PlayStation 4 May Not Feature AMD HUMA Support [UPDATE]

During a recent gamescom 2013 interview, an AMD spokesperson made inaccurate statements regarding the details of our semi-custom APU architectures. AMD will not comment on the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PS4 memory architectures and will not speak for Microsoft, Sony or other AMD customers.

Upon asking AMD about HUMA’s implementation on either platform, i got the following reply:

Thanks for the response. Can’t go into any more details since it is up to Microsoft and Sony to talk about their products and implementations…but what I can say is that the comments coming out of gamescom were inaccurate.

AMD has their reasons for not commenting on this matter and PCPer also acknowledges that HUMA isn’t officially supported by currently available Jaguar powered chips aka Temash and Kabini which is a fact. But the possibility remains of HUMA on the semi-custom APU built by AMD. Only an official response from Sony and Microsoft can confirm whether or not their consoles utilize from...

[sobotz]

http://www.qadate.com/image...

But I bet people will still say that PS4 IS featuring HUMA, even the AMD itself said it will NOT.

[Muerte2494]

Stands for "unified memory" right? There was an article posted about this months ago.

"hUMA is a cache coherent system, meaning that the CPU and GPU will always see a consistent view of data in memory. If one processor makes a change then the other processor will see that changed data, even if the old value was being cached."

I remember Mark Cerny saying that both the CPU and GPU can access the same pool of memory. Thus PS4 supports "huMA".

Posted back in March
http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

Here you read up. Microsoft probably made a fuss about it. AMD is now only saying "no comment". Sony has teamed up with AMD and other in the HSA foundation.

http://www.fudzilla.com/hom...

AMD never said they PS4 didn't support it. They said "no comment". "You should ask Sony and Microsoft on what they support." I'll give a moment to let you finish the rest of that crow you're eating now.

[golding89]

Lol. O boy. Does it really matter guys? Just enjoy the system you will buy..

This goes for both xbox fans and ps4 fans..

[FlameHawk]

golding89, lol you are just saying that because Xbox One won't have it, if it were the other way around you would be boasting about it.

[darthv72]

AMD provided the chips to both Ms and sony and it was their own (MS/Sony) design teams that came up with the layout. If it is supported in one design, it is likely supported in the other but the implementation may be different due to the factors like how the traces are laid out to the type of memory in the unified pool.

both platforms are using a unified pool of memory and their respected cpu/gpu designs are able to access that unified pool in different modes depending on the application.

That effectively means that it is up to the developers and how they create their code if both the cpu/gpu access memory at the same time or not.

We wont see any real benefits of how this works until these systems have gone through at least the first generation of titles. By then the devs will have found each platforms sweet spot to harness the power efficiently.

[Maddens Raiders]

Muerte that's brilliant and exactly what I was thinking. AMD is not going to sink its ship with either company by coming out and flat saying this one does and this one doesn't. That's not their place, and quite frankly, they would be divulging information that only their client should be releasing to the public on this subject. We'll get confirmation of this soon enough I'm sure.

+1 for a well said comment.

edit/ @golding89 - you are one of the worst trolls I've seen here in a very long time. At this point I think you might even have Lightning beat. Keep it up, that one bubble is begging to be popped.

[xer0]

Nice response. Backed up with consistent messaging.

[jelydonut]

Just because the CPU and GPU can access the same memory pool definitely does not mean that cached changes from either core can be instantly seen by the other core (HUMA). If the CPU makes a change to memory, it may reside in cache until the cache controller sees fit to store it to shared memory. The GPU will not see the change until the CPU cache controller does the write.

From a design perspective, HUMA would definitely be a advantage for pumping data to and from the CPU/GPU. Hopefully the PS4 has it, but there is no proof. And this is a case of it either having it or not. There is no software change that can create HUMA, it's pure digital logic in silicon.

Edit: I don't get the disagrees as I am stating a fact as a digital logic/silicon engineer. I never said that PS4 has or hasn't HUMA, just saying that Shared Pool != HUMA.

[gaelic_laoch]

Epic response bubbles galore!

[MasterCornholio]

Yep because if it wasnt true AMD would just say no and that would be the official confirmation that the PS4 doesnt have hUMA. Instead they stated that not all the information that the directive gave was correct. Which probably means that while the PS4 doesnt use the same hUMA technology as the Kabini chip it probably uses something similar which is further backed up with the bus that Mark Cerny mentions.

But heres the thing people assume that the PS4 and the XBOX One are exactly the same which isnt true. There are some technologies that the PS4 has that the XBOX One doesnt have and vice versa. In the end the most important thing is how the developers take advantage of the hardware and if one system is truly more powerful than the other that will be proven with the way games look on the console.

[Ju]

I wouldn't be so tied up on cache coherency. This might not even be true. We know the GPU has additional cache line control logic and a non-cacheable direct bus to RAM. Since neither GPU nor CPU can read from the other's cache, they must share data through RAM. This explicit bus basically could almost seen like "SW controlled cache coherency" IMO.

What's much more interesting, however, is how addresses are seen by either one. If CPU and GPU see the memory through a shared memory controller, than they share the same addresses. This is inherently important because an address can simply be handed over from CPU to GPU and vice versa. No data need to be copied between the two. Again, important if you e.g. create matrix arrays which you need to move with the CPU but you'd want to use GPU power to transform those which is only possible if the GPU can access this memory - otherwise latency of moving that "tiny" block costs you more than multiplying 4x4 floats. Things like this will make a huge impact. Full cache coherency isn't even required to do this.

This however, is not hUMA according to AMDs next gen design which we will see in Kaveri, which has full cache coherency between CPU and GPU - and the PS4 chip is one (or a half) generation before that.

And by having said that, I guess, that some of the Kaveri design made it into the PS4 chip - e.g. mem controller probably (it differs from other APUs because those can max address 2GB through a "PCIe" like "virtual" interface) and with it shared address spaces.

The XBone has a complete different memory setup mainly because how it implements and depends on eSRAM. I doubt if there is any address sharing there - or maybe there is. I just doubt it, but have no idea. More like an educated guess.

Eventually we'll find out. The truth always comes out.

[Clarence]

Niceeee!

[starchild]

@JelyDonut

I wouldn't worry about it. The fanboys on this site will disagree with anything they perceive to be negative toward a Playstation console, no matter how factual or well-reasoned, even if it really isn't negative at all.

[tiffac008]

^Check the updates. The comment were inaccurate. No need to spread misleading and off topic hate.

[joefrost00]

You do know unified memory is very general
The X1 and ps4 have also the 360
So just saying cause they have unfied memory means it has huma
Thats pretty stupid

[AzureskyZ]

@ starchild to tell you the truth i play on both side of the fence-- oh yeah i also game on Nintendo and so far the most illogical fanboys on this site has been xbots im afraid-- they tell lies after lies to try to promote their cause and somehow they think MS gets a freepass after they almost trampled over every gaming fans, mind you im not defending ps fanboys either as i find them almost as annoying, as most of them boast about specs but only a small handful of them comprehend what those specs entails--- and well nintendo fanboys is well nintendo fanboys-- i dont even understand their logic at all--- hate if you will but i just say it like i see it

[NewMonday]

@darthv72

the XB1 dosn't have hUMA because it doesn't have unified memory, it is split into DDR3 and ESRAM.

[JsonHenry]

@Muerte2494

Kabini doesn't support huMA. Both systems have a kabini GPU in them. You do the math. Unless that "semi" part of the "semi-custom" was specifically to add huMA support then I doubt the system will be supporting huMA.

[NewMonday]

@JsonHenry

non of them are Kabini, they may be equivalents but they are both custom designed, they are not "off the shelf" like some like to say, they need a specific manufacturing process, they just use standard architecture .

some of the customization are the increased ques and cache bypass on the PS4 and move engines on the XB1.

and like Muerte2494 said, Cerny described the same process as hUMA working on the PS4, maybe it's just they can't call it that.

[extermin8or]

Thank god Meurte2494 you are living proof that other humans can use simple logic and reasoning to work things out :) well done :D (I'm not being patronising if that's how it sounds sorry) the whole thing is rediculous the only reason theyve had to withdraw previous comments is bwcuas MS are partners and they can't be seen to promote one console over the other. However on the whole AMD have said several thinfs I've been surprised MS let go I mean if I were them I'd be pissed off tbh. True or not the "ps4 our most powerful APU" comments among others must have ruffled some feathers.

[darthv72]

@newmonday you do know the ESRAM is not really RAM in the same sense right?

think of it as 32mb of Cache or a 32mb buffer. The rest of the memory in the system is unified just like in the 360.

[H0RSE]

@FlameHawk

But Xbox does have it...

http://www.theverge.com/201...
"The AMD chips inside the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One take advantage of something called Heterogeneous Unified Memory Access (HUMA), which allows both the CPU and GPU to share the same memory pool instead of having to copy data from one before the other can use it."

http://www.youtube.com/watc...
"we have to invest a lot in coherency throughout the chip, so there's been io coherency for a while but we really wanted to get the software out of the mode of managing caches and put in hardware coherency for the first time on the mass scale in the living room on the gpu. "

It seems Xbox One has the same features, they just don't call it hUMA due to the extend of customization of the chip.

[JoGam]

AMAZING response.

[NewMonday]

@darthv72

- the Idea of hUMA is for the CPU and GPU to read data with fewr re-writes, I can't figure how the ESRAM setup works with this

- the XB1 DDR3 ram is one block but it is still partitioned between CPU and GPU like the usual conventional method, tasks don't need to be split like on the PS3, but just like on the PC re-writes are needed between CPU and GPU, so no hUMA.

[pedrof93]

@sobotz

Where does it says that ?

Did you read the article ?

[vigilante_man]

It actually quotes a source saying it is used in PS4. Maybe he never read the article...

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Now lets pout and cry about something your not even gonna notice when playing great games.

[Ju]

Oh, if this is true, we will see this quite clearly. Might as well lead to a massive difference between the two machines and its games.

[LostDjinn]

Sobotz, if you read the piece you'd know AMD said they couldn't comment as that hardware belongs to Sony and MS.

My God are you that desperate that you have to make things up even when it flies in the face of the article you're commenting on? Don't you care that reading the first paragraph or two shows this?

Let me guess. You didn't think that fair ahead.

Edit: For editing and stuff.

[Jazz4108]

There was also a piece by a dev on here yesterday that said xboxone used it and of course it has the hypervisor as well.

[LostDjinn]

LOL
Jazz what the hell does that have to do with anything? Do you have any idea what a hypervisor does?

Edit: Not to worry. I took a quick look at your history. Everything makes sense now.

[ABeastNamedTariq]

I'm sorry sobotz, but they got you there. They didn't say it wouldn't feature it. So quick to jump on any rumors about Sony, huh?

[nypifisel]

It's been known since February that PS4 got a unified read/write pool of memory. AMD are not allowed to comment on either console - subtracting it now is damage control.

[riseer23]

You are right,their are NDA's that AMD has to honor.I don't think it matters much overall since 3rd party devs won't use it.I can see 1st party studios using it tho.

[starchild]

Unified memory doesn't exactly mean that it is using hUMA. The Xbox One also has unified memory architecture.

[nypifisel]

It's actually easier to program from a unified read/write pool. That is true, However I must point out that the Xbox one eDRAM can only be used by the GPU. It's pretty safe to say that Sony's custom GPU is using hUMA, and I believe that's where the PR word "Supercharged PC" comes from cause this wont be out on desktop PCs until next year!

[FamilyGuy]

Whoa, learn to read.
AMD has NEVER, in any statement, current or retracted, said that "The PS4 does not feature hUMA".

[Eonjay]

You are being a little desperate... please re-read what you posted. Sony has be talking about UMA since the reveal back in February.

[joeorc]

@sobotz

they did not day such a thing, where did AMD confirm the PS4 does not contain Huma? no where, AMD did not retract anything.

so i claim i get a response from AMD and that is somehow, more credit worthy information than a freaking named, interviewed Sr. Product Manager AMD employee?

first off here was what was stated:

"Upon asking AMD about HUMA’s implementation on either platform, i got the following reply:
Thanks for the response. Can’t go into any more details since it is up to Microsoft and Sony to talk about their products and implementations…but what I can say is that the comments coming out of gamescom were inaccurate.

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-hum...

who did the response from AMD? unlike many of the websites now Quote "sending email's" to AMD, where is the names? huh who is responding to them from AMD?

At least name your source! Hise did, why not you?

at least the orig. news source gave out a freaking AMD product manager name and it was in an interview, and AMD yet confirmed it was an interview out at gamescom.

"HUMA isn’t officially supported by currently available Jaguar powered chips aka Temash and Kabini which is a fact."

and the fact is these are not just a off the shelf Temash, And Kabini processor's that are in PC's they are custom made and tweaked.

[HowarthsNJ]

http://www.bit-tech.net/new...

Interesting reading from a while back. PS4 is mentioned at the bottom.

[FamilyGuy]

Nice, they mention the PS4 specifically while stating no other chips will feature this till 2014.

"The arrival of HSA is still some way off, with the first AMD chips set to use the architecture expected to arrive early next year. However, the PlayStation 4 is expected to feature an HSA type processor, so we'll see some indication of what we can look forward to when that console arrives in Q4 this year"

That's all the validation I need, lol.

+bubbles, helpful in clearing up the facts.
This was posted on April 30th people, no retracting on that. No mistakes in this, straight from the horses mouth.

[quenomamen]

Lol, so lets pretend that it was all BS from the start and PS4 has no built in HUMA support right ? Alright then wouldnt that mean MS got super trolled by AMD ? I mean 12 hours after the article stating the PS4 had it, some MS Dev, not even MS themselves comes out talking bout how XB1 will also have something like it.

Haha, its like if AMD announces that PS4 has Supercalofragelstic Memory Access, then 12 hours later a MS Dev comes out saying " ooh yea we got some of that too "

I actually hope to God AMD was lying all along just to prove how desperatly the people at MS are trying to keep up with whatever PS4 has. Pathetic

[starchild]

Oh come on, just because a developer working on an XB1 game came forward and said "hmm that sounds a lot like what we are doing on the XB1" doesn't mean MS are copying Sony.

Can you get any more irrational? God, some of you just make me shake my head with how biased and illogical you are.

[quenomamen]

If its all BS then why did some MS Dev come out saying the XB1 will have something similiar ? MS get trolled ? Lol

[Nekroo91]

did you read the article the senior marketing manager from AMD said that the ps4 uses huMa...lol

[GraveLord]

PS4 will feature hUMA its just that AMD told us a fact that made the Xbox One sound weaker so Microsoft told them to retract their statement.

AMD didn't say PS4 doesn't have hUMA, it said "forget what we said, no comment".

[Clarence]

You do know that AMD does not want to hurt their relationship with M$. The cat is out of the bag. They would like M$ to come back to them when and if they make a new console down the line.

If your a company developing a product for two opposing company, your job is to develope a product. You should not comment on which product is better.

You messing up your money when you do that. So know the big wiggs at AMD have to step in to retract a statement that could cost them money.

[MasterGuru]

Sobotz is that desperate to prove a point... To the extent of perceiving what an article is about without even bothering to read it first..

Pity him...

P.S. The article headline is misleading as fuck. Can't believe such a headline wasn't edited first. Nothing in the article even indicates what this headline would literally mean. Stupid way to get traffic.

[fredy]

Lol

[miDnIghtEr20C_SfF]

LMAO.. Playstation fanboys don't know what to do right now.

This is like the 4.5 gigs for games they have and 3 gigs for the OS. They just got shut up again.

[Angeljuice]

" LMAO.. Playstation fanboys don't know what to do right now.

This is like the 4.5 gigs for games they have and 3 gigs for the OS. They just got shut up again."

Translation:

"I'm crying in a corner and desperately clinging to the hope that Sony doesn't have hUMA in the PS4 (despite knowing deep down that it does) because if it does I will look even more of a tool for backing the wrong horse"

"Plus the cloud-powered hyperviser can order the move engines to alter and rebuild the Xbone's architecture anyway"

[2cents]

LOL

No one knew what Huma was till the post now suddenly is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

"we now have Huma integrated into our 3d modelling architecture, just ask this scientician" "...erm"

(Simpsons reference)

[Angeljuice]

Just because your ignorant, doesn't mean everyone else didn't know about it.

[Angeljuice]

Just because you're ignorant, doesn't mean everyone else didn't know about it.

[2cents]

I was making a joke about the whole situation, not laughing at Sony.

Obviously I have struck a nerve with you, didnt mean to offend anyone, just highlighting the hilarity of this whole debacle.

Not to metion this rubbish article that is all based on speculation and assumptions.

im far from ignorant, thanks for making it personal.

[RytGear]

AMD didn't say that there would be no support but just "no comment"
Sonys heavy input into the HSA foundation does indicate that it will have Huma but aren't allowed to say because of MS.

[OlgerO]

This headline is awfully inaccurate. all that the article is saying is that AMD doesn't confirm anything and that it is up to sony and microsoft to reveal their hardware choice. Still it seems highly likely that the PS4 does have HUMA support after the statement

[Whitey2k]

ps4 I think does support it otherwise they would have trouble of having the cpu and gpu communicating with the GDDr5 considering the cpu isn't that strong

[jjb1981]

I think AMD was being neutral about discussing the actual architecture. They don't want to piss off their major customers after all.

[Transporter47]

i'm going out on a limb here and say it does, but since it got leaked from them they could get into trouble so they backed up with a PR statement of course.

[JunioRS101]

Lol this article has NOTHING to do with PS4 NOT having huMA.

AMD said "no comment" when concerning BOTH consoles.

When they talked about PS4, they said there WAS huMA.

This leads me to believe that if anyone DOESN'T have huMA it would be Xbox One.

PS4 has huMA google it because I already have.

Read the article on The Verge.

[sAVAge_bEaST]

Yes, and we all know M$ can't handle any negative buzz,. they have their Reputation Management Teams, all over the internet, paTROLLing, for this sort of thing.

[Kayant]

Jaguar may not support hUMA natively but that doesn't mean that either console won't support it after all the chips in both the Xbox one and PS4 are heavily *customised* for a reason.

[Muerte2494]

NO, sorry Xbox One has split memory. I poster on neogaf put it the best when describing ps4's huMA. "It's keeping all the benefits of GDDR5, while removing it's weaknesses." This quote right here sums it up. The 32MB of ESRAM CAN give Xbox One a performance boost but developers have yet to optimize coding for it. "Easy to learn, hard to master."

[Kayant]

Yh true am more inclined to believe PS4 supports it from the way it's been explained by Mark Cerny and devs and the fact that Sony is a HSA member and the only thing i see them using hUMA in is the PS4.

[GDDR6_2014]

Lol what are people fighting over? A civic is a little faster than a corolla? Ok

[TheOneEyedHound]

Viper(Ps4)
Mustang(XboxOne)

Just being honest if you go by specs

[Rip-Ridah]

Excuse me sir, but dont EVER disrespect the Mustang again. Lol. (Joking btw) Nothing wrong with a Mustang. While I support the Ford Mustang (avatar pic), I can not say the same for the Xbox1. My preference doesn't stop anyone else from supporting & enjoying it tho.

[starchild]

Haha console fanboys bicker over the smallest differences and ignore the 10,000 pound elephant in the room, which is the PC that wipes the floor with both of them.

[ZHZ90]

This is coming from PC elitist and Xbox fanboy, your username "child" fits you perfectly.

[ABeastNamedTariq]

We'll see, I guess. I think they're trying to be impartial. And besides, why mention it if it isn't in PS4?

I'm assuming it does, but it may not be a huge, huge advantage like some were expecting.

Maybe just a significant one. (Don't take that the wrong way.)

Because again, common sense: It would not be mentioned if it wasn't if PS4. They obviously know something.

It should be good for PS4 games, heh, heh.

EDIT: "Our spokesperson made inaccurate statements about our semi-custom APU architectures and does not speak for Microsoft, Sony or the AMD semi-custom business unit responsible for co-developing the next generation console APUs." Isn't to telling of anything to me.

[MadSientist89]

I suspect suicide numbers to go up after this news.

[quenomamen]

You got some good logic going on bro, of the PS4 hardware is outdated what does that make the X1 hardware ? Also I would not use Call It Doodie as an example of graphical fidelity, just saying next time use BF4 or BF3, hell maybe even Quake 3.

[M-M]

Misleading title.

[n4rc]

lets point out the obvious!

an AMD rep "supposedly" said ps4 supports this feature and xbox one doesnt..

cool...

AMD publicly states the info is inaccurate.

so its either ps4 doesnt support it.. or they both do in some form.

thats the black and white of it.

[ziggurcat]

it wasn't "supposedly", he flat out said it did.

and AMD only stated that the info was inaccurate to cover their *** because of Marc's slip of the tongue.

[n4rc]

show me the actual quote of what he said.. go ahead, ive looked for it.. obviously he said something along those line, but he was never quoted directly.

and they didnt just say we dont comment on it, we dont know specifics.. etc

they flat out said it was inaccurate..

[ziggurcat]

this:

"only PlayStation 4 incorporates hUMA [Heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access] for supporting a shared memory space. This was explained by AMD's Senior Product Marketing Manager Marc Diana to c't [big German IT magazine] at gamescom."

you're naive in thinking that AMD aren't calling marc diana's statements "inaccurate" as a form of damage control.

just like how phil harrison's comments after the xbone reveal about the used game fee was "inaccurate" (even though, at the time - before they flipflopped - it was true). in fact, they were so "inaccurate" that he called in the journalist twice to further explain the way it was going to work, and those statements were only "inaccurate" as a form of damage control as a result of the outrage people had towards that kind of policy.

are you that blind?

[joeorc]

@n4rc

AMD's Senior Product Marketing Manager Marc Diana said that the PS4 had shipped with a sense of Huma [Heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access] from AMD.

http://www.fudzilla.com/hom...

[Hicken]

Man, it's amazing how willing you guys are to straight up deny facts.

[XboxFun]

Yea seriously especially when AMD said that both systems will have hUMA right?

http://www.theverge.com/201...

"The AMD chips inside the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One take advantage of something called Heterogeneous Unified Memory Access (HUMA), Good for gaming, good for AMDwhich allows both the CPU and GPU to share the same memory pool instead of having to copy data from one before the other can use it. "

[Ju]

or...the information is "inaccurate" as in true but not complete in all the details.

Actually, I have another theory that AMD want's to use hUMA for their own reveal of Kaveri later this year. PS4 isn't Kaveri (and neither is XBone). So, in that sense it is "inaccurate" what AMD defines as "hUMA".

[Bzone24]

Or maybe the information is inaccurate as in just missing a letter. Could be that instead of huma the PS4 uses humas? http://www.urbandictionary....

[Ju]

Oh come on. Why so serious? Got no huma? That wasn't funny. LOL

[sigfredod]

I think the best way to know for sure is that somebody journalist or anybody able to do it and ask to Mark Cerny directly

[sAVAge_bEaST]

Unified Memory. -Mark Cerny has stated this numerous times,.. (I don't recall Xbox saying anything about Unified Memory, though they did mention Clouds)

[sigfredod]

Yeah the unified memory is clear, but with all this turmoil will be great to know if beside the unified memory also support huma

[Sevir]

Mark has mention HSA, which is also very closely related to HuMA, Gamasutra Did an interview with him as did Digital Foundary and it was the exact same details divulged.

[riseer23]

Well Xbox one isn't unified because of the Esram.The 360 had 10mb of eDRAM which in terms didn't make it unified.Ps4 has 8gb of GDDR5 ram,this is Unified Memory.

[CoLD FiRE]

The Xbox One has a unified memory pool of DDR3 DRAM + 32MB eSRAM. You guys should try to learn about these things before you start talking.

The Xbox 360 actually used a similar architecture but instead of using eSRAM it used 10MB eDRAM for the "daughter die".

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Dang it... so disappointing to hear. I love HUMAS... totally would love these consoles to come with as well as a few triscuits.

[BattleTorn]

Yo, triscuits are overpriced, wheat thins are 50% more powerful! :P

[Belking]

I really don't see why it all matters. If it does great, but if not the games still look great.

[saber00005]

Listen guys. Microsoft complained to AMD about the comment being made about the PS4 being more powerful. Since AMD is partnered with BOTH companies, they are NOT liable to say what is better. Of course they will go back and not comment. But as for the rumor of HUMA not going to be out for the PS4, it's simply not true. AMD works closely with BOTH companies to make the game consoles. They know the ins and outs. AMD is reframed from talking about what is better since both Microsoft and Sony are their clients. You don't talk crap about your client's products.

[gnothe1]

Wait...they just said that ITS A FACT that the jaguar chips don't support huMA..it also the chips that power both next gen consoles...now unless these chips were custom made to support huMA how would you expect it to work if the chips themselves don't support the feature...unless you guys are MAKE the ps4 have it an the xbox not....

[quenomamen]

And the chips in the PS4 are custom made, they are not off the shelf Jaguar chips.

[riseer23]

These Jaguar chips are custom,the fact that Sony added a Bus to help out with a bottleneck tells you it's not the same as a standard Jaguar chip.

[Grimhammer00]

100% back pedal.
There's overwhelming proof in support of the original interview.

Sorry it hurts bots....really.

[BattleTorn]

That's some strong fanboy logic there.

An official "no it's not" as overwhelming proof that "yes it is"...

How can you take what their saying 'isn't the case' as overwhelming proof towards what their NOT saying, and thus in fact 'is the case'?

[vigilante_man]

If you read the article it quotes an AMD source saying PS4 does use it. We can all safely assume it does.

The XB1 may not use it. Therefore the PS4 will have some extra source on top like we all suspect it does.

Lets see what developers do with both consoles. They are both way above current gen so we can all enjoy the benefits. Microsoft will have the snazzy OS's and software integration and the hardware giant Sony will have the edge on grunt.

Nothing here we all do not know. Let the Games begin..

[jlo]

Who cares if it has huma or not. It doesn't make up for an outdated gpu and severely outdated 1.6ghz cpu. It can't even render hi res textures in cod ghosts for crying out loud

But hey, huma.

[windblowsagain]

BF4 PS4 60FPS 64PLAYERS

Or how about the best version of NEED4SPEED.

PS4'S GPU is about as fast as a 580gtx. That's good enough for 1080p.

CPU in PS4 is slightly faster then a i5 2500k.

It will plenty PC games maxed. Simples.

jlo, da hell are you on about. COD - ROFL.

[jlo]

Exactly, 'COD ROFL'... and the PS4 can't even render the high res textures for this ROFL game

What a beast!

[Whitey2k]

Actually the gpu us faster then a 580gtx and the ps4 gpu is just equivalent to a 660ti considering the cores of a 580gtx is 512 I think!

[Pain_Killer]

BF4 PS4 60FPS 64PLAYERS? Yeah on 720P

Or how about the best version of NEED4SPEED? Out of the consoles, sure. But nothing even comparable to what the game would be on the PC.

PS4'S GPU is about as fast as a 580gtx. That's good enough for 1080p? Haha, Keep on imagining the GPU being faster than a GTX 580. Its performance is lower than the Radeon HD 7870 due to lower clock frequencies. You expect AMD to put a 1000 MHz GPU clock speed onboard the APU die? That's hardly possible even if it is a semi custom chip.

CPU in PS4 is slightly faster then a i5 2500k?

What? Seriously what? AMD's FX-8350 which is the top tier x86 Piledriver chip has hard time keeping up with the i5 2500K and you think a low power Jaguar based chip is faster than the 2500K? lol dude, you gotta try hard

It will plenty PC games maxed. Simples. Your grammar makes me laugh. Simples.. lol.. first tell Sony to max out their own exclusive titles such as Killzone which can't even do 60 FPS.

[ziggurcat]

you do know that all of the CoD footage we've seen has been for xbone, right?

[FrigidDARKNESS]

Of course it wont its architecture never supported it.

[DoesUs]

Yes i know about the X1, but we're talking about the PS4 here.

[ziggurcat]

it does. a senior member of AMD's staff even confirmed it does.

get your head out of the sand.

[FrigidDARKNESS]

AMD retracted that statement made by the AMD staff member. You Sony guys should do research on Huma and learn about the ps4 technology.. Like i said the ps4 architecture never designed to support Huma with the off the shelf pc components from AMD.

[ziggurcat]

retracted for the purposes of damage control, which doesn't take away from the fact that a senior staff member confirmed it does have huma.

prove that PS4 has "off the shelf" components.

[Ju]

Hm..."should do research"..."with the off the shelf pc components".

How about doing some research yourself, huh?

[starchild]

You Sony fanboys are f-en morons. You claim that AMD said the earlier statements by an AMD representative were false simply for damage control or because Microsoft paid them. Yet you have ZERO proof of that. Zero.

Not only are you delusional tin-foil hat-wearing morons for coming up with such an absurd claim with zero proof, but you also are too dumb to realize that people could just as easily claim that Sony paid the AMD rep to make those comments in the first place.

Neither scenario makes a damn bit of sense, though. What clearly happened is that the AMD rep misspoke or his comments were misinterpreted by the journalist that did the interview. Thus AMD saw that misinformation was being spread in their name and they felt the need to step forward and set the record straight.

[joeorc]

@FrigidDARKNESS

"Of course it wont its architecture never supported it."

really: So now developer's even for the xboxone are now saying that it does support it, and that the XBOXONE SUPPORTS SOMETHING like Huma but not the same thing!

http://www.reddit.com/r/xbo...

NOTICE:

June 21, 2013

"we have to invest a lot in coherency throughout the chip, so there's been io coherency for a while but we really wanted to get the software out of the mode of managing caches and put in hardware coherency for the first time on the mass scale in the living room on the gpu. " -->hUMA is AMD's definition of a unified memory implementation with certain features. It seems Xbox One has the same features implemented but they just don't call it hUMA due to the extend of customization of the chip.

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

AGAIN:

"The AMD chips inside the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One take advantage of something called Heterogeneous Unified Memory Access (HUMA) "

ww.theverge.com/2013/6/21/445 2488/amd-sparks-x86-transition - for-next-gen-game-consoles

AND ONCE AGAIN HERE IS OUR BUDDY Marc from AMD

Not all game developers license game engines from other companies, though, and AMD's Marc Diana says those engines aren't as efficient as could be. "The publishers still had to take their time and decide, do they really want to launch on the PC?" Diana said. "I don't think they have to answer that question anymore."

So which is there sparky? Huh, is Microsoft's xboxone developer now not telling the truth?

How about Marc, who is from AMD?

Here is a hint the cats out of the bag, since june to now the xboxone for its design choice does not have Huma built in, and the PS4 does, just like the XBXONE has HDMI in /out while the PS4 only has HDMI out.

The PS4 can have something in its hardware that the xboxone does not have right? or is that to far fetched?

[XboxFun]

http://www.theverge.com/201...

"The AMD chips inside the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One take advantage of something called Heterogeneous Unified Memory Access (HUMA), Good for gaming, good for AMD which allows both the CPU and GPU to share the same memory pool instead of having to copy data from one before the other can use it."

Or maybe they can both have it and everyone can move on right? Why is this such a big deal anyways? If they both have it and they both do the samething no matter what it's called then who cares.

[ZHZ90]

Yeah yeah keep trolling.

[DoesUs]

Damage (if you can call it that) has already been done.

[Eonjay]

Okay to clarify. UMA is Unified Memory Access or shared memory architecture which is a feature of PS4 according to the architect... Mark Cerny.

[josephayal]

I dont care about huMEH, i need games

[MultiConsoleGamer]

It was a bullshit rumor.

[whitesoxfalife1976]

U know what's even more funny all of y'all in here like y'all took classes for this! Everybody postn links up to this to that I've looked at'm smartn my dumb ass up some,but at the end of the day WHO GIVES A SHIT I don't work for AMD SONY MS INTEL NAVIDA GOOGLE APPLE NINTENDO YAHOO see where I'm going. I'm just a gamer who can't wait to play the next generation console of my choice whether that be ps4 or Xbox or both for that matter all I know is pre orders is sold out by my location so til I can catch one I will be waitn patiently playing GTA and off that good kush wit a off day in my got dam draws....shit

[Ulf]

I would actually be MORE surprised if the PS4 supported hUMA, than the XB1. The original Kaveri/Jaguar design supports hUMA with DDR3 on laptops, after all -- it comes for free with the basic design.

Sony would have to pay extra for the GDDR5 unified interface design.. maybe they did, I dunno. But in any case, its almost certain that the XB1 has it. The PS4, with its GPU-oriented memory setup, is the one that deviates from standard AMD laptop setups, and really seems like it would be the one in question.

[Modestmex]

it doesnt need it cuz its already beast with the best hardware everr ps4 for life!!

[assdan]

They could easily have been payed by MS to not comment. The only way to withdraw a claim is say it was wrong.

[supergravity]

Cerny has already talked about this, it sounded like Sony inhouse modifications both in custom hardware and system software. This hUMA like memory access system was a determining factor in GDDR5's inclusion. In the same discussion Cerny mentions a desire to further enhance coherency and performance within a replication of the SPURS engine, which was the fantastic tool that allowed massive parallelism with the CELL and RSX's handling of memory and compute orders to significantly improve the graphics performance of the PS3. Thats probably why SONY and Cerny put such a premium on bandwith, with their heavily modified AMD/SONY APU masterpiece. Can't wait!

[Max-Zorin]

Lunatics Woody. Lunatics everywhere. Good thing N4G is only a website. If it was a reality show, someone would get shot for having a different preference.

[CuddlyREDRUM]

This is just the heterogeneous stuff the chip system does.

This was known about the PS4 in Febraury.

[Thomaticus]

There's no way AMD could have made "inaccurate" comments about a product they built. (And mass produced)

[SynestheticRoar]

AMD is in cover your a$$ mode.

[Kennytaur]

From what I can work out, HUMA is simply the unified memory shared between cpu and gpu in an apu setup. Is there more to it? Because surely the PS4 has that since it has a unified memory pool.

[kewlkat007]

But Mark Cerny said....

[syne49]

Will there honestly be a single soul that pauses, and seriously remarkS, "Man this game sure could use more huMA?". No because that would be stupid. Just play the freaking games, and stop focusing on all the technical stuff.

[Sky Lazarus]

Any developer could say if huma is present on the ps4. Within 24 hours this info will probably leak. You can't un-say something. We all know that xbone is a mid-tier console.

[badkolo]

and ps4 only doing 720p on bf4 makes the ps4 what, junk??

[murderek]

I'll be getting a PS4 and an Xbox ONE at launch, but I think it's funny that all the PS4 fanboys ignore the fact that Microsoft will have dedicated servers for all games, faster matchmaking, HDMI cap card support and a superior online service (once again).

All the PS4 has over the xbox ONE is a little more power, that many developers have said is negligible in the real world. My PS4 will be for nothing but exclusives, as milti-plats will be better on Xbox ONE for numerous reasons.

[Kakashi Hatake]

Ill be getting both as well but my Xbox One will only be for exclusives. Sony always delivers the best exclusive games while MS only rely on 3rd party. Stop downplaying PS4 power advantage, it has nearly twice the flops. Slightly more powerful? We'll see when the big exclusives drop.

[Jazz4108]

Dont forget xboxone also hss a hypervisor to allow access to the full memory pool where sony right now is just 5 gigs.

[badkolo]

correct and xbone uses mega textures and directx 11.2, ps4 does not

[PFFT]

YEP!

[DEEBO]

if MS had the console with the most power don't you think they would have said it by now? that fact that sony keeps saying the ps4 is the console with the most power and MS doesn't even try to say x1 is stronger then ps4,well that's probably because it's not.MS play's their aces,good launch games,kinect2.0,they know they lost in the graphics department.truth hurts.

[koolaid251]

I like how everybody has turned into a Engineering Technical console specialist lmfao. Gddr 5 %50 more power I get so tired of hearing all of this crap. When it comes down to looking at the games right now I don't see a %50 more difference between the xbone and ps4 games now I know in 3 or 4 years we may see some difference but as of right now I don't see the 50% more powerful console doing anything out of the stratosphere

[wishingW3L]

do you really need to be a mechanical engineer to know that a car with higher horse power and torque is faster than the other? Dude, just because you don't know a thing about technology doesn't mean that other people doesn't. Human and GDDR5 are things that are easy to comprehend if you take a few minutes to read about it.

Go to any PC website and see benchmarks of a discrete cards compared with DDR3 vs GDDR5 and you'll see that the boost in performance it's huge. Current next-gen games are either cross-gen games or first gen games with limited time of development because devs kits were finalized just a few months ago, so they have to either scale up or scale down for launch day release and they don't have time to optimize for new hardware. Just look at Killzone and Driveclub trying to reach 60 frames in what, 2 months?

Here, a quick benchmark with some games using the same card but one with GDDR5 and another with DDR3. Each has only 2GB but there's a 20% difference in rendering detail and frame-rate: http://forum.notebookreview...

And remember that the PS4 has bigger GPU than the XB1's so that means 50% increase. This is just pure old straight-forward logic.

http://www.amd.com/Publishi...

The more GDDR5 and DDR3 memory there is the higher the disparity will be.

[badkolo]

but we are not seeing that, we are seeing x1 games looking better so far

[koolaid251]

That's what I'm saying I don't see ps4 50% more powerful right now. That's the only thing that I was implying.

[wishingW3L]

the tittle was changed for flamebait because that's not what's being told in the article.

[Death]

Interesting reading, but slightly irrelevant unless you are a developer. hUMA for the most part is used to make programming easier. It's still in the developers hands on how they use this tool for gaming. A little amazed this is such a heated debate or that anyone really cares. The PS3 was harder to develop for, but cranked out some amazing games this generation. Most people I know play games, not huma, esram, tflops, unified memory, cuda cores or memory shaders.

[Tales RPG addict]

God are we gonn stop arguing about specs,sigh. Seriously were gamersand have every reason to be excited about next gen. I sure as hell miss the 90's when i was a kid, back then we didnt bitch about what console had the stronger specs. We were excited caus a new gaming console was coming out with great games. We didnt care that the Sega Genesis had a faster processor for example than the Super Nintendo we just gamed.

[Death]

I blame the internet. I honestly thought the Nintendo/Sega "wars" were the worst. In hindsight I miss the days of "Blast processing". At the end of the day I sit in front of my tv, and fire up the console that plays the game I want to play. I don't care what happens under the hood. Some over zealous fans have no games to talk about so it all becomes about the hardware. Just play the games and be happy already.

[PFFT]

Guess the PS4 doesnt have a sense of hUMA like the Sony fanboys thought after all. I could careless the with or without it the PS4 system will be great. No ifs or buts about it.