According to Sony’s lead architect on the PS4 and PS4 Pro, Mark Cerny, at least 8 teraflops is needed to render in native 4K resolution.

　　Cerny said as much in a recent interview with Japanese website AV Watch. In the interview Sony’s lead architect talked about the upcoming enhanced PS4 console, the PS4 Pro, which is scheduled for a release on November 10.

　　Compared to the original PS4, the PS4 Pro’s computing power has been greatly increased from 1.84 teraflops to 4.2 teraflops, and the PS4 Pro uses a custom feature called “checkerboard rendering” to reconstruct a frame buffer from half the pixels without a significant quality loss. Basically, this means that a decent 4K image can be rendered with only a 2x 1080p pixel count.

　　Concept of "checkboard rendering" on PS4 Pro to achieve 4kAs confirmed by Cerny in a recent interview with The Verge, most games on Sony’s PS4 Pro won’t render in native 4K resolution, but results are “extremely close to 4K”. This was also confirmed by Guerrilla Games’ managing director, Herman Hulst, who stated that the PS4 Pro renders in a resolution “close enough” to native 4k.

　　Will there be a striking difference between native 4K and the PS4 Pro’s “upscaled” 4K resolution? For the mass market consumers this probably won’t be the case, although those interest in the latest technology with a trained eye, will definitely notice the difference.

Xbox Scorpio to offer "true native 4K" with 6 TFlops of computing power

　　Microsoft has promised "true native 4K" gaming on their Xbox ScorpioWhile Microsoft has promised that the Scorpio will be able to achieve native 4K gaming with ‘just’ 6 teraflops, Mark Cerny believes that rendering in native 4K will require at least 8 teraflops of computing power. Although this is merely a “personal estimate” from Cerny, it’s an interesting one at the least.

　　Cerny added that this “technology” wasn’t something that could be achieved this year at a reasonable price.

　　Do you agree with Cerny on this? Will 6 teraflops be enough to render in native 4K? Will there be a substantial difference between the PS4 Pro’s ‘upscaled” 4K resolution and native 4K? Hit the comments below.

　　Source: AV Watch via [1]