• Sony’s PS4: Everything We Know

    // Gradly // blog, Cloud, Consoles, Design, Gadgets, Games, PS4, Sony, Tech. No Responses

    PS4 Announced

    PS4 Announced

    Sony Computer Entertainment, SCE, has finally unwrapped the company’s next-gen home console, PlayStation 4. Here are all the details.

    The console:

    The console sports an AMD 8-core CPU SoC based on Jaguar Technology and a set 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, with graphic AMD’s Next-gen Radeon based graphic engine.

    PS4 Specs

    PS4 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.

    The console will launch in Holiday 2013. A rumor suggests that there will be two SKUs at price tags around $429 and $529.

    Next-gen PlayStation Eye:

    Each console is said to ship with the next-gen PlayStation Eye camera which packs a pair of wide-angle cameras that will pick up signals from the new DualShock 4 controllers.

    PS4 Eye

    PS4 Eye

    PlayStation 4 Eye

    • External Dimension Approx. 186mm x 27mm x 27mm (width x height x depth)(tentative)
    • Weight Approx. 183g (tentative)
    • Video Pixel (Maximum) 1280 x 800 pixel x 2
    • Video Frame Rate 1280×800 pixel @ 60fps
    • 640×400 pixel @ 120fps
    • 320×192 pixel @ 240fps
    • Video Format RAW, YUV (uncompressed)
    • Lens Dual Lenses, F value/F2.0 fixed focus
    • Capture Range 30cm～∞
    • Field-of-View 85
    • Microphone 4 Channel Microphone Array
    • Connection Type PS4 dedicated connector (AUX connector)
    • Cable Length Approx. 2m (tentative)

    The new 3D camera detects the player from the light bars attached to the new controller for an easy identification. It will let you spectate and watch other friends play games from your console’s dashboard with the ability to remotely control games their friends are playing to help them get through a tough spot.

    The Controller:

    The new controller, Dualshock 4, will come with a new small touchpad in the center that will work as an input button, capacitive type and two-point multitouch panel. A new “share” button, by which you can record gameplay and onscreen footage and share it directly with your friends. Some claims that you can actually have access to the last 15 minutes recorded anytime you press the share button.

    DUALSHOCK 4

    DUALSHOCK 4

    Dualshock 4 specs:

    External Dimensions

    • Approx. 162mm x 52mm x 98mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)

    Weight

    • Approx. 210g (tentative)

    Keys / Switches

    • PS button, SHARE button, OPTIONS button
    • Directional buttons (Up/Down/Left/Right)
    • Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square)
    • R1/L1/R2/L2 button, Left stick / L3 button, Right stick / R3 button, Pad Button
    • Touch Pad 2 Point Touch Pad, Click Mechanism, Capacitive Type
    • Motion Sensor Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, threeaxis accelerometer)

    Other Features

    • Light Bar, Vibration, Built-in Mono Speaker
    • Ports: USB (Micro B), Extention Port, Stereo Headset Jack
    • Wireless Communication Bluetooth Ver2.1+EDR
    • Battery Type Built-in Lithium-ion Rechargeable Battery Voltage DC3.7V (tentative) Capacity 1000mAh (tentative)
    PS Vita Integration and Second Screen:

    PS Vita is fully integrated even you can play/stream PS4 games right on it, thanks to Gaikai technology. You’ll also be able to control the PS4 remotely from your tablet or smartphone, a companion apps will be made available for iOS and Android. Some speculate that most of online features will require a premium subscription to use. Sony’s new online service will be called PlayStation World replacing PlayStation Plus. Its not known yet whether this related to Gaikai or PlayStation Cloud.

    Games:

    PlayStation 3 titles won’t be supported natively, confirmed Sony. But all PS1, PS2 and PS3 titles will be playable using Gaiki streaming technology on PS4 or actually on any platform, anything, anywhere.

    Killzone: Shadow Fall

    Killzone: Shadow Fall

    • Knack Sony’s Japan Studio
    • Killzone: Shadow Fall by Guerrilla Studio.
    • DriveClub by Evolution Studio.
    • InFamous: Second Son by Sucker Punch
    • Destiny, by Bungie, and Diablo III, by Blizzard
    • Watch Dogs from Ubisoft is confirmed as a launch title
    • New Final Fantasy title for PS4 will be announced at E3 this year

    + Images courtesy of Sony

  • Sony Teases PS4 Reveal on February 20th

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, Gadgets, Games, PS4, Rumors, Sony, Tech., Xbox One 1 Response

    Sony Teases PS4 Reveal on February 20th

    Sony Teases PS4 Reveal on February 20th

    Sony PlayStation is holding an event set for February 20th at 6pm EST under the tagline “See the future“. We believe the invites were sent to the media for the upcoming Sony next-gen console, PlayStation 4 reveal.

    Earlier this month, we reported that the announcement of PS4 is expected prior to E3 with an official launch later this year. Rumors suggested that the heart of PS4 will be made by AMD. More on PS4 (codenamed Orbis) specs leaked can be found here.

    Citing“people familiar with the matter,” the Wall Street Journal confirms that the event is indeed for PS4 reveal and the new PlayStation console will incorporate more social features, this comes in line with what rumored before that the new controller (upgraded DualShock?) will have a dedicated “Share” button.

    The WSJ also claims that Microsoft’s new console will be released before the end of 2013, with announcement made before E3. More on Xbox 720 (codenamed Durango) specs can be found here.

  • More on Sony’s Next-gen PS4 Specs Revealed

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, Gadgets, Games, PS4, Rumors, Sony 2 Responses

    More on Sony's Next-gen PS4 Specs Revealed

    More on Sony’s Next-gen PS4 Specs Revealed

    Following our previous PlayStation 4, PS4, leaked specs, new information regarding the SoC devkit has surfaced. Below are all the details courtesy of VGLeaks.

    LIVERPOOL SOC

    • Custom implementation of AMD Fusion APU Architecture (Accelerated Processing Unit)
    • Provides good performance with low power consumption
    • Integrated CPU and GPU
    • Considerably bigger and more powerful than AMD’s other APUs
    PS4 Liverpool SoC Diagram

    PS4 Liverpool SoC Diagram

    CPU:

    • Orbis contains eight Jaguar cores at 1.6 Ghz, arranged as two “clusters”
    • Each cluster contains 4 cores and a shared 2MB L2 cache
    • 256-bit SIMD operations, 128-bit SIMD ALU
    • SSE up to SSE4, as well as Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)
    • One hardware thread per core
    • Decodes, executes and retires at up to two instructions/cycle
    • Out of order execution
    • Per-core dedicated L1-I and L1-D cache (32Kb each)
    • Two pipes per core yield 12,8 GFlops performance
    • 102.4 GFlops for system

    GPU:

    • GPU is based on AMD’s “R10XX” (Southern Islands) architecture
    • DirectX 11.1+ feature set
    • Liverpool is an enhanced version of the architecture
    • 18 Compute Units (CUs)
    • Hardware balanced at 14 CUs
    • Shared 512 KB of read/write L2 cache
    • 800 Mhz
    • 1.843 Tflops, 922 GigaOps/s
    • Dual shader engines
    • 18 texture units
    • 8 Render backends

    Memory:

    • 4 GB unified system memory, 176 GB/s
    • 3.5 available to games (estimate)

    Storage:

    – High speed Blu-ray drive

    • single layer (25 GB) or dual layer (50 GB) discs
    • Partial constant angular velocity (PCAV)
    • Outer half of disc 6x (27 MB/s)
    • Inner half varies, 3.3x to 6x

    – Internal mass storage

    • One SKU at launch: 500 GB HDD
    • There may also be a Flash drive SKU in the future

    Networking:

    • 1 Gb/s Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n WIFI, and Bluetooth

    Peripherals:

    • Evolved Dualshock controller
    • Dual Camera
    • Move controller

    Extra:

    • Audio Processor (ACP)
    • Video encode and decode (VCE/UVD) units
    • Display ScanOut Engine (DCE)
    • Zlib Decompression Hardware

    Each CU contains dedicated:

    • ALU (32 64-bit operations per cycle)
    • Texture Unit
    • L1 data cache
    • Local data share (LDS)
    • About  14 + 4 balance:
      • 4 additional CUs (410 Gflops) “extra” ALU as resource for compute
      • Minor boost if used for rendering
    • Dual Shader Engines:
      • 1.6 billion triangles/s, 1.6 billion vertices/s
    • 18 Texture units
      • 56 billion bilinear texture reads/s
      • Can utilize full memory bandwidth
    • 8 Render backends:
      • 32 color ops/cycle
      • 128 depth ops/cycle
      • Can utilize full memory bandwidth

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

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, Gadgets, Games, PS4, Rumors, Sony 1 Response

    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