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Sony has announced the PlayStation Neo, formerly referred to as "PS4.5" or "PS4K", and Microsoft has announced the Xbox "Project Scorpio". Both will be "mid-cycle refreshes" of the preceding consoles that will significantly boost graphics power, supposedly allowing for existing games to be played at a minimum of 1080p/60FPS, using virtual reality headsets, or at 4K (2160p):
And so gamers have been promised a console for release in 2017 that packs a whopping 6 teraflops of processing power (compared to the current Xbox One's mere 1.31), along with a much improved 320GB/s of memory bandwidth. Even ignoring some of Microsoft's more questionable claims (uncompressed pixels anyone?), those are some impressive specs. Forget 1080p/60fps: Microsoft says that this system is more than enough hardware to push a VR headset (the company isn't saying which one yet, but I'd bet on Oculus), and run regular games at 4K resolution with support for High Dynamic Range (HDR).
[...] The PlayStation Neo has it even harder. Leaked specs put its performance at somewhere around 4.2 teraflops, while its 36 GCN compute units clocked at 911MHz strongly suggest it's using a form of AMD's upcoming Polaris architecture, most likely a down-clocked RX 480. Memory bandwidth is up compared to the PS4 at 218GB/s but far behind that of Scorpio. At this stage, those specs are unlikely to change, particularly as developer kits have already gone out to developers. A radical redesign to match Scorpio's GPU—which, given what we know about AMD's GPU lineup and the cooling setup in Project Scorpio, is likely to be a down-clocked version of Vega rather than an overlocked Polaris—is pretty much off the table.
The two consoles should be available sometime in 2017. Sony is also launching a PSVR head-mounted display on October 13th.
If nothing else, the enhanced capabilities of these new consoles will help relieve "consolitis" (PC games being held back by weak consoles). Both consoles are likely to feature another 8-core AMD CPU: either a higher-clocked Jaguar or possibly a Zen processor.
Previously: Sony Rumored to Be Developing PlayStation 4.5
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday June 16 2016, @10:33AM
Two points I have here:
A) Damn, did M$ and Sorny fuck up with the cheaped out designs on their consoles.
B) I have a DK2 and I'm not convinced VR is ready for mainstream yet. I feel this is the 1990's all over again and it will be dead in a few years.
So we all know how underpowered both the xbone and the piece of shit 4 are, I find it funny that they did not learn the lessons of the 1990's. Sega died because they kept releasing failed addon's to extend the life of a console (The cd things, the 32x) fragmenting the market is never a good idea for these systems. Preventing the majority of your customers from being able to play the games available is alienating and people don't like it. This is why none of these add on devices were a success. Seems M$ and Sorny have forgotten these lessons. The consoles will be 4k "capable", but 4k televisions have not really penetrated the market yet. Dunno about the US, but there is no 4k signal available on broadcast TV in the UK, so the only way you can really get 4k content is via streaming services like netflix, but then you have to have the RIGHT device for this to work, due to DRM crap. 4k is not available for PC's AFAIK, only for streaming devices and smart TV's. (I might be wrong about that). So the display base to drive sales does not exist right now. VR is expensive and won't be a typical xmas present like a console is.
So I think these new consoles will be sales failures, too expensive, VR add on too expensive, needs a 4k tv to even use it. The price point of the market has been raised too high for most consumers. I might as well buy a decent gaming PC for the same money.
That and I don't think VR is going to be a success. I have not tried any of the new kits, but I do own a DK2. Which is sitting and gathering dust on my desk. The only game I have found it to be a good experience with is Elite: Dangerous. For dogfighting, its amazing. But the res is too low. Text is hard to read and you can see every individual pixel. I think they need 4k res min (2k each eye) to make the experience better. That and it's incredibly isolating, which is curious. At work I LOVE to be isolated when coding etc, so noise cancelling headphones. At home, I'm a single dad. Here I hate isolating myself, I like to be aware of what's going on in the house make sure the kids are not fighting, knocks at the door etc, so I find isolating myself really uncomfortable at home. Add the fact I like to drink beer and smoke joints while playing and well... You can't drink out of a pint glass when wearing the rift. Bottle is OK. Ever tried lighting your joint when your in a rift? Its hard... very hard, then I put it in the ashtray and have to take the rift off to find it. Really needs a webcam and a "real world" button on it or something.
Heh, me and my first world problems eh?
Don't get me wrong, the rift is pretty amazing. Its the VR experience I was lusting after as a teenager, everything I hoped it would be. I have had some real "uncanny valley" moments with it. In ED, it has the Saitek x52 joystick HOTAS setup. My desk positions are identical. The game renders the arms of the pilot holding the controls and moves them as you move the joystick. This gave me the experience that my are was in the game, wow! So then you reach up to your face and the game arm does not move. Still, the immersion factor is stunning. To look at your own body in the game and it moves with you as you do in real life? Wow, even in that very limited scenario, just jaw dropping WOW moment.
Beyond that the experience has been... Difficult? Its very very hard to get the rift working with non-native games. I have tried the vorpx software to try and get it working, but for the life of me cannot get it to line up the 3d to be "perfect" its real guess work with the vorpx controls and I just cannot get it calibrated correctly. 3d looks flat, or double images etc. Half life 2 wasn't bad but skyrim looked awful. I have not looked at it in a year or two, I need to see if it has been updated with better calibration.
So, TLDR: I laugh that console manufactures have forgotten the lessons of the past about fragmenting the market, I don't think VR is quite there yet and this generation of it will be a damp squib. Happy to be wrong about that though.
Still, fuck sorny.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Thursday June 16 2016, @11:14AM
I'm pretty much in agreement with you except for the VR thing... Well I agree VR is likely a gimmick that's going to die, just like 3D. BUT!
A buddy I work with brought in a Gear VR headset. It was $100, which I don't consider overly expensive (I spend more on flowers my wife for valentines day every year), all you do is snap your smartphone into it and it downloads the software, which basically just splits your phone into two displays. I only watched a trailer for the jungle book with it, but was incredibly impressed. He was telling me he plays some detective game on it, so it's like you're actually walking into a room and looking at the crime scene and interacting with clues and characters to figure out the mystery, sounded pretty interesting to me.
I see a lot of potential, but there are issues that have to be worked out. Cords and battery life as an example.
I've never been that impressed with 3D.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @11:41AM
VR will work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz3ovutYJtg [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday June 16 2016, @12:06PM
DUDE NSFW WARNING PLEASE!!!!
There was a fuck scene in that, nice.
Still, brought back some memories, I was so excited to try a virtuality machine back in ... 91.
Wow that was a long time ago.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday June 16 2016, @10:32PM
I don't think so. Have you tried the Vive with their controllers? I used it for quite a bit the other week and it was a fantastic experience. The Robot repair demo was one of my favorites of the lab demo but the longbow game convinced me that VR certainly has a place in the future. The downfall of the occulus is the lack of immersive controllers. Before that I never used any real VR save for a google cardboard for a few minutes.
The one negative I can see if the holodeck effect. Once you go into a VR world where you can do anything, the real world starts to suck. VR might become another bogey man like rock music.
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Friday June 17 2016, @07:41AM
No, not had a chance to try the vive yet. Ill give it a look if I get a chance.
Occulus downfall was being bought by facebook.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday June 17 2016, @08:56PM
Give it a try if you can. My brother and I just got finished with some new demos and we increased the perimeter. With the Vive, you can physically walk around limited by a perimeter which can be a maximum of 5mx5m or 16x16 feet. And the IRL and VR movement is pretty much 1:1 seamless. That movement heavily adds to the immersive experience. My only beef is the damn cable keeps getting in the way but that will be remedied by hanging it from the ceiling. They also need to get shoe sensors to locate your feet but the virtual hands via the controller help with orientation.
The valve Lab demo has a bunch of things to mess with and the robot repair was very impressive. If you played Portal you'll remember the final battle with GLaDOS. GLaDOS makes an appearance toward the end of the robot repair demo and as she approaches you, you really get an actual sense of how massive she is.
We wanted to try a horror game and after some searching we found the Brookhaven Experiment. I have to admit, both of us couldn't deal with more than a few minutes in that damn game. Way too unnerving. The gun has no cursor, like real life, so you really have to aim. Meanwhile, the zombies are approaching from all around. As your aiming trying to kill them you hear the others closing in on you from all around. Panic actually starts to set in and I took the headset off. That's immersive.
Agreed. Facebook doesn't have a clue about gaming. They just threw money at Oculus to gobble up a piece of hip new tech to capitalize on it. That was a good thing because it motivated Valve after some of their employees left to work on the Oculus. And no disrespect to the Oculus developers but don't have shit on Valve/HTC. HTC is an experienced hardware company along with Valve who pretty much set the bar in 1998 with half life and again with Steam, TF2, DotA, Portal, etc.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 19 2016, @12:22PM
Oculus will have a similar controller, but didn't have it at launch. Tough for them if the delays made Vive's premium product look that much better.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday June 19 2016, @06:38PM
It's going to be an uphill battle for them. while they have a well established name, they don't have a strong gaming oriented backing. Though, It's entirely possible Facebook could be developing some type of second life like VR world that directly ties into FB. There is certainly a lot of potential in that area. Either way, it's still in its infancy. But it stands that Vive is the better of the two currently and clearly demonstrates that VR is here to stay.