General Gaming Rumor: Next Gen GPUs to be more poweful than Stadia's base specs

[crispy4000]

https://www.gamesradar.com/rumour-the-ps5-and-xbox-project-scarlett-will-be-more-powerful-than-google-stadia/

That's one way to make Google look worse.  Google Stadia's GPU is 10.7 teraFLOPS , which is roughly equivalent to an RTX 2080 on paper, but without Nvidea's raytracing tech.

A true 'next gen' leap over the Pro/X might not feel the same as previous gens.  Even if Microsoft and Sony target ~12 teraFLOPS, that's still only 2-3x better than the newest console revisions.  But it would be on par for a next-gen leap over the base machines.
 

[cusideabelincoln]

So Stadia looks to be using something similar to a Vega 56 GPU while the next consoles are targeting Radeon VII performance.  Not bad.

[TwinIon]

I think comparisons with Stadia are a bit difficult, since cloud compute is so different and we don't really know what their update cycle will be like. We don't even know what their pricing or ownership model will be like.

 

That said, releasing a console in 2020 with equivalent power to a PC card from 2018 sounds about right. 

[chakoo]

Uhh Stadia can allocate multiple GPUs so this is a silly thing to make a point on (ignoring that usually these rumors are usually wrong).

[Mr.Vic20]

Yup, an instance of Stadia is a scalable thing, so its exact TFLOPS of performance per instance could be change quite easily should the business model support it. 

[number305]

4 minutes ago, chakoo said:

Uhh Stadia can allocate multiple GPUs so this is a silly thing to make a point on (ignoring that usually these rumors are usually wrong).

I think it is significant.  MS and Sony will want to make sure that both of their consoles will provide a better graphical experience than what you can get by streaming. 

Going by the GPU numbers that google has given out is really all anyone can go on at this point.  Will there be a premium price for Stadia for using multiple GPU's?  Is raytracing or HDR even an option?

[crispy4000]

10 minutes ago, chakoo said:

Uhh Stadia can allocate multiple GPUs so this is a silly thing to make a point on (ignoring that usually these rumors are usually wrong).

 

I view the Stadia comparison as more of a metric to know what the next consoles are targeting.  Stadia could potentially do more, of course, but this does look good on paper for the consoles.

Jason Schreier is the one doing the telling here.  It's more than likely he's correct.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

If Stadia is to be successful it will have to have as their audience, gamers that won’t care what a teraflop is or how many any hardware has.  

[Xbob42]

4 hours ago, number305 said:

 

Going by the GPU numbers that google has given out is really all anyone can go on at this point.  Will there be a premium price for Stadia for using multiple GPU's?  Is raytracing or HDR even an option?

They already confirmed HDR. I have my doubts about next gen consoles being able to reliably do raytracing to any significant degree... Although I do wonder if we'll get some middleware that adds raytracing to an entire game and its possible light states and then spits out a baked version that is significantly less taxing but looks mostly the same. I imagine even something like that would have plenty of caveats, but SSAO continues to have shitty halos and shit around characters while water reflections produce reflections of objects close to the camera which looks so stupid, so it's not like we're caveat-free with every other piece of graphical tech. I do wonder if what I said is possible, or if it's already been done for years and I'm just ignorant of it, or what.

 

On the topic of price scaling, I imagine when games start demanding two instances, they'll "upgrade" the service so you get two for the same price. And, if the service is still around when they need three or more (on average. This is assuming the base service covers one and then for individual cases devs may be charged more for two early on) they'll just upgrade the infrastructure itself.

[AbsolutSurgen]

A couple of comments:

1)  A normal 8x generational increase in GPU power would put next gen consoles in the 12-14 TFLOP range

2)  Stadia (or MS xCloud, or PS Now) all have a visual deterioration due to video compression  -- a streaming source has to be MORE powerful to have a similar impact as locally rendered graphics

3)  Stadia can easily scale up by simply putting a new video card in their server -- they are not a fixed spec

4)  Do people really think that Stadia can run in the equivalence of a SLI/Crossfire setup?  That would really surprise me

5)  One of the biggest features in gaming will be VRR -- it truly is a game changer.  I'm not sure that VRR is possible with Stadia

[Xbob42]

Variable Refresh Rate is not a game changer if your entire system is designed to run at 60 with no drops rather than 22 and a half with drops, or 140+ with drops.

[HGLatinBoy]

Stadia can be successful if they give away the consoles (prime subs) and charge for the games or sell the console and give away the games (prime subs) if the games can be played locally and not via cloud I can see it piquing the interests of people. 

[crispy4000]

3 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

They already confirmed HDR. I have my doubts about next gen consoles being able to reliably do raytracing to any significant degree... Although I do wonder if we'll get some middleware that adds raytracing to an entire game and its possible light states and then spits out a baked version that is significantly less taxing but looks mostly the same. I imagine even something like that would have plenty of caveats, but SSAO continues to have shitty halos and shit around characters while water reflections produce reflections of objects close to the camera which looks so stupid, so it's not like we're caveat-free with every other piece of graphical tech. I do wonder if what I said is possible, or if it's already been done for years and I'm just ignorant of it, or what.

It's not just a problem with doing raytracing.  It's how the developers choose to implement it.  We've now seen 3 games with 3 entirely different approaches (reflections, shadows, lighting).  To do all 3 simultaneously might be possible, but maybe it's not worth the performance or fidelity hit.  We also don't know how AMD's GPUs will handle it, or if more engines will support it on their GPUs (like CryEngine).

 

With the performance hit, it's not a secret sauce to making games look better.  We could get some fantastic looking next-gen games that forgo raytracing entirely, putting the extra GPU headroom to use elsewhere.

[AbsolutSurgen]

10 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Variable Refresh Rate is not a game changer if your entire system is designed to run at 60 with no drops rather than 22 and a half with drops, or 140+ with drops.

1)  With VRR you can have higher IQ, because you don't need to maintain 60

2)  No console will ever have ubiquitous software that is designed to maintain 4k 60

3)  Stadia isn't powerful enough to do 4k60

[TomCat]

lag is gonna killl stadia  doesnt seem that google is focused on lag they wont even talk about it

[Xbob42]

4 hours ago, mikechorney said:

1)  With VRR you can have higher IQ, because you don't need to maintain 60

2)  No console will ever have ubiquitous software that is designed to maintain 4k 60

3)  Stadia isn't powerful enough to do 4k60

You realize you can still SEE the frame rate, right? VRR doesn't make 30 look like 60 or anything. It can hide hiccups a little better and it gets rid of tearing entirely, but it's not magic.

[Brian]

I wonder if Nvidia will jump back into the consoles market or if AMD will continue to serve all

[AbsolutSurgen]

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

You realize you can still SEE the frame rate, right? VRR doesn't make 30 look like 60 or anything. It can hide hiccups a little better and it gets rid of tearing entirely, but it's not magic.

Yes -- I game pretty frequently with VRR.  It gets rid of the stutter you see when there are duplicate frames on non-VRR enabled screen when it dips below 60.  It's the stutter that really looks like shit.

 

You currently have to optimize a console game to ALWAYS be above 60 -- or it looks choppy due to the stutter.  With VRR, you can optimize it to be MOSTLY above 60 -- because when it drops to 50 fps it won't look that bad.

 

It's not magic -- but its still pretty freaking awesome.

 

47 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

I wonder if Nvidia will jump back into the consoles market or if AMD will continue to serve all

AMD can do a SOC -- Nvidia can't.  So AMD will continue to serve Xbox/PS.  (Nvidia currently powers Switch with Tegra -- but they don't have a CPU that could handle a proper console.)

[chakoo]

On 3/29/2019 at 3:45 PM, crispy4000 said:

I view the Stadia comparison as more of a metric to know what the next consoles are targeting.  Stadia could potentially do more, of course, but this does look good on paper for the consoles.

Jason Schreier is the one doing the telling here.  It's more than likely he's correct.

As you stated, it's a point of targeting but even this far out specs are subject to change. It doesn't matter who is reporting it and if they are leaking sdk docs. It all will change in many ways up until near launch (I've worked with pre release hardware for multiple systems in the past). 

 

21 hours ago, mikechorney said:

4)  Do people really think that Stadia can run in the equivalence of a SLI/Crossfire setup?  That would really surprise me

It was stated at GDC that a game can allocate additional servers/hardware. Scalability in both directions is built into its design.

[Xbob42]

I also take umbrage with the idea that Stadia has to be damn near perfect to compete, when we never hold new consoles (which are always undercooked and full of caveats on top of having no games for a year or two after launch) to such ludicrous standards. Stadia doesn't have to look as good as a native box on your TV because graphics are only a single pillar of its selling points. It's essentially being sold as a sort of cross between Netflix and Switch, not as the next PS5-No-Really-This-Is-The-Powerful-Version.

[Rodimus]

I was hoping the next gen target 12+TFLOPS and 16GB RAM.