Playstation 4 may have GPU switching and Dynamic UI

A patent of a technology which belongs to Sony describes a concept of an automated GPU switching process which could hint that Sony is aiming towards a power optimized GPU for the PS4 console.

The patent was filed during 2009 and was published in late 2010. The purpose of GPU switching mentioned on the patent is as follows:

“It would be desirable to allow the context switching to be hidden from the user and performed automatically in the background. Unfortunately, no solution is presently available that allows for dynamic, real-time context switching between architecturally distinct GPUs. The closest prior art is the Apple MacBook Pro, from Apple Computer of Cupertino, Calif., which contains two architecturally distinct GPUs but does not allow dynamic context switches between them. Another prior art solution is the Scalable Link Interface (SLI) architecture developed by Nvidia Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif. This architecture lets a user run one or more GPUs in parallel, but only for the purpose of increasing performance, not to reduce power consumption. Also, this solution requires the two GPUs to be synchronized when the system is enabled, again requiring some amount of user intervention.”

The patent further describes that this “may be implemented as part of a computer system, such as a personal computer, video game console, personal digital assistant, cellular telephone, hand-held gaming device, portable internet device or other digital device. ”

There is also a patent that was filed during September 2012 with the title “game device” which states that the content screen will be more focused on community interaction and be more dynamic than the current home screen of the Playstation 3.

Via: Toms’ Hardware