What is it about the Xbox Series S that worries developers?
- Thread starter BlueXImpulse
- Start date
xStoyax
Banned
After the PS5 reveal we had a lot of devs come out to say how easy it was to work on the Playstation 5.
But I haven't heard as many say the same thing about the Xbox. But we did hear months ago from places like Digital Foundry that a lot of devs didn't like the idea of a lower powered next-gen machine and that's around the time we had heard Microsoft was listening to devs and decided to scrap it.
So far, the only thing I've seen about the Xbox Series S is from a Technical Producer from Remedy who said the following.
I expect Xbox Studio devs will talk kindly about developing for Xbox Series S. But are there any other well known developers who are talking about it?
But I haven't heard as many say the same thing about the Xbox. But we did hear months ago from places like Digital Foundry that a lot of devs didn't like the idea of a lower powered next-gen machine and that's around the time we had heard Microsoft was listening to devs and decided to scrap it.
So far, the only thing I've seen about the Xbox Series S is from a Technical Producer from Remedy who said the following.
https://www.vg247.com/2020/09/10/remedy-dev-xbox-series-s-thoughts-trouble/
I expect Xbox Studio devs will talk kindly about developing for Xbox Series S. But are there any other well known developers who are talking about it?
Humdinger
Gold Member
I don't think it'll be as bad as some people are making it out to be. Otoh, I don't buy what some people are saying, that developers will design all out for XSX, then magically scale it all down to run on XSX, and there will be no compromise. I'm not a developer or even a tech guy, but it's pretty clear to me from listening to the guys who are, and who know this stuff, that having to design around the S will compromise ambition/features for the X, to some degree. As for how much, I don't know. I don't think anyone really knows. It probably depends on the developer, the game, their resources, talent, time, etc.
Seems like he's contradicting himself. On the one hand, he says it won't hold back XSX development. On the other, he says it "encourages you to descope a bit," which I assume means shaving back ambitions and features.
geordiemp
Member
That is Correct, we need to see the performance in games.
But number of CU and TF is one metric, how fast and efficiently they are fed is Equally vital. We know ps5 wlll have 4 shader arrays fed by 4 x L1 cache, and we know XSX will have 4 shader arrays fed by 4 x L1 cache.
I assume XSS will have 2 shader arrays fed by 2 x L1 cache and 10 CU per shader array ?
We have no idea how the CUs are to be fed and effective utilisation, one cache feeding 14 CU might be more efficient if its twice the size, over a cache feeding 10 CU. Nobody knows but engineers working on both kits.
We dont know as L1 cache is being kept a secret and was not revealed by MS when asked at hotchips, and Sony have not coughed up either, the introduction of L1 was one of the main steps up from GCN to RDNA.
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tryDEATH
Member
I am genuinely interested in seeing the actual performances between the two system, because we never before had this different of a approach to console architecture. So many differentiating factors on every single part, which is going to be interesting to see which approach is better and yields more performance.
geordiemp
Member
Yup it will be interesting, posters focus on 2 numbers usually, TF and memory bandwidth, but its all the Cache bandwidths that feed the work thats often ignored. Here is RDNA1, and note the cache bandwidths not the CU number ....
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LED Guy?
Banned
So I have watched Microsoft's official "Inside Xbox Series S" video they've officially released yesterday, and the one thing they kept repeating is how Xbox Series S will be rendering games at 1440p resolution (regardless of FPS because that's the developers' choice), and I'll explain why it concerns me a bit.
Here's the official "Inside Xbox Series S" video:
Now we've got that out of the way, let's dive in!
The thing that concerns me is that running your games at 1440p resolution (regardless of FPS) on a 4 TFLOPs RDNA 2 GPU as the baseline (just like PS4's baseline is 1080p) isn't gonna be a huge graphical leap from what we have now running on PS4/XB1, because let's take a game like The Last of Us Part II on running on PlayStation 4 Pro at Native 1440p resolution (keep in mind, we're talking graphics here), and I know there are games like Death Stranding, RDR 2, Detroit Become Human, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn all of them at a Checkerboard 4K which equates to around 1512p, so a bit higher than 1440p, but let's go with TLOU 2 because it's as taxing on the GPU as those games & eats a lot of GPU Memory bandwidth, hence why it's at 1440p.
OK for my hypothesis and analysis, 4 TFLOPs RDNA 2 = 6 TFLOPs GCN or slightly better, Xbox One X > PS4 Pro by 31% so then let's say Xbox Series S is more powerful than PS4 Pro's GPU by around 40%, so running a game at 1440p resolution like TLOU 2 on PS4 Pro will ONLY look better than TLOU 2 or those high-end games by 40%??
This is how I got it:
PS4 Pro = 4.2 TFLOPs GCN.
Xbox One X = 6 TFLOPs GCN (31% advantage over PS4 Pro).
Xbox Series S = 4 TFLOPs RDNA 2 (Around 40% advantage over PS4 Pro).
So a game at 1440p 30 FPS on Xbox Series S will look 40% better than TLOU 2 running on PS4 Pro at 1440p.
Because that seems so disappointing, I really wanted developers to take advantage and run their games at 1620p or 1440p on PS5 & Xbox Series X, not running their games at 1440p on Xbox Series S (remember, this is what Microsoft are touting this console to be as), so that means that PS5 & Xbox Series X are gonna be kinda resolution boxes more than developers fully building their games on it.
I may appear as saying that Series S is holding the PS5 and XSX back, and I'm not entirely saying that, but developers are kinda saying it as well, look at those developers from Remedy Games and from Activision working on Call of Duty games.
You can also see Austin Evans YouTube video on it too saying it too! (From 9:32 till 10:40)
What I want from developers is games that run at 1440p on Xbox Series X & PS5, NOT Xbox Series S, because that's gonna hold back graphics advancements a bit, I know I haven't discussed the GPU features like VRS, Mesh Shaders & HW Ray Tracing (which will be BIG for Next-gen), but still, Unreal 5 ran at 1440p 30 FPS on PS5, this is the next-gen visuals that we should expect, and I firmly believe that targeting 1440p on Series S as the baseline (because we know it's gonna sell a lot so this is what developers will target and base their games at) will hinder graphics a bit, I'm waiting for Sony's exclusives that will take advantage of PS5 in a bigger way due to its super fast SSD and them targeting visuals at lower resolutions, I meanl we have AI upscaling techniques now, lots of reconstruction techniques that will make you hard to decide if they are 4K or not, but think with me on this, if Unreal 5 demo ran at 1440p 30 FPS on PS5, how will that run on Xbox Series S? 900p? 720p? I don't think developers will be doing this, they wanna make sure that Series S runs at 1440p or around it at stable FPS with the same graphics like Microsoft specified in their video above.
Here's the official "Inside Xbox Series S" video:
Now we've got that out of the way, let's dive in!
The thing that concerns me is that running your games at 1440p resolution (regardless of FPS) on a 4 TFLOPs RDNA 2 GPU as the baseline (just like PS4's baseline is 1080p) isn't gonna be a huge graphical leap from what we have now running on PS4/XB1, because let's take a game like The Last of Us Part II on running on PlayStation 4 Pro at Native 1440p resolution (keep in mind, we're talking graphics here), and I know there are games like Death Stranding, RDR 2, Detroit Become Human, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn all of them at a Checkerboard 4K which equates to around 1512p, so a bit higher than 1440p, but let's go with TLOU 2 because it's as taxing on the GPU as those games & eats a lot of GPU Memory bandwidth, hence why it's at 1440p.
OK for my hypothesis and analysis, 4 TFLOPs RDNA 2 = 6 TFLOPs GCN or slightly better, Xbox One X > PS4 Pro by 31% so then let's say Xbox Series S is more powerful than PS4 Pro's GPU by around 40%, so running a game at 1440p resolution like TLOU 2 on PS4 Pro will ONLY look better than TLOU 2 or those high-end games by 40%??
This is how I got it:
PS4 Pro = 4.2 TFLOPs GCN.
Xbox One X = 6 TFLOPs GCN (31% advantage over PS4 Pro).
Xbox Series S = 4 TFLOPs RDNA 2 (Around 40% advantage over PS4 Pro).
So a game at 1440p 30 FPS on Xbox Series S will look 40% better than TLOU 2 running on PS4 Pro at 1440p.
Because that seems so disappointing, I really wanted developers to take advantage and run their games at 1620p or 1440p on PS5 & Xbox Series X, not running their games at 1440p on Xbox Series S (remember, this is what Microsoft are touting this console to be as), so that means that PS5 & Xbox Series X are gonna be kinda resolution boxes more than developers fully building their games on it.
I may appear as saying that Series S is holding the PS5 and XSX back, and I'm not entirely saying that, but developers are kinda saying it as well, look at those developers from Remedy Games and from Activision working on Call of Duty games.
You can also see Austin Evans YouTube video on it too saying it too! (From 9:32 till 10:40)
What I want from developers is games that run at 1440p on Xbox Series X & PS5, NOT Xbox Series S, because that's gonna hold back graphics advancements a bit, I know I haven't discussed the GPU features like VRS, Mesh Shaders & HW Ray Tracing (which will be BIG for Next-gen), but still, Unreal 5 ran at 1440p 30 FPS on PS5, this is the next-gen visuals that we should expect, and I firmly believe that targeting 1440p on Series S as the baseline (because we know it's gonna sell a lot so this is what developers will target and base their games at) will hinder graphics a bit, I'm waiting for Sony's exclusives that will take advantage of PS5 in a bigger way due to its super fast SSD and them targeting visuals at lower resolutions, I meanl we have AI upscaling techniques now, lots of reconstruction techniques that will make you hard to decide if they are 4K or not, but think with me on this, if Unreal 5 demo ran at 1440p 30 FPS on PS5, how will that run on Xbox Series S? 900p? 720p? I don't think developers will be doing this, they wanna make sure that Series S runs at 1440p or around it at stable FPS with the same graphics like Microsoft specified in their video above.
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sncvsrtoip
Member
OK for my hypothesis and analysis, 4 TFLOPs RDNA 2 = 6 TFLOPs GCN or slightly better - wrong, even with rdna2 arch. improvements with 224gb/s bandwidth it will be little slower than 6tf xox gpu 326gb/s
LED Guy?
Banned
Yeah this too, 224 GB/s for next-generation gaming is very low, even PS4 Pro is 218 GB/s.
Nikana
Go Go Neo Rangers!
SSD and GDDR6 vs Mechanical Drive and GDDR5. Not comparable as the RAM will be utilized much more efficiently.
FunkMiller
Banned
I'm sure the Series S will render games at 1440p.
Undertale.
Nidhogg.
Shovel Knight.
...those kinds of games.
It's not going to manage it with triple AAA games, but Microsoft can sell you the idea that it plays at 1440p.... because they're telling the truth. It will play games at that resolution.
Just not all of them, eh?
Undertale.
Nidhogg.
Shovel Knight.
...those kinds of games.
It's not going to manage it with triple AAA games, but Microsoft can sell you the idea that it plays at 1440p.... because they're telling the truth. It will play games at that resolution.
Just not all of them, eh?
LED Guy?
Banned
I know but still it is slow.
Nikana
Go Go Neo Rangers!
Compared to what? The PS5 and Seires X which are going to be pushing more detail, higher resolution assets and a 4K frame? Than yeah its slow.
But the machine has been built for a specific purpose and the amount of bandwidth makes sense for what its pushing.
LED Guy?
Banned
What I'm trying to say is that it's still not a huge leap and it's gonna hold back a bit.
RoboFu
One of the green rats
XBOX x can do close to 4k now with big games now. it of course depends on the game but the series S will do more than 2d inide games at high resolutions for sure.
Nikana
Go Go Neo Rangers!
Huge leap vs what? If you are looking at just the numbers compared to the PS4 Pro and Series X then yeah sure, but those devices were built different. But you again are comparing an SSD vs a mechanical drive, GDDR5 vs GDDR6, RDNA vs GCN, Old Api's vs XVA and Direct Storage.
Looking at one metric and saying its slow is not an intelligent way to compare.
InverseAgonist
Banned
I'm going to be interested to see what happens when a studio decides to implement some advanced lighting models and shaders and really push the high-end model and PS5 at a resolution of 1440p or even 1080p. I mean, the tacit understanding of this resolution scaling argument is that games for Xbox and PS5 will be baselined at 4K, always, and then the model S can just scale down.
What happens when a developer -- who should have the freedom -- decides to release a 1080p game with amazing graphics. Something that is still a viable option. What would the resolution be on Model S assuming 1080p on Model X and PS5?
What happens when a developer -- who should have the freedom -- decides to release a 1080p game with amazing graphics. Something that is still a viable option. What would the resolution be on Model S assuming 1080p on Model X and PS5?
Kazekage1981
Member
man what does it take to fully transition into 4k?
saying "4k is a waist of resources" is dogshit. thats why the pc master race laughs at console gamers. it has taken 14 years to transition from 720p 30fps (Xbox360) to 900p 30fps (xbox one) and finally 1080p at 30fps-120fps (xbone x and xbox series s) with some bells and whistles (ray tracing, etc).
xbox series x and ps5 can do 4k, but even then, they need to do reconstruction and other techniques to lower quality and upscale to 4k.
i think its going to take ps5pro and xbox series x pro to make it a true solid 4k 30fps-60pfs console without any upscaling and other bullshit.
ya i know: its all about the games!
saying "4k is a waist of resources" is dogshit. thats why the pc master race laughs at console gamers. it has taken 14 years to transition from 720p 30fps (Xbox360) to 900p 30fps (xbox one) and finally 1080p at 30fps-120fps (xbone x and xbox series s) with some bells and whistles (ray tracing, etc).
xbox series x and ps5 can do 4k, but even then, they need to do reconstruction and other techniques to lower quality and upscale to 4k.
i think its going to take ps5pro and xbox series x pro to make it a true solid 4k 30fps-60pfs console without any upscaling and other bullshit.
ya i know: its all about the games!
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AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Wha...? You are going to save the 224GB/s bandwidth with a 5GB/s SSD? What does GDDR5 vs GDDR6 have to do with anything? The bandwidth is the bandwidth. This is fantasy.
Nikana
Go Go Neo Rangers!
Are we really going to ignore the beenefits like access time of GDDR6 vs GDDR5?
As well as the efficiency of filling RAM on a mechanical drive vs SSD?
By your Logic the doubling of 8GB from 16Gb in PS5 and Series X is not nearly enough of a jump considering what can be utilized by the machine.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
You are not ready arguing here beside being actively and passively aggressive.
Oh the irony...
.What agenda
?
cireza
Member
Well done. You understand how marketing works for video-game consoles. Was already like this back in the SNES days.
FunkMiller
Banned
Yes. I do know a bit about marketing.
Redlancet
Banned
red dead 2 its 4k 30 fps on the xbox x,stop the bs
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Yeah, it seems like 1080p box for me, which I think it's fine for the target consumer base.
However...
This the guy behind Doom: Eternal....
BlueXImpulse
Banned
This is getting much worse. Are we going to continue to sweep these developer comments under the rug?
S
SLoWMoTIoN
Unconfirmed Member
Hold on. Is the S weaker than the Xbox One X? (not series x)
what
what
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SportsFan581
Member
Just be sure keep in mind that it's also the house that put Doom: Eternal on the switch, with its 25.6GB/s of memory bandwidth (a larger gap from the One S even ignoring the Sram and just figuring based on the DDR3). Just saying.
Larger available memory deficit also.
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Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Devs know that not everything scales linearly downwards, it just doesn't work like that.
Being able to show Gears running at double the framerate is comparatively simple, because in that instance all that's required is double the efficiency of the original One S both for cpu and gpu function. Which obviously the Series S is specced for.
However that doesn't mean it can do 60fps at 4k, or 240fps at 720p because its stretching GPU and CPU throughput respectively beyond their capability. Furthermore it means that a game running at 60fps/4k on One X is quite possibly not going to scale back down to 60/1080p neatly because although the throughput on the GPU drops, the CPU load will remain the same and suddenly it finds itself running on a slightly downclocked processor with half the memory bandwidth.
Being able to show Gears running at double the framerate is comparatively simple, because in that instance all that's required is double the efficiency of the original One S both for cpu and gpu function. Which obviously the Series S is specced for.
However that doesn't mean it can do 60fps at 4k, or 240fps at 720p because its stretching GPU and CPU throughput respectively beyond their capability. Furthermore it means that a game running at 60fps/4k on One X is quite possibly not going to scale back down to 60/1080p neatly because although the throughput on the GPU drops, the CPU load will remain the same and suddenly it finds itself running on a slightly downclocked processor with half the memory bandwidth.
SportsFan581
Member
It's targeting a different resolution. One X was built to try and run 4k. The XSS is better overall, even in raw GPU performance, but the bandwidth is not optimized for 4k. This is typical of PC cards as well, a new card can do much better than an old, high-end card in 1080p but falter at 4k (because the old card probably had better bandwidth than the new 1080p card).
ethomaz
Banned
The CPU is way stronger.
But the GPU and memory are weaker.
It target 1080p too so that is why it is weaker in GPU/Memory.
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SportsFan581
Member
You do realize that most of the GP catalog is provided by third parties, right? EA is already a part of GPU, expect most major publishers to follow with limited collections of their own. GP vs. the developers is a silly myth.
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Md Ray
Member
I gotta admit I wasn't that concerned about SS holding back SX but after Billy Khan's tweet, it's a bit worrying. His comments are not to be sniffed at. That's a lead engine programmer of DOOM/DOOM Eternal.
Bryank75
Banned
So you're saying when some decent games like Wasteland or The Outer Worlds and a few others release and on the same day.... something like Control or Man Eater releases.... that loads of people that have Game Pass wont be like 'meh, I have a few good games, don't need to buy anything else'?
Day 1 sales are essential for developers to recoup their investment and make a profit. So, I think it's very dangerous.
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SportsFan581
Member
Those people already exist. LOL
The I'll wait till it's $20 crowd is strong. Even worse, the I'll wait to get it used crowd, where the devs get nothing (they much prefer GP).
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
I think his MS check went to DF on "accident"!
InverseAgonist
Banned
I find it interesting how it's become a "4K box" verse a "1080p box". Microsoft's messaging has really been effective on this one.
What happens if a developer -- like anyone using Unreal 5 -- decides to output in 1440p or 1080p on the PS5 and X because they're pushing nanite or have a novel lighting solution they want to exploit that takes a lot of shader performance up? What resolution will it run at on the S then? What experience will that provide? What else will have to be cut in order to get something running on the S?
I think these are serious questions that could hinder developers ability to craft the types of games they desire.
You realise that devs want to sell individual units of their games first. Renting them is a last resort. AG mentioned that gamepass isn't exactly setting the rate of return on fire. Like MS paid upfront to get those games on there. The real problem with GP is AAA studios want hardware sales to drive unit sales. They want those fat install bases so they can sell their games to everyone.
When GTA 6 comes out I wonder how they will handle the Xss issue. Will they really scale their game back into last gen?
ethomaz
Banned
That is a good question.
For now we only know MS is targeting 1080p/1440p with S and 4k with X.
I believe there won't be similar "1080p + RT" option on S (it will be exclusive to X).
Oops, I just realised I was thinking of Fafalada, not Panajev, damn that makes me look idiotic.
Apologies for the confusion
If they are targeting sub 1440p on the series x they fucked up big time and that game will be a dumpster fire performance wise lol. I do love the concern. Should you concern troll Sony if a developer wants to use lots of avx256 and down clock the shit out of the GPU causing shit frame rates?
GHG
Member
Literally what I was saying yesterday and I was accused on "concern trolling". Just decreasing the resolution doesn't magically fix the bandwidth issues.
Agnostic2020
Member
Seems many devs are unhappy as time goes on