Well the PS4 announced yesterday. I dont see it making it nor do I hope it makes launch it before christmas. It shouldnt be in a rushed competition. I also feel like its being shrugged at like theres more sarcasm than excitement. Wheres all the hype about it? Kinda want to see what Microsoft has to offer though too, but I probly wont buy another system for another 3 years atleast.

The PS4's specs are weird. In one sense, I find myself thinking "it's about time consoles started out AHEAD of the curve and took some lessons from the PC cousins". On the other hand, I find myself thinking "so...it's a 2-year-old PC then?" The Xbox used very dated PC tech as well, and managed a decent lifespand. In a way, it's a good thing: x86 processor architecture means porting and cross-platform development between PC and PS4 will be far easier (especially compared to the WTF-were-they-thinking "Cell" core in the PS3). That benefits gamers on both sides. But it also means that, while some of the console feels like it has FINALLY gotten things right, the rest feels like it's starting out well behind the curve, which doesn't bode well for the console's overall lifespan or scalability.

The good stuff:
A CONSOLE FINALLY HAS ENOUGH VIDEO RAM TO DO SOMETHING WITH!!!! AND IT'S GDDR5!!! AFTER FOUR GENERATIONS of wondering what the HELL the designers were thinking when packing in so little texture memory, I'm finally looking at specs that make sense. Someone FINALLY woke up and realized you can't drive HD or 4k video at decent framerates without a lot of memory. 2GB is WAY more than I could have hoped for (more than my midrange videocard has!!!)

The dedicated "download core" to enable downloading media while playing games. Great idea. It's about effing time consoles could multitask like proper computers. My quad-core phone and pentacore tablet can do it. For crying out loud, even the 3DS can run a web browser and a game simultaneously (something the PSVita is hilariously incapable of) A "next gen" console sure as Hell needs the capability. I am concerned about storage media access conflicts (writing downloads to an HDD while trying to read for game data). On my PC, I can download a half-dozen Steam games while streaming Netflix on one monitor and playing Legend of Grimrock on the other. But I have three hard discs. The PS4 will have one. Better have a GOOD one with a decent size cache.

As an AMDphile (despite having nVidia power in my tablet and an Intel processor in my gaming rig--both of which I am very fond of), I like seeing AMD building parts for volume-production stuff like this.

Multicore x86 means hopefully we'll see more developers taking advantage of process threading, which could translate over to PC ports (or the other way around, since the console can now benefit from threading in the same way as modern PCs). So we should see some performance and efficiency improvements.

The confusing stuff:
It's supposed to have 8GB of GDDR5 (though some sources are saying 2GB of GDDR5 and 6GB of DDR3). How is a 32 bit (x86) processor addressing that much memory? 32 bits strings can only describe 4096MB. That's half the PS4's RAM total. If it's really an x64 processor and someone's confused, that'd explain it...and be a nice upgrade.
If it's 32bit, well...I'd rather see fewer cores and 64 bit. Although I imagine 8 cores will help with multitasking, even my "8-core" (4 hyperthreaded) PC rarely utilizes more than 6 at a time under HEAVY multitasking...something the PS4 will never see.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:x86 processor architecture means porting and cross-platform development between PC and PS4 will be far easier...

A CONSOLE FINALLY HAS ENOUGH VIDEO RAM AND IT'S GDDR5!!! / Someone FINALLY woke up and realized you can't drive HD or 4k video at decent framerates without a lot of memory

I am concerned about storage media access conflicts...

How is a 32 bit (x86) processor addressing that much memory?...

x86 = Better PC ports and easier development. I'm glad they're on board but upset it took this long. The downside, what separates each console from the PC? As far as I'm concerned, now all consoles are just PCs. Why not just go PC? At this point what is the difference? All that is needed is a unified UI to look like a console and the difference would be negligible. Makes me wonder what kind of anti-pirating measures Sony and MS will put forth.

GDDR5 is great for bandwidth but terrible for latency. If the entire thing runs on GDDR5 it will be interesting to see how they optimize the UI/OS to work with such high latency memory. The specs of the new consoles are no where good enough to run 4k gaming; it would take 3 Nvidia Titans to run 4k resolutions with reasonable fps. That being said, I think they went over kill on the memory but more is better than less so it isn't a huge issue.

I don't see media access as an issue. The new consoles are going to be using HDD so speed won't be a huge part of the experience. Modern HDDs using SATA can operate any where from 50-100 MBps and so the question is can you saturate that bandwidth by downloading while reading off the HDD? My guess is no. I have a HDD dock that is plugged into a USB port, it can move data at around 20MBps. I manage to run Skyrim off that dock with out issue while DLing to it at 6MBps. So out of a 20MBps bandwidth I can DL and play with out any issues which means that gaming doesn't require huge amounts of data throughput. If this current generation of console lasts for 8 years like the PS3/360 did, than hopefully media access will be an issue because internet speeds will increase 10x in that time. Right, right guys?

THANK YOU! During the announcement they mentioned x86, I was relieved. Then they said 8GBs of RAM, I then I said "x86, like 32-bit. How the hell is that supose to work?" No one has mentioned any thing about that so I was wondering if I was crazy.

Also I just want to state that the PS3 and 360 both had multi-core processors so I'm not sold on this hype about multi tasking. The fact that they need to deticate a core to DLing seems weird. PCs don't work like that, they share work as needed, they don't keep a core inactive by dedicating it to DLing. I'm skeptical.

alms24sebring wrote:It shouldn't be in a rushed competition. I also feel like its being shrugged at like theres more sarcasm than excitement.

It's all about releasing first. Xbox did it ahead of PS3 and they had tons of RRoD issues but that didn't stop consumers from buying their 2nd Xbox 360s. Granted it helped MS that the PS3 came out like a year later. I think in this case, if some one releases early, it will be like a 2 month window instead of 12 months.

RCA wrote:The downside, what separates each console from the PC?

Accessibility and consistency. That's what it comes down to. When you buy a console you're paying for a pain-free experience. Plug it in and go. From a development and product side, having the same hardware across the board means you can guarantee good quality for all users. These are the main benefits that consoles get in exchange for being locked-down and uncustomizable.
And, of course, the OS and attached services (storefront, social/multiplayer, etc.). I'm terrified that the OS for the PS4 is going to be horrid, primarily based on my experience with the goofy iPhone-wannabe PS Vita and it's stupid bubble icons that look like they fell straight out of 2001. I get the feeling no one at Sony ever used a touchscreen device before designing the Vita, and instead did comprehensive google image searches for iphone screenshots.

RCA wrote:Modern HDDs using SATA can operate any where from 50-100 MBps and so the question is can you saturate that bandwidth by downloading while reading off the HDD?

Trying to do simultaneous random read/write processes on a single physical HDD throws those numbers out the window. If you're downloading one thing while attempting to read game data for another thing, both will suffer. It's not a matter of straight bandwidth. It's a physical limitation of HDDs. Data is in physically different spots. This also contributes to (and results from, in a nasty continous cycle) data fragmentation.
High end SSDs are much better in this regard (though low end flash memory, like the stuff in my Nexus 7, performs very poorly when doing multiple random read and write operatons simultaneously). Bandwidth and buffer/cache are part of the picture, but in the end you've got one read head trying to do more than one thing. Neither will happen optimally.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Accessibility and consistency. That's what it comes down to. And, of course, the OS and attached services (storefront, social/multiplayer, etc.)

Trying to do simultaneous random read/write processes on a single physical HDD throws those numbers out the window.

Isn't Steam or Nvida working on a data base that suggests graphics settings based on your hardware? Also after installing most modern games, the settings in the config file change according to my hardware. Is it because you have the option to mess with it that overwhelms people? Just install it and don't touch the settings, just like an Xbox! Also Steam is a "store front".

As for the HDD example I gave...

I'm using a WD 1TB Black (SATA 3Gb) plugged into a USB dock. It's USB2.0 so the fastest I have seen it can go is about 20MBps (files with 1 or 2 large items). I torrent to this drive and I install all my games to this drive; I also have a OS drive. My machine can run Skyrim (thousands of tiny file reads) while downloading video/gaming related things to the same drive. This is with a restrictive USB2 port; I am sure you can run PS4 games while DLing a PS4 game. The load times can be a bit slow at times but the game runs without any issues. I think a majority of times it's going to utilize the RAM more than it is the HDD.