In the midst of the Xbox One X hype, where does the PS4 Pro currently fit in? Looking at sales for the PS4, that’s not something Sony will have restless nights about it. With more than 60 million units sold since launch and strong software sales, Sony is more or less in the driver’s seat.
But that doesn’t mean the PS4 Pro has been ignored. At launch, Sony implemented an advanced work distributor with the console and new Polaris features like Delta colour compression. How does a developer take advantage of these things? We spoke to World of Tanks technical director Chris McCue about the same.
“Work distribution on the GPU generally happens automatically, so we see better work distribution just as improved GPU performance without requiring any manual effort. Delta color compression is different because we do have to choose when to use it. It benefits certain portions of the game rendering more than others, making it a useful optimization but not a game changer in terms of overall GPU performance.”
Given that the PS4 Pro is capable of handling 2×16 bit operations, which allowed Wargaming to achieve 60 FPS on the console, what advantage would this offer over the Xbox One X which doesn’t?
“World of Tanks console is at 30 frames per second on all consoles, including the PS4 Pro. We’ve found that the ability of the PS4 Pro shader hardware to perform two simultaneous 16-bit operations is, like the earlier answer about delta color compression, a feature which is very useful for some parts of rendering but does not by itself result in significant framerate increases,” said McCue.
So while the PS4 Pro may be useful in many ways, it’s not going to reinvent the GPU wheel – a criticism the console has been facing since its announcement. It’s even more pronounced now with the Xbox One X’s GPU and the huge leap forward it takes over the Xbox One.
Regardless, what are your thoughts on all of this? Let us know in the comments below. The Xbox One X is slated to launch on November 7th worldwide so we’ll find out for ourselves how it compares to the PS4 Pro.