Rumor: Next Gen Systems to Match Kepler Level of Performance
 

According to DigitalFoundry's source at Epic, the Samaritan demo is already running on next gen Xbox kits. It was also hinted that next gen consoles could match Kepler's performance.

So a nVidia GeForce 680, which will need an Intel i7 2-series chipset, 8gb minimum of ram and a TB drive to shine. Not even taking into account the proprietary optical format *** will need, this sounds like a Cyberpower PC--how the hell is this going to be affordable?

By coming out Christmas 2013.

It just says "kepler level" that means that it could very well be using one of the lower end variants of the kepler die, the power won't be anywhere NEAR a GTX 680.

The AMD 7xxx series and the nvidia 6xx are actually surprisingly similar in how they were created. If the next gen system can actually use a 28nm GPU it will be a win for everyone.

I thought the Wii proved that consumers don't give a whip about graphics. They care more about ease of use and affordability. These console companies know this (well, except maybe for Sony), so they aren't knocking themselves out to beat the PC in terms of performance. Don't look for this "kepler" performance to rival that of the PC if it's going to mean a higher price tag.

No, it's the young users that don't care about graphics. Kids don't care. Adult/teen gamers do.

People read, and repost this kinds of non-sense. That is why Blogs and "News" Sites everywhere FABRICATE news all the time.

Thanks for the answer to my question "Where the hell do they get this sh*t?".

This. And MS prob will lose around $100 on each console sold. They will more than make up the loss with XBL fee.

I don't know if there's any metric by which we can determine if graphics still matter.

Certainly it doesn't matter to little kids. But only insomuch as they would rather play the games they want to play. YOu are right in saying that.

But do young adults carea bout graphics? Or do they care about being able to play the games they want to play online against their friends?

I mean, todays 17 year olds were born after Toy Story was already released. They grew up watching 3d cartoons and seeing 3d movies.

Where our generation got a thrill out of seeing characters on our computer screens emote... that thrill just won't exist for younger gamers.

At the same time, graphical improvement is deep into the margins of marginal improvement.

Graphics are like butter on toast. Toast without butter, ugh. With with not enough butter, better but still not great. Toast with the perfect amount of butter, damn good. But what happens if you keep adding butter? Now the toast is drenched, soggy, and dripping everywhere, getting your hands and lap greasy, and you can't even taste the toast anymore.

Okay, so that's a terrible analogy :P The point is, once you get to the point in graphics tech that if a game were pictionary you'd get the answer every single time, further improvement is less and less important, and less and less noticed.

It's not like the days of no-AA versus AA, you can see that at a glance. Today can anyone see the difference between 2x4x6x8xMSAA or FSAA? Or the like two or three other schemes out there? Edge detect and various supersampling? Not casual observers.

GPUs are the equivalent of yesterday's super-computers in literal terms. Yet programmers keep finding ways to max out the system.

There's a saying, what the hardware makers giveth, the software makers taketh away :P

What about toast with jam (preserves, as some of us toast snobs prefer) or are you heathen enough not to realize jam as a valid toast topping (though albeit also in moderation)?

I think we'll see dimishing returns on Graphics this gen, to the point it may no longer become one of the biggest investments of the hardware.

We're too close to uncanny valley now and I don't think the current (meaning high end now) tech isn't quite enough to get us over that hump. I think we need at least one more generation of processors to get a full "KARA" caliber game. And even that bordered on Uncanny Valley. Are there aother areas that GPU power can be applied to? Yes, but that is the kind of stuff that can also be passed off to faster cores in a beefy processor now that those have come up to snuff. The GPU becomes a conduit rather than the workhorse. It used to be the GPU was to offload rendering to save the proc, now it isn't quite as necessary.

I just can't wait to actually see something from Microsoft and Sony on the next generation consoles. Microsoft can take the hit on those units since they'll rake in the money in subscriptions and transactions.

And I just hope that whatever the new Sony console is, please learn from Microsoft in patches/updates. It's one of the main points that keeps me off that system. I love Gran Turismo, but I don't want to play my game in 10-15 minutes.

The industry has become overly greedy and creatively bankrupt, no amount of shiny next, next gen water effects will change that. The only game that i had in the drive of my 360 for longer than a week was GTA IV and skyrim. That's the only metric i need with consoles.

This^ Loading times and patches are bullshit right now. Make the game work the first time. This is why the Wii and DS will be looked at as awesome 15 years from now....they work...

Screw pixels, i want it work like my 2600 back in the day, plug iin the game..power button...games comes up

Trust me, that would be an ideal situation and I would love everything to always work right off the bat. Though we're also at a great time where if there are issues, they can fix them. Games that long ago might not have had as many bugs or glitches, which they still do, but it was also simpler to create them than they do now. If I recall, didn't Ed Boon program the first two or three Mortal Kombat games mostly himself? Much different nowadays.

Sorry, I ramble some.

We already saw this last gen. The difference in visual output from Xbox->360 isn't nearly as large as PS1->PS2. And much of the difference comes from the added resolution and better display tech we have now. In terms of still, rendered images, the difference is pretty small in some cases.

What this current generation brought to the table wasn't really rendering quality as much as it was more expansive levels and better animation. I'm not saying games on 360 don't look any better than OG Xbox. They do. But we aren't seeing very many new effects, and the ones we are seeing are much more subtle than the ones added to last generation.

This is true with the Samaritan demo as well. Sure, it looks great, but if Epic hadn't released a video pointing out all of the subtle effects they added to make the difference, most people would be hard pressed to pick out why it looks great and not just good.

I think this was partially due to many of XB games were PS2 ports. You also have to consider that XB and XB360 use DVD whereas PS to PS2 went from CD to DVD. Compare first gen 360 games to 360 games released in the last few years: huge difference. I think the graphical difference will be quite noticeable next gen, like BF3 for console and PC.

Psh, it's all about marmalade, foo'!

Comparing XBox to 360 games, it really comes down to genres and art styles. If you take some of the nicer looking fighting games on Xbox, they hold up pretty well against their newer counterparts. It's the larger games like RPGs and FPS that really show off the benefits from the extra resources, but as the smaller, more contained fighters show, the older systems are capable of doing similar visuals if the scale is constrained.

Your CD->DVD argument is valid, but the rudimentary 3d graphics demonstrated by PS1 never reached the level of the worst looking PS2 game. Even if PS1 had a Bluray drive, it wouldn't have been in the same league. And if storage medium had any real bearing on rendering quality, wouldn't nearly every PS3 game look better than it's 360 counterpart? I know the excuse can be made that the 360 is holding PS3 back because of it's smaller storage format, but in my experience texture quality has been slightly worse on PS3 when compared to 360. That shouldn't happen when moving from a smaller format to a larger one, unless other factors are in play.

Like I said, it's not that I don't think next generation won't look any better at all. And I'm certainly not saying that current gen titles look exactly like last gen either. But it's pretty clear that we're approaching the point where it takes a large increase in computational power to achieve a much smaller graphical return. And again, I think the main areas for improvement, in terms of visuals, lie in animation and increasing the scale of the games. Much like what happened between Xbox and 360, where the best looking Xbox games (like the 1 on 1 fighters) are the baseline for graphics quality for every genre, along with the improvement in resolution. I expect 1080p to be standard, and not the exception, next gen.