PS4 Pro Could Match Xbox One X Power due To New AMD Graphics Tech

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Microsoft has boasted their upcoming Xbox One X will be the beefiest console ever made, easily outstripping the capabilities of the PlayStation 4 Pro, but that balance of power may be about to change. AMD, whose processors power both the PS4 and Xbox One, has announced a new cutting-edge processing technology, and only the PS4 Pro supports it.

The new tech, which will be available via AMD’s new high-end RX Vega graphics cards, is called Rapid Packed Math, and already games like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Far Cry 5 have pledged to support it. Scroll on down to learn more about Rapid Packed Math, and what it might mean for the PS4 Pro…

What is Rapid Packed Math?

This is all a bit technical, but, very basically, Rapid Packed Math allows games to render certain graphical effects using 16-bit processing rather than 32-bit processing. That frees up extra power the GPU can use elsewhere. Under ideal conditions, Rapid Packed Match could potentially double the processing capabilities of the GPU, allowing it to do two 16-bit tasks at once instead of one 32-bit one, although that won’t usually be the case.

It seems like the main benefit of Rapid Packed Math will be in making various minor touches – hair effects, lighting, shaders – less of a drag on the hardware, allowing for better performance. But again, I’m not an expert on this sort of stuff. You can check out an explanation of Rapid Packed Match from AMD itself in the video, above.

Why Does This Benefit the PS4 Pro?
Well, it turns out Sony was thinking ahead with the PS4 Pro, as the system’s GPU supports Rapid Packed Math. The tech hadn’t been rolled out yet when the PS4 Pro launched, but developers can now take advantage of it on the system. The Xbox One X, on the other hand, does not support the feature. Here’s what PS4 Pro architect Mark Cerny had to say about Rapid Packed Math late last year…

“A few AMD roadmap features are appearing for the first time in PS4 Pro. One of the features appearing for the first time is [Rapid Packed Math] – it’s possible to perform two 16-bit operations at a time instead of one 32-bit operation. In other words, at full floats, we have 4.2 teraflops. With half-floats, it’s now double that, which is to say, 8.4 teraflops in 16-bit computation. This has the potential to radically increase performance.”

For the record, Microsoft is boasting 6 teraflops of power for the Xbox One X, so Rapid Packed Match could, in theory, make the PS4 Pro the more powerful machine, although again, it’s not quite that simple. Xbox One X will still have the power edge, although it seems it won’t be as large as we once thought.

Posted: Aug 15, 2017 8:02 pm
Related Forum: PlayStation Forum

Source: http://comicbook.com/gaming/2017/08/15/ps4-pro-could-match-xbox-one-x-power-amd-tech-rapid-packed-math/

Comments

TOXICPosted: Fri. Sep 01, 2017

Noway in hell is the PS4 Pro going to be more powerful than the Xbox One X, dont care what anybody says.

Sony are just flexin lol

CyimkingPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

Yea... this actually won't make a difference until mid-2018. Sony have to test it, then developers have to support it. Also, only a small percentage of gamers will ACTUALLY notice the difference.

MeowersPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

Urf
Meowers This is pretty funny how they're trying their best to make their console look better. So they're saying they can use half-floats over normal floats, that doesn't mean there's extra power, that means they're trying to squeeze as much as possible out of the 16 bits rather than using 32 bit. Look at apps nowadays, 32 bit is no longer being supported, this technology is similar to upscaled 4k in terms of "power", it's not TRUE values. They can keep cutting corners but if this is "somehow" possible on their gpu's, there's no reason something similar can be done on other ones. I'll stick to what the original specs were listed as and not rely on updates to "double" power output as they're saying for the pro.

You're getting way ahead of yourself, you have no idea how programming works and it's blatantly obvious. A 32 bit application =/= only 32 bit rendering. Two 16 bit renders are indeed faster than a single 32 bit render, for obvious reasons. Being able to render two hairs in the same time it would take to render one usually is in fact a performance boost. Secondly, you claiming this is something "that can't be done" on another graphics card is just the icing on the cake that shows you have no idea what you're talking about. If that was the case then I'm sure every graphics card would support DX12 by now. Spoiler: there's a **** ton of cards that don't support DX12

Are you clueless? I have no idea how programming works? That's pretty funny since i've been going to college for it. Anyways I don't think you understand what i was talking about, this new 'tech' only works on applications that compile 16FP/16INT, oh 16 bit is faster than 32 bit? I would have never known that. This is essentially doing more calculations yet using less time for each one which then saves power, kind of like a sprocket on a mountain bike. This can be thought of as a smaller gear; quicker, easier, but more "work" (computations) to get to the same destination. The time aspect is the main reason it uses less overall power.

9ntyPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

At this point you think to yourself Sony is just copying in a way from Microsoft

GaryPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

Wishful thinking but there are such things as hardware limitations.

XboxPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

I don't think they will match up to the Xbox One X. Even if they did I'm still riding with my boys over at Microsoft.

MickersPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

Not really good news for XB X.

DJ_INSOMNiAPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

u gotta think abt how stable it will be tho...and how long will it take for them to work out any bugs... I think this is more wishful thinking then anything

DecyPosted: Wed. Aug 16, 2017

Always will be Microsoft for me. sorry sony you guys just don't interest me the same as them :P