Game Developer at Team Blur Games on Xbox Series X: You're going to hear a lot about why SFS (Sampler Feedback Streaming) is such a big deal

Vasto

Vasto

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Gaven Stevens of Team Blur Games does a deep dive into Xbox Series X's Sampler Feedback Streaming and explains how it works and how its going to a game changer for game development.









 
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Fascinating. Thanks to Vasto Vasto for posting this, and Bernkastel Bernkastel for providing further details.

If this is everything it's promised, it looks like Series X is going to have it's cake, and eat it too. Really impressed with the range of hardware and software technologies Microsoft has here.
 
Oh wow, finally someone explaining what SFS is in simple terms. Sounds really cool. Although, this is still software so what keeps anyone else from developing a similar feature?
 
I don't think there's any reason to doubt this developer, but it gets harder to continue engaging with this type of information (unless you are a developer) - I suppose I'm saying, July 23 can't come soon enough.
 
Entroyp said:
Oh wow, finally someone explaining what SFS is in simple terms. Sounds really cool. Although, this is still software so what keeps anyone else from developing a similar feature?
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They already have exceeded it, you saw it in the uE5 demo but it was for pixels and voxels rather than simpler mipmaps.

Also PRT+ has been out for ever, since doom 4 engines have been only streaming whats in view in the frustum, but all of a sudden its new again....lol

But carry on.
 
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DonF said:
so in summary... ??
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Level of Detail (LOD) for textures beyond just models basically. Games and developers use various forms of this already, mostly more limited, but to have the xbox platform itself unify SFS methods to alleviate unused textures from being loaded from the hard drive is a big win performance wise.

Example you load Apex or Halo and see blurry textures initially then the high quality assets load in a second or two. Essentially that in a super powered version from the get go without devs or game engines having to do the leg work to make it happen and without that noticeable pop or delay.
 
DonF said:
so in summary... ??
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Velocity is great but we will tell you later why. I want to believe in it but all the marketing around this feels like bullshit.
Hopefully, we'll finally understand a little what is behind this technology that separate XSX vs PS5.
 
Entroyp said:
Oh wow, finally someone explaining what SFS is in simple terms. Sounds really cool. Although, this is still software so what keeps anyone else from developing a similar feature?
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Well, it's dependent on both custom hardware and software apis; on the other side, PS5 also has its own custom hardware and apis.

I think all of this tech is great but my feeling is that it really depends on how game engines leverage it.
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z said:
Level of Detail (LOD) for textures beyond just models basically. Games and developers use various forms of this already, mostly more limited, but to have the xbox platform itself unify SFS methods to alleviate unused textures from being loaded from the hard drive is a big win performance wise.

Example you load Apex or Halo and see blurry textures initially then the high quality assets load in a second or two. Essentially that in a super powered version from the get go without devs or game engines having to do the leg work to make it happen and without that noticeable pop or delay.
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This is from Watchdogs a few years ago for ps4 and xb1....does it sound familiar.

When using virtual texturing, you will only load the texture tiles into memory that are actually viewed by the virtual camera. The main benefit is that you can save on the amount of video memory that you need for you texture data, but there are a bunch of side benefits. Loading times are reduced and disk access is more constant and predictable. The bottom-line is that you can really increase the graphical fidelity of games, while staying within the limited of the current hardware.
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:messenger_beaming:
 
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Hendrick's said:
SSF will close the SSD gap.
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On the XBOX Series X's SSD? Because the Series X does have an SSD. A really fast one at that.

Not bashing your comment, just using it as a springboard to mention this:

A lot of people talk like the Series X doesn't use an SSD. Worst case scenario, Series X is a few seconds behind PS5 in loading on multi-platform games. Best case, both are comparable in multi-platform. And each will do their own thing for 1st Party titles.

As long as the 2 minute loading screens are a thing of the past I will be happy no matter what. I long for the days of turning a system on, and start playing a game in 10 - 20 seconds (NES, SNES, N64, 3DS). I love my 3DS for this fact. If I just have 30 minutes to play, I'll grab my 3DS and be playing Super Mario 3D Land in about 20 seconds. Console boot up, to game loading, only takes about 20 seconds. Feels amazing!
 
DonF said:
Thats cool. So its only on xsx? I bet the ps5 will have something similar.
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Such as?

PS5 already has its own solution, it's what Sony's already shown off particularly at Road to PS5. Their solution is less discriminate with data/more non-selective and focused on maximizing I/O bandwidth to quickly move asset data in/out of RAM in very small time windows with solid latency.

SFS is MS's own proprietary approach built off of SF and is more a hardware/software implementation relying on a very different setup compared to Sony. What's described in SFS is not something Sony took approach-wise in addressing what they perceived as problems in the I/O pipeline but nonetheless they also have an extremely valid solution.

FWIW there are some equivalents to things like SFS that can be implemented in game engines, though they are likely to be less efficient or require more resources to execute.

JOEVIAL said:
On the XBOX Series X's SSD? Because the Series X does have an SSD. A really fast one at that.

Not bashing your comment, just using it as a springboard to mention this:

A lot of people talk like the Series X doesn't use an SSD. Worst case scenario, Series X is a few seconds behind PS5 in loading on multi-platform games. Best case, both are comparable in multi-platform. And each will do their own thing for 1st Party titles.

As long as the 2 minute loading screens are a thing of the past I will be happy no matter what. I long for the days of turning a system on, and start playing a game in 10 - 20 seconds (NES, SNES, N64, 3DS). I love my 3DS for this fact. If I just have 30 minutes to play, I'll grab my 3DS and be playing Super Mario 3D Land in about 20 seconds. Console boot up, to game loading, only takes about 20 seconds. Feels amazing!
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True a lot of people think that, but I don't think Hendrick's is one of those people. MS's approach is designed more around extremely low latency and (in terms of inspiration at least) speculative execution branch prediction conceptually (something that's actually done by modern CPUs to speed up performance. I'm using that comparison very loosely though).

In terms of load times the differences probably won't be that big honestly, even though bandwidth is the major determining factor there. It's focus on asset streaming and low latency where MS's approach probably has the advantage. You can look at statements such as from the DiRT 5 developer on mid-frame texture usage here.

These statements from the Blur dev also back up MS's statements on being able to treat the RAM pool "virtually" as 30 GB effectively. Technologies like SFS have to play a pretty sizable role in doing that.

Entroyp said:
Oh wow, finally someone explaining what SFS is in simple terms. Sounds really cool. Although, this is still software so what keeps anyone else from developing a similar feature?
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It's not just software; they've added hardware in the GPU to help with mipmap blending seamlessly. If you'd like to speculate further they might also be leveraging DirectML in tandem with this since that's kind of MS's way to attempting Nvidia's DLSS.

We don't know if DirectML is just customizations on the CU side in terms of feature support or involves additional hardware modifications beyond INT 16/INT 8/INT 4 support (which I'd assume is a common feature for RDNA2 and should be present in PS5, at least most of those INT support anyhow).
 
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Ozzy Onya A2Z said:
Level of Detail (LOD) for textures beyond just models basically. Games and developers use various forms of this already, mostly more limited, but to have the xbox platform itself unify SFS methods to alleviate unused textures from being loaded from the hard drive is a big win performance wise.

Example you load Apex or Halo and see blurry textures initially then the high quality assets load in a second or two. Essentially that in a super powered version from the get go without devs or game engines having to do the leg work to make it happen and without that noticeable pop or delay.
Click to expand...
It's really not in any shape or form LODs for textures. It's only and specifically loading only the mip levels that are actually used. It's a memory optimization, not a visual one.
 
TeezzyD said:
Sounds to me like its very much akin to NVidia's DLSS 2.0 in console form. Talking out of my ass, but it makes sense.

www.pcgamesn.com

DLSS 2.0 makes Death Stranding look and run way better

Nvidia's deep learning upscaling provides a significant performance boost to Death Stranding and makes textures crisper
www.pcgamesn.com www.pcgamesn.com
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Microsofts answer to DLSS is DirectML. SFS is an improvement over standard PRT that everything else uses.
 
The simple truth is PS5 answers xboxes power by extreme optimisation. Xbox answers Ps5s amazing throughput with their own advancements such as VA/BCP/SFS.

Neither are quite as good as the other in this regard, but both are incredibly awesome machines that are nearly on par.

This seems to offend a lot of people though, which is quite sad. 🤷🏼
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
Sony. What's described in SFS is not something Sony took approach-wise in addressing what they perceived as problems in the I/O pipeline but nonetheless they also have an extremely valid solution.
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This is an exaggeration mate and you know that... it is not like one console has to load all whole textures in memory and the other does not have tiles resources/partially resident textures support in HW and does not have a virtual texturing solution.

On top of PRT which PS5 and even older GPU's have they support a few more HW texture filters and they help you avoid to implement logic to calculate the right texture tiles to prefetch in memory and helps you prefetch them well.
 
As soon as either Sony or MS talk about 'secret sauce' tech, you know they're full of shit and trying to cover up for a deficiency in the system.
 
Panajev2001a said:
DirectML is more like Apple's CoreML, DLSS is a machine learning solution not framework. I am sure MS will build reference models though.
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Devs literally compare it with DLSS 2.0.
wccftech.com

Scorn Interview - Xbox Series X Is a 'Very Balanced System'; Trailer Was Running on an RTX 2080Ti

We talk to the Game Director of Scorn. He claims that the Xbox Series X is a very balanced system and clarifies the GPU used in the trailer.
wccftech.com wccftech.com
Xbox Series X also features support for DirectML. Are you planning to use the Machine Learning API in some ways for Scorn?

DirectML and NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 are very interesting solutions when the game is not hitting the desired performance and it feels like these solutions could help players with weaker systems quite substantially. A lot of these new features have been at our disposal for a very limited amount of time. We will try our best to give players as many options as possible.
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Wasn't this the dude who got called out by Jason Schreier on Resetera for his bias? It could very well be that he's right, but he's got that stigma against him.
 
I always get a laugh out of these indie nobodies with no access to devkits who feel the need to chime in and speak on behalf of a beloved platform.
 
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Men_in_Boxes said:
No, but they're reliable and they've both said the developers they've spoken to prefer the PS5.
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And I gave you an actual list of devs who spoke about XSX, which is way more reliable.
As for Jason.

Google Podcasts is no longer available

podcasts.google.com podcasts.google.com
Bernkastel said:
Listen to the podcast 32:44 onwards. Exact quote is at 51:10.
41:25 Apparently XSX reveal is just like Xbox One and PS5 is like PS4. LOL.
46:40 onwards Tries to explain that unlike PS4-Xbox One games wont actually look better on XSX(being as vague and roundabout as possible), because they are both "equally powerful" but PS5 has some "cool things"(the number of times he says "cool things", it comes with a freezer apparently). Teraflops dont matter but SSDs do(LOL). Sony failed to convey the superiority of PS5, so people think that XSX is more powerful. He says people are not saying XSX is more powerful because it is more poweful but because Sony failed to market its specs. He never said XSX is more powerful, never.
51:10 Exact Quote.
I heard from at least 3 Different people in the last couple of hours like, WOW, the Playstation 5 is actually the more superior piece of Hardware in a lot of different ways despite of what you see in the Spec Sheets.
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He will either say they are equally power or hint at PS5 being more powerful by using the "heard from devs" card.
Now, give me back my time I used to listen to his retarded voice again.
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Bernkastel said:
Thats the point. He first says Teraflop does not matter(why does not he talk about double the CU count in XSX then?), unlike Xbox One-PS4 games will look the same. He then says SSDs do matter. He finally says PS5 is better in "other ways" as he "heard from devs", after initially insisting on how there is no raw power difference. He even calls out to people saying XSX is more powerful, saying its because Sony didnt properly explain their specs to people and the ways they are superior to XSX. He even says XSX reveal is like Xbox One reveal and PS5 reveal is like PS4(in what world ?).
So,
  1. In most ways like raw power XSX is same as PS5
  2. But in some ways PS5 is better(secret sauce lol)
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In short, with SFS, the SX SSD doesn't need to be as fast as the PS5 because it doesn't have to load as much data.

Hopefully, we get to taste the pudding next Thursday.
 
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