Tomb Raider 'Definitive Edition' on PS4/Xbox One - how will it compare?

Announced by Square Enix at that VGX thingamabob.

It'll be very interesting to see how they compare to our laptops. We'll finally get a good comparison, as this I assume, will be a port of PC version. Important to note that it is 1080p confirmed and TressFX enabled. How do you think it'll compare?

 

I'm hoping that the game will run at 60 FPS since the PS4 uses a modified 7850.
I bought the PC version awhile back and beat it so I'm probably not going to buy the PS4 version unless it gets really cheap (~$10).

 

PS4 actually feature a 7870 as GPU but have 2 CUs (128 cores) disabled.
Its only a bit slower than 7970M, but could make up for that by having GDDR5 as system memory not to mention the API that let the developer code really close to the hardware.

I do think the AMD APU is slowing the system down though, we all know of sucky they are. I`m thinking that a i7 + 7970M/680M beat PS4 but have no definitive evidence to back that up

 

Well I think that this is an interesting example as we all know that console launch games cannot give reliable comparisons as they are always rushed to meet the deadlines. This is just a straight port of PC version so should show us a clearer picture of how they stack up to PC GPUs.

This sounds very selfish of me (sorry) but I hope that my version looks and runs better by a small amount at least - I spent so much money on this laptop I don't want it to be beaten by a £350 machine! That would be rather depressing, to say the least.

 

Of course you hope your notebook smash the PS4 to smithereens. Who doesn`t. Imagine the shame if PS4 have better graphics

If that happens, it just goes to show what optimizations can really do when you are only working on a specific type of hardware (Xbox/PS4) and not a broad selection of CPUs and GPUs (PCs). So that should atleast give you some comfort. Your 780M is miles ahead of that 7870 in the PS4 anyway. In raw power. The games are just better optimized on consoles.

 

I think with that particular game and your 780M it will be a close match. My understanding is that Tomb Raider is better optimised for AMD hardware (especially the TressFX), so the console has an advantage from that point, as well as the 'closer to the metal coding' of consoles. I would guesstimate that the performance will be almost equal between your laptop and the console for Tomb Raider. For other games that aren't specifically AMD optimised, then I think your laptop will always be just a little better, I guesstimate by 10% (very scientific!).

 

Man... I wish the devs would just make a catsuit outfit for Lara instead of this...

 

Good points like always Robbo. Considering that a weak GPU like 7770 can almost match GTX 680M, I think the PS4 GPU might surpass GTX 780M in Tomb Raider. The game undoubtly favour AMD GPUs.
7770 = 10CUs, 640 cores
PS4 GPU: 18CUs, 1154 cores

 

Judging from the trailer, the game looks no different from the pc version that I played a while back. But you must consider this - this may actually be PC FOOTAGE that they are using to make the trailer look prettier for the console market.

The PS4 may have a nice GPU - I used to own a 7870 XT in my desktop and it is the best GPU I have ever used, followed by the 8800 GTX. However, the cpu is just an AMD Jaguar CPU 1.8GHZ - even though it is 8-core it seriously sucks, that cpu will bottleneck the GPU heavily, maybe not this year but as games advance in later years we will notice this.

End of the day, this is just a pc to console port, there is no way that the console version will be able to run everything on full ultra 60fps - even if it did, there is always the possibility of modders making our pc version look even better . Anyone remember the mission where you are in a cave full of a river of blood and guts? That causes major slow-downs, even for high end pc's... I wish the consoles luck with that.

 

Drivers were released after this benchmark which improved performance by 40-50% in tomb raider (680m), somewhere on par with 7970m unless ofcourse AMD drivers also improved it furthur. so 7770 is not really close to 680m even in tomb raider

 

It will be 30fps, so not very definitive.

 

Yep, I just checked and 314.22 driver came out on 25/3/2013 with an up to 60% performance improvement for the GTX 680 in Tomb Raider, whereas the Notebookcheck.net graph that Cloudfire used was dated 12/3/2013 using 314.14 drivers that didn't have the fix. I think we'll have to wait & see how the PS4 performs in relation to the 780M.

Good find on that info, and good points too. Captmario pointed out something I wasn't aware of though, NVidia had indeed come up with fix for Tomb Raider after the publishing of that Notebookcheck.net graph you used.

 

I dunno, console will be what, 1080p, 30fps, maybe equivalent medium detail. /shrug/ And tressfx basically cuts FPS in half on PC for some reason, clearly not optimized, and for what? So we can see whisps of Lara's hair? If they had bewbfx I'd be more enticed.

 

You just made that up. It defintely has 8GB GDDR5 unified RAM. It also has 2Gb(256MB) of ddr3 for it's secondary processor.

 

She already had that in Legend, so, I think, did the new game. It's just harder to notice that now.

 

It's because TressFX is DirectCompute accelerated and compute performance on Kepler sucks. The FPS drop is much less severe on GCN cards.

 

Agreed BoobFX far more interesting than TressFX! I turned TressFX off, for one because I wanted to run at 60fps most of the time and Two, because I like the look of the non-TressFX hair better.

 

Yep you're absolutely right. PS4 has 8GB GDDR5 running at 5.5 GHz on a 256-bit bus, yielding 176 GB/s bandwidth. It's hUMA so unified CPU & GPU RAM. The secondary ARM chip with 256MB DDR3 does H.264 compression for the 15-minute continuous shadow recording as well as background tasks and OS functions.

 

Looks like NotebookCheck have been BS us with their 8970M vs GTX 780M review then.

They used a driver from July on the 8970M and the driver from March on the 780M in their big review. Considering that even the 314.22 driver that came out 14 days after the March driver they used, gave big improvements in 4 of the games they tested, its a highly inaccurate test where only AMD get to use the best drivers. There are even several other newer drivers up to the date NotebookCheck tested the 8970M that gave even further improvements in more games for the 780M.

My respect for that site went even further down. :/
Review AMD Radeon HD 8970M - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

 

I agree, but I suppose the problem they face is that when new drivers are coming out all the time, it makes some of their older tests not that representative, and it might be difficult for them to have the resource to re-test when later drivers come out. Maybe their 780M test results came from a previous time before release of the latest drivers, and they didn't have the resource to re-test. I still think it's a good site, but I might be careful to check which drivers they've used for their tests from now on.

 

True, they can't keep changing their benchmark pictures however they do upload new tests ( if they do any ) on GPU's page, the problem is that they should remove older test from the page and replace it with new one.

As you can see they did test tomb raider with 314.22 driver (atleast on 680m)
ultra: 32.2(old) 47(new) ~ 40 fps

It's a great site to have an idea about games and how particular GPUs will perform

 

Well in the 8970M review they say

They clearly used the old march driver because results from the 780M review and the 8970M review are the exact same.

Its a shame although I understand the work needed to be done if they retested 780M, but considering that:

314.22 (14 days after the first review)

320.49 (early July, about 14 days before the 8970M review)

That could have resulted in an entirely different result between 8970M and 780M if they updated the driver and retested.

I will for sure keep an eye on driver details in their next reviews

 

Seems the author posted in the comments at the bottom...

"If you knew, how the test went, you probably wouldn´t write some of the things 1) It is very time-killing to build abig comparison-table for our website. So in case of doubt, i choose the notebook, which has more results. That has nothing todo with making acertain gpu look bad or good.2) The Alienware M17x R4 is one of the best HD 7970M machines so far, because it has a non-enduro-mode (brings better results in some cases).3) I had to retest ALL the benchmarks (including the 30 games), because the official Catalyst 13.4 /13.6 Beta(2) sucked so much on our system. That took about eight to ten hours. In other words: awhole working day.4) The GTX 780M and the GTX 770M dindn´t work at first. I had to search several hours for the problem (reinstalling the Intel-driver did the trick). In the end, there was so much lost time, i couldn´t find the nerve to create new CAD- oder gaming-benchmarks with the HD 7970M, the GTX 680M, the GTX 770M and the GTX 780M. I hope, you can understand that a liitle......"

 

I understand their comment though. It's very time consuming to do such tests. Granted if that's what the site specializes in, well then, that's what they need to do right?

 

I think you're asking way too much. If they had to retest their gaming notebooks for every new AMD and Nvidia driver release along with doing their game benchmarks, news stories, roundups, and regular reviews of all the other laptops, ultraportables, smartphones, and tablets that come their way and then translating all of that into English, they would be completely overwhelmed.

They're already playing some serious catchup as it is. Have you seen how far the English site is behind the German one? I think it's coming up on a month now. They just posted the English review of the Razer Blade 14, which was released this past summer. It hurts their site traffic when they release reviews 6 months late like this.

Cloudfire can QQ all he wants every time someone has anything negative to say about his beloved Nvidia because that's his M.O., but the rest of you ought to know better and be a little more grateful and appreciative of a free resource like this, the only one of its kind on the Internet.

 

I've done enough beta testing, reviewing, ghost writing, benchmarking, and tech recommendations (gratis mind you) that I loathe it. But if there is a significant improvement due to a driver, hardware, or whatever, and your publication's sole purpose is to divulge that information, then yes, they need to retest at least a handful of the systems/GPU's and publish those numbers, enough at least to show the improvement. My "real" job is engineering where I spend months developing something and if the specs change, the market changes, whatever, we don't just say "that's too hard", we go back and retest, redevelop, redesign, our product, and frequently that means months of labor, hard tooling, and hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars down the tubes.

 

That's not Notebookcheck's sole purpose. They're not Tom's Hardware, X-Bit Labs, or Guru3D, and frankly I don't see those places doing individual driver benchmarks like what you're asking unless it's a one-off thing for something truly exceptional like Catalyst 13.8 Beta frame pacing fix.

And thanks for sharing about your line of work, but I don't see how it's got anything to do with anything. If you've got some great business ideas to pitch to Notebookcheck, go right ahead. Or if you feel that you can do a better job than they're doing, we're all eyes and ears.

My take on this is put or shut up. If you're gonna complain about Notebookcheck, either do something about it or stop citing them. Don't bite the hand that feeds you and this goes for everyone.

 

I personally don't think people are being that malicious towards Notebookcheck.net in this thread, I think they're just putting their opinions across. I think everyone agrees that the site is still a really useful resource.

 

octiceps I'm having a hard time with your attitude. seems to be a bit of unwarranted aggression.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

 

Don't bite the hand that feeds me? They don't feed me, they need me (and us). We feed them. They aren't doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They make money and wouldn't exist if they didn't. No I didn't say to run individual driver benchmarks, for every driver. But sure as hell if there is a significant update, I'd at least validate it with the newer hardware.

I'm not the only one that feels notebookcheck can do a better job, and I also haven't said they aren't a valuable resource. But perfect, they are not. I've done more than my fair share of offering FREE and honest benchmarking results from at least a dozen different systems, GPU's, etc, from the last five or six years (from HP, Toshiba, Acer, Sager, among others - take a look here, and that's probably not even half, as I haven't been good at keeping it updated). All done gratis for the benefit of NBR and anyone who cares to read it. I'm not the only one here who has done so either. That's the beauty of these forums and the internet.

 

Well said HTWingNut. They don`t feed us, we feed them.

They obviously make some money on running the website. Traffic, advert clicks etc. Notebookcheck generally draw traffic from their reviews, with some news about hardware on the side. If they can`t do the reviews properly, especially the comparisons, they deserve a drop in visitors. Sadly there aren`t any other website like NBC that offer the same first reviews of hardware and notebooks. They do offer really good notebook reviews though, like Clevo and Alienware reviews. No doubt about that. Hands down the best. Its just that the GPU reviews are a little lacking when they can`t include several big driver releases.

As for "put up or shut up", do you seriously suggest that users in this forum should magically recieve notebooks from OEMs or GPUs from Nvidia and AMD to be able to make these articles? Thats not how it works. Notebookcheck obviously have partners that offer them testing equipment and they have revenue from their website. You can`t seriously suggest we pay for this hardware ourselves just to show that we are better?

We already have many members here that can offer far better GPU reviews than any reviewer website can do. HTWingNut for example make really good reviews of new notebooks. He does a lot more testing than NotebookCheck have ever done: Temperatures for many benchmarks and games, overclocking, graphs etc. I`m actually surprised nobody have contacted him and asked him to do reviews for their website. Big kudos to him.

 

Crystal Dynamics: "Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition is not a port of the PC game." So it looks like the game is actually going to be "rebuilt" for the consoles, the full article can be found here: Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition not in the works for PC "at this time" | PC Gamer