PS4 Architect Mark Cerny: Cloud won't work well to boost graphics

[engii]

You gave a flat out wrong example while having the gall to claim I was misinformed.

 

Best case scenario between a geographically close (same city) client and server you can get a ping response as low as 15ms. You haven't done any work on the remote server and you're already left with no more than 1ms until the current frame that is being rendered goes live. So poof goes the dreams of any realtime workload.

 

So all you're left with now is the latency insensitive workloads, and out of those you can discard anything which is static/pre-computable. At this point you've got AI offloading or behavioural analysis based AI such as was demoed at E3, maybe certain implementations of physics (cinematic).

 

It always amazes me how people go at statements like this in such a linear, one dimensioned way...for example when Sony talks about playing a game like MGS V on your vita, are they talking cloud??? YESSSSSSS and do you honestly think the vita could render anything close to awesome graphics of MGS V?? NOOOOO...the game will look awesome because its using CLOUD to render and then streaming to the ###### vita...In this use case, cloud has improved the graphics  of the device..lets not get into ###### semantics about, oh I meant this, or maybe they meant that...improved means improved...

 

Ubi soft is already on record as stating that Watch dogs will be more dynamic on xbox one http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=13270 ....lets do away with the ###### speak for a moment....when we say better graphics what does it mean??? it means whatever it means to whoever reads it, usually, higher definition, better frame rate, more polys etc....but more dynamic, more alive, more realitics because, for example, a flock of birds flys through the scene with incredible realism or waves in an ocean look real, or space based scenes have incredible detail on starfields etc etc....doesn't that also mean better??? wouldn't that make a game look better, play better feel more real???

 

Say we talk multiplayer....lets say we want to do 50 people live on a game, ooh lets say like 'The Crew'. When your mates all over the map want to stream video to you in game and lets say that video ends up plastered over a billboard in game for whatever reason...what you think people are going to say...gee that looks ###### or wow the graphics are mad.... that will be made possible through cloud and really through cloud alone if we are to believe the numbers the devs are aiming for for real-time multiplayer...

 

what about storage of textures or objects that are affected by the world in some way streaming to the console in realtime??? what no cloud here either??? not going to result in better visuals at all??? people need to wake up and fast...

 

Lastly, before people take a 20 second statement from whoever cerny might be and blow it out the water because we all know Sony will have ###### on launch and no cloud to speak of in comparison to Microsoft (yes im serious, be real for 1 minute honestly and ask your self the question, The company that owns azure with datacenters all over the planet running night and day or the company that borrowed 480 Million USD to buy gakai, whos gonna own cloud??') lets leave it up to the devs to see how games will be made better through cloud...for my money, games like forza 5, titan fall and watch dogs are already going to show better value, more capability, more dynamic worlds etc because of cloud (translates to a layman as better graphics) and overall, better than anything seen on a sony console at E3 or since....lets wait and see how its going to play out...But don't cry when ###### is a little tighter and more real and functional on Xbox One that pS4...

 

let the flaming begin

[vcfan]

first he tries to dismiss the cloud by saying it cant boost graphics. this is very misleading. but then, he goes on and promotes using the gpu to offload physics and other things. he gets asked if this will reduce the graphics,because the gpu has less resources for graphics, then he tries to defend it.

 

Anyone see whats wrong here? Offloading physics to the gpu will make graphics worse,as there are less resources for graphics, therefore, offloading physics and other things to the cloud will leave plenty of resources for the graphics without handicapping performance.

[McKay]

Nobody has ever tried this from a Gaming Console perspective... not on this scale... Nobody has taken a risk like this on a GAME CONSOLE

Once you have someones voice recorded for whatever you need them for... you don't really need them any longer... you know how they sound, and you can manipulate their voice for expansive content... And a AI server would work wonders into a Game... how those retards in shooter games who keep going to the same spot to be slaughtered... now they will have a Mind not to bunch up in the same spot and get killed....

And when I play Elder Scrolls, I want more than the same canned conversations that i have been seeing for years...  An AI Server would make characters feel more alive and not well BOTS

 

Match Making and Hosting have been around... yes...  But not one game publisher has tried 300k dedicated servers... not one has tried it on this level...  As far as consoles go...

 

Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh what am I saying, of course you don't. Look at you.

[helios01]

 As honest as someone who works for one of the companies involved can make it, I suppose. You can easily put a very smart person from MS give you a different perspective on the same topic. 

[Showan]

Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh what am I saying, of course you don't. Look at you.

Name calling is beneath me... So you can enjoy that by yourself...

Now to the subject at hand...

Look at everyone who won't give something a remote chance to see what will happen...

Nope just go on about how it won't happen...

Sad thing is, you can actually make your own cloud computatupions and see for yourself if it works...

Is it a bit complicated? If you don't crunch code it is a bit complex...

But a programmer at my job (doesn't even game either), explained that people can try this on their own without having to do anything complex... The tricky part is borrowing resources from a remote source to see if the graphics part will work...

So instead of hating... Just take a wait and see approach...

Cool thing is... It was designed for future use, for when consoles started to feel stale... But can used now...

[r3drum]

It's not my intention to troll but can someone please tell me why is he looking to the left for most of the interview. I have been told repeatedly that such actions are synonymous with lying. Or is it the angle of the camera.

[HawkMan]

first he tries to dismiss the cloud by saying it cant boost graphics. this is very misleading. but then, he goes on and promotes using the gpu to offload physics and other things. he gets asked if this will reduce the graphics,because the gpu has less resources for graphics, then he tries to defend it.

 

Anyone see whats wrong here? Offloading physics to the gpu will make graphics worse,as there are less resources for graphics, therefore, offloading physics and other things to the cloud will leave plenty of resources for the graphics without handicapping performance.

 

Don't worry, they'll just ignore you when you make a post they can't argue with, or they'll make up wild claims and simply say it's not possible because, aliens... :p

 

We have argue this since the cloud was first mentioned, and despite thousands of multiplayers games proving otherwise, they'll just claim not possible, latency, the tubes are too small.

[xdltn]

Can I make an observation not of a technical nature but of a financial one. The Xbox cloud is not some magic, unicorn/rainbow powered source of infinite power it's Azure, another part of Microsoft's business; And as Microsoft is a business with shareholders and what not they quite like getting paid.

Data centres on the scale of Azure are massively powerful and impressive but despite economies of scale they cost a lot of money and not even XBONE flag carriers like Respawn Entertainment get a free ride. They indicated they got a competitive rate sure, but it is an ongoing cost none the less.

 

With this in mind do you think developers and publishers will want to harness the 'infinite power of the cloud' for a primarily single player game when that will cost them money for as long as the game runs? Do they just do a no cloud drop back? Cut off support once the sequel is released (that would be good PR)? I'd guess they wouldn't use it in the first place as the new console look plenty pretty with just local processing and they get more money and most likely cheaper development costs overall plus not connectivity required.

 

Lets take multi player games then, dedicated servers have proven superiority over P2P but again they aren't free. In this case if they use the cloud once say Titanfall 2 comes out don't expect them to keep paying for Titanfall 1 that is not bringing in any new income. Don't like Titanfall 2, unlucky.

 

The other factor is multi platform. The hard numbers aren't out yet. Both XBONE and PS4 have sold loads. From what I've seen PS4 seems to be winning but without real numbers it's just my opinion. Point is there will be a huge PS4 market too so apart from exclusives would you bother building in all the cloud support and paying for the service when you can't translate that effort into the other platform?

 

Technically I'm very sceptical of Microsoft's claims as to the use of the cloud as modern games are so interactive the latency issue is an unavoidable problem IMHO. Very, very optimistically were probably talking 300ms+ latency round trip. With this in mind cloud compute would only work with tasks like this if once you being the compute no variables are changed otherwise new conditions need to be uploaded and the cycle starts again. In this case why not pre-compute it? Local storage is dirt cheap, bandwidth and cloud services aren't. Physics in the background you say, well if it's not pre-computable then it is interactive so the above issues occur i.e. once the computation starts you can't change anything. Ligting has been precomputed for games for ages, works well.

Background AI could be used but now you're tied to a stable broadband connection, fees for MS and all the rest when the new systems already have massively more powerful hardware you could tap in to.

 

So far all we have seen the Xbox cloud used for is dedicated servers and bots. Good no doubt but not anything we haven't had for years.

 

There was a great thread on Ars which highlights the limitations of cloud compute http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1208703

 

Just my opinion of course.

[dead.cell]

What are you on about? This is the exact client-host relationship that was already explained to you. This IS NOT something new nor revolutionary, MS just needs to make sure their servers can handle all the load, which I'm pretty confident their datacenters can do.

 

"Confident their datacenters can do" ...

 

Considering most server based games handle quite awful at launch, I fail to understand the part where this is all just gonna work out smoothly, especially considering the demand Microsoft brings with the Xbox name over MMO games at that. I mean, if a company as well respected in terms of quality like Blizzard can't even meet the demand of gaming hordes, how are we to expect Microsoft to answer that call exactly?

 

I'm not saying it won't work, but I'm willing to bet there's going to be some bumps along the way, along with growing pains as the console continues to sell.

[BajiRav]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cerny

 

Yeah this guy wouldn't be able to figure it out. Did you even watch the video? You replied awfully quickly.

So he is same as many other industry veterans including Don Mattrick and many on the Xbox team but of course all of them are clueless except Mark Cerny, right?

[GotBored]

I can find hundreds of articles which say the cloud is just a hyped up dedicated server, even from Xbox One game developers who use the Azure 'cloud'.

http://au.gamespot.com/news/titanfall-developer-tackles-xbox-one-cloud-confusion-6410672

But that's not going to change the minds of people living in the 'cloud' dream, so I suggest reading this article.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in-theory-can-xbox-one-cloud-transform-gaming

 

Just so you actually understand how and why certain things aren't possible or favorable to do in the cloud.

[JonnyLH]

I can find hundreds of articles which say the cloud is just a hyped up dedicated server, even from Xbox One game developers who use the Azure 'cloud'.

http://au.gamespot.com/news/titanfall-developer-tackles-xbox-one-cloud-confusion-6410672

But that's not going to change the minds of people living in the 'cloud' dream, so I suggest reading this article.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in-theory-can-xbox-one-cloud-transform-gaming

 

Just so you actually understand how and why certain things aren't possible or favorable to do in the cloud.

The whole of Azure which is used by 50% of the financial 50 is hyped dedicated servers?

I'd like to see you create a platform with no processing limit, which can deploy instances on the fly, process in parallel across multiple servers and then return that back to you with a round trip of around 50-100ms. Azure is a platform where you can build and deploy to with no effort at all and the platform can dynamically expand/shrink the resources it needs to run that application. Its not just a fancy dedicated server, an application could run across 10 servers if it needed to.

 

Also that Eurogamer article isn't that great, they slate it off not based on the technology, but rather Microsofts PR regarding it.

[GotBored]

The whole of Azure which is used by 50% of the financial 50 is hyped dedicated servers?

I'd like to see you create a platform with no processing limit, which can deploy instances on the fly, process in parallel across multiple servers and then return that back to you with a round trip of around 50-100ms.

 

So like a server? (Except it doesn't have no processing limit, but neither does Azure).

[JonnyLH]

So like a server? (Except it doesn't have no processing limit, but neither does Azure).

Just look at an Azure white paper. Seriously.

 

They've even developed their own protocol to handle the cloud requests in a game nature for the X1. Regarding infrastructure and this technology, its a massive innovation.

[GotBored]

Just look at an Azure white paper. Seriously.

 

They've even developed their own protocol to handle the cloud requests in a game nature for the X1. Regarding infrastructure and this technology, its a massive innovation.

 

You could just signup for the Microsoft Azure trial and actually see for yourself what its about, you could have also read the article I posted.

But I guess that's too much effort right? I'm not sure if your trying to convince yourself or everyone else.. either way the cloud isn't what its hyped up to be.

 

http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Windows-Azure/Windows-Azure-Case-Study-Webzen/

 

Here is a video is an actual game developer who uses Azure already and how they use it and why it is beneficial.

Its not for any of the reasons people think Xbox will bring to the 'cloud'.

[JonnyLH]

You could just signup for the Microsoft Azure trial and actually see for yourself what its about, you could have also read the article I posted.

But I guess that's too much effort right? I'm not sure if your trying to convince yourself or everyone else.. either way the cloud isn't what its hyped up to be.

 

http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Windows-Azure/Windows-Azure-Case-Study-Webzen/

 

Here is a video is an actual game developer who uses Azure already and how they use it and why it is beneficial.

Its not for any of the reasons people think Xbox will bring to the 'cloud'.

If I had the time outside of work, I'd be very interested in doing that and seeing how it can manage large web applications. 

 

Don't ever become a software developer. If you can't see how a service which provides unlimited processing power will help benefit games, then you're just in denial.

http://www.oxm.co.uk/56771/titanfall-watch-dogs-developers-discuss-xbox-ones-cloud-computing-advantage/

 

Watch Dogs is a prime example.

[MikeChipshop Member]

OK now this is from a guy who's still on the fence about which console will be his first (or maybe only) purchase but this guy seems to not quite understand his own industry.

 

By pushing certain aspects of the game that are non-latency dependent, on to the cloud, other processes such as graphics can be given greater processing power to 'boost' them. What of this does the guy not understand? I mean it's been stated several million times. Within two years Sony will be paying MS or Amazon to provide cloud services for the PS4, mark my words.

[srbeen]

Microsoft designed the console with the ability to offload processes to the cloud, then inject the compressed results directly into the GPU memory. I am torn on what will actually happen, and if those connected to live will have a better gaming experience. I was thinking the console was going to do immediate calculations, while the cloud could do distance renderings, add focal blur, increase shadow count, pre-render high res files that may be needed down the line, etc. Offloading enough of these calculations would provide the console the ability to boost its frame rate.

 

Microsoft announced 1080p 60fps games, which sony hasn't done yet. So Im buying into what MS is selling - provided they deliver with a tried and true 1080p experience at 60fps and Sony lags behind with 30FPS or lower resolutions to hit 60FPS. Seeing as 4k video is just around the corner and cloud computing is as much scalable as you have bandwidth its a shame Sony hasn't made any word on Battlefield 4 being 1080p 60FPS but microsoft is almost using it as a selling point. If 1080p 60fps can't be reached at launch who is thinking that 4k will actually work on their system?

 

"For cross-platform titles running on PS4 and PC, there's the question of the economic sense in developing Xbox One specific cloud-based augmentations rather than using the same cross-platform algorithms toned down for the Xbox's less powerful GPU. This places Microsoft in a conundrum - if the cloud is unavailable to its rivals, it is unlikely to be used in third-party games and the Xbox One is unlikely to benefit outside of a few exclusives. If Microsoft does extend its cloud service to other platforms, it loses the computing advantage claimed for Xbox One."   This is an interesting take, one could almost say in addition to this that xbox one titles could be more expensive than PS4/PC due to the added cloud considerations and development the platforms can't/don't use.

[blerk]

Microsoft designed the console with the ability to offload processes to the cloud, then inject the compressed results directly into the GPU memory. I am torn on what will actually happen, and if those connected to live will have a better gaming experience. I was thinking the console was going to do immediate calculations, while the cloud could do distance renderings, add focal blur, increase shadow count, pre-render high res files that may be needed down the line, etc. Offloading enough of these calculations would provide the console the ability to boost its frame rate.

 

Microsoft announced 1080p 60fps games, which sony hasn't done yet. So Im buying into what MS is selling - provided they deliver with a tried and true 1080p experience at 60fps and Sony lags behind with 30FPS or lower resolutions to hit 60FPS. Seeing as 4k video is just around the corner and cloud computing is as much scalable as you have bandwidth its a shame Sony hasn't made any word on Battlefield 4 being 1080p 60FPS but microsoft is almost using it as a selling point. If 1080p 60fps can't be reached at launch who is thinking that 4k will actually work on their system?

 

"For cross-platform titles running on PS4 and PC, there's the question of the economic sense in developing Xbox One specific cloud-based augmentations rather than using the same cross-platform algorithms toned down for the Xbox's less powerful GPU. This places Microsoft in a conundrum - if the cloud is unavailable to its rivals, it is unlikely to be used in third-party games and the Xbox One is unlikely to benefit outside of a few exclusives. If Microsoft does extend its cloud service to other platforms, it loses the computing advantage claimed for Xbox One."   This is an interesting take, one could almost say in addition to this that xbox one titles could be more expensive than PS4/PC due to the added cloud considerations and development the platforms can't/don't use.

 

Just curious - who has ever sold these next-gen consoles as being 4K game capable? I don't think anyone believed that - sure they probably can play back 4K movies but gaming - I doubt that these consoles will ever reach that lofty goal. (AFAIK - they don't even have the hardware to output 4Kp60 as they don't have HDMI 2.0 so the early next-gen consoles probably won't even be able to  play all 4K content...)

[notuptome2004]

Just curious - who has ever sold these next-gen consoles as being 4K game capable? I don't think anyone believed that - sure they probably can play back 4K movies but gaming - I doubt that these consoles will ever reach that lofty goal. (AFAIK - they don't even have the hardware to output 4Kp60 as they don't have HDMI 2.0 so the early next-gen consoles probably won't even be able to  play all 4K content...)

 

 

to output 4k resolution  on them you only need  HDMI spec 1.4    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_1.4

 

 

HDMI 1.4 was released on May 28, 2009, and the first HDMI 1.4 products were available in the second half of 2009.^[111][143] HDMI 1.4 increases the maximum resolution to 4K ? 2K, i.e. 3840 ? 2160p (Quad HD) at 24 Hz/25 Hz/30 Hz or 4096 ? 2160p at 24 Hz (which is a resolution used with digital theaters); 

[Guest]

Just from looking at the title I knew straight away who started the topic... Seriously audio, we all know your an avid Sony supporter, that's grand -  but it makes you look really petty when the only microsoft / xbox topics you start are negative ones.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Just from looking at the title I knew straight away who started the topic... Seriously audio, we all know your an avid Sony supporter, that's grand -  but it makes you look really petty when the only microsoft / xbox topics you start are negative ones.

 

What that must say then for the people who get emotionally riled up then if I'm petty...

[vcfan]

here,ill simplify it for some folks,because people are mistaking graphics processing in the cloud, vs computing processing in the cloud.

 

i have a CPU,that communicates with a special crypto CPU that does DES decryption

 

my cpu sends the crypto cpu 64bit key and 64bit encrypted data

 

the crypto cpu then wastes hundreds or thousands of CPU cycles doing the decryption,then spits back 64bit decrypted data to me.

 

in this time that the crypto cpu was wasting all those CPU cycles, my own CPU was totally free and i could have been doing other things in my time.

 

without the crypto CPU,my cpu would have been the one wasting all those cpu cycles.also as you can see,latency doesnt matter,i only sent it 192bits,and it did so much processing that would take longer on my own cpu than latency from our communication.

 

Same exact concept. Microsoft is telling developers they have 3x the xbox one processing power in the cloud. Games use the CPU and GPU for processing,other than graphics,therefore doing this processing in the cloud frees the CPU and GPU and gives graphics the full resources.

 

I dont know how much clearer this can be explained. Also about latency, stuff thats not in view can tolerate latency as it can be processed in its sweet time,and the xbox can just update it so its ready when we view it.

[MorganX]

So.. k guys.. if what the xb1 fans are saying.. It must be doable on the PC.

Agreed. If it can improve real-time local rendering, it would/will be ported to the PC/Workstations, and probably for a subscription fee.

I'm not sure anyone is saying that. It can do some things, and if you're talking on-line worlds, it can probably do even more. You have to be very specific about what you're talking about before you can say it can or cannot do it well, or at all.

[Athernar]

Can I make an observation not of a technical nature but of a financial one. The Xbox cloud is not some magic, unicorn/rainbow powered source of infinite power it's Azure, another part of Microsoft's business; And as Microsoft is a business with shareholders and what not they quite like getting paid.

Data centres on the scale of Azure are massively powerful and impressive but despite economies of scale they cost a lot of money and not even XBONE flag carriers like Respawn Entertainment get a free ride. They indicated they got a competitive rate sure, but it is an ongoing cost none the less.

 

With this in mind do you think developers and publishers will want to harness the 'infinite power of the cloud' for a primarily single player game when that will cost them money for as long as the game runs? Do they just do a no cloud drop back? Cut off support once the sequel is released (that would be good PR)? I'd guess they wouldn't use it in the first place as the new console look plenty pretty with just local processing and they get more money and most likely cheaper development costs overall plus not connectivity required.

 

Lets take multi player games then, dedicated servers have proven superiority over P2P but again they aren't free. In this case if they use the cloud once say Titanfall 2 comes out don't expect them to keep paying for Titanfall 1 that is not bringing in any new income. Don't like Titanfall 2, unlucky.

 

The other factor is multi platform. The hard numbers aren't out yet. Both XBONE and PS4 have sold loads. From what I've seen PS4 seems to be winning but without real numbers it's just my opinion. Point is there will be a huge PS4 market too so apart from exclusives would you bother building in all the cloud support and paying for the service when you can't translate that effort into the other platform?

 

Technically I'm very sceptical of Microsoft's claims as to the use of the cloud as modern games are so interactive the latency issue is an unavoidable problem IMHO. Very, very optimistically were probably talking 300ms+ latency round trip. With this in mind cloud compute would only work with tasks like this if once you being the compute no variables are changed otherwise new conditions need to be uploaded and the cycle starts again. In this case why not pre-compute it? Local storage is dirt cheap, bandwidth and cloud services aren't. Physics in the background you say, well if it's not pre-computable then it is interactive so the above issues occur i.e. once the computation starts you can't change anything. Ligting has been precomputed for games for ages, works well.

Background AI could be used but now you're tied to a stable broadband connection, fees for MS and all the rest when the new systems already have massively more powerful hardware you could tap in to.

 

So far all we have seen the Xbox cloud used for is dedicated servers and bots. Good no doubt but not anything we haven't had for years.

 

There was a great thread on Ars which highlights the limitations of cloud compute http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1208703

 

Just my opinion of course.

 

Quoting this brilliant post in it's entirety as it needs to be seen.

 

There is a great deal of blind fanboyism behind this Xbox cloud nonsense, and it needs to stop before people get critically disappointed at the reality of the situation.

 

If it was possible to do what people are claiming in this thread, then why bother with the Xbox One in the first place? It would be far more economical to use the "power of the cloud" to extend the life of the 360 even further.