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[GrayChild]

Xbox Consoles Offers Significant Hardware Advantage Over PC, Says Stalker 2 Game Director

Stalker 2 Game Director recently revealed that Xbox consoles offer significant hardware advantage over PC.

tech4gamers.com

STALKER 2 Interview - How GSC Game World Made A True STALKER Game

We recently interviewed the Game Direct at GSC Game World, Ievgen Grygorovych, and asked about various things.

tech4gamers.com

Xbox offers a significant advantage over PC: a consistent hardware configuration across all players. Leverage this by thoroughly understanding the hardware. Even simple tweaks can yield significant performance improvements.

Microsoft provided extensive support, not only for optimizing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 on Xbox Series X|S but also in other areas, such as best practices and knowledge sharing. The Advanced Technology Group worked closely with us, offering real-time assistance as if they were part of our team. Our most productive collaboration occurred when they visited our office to playtest, profile, and troubleshoot the game, helping us explore solutions. They also guided us in selecting the best approach for crash reporting, whether via a separate process, thread, or in-game integration.

Fortunately, we were able to focus on optimization during the final stages of development, with the Xbox Series S as our primary target for performance measurements. Our guiding principle was straightforward: if something didn’t work on Series S, we revisited the solution.

We also optimized CPU usage, leveraging Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) and fine-tuning thread affinities for game, rendering, and background tasks.

 

[Bernoulli]

The advantage:

 

[Skifi28]

Somebody should let that framerate know about the advantage, it looks like it doesn't know yet.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

 

[Venom Snake]

 

[Calverz]

Oh boy here we go. Salty tears in this thread.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

How to word the most banal, obvious thing in game development in a way to fuel another console war thread, something that is applicable to any console in existence

Well done @op

 

[March Climber]

How to word the most banal, obvious thing in game development in a way to fuel another console war thread, something that is applicable to any console in existence

Well done @op

I actually didn’t catch that. I just thought ‘well yea a modern console usually has set specs and a dev kit to utilize, why would this cause disagreements?’

 

[Fess]

The advantage is about having a consistent hardware configuration. Makes it easier to optimize. It’s obviously not about an actual hardware advantage.

 

[Thief1987]

The advantage is about having a consistent hardware configuration. Makes it easier to optimize. It’s obviously not about an actual hardware advantage.

This point exist since the console's inception, it's silly to make headline out of this in 2024. Not the dev's fault, I guess, since he most likely just answered the question.

 

[SweetTooth]

That goes without saying (Consistent HW), although MS borked their HW by having a weak Series S as entry point.

 

[lh032]

Ps5 pro will belong to the best platform for stalker 2 soon

 

[Big Baller]

 

[Panajev2001a]

The advantage is about having a consistent hardware configuration. Makes it easier to optimize. It’s obviously not about an actual hardware advantage.

Xbox tends to have leaner APIs giving devs more control than on PC so it is not just about the console model in terms of consistent configuration (stable HW and OS do wonders btw).

 

[mansoor1980]

we already knew this

 

[Gaiff]

Yeah, it has an auto-pause feature.

Ps5 pro will belong to the best platform for stalker 2 soon

Best console, maybe.

 

[GymWolf]

Dude just discovered room temperature hot water.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Comes back and immediately burns the place down

Missed you boo

 

[DenchDeckard]

Microsoft pulling a Sony here with the Studio. It's about fucking time. This is what they should be doing with all partners.

 

[ZehDon]

... that's actually a good thing. It forced them to create more optimised solutions - something a lot of developers straight up do not do today. "It works? Fuck it, move on" is the name of the game in a scary number of cases. When optimising Baldur's Gate 3 for the Xbox Series S, Larian was able to decrease the memory footprint of the game by over 1GB. As a result, the third act - which had notable performance issues - had a sizeable uptick in performance, and the game ran better across the board on more hardware configurations as a result. If they hadn't optimised for the Series S, the game would be worse overall on a technical level. The same applies for STALKER 2. You're clearly confusing optimisation for feasibility.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

btw, where's the "exclusives r bad m'kay?" crowd?

 

[darrylgorn]

 

[The Pleasure]

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Optimization? Please ignore the 100 gigabyte patch...

 

[Panajev2001a]

... that's actually a good thing. It forced them to create more optimised solutions - something a lot of developers straight up do not do today. "It works? Fuck it, move on" is the name of the game in a scary number of cases. When optimising Baldur's Gate 3 for the Xbox Series S, Larian was able to decrease the memory footprint of the game by over 1GB. As a result, the third act - which had notable performance issues - had a sizeable uptick in performance, and the game ran better across the board on more hardware configurations as a result. If they hadn't optimised for the Series S, the game would be worse overall on a technical level. The same applies for STALKER 2. You're clearly confusing optimisation for feasibility.

That is both true and a bit naive. If something is not feasible on the XSS what do you do? Do you remove it or do you keep hacking at it with the belief that nothing is impossible if you spend enough time on it?

Even in the latter case, what are you not doing because you are spending time and money on that?

 

[MarV0]

Xbox tends to have leaner APIs giving devs more control than on PC so it is not just about the console model in terms of consistent configuration (stable HW and OS do wonders btw).

The shit you guys make up sometimes...

 

[SweetTooth]

... that's actually a good thing. It forced them to create more optimised solutions - something a lot of developers straight up do not do today. "It works? Fuck it, move on" is the name of the game in a scary number of cases. When optimising Baldur's Gate 3 for the Xbox Series S, Larian was able to decrease the memory footprint of the game by over 1GB. As a result, the third act - which had notable performance issues - had a sizeable uptick in performance, and the game ran better across the board on more hardware configurations as a result. If they hadn't optimised for the Series S, the game would be worse overall on a technical level. The same applies for STALKER 2. You're clearly confusing optimisation for feasibility.

On a flip side, it might force them to reduce the size/scope/features to accommodate the weaker hardware.

Thank God Series S is not selling any meaningful amount to warrant that.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Please tell me its poor translation. No way anyone legit said that lmao even if they're fed money in their asshole.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The shit you guys make up sometimes...

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2020-inside-xbox-series-x-full-specs

"[Series X] goes even further than the PC standard in offering more power and flexibility to developers," reveals Goossen. "In grand console tradition, we also support direct to the metal programming including support for offline BVH construction and optimisation. With these building blocks, we expect ray tracing to be an area of incredible visuals and great innovation by developers over the course of the console's lifetime."

Not the first time Xbox allows lower level access than they do on PC.

Worth being this aggressive mate ?

 

[Germuso]

That explain the downgrade

 

[Deleted member 848825]

Oh, so that's why it runs like arse on XSX? Well done!

 

[PharaoTutAnchAmun]

Ps5 pro will belong to the best platform for stalker 2 soon

Make that the best CONSOLE platform, then i agree with you 100%...

 

[SweetTooth]

Ps5 pro will belong to the best platform for stalker 2 soon

Hell yeah it will

 

[digital_ghost]

Oh, so that's why it runs like arse on XSX? Well done!

Fortunately we have a product for you. Philabuster Series G.

 

[PharaoTutAnchAmun]

On a flip side, it might force them to reduce the size/scope/features to accommodate the weaker hardware.

Thank God Series S is not selling any meaningful amount to warrant that.

But but it is..the series S is outselling the series X from day one

 

[adamsapple]

 

[digital_ghost]

But but it is..the series S is outselling the series X from day one

 

[hououinkyouma00]

The advantage:

While the wording is odd what he said isn’t untrue and doesn’t have anything to do with M$.

Console optimization has always been a thing and it has always been and will always be easier to optimize for one set piece of hardware then thousands of possible options.

It’s also part of why console games generally tend to look and/or run better by the end of the generation because that optimization has done work and it’s easier.

Ugh, see this is the problem with current Xbox. You have a more powerful machine then your competitor with your main machine (not including Pro) but devs have to take in account of your weak ass cheap option or not release at all. I get why they don’t allow Series X exclusives but it’s annoying all the same.

I still think if M$ has just used their money to just give the Series S some extra RAM and at least a 6TF GPU it would have been so much better.

 

[Mr Moose]

While what they are saying makes sense in a way, doesn't it run like dog shit on the consoles?

 

[cyberheater]

Xbox series S holding back PC gamers once again.

 

[FrankWza]

Those tools we heard about at launch should be starting kindergarten soon

 

[Magic Carpet]

Well heck I should have held onto the Series X another year before a game was available to take advantage of those extra threads.
Too late now, I'm focusing on PC PC PC.

 

[DAHGAMING]

People act like this is a surprise but theres a small number who have known this all along, I have known myself that a series X is more powerfull than a 4090, PC will only take over next yr with the 5080 upwards but it wont be to long before the bext gen Xbox is out and blows that away aswell .

 

[SEGAvangelist]

I still don't see why this is a bad thing. This is how Alan Wake 2 got a performance mode for both Series X AND PS5.

 

[Wolzard]

The advantage is that others do my work for me.

 

[MarV0]

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2020-inside-xbox-series-x-full-specs



Not the first time Xbox allows lower level access than they do on PC.

Worth being this aggressive mate ?

Imagine taking PR blabber seriously.

 

[mckmas8808]

THANK YOU!!!! It was my biggest take away. Showing once again, how Series S is holding games back.

 

[FoxMcChief]

I see Phil’s check cleared.

 

[FoxMcChief]

While what they are saying makes sense in a way, doesn't it run like dog shit on the consoles?

Not at all.

 

[Mr Moose]

Not at all.

It doesn't run at all? Damn, that's worse than I thought.