PS5 Pro specs confirmed, expected release before the festive season this year. SOC also pictured

[porina]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

How's Sony gonna sell this? "Now you get 4K and we mean it this time!"

Right now you typically get quality and performance modes on more demanding games targeting 30 and 60 fps respectively. If the Pro now enables quality mode to run at 60, that's an improvement. Also note the typical use of dynamic resolution. The 4k output is usually upscaled from somewhat lower. Resolution drops could be reduced depending on available performance of the new console.

[starsmine]

On 4/15/2024 at 5:07 PM, jaslion said:

The main thing I wan a know is does this mean 60fps almost all games will be a thing now finally again? Been since the ps2 that that was a thing.

What game on the ps2 was 480p 60fps? literally none, the console was not capable of that for games. It was 480i. aka it only drew half the frame at a time. 
 

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

Again I say, who is this for? If you're not getting an improvement in the game, and just getting 4Kp60... why weren't you getting 4Kp60 before? Wasn't that a selling point?

How's Sony gonna sell this? "Now you get 4K and we mean it this time!"

 

 

the ps5 almost never does 4k 60fps. 
It can run video at that, but not most video games. 

The big selling point for the ps5 pro is going to be the rdna4 RT cores, so more robust RT/the ability to run the games quality mode in 4k60 which was usually 1440p 30fps

Saying the ps5 can do 4k60 is like saying the 360/ps3 can do 1080p 60... Which is true. but also you can count on your hands the games that did that.

[leadeater]

32 minutes ago, starsmine said:

What game on the ps2 was 480p 60fps? literally none, the console was not capable of that for games. It was 480i. aka it only drew half the frame at a time.

That's not true, many games were 60 fps and frame rate isn't the same thing as output fresh rate either. Also PAL countries exist so either 576i or 240p.

 

Just remember PS2 is the same as PC, frame rate and monitor refresh rate are not tied.

[starsmine]

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That's not true, many games were 60 fps and frame rate isn't the same thing as output fresh rate either. Also PAL countries exist so either 576i or 240p.

 

Just remember PS2 is the same as PC, frame rate and monitor refresh rate are not tied.

yes 60fps if you want to call 480i, 240p, which imo would be weird to do. 

yes the screen is updated 60 times a second, but again, only half the screen.
But no game ran at 480p, 60fps. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, starsmine said:

yes 60fps if you want to call 480i, 240p, which imo would be weird to do. 

We don't call it anything, a game was either released in 480i/480p NTSC in the US regions and 480i/576i/480p in PAL regions and both also supported 240p Progressive but only if you were using Component Video output. Interlaced only was for non RGB outputs though, that's what I forgot since I was sure PS2 supported 480p and it does, but we are talking 2001 so wasn't 100% sure at the time of my first post but I checked now.

 

Nobody really got a choice, games were what they were and may or may not have had alternative output modes and then you might end up getting converted to Interlaced if your output didn't support Progressive. PS2 era video connections were "interesting".

 

Quote

The PlayStation 2 can natively output video resolutions on SDTV and HDTV from 480i to 480p, and some games, such as Gran Turismo 4 and Tourist Trophy, are known to support up-scaled 1080i resolution. The PlayStation 2 supports the following standards: composite video(480i), S-Video (480i), RGB (480i/p), VGA (for progressive scan games and PS2 Linux only), YPBPR component video (which display most original PlayStation games in their native 240p mode which most HDTV sets do not support), and D-Terminal. Cables are available for all of these signal types; these cables also output analogue stereo audio. Additionally, an RF modulator is available for the system to connect to older TVs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2#:~:text=The PlayStation 2 can natively,support up-scaled 1080i resolution.

 

So for me whenever I played GT4 on my PS2 it was 480i 60FPS. I would imagine the majority used Composite Video other than maybe EU/UK which I understand SCART was at least popular but I'm not from there so don't really know how widely used that was.

 

https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps2/Games_With_Alternative_Display_Modes

 

I also own Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, another one of the "4 weird ones", Tekken 5 too for the 240p weirdos. Not that I used anything other than 480i when playing them.

 

Long story short, HDMI didn't come soon enough.

 

1 hour ago, starsmine said:

yes the screen is updated 60 times a second, but again, only half the screen.
But no game ran at 480p, 60fps. 

This is not how render frame rate work. GT4 did support 480p and runs at 60 FPS locked as one game example.

 

The reason I suspect you think no games were 480p 60 FPS is because the actual number of games that had a 480p mode was very small and when you combine that with most people who had a PS2 also had CRT TVs and use outputs that only supported Interlaced.

 

Anyone that actually used 480p at the time was a hyper minority. But that is different from none/zero.

[cmndr]

On 4/15/2024 at 5:00 PM, leadeater said:

A lot of that really doesn't matter as much anymore on the x86 generation of consoles and there also wouldn't be any regressions for basically anything going between Zen 2 to Zen 3 or 4.

 

The bigger reason is this is still a custom monolithic SoC and it's not a direct Zen 2 architecture, it's a custom one designed with Sony so if the CPU were to be changed then it would be an entirely new SoC and require to go through a lot more design and manufacturing validation which is costly. Beefing up the GPU while requiring a lot of work doesn't require changing anything about the the CPU aspect of the SoC or likely any of the physical lay out of it.

 

One of the key things about something like a PS5 Pro is cost, less work = better. So I don't think compatibility is the issue but the underlying reason is much the same. 

Adding to this... the x86 parts in general are "easy" to code for. Unlike Cell or Xenon in the PS3 and X360 these CPUs have OoOE. 
And one of the biggest costs (in terms of risk, time and $$$) in a design is validation. Leaving things alone is a great way of NOT increasing validation costs. 

Users want higher resolutions and frame rates, developers want an easy workflow. Leaving the CPU largely alone and adding on more GPU just makes sense.