Nvidia attacks PS4 hardware, calls it "low-end"

[The Running Man]

Without wanting to enflame the debate the truth is that NVidia supply PS3 gfx hardware. they can easily see from that kind of data how profitable that supplying the Ps4 will be. i.e Sony will be asking them to sell at a loss and make it back over volume/time etc as production profitability increases.

Nvidia probably didn't want the business as it was not profitable enough and from a pr standpoint, I don't think NVidia got many plus's for being in the PS3 so perhaps they did indeed walk away.

Happens at our place, a contract comes up for renewal, sometimes you have to assess the profitability and sometimes you have to walk away if the customer (in this case sony) demands too much and you will get too little in return..

With regards to the AMD performance, we know it is already classed as a mid range part from AMD this year. in 12 months it will be on the low side. As far as discreet GPU's go, as it will ofcourse be faster than all integrated HD 4xxx or whatever series intel/amd put out into the oe market.

At the same time we also must appreciate from AMD's end that the technology doesn't directly translate into PC GPU performance as a lesser spec can be faster given hardware access to game studios and such.

 

[MrMarvelous]

As long as the PS4 blows the PS3 out of the water with its improvements i dont care what some bitter Nvidia employee has to say, consoles need to price competitive, and judging by his comment on money Sony wanted to pay, it would make the console quite expensive .

I honestly don't think we'll see that big of an improvement. I'm thinking that it'll be something along the lines of playing a PC game on medium at 720p (PS3) to playing a game on high with some advanced features enabled/disabled at 720/1080p (PS4).

 

[spoffle]

Without wanting to enflame the debate the truth is that NVidia supply PS3 gfx hardware. they can easily see from that kind of data how profitable that supplying the Ps4 will be. i.e Sony will be asking them to sell at a loss and make it back over volume/time etc as production profitability increases.

Realistically the chances of them walking away are slim. As I highlighted further up in the thread, Sony have many reasons for not wanting anything to do with nVidia GPUs because of the headaches they've had due to nVidia GPUs.

Nvidia probably didn't want the business as it was not profitable enough and from a pr standpoint, I don't think NVidia got many plus's for being in the PS3 so perhaps they did indeed walk away.

I don't even think there would have been negotiations to that effect. nVidia cost sony a lot of money with the massive failure rate on certain lines of laptop GPUs, which nVidia were completely unwilling to acknowledge for quite a while, and then the same thing happening with the PS3 GPUs.

Happens at our place, a contract comes up for renewal, sometimes you have to assess the profitability and sometimes you have to walk away if the customer (in this case sony) demands too much and you will get too little in return..

As above, I have hard time believing that Sony even considered using nVidia.

With regards to the AMD performance, we know it is already classed as a mid range part from AMD this year. in 12 months it will be on the low side. As far as discreet GPU's go, as it will ofcourse be faster than all integrated HD 4xxx or whatever series intel/amd put out into the oe market.

The 7800s aren't really mid range, in terms of performance, they're more upper mid range, but midrange or not, it's irrelevant when talking about consoles because the performance doesn't translate over.

At the same time we also must appreciate from AMD's end that the technology doesn't directly translate into PC GPU performance as a lesser spec can be faster given hardware access to game studios and such.

That's not from AMD's end, it's just how it works, the luxury of having games made specifically for that hardware exactly, and the lack of big overheads makes a big difference.

 

[spoffle]

I honestly don't think we'll see that big of an improvement. I'm thinking that it'll be something along the lines of playing a PC game on medium at 720p (PS3) to playing a game on high with some advanced features enabled/disabled at 720/1080p (PS4).

What makes you think this? Do you understand just how much more powerful the hardware in the PS4 is than the PS3?

 

[Rroff]

With regards to the AMD performance, we know it is already classed as a mid range part from AMD this year. in 12 months it will be on the low side. As far as discreet GPU's go, as it will ofcourse be faster than all integrated HD 4xxx or whatever series intel/amd put out into the oe market.

At the same time we also must appreciate from AMD's end that the technology doesn't directly translate into PC GPU performance as a lesser spec can be faster given hardware access to game studios and such.

Another thing people generally don't appreciate, the PS3 and Xbox360 GPUs were based on older fixed function architectures - and it is pretty amazing what they got out of them but the new consoles will have compute shader capabilities and this is a game changer, especially when you look at one the most commonly used engines for console games (Unreal Engine) the GPU specs start to look a bit underwhelming when you look at the long term potential with the more advanced features of that engine. This is despite the fact the engine scales amazingly (if you've ever seen the citadel demo running at HD resolution on a smartphone and still managing 30-40fps with max settings).

 

[biron_w]

Sounds like Nvidia have got a load of these

 

[spoffle]

Another thing people generally don't appreciate, the PS3 and Xbox360 GPUs were based on older fixed function architectures - and it is pretty amazing what they got out of them but the new consoles will have compute shader capabilities and this is a game changer, especially when you look at one the most commonly used engines for console games (Unreal Engine) the GPU specs start to look a bit underwhelming when you look at the long term potential with the more advanced features of that engine. This is despite the fact the engine scales amazingly (if you've ever seen the citadel demo running at HD resolution on a smartphone and still managing 30-40fps with max settings).

The 360 GPU isn't really fixed function, it has stream processors.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 360 GPU isn't really fixed function, it has stream processors.

It was the first AMD GPU with unified shaders.

However,what is funny,is that many devs and programmers,including someone who works for Nvidia,are excited at specifications of the PS4. OTH,forum experts have already branded it a failure.

 

[Rroff]

The 360 GPU isn't really fixed function, it has stream processors.

Its a bit of a mirky one, R600 was the first Radeon core to properly support a unified shader architecture but it was based on the Xenos (360) which had rudimentary shader pipelines but the architecture still originates in a fixed function design. Anything before R600 (Radeon or otherwise) isn't really useful for most programmable shader type useage.

 

[spoffle]

Its a bit of a mirky one, R600 was the first Radeon core to properly support a unified shader architecture but it was based on the Xenos (360) which had rudimentary shader pipelines but the architecture still originates in a fixed function design. Anything before R600 (Radeon or otherwise) isn't really useful for most programmable shader type useage.

It was basically an R600 type of core with the performance of an X1900 GPU. But it's not murky at all. It was the first unified shader GPU to come out and be used commercially.

 

[The Running Man]

Realistically the chances of them walking away are slim. As I highlighted further up in the thread, Sony have many reasons for not wanting anything to do with nVidia GPUs because of the headaches they've had due to nVidia GPUs.



I don't even think there would have been negotiations to that effect. nVidia cost sony a lot of money with the massive failure rate on certain lines of laptop GPUs, which nVidia were completely unwilling to acknowledge for quite a while, and then the same thing happening with the PS3 GPUs.



As above, I have hard time believing that Sony even considered using nVidia.



The 7800s aren't really mid range, in terms of performance, they're more upper mid range, but midrange or not, it's irrelevant when talking about consoles because the performance doesn't translate over.



That's not from AMD's end, it's just how it works, the luxury of having games made specifically for that hardware exactly, and the lack of big overheads makes a big difference.

All just speculation isn't it. At the end of the day money talks, and we don't know exactly how it whispered in this instance.

and whilst its true that NVidia had a faulty series on the 8600m's was it? They have produced how many chips for the ps3 and had no major issues with the gpu that im aware of. That's like 77 million chips in the wild so that could also be a counter argument in the reliability stakes.

 

[Rroff]

and whilst its true that NVidia had a faulty series on the 8600m's was it? They have produced how many chips for the ps3 and had no major issues with the gpu that im aware of. That's like 77 million chips in the wild so that could also be a counter argument in the reliability stakes.

I'm pretty sure its not as cut and dried as spoffle makes out but on the other hand nVidia didn't exactly endear themselves with companies like sony, etc. with how they handled the G84/6m core failures.

 

[msmalls74]

Do Nvdia have a road map for a CPGPU much like the one used in the PS4? I dont think Nvdia could supply a CPU, GPU mem controller etc all on one IC as Sony and MS both wanted for this gen.

 

[Rroff]

Do Nvdia have a road map for a CPGPU much like the one used in the PS4? I dont think Nvdia could supply a CPU, GPU mem controller etc all on one IC as Sony and MS both wanted for this gen.

nVidia have various ARM based SoCs on tap and the ability to scale up custom versions, the decision to focus on x86 might have made nVidia a less attractive choice tho.

Maxwell is actually closer in design to the hardware in a console than a traditional GPU as well so they aren't entirely lacking in ability to develop that kind of hardware for a console.

EDIT: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver

 

[spoffle]

All just speculation isn't it. At the end of the day money talks, and we don't know exactly how it whispered in this instance.

and whilst its true that NVidia had a faulty series on the 8600m's was it? They have produced how many chips for the ps3 and had no major issues with the gpu that im aware of. That's like 77 million chips in the wild so that could also be a counter argument in the reliability stakes.

It's not really speculation, it's fact that nVidia have cost Sony a lot of money, it's also fact that a lot of companies abhor working with nVidia too because they are so full of themselves.

It wasn't just the 8600m, it was pretty much all their 65nm and 55nm GPUs, nVidia were denying it for ages, which cost Sony a significant amount of money the laptops had to be repaired of replaced and nVidia weren't willing to entertain that it was their issue.

As for the PS3 GPU, they have had similar problems. The Yellow Light of Death is near enough the same issue.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

nVidia have various ARM based SoCs on tap and the ability to scale up custom versions, the decision to focus on x86 might have made nVidia a less attractive choice tho.

Maxwell is actually closer in design to the hardware in a console than a traditional GPU as well so they aren't entirely lacking in ability to develop that kind of hardware for a console.

EDIT: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver

Denver is out this year?? Wow!!

They are going to have 64 bit ARM based cores out before everyone else,who are still using 32 bit cores??

Edit!!

Major embarrassment time for Qualcomm,etc!!

 

[spoffle]

I'm pretty sure its not as cut and dried as spoffle makes out but on the other hand nVidia didn't exactly endear themselves with companies like sony, etc. with how they handled the G84/6m core failures.

Cut and dried? I'm just pointing out that there's many things that would get in the way of Sony considering nVidia for a GPU before they even get to the stage of talking money, and nVidia's bitter comments about the PS4 strongly imply that nVidia is bitter about it. As I've said, I'd be very surprised if nVidia even got a look in, and another reason I'll highlight below.

nVidia have various ARM based SoCs on tap and the ability to scale up custom versions, the decision to focus on x86 might have made nVidia a less attractive choice tho.

Another reason that Sony is unhappy with nVidia is that nVidia would not allow them to place the PS3 GPU on the same chip as the PS3's CELL CPU, they insisted that they had to be kept on individual chips.

Additionally, nVidia lacking an X86 license discounts them hugely, and realistically it's obvious that Sony wouldn't want to use an ARM type of chip. They corroborated largely with games developers to see what they wanted in the PS4, and easier to program for hardware was in big demand, and since all developers will have extensive X86-64 experience, it's clear why they've made that choice.

Which again is why I don't think nVidia even got a look in, AMD have been putting their conventional CPUs on chips right next to their conventional GPUs for a little while now, which is quite cost effective and exactly what Sony wanted.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

and nVidia's bitter comments about the PS4 strongly imply that nVidia is bitter about it.

You mean that Nvidia VP,ie,Nvidia management. One of their own employees,thought the PS4 specs looked great,until his blog went for a spring clean!!

 

[spoffle]

You mean that Nvidia VP,ie,Nvidia management. One of their own employees,thought the PS4 specs looked great,until his blog went for a spring clean!!

Of course, honestly, the people who make up the technical staff in nVidia are knowledgeable and level headed people, it's just that the management of a company is generally what you see as the face of the company, like their crazy aggressive CEO who are the ones who are responsible for the dodgy decisions and smack talk that they are known for.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

like their crazy aggressive CEO.

TBH,he is one of the more interesting CEOs out there in the tech world!!