PS4 CPU Was Hard To Develop For - Grand Ages: Medieval Developer

The team at Gaming Minds Studio ran into a few problems while developing Grand Ages: Medieval for the PS4.

[hiredhelp]

Its called optimisation,If this going start a new trend on picking on ones system bottleneck then lets counter that on all sustems shall we?.

Edit.. My Point was mearly at the headline that was all and yess i read the article but headlines like this causes fueds.

[stiggs]

@hiredhelp

Why is it that some people are so defensive?

"Someone said something that could be interpreted as slightly disparaging regarding the technical aspects of MY beloved video game console. I must retaliate by mentioning the shortcomings of the *other* consoles!"

Good grief...

[hiredhelp]

Not being defensive im sorry if come across that way.
Just been on n4g long time seen many headlines like that that start off silly playground bitching.
Anyways I am sorry if thats not how its intended just way it come across to Me.

[JasonKCK]

stiggs you just described a typical fanboy, but you did it with more style.

[dantesparda]

I agree that he just described the typical fanboy but it also seems like he's being defensive because he just perceived Hiredhelp of saying something he didn't like about his beloved console.

[Kiwi66]

There have been loads of articles about xb1 esram etc making it hard for devs since it launched and yet we get the first one about the ps4 having its issues and you think its unfair lol

[eyeDEVOUR]

Fair has nothing to do with it.. Point is its not true.. They headline is misleading clickbait material..

[Azzanation]

@hiredhelp

The big problem is the CPUs in current gen consoles. They are using Laptop CPUs with 1.6ghz per core x8 (PS4) and 1.75ghz x8(XB1). I have an i7K I brought back in 2012 that produces 3.4ghz per core x8. Can you blame the devs for saying current gen consoles CPUs are bottle necks?

The power difference is insane in CPU language. My CPU is 3 years old and its still more then double the power of current gen systems. These PC games are designed with these CPUs in mind so expect issues with PC to Console ports especially CPU bound games.

[warczar]

You can't compare pc specs to console specs, it's apples and oranges. A game that's made for pc cannot be maxed out and optimized like a console game can because no 2 pc's are the same. And by the way, no one programs a game with the i7 chip as there baseline, maybe an i5 but I doubt it.

[Pogmathoin]

Most definitely clickbait.... I mean, it does not shed PS4 in the perfect image.... Blasphemous!

[warczar]

The developers statement was taken out of context and turned into a headline soo yeah, it is click bait. Basically the developer says that it was harder to program for the ps4 than the pc. Holy shit stop the presses, pc is easier to develop for than a console. Nearly everything gaming bolt does is click bait.

[Ashlen]

It's funny I read the title and I said to myself "I bet it's gamingbolt" I was not disappointed.

Of course when I actually read the article it explains it was there first PS4 title and that after they figured out how to better work with the hardware they got everything they wanted and were able to make it match the PC version the way they wanted.

[joab777]

And the PS4's CPU is a bit slower. I don't know why they chose to do this, but they did, and some devs struggle with it. The devs for Ark:Evolved have stated that they are having more trouble with the PS4 version b/c their game is heavy on the CPU side.

I'd love to see new versions of the PS4 use something better. I stayed of simply giving us slimmer cheaper versions, create better versions and extend it's life even more.

[BlackTar187]

Then you alienate your fans with every upgrade which makes no sense to do.

[deathtok]

I believe what you want will be called the PlayStation 5.

[pumpactionpimp]

@haveasandwich

Yes because ms has proven that their hardware is always capable of handling the heat from overclocking. The minimal cpu boost on the Xbox one is negligible. Both consoles have very weak cpus. I expect the next set of consoles to have a similar issue. Not because of the parent companies abilities to acquire better cpus, or anything like that. But simply because consoles have power requirements, sacrifices must be made.

[PudgeyBurrito]

150 mhz is all that stands between the 2 consoles processors lol. Anyone here with a computer background knows that is dick all in terms of performance. In terms of memory when your memory is half the speed of the competitor, you will need a little more crunch in the CPU.

[LamerTamer]

The did it because the PS4 is slim and has the power brick built in. There are heat issues. With Xbone the massive case and external power brick allowed them to clock the APU higher. Sony should have done that too. I like smoother games and don't care if the consoles' case was a few millimeters thicker.

They could have had tiered level PS4s. The standard version like now plus an "Elite" version that is all compatible but has better chipset so all PS4 games would run at 60 FPS and 1080p instead of 30 and maybe have less pop-up. It is basically the same thing as when you put in a better GPU card in your PC you can jack up framerate and effects but games are still compatible.

[miyamoto]

Dude, at least your spider senses are still in tip top shape.

LOL!

Anyway this click bait article is way way too late as hundreds of PS4 are flowing like there is no end.

PS4 will hit the billion units of software sold faster than the PS2 soon and very soon.

[DarkHeroZX]

Bruh..... Stop

[OB1Biker]

I openly admit I dont like Gamingbot but people here baffle me.. This is a very obvious click bait title and fanboy wars flame like Gaminbot often do as their bread and butter.
I dont even want to click as Im sure you summed up all there is to it.

[BenRage3]

If you read the article, this is simply a function of porting it from PC to PS4. Sounds like the team at Gaming Minds Studio cares enough to optimize the game properly and should be applauded for managing to pull this off at 1080p with all of the PC features intact.

[corroios]

People wanted cheap machines, There is no secret. You cant compare the hardware from last gen to this gen.

The jump form PS2 to PS3 and Xbox to Xbox 360 was huge spec wise. The same cannot be told this gen, but they are getting huge numbers in sales.

[StormLegend]

I dsiagree..

Compare Uncharted 4 to Uncharted 3

http://ps4daily.com/wp-cont...

http://www.gamepur.com/file...

[BlackTar187]

Dunno why you getting disagrees those face shots are insane the level they have on UC4 compared to 3

[Pixelart]

As good as Uncharted looks, the fact is heavily scripted games don't need a lot of CPU grunt.
The problem here is non-scripted open games struggling.

[StormLegend]

Disagree*

[Lamboomington]

Still doesn't change the fact that the performance leap is simply not as big as PS2 to PS3.

That's a fact.

And yes, Uncharted 4 looks absolutely mindblowing.

[Shineon]

He'll the jump from super Nintendo to Nintendo 64 was bigger even the jump from ps1 to ps2,this has to be the first gen a jump wasn't made just a measly little stutter step

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Graphics whores will downvote you to oblivion for that, but it really is the truth.
And we will continue to see diminishing returns in graphics.

We're going to hit that bottleneck, where the difference isn't big enough between gens to rely upon for advertising, a lot sooner than fanboys want to admit.

It's why Sony and Microsoft are looking into VR: they see that bottleneck coming and have realised, somewhat, that they're going to eventually NEED to invest in new WAYS of playing, rather than leaning on specs and graphics (which are quickly inflating dev budgets to the point were a million sales doesn't cover costs) to lead the way for their future consoles yet again.

It may not happen as soon as this coming gen, but it's definitely gonna happen WITHIN the next three, mark my words.

[Qrphe]

You must have not been around when people expected the eventual PS3 to have "real life graphics" and the 360 was called an "Xbox 1.5" back in early 2006.

[Spotie]

You mean back when Microsoft was talking Toy Story graphics? Or after that?

[mwjw696]

@2Spotie That was Sony not MS. http://money.cnn.com/1999/0...

[Geomasonic]

@mwjw696
No, you're wrong. It was always Microsoft that claimed "toy story" graphics:

"One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"
http://www.cnet.com/news/mi...

[thisgamer503]

@Spotie @Geomasonic

lol, read your history kid. Sony said toy story graphics first with the ps2

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

Edit: Oy, ok so now we can admit MS and Sony have both been asshats

[Haru]

Typical gamingbolt article always trying to downplay PS4 and praise xbone

[BeefCurtains]

Typical Haru comment always trying to downplay X1 and praise PS4

[0to100]

shame ps4 won't support dx12 since it vastly improves cpu performance

[Destiny1080]

dx12 is just for third parties to get easy ports with little effort, with consoles you need to bypass dx12 and code to the metal to get the most out of the consoles

on pc its different because pc doesn't have low level access, that's why dx12 will have big gains on pc

sony will have similar to dx12 but offloading cpu tasks to the gpu is what will bring massive gains to the ps4 and the ps4 was built with that in mind

[OldDude]

Bypass DX12 code? Yeah when it allows for multithreading and other benefits on X1. Maybe on PS4 they are going to "bypass" it, because it cant use it. X1 was made for it.

[CernaML]

Uh no.. DX12 wont do anything on consoles. PS4 is already capable of being coded to the metal, probably more so than what DX12 can do for the X1.

[KiwiViper85]

So PS4 isn't going to improve over time?

[wsoutlaw87]

@Kiwi Um.. No. The ps4 is the ps4, the xb1 is the xb1. Their hardware isn't changing. The developers, and tools will improve overtime but consoles don't just improve overtime

[PudgeyBurrito]

PS4 has many low level api's as it uses open standards.

[GNCFLYER]

Async Compute will help developers with the limitations of the cpu...

@oto100 you have no idea.

[jebabcock]

agreed.

[THC CELL]

Ps4 easy to learn hard to master

[DrumBeat]

It's a shame these cpus are so weak.

[nitus10]

In what way are they weak? Most PC's on the market today don't have the anywhere near the performance of the PS4 or the XB1. High end gaming PC's are not the norm.

From the link in the article:
"Sony on the other hand hasn’t revealed any official numbers regarding the PS4 CPU clock speed. It has been rumored that the clock speed of the PS4 CPU is 1.6ghz with the capability to max out at 2.75 Ghz. However this does not seem to be the case."

They did not elaborate further, which to me was a bit of a cop out.

What many people don't realize is that clock speed is not the sole overriding factor when developing software, you have to take everything into account.

Software can be CPU, GPU or I/O intensive or a combination of all three and if optimized properly you should never continually approach 100% in any area.

[LamerTamer]

1.6 GHz and 1.75 GHz CPU clock speed is dog slow. I don't think they even make a PC that slow anymore. Yes these CPU are very weak.

[benji101]

Most pc on the market now destroy the current gen cpus. Even a $200 tower will have a better cpu. The Gpu is where the cost comes for PCs.

[Pixelart]

Most laptop CPUs run rings around these consoles. Yes, IPC technology is as important as clock speed. However, these are AMD CPU's which have atrocious ICP compared to Intel.
8 cores helps, but as we're all discovering it isn't enough.

[OldDude]

Laptop lower power CPU's, 5400rpm Hard Drives and cut back GPU's. Both consoles are anything but powerhouses and are easily outclassed by even a decent mid-range PC.

[JasonKCK]

They are kind of. The CPUs are meant to be cost-effective. So they end up underpowered and overclocked to keep prices low. Basically you get what you pay for. They get the job done.

[yewles1]

"However its CPU clock speed is on the lower side compared to the Xbox One. Apparently this is giving developers who are new to PS4 development some troubles."

They're not working on X1, so why bring it up? Typical Gamingbolt...

[DragonDDark]

Ikr?

[wsoutlaw87]

Yeah, they are trying to make it seem like they made it on the xb but only had problems with the ps4. That's just sad. I don't get the point of what they are trying to do.

[FoxyGotGame]

Not sure why so many are disappointed with this current gen of consoles power. You could build/buy a nuclear powered PC, only to find there's a ton of awesome games you'll never get to play.

When I look at Batman AK, Until Dawn, ROTTR, UC4, MGS V, The Witcher 3, Star Wars Battlefront and Scalebound (just some examples) on console, and considering the price of entry, it doesn't feel like there's an under powered System under my TV.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but it feels good there /

[benji101]

But when you see a game like the Witcher 3/ or even the wonderfully optimized MGS5 running on a reasonable pc it makes the consoles look really bad. Have you seen MGS5 on a PC? It is incredible.

[luckytrouble]

Do you understand the cost of a reasonable PC that can outperform a console? For as much as people complain, I spent $450 on this laptop that was on sale, cut down from $650 as a special back to school thing. It could maybe run The Witcher 3 at an unstable 25 FPS on low, and that's a pretty big maybe. I know it's a laptop, but what matters is hardware to price, as I'm beyond positive this outperforms any $450 tower you could put together. My PS4 that I spent $400 on simply runs the game well without any fuss.

Sure, I can play most releases from 2014 fine, but with increasingly inflated baseline requirements for PC due to increasingly high expectations from PC gamers, things get difficult. Of course, I can probably slap together a $750 tower capable of running most 2015 releases on medium, but why build a mid-range gaming PC at all if it won't outperform the less expensive game console?

PC gaming the way people praise it is an expensive affair. I wish it wasn't, but it really is. Entry into that if you're starting from scratch, building the entire tower, buying a decent monitor, getting speakers, a mouse and keyboard that don't royally suck, etc., can easily push you up to around $1100 or $1200. The sad thing is, there are plenty of people who will still call a $1200 computer mid-range because that is the culture of elitism that is being bred by what is still rapidly improving hardware.

For a lot of people, that is understandably not worth their games looking a bit prettier. PC gaming is still fairly new though, and I feel like it's going in an increasingly divisive direction that is pushing away more console gamers than it's pulling in. I find it so odd that PC gamers seem set on putting themselves apart from and above console gamers. We all just want to play games in the end. Why can't everybody simply make a choice they're content with and let it be?

[DarXyde]

I find MGS V is plenty beautiful on PS4.

The thing is I'm not greedy. The experience is still very comparable.

Yes, PC will just about always have the definitive version of games, but that's relative. There is no consistency between rigs. Everyone's got something different going on, but when you say games look incredible on PC, that's a huge "maybe". It "can" look this good. At the very least, with consoles, you can say it DOES look this good.

Not knocking PC, but the general impression I get from some PC gamers is that you will never have enough.

I'm content with my consoles that still play games pretty well, thanks.

[benji101]

Yes but Luckytrouble a laptop is not a tower. But I agree a decent pc is a lot of money I dropped 2K on mine. But I bought 10 games so far that are $５０ on the next gen consoles for $20 or less. In the end a pc is cheaper if you buy a lot of games.

[Persistantthug]

benji101,
Did you see BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT on the PC?

[Lamboomington]

Sure, it's just, when you see Witcher 3 in 2013, Watchdogs in 2013, The Division in 2013.
Then you see all 3 games completely downgraded from a technical aspect once consoles came out. It's not hard to be a little disappointed.

All I'm saying is, devs and players expected more brute performance. And it shows. The majority of multiplats simply aren't that impressive when in 2013 you saw that they wanted to do much more on the technical side.

Bottom line - it's going to show in multiplats, and that's a little disappointing, especially after seeing those three games at E3 2013. We could have had that if consoles were $100 dollars more expensive, the same as last gen.

As of now, it doesn't matter, the consoles are still great machines, and we'll get great content on them. Still, it's not hard to see why people are disappointed.

[DarXyde]

Well, developing games is hard, period. The CPU is a bit of a letdown in all of the consoles, but I can't complain about the components given what we've seen.

[nitus10]

In what way is 8 CPU's @ 1.6GHz weak? If you compare it to say a high end gaming PC it is however the PS4 and the XB1 perform better for what they do than the majority of PC's sold today.

[DarXyde]

I'd say they have mid-range CPUs.

If I recall, all 8 are not accessible.

Edit:

I should add that I don't find them particularly weak. They get the job done. However, when you look at the PSOne to PS2, the difference is staggering. The same can be said about the PS2 to PS3. PS4 is great and I love it, but they definitely held back. I would say that it is disappointing because we waited almost 10 years for the eighth console generation (we should technically be right around 2 years away from PS5's announcement if gen 7 was traditional).

I just think everyone took a half step. I've never been very picky about resolution or graphics as long as the game is fun. I just feel that, for the technology they're pushing (VR, multitasking, what have you) and the need for adequate processing in what appears to be the open world generation, they could have done better. That's all.

[LamerTamer]

I think you can only use like 6 cores for games because 2 are used up for all of that social media crap that everyone seems to need these days.

If they freed up those cores for games it would help but then everyone would moan about not being able to do all of the social crap like friend notifications and shareplay etc.

[DivineAssault]

first time i heard that from a dev..

[MRMagoo123]

They say they got the hang of it and made the game as good as the pc anyway, it's just more click bait and fanboy war starting from Gamingbolt

[DoctorFry]

The PS4's CPU sucks.

[PSIN4MANT]

I stopped reading at Gamingbolt.

[frostypants]

Lemme guess...clickbait headline, no-name studio interview...must be a Failingbolt article?
*clicks story*
Yep. Morons...

For the 1000th time why has this site not been banned?

[susanto1228]

That's actually pretty sad because the PS4 CPU is already outdated and very simplistic

[N8]

If so many other companies didn't come out and say how easy it is to develop for the ps4 then this would be ok. I'm no developer but if 8 out of 10 say it's easy to work with most likely you are the ones with the problem.

[NemesisTheGod]

Everyone knows the consoles strengths the PS4 is the GPU & the Xbox One is the CPU.

[MRMagoo123]

The xbone cpu has 100 and bit more mhz , that's like having a 100th of a mm more penis length nothing even worth talking about. The ps4 has better ram and a better gpu the over clock on the xbones cpu is pretty much useless.

[SonyAddict]

Gamingbolt is an absolute joke of a website!, who approves this drivel?.

[fulnattybrah]

Just here to laugh at all the arm chair developers in here that actually work at Dunkin Donuts... Telling a real developer its easy... lmao

[UNKLE]

This is not hardware problem its the developers problem even INTEL said if developers would use all of cpu cores and not only the mhz then low api cpu like xbox one and ps4 and most of AMD cpus would have not problem with games, today developers can use only 4 core maximum thats the big problem.

[samchez77]

Hard to develop for? Or developer lacking in skills/talent??

[solidboss07]

Good job they never tried to bring a title to the PS3, or the 360 for that matter.

[Khronikos]

It's no trade secret both consoles have a very weak CPU.

[Deeke]

Of course it's more difficult to develop for. It's an APU, and an old APU at that. I wonder how big the disparity is between the PS4 and the developer's workstation.

[alti]

"It was very hard trying to max it out"

[jay2]

Learn to code on an x86 architecture properly

[aerisbueller]

"However its CPU clock speed is on the lower side compared to the Xbox One"

Implying the game would have run better on the XBox One.

[ShadowWolf712]

Went to the site (stupidly) and read the actual quote.

"The PS4-version has all features of the PC-version including the unlimited viewing distance. As this was our first title for PS4, it wasn’t a piece of cake to get there. However, we are using our own inhouse-engine which we fully understand.”

“This made it possible for us to translate and optimize every feature. And we had not stopped before as we knew that the PS4 offers a powerful hardware. However, we ran into problems with the CPU as we have some very deep simulations running in the background which really pushed the CPU to the limit, especially when using the fast-forward feature. So we had to tweak and optimize here as well until everything ran smoothly.”

Gamingbolt's big takeaway from that is that the PS4 CPU is "hard to develop for". That site is officially a clown show.

[Shineon]

Most people already knew that ps4 and x1 have weak CPU'S, Hell the Ps3's Cell processor is stronger than both.I still quite don't understand why Sony didn't use it for Ps4 the Cell I mean.

[S2Killinit]

Lol the aldeveloper is saying something completely different than the title.

Im actually waiting for this game. I need a game like this right now.

[MoveTheGlow]

Eh. I get that these guys are trying to do something different with a really complicated backend system that was optimized for another set of hardware, but this doesn't have much to do with what we tend to focus on here - graphical power, etc.

It's like with Nuclear Throne, Vlambeer does have to keep their systems in check because every bullet, enemy, and character is being traced with a lot of details which allow each one to be modified via mutations like telekinesis and such. It's a pixel-based 2d game, but it can tax powerful hardware due to stuff happening on the back end.

[kenwonobi]

And they said they got the job done. It was the was met with a little difficulty but ultimately accomplished. The game isn't on Xbox so useless comparison thrown in. We all know both suffer relatively weak CPU which compensate by having 8 cores and custom built gpu to pull from. All useless info judging by what headline tries to imply.

[CantBeStopped3]

Then learn how to develop games like any of the other developers who dont complain about the PS4's CPU.

[ShadowWolf712]

They didn't. That's the thing. Gamingbolt twisted their words.

[Bebedora]

Hahahaha! The title.....