The PlayStation 4 Pro (PS4 Pro) is due for its release in only a couple of weeks on November 10th, and today PlayStation System Architect, Mark Cerny, was interviewed by Gamasutra and he revealed some new information on the new console coming from Sony.
Perhaps one thing that owners of the standard PlayStation 4 console are wondering is whether or not the PS4 Pro is the beginning of the end of the current generation, however quite simply Cerny said:
“PS4 Pro is not the start of a new generation…And that is a very good thing.”
The reasoning behind it being good that it’s not the start of a new generation is quite simple really, despite the excitement that a new generation of console brings the gaming populous as a whole – it’s a pain in the ass for developers. Having to work with all new hardware and infrastructure, with Cerny citing the issues developers had when the original PlayStation came out:
“It was certainly rewarding for players, but it was a true learning experiences for the development community…At the time I estimated that, just by looking around, something like a quarter of the people involved in making games had to transition out of the business because they couldn’t get familiar enough with the new tools and technologies.”
On the flip side of that particular coin however, is the other opinion that perhaps with the PS4 Pro coming out there might be no more need for generational consoles. Again Cerny was keen to dismiss this thought:
“We don’t believe that generations are going away. They are truly healthy for the industry, and for the gaming community…It’s just that the objectives for PS4 Pro are quite different.”
However, with the PS4 Pro the architecture is the same as the standard PS4, so in essence it’s just the PS4 getting a bit of a face-lift; or I suppose it is like when you see a grand old building with scaffolding on the side to spruce it up a bit – the foundations and the bones of the place is the same, it just looks better. That seems to be the goal of the PS4 Pro, to make the games look better as well as perform better.
“PS4 Pro’s targets are support of high-res displays, 4K displays, higher framerates…And 4K streaming, for those people who use PS4 for video, which is actually very big for us. It’s the number two use for the console – streaming video.”
So, the PS4 Pro will not only be a better console for games but also for a little bit of Netflix and Chill…Cerny you naughty boy you. Anyone fancy watching a bit of Luke Cage and having a snuggle?
There is another solid reason for Sony (and Microsoft with their Xbox One S) deciding to release upgraded hardware part-way through their consoles lifespans and when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. It’s all about the developers – usually there’s a point a few years into the new generation of consoles where developers haven’t just caught up with what the new hardware can do, but have surpassed it. Therefore the answer to that is to effectively release a “.5” version of the current console – but one that wouldn’t rewrite the rules that the developers have been given at the start of the generation.
“As a mid-generation release, we knew that whatever we did needed to require minimal effort by the developers…In general, our target was to keep the work needed for PS4 Pro support to a fraction of a percent of the overall effort of creating a game. I believe we have achieved that target.
“Also, as a mid-generation hardware release, we wanted to have something that would have complete interoperability with the standard model…To put that a different way, we knew we couldn’t go back to the teams that created the 700 or so existing games [on PS4], and ask some significant percentage of them to open up their codebase and make it work properly on the [PS4 Pro.] The games just needed to work. At the same time, the console needed to have a high impact for the consumers, so we chose to focus on improved graphics, including better support for new TV formats and smoother framerates.”
One thing that will be getting a big boost is the graphics, however improving the GPU is one thing, Sony are literally doubling the graphical abilities of the PS4 by “mirroring” the current GPU within the console, and keeping in mind that this won’t effect the way in which the console will work with the current titles that are out.
“We doubled the GPU size by essentially placing it next to a mirrored image of itself, rather like the wings of a butterfly…That gives us an extremely clean way to support the 700 existing titles, because we can turn off half the GPU and just run something that’s very close to the original GPU.”
The interview got very, very technical after this, discussing how the PS4 Pro will “take advantage of silicon process improvements and boost the frequency by 14 percent, to 911 MHz” as well as talking about the discard accelerator which “improves the efficiency with which triangles that are too small to affect the rendering are removed from the pipeline” – basically all good stuff with relation to the inner workings of the PS4 Pro, however it’s getting perhaps a bit too far into the weeds of the details.
The PS4 Pro’s CPU will be the same AMD 64-bit x86 8-core “Jaguar” that is currently in the standard PS4, however it seems that the frequency has been pushed to the limit on the PS4 Pro “as high as it could go on the new process technology,” which for anyone taking notes is 2.1 Ghz – whereas the standard PS4 hits 1.6 Ghz therefore the Pro has a good deal more cooling, which as we all know is never a bad thing and like the way the GPU is essentially cut in half to accommodate the older games, the CPU can be as well.
“What we do for the legacy games, if you want to play a game from 2-3 years ago that hasn’t been patched or tested, is we just run that at 1.6 gigahertz…We run the GPU at 800 megahertz, and we shut down half of the GPU.”
One addition that is perhaps not so robust at the 30% or so extra power in the CPU or the double strength GPU is the RAM. With only 1GB of “slow, conventional DRAM” being added to the 8GB GDDR5 RAM which is currently in the standard PS4 – that being said, the 8GB GDDR5 RAM that will be in the PS4 Pro will have a 24% boost in its frequency, so now it will run at about 218 gigabytes/second.
“High-resolution graphics do need more memory. Estimates of what would be needed to double the display resolution of games were in the 300 to 400 megabyte range…But adding memory is a double-edged sword. With more memory it’s possible to have higher-resolution textures and more detailed models, but that requires developers to create those assets. If we go that route, rather than asking the developers for an increase of a fraction of a percent in their effort, we end up with them needing to spend [much more] on assets.”
This all translates to the developers being able to have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to making new games for the PS4 Pro. This additional 1GB of slow memory works out to be roughly a 10% boost to the system. There is another reason for adding that 1GB of memory though, and yet again, that cheeky dog Cerny is thinking about his Netflix and Chill…
“On the standard [PS4], if you’re swapping between an application like Netflix and a game, Netflix is still resident in system memory, even when you’re playing the game. We use that architecture because it allows for very quick swapping between applications. It’s all already in memory.
“On PS4 Pro, we do things a bit differently. When you stop using Netflix, we move it to the gigabyte of slow, conventional DRAM. Using that sort of strategy frees up almost a gigabyte of our 8 GB of GDDR5. We use 512 megabytes [of that] for games, which is to say that the games can use 5.5 GB rather than 5 GB. And we use most of the rest to make the PS4 Pro interface 4K, rather than the 1080p it’s been to date. So when you hit the PS4 button, that’s a 4K interface.”
Cerny was keen though to reiterate his stance that generational gaming is here to stay, despite the overhaul of the PS4 into the PS4 Pro and the way in which TV’s and smartphones have evolved in recent years being a good bit of motivation behind what Sony are trying to achieve.
“PS4 Pro is, in this case, is more motivated by us looking at the rapid evolution of display devices…We’re very excited by 4K and HDR. And also looking at the innovation cadence in the rest of the world, in smartphones and tablets, where fun new things come out every two or three years.
“I believe in generations. Generations are a good thing…So, philosophically, we believe in them. We believe they continue, and this is a mid-generation release.”
Despite all of the talk from Cerny about what developers will have to play with on the PS4 Pro, it would appear as though they are making a lurching stride towards being more like a PC. The amount of variables between peoples PC’s is immeasurable, there are so many options and so many different set-ups, this has been a potential thorn in the side of developers as they strive to make a game that is accessible on a wide range of differing PC capabilities. Sony are looking like becoming very similar in that respect, as there will in essence be 3 types of set-up a PlayStation player could have:
- Standard PS4
- PS4 Pro with 4K TV
- PS4 Pro without 4K TV
So any games devs out there will almost be bound by their lowest marketable console, in this case the standard PS4. Otherwise, in order to make the game accessible to all PS4 players they’ll need to make the game playable on the highest settings as well as the lowest, not unlike the way devs work for the PC.
“For titles from PS4 Pro launch onwards, we’re asking for direct support of 4K TVs and 1080p TVs…We’re leaving it up to the developers, how they did that. Presumably 4K is high-resolution modes, and HDTVs is that scaled down, or maybe they have different modes with framerate options, or the like. I’m expecting that virtually all titles have those two different modes on PlayStation 4 Pro.”
“So we’re going to let the developers determine it…We want something for people who have 4K TVs, and something for people who have 1080p TVs. Really, there are so many choices: For 4K TVs, yes we’d like them to have super high-resolution. But if [devs] also wanted to have lower-resolution graphics and higher frame rate, that would be very nice too. And so we encourage that. And for HDTVs, if they want to do framerate that’s great, if they want to do graphics that’s great.”
They don’t want much do they? Here I thought that they wanted to make things better for game developers part-way through the current cycle! However, Sony are not starting to make demands of developers just yet, more gently prodding them.
“With our evangelism, we don’t have rules…We do ask people to take approaches for supporting the hardware. With regards to patches, we’re very happy to get pretty much any support. If they’ll open up their codebase and do something for PS4 Pro, we’re very happy.”
The effort to actually upscale games for the PS4 Pro has been labelled as “minimal” and in such a way that a large development studio could get the work done in a very short space of time and even an indie developer could take about 3 weeks to do the work.
“Most of the work goes into implementing, in the case of these three titles, checkerboard rendering, in order to get the resolutions up to 2160p, or close to 2160p. And that hasn’t been that much…The initial implementation of checkerboard rendering for each of these titles was 3 weeks, for each of them, by 1 programmer. And you know, these are games where, these days, a typical game will have 100 people, 300 people, for years on end. So we’re talking about 1 programmer for a couple of weeks. It’s not too much.”
The interview ended with the overall goal for the PS4 Pro with regards to the developers:
“The target was to make sure that support [for the PS4 Pro] could be done for a fraction of a percent of the overall effort and I do mean a fraction of a percent. I mean, I’ve run the math, and it’s 0.2 or 0.3 percent for these projects — some of them. So at that point, I think it’s very natural for the development community to support the platform.”
So there you have it…in a rather large nutshell! Some of the new hardware specifications of the PS4 Pro, along with how the PS4 Pro will work for developers. Will you be sticking with your standard PS4 or will you be making the jump up to the PS4 Pro? Let us know in the comments below, the RGM Forums or on Twitter.
