Would an 800$ console with great games sell well?

Nope

Your argument is flawed. The Cell was designed to be an all in one generalized processor doing both regular cpu workloads through the PPE and handling graphics through the SPE's. Fact is that the Cell was not up to snuff by itself to even come close to Geforce 6/7 era gpus or the xbox 360. This is why sony delayed the PS3 and threw in the RSX geforce 7800 gtx (cut down G70). The Cell was not good at being a normal cpu or gpu by itself. Them augmenting or offloading certain workloads onto the SPE's was their only way to be comparable in raw power to the more advanced architecture of the 360 or PC cpus and gpus from 2006 onward.

As a regular cpu the Cell sucked so bad that its performance hurt a lot of multiplat game performance. The PPE's performance was abysmal.

Hell no. Consoles are consoles. They're supposed to be low entry cost machines. When you pay that kind of money you may as well get a PC and give yourself more options. I'm gonna laugh my ass off if either of these companies brings out a high-end model at that cost.

I dont think pc gamers would be able to handle an exclusive on an $800 console.

First, I am not a fanboy shill like yourself who is perpetually bitter that he can only game on one specific platform. Don't take out your stress out on me because you have limited options. :)

Its funny you call PC fannies graphic whores when we have two threads written by your kind talking about graphics. You may want to reconsider your claim but who am I fooling you hate admitting be wrong. :)

@rmpumper: Beats me too. Maybe the answer is that teenagers spend much more time on those stupid tiny phone screens than gaming on consoles.

@Juub1990: The next generation consoles are unlikely to rival the fidelity of the latest PC with all the highest spec components.

It will not be $800 either. I suspect, it will cost around the same as the previous generation plus an extra $50-85.

Microsoft and Sony are going to be facing more competition this time with Google Stadia also launching.

Additionally, there are some fairly high expectations of another global recession around the corner, so launching a very expensive product next year will not be a smart move.

I want to add, @bassman surely the definition of a peasant is someone without much money. So why would you say, “most peasants don’t have the money.” Have you ever met a rich peasant?

I also believe consoles by their very definition are dedicated gaming machines.

A rich person may have money but he certainly cannot buy intellect.

A peasant can become a rich man, but a stupid man will always be stupid.

Peasants is just referring to console gamers. There is PC Master Race and the dirty console peasants....

It is all in good fun and not to be taken seriously. Also, there are rich that live among the poor and may not want to live with the upper class.

The Neo Geo didn't sell well because of the price of the GAMES, not the hardware. The Neo Geo gold sold for $649 and included two controllers and one game. After that, new games retailed for $299 each. Yes they were amazing graphically and blew away the SNES, Genesis and TG-16 but that is $299 per game in the early 90s. :o

@Pedro:

The ps3 was the stronger console at it's time (just barely though). The 360 had the stronger GPU, but the ps3 CPU not only trumped the 360's CPU, but also helped the GPU in the ps3 to get "slightly" better better results. It just took much more money and development time/talent to get the ps3 there.

You can't argue its stronger when the worse version of games were found on the PS3 and the GPU is where most of the workload takes place and its GPU was the weaker of the two. Everything on the PS3 was sluggish when compared to the 360. I know because I owned several. Theoretical performance is useless when real world applications cannot reflect it.

@Pedro:

Easier =/= More powerful. It was easier to develop on the 360 vs the ps3, and porting it over to the ps3 wasn't a great tactic. You say that real world applications didn't reflect this but I beg to differ. 1st of all, the ps3 exclusives looked MUCH better than 99% of the 360's exclusives, and while most multiplats looked better on the 360, not all of them did, one in particular was Burnout Paradise. They were relatively the same machine, however the 360 was easier to program for, but with the more talent/money, the ps3 could produce better results.

Come on dude give it up. 360 games ran better than PS3 versions 90% of the time and devs spent more of their time and budget optimizing games for the PS3 than for the 360.

As far as an $800 console, don't think that would be a good idea even though it should mean some amazing HW.

IMO, $600 will be the new $400. So PS5 & XB2 could possibly launch at $600 with $650 worth of HW.

$500 is my top out and it has to have at least one game I want to play on it at the time I pick it up with at least 5 in the pipe that at least look good if not great.

So you wouldn't spend an extra $100 if it meant saying bye bye to load times with an SSD, Ray tracing HW and real desk top grade CPU's??

Think about it, XB1X launched at $500 with a 6 TF GPU, Enhanced Jaguar CPU, 12 Gigs of Ram, and 384 bit bus in a 14nm node.

Next gen will be 7nm. You will be getting 4X the CPU performance, over 2 times the GPU performance, 16 - 24 Gigs of GDDR6 Ram, plus an SSD to lower or eliminate load times. That's sounds like $600 hardware to me but maybe Sony and MS take an initial bloodbath and sell for $500 with the hopes of making it up with software and service sales.

@EG101: Correct. $500 max.

Well... plus tax.

I’d buy it

That has nothing to do with power and more with the time to triangle a game on PS3,it was incredibly hard to make games for PS3 even more so than the PS2,which is why most games ended fu** up.

Some games were superior on PS3 but few it wasn't power the problem it was coding.

Yes and the PS3 CPU offloaded GPU task from its GPU.

It was a case of 2 vs 1.

The xbox 360 GPU was more advance but had to do all by it self,the RSX was weaker but had very capable CPU that could run GPU task.

The Xenos got no help the RSX did which is why games that to push the PS3 show it,and some multiplatforms ended been better late in the race.

Lets compare GT for example vs Forza.

Forza on xbox 360 was lock to 720p 60FPS,while GT runs at much higher resolution and im for those same 60FPS sure it has some drops but considering that is rendering at higher resolution than the 360 is ok.

GT6 runs at 1440x1080p

Forza 1280x720p

Oh and that is without taking into account that GT6 does have weather while Forza 4 doesn't which put even more stress on the engine.

The PS3 was more powerful but the effort it took to make its games shine would not be endure by most developers,add to this that the 360 was the lead platform for most games and it gets even worse for sony.

Compare Any Halo vs Killzone.

Uncharted vs Gears

Hell TLOU was basically the best looking game last gen and wasn't on 360.

Cerny cited a concept he called "time-to-triangle," which he described as the time required to code graphical systems at a level the hardware's capable of, essentially analogous to how long it takes to create the base for games that match the hardware's graphical power. According to Cerny, the PS1's time-to-triangle was one to two months, while the powerful but more complicated PS2 had a time-to-triangle of three to six months. The PS3's time-to-triangle went up to six months to a year as a result of the complex Cell processor, well documented as turning third-party developers away from prioritizing the system.

https://www.engadget.com/2013/06/28/cerny-ps4s-time-to-triangle-to-rival-ps1/

In case you want to argue my point,the PS3 took to freaking long to triangle 3 to 6 times more than the PS1.

Which is why the PS4 turn out so easy to code for.

Dude $649 dollars on a time were you could buy a burguerking whooper combo for $2.99 the minimum wage back then was like $3.50 an hour,didn't rise to $5.25 until like 97 sure not everyone was at that wage but it tells the story.

The Snes was like $149 i think the gap in price was astronomical,the Neogeo was basically an arcade board sold to people power wise it destroy consoles but was ultra expensive and out of reach of most people when it came.

But that had nothing to do with power and more to do with dificulty of programing.

Developers have a deadline believe or not,they simply will not put more effort into one version over the other when already one of them is more effort from the start.

This kind of crap was proven hell first year PS3 games didn't even use SPE properly,some games didn't even use them which put the PS3 at a great disadvantage.

360 games ran better not because of power but because the PS3 was too difficult.

Most developer would take the game to a playbable point and not further,this was proven with call of duty,when the developer team did such a poor job porting the game from 360,that they actually let inside the PS3 version a part that say NO xbox live party chat on a search and destroy mode,since when the PS3 had party chat or xbox live?

@tormentos: More noise. Deal with the fact that the PS3 was the worse performer of the two. I didn't bother reading any of that tripe because you can't change facts despite how hard you and your faction love to do. :) The PS3 was weak shit.

@Pedro: ps3 made Sony into the exclusive power House it is today, so it's a win win situation.

No, Sony made the exclusive power house that it is today. The PS3 didn't. Accept the console was shit and move on. :)

@Pedro: if ps3 hadn't struggled on release, sony wouldn't have bothered pushing exclusives so hard like it did.

I will concede to that train of thought.

If Sony approached ATI for PPE 4C/8T + RV570** configuration, the resulting PS3 alternative would give Xbox 360's GPU a run for it's money or beat it.

**Re-allocate PS3's XDR bus budget towards 192 bit bus GDDR3 enabled and re-allocate PS3's 4 of 8 SPUs budget towards RV570 with 16 ROPS, hence building PS3 with PS4's concept back in year 2006 era.

ATI R500 series GPUs are the first PC GPU family that can process geometry shading/tessellation by it's pixel shaders to feed vertex shaders. Havok physics GpGPU was done 1st on R500 series GPUs. ATI R500 failed full DX10 test.

X1800 XT (R520, 8 vertex shaders SIMD units, full speed 16 pixel shaders SIMD units, 16 ROPS) beats GeForce 7800 GTX (G70 with 16 ROPS).

Xbox 360's GPU has 48 unified shaders SIMD units with 8 ROPS

PS3's GPU is G70 based with 8 ROPS.

ATI/NVIDIA didn't allow game consoles to match PC's raster power.

X1800 XT almost rivals dual GeForce 7800 GT

Sony(SCEA)'sstudypaper on "Deferred Pixel Shading on the Playstation 3" and comparative performance to Geforce 7800 GTX. Can be found from http://research.scea.com/ps3_deferred_shading.pdf

Quote

D. Comparison to GeForce 7800 GTX GPU

We implemented the same algorithm on a high end state of

the art GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX running in a

Linux workstation. This GPU has 24 fragment shader

pipelines running at 430 Mhz and processes 24 fragments

in parallel. By comparison the 5 SPEs that we used process

20 pixels in parallel in quad-SIMD form.

The GeForce required 11.1 ms to complete the shading

operation. In comparison the Cell/B.E. required 11.65 ms

including the DMA waiting time

From Sony's own words, 5 SPEs(with DMA) is roughly equal to Geforce 7800 GTX.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132297/processing_the_truth_an_interview_.php?page=3

"I'm going to have to answer with an 'it depends,'" laughs Shippy, after a pause. "Again, they're completely different models. So in the PS3, you've got this Cell chip which has massive parallel processing power, the PowerPC core, multiple SPU cores… it's got a GPU that is, in the model here, processing more in the Cell chip and less in the GPU. So that's one processing paradigm -- a heterogeneous paradigm."

"With the Xbox 360, you've got more of a traditional multi-core system, and you've got three PowerPC cores, each of them having dual threads -- so you've got six threads running there, at least in the CPU. Six threads in Xbox 360, and eight or nine threads in the PS3 -- but then you've got to factor in the GPU," Shippy explains. "The GPU is highly sophisticated in the Xbox 360."

He concludes: "At the end of the day, when you put them all together, depending on the software, I think they're pretty equal, even though they're completely different processing models."

For graphics processing, having two six-SPE cluster chip and RSX chip will increase latency. No sane GPU vendor has followed PS3's split graphics processing model.

Note why RT accelerated hardware placed next to GPU's texture management units, hint: lowest latency goals. Both BVH RT cores (geometry data read and processing from texture cache) and TMU access texture cache to ultimately feed the shader units. Note the similar concept from R500 GPU's pixel shader units processing geometry data as texture read and feeding vertex shaders.

ATI R500 GPU's pixel shader units can process geometry data to aid vertex displacement mapping, tessellation and geometry control dot physics.

A home console cannot pick up mainstream sales on a console that costs over £400.

Market share is more important to them.

@tormentos: I don't think the CELL was 'ahead of the curb', CPUs are designed for purpose and the CELL was designed for a different direction, one which never took off.

The PS3 was supposed to be a launch pad for the CELL just like with BluRay, but it never caught on.

Just a different direction. APUs were eventually the prefered direction.

@EG101:

I'm not saying that they didn't, but saying that devs spent the time and resources to fully optimize the ps3 versions of multiplats is asinine. That's part of the reason why multiplats ran look/ran better on the 360. Again easier =/= more powerful. Exclusives proved this to an extent.

IBM CELL wasn't a real "Fusion APU" as per AMD's definition due to the following differences

1. PPE and SPU has slightly different IEEE-754 FP32 results while GCN IEEE-754-2008 and Intel SSE's IEEE-754 handling has the same FP32 results. GCN IEEE-754-2008 supports all the round modes like Intel SSE FP32.

In a normal SMP system, FP rounding modes handling are the same across multiple CPU cores.

2. PPE's Pointer can't used as implied load data operation for SPU due to SPU's inability to directly access main memory i.e. manual fetch DMA action.

Pointer sharing between CPU and GPU is part of hardware accelerated tiled resource operations.

In a normal SMP system, pointers are shared across multiple CPU cores.

3. AMD GCN and X86 CPU can exchange pointers as implied data load and GCN's cache handles like X86-64 CPU cache page size and cache coherency.

PPE's cache and SPU's local data store behaves differently.

Common memory paging and cache coherency between CPU and GPU is part of hardware accelerated tiled resource operations. Hardware accelerated tiled resource recycled X86 style virtual memory allocation and memory paging allocation hardware.

In a normal SMP system, relevant memory pages are shared across multiple CPU's caches by cache coherency hardware.

Unlike CELL's SPU, GCN acts like X86 CPU node on the memory bus.

IBM designed SPU like DSP.

@tormentos said:

This is the only thing i will address from your shitty post you blind ms ass kissing machine.

My argument is not FLAWED because is not based on what an intel CPU need to offload or not,my argument is based on the fact that Intel core 2 duo could not offload GPU taks period,which is why Cell kicked the living crap out of those CPU when the topic was GPU oriented task.

So Cell could handle GPU task,the Core 2 Duo could not so which was more advance CPU for graphics?

My argument is not flawed is your small sony hater mind the problem here,you see Cell and you come running to downplay it,and you have done it on the past as well using Nvidia 8800 vs Cell when Cell is a CPU not a GPU,again is a hybrid design period,why don't you use that 8800 vs Cell running an OS to see which is better? Oh right CPU oriented task are better handle by Cell.

Yeah Just like GPU handle task are handle better by an 8800 period.

Your argument is flawed since PC with DX10 GPU doesn't need PS3's CELL patching RSX's hardware flaws.

GCN has compute shaders to handle it's flaws e.g. back face culling broken hardware workload.

This is NOT about kissing MS and this issue is about pure hardware not software.

My Sam460ex with PowerPC 460ex CPU and AmigaOS 4.1 FE PowerPC (I have purchased AmigaOS 4.1 FE license).

SAM460ex uBoot BIOS is not tinted by MS's ACPI config. Fu-off with your "blind ms ass kissing machine".

PS; AmigaOS 4.x GPU choice is AMD GCN (Polaris) with NAVI driver currently being developed. Register level modern NVIDIA GPU documentation is very difficult to obtain.

Amiga PowerPC platform is older than Sony's PS3. Newer AmigaOne X5000 hardware uses a 64-bit PowerPC e5500 Architecture-based microprocessor core from Freescale Semiconductor which is similar to IBM's PowerPC 970MP with modern I/O and consumes less power. X5000's CPU scales from dual cores to quad cores.

----

Intel Core 2 Duo can handle software render via Swiftshader DX8/DX9 render with just-in-time re-compiler LLVM software tech just like a typical PC GPU driver.

Specs: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.93 ghz with overclocked to 3.5 Ghz

Render: Intel CPU via Swiftshader.

Swiftshader example has the CPU handling both GPU shading and raster workloads.

CELL's SPE only runs in "user mode" and it doesn't have 68K supervisor/user mode division, hence it would fail unix basic OS doctrine. PowerPC follows 68K's supervisor/user mode division while X86 CPU has ring level modes.

SPE doesn't behave like PowerPC in relation to cache coherency and pointer handling which is implied data load while SPE only has manual explicit data load. I know more about PowerPC than you.

when the $600 PS4 came out, i took my money to a variety of online parts stores and built a gaming PC for the same price as the PS4.. i could play every single game that came out on higher settings than the PS4, i still can today, at higher frame rates for the same price plus have a system i could do more than just play video games on

at $800 i could easily build an even better one.. $800 will get you a ryzen 5 and RX590 system easily.. if $800 was the launch price, consider console gaming to be on its last legs.. which wouldnt surprise me consider both xbox and PS4 exclusives are coming to PC via their respective subscription services (xbox game pass and the playstation equivalent, both on PC)

My argument is not flawed at all. YOU have to FALLOW the argument.

Cell is a CPU that could offload GPU task but it was a CPU,no GPU in 2005 ran at 3.2ghz both PPE and SPE run at 3.2ghz.

So can the pentiun core 2 duo offload GPU YES OR NO? Not it could not.

Can the any of those GPU you named run a OS? Or run CPU task?

Cell wasn't as good as a stand alone GPU,but was better as a GPU than the core 2 dou was,and was better as a CPU than any Nvidia GPU.

This is my point period Cell was a novelty and no core 2 dou was even close to Cell running GPU task not even close.

So no my argument is not flawed,because my argument wasn't Cell been better as a CPU than an intel core 2 dou or better as a GPU than a discrete GPU you can quote me if you think i say that.

NO it wasn't the performance of Cell as a CPU what hurt it on multiplatforms and is very well known,it was its difficult of programing don't change history is there.

You are a blind lemming and nothing you say here will change that,the worse fanboys on this place are those who can't see them self as fanboys yet are here all day defending they company they cheer for.

I own both an xbox one and a PS4,and no i am not confined to 1 platform,gaming has grown stale on me,because most game seem like the same shit re skinned.

Yeah i guess those 2 thread make for the years and years of hyping superior graphics.

WTF were did i claim other wise? I love how you changed the tune from your shitty argument to the PS3 was the worse performer..lol

Sure you didn't read it..Hahahahaa

Fact is this.

Xenos >> RSX

Cell >>> Xenon

Cell + RSX > Xenos + Xenon.

Dificulty of programing has allot to do with the PS3 performing like it did.

The Cell was not your typical cpu...... It was a multicore processor, it had a a single general purpose processor with 7 coprocessors. The original design of the Cell For the PS3 was to use the SPE's as a gpu to begin with and the PPE as a typical cpu element.

So the question of if a core duo offload gpu workloads is flawed. Have no need or use to do so in that environment......

The point your making that can any gpu run a OS or do tasks just on the gpu is really dumb..... Again a flawed argument

Again your point that that the Cell was a better gpu than a C2D and better cpu than a gpu is again a really an astern way to prove what? The cell had better flexibility in multi purpose usage?

Your point that the Cell beating a x86 cpu part outperforming in gpu related tasks proves what again? Nothing.... flawed point

The Cell cpu did hurt multiplatform based games because of its lack of processing power of its PPE, and the fact you could not offload all cpu tasks to the SPE's while trying augments/offloading some tasks off of the RSX..... we all know how hard the coding was for the PS3 to try to tap all the un-allocated resources. However you ignoring the lack of processing power in un parallel tasks does not make "me" change the history.... just because you cant cope with PS3 as a whole was a design failure.

@ronvalencia: I never said the CELL was an APU. I said it was a different direction.

Wrong, Battelfield 3 uses SPUs for it's deferred render for it's lights and PS3 hasn't proven performance superiority over Xbox 360.

Remember, 2 of 6 available SPUs has to be allocated to be two PPE CPU core game workload roles, hence leaving just 4 SPUs to patch the RSX.

Xbox 360 GPU has 48 unified shaders with 192 pixel co-processors coupled with 8 ROPS which handles DX12 like Raster Ordered Views i.e. transparency layers can be re-ordered without shader/stream compute/CPU resource being used.

The developer for Xbox 360 DX12 emulator revealed a NDA information on Xbox 360's ROPS handling and the need to re-map Xbox 360's ROPS into DX12's ROPS ROV feature. Prior to AMD's DirectX12 Feature 12_1 GPUs with transparency layer re-order, AMD advised compute shader workaround (patching) for pre-Vega ROPS.

Xbox 360 GPU has more fix function GPU hardware when compared to PS3's RSX GPU e.g. flexible ROPS, tessellation and async compute submission which on PS3 has to be emulated via SPUs.

Your argument is flawed since Core 2 Duo doesn't need to patch GeForce 8 GPU series just as like Xbox 360's CPU and GPU relationship.

Core 2 Duo brute forces command list submission into the GeForce 8 GPU.

Try again.

GT6 = 1440x 1080p 60FPS with sime drops and WEATHER effects.

Forza 4 = 1280x720 60FPS no Weather what so ever.

Spin it any way you like it.

This is funny since Forza developer confirmed they leave weather out because of a hit to performance,and still ran at lower resolution than GT6.

The same with Halo and Killzone and Gears and Uncharted or TLOU again which had higher fidelity than MS games.

That's apples to pears comparison.

GT6 runs with morphological (MLAA) solution. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-vs-gran-turismo-6

When all of these elements are combined we encountered frame-rates that can reach the low 40s in 1080p mode

...

There is a workaround to these performance issues, however. As with GT5, engaging the 720p mode manages to solve most of the more severe frame-rate problems. Tearing and slowdown still occur using this mode, but the game manages to hit the intended 60fps much more consistently. Image quality definitely takes a hit - especially in terms of the MLAA, which has fewer pixels to work with - but the performance improvement is worth the sacrifice.

----------------

Forza 4 runs with MSAA 4X. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-forza-motorsport-4

Forza 4's 1280x720p is locked at 60 fps (switching camera causes some frame drop).

Try again.

Since you love yo read what you like..

GT6 arrived with a wealth of new content along with numerous changes and improvements to the underlying technology - we're seeing state-of-the-art features that aren't even present in the next-gen Forza Motorsport 5.

Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....

Same article.

GT6 includes an updated real-time lighting solution designed to allow for realistic time of day changes.

Not even Forza 5 on xbox one has this.

As a matter of FACT GT did MSAA x4 before Forza 4 did it..lol

That said, achieving 4x MSAA with frame-rates and details as high as this is indeed a technical achievement unmatched by any of Polyphony's competitors (Forza 3 is 720p with 2x MSAA, for example), and there is a definite feeling that Kazunori Yamauchi's team likes to push boundaries like this.

While also having night racing and weather which not even Forza 5 on xbox one had and GT5 came years before Forza 5 and before Forza 4 as well.

TRY again loser.

@tormentos: You wrote something. It must be something interesting.

Again, your argument is based on apples to pears comparison when it's NOT targeting the same workload and art assets.

GT5's dipping near 40 fps during game-play would indicates the need for extra 32 percent performance headroom margin.

Battlefield 3 targets the same workload and art assets on both PS3 and Xbox 360, and EA DICE is not rookies on PowerPC programming. Hint: EA has backed the failed PowerPC based 3DO M2 gaming platform.

DICE has used SPUs for tiled deferred rendering and MLAA on PS3 while it's tiled deferred rendering "ALU mode" and (NVIDIA) FXAA on Xbox 360's GPU.

SSAO is "heavier" on Xbox 360 when compared to PS3's SSAO.

Xbox 360's version has alpha/transparencies effects performance advantage over PS3's version.

3DO M2 is powered by dual PowerPC 602 at 66 MHz. PowerPC 602 is a relative to simple Power Processing Element (PPE).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_600#PowerPC_602

The PowerPC 602 was a stripped down version of PowerPC 603, specially made for game consoles by Motorola and IBM, introduced in February 1995.^[24] It has smaller L1 caches (4 KB instruction and 4 KB data), a single-precision floating-point unit^[24] and a scaled back branch prediction unit. It was offered at speeds ranging from 50 to 80 MHz, and drew 1.2 W at 66 MHz. It consisted of 1 million transistors and it was 50 mm² large manufactured in a 0.5 µm, CMOS process with four levels of interconnect.^[25]

PowerPC 602 has similar cut-down approach as PPE e.g. branch prediction hardware scaled back.

http://www.cpushack.com/CIC/embed/announce/IBMPowerPC602.html

PowerPC 602 was optimized for integer graphics related DSP work.

Try again johnny-come-lately mad cow.

I think $500 will just be acceptable starting next gen, gamers are getting older and have more money to spend.

$800? Lol, no way.

gamers in general are getting younger not older.... Ive been gaming since the early 90's, I resent that comment..... lol

What if game prices rise to $79.99

Welcome to Canada.

@BassMan:

Seriously @ 80?

How much for a ps4, $800?

It's a good thing I live in the United States ;)