Sony comments on 4K gaming on PlayStation 4

When Sony first announced the PlayStation 4, they revealed that the next-gen console will support 4K videos, but not 4K gaming. Now Sony’s Mark Cerny, the lead architect on the PlayStation 4 hardware, explains why 4K gaming isn’t feasible just yet.

Speaking to the Japanese press about the PlayStation 4 hardware, Cerny said that he’s “personally very interested in 4K”, but that the technology is still new and requires lots of horsepwer to run.

[sinncross]

Makes sense. I think aiming for 1080P 60FPS is good enough for now.

[linkenski]

Judging by the UE4 demonstration, i think it'll be less than 60

[DeadlyFire]

Maybe 1080@30 fps and 720@60 fps.

[Tr10wn]

They better focus on 1080p@60FPS, it will be a disappointment if the PS4 cant achieve that goal is a standard for PC gaming already it should be for next gens consoles.

[reynod]

"it will be a disappointment if the PS4 cant achieve that goal is a standard for PC gaming"

Well most Mid range GPUs today will easily do 1600p gaming as long as AA is kept a bit down.

I would think PS4 will be doing 1080p 30fps or 720p 60fps.

[adorie]

I've read that UE4 Elemental demo wasn't optimised.

[FlyingFoxy]

on PC you still need a high end card for 60fps @ 1080P on newer games, been saying this for a long time but it should be obvious.

it will be the sweet spot for some time to come, consoles probably won't get a solid 60fps at that resolution all the time, i've seen many games on youtube that are years old running on consoles and the framerate is very up and down in some areas over the PC version. Doom 3 BFG is a good example.

Plus i remember some PC games need graphics cards WAY over recommended spec to play fluidly, Killing Floor is a good example.. 1 8800 GT bogged down the framerate in Killing Floor & Left 4 Dead, adding another 8800 GT made the framerate near 60 though. Bearing in mind that is way over recommended specs for those games. I don't use those cards anymore since a few years, but it shows you always need above recommended specs for smooth play at all times, not just some areas.

Just get a nice 120hz 1080P screen and a high end card, and you should be set for some nice smooth gameplay.

[ShadowRyuX]

I'm rocking a GTX 470 and an i5 and I have yet to have problems playing games at 1080p and 60 fps.

[FlyingFoxy]

^ Hard to believe since many benchmarks show games @ 1080p well below 60fps on older cards, and i just checked benchmarks of your card on BF3 (never played it) and the average framerate for your card is 41.26.. that's not even minimum fps so it's going to drop a lot lower.

I know what i'm talking about, i had the best high end card in 2004 (6800 Ultra) and even that didn't run CSS or Half Life 2 @ 60fps all the time, it had many sections where it dropped as low as 20.

And i still have a 5870 card which is better than the 470 in most games. Sure it plays what i want fine, but newer games not 60fps all the time.

My point still stands. Also i have to laugh at the disagree's on my post when i'm telling the truth.

[Mr_cheese]

I swear ive already seen a similar article on n4g??

[Skate-AK]

You did. It was just yesterday.

[Honest_gamer]

lets just nail the 1080 and 60fps, before we start to think about 2k, 4k, 8k, eat cake, what ever k

[BitbyDeath]

1080P is 2K :-p

[Honest_gamer]

1080i/p/what ever - 1920x1080
2k - 2048 × 1080
that extra 128 pixels in width counts :P wich is 138240 pixels more than 1080

Epic fail

[kneon]

Nope, 2k is not a normal term for display resolution, but if it were then it would refer to 1920x1080 displays, or 2560x1080 for a 21:9 TV

The 4 in 4k refers to the approximate horizontal resolution of the display, so it follows that a 2k display would have approximately 2000 horizontal pixels. A 4k display has between 3646 and 4096 horizontal pixel depending on which flavor of 4k it is.

But the one we are most likely to see in home TVs is 3840x2160 which is exactly 4x the size of a full HD TV.

[Reportillo4]

not this again -_-

[pete007]

if we attempt 4k in gaming well go back to the low fps screen tearing, letz stay with the comfortable fullhd/60
and evolutive less demanding AA and well be all glad, the evolution to 4k will be far more demanding than the sd to hd, believe me,
now lets see if voting me down is the national sport

[CommonSenseGamer]

I would rather have proper anti aliasing, rock steady 60fps, no screen tearing, no noticable pop-in or texture swapping in 720p than put up with all this again next gen.

[NateCole]

I just want 1080P 60FPS on console.

It is way to early for 4K gaming. It's a hardware and content barrier right now.

Devs will not devlope games with 4K resolution because they know the hardware is not there yet for mass market.

As such Sony should not waste too much time on this. Not yet a least. Another 2 years then this should be revisited.

In the meantime 1080p 60fps or GTFO. We were promised 1080P 60FPS 7 years ago on console. It's time they make good on that promise and make it standard.

I know i sound a bit harsh but my eyes are use to it because of PC.

[pete007]

we will still see some compromises between 1080p/30 or 720/60
nextgen consoles are not jetplanes

[robleroy]

even if console would be jetplanes, developers would still mostly sacrifice the fps to gain more graphics (texture) quality. (so most games would still be 30 fps) Just because the main public and thus games would (commercially) rather see more beautiful graphics (textures) compared to 60 fps gameplay with somewhat lesser graphics (textures). Till now the experience difference between 60 fps or 30 fps is still not capturable to show through captured movies or pictures which could be posted at websites or other media.
And the consolegame industry sadly knows that.
the current gen mostly has 720p/30 or 1080p/30
. The nextgen will probably be 1080p/30
This is not because of the horsepower. This is just because of the developers choice.
And remember there are no tweak options on consoles like on the pc....
If the pc would have no tweak option between 30/60 fps ,the pc games would probably also be locked at 30 fps.

[Crazyglues]

@ pete007

LoL... nextgen consoles are not jetplanes?

-but the current gen is..? Last time I checked GT5 prologue was 1080p at 60fps... so if PS3 can do it...

I really don't think it's a big stretch to think that PS4 will indeed be more then able to do 1080p at 60fps..

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[WUTCHUGUNNADO]

Racing games don't really push boundaries

[pete007]

My dear, gt5 is running 1280x1080 upscaled To fullhd. You are not allowed To step away road track more than a yard, cenario is a ps2 nostalgique hd version. The brake sounds are the same since gt1, what more? No AA, the single positive aspect is the full car render of 1/5 of the total.
I kept my PS3 only for this game. I was deceived and i sold it a bit later, now i am on the forza side and be sure, they deliver.

[Crazyglues]

@ Pete007

that's not true PS3 GT5 prologue was full 1080p at 60fps the final game GT5 did dip below this frame-rate and they decided to upscale it...

but I didn't mean it to be a got ya moment, I was just saying that if they almost pulled it off on PS3 or came close, surely now PS4 will have no problem doing this with all the memory and power the system has..

[BlmThug]

@Crazy

I am literally playing GT5 right now and it is not 1080P. Also GT5 isn't really resource heavy. The premium cars look wonderful in the photo mode but they don't look anything like it in the actual race. Also the standard cars are awful and usually the race field is populated by standard cars thus less resources being eaten up on the track.

Despite all this, I still love GT5 though and completing both 24 hour races in a Mazda 787B was amazing

Also the PS4 can pull of 1080P and 60FPS easily but devs would and probably sacrifice either or maybe even both for better visuals

[_-EDMIX-_]

Agreed. I'm a HUGE GT fan and I have to agree. Though I think the cars in the game look fine, its clear that its not all full 1080p native. Also I still think its the best racing sim this gen, not many games can even hold a candle to GT5 in terms of the amount of epicness thats inside.

And to the idiots thinking that 1080p 60fps is some how an easy thing to do cause "PS3 did it" is just a sad joke. This just shows how little most console gamers actually know about PC tech.

First off, JUST cause MY PC (PS3) can max out HL2 1080p 75fps (GT5) doesn't mean that BF3 can somehow be maxed the same way. The more detail and textures etc you put in a game, the more your going to have to take away in terms of res. You can't just have everything running in 1080p. Though I think a lot of games will be in 1080p next gen, I think the big blockbusters just won't be just in terms of having a smooth game vs a stuttering game.

[FlyingFoxy]

Not gonna happen, many PC games need graphics cards above recommended specs to play 60fps all the time. Not just some areas, because it can drop in intense parts.

[NateCole]

Consoles are closed systems. If they can do this for some PS3 games i am sure they can do it for most PS4 games. Instead of them looking at 4K they have to at least try and get 1080P at 60FPS first.

[Monkeysmarts]

Maybe by the time PS5 rolls around I might give a hoot about 4K gaming... or video for that matter.

[sway_z]

I don't think we'll see a PS5 or Xbox 4 dude. Cloud services will integrate PSN/LIVE into any connected device by that time. The Industry will have No need for dedicated hardware.

My guess? ....2020 Cloudy

[Holeran]

I honestly hope they will be able to do 1080p @ 60fps on most of thier games but I think thats wishfull thinking when we already know Guerilla is doing 1080p @ 30fps on Killzone Shadowfall.

[Monkeysmarts]

Early games are never the best examples of putting the hardware to use. A year or two into the life cycle of the PS4, we'll be seeing games that put the launch titles to shame. I have no doubt that the launch games we get will be very good, but as devs learn the hardware better and commit more resources to next gen games we will see the results.

[Rageanitus]

Wrong, games have gotten a bit better as the generation progressed. Just look at alot of the later games this gen, then went from 720p to sub 720p native resolution and at a steady 30 fps. I the 2nd year of any console is a god representation of the potential.

Imo Gears of war did not drastically increase in quality neither has Killzone

[Monkeysmarts]

That's basically what I said. Results differ by studio, of course... some developers push the graphics performance more than others.

[the_hitman3000]

What about use who use 720p tv could the games run at 60 if we downscale or do they lock the frames?

[Jaqen_Hghar]

with less RAM in a demo for a game that is over half a year away from launch and is a launch title

[Rageanitus]

not enough power for 4k games
I just want 1080p games running at 60fps

[NobleRed]

Mee too. But even Killzone runs only with 1080P and 30 frames. I would be really surprised If we see 1080P games with 60 frames this time.

[Rageanitus]

True 30 fps is bareable it would be nice to finally see games at 1080p, current pc rigs can easily do above 1080p at 60 fps.

The problem is were gonna see a hoard of console fanboys think the console is gonna be really that powerful

I give it the ps3 does have some very stunning graphics for a console but many ppl thought it would be like CGI graphics.....

[landog]

if we get 1080p native in 50% of ps4 games i'll be happy

and i remain skeptical that we will

i think graphically intensive games like bf4, the witcher 3 etc will be 720p 30 frames on ps4 and nextbox so as to have as many features as possible in line with the pc version

though ps4/nextbox will certainly not support the levels of anti aliasing and AF that the pc does

[Hazmat13]

if i ever win the lottery im gonna buy a 4K and see what all this talk is about. cause well i don't have 25,000 just laying around.

[PersonMan]

Console gamers will never get a lot of 60fps games because games can look a lot better when they can render the frames at 30fps.

Plus, you don't notice 30fps as much with a controller as opposed to using a mouse.

I'm perfectly happy with 30fps and see no need for all games to be 60fps.

[WUTCHUGUNNADO]

I play with a 360 controller on PC... when I had my 550ti BF3 would even out at 30fps on ultra. I could never do it because everything felt sluggish especially while sprinting. I had to adjust the settings lower to get my 60fps and there was an immediate improvement in the responsiveness... once you get accustomed to 60fps then you will know how horrible 30fps is.

[PersonMan]

The thing is... I used to ALWAYS play on PC and 60fps. Then I switched to console and found that 30fps with a controller wasn't bad. Then I got used to it and now I just play the games without worrying about what my framerate is.

On PC now, 60fps is just too smooth... it doesn't look right anymore. It's like the soap opera effect all over again.

[pandehz]

Ignore 4k and give the players 1080p/60fps with high fidelity graphics, good artwork, good stories and overall great games

[bradleejones]

Wipeout HD was 1080/60fps on ps3

[OpenGL]

It used a dynamic frame buffer size that went from 1280x1080-1920x1080 to maintain 60fps, it was actually pretty clever. The game however did not use any form of anti-aliasing.

We should be getting a lot more 1080p games with anti-aliasing on the PS4 though, and no tricks should be needed to achieve it.

[Deku-Johnny]

PS4 was never going to have 4K. They aren't going to jump from a console that can't handle native HD to 4K in one gen.

[Hicken]

PS3 is not the Wii. Nice try, though.

[Qrphe]

We'll be lucky if we see some 60fps games, but 1080p30fps will be the norm.

[StreetsofRage]

You can really understand how stupid people are on this site when they discuss 4k like it's a piece of cake.

[PAYNEinc85]

Do you guys think 4k gaming will be the norm by the time PS5 comes out? Agree if yes, disagree if no.

[Eck0]

probably..

side note.. if they got phones that got 1080p ..and they are bout 5 inch screen.. imagine the day tv's have that pixel density.. it would be like 60K tv's .. or probably higher..

[abzdine]

fair enough, that will reduce the price a little bit!
Kutaragi would have added 4K i'm sure of it!

[Tzuno]

Victims. :)

[deadlydragon121]

I predicted this a while back and all I got was hate, of course it wasn't feasible having a console outputting 4k resolution when there aren't many TVs going about just yet. Even if you did get hold of a 4K TV it would be EXPENSIVE! Will take a few years for the 4K TV to drop to an affordable price.

[imchuckbass]

PS4 isn't gonna do 1080p 60fps on many games. The extra power that the PS4 has, over the PS3, will be used on textures and physics.

[wishingW3L]

probably but don't even mention it. People here live in a fantasy world and they will only disagree and take your bubbles away.

[wishingW3L]

why do people care about 4k when you need a 100 inches TV or more to even start noticing any difference?