You may know this already, but if not - if you have others to share the console with (eg kids, partner), I think it'll be worth going for the '5 just from that perspective.
Switching between games is a non-trivial (yeah yeah mock me, 1st world problems) thing on the ps4 in that the active game must be quit first, then the new loaded. You may not be on a suitable spot to quit either, far from save point. On ps5 (or xsx) it's supposedly a very quick alt-tab kind of thing.
So far, I'm kind of happy in secret that the rest of the family prefers the Nintendo :)
Depends upon what you pay - certainly the second market will see a surge and drop in prices. If you can tech on top end 5 years later, it's not that bad and sure wallet friendly.
Also factor in that it usually takes a few years until the full potential of a platform it tapped, so the PS4 in it's prime days for games.
I do not understand your argument as the parent post is saying the PS5 can play PS4 games. So the PS5 will also benefit from the great games coming on PS4. The prices of the games would be the same, you would benefit from the same experience of the devs developing on the PS4. The only disadvantage is that the PS5 will be pricer. And it will also be less ecological-friendly if you intend to buy an used PS4. But that's it.
I've seen a few people who ride one generation back and buy used. It means you can get the console incredibly cheap (and can choose the best/most reliable variant), have a huge catalogue of games to explore (which are also incredibly cheap), and already know which games are standout and which are misses. Doesn't work if you're into the latest multiplayer games though.
Should be, at the end of the day they are both just X86_64 systems. It isn't like the console generations of old where each one would used a specialized CPU usually designed specifically for that console. (The PS3 had to include a full PS2 chip for its compatibility layer)
All that said, I do see them somehow screwing it up.
But it doesn't have any games worth playing on it, whereas the ps4 has an established and extensive library that would take (me, at least) quite some time to get through. Probably long enough for the ps5 to become more purchasable than a steel Daytona, unlike now where it"s apparently extremely difficult to buy
For me, I'll get a PS5 for Demons' Souls alone. When you factor in upcoming games like the new Horizon Zero Dawn next year and the graphics-upgrades like Cyberpunk 2077, its definitely worth it.
Although, realistically, it'll be a few months into next year before I actually get one.
Worst case, creditors cant take experiences from you, nor would they bother with most consumer goods.
I’m wanting to stay eligible for low rate mortgages or leases, and thats the priority but yolo. More motivation to make more before it becomes a problem, the end.
Not really. They plan to try to make "as many PS4 games BC as possible" which means they are actively porting games they deem worth porting, versus it being natively supported
A huge amount of games will be portable from the get-go. GCN and RDNA have extremely similar assembly languages.
The only major assembly language change from GCN -> RDNA is DPP / cross-lane operations (kinda like pshufb from x86). But I'm not even sure if the PS4 had those instructions.
It's deeper than that, the shaders are _binary_ compatible.
> The only major assembly language change from GCN -> RDNA is DPP / cross-lane operations (kinda like pshufb from x86). But I'm not even sure if the PS4 had those instructions.
Yeah, it didn't. AFAIK, they were added in GCN 3, while the PS4 is GCN 1.1.
Vop2 are the "2-source / 1-destination" instruction format. You can see from the table that GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.2 don't even line up at all.
It wouldn't be hard to compile GCN 1.0 into GCN 1.2 instructions, but it wouldn't be binary-compatible, just assembly-language compatible (like 8080 -> 8086).
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Some other facts:
* RDNA is Wave32 native. Wave64 compatibility is available though, so that should mostly work for backwards compatibility (aside from DPP, which you do point out may not exist in PS4)
* S_WAITCNT ("wait for memory" instruction) has grossly changed in RDNA. In GCN, waiting for VM_CNT(0) will wait on loads and stores. But VM_CNT(0) only waits for loads on RDNA.
You need to change every S_WAITCNT VM_CNT(0) (GCN) into S_WAITCNT VM_CNT(0), followed by a new S_WAITCNT_VSCNT 0 instruction (wait for 0 outstanding loads, THEN wait for 0 outstanding stores).
This isn't "binary compatible", but if you just inserted one instruction on every GCN S_WAITCNT, you'd get the proper behavior in RDNA.
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I'm seeing GCN -> RDNA as a "mostly easy compile" between the assembly languages. But it doesn't seem binary compatible to me. I wouldn't be surprised if there were one or two issues that popped up however.
Or it's _really_ close, but the systems are complex enough that they feel they need to QA/cert the games again even if the vast majority of games require no changes.
Do shaders on PS4 games ship precompiled? If so, they'll at least need to either recompile those or create some sort of translator (which certainly isn't impossible). Either way, I'm sure even in an ideal situation, Sony wouldn't want to make outlandishly absolute claims like "perfect backwards-compatibility".
It would be silly for Sony to not support BC to at least PS4 games (if not PS3-2-1 through some sort of emulation) since Xbox Series X will have BC down to the first Xbox console.
