I don't see MS fretting about things. They seem to have had a plan and stuck to it. Sony seem to have reacted to having a significantly lower powered offering previously, and beefed it up to match (and seemingly slightly surpass) Durango. Thats good for third parties but I don't see MS needing to react to it. They'll have their offer ready to go, and market based on that.
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VGLeaks: Durango GPU detailed
- Thread starter phosphor112
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I don't see MS fretting about things. They seem to have had a plan and stuck to it. Sony seem to have reacted to having a significantly lower powered offering previously, and beefed it up to match (and seemingly slightly surpass) Durango. Thats good for third parties but I don't see MS needing to react to it. They'll have their offer ready to go, and market based on that.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Maybe, but there are many things that could be happening. We know that they have to be an extension of the ISA and minimum resources the other CU's are equipped with. The speed of each instruction might vary, the scheduler might have a different logic for assigning tasks, he caches might be partitioned differently and/or have different replacement policies, etc... It would be interesting to hear more details on how they optimized those units.
I'm sure they have a great reason for it, but is that reason tied to video games, or to something else?
First you have to assume they want Kinect available to every game without a performance hit, plus Kinect as an alternative to a traditional remote. That means Kinect needs it's own chunk of memory assigned specifically for it so that you don't see a graphical divide between Kinect and non-Kinect titles.
Second, you have the need to run DVR functionality that has been strongly rumored for a long time. Sony has a very efficient implementation of this on the PS3 already, but there is no guarantee that MS' implementation is as efficient, or that it's just basic DVR service, it could be something with expanded functionality.
Then you get into questions about the OS kernel. At this point I think it's highly likely that it'll be Windows 8 based. Consider MS' current overall corporate direction. Why would they fund Xbox 720 apps that can't also run as Windows 8 apps? Therefore the Xbox 720 needs at least cross compatibility of apps with Windows 8, and emulating that is less efficient than just building the OS off Windows 8. At that point the question is just how much Windows 8 are they putting in the box.
The rumored "display planes" feature also sounds like a real memory hog to me. My interpretation of that is MS' desire to use them for seamless plane switching. For example, you're playing Halo 5 online with your pals and one of them mentions a great new youtube video he saw yesterday. Instead of having to wait to view it after playing you can simply flip to a different, already running, web browsing plane and view the video while waiting for the next round to load.
Or lets say you're watching a blu-ray while your spouse/sibling/etc. wants to watch a video on the DVR. The Xbox 720 can without a hitch stream a pre-scaled version of the DVR'ed media to a compatible Windows 8 device.
The ultimate culmination of this that makes MS need to reserve a lot of assets is the power user. Someone who starts out watching a blu-ray, gets a friends list invite to play Halo 5 online, and during rounds flips over to the live broadcast football game that is running through the Xbox. You don't have to even close the Blu-ray if you buy Halo 5 via Xbox Live Arcade, instead it's progress is paused in the background waiting for you to flip back via a simple Kinect-sensitive snap of the wrist.
Picture the quick flipping you do on a tablet in high resolution with the Xbox 720 keeping all video at the current display setting for your TV regardless of it's native resolution (removing the need for those brief display refreshes), but instead of using a finger you use your hand and instead of flipping to angry birds or a web video that needs to buffer before being ready it's blu-ray movies, digital download movies, your whole music collection, your DVR, and all of your games. Just one flip and everything is there - instant gratification from all of your media.
All of that would eat up a lot of resources, and MS will obviously want some buffer to future proof themselves.
the simplest suggestion would be that they're just separated out for simplicity and they are identical in structure to the other CUs. I think someone mentioned that AMD aren't quite there with switching contexts rapidly and so using the GPU for combined graphics/compute may be inefficient.
McHuj
Member
I've wondered if it's possible that the rumored xboxTV would be a salvaged chip. Assuming this is all one APU, it will still be a large APU and yields probably won't be great at the start, so they'll have a lot of faulty chips.
Traditionally, they couldn't use those for anything. But durango is interesting in that there are 2 modules or 4 jaguar cores and not a single 8 cores CPU, for the GPU, it can render into DDR or ESRAM so, in theory, the ESRAM does not have to be used at all.
I speculate say that the ESRAM and the GPU would be the blocks that are the most susceptible to yield issues.
So my speculation for the day is that the xboxTV set top box will be a salvaged chip from the proper Durango SOC: 2-4 jaguar cores, less then 384 shaders, and no ESRAM, with 2-3 GB of DDR3 RAM. This would be sufficient to run the same Xbox OS and probably the same apps as well. Basically it does everything that Durango does except games.
obviously Microsoft wins here.
Sure. Even if they were identical, if they lived off a different scheduler you wouldn't be able to just mix them to boost performance on tasks willy-nilly. You'd have to sort of treat it like its own little GPU and setup independent tasks to run explicitly in parallel with the 'main GPU'.
Wish we had more info about what the setup is - maybe later, at a dev conference perhaps, or if VG Leaks has more detailed info and feels generous.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Speculation for the day? Xbox portable.
Impossible. Maybe a partnership with Nvidia but Microsoft is not investing in the portable market unless its related to their existing tablets.
SHIELD streaming from 720?
CrunchinJelly
formerly cjelly
higherARC05
Banned
So lets say MS has beefed up their cpu to help with compute tasks, like they did with adding VMX128 to the xenon, and then they leave the 12 sc for rendering.
And for sony they have 14 cu for rendering and the 4 cu for compute tasks that help their cpu that is stock.
How will performance between the two systems be?
LukasTaves
Member
Everything is pointing towards a heavily tile based machine. If this setup does not have the performance pitfalls for tiling that 360 had (and it seems that for most cases it won't), they can just tile enough until the esram is plenty for holding multiple render targets for the tiles and other data as well...
The vgleaks write up says that they are expecting tiles so small they would fit into C/D B's caches, which is also the explanation as to why the esram does not have the massive bandwidth edram on 360 had, the bandwidth costly operations that used to take place on the edram will now occur in the cache.
The big question is what Ms is doing for handling this process automatically... If developers need to change the entire render pipeline just for durango, history shows they probably won't (though, with dx11 even on non tile based gpus tile rendering can improve performance, so it could benefit all platforms and not just durango)
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
the forward comparability wasn't simply for a resolution pump. Supposedly it was full out better textures, draw distance, etc. basically what you would see if turned a game from medium to very high or ultra on the pc side of things.
Can Crusher
Banned
Why is MS so intent on pushing tile based rendering?
Speculation for the day? Xbox portable.
Windows Phone and Surface got that covered.
Tripp Daily
Member
I could not agree more with this statement.
Microsoft has a plan that they think will bring them the largest amount of profit. I don't see Microsoft deviating from that plan, especially with developers telling journalist such as Aegies that the systems are a wash. Increasing the power of the box just to appease elitist does not justify the cost. IMO
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
As I said earlier, it's not Microsoft's imperative to have the most capable console, it should just be good enough to compete, and by all accounts, it will be. People who would put power before everything else are more likely to migrate (back) to PC in a few years anyway.
considering that durango uses a piece of custom silicon to ensure that UI elements can stay in native resolution while rendered 3D resolution content goes off and uh...does something else (be it static or dynamic), i wouldn't pin your hopes on it.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Yup. Their plan doesn't require them to have the most powerful hardware.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Yeah, something similar, but that may not happen as well since 720 is using AMD. Nvidia maybe picky about it.
Can Crusher
Banned
People don't put "power before everything else".
It's about making a consumer decision, because maybe the console with more powerful hardware will age better. This is specially important in a situation where there are 2 competing products being released at the same time.
Now, it is true that in the end software talks. Games are and will always be the most important aspect of a console, and it doesn't matter if a console is less powerful (even if it is noticeably so) IF said console happens to provide gamers with more and better games. Like the PS2 for example, it had more exclusives and it had more significant exclusives.
I believe that when some gamers here on neogaf express a disappointment in regards to MS's decisions with Durango (rumored decisions), comes mainly from the fact that MS doesn't provide more exclusives and now they don't even seem to be interested in providing as high performance hardware as its main competitor.
This will all wash away if comes E3 MS will be guns blazing with a new attitude when it comes to exclusives, but right now it looks what it looks like. It's not just about "power", it's about attitude.
LukasTaves
Member
One of the uses is to set a desired framerate and let the hardware upscale if needed to keep the desired framerate intact, but it's not just for that. The display planes allow composing different streams for multiple displays, even if they are not the same aspect ratio.
Even when scaling, it feels like more tools for developers to tune their games to their needs than admitting the machine is under powered. Look of this generation's sub hd games. Pretty much all of them chose a resolution and stick with it. Something that automatically increased the resolution to the max which would still maintain a desired framerate would probably make these games better looking, not worse.
So far it seems
- MS will still charge for online play and using video streaming service like Netflix
- Less exclusives, if by looking back at the past 2 years (but this can change)
- Durango seems weaker according to leaks
- don't offer service like PSN+
So it is looking like PS4 will be the better system to own. But things can change, maybe 720 might have surprise exclusives that are better than PS4 exclusives or 720 ends up being way cheaper. But please for the love of god no one say Durango will offer better media centre features which would sell the system. Yes PS3 isn't as smooth to use as 360 as a media centre, but no doubt next gen both PS4 and 720 will offer multitasking and user friendly OS that offers media centre features like streaming Netflix ad social features. What ever more 720 offer more on media centre features won't make a big difference as it won't matter as long as PS4 offers the key
Main features such as multitasking and Netflix which I can bet PS4 will offer anyway.
Karak
Member
It seems like MS did indeed shoot for 720p with all bells and whistles and will let the upscaler hardware do its job. Depending on a couple things, this might be incredibly efficient and, for the majority of non polygon counters, be an excellent decision. Its going to come down to the little things like the scaler and efficiency. It does seem, the more we read about it, that the Xbox is customized in a different way but still one that is very dev friendly offering a true upgrade to the 260's hardware but not something drastically different.. To push 720p at 60 with all the bells and whistles and I have to say if their price is right. If their scaling is good and if the customizations impactful enough. Its going to be a very unique system.
I don't know enough about scalers and if their is any magic their to make them close to 1080p if upscaled with additional hardware. But it seems likely.
But despite what you and I may want. We can't just pick and choose to remove things from the equation. Those 2-3 things might be enough for you and I. But for many media centre stuff is a huge huge deal. Especially as they have gotten a taste of it. Despite that taste not being to your and my liking(Slow netflix) paywall, and so forth. If MS is truly pushing something unique it has a good chance of driving some sales. It just...does.
I don't know enough about scalers and if their is any magic their to make them close to 1080p if upscaled with additional hardware. But it seems likely.
But despite what you and I may want. We can't just pick and choose to remove things from the equation. Those 2-3 things might be enough for you and I. But for many media centre stuff is a huge huge deal. Especially as they have gotten a taste of it. Despite that taste not being to your and my liking(Slow netflix) paywall, and so forth. If MS is truly pushing something unique it has a good chance of driving some sales. It just...does.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
So you agree with me, reasonable people will never make a decision based on power alone, yet we've had plenty of knee-jerk reactions already, and we know so little. Of course it's a factor, but everything needs to be considered, especially the games, and that doesn't only include first party titles since third party exclusives do still exist, especially on downloadable services. For instance, the next gen console that shmup developers choose as their platform of choice will be mine, no matter what.
it's also worth bearing in mind that the leap in number of rendered pixels was much smaller last time round (480p - 720p, as opposed to 720p - 1080p), with a much more significant horsepower leap from the machines driving it.
Mr.Wreckless
Banned
Why assume PS4 will offer comparable media services as the 720 but you wont assume MS can do something about the Live paywall and compete with PSN+? We know nothing at this point so its best not to assume about anything.
Karak
Member
First we will go with a regardless of what other systems have comment. The communication between that eSRAM and the Xbox is that you can do various sampling in many different ways to and from it that was not possible in the 360 and was one of the largest 360 complaints. Additionally the way that these new systems work though the Esram, though it is the same size, it can do more due to the system itself, various new compressions, and the efficiencies built into the overall system basically making the the same size chip work more effeciently and appear to be a deeper bowl to sample from than the 360. That is all yet to be seen. But bear in mind these are the things the devs themselves wanted.
Now compared to the other system it IS slower. However, at least from what I am reading, though there is more GB/'s per frame the higher you go, other parts of these systems and the GPU's themselves can't actually do something with all that information. I could be wrong on that but reading up on it apparently 100-110GB/s is a very good speed for doing the most with what you have. It is slower. We will just see if that matters as much as the fact that it is just a small bit eSRAM versus all the GDDR5. Which of course will have its tradeoffs.
If their target was 720p 60FPS and all the bells and whistles and let a good(or excellent) hardware scaler do the rest(upscale to 1080p). They actually hit it right on the head. For their own target.
One thing it is, is a very quick jumping point for devs familiar with that system and adds the improvements they asked for.
McHuj
Member
Latency and power consumption.
Since the memory is on the GPU, the latency for accesses can be much lower than accesses to off chip memory.
The memory being on chip removes the need for external IO pins. Really high speed IO can consume a lot of power especially on wide buses like the high-end GPUs in PC's.
Baconsammy
Banned
I expect we'll see a 99 dollar version with a contract. They didn't test the waters with the 360 for nothing.
I think it is more of a workaround. They wanted a large amount of ram so they went with slow ddr3. The esram is there to help solve the bandwidth problems caused by that choice
Karak
Member
Agreed. I would hope for a 99 but expect at least a 199.99. It only makes sense and as you said, they didn't test the waters for nothing.
Well all of this is before seeing any games, so we only have technical potential to talk about at the moment. From that angle Durango seems disappointing relative to orbis. Doesn't mean it is disappointing overall, or that it won't get eat games, or that it won't 'win' (whatever metric you choose for that). It's just one angle we are looking at them from.
His first assumption is likely based on Sony already offering comparable media services, and that since Sony is heavily invested in multimedia already that they'll likely stay on top of it.
The second probably stems from the fact that PS+ isn't exactly new, and MS competing with someone who doesn't have a paywall for the same services they hide behind theirs isn't new. If MS really thought they needed to alter their online model to compete you'd think they would have done so already. Currently it is a very lucrative model for them, if they don't have to change it they won't.
Karak
Member
Baconsammy
Banned
People expecting the leaks to be accurate are probably going to be surprised by a lot of things.
We know (via leaks) very little, so obviously there will be surprises.
Karak
Member
Well we weren't talking about it being cheap either. We were talking the payment plan which doesn't have to be directly related. In fact its usually the opposite with technology on payment plans.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
I think they also might do something like partner with Samsung and give them away for free (with a contract) with new TVs. Maybe even built-in. E3 is going to be interesting either way.
gollumsluvslave
Member
I can't see either Orbis or Durango replacing XBMC Frodo for me in terms of media center duties...
But will be interesting to see...
Karak
Member
Its funny how many times they have announced little bits about something like this or you see a patent but it hasn't happened yet. With the push for the living room, that would be one good way.
All those things on your list is what the current situation is right now between the two systems and it's not making a difference in terms of sales. No one can really predict how they're going to sell and if people see the value in the 720 over the PS4 then that's what they'll choose and vice versa. On paper the PS3 should be winning by all accounts but in the end they're pretty much tied.
Shtof
Member
I hear Windows Phone and Surface aren't exactly doing well... Wiita U level of failure.
Mr.Wreckless
Banned
I couldnt see MS just giving away Live for free on the 360 in the middle of its cycle after so many people have already paid for it. What would they do for customers that had 2 years of Live already paid up? That would cause a lot of grief. With a new system they could easily say Live is free for all those with a Durango.
I think its completely absurd to assume Live on the 360 is the same Live they will offer on the Durango.