Why 8 cores in the PS4, do Sony have some clever hyperthreading technology?

Mr_Sukebe

Mr_Sukebe

Mr_Sukebe

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We all know that very few games presently running use more than 1 core in say a PC.
So, Sony announce the PS4 and happily state that it'll have 8.
Now I appreciate that it'll be nice to have it multi-task and be able to run say a game, Skype and download a video all at the same time.
However, I still don't see that as needing 8 cores.

Anyone think/know if Sony have some clever OS layer that enables easy hyperthreading and for games to make use of a number at the same time?

If not, sounds a bit pointless. If they can, then that could be seriously interesting.
 
There already a massive PS4 thread running, but a lot of modern PC games will swallow up as many core as you can throw at it. Being able to run more than one thread doesn't just benefit multitasking it allow of greater complexity in all facets of the game like AI, physics etc..
 
Console games are coded to use all the cores of the system since the devs develop for just that specification, so you can't really make the comparison of PC games using just 1 core.
 
They won't be using all 8 cores (Effectively) for a long time I'd imagine. It basically leaves the door open 6 years down the line when they want to get as much out of the PS4 as possible before making a new console.
 
I'm sure we all thought it was crazy when the 360 came out with a Tri Core, 2 thread per core, 3.2GHz IBM chip.

It's going to have to last a long time so 8 cores is going to be fine. Hell, even the PS3 was supposed to be 8 core then locked to 7 core for yields with 1 core purely for the OS IIRC. My knowledge may be wrong now but they weren't really cores on the Cell were they? SPEs or whatever they are?
 
Logsi said:
I'm sure we all thought it was crazy when the 360 came out with a Tri Core, 2 thread per core, 3.2GHz IBM chip.

It's going to have to last a long time so 8 cores is going to be fine. Hell, even the PS3 was supposed to be 8 core then locked to 7 core for yields with 1 core purely for the OS IIRC. My knowledge may be wrong now but they weren't really cores on the Cell were they? SPEs or whatever they are?
Click to expand...

You are right. SPEs were more like specialized co-processors (being controlled by one core PPE) designed for handling gaming compute data. So these won't be able to run generic multi-tasks like on PC. So in essence Cell cpu was 1 core cpu (PPE) with 7 special co-processors (SPEs). I guess this is why it made it harder for devs to make games on PS3 as they had to program specifically for SPEs; not to mention low ram and weak gpu
 
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It will also help when you want to pause the game to message someone, or for the background recording it does, on the PS3 going into the XMB while in game is quite a chore as its so slow.

And to add that you only need to start a download to play the game, with the rest downloading in the background will use up some resources.
 
If 360 and PS3 are anything to go by I'd rather more than 'enough', seeing as both systems would occasionally lag for me when accessing the 'main menu' (dashboard/XMB) plus as has been said given the amount of time the system will be supported it needs to be future-proof to an extent.
 
Most new (well coded) games use as much of the available computing resource as is available, and even if the game itself doesn't, the underlying libraries it relies on (physics engines/graphics libraries etc.) often do, so even if the developer is lazy then somebody else has often done at least part of the hard work for them.

Games written for the PS3 are usually some of the best (non distributed) multi-threaded applications out there as they have to be to get any sort of performance out of the PS3s cell CPU. It makes no sense for Sony to release the PS4 with a small number of processors, plus it makes or good marketing!
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
We all know that very few games presently running use more than 1 core in say a PC.
Click to expand...

2008 Called and wants it's meme back - plenty of games support and make use of more than 1 core... granted it may only be dual core supported as standard, but what do you think will happen when console games are coded for PS4 and Xbox infinity which both have 8 cores - even "sloppy" console ports should make better use of multi-core PC cpus.

Mr_Sukebe said:
Anyone think/know if Sony have some clever OS layer that enables easy hyperthreading and for games to make use of a number at the same time?
Click to expand...

Not sure how hyperthreading relates... hyperthreading is 1 physical processor portraying the unused parts as a 2nd logical core...

I assume you mean something in reverse e.g. combine 2 or more physical cores to create 1 fast logical core?
 
KillBoY_UK said:
Well we already know Bulldozer/piledriver cores don't have great single threaded performance so 8 cores is a good idea
Click to expand...

PS4 CPU is Jaguar architecture aka Brazos aka Bobcat cores that share little in common with Bulldozer/piledriver iirc (to be honest I can't keep up with AMD's core/platform names :D)
 
As said, trying to compare a console spec and pc spec, or atleast the inner workings is comparing apples and oranges

Devs will be developing for specific architecture. And as such the spec will be good for the games developed. Perfected in the long run
 
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