• Sony’s Next-gen Console, PlayStation 4 ‘PS4’ Specs Leaked


    Sony's Next-gen Console, PlayStation 4 'PS4' Specs Leaked

    Sony’s Next-gen Console, PlayStation 4 ‘PS4’ Specs Leaked

    Following Microsoft‘s Xbox 720 specs leaked recently, It’s time to turn our attention to Sony’s offering with the new Game console, PS4.

    Sony‘s Next-gen console, PS4, codenamed Orbis, is said to be powered by an 8-core CPU based on “Jaguar” technology by AMD. According to VGLeaks, there are 3 iterations of devkits make the evolution of Orbis through the years.

    Details of each devkit are listed below:

    1- R10 Board (with special BIOS) assemble in a Generic PC

    • Requires Windows 7 64 bit edition
    • Recommend
    • Sandy Bridge (Intel) or Bulldozer (AMD)
    • Minimum 8 GB RAM (system memory)
    • 650 Watt PSU
    • VS2010 SP1
    • DWM (Desktop Windows Manager) must be turned off
    • Application will use Windows services for everything except GPU interface
    • SCE will provide “Gnm”, a custom GPU interface
    DVKT-KS000K system block diagram

    DVKT-KS000K system block diagram

    2- DVKT-KS000K (“Initial 1″)

    • Runs Orbis OS
    • CPU: Bulldozer 8-core, 1.6 Ghz
    • Graphics Card: R10 with special BIOS
    • RAM: 8 GB (system memory)
    • BD Drive
    • HDD: 2.5 ” 160 GB
    • Network Controller
    • Custom South Bridge allows access to controller prototypes

    3- SoC Based Devkit

    • Available January 2013
    • CPU: 8-core Jaguar
    • GPU: Liverpool GPU
    • RAM: unified 8 GB for devkit (4 GB for the retail console)
    • Subsystem: HDD, Network Controller, BD Drive, Bluetooth Controller, WLAN and HDMI (up to 1980×1080@3D)
    • Analog Outputs: Audio, Composite Video
    • Connection to Host: USB 3.0 (targeting over 200 MB/s),
    • ORBIS Dualshock
    • Dual Camera
  • Quantic Dream Working on Project ‘Singularity’ For PS4


    New Real Time Tech Demo: Kara

    New Real Time Tech Demo: Kara

    It seems like Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream are already working on the next endeavor after Beyond: Two Souls, intended for the next-gen PlayStation 4.

    Quantic Dream has registered the domain name for SingularityPS4.com. Following a similar move, the studio has done in the past, as they registered the domain names of both heavyrainPS3.com and beyondPS3.com. This indicates that Quantic Dream is indeed prepping a new title for PS4 called Singularity.

    Interestingly, going back to Kara tech demo that was shown at GDC last year, Quantic Dream’s lead David Cage said he was inspired by Ray Kurzweil‘s book The Singularity is Near. This suggests that the android Kara could be the subject of the new title in the works. Watch Kara tech demo below:

  • Microsoft’s Next-gen Console, Xbox 720 Specs Leaked


    Xbox 720 Specs Leaked

    Xbox 720 Specs Leaked

    Microsoft‘s Next-gen console, Xbox 720, codenamed Durango, is said to be powered by an 8-core CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz and an 800-MHz graphics processor with 12 shader cores providing a performance of about 1.2 teraflops. This comes on par with specs revealed recently.

    The console will sport an 8GB DDR3 RAM with 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM. And for the first time it will be capable of reading Blu-ray discs up to 50GB at x6 read speeds. According to VGleaks, the full reported specs below:

    Durango system block diagram

    Durango system block diagram

    Full specs list:

    CPU:

    – x64 Architecture
    – 8 CPU cores running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz)
    – each CPU thread has its own 32 KB L1 instruction cache and 32 KB L1 data cache
    – each module of four CPU cores has a 2 MB L2 cache resulting in a total of 4 MB of L2 cache
    – each core has one fully independent hardware thread with no shared execution resources
    – each hardware thread can issue two instructions per clock

    GPU:

    – custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor
    – 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads
    – each thread can perform one scalar multiplication and addition operation (MADD) per clock cycle
    – at peak performance, the GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second
    High-fidelity Natural User Interface (NUI) sensor is always present

    Storage and Memory:

    – 8 gigabyte (GB) of RAM DDR3 (68 GB/s)
    – 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102 GB/s)
    – from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec.
    – Hard drive is always present
    – 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive

    Networking:

    – Gigabit Ethernet
    – Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct

    Hardware Accelerators:

    – Move engines
    – Image, video, and audio codecs
    – Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware
    – Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing

  • Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox 720 Rumors Round-up


    Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox 720 Rumors Round-up

    Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox 720 Rumors Round-up

    The rumor mill regarding Sony and Microsoft next-gen consoles will not stop before the grand unveil which is due in June E3 game exhibition or a bit earlier.

    A look at what you expect from both consoles, Playstation 4, PS4 (internally referred to as Orbis) and its Microsoft rival XBox 720 (internally referred to as Durango). Both consoles will feature 8-core CPUs clocked at 1.6GHz based on the new “Jaguar” technology by AMD which is currently in development. The new technology is said to offer great power consumption and raw performance.

    Orbis will sport a SoC architecture packed with the latest GPU Radeon 7970M running at 850MHz and featuring 20 of AMD’s “Graphics Core Next” compute units. This specs offer up to 1.84 teraflops metric. On the other side, Durango, will probably use Radeon HD 8770 GPU, featuring 1.23 teraflops. This gives PS4 about 50% of raw power advantage.

    Orbis is also said to feature 4GB of GDDR5 RAM with 512MB reserved for the operating system. While Durango is rumored to sport a set of 8GB DDR3 RAM of which 3GB reserved for the OS.

    Take these speculations with a bunch of salt and expect more information and leaks on the way.