So if a console has this effect on higher spec PCs why do you believe this effect would not exist on a 2x+ more powerful console?
Actually, I mentioned
hypothetical limitations - I actually can't point to a single one. My actual point was that if you believe consoles have been holding back PCs to such an extreme degree, then you must also believe they've been doing it for forty years. What's changed this generation? Why does the XSS deserve its own thread, or special concern? At the end of the day, developers will target the hardware that sells - which is why Witcher 3 was
ported to the Switch, even though it was
deeply compromised. You cover this concept below, so we'll touch on it more there.
I'm talking about a specific console too through an example. Crysis remastered is again a good example of exactly what I'm saying and shows that SVOGI was held back most of this gen. SVOGI was ready tech right at the beginning of the current gen in UE4 but it was dropped from the engine right before PS4 and XB1 release so little to no games used it even on PC . It didn't make sense to have it because the popular devices at the time didn't support it well.
If the feature was complete and ready in a multi-platform third-party game engine, why was it pulled
after it was finished? It costs nothing to not implement the feature. Something doesn't add up, does it?
Tim Sweeny addressed the myth that SVOGI was removed to placate consoles - it was removed because it was too computationally expensive within the engine itself. They were able to match the effect with pre-baked lighting, so, they prioritised the latter, and returned to real-time non-hardware accelerated GI with their PS5 demo using a different accumulation method. You seem to think that if consoles don't support a feature, it's throw into the trash, even after its developed and implemented. Why does Battlefield V on PC supports ray tracing while its console port doesn't?
The reason you have seen that effort in it for Pro and X now in Crysis remastered is because the game hasn't released yet and that investment made sense for the upcoming next gen consoles too which I'm sure it will release on. I believe you would NOT have seen that effort otherwise even on PC had this game released at the beginning or mid gen this gen. All you would get is increased res or fps. They would have baked it across all of them or used an alternative.
Not at all. Crytec solved the computationally expensive SVOGI method and implemented it into their engine way back in 2015. It's been featured in several PC games - and the feature was disabled in the console ports of those titles. It was not implemented onto the base consoles because they cannot run the feature in realtime, where as the more advanced consoles can, so, they enabled it - though with a resolution hit (One X at 1080p, for example). Scaling isn't a myth, it just takes effort.
This will be happening in the upcoming gen too. An id software engine developer has already come out and said that half the ram in the Series S is low and things like Raytracing BVH takes up a lot of RAM. What do you think will happen if say the Series S makes up 90% of sales in the upcoming gen? engine developers strive for easy development and parity (in development) across all supported platforms. If one very popular platform doesn't support RT BVH for example they will come up with an alternative that gets similar results and make the workflow the same across all platforms just as Unreal Engine 4 did at the beginning of last gen with SVOGI. You don't want a completely different way of working just for one platform.
You make so many assumptions, attempt so many snuck premises, and derive from your above faulty premises, that it's actually difficult to address this section. The id developer commenting about the RAM limitations is a good example of an educated person commenting on the hardware. It's a good place to start. But, you're off to races without understanding what he's saying. Notice how he highlighted an impact on ray tracing, not AI? He didn't mention gameplay. He mentioned an extremely specific visual element.
XSS having 90% of the market share? Terrific - XSX is a bigger version that supports an identical feature set, so it'll be easy for developers to scale down to hit the XSS platform from the XSX version.
RT BVH structure takes up too much memory? Terrific - create a lower fidelity sub-structure and set it for the XSS profile.
RT tanks the framerate on the XSS? Terrific - disable the feature entirely, and have it fall back to the traditional reflection and lighting models that will be used on the PC platform for graphics cards that don't support HART.
XSS can't handle the NPC texture variety? Terrific - implement an NPC selection sub-set and give the XSS version less options.
Texture quality is blurry on the XSS? Who cares, it's a budget machine for people who don't care what mip-map level they're textures max out to.
Load times are really long on the XSS? It's a budget machine, what did you expect?
The Witcher 3 looks like soup on the Switch? Who cares - it's the whole game, it functions, and its portable.
Sorry friend, but you're not demonstrating anything worthy of concern. What specific feature do you think developers will throw out entirely because the XSS can't support it? What specific gameplay elements will be abandoned because the XSS can't accommodate it?