PS4 Video Game Development Much Easier than on the PS3
During an exclusive Conference on February 20th, Sony released the first information regarding the PlayStation 4, letting gamers and developers know what to expect when the game console is released. At this time it was revealed that PS4 ill have components and hardware more along the lines of a PC. While Sony relied on a more exotic hardware solution with the PS3, the PS4 adopts an 8 core AMD processor and Radeon GPU combination, making it a platform developers should feel quite at home with. It's 8 gigabytes of GDDR5 RAM will give way more legroom than the modest 512mb RAM used on its older brother. Also take note that those 8gb are of the GDDR5 variety.... Sony chose some very fast ram usually only reserved just for higher-end graphics cards. The new Radeon GPU be utilized will apparently push 1.84 TFLOPS, also a big step up from the PS3. Sony also opted for a 6x Blu-ray player, effectively tripling the disc read times of games/media compared to 2x read times of the PS3. Below are the specs Sony released...
PlayStation 4 Specs:
Main Processor
Single-chip custom processor
CPU : x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores
GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon based graphics engine
Memory
GDDR5 8GB
Hard Disk Drive
Built-in
Optical Drive (read only)
BD 6xCAV
DVD 8xCAV
I/O
Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0), AUX
Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T)
IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR)
AV output
HDMI
Analog-AV out
Digital Output (optical)
*Specifications are subject to change without notice.
PS3 Challenges vs PS4 Openness
Due to the more proprietary approach of the PS3's predecessor, Sony never really got the development support they would have wanted and get the most out of the console . While developers did eventually learn to program a lot more efficiently for the PlayStation 3, it took far too long. Multi platform games for the first 3 years or so suffered from sub par graphics, lower resolution textures and inconsistent frame rates. With the announcement of the PlayStation 4, multi platform developers should have a much easier time getting their games running efficiently on the platform right from the start.
Valve, a game developer critical of the PS3's proprietary ecosystem in the past have met the introduction of the PS4 with excitement and open arms due to its open nature. Epic Games also showed their support for the PlayStation 4 with a demo of their Unreal 4 engine running in real time on Sony's hardware. Other studios like Bungie who previously were an exclusive first party studio for Microsoft and their Xbox platform aslo showed off their title "Destiny". Braid developer Jonathan Blow also revealed his PS4 timed exclusive “The Witness”, showing that there is some prominent support from the Indie community as well.
Clearly Sony has gone out of their way to make developers want to develop games on the platform, and to do so quickly and efficiently. Gone are the days of having to figure out how to balance split RAM, SPUs, and a rather slow Blu-ray drive. Sony wanted developers to get focused on game creation, and not caught up on technology holding them back. With the information we received about the PlayStation 4, it looks like mission accomplished on those fronts.
During an exclusive Conference on February 20th, Sony released the first information regarding the PlayStation 4, letting gamers and developers know what to expect when the game console is released. At this time it was revealed that PS4 ill have components and hardware more along the lines of a PC. While Sony relied on a more exotic hardware solution with the PS3, the PS4 adopts an 8 core AMD processor and Radeon GPU combination, making it a platform developers should feel quite at home with. It's 8 gigabytes of GDDR5 RAM will give way more legroom than the modest 512mb RAM used on its older brother. Also take note that those 8gb are of the GDDR5 variety.... Sony chose some very fast ram usually only reserved just for higher-end graphics cards. The new Radeon GPU be utilized will apparently push 1.84 TFLOPS, also a big step up from the PS3. Sony also opted for a 6x Blu-ray player, effectively tripling the disc read times of games/media compared to 2x read times of the PS3. Below are the specs Sony released...
