on the cover of their magazine, are they really an unbiased source?
 
If graphics mattered all that much to me, I wouldn't be planning to get a Wii U. It's all about games. With games looking as good as they do these days, the artistic style of a game makes more a difference to me than slight resolution and texture differences.

Nevertheless, I'm sure whatever notable power difference the PS4 has is probably overstated by misguided fanboys who in real life probably have no idea how the tech behind gaming specs even work. All they hear is, "50% more POWAAAAHHHH!!!!"

And btw, considering they literally endorsed the PlayStation 4 on the cover of their magazine, are they really an unbiased source?
After microsofts e3 it's what they and a lot of people felt. I'm sure they wish that they would have never made that magazine.
 
PS4 is more powerful but so what they are close in power..Even 50% isn't a big leap.

I was saying this a while back. People seem to think that 50% more power translates into 50% more polys or 50% higher res textures. It just doesn't work like that. Still more power is always welcome, so long as developers take advantage of it.
 
After microsofts e3 it's what they and a lot of people felt. I'm sure they wish that they would have never made that magazine.

Microsoft's E3 wasn't bad at all. They went in and showed exclusively games, then gave a launch window and a price that was higher than expected but hardly a disaster. It was more the backlash about the online connectivity requirement that both preceeded and followed E3 that was what the furor was about.
 
Not a big deal in the grand scheme. But One thing I can't understand is how Microsoft could get beat on the Ram, GPU and price.

The Ram I can see since that was just good timing for Sony. But the GPU? Surely they had some idea what Sony was using? And then the price is their own fault for pushing Kinect 2.
 
That article screams like its design to farm inflammatory hits and completely takes one side of the argument suggesting unknown sources as fact, not to mention we've seen plenty other views that suggest otherwise from actual developers, and this one isn't objective at all so its easy to disregard
Until I see another original xbox halo vs ps2 launch games type difference, I won't bother worrying about it, that was the only one that mattered in recent memory. If there was that big of a gap guerrilla could easily push SF with 60fps and then DC could would be an easy 60fps none of the "target" stuff. It's a launch game on launch system they should have no issues pushing those numbers, but they do. Kinda sad, especially when we all know guerilla is a powerhouse dev and they can't get the singleplayer running at 60fps. Same with MS Ryse should be running at 60fps too, their both weak and this console gen will get destroyed by PCs from the beginning with a gap unlike any other 50% is nothing in translating to the what the eye can see. What about PCs with 500% more power? And yet the ppl who argue are the first ones to talk about a petty 50% difference(1/10) and ignore what PCs can do :)
 
Rollins posted this over in the Xbox One thread, from a member at GAF

http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=81785777&postcount=2692

Finally got my account approved on NeoGAF. Cheers admins!

I've been watching this thread since its birth, and I've got to say, the amount of mis-information and conclusions which are being jumped to here is immense. For a community which is highly "in the know" I can't believe anyone hasn't really critically evaluated this with any technological understanding?

This article by Edge over these past days has blown up massively, and guess what, this is the sole purpose of this article. They've got what they wanted, generated a metric f**k ton of ad revenue and page hits. This article is wrong for many reasons:
  • How can drivers in console still be un-finished and the hardware not final when they've gone into mass production?
  • DirectX has been on the platform since the start, it's not buggy or "poor" it just works due to shared codebase. They also released their mono driver during E3 which is the specially optimised version of DirectX for the platform. So saying they have been late with drivers is flat out wrong.
  • They mention "without optimisation". To me, that means someone is working these numbers out without a real kit, and is literally speculating for EDGE for their page views in this upcoming next-gen war. There is more offloaded inside the X1 to special CPU's than there is in the PS4 also.
  • 6 more CU's mean the whole console is 50% faster does it? Its a very well known fact that extra CU's dramatically decrease the efficiency of multi-threading tasks and the shader cores them selves. Its not a linear performance gain, it depends on many factors. I'm not saying the PS4 GPU hasn't got more CU's which it has. What about if I say the PS4 GPU is going to have a lot more to work on outside of games compared to the X1. This includes video encoding, video decoding and even like Mark Cerny said, a lot of the audio tasks will be offloaded to the GPU due to the fact that the GPU is a parralel processing unit which isn't effected by GDDR latency in the same way as the CPU is. Those extra CU's are starting to become less and less without the custom architecture to back them up. Oh and the developers have a lot more leg work managing the threading and task handling of the GPU.
  • Memory reads are 50% faster? From what? I can tell you as a fact that if its the CPU doing the memory read, it would be a heck lot slower. Even if its the GPU doing the read, it the developer doesn't implement the switching of tasks while waiting for GDDR return, then it'll still be slower. It depends how deep the OpenGL wrapper goes.
By any means, I'm not saying the PS4 doesn't have more of a GPU, because it does. The thing is though, it needs that GPU when you've got a CPU crippled by GDDR latency. Audio processing (not be confused by the audio encoder in the PS4) will have to be off-loaded to the GPU, a lot of the physics will be handled by the GPU. Those extra CU's start decreasing and decreasing and when you've got a CPU which you have to think a lot about because they've put GDDR in there, then you're starting to see what Albert Penello is saying.
 
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By any means, I'm not saying the PS4 doesn't have more of a GPU, because it does. The thing is though, it needs that GPU when you've got a CPU crippled by GDDR latency

that could be terrible when games start to push even harder.