Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@JJ2 I wasn't going into 'console war' mode, I was being honest instead of blinkered!! You cannot deny that the GPU size is much smaller (Series X is over 44% larger) and that it is lacking horsepower - just like the XB1 did at its launch when compared directly. Sheer speed alone isn't going to make up for lack of shaders, TMU's etc and as such, will lack in graphical quality - if only on a 'numbers' game. Supposedly 'both' on the same architecture by the same supplier so the comparison is fair. Its like saying an RTX 3070 lacks the horsepower of the RTX3080 because it does - that's a FACT - the only difference there is that both are nVidia so its OK state the facts but if you state the fact about the two next gen consoles, its suddenly console wars?? You expect a 3080 to offer some visual or performance boosts over the 3070 because it has more shaders etc so why would the consoles be different? Don't be over sensitive!!! It doesn't matter how you want try and hide from it, the PS5 doesn't have the horsepower of the Series X so it lacks horsepower in comparison and when it comes to gaming, that difference could be measurable. Of course compared to the current gen, its not lacking horsepower at all and will deliver a big upgrade over current gen but that wasn't what I was referring to.

Whether its noticeable or not, whether it even matters to you or not is irrelevant. To some it may. If the Series X is locked 4k and the PS5 is Dynamic with maybe some lower settings as a result, that may matter in a 'like for like' contest but my point was that Sony have an Ace up its sleeve with the Dualsense controller - making games feel different to play in a positive way. If you weren't such a fanboy and sat on the fence as to which console to buy, you may take the one with the most horsepower for the potentially higher visual quality that could offer, or maybe you will go for the one that offers a more unique feel to playing games - especially if devs (other than just first party) actually utilise it.

Even if the difference is not obvious in games, you know as well as I do that the numbers will matter to some more than what they can actually see with their eyes. You know as well as I do that if the Series X is delivering just 1 frame per second higher average or even just one visual setting higher, that will be enough for someone to believe that its 'significantly' better. The Point I was making is that even if you can perceive a difference though, Sony has a potential Ace up its sleeve by offering a new experience in the way games 'feel' to play.

As someone who buys both, not interested in 'petty' fanboy squabbles or worrying about upsetting their tiny sensitive little minds by stating truths, the Dualsense adds another dimension to consider. Its not necessarily which console has the 'highest' visual settings and/or frame rates, you now have 'Which is going to be the most interesting, best feeling way to play this game'. To me that is a big factor - especially as I have the choice on which console to buy the vast majority of games on and if all things other things are equal or even if Xbox has a 'visual' advantage, the haptic feedback would add more to the experience - more than a slightly higher resolution.

Playing a multi-platform release with haptic feedback on PS5 to me would be a bigger reason to buy it for this platform than buying it on Xbox because it offers a slightly higher visual quality. As I said, I wasn't 'going all console wars' as you put it, just being realistic. Digital Foundry have alluded to the fact that the Dualsense could be a game changer in the way games 'feel' to play and to me, that is very interesting...

@BAMozzy You haven’t made it clear in your previous comment whether you were referring to the Xbox series S or the Xbox series X. The series S’s GPU is half the size with significantly lower clocks in the PS5. Given that that is what Microsoft considers to be the baseline of what is acceptable for next generation. I don’t think we could consider PS5 to be underpowered since it would certainly be able to run all the games that work on Microsoft series hardware. The performance difference between PlayStation five and Xbox series X is fairly marginal when compared to the massive gap between them both and the series S.

@MightyDemon82 Actually people in Canada have also filed a class action lawsuit regarding the distribution of lootboxes directly targeted at EA. Pretty fitting considering EA actually has a development studio in Vancouver

So happy the ITSV suit made it in.

Insomniac's Spider-Man games are the first since probably Arkham City to make me feel genuinely proud for being an avid comic book reader since childhood. Really hope they can stretch this partnership with Marvel out to at least 5 games. 3 for Peter Parker and 2 for Miles.

@Ryall Fair enough - the Series S is certainly lacking horsepower completely - although that is also not looking to do 4k and I expect that it will end up being a HD console - even though MS have said its a 1440p console. Its targets are not comparable to PS5 and Series X. Its like comparing Xbox One S to PS4 Pro/XB1X and people who buy know they are buying something that is not about delivering the graphical fidelity and quality of the PS5/Series X.

The PS5 and Series X have the same targets, both targetting the full 4k and upto 120fps with 8k also on the cards. Both disc based versions are the same price and both competing for the same audience. I doubt many will be thinking about buying a Series S or PS5 and expecting some parity. That's like trying to decide between an RTX3060 or AMD 6900 XT (the rival to the 3090 - I know pricing is different here - but the point is, these cards are not really competing).

I wouldn't say MS considers the Series S to be the 'baseline; for next gen but understand that there will be a lot of people still without 4k TV's/monitors and/or would rather not have graphical quality but still have the games and frame rates. Pointless paying nearly double if you don't have a 4k TV - as a LOT of kids won't in their bedrooms. Even by design, its not offering the XB1X enhancements either on BC so all those X enhanced games that offer 60fps modes won't be coming to Series S so its not targeting the same audience at all. Anyway, not going to get into an argument over what it was designed for, I cannot deny that its lacking the horsepower. Its only has a couple more cores than a Base PS4 and nearly twice as fast so that tells me its more of a HD version where as both the PS5 and Series X are 4k.

Maybe I wasn't as 'clear' as I could of been and maybe expected others to actually read the post with some actual understanding and realise that it wasn't bashing PS5 at all and that I was obviously referring to the direct hardware it was competing with. My post was actually praising Sony for their innovation in changing how games 'feel' to play and the potential that has - much more than say a boost in visual quality that a 'competing' (both in terms of price and targets) console offers. Like I said, if you have £450 to spend on a console, sat on the fence and trying to decide which console to go for, I doubt the Series S is factoring in. This gen for example, if you were on the fence, the extra power and graphical quality that enabled could be a major factor but even if MS has the advantage in that area this time, the way a game feels is more transformative to gaming.

The 'gap' may well be less than Series S to PS5, even less than Xbox One to PS4 in terms of Teraflops but that gap is also more than an entire PS4 in terms of raw computational power - especially when you consider that the new architecture is much more efficient too so you get a lot more performance per TF. The size difference is nearly 50% larger - over 1000 extra shaders (1024) - and, at 60fps, that extra speed is roughly an extra 6-7 cycles per frame. That means at 60fps the 2304 shaders in the PS5 do up to ~37 cycles per frame compared to 3328 doing just over 30cyles per frame. If you had 2 offices of printers - one with 2304 printing 37 sheets per minute and another with 3328 printing 30 sheets a minute, the office with 3328 maybe a bit slower but still prints out nearly 15000 more sheets. Having more Cores means more Texture Mapping Units and more ROPs. The Xbox one had 12 cores and the PS4 18cores and even when the XB1S was bumped up in speed to 914mhz (compared to PS4's 800Mhz, it still struggles.

I really didn't want to go into this because that wasn't my intention at all. I thought that we could be adults and actually look at the difference as adults. There is a good chance that a lot of the potential visual differences could be worked around and at 4k, be much less apparent than we saw between XB1 and PS4. Not saying they will, but hypothetically, if PS5 had to settle for 1800p compared to 2160p, at that high a resolution, the difference is far less noticeable than 900 vs 1080p. A lot of advancements in rendering have come out during this generation - temporal reconstruction, dynamic resolution scaling - even on a single axis and of course, AI upscaling (not sure yet if PS has that, how well it works etc but we do know a little bit about DirectX ML). VRS too, if supported by PS5, could be another area to offset any overbudget rendering issues.

I am NOT being negative about the PS5 too, just looking at the facts and what we know from experience. Even in the PC market, overclocking a lower shader count GPU by 400Mhz (the difference between the PS5 and Series X) doesn't suddenly help it match a much larger GPU. Even if you overclock an RX 5700 with 36CU's to match the 40CU RX 5700XT in terms of teraflops, so identical in TFlop measurements, the larger 40CU's deliver a higher average performance with the SAME CPU and RAM. I am just being realistic. I know there are other factors that can make the difference larger/smaller in this case - API's, developer optimisation and understanding of each platform but all things being equal, there is quite a large difference in terms of GPU builds.

However, that wasn't the point I was making or really what should have been the focus of the discussion. The focus should of been on the Dualsense and what that can mean for us Playstation 5 gamers (even if you also game on other platforms or not). The potential to transform how games feel to play. Not just how a game like Horizon may feel when you use a Bow or how different weapons could feel in a game like CoD or Battlefield, but also the sensory aspect of the vibration - maybe give a sensory indication of the direction of where you are being shot from. The sensory experience of playing a game with a controller, if supported well, could well be a game changer and far more than any potential graphical differences.

My post was more to open up a discussion of the potential of the Dualsense and 'big' advantage Sony could have with that. How potentially MS's advantage in 'Horsepower' may still not be a reason to buy multi-platform games on that system (if like me you own both). If I have to choose between the PS5 version is '1800p' but uses the Dualsense Haptic feedback to transform the way the game feels to play or Series X version at 2160p but with at most, some basic rumble in both the body and triggers of the controller and doesn't really feel much different to playing on PS4 or XB1 (other than maybe higher frame rates), the PS5 could well win out. That's different to choosing PS4 (base consoles) and then generally Xbox One X (mid gen consoles) because visual quality was the 'advantage' - you didn't really have a difference in the way a game 'feels' (unless you have a very strong controller preference).

Instead of focusing on the 'wrong' thing about my original post, which OK I may not have been explicitly clear I was referring directly to the 2 comparable next gen consoles (PS5 vs Series X), how about we focus on the point I was actually making about how game changing Sony's new Dualsense controller could be? How about we discuss the possibilities it may offer, what you think developers could do with it and maybe even what you hope they could do with it. Not just the triggers but the rumble too which seems 'directional' (if you watch the DF video discussing how the sandstorm rumble changed with the camera angle).

TL;DR

Completely missing my point and going into console warrior mode

@JJ2 I'm sorry, but @BAMozzy has some of the most well balanced post of this entire forum. It's anything but ''console warrrior mode''.

@Octane
The point was IT S NOT ABOUT CONSOLES COMPARISONS as said by Rich from DF.
A larger GPU is not necessarily 'better" for a console but it's all a console war discussion that has nothing to do with what DF was talking about.
We all know what console war is.

@JJ2 It’s absolutely not console warrior anything. He buys both and writes extremely balanced posts. Pointing out facts doesn’t make him an Xbot and if anything, you’re the one going into ‘console warrior mode’ by completely ignoring his posts full of well balanced arguments and making petty digs.

Sorry to break up such a fruitful and productive conversation lol, but finally after months of pouring over pics on the internet, happy to say I have a Dualsense in hand!!! Feels great from initial impression. Will post back in a bit after running playing with it for a while!!

@redd214 you lucky git 😀! Look forward to you thoughts, especially on ui and boost mode for ps4 games

@JJ2 I'd have to disagree. @BAMozzy is probably making the more rational points out the two of you right now and actually acting civil about it. Just because he's openly comparing the two and pointing out discrepancies in each console doesn't mean he's an Xbot or a Sony pony or anything of that sort. If anything you're kind of coming off as the one wanting to start a console war discussion right now. Sony's intention with changing how games feel is pretty adjunct to what Microsoft wants to do with providing options on how you want your games to look by offering two distinct models of their console, and I think both should be commended for their efforts. The PS5 being weaker than Series X in certain areas is an undeniable fact, but the difference really isn't as large compared to, say Nintendo Switch with the PS4/Xbox One. It's clear the different hardware have different intentions for servicing different types of gamers who'd either value having their games look better with Xbox's console, or perform more efficiently with the higher clock speed and SSD speed/bandwidth of the PS5.

Completely at the end of the video.
'NOT TALKING AT ALL ABOUT PLATFORMS COMPARISONS'

@JJ2 But if they buy both platforms just for the sake of objectively informing the viewer about the factual discrepancies and advantages/disadvantages about a particular platform compared to another that doesn't automatically make them biased. They're doing their jobs

@R1spam ha I wish! Don't have the console yet, will get it on the 12th like everyone else. I'm not that important lol! Accessories were released today in the US. Have the Pulse headset and controller so far. Charging dock will be here today.

Impressions:

-heavier than the dualshock 4,feels much more "premium" and solid. About the same weight as a switch pro controller

-it's actually not totally white as it looks in pictures. It's actually a really really light grayish hue.

-buttons are all very colicky and the triggers don't feel as mushy as the ds4 ones

-sticks are a tad bit longer from what I can see and they snap back to center much quicker than the ds4. They have a textured grip on the edge which will definitely help out in fast paced games I reckon.

-doesn't interact at all from what I can tell thus far with the ps4. I tried direct connection, thru remote play on my tablet/phone/laptop and nothing. Connects fine over Bluetooth pairing but doesn't do anything.

-I did play some Xcloud with it (how ironic lol) feels great to use. Tried it on Forza and Halo and works as expected.

-obviously have no way of trying the next gen features of it but from initial impressions I'm hopeful. They made some improvements over all for sure. Can't wait to be able to get an all black one though!

EDIT: some settings were wonky on my pc but I now have it working on ps4 remote play with a wired connection!

@JJ2 They might not be directly comparing the consoles but that doesn’t mean we can’t.

Comparing consoles doesn't automatically mean it's meant to be a console war starter. That's a dumb mindset

I'm... gonna completely sidestep the other, kinda bizarre frankly, conversation going on here (Other then say I dont see anything wrong with what BAMozzy said beyond it being bit longwinded (Not that I'm one to judge!)) and say you lucky duck @redd214!

Shame you can't try it out properly with all those features everyone seems to be really gushing over but nice to get some more hands on impressions regarding the DualSense and it's build quality!

For me the increase in resolutions it’s just a fringe benefit of the generational shift. What’s important is the new games and new features including improvements to the controller.

Because they’re at the same price point it’s tempting to compare the PS5 to the Xbox series X. However they’re not really the same thing.

The PS5 is the successor the PS4 providing a new baseline for the next generation of PlayStation games. It’s a powerful piece of hardware with a cost to match, particular if you want the one with the disk drive.

The Xbox series S is Microsoft’s new baseline. It’s a CPU focused machine but compromises on the GPU and RAM amount in order to hit a low price point. It also manages to be the smallest ever Xbox.

The Xbox series X is Microsoft enhanced console for the next generation. Like the Xbox One X and PS4 pro it’s designed to deliver the same games at a higher resolution. Having the most powerful GPU might well be yield the highest resolutions compared to the base consoles. But that power won’t be channelled into providing new experiences. I’m sure it will be much appreciated by those who values for best possible graphics.

A meaningful next gen consoles are the PS5 and the series S. They’re the ones that will determine what new games can be made over the coming years.