Sony teased a few more details about its upcoming PlayStation 4 console at the Games Developer's Conference earlier this week. While the basic specifications have not changed since the original announcement, we now know more about the X86 console hardware.
The PS4 itself is powered by an AMD Jaguar CPU with eight physical cores and eight threads. Each core gets 32 KB L1 I-cache and D-cache. Further, each group of four physical cores shares 2 MB of L2 cache, for 4MB total L2. The processor is capable of Out of Order Execution, as are AMDs other processor offerings. The console also reportedly features 8GB of GDDR5 memory that is shared by the CPU and GPU. It offers 176 GB/s of bandwidth, and is a step above the PS3 which did not use a unified memory design. The system will also sport a faster GPU rated at 1.843 TFLOPS, and clocked at 800MHz. The PS3 will have a high-capacity hard drive and a new Blu-ray drive that is up to 3-times faster. Interestingly, the console also has a co-processor that allows the system to process the video streaming features and allow the Remote Play game streaming to the PlayStation Vita at its native resolution of 960×554.
The PlayStation Eye has also been upgraded with the PS4 to include 2 cameras, four microphones, and a 3-axis accelerometer. The Eye cameras have an 85-degree field of view, and can record video at 1280×800 at 60 Hz and 12 bits per pixel or 640×480 and 120Hz. The new PS4 Eye is a noteworthy upgrade to the current generation model which is limited to either 640×480 pixels at 60Hz or 320×240 pixels at 120Hz. The extra resolution should allow developers to be more accurate. The DualShock 4 controllers sport a light-bar that can be tracked by the new Eye camera, for example. The light-bar on the controllers uses an RGB LED that changes to blue, red, pink, or green for players 1-4 respectively.
Speaking of the new DualShock 4, Sony has reportedly ditched the analog face buttons and D-pad for digital buttons. With the DS3 and the PS3, the analog face buttons and D-pad came in handy with racing games, but otherwise they are not likely to be missed. The controllers will now charge even when the console is in standby mode, and the L2 and R2 triggers are more resistant to accidental pressure. The analog sticks have been slightly modified and feature a reduced dead zone. The touchpad, which is a completely new feature for the DualShock lineup, is capable of tracking 2 points at a resolution of 1920×900–which is pretty good.
While Sony has still not revealed what the actual PS4 console will look like, most of the internals are now officially known. It will be interesting to see just where Sony prices the new console, and where game developers are able to take it. Using a DX11.1+ feature set, developers are able to use many of the same tools used to program PC titles but also have additional debugging tools and low level access to the hardware. A new low level API below DirectX, but above the driver level gives developers deeper access to the shader pipeline. I'm curious to see how PC ports will turn out, with the consoles now running X86 hardware, I'm hoping that the usual fare of bugs common to ported titles from consoles to PCs will decrease–a gamer can dream, right?
Read more about the upcoming PlayStation 4 (PS4) at PC Perspective.
Sony should offer the option
Sony should offer the option of booting (some) VAIO PCs into the PS4 OS.
The Ps4 is powered by AMD’s
The Ps4 is powered by AMD’s Jaguar CPU…not Bulldozer. Other than that error…nice article.
Ah, I remember Josh
Ah, I remember Josh mentioning that on the podcast, though I got Bulldozer from the previous specs article from the initial Sony press conference. I’ll update the article, but the CMS backend seems to be down atm. Thanks for the catch!
Article updated. Does the
Article updated. Does the site keep going down for anyone else?
X64… not x86(32bit)
X64… not x86(32bit)
x86 doesn’t neccicarily
x86 doesn’t neccicarily specify if it is 32bit or 64bit.
x64 is shorted from x86-64 (64bit). 32bit is x86-32.
Look it up.
necessarily* (sorry)
necessarily* (sorry)
I will definitely buy the
I will definitely buy the ps4. The only problem I see is whether ps4 will have the ac4 on launch. I wonder if they will really have the fastest network in the world though. Heard they were aiming for that.
I’m definetely getting the
I’m definetely getting the Ps4. I doubt there will be any at launch as I suspect it will sell out fast and I’m not a fan of buying new hardware on launch days due to bugs. My only question is what games will they have at launch. In my opinion that and price are the only things that can hinder it’s success.
In your second paragraph last
In your second paragraph last sentence you called it the PS3 not PS4. You can delete this comment once you have read it Ryan thanks for the great site