How powerful is the Vita really?

z0m3le · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2 [8TFLOP 2016 Pascal architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form) [6TFLOPs AMD custom 2017 architecture]
PS4 Pro = Super Trunks [4.2TFLOPs AMD Vega 2016 Architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
PS4 = Super Saiyan Goku (Frieza saga) [1.84TFLOPs, 2011 AMD architecture]
XBO = Frieza 100% (Frieza saga) [1.33TFLOPs, 2011 AMD architecture]
Switch Docked = Super Namek Piccolo [393GFLOPs, 2015 Maxwell architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
Switch Handheld = Piccolo before fusing with Nail (Frieza Saga) [196GFLOPs, 2015 Maxwell architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
Wii U = Frieza in first form, maxed [2009 ATI architecture, 176GFLOPs]
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Vegeta at the start of the Frieza saga, rested, maxed [2005 architecture, ~250GFLOPs]
Playstation Vita = Krillian unlocked. [2011 architecture, ~35GFLOPs]
3DS = Krillian. [2009 architecture, 3.2GFLOPs]

*mixed precision can add over 50% performance to the GPU. (PS4 Pro's GPU is mixed precision capable, but it's ability to process fp16, is unknown, and the efficiency is not clear) (It's also not widely used on PC games) (undocked, the Switch could be capable of about +300GFLOPs and +600GFLOPs docked)

Fixed your ratings, Wii U is definitely inferior to Switch undocked. Switch is mostly hampered by a poor memory bandwidth and low CPU clock.

ObbyDent · Jul 31, 2018

Oddly enough the New 3DS has more powerful and faster CPU.

Hydeus · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

Yes yes DBZ POWERRRRR LEVEL ! !!

Jonneh · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft said:
Dude, yeah, Mario oddysey looks like mario 3d world engine with a higher resolution and of course, more open levels. But does it look SUBSTANTIALLY better? Not at all, imho.

Have yet to try captain toad. Its on my to get list.

Literally everything in Odyssey looks different to 3D World

Cinemikel · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft said:
Viita was already outdated in terms of mobile tech when it came out, unfortunately.

Re: switch, paper specs be damned, i dont care if its from 2015 tech, 2018 tech, whatever. All i know is what i see on my tv is only barely better than the best looking wii u games.

And no i do not count Doom running in lower than low settings with bad framerates and sub hd "substantially better" than what i saw from my Wii u either.

Heres hoping Metroid Prime 4 can dazzle.

Mario + Rabbids? Odyssey?

Amiibola · Jul 31, 2018

Cinemikel said:
Mario + Rabbids? Odyssey?

Not gritty enough it seems

honest_ry · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

What am I reading?

nogoodnamesleft · Jul 31, 2018

Amiibola said:
Not gritty enough it seems

Haha, please. Nintendo is my first and foremost favourite developer in my life since Sega left the console biz. Nice...assumption I guess?

My technical opinion still stands, the games look great, better than wii u, but not a dramatic leap whatsoever.

Anyway, yeah, as dude above said, vita thread.

Soapbox Killer · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

Swap Switch Handheld with Wii u and the list is solid

Jon Carter · Jul 31, 2018

kaf said:
I remember working on one of the big FPS projects for the VITA. It's not as powerful as many people at the time assumed, and a lot work had to be done to bring it down to work on the device. Would probably pin it as a bit below a PS3, but you also had to worry about battery life

Isn't "a bit below a PS3, but you also had to worry about battery life" what people at the time assumed? It seemed to me like the surprise was that it was way below the PS3. Sony should not have released those Uncharted Golden Abyss bullshots as it made people think it was going to be closer to a PS3 than it ended up being.

Any hint as to which big FPS project you were working on? Because I remember rumors that Black Ops Declassified had to be super rushed because it was originally meant to be a Black Ops port but the team realized the hardware wasn't as powerful as expected.

Spectone · Jul 31, 2018

It only has a qHD screen 960x544 or 522240 pixels
The PS4 targets 1920x1080 or 2073600 pixels which is almost 4 times the number of pixels to be drawn

Chackan · Jul 31, 2018

Comparing console power mixed with DBZ characters power level is one of the most amazing things ever lol

ffvorax · Jul 31, 2018

Some games (that were even launch games) were really great, if it had more success I'm sure we would have by now even more gorgeous games... Tearaway, Uncarted, Virtua Tennis, Killzone, Wipeout,...

I won't cite 2D games because these are easier to run... (still Muramasa is <3)

But what I love about that console is the smoothness... even going from the game back to the OS is super quick and smooth...

And as a possessor of both the OLED and 2000 Vita, yes the OLED is better looking. I don't know about technical things, but I use my Vitas a lot, and I still prefer the OLED look on colors... (2000 has other pro like battery life...)

tatwo · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

But how many Gamecubes is that?

Deleted member 37917 · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft said:
Dude, yeah, Mario oddysey looks like mario 3d world engine with a higher resolution and of course, more open levels. But does it look SUBSTANTIALLY better? Not at all, imho.

Have yet to try captain toad. Its on my to get list.

Now you're really not being honest. Not only does the game looks significantly better, but it does far more things than 3D world...
Also for splatoon 2, it's a good half gen upgrade as compared to the first one and given how fast it was developed, it's quite remarkable.

z0m3le · Jul 31, 2018

PC with GTX 1080 [8TFLOP 2016 Pascal architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
Xbox One X [6TFLOPs AMD custom 2017 architecture]
PS4 Pro [4.2TFLOPs AMD Vega 2016 Architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
PS4 [1.84TFLOPs, 2011 AMD architecture]
XBO [1.33TFLOPs, 2011 AMD architecture]
Switch Docked [393GFLOPs, 2015 Maxwell architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
Switch Handheld [196GFLOPs, 2015 Maxwell architecture, capable of mixed precision*]
Wii U [2009 ATI architecture, 176GFLOPs]
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 [2005 architecture, ~250GFLOPs]
Playstation Vita [2011 architecture, ~35GFLOPs]
XBOX [2001 Nvidia architecture, 20GFLOPs]
Wii [2001 ArtX architecture, 12GFLOPs]
Gamecube [2001 ArtX architecture, 8GFLOPs]
3DS [2009 architecture, 6.4GFLOPs] (pica200 @200mhz is 4.8GFLOPs, 3DS runs the gpu at 268MHz, so 6.43GFLOPs)
PS2 [Sony 2000 architecture, 6GFLOPs]
PSP [3.2GFLOPs, 2005 architecture]
Dreamcast [1.4GFLOPs, 1998 architecture]
N64 [190MOPs (millions of operations per second, over 100MFLOPs available)]
Saturn [110MOPs] (likely around half for MFLOPs)
PSX [66MOPs] (likely around half for MFLOPs)

[/QUOTE]

*mixed precision can add over 50% performance to the GPU.
(PS4 Pro's GPU is mixed precision capable, but it's ability to process fp16, is unknown, and the efficiency is not clear) (It's also not widely used on PC games)
(undocked, the Switch could be capable of about +300GFLOPs and +600GFLOPs docked)

Blackpuppy · Jul 31, 2018

The Vita uses an Arm cpu and a PowerVR gpu that is somewhere between an iPhone4 and 4s. Pretty good specs for 2012!

IMO, the real issue with the Vita and the 3ds is that mobile technology was about to explode in innovation when these devices came out and their specs quickly became a bit obsolete. Case in point: the N3ds was able to include a x4 increase in clockspeed and x2 increase in core count in just 3 years after the 3ds' initial release. A shame those specs couldn't have happened with the initial release since that cpu bottleneck can really hinder performance on o3ds.

EndlessNever · Jul 31, 2018

Dead things generally possess very little power.

has this joke been made yet

z0m3le · Jul 31, 2018

Blackpuppy said:
The Vita uses an Arm cpu and a PowerVR gpu that is somewhere between an iPhone4 and 4s. Pretty good specs for 2012!

IMO, the real issue with the Vita and the 3ds is that mobile technology was about to explode in innovation when these devices came out and their specs quickly became a bit obsolete. Case in point: the N3ds was able to include a x4 increase in clockspeed and x2 increase in core count in just 3 years after the 3ds' initial release. A shame those specs couldn't have happened with the initial release.

Also sadly, they were going to use Tegra 2, if they had released the 3DS the following year, it could have had a Tegra 3 in it, and been capable of Unity and even UE mobile stuff.

VariantX · Jul 31, 2018

honest_ry said:
What am I reading?

The inevitable dragon ball power level post that people love to make when comparing hardware capable for people who aren't experts on the subject.

Lwill · Jul 31, 2018

AmFreak said:
Only Sony console where Sony didn't reveal it's specs ...

Well, not the complete specs. The specs they did released implied that the system was like the current iPad at the time but with twice the CPU and GPU cores, but they said nothing about the clock frequency. Considering what Sony was advertising the Vita to be, I feel that was a bit deceitful. It wasn't like the PSP.

GhostTrick · Jul 31, 2018

werezompire said:
The Vita is significantly weaker than most gamers realize. When I first tried running Cosmic Star Heroine on my Vita devkit, it was running at around 10 fps and crashed due to running out of RAM quickly. It took me months of extensive optimization to get it to run well. Now admittedly, Unity adds a lot of overhead, but the fact that devs managed to get games like Gravity Rush & Killzone running on the thing boggles my mind.

The problem with Vita is that, while the specs were good at the time... people didn't knew it was severly downclocked.
4 core Cortex A9 and a PowerVR SGX544 were amazing specs back then... the problem is the CPU clock was like 333mhz and the GPU clock wasn't high either.
It'd be as if PS5 had a Ryzen 7 2700x clocked at 1.4ghz and a 1080ti clocked at 700mhz.
As for the reason such games ran on the Vita, you also need to remember they had higher budget... and they were running at lower resolution. 400p for Gravity Rush and KZ was using dynamic res.

LCGeek · Jul 31, 2018

Tagyhag said:
Never never ever compare AMD FLOPS to Nvidia FLOPS, they're completely different.

It's stupid period you don't compare geforce 3 to fermi to pascal do you?

skeezx · Jul 31, 2018

never owned or played one but i always assumed it was a beast for its time. i guess that was from being a 3DS owner and acknowledging i was sacrificing the higher end for 3D and mario, zelda, ect

Jimrpg · Jul 31, 2018

It's about this powerful.

Atelier Shallie Plus

Dead or Alive 5

Dead or Alive Extreme

Dragon Quest Builders

Dragon's Crown

Everybody's Golf / Hot Shots Golf

FIFA 15

Grand Kingdom

Hatsune Miku Project Diva F2nd

Killzone: Mercernary

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

MLB 14 The Show

Need for Speed Most Wanted

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus

Oreshika

Persona 4 Golden

Shantae: Half Genie Hero

Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed

Soul Sacrifice Delta

Tearaway

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Wipeout 2048

World of Final Fantasy

honest_ry · Jul 31, 2018

VariantX said:
The inevitable dragon ball power level post that people love to make when comparing hardware capable for people who aren't experts on the subject.

Ah i see.

Segaswirl · Jul 31, 2018

I always thought it sat between the PS2 and PS3, with it being a smidge closer to the PS3. I recently bought a silver Japanese Vita 2000 about a month or so ago, it's a nice system.

Poison Jam · Jul 31, 2018

TIL the Vita CPU clockspeed varied depending on wifi. I assume the available resource for developers remained the same though? I've had a Vita since launch and never noticed anything...

Also, how much of the Vita memory is available to developers? I remember it has more total than the PS3, but I assume much of it is locked to the OS.

The OS is still a benchmark for consoles as well IMO. The speed of booting/shutting down, navigating, going in and out of games, rest mode... It's all still really impressive!

And, it still beats the Switch in party-chat... Which is kinda sad.

ProstatePuncher · Jul 31, 2018

Some games might look nice when static but the framerates can get pretty awful on Vita.

Also some games look insanely muddy and hard to enjoy, like Need for Speed. Can barely see what is in the horizon due to the low res and muddy visuals.

foolishoptimist · Jul 31, 2018

There was a really interesting article on gamasutra recently about porting Defenders Quest to the Vita. Gives a good idea of the issues and challenges of porting down.

mindsale · Jul 31, 2018

The Vita is so underpowered that half of its power thread gets hijacked by the Switch.

Vita always seemed like an adequate approximation of a PS3 to me, albeit at a much lower resolution. The UI (whose name I forget) and Trophy popping was always snappy and responsive, much moreso than PS3.

foolishoptimist · Jul 31, 2018

Lwill said:
Well, not the complete specs. The specs they did released implied that the system was like the current iPad at the time but with twice the CPU and GPU cores, but they said nothing about the clock frequency. Considering what Sony was advertising the Vita to be, I feel that was a bit deceitful. It wasn't like the PSP.

I wonder if Sony were planning for a higher clock, but abandoned those plans due to battery life. PSP actually got a clock boost mode added later in it's life, but it drained the battery even faster.

jroc74 · Jul 31, 2018

At the time it released, it was a powerful device.

Just seeing ppl compare it to home consoles that came before it says it all.

Noisepurge · Jul 31, 2018

It's too powerful, so powerful that many devs and Sony themselves had to back off scared.
Getting Chasm for it today!

adinsx · Jul 31, 2018

Still love it, still play it. And it has some beautiful games, it definitely needed more love, but it's my indie machine :)

neoak · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode

Wii U: 176 GFLOPS

PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS

Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS

Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

A guide to "How to make a post that shows I don't know what I'm talking about", by Kokonoe

Also, you forgot to add GT Forms because you're comparing Apples to Pears to Peaches to Strawberrys to Oranges to Tomatoes

jroc74 · Jul 31, 2018

Blackpuppy said:
ita uses an Arm cpu and a PowerVR gpu that is somewhere between an iPhone4 and 4s. Pretty good specs for 2012!

GhostTrick said:
The problem with Vita is that, while the specs were good at the time... people didn't knew it was severly downclocked.
4 core Cortex A9 and a PowerVR SGX544 were amazing specs back then... the problem is the CPU clock was like 333mhz and the GPU clock wasn't high either.
It'd be as if PS5 had a Ryzen 7 2700x clocked at 1.4ghz and a 1080ti clocked at 700mhz.
As for the reason such games ran on the Vita, you also need to remember they had higher budget... and they were running at lower resolution. 400p for Gravity Rush and KZ was using dynamic res.

Exactly. The Vita had specs that current mobile phones had. At the time of release it definitely was powerful.

Deleted member 9971 · Jul 31, 2018

More powerfull than life itself.

AbandonedTrolley · Jul 31, 2018

foolishoptimist said:
There was a really interesting article on gamasutra recently about porting Defenders Quest to the Vita. Gives a good idea of the issues and challenges of porting down.

Thanks for the link, will take a look later, I remember reading one about porting Bastion though and it sounded like hell on earth.

http://www.makinggames.biz/feature/porting-bastion-to-playstation-vita,11067.html

Kris1977 · Jul 31, 2018

All those saying the vita didn't have the power for the screen resolution are simply wrong . The machine is now well known to have been ridiculously hampered by firmware restrictions that Sony forced such as huge underclocks on the CPU and GPU.

You can see this by clocking the device at its proper specs and performance issues in virtually all games vanish. Some games even have patches to upscale to the full resolution of the screen and performance is still locked to relative frame rate.

The vita for its time was unbelievably powerful, but was crippled by Sony underclocking it to make the battery life look half decent.

JahIthBer · Jul 31, 2018

I remember when Vita was suppose to have a 2Ghz CPU, it's a bit of a shame it turned out underpowered, but at the time it really was more powerful than any Smart Phone, it's not Sony's fault how quickly mobile tech leapfrogged what Vita had & Sony couldn't really afford to wait another year.
The big problem with Vita was the lack of exclusives anyway, the hardware being a bit weak & games being sub native wasn't the issue at all.

SpokkX · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

I really, REALLY hate these pointless anime/naruto or whatever it is comparisions

They are neither funny or helpful

JahIthBer · Jul 31, 2018

z0m3le said:
*mixed precision can add over 50% performance to the GPU. (PS4 Pro's GPU is mixed precision capable, but it's ability to process fp16, is unknown, and the efficiency is not clear) (It's also not widely used on PC games) (undocked, the Switch could be capable of about +300GFLOPs and +600GFLOPs docked)

Fixed your ratings, Wii U is definitely inferior to Switch undocked. Switch is mostly hampered by a poor memory bandwidth and low CPU clock.

FP16 is not magic, Cerny was telling porky pies. it's the same meme we heard about async compute being a huge game changer.

Skbzi · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

This post was not only informative, but gave me a good laugh too. Well done.

If I may ask, where would Goku (Post RoST training) stand within this list? I would say in between a 1080 and X1X.

IlGialloMondadori · Jul 31, 2018

Have one and love it, but it was definitely underpowered.

Wamb0wneD · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft said:
Dude, yeah, Mario oddysey looks like mario 3d world engine with a higher resolution and of course, more open levels. But does it look SUBSTANTIALLY better? Not at all, imho.

Have yet to try captain toad. Its on my to get list.

Lmao. Oh wait you're serious?

Barrel Cannon · Jul 31, 2018

I feel like the Vita's biggest strength is also it's weakness. That gorgeous massive OLED had a QHD resolution to begin which didn't do it too many favors. Many games ran at sub-native resolutions or with lower quality effects to hit good framerates. I think they should have dialed back on the native resolution of the screen and gone for something slightly smaller to get the most out of the tech available on the handheld at the time (720x480). They would have potentially been able to get costs down too that way at the time.

In the here and now though, I'm glad they went with such a massive screen

Atolm · Jul 31, 2018

The scene has showed us that either due to thermals or battery consumption the machine was heavily downclocked, with a maximum frequency of 444mhz. Back then A9 devices were capable of reaching 1Ghz or more.

Pretty much the Switch is the same, clock speeds are halved compared to the Nvidia Shield.

Deleted member 12790 · Jul 31, 2018

ITT gamers marvel at tile-based deferred rendering.

Barrel Cannon · Jul 31, 2018

werezompire said:
I think the main issue is that developers are used to a certain baseline of power & RAM these days & when their game runs fine on other platforms, they don't even realize it'll be a problem on the Vita until it's too late to make significant scope changes and so they're stuck trying to optimize as best they can. And if it's a low-budget game (like your average indie or the SE portable division) then they may not have the time & resources to do heavy optimization so they just get it up to the bare minimum that be considered playable and ship it or just give up and cancel it. But yeah, going from PC & home consoles these days that have 4-8GBs of RAM or more to <0.5GBs of RAM is quite the eye opener.

Looking back now, it's insane how hard developers had to work with memory management last gen, especially given how long the gens lasted and how much RAM prices had dropped by the end of the gen making even budget PC's overkill compared to the 360 and PS3 by the end.

How powerful is the Vita really?

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