'Nobody knows final next-gen hardware specs,' DICE exec suggests

Patrick Bach claims Battlefield 4 studio is working on target specs and alpha hardware

[SlavisH2]

oh no fanboys wont like this! This site members love to say one system is going to be stronger then anything and to hell with the consequence! Screw any logic or lack of facts, DAMN!

[Ashunderfire86]

Well of course they know LOL!!! It is all a secret. It's call lying until they finally reveal it, like Sony did with the PS4 announcement. They originally said that they would make their competitor go first. Can you say that Guerilla games, Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, Bungie, Activision, and etc don't know? Of Course they know. I knew what we saw for that 17 minute BF4 trailer was pre alpha. These games are going to look even better overtime. Metal Gear Solid 5 photo-realism will look better overtime. It is already a fact that PS4 and Xbox Next will look even better than the current generation, so it's not hard to believe that such visuals shown on BF4 can be possible on Next gen.

[TheGrimReaper]

"It is already a fact that PS4 and Xbox Next will look even better than the current generation"

What do you mean by current generation?
If you mean PS3/360: Thx for stating the obvious o.O

If you mean PC: Nope, multiplatform games will always look better on high-end PCs

And sry but could people (just generally speaking not about you Ashunderfire86) stop saying "pre alpha"?
Successors of early prototype builds, proof of concepts and placeholder models,textures etc. that is what pre alpha looks like.
Everything up and runnning? Particles, post processing, sound, voice overs? Releasing in just a few months? Let's called it a beta...
Companies wouldn't even dare to show pre alpha footage! The media and gamers would scream: Looks like crap!
Every developer who watermarks their near finished material "pre alpha" should be cursed.
At least they could tell us which parts are going to be revised or will receive a major overhaul.

EDIT: And yes I know, Bach said pre-alpha footage but this is just complete bull**** imho -.-
But they've got the reaction they've wanted. "Wow this is pre-alpha? This game will look amazing when it reaches gold status!!!"
It won't look that much better, mark my words.

[MysticStrummer]

@GrimReaper - PC people need to make up their minds. Do PCs have generations or not? We're told both on here at different times. Most reasonable people would say they don't, so when someone says "next gen hardware specs" it's obvious they mean consoles and there's no need to bring up PCs at all. But of course anyone who looks at N4G knows how much PC people need to inject themselves into every article's comment section.

[thechosenone]

Sorry but we do and we did with when it came to the final specs for the PS4. The only thing that changes at this stage in the game for hardware are are CPU speeds and the amount of ram a system will have, everything else remains unchanged so when those same source claim the nextbox specs won't be that impressive, I believe them.

[Dirtnapstor]

Why do PCer's get so pissy when it comes to gaming? Unless you've got a $5000 rig, console gaming is where it's at. Any PC game I've ever played looks sterile compared to the console counterpart.
The PC genre needs to be separated from the console world. Sick of all the tech jargon...let us Consolers enjoy ourselves please!

[thechosenone]

The PS4 will be 40-50% more powerful than the nextbox...discussion starts at post #3044

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[Autodidactdystopia]

[...]
thechosenone

what do you mean we know hardware specs?

only thing changes this late in the game is cpu speed and ram? what other specs are you talking about?

those seem like the most important to consolers to me.

[TheGrimReaper]

@MysticStrummer & Dirtnapstor:

Ummm, you don't assume I'm one of those PC enthusiast, do you?
I'm a true Consolero! (exception: I don't own a Xbox 360 :P)
My PC is currently a laptop with a 8800M GTX GPU, Intel Core2 Extreme X9000 and just 4GB RAM. It's older than my PS3!

@MysticStrummer:
I've just brought up PC because Ashunderfire86's sentence (quoted in my comment above) wasn't clear to me. My first thought was: "U don't say?" (insert Nicolas Cage's face here).
But I thought: instead of just assuming things I should consider two options:
He either meant consoles OR PC
While it is "true" that there are no real generations on PC (ever evolving platform), for me a current gen PC is a high end PC with state of the art GPU,CPU and RAM.
This is why I had to ask what he meant and it wasn't related to the headline nor the article.

@Dirtnapstor:
I'm not pissy about gaming! I love gaming, especially on consoles.
And I haven't even used "tech jargon" :/
If you are a gamer there shouldn't be a single word in my comment you haven't heard of!

[Nilemonitors13]

Hello everyone, im new in n4g and i want everyone to know that im mexican, so my english is not perfect, so please bear with me. First of all I wanted to ask if the xbox 720´s r umoured dual gpu would be more powerful than the ps4 and if there is a possibility that the ps4 has more specs under the hood that we do not know about, thank you fotr your time. Ihad to triple post this to try an get a f**king answer and not just random disagrees,PS4 luv 4evryone .

[thechosenone]

@Nilemonitors13

The rumors at one point talked about dual gpu for the xbox but that was found to be full of sh*t. The latest info says it'll sport a 7770 gpu much weaker than PS4.

checkout the link here for more info.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[jimbobwahey]

Well we know the hardware specs for the PS4 already because Sony has officially revealed them. Cold hard fact I'm afraid, and whatever DICE says doesn't change that. Sorry Slavis.

[dcbronco]

Sony hasn't said the specs are set. They said the exact opposite. And Microsoft hasn't said anything. So no one does know the final specs of either console.

The Sony statement about letting MS go first makes me believe they would make changes if the 720 proved to be more powerful. And there have been rumors of a lot of different parts on GPUs.

Here's an article where Jack Tretton says the PS4 pricing and specs aren't final.

http://www.engadget.com/201...

So until this is all settled and someone can test both, no one will know which is more powerful.

@ SolidSystem

If MS went with a modular system like they had planned, they might still be able to make changes. And I'm sure Sony went with a modular design too. Also, both companies might have designed several GPU's from the 6xxx series to the 8xxx series. Then it would be a matter of which to attach to the CPU on the die. The GPU leaks have been all over the place.

Maybe they sent different equipment to different companies. With the most powerful versions kept in-house. Since it all the same basic architecture giving others the better machine later would be like handing out presents.

[greenpowerz]

You know what Sony wanted people to hear tying to negate upcoming MSFT hype. You don't know what will be final specs in the PS4.

Those announced PS4 specs could be the *4D*, *1080p@120fps*, *10x more powerful than a super computer*, *launch games won't be possible on other platform their entire life span* of the PS3 smoke and mirrows pre console launch hype.

There is a reason Sony said the specs are not final because they are target specs, set high after finding out what MSFT is doing.

1ghz 1.79 Double Precision x 2 well over 2 T-flops
http://www.expertreviews.co...

*waits for bluetemplar's meltdown*
http://www.google.com/searc...

LOL Dcbronco proved even Sony agrees with the dev, with a link yet the PS3 fan comment with a favorable message even though delusional gets the agrees while DCbronco get disagees.

[ZoyosJD]

@Greenpowerz...LOL...no. A GTX TITAN (4-5x more expensive) barely has over 1.8 TFLOPS double precision.

Those are single precision counts.

If MS have two APUs("single" 8 core with two discrete GPUs) bolted in their 720 like Sony's PS4 supposibly has they might get numbers like that, but not from the GPU alone.

[MysticStrummer]

@greenwithenvy -

"Blacklight dev: 'Sony is really in to win this one'
I think Sony is really in to win this one. I’m good friends with a lot of guys at Microsoft, I’m under their NDA flag, and Microsoft definitely has a different outlook than Sony does."

[BlueTemplar]

@greenpowerz LOL made me chuckle that did. I assume by meltdown you meant "point out the usual glaring stupidity in your posts", so here goes:

"There is a reason Sony said the specs are not final because they are target specs, set high after finding out what MSFT is doing."

If you watched the PS4 reveal, you'd have seen they were actually pretty explicit about what the hardware was going to be. Seems unlikely to me that they will suddenly do a u-turn and release something inferior to what they revealed, but then again.. I'm not a retarded xbox zealot.

[ijust2good]

The final hardware HAS definetly been finalized and already in pre production. They have to create the parts from the chip to the casing nearly a year in advance to meet the demands on launch.

He could have meant that the final dev kit that matches the hardware hasn't been finalized.

Anyhow, there could be surprises that Sony hasn't announced so that Microsoft doesn't follow suite. Kaz Hirai did joke about going first allows ur competitor to beat u. We know Sony showed off there machine first. They could have shown near complete but not FULL so maybe we are in for a surprise.

You never know, Sony might have another single dedicated GPU working along side by side with the APU. Who knows, time will tell.

[3-4-5]

All dev's were probably advised to not use any more than 4GB of ram so as not to be too reliant on the current dev kit built in case of a change.

Not sure if that is even a realistic scenario.

[Lykon]

zx81 3d monster maze by clive sinclair

[Knight_Crawler]

Yup according to some people on N4G rumors are the truth and those leaked documents that a troll made in his moms basement are real.

The sad part about it is that when MS proves that those docs were fake come E3 the same people that believed the rumors will spin it around by saying that MS was scared and they changed their specs because of what Sony should...Fanbnoy logic -__-

[SolidSystem]

well both next-gen consoles are still being developed. They might find that their cores for example can run perfectly fine a little faster than expected etc.... no major changes should be expected though.

[kneon]

At this point only minor changes can occur if they are targeting shipments in Q4. While the final assembly can wait until fairly close to the release, the upstream suppliers need time to get their production up to speed so that the console manufacturers aren't left waiting for parts.

I expect the final specs for CPU, GPU and RAM to be cast in stone in the next month or so if they aren't already.

[torchic]

exactly. the peanut gallery in the first comment thread is arguing over nothing.

Sony and Microsoft have to start showing their hardware to various organizations which control the quality of goods coming into a country/region. example nowerdays in the EU you have to prove your your electronics meet green and eco-friendly standards, and all that stuff. lots of checks and re-checks and then authorisation.

they then have to start mass production, marketing, testing, etc.

both Microsoft and Sony have been developing these machines for years. whatever changes in the next few months will be minimal. it's far too late to make major changes right now.

[SolidSystem]

minor changes, but those are spec changes none the less.

Neither APU is production ready yet, which means everything sent out to devs at this point are and should be considered Target units. a ball park, but not what is going to be in every PS4.

[kneon]

Sure there could be some spec changes, but they won't be huge. Maybe the clock rates could move a little up or down for example, but don't expect anything too radical.

[Tei777]

Good thing if you ask me. Hopefully competition continues to drive the specs up. If you want a cheap next-gen console, buy the Wii U...

[Arai]

Well there's some truth to that isn't there?
As far as PS4 is concerned, Sony won't ship the final dev-kit until this summer.
I'm taking a wild guess here, but most likely it's the same for Durango as well..
Until then they have to work with what they have....which is Alpha hardware.

[josephayal]

I really hope the XBOX 720 comes with 4K Graphics

[medman]

Josephayal, you better hope the nextbox comes with great games and forget 4k, because Sony is bringing the games.

[TheGrimReaper]

What do you mean by 4K Graphics?

PS4 is able to render in 4K resolution (stated by Mark Cerny, although he was referring to the UI and the bandwidth needs just for that).

PS4, and most likley Nextbox, COULD play games with this resolution BUT these would be very simplistic games.

In regards of consumers expectations of nextgen graphics 4K resolution isn't practical for consoles.
Everyone cried about a 599$ PS3, a console which could display BF4 (as an example) at this resolution would cost more.

[josephayal]

I'd expect 1080p native and maybe some sort of update later on to upscale to 4k maybe 8K

[DeadlyFire]

Not gonna happen.

3-4 Tflops required for 4K at 30 fps.

PS4 - 1.84 Tflops for GPU
X720 - 1.23 Tflops for GPU
WiiU - 0.4 or 0.5 Tflops at most for GPU.

CPU added to that equals .1-.2 added.

Unless PS4/X720 have two-three duplicate GPUs its not gonna have 4K.

[ZoyosJD]

Did you consider the APUs discrete GPU(s).

Recent iterations have been pushing ~640 GFLOPS, and the PS4/720 architecture appear to be two new, yet to be released, APUs bolted together with a separate GPU.

1.84 TFLOP GPU + 2 * 4 core APU + 2 discrete GPUs (~700-800 GFLOPS each) = 3.25-3.5 TFLOPS total.

That's just raw power, no optimization.

The hardware has ~2x the memory needed for a 4k frame buffer and plentiful bandwidth.

APUs perform way better with faster memory and GDDR5 is as fast as it gets for now.

APUs are incredibly efficient, bolstering 3x the GFLOPS per $ compared to a traditional CPU + GPU combos.

Honestly, I think upscaling from 1600p to 4k and downsamping to 1080p could become the norm for next gen games with a few reaching 4k.

[DeadlyFire]

Yes. PS4 and X720 have a custom APU

18 CU for PS4.
12 CU for X720.

The CU is the key to their Tflop numbers. This is just the APU of the system though. Spec sheets of the PS4 also had a second number of 922 Gigaflops. Sony has offered no detail on that though so it could be their secret sauce.

Optimization is great, but it only goes so far. I suspect they could hit somewhere around what 3 Tflops of raw power on a PC could do with some effort though.

[ALLWRONG]

HAHAHAHA 4K HAHAHAHAH

[fsfsxii]

Sure, enjoy 4K graphics with KINECT2

[aLucidMind]

Maybe DSQD thinks you're a sweet little pastry... or he just doesn't know how to spell lol.

[hesido]

Why the HECK people are interested in 4K is beyond me. Do you sit 10cm away from your 42 inch TV? Talk about overkill. All those extra power needed to fill up those extremely unnecessary pixels can be used for other much needed real-time rendering improvements, and even whole frames.

[DigitalSmoke]

True as this article may me, the Playstation 4 can only end up more imnpressive.
I'm glad Sony atleast set the bar, MS needs to match it, or go beyond.
Sony might even be holding some hardware behind to trump MS again who knows.

[pete007]

please guys, do what you do best and go play your last gen games, .......some people say, in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, guess thats true.
sony and Microsoft have distributed nothing but DEVKITS, lots of devkits, on the first party, closed doors environment, they probably gave a close to final product base, still, sometimes its just a board with agpu coupled and the I/O devices, for the 3rd parties, just a early alpha stage capable of running the os routines and the development Tools, just in case to prevent leaks or whatever, of course as you all know, you ps/xbots activists all of your favourite CGI, gameplay, etc its been done on...... surprise!!!! ON A PC, depending on the developer, we migt see some alpha stage better then the target render, some others we have a better product, just a filosophy thing.
let me advise you for the major surprise, i am close to some one at MSFT Portugal, and before x360 anouncement, he played on an internal network just to test the new xboxlive, conectivities, etc, same stuff they´re doing right now. you get me, dont you?
so, before i get bashed like hell just for an opinion, let me say im not impressed by any console anouncement, if the final product isnt before my eyes, cause were familiar with several cases of overhype, and their work its all about that, creating the hype, now go on throw at me, i like it

[Mr_Writer85]

Not reading all that.

[fsfsxii]

Don't. I wasted my time reading that nonsense

[Sevir]

The surprise of the PS4 announcement was the 8gb of GDDR5 RAM. There's rumors of the clock speed of the cores was being bumped to 2GHz on a 28nm manufacture chip process.

Currently the hardware is prototype, and they've said this. Ubisoft and Bungie have confirmed that they didn't receive PS4 Devkits until December 2012 and they weren't even the kits with the 8gb of GDDR5.

Hell I'm wondering if Sony may add more processing cores to the CPU on the PS4 just to alleviate any concerns Devs may have with the development ceiling of PS4.

Either way, the PS4 will beable to run some pretty games and its actually nice to see that the games shown on hand last month were actual demos on prototype hardware, versus CGI Target Renders.

[nintendoland]

no one knows no one cares.

[taquito]

next gen consoles will look nowhere near as good as that bf4 trailer, that was running on pc, consoles will never get there this upcoming gen, maybe ps5 will......

that crappy cpu in the ps4 is gonna kill it

[leogets]

psh!!!! u know shit

[user7693958]

troll with one bubble..
KZSF already looks way better plus the sound in KZSF is way better to..

i did not saw nothing that wow me in that 17min gameplay video, it does looks better than any current pc game but not better than KZSF..

[seanpitt23]

The only thing that look good in bf4 was the character models and destruction the gameplay was the exact same

[PCfanboy]

PC tons of Cheaters GAY admins do not know what to look for there.

[GraveLord]

Pretty sure we do have a very good idea for both consoles. PS4 specs have been confirmed by Sony.

Maybe DICE is hoping Microsofts upgrades the weak Xbox 720 dev kits?

[TheKayle1]

who expect 4k gaming is a real dreamer

for what we know ps4 is a off the shelf pc architecture with 4+4 jaguar cores + an low-mid lvl gpu (something between 7850 7870) for 1.84 tf

theres no way to reach 4k gaming with that hw is like if u ask to a fiat punto to reach 300 km/h

sorry wasnt an answer to u gravelord

ps. maybe dice will show bf4 on the next xbox coz is more powerful?

[seanpitt23]

4k gaming is next next gen when ps5 comes out and tvs are not $25000 for a 46nch

[TheKayle1]

if ms coming up with a 4+4 jaguar cores + a 1.76 tf gpu double precision (2.82 tf in sp) as some sites r pointing (and i dont want to add that could be 2 gpu) + 4 move engine and a 100gflops (100 r the flops of a stock 4+4 jaguar cores) audio processor + an improved controler + an improved (FINALLY) with A CHIP ON ..kinect2...

we already have the next gen winner..
and theres no way where the gddr5 hype sauce can save no one

and all will come back FINALLY to the users taste...u like gt istead of forza ..buy a fuckin ps4...if u dont buy a xbox

now i go to play LOL .....where im silver !

[JOHN_DOH]

The gforce titan (the fastest gpu in the world) only does 1.3 teraflops of double precision, do you really think the next xbox will have a faster gpu?

http://www.computerworld.co...

[TheKayle1]

the titan do 4.5 teraflop single precision on a single chip ...projected to be in future double chips

http://www.computerworld.co...

double precision not always is x2..can be also x3

[ZoyosJD]

Overclocking a GTX titan to just over 1.2 GHz can net you over 2 TFLOPS double precision, but that is pretty much unsustainable without liquid cooling.

None the less if the next gen consoles have a decent graphics card ~1.8 TFLOPS and two discrete GPUs from tacking two APUs together, the fact that the consoles could go toe to toe with a GTX 680 to a Titan in terms of raw performance for a ~$500 price is nothing short of amazing.

[Nilemonitors13]

Can anyone tell me please if its possible that the ps4 has hidden specs and that if the 720's roumored dual gpu will serously outpower the ps4,

[SDF Repellent]

"'Nobody knows final next-gen hardware specs,' DICE exec suggests"

That is not true, most N4G users already got the specs down to a science for months now, don't these DICE guys know N4G is the source of 100% reliable console spec news?

[seanpitt23]

They are saying the specs are not 100% finalised yet they could change last minute

[DivineAssault]

If PS3 (regardless of the poor design choices) managed to make BF3 look & play as good as it did, i have no doubt in my mind that BF4 on PS4 will be incredible.. I know high end PCs will always have better looking multiplats but PS4 was created with devs to make their jobs easier & to make the games run/play as close to high end PCs as possible.. BF4 will be on PS4 & will be fantastic.. If people were able to enjoy it this gen, nx gen will blow their minds

[EffectO]

Sony seems to know,PS4 was announced month ago.Some developers apparently didn't get the memo about PS4(EA,Crytek,Kojima).

[aLucidMind]

They possibly meant the capabilities when a developer manages max out the console.

[Agent_hitman]

Both Microsoft and sony are trying their best to hide the hardware's full specs.. I'm pretty sure they told developers to shut their mouth regarding this matter..

[teo72]

Number of GPU's in PS4 alpha devkit = 1
This GPU's TFLOP count in single precision = 1,84
Final specs = ??? (until Sony presents them at E3)
Rumour 1: PS4 APU's CPU upclocked to 2ghz, due to multiplier GPU should then be 1GHZ. Equal to 2,3TFLOPS.
Rumour 2 (HipHopGamer): PS4 to have upgrade slots (plural) real reason for not showing ps4box. Hiphopgamer said the reason sony will have upgrade slots is to be competitive towards PC-market, which allways evolves. If true, then a GPU-upgrade may be in the cards, and it's understandable that Sony wants to keeps this secret under wraps until E3.

One thing to remember is Sonys slogan of Simplicity and personalizition among other things. So do not expect a big Gpu in the beginning. I expect something similar to what will be in the final design to enable 60fps in all games, including Killzone Shadowfall, if true that is...