Next generation of consoles 2019: Discussion thread.

Deleted member 110222

D
I'm currently waiting for a task to complete on my computer and am a bit bored. So I thought I'd start a thread on the topic of the next generation of consoles.

I will be extremely surprised if no big hardware reveals are made at this year's E3 in June. Very, very surprised. I remember the build-up to the Xbox One reveal well, and the atmosphere in the console community is similar right now to what it was in 2013. A big part of that atmosphere is, oddly enough, some doubts that there'll be a new system unveiled. At least this is the case with some individuals in my circle of friends.

However at this point it's been six years since the Xbox One and PS4. A lot of people are still running original spec machines, myself included. (My Xbox One is a Day One model. Still works!) I suspect at this point in time, especially with where games have gone in the last few years, these older systems, the Day One models not even being produced anymore, will be seen as holding back games, or at least, it simply won't be possible to put out the latest AAA titles on these platforms for much longer. Many games already run awfully on Xbox One original, but devs' have to push out to the older hardware regardless because Microsoft.

I do honestly think the time is about right for a new batch of consoles. I'm not saying the time is right for me: Frankly I only play Minecraft and a select few older games on my console these days. The real gaming is done on the rig. At some point I'll just get Minecraft on PC and be done with it.

No, I mean that from a technical perspective, I think some of the most hotly anticipated titles, especially a certain open-world game set in a massive city... Simply won't run on the current generation. Maybe the performance models. (Xbox One X/PS4 Pro) But not the base models. I'm basing this off the appalling performance that exists on games already out in the wild and that can be played on the base models today.

So yes, I very much expect new consoles to be unveiled in just a few months at E3.

But my question to you is: What do you expect from the next generation of consoles?

PS I understand that this community is mostly PC-based. Whilst I agree that PC is generally a better platform to game on, I would kindly ask that we refrain from any temptation to bash on console users for the sake of bashing. This discussion is intended to be a place to speculate on what's next for a perfectly valid segment of the gaming community as a whole. Thank you for your understanding.
 
Oh hey, I was starting to worry. Haven't seen you all week. :)

And yes, I think I am going to buy new playstation, probably. I had (have) an old PS3, but I skipped the current gen as there were only maybe two or three games that would justify buying it so it wasn't worth it.
I think it's about time as the development in graphics in particular are REALLY hindered by the current gen consoles.ě
 

Deleted member 110222

D
Oh hey, I was starting to worry. Haven't seen you all week. :)

And yes, I think I am going to buy new playstation, probably. I had (have) an old PS3, but I skipped the current gen as there were only maybe two or three games that would justify buying it so it wasn't worth it.
I think it's about time as the development in graphics in particular are REALLY hindered by the current gen consoles.ě

Haha, yeah. Been busy smashing dungeons in Tamriel. Haven't really read these forums during that time.

I agree. If I look back on it, I don't think the Xbox One provided me value. I still think of the 360 more fondly.

I'm not going to buy the next Xbox on day one. I'll probably wait at least a year. At least.

I am very curious to see what's next though.
 
From what ive read in leaks around the hardware being incorporated into the new games it appears that the biggest change will be with regard to the CPU processing power of the consoles rather than graphics.

Current Generation consoles use a customer designed AMD Jaguar chip which runs at about 1.6 GHZ for PS4 and 2.1 GHZ for PS4+. These chips are designed for power efficiency not performance and therefore limit the actual processing capabilitys of current consoles. They have more in common with the processors in mobile phones than those of your PC.
This then holds back the potential for any graphics processing as the slow processing creates bottlenecks pushing through things like draw calls in graphics. It also limits game complexity. Things like AI require CPU processing, and i suspect one of the reasons that AI in games is rubbish now is that current gen consoles need to use most of their processing power for the graphics and so AI and other CPU intensive tasks get simplified.

Looking forward, both new consoles are getting a custom chip based on the upcoming AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUS. These cpus are expected to launch end of may so we should get a firm idea of their performance then. However the leaks that have emerged hold the potential for these CPUs to be very powerful and very power efficient, infact many people are predicting they will be the fastest mainstream cpus on the planet for gaming.
The console versions of these chips are rumoured to be 8 core 16 thread CPUS clocked down for power efficiency but running at probably around 3 GHZ
Now this will be significantly slower than the PC equivalents, however it still represents a massive increase in available computing power, especially with the multithreaded cores.
This then allows the graphics element of the console to leverage more performance without being bottlenecked by the CPU.

With regard to the graphics element both consoles are supposed to be packing custom versions of AMDs navi chips coming later this year.
For PC players these are aimed at the mainstream market so performance is likely to be around the level of last generation PC cards like AMD Vega64 and NVidia 1080, or this generations RTX2060 and RTX2070 from NVIDIA. Consoles benefit from a uniform system architecture and closer to the metal coding, so actual graphics performance on the console is likely to be somewhat higher than the PC equivalent, and in my opinion probably closer to AMDs VegaVII and NVIDIAs 2080.

This all leads me to believe that the next gen consoles will probably be the first capable of properly supporting vr gaming. It will therefore be interesting to see if this is pushed as a selling point, along with the ability to game at 4k. Im also curious to see if sound will get a big improvement, ashaving many powerful cpu cores will allow a big improvement in spacial sound possibly incorporating ray traced sound.
 
With AMD planning to drop clangers this year with both CPU and GPU's, it will be interesting to see if Ryzen 3000 will be used to its full potential in the new consoles. Ryzen has slower frames than Intel, but Ryzen is far more consistent, offering a smoother VR experience. However the latest leaks about Ryzen state that it outperforms an i7 9900. Possibly time to upgrade my aged i5 2500k.
 
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From what ive read in leaks around the hardware being incorporated into the new games it appears that the biggest change will be with regard to the CPU processing power of the consoles rather than graphics.

Current Generation consoles use a customer designed AMD Jaguar chip which runs at about 1.6 GHZ for PS4 and 2.1 GHZ for PS4+. These chips are designed for power efficiency not performance and therefore limit the actual processing capabilitys of current consoles. They have more in common with the processors in mobile phones than those of your PC.
This then holds back the potential for any graphics processing as the slow processing creates bottlenecks pushing through things like draw calls in graphics. It also limits game complexity. Things like AI require CPU processing, and i suspect one of the reasons that AI in games is rubbish now is that current gen consoles need to use most of their processing power for the graphics and so AI and other CPU intensive tasks get simplified.

Looking forward, both new consoles are getting a custom chip based on the upcoming AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUS. These cpus are expected to launch end of may so we should get a firm idea of their performance then. However the leaks that have emerged hold the potential for these CPUs to be very powerful and very power efficient, infact many people are predicting they will be the fastest mainstream cpus on the planet for gaming.
The console versions of these chips are rumoured to be 8 core 16 thread CPUS clocked down for power efficiency but running at probably around 3 GHZ
Now this will be significantly slower than the PC equivalents, however it still represents a massive increase in available computing power, especially with the multithreaded cores.
This then allows the graphics element of the console to leverage more performance without being bottlenecked by the CPU.

With regard to the graphics element both consoles are supposed to be packing custom versions of AMDs navi chips coming later this year.
For PC players these are aimed at the mainstream market so performance is likely to be around the level of last generation PC cards like AMD Vega64 and NVidia 1080, or this generations RTX2060 and RTX2070 from NVIDIA. Consoles benefit from a uniform system architecture and closer to the metal coding, so actual graphics performance on the console is likely to be somewhat higher than the PC equivalent, and in my opinion probably closer to AMDs VegaVII and NVIDIAs 2080.

This all leads me to believe that the next gen consoles will probably be the first capable of properly supporting vr gaming. It will therefore be interesting to see if this is pushed as a selling point, along with the ability to game at 4k. Im also curious to see if sound will get a big improvement, ashaving many powerful cpu cores will allow a big improvement in spacial sound possibly incorporating ray traced sound.

Fastest CPU 'on the planet' while being energy efficient and cheap enough for consoles - Sounds like a bit of a stretch. If true, I wonder when it will render my 7700k obsolete.
 
With the kind of cooling potential you see in modern consoles any rumours about having something similar to top of the line desktop CPU are laughable. Current console CPUs are closed to laptop CPUs in terms of TDP.
 
As usual the original spec hardware sees the most impressive releases late-gen. The PS4 Slim being no exception. The first years on a new generation will be underwhelming in the same way, when developers learn their way around.
 
Optimal 909 and Caramel Clown

I think you are missing the point. It is a custom soc based on the forthcoming new Ryzen 3000 CPU chips. It wont operate as fast as the fastest current PC CPU's and those coming out in the next few months, however it will have more power than CPUs from just a few years ago, something that could not be said for the previous generations console CPUs when they launched.
 
Optimal 909 and Caramel Clown

I think you are missing the point. It is a custom soc based on the forthcoming new Ryzen 3000 CPU chips. It wont operate as fast as the fastest current PC CPU's and those coming out in the next few months, however it will have more power than CPUs from just a few years ago, something that could not be said for the previous generations console CPUs when they launched.

I am not an authority in this topic, but I do remeber PS3's cell processor was a big thing back then.
 
I am not an authority in this topic, but I do remeber PS3's cell processor was a big thing back then.

My limited understanding of things was that Cell was complex for developers to code with as they were more familiar with X86 Architecture used in PC's and also the xbox 360.
As a result some ports were not very good. When devs took the time to learn the cell architecture it could produce very impressive results for its time.
However the fact Sony for the PS4 and the forthcoming PS5 has gone with X86 architecture CPU's, shows that the developers have won the argument re coding being as straight forward and therefore as cheap as possible.

The consoles are basically budget PCs now, with a walled garden infrastructure designed to lock consumers into their ecosystem.
 

Deleted member 110222

D
See I'm not going to speculate on the technical specifics, as in specific tech, etc.

I'm not qualified for that.

I'm taking a rather caveman approach. I'm an end-user. For me it's a simple case of "Will the next consoles run games better than the current offerings, and by what degree?"
 
My limited understanding of things was that Cell was complex for developers to code with as they were more familiar with X86 Architecture used in PC's and also the xbox 360.
Xbox 360 didn't use x86 architecture. In fact the ISA (instruction set architecture) for both Cell (PS3) and Xenon (360) is the same: PowerPC (Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing).

PS3 struggled with a less powerful nVidia GPU and a too high introduction price. The latter was remedied later by killing PS2 compatibility, so at the end of its life-cycle the PS3 sold more total units than the 360.
 
I'm an end-user. For me it's a simple case of "Will the next consoles run games better than the current offerings, and by what degree?"

A platform is only as good/useful as the software that runs on it. I bought the Xbox 360 because when I saw the E3 demo of Mass Effect I knew I had to play that game. I could've just waited a bit since what was initally meant to be a Xbox exclusive trilogy got ported to PC the following year. I don't regret the purchase though, I have played lots of good games on it and the nice thing about Xbox is the backward compatibility with older platform titles, like TES3: Morrowind.
 
My limited understanding of things was that Cell was complex for developers to code with as they were more familiar with X86 Architecture used in PC's and also the xbox 360.
As a result some ports were not very good. When devs took the time to learn the cell architecture it could produce very impressive results for its time.
However the fact Sony for the PS4 and the forthcoming PS5 has gone with X86 architecture CPU's, shows that the developers have won the argument re coding being as straight forward and therefore as cheap as possible.

The consoles are basically budget PCs now, with a walled garden infrastructure designed to lock consumers into their ecosystem.

I am aware of this, what I meant is that this is hardly the first time a new console hardware is considered cutting edge.
 
I'm really a pc player through and through.. However, Red Dead 2 stopped that and I purchased a 'xbox one x' just to play the game.
I was and still am very impressed with the console, can't say for other games but it plays RDR2 great, very smooth, no real issues. I don't think I'll play anything else on it, but you never know (anyone know a really good sandbox game for the xbox console).

New gen machines, when they arrive, will/should be pretty good I suppose. But pc is always my gaming preference, I like my mouse, keybinds, kb, gaming keypad, scripting (a little), configs etc, far too much to become a controller holder for too long.
But I do enjoy RDR2.
 
I'm really a pc player through and through.. However, Red Dead 2 stopped that and I purchased a 'xbox one x' just to play the game.
I was and still am very impressed with the console, can't say for other games but it plays RDR2 great, very smooth, no real issues. I don't think I'll play anything else on it, but you never know (anyone know a really good sandbox game for the xbox console).

New gen machines, when they arrive, will/should be pretty good I suppose. But pc is always my gaming preference, I like my mouse, keybinds, kb, gaming keypad, scripting (a little), configs etc, far too much to become a controller holder for too long.
But I do enjoy RDR2.
I've still got 100 or so games in my Xbox library from my Xbox live account...I gave my old Xbone to a mate a year ago but bought a new One X for the same reason...RDR2. As of yet, it's the only game I have installed on that Xbox, mainly because I have all the other titles in my Xbox account doubled up on PC.

I installed the new One X on an HDMI splitter and use my bottom monitor when I play on it...means I can still run all the PC stuff like Discord etc on the top monitor...plus it looks much tighter on my 30" 4K monitor than it does on my 1080p TV, even though I still run it at 1080p rather than 4K. On a monitor, I've found the One X doesn't really benefit from the 4K enough to justify it.
 
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Here is hope that RDR2 will eventually arrive to PC in an upgraded shape (hopefully not as an Epic store exclusive), otherwise I would probably buy a second hand console only to play it. :)
 
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