One Finger Death Punch 2 dev: "I’m hoping the next gen consoles makes it easier for indies"

One Finger Death Punch 2 dev hopes next-gen consoles can make life a bit easier for indie developers.

[solidossnakos]

No shit Sherlock, this gen going with the x86 architecture is by far the best choice Sony and Microsoft made. Both console are way similar to an actual PC than any generation before.
This will make life easier for dev when porting/remastering or even backward compatible games on the next gen.
Backward compatibility could've been more impactful this gen than it is with XboxOne, if sony used a standard cpu than the Cell, but I dont blame em, that leap they took with the Cell processor is what made the PS3 a beast.

[Howardr007]

Bruh the ps3 was never a beast .. it lacked on many third party games . What sharpened its edges was the excellence of developers supporting the platform .
Without them .. well the console would of been inferior . But nothing on any other console matched the last of us ..uncharted ..killzone . The development teams were steroids to a poor design choice

[Profchaos]

Ps3 had a beast of a processor but it had a weak gpu and the cell was hard to program for.

[WickedLester]

The biggest challange with programming the PS3 wasn't the CELL processor. It just happened to be one of the first multicore/multithread cpus on the market (something thats common with all cpus now). It was that it had two 256mb segregated pools of memory, each running at different speeds and both specifically designed for certan tasks that programmers couldn't deviate from. The 360 had 512mb of unified memory that programmers could allocate any way they wanted. Plus it had a seperate 3mb frame buffer. If Sony had just included unified memory it would have made a huge difference in PS3 development. The GPU on it's own was weaker than the 360 GPU. However whe paired with the CELL, it was actually capable of more. It was just more difficult to pull off and most 3rd party devs either didnt want to take the time or have the skill to do it.

[InKnight7s]

If the Ps3 isn't a beast how do you expalain, success of GT, Uncharted, Killzone, MGS4, Heavnly Sword, GOW, Last Of Us, Infamous, LBP, a lot of RPGs, JRPGs? And how do you explain blu ray evoloution? + don't forget that most selling of FF series where on Ps3 like more than 70%? And classics + early BC, my Ps3 was true ultimate entertainment system

Meanwhile 360 was only about shooters, and paying money for online service without free games.

[Sitdown]

InKnight7s,
How did the ps3 help with blu-ray evolution? It was key to adoption, but I never knew it did something on the evolution side.

[Vetgamer]

Don't remember that much of a difference between 360 and ps3. Remember devolpers moaning about how difficult it was. What got me is they started with bc and took it away on newer machine's.

[Double_O_Revan]

From this point forward there shouldn't be a need for Porting. PS5 & Xbox Scarlett should be completely backwards compatible with PS4 & Xbox 1 games. The architecture will be the same, so nothing changes.

[MrSec84]

That's not exactly how it works, there will undoubtedly be differences in the CPU, GPU and Memory technologies used in the next PlayStation and XBox.

Considering Lisa Sue has already confirmed that AMD are working with both companies we know their tech is going to be used in both next gen platforms, but considering the leap from Jaguar CPU tech to Ryzen and evolution of tech inside the newer processor the overall design of Ryzen isn't identical to Jaguar, same goes for the changes from 7000 series GPU tech to Vega or Navi and the scale of each Transistor in each is much more compact, going from 14/16nm to 7nm or whatever Sony and decide to use.

TBH PS4 and XB1 wouldn't work natively if programmers working on some part of the next gen systems code base didn't write things to allow those games to work on Next Gen.
I'm not saying that PS5 and the Next XBox won't be able to run their last gen counterpart's software, but it won't happen unless either the core hardware is made for it, or the API and OS in either system have the ability to read last gen game code.

TBH it should be the case that Sony and Microsoft just basically use their previous generation of OS and API as a base for next gen code and evolve their tech to incorporate legacy system software.

It's like saying you can't just put a PS4 disc in an XB1 and expect it to run, in the case of those systems they have almost identical hardware, but the system software engineers took different approaches to their respective code and that basically prevents either running the other's software.

The difference between Ryzen and Jaguar or Pitcairn/Bonaire and Vega/Navi would do the same if engineers don't make the software to accommodate legacy code and account for the evolution in technology from the 8th to the 9th gen consoles.

The APIs/OS in PS5/Next-XBox should be programmed to run last gen games, even factoring in upgraded hardware Vs last gen and allow straight up Resolution boosts, Texture Filtering and running solid frame rates from the get go.

Porting on the side of game developers shouldn't be needed, but if Devs want to take advantage of the extra power and patch in higher settings or unlock frame rates to run faster performance versions of current gen games on next gen, then that should be as easy as making a Patch for PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, maybe easier if the PS5 and Next-XBox system software is designed for it.

[TheHan]

Yes but Microsoft/Xbox promised to have all Xbox one games compatible to the next generation console.

[MrSec84]

@TheHan: You need to re-read what I wrote, basically current gen games will run on Next Gen because of the OS and API, hardware is different from a physical, architecture perspective.

System software can easily be written to make running current gen games on next gen AMD hardware.
It won't happen without that and it should be a given that both Sony and Microsoft does it.

[Profchaos]

Porting generally means selling the title as a remaster given how much stronger performance is on current gen over last gen where sub 20 fps shooters like crysis 2 were common I think we are better off with backwards compatibility

[alb1899]

Tell that to sony

[KillZallthebeast]

I can't wait for bethesda to launch skyrim again on ps5 and nextbox -_-

[sprinterboy]

I've always wondered if the ps4 went with a improved cell processor again with the 8gb ram.
I know it wouldn't of been practical moving fwd but I ofton wonder what they would have been able to create over the week jaguar processor?

[MrSec84]

Week? I assume you meant Weak right?

It's possible developers like smaller indie studios would have avoided PS4 if Sony had gone with a boosted version of the Cell Processor, like a quad core PowerPC with 4X the SPUs.
Maybe they would have been OK developing their games for the 4 Cores and 8 Threads of that architecture and avoid using the huge cluster of SPUs, although if the overall architecture of a next gen Cell was easier to use in it's accessibility for Devs (like Out of Order Execution of SPUs and CPU Threads, Unified Cache and a straightforward code base), then maybe it could have made a big difference.

Having fast, but Unified memory would have certainly helped to make an evolved Cell much easier to use too, but Sony would probably have needed to go with a more expensive 2 Processing Die setup, like 4 Core PPU-Cell+GPU.
NVidia may have made the GPU but I think Sony wanted to make the machine way more affordable and easy for Devs to make use of it's tech.

TBH I think it would have still been way too complicated, better to just roll GPU features that were a part of Cell in PS3 into the GPU of PS4, like having GPGPU tech and a simplified CPU architecture, all in one straightforward APU.

TBH next gen we're probably going to get either a Quad Core Ryzen CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads or 8 Cores and 16 Threads, which will be a huge upgrade over Jaguar in PS4.
Paired with either a Vega or Navi GPU, but overall it will be a similar arrangement to PS4's or Pro's tech, fixing any issues of CPU performance this gen and expanding GPU capabilities to make way more possible, same goes for Microsoft's system.

IMO they made the right choice with what tech they chose in PS4, it set them up for easier game development moving forward, god only knows how much longer games like Red Dead would have taken to launch or other gems we've had this gen, you could probably add a good year or two to dev time if PS4 was using a new Cell Processor.

[sprinterboy]

Yep definitely ryzen and vega if holiday 2019, if ps5 is holiday 2020 then ryzen and navi.
That's why I don't understand some gamers rush for nxt gen in 2019. I would much prefer waiting the extra year for navi.

[MrSec84]

Well Navi is potentially coming early 2019, tbh 2019 makes the most sense because of Sony's history of launching most of their new Platforms 6 years after the previous generation.

The tech is ready for it to happen Fall 2019, plus you have people like Lisa Sue already mentioning their involvement in both next gen PlayStation and XBox platforms.

Whether it's a Die shrunken Vega to 7nm or Navi, Navi is already basically there and 7nm CPUs from AMD will be available next year, with TSMC in full steam, there's no reason for either Sony or MS to wait.

Devs have likely been working on games for a while, especially Guerrilla Games and Sony Japan, along with major 3rd Party Studios.

The only way 2019 doesn't happen is if the technology gets delayed (it's already been confirmed that Navi, 7nm and everything else needed for a next gen console is on track) or major exclusives need more time in the tank.

If 2019 happens we'll get an announcement by the end of Spring that year.
Logically there's no reason for it to not happen.