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[Heisenberg007]

Yes it was.

And I still suspect that Starfield's 30 FPS is primarily a parity (Series S) bottleneck.

And likely why Halo Infinite had to cancel its co-op.

 

[Slicker than your average]

The low powered shit box that has been fully in stock since release, that nobody gives a shit about is holding next gen games back?

Surely no one predicted this

 

[01011001]

It may work, maybe not anyway it isn't forced to work that's a big difference. You can tweak alot by youself to make it work on pc. And you have more ram to work with. Minimum requirements is 4gb vram and 8gb memory.

4GB VRAM and 8GB system RAM means that they have to calculate at least 2 GB of memory in for Windows and background tasks.

so 4GB VRAM, 6GB system RAM can be used at most until it will get unstable.
realistically a 3GB buffer is better as a recommended minimum spec, so 5GB system RAM if they actually want this to run well on their minimum specs.

at that point it's clearly in range of the Series S.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

If I'm Larian I'm calling MS's bluff. So they did exactly what they should, tell MS that if they want it on the gimped console, send engineers and do it themselves.
All that work to then sell virtually nothing because the userbase only wants gamepass fodder

 

[Riky]

MS will get it working, then it obviously wasn't the hardware.

 

[Fabieter]

4GB VRAM and 8GB system RAM means that they have to calculate at least 2 GB of memory in for Windows and background tasks.

so 4GB VRAM, 6GB system RAM can be used at most until it will get unstable.
realistically a 3GB buffer is better as a recommended minimum spec, so 5GB system RAM if they actually want this to run well on their minimum specs.

at that point it's clearly in range of the Series S.

Going by some benchmarks I watched the game on 1080p on high goes from 40 to 60 fps in solo play. Splitscreen would absolutely tank on a 970.

 

[Icymanipulator]

Just stop releasing games on Xbox then. Problem solved!

 

[Hudo]

Console wars still strong in effect, I see.

 

[01011001]

Going by some benchmarks I watched the game on 1080p on high goes from 40 to 60 fps in solo play. Splitscreen would absolutely tank on a 970.

I mean lowest settings at 30fps would be enough

 

[Zuzu]

I own both a Series S and Series X but Microsoft seem like they’ve put themselves in a bit of difficult position. The Series S is a bit too underpowered which is producing problems at the low end.

And what if Sony release a PS5 Pro? Will Microsoft release an equivalent mid-gen console? If they do then developers will have to put even more work in to optimise for 3 skus, one of which will be very underpowered. It just seems like a lot more hassle and complications for developers. And the userbase will be split between 3 skus (maybe that doesn’t matter too much). Will the market really support and sustain 3 skus of Xbox consoles? It’s all a bit messy imo.

 

[Fabieter]

I mean lowest settings at 30fps would be enough

And 720p? Maybe ms isn't accepting going this low on an important title.

 

[01011001]

And 720p? Maybe ms isn't accepting going this low on an important title.

I mean in splitscreen noone expects good performance.

have you ever seen Halo Infinite in splitscreen on Series S? hell even on Series X it has some weird shit going on in splitscreen, like wrongly culled geometry leading to invisible walls that you can see enemies through n shit... I wonder if you can get banned for cheating if you exploit that

 

[Bernardougf]

They should make the creative choice to launch the game at 30 fps on the series consoles

 

[Guilty_AI]

Larian is quite a young studio, with mostly experience in PC games. So it doesn't surprise me that they don't have the in-house skills to optimize for consoles. Good that Microsoft is helping them and learn them a thing or two.

They've been founded in 1997 and have +10 games under their belts. They've worked with x360, xone, ps4 and Switch ports before. I wouldn't exactly consider them some young and inexperienced studio.

 

[PuppetMaster]

I already bought BG3 on steam in early access like 3 years ago. But I am still on that same PC and I am pretty sure my PS5 will run it better now. So I will double dip.

Also I played both Divinity OS games on PS4 and enjoyed them there very much. It actually plays surprisingly well on a controller.

 

[Banjo64]

MS will get it working, then it obviously wasn't the hardware.

If only Microsoft, who designed the system from the ground up, can get things like this and The Matrix demo working then it’s clearly a hardware or tooling issue.

I’ve never heard of any other console manufacturer having to assist in development for any other console.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I'm no engineer but I don't think your estimates are correct. Split screen doesn't need double power or ram, if that was true even ps5 would have problems. Resolution for every wievport is half the normal resolution or even less if there are borders to keep aspect ratio. Texture are lower resolution and there are less object on screen, probably they will use lod levels differently, giving priority to those with lover details. You also think of memory usage like the old paradigm, preload an amount of textures in ram so far textures are always available in a radius, but with new consoles and their ssd and software functionality they need less textures in ram, so the ram usage it's definitely higher than solo, but not way much. There is indeed more ram used for buffers but again, they are not full fat as resolution and textures for every view port are at best half of single player. If Larian coded the game to use vram like there is a mechanical hdd then it all their fault.
There will be an higher overhead, especially on the cpu side, but SS cpu is on par with series x and ps5, so that's not the problem.
So as said, if they will manage to make it work with the help of MS team, then the problem are the developers, for money, time or inexperience. If they fail, let's hope someone talk about this so we can analyse what happened and then eventually blame the hardware.

Even if there are less objects on-screen, you'd still need to load into memory all the objects that would normally be loaded with a single screen, for each screen. Especially in this game where you can pan the camera above the level and see everything around you. Even with resolution cut in half for each screen, world assets will still take up far more of the budget, it won't necessarely be double but its still a significant increase. And its very likely there already are some forms of visual fidelity compromises for split-screen in the standard next-gen consoles, its jus probable such compromises still weren't enough for the Series S.
Its also likely they're having issues with specific parts of the game rather than the game as whole, the last act will take place in a busy novigrad-like city full of densely packed npcs and buildings, thats obviously gonna weight heavily on the hardware more than your usual rpg villages and forests.

And while the SSD helps, it won't do any magic. From my tests of the game on pc they definitely designed this with SSDs as the standard, since the game starts having pop-in and texture loading issues if you try to play it through an HDD (not to mention obscenely long loading times).

 

[Helghan]

They've been founded in 1997 and have +10 games under their belts. They've worked with x360, xone, ps4 and Switch ports before. I wouldn't exactly consider them some young and inexperienced studio.

Sure, but it wasn't until 2014 that they had an actual hit on their hands.

 

[kaizenkko]

I own both a Series S and Series X but Microsoft seem like they’ve put themselves in a bit of difficult position. The Series S is a bit too underpowered which is producing problems at the low end.

And what if Sony release a PS5 Pro? Will Microsoft release an equivalent mid-gen console? If they do then developers will have to put even more work in to optimise for 3 skus, one of which will be very underpowered. It just seems like a lot more hassle and complications for developers. And the userbase will be split between 3 skus (maybe that doesn’t matter too much). Will the market really support and sustain 3 skus of Xbox consoles? It’s all a bit messy imo.

This is irrelevant for Microsoft. Most developers will keep launching their games on Xbox and, if they need, features will be cut in order to get the game running on Xbox day one. Maybe in some cases, like Larias's BG3, the game skip Xbox, but when talking about AAA games, there's no chance of one of them skip a Xbox release.

This is really bad for us who have buy a real next-gen device.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I own both a Series S and Series X but Microsoft seem like they’ve put themselves in a bit of difficult position. The Series S is a bit too underpowered which is producing problems at the low end.

And what if Sony release a PS5 Pro? Will Microsoft release an equivalent mid-gen console? If they do then developers will have to put even more work in to optimise for 3 skus, one of which will be very underpowered. It just seems like a lot more hassle and complications for developers. And the userbase will be split between 3 skus (maybe that doesn’t matter too much). Will the market really support and sustain 3 skus of Xbox consoles? It’s all a bit messy imo.

Moreover, when the time comes for next-gen cross-gen games, Xbox devs will have to optimize for:

• PC
• Xbox Series S
• Xbox Series X
• Xbox Series Pro
• Xbox Series Ss (next-gen)
• Xbox Series Xx (next-gen)

Devs going crazy:

 

[Mister Wolf]

They should have never made the Series S.

 

[FrankWza]

I only saw people using it for console warring. Thanks for the posts. I just get a bit tired of the series s is holding games back. Especially considering the ps3 generation. Yes, it will require effort. But it’s not holding anything back.

The effort is the part where it's holding back.like the matrix demo. That one took a "gargantuan effort" according to the DF article at the time. This article paints a bleaker picture for the s going forward.
It's also holding games back from releasing. Given enough time and resources I'm sure you can get most games running on any console within a spec range. It's the time and resources part the article refers to that make it an "albatross"

 

[Riky]

I own both a Series S and Series X but Microsoft seem like they’ve put themselves in a bit of difficult position. The Series S is a bit too underpowered which is producing problems at the low end.

And what if Sony release a PS5 Pro? Will Microsoft release an equivalent mid-gen console? If they do then developers will have to put even more work in to optimise for 3 skus, one of which will be very underpowered. It just seems like a lot more hassle and complications for developers. And the userbase will be split between 3 skus (maybe that doesn’t matter too much). Will the market really support and sustain 3 skus of Xbox consoles? It’s all a bit messy imo.

The target even if there is eventually a Pro console will be the base Series X, then they will scale up and down just like PC settings, a lot easier this gen with a shared GDK.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Sure, but it wasn't until 2014 that they had an actual hit on their hands.

Doesn't change their degree of expertise. Their old divinity games weren't exactly small either.

 

[Fools idol]

In Larian we trust.

I hope Bg3 lives up to the name, and I can think of no better people than Sven and his merry band of nerds at Larian to do the job.

 

[Fools idol]

Larian is quite a young studio, with mostly experience in PC games. So it doesn't surprise me that they don't have the in-house skills to optimize for consoles. Good that Microsoft is helping them and learn them a thing or two.

BG is one of those diehard PC franchises so I am happy to see Larian doing their best with help to make it work on any platform.

 

[Topher]

MS will get it working, then it obviously wasn't the hardware.

But it is the hardware. If XSS had the same memory as XSX then both consoles would be getting the game at the same time as PS5. MS being brought in to help find a work around to XSS memory constraints doesn't change that.

 

[Guilty_AI]

In Larian we trust.

I hope Bg3 lives up to the name, and I can think of no better people than Sven and his merry band of nerds at Larian to do the job.

 

[Disco Dave]

Can we not drop Series S resolution to 40p?

 

[kuncol02]

I’ve never heard of any other console manufacturer having to assist in development for any other console.

You must be fucking joking now. Sony literally have whole team dedicated to this.

Yes, Sony Helped Optimise Final Fantasy 16 for PS5

And it shows

www.pushsquare.com

Iwata himself wrote new compression tools for gamefreak so they could fit whole content of Pokemon Gold and Silver into cartridge.

 

[Riky]

But it is the hardware. If XSS had the same memory as XSX then both consoles would be getting the game at the same time as PS5. MS being brought in to help find a work around to XSS memory constraints doesn't change that.

As long as it works then the hardware was enough, Devs had a bigger gap between One and One X and everyone managed.

 

[Banjo64]

You must be fucking joking now. Sony literally have whole team dedicated to this.

Yes, Sony Helped Optimise Final Fantasy 16 for PS5

And it shows

www.pushsquare.com

Iwata himself wrote new compression tools for gamefreak so they could fit whole content of Pokemon Gold and Silver into cartridge.

You must be joking if you think Sony helping to optimise a game that they’ve pumped money in to, and will probably end up staying console exclusive, is in anyway comparable to MS having to go and assist third party devs to get a game running on their systems.

Same for Nintendo, who publish Game Freak’s games. Nintendo and Game Freak Co-own Pokémon. Game Freak are based in Nintendo offices.

So yeah, I’m not fucking joking but it sounds like you could be.

 

[Topher]

As long as it works then the hardware was enough, Devs had a bigger gap between One and One X and everyone managed.

That's fine, but the XSS memory is still the issue that is causing the delay for Xbox.

 

[Heisenberg007]

You must be fucking joking now. Sony literally have whole team dedicated to this.

Yes, Sony Helped Optimise Final Fantasy 16 for PS5

And it shows

www.pushsquare.com

Iwata himself wrote new compression tools for gamefreak so they could fit whole content of Pokemon Gold and Silver into cartridge.

1. SquareEnix is on record saying that Sony's exclusivity offered included development and optimization support. That was a deal sweetener and pre-planned.
2. Microsoft is not sending devs to Larian because of a deal. They are sending devs to help because Series S isn't powerful enough to run BG3 split-screen co-op, and the game has been delayed indefinitely because of it. This is not a planned instance.

How are the two situations same?

 

[Riky]

That's fine, but the XSS memory is still the issue that is causing the delay for Xbox.

No doubt it is they have said so. Is the minimum spec above a 5500XT?

 

[adamsapple]

I’ve never heard of any other console manufacturer having to assist in development for any other console.

Wasn't that the whole thing about ICE team in the PS3 era ?

 

[Topher]

No doubt it is they have said so. Is the minimum spec above a 5500XT?

Minimum specs require 4 GB of VRAM and 8 GB system RAM. I don't know if that is enough to support split screen coop though.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

It's the same people who brought us split screen in Halo Infinite.

 

[Riky]

Minimum specs require 4 GB of VRAM and 8 GB system RAM. I don't know if that is enough to support split screen coop though.

If the game runs on a 4gb 5500XT then the Series S shouldn't be a huge issue, it normally outperforms the 8gb version of that card.

 

[Guilty_AI]

If the game runs on a 4gb 5500XT then the Series S shouldn't be a huge issue, it normally outperforms the 8gb version of that card.

Yeah, but the issue isn't running the game, its running it with split-screen coop. Series S needs feature parity with the X as one of the requirements to release a game on Xbox, thats the fundamental problem here.

 

[Banjo64]

Wasn't that the whole thing about ICE team in the PS3 era ?

No.

The Ice Team doesn’t assist third party studios to get games running on Sony consoles.

 

[Topher]

If the game runs on a 4gb 5500XT then the Series S shouldn't be a huge issue, it normally outperforms the 8gb version of that card.

Big enough of an issue for the game to be delayed and MS having to be brought in. But again, the issue is specifically split screen coop, not getting the game running.

 

[Porticus]

You must be joking if you think Sony helping to optimise a game that they’ve pumped money in to, and will probably end up staying console exclusive, is in anyway comparable to MS having to go and assist third party devs to get a game running on their systems.

Same for Nintendo, who publish Game Freak’s games. Nintendo and Game Freak Co-own Pokémon. Game Freak are based in Nintendo offices.

So yeah, I’m not fucking joking but it sounds like you could be.

Yeah the guy lacks any crytical thinking or logic, the two are not comparable at all.

 

[cireza]

Microsoft is not sending devs to Larian because of a deal. They are sending devs to help because Series S isn't powerful enough to run BG3 split-screen co-op, and the game has been delayed indefinitely because of it. This is not a planned instance.

I’ve never heard of any other console manufacturer having to assist in development for any other console.

In what world do you guys live in ?

You don't need to have some exclusivity deal or planned sessions to actually ask for technical support on the hardware and software you are developing on. If you are facing technical issues, you can ask for expertise from MS, Sony or Nintendo... Of course they are going to try and help, because as a developer/publisher, you actually are their customer.

 

[NickFire]

In what world do you guys live in ?

You don't need to have some exclusivity deal or planned sessions to actually ask for technical support on the hardware and software you are developing on. If you are facing technical issues, you can ask for expertise from MS, Sony or Nintendo... Of course they are going to try and help, because as a developer/publisher, you actually are their customer.

The guy you responded to said the same thing as you. He just laid out why they asked for help in addition.

 

[cireza]

The guy you responded to said the same thing as you. He just laid out why they asked for help in addition.

Asking for support, planned or not, deal or not, is a common thing and there is not one that is "better" than the other. He is pushing some specific narrative.

 

[thismeinteil]

Oh, the irony of Xbox fanboys mocking PS5 having cross-gen games when they have to deal with cross-gen all gen long thanks to the S.

Also reminded of the ridiculous talk about the S possibly beating the PS5 before launch.

 

[NickFire]

Asking for support, planned or not, deal or not, is a common thing and there is not one that is "better" than the other. He is pushing some specific narrative.

i disagree. He’s pushing what seems like reality. People just don’t like reading the truth that Series S is screwing over Series X owners right now because of hardware limits and parity requirements. It is what it is.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Asking for support, planned or not, deal or not, is a common thing and there is not one that is "better" than the other. He is pushing some specific narrative.

I don't know if it's a common thing, unless there were hardware issues (e.g., PS3). Can you share a few examples of devs asking for help in normal circumstances -- no strings attached -- from console manufacturers to ship their game?

 

[Banjo64]

In what world do you guys live in ?

You don't need to have some exclusivity deal or planned sessions to actually ask for technical support on the hardware and software you are developing on. If you are facing technical issues, you can ask for expertise from MS, Sony or Nintendo... Of course they are going to try and help, because as a developer/publisher, you actually are their customer.

Can you give me an example of a game being delayed indefinitely on a current gen platform because the devs can’t get it to work?

Because this is so common, I’m sure you’ll be able to provide a few pretty quickly.