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[Bernkastel]

I would actually love a presentation of the world.

 

[Bernkastel]

 

[Rossco EZ]

when they mention all games will play better on XSX does that mean just first party games from past gens or 3rd party as well? there’s a few games i want to pick up and one is vampyr but from what i understand it still runs at 1080p even on one x. will this get a frame rate and resolution boost?

 

[Bernkastel]

when they mention all games will play better on XSX does that mean just first party games from past gens or 3rd party as well? there’s a few games i want to pick up and one is vampyr but from what i understand it still runs at 1080p even on one x. will this get a frame rate and resolution boost?

All Xbox 360/OG Xbox BC games would get automatic HDR, framerate and resolution boost. Xbox One games probably depend on the respective devs.

 

[DrDamn]

So, any guesses on surprises for Thursday? We can make decent guesses for most of the first party stuff, what do you think we will see in terms of console exclusives, or console launch exclusives?

I think something from a big Japanese developer, Capcom maybe. My wild shot in the dark is World of Warcraft.

 

[Bernkastel]

So, any guesses on surprises for Thursday? We can make decent guesses for most of the first party stuff, what do you think we will see in terms of console exclusives, or console launch exclusives?

I think something from a big Japanese developer, Capcom maybe. My wild shot in the dark is World of Warcraft.

Cant be Capcom. Phil hinted at XGS publishing a game from a Japanese studio.

 

[Bernkastel]

 

[Bernkastel]

 

[ManaByte]

Mass Effect remaster exclusive to XSX and Mass Effect 4 a timed exclusive. You get the remaster free for pre-ordering.

 

[eastwood333]

Interesting!

 

[Bernkastel]

Mass Effect remaster exclusive to XSX and Mass Effect 4 a timed exclusive. You get the remaster free for pre-ordering.

 

[Andodalf]

Mass Effect remaster exclusive to XSX and Mass Effect 4 a timed exclusive. You get the remaster free for pre-ordering.

Has EA ever done an exclusive? BioWare and MS definitely have history

 

[eastwood333]

Has EA ever done an exclusive? BioWare and MS definitely have history

Eh, i'll be disappointed if its just a remaster of the ME trilogy. I'm perfectly fine just playing them on XB1X via BC. They should even get more free upgrades like native 4k/60fps/faster loading/HDR based on what MS has stated in terms of XSX BC upgrades.

 

[Bernkastel]

Has EA ever done an exclusive? BioWare and MS definitely have history

I guess this is just an advertisement for BC. They use Machine Learning to make the BC trilogy look modern. So exclusive to XSX.

 

[Rossco EZ]

All Xbox 360/OG Xbox BC games would get automatic HDR, framerate and resolution boost. Xbox One games probably depend on the respective devs.

thanks

 

[Hendrick's]

I guess this is just an advertisement for BC. They use Machine Learning to make the BC trilogy look modern. So exclusive to XSX.

Funny, I read in that other thread that XSX can't do ML. Who knew?

 

[Bernkastel]

Funny, I read in that other thread that XSX can't do ML. Who knew?

Who said that ? They demoed DirectML live back in 2018.

 

[Hendrick's]

Who said that ? They demoed DirectML live back in 2018.

Don't make me dig back through that cesspool.

 

[sonomamashine]

I decided to take a peek in the next-gen speculation thread. What a horrible idea. It's a shitshow of epic proportions. There are people seriously believing that the Horizon trailer wasn't CGI...

 

[ManaByte]

I decided to take a peek in the next-gen speculation thread. What a horrible idea. It's a shitshow of epic proportions. There are people seriously believing that the Horizon trailer wasn't CGI...

Why would it be CG? It barely looked better than the first game.

 

[Bernkastel]

Why would it be CG? It barely looked better than the first game.

I believe it was real time, and thanks for the input.

Don't make me dig back through that cesspool.

I have to go to sleep now. But I will post those DirectML demo images, patents, interviews from other threads later. If anyone ever says DirectML is fake you can use them.

 

[Hendrick's]

I believe it was real time, and thanks for the input.

I have to go to sleep now. But I will post those DirectML demo images, patents, interviews from other threads later. If anyone ever says DirectML is fake you can use them.

Haha, keep doing the lords work. Somewhere I did see someone say that, but most of what we are getting now is major downplaying along the lines of "Without dedicated hardware it isn't effective".

 

[Xaero Gravity]

All Xbox 360/OG Xbox BC games would get automatic HDR, framerate and resolution boost. Xbox One games probably depend on the respective devs.

I had no idea this was the case until you mentioned. This is incredible news for me, as I find HDR to be even more impressive than 4K

 

[Clintizzle]

I decided to take a peek in the next-gen speculation thread. What a horrible idea. It's a shitshow of epic proportions. There are people seriously believing that the Horizon trailer wasn't CGI...

Yeah, Horizon is going to look amazing and no one contests that. The problem I have is when they start saying a game is lesser because it doesn't match the "foliage" or "character" models that we saw in that trailer.

 

[LarknThe4th]

I'm excited for what they have to show, it's time for them to finally deliver on the 1st party front and I feel the pieces are in place

Fingers crossed

 

[ManaByte]

 

[Nikana]

I'm sure this will go over well.

 

[ManaByte]

I'm sure this will go over well.

Seems to be an indie dev working on an Ecco the Dolphin style game.

 

[Nikana]

Seems to be an indie dev working on an Ecco the Dolphin style game.

But how will that work without blast processing?

 

[Ascend]

Direct evidence that Sony fanboys are a lot worse than Xbox fanboys. Something many websites/forums have a hard time acknowledging for some reason. And sadly, this place is no different.

Mass Effect remaster exclusive to XSX and Mass Effect 4 a timed exclusive. You get the remaster free for pre-ordering.

That would be AWESOME. Mass Effect being my favorite franchise, I'd love this. In fact, I would love for BioWare to become a Microsoft 1st party studio, just to escape EA's inevitable killing of the studio like happened with so many others.
People love to complain about the lack of exclusives on Xbox, but many of the best franchises started on Xbox.

 

[splattered]

Microsoft exclusive Mass Effect franchise reboot like Tomb Raider?

Hmmm

 

[SleepDoctor]

Lol nobody wants that game tho. It can be 8k/240fps and still a pile of shit.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

Lol nobody wants that game tho. It can be 8k/240fps and still a pile of shit.

I hope SeX gets Goodbye Volcano High in return.

 

[Clintizzle]

any word on what the stream will be like. 1080p/30? 1080p/60?

4K/120?

 

[Xaero Gravity]

any word on what the stream will be like. 1080p/30? 1080p/60?

4K/120?

1080p/60fps livestream and 4K/60fps VoD immediately after.

 

[Doncabesa]

1080p/60fps livestream and 4K/60fps VoD immediately after.

I wish Mixer lasted one more day so we could have gotten 4k/60 or that Xbox Live Events app was a gorgeous 4k/60 too, need to bring that back because Youtube Premiers look like ass.

 

[CatLady]

Has EA ever done an exclusive? BioWare and MS definitely have history

If you want to play the Mass Effect trilogy on current or next gen consoles it already IS exclusive to Xbox. It's also like a remaster with upgrades and HDR on the XsX

 

[Redlight]

Direct evidence that Sony fanboys are a lot worse than Xbox fanboys. Something many websites/forums have a hard time acknowledging for some reason. And sadly, this place is no different.

Absolutely. The aftermath of the Xbox showcase could be toxic regardless of the content. Expect the downplaying, goal-post shifting, baiting, hypocrisy and salt to reach epic levels.

Think back to the indie showcase. It should've had more actual gameplay given how it was promoted, but if you get your news from GAF you'd think that they only showed E.T. The Videogame and Superman 64.

 

[eastwood333]

Direct evidence that Sony fanboys are a lot worse than Xbox fanboys. Something many websites/forums have a hard time acknowledging for some reason. And sadly, this place is no different.



That would be AWESOME. Mass Effect being my favorite franchise, I'd love this. In fact, I would love for BioWare to become a Microsoft 1st party studio, just to escape EA's inevitable killing of the studio like happened with so many others.
People love to complain about the lack of exclusives on Xbox, but many of the best franchises started on Xbox.

Wow, read the hate he's getting by butthurt sony fanboys. They're littering trying to bully the guy.

 

[CatLady]

Absolutely. The aftermath of the Xbox showcase could be toxic regardless of the content. Expect the downplaying, goal-post shifting, baiting, hypocrisy and salt to reach epic levels.

Think back to the indie showcase. It should've had more actual gameplay given how it was promoted, but if you get your news from GAF you'd think that they only showed E.T. The Videogame and Superman 64.

I just hope the Mods reopen the Sony Safe Space Spec thread by then or this forum will be terrifying. If it's still closed and they can't all gather in there to shitpost, fantasize PS5 superiority and downplay everything positive about the Xbox games the toxicity will engulf the entire gaming side. That thread is toxic as hell but like the REE asylum it works well as a containment area.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

There's no way I'm even going to bother with GAF during the reveal, and for a few days after. I know that regardless of what's shown, I'm going to have an aneurysm reading the hot takes and concern trolling. I'd rather not want to headbutt a concrete wall.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

1080p/60fps livestream and 4K/60fps VoD immediately after.

Sony: Devs didn't have enough time to figure out how to send us 60 fps videos to show during our June event. Kudos to the millions of people over the years streaming content at 60 fps because Sony and the third party devs just couldn't figure out how to do it

MS: Our May and July shows stream at 60 fps

 

[Bernkastel]

Phil Spencer says Xbox still has to work 'to rebuild trust with Japanese creators'

There's still plenty of room to grow.

www.windowscentral.com

"I'm proud of what we're going to show on the 23rd, I like our roadmap of working directly with Japanese creators to build great Xbox games, you'll hear more about that in the future," Spencer says. "We know that it's a critically important thing to our strategy to make sure that the amazing creators in Japan feel that Xbox is a platform where they can have success."

 

[Bernkastel]

Regarding DirectML

Another big game changer is DirectML.

DirectML – Xbox Series X supports Machine Learning for games with DirectML, a component of DirectX. DirectML leverages unprecedented hardware performance in a console, benefiting from over 24 TFLOPS of 16-bit float performance and over 97 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of 4-bit integer performance on Xbox Series X. Machine Learning can improve a wide range of areas, such as making NPCs much smarter, providing vastly more lifelike animation, and greatly improving visual quality.

DirectML was part of Nvidia's SIGGRAPH 2018 tech talk

NVIDIA On-Demand

A searchable database of content from GTCs and various other events.

on-demand.gputechconf.com

Forza Horizon 3 demo at 16:06

At 19:06

At 19:28

Performance comparison at 22:38

Windows AI

Learn about Windows AI solutions, such as Direct ML and Windows Machine Learning

docs.microsoft.com

We couldn’t write a graphics blog without calling out how DNNs(Deeo Neural Networks) can help improve the visual quality and performance of games. Take a close look at what happens when NVIDIA uses ML to up-sample this photo of a car by 4x. At first the images will look quite similar, but when you zoom in close, you’ll notice that the car on the right has some jagged edges, or aliasing, and the one using ML on the left is crisper. Models can learn to determine the best color for each pixel to benefit small images that are upscaled, or images that are zoomed in on. You may have had the experience when playing a game where objects look great from afar, but when you move close to a wall or hide behind a crate, things start to look a bit blocky or fuzzy – with ML we may see the end of those types of experiences.

PS : DirectML is the part of WindowsML meant for gaming.

Hardware & Tech News - OC3D.net

OC3D is where you can find the latest PC Hardware and Gaming News & Reviews. Get updates on GPUs, Motherboards, CPUs, and more.

www.overclock3d.net

Inside Xbox Series X: the full specs

This is it. After months of teaser trailers, blog posts and even the occasional leak, we can finally reveal firm, hard …

www.eurogamer.net

Machine learning is a feature we've discussed in the past, most notably with Nvidia's Turing architecture and the firm's DLSS AI upscaling. The RDNA 2 architecture used in Series X does not have tensor core equivalents, but Microsoft and AMD have come up with a novel, efficient solution based on the standard shader cores. With over 12 teraflops of FP32 compute, RDNA 2 also allows for double that with FP16 (yes, rapid-packed math is back). However, machine learning workloads often use much lower precision than that, so the RDNA 2 shaders were adapted still further.
"We knew that many inference algorithms need only 8-bit and 4-bit integer positions for weights and the math operations involving those weights comprise the bulk of the performance overhead for those algorithms," says Andrew Goossen. "So we added special hardware support for this specific scenario. The result is that Series X offers 49 TOPS for 8-bit integer operations and 97 TOPS for 4-bit integer operations. Note that the weights are integers, so those are TOPS and not TFLOPs. The net result is that Series X offers unparalleled intelligence for machine learning."
...
However, the big innovation is clearly the addition of hardware accelerated ray tracing. This is hugely exciting and at Digital Foundry, we've been tracking the evolution of this new technology via the DXR and Vulkan-powered games we've seen running on Nvidia's RTX cards and the console implementation of RT is more ambitious than we believed possible.
RDNA 2 fully supports the latest DXR Tier 1.1 standard, and similar to the Turing RT core, it accelerates the creation of the so-called BVH structures required to accurately map ray traversal and intersections, tested against geometry. In short, in the same way that light 'bounces' in the real world, the hardware acceleration for ray tracing maps traversal and intersection of light at a rate of up to 380 billion intersections per second.
"Without hardware acceleration, this work could have been done in the shaders, but would have consumed over 13 TFLOPs alone," says Andrew Goossen. "For the Series X, this work is offloaded onto dedicated hardware and the shader can continue to run in parallel with full performance. In other words, Series X can effectively tap the equivalent of well over 25 TFLOPs of performance while ray tracing."
It is important to put this into context, however. While workloads can operate at the same time, calculating the BVH structure is only one component of the ray tracing procedure. The standard shaders in the GPU also need to pull their weight, so elements like the lighting calculations are still run on the standard shaders, with the DXR API adding new stages to the GPU pipeline to carry out this task efficiently. So yes, RT is typically associated with a drop in performance and that carries across to the console implementation, but with the benefits of a fixed console design, we should expect to see developers optimise more aggressively and also to innovate. The good news is that Microsoft allows low-level access to the RT acceleration hardware.
"[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."
The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, of course. During our time at the Redmond campus, Microsoft demonstrated how fully featured the console's RT features are by rolling out a very early Xbox Series X Minecraft DXR tech demo, which is based on the Minecraft RTX code we saw back at Gamescom last year and looks very similar, despite running on a very different GPU. This suggests an irony of sorts: base Nvidia code adapted and running on AMD-sourced ray tracing hardware within Series X. What's impressive about this is that it's fully path-traced. Aside from the skybox and the moon in the demo we saw, there are no rasterised elements whatsoever. The entire presentation is ray traced, demonstrating that despite the constraints of having to deliver RT in a console with a limited power and silicon budget, Xbox Series X is capable of delivering the most ambitious, most striking implementation of ray tracing - and it does so in real time.
Minecraft DXR is an ambitious statement - total ray tracing, if you like - but we should expect to see the technology used in very different ways. "We're super excited for DXR and the hardware ray tracing support," says Mike Rayner, technical director of the Coalition and Gears 5. "We have some compute-based ray tracing in Gears 5, we have ray traced shadows and the [new] screen-space global illumination is a form of ray traced screen-based GI and so, we're interested in how the ray tracing hardware can be used to take techniques like this and then move them out to utilising the DXR cores.
"I think, for us, the way that we've been thinking about it is as we look forward, we think hybrid rendering between traditional rendering techniques and then using DXR - whether for shadows or GI or adding reflections - are things that can really augment the scene and [we can] use all of that chip to get the best final visual quality."
...
Microsoft ATG principal software engineer Claude Marais showed us how a machine learning algorithm using Gears 5's state-of-the-art HDR implementation is able to infer a full HDR implementation from SDR content on any back-compat title. It's not fake HDR either, Marais rolled out a heatmap mode showing peak brightness for every on-screen element, clearly demonstrating that highlights were well beyond the SDR range.

Microsoft’s Game Stack chief: The next generation of games and game development

James Gwertzman, general manager of Microsoft Game Stack, gets to see how thousand of games are developed and run. He talked about the future of games.

venturebeat.com

Journalist: How hard is game development going to get for the next generation? For PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X? The big problem in the past was when you had to switch to a new chip, like the Cell. It was a disaster. PlayStation 3 development was painful and slow. It took years and drove up costs. But since you’re on x86, it shouldn’t happen, right? A lot of those painful things go away because it’s just another faster PC. But what’s going to be hard? What’s the next bar that everybody is going to shoot for that’s going to give them a lot of pain, because they’re trying to shoot too high?
Gwertzman: You were talking about machine learning and content generation. I think that’s going to be interesting. One of the studios inside Microsoft has been experimenting with using ML models for asset generation. It’s working scarily well. To the point where we’re looking at shipping really low-res textures and having ML models uprez the textures in real time. You can’t tell the difference between the hand-authored high-res texture and the machine-scaled-up low-res texture, to the point that you may as well ship the low-res texture and let the machine do it.
Journalist: Can you do that on the hardware without install time?
Gwertzman: Not even install time. Run time.
Journalist: To clarify, you’re talking about real time, moving around the 3D space, level of detail style?
Gwertzman: Like literally not having to ship massive 2K by 2K textures. You can ship tiny textures.
Journalist: Are you saying they’re generated on the fly as you move around the scene, or they’re generated ahead of time?
Gwertzman: The textures are being uprezzed in real time.
Journalist: So you can fit on one blu-ray.
Gwertzman: The download is way smaller, but there’s no appreciable difference in game quality. Think of it more like a magical compression technology. That’s really magical. It takes a huge R&D budget. I look at things like that and say — either this is the next hard thing to compete on, hiring data scientists for a game studio, or it’s a product opportunity. We could be providing technologies like this to everyone to level the playing field again.
Journalist: Where does the source data set for that come from? Do you take every texture from every game that ships under Microsoft Game Studios?
Gwertzman: In this case, it only works by training the models on very specific sets. One genre of game. There’s no universal texture map. That would be kind of magical. It’s more like, if you train it on specific textures and then you — it works with those, but it wouldn’t work with a whole different set.
Journalist: So you still need an artist to create the original set.
Journalist: Are there any legal considerations around what you feed into the model?
Gwertzman: It’s especially good for photorealism, because that adds tons of data. It may not work so well for a fantasy art style. But my point is that I think the fact that that’s a technology now — game development has always been hard in terms of the sheer number of disciplines you have to master. Art, physics, geography, UI, psychology, operant conditioning. All these things we have to master. Then we add backend services and latency and multiplayer, and that’s hard enough. Then we added microtransactions and economy management and running your own retail store inside your game. Now we’re adding data science and machine learning. The barrier seems to be getting higher and higher.
That’s where I come in. At heart, Microsoft is a productivity company. Our employee badge says on the back, the company mission is to help people achieve more. How do we help developers achieve more? That’s what we’re trying to figure out.

Scorn Interview - Xbox Series X Is a 'Very Balanced System'; Trailer Was Running on an RTX 2080Ti

We talk to the Game Director of Scorn. He claims that the Xbox Series X is a very balanced system and clarifies the GPU used in the trailer.

wccftech.com

Xbox Series X also features support for DirectML. Are you planning to use the Machine Learning API in some ways for Scorn?
DirectML and NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 are very interesting solutions when the game is not hitting the desired performance and it feels like these solutions could help players with weaker systems quite substantially. A lot of these new features have been at our disposal for a very limited amount of time. We will try our best to give players as many options as possible.

Use of Machine Learning in texture compression
Patent US20200105030A1 and US20190304138A1 describes the use of machine learning in texture compression or upscaling and reducing search space for real time texture compression.

US20200105030A1 - Machine learning applied to textures compression or upscaling - Google Patents

Methods and devices for generating hardware compatible compressed textures may include accessing, at runtime of an application program, graphics hardware incompatible compressed textures in a format incompatible with a graphics processing unit (GPU). The methods and devices may include...

patents.google.com

US20190304138A1 - Reducing the search space for real time texture compression - Google Patents

Methods and devices for real time texture compression may include accessing graphics hardware incompatible compressed textures in a format incompatible with the GPU, and a metadata file associated with the graphics hardware incompatible compressed textures, wherein the metadata file includes at...

patents.google.com

Video games are experiencing problems with textures taking too much storage. Having a relatively large storage footprint effects the speed with which games can load textures. Block compression used by games at runtime to save memory, bandwidth and cache pressure have a fixed compression ratio. Other schemes present far better compression ratio but are not in a format directly usable by GPU. One method is, using a machine learning model the graphics hardware incompatible compressed textures(e.g., Machine Learning Image Compression, JPEG compression, wavelet compression etc.,) will be converted into hardware compatible compressed textures usable by GPU at runtime of the application. Another method relates to a computer readable medium storing instructions executable by a computing device, causing the computing device to access at runtime of an application, graphics hardware incompatible compressed textures in a format incompatible with GPU and using the instructions to convert them into hardware compatible compressed in run time. This will help in reducing input/output bandwidth and the actual size of game data.

For some reason a cropped version of the first comparison image makes rounds in the internet without any context of where it came from.

 

[Bernkastel]

I had no idea this was the case until you mentioned. This is incredible news for me, as I find HDR to be even more impressive than 4K

Xbox Series X, BC to bring HDR and 60/120 FPS

The Verge Microsoft is planning to automatically add HDR support to games played on its upcoming Xbox Series X console. While existing games will automatically play better on the Xbox Series X, Microsoft is also doing some work to add HDR support and even improve some games from a 30fps locked...

www.neogaf.com

 

[West Texas CEO]

wow, I can't wait to play Crackdown on XSX

 

[Nico_D]

Viva Pinata 3 would make me buy a XBOX. Are you listening, Rare? I just last week got my 360 out of the basement and the whole family is enjoying Trouble in Paradise now.

Btw, am I imagining but does XBOX series have a problem with DVD drives? By 360 won't read them, I have people saying the same about One.

 

[Bernkastel]

 

[Bernkastel]

 

[Bernkastel]