PS4 has no performance bottlenecks, claims Killzone developer

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Everything is balanced out, says Michiel Van Der Leeuw, technical director at Guerrilla Games.

The PlayStation 4 has been so carefully designed that developers won't find a performance bottleneck, Michiel Van Der Leeuw, technical director at Guerrilla Games, has told Edge.

"The fact that the best pieces of hardware are also devised from, or optimised versions of, the stuff we find in PCs doesn't make it any less a console," Van Der Leeuw explained. "A PC is a number of parts that also [have] bridges in-between, where there are inefficiencies that may [come in if they're not] exactly the right match."

But with the PS4, Sony has - allegedly - been able to ensure these inefficiencies don't exist.

Van Der Leeuw continued: "We've got the right amount of memory, video card; everything's balanced out. It was a very conscious effort to make sure that ? with the speed of the memory, the amount of compute units, the speed of the hard drive ? there would not be any bottlenecks.

"I think it was for more than a year that we knew the main ingredients and there was just discussion after discussion trying to find a bottleneck. Take a look at this design; try to find the bottleneck."

PlayStation 4 is expected to launch later this year, with Killzone: Shadow Fall expected to be a launch title.

Source: http://www.videogamer.com/ps4/killzone_shadow_fall/news/ps4_has_no_performance_bottlenecks_claims_killzone_developer.html

[neufuse Veteran]

step one, don't use a processor that isn't mass tested in gaming like the cell chip (Was a new idea for gaming when ps3 came out)..... check

step two, use an arch that lots of developers already understand..... check

step three, make sure graphics arch is up to date.... check

[Phouchg]

Commendable. Although new systems rarely impose any performance constraints. Five years down the road it will show its age regardless of how well balanced it is.

[vcfan]

I think I picked out the parts of my build PC in probably 30 minutes,and I made sure there wasn't a bottleneck. It took sony 1 whole year? with a group of engineers? really?

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

I think I picked out the parts of my build PC in probably 30 minutes,and I made sure there wasn't a bottleneck. It took sony 1 whole year? with a group of engineers? really?

It's a lot more then just picking hardware, PS4 was not designed for a Windows/Linux/MacOS.

Custom OS, with Customized Hardware.

In additions, trying to balance cost of parts in massive quantity with the fact the spec's won't change for at least 3-5 years and finding that balance of affordablity of the hardware and longevity of the hardware.

Microsoft has probably taken just as long to do the same as Sony.

[BajiRav]

Same developer who claimed PS3's superiority over Xbox 360 by making (outrageous?) claims and never delivered? Yea, right.

[TheLegendOfMart]

I think I picked out the parts of my build PC in probably 30 minutes,and I made sure there wasn't a bottleneck. It took sony 1 whole year? with a group of engineers? really?

Sweet, did you design and build the chips and PCBs yourself to take heat, footprint, power consumption and cost into account as well?

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Excellent news for any gamer.

[spacer]

Same developer who claimed PS3's superiority over Xbox 360 by making (outrageous?) claims and never delivered? Yea, right.

Killzone 2 and 3 are still some of the best looking games out of any of the consoles to date. And they're fun. How has Guerrilla not delivered?

[BajiRav]

Killzone 2 and 3 are still some of the best looking games out of any of the consoles to date. And they're fun. How has Guerrilla not delivered?

Killzone 2 will be impossible on Xbox 360 - didn't deliver on that.

[HawkMan]

Killzone 2 and 3 are still some of the best looking games out of any of the consoles to date. And they're fun. How has Guerrilla not delivered?

with the first PS3 killzone games, is not that they didn't deliver. it's that they lied and cheated. their game looked great, not as great as their promised live pre renders though, and then there was the whole "we had to use the whole 25GB disk for this game". except they used like 1/4th of it at best, with the rest being repeated data and padding, to make it seems bigger and to fix load time issues.

They have a history of being Sony PR. if Sony needs something to sound better than it is, then they get guerilla to say something stupid and unsubstantiated.

[ahhell]

No bottlenecks?

:rolleyes:

[HawkMan]

No bottlenecks?

:rolleyes:

shhh, obvisuly the PS4 has both a BD drive and HDD that can read and write as fast as memory ;)

[majortom1981]

I am curious how they will be able to get the yields they need of gddr5. even graphics cards do not use that much and look how expensive they are.

[The Evil Overlord]

I only hope it's better moderated at the very least, I hate going up against players who stand right back up after they die

[Osiris]

No bottlenecks huh...seems about as legit as my golden ticket to the Wonka factory.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Yet another indication that the PS4 is a highly developer-friendly piece of hardware - this will be a refreshing change from the PS3 days.

[vcfan]

Sweet, did you design and build the chips and PCBs yourself to take heat, footprint, power consumption and cost into account as well?

sony did not design and build the chips either. they are intel and or amd chips. a pcb just has traces that connect the pins of all the chips together, which is irrelevant to bottlenecks. and again,power consumption and price has nothing to do with this,i don't know why you're going off on a tangent just because whatever I said is not positive about sony.

[compl3x]

The mods on this forum are doing an outstanding job.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Killzone 2 and 3 are still some of the best looking games out of any of the consoles to date. And they're fun. How has Guerrilla not delivered?

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. How exactly did they not deliver? If anything they deserve even more respect as they did deliver such good looking games on a console that did have many known issues. So yeah not for nothing, I have nothing but respect for them for even pulling off what they were able to even with all the limitations of the console itself.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Not taking this in context and thinking it means there isn't limitations is staggering to see from so called tech people on a tech form.

It is quite clear the message is everything has been designed as best as possible to allow each piece of hardware to easily obtain it's potential and work in harmony with it's counterparts. Remember the PS3 split pool memory? THOSE kind of performance bottlenecks are gone.

The BD drive is getting a speed increase, and the hard drive will no doubt be 7200RPM if not SSD (probably too expensive), or a hard drive/on board flash memory combo.

But yes tech people, there will be limitations like there is on any piece of hardware :rolleyes:

[HawkMan]

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. How exactly did they not deliver? If anything they deserve even more respect as they did deliver such good looking games on a console that did have many known issues. So yeah not for nothing, I have nothing but respect for them for even pulling off what they were able to even with all the limitations of the console itself.

Compare the pre release "this is what we're going to release, this is real time" bullshot mobvies of KZ2 to the final game. as I Said before, yeah the game looks great, BUT it's not even close to what they promised.

And this idiot statement of theirs that there's no bottlenecks go right in line with their Sony-told-us-to-say-this-stupid-**** PR bull such as our game needed the whole BD and Can't be done on Xbox. It has nothign to do with reality, and all to do with Sony doing FUD smear PR against MS and using Guerilla to do it.

Not taking this in context and thinking it means there isn't limitations is staggering to see from so called tech people on a tech form.

It is quite clear the message is everything has been designed as best as possible to allow each piece of hardware to easily obtain it's potential and work in harmony with it's counterparts. Remember the PS3 split pool memory? THOSE kind of performance bottlenecks are gone.

The BD drive is getting a speed increase, and the hard drive will no doubt be 7200RPM if not SSD (probably too expensive), or a hard drive/on board flash memory combo.

But yes tech people, there will be limitations like there is on any piece of hardware :rolleyes:

So as I said before, Sony/Guerilla should have said the PS4 is a well balanced machine. not that it doesn't have bottlenecks. one is true, the other is not.

[Alladaskill17]

Not taking this in context and thinking it means there isn't limitations is staggering to see from so called tech people on a tech form.

It is quite clear the message is everything has been designed as best as possible to allow each piece of hardware to easily obtain it's potential and work in harmony with it's counterparts. Remember the PS3 split pool memory? THOSE kind of performance bottlenecks are gone.

The BD drive is getting a speed increase, and the hard drive will no doubt be 7200RPM if not SSD (probably too expensive), or a hard drive/on board flash memory combo.

But yes tech people, there will be limitations like there is on any piece of hardware :rolleyes:

How dare clearly and concisely speak in logical terms! This is the internet. /s

Well put, some (other) posters just like to watch the forums burn by way of their pointless comments. I do not see how people do not realize exactly what you said: It is quite clear the message is everything has been designed as best as possible to allow each piece of hardware to easily obtain it's potential and work in harmony with it's counterparts. I hope as much thought was put into the next Xbox console, not because I'm here trolling but so that the market stays competitive, I'd love to make this the first generation of consoles I am able to purchase both an Xbox console as well as my first Playstation console.

[TheLegendOfMart]

So as I said before, Sony/Guerilla should have said the PS4 is a well balanced machine. not that it doesn't have bottlenecks. one is true, the other is not.

Everything is balanced out, says Michiel Van Der Leeuw, technical director at Guerrilla Games.

The PlayStation 4 has been so carefully designed that developers won't find a performance bottleneck, Michiel Van Der Leeuw, technical director at Guerrilla Games, has told Edge.

"The fact that the best pieces of hardware are also devised from, or optimised versions of, the stuff we find in PCs doesn't make it any less a console," Van Der Leeuw explained. "A PC is a number of parts that also [have] bridges in-between, where there are inefficiencies that may [come in if they're not] exactly the right match."

But with the PS4, Sony has - allegedly - been able to ensure these inefficiencies don't exist.

Van Der Leeuw continued: "We've got the right amount of memory, video card; everything's balanced out. It was a very conscious effort to make sure that ? with the speed of the memory, the amount of compute units, the speed of the hard drive ? there would not be any bottlenecks.

"I think it was for more than a year that we knew the main ingredients and there was just discussion after discussion trying to find a bottleneck. Take a look at this design; try to find the bottleneck."

PlayStation 4 is expected to launch later this year, with Killzone: Shadow Fall expected to be a launch title.

HDD and Blu-ray aren't a bottleneck in PERFORMANCE, they affect LOAD TIMES. It's clear they were talking about the CPU/GPU/RAM, 6x Blu-Ray and 7200RPM drive shouldn't affect PERFORMANCE one iota.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

So as I said before, Sony/Guerilla should have said the PS4 is a well balanced machine. not that it doesn't have bottlenecks. one is true, the other is not.

No one believes or said that though, at least not in your understanding that this somehow makes the PS4 immortal to hardware limitations/becoming outdated. What people do believe is

"I think it was for more than a year that we knew the main ingredients and there was just discussion after discussion trying to find a bottleneck. Take a look at this design; try to find the bottleneck."

means there are no bottlenecks that hinder the hardware from reaching it's optimal output, or as you want it put, no bottlenecks that affect the balance. Which is quite clearly what the developer is referring to, why would a "year" be spent on this task otherwise?

Any stupid design decisions need to be eradicated as all they do trouble development/create man-made bottlenecks, etc. Much like the PS3 split memory pool. The PS3 is a rushjob (thanks crazy Ken!) when it compares to the time that seems to be going into making PS4 development efficient.