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Phil Spencer about next Xbox: The "next thing" is framerate, CPU/GPU balance is out of whack

Derrick01

Derrick01

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,289
If you think a stronger CPU is going to make devs focus on putting 60fps games out then you're going to be disappointed next gen (once again). Devs don't think it's worth it and you can't really market it so they use all the power they have on other things.

But we do need much better CPUs for so many reasons. There's a ton of things you could improve that rely on CPU power including destruction and physics based things and I'm looking forward to that more than framerate which is already really good this gen compared to last.
 
Arx

Arx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
431
He does not say that everything will be 60 FPS. But he says that current consoles are very limited on the CPU side compared to the GPU side, meaning that quite often a good visual level can be achieved but the CPU forces devs to go for 30 when a lot of simulation and dynamics are involved. Games like GTA sure have a hard time on these consoles.

Nextgen will probably go with Zen so a huge increase in CPU-intensive fidelity can be achieved even at 60 FPS. Currently, going for 30 appears to be the only way if a certain complexity of simulation is what devs want. And that is completely okay and something that the "only 60 FPS" crowd should try to wrap their head around.

The massive increase in CPU power is the thing i am excited for the most, not the graphics or higher resolution.
 
Pancracio17

Pancracio17

▲ Legend ▲
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Oct 29, 2017
18,786
Even if the devs dont use it for 60fps, itll mean stuff like better physics and more AI at once. Its still something that should be sorted out.
 

Deleted member 249

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Oct 25, 2017
28,828
Saint-14 said:
Which is what I was saying, I'm sure consoles will never have the top tech compared to PC stuff, I don't see how things would be different, developers will still go for better graphics over FPS.
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Absolutely, but having more balanced CPU/GPU architectures at least raises the possibility of better framerates, for example. Right now it's a pipe dream for most games.
 
plagiarize

plagiarize

It's not a loop. It's a spiral.
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Oct 25, 2017
27,559
Cape Cod, MA
I'm wondering at this point, if the next Xbox hardware is going to launch with a more expensive and more powerful SKU to maintain that 'most powerful console' claim. The two SKU thing has proven to work wonders for the high end systems having stable framerates and great IQ, as developers really have seemed to keep targeting the lower end consoles with the same kind of (lackluster) performance goals.
 
AyaisMUsikWhore

AyaisMUsikWhore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,736
Phil saying the right thing. I hope these new consoles reach the new normal of 60fps. That's the only goal to really achieve here instead of resolution
 
Animal Liberation Ⓥ

Animal Liberation Ⓥ

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,767
Derrick01 said:
If you think a stronger CPU is going to make devs focus on putting 60fps games out then you're going to be disappointed next gen (once again). Devs don't think it's worth it and you can't really market it so they use all the power they have on other things.

But we do need much better CPUs for so many reasons. There's a ton of things you could improve that rely on CPU power including destruction and physics based things and I'm looking forward to that more than framerate which is already really good this gen compared to last.
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Pretty much this. There will not be a magic "everything is 60" all of a sudden. There may be optional settings more so however.
 
Transistor

Transistor

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Oct 25, 2017
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I'm glad to hear it stressed, but this is one of those topics that makes me say "I'll believe it when I see it".

Phil is definitely pushing Xbox in the right direction, though, and I'm loving it.
 
Vipu

Vipu

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
2,276
Even if games stay at 30fps because devs focus on that, at least physics and tons of other things gonna be much better.
Physics is much bigged upgrade than some shadows, lightning, resolution.
 
Phellps

Phellps

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,810
Means very little if devs use the available power to other purposes and keep framerate at 30fps? It's good to see they're not including a sub-par CPU this time around, though.
 
Liliana

Liliana

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
3,375
NYC
Based Phil Spencer! Surprised to see someone like that finally acknowledge this. About damn time.
 
MosquitoSmasher

MosquitoSmasher

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,992
Is 4K/60fps a realistic expectation I wonder?

Of course there will always be games like a big open world RPG where I don't expect that. I expect devs to push graphical fidelity much more, but other genres like a Uncharted ,TLOU, Tomb Raider, horror games?
 
tyfon

tyfon

Member
Nov 2, 2017
3,680
Norway
Animal Liberation Ⓥ said:
I know, I was being "tongue in cheek", lol.

Phil is just stating the obvious. We are all expecting both boxes to have Ryzen, there is really no other option performance and (budget wise).
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Phil is a marketing PR machine through and through :p

In any case it would probably be up to the developers what fps the games run unless they put in a requirement for publishing on xbox.

Personally though I want to be able to chose between 60 fps and high IQ (not resolution) 30 fps depending on the game.
Some games just don't require 60 and for others it's a must.
 
gofreak

gofreak

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,736
pswii60 said:
Ah, sorry. To be fair they all said a lot of things back then. And Penello no longer works for Microsoft anyway.

Although, in reality, XBO was a more balanced system compared to PS4. XBO had a faster CPU and slower GPU, so the differential was smaller!
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There'll always be a differential of course... a 50:50 CPU/GPU ratio isn't what you'd want.

'Balance' and what is 'balanced' is purely down to the profile of the software that's running on a machine. Which, of course, will vary from game to game.

Games might 'typically' demand a particular balance of resources, and hardware designers should probably take that into consideration - or what they forecast will become typical - but there's no objective standard.
 

Deleted member 22585

User requested account closure
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Oct 28, 2017
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EU
I really hope for variable resolutions to have always locked 30 or 60 fps. I mean, I would love everything in 60fps but that won't happen on consoles unfortunately.
 
Morbius

Morbius

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,008
It took him allllllllllllllll this time to finally start to turn the ship around.

I wonder what made this possible or what made him and Microsoft realize where they went wrong. All signs are pointing to a bright future so we will see.
 
MosquitoSmasher

MosquitoSmasher

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,992
Funny Valentine said:
Yep that's been Phil's gimmick in case you've been asleep for a few years.
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And he has started delivering too. We went from underpowered console to fantastic, powerful and small console. The big first party problem is being worked on heavily as has been made clear during E3 and it has only just begun. Maybe it's time we give some credit to the man.
 
SuikerBrood

SuikerBrood

Member
Jan 21, 2018
15,490
J_kingg said:
It took him allllllllllllllll this time to finally start to turn the ship around.

I wonder what made this possible or what made him and Microsoft realize where they went wrong. All signs are pointing to a bright future so we will see.
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This has been explained in multiple topics. The Xbox division (or Microsoft gaming) is now an important pillar of Microsoft. Before it was placed under the Windows division. Phil Spencer sits at the big boys table now with Satya Nadella.
They got more budget, they are more important within Microsoft now Windows becomes increasingly less important and they see a future in game streaming and content delivery. ''Xbox as a service''
 
pswii60

pswii60

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,673
The Milky Way
gofreak said:
There'll always be a differential of course... a 50:50 CPU/GPU ratio isn't what you'd want.

'Balance' and what is 'balanced' is purely down to the profile of the software that's running on a machine. Which, of course, will vary from game to game.

Games might 'typically' demand a particular balance of resources, and hardware designers should probably take that into consideration - or what they forecast will become typical - but there's no objective standard.
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You're telling me what I already know, I was just being tongue in cheek.
 
johancruijff

johancruijff

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Oct 25, 2017
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Italy
FrankWelcomeHoopoe-size_restricted.gif


he's right
 
Casual

Casual

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Oct 27, 2017
1,547
Bishop89 said:
isn't this really developer dependent no matter the hardware?

We can get 60fps games right now.
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To an extent, yeah.

The problem now is that, like Phil mentioned, there's a big gap between CPU and GPU. So if Devs want to make a game 60FPS they generally have to make a choice to not fully utilize the GPU. The industry still sells games largely off of screenshots and YouTube videos where graphics are far more apparent than framerate, so it's not a shock that most of them choose to utilize the GPU, at which point the CPU can't keep up.

In theory, if they were closer in power to each other, you could still utilize the GPU to it's capacity and the CPU would still be able to handle 60FPS (obviously mileage will vary depending on the type of game and the other stuff they might be doing with the CPU as a result, large open world games will inherently put a bigger strain on the CPU for example).

So ultimately you're right, it's a developers choice. But you make the choice a lot easier by allowing them to more or less do both at the same time.
 
christocolus

christocolus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,932
ianpm31 said:
He's been saying the things you want to hear for many years
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Like how he promised Xbox fans he would improve 1st party game output and actually did and is in fact still looking to acquire more studios? Or how he has made Xbox a lot more pro consumer by providing amazing services? or how he is stepping up the quality of Xbox hardware builds?or bringing more Japanese games to Xbox?
 
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