Dying Light The Following Using 7th CPU Core of PS4 And Xbox One, Dev Talks About Cloud Gaming

Techland's Tymon Smektala believes cloud gaming opens up many possibilities.

[TheCommentator]

Interesting that they would mention that they could not benefit much by adding cloud processing to an existing game designed to run on "multiple platforms", but would consider the tech in the future because it has potential to open up a lot of possibilities.

Edit: XB1 exclusive perhaps? Or maybe waiting for Sony's network to catch up?

[Mr Lahey]

Hopefully not!

[donthate]

What the dev is saying is that Cloud processing doesn't exist on other platforms other than really Xbox One.

The cloud processing services right now is wrapped in an API specifically for XB1 called Xbox Live Cloud Compute. Using it on another platform means using a third party service that doesn't exist right now so the option is to roll your own. Impractical considering the skill set and resources required for practically almost all devs.

This cloud processing is likely to be Xbox One exclusive for the foreseeable future, as MS is really the only one focusing on this right now with the exception of nvidia, but they focus on obviously nvidia gpu's application of this.

Sony is still pushing streaming of games and VR. So it is up to third party (or cloudgine) to provide this for the PS4.

[MrSec84]

@Donthate: Any device that can connect to the internet can use cloud processing. It doesn't require some specific API.
3rd party can easily incorporate offloading of Compute to an external service or even one they build themselves, which is likely what major 3rd party studios would do to decrease the costs to them and go straight to whichever tech vendor they deem best for their needs.

Techland aren't saying what you wrote, they've just said that Dying Light wasn't designed to use it.

FYI Microsoft have already stated that Azure can be rented for cloud processing by any publisher, including Sony and Nintendo, if those companies would like to use it and of course pay for the processing time.

PS Now is technically a cloud gaming service, because all of the PS3 games are rendered on hardware running away from the device the end use is playing them on.
Sony could easily build their own servers using PS4 architecture or even just X84 PC tech, with more horsepower per user and use the Gaikai tech they bought to do compute offloading, but it doesn't seem like they're too bothered or feel the need to do that right now.

There are rumors that NX could allow for the handheld to have it's processing supplemented by a home console, so that the experience would be better on the move, this would technically be cloud gaming or at least cloud assist, because the handheld wouldn't be doing all of the processing and it's very feasible. Not much different than how remote play works between PS Vita and PS4, except for the fact that the PS4 does all of the processing, where NX handheld would handle some stuff locally.

MS doesn't have a monopoly on Cloud Compute, not even now.

[donthate]

MrSec84:

mrmmm.... I think you are confused to what I'm saying. The API is what MS exposes so that you can use XBL Cloud Compute. The API is just an interface, and another cloud compute will just have their own set of API. The API isn't the power, but the library you access via said API.

Yes, anyone can have Cloud Compute the same way anyone can make Windows. Point being, if you have the resources and the talent to do it sure. The vast majority though cannot compete with a company that specializes in cloud services like MS does. There is a reason why even almighty MS has to purchase Havok Physcs Engine.

Contrary to what most uninformed people will do is point to Azure and say that it is available publicly doesn't mean gaming services such as XBL Cloud Compute is available to them. It merely means Azure provides the same services as AWS, Rackspace and a myriad other providers.

The key here is the API that does this for you is not available to the public so third party devs can't just say I'm going to have this in my game without rolling their own which is impractical.

PS Now is loosely defined as a cloud service, but it is a completely different cloud service and it's mere function is to stream games. It doesn't allow for vertical or horizontal scaling, because each game instance takes a given specific amount of resources that fits into one server or less. Without scaling, it technically is just a dumb infrastructure and hence the loose term, but that is just semantics.

Nothing prevents Sony or anyone else form accessing 3rd party Cloud Service providers and build their own service on top of it. The question is expertise and resources hence the impracticality for Sony and outside developers.

MS has a vested interest into this, and I'm thinking that in the future with Havok this will be available to PS4 platform as well. When is the question as we are in it's infancy. For now it does seem like MS has a monopoly on this Cloud Compute for physics for gaming purposes.

[Death]

Anyone can use cloud compute. Only one company that does gaming built the infrastructure to do it. As stated above, the hooks are already in to use for developers. One of the biggest drawbacks to using cloud compute on the Xbox One is it's specific to the Xbox One today. Third party devs that are creating multiplatform games have no incentive to use it since it can't be done on the PS4. This applies to Move, Kinect, and VR as well.

[candystop]

So in other words Playstation at the moment is holding back 3Rd parties from developing on x1. Luckily or hopefully we will see more and more X1 developers take advantage of this huge milestone and a few 3rd parties go ahead and hop on. PS4 is a great console and I would like to see cloud compute games for VR one day. Even though Crackdown 3 will be the 1st of its time I want to see what else MS has down the road in a few years from now.

[CartBlanche]

@donthate any gamedev worth their salt will abstract the Windows Cloud API, so that their game engine calls the abstracted API and under the hood it would call the Windows one on X1, the Sony one on PS4 etc. At the end of the day each company may call things differently, but they'll be doing similar things, do commonality can be abstracted to make live easier in the long run.

Sounds to me that Techland just haven't got the man power right now to create the abstraction layer. Once their game is released that could release an update that uses their Cloud API.

[dantesparda]

So do we know if its the whole core or just up to 70-80% like on the X1?

[donthate]

CartBlanche:

"@donthate any gamedev worth their salt will abstract the Windows Cloud API, so that their game engine calls the abstracted API and under the hood it would call the Windows one on X1, the Sony one on PS4 etc. At the end of the day each company may call things differently, but they'll be doing similar things, do commonality can be abstracted to make live easier in the long run."

You just missed the main point, that is there isn't an alternative right now. There is no-one else doing this, and certainly not at the scale MS is doing it.

This means no matter how many abstractions, you still have to roll your own. Now, who is willing, has the resources, skill and expertise to build a competing service? Certainly not Sony (as I pointed out below in my response to MrSec84).

The abstraction process on top of XBL Cloud Compute API is part of normal development.

@MrSec84:

Forgot to respond to your one point about re-using PS Now for a different similar cloud purpose would be just plain dumb. First of all, PS Now as mentioned before doesn't do horizontal or vertical scaling, so the whole point of of vast computing resources is lost. Let say, you build it on top of it, would be just weird because nobody else uses PS3 for cloud compute for a reason. It is not standard hardware, and everytime Sony needs to add nodes, it would have to build highly specific hardware that is costly and harder to get. Then the tools has to be built specifically for this or migrated from some existing software.

Even if Sony built their own servers say PS4 which is x86 or even standard x86/x64, they still have to deal with data warehousing which is economies of scale. It also requires data centers in multiple places in the world. It would not make sense for Sony to do this, and it wouldn't even be close to a small cloud provider let alone compete with the leaders.

In short, Sony would get up and running faster with say a third party cloud provider like Azure, AWS, Rackspace or myriad others. It would be completely stupendous to back themselves into a corner with PS Now or their own cloud solution. PS Now is strictly built for game streaming, and that is pretty much all it really is good for. It is highly specialized and hard to re-purpose due to practicality. Building data centers is not part of Sony's business so it better be damn big to be worth it, which it is unlikely to be.

Even discussing this shows a complete lack of understanding of this.

dantesparda:

Both PS4 and Xbox One is similar in that it is not the entire 7th core. As usual I expect the Xbox One to have a slight edge due to higher clock frequency, but in practical use it would be close to negligible due to ARM processor.

[aceitman]

If it's so big and some say ps4 is so called holding back x1 why isn't it being used on x1 1st party games oh yeah it is , but there is no leap to boast about . They used the cloud on titan fall and it didn't boost anything . And it is not locked to xbox , Phil spender himself said and platform including ps4 can use it. So at the end its nothing big to say ps4 is holding back x1 that statement is a joke.

[TheCommentator]

Aceitman, there's only one game we know of that is using the cloud for more than AI, and that's Crackdown 3. No other games have been using it yet like that yet, but if you'd like to call destruction equal to the power of 20 XB1's "no leap to boast about" I guess you're entitled to that opinion. Question though, if 20 times the power of the XB1 isn't impressive, why do people laude the PS4 for having .5 times more power?

[Dark_king]

this is so many hours late but we have been using cloud compute for years its not something new.Every MMO out there uses cloud compute.EVERY MMO so wait that means Sony is using cloud compute more then MS o my.

[UltraNova]

@the commentator

"Question though, if 20 times the power of the XB1 isn't impressive, why do people laude the PS4 for having .5 times more power?"

Thats it?

Because people have seen, can see and will see the outcome of that .5 difference in power in all multiplaform games before, now and in the future, be it resolution or quality settings.

In other words, seeing is believing.

The 20x xb1 power is not seen yet(on a release) and everyone knows that if it works it will be a rare, rare occurrence.

Meanwhile that .5 extra power you mentioned has been demonstrated hundreds of times to this day.

Oh and btw since when is advanced destruction THE must have feature in a game?

Please enjoy what you have and stop this hyperbole.

[candystop]

Ultra

This entire lack of understanding should not be commented on by you or any other gamer that just can't accept the news. We've already seen CD3 and it's amazing possibilities which I'm sure you remember shut your traps for weeks. Sure we need to see it running inside of our homes but the sure scale of destruction simply made PS4 look like a joke. Just so you know, cloud compute will take games much further than destruction alone.

@DARK KING

You show me one game using the same tech as CD3 or even on its scale? Yes cloud has been around for quite sometime but cloud compute is the 1st of it kind being used in a gaming space via x1. All of you guys not giving credit where it's due will hopefully choke on an xbone come the CD3 beta. I will say it again to all of you guys that jumped the gun attacking MS and it's X1.....Playstation will be holding back X1 once fall inot place. If this works out the truth will soon be upon us. ;)

[GameNameFame]

Wow. How many secret sauces have to be debunked?

Just for reminder. 7th CPU was supposed to be Xbox One secret sauce.

And Cloud is just another word for server processing and has been done for decades before MS. Even Sony used "Cloud" or server processing for Bloodborne to create server generated maps.

So. No. Not secret sauce and it is just desperate straw grasp at this moment.

[ScorpiusX]

Was he Referring to crackdown 3 tech cause that would be great and help grow that tech.

@donthe here's the thing On Cloudgine isn't MS invested in said tech to a degree and wouldn't it be wild if MS bought the tech & serviced it out or kept it as a way to get exclusive deals from 3rd parties . CBJT

[donthate]

Yes, the developer was referring to Crackdown 3 type Cloud Processing.

[donthate]

castillo:

MS bought Havok physics, which is the largest physics engine around used by about any 3rd party AAA games including Sony. My guess is MS will bring Havok (and more) to Azure/Cloud Compute and eventually make it a multi-platform service available to anyone including Sony.

Nobody else is really doing this, and my guess is Cloudgine is providing the API sitting on top of Havok and Azure.

That is the long term view, in the short term this is exclusive to Xbox One and maybe extended to PC not too far into the future. I suspect only exclusive games to XB1 will use this in the next 2-3 years.

[MachuchalBrotha316]

Well Xbox One is the only console that is using cloud tech with Crackdown. Also if I read more into it, Xbox One games could benefit from having some type of cloud exclusive features.

I sure hope devs are not waiting for Sony. Plus I dont think Sony really cares about cloud tech. They make games for everyone to play, not just those with better internet.

Plus to you need devs to want to use it.
Is using cloud gonna up development time and budget? It might not be worth it.
Who knows.

Edit: the last part is in regards to shipping dates and Xbox parity.

Donthate, nice comment and having cloud with VR could benefit for extra processing power. Let see what happens. I cant wait to see how it does on Crackdown 3. Or how others use it in future for gaming. I was gonna say real world applications but thats already been conquered. Everything on the net is essentially in the Cloud.

[donthate]

You are right that Sony doesn't care about the cloud as much. Why would they?

They don't specialize in cloud and datawarehousing like MS and don't have the resources or skillset. The only reason they have PS Now/Gakai is because of them trying to revive their TV division and have games they can bring to the masses already. Gakai was bought for about a third of a billion which is relatively cheap at the time, because that business was already dead. With that acquisition they did get some skilled engineers, but MS poached some OnLive engineers.

The short story is, Sony will not push this, because they would have to run datacentres or get servers from a third party cloud provider. In short, they cannot compete with MS in this area from a practical standpoint.

A third party will provide this, and cloudgine will eventually be multi-platform in the future, but it will likely be years down the line. I'm thinking end of PS4/Xbox One generation, but sooner than VR success.

[ScorpiusX]

Who knows , but all around destructible environments and ways on how to use it in a game has my money .

[jerethdagryphon]

So many word so little sense

Fact one: cloud compute used to be called server side. It handled colissions physics and anything time critical given do it by client. Gun shoots man gun sends call to server which calculates range damage and everything else sending finished numbers to gpus on client to render. Because its on a central server it sends to both ttl is all that matters {time to live}

Fact 2: api is a toolset not en enabler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/... direct x and open gl are the main ones however directx is a bunch of related apis semi linked for convianve direct 3d sound and others.

Fact 3 : cloud computing such as crackdown wants to do will be relient upon low latencys
An example from history tells us why.

Agiea the company who made physx didnt put physx hardware support in multiplayer modes because of disparity. To paraphrase a quote " we could have done it but we cant control who buys the ppu (physx processing unit) and having one person destroy a building and shoot through rubble when another didnt have destructable terrain would see the bullet fly through the building. )

Live cloud computing is possible but its not going be be very good for anything otber then baked textures or lighting dynamic situations will be more latency dependent. It will see more use in racers and games involving static items.

Fact 4. Sony has cloud computing theyve had it since ps3 they also have distributed networking computing capabilitys. Yes making live physic work on sonys system would require some new tools but thats what game devs do during development they program tools first establish a workflow pipeline while artists design the world .

Fact 5 ms buying havoc will have minimal effect on sony making games havoc is a middleware solution and they already went on record saying they will license to sony . if they didnt us law would have had something to say.

Fact 6. Quantifing cloud computing by saying each xb1 has the power of 20 backing it up is marketing to demonstrate the processing capabilitys of cloud in numbers journalists can understand.

[MachuchalBrotha316]

@jere, so many words wasted on your end because I didnt even read your nonsense bs. You dont like what I have to say then disagree and move on.

Keep playing your PS4 and I'll keep playing my Xbox One. Nuff said.

[donthate]

jereth:

See my lengthy discussion above highlighting some of the points you said.

To answer some of what you said:

Fact 1: That is only partially correct. Server side doesn't mean cloud, but can be part of a cloud. Simply said, server side computation doesn't mean it is a cloud, but a cloud does server side computation. One of the most important aspects of a cloud is two things, scalable resource and simplified/automated management. The resource is usually computation (but can be storage or something else), and the service is the automation part. Thus, server side with no scaling is not a cloud!

Of course, I just ignored stability and redundancy.

Fact 2: API is an interface and yes it does enable you to talk to say hardware or software libraries.

Fact 3: Cloud Compute used as in Crackdown is latency sensitive. Heck everything is, but there are some that are less sensitive to latency. An example you brought up is light, but there are others. Basically this is trying to take server side computation to the extreme, and with scalable resources they can do distributed computing to recover the lost latency time. Keep in mind that we already play games online that rely on less than 150ms latency.

Ageia's problem is a problem of not being able to sync what is happening, in addition to the fact that PC is an open platform likley to have cheats. Xbox One is closed source an ideal for this.

Unfortunately, I think you might be mistaken about the baked texture and lighting. Crackdown 3 is already shown with physics, but this can be applied to advance or more complex AI. We got a taste of this in Forza with Driveatar, but consider Titanfall with lots of enemies on the ground like a real battlefield. This can be taken further. What about accessing real time information? Or information that is has a huge dataset of terabytes, but the results are very small. There is so much unexplored there.

Fact 4: To retool PS Now for general cloud computing is completely ridiculously stupid. Sony is better of sticking with AWS/Rackspace as they are real cloud providers that has datacenters around the world to serve a growing need. You don't want to build toolset on dead hardware that might be expensive and difficult to procure like PS3's. That is apart from the fact that those "computers" are designed for streaming, not computation.

Fact 5: You are right, Havok will have minimal effect on Sony, because MS will still license to Sony. It is part of their business plan. The law cannot stop MS from making unfavorable terms to Sony FYI, but that is not MS intention. They aren't just focusing on Xbox here, they are looking for something bigger right now. Including Sony is part of their plan.

Fact 6: Yes, that is them trying to deal with clueless journalist and even more clueless consumers in trying to explain the concept of a cloud and how much resources are reserved for each Xbox.

[Wallstreet37]

lol @ "waiting for Sonys network to catch up" was that a joke or were you serious? Sonys network has caught up since the middle of Ps3's life and moreson even now with Ps4. Sony has invested tons in Psn infrastructure and many of us are mutiple platform gamers and there is no difference. A game on PSN like COD plays just as good as one on live.

Stop perpetuating that bs fallacy that Sonys network Infratructure arent up to task with Microsfts. Between Rackspace, the amazon servers they use, Ps Now, etc.... their network is on par.

[TheCommentator]

There is insinuation of this within the interview itself, which is why I mentioned it in their terms. Also, a network that can run games online is not the only thing required for cloud compute. The infrastructure requires enough processing on the cloud side to support the enhancements to the game engine... something Sony is clearly lacking as evidenced by all the partners they have to team up with just to get online games to run smoothly.

[Wallstreet37]

@TheCommentator....

I am well aware that "a network that can run games online is not the only thing required for cloud compute" and it isnt as clear and cut, however i find it very unlikely that Sony does not have the infrastructure or resources to accommodate Cloud Computing. As i mentioned there is no catch up taking place, if anything Sony might just not care about it in any capacity. As of now even with Crackdown it is still Microsofts PR machine of "oh look what we can do" that isnt much different than what is already going on. I dont need the whole spiel of what Crackdown is doing as i am well kept on gaming news and the tech going round.

[MachuchalBrotha316]

So what you're saying is that Sony has the same cloud infrastructure or something on par. No knock on Sony but they have nothing than can compare to Azure at the moment. There only two other companies that I know of can come close to and surpass MS in that department...Amazon and Google. You work at Wall Street and dont know this. Lets make sure we're not giving this guy you're money. You'd never see a return. Haha

[TheCommentator]

Wall Street, if you're well aware of the facts then tell me how well Sony's rented network stacks up against 300,000 servers MS owns that are running Azure right now? Also, calling a question related to the article itself "perpetuating that bs fallacy" is not exactly warranted when even these devs, working on the consoles, imply it.

[Wallstreet37]

@machalbrotha316...

The irony and the stupidity of your statement is that Sony uses Amazon cloud servers that y ou mention lol hahahahaha omg im dying..... That was just an FYI for you. Also do homework Sony also contracts rackspace and does cloud computing and can be versatile.

Please dont talk just to talk....

https://www.upguard.com/art...

[Wallstreet37]

@commentator...

those 300,000 servers you mention would be all well and dandy and seem like a super number if all it was working on was cloud computing for gaming lol it is not. Trust me i know what im talking about. As i mentioned do you know how many servers Sony has for PSN between Amazon, Rackspace and whatever else they use for specific cloud services? Its in the tens of thousands, if not hundred thousands as well. There was an article on it not too long ago.

[Bobafret]

Oh dear, just no. Sony's network infrastructure is way behind MS.

[donthate]

Wallstreet:

Simple fact is, PSN still has to be taken down to maintain it, while XBL does it while it is running. This isn't mid 2005 when that was the norm. So I think that speaks for itself.

The infrastructure isn't the problem, because anyone can rent servers from gazillion providers including Azure. MS doesn't stop Sony from using their servers as long as they pay. Heck, MS would welcome them.

The problem is two fold, one design and architecture of the services. Why is it that one has to be taken down while the other do not?

It's not like the servers (as in hardware) are really that different. It's all software!

Thus Sony is behind on this. There is a reason why LizardSquad openly mocked PSN and gave XBL a nod of respect when they tried to take down both services with a DDOS.

The second problem expertise!

This physics in the cloud business isn't related to XBL directly or PSN (or even PS Now) at all. It is a separate service being built separately, so Sony can do it as well. The kicker is that MS is a leading cloud provider so they have the expertise, they now own the largest most important physics engine, Havok, and is actively invested into this.

Sony has none of that so possibility is different from likelyhood!

I can win the lottery tomorrow, but I'm sure as hell not likely to.

Another thing is, in the unlikely event Sony does pursue this, is it going to be as good given everything they lack?

Sony will just wait until MS makes it a publicly available service!

[Raiden]

Server capacity MS server's (cloud service is 5-8 million server's this has been round for over two decades that is 20yrs, just over two year ago MS decided to dedicate 2million server to there gaming platform, games like TITAN FALL did not even use less than one percent, but crackdown 3 demo shows what is possible, the API belongs to MS and yes you they will allow others to use it but at a very high price, US Law will not intervene as this is business prices go up, Sony don't have more than half a billion server's at there beck and call, But MS do and they are growing it even more. I look forward to seeing where to goes, I think dev's are about to have a massive headache from all this, because when other dev's like ROCKSTAR choose to use MS cloud system to advance the scale of there game. I believe that only MS first parties will use the cloud, that makes the games bigger more features, its not about server space but what u can do with it and that's the difference, that what separates gaming cloud system from streaming cloud system.

[GUTZnPAPERCUTZ]

People NEED to understand that X1 has 4 move engines on the GPU side of the API, that space in the dye is where Sony has 768 more shader cores(I think that count is right lol) and X1 put the 4 move processors on that spot. There sole purpose is to take large amounts of data (pre-rendered data) and move it around the system or output it so the CPU does not have too. So the Server side can send pre-rendered data and display it with X1's on board hardware data. PS4 does NOT have that, does not mean it can't be done, but it will be taxing the on board hardware... The difference is Xbox One was designed around it, where PS4 was not.

[Muzikguy]

It's a gamingbolt article anyway. I don't believe anything they say or the credibility of their articles

[Budrazor]

If the dev's can get their hands on it they'll use it. Makes no sense to wait on someone else.

[jobboy]

60 fps on ps4?...al least one can dream :)

[roland82]

Takes more than that to double fps.

[evergrace]

Nice, now it is time to unlock some more ram on ps4. The 2.5 gb of RAM being used by the OS is ridiculously high. Sony better optimise the ps4 OS

[TKCMuzzer]

Send them your CV and show them the way as you obviously have the knowledge.

There must be a reason it uses 2.5gb of ram, it's not just a number they plugged out of the air and went with. To assume something is high without having inside knowledge of the operating system itself is naive.

To know how to get the best out of something you first have to know how it works.

[evergrace]

It uses a lot of ram, because of these live streaming, multitasking features which i almost never use. I wish i could disable them to improve game performance.

[Khaotic]

So your saying nothing can be optimized and things are what they are. Im sure if you have a job they just love your mindset

[GUTZnPAPERCUTZ]

Im sure they will, if MS can get their OS to 2gb then Im sure Sony are working on something

[jerethdagryphon]

The live streaming and many other features use a low power secondary processor and dedicated 256 mb of ddr3 ram

[kraenk12]

True. At least the PS4's flexible RAM structure enables them to do such a thing.

[butchertroll]

That info about 2.5 GB of RAM is 2 and a half years old dude. Nice try!

http://ps4daily.com/2013/07...

If 7th CPU core in PS4 is available for devs, that also means memory footprint for OS reduced.

[Eidolon]

They probably had to do something clever to release some processing for the OS.

[LastcenuryRob]

Good to see both platforms are still improving and getting optimized.

[Eidolon]

That core will make some different, i mean, 1/6 more processing power can go a long way.

[Azzanation]

Looking forward to playing this game for the very first time.

[corroios]

I just want to see that game that have 20x times the power of a Xbox One... Well, it must run at least at 1080/60 with crystal clear graphics, high rez textures, AA and so on... Must be the most amazing game to date. Hell, with 20 times the power it could even run at 4k.

It will set the graphic standard of this generation.

[mixelon]

That's not what anyone is trying to achieve with cloud compute. :/

[Raiden]

So sorry CORROIOS, but your not going to see much, there will be improvements in draw distance zero pop up and a multiple shades of different resolution, so maybe some graphic increase, but this is not the power they are talking about, they are talking about the strain or slow down that can happen when too much is happening on screen that 20x power they talk of came from the tech demo of crackdown 3, watch the video
and see for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

remember each build has it own server

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

SONY SONY

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[JarethAnstey]

Tried to read article on iPhone 6 plus. Advert for some Shitty teen game populated the entire screen and I couldn't get rid of it...

[Voids]

Nice.