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

4.2
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:
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/

Related Articles

Comments

"PS4 Pro Could Match Xbox One X Power due To New AMD Graphics Tech" :: Login/Create an Account :: 21 comments

If you would like to post a comment please signin to your account or register for an account.

CraigPosted:

Throw a 1080 in there and be done with it...

EchoPosted:

Another spike in the console war, such big companies do they actually know what theyre doing cause for the past few years it seems like theyre just 2 bickering brothers

FibrilPosted:

Very interesting in deed, let the console wars begin lol. I'd like to see what Microsofts next statement/move is.

UrfPosted:

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

ZydrinPosted:

A very interesting theory.

lbreadsticklPosted:

T0P i don't really see people paying the extra £100 for the XB1X when it has less exclusives than PS4 pro and if this is happening it'll be pointless

Ill be paying the extra 100. I play 4-5 games, mainly rocket league and forza. Once pubg comes out, probably won't have time to play overwatch, rainbow six or bf1 so I'd be down to those 3 games. I don't see it as a waste at all tho. Depending on how much 4K tv's are at the time of purchase (or a bundle), I might buy one too just for the x

MeowersPosted:

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.

T0PPosted:

i don't really see people paying the extra £100 for the XB1X when it has less exclusives than PS4 pro and if this is happening it'll be pointless

ProJimmyRustlerPosted:

I refuse to believe that the PS4 Pro is the only console out of this generation to benefit from this.
Assuming that the Xbox One and Ps4 supports this, they won't tell us because of all the money they have tied up in Xbox One X and PS4 pro.

NicknKicknPosted:

This article has typos all over the place. "Rapid packed math/match".. Good job comicbook.com >.


Latest Downloads

Latest Tutorials