Xbox Scarlett could be a generation forward respect the Playstation 5.


Neither confirmed or unconfirmed anything... it is convenient or odd to read a lot into what MS is saying and thinking that PS5 releasing in mid to late 2020 will limit itself to a feature set for a card shipping more than a year before that (completely the opposite of what AMD has done for their semi-custom console partners so far and especially Sony which was not afraid to pick features several architecture generations ahead... see PS4 Pro with Polaris and Vega features and all the hints and rumours about Sony collaborating very closely with AMD on Navi/RDNA following the close collaboration rumoured between AMD and Apple for Vega... proof in the pudding is the latest Mac Pro for example)...

Supporting RT with shaders can be done already, KZ: SF was doing it in 2013 on a launch title... calling it out like they did is reasonably hinting at something more than that and in line with how Cerny would talk about the feature vs Spencer (given their backgrounds).
 
I don't think that Mark Cerny would allow the two consoles to have such a level of disparity between specification. Microsoft can co-engineer as much as they like but that man is a genius. I think the extent of the PlayStation 5 hasn't yet been divulged but AMD can only talk about what Sony are happy for them to discuss. But even the PS2 that dominated the generation was the least powerful console, still allowed for great looking games and was a fill rate monster. It was still advantageous over more 'powerful' hardware.
 
Its all becoming clear now.

AMD and Microsoft actually came together and co engineered a custom chip. I can tell Lisa Sue from AMD is way more excited for Scarlett then she is for PS5 by the way she talks about them.



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I don't think that Mark Cerny would allow the two consoles to have such a level of disparity between specification. Microsoft can co-engineer as much as they like but that man is a genius. I think the extent of the PlayStation 5 hasn't yet been divulged but AMD can only talk about what Sony are happy for them to discuss. But even the PS2 that dominated the generation was the least powerful console, still allowed for great looking games and was a fill rate monster. It was still advantageous over more 'powerful' hardware.
The ps2 had games, lots of good games! Xbone has almost nothing when comparing to ps2.
Huge difference. Or Xbone would have dominated this gen.
 
There's an elephant in the room that people aren't talking about, SSD limited writes, presumably it's commonly known that it's bad practice to use ssds as virtual ram because the ssd will wear off quickly due to its writing limitations, isn't this going to affect both next gen consoles?
 
Its all becoming clear now.

AMD and Microsoft actually came together and co engineered a custom chip. I can tell Lisa Sue from AMD is way more excited for Scarlett then she is for PS5 by the way she talks about them.



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What a wonderful spin ;). They spent a lot of words gushing over Sony's partnership and now at a public stage where they can also talk about Xbox they do so... so far I see AMD excited in general as they have HW deals for almost all consoles and one of the largest Android phones manufacturers in Samsung...
 
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There's an elephant in the room that people aren't talking about, SSD limited writes, presumably it's commonly known that it's bad practice to use ssds as virtual ram because the ssd will wear off quickly due to its writing limitations, isn't this going to affect both next gen consoles?

Large main RAM plus SSD's cache in the controller should minimise the cell deterioration over time. Also, hopefully the internal SSD in PS5 is still user replaceable...
 
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Large main RAM plus SSD's cache in the controller should minimise the cell deterioration over time. Also, hopefully the interna SSD in PS5 is still user replaceable...
But we don't know yet if that ssd will be used for storage or it'll be a memory configuration with the gddr6 we don't even know what kind of ssd it is some people speculate that there will be a HDD and the ssd will be a special kind of memory!
 
What a wonderful spin ;). They spent a lot of words gushing over Sony's partnership and now at a public stage where they can also talk about Xbox they do so... so far I see AMD excited in general as they have HW deals for almost all consoles and one of the largest Android phones manufacturers in Samsung...



I would not be surprised if in the near future Microsoft actually acquires AMD from the result of this. :messenger_winking:
 
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But we don't know yet if that ssd will be used for storage or it'll be a memory configuration with the gddr6 we don't even know what kind of ssd it is some people speculate that there will be a HDD and the ssd will be a special kind of memory!

It could certainly be an onboard SSD around 512 GB (with custom I/O controller, very fast local bus, and its own DRAM cache) which would serve as a cache for the much much larger mechanical HDD that you can replace. That is also possible.

In any case, you question was about wear levelling / flash cell lifetime if used as virtual RAM to which I replied there are realistic practical mitigations for such case :).
 
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I would not be surprised if in the near future Microsoft actually acquires AMD from the result of this. :messenger_winking:

I would not be surprised if Apple bought MS and AMD as a result of this... since we are going at wild outlandish speculations why stop there ;).
 
Already posted this rumor here.
 
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MS buying AMD would put them in a very difficult position dealing with Intel and Nvidia, the slightest whiff of them not giving equal support would result in a flurry of lawsuits.
 
Let's hope that never happens. Market consolidation and monopoly are a BAD thing, period.


With Intel getting into the GPU space it makes a lot of sense for AMD to join Microsoft. I dont think they can survive on their own against Intel and Nvidia.
 
With Intel getting into the GPU space it makes a lot of sense for AMD to join Microsoft. I dont think they can survive on their own against Intel and Nvidia.

Apple is better... more money and better synergy as they are a HW company at heart ;). They could buy MS out too haha.
 
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One day we hear xbox is more powerful , then next ps5 , and now back to xbox being more powerful. I'm just going to wait until these companies reveal the final specs.
 
I find discussions surrounding Raytracing rather confusing. These days you have a bunch of game use it for screen-space calculations, often with - imho - absolutely minimal impact, that is just barely visible in a direct picture vs picture comparison.

Yea sure, that's raytracing by definition, but frankly speaking, that's marketing speech to me.

Quake II RTX, now that is proper Raytracing. Now given the simplicity of geometry/everything else in this game, and the fact it's just barely runnable on the very latest, crazy expensive high end hardware - and we don't have any purchasable hardware at all that could actually render modern games with that kind of raytracing - I remain highly skeptical we'll see any form of proper holistic RT in coming console gen.

Will it be enough for MS to stick that "look at me, Raytracing! So cool!" logo on the retail box? Sure. Will it be enough so you can actually see any differences without a side by side comparison? I doubt it
What geometry has to do with RT? RT cores calculate lighting, not geometry.
 
So correct me if I am wrong.

Current Navi does not do Hardware Accelerated Raytracing. So because of this Microsoft and AMD co engineered a custom chip that does Hardware Accelerated Raytracing?
 
So correct me if I am wrong.

Current Navi does not do Hardware Accelerated Raytracing. So because of this Microsoft and AMD co engineered a custom chip that does Hardware Accelerated Raytracing?
The same was said when Sony gave wired an article.
 
Misterxmedia affiliated sources LOOL.
Both consoles will be based on the exact same technology, they will be released at the same time, they are both focused on gaming, they will likely have the same price.
It doesn't take a genius to understand that it's highly likely that differences will be minimal. Depending on customizations it's possible that one could be better at certain tasks that the other with the overall power being the same. Differences will be made by developers making games conceived to fully utilize such hardware and that means 100% exclusives (no cross gen or cross platform).
People should stop dreaming and believing non official sources.
 
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All that matters are the games!

This will always be the truth, but let's not kid ourselves. Raytracing IS what resolutions and frames (rez-gate, private etc) were at the start of this generation. The narrative for the next gen seems to be well on it's way to being defined and shaped around it. And if one console maker can claim "hardware accelerated RT" while the other cannot, you have makings of the next great debate among console gamers.

When the ability to claim "most powerful" or " most advanced " is being decided by the slimmest of margins, you can see how crazy a feature like RT will make people.
 
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As an Xbox customer, it'd be nice if MS could have the superior hardware when the next gen consoles launch.
And where did that get you with the Xone?
I love the hardware MS put together with the Xone, it's a great console that unfortunately doesn't have a good amount of quality exclusives like SONY.
 
So correct me if I am wrong.

Current Navi does not do Hardware Accelerated Raytracing. So because of this Microsoft and AMD co engineered a custom chip that does Hardware Accelerated Raytracing?

Nope. AMD will support ray tracing in hardware in their 2020 GPUs.
Both next gen consoles will be late 2020 products so both Sony and Microsoft are borrowing into their designs some features from the 2020 AMD lineup.
Borrowing features from different hardware generations has happened historically with console hardware, calling that a customization, a co-engineering effort or whatever is up to PR/marketing preference but it doesn't change the substance.
 
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I hope this is true. Digital Foundry is going to be pretty boring next gen if the hardware in both PS5/Xbox4 ends up being the same.
There's enough content other than face-offs to keep DF interesting. Take John's retro videos, for example. Great stuff.
 
It does sound like the PS5 is locked in and Microsoft is monitoring costs which could impact which components they order to start production..

And there are apparently hybrid Navi/RDNA GPUs now - https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-5000-7nm-navi-gpu-rdna-and-gcn-hybrid-architecture/ - with true RDNA architecture in 2020.

It seems likely that Sony will launch first because the PS4 Pro was such a tepid upgrade, and that they'll want to keep the price at $400.

The Xbox One X has done well enough that they can afford to wait a little on the next step up, and they could either come in high on price again and mark down the X as an entry model, or split the Scarlett into two consoles - a high-end 500/600$ system with bells and whistles - disc drive, Dolby Vision, Atmos etc. - and a larger SSD - and a low-end with a smaller hard drive, no discs, and an emphasis on streaming - whether that means less RAM or a less powerful GPU, I don't know.

Full hardware ray-tracing of high quality is probably a midgen Scarlett upgrade possibility.
 
Nope. AMD will support ray tracing in hardware in their 2020 GPUs.
Both next gen consoles will be late 2020 products so both Sony and Microsoft are borrowing into their designs some features from the 2020 AMD lineup.
Borrowing features from different hardware generations has happened historically with console hardware, calling that a customization, a co-engineering effort or whatever is up to PR/marketing preference but it doesn't change the substance.


I said current Navi. Those chips dont support Hardware accelerated raytracing. I am talking about Navi that are getting ready to drop in the next few weeks. Now as for 2020 If dev kits are going out now and devs are working on games that means that the chips are made. Microsoft and Sony are not waiting to 2020 for chips when the consoles are releasing in 2020.

They have their chips now and it looks like Sony went with the chips that dont do Hardware Raytracing and Microsoft decided to go ahead and make the future now and co engineer a chip based on AMDs future Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing tech.
 
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I said current Navi. Those chips dont support Hardware accelerated raytracing. I am talking about Navi cpus that are getting ready to drop in the next few weeks. Now as for 2020 If dev kits are going out now and devs are working on games that means that the chips are made. Microsoft and Sony are not waiting to 2020 for chips when the consoles are releasing in 2020.

They have their chips now and it looks like Sony went with the chips that dont do Hardware Raytracing and Microsoft decided to go ahead and make the future now and co engineer a chip based on AMDs future Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing tech.

It doesn't look like that at all.
Both consoles are 2019 designs based on Navi.
Both will support hardware ray tracing borrowing the feature from what AMD is cooking for their 2020 GPU line.
That is really all. Sony has announced ray tracing support for PS5 as a key feature. It will be as much as hardware based as Microsoft's.
 
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Assuming you have to get to a number, I mean at this point, we're basically down to resolution/framerate between PS4/PS5, in 3-5 years more devs can take advantage of the differences. Having to sell hardware to me day 1 is less important. I'm expecting the PS4 cycle to last a total 10-12 years (meaning PS4 games will be released even 3-5 years now), the next cycle is going to be super long probably 12-15 years.

I think everyone should dampen their expectations over the next few years, with Moore's Law and the ability (or lack of) devs being to dedicate additional resources in games = wall in graphics.



Don't forget to throw in a fan boy into the mix. 🍲
The question is this (and I don't know the answer, I'm asking sincerely):

Can a new generation be introduced while both the public and the development community keep one foot in the old? Part of me says yes, the other says no way.
 
So Microsoft's new console will be called "Xbox Next Next"?? If Microsoft's bringing 2025 tech to 2020. I see no other option.. lol I love fanboy war threads makes work go by fast.😆
 
The question is this (and I don't know the answer, I'm asking sincerely):

Can a new generation be introduced while both the public and the development community keep one foot in the old? Part of me says yes, the other says no way.
That is what BC helps with. The previous gen software sales subsidize next-gen efforts. Consumers that are early adopters can buy software for both generations anyway.
In what way do you think it isn't feasible?

Edit: This is why I always say that BC is the most important during a generational transition.
 
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They don't care. They are getting their money from GaaS. They don't care if you're playing on this gen or the next, they charge the same for their subscriptions. They won't support next gen only games much if at all. Look at the Xbox One X support. There is not much first party support that showcase it even. The people buying the more expensive machine at a profit to the manufacturer will get scaled graphics upgrades. If that is a lot of people or not will not matter to them.
But they're not getting their money from GaaS. They have a few million customers, many of which are paying a dollar, some of which are paying $5 and the rest that are paying $9, which means (assuming everyone bought equally which I doubt) that they are averaging $5 a customer. Let's say they have a hundred games up on the service. They bring in $10,000,000 a month, divide that by a hundred, you're left with a hundred grand to each company. That leaves no scratch for Microsoft's pocket, upkeep and maintenance, infrastructure and hardware, staff, and so on. Further, they have to bake in all the lost profit to both the developers and Microsoft themselves when games appear on the service and physical sales at $60 are lost as a result.

They need hardware, because hardware sold means that customer is going to buy software. GaaS customers can jump in and out of the pool with no investment on their part at all; the relationship is non-existent. You can sign up for a month, play the shit out of the new game that just came out and then cancel. In that case, Microsoft is -$55 compared to the conventional model, and I expect this is what most people will do.

It's more change just for the sake of change, because they got their asses reamed out for making bad decisions and launching with too high a pricetag (twice) this generation. Instead of introspection about what they could've have done differently or better, they've concluded the industry is broken, despite proof that it clearly isn't.
 
That is what BC helps with. The previous gen software sales subsidize next-gen efforts. Consumers that are early adopters can buy software for both generations anyway.
In what way do you think it isn't feasible?

Edit: This is why I always say that BC is the most important during a generational transition.
That presents another question: is someone who just spent $400-$600 on a new console going to want to play games for the system they just spent all that money to replace? I know I wouldn't, but maybe others do. I get that games are games are games, and if they're good it shouldn't matter if they're high tech or not, but I'd wager the type of buyer who invests early on with a new platform is looking to see instant rewards, not wait.
 
The question is this (and I don't know the answer, I'm asking sincerely):

Can a new generation be introduced while both the public and the development community keep one foot in the old? Part of me says yes, the other says no way.

I think both Sony/MS are correct, meaning the lines of gens is either over or nearly over for the time being (I will note Sony said on IR day that they still believe in gens at least for now). The differences between games in say 2015 and a game that comes out in 2025 graphically, is not going to be much - resolution/framerate, maybe SSD streaming solution, maybe some lighting improvements. Whether this damages the gaming business I don't know.... some of the SSD solutions look interesting for bigger games, I just think in the terms of raw graphical output people need to start checking themselves, sure things will look better but we're hitting a wall and it doesn't matter how much is spent on hardware.... the returns are getting very little improvements now.

It seems to me Sony is going to focus in on PS4 harder over the next 12-36 months (see page 6 of Jim Ryan's IR presentation), which is why they are not waiting on some of these titles for the PS5.... especially considering we're basically talking a resolution/framerate difference, generally speaking.

The top games going forward are going to have involved the top devs, I think The Last of Us 2 shows how that can be done - good game development, the throwing hardware at something to make it look better is basically coming to an end i.e. animations, game play, etc. are going to have to be the show.... not pixels.
 
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Both consoles are going to be the same. The gap will be even smaller than this gen. The gap has never ceased to get smaller, generation after generation.

Both consoles aren't even out that I am already finding this boring.
 
Who cares about hardware raytracing people keep on going on about this nonsense, you can't even tell a major difference Vs traditional techniques and better yet they can still do raytracing without hardware support I'm more interested in physics most importantly volumetric physics, volumetric rendering cloth physics I want to see fine cloth simulations not towels in games like FIFA! More debris and destruction physics in war games, in short memory is the real elephant in the room here God knows if we're getting another 8-12 GB then this generation is pointless doesn't matter how fast the memory is or how quick it loads we'll be getting the same assets and effects in a better frame rate and resolution this is the real issue here, wheather a cube is raytraced or rasterized isn't anybody's concern cause it's still a cube
 
And where did that get you with the Xone?
I love the hardware MS put together with the Xone, it's a great console that unfortunately doesn't have a good amount of quality exclusives like SONY.

Where did it get me? It got me in a position where I'd worry about how much worse games would look on the XB1 compared to the PS4.
 
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