On 11 June 2013 20:52, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:39:00 +0200
"nazriel" <spam@dzfl.pl> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 11 June 2013 at 08:20:33 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
> > This has been known for a while, but I hadn't seen it mentioned
> > here explicitly.
> >
> > Both consoles are using amd jaguar cpus, which is good news for
> > us as druntime/phobos should in theory JustWork!
>
> Yeah, awesome news.
> Given that DMD itself probably will never support anything except
> x86(-64) so there is not much pressure to support other
> architectures in druntime.
>
> It is really great opportunity. Some new Android smartphones also
> are shipping with x86.
>
> But there seem to be some quirks with those CPUs:
> http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps4-and-xbox-one-s-amd-jaguar-cpu-examined/0116297

Wow, given the abilities of the PS3 and 360, that article reads like
the comments of a spoiled brat.

Abilities? I think they're thoroughly uninteresting and totally underwhelming hardware.
They're pretty weak. I wish they'd stuck with (multiple) ridiculously high clocked PPC's personally.

I think it sounds encouraging: It means the next gen might not end up
pulling a 3DO on price like their predecessors did. It damn near killed
the PS3, which took Sony some major work to finally turn around.

Indeed, they're obviously designed to be cheap this time... or they'd be better, and more interesting ;)

In any case, it is nice that they're using x86. Seems like a smart
choice. I'll admit, when I first heard about it I was surprised at
least one of them didn't go ARM, but x86 does seem to make more
sense for a major games console at this particular point.

Personally, I think it's disappointing. x86's key advantage is being able to run crappy desktop code fast.
Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully tuned, purpose-specific code.
x86 uses MASSIVE amounts of its CPU realestate to tolerate crappy code. I'd rather use that CPU realestate on more raw power, and put the responsibility on the engines engineering merits to make the most of it.

This move sets a low upper limit, and the bar will start high. I don't anticipate you'll see much tier-ing between 1st gen -> 3rd/4th gen games this time round.

ARM might be better/more interesting than x86, but I actually still think PPC is a good architecture for the purpose. VMX/SPU is still the best SIMD unit.