Mark Cerny Explains The PS4's GPU - Can Perform Asynchronous Complex Processes

"He also spoke about how the PS4's GPU is not only limited to handling the graphics but also complex processes which is traditionally handled by the CPU."

[Prcko]

again cerny...
lol
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Mark Cerny talks about PS4 features and development

[gameseveryday]

This man is the face of the PlayStation 4.

[Prcko]

true,every day 10 articles only about cerny and his master plan behind ps4
i don't say it's a bad thing

[hakis86]

:)Hehe a lot of funny pictures of him around the web!
He is cool though.

[WooHooAlex]

Is it weird that I have a man-crush on Mark Cerny?

[MikeMyers]

"This man is the face of the PlayStation 4."

As he should be. He is a game designer who had input in the design of the system. It looks as though Sony learned a lot from the PS3 and how they can improve things for game development.

[Aery]

I think all real gamers "must" buy this console just as sign of appreciation for the effort of this guy.

[PLASTICA-MAN]

PS4 is based on GCN 2: having 8 ACE's (AMD’s new Asynchronous Compute Engines), each capable of running 8 CL's each. Tahiti and 7970/7870 have two ACEs, 2 CL's per ACUs.

If I make that simple the ACUs are like the SPUs in the CELL which are efficient in heavy calculations operations and Cerny confirmed that they can mimic the behaviour of the SPUs with them which gives us 64 operations compared to 4 in a ATI 7970. That's the power of a GPGPU. It is a greta idea for Sony from shifting the CELL a processor doing graphical stuff to a GPU doing CPU stuff.

[cannon8800]

All these articles about Mark Cerny...

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photo...

[decrypt]

"PS4 Can Perform Asynchronous Complex Processes"

I am not surprised at Mark Cerny's enthusiasm. However to be honest its misplaced, i dont blame him after PS3 being restricted to a decade old tech for so long any upgrade is a relief, the mans constant articles show how desperate console developers had become in general, games can finally progress again.

Though really so many praising articles and yet PS4 is still limited to 30fps on most games, some supercharged PC that is lol.

[Shad0wRunner]

Console games are never going to run at 60 FPS as standard. Even when developers start to be able to squeeze more out of the hardware, there is always going to be a trade-off. They can either put more pixels, shaders, lighting effects and other graphical elements on screen at once, or they can include less shiny graphics stuff and have it run at 60 FPS.

And shiny graphics stuff sells to a far larger audience than high framerates. "Look at this sweet explosion" and "Look at the detail of the facial animation" speaks to people. "Look at the framerate" doesn't. As long as it isn't choppy, people don't care whether it's running at 30 or 60. While there will always be exceptions, on the whole developers are always going to push for more graphical detail than a higher framerate.

[TheLEGENDofTydo]

@decrypt

Your so wrong about the 30fps thing.
The PS3 wasn't even limited to 30fps, it was limited at 60.

The ps4 is limited to 120fps but nobody care about fps and if you do then you're just not a gamer. Battlefield at 60fps looks no better than Call of Duty at 30 fps. And even the games i have for my $3000 pc that play at 120fps look just as smooth as my ps3 does.

[RedHawkX]

no hes the face of gaming! listen well you all.

[MajorLazer]

Cerny is awesome :D what a guy to represent the PlayStation brand. I like Andrew House too, mainly because he has the same beard style as mine :D

[G20WLY]

Cerny is a cool nerd, affable too. He's done a great job, it seems, and deserves all this attention and credit.

I like House too - he's fluent in Japanese, I just find that so impressive! Nice to see one of us Westerners bothing to learn someone else's language for a change.

And I just want Jacky T to be my uncle, as he seems so nice! :D

[imt558]

You forget :

Mark Cerny Explains Why The Cell Processor Was Not Included In The PS4

[JackVagina]

this is all coming from a 50 minute speech he made (there is a vid)

all these articles is a bit silly tho

[ZodTheRipper]

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

It's very worth watching from start to finish.

[titletownrelo]

he's a great public speaker, very passionate and proud of the work he and his colleagues have accomplished.

[Narutone66]

"Make a console easy to develop for, but hard to master". That's really some motto to guide them on how PS4 was conceived.

[1nsomniac]

I think what he's trying to say is that all of this was explained in his 30 min conference video.

You could either watch the 30 min video or spend 3 hours reading all the articles that have been posted here quoting from it!

...Morale of the story - Watch the video, stop repeat posting the same articles!!

[t0mmyb0y]

I don't get your rant.

[papashango]

so theres a million n4g article on mark cerny based off one presentation....

at what point can we start reporting as duclicate articles?

[t0mmyb0y]

Oh lol. Ya guess there have been a few.

[GABRIEL1030]

There are lot of articles based in the same presentation that Cerny did in Spain a few days ago. Cerny is a great person because is calm, centered, smart and he's a gamer and understands the needs of the players and developers. PS4 is an amazing device.

[ZBlacktt]

SO this!!!!! Damn people go watch the video yourself of Marks event. It's like 50 mins long and a very good watch. All these stories of people taking very small parts just to make a story is sad. You are missing out on so much hearing it from the man himself. Go watch the video on youtube.

[1OddWorld]

Wow watch the video. It shows what passion this man has for the gaming industry, and how he and his comrades are shaping the future of gaming by listening and learning.

[BABY-JEDI]

You forgot to include,
Mark Cerny opens a can of whoop asss
Mark Cerny gives the smack down..
LoL

[Foxgod]

Every gpu can do that, as gpu's can do multiple streams of data, while cpu's can only do one per thread.

However, its just not a good idea, as cpu's handle a lot more data per thread then a gpu can.
The gpu's in the ps4 and the xb1 are no different from the ones inside a pc.

[Valkyre]

clearly sony made a huge mistake, they should fire that dumbass Cerny and hire mr. Foxgod.

/s

[Foxgod]

Where did i say they made a mistake?
I said all gpu's can do it, not that its a mistake.

Its a feature that can be used when the cpu is bottlenecked, but that will never happen as its usually the gpu that gets bottlenecked.

[SpecialK]

@Foxgod

Its a bit different with consoles though, pc games have to work across many different specs which is why games never take full advantage of an individual PC.

Its different with consoles where they will do everything to max these things out. Its not uncommon for devs to use uncommon techniques and try out different things to really push a console.

[Foxgod]

Understandable, but i cant see it happen, as you would have to sacrifice a significant amount of 3d processing, just to push the physics and AI a bit.

[dantesparda]

No, not all gpu's can do this, gpgpus can and even then there are limits, like most cant do general purpose computing while simultaneously doing graphics processing, whereas the the PS4's gpu can (its one of the mods done on it). And a feature that AMD is going to bring out to the PC soon

[Pandamobile]

@Dantesprada True, not every GPU can, but every GPU since the 8800 cards (2006) have had GPGPU capabilities.

Every game that uses PhysX GPU accelerated physics does collisions, simulations, and world simulations (optional). GPU texture decompression is pretty common too. The only thing new here (I did some research and couldn't find much information on it) is the ray casting for audio, which sounds like an awesome piece of tech if they plan on using it for what I think they'll use it for.

[BitbyDeath]

Doesn't matter if PC could do it before or not. The games weren't taking advantage of the tech as they had to be made with the lowest common denominator in mind (ie the consoles)

[Narutone66]

@Foxgod, as Major Nelson would say "Are you a developer?" in a menacing way.

[TIER1xWOLFPACKx]

you forget foxgod that they have alot of custom software and programme which make much better use of every component

[GABRIEL1030]

The Ps4's CPU/GPU is integrated with a large bandwith, neither PC or Xbone have an integrated GPU.

Maybe in the near future the PC could be designed with this integration, but in the Xbone's case is unlikely.

[Gameratheart]

Maybe I'm wrong here.... But the x1 is also doing the whole soc thing... In other words, it's cpu and gpu are all one chip.... Although maybe I'm wrong... I thought I read that it uses the all in one thing too....

[Rhaigun]

It does. Just like many laptops use APU's as well.
Gabriel has no idea what he's talking about.

[LNDCalling]

@Foxgod @Pandamobile

As already stated by @PLASTICA-MAN the customisations in the PS4's GPU make its GPU far better at these operations than an off-the-shelf PC GPU:-

PS4 GPU
- 8 ACE's each capable of running 8 CL's each.
- Additional bus providing a direct link to system memory that bypasses the GPU's caches.
- Enhanced L2 cache to better support simultaneous use by graphics and compute workloads.

PC GPU (7970 / Titan)
- 2 ACE's each capable of running 2 CL's each.

PS4 GPU admittedly behind on stream processors and ROPS but still holding its own for a console GPU!

On top of the above we are talking about a closed system and programing directed at same, no PCI bus limitations etc, therefore I can't see how this isn't something special as every GPU since the 8800 has had GPUGPU capabilities!

[Ju]

Those 64 compute channels will make a difference. This combined with a slim API which allows the PS4 efficiently "scheduling" compute tasks within the render pipeline plus a coherent memory sub-system is far beyond PCs. If anything it's simply a higher granularity to submit compute jobs efficiently. Sure, it won't make up for brute force core count, but we'll see some quite nice results in the coming years when developers will start taking full advantage of the architecture.

[fattyuk]

I'm surprised to hear he's been married for 25 years, I thought he was a homosexual, obviously this isn't any sort of personal attack or anything homophobic it was just something I thought.... I've been mis- informed,

FairPlay to all of his achievements! Very clever man,.

[Mkai28]

I thought the same thing as well. I've seen people who were married and turned gay. Maybe it's the way he moves on stage with the bent wrist?

[Jaqen_Hghar]

combo of his voice and maneurisms but a man knew he was straight when he saw the wedding ring on his finger Feb 20th. At least a designer doesn't fiddle with his ring like Mr. House does on stage. A man could care less about his sexual preferences all a man knows is that he's an amazing smart man who could probably build a transformer or death star if he put his mind to it.

[GABRIEL1030]

LOL!

25 years....well.... maybe he makes very happy at his wife...with a large.......the first impressions deceives.

Cerny is a genius, maybe like Jobs, a quiet guy with nice ideas.

[fattyuk]

WELL IM GLAD SOME PEOPLE UNDERSTAND WHERE IM COMING FROM WITH MY COMMENT.... THANKS!

As to all the moaning users.... get of your high horse will you!

[Thomper]

I just wrote something similar. Suspecting he likes a bit of man-love is not a criticism, just an observation.

[Braid]

Asynchronous complex processes? Dayummm!

It's probably just a flashy way of saying "multitasking", but if you only say "PS4 can do multitasking" it doesn't sound as cool. You gotta say "PS4 can accomplish elaborate multifaceted algorithms within an exceedingly accelerated time frame to ensure the optimal multi-leveled experience".

[MysticStrummer]

"You gotta say "PS4 can accomplish elaborate multifaceted algorithms within an exceedingly accelerated time frame to ensure the optimal multi-leveled experience"."

I prefer "PS4 kicks ass"

[Foxgod]

Not entirely, multi tasking refers to running multiple application at a time.
Asynchronous complex processes refers to multiple data streams being processed that can be individual data streams from different processes going on inside one application

Multi tasking is a lot broader and cannot be applied to asynchronous processing, as this can only happen within an app.

Asynchronous processing can be perfectly done on cpu's these days however, considering cpu's these days have multiple threads.
Which is why i stated in another reply, that its just fancy talk.

[XabiDaChosenOne]

Nobody is impressed bro, give it a break.

[Nocando]

And these tards just lap it up, as if it's the only gpu on the planet that can do this.

[Angeljuice]

@Foxgod @ Nocando

The way the PS4 does it is completely different.

A conventional CPU writes to CPU memory, that data is then moved to the gpu's memory pool, the gpu processes the data and the processed data is stored on the gpu's memory pool whilst waiting to be moved back to the main memory again.

PS4 has a unified memory pool, both the CPU and GPU can access ALL the data directly. This isn't currently possible on any PC anywhere in the world.

PC: CPU> mem1> mem2> GPU> mem2> mem1> CPU

PS4: CPU> mem1> GPU> mem1> CPU

It is a much faster process and doesn't bottleneck the limited PCIe bandwidth as it would in a PC.

You learn something new everyday eh?

Don't worry Nocando, I won't call you a 'tard' for not knowing this, you simply don't know what you're talking about.

[nukeitall]

@kobe:

actually what is impressive is you completely ignored what foxgod said and instead appeared ignorant.

What foxgod said is true and isn't intended to impress you. Nobody I know gets impressed by comments like that.

however we do get dissappointed by ignorant people all the time! it is what is f'in up mankind!

[XabiDaChosenOne]

@nukeitall you again....he is trying to state the obvious by refering to how the PS4s GPU would work in a convetional PC when a console is CLEARLY a more optimized piece of tech. Read Angel juices comment and educate yourself.

[TEZ-RaViNlUnAtIk]

@ foxgod

shut up you tart.

[mediate-this]

I got the same definition when I googled Async complex processes

[wishingW3L]

more like a flashy way to say "GPGPU computation".

[Ju]

They don't say "multitasking" because it really isn't. Multitasking requires context saving on a per "task" basis. Means, each "task" stores it's context. And this isn't supported. I once said it's "pseudo" HW threading of the GPU, because it allows you to schedule multiple jobs to the compute units, but the GPU won't save any states, etc. This isn't yet possible with the current architecture.

[Thepharaoh]

Man is great genius.Every time he does one of these i always get impressed.

[kewlkat007]

More jibber-jabber the average gamer or parents don't care for or understand. Tells us about a new game or franchise we don't know about..

[MasterCornholio]

That jibber jabber was meant for developers not your average Joe or gamer.

Motorola RAZR i

[kewlkat007]

Yes, us nerds will salivate over these fancy words.
A developer will put things in perspective when they are talking about the advantages. I rather hear it from them.

just saying.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

a man is interested in hardware because games will be helped out more the better the hardware is. A man also doesn't expect game announcements anywhere other than E3, Gamescom, TGS, or perhaps a Gametrailers show or some other larger show.

[stuna1]

And there are some of us who do want to know more as far as the inner workings of the PS4.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

In all honesty, I don't think it is even possible for the LEAD ARCHITECT to talk jibber jabber, especially for someone who has been in this industry longer than some of you have been alive. It's not Mark Cerny's business to tell us about a new game, unless he made it, like Knack.

[twdll]

Every time I see and hear him I think "Church Lady", I cant help it. Lol

[iceman06]

Could it be.....SATAN!?!?!? LMAO

[latincooker214]

this man gets my respect for what he done in the past for us gamers and the future PS4 FTW:)

[TurboGamer]

Also known as GPGPU. OpenCL, DirectCompute, CUDA, its not exactly a new technology. Devs will need it for when they have to get around the tablet CPU bottleneck in the future.

[wishingW3L]

I'm pretty sure that's its purpose since the CPU is so weak.

Nintendo did the same with the Wii U and MS with the XB1 too. I wonder if there are real advantages or if it's just a way to reduce cost. Maybe both?

[Jaqen_Hghar]

consoles benefit more from strong GPU than strong CPU or at least it's easier to utilize it. That's all hearsay a man has heard from around the web for a few years because of the whole Cell fiasco so take it with a grain of salt.

[Ju]

A CPU is slow to do games anyway. 8 cores are 8 cores. It isn't an i7 but still plenty of resources - especially because you can run so many threads in parallel. But no matter what, you wouldn't want to do the heavily lifting on the CPU anyway. A GPU will always be faster in most gaming tasks - e.g. physics. No matter how fast your CPU is. Or would you prefer running PhysX on the fastest i7 even though you'd have a 7970 in your PC?

[iFounDmYmasteR]

All heil Mark Cerny
true savior of ps4
bringer of next gen

[Nocando]

If that wasn't sarcasm, you are a huge dork.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

or a former Nazi

[PFFT]

Meh, im pretty sure a PC GPU and the XBO GPU can do it as well.

[Angeljuice]

Not in the same way (Xbox isn't using hSA/uMA).

[Angeljuice]

Correction: *hUMA (typing on smartphone)^^^

[PSN_ZeroOnyx]

Actually the X1 is using a less powerful GPU, therefore it cannot get the same performance out of its GPU as the PS4 can get out of its more powerful modified GPU.

[PositiveEmotions]

I dont understand the cpu stuff idk how those cpu numbers even mean

[A_Gamer]

Innovation benefits everyone.

[neoandrew]

Mark Cerny - Men of the year!!!

[windblowsagain]

You would say Man. Men means many.

[neoandrew]

Sorry, just a typo.

[Thomper]

He is married to a woman... I was surprised! He is as camp as a row of pink tents

[KwietStorm_BLM]

This is exactly why I think Planetside 2, normally a CPU heavy game, will flourish on an optimized static system like PS4.

[Bolts]

My greatest respect for this guy stem from the fact that he willingly admit that the Cell was an utter fail. Sony threw a ton of money into this chip thinking that it would be the wave of the future not just in gaming but also the electronics market as well. It totally bombed. Aside from Sony in house development teams, everybody hated it.

At least they did do one thing right with the PS3. Bluray was a total bullseye, it completely dominated the entertainment market.

[Relientk77]

I <3 Mark Cerny

he is the man, and a true gamer, and knows what we want in a next gen console

[windblowsagain]

I play WARFRAME on a I5 2500K, and a ati 6870, easily over 60fps @ 1080p maxed. You don't need a powerful system to run it.

Trouble with PC games alot of the time, they are poorly coded, and run like crap on alot of systems, the reason big gpu's are needed alot is because of raw power.

If the code was better, you would not need it so much.

Games coming for PS4 will benefit PC users. Code will be much cleaner, better looking games all round.

[JsonHenry]

I'm hoping they tap out all 8 cores for extra tasks and leave the GPU to do what it does best- graphics. It is cool that the GPU can do these extra things but I don't I want them to max out the cores of the CPU before asking the GPU to do things it was designed for thus lowering overall gfx fidelity.

[Ju]

A lot of those tasks are graphics related. One bottleneck is CPU/GPU interaction. Doesn't help if a GPU stalls because it needs to wait for the CPU. You'd rather do something useful with that time. That's exactly where this come into play. It's all about efficiency of GPU and CPU not one versus the other.

[TheHardware]

He always looks like he needs sleep...

[LocutusEstBorg]

Boasting about something a cheap ass laptop with onboard GPU does...

[Ju]

Oh yeah? Which one is that? The fastest GPU in an integrated chipset is the A10-6800K - with 384 shader cores (and still beats Hasswell in integrated benchmarks - or is the same) with a max bandwidth of 35GB/s (that is with overclocked 2133MHz DDR3 RAM - which Notebook has that??) vs. GDDR5 RAM with 176GB/s bandwidth and 1152 shader cores. "Cheap ass laptop, eh?". 8 cores, too, huh? There is no 8 core notebook CPU available.

[TABSF]

Sure the PS4 is a good piece of tech but to say that what is being done has never been done before is foolish.

They're using an AMD APU solution, AMD have been making them for years now and It basically a PC/Laptop processor that features CPU/GPU/Northbridge

The CPU Jaguar Cores are about 10% quicker than Bobcat however its about 50% slower than Piledriver, furthermore Piledriver is slower than Sandy, Ivybridge and Haswell.

On the GPU side its effectively HD 7870 GHz Edition with 2 Compute Units hardware disabled and of course lower frequencies.
All these "Enhanced Technologies" already exist on PC and have done for years now, just a different name.

The memory is the most impressive element on the console from the hardware front.

Finally, if anyone thinks that the PS4 can complete with PC from 2012 then I'm sorry but you are mistaken.

Intel Core i7 2600K / AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
Intel Core i7 3770K / AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
Intel Core i7 4770K / Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan

I could list many more and they would easily beat PS4, oh and these could do 4K gaming.

[Angeljuice]

They are using hUMA which won't appear on any AMD APU until 2014. Nice try but you're wrong.

[TABSF]

Show me, where is a link from AMD themselves saying this?

Like I said, it doesn't matter what the PS4 got, PC is beyond it a year before release and that's the truth.

I can send you many links that will show you that AMD's "flagship" CPU FX 8350 gets humiliated by Intel Core i5s and i7 so how will a laptop / mainstream CPU compete, it will not.

PC GPUs can go beyond 1920 by 1080 since 2007, anti-aliasing is a given, 4096 by 4096 textures, hell even 8192 by 8192 can be done with ease dependent on the users GPU

Fact is PC has always been ahead and it always will be.

[iFounDmYmasteR]

A console does not need to compete with a pc
why, just look at the exclusives for both systems
dont tell me wat im talking about ,i have a high end pc and consoles , 4k is nice on a tv 55 inch and bigger.

[toshan]

nice

[Skeith]

Conclusion: Xbone is finished.

[ded1020]

"PS4 will read CDs, but will not play back audio CD music."

Fuck it I'm out. If I can't listen to my 1999 Limp Bizkit CD WTF am I wasting my time for? Maybe I'll just get a one...

PSOne that is.

[Thomper]

Mark Cerny explains how to:

Make babies
Boil an egg
look creepy with his weird rubbery face

really getting bored of him and these articles.....

[jeffgoldwin]

He's a spin doctor, nothing more. Media hype and people eat that up while chasing it down with the Kool-Aid beverage.

[Angeljuice]

@Thomper
Thats because you are a troll and have no interest in PS4 .

[Adolph Fitler]

You had me at PS4 Sony, so Mark, take a chill pill, because you don't need to do the sell, as smart gamers know that Sony consoles get THE GREATEST EXCLUSIVES....I mean, I just played the demo of Papa & Yo, & it is one of the most awesome digital downloadable games I've experienced (& I do own 360 as well, along with Mark Of The Ninja & many of it's gems), but thing is, there are just games on Sony's consoles, whether digital or disk based, that are just not available on other consoles & NOTHING like them is. The Last Of Us, is a great example of a game that is truly groundbreaking & awesome, & this late in the gen... & I just got through playing some Starhawk, & this game is an underated, criminally commercially under valued masterpiece...I mean, this is one awesome piece of gaming, not available on any other platform, no nothing like it is.

The fact that Cerny has designed this machine, along with huge input from MANY, MANY, huge, influential developers having an input that was not only listened to, but also implemented into Sony's new machine, should be testament enough for all "GAMERS", while the more easily impressed, less tech savvy, electronics hipsters will go for MS's new camera based machine.
I mean, I will probably get a Xbone down the line, when is cheaper & a subscription to XBLive is proven to not be needed, as I will never give these p%$ks money for online, as they are the turds that have made it the norm now. But, I will get a PS4 day 1, & I will sign up for PSN+ (under silent protest & pissed offed-ness), & be a bit happier, than if paying for Live, due to all the freebies Sony tends to offer with there service. Another reason "GAMERS"....I mean real, true blue, 100% game oriented early adopters , should & hopefully will go for PS4 as there primary, or only console.
I know, if I was only to buy 1 machine, it would be PS4, over both Wii-U (which I already own, & no, not worth it for anything), & XBone, no doubt whatsoever.
The other 2 are built around gimmicks, & both are underpowered, thanks to the expense of said gimmicks.

[CrossingEden]

and none of you know what that means, but brag about it to fuel the console war

[H3ADWOUND81]

What war? That stopped being the case right about the same time as the xbox one reveal, don't you remember when they crushed dreams by announcing tv was the way forward and gaming was a secondary function?

[CrossingEden]

no, but i remember this
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[DivineAssault]

Sony chose the right man for the job.. He built this thing in the best way possible & its without a doubt the absolute BEST console ever created. Most powerful too

[H3ADWOUND81]

@crossingeden
Yup that's designed to make tards like you blow your load.. Hold up everybody, I think we've all made a mistake.
Microsoft have now reversed their restrictions and it's now all about games, they really are listening to gamers!
Turns out they are not that bad after all.
Nothing to do with the fact nobody was preordering the fucking console at all!! Compared to the rest of the world ordering ps4's..
MS have shown their true colours and lost trust in gamers, only time will tell if people can forgive, personally I think your a bit naive if you think everythings now rosy..