Inside the PlayStation 4 Pro with Mark Cerny

Roughly three years after launching the PlayStation 4, Sony is week away from releasing a bigger, better version: the PlayStation 4 Pro.

Despite a summer (and then some) full of leaks and speculation, Sony waited until last month to publicly unveil the Pro in New York. Even then, technical details about the console were sparse; this week, system architect Mark Cerny told Gamasutra and other members of the press that since New York he’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[Nyxus]

Great to hear.

[naruga]

of course PS4 Pro can produce that much of a power ...would be stupidly retarded for Sony to not be a match for X-Scorpio and play the underdog role like Nintendo...what i see is that Scorpio will exceed PS4 Pro visuals only in its exclusives and there not significantly ...

[Red_Renegade]

none of you guys have any clue what you're talking about.

[bouzebbal]

Sony and Nintendo are doing gaming the right way.
Some other company has nothing but words to feed their most loyal sheep.

[nix]

All these Xboxers defending MS n going jingoistic. Poor souls don't even know that MS has left this generation because they've been beaten up black and blue.

The Scorpio was just a desperate move back at E3 clearly shown by the video which showed nothing. People are going to invest in Switch when it comes out because that's the second console one can have because most "exclusives" are anyways going to turn up on Steam after the poor sale on W10 store.

[Gazondaily]

Well they started the whole mid gen upgrade thing. Their philosophy is no different from Microsoft I imagine but they just have weaker hardware.

[morganfell]

They have the Hardware...in hand. Now. Some people though...

http://n4g.com/news/1974401...

[Fatal-Aim]

The only one that doesn't believe in it or is pretending to not care about generation cycles is Microsoft because they are getting their butt kicked. So to divert from the thought, they tell you generations don't matter anymore. Its typical marketing.

[DeadlyFire]

This is part of AMD Polaris tech they claim I believe. This is just a way to keep Pro in the ballpark of 4K rendering with mixing checkerboard rendering and this into it. Its a measure to ensure they are not left to far behind and hang onto the market until PS5 comes along.

While Microsoft claims 6 Tflops they could be using an estimation. As the hardware is not final just yet. It could reach just below that and they could still claim 6 Tflops. Worst case scenario Xbox still has the higher number even if it were 5.5/11 Tflops.

@Never4get
Switch is only capable of 1 - 2 Tflops max if its using base low power components at 16 FP. Its basic math 16 fp is double 32 FP performance output as less GPU cores are used at the same time with 16 FP.

[freshslicepizza]

of course they still believe in console generations, their number one goal is to sell hardware and with playstation now festering in the background it is clear sony doesn't want to rock the boat. the ps4 pro will be a big success so expect these mid-term consoles each generation too.

[uth11]

That 16-bit half float trick Cerny talked about is is a next gen AMD feature. Not sure if nVidia GPUs have it

[Kingthrash360]

I'm convinced that xbox fanboys are lying to themselves at this point. Nobody is a fan a of system and is this misinformed about it.

[jlove4life]

Why is he getting so many disagrees its 40 million plus vanilla ps4's out you think 3rd party devs going to alienate PlayStation player base for scorpio small group yeah right keep dreaming though actuality PlayStation can coast off ps4 regular and ps4 pro and a yr or 2 by 2020 release ps 5 microsoft will forever try to catch PlayStation unless PlayStation pull a x1 and piss off consumers but with sony relying on PlayStation dont see that ever happening #facts

[lastking95]

Never seen so much denial in my life lol. You ppl got it bad. Reap what you sow

[sammarshall102]

Looking at what Microsoft achieved with 1 tflop in Gears 4, Horizon 3 and the rest of their X1 titles, they're going to create amazing games with 6 tflops

[Kingthrash360]

You can say the same about the ps4 tho right?

[-Foxtrot]

Yeah. Hopefully this means the PS5 will be after the Pro

[darthv72]

The PS5 will be perfectly timed for their next portable and console entries. So maybe... just maybe sony will build a hybrid as well?

Except unlike the switch, the docking station will contain some extra power to make for true 4k and enhanced vr.

When the PS5 is undocked, all the games will run 1080p 60fps no questions asked.

@EDMIX, when Sony added tv out to the PSP 2000 it was done as an afterthought. Yet when they revised the PSP Go and designed it to support docking and real controllers it showed a hint of what could be. Well before intendo and the Switch. It showed there could be a point where console and portable would be one and the same.

now back then the specs werent what they needed to be in order to deliver a full console experience but those days have changed. Sony has the know how, the technical skills and especially the developers to make something like this a reality and do it way better than Nintendo. I kept hoping sony would revisit their attempt and make something even better and rather than split the gaming base between portable and console they can serve both with one fully packed and powerful unit.

Be the market leader to both fronts instead of just one.

[_-EDMIX-_]

@darth- Sony already did PSP 2000 and 3000 as well as the PSP Go so why would they do that again?

I mean sure for the next handheld but I don't see PlayStation 5 being that considering their market leader

[bouzebbal]

yes, 2 years from now i think. Together with PSVR2 if VR1 becomes something.

[DeadlyFire]

AMD Already confirmed AMD Zen APUs will be 'console ready for development' by 2018/2019 for Sony/Microsoft.

AMD Zen CPU cores will be vastly more power on the CPU side compared to AMD Jaguar cores in the XB Scorpio and PS4 Pro.

[Tapani]

@darthv72

Why would Sony create a hybrid in 2020 or so when you have 5G available and you can finally start streaming PS Now (including now PS4, PS3, PS2, PSX + Vue) with PS5?

They are extremely smart in creating the PS Now infrastructure, well, now. It is truly going to shine with 5G. A true digital service with everything Playstation streaming to any of your devices. Home experience uncompromised with 4K/8K HDR screen and a full-on customized box with latest tech. All in one ecosystem, including exclusives and an affordable price.

[Zarock]

PS5 will be Sony's answer to the Xbox Scorpio!! It will knock the shit out of It.

[S2Killinit]

Good to hear. Sony consoles are the best electronic investment I have made in the pst, and i wiuld like them to continue the tradition.

[Mystogan]

So they still believe in starting from scratch with your games library and buying all new accessories?
There is LITERALLY no benefit to console generations for gamers, it only benefits the companies cuz you have to buy all new games and your accessories. People need to get over it. Its a thing of the past. There is no reason anymore that my current game or controller can't work with my new console. Its already pretty appalling that my 360 controller doesn't work with my xbox one, even though it uses USB and works with Windows PC's. Good thing that wont be the case going forward with Xbox.

If they want to lose the PS5 vs Xbox 5 war, this is exactly how they will lose that war. People will be more likely to buy an Xbox 5 because all their games and controllers will just work.

@below.
If it can play old games and controllers. Then its not the traditional console generation.

[TheColbertinator]

Xbox 5?

And of course people will buy a new console even if it cant play the old games. I bought an Xbox 1 shortly after launch to play new games not 360 games. It was two years before Microsoft announced BC anyway.

Also who knows what will happen next gen anyway. No one saw the Wii winning 7th gen and not everyone expected the PS4 winning this gen after Microsoft did so well last gen.

I call for "wait and see"

[iceman06]

As long as they stick with the architecture of the PS4, which is likely, they won't have the same problems with BC as they had with the PS3. So, "starting over" becomes a non-issue. New games will be made for the new console, just like new games would be made for upgraded hardware. Controllers will advance and change so, at some point, most of us would be upgrading to those anyway. Especially if there are new features on it that games would take advantage of. All in all, whatever the cycle is (whether it's continuous or generational) won't really change too much. As long as the consoles don't radically change architectures.
IMO, the biggest difference will be the hype and spectacle surrounding them. Console launches are traditionally very eventful. They are like a shot of adrenaline to both sides of the industry, gamers and publishers alike. That part might be missed with a continuous cycle. Unless, of course, the new consoles actually have exclusive games. In which case, that would pretty much be similar to generational launches that kept BC as an option.

[G20WLY]

"buying all new accessories" - what, like the Move controllers? Oh wait, they're still being used in conjunction with cutting edge technology 2 generations apart. Nice try, Mystogan, but sadly...bad troll failed. :(

[OB1Biker]

its can have the best of both approach. The main point and interest of a real new gen is to have new gen only games that actually use the full potential of the console and not only play old gen games. Still doesnt mean it cant play old games AS WELL.. I m sure the PSVR will work on the PS5 too.
Point is there is more incentive to buy a new gen console if you cant play true new games on old consoles. You can have all the power you want on a new model but power is about pointless if not used to its full potential. At some point, better graphics and performance is not enough and many gamers would still be playing on PS3/xbox 360 if they could play the same games.

[ShottyatLaw]

Not sure why you got all of those disagrees. The best feature of PC gaming is the limitless compatibility. I hope Sony and MS shift away from this walled-garden approach.

I'd gladly lose rumble triggers or a touch pad in order to use my drawer full of 360 and PS3 controllers. I'd also skip 95% of the indie titles flooding the market to play a last gen AAA I might have missed on PS3 or 360. I shouldn't need multiple consoles to enjoy a company's library of software or peripherals in 2016.

Eventually games won't run on the new systems. That's fine. No different than eventually needing a new graphics card. But at least my steam library doesn't get wiped out whenever I upgrade.

[rainslacker]

Given that the changes between gens aren't so vast anymore, and that there aren't significant changes to input and whatnot, I actually kind of agree with this. At least the first couple sentences.

In the past, the generational changes had enough differences in the actual computing tech to warrant leaving the old behind. But nowadays, the whole premise of new generations of gaming is just throwing more power at it. There is very little logical reason to move into new architectures, when one consistent architecture is more than capable of providing what games need to deliver.

We've just reached a point where games have plateaued, and until the next step is needed, there is no real reason to shake things up beyond the power requirement.

I don't know if I would take Cerny's comment as saying that BC isn't necessary, or that accessories need to be abandoned in a new gen though. I think he was just speaking more from a technical point of view, where a new generation can indeed bring in some sort of new thing on the architecture side which would be beneficial for gaming advancement. There is nothing to say that the base architecture needs to be changed though.

Cerny is more a hardware guy. He doesn't seem to spend much time talking about the actual effects it has on consumers.

I don't know what next gen holds in terms of technology, although he might, but likely it's just going to be more power. removing accessories or libraries would benefit the hardware and software makers, but I think that even Sony is more interested in moving forward with a standard architecture so they can not have to design something new each time. It reduces their costs, and it makes them more nimble to provide upgrades allowing companies like AMD or NVidia to do most of the R&D into new computing tech advances.

[miyamoto]

Great interview.
He is working on Death Stranding and other PS4 exclusives.

[Relientk77]

Good, looking forward to PS5

[MrsNesbitt]

Good!

[PhoenixUp]

There logically always has to be a new console generation sometime in the future. You can't iterate on the same console 4ever

[zivtheawesome]

Why do everyone think the Scorpio will have 12 teraflops? I never seen them stating 12 teraflops machine but I do see Sony saying they will have 8.4teraflops.

[Bolts]

Enough about the god damn flops. Just show me 60 FPS 1080p or 60 FPS 4K. Those are the only numbers that matters. Everything else are smoke, mirrors and lies.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Because they are both based on AMD architecture the Scorpio just happens to be running on a newer chipset so its easy to assume whatever the PS4 can do the Scorpio will do better.

[G20WLY]

^"Assume" smh

[Goldby]

i duno man, PS4P will be making Uncharted and Bloodborne look mighty fine, how will scorpio make those games better?

[rainslacker]

I wouldn't assume that. There is a silicon change required to handle such a thing, and such changes do require more money to implement if they aren't common practice.

Unless this principal in handling data becomes the norm going forward, I wouldn't assume anything of the sort.

The basic premise seems reasonable that it would be included, because most people don't understand that the instruction size(which is what's being referred to here) doesn't just get split in half by default, and the common way to handle such functions is to simply process half floats as full 32 bit instructions.

There is no guarantee that MS will indeed implement this kind of procedure, and such things would need additional instructions to handle on the silicon level, which means more silicon required to what will already be a rather expensive 6TF chip....so MS may not see the benefit of such a thing.

It's not to say that MS solution won't be better if they don't, because realistically, 6TF can out muscle a "hybrid"(for lack of a better term) chip like what Cerny is talking about here.

But it's obvious that people don't understand how these things work well enough, because they're applying rather new ways of thinking in terms of silicon management to be applicable across the board.

I'd get more technical, but I know you won't listen and will spew the same BS until it's said otherwise by MS....as your history has proven.

[sammarshall102]

This

[sammarshall102]

It's because Microsoft knows they have the most powerful console they've said it plenty of times

The PS4 is truly only 4.2 tflops while the Scorpio is still 6 tflops

[Goldby]

hoping to be 6tf*

Fixed that for ya. a video doesn't equal an actual console

[RAM0N]

I also believe since I travel for work

[conanlifts]

I like the idea of generations, but i am a huge fan of a permanent digital game library accessible and playable on all future devices.
The reason is i buy almost every console released and do not have the space to keep them. This means as i upgrade my old consoles are sold. The issue with this is i lose my digital games.

[PSX04]

And we believed too mark

[RevXM]

It was obvious from the Ps4 pro reveal even that Sony is working on the PS5.
Ps4 pro was stated to be part of the ps4 generation existing alongside the base ps4 as an optional sku for new users or hardcore gamers who have 4K tv's. The way they talked about PS4, the future and generations implied they are working on the ps5. Its probably 2-3 years off, but I cant wait.

[dRanzer]

Mark is genius but explain me this: 8.4 teraflops and titanfall cant do a real 4k? i think 8.4 teraflops is enough to make titanfall run at 4k

[SilverDemon]

8.4 tera flops if the game was using the gpu as 16-bit

Titanfall 2 isnt using 16-bit

[joeorc]

@SilverDemon4h ago
[8.4 tera flops if the game was using the gpu as 16-bit

Titanfall 2 isnt using 16-bit]

Well while it is indeed quite true, in over all there may infact be parts of the render that does indeed use 16 FP instead of everything always using
32 FP all the time.

[SilverDemon]

Only devs would know how the game works

So its pointless to speculate what methods they are using

[joeorc]

It was very simple in how he was explaining this..the PS4 Pro's GPU was duplicated on the die. IE: two PS4 GPU SOC cores right on the Die processor.

Thus instead of both SOC GPU cores doing 32 FP @ 4.2 TF compute Graphics rendering

Instead each those SOC GPU system cores can do 16FP @ 4.2 TF

Now trying such with a single GPU system is possible, but it most likely would not or may not be be able to do as such as two separate complete GPU system cores on the die. Especially if such design of the chips SOC is using 3D stacked TSV. Because direct die stacking communication is going direct to the die stacked connection instead of having to go to off board chip to another.

[uth11]

If you could get away with using all 16 bit floats the system would be pushing an effective 8.4 Tflops. There are probabky reasons you can't go all 16 bit. Maybe a combo of 16bit and 32bit.

But people are ignoring the rest of what Cerny as I'd and spreading this 8.4 number as gospel. It's not, it comes with caveats

[joeorc]

@uth1134m ago
[If you could get away with using all 16 bit floats the system would be pushing an effective 8.4 Tflops. There are probabky reasons you can't go all 16 bit. Maybe a combo of 16bit and 32bit.

But people are ignoring the rest of what Cerny as I'd and spreading this 8.4 number as gospel. It's not, it comes with caveats]

Well you could go completely all 16FP for Games if you really wanted to..remember not all games or applied application dynamics for software need to have 32 or 64..I mean majority of mobile games especially VR is 16FP anyway. But in many cases , you are Quite correct you want the highest bit rate that you can get.

But again nothing really precludes a developer to or from being able to executing a game or applied application in 16FP for development purposes as long as the requirements of doing such does not conflict with a boot strap looping issue or something like that..😏

But it's not saying that base core performance indexing is completely 8.4TF as a 32FP base.

But what he does explain , rather well that in today's game environment that it does provide some pretty cool areas that can be explored by having such an area open to developers that may want to use such..I mean many of your mobile , Indie, and Mobile VR developers already are pretty familiar with such bit rates for their software designs..hell even Nintendo with the new switch is pretty heavy investing into such compute software environment for its games and Applications.. IOS & Android OS the same.

Being able to have such accommodation for developers for the Living room console market only further bolsters developer & publisher confidence.

[rainslacker]

The 8.8TF is a theoretical number given out to simplify the premise of what Cerny is talking about.

TFlops right now on consoles are rated based on 32 bit instruction sizes, because the processors are 32 bit processors.

Keep in mind, that a Flop is simply a floating point operation. The actual term really has nothing to do with the size of the flop. It can be 16, 32, or 64 or any 8 bit factor above that. As it stands, current flops are rated at 32 bits.

So, in this case, the processor can handle 4.4 TFlops when those instructions are 32 bit.

But, using basic math, if say all the instructions were 16 bit instructions, then it could process 8.8TFlops of 16 bit instructions, because they are half the size, and take half the time to actually process due to being half the size.

TitanFall is still using 32 bit instructions(and sets of data I assume), so it will run at 4.4 TFLops. If they made all the instructions 16 bit, then it'd be able to do double the work per second. Making it so a single instruction can do either 32 bit or 16 bit gives some leeway to gain more power by assigning work with the most efficiency. Given that TF2 will release pretty soon, they probably didn't have time to rework their code to take much advantage of this new process, and it's questionable if they would if other platforms it was releasing on couldn't manage to actually take advantage of it, because there is quite a lot of work involved in managing instructions and memory like that....and that work is what takes up the bulk of programming a game to begin with. Sony apparently has some tools which help streamline this process, and make it so if certain variables are used, it's automatic in the build, which is what they need to see gains from this, but as of right now, it'd be too soon for TF2 to really take advantage of it.

While this is all good in theory, in practice, there are quite a few instructions which still require 32 bit, and with GPU compute it complicates matters even further. So real world gains through this will never be close to 8.8 TFlops of power. If say half the instructions are 16 bit in a game, then you could assume that it'll achieve 6.6 TFlops of power, or any combination which you care to factor. Then there are the factors involved in diminishing returns, or entropy on 32 bit calculations for smaller numbers which have to be removed, but that becomes quite the headache and isn't going to be applicable across the board, so best not to get into that.

For the most part, people are getting too hung up on if the calculations overall will all be 16 or 32 bit instructions, whereas, Cerny was referring to it in simplistic terms to make it more comprehensible for what he was trying to explain. Obviously, that didn't work to try and clarify the issue, so we have a bunch of console war back and forth, with a lot of assumptions from people who have no clue what the difference is between a 16 and 32 bit instructions, or how that will even affect a game overall based on current game design principals.

[NextGenCeo]

Microsoft always Microsoft. They fail on console gaming and they start saying `We don`t believe no more console generation`
I hated them. Don`t get me wrong. They good with Windows and DX but on console hardware and software they are EPIC FAIL!

And they thing`s they are the leader on this console market and what ever they said it should work for others and people should follow them. No. Leader on this market SONY second Nintendo. They give a direction on this market not Microsoft not Xbox.
I hated them so much and i never regret with that.

And Sony doing good with Price point and hardware. I don`t like PS4 NEO also, but they not saying lies at least for costumers.

(ESL guy here so sorry for English)

[uth11]

I would disagree that they are even good with Windows.

[Donnie81]

Wow why can't people just talk games and not argue all day. We all have a system we prefer but wow some people take it too far.

[classic19]

I don't believe this 8.4 tflops at all. My view" the box will be the stronger console.. That fact changes nothing.. It still will lose against the pspro regardless.. Sony leads this gen by how many soles" yup.. Sony console a mid gen refresh m.s console is the start of their new gen.. The jump up is a big one to be a refresh in m.s case.. That said I'll be getting me that pro at some point next year..

[Lenrulesdaworld]

MS console is an premium xbox one, it's exactly what they said it is, a mid-gen refresh. Not sure why people think other wise but ok.

[Goldby]

Claim 1) True Native 4k gaming when they cant even hit 1080p/60fps for most of their games on current gen.

Claim 2) True Vr when they claim that the Xbox One is no where near strong enough, yet Sony made it happen

Claim 3) the name itself , Project Scorpio

[Lenrulesdaworld]

@goldby None of those have anything to do with the fact it's still an xbox one. Scorpio is just a code name like durango etc. Most of Xbox One's games are 1080p & true vr in the sense that it will use vive and rift. I also am not saying I agree with the promo, only that scorpio is a premium xbox one.