Xbox Series X: A Closer Look at the Technology Powering the Next Generation

[bcatwilly]

Mip levels are as old as the hills.

Like Microsoft is doing interesting things. And I'm sure Sony is too on their stack. But let's not pick over tweets and words we don't understand and present them as some new magic tech. This is literally what happened in 2013 with the 'secret sauce' presentation of generic technology.

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LOL at the "secret sauce" reference from 2013. There is an advantage in raw power spec to the Xbox Series X in every area but the SSD raw speeds, with some acting like a PS5 SSD is going to "secret sauce" its way to address those gaps in raw power. My references from the Xbox team regarding the SSD are simply to point out that they clearly have some tech that is designed to have the SSD perform in the areas that they feel matter to gameplay, with more information to come.

 

[Lausebub]

If I can load in everything so fast and use the SSD as RAM, wouln't that be kinda useless unless, I make every part of the game insanely big in terms of
size it takes up on the SSD? If my open world game is only 100GB big it seems pointless, except for fastraveling and faster movement. This seems more usefull for games with smaller worlds, like Resident Evil.

Or am I looking at it wrong?

 

[space_nut]

^^

Microsoft are really smart. They anticipated that a lot of data was going to be wasted for nothing and they built the velocity engine around it. saves you a lot of money, memory RAM/SSD,overheating SSD.


This is exactly what MS engineer said

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That's crazy tech can't wait to see XSX games

 

[Yerffej]

I'd be very interested in hearing, down the line, what the middle ground is for devs. Like a team working on the latest Assassin's Creed. Where they settled between what XSX can do and the fancier PS5 SSD. There has to be some meeting in the middle. I feel like (knowing fuck all about game dev) open-world games are set up to take advantage of these new machines better than a game like Uncharted or Fallen Order. Where the old ways of loading a level in through those clear loading point gameplay scenarios can be a thing of the past.

 

[gofreak]

It's more about how to optimise and how to work with mip levels than about the mip levels themselves.

Even though we don't need to use secret sauce terms, MS are doing quite interesting things that has not been done before..

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I've no doubt, but seeing someone present an explanation of basic mip-mapping (rather than fancier stuff you mention), a little like as if it was the monolith from 2001, did give me 'secret sauce' flashbacks. Sorry if that was a bit rude. Suffice to say, I think you'll see intelligence across the stacks in these systems.

 

[Lukas Taves]

SFS sounds cool, but what is BCPack?

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It's a compression formats aimed at texture compression. IIRC it's what Google and others use to compress satellite image data for instance.

Is this something that is going to only be used by Microsoft's internal studios, or by third parties as well? Cerny seemed to imply that Kraken was becoming heavily adopted throughout the indsutry.

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Zlib is an industry choice for compression but not just games. It's used pretty much everywhere.

Kraken is replacing that but it's still a general compression algorithm (IIRC it's even built on top of zlib and a bit more modern).

Bcap is specialized in image compression and it's also widely used in the industry.

As for the specific implementation of SX. That will be open for 3rd parties and Ms is already working with manufacturers of ssds, gpus, motherboards etc to make the feature available on Pc as well, and with directx 12U they want developers using the same code on SX and pc.

Getting 10 GB on screen quickly is likely not the PS5's primary goal. Instead, I believe we are looking at tech designed to get asset streaming off the SSD fast enough to only occupy RAM on demand (or close to it). No more need to pre-allocate heavy data like multiple mesh LODs because the drive bandwidth can't keep up.

And the more freed up RAM Next Gen the better, especially if Raytracing really takes off. BVH trees from my understanding can be quite large.

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Well, the point is that 16 isn't enough for next gen, but they both mitigate that with the ssd as the size becomes less important if you are able to refresh the entire memory fast enough.

And I believe that for practical purposes both will be fast enough that traversal speed is never the problem and they both have as much data as the gpu can render available.

That's for example why Hellblade 2 may have looked so good.

Mip levels are as old as the hills.

Like Microsoft is doing interesting things. And I'm sure Sony is too on their stack. But let's not pick over tweets and words we don't understand and present them as some new magic tech. This is literally what happened in 2013 with the 'secret sauce' presentation of generic technology.

Click to shrink...

This isn't about secret source. It's about a feature (getting data from the ssd fast as possible as it can be used as vram) implemented in many blocks.

The main blocks of that are:

- The SSD
- The hardware compression including hardware support for a format specified in compressing textures
- A way for the ssd to directly feed the ram reducing latency
- Sampler feedback all the way back to the ssd so the ssd itself can load only the part ion of the file that is going to be needed instead of the whole file. (basically extending tiled resources to the ssd)

With all this Ms believes it can deliver data from the ssd at a rate it won't cause any bottleneck. Sony did some stuff similar and others different.

So it's not about secret sauce. It's about 2 different ways of solving the problem and we needing more detail on Ms side because on Sony the raw speed of the ssd already makes it feasible.

I think both implementations will be enough to provide 1:1 pixel per texel rate meaning that each pixel on screen will be able to have a unique texel, bar storage issues (basically what mega texture wanted to solve but without the compromises it brought)

 

[eso76]

^^

Microsoft are really smart. They anticipated that a lot of data was going to be wasted for nothing and they built the velocity engine around it. saves you a lot of money, memory RAM/SSD,overheating SSD.


This is exactly what MS engineer said

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Hmm..Sony did nothing about this with all the clever designing that went into overcoming the obstacle ? Weird
This makes it look like it's actually MS who adopted the more efficient solution at the end of the day, but we'll see.

 

[solis74]

Xbox on Twitter

“@JamesSh20263742 Correction: To date, we’ve spent over 100K hours testing your favorite games from Xbox One, including existing backward compatible 360 & OG Xbox games, on Xbox Series X. While we are still in the process of validating, we can confirm thousands of games will be playable at launch.”

twitter.com

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nice! :)

 

[gofreak]

The main blocks of that are:

- The SSD
- The hardware compression including hardware support for a format specified in compressing textures
- A way for the ssd to directly feed the ram reducing latency
- Sampler feedback all the way back to the ssd so the ssd itself can load only the part ion of the file that is going to be needed instead of the whole file. (basically extending tiled resources to the ssd)

With all this Ms believes it can deliver data from the ssd at a rate it won't cause any bottleneck. Sony did some stuff similar and others different.

So it's not about secret sauce. It's about 2 different ways of solving the problem and we needing more detail on Ms side because on Sony the raw speed of the ssd already makes it feasible.

I think both implementations will be enough to provide 1:1 pixel per texel rate meaning that each pixel on screen will be able to have a unique texel, bar storage issues (basically what mega texture wanted to solve but without the compromises it brought)

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I was referring to a post that was vaunting mip mapping, not the stuff you're talking about here.

In terms of the storage/streaming stack outside of the ssd interface, what I would say is - I would be wary of building a narrative that Sony is relying on raw speed, with little or no optimisation or efficiency drives, while MS relies on the latter. For example, on texture compression, there will absolutely be more 'modern' texture encoders available either in the PS5 sdk or in middleware - they're used in PS4 games. The only question becomes decode speed or cost - it is nice that Microsoft is including silicon for bcpack decompression, but perhaps it was needed because it's 'heavier' than some other formats like crunch? There are other, 'modern' gpu-friendly texture encoders that have a very light decompression, necessarily because they've been designed for fast streaming. On PS5 it might be the case that you eat that relatively light cost on the CPU or GPU. Maybe elsewhere PS5 saves some CPU/GPU performance back due to other offloads it is doing. It's also quite possible Sony is developing their own texture compression that wraps a GPU friendly format in a general decompression format - like crunch does - but in a general decompression format that can piggy back on their decompression silicon, rather than lzma.

There are lots of possibilities, especially when it comes to the software orientated side of the stack. It is nice to see what MS is doing, to have that insight - but the absence of that insight on the Sony side shouldn't be taken as confirmation, or a sound basis for assumption, of the absence of those possibilities. There is a TONNE of stuff, a tonne of detail, around both of these systems and their tool stacks etc that we don't know about. What I could say is, for all of this, it seems devs are particularly enthused by the PS5's storage layer - and I assume they know all the ins and outs and real bottom line performance for their games, when you account for the whole stack on both.

Ditto, by the way, for other things we've had more hat-tipping on from Sony.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

I can't wait for more details on XSX,I like how open Microsoft is, they are rightfully confident with what they built and it's an exceptional strong showing in innovation, intelligent design, using existing performance measurements to build a console without compromise and bottlenecks, using latest technology, combined in a silent system.
There is no other way to say anything different, the XSX is an amazing console.

 

[bcatwilly]

I was referring to a post that was vaunting mip mapping, not the stuff you're talking about here.

Click to shrink...

Maybe you were focused on the first of a series of 7 tweets/thread that you can follow from what I shared as posted again below, it wasn't about vaunting "mip mapping" but rather the entire approach end to end as described in the series of tweets with more information to follow apparently also.

 

[prodyg]

I was referring to a post that was vaunting mip mapping, not the stuff you're talking about here.

In terms of the storage/streaming stack outside of the ssd interface, what I would say is - I would be wary of building a narrative that Sony is relying on raw speed, with little or no optimisation or efficiency drives, while MS relies on the latter. For example, on texture compression, there will absolutely be more 'modern' texture encoders available either in the PS5 sdk or in middleware - they're used in PS4 games. The only question becomes decode speed or cost - it is nice that Microsoft is including silicon for bcpack decompression, but perhaps it was needed because it's 'heavier' than some other formats like crunch? There are other, 'modern' gpu-friendly texture encoders that have a very light decompression, necessarily because they've been designed for fast streaming. On PS5 it might be the case that you eat that relatively light cost on the CPU or GPU. Maybe elsewhere PS5 saves some CPU/GPU performance back due to other offloads it is doing. It's also quite possible Sony is developing their own texture compression that wraps a GPU friendly format in a general decompression format - like crunch does - but in a general decompression format that can piggy back on their decompression silicon, rather than lzma.

There are lots of possibilities, especially when it comes to the software orientated side of the stack. It is nice to see what MS is doing, to have that insight - but the absence of that insight on the Sony side shouldn't be taken as confirmation, or a sound basis for assumption, of the absence of those possibilities. There is a TONNE of stuff, a tonne of detail, around both of these systems and their tool stacks etc that we don't know about. What I could say is, for all of this, it seems devs are particularly enthused by the PS5's storage layer - and I assume they know all the ins and outs and real bottom line performance for their games, when you account for the whole stack on both.

Ditto, by the way, for other things we've had more hat-tipping on from Sony.

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All the posts im seeing here are just highlighting what MS is doing, their not making assumptions on what Sony is not doing.

 

[gofreak]

Maybe you were focused on the first of a series of 7 tweets/thread that you can follow from what I shared as posted again below, it wasn't about vaunting "mip mapping" but rather the entire approach end to end as described in the series of tweets with more information to follow apparently also.

Click to shrink...

I apologise then for my snark. It would be great if there was a way to unroll threads in era's twitter embeds.

All the posts im seeing here are just highlighting what MS is doing, their not making assumptions on what Sony is not doing.

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Hmm, there's the hint of a narrative developing there that would imply things are missing on Sony's side outside of the raw hardware speed. That these things would mitigate the raw speed difference. That Microsoft has been intelligent and data driven while Sony over-engineered the hardware blindly. That sentiment was definitely on the prior page.

 

[GING-SAMA]

I can't wait for more details on XSX,I like how open Microsoft is, they are rightfully confident with what they built and it's an exceptional strong showing in innovation, intelligent design, using existing performance measurements to build a console without compromise and bottlenecks, using latest technology, combined in a silent system.
There is no other way to say anything different, the XSX is an amazing console.

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This.

And all this without overheating to get 100% of the perf


Beast.

 

[Munki]

I can't wait for more details on XSX,I like how open Microsoft is, they are rightfully confident with what they built and it's an exceptional strong showing in innovation, intelligent design, using existing performance measurements to build a console without compromise and bottlenecks, using latest technology, combined in a silent system.
There is no other way to say anything different, the XSX is an amazing console.

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Yes! I love how excited and eager they are to share information on the work they have done with the XsX.

 

[Timlot]

All the posts im seeing here are just highlighting what MS is doing, their not making assumptions on what Sony is not doing.

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Exactly. I had to check the title of the thread again. They just can't help themselves.

 

[Munki]

Edit: double post.

 

[solis74]

This is an amazing sequence of tweets from a Microsoft engineer working on Xbox Series X further describing the SSD Velocity Architecture. I really think that they have something very slick there that will very much mitigate any real world game performance even with lesser rated raw SSD speed. And note that Jason Ronald and James have both said there is more to share on their solution.

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so cool!

 

[Raide]

I am looking forward to seeing the newer features of Series X shown off in gameplay forms. Nice to see visual representations of what they are working on and not just stats and charts lol.

 

[gremlinz1982]

I am looking forward to seeing the newer features of Series X shown off in gameplay forms. Nice to see visual representations of what they are working on and not just stats and charts lol.

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E3 cannot come soon enough.

 

[solis74]

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awesome stuff!! :)

 

[Ebtesam]

I've no doubt, but seeing someone present an explanation of basic mip-mapping (rather than fancier stuff you mention), a little like as if it was the monolith from 2001, did give me 'secret sauce' flashbacks. Sorry if that was a bit rude. Suffice to say, I think you'll see intelligence across the stacks in these systems.

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there is nothing called 'secret sauce' for both companies....

it just Stupid marketing being used by console Warriors

 

[EvilBoris]

there is nothing called 'secret sauce' for both companies....

it just Stupid marketing being used by console Warriors

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I thought it was used tongue in cheek?

The secret sauce this is the interesting stuff as it's taking software techniques for commonly performed operations, then building hardware to deliver it even faster.
It's the secret sauce of consoles and is part of how they hold their own weight over time with increasingly modest hardware

 

[solis74]

^^

Microsoft are really smart. They anticipated that a lot of data was going to be wasted for nothing and they built the velocity engine around it. saves you a lot of money, memory RAM/SSD,overheating SSD.


This is exactly what MS engineer said

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cool

 

[Deleted member 63305]

LOL at the "secret sauce" reference from 2013. There is an advantage in raw power spec to the Xbox Series X in every area but the SSD raw speeds, with some acting like a PS5 SSD is going to "secret sauce" its way to address those gaps in raw power. My references from the Xbox team regarding the SSD are simply to point out that they clearly have some tech that is designed to have the SSD perform in the areas that they feel matter to gameplay, with more information to come.

Click to shrink...

This.

 

[revben]

What is wrong with my statement? How can you calculate assets that are not yet available in your RAM? If you have 52 CUs waiting for the data to be there, they are doing less with the power they have, they can churn pixels all they want, if the assets are not there, they can't do anything "more". You can't draw miDracle textures out of thin air, the ressources have to be there in your RAM, if XSX GPU has to wait longer for it to be there it IS a differentiator that does not make it equal.

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First XSX will get data @4.8 GB/s decompression…do you think the GPU will be waiting


Plus 100 GB of data is instantly accessible to GPU, because the SSD acts like extended ram…so what are you about?

 

[revben]

It's a compression formats aimed at texture compression. IIRC it's what Google and others use to compress satellite image data for instance.

Zlib is an industry choice for compression but not just games. It's used pretty much everywhere.

Kraken is replacing that but it's still a general compression algorithm (IIRC it's even built on top of zlib and a bit more modern).

Bcap is specialized in image compression and it's also widely used in the industry.

As for the specific implementation of SX. That will be open for 3rd parties and Ms is already working with manufacturers of ssds, gpus, motherboards etc to make the feature available on Pc as well, and with directx 12U they want developers using the same code on SX and pc.

Well, the point is that 16 isn't enough for next gen, but they both mitigate that with the ssd as the size becomes less important if you are able to refresh the entire memory fast enough.

And I believe that for practical purposes both will be fast enough that traversal speed is never the problem and they both have as much data as the gpu can render available.

That's for example why Hellblade 2 may have looked so good.

This isn't about secret source. It's about a feature (getting data from the ssd fast as possible as it can be used as vram) implemented in many blocks.

The main blocks of that are:

- The SSD
- The hardware compression including hardware support for a format specified in compressing textures
- A way for the ssd to directly feed the ram reducing latency
- Sampler feedback all the way back to the ssd so the ssd itself can load only the part ion of the file that is going to be needed instead of the whole file. (basically extending tiled resources to the ssd)

With all this Ms believes it can deliver data from the ssd at a rate it won't cause any bottleneck. Sony did some stuff similar and others different.

So it's not about secret sauce. It's about 2 different ways of solving the problem and we needing more detail on Ms side because on Sony the raw speed of the ssd already makes it feasible.

I think both implementations will be enough to provide 1:1 pixel per texel rate meaning that each pixel on screen will be able to have a unique texel, bar storage issues (basically what mega texture wanted to solve but without the compromises it brought)

Click to shrink...

Exactly this...

 

[Theorry]

Amazing vid from Klobrille

 

[anexanhume]

Hmm, there's the hint of a narrative developing there that would imply things are missing on Sony's side outside of the raw hardware speed. That these things would mitigate the raw speed difference. That Microsoft has been intelligent and data driven while Sony over-engineered the hardware blindly. That sentiment was definitely on the prior page.

Click to shrink...

It's definitely more than a hint. Now that technical details are out, people are focusing on concepts and assuming it's that platform's secret weapon against the other, and the competitor has no similar solution.

 

[gremlinz1982]

Yes, everything will vary with clocks - TF number, pixel/texture fillrate, etc..

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I know you speculated that Microsoft could up clocks closer to launch, but I doubt that that will be the case looking at RX 5700 benchmarks. To this regard I also think that the PS5 will not be as close as people imagine if Navi 2 card overclocking is similar to Navi.

Would love to see your input.

 

[space_nut]

I know you speculated that Microsoft could up clocks closer to launch, but I doubt that that will be the case looking at RX 5700 benchmarks. To this regard I also think that the PS5 will not be as close as people imagine if Navi 2 card overclocking is similar to Navi.

Would love to see your input.

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Yea I've seen stats showing upclocking frequency on Navi gpu doesn't scale well at all with improve performance you get. 20% upclock doesn't get you 20% fillrate etc

 

[2shd]

Still pissed at no digital optical audio port on Series X

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Same. I just realized this the other day. My current setup is heavily reliant on optical audio from my systems. I run the HDMI straight to my TV and the optical audio outs to my reciever. It gives me a lot of flexibility depending if I want to use my TV audio, speakers, or optical headphones, and I can totally bypass powering on the receiver if I feel like it. It's a lot more wires than just HMDI cables, but it's super flexible.

It's going to mean a lot of reconfiguration and less flexibility in how I can switch between system/sources. I had to buy a replacement receiver recently after my old one failed, and this might make it obsolete due to port limitations.

This and the removal of the IR remote capability are the first things about the new system and launch that have disappointed me.

I hope Sony keeps it in the PS5. That would help if I replace my PS4.

 

[Micerider]

First XSX will get data @4.8 GB/s decompression…do you think the GPU will be waiting


Plus 100 GB of data is instantly accessible to GPU, because the SSD acts like extended ram…so what are you about?

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"Instantly" is not working like that. And 4.8 Gb compressed is not 9 Gb compressed. And if you could please not reply as if this information was bonkers although it's right in front of you (and that this is just casual talk about videogames system), thanks.

Just trying to highlight how that difference could be used : if you can't get data as fast in RAM (or adress it directly), you'll have most likely to either rely on lower quality/quantity of assets, or design your game to leave time for data to be there. Granted that both systems will have a whole other world of data streaming speed and efficiency compared to current gen.

 

[headspawn]

Same. I just realized this the other day. My current setup is heavily reliant on optical audio from my systems. I run the HDMI straight to my TV and the optical audio outs to my reciever. It gives me a lot of flexibility depending if I want to use my TV audio, speakers, or optical headphones, and I can totally bypass powering on the receiver if I feel like it. It's a lot more wires than just HMDI cables, but it's super flexible.

It's going to mean a lot of reconfiguration and less flexibility in how I can switch between system/sources. I had to buy a replacement receiver recently after my old one failed, and this might make it obsolete due to port limitations.

This and the removal of the IR remote capability are the first things about the new system and launch that have disappointed me.

I hope Sony keeps it in the PS5. That would help if I replace my PS4.

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Does your tv not have an optical out?

I guess that would still limit your choices or at least make it a tiny bit more annoying to switch settings.

 

[Duderino]

Well, the point is that 16 isn't enough for next gen, but they both mitigate that with the ssd as the size becomes less important if you are able to refresh the entire memory fast enough.

And I believe that for practical purposes both will be fast enough that traversal speed is never the problem and they both have as much data as the gpu can render available.

That's for example why Hellblade 2 may have looked so good.

Click to shrink...

The further away games can get from closing in on filling the available RAM the better. The less time a game engine has to spend allocating space, the fewer streaming bugs and performance hitches the developers and players will encounter.

Both consoles are taking a slightly different but notable approach here. PS5's SSD raw speed, Kracken compression, and high number of priority lanes should make an on-demand approach to loading assets like select mesh LODs, animations, and audio a lot more viable.

With the Series X, Microsoft is targeting textures explicitly with Sampler Feedback Streaming and BCPack compression, while other assets types will rely on slower zlib compression.

The key difference here, MS is strategically saving on texture space in RAM to avoid the memory limit, whereas Sony has made the bandwidth fast enough for devs to reconsider what really needs to sit in RAM for extended periods.

It's too early to say if both approaches will be equally successful at mitigating the RAM limitations over the course of the generation. If I was to take a guess though, the Series X will better suit most game engines at the start of the generation, but the PS5 will start showing advantages (in this one area) as the years pass.

 

[BubblegumNemesis]

That's crazy tech can't wait to see XSX games

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Hmmm hard to imagine how this works. I guess it is all "behind the code", some kind of optimization engine that decides what to load without the developer telling it what to do?

How many reads can these modern SSDs actually do before breaking down? I would not be happy if this stuff needs replacing every 2 years.

 

[2shd]

Does your tv not have an optical out?

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It does, but unless I'm mistaken, I think it strips the audio down to stereo when it passes it through. I'll have to double-check though.

I have a pretty odd setup with a lot of switch boxes and stuff for multiple contingencies and a Logitech remote with a ton of config customizations. I don't think another human could figure it out. I'm surely in the minorty for relying on optical, but I'm still disappointed to have less flexibility.

I've been using surround less and less to try to keep noise down, so maybe I'll not bother with that and hope more game support spatial headphone audio.

 

[BubblegumNemesis]

Yea I've seen stats showing upclocking frequency on Navi gpu doesn't scale well at all with improve performance you get. 20% upclock doesn't get you 20% fillrate etc

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There is a reason GPUs usually go *wide* instead of *fast*.

 

[Axel Stone]

My current setup won't pass freesync over HDMI through my receiver, so I've been using optical and missing out on Atmos for games. I might have to invest in a fancy splitter box to get freesync through one HDMI and a full Atmos signal through another.

Probably be worth it in the long run.

 

[ArchedThunder]

Hmmm hard to imagine how this works. I guess it is all "behind the code", some kind of optimization engine that decides what to load without the developer telling it what to do?

How many reads can these modern SSDs actually do before breaking down? I would not be happy if this stuff needs replacing every 2 years.

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If they're good quality there is a good chance you will die before the SSD does.

 

[solis74]

I can't wait for more details on XSX,I like how open Microsoft is, they are rightfully confident with what they built and it's an exceptional strong showing in innovation, intelligent design, using existing performance measurements to build a console without compromise and bottlenecks, using latest technology, combined in a silent system.
There is no other way to say anything different, the XSX is an amazing console.

Click to shrink...

this!

 

[gremlinz1982]

Yea I've seen stats showing upclocking frequency on Navi gpu doesn't scale well at all with improve performance you get. 20% upclock doesn't get you 20% fillrate etc

Click to shrink...

You can imagine what that would do to yields too should MS go that route.

 

[revben]

"Instantly" is not working like that. And 4.8 Gb compressed is not 9 Gb compressed. And if you could please not reply as if this information was bonkers although it's right in front of you (and that this is just casual talk about videogames system), thanks.

Just trying to highlight how that difference could be used : if you can't get data as fast in RAM (or adress it directly), you'll have most likely to either rely on lower quality/quantity of assets, or design your game to leave time for data to be there. Granted that both systems will have a whole other world of data streaming speed and efficiency compared to current gen.

Click to shrink...

Did you even read DF XSX article? Plus at most its 1.7 v 2.9 seconds wait time for assets to arrive and fill RAM...OMG, the horror of 1.2 more seconds...

 

[Micerider]

Did you even read DF XSX article? Plus at most its 1.7 v 2.9 seconds wait time for assets to arrive and fill RAM...OMG, the horror of 1.2 more seconds...

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You are clearly not trying to read whatever comes to you and just shitposts in a stupid "war" I have no desire to take part to. I am excited for next gen, and that's it.

Constant asset loading is not a matter of waiting a few more seconds. It's a continuous flux. If your flux is speed A, it cannot count on the same feed of assets as Ax2. It's that simple, it just changes how you design things. It doesn't make it terrible, it doesn't cripple everything, it just limits some aspects of it's usage.

And welcome to ignore list.

 

[DrKeo]

Here's a question: I've heard it mentioned around here that the XSX RAM setup is probably more expensive than the PS5's simply due to the number of chips, meanwhile, the most positive thing I've heard anyone say about the RAM setup is that it probably won't cause any issues in modern games.

If this configuration really is more expensive, then why would Microsoft choose it over the cheaper option that definitely won't run into any bottlenecks? What am I missing?

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MS's memory setup is better. The chances of a developer not filling the 3.5GB with data that doesn't need the full 560GB/s is extremely rare. To be honest I doubt it will ever happen but I'm still using the phrase "extremely rare" because there is always some freak of nature, like claybook, that breaks all the rules, so I don't want to be absolute.

But generally speaking, the XSX setup is much better. 25% more bandwidth means PS5 will probably have a harder time hitting the same target resolution. The combination of the GPU and memory bandwidth will probably make most 3rd party games run at a higher resolution on XSX (but not much more than that).

Are there any details anywhere on how exactly MS is achieving what they specify in tech specs (10@560 + 6@336) over the 320 bit bus? They have 10 G6 chips there which have several options of being organized for such configuration.

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It's because of the mixed chips. 10 chips have the first 1 GB address space so data can spread around all 10 chips. 10 chips, 1GB of address space on each -> 10GB in total. Reading from 10 chips in parallel, 56GB/s each, gets you 560GB/s.

Six out of the 10 chips have an extra 1GB of address space each (6 chips are 2GB, 4 chips are 1GB). So in that extra 6GB, data can only be spread across 6 chips. Reading data from 6 chips in parallel, 56GB/s each, gets you 336GB/s.

I know you speculated that Microsoft could up clocks closer to launch, but I doubt that that will be the case looking at RX 5700 benchmarks. To this regard I also think that the PS5 will not be as close as people imagine if Navi 2 card overclocking is similar to Navi.

Would love to see your input.

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more clocks will get them more performance. The question is, will it cost them? (Continuing after the next quote)

You can imagine what that would do to yields too should MS go that route.

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When MS added 6.6% to the Xbox One clockspeed, it was basically free according to Albert Panelo. If you have the power and cooling head room, you can do small bumps to clocks like that. According to john from DF, the XSX was whisper quiet, which means the fan is spinning at a low speed. If yields are good and they have enough power to spare, a ~7% boost is possible. But that's a lot of "ifs".

TBH, I'm thinking more in terms of PR. If at E3 (or whatever they do instead), after they created the perception that XSX is more powerful, if Phil says that now XSX is 13TF, it will be memorable mic-drop moment.

 

[Axel Stone]

Thanks DrKeo, interesting stuff.

 

[solis74]

Amazing vid from Klobrille

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epic!

 

[Philippo]

But generally speaking, the XSX setup is much better. 25% more bandwidth means PS5 will probably have a harder time hitting the same target resolution. The combination of the GPU and memory bandwidth will probably make most 3rd party games run at a higher resolution on XSX (but not much more than that).

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Just out of curiosity: what resolutions are we talking about, 4K right? So if XsX will havr higher chances of reaching native 4K, and PS5 struggles more, wouldn't be wise for Sony to aim for reconstructed 4K instead? For what I know the difference between native and a good reconstruction is minimal, maybe this way Sony could bridge the gap in RAM? At least for the first years, until even XsX starts struggling with mantaining native 4K.

 

[Munki]

I wonder how much BCPack can reduce the 130% gap in IO speed. Or am I totally wrong in how I'm thinking about it (I know jack shit about this stuff).

 

[DrKeo]

Just out of curiosity: what resolutions are we talking about, 4K right? So if XsX will havr higher chances of reaching native 4K, and PS5 struggles more, wouldn't be wise for Sony to aim for reconstructed 4K instead? For what I know the difference between native and a good reconstruction is minimal, maybe this way Sony could bridge the gap in RAM? At least for the first years, until even XsX starts struggling with mantaining native 4K.

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They can reconstruct, they can do 1800p, they can use dynamic resolution, etc.

IMO it doesn't matter much, it's easy to notice 1080p vs 900p, but 4K vs 1800p not so much. I think we've pretty much hit the end of the IQ evolution, even on my 65" TV 4K feels a bit overkill. I see these two consoles as the closest two 3D consoles has ever been.