Microsoft Xbox Series X | S OT - Power Your Dreams, update: FTC case unredacted documents leaked, including XSX mid-generation refresh, new gyro/haptic-enabled controller, and next-generation plans for 2028

[Keyser_Soze]

19 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Looks fine to me. Seems to be a you issue like usual 

 

And you're probably using Playstation theme or something.

[Keyser_Soze]

24 minutes ago, number305 said:

This is awesome.  It means no re buying games.  If someone does not upgrade right away they can buy the new Halo this fall to play on an existing Xbox... but if they do upgrade some day they will be able to play the Series X version of Halo with the same license.  

 

That is kind of an obvious feature - but it is new and game changing at the same time.  Certainly did not happen last gen.

 

RIP Remasters

[Brian]

15 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

And you're probably using Playstation theme or something.

I use default or something bud. Anyway I edited it

[crispy4000]

56 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It’s one more example of MS trying to move the Xbox platform into being just a simplified PC and doing away with the traditional concept of gaming generations.

This is always overblown each time I see it.  The line between generations isn't being blurred so much as the transition is being made more consumer friendly.  The power differential will still be there.  After 1-3 years, the big publishers will stop releasing builds for the previous "family" of consoles, same as always.

PC gamers feel generational transitions too - you won't be lasting long with specs that can't keep up with the new consoles.  Although with indies, there's still a legitimate question if the Xbox One (or X) will be supported as long as a PC built in 2013.  I'd like to know if Microsoft "Smart Delivery" plans address that.  Hopefully we can see some progress there with low spec games.

[Keyser_Soze]

27 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

I use default or something bud. Anyway I edited it

 

Playstation is default bud!

[TwinIon]

38 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

This is always overblown each time I see it.  The line between generations isn't being blurred so much as the transition is being made more consumer friendly.  The power differential will still be there.  After 1-3 years, the big publishers will stop releasing builds for the previous "family" of consoles, same as always.

PC gamers feel generational transitions too - you won't be lasting long with specs that can't keep up with the new consoles.  Although with indies, there's still a legitimate question if the Xbox One (or X) will be supported as long as a PC built in 2013.  I'd like to know if Microsoft "Smart Delivery" plans address that.  Hopefully we can see some progress there with low spec games.

I mostly agree with you, but particularly for Xbox the power differential will be less simply because the One X exists. The One X is so much more of a mid gen improvement than we've seen before, and I expect that once the Series X becomes the default platform, some of those improvements will filter down to it as well, keeping that line blurry. Specific early games will still be substantially better, and we'll get to a point where that becomes the norm, but I think for a while this generation will be the least impressive jump so far.

[crispy4000]

46 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I mostly agree with you, but particularly for Xbox the power differential will be less simply because the One X exists. The One X is so much more of a mid gen improvement than we've seen before, and I expect that once the Series X becomes the default platform, some of those improvements will filter down to it as well, keeping that line blurry. Specific early games will still be substantially better, and we'll get to a point where that becomes the norm, but I think for a while this generation will be the least impressive jump so far.

 

It'll be less than most generations, sure, but the One X wasn't designed with forward-compatibility in mind as much as 4k-ifying the current gen.  The GPU and RAM got the predominant focus.

 

Where there won't be blurred lines is anything concerning the Series X's CPU, SSD, or Raytracing capabilities.  I expect once devs focus on at least one of those as a given (like this), we'll see both One S and One X support fade away simultaneously. 

If you're going to scale down to the X, you might as well scale that build down to the S.  They were designed to be symbiotic like that.  A generational family.

[Dodger]

Just give us the release date and price already, and when you can shut up and take my money. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

I'm really trying to understand the real Ray Tracing capabilities of these machines.  It's interesting to me that they have quoted the TFlop spec, but not said anything on the Ray Tracing power.  I wonder if they are doing this because the power won't compare well with Nvidia's PC cards.

[SimpleG]

3 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I'm really trying to understand the real Ray Tracing capabilities of these machines.  It's interesting to me that they have quoted the TFlop spec, but not said anything on the Ray Tracing power.  I wonder if they are doing this because the power won't compare well with Nvidia's PC cards.

What ever RT we see out of these machines is gonna be low end.

Also

Correct me if I am wrong but even Tflop spec is pointless, unless the 2 comparisons are the same architecture.

[Brian]

 

[Mr.Vic20]

I’m honestly excited that the GPU will be based on RDNA 2.0! 

[TomCat]

2080 performance like i said

[johnny]

The only thing that matters at this point is games and if you have PC money there’s zero reason to buy this 

[AbsolutSurgen]

3 hours ago, SimpleG said:

What ever RT we see out of these machines is gonna be low end.

Also

Correct me if I am wrong but even Tflop spec is pointless, unless the 2 comparisons are the same architecture.

Probably -- I suspect that Ampere will seriously ramp up the RT performance on their cards (and not the rasterization/shading performance).

Tflop is not "everything", but it does communicate a lot.

2 hours ago, TomCat said:

2080 performance like i said

Really?  The big change for Turing was the Ray Tracing performance -- and we haven't seen anything on that.

Without RT, I could also call it a slightly boosted 1080TI.

[Dodger]

1 hour ago, johnny said:

The only thing that matters at this point is games and if you have PC money there’s zero reason to buy this 

You’re gonna need a beast of a pc to match this thing when it launches 

[Keyser_Soze]

26 minutes ago, Dodger said:

You’re gonna need a beast of a pc to match this thing when it launches 

 

"If you have PC money"

 

So there's is more than zero reason to buy this!

[SaysWho?]

21 hours ago, number305 said:

This is awesome.  It means no re buying games.  If someone does not upgrade right away they can buy the new Halo this fall to play on an existing Xbox... but if they do upgrade some day they will be able to play the Series X version of Halo with the same license.  

 

That is kind of an obvious feature - but it is new and game changing at the same time.  Certainly did not happen last gen.

 

21 hours ago, sblfilms said:

It’s one more example of MS trying to move the Xbox platform into being just a simplified PC and doing away with the traditional concept of gaming generations.

 

21 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

CDPR just made this explicit for CP2077

 

 

 

I feel like this is a very similar thing from earlier this gen (cross-buy) with a different name.

 

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/grid/STORE-MSF77008-PS3PS4XBUY/1

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/grid/STORE-MSF77008-9_PS4PSVCBBUNDLE/1

http://www.vitaplayer.co.uk/playstation-vita-ps3-ps4-cross-buy-guide/

 

Did you buy Flower or Journey on the PS3? Free PS4 version with better resolution/frame rate. I was able to get Sound Shapes, Flower, and Journey free on PS4 through this, and if I had a Vita, I could play Grim Fandango on it since I bought the PS4 version. And it was used by many indie developers later in the gen as well. 

 

And like this, it was dependent on whether or not the publisher/developer opted to do it.

 

This makes me think we'll just be seeing it on more platforms. 

[Mr.Vic20]

To be clear, with the knowledge that the XsX will have an RDNA 2 based GPU on board at 12TFs, this changes things a fair bit! If these specs are true, and the system has north of 16GB RAM, of whatever flavor, then this system will exceed the power of 80-90% of what PC gamers will be rolling with later this year. That's huge! We haven't seen this kind of power parody since the 360 launched back in 2005.  When you consider that console developers typically are able to optimize the use of close systems like a console, its even more impressive. Consoles games tend to run about 30% more efficiently then they do on the PC. Yes, "cheats" and "tricks" are used to achieve some of that, but its still true. This means that day one, XsX, and likely PS5, will be able to stand toe to toe with the absolute best experiences on PC and compare favorably.

 

For a sub 500 box, you just can't beat that value! Yes, by late next year the PC market will have overtaken XsX/PS5, but even so it will be a full 2-3 years before consoles start slowly holding the high end PC back again. Now if you are buying Nvidia's flag ship GPU this year(or perhaps big Navi?!), then yes your system will have more power than these new consoles for sure, but how many people are dropping 1200+ bucks on their graphics card alone this year? I'm for sure a HUGE PC fan, but it would be crazy talk to ignore just what kind of beasts these new consoles will be and how far console tech has come in bridging the gap with its PC cousins. That,  by the way, is a VERY good thing as similar hardware and software means easier ports.

 

The other thing people are getting themselves twitterpated over is the potential of Ray Tracing. With RDNA 2 now know to be in the system, its possible that these consoles might actually have something more than a back of the box bullet for RT. That said, I would definitely temper my expectations on that one! RT will most definitely be a case by case basis for games on XsX/PS5. The simple fact that I'm even addressing that hedging though means that I might well be eating crow about these consoles RT capabilities come this winter! I would love to have been wrong about this! Strong consoles make for stronger PCs, so I say, please cram in whatever extra power you can! 

[AbsolutSurgen]

As @Mr.Vic20 stated, the SeX will be a "tremendous value".  And we certainly don't know what the "real-world" power of this will be.  Will it be 30% more efficient than a gaming PC with a 12 TFLOP GPU?  I don't know about that.  As consoles have adopted PC APIs, I believe that number has come down significantly.  (I have heard people say that the CPU/GPU sharing the same memory pool/bandwidth on consoles is also a partial hit compared to the "old days".)

 

Nvidia changed the game with the Turing set of graphics cards -- and the TFLOP measure only became part of the picture.  And I don't think you will need to drop $1,200 this fall to get a graphics card to rival these consoles.  Keep in mind that the GTX-1080Ti was a $700  11 TFLOP card, and will be 2.5 years old when the SeX is released -- I know that the older card didn't benefit from the architectural improvements that have been made over time, so the TFLOP measure doesn't tell the whole story.

 

I think we will continue to have a better sense as to "how good a value" the console is as Ampere and "Big Navi" are announced.  At the high end, rumours about both of those suggest power levels that are significantly higher than what SeX appears to have (at a higher cost).

 

However, what I expect:

1)  If you already have a gaming PC, upgrading it with a $500 Nvidia Ampere "70" card will probably give you much better gaming performance than buying a SeX (particularly with anything that has ray tracing)

a)  I suspect the shading/rasterization performance on such a card will be in the 12-14 TFLOP range, plus it will likely have significantly better "ray tracing" capabilities

b)  Your "old" PC games will instantly become better, as you can turn up your settings to "ultra" at 4k

c)  You can still play all of the MS exclusives

 

2)  Gamers are going to be disappointed with the SSD sizes

a)  Fast NVME drives are expensive and games are big, and will only get bigger.  With fast SSDs retailing for slightly over $100 per 500GB, I think the storage size on these consoles will be smaller than what people are used to.  And the cost of upgrading storage space will be much higher as well.

 

3)  It's going to take awhile for games to take advantage of the Zen2 CPU and SSD.  We need the games to be designed around them, and to abandon support for legacy Jaguar CPUs and mechanical drives.

[Mr.Vic20]

I can't disagree on the SSD front, this will be a weakness of the new systems and everyone will be ponying up for some exterior storage solutions at some point, or waiting for the mid gen hardware refresh. As for  the 30% performance difference, I really mean that with a closed box system you can tweak aspects of any given game to make it run more smoothly when you know the exact target hardware. That option is not available on PC and requires companies like Nvidia to constantly update their drivers to try and provide an experience at least a little tweaked over the devs port. Console games, by comparison, are a heavily managed/curated process (well, at least AAA games are, its a crap shoot with 3rd party titles). So when I say 30% over its target TF, I really mean that it appears to punch above its weight in a convincing manner. DF does great analysis on this showing how some developers will custom cut out small details from specific demanding locations/scenes, or use a specific baked in light map in a game with global illumination to smooth out performance and give the gamer the illusion that the system is always running at "high" or even "Ultra" settings. They are not of course, but for 95% of the population its an indistinguishable thing. They magic of over production! 

[Keyser_Soze]

I just enjoyed that you used the word "twitterpated"

 

[crispy4000]

31 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

I can't disagree on the SSD front, this will be a weakness of the new systems and everyone will be ponying up for some exterior storage solutions at some point, or waiting for the mid gen hardware refresh. As for  the 30% performance difference, I really mean that with a closed box system you can tweak aspects of any given game to make it run more smoothly when you know the exact target hardware. That option is not available on PC and requires companies like Nvidia to constantly update their drivers to try and provide an experience at least a little tweaked over the devs port. Console games, by comparison, are a heavily managed/curated process (well, at least AAA games are, its a crap shoot with 3rd party titles). So when I say 30% over its target TF, I really mean that it appears to punch above its weight in a convincing manner. DF does great analysis on this showing how some developers will custom cut out small details from specific demanding locations/scenes, or use a specific baked in light map in a game with global illumination to smooth out performance and give the gamer the illusion that the system is always running at "high" or even "Ultra" settings. They are not of course, but for 95% of the population its an indistinguishable thing. They magic of over production! 

 

If we live in a world where AAA devs mostly ignore raytracing, or be highly selective about its implementation and quality, sure.  We could see that 12 TF GPU punch well above its weight.

... I don't think we'll live in that world for very long.  We need to know more about AMD's plans of how forward thinking the design is.

[Mr.Vic20]

3 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

If we live in a world where AAA devs mostly ignore raytracing, or be highly selective about its implementation and quality, sure.  We could see that 12 TF GPU punch well above its weight.

... I don't think we'll live in that world for very long.  We need to know more about AMD's plans of how forward thinking it will be.

You are absolutely right! But, if the RDNA 2 does not have a decent response to RT, then they will be forced to skip it simply because running it in software mode would be too detrimental to overall system performance. I struggle with the idea that AMD can suddenly produce a  monster TF card & a solid RT alternative GPU that is somehow really economical, all in one generational leap. I'm not saying its impossible mind you, but it seems pretty unlikely. And if the consoles RT implementation lags, it pretty likely Nvidia will have to continue driving adoption in the PC sector until the mid generation refresh console hardware can bring RT on board in a meaningful fashion. As goes consoles, so goes game development(by and large, there will of course always be exceptions). Again though, this is all going to come down to what we are calling "RT" and at what level it being introduced to a given title. What would be interesting is IF the AMD variant of RT was somehow a "co-possessor" and there for did not drive up the total die size. Just spit balling there as I'm not sure of the pro/cons on the economics of that little maneuver. 

[crispy4000]

10 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

You are absolutely right! But, if the RDNA 2 does not have a decent response to RT, then they will be forced to skip it simply because running it in software mode would be too detrimental to overall system performance. I struggle with the idea that AMD can suddenly produce a  monster TF card & a solid RT alternative GPU that is somehow really economical, all in one generational leap. I'm not saying its impossible mind you, but it seems pretty unlikely. And if the consoles RT implementation lags, it pretty likely Nvidia will have to continue driving adoption in the PC sector until the mid generation refresh console hardware can bring RT on board in a meaningful fashion. As goes consoles, so goes game development(by and large, there will of course always be exceptions). Again though, this is all going to come down to what we are calling "RT" and at what level it being introduced to a given title. What would be interesting is IF the AMD variant of RT was somehow a "co-possessor" and there for did not drive up the total die size. Just spit balling there as I'm not sure of the pro/cons on the economics of that little maneuver. 

 

I agree with almost all of this.  Except I think many developers will jump on the RT bandwagon with Series X and PS5 regardless of how capable the chip is.  It's not only good to have that tech in place for PC ports and/or scaled-back console implementations, but for pre-release bullshot in-engine reels.

Console devs traditionally sacrifice performance (and/or resolution) for other visual bells and whistles.  I think we'll see a continuation of that trend as it relates to RT.  Everyone's going to want to say they're doing it.

[AbsolutSurgen]

19 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

You are absolutely right! But, if the RDNA 2 does not have a decent response to RT, then they will be forced to skip it simply because running it in software mode would be too detrimental to overall system performance. I struggle with the idea that AMD can suddenly produce a  monster TF card & a solid RT alternative GPU that is somehow really economical, all in one generational leap. I'm not saying its impossible mind you, but it seems pretty unlikely. And if the consoles RT implementation lags, it pretty likely Nvidia will have to continue driving adoption in the PC sector until the mid generation refresh console hardware can bring RT on board in a meaningful fashion. As goes consoles, so goes game development(by and large, there will of course always be exceptions). Again though, this is all going to come down to what we are calling "RT" and at what level it being introduced to a given title. What would be interesting is IF the AMD variant of RT was somehow a "co-possessor" and there for did not drive up the total die size. Just spit balling there as I'm not sure of the pro/cons on the economics of that little maneuver. 

You're correct, of course.  RDNA 2 will have a response to RT, whether it is "decent" will be in the eye of the beholder.

 

I think I agree with @crispy4000 in that consoles will prioritize some level of ray tracing, and make other compromises (frame rates, resolution, etc.).

[Mr.Vic20]

14 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I agree with almost all of this.  Except I think many developers will jump on the RT bandwagon with Series X and PS5 regardless of how capable the chip is.  It's not only good to have that tech in place for PC ports and/or scaled-back console implementations, but for pre-release bullshot in-engine reels.

Console devs traditionally sacrifice performance (and/or resolution) for other visual bells and whistles.  I think we'll see a continuation of that trend as it relates to RT.  Everyone's going to want to say they're doing it.

I'll say this much, given that I'm going to be investing in a 3080ti this year, I like your version of events better than my own! 

[AbsolutSurgen]

11 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

I'll say this much, given that I'm going to be investing in a 3080ti this year, I like your version of events better than my own! 

You're way ahead of yourself.  You're getting a 3080 this year, and a 3080Ti next spring!

[Mr.Vic20]

2 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

You're way ahead of yourself.  You're getting a 3080 this year, and a 3080Ti next spring!

DON'T SAY THAT!!!!! 

[Brian]

Wow that is if Nvidia releases anything

 

[Mr.Vic20]

YOU JUST GOTTA BELIEVE! Anything is possible! 

 

 

For the love of god UNMUTE THIS pic.twitter.com/MA48mit8MX

— Nerd Girl Says (@Rachael_Conrad) February 23, 2020

[Duderino]

3 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I agree with almost all of this.  Except I think many developers will jump on the RT bandwagon with Series X and PS5 regardless of how capable the chip is.  It's not only good to have that tech in place for PC ports and/or scaled-back console implementations, but for pre-release bullshot in-engine reels.

Console devs traditionally sacrifice performance (and/or resolution) for other visual bells and whistles.  I think we'll see a continuation of that trend as it relates to RT.  Everyone's going to want to say they're doing it.

Calling it now, there is going to be quite the performance/quality gap between developers that build custom RT tech and those that do little more than rely on what comes with DXR.
 

Furthermore we’re going to see frame rates take a dump in a lot of unexpected ways.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Duderino said:

Calling it now, there is going to be quite the performance/quality gap between developers that build custom RT tech and those that do little more than rely on what comes with DXR.

 

Furthermore we’re going to see frame rates take a dump in a lot of unexpected ways.

 

On that note, I can't wait to see ARK with raytracing.

[TomCat]

Microsoft wrote the api for raytracing they will make sure that the hardware in the x is capable of fully running the api. Ninja Theory already gave us a glimps. VRS will make the frame rate drop less when implementing RT. MS knows what they are doing and they are fully invested in gaming this time around. 

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, TomCat said:

Microsoft wrote the api for raytracing they will make sure that the hardware in the x is capable of fully running the api. Ninja Theory already gave us a glimps. VRS will make the frame rate drop less when implementing RT. MS knows what they are doing and they are fully invested in gaming this time around. 

The question isn’t if the api will be supported.  The question is what the performance hit will be, including if AMD has an answer for it in terms of chip hardware design like Nvidia cuda cores.  We know no details.

 

Nvidia GPU’s already support VRS and newfangled reconstruction techniques.  Raytracing is still a huge performance hit, even with hardware that doubled down on it at the expense of a leap in traditional rasterization.

 

Much more of this is banking on AMD.  Not Microsoft.  And it affects Sony just as much.