Rumor: Xbox 3 = 6-core CPU, 2GB of DDR3 Main RAM, 2 AMD GPUs w/ Unknown VRAM, At CES

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There is no proof of this.

If next gen comes out and the difference isn't huge, you win. I am nearly positive the difference will be quite huge though. Actually I think it will be the biggest graphical leap ever personally, since we wont have been spoiled by incrementally improving PC graphics in the meanwhile (since there's no real high end PC development anymore), and the fact it'll have been 7-8 years between gens rather than the usual 5.

No way that 4GB of RAM vs 512MB, and 10X-20X the shader power, wont make a huge difference.

I mean even if you did nothing other than make a X360 with 1GB of RAM instead of 512, and left everything else exactly the same, I'm sure there would be a quite noticeable difference.


I agree completely.
 
There is no proof of this.

If next gen comes out and the difference isn't huge, you win. I am nearly positive the difference will be quite huge though. Actually I think it will be the biggest graphical leap ever personally, since we wont have been spoiled by incrementally improving PC graphics in the meanwhile (since there's no real high end PC development anymore), and the fact it'll have been 7-8 years between gens rather than the usual 5.

No way that 4GB of RAM vs 512MB, and 10X-20X the shader power, wont make a huge difference.

I mean even if you did nothing other than make a X360 with 1GB of RAM instead of 512, and left everything else exactly the same, I'm sure there would be a quite noticeable difference.

I'm mostly talking about the average person. I don't have anything beyond anecdotal evidence, but Samaritan definitely isn't as immediately noticeable as previous jumps. People like you and me can see it, but to many others, they'll look like current-gen on steroids. The lack of a resolution jump will be a leading cause in this.

They will see that with the WiiU. Just look at the Zelda demo. It ran at 1080p NATIVE and had graphics that looked like cutscenes for games on 360/ps3.

Sadly, that was 720p with no AA and a jerky framerate.
 
so...what was the point again? Are Epic selling a tech demo, or a tool for developers to make games?

If it looks or exceeds the look of Samaritan by smoke and mirrors.... bravo? As a gamer why do I care how they do it, just that they *can* do it?

If I was a developer on the lookout for good middleware, and I had two companies come to me:

1) 'we have this engine that does amazingly complex effects like DoF, refractive occlusitory colour balancing. It really needs a super fast PC to get all those effects though'

2) 'we have this engine that gives you the same effect as DoF and refractive blah blah, but we cheat behind the scenes to make it more efficient. You won't be able to tell the difference 95% of the time, but it can run really well on medium spec machines.

I'd pick number 2 thanks.

As of right now they are selling a tech demo that they hope future hardware will approximate.

I'm not sure why there seems to be an agitated tone in your post toward me. You're espousing almost verbatim what I've been saying most of the thread. No console hardware will have the power to achieve an engine on par with Samaritan. Not in a pure technical sense, but will come close enough to fool all but the best trained eye. I'd expect all three of these next gen consoles to be able to pull off approximations.

They might have less precise lighting, less complex geometry, and based on code almost completely removed from it, but most of us will likely be fooled.
 
The high cost of harddrives at the moment may cause issues if they aren't sorted out soon for a 2012 release. Unless of course Microsoft decides once again to offer a system without a hard drive (mistake IMO).
 
The high cost of hard drives at the moment may cause issues if they aren't sorted out soon for a 2012 release. Unless of course Microsoft decides once again to offer a system without a hard drive (mistake IMO).

The average user won't need more than 250Gb or maybe even 500Gb.
 
The average user won't need more than 250Gb or maybe even 500Gb.


I think he is referring to the overall high costs of harddrives due to the floods in Thailand. I'm not sure exactly how much prices have increased but the damage was extensive. Prices probably wont come down before maybe summer of next year. That would have a serious effect on the price of any system that launched anytime in 2012 or early 2013.
 
Samaritan is visually impressive but artistically bankrupt. Watching it made me depressed because it feels like an accurate vision of what games are going to try to emulate in the future.

Actually, that might be why I wasn't blown away. It looks like every other game on the market. it's just... boring. Generic and boring. Even Gears has a much stronger art direction.

Ugh. You just scared me. I'm sick of this photorealism shit...

Likewise. Why is it that games companies are trying so damned hard to be interactive movies? Now I'm no hater of fine graphics and carefully crafted stories, but it seems AAA almost means "Movie game" nowadays.

Give me a great "game" game any day of the week over a "movie" game. In fact that's exactly what I was thinking about Skyward Sword as I was playing it. It's still a game with setup puzzles and unrealistic cause and effects (Kill last enemy and door opens up - Huh? Yes!)

Tech always gets better and, while not to undermine the programming skills of graphics programmers and artists, the tech is going to help us become more photorealistic. However good, original gameplay is much harder to come by as it has to be created from scratch.
 
I think he is referring to the overall high costs of harddrives due to the floods in Thailand. I'm not sure exactly how much prices have increased but the damage was extensive. Prices probably wont come down before maybe summer of next year. That would have a serious effect on the price of any system that launched anytime in 2012 or early 2013.

If they are planning a fall 2012 launch, I wouldn't be surprised if they already had prices for hd's locked in well in advance. Leaves you holding the bag full of risk and liability if you are just deciding to pay whatever the cost is when it's time to start manufacturing. They need to have costs fixed and exact or else the entire business model of the product would blow up in their face.

Sounds weird but it might be a bigger problem if they are doing a fall 2013 launch as they would likely want to have things negotiated and locked in sometime in 2012.
 
I think he is referring to the overall high costs of harddrives due to the floods in Thailand. I'm not sure exactly how much prices have increased but the damage was extensive. Prices probably wont come down before maybe summer of next year. That would have a serious effect on the price of any system that launched anytime in 2012 or early 2013.

To give you an idea of how bad things are price wise with hard discs I purchased a Spinpoint F3 1TB hard disc earlier this year for £40. My brother was in the market for the exact same hard disc and it is now £115 (from exactly the same place I bought it from). So yeah hard disc pricing has gone crazy even I was shocked at the increase.
 
There is no proof of this.

If next gen comes out and the difference isn't huge, you win. I am nearly positive the difference will be quite huge though. Actually I think it will be the biggest graphical leap ever personally, since we wont have been spoiled by incrementally improving PC graphics in the meanwhile (since there's no real high end PC development anymore), and the fact it'll have been 7-8 years between gens rather than the usual 5.

No way that 4GB of RAM vs 512MB, and 10X-20X the shader power, wont make a huge difference.

I mean even if you did nothing other than make a X360 with 1GB of RAM instead of 512, and left everything else exactly the same, I'm sure there would be a quite noticeable difference.

Expecting the "biggest jump ever" from this gen to next is... well, to put it simply, going to lead to a great sense of disappointment. What kind of hardware does it take to run BF3 on Ultra?

I'm mostly talking about the average person. I don't have anything beyond anecdotal evidence, but Samaritan definitely isn't as immediately noticeable as previous jumps. People like you and me can see it, but to many others, they'll look like current-gen on steroids. The lack of a resolution jump will be a leading cause in this.

This is exactly why.

BurntPork said:
Sadly, that was 720p with no AA and a jerky framerate.

That demo looked good because of great art and lighting, not because of resolutions.

I think he is referring to the overall high costs of harddrives due to the floods in Thailand. I'm not sure exactly how much prices have increased but the damage was extensive. Prices probably wont come down before maybe summer of next year. That would have a serious effect on the price of any system that launched anytime in 2012 or early 2013.

Microsoft can do a 16-32GB flash drive inside, with a hard drive add-on to be sold later. They love accessories, after all. Anything releasing next year will be doing flash.
 
The high cost of harddrives at the moment may cause issues if they aren't sorted out soon for a 2012 release. Unless of course Microsoft decides once again to offer a system without a hard drive (mistake IMO).

The contracts were probably signed and locked away before the floods in Thailand.
 
As of right now they are selling a tech demo that they hope future hardware will approximate.

I'm not sure why there seems to be an agitated tone in your post toward me. You're espousing almost verbatim what I've been saying most of the thread. No console hardware will have the power to achieve an engine on par with Samaritan. Not in a pure technical sense, but will come close enough to fool all but the best trained eye. I'd expect all three of these next gen consoles to be able to pull off approximations.

They might have less precise lighting, less complex geometry, and based on code almost completely removed from it, but most of us will likely be fooled.

sorry, didn't mean to come across agitated towards you. Maybe just agitated towards all the people regurgitating Epic's comments verbatim.
 
Likewise. Why is it that games companies are trying so damned hard to be interactive movies? Now I'm no hater of fine graphics and carefully crafted stories, but it seems AAA almost means "Movie game" nowadays.

Give me a great "game" game any day of the week over a "movie" game. In fact that's exactly what I was thinking about Skyward Sword as I was playing it. It's still a game with setup puzzles and unrealistic cause and effects (Kill last enemy and door opens up - Huh? Yes!)

Tech always gets better and, while not to undermine the programming skills of graphics programmers and artists, the tech is going to help us become more photorealistic. However good, original gameplay is much harder to come by as it has to be created from scratch.

Actually, I think new tech and new gameplay ideas go hand in hand. When making a game, developers are always dealing with the technical limitations of the hardware. Better hardware means less limitations. This can lead to a new approach to game design that previously wasn't possible because of those limitations.
 
[Nintex];33458773 said:
CES has gotten much hype already for no reason at all so there should be 'something' there.

Well spike was plugging the shit out of ces at the vgas and Geoff was alluding to hardware being unvealed. Im not sure it will be Xbox Next but still something will be there.
 
The samaritan demo looked good, but I also had a hard time imagining how they couldn't achieve 85% of what they did on existing consoles. You'd have to give up some lighting effects, particle stuff, poly count here and there. Screenshots will highlight differences, but what when everything starts moving? The sound, the actual gameplay, all kinds of things will be happening to make what you see in still shots less relevant anyway. Obviously it won't happen but it'd be interesting to see something like a 360 hardware-optimized version of the video.

Not to say that it won't make a difference, but it's not going to be that eye-popping generational leap some people are expecting, not right away. The high end bar will be raised, but it'll take several years of accumulation of know-how before that becomes the norm.
 
... Or diminishing returns have kicked in.

It's impressive, and it's clear that we'd need a new gen achieve it, but your average person would likely need to be told that it's a new gen at that level. We're getting closer and closer to the ceiling.
Your average person can tell the difference between different games running on the same platform.

Diminishing returns are a reality but we're very very far from reaching the ceiling.
 
The samaritan demo looked good, but I also had a hard time imagining how they couldn't achieve 85% of what they did on existing consoles. You'd have to give up some lighting effects, particle stuff, poly count here and there. Screenshots will highlight differences, but what when everything starts moving? The sound, the actual gameplay, all kinds of things will be happening to make what you see in still shots less relevant anyway. Obviously it won't happen but it'd be interesting to see something like a 360 hardware-optimized version of the video.

Not to say that it won't make a difference, but it's not going to be that eye-popping generational leap some people are expecting, not right away. The high end bar will be raised, but it'll take several years of accumulation of know-how before that becomes the norm.

edit: I completely misread your post. :/
 
[Nintex];33458773 said:
CES has gotten much hype already for no reason at all so there should be 'something' there.

CES gets hyped every year, biggest conference in Vegas, biggest media exposure of the year for the electronics industry. Only difference this year is Spike decided to cover it so everyone assumes it must be because of games.

It might be games but it also could be that the audience for electronics is much bigger than just video games so they figure the ratings are worth it and a company has some cool new gadget or device they want to unveil with a lot of fanfare on live tv.
 
Actually, I think new tech and new gameplay ideas go hand in hand. When making a game, developers are always dealing with the technical limitations of the hardware. Better hardware means less limitations. This can lead to a new approach to game design that previously wasn't possible because of those limitations.
I do agree as this is how Nintendo work; hardware and software are integrally linked. What seems to be the case though, is that as machines get more powerful the tendency is to spend that power on graphics. I realize that because of the big jumps being on GPUs that's what gets improved but it is just a shame that there's so much emphasis on that, and trying to make a movie and not a 'game'. And while I don't hate games like it, it seems to have polarised the industry somewhat and given it a blockbuster movie mentality.

I just wish some graphically lesser games got some major pushers from publishers, but it's just too easy to sell photorealism to the masses.
 
I do agree as this is how Nintendo work; hardware and software are integrally linked. What seems to be the case though, is that as machines get more powerful the tendency is to spend that power on graphics. I realize that because of the big jumps being on GPUs that's what gets improved but it is just a shame that there's so much emphasis on that, and trying to make a movie and not a 'game'. And while I don't hate games like it, it seems to have polarised the industry somewhat and given it a blockbuster movie mentality.

I just wish some graphically lesser games got some major pushers from publishers, but it's just too easy to sell photorealism to the masses.

I'm sure games like HALO will always put gameplay over graphics.

With all that horsepower HALO 5 and 6 will look sublime while having huge open areas to explore and battles where you can takle it in any way you want. Of course with your buddies in coop and the endless multiplayer options.

Gosh I can not wait to get my first hard on when they show HALO 5 on the Next XBOX. :p
 
The only thing next gen is bringing to the table is tessellation. Even if the shaders are 10x more powerful, we already have graphics cards with more power than that struggling to render games from this gen at 2560 with aa.

Almost everyones hopes for next gen are too goddamn high and its going to kill our hobby. Production values need to come down on 90% of games to make them profitable. We also need games at every price point closer to steam. But with retail still dominating the console space that shit is not going to happen.
 
I'm sure games like HALO will always put gameplay over graphics.

With all that horsepower HALO 5 and 6 will look sublime while having huge open areas to explore and battles where you can takle it in any way you want. Of course with your buddies in coop and the endless multiplayer options.

Gosh I can not wait to get my first hard on when they show HALO 5 on the Next XBOX. :p

You'll probably be able to play Halo 4 on it too, next fall.

Almost everyones hopes for next gen are too goddamn high and its going to kill our hobby.

Not immediately, just eventually. "AAA" mentality has already shuttered enough doors this gen.
 
Halo games always kind of look shitty, with weird graphical quirks. I have no doubt that future games on the next platform will be the same way.

Gosh I can not wait to get my first hard on when they show HALO 5 on the Next XBOX. :p

Your first hard on? Are you 8 years old or something? Just be patient bro.
 
There is no proof of this.

If next gen comes out and the difference isn't huge, you win. I am nearly positive the difference will be quite huge though. Actually I think it will be the biggest graphical leap ever personally, since we wont have been spoiled by incrementally improving PC graphics in the meanwhile (since there's no real high end PC development anymore), and the fact it'll have been 7-8 years between gens rather than the usual 5.

No way that 4GB of RAM vs 512MB, and 10X-20X the shader power, wont make a huge difference.

I mean even if you did nothing other than make a X360 with 1GB of RAM instead of 512, and left everything else exactly the same, I'm sure there would be a quite noticeable difference.

I fully agree.

Especially the part about no real high end pc.

There are so many things that are completely lacking this gen. Real tangible things. Just take a simple thing like hair. This gen almost every character has been bald or worse been having a bad set of porkchops between their ears. Next gen decent hair will probably be standard. And they will make a huge difference.
 
I honestly think we will all be a bit disappointed (hardware wise) in the next gen... i mean, face it, when the original Xbox360 was released the generational leaps between PC graphics cards (were they mostly base the tech on) from one to the next gen were not that great and even now we don't see that "double the perf" we all would expect after one year.

However, it was clear to me that PC graphics were a bit stagnant at the time both consoles were released (especially around 360 launch) as even if we were getting higher res on computers, most of the games released for both PS3 and 360 were a leap above what was done on PC at the time (geometry, lightning, perhaps not framerate).

Moreover, we have basically seen developers stay console-centric and porting to PC with the exception of some. As a said we will not be shocked by the specs but i think we will be impressed, and that's the important part, by what they will be able to do thanks to a closed development environment using hardware from these days...

Only my 2 cents.
 
I'm mostly talking about the average person. I don't have anything beyond anecdotal evidence, but Samaritan definitely isn't as immediately noticeable as previous jumps. People like you and me can see it, but to many others, they'll look like current-gen on steroids. The lack of a resolution jump will be a leading cause in this.



Sadly, that was 720p with no AA and a jerky framerate.

There was nothing wrong with the frame-rate...? But otherwise I agree. Alpha hardware etc. though...
 
... Or diminishing returns have kicked in.

It's impressive, and it's clear that we'd need a new gen achieve it, but your average person would likely need to be told that it's a new gen at that level. We're getting closer and closer to the ceiling.

at the samaritan level?

heeeeeeeeelll no

the average person isnt blind
 
Haha, no.

I've had friends confuse Crysis with Halo, Just Cause 2 with Assassin's Creed.

Get out of your NeoGAF mindset and come back to the real world.
I'm talking from personal experience with different gamers IRL too.

Yes, there are gamers out there that barely know anything about tech (there are plenty here), but at the same time there are plenty of games that are well known for their graphics among the average gamer on a given platform and I've seen enough people going "wow" at those titles to know they can tell the difference. They are not experts and may not know the specifics or may be fooled by smoke and mirrors more easily, but they are not idiots nor blind.

And talking from my own personal experience, when I was a kid and knew nothing about tech or graphics I could still tell when a game looked good or not, and I certainly could easily see the difference between different generations of hardware.
 
Halo games always kind of look shitty, with weird graphical quirks. I have no doubt that future games on the next platform will be the same way.

Nah, I disagree. Halo 1 and 2 were amongst the most graphically impressive console titles of their time. They have some tech wizards at 343 so I hope they come out all guns blazing in terms of presentation next gen.
 
Actually I think it will be the biggest graphical leap ever personally, since we wont have been spoiled by incrementally improving PC graphics in the meanwhile (since there's no real high end PC development anymore), and the fact it'll have been 7-8 years between gens rather than the usual 5.

So you're saying you believe that it will be a greater leap than from the SNES to N64 or from the N64 to the Gamecube? Are you actually saying there will be a bigger difference between Uncharted 3 and a hypothetical Uncharted 4 (on PS4) than there is from Mario 64 and Resident evil 4?

Really? Really and truly?
 
So you're saying you believe that it will be a greater leap than from the SNES to N64 or from the N64 to the Gamecube? Are you actually saying there will be a bigger difference between Uncharted 3 and a hypothetical Uncharted 4 (on PS4) than there is from Mario 64 and Resident evil 4?

Really? Really and truly?
Yeah.

Talk about unrealistic expectations.

All of the tech going into them is based on the same paradigm as the current gen. Just more of it.
 
at the samaritan level?

heeeeeeeeelll no

the average person isnt blind

the average person would probably say 'why is it always dark and rainy in games, and everything is grey? And he's a robot? Always a robot. Just looks like a 360 game'

Technically we might be able to appreciate some of the things its pushing, but artistically its pretty staid.
 
the average person would probably say 'why is it always dark and rainy in games, and everything is grey? And he's a robot? Always a robot. Just looks like a 360 game'

Technically we might be able to appreciate some of the things its pushing, but artistically its pretty staid.

I agree.

Ok, here's a hypothetical scenario.

Take Mario 64 and Resident Evil (the very best looking sections), play them on two identical television of average size. Show these games to some average everyday adults from like, 15 feet away. Will they be able to say which game has dramatically more sophisticated graphics? I'm pretty certain they will.

Take Uncharted 3 and the Samaritan demo, do the same. I think the average adult will have a hard time telling me which is technically superior.
 
I agree.

Ok, here's a hypothetical scenario.

Take Mario 64 and Resident Evil (the very best looking sections), play them on two identical television of average size. Show these games to some average everyday adults from like, 15 feet away. Will they be able to say which game has dramatically more sophisticated graphics? I'm pretty certain they will.

Take Uncharted 3 and the Samaritan demo, do the same. I think the average adult will have a hard time telling me which is technically superior.


I think they would have to show off an actual game, not a tech demo for the average gamers to notice the difference, let alone the average adult. To be honest, most adults would not tell the difference between Uncharted 3 and Gears 3. If you show flashy set-pieces at people's eyes, they won't be able to tell the difference easily.
 
I think they would have to show off an actual game, not a tech demo for the average gamers to notice the difference, let alone the average adult. To be honest, most adults would not tell the difference between Uncharted 3 and Gears 3. If you show flashy set-pieces at people's eyes, they won't be able to tell the difference easily.

Its late, so I'm having trouble understanding. Shouldn't the Samaritan demo be inherently superior to Uncharted 3 because it is a demo, and elaborate pre-scripted set piece, analogous to a CGI movie? Because I think it is inherently superior...but to a nearly unnoticeable degree from just a few feet away.
 
Its late, so I'm having trouble understanding. Shouldn't the Samaritan demo be inherently superior to Uncharted 3 because it is a demo, and elaborate pre-scripted set piece, analogous to a CGI movie? Because I think it is inherently superior...but to a nearly unnoticeable degree from just a few feet away.

Its like a film trailer. It might show off a few key shots to excite people but you won't know all the story and other bits until you see the full thing. For fans, the trailer will be enough but for the average person, they might have to wait to see it to form an opinion as to whether its better or worse than another film.

Like every tech demo since the dawn of time, they just show off eye-candy or other fancy things. Even at this stage Samaritan does not look like a game but it shows off some really nice graphical effects. Also, the Unreal Engine seems to be one of those things that is constantly updated and tweaked, so who is to say Samaritan will not look even better in time?
 
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