[IGN] Report: PS4 Dev Kits Surface - Page 36  

Oh I'm being realistic. Think of the marketing text and the big yellow "4K" sticker on the box. While the 4K displays will most likely drop sharply in price when the screens go into a proper mass production somewhere I would expect them to remain about 2x to 4x more expensive than similar size 1080p screens so it would make sense that when someone buys themselves a "4K" TV he or she will be also looking for an content to take advantage of that. Considering that the TV programs most likely will not get into 4K format in immediate future that leaves blue-ray movies (assuming they bother going for 4k with these) and consoles, meaning that you have someone looking for such content and obviously being well enough economically to be able to afford a premium product. I'd imagine dev's could get away even with something like a 120 - 150$ for a "4K" game on a console. After first few devs get away with such a pricetag I'm sure the others will take note.

Thing is - if the console gets the 7850 its actually strong enough to push such resolutions. A "4K" resolution is only roughlt 8 megapixels and as its a TV oriented it will be only at about 30 fps. A 7870 at stock settings can do 10 megapixels with x4 AA on top of that at 157 fps in source engine (dont have 7850 so cant give an equivalent number for that, but I would expect it to be perhaps ~20% lover at most). So there is plenty of power in there to increase eye candy substantially over the relatively well optimized Source engine. When properly optimizing for it you can make that 4K resolution run at 60 fps (no or at most x2AA) with Crysis level graphics. As you have previously pointed out at such resolution the AA is not really nesseary anyway.

Edit: I just reran the test at 6 MP (3240x1920), with no AA and highest settings for the source engine

and it seems I'm actually a bit CPU bottlenecked even at such resolution, as while GPU manages to hit 100% load in several sections of the test according to the GPU-Z log there is also several parts where its sitting only at 60 ..70% load.
It seems pretty decent, in my opinion, against the current console standards regardless of being relatively venerable engine

I was getting ~239 fps average for 6 MP, no AA, highest possible settings with 7870 at stock. Now 8 MP is 25% more than 6 MP so for 8 MP the result should be ~180 fps and if one would assume that 7850 in that hypothetical console is approx 20% weaker then this wold mean roughly ~140 fps - i.e., I would argue that there is plenty of power left to do DX 11 (or its OpenGL equivalent) tricks for additional eyecandy or if developer cant think of anything else then for adding excessive amount of bloom and motion blur as is customary for the current gen consoles as far as I understand.
Edited by Carniflex - 11/13/12 at 4:22am

Here we go again....

A next gen system would need to have 8x the fillrate of the current gen ( 4k is 8 times the pixels 720p )

A 7850 has less then 4x the fillrate of PS3's RSX meaning that if PS4 rendered at 4k you would only be getting PS2 quality graphics...

So oh wise one, can you please explain how you expect to get 4k and graphics that are a step up above the current machines with a ~4x fillrate increase?

Well, fill rate is only a part of the equation ofc but its prerequisite for being able to display at some resolution at given FPS at all. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer' I get the fill rate for the PS3 GPU to be and from here: http://techreport.com/review/22573/amd-radeon-hd-7870-ghz-edition/2 I get the peak theoretical fill rates for the modern GPU's to be

Which is for the 7850 is 28 Gpixels/s. I.e., ~6.36 times greater.

However, if one would be going only by the theoretical max pixel fill rate then a PS3 should be able to drive a 4K display at 550 fps (4.4*10^9/8*10^6) and 7850 would push the same resolution at ~3500 fps. Max theoretical that is. In practice this number drops by an order of magnitude at the very least due to the bottlenecks in other parts of the system. In my opinion its thus entirely feasible to say that the next gen console would be able, theoretically and practically, should the developers opt to utilize such possibility to drive a 4K display at acceptable frame rate. Note, also that I'm not basing this argument only on some theoretical max number of a graphics hardware but on experience of running an 7870 graphics card at stock settings at 10 megapixel resolution which is approx 20% greater than 4K resolution, so it seems logical, that 7850 would achieve similar results running an 8 megapixels (which is approx 20% lower value than 10 megapixels and the card itself is also approx 20% weaker).

Dude, please don't post in here again, you have no concept of how things work...

PS3 can drive 4k display at 550fps? Yes if you want your games to look like this..



Or it can drive 720p at 30fps and you games look like this



And 6.36x greater is still not 8x is it? So making your claim completely and utterly irrelevant... and your experience of running at 7870 at 10MP is even more worthless...

Well you obviously have concept well in hand how things work so why don't you enlighten me. As a scientist I'm keeping an open mind so if my argument is proven wrong I have no problems changing my mind. You did bring up a max theoretical pixel fill rate, which is a valid point, as it shows the theoretical maximum that can be achieved on a given set of hardware and I did show that this is not an limiting factor in this case as even a current gen console has a high enough maximum theoretical pixel fillrate for a 4K display - obvisously there is more into that as current gen console has trouble driving even 1080p well enough. So the max theoretical pixel fillrate is - in my opinion - not an adequate "measuring stick" for saying if the system can or can not drive a 4K resolution at acceptable quality and frame rate.

Now as far as my experience of running games at 10 megapixels is "even more worthless" - would you care to explain how so and why ? As far as I can see its pretty relevant as I'm doing so on a very similar hardware when compared to that next gen console we are talking about here. i.e., my 1055T + 7870 against A10 + 7850.

You asked for it...

Comparing max fillrate is perfectly fine as long as you compare max filrate for all parts, in which case we're comparing the max fillrate of RSX and a 7850 so the comparison is a fair one to make, if we were to compare 7850 max fillrate vs RSX's actual then that would be unfair. It should also be noted that because of how efficient developers end up running code on console parts they always get much closer to there max numbers then equivalent PC parts do.

Memory bandwidth, shader ops, Texel rate, all of these do not scale linear with resolution increases, Fill rate does scale linear with resolution which is why I chose to use it. If you render at 8x the resolution you'll need ~8x the fillrate, but you will not need 8x the memory bandwidth, shader ops...etc...etc... as they do not scale linear.

Your comparisons are worth less, why in the blue hell are you using Source in your examples? It's a very old engine and has graphics that are greatly out matched by games on current consoles and will be made to look even older by the next generation set of consoles.

Next generation games are going to completely and utterly raise the bar on graphics, they'll be an order of magnitude above anything we have out right now and yet you test Lost Coast and conclude that because your card can play this extremely dated game at 6MP it meens that a 7850 can manage next generation games at 8MP? Please, have you heard your self?



Seriously, you're using that as a basis for next generation?

What would you say the best looking game out is right now? Crysis 2? BF3? Metro 2033? Well next generation launch games will make those look extremely dated but as they're the best looking games right now we'll use those as a comparison...

Here's BF3 running high ( Not even Ultra!!! ) with 4xAA at 5760x1080



Now Crysis 2, maxed out with 4xAA



Metro 2033 high with 4xAA ( Not even maxed out )



And yet you seem to think that a 7850 can run NEXT GENERATION games at 4k?

Seriously......

The original 7800GTX was 430Mhz, nVidia raised the specifications after launch much like AMD easily could with the HD7850 due to great yields while not really increasing power consumption much.

Some will have compatibility, indie games for example, much like how the PS2 had a few games that could do 1080i..How many people had a PS2 with component cables and a TV capable of that resolution?

I hear ya but your looking in the past, GPU's have gotten much more power hungry and power limits will more then likely stay the same.

A 7850 at stock clocks has a TDP of 130w

An A10 5800K APU also has a TDP of 100w

So just for the GPU's and CPU ( Not counting, HDD, Blu-Ray Drive, memory and other chips ) you're already consuming more then the entire launch PS3 system did ( 206w )

So increasing clocks is not a viable option.

Me
Edited by almighty15 - 11/13/12 at 6:13am

I don't mean to have a fight in here over this. But doesn't stuff like clockspeed matter in this? If the RSX runs at 500 and the 6670 at 800-900 or even at least at 700 I don't see why it couldn't be. Also I based my x6 on one of the numerous previous threads floating on this forum about this subject. I am no expert on this, not claiming to be one.

But if it is to really go 1080p then it'll need a bit of mussle since (like you said) the change from 720p to 1080p already costs a lot of performance. Add the fact we want extra detail, more players on maps, better lighting effects and bigger maps with that and they need to step up the hardware. I mean just playing the current games in 1080p is not enough.

@HD7850 TDP; it does not contain a HD7850, it will only be a HD7850 GPU on the motherboard. Also it probably will not be a stock HD7850. They have enough improvement now they can have similar hardware with a lower TDP.
Edited by Hukkel - 11/13/12 at 6:05am

Nope.... Not a thing...

A 7850 will be able to allow native 1080p on all games AND a the bump in visual quality that people will expect to see from them.