Is Turing the first step that nvidia took to bring their GPUs to consoles in the future ?

[Deleted member 158293]

Unless nvidia releases their own gaming console, I can't see any other company wanting to do business with them. Tesla announced they are getting rid of nvidia for their new generation navigation hardware.

 

[Vya Domus]

That's because you don't need the extreme horsepower on a console to run 4K.

Why would that be the case ?

 

[cucker tarlson]

Unless nvidia releases their own gaming console, I can't see any other company wanting to do business with them. Tesla announced they are getting rid of nvidia for their new generation navigation hardware.

True,they didn't exactly prove themselves to be good long term partners. Sooner or later they'll try to pry money out of you one way or another.

Why would that be the case ?

cause consoles run 1700-1800p at somewhere near medium PC settings.

 

[EarthDog]

Why would that be the case ?

Well, just looking at the hardware in these consoles for one. Second, it doesn't take nearly as much horsepower due to the settings and configuring games for what amounts to 1/2 pieces of hardware. Isn't it around an RX 480 as far as hardware goes, but with more vRAM? A 480 isn't a 4K card in a PC. I mean its previous iteration, the "s" supported 4K as well and ran that with a 12 CU GCN unit, while the "X" now has 40 CUs and seems to be a custom card as it takes from Polaris and Vega. But yeah, same concept as apple, really. You are coding for one or two pieces of hardware, not an infinite combination. Therefore coding can be optimzed a lot more and, as we see, doesn't need as powerful of a GPU to drive 4K at its settings.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It only takes 14 CPU cycles to render a frame on Xbox One X using Direct3D 12. Consoles are highly optimized machines. Gaming on Windows/Linux/iOS/etc. code has to go through layers of the OS to reach anything. Consoles cut through that because they're walled gardens.

 

[EarthDog]

I grow my best plants when I only have one type plant to grow and focus on.

..wait.. that seems off topic.

*Tends to plants...plays Beethoven and speaks nicely to them.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Totally relevant and true.

 

[silentbogo]

It just struck me. Is nvidia taking the first step towards consoles ?

I don't think so. In order to get back into console business they need a low-cost solution with a good CPU counterpart. NVidia has neither.
Xavier might make it into the next iteration of Switch, but with very competitive Ryzen V-series on the market I doubt that's gonna happen.
To make it even more dramatic and maybe start a flame war as a bonus I can say this: I can bet my ass, Nintendo is going with Ryzen V2xxx or 3xxx on the next Switch.

Unless nvidia releases their own gaming console, I can't see any other company wanting to do business with them.

It's true for now, but you never know. I was totally surprised to see "kinda-custom" Tegra X2 in Switch, and regardless of my opinion on this garbage piece of hardware it still did well.
Maybe in the near future their plans on cloud-based gaming will take roots and start growing, maybe they'll license some better alternative to their homebrew Carmel which will get some traction with MS and Sony.

Tesla announced they are getting rid of nvidia for their new generation navigation hardware.

Tesla cancelled their partnership with NVidia because Elon Musk wants an application-specific hardware. I can even predict what's gonna happen there: they'll design their own semi-custom solution which after a few years of wasted time and R&D money will not work, and ultimately Tesla will buy some premade future generation of AI/NN FPGAs from Intel or Xilinx. BTW, Tesla was one of the smaller buyers for Drive CX and Drive PX systems. The biggest one (at least for their 1st gen), was Mercedes and AFAIK they are still on board. And given that now NV started their partnership with Bosch (in this context - the biggest maker of automotive ECUs worldwide), they probably don't give two shits about Musk being Musk.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

It's like no one has seen the Nvidia shield or Nvidias prescription gaming service, that's Nvidias console play.

Maybe someday they will bring Turing's power's to it ,but that or Nintendo is their only viable options and I can't see Nintendo buying into selling a one grand console regardless of how good it is.

 

[EarthDog]

Prescription gaming service. Are Opiods included?

 

[Vya Domus]

Therefore coding can be optimzed a lot more and, as we see, doesn't need as powerful of a GPU to drive 4K at its settings.

That isn't applicable in today's consoles. There was a time when that was true because the hardware was vastly different and allowed for very specific optimizations. Those GCN GPUs and Jaguar cores are the same pieces of hardware you find on the PC, there isn't much that you can do different on a PS4/Xbox compared to similarly powerful PC hardware.

That being said the Xbox One X preforms pretty much in line with a PC that has an RX580/1060 which means 4k30fps with medium/high settings or at lesser resolutions, few touch the 4k60fps figure like Forza 7 but that's doable on an RX580/1060 as well with slightly compromised settings as well. If there was room for any major optimizations , it would have shown but it doesn't.

 

[EarthDog]

...and since it doesnt have an rx580/1060 in there, wouldn't coding optimizations be part of that reason? See fordgt's post as well...

Again, the "s" had 12CUs and GCN arch and played it... obviously this does it better due to better hardware, in the "x" but, optimizations due to a 'walled garden' environment seems to have a lot to do with it.

 

[Vya Domus]

...and since it doesnt have an rx580/1060 in there,

Practically it does, it's simply a version with more CUs and lesser clocks. It's virtually the same hardware in terms of both performance and features.

 

[EarthDog]

And still a highly optimized environment since it's literally 1/2 pieces of hardware.

 

[Vya Domus]

since it's literally 1/2 pieces of hardware.

It just isn't.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-microsoft-xbox-one-x-review_1

Xbox One X GPU : 6.0TF

RX 580 ~ 6.2TF

Sure there is a tiny bit of performance that can be squeezed out of the X but not out a regular desktop GPU but it's insignificant when you dig deeper and put things into perspective.

 

[EarthDog]

I meant to code for, not hardware comparison. Also the OS layers forgt mentioned.

I'm not sure what you are going on about hardware. Both the s and x have gcn/polaris based hardware. A 12 CU based gcn gpu cant run 4k 30 fps... so there must have been something going on under the hood outside of lower IQ, right?

 

[mouacyk]

Opiods

You too? I've had to fix variable names with that stupid drug classification so many times.

 

[Vya Domus]

I'm not sure what you are going on about hardware.

Same hardware = same performance on both X and PC. Whatever differences stem from the coding, they are small, that's the point. The OS layer and all that, doesn't change things much.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I'm not sure what you are going on about hardware. Both the s and x have gcn/polaris based hardware. A 12 CU based gcn gpu cant run 4k 30 fps... so there must have been something going on under the hood outside of lower IQ, right?

Xbox One S 4K is pretty much limited to HEVC/Bluray DVD video playback. Original Xbox One had HDMI 1.4 where Xbox One S has HDMI 2.0. Only Xbox One X is intended to/can play 4K/60 games.

Same hardware = same performance on both X and PC. Whatever differences stem from the coding, they are little, that's the point.

Negative, because utilization. Since programmers know exactly what hardware they're dealing with 100% of the time, they can cater every scene in the game to not require more than the hardware can provide. That might mean something as simple as removing a few trees here or reducing the polygon count on a model there. When developing for PC, you have to target a wide range of hardware.

GCN on PC also has a notorious problem with waiting for data (hence HBM on high end GCN cards). That's not the case in Xbox One X because the system memory is literally the GPU memory. Whatever data it needs, it usually already has which translates to higher FPS. Again, because the developers know exactly how much memory they have access to, they can precache what they need before the GPU needs it (again, higher FPS).

On PC, you have cards with shared memory (no dedicated RAM) all the way up to cards with 16 GiB of memory. What do developers do? Let Direct3D/Vulkan/OS handle it. Less FPS because the GPU is waiting for the CPU to shuffle data around via the driver eating up CPU clocks.

 

[Aquinus]

Cheaper to stick with AMD.

This. After all of this time, Microsoft finally has their console on x86 which is a huge benefit to them because the effort to move between the Xbox and PC becomes almost meaningless. It's all the same tools and architecture. They're not going to want to give that up and this is recurring revenue that AMD desperately needed. It's a win for both parties to be completely honest.

 

[Vya Domus]

Negative, because utilization. Since programmers know exactly what hardware they're dealing with 100% of the time, they can cater every scene in the game to not require more than the hardware can provide. That might mean something as simple as removing a few trees here or reducing the polygon count on a model there. When developing for PC, you have to target a wide range of hardware.

GCN on PC also has a notorious problem with waiting for data. That's not the case in Xbox One X because the system memory is literally the GPU memory. Whatever data it needs, it usually already has which translates to higher FPS.

You don't have to believe me really, the metrics speak for themselves. Let's take Gears of War 4 , 4k30 on Xbox One X and here is the RX580:

And that's at ultra mind you. As I said if the differences in coding/platform meant much higher performance it would have shown, but they don't. Not to any significant degree. I don't deny things are easier on consoles and that you can extract a little bit more performance but with this generation of consoles because their hardware is essentially PC grade these differences are very small.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

This. After all of this time, Microsoft finally has their console on x86 which is a huge benefit to them because the effort to move between the Xbox and PC becomes almost meaningless. It's all the same tools and architecture. They're not going to want to give that up and this is recurring revenue that AMD desperately needed. It's a win for both parties to be completely honest.

And it's not like AMD is gouging Microsoft either. In fact, AMD is likely selling to Microsoft and Sony at a bargain NVIDIA wouldn't want to match.

You don't have to believe me really, the metrics speak for themselves. Let's take Gears of War 4 , 4k30 on Xbox One X and here is the RX580:

And that's at ultra mind you. As I said if the differences in coding/platform meant much higher performance it would have shown, but they don't. Not to any significant degree. I don't deny things are easier on consoles and that you can extract a little bit more performance but with this generation of consoles because their hardware is essentially PC grade these differences are very small.

That means absolutely nothing because there's no apples-to-apples benchmark run on the Xbox One X of the same game, nor will there be because of Xbox One X-specific optimizations.

In console development, minimum framerate is more important than average. Specifically, they want to optimize so it never drops below 30 fps.

 

[Vya Domus]

That means absolutely nothing because there's no apples-to-apples benchmark run on the Xbox One X of the same game, nor will there be because of Xbox One X-specific optimizations. There is no Medium/High/Ultra settings for consoles.

If you want stop at every little thing, sure it means nothing. Of course there are small details that can't be equalized between the two but there is enough in there to make up the gist of it.

If you are pragmatic however and willing to see things for what they are it's clear as daylight. Xbox One X = RX580, similar hardware , similar performance. Optimizations, for what they are worth ,change little in the grand scheme of things.

There is so much you can optimize before raw pixel fillrate limitations hit you.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

No one in their right mind is doing 4K gaming on a RX 580 on PC. That's the console (strict platform) difference.

 

[Aquinus]

Optimizations, for what they are worth ,change little in the grand scheme of things.

There is so much you can optimize before raw pixel fillrate limitations hit you.

You would be surprised at how much performance is sacrificed to support a variety of hardware. Don't underestimate the power of optimizations on a closed platform.