• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

DLSS and Path Tracing could force console makers to go with NVIDIA in the future

Could sufficient advances in DLSS and Path Tracing support bring Sony to NVIDIA?

  • No, the competition eventually catches up and offers a similar current value.

  • No, the console market just doesn't care enough to afford the price.

  • Yes, they corner the market by subsidising the chip and outvalue the competition.

  • Yes, the difference will become even larger and consumers will pay for it in the end.


Results are only viewable after voting.

Roni

Gold Member
Let's face it, NVIDIA has been at least a single step ahead of AMD for years now in terms of tech. AMD is still on a plan to build an open, stable standard but that has yet to materialize in performance that reaches the cutting edge. Mind you, I'm not saying AMD is in trouble at all. Their leadership is very competent and their strategy to be realistic with their prices given their performance output and focus on custom work for Sony and Microsoft has paid off. But Ray Tracing has been a sore spot for a while now in the race and NVIDIA has the clear advantage. Now with Path Tracing in consumer GPU's a reality and technology like DLSS to support high FPS, something people ask for in every other console thread you can stumble into here, could Sony and Microsoft see a gap so wide between image quality to actually use an NVIDIA chip for something like a PS6 Pro or the next Xbox refresh?

I think so... If progress continues as it is now, Microsoft and Sony can stretch this console generation a bit more and by the time a refresh ought to be coming out for the next gen we could be seeing a pricy console offering gaming at an image quality similar to Cyberpunk's Overdrive in 4k 30FPS. Let's call that 7-8 years.

What do you think? Unless AMD can come up with some surprising breakthroughs soon it might be too late.
 

Imtjnotu

Member
Will Ferrell Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
 

Robb

Gold Member
I doubt it and I’m not even sure Nintendo will keep up with NVIDIA. They likely got a bargain deal on the Switch chip and have some leverage to get a good deal with Switch successor. But if the Switch 2 isn’t as successful I doubt they’d stick with NVIDIA for the next iteration unless they, for whatever reason, manages to get another great deal.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I would love for the next Switch to be $500 and include Nvidia's best mobile GPU along with support for DLSS and raytracing. VRR support as well.
I can see the appeal because one thinks about the RTX4090 coupled with a top of the line 16+ cores CPU and gobs of RAM, but RT on mobile because we have nVIDIA GPU tech makes me think about Ferrari branded/techedup cheap car:

People dream of the Stratos:
sQfaRtn.jpg


I would expect a Ferrari branded Duna:
7q1SXBk.jpg
 

Zathalus

Member
The problem with going Nvidia at this moment is cost and emulation of x86 on ARM. x86 emulation performance is paramount as I highly doubt either Sony or Microsoft will drop bc as that would be a bad move.

If Nvidia offers a cost-effective solution and the ARM CPUs of 2027/2028 can emulate Zen 2 then I can potentially see a console manufacturer moving over to Nvidia if the performance difference is that large.

That also assumes the gap between Nvidia and AMD won't close over the next 4 years. They have done it before
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
The only things Nvidia are ahead of AMD for gaming are RT which afaik they invented the current specifications for real time implementations (may be wrong), DLSS which may be debatable if people is good enough with FSR or prefer native all the time, and top end cards.

Everything else is equal or better on AMD, like the mid range GPUs that have more VRAM and are way more affordable for end consumers and the fact that AMD can provide a CPU+GPU combo plus work on design prices for a very affordable price to console manufacturers.

It's more like if AMD isn't ready enough for when next gen comes out, devs will just skip using PT and will improve in the RT supported lighting models like Lumen.
 
Makes no sense to switch to Ngreedia.

Especially not when you consider backwards compatibility.

You must be complete dumb If you want their prices in the console space and they don't make apus.

No chance that Sonys goes with seperated GPU and CPU. The price would be way to high.
 
Last edited:

kingyala

Banned
Let's face it, NVIDIA has been at least a single step ahead of AMD for years now in terms of tech. AMD is still on a plan to build an open, stable standard but that has yet to materialize in performance that reaches the cutting edge. Mind you, I'm not saying AMD is in trouble at all. Their leadership is very competent and their strategy to be realistic with their prices given their performance output and focus on custom work for Sony and Microsoft has paid off. But Ray Tracing has been a sore spot for a while now in the race and NVIDIA has the clear advantage. Now with Path Tracing in consumer GPU's a reality and technology like DLSS to support high FPS, something people ask for in every other console thread you can stumble into here, could Sony and Microsoft see a gap so wide between image quality to actually use an NVIDIA chip for something like a PS6 Pro or the next Xbox refresh?

I think so... If progress continues as it is now, Microsoft and Sony can stretch this console generation a bit more and by the time a refresh ought to be coming out for the next gen we could be seeing a pricy console offering gaming at an image quality similar to Cyberpunk's Overdrive in 4k 30FPS. Let's call that 7-8 years.

What do you think? Unless AMD can come up with some surprising breakthroughs soon it might be too late.
consoles dont and wont waste silicon space for nonesense like dlss when current software techniques are just as similar... you can see this on ps5 where they didnt take all rdna2 features like vrs but modified their own features like cache scrubbers... and no they wont follow nvidias pathtracing, they dont need that... consoles will simply scale with more cu's more memory and clock speeds and only add specific hardware when developers really require like ps5 io or direct storage... and decompression as we see now...

consoles arent some workstation computers where you just have huge silicon's and power hungry machines that do everything, all a console needs is to be affordable and be engineered acceptably to the required gaming experience from developer input... nvidia had discrete gpu's for physx, nvidia had sli and amd had crossfire.. and none of this fancy technologies ever went to consoles, so theres nothing new under the sun and dont worry nextgen consoles will be awesome with or without the crap u think is hip right now.
 
Last edited:

MetalRain

Member
It depends on the timeline. Now PS5 is 2-3 years old, if we get PS6 somewhere around 2026-2027 there is still few years and maybe two generations of GPUs before.

Now 4090 can barely do path tracing, but I think 5000 series will be even better with it. Can we have capable path tracing hardware in mid-range GPUs in 2025, maybe. Could AMD make those, maybe. Does Nvidia even want to build console GPUs in 2025?
 

skit_data

Member
I think they will keep using AMDs GPUs, mainly because they can offer a cost effective APU solution that (as far as I understand) has backwards compability in mind full when designing the chip. I can’t see consoles going back to having dedicated GPUs and CPUs because APUs keeps manufacturing and assembly simpler.
 
I'd say intel is actually a more plausible possibility since they can offer full x86 compatibility with AMD stuff, and while their current GPUs and especially APUs are not there yet, I guess Battlemage should be the real test, but their RT and upscaling solution is akin to nvidia, and so far this seems like the better approach even though AMD tries to deny it, and intel might settle with AMD prices to get a proper foot in the door of the gaming market, which would be hard when you are just the late third player. Becoming the supplier for at least one plattform and with the numbers this sort of inevitably would push, it makes the whole GPU endeavor more visible to PC folk too and getting a bit more focus on optimization might help the PC side too. Intel might want the profitable nvidia pie but very much like AMD they have to be the cheaper guys until they eventually are better.
I'd also guess MS might be more willing to take/finance the gamble while Sony traditionally hardly went for the cutting edge solution but for the most cost effective (only Cell and its failed pairing with underpowered nvidia crap was really pushing limits)
MS could probably pull off an OS for a custom ARM + nvidia better too, since their whole virtualization thing might help a lot to keep BC "easily". So if anyone tries escaping AMD and betting on different tech, it's imho MS.
But AMD might get their act together once MS and Sony say what features a future chip has to have.
 
It is a mistake to only rely on AMD...Sony and MS should keep all the options open. Nvidia's tech is miles ahead of the competition.
Their prices too. And like some other people said before, Nvidia screwed over some console makers big time in the past. Why would you want to work with someone you can absolutely not trust, and also offer just GPU’s for 1600 bucks.

Consoles need to be cheap and efficient. With Nvidia’s pricing your next console will be 2500 bucks when all is said and done.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Let's face it, NVIDIA has been at least a single step ahead of AMD for years now in terms of tech. AMD is still on a plan to build an open, stable standard but that has yet to materialize in performance that reaches the cutting edge. Mind you, I'm not saying AMD is in trouble at all. Their leadership is very competent and their strategy to be realistic with their prices given their performance output and focus on custom work for Sony and Microsoft has paid off. But Ray Tracing has been a sore spot for a while now in the race and NVIDIA has the clear advantage. Now with Path Tracing in consumer GPU's a reality and technology like DLSS to support high FPS, something people ask for in every other console thread you can stumble into here, could Sony and Microsoft see a gap so wide between image quality to actually use an NVIDIA chip for something like a PS6 Pro or the next Xbox refresh?

I think so... If progress continues as it is now, Microsoft and Sony can stretch this console generation a bit more and by the time a refresh ought to be coming out for the next gen we could be seeing a pricy console offering gaming at an image quality similar to Cyberpunk's Overdrive in 4k 30FPS. Let's call that 7-8 years.

What do you think? Unless AMD can come up with some surprising breakthroughs soon it might be too late.

You really don't know the history between NVidia and it's partners. Including MS and Sony.
There is a reason why Sony and MS only had ONE console with nVidia GPU. And that reason is that NVidia is a terrible partner to work with.
And it's not just MS and NVidia, there are also plenty of stories from AIBs about how NVidia is very exploitative of it's partners.
On the other hand, AMD has been a very reliable partner.

Another reason is that AMD has an X86 license and NVidia doesn't. This means it's much easier to port from and/or to PC. This reduces costs and time to market.
The other reason is that AMD has developed a lot of tech on their GPUs to reduce CPU overhead. This is one of the reasons why consoles are able to punch above their weight, despite having much weaker CPUs than PCs.
 

SABRE220

Member
Its not a realistic possibility, Nvidia has already showcased that they have little desire and ability to nurture and maintain sustainable longterm relationships with partners. They have time and time again screwed over their business partners and are cuthroat and oppurtunistic to the extreme, its sad how even evga got pushed to ending things, and microsoft and sony have already been burned in the past...that being said unless amd gets off their asses they might be forced to research better alternatives as it would become increasing difficult to justify a meaningful difference between ps5 and ps6 unless amd actually remembers their past heritage in innovation and pushing tech from before the ps4 days..but sadly i dont think there are any options but intel could be a darkhorse.

To their credit nvidias greedy and ruthless strategy has worked for them, they have virtually no competition in the gpu market....amd is almost 1.5 generations behind in tech and features and nvidia dosent need to dabble into the console market to maintain their financial goals. I hate nvidias greed and predatory tactics over the last decade....I remeber the 8800gt and now look at the 4070 and its not pretty. The sad thing is even outside of path tracing amds flagship offering is inferior to even a 3090 in rt workloads....its frs is even inferior to dlss2....and honestly when you look at the 4xxx series its atleast a generation difference.....I mean in path tracing scenarios its a complete massacre to the point its not even an option. Honestly as an amd fan i have stopped hoping after following the typical hype/bust cycle...I only see nvidia pulling further ahead unless intel manages to save us with a hailmary....which says a lot about amd when someone like intel manages to make a better rt rendering and (arguably) a more comprehensive image reconstruction tech in their first attempt.
 
Last edited:

Tams

Member
Lol, no.

So long as:

1. AMD offer extensive custom design work at cheap (for what it is) prices.

2. Nvidia snoot around in nGreedia Towers.

Some ARM/RISC-V vendor might get a look in (possibly with AMD for graphics), but if they:

a) want too much control, or

b) leave too much to the console makers

Then I don't see them getting chosen either.

And DLSS isn't much better than the competition, and few give a shit about raytracing.
 
DLSS is neat and I see upcoming consoles like a Pro variant and the next Playstation 6 and Xbox use similar technology ((hardware accelerated upsampling).

I know this is a gaming forum and it may be hard for some of you to understand but most average gamers don’t give a shit about path tracing, and even RT for that matter.

Just because we can now path trace a game using super aggressive DLSS via interpolation with an almost $2000 GPU doesn’t mean it’s going to become mainstream anytime soon.
 

leizzra

Member
There are at least three big reasons why they won’t go to Nvidia for GPU’s. First is the price - there is a reason why for two generations (for Xbox it’s three) Nvidia is out of consoles business. They wanted to much and for that single reason it won't happen. The things that Nvidia is doing in PC desktop space shows that nothing has changed for the better and they are happy with it.

Secondly, backward compatibility with two previous generations is too precious for console makers. MS could potentially invest in yet another software emulation (but do they want that?) but for Sony it's mostly hardware solutions.

The third reason is - people don't care about those things. I know, we look at it more from core gamer perspective, but we are minority in the market. For most people that are buying consoles and games it doesn't mater. Moreover, even many hardcore gamers don't care about RT. Sony and MS will be fine with better solutions from AMD (or can even cooperate on better tech, especially Sony), even if they won't be as good as Nvidia's. They can still use buzzwords like RT in their marketing and that's enough. Developers could push it a bit more, but even here it's not a big thing. Sony and MS will think about something new for next generation.

Nvidia is probably more into RT then anyone becasue this is one of their key selling points.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
1- path tracing has nothing to do with Nvidia. Its not an Nvidia technology

2- path tracing brings 4090, a 1600$ GPU to as low as 20 frames, this is not coming to PS6 even. This is more of a concept that can be added to PC games as a perk ( god knows how many games that will actually use it ) .

3- dlss is better than FSR, that doesn't mean AMD can't use FSR 4.0 for example as a hardware level in their cards or PS6 to match dlss and frame generation. After all, FG is fake frames to enhance the experience

4- Nvidia fucked both Sony and MS. There is a reason why till this day PS3 is not backward compatible. Neither these companies are going with Nvidia ever again. Honestly Nvidia + Nintendo is kinda a ticking risk, if Nintendo doesn't sell enough hardware, they are screwed. I am guessing the reason why Nintendo switch was never on sale is probably because of Nvidia hardware isn't going down in price ( but this is just a speculation as I don't have a proof )

Nvidia as a company is awesome when it comes to invent new technology and hardware. AMD is just trying to catch up ( and failing to do even ) . But they are like apple . You kinda asking to put an apple chip in the PS6.

Some companies are just better working alone as them teaming up with other just fuck things up
 

squarealex

Member
LMAO...
No...

Nvidia already ruining PC gaming with shitty price and making DLSS "too indispensable for saving performance" for many shitty dev PC. Very a bad futur...

PC doesn't need all this "tech" (remember PhysX ? lol)

PC need to stop supporting HDD / SDD SATA / RAM DDR3 on their new game release... this will be saving extra I/O dev... until the new futur RTX I/O (When FFS ?) or DirectStorage (WHEN ???)
Also, PC Games needs Vulkan and stop supporting this shit of DX12 completely buggy and losing performance.

Microsoft need to stop force devs to use this API. (Looks PlayStation run very well without DX, and Metal run pretty well on Apple M1 hardware).

Is very sad to see great devs like ID Software when their maling their game on Vulkan now be on Microsoft and forcing using DX12...
 
Last edited:

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Hahahahaha not anytime soon.

Im the CUDA King but even I wouldnt campaign for an Nvidia powered console nextgen or even the gen after.
DLSS is nice and all, but weve seen its possible to keep up (XeSS), yes FSR2.x isnt quite as good looking, but its more than sufficient.
Unreal Engine has its own TSR implementation which looks absolutely stellar (still havent had a chance to make an Unreal Engine build with FSR and DLSS so I can do a direct comparison, but im working on it, just need a new CPU, my 12400 doesnt cut it building custom Unreal Engine builds).

Having dedicated hardware to do the upscaling is def a benefit of DLSS and XeSS, but I dont think the console manufacturers care enough about DLSS specifically to go with Nvidia, they could probably just build a custom engine in their next console that specializes in upscaling and call it a day.

As for Real Time Path Tracing.
Even nextgen thats not going to be anywhere near prevalent enough for a console manufacturer to be contemplating Nvidia as a partner.

Nvidia are not good partners, so even if they have the best technology, you wouldnt want to work with them.
AMD hell id say even Intel are probably better partners to work with.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I think Nvidia has great tech, but I doubt either them or the console makers aside from Nintendo give enough fucks in the short term.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
Hahahahaha not anytime soon.

Im the CUDA King but even I wouldnt campaign for an Nvidia powered console nextgen or even the gen after.
DLSS is nice and all, but weve seen its possible to keep up (XeSS), yes FSR2.x isnt quite as good looking, but its more than sufficient.
Unreal Engine has its own TSR implementation which looks absolutely stellar (still havent had a chance to make an Unreal Engine build with FSR and DLSS so I can do a direct comparison, but im working on it, just need a new CPU, my 12400 doesnt cut it building custom Unreal Engine builds).

Having dedicated hardware to do the upscaling is def a benefit of DLSS and XeSS, but I dont think the console manufacturers care enough about DLSS specifically to go with Nvidia, they could probably just build a custom engine in their next console that specializes in upscaling and call it a day.

As for Real Time Path Tracing.
Even nextgen thats not going to be anywhere near prevalent enough for a console manufacturer to be contemplating Nvidia as a partner.

Nvidia are not good partners, so even if they have the best technology, you wouldnt want to work with them.
AMD hell id say even Intel are probably better partners to work with.
Agree with everything u said but FSR is sufficient part lol.

I can tell the upscaling in resolution when I use FSR on high quality at 4k . Like you can see and notice the image quality is being upscaled because it took a hit .

Can't say the same for dlss on quality at 4k. Sometimes it even looks cleaner than native.

FSR isn't sufficient. I would be very generous if I said its half as good as dlss. But.. for those with AMD cards... What other options they have ? Take whatever they can get I guess .
 

TrebleShot

Member
No chance, one, they have long standing relationships and contracts with AMD.
Secondly, those NVDIA cards will need a separate generator to run soon enough , are huge and are not engineered to be part of a SOC rather than be separate plug and play devices.

PC is not Console.
 

Sakura

Member
It's true AMD sucks at RT now, but by the time the next gen consoles come out it should be fine. It won't be as good as whatever nvidia has at the time, but they can't afford that any way if they want to sell consoles for 600 dollars.
 
Top Bottom