The way I read it is that it’s not a literal separate gpu on the motherboard but a separate one on the SoC. They took the block of transistors that make it up and made separate “copy” of it. So it is kind of like two GPUs just on one die.
stusser
3082
He said they mirrored it, but if it was truly two GPUs they wouldn’t share memory directly and there’d be a lot of duplication for things like video acceleration, command scheduling, schedulers, etc, beyond just the cores and CUs, which wastes space on your die.
Brad’s explanation makes the most sense-- they doubled the number of GPU cores and CUs and increased the clockspeed. When you run a non-pro aware game, they disable half the cores/CUs and clock it down.
RickH
3083
That’s too bad, I liked the paralell bewteen a GPU sandwich and the exterior “sandwich” design.
stusser
3084
Would need to be three of 'em to mirror the externals!
Both were reporting on the same presentation. I believe the Verge are just misquoting and the Eurogamer account is accurate. Cerny was also trying to explain to lay people how it worked so his metaphor of using a mirror image of the current GPU is getting misconstrued. When you double the execution units in a GPU the layout is often mirrored, that’s just how they look on the die. It’s not actually the current architecture either, since Pro features enhancements from both Polaris and Vega and they added the ID buffer.
Lots of interesting tech in there, and a ton of activity around using novel rendering techniques to produce 4K frames without shading all 8 million pixels individually. You’ll see this kind of stuff spread to every platform since it’s just to effective to ignore.
Pod
3086
I’d trust Eurogamer more, because The Verge wrote this paragraph:
Developers can also patch existing games to run in upscaled 1080p, meaning the image will be a shrunken-down version of a 4K one.
Which is complete nonsense.
stusser
3088
It’s poorly worded, but what they’re talking about is essentially “dynamic super resolution”, where the GPU renders a higher resolution image than the monitor can display then scales it down. This offers markedly superior image quality to traditional anti-aliasing.
So the Verge writer doesn’t know what to properly call it(Super Sampling). Its still a potentially nice feature to make selling the system to 1080p TV owners better.
I really wonder how Sony markets this thing successfully. Does it just end up being seen as only worth it if you also have a 4K TV, which IMO is bad as 4K TV penetration is going to take many years still, or can they sell it as still being worthwhile to all the 1080P TV owners out there.
stusser
3090
That’s right, super sampling is the correct term. Dynamic super resolution is Nvidia’s branding for the feature.
Again, the non-Pro PS4 can’t actually handle 1080p games at high framerates. If you have a 1080p TV, the Pro is what you want. The only reason to get the non-Pro is if the extra hundred bucks actually makes a difference to you, like if you’re buying a console after mowing lawns for the summer and just don’t have the money.
Sony isn’t mandating high frame rates, only 1080p for running on the Pro. So it’s up to each developer how much if any work they put into games running on the Pro to improves the visuals over regular.
Sure, but Pods’ point was that the Verge did not know the word even though Mark Cerny used the correct term to describe it in the event they were reporting on.
stusser
3093
If they put zero work into their games other than saying “use the whole GPU” and QA to ensure it works OK, their game will run faster and hit 1080p. That’s the least you should expect.
True but I’m not sure if that’s enough to,justify a new console, and we have seen more than once where developers show how little they can do when we get PC versions of games…that have a 30fps cap on them at release. So call me suspect about it till after this new “intermediate” consoles is released and we see how it goes with future games as this is new territory for the business.
Shrug
People upgrade mid cycle just to get fancy paint jobs or something a little smaller or quieter. PS4 Pro is a fairly unprecedented value compared to limited edition consoles with maybe a bigger hard drive that have often been sold for the same $100 premium. I can see a special Destiny 2 edition white PlayStation 4 Pro selling like crazy in a year to people who will be excited to get a cool new look and a big bump in visual quality in a single go.
Ugh, why is the Pro hard drive only 1 TB?
Kadath
3097
2 weeks out, when is review embargo up?
It’s an interesting sensation, not being excited for a console release at all. This is a new feeling for me. Even with the Wii U, even though I wasn’t planning on getting one, I was still a little excited for the release. I guess this must have been what people felt when they owned a 3DS and the new 3DS was coming out.
RickH
3099
I’m having a hard time thinking of it as a “new” system at all. More like the iPhone 4s coming out after I got a 4.
PS4Pro is what it feels like when you do an incremental upgrade on the PC you own. It’s like buying a new video card after a couple years just to stay current but not get to the bleeding edge.
