News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[betan]

Food for thought:

https://twitter.com/ScottLowe/status/392389040432885760

Apparently, IGN Ghost videos are from PS4 version, very uncharacteristically of Activision.

 

[Jay]

Food for thought:

https://twitter.com/ScottLowe/status/392389040432885760

Apparently, IGN Ghost videos are from PS4 version, very uncharacteristically of Activision.

What's the food for thought in that?

No nefarious anti-XB1 plot there, just happened to be what we played on.

 

[Pixel]

- The upclock
- The discussion about freeing up the 2Compute Units used for OS instant snapping and Kinect on the gpu for games
- Ignoring e3 XO devkit videos and BF4's e3 dual 7970 debacle, now with actual hardware the fact so few videos are being shown of Xbox One 3rd party titles
- Penello now dancing around directly answering the question whether XO CoD:G is 1080p

....makes me wonder if something is going on.

 

[Jay]

- The upclock
- The discussion about freeing up the 2Compute Units used for OS instant snapping and Kinect on the gpu for games
- Ignoring e3 XO devkit videos and BF4's e3 dual 7970 debacle, now with actual hardware the fact so few videos are being shown of Xbox One 3rd party titles
- Penello now dancing around directly answering the question whether XO CoD:G is 1080p

....makes me wonder if something is going on.

What about the upclock?
Freeing up resources is part of the on going optimisation of the system, the same way Sony will optimise the PS4 as time goes on.
Why would he even be aloud to say even if he did know?
How is it dancing around the subject to say wait and see it with your own eyes?

Both could be 1080p 60fps and that still wouldn't even mean they look the same.
One could be 720p 60fps and arguably look better than 1080p 60fps.
Or 1080p 60fps may look better than 720p 60ps.
Hence wait and see.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well we will know in a month if not sooner eh ? Seems to be interesting the patern that has developed. You get positive xbox news like titat fall in march... that is then down played and the mm we get the negative xbox rumor following closely

Titan Fall is a game release fate. The latest negative rumour is about the hardware. So it's understandable. And people tend to pay more attention to what's bad than good, hence the world press being saturated everything bad in the world and little of the good. When I was looking for a new phone, it was the negatives in the reviews that had me worried. After ordering the phone, I started to fear the OLED screen would be a bit rubbish. Turns out its fine and the concerns, although true, weren't very realistic. Plus I get 4 days on one charge, where all the technical sites recommendations was to buy something with more grunt (that couldn't go a day without charging). Point being, people will tend to pick on what's wrong with something, especially after the gloss of initial excitement, so one shouldn't take a general pattern as indicative of anything more than the usual behaviour. If there were plenty of rumours about PS4 getting downclocked or struggling or whatnot, it'd get the same concerns, but XB1's rival isn't experiencing the same quantity of negative rumours (which could of course all be make-believe by anti-XB1ers) which makes people all the more concerned about XB1.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. When the consoles release, then people will start to understand them. Until then, people gossip. It's sad and rather stupid, but that's what people do.

 

[-tkf-]

....makes me wonder if something is going on.

At most it will be a question of developers being pressed on time to deliver a game and maybe (maybe!) having a hard time to get their engines up and running with the XBOX1 memory system. Simply not being able to take advantage of the ESRAM in a proper manner, if at all.

So even if the rumors are true i think it's unlikely to be the case for every game in the future.

 

[FordGTGuy]

At most it will be a question of developers being pressed on time to deliver a game and maybe (maybe!) having a hard time to get their engines up and running with the XBOX1 memory system. Simply not being able to take advantage of the ESRAM in a proper manner, if at all.

So even if the rumors are true i think it's unlikely to be the case for every game in the future.

Engineers have already said that the memory solution on Xbox One is basically a upgraded version of the Xbox 360 and that developers that developed on Xbox 360 would have no problem with it.

Unless of course you think the engineers are lying.

 

[Bagel seed]

Engineers have already said that the memory solution on Xbox One is basically a upgraded version of the Xbox 360 and that developers that developed on Xbox 360 would have no problem with it.

Unless of course you think the engineers are lying.

The ESRAM is more difficult to use compared to the 360's EDRAM, since it has to be managed manually. Whether this is down to the state of to the API or a necessary evil I'm not sure.

 

[baten]

Engineers have already said that the memory solution on Xbox One is basically a upgraded version of the Xbox 360 and that developers that developed on Xbox 360 would have no problem with it.

Unless of course you think the engineers are lying.

Apparently ESRAM can also be used in ways that were not possible on 360 - nobody is lying, it's simply more to it than it was on 360...

 

[liolio]

The ESRAM is more difficult to use compared to the 360's EDRAM, since it has to be managed manually. Whether this is down to the state of to the API or a necessary evil I'm not sure.

??? It is not, there is a lot less restriction wrt how it can be accessed (close to none actually).
On top of it the gpu can render either in RAM or scratchpad whereas everything had to go through the smart edram in the 360 (and then moved to the main ram when needed).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Engineers have already said that the memory solution on Xbox One is basically a upgraded version of the Xbox 360 and that developers that developed on Xbox 360 would have no problem with it.

Unless of course you think the engineers are lying.

Don't be so melodramatic. I'm sure devs who wrote XB360 engines will have no trouble writing an engine that runs on XB1. However, devs writing engines that work well on PC and PS4 will face different design and implementation considerations on XB1 - they won't be able to port their PC engine across and see great utilisation of the hardware. Ergo, we could see a situation where devs do have issues in creating ports for XB1 even thought the hardware design isn't particularly complex or exotic itself until they learn best practice is managing cross-platform engines.

 

[Bagel seed]

Apparently ESRAM can also be used in ways that were not possible on 360 - nobody is lying, it's simply more to it than it was on 360...

??? It is not, there is a lot less restriction wrt how it can be accessed (close to none actually).
On top of it the gpu can render either in RAM or scratchpad whereas everything had to go through the smart edram in the 360 (and then moved to the main ram when needed).

Right, it's definitely more flexible. But nonetheless it requires more hand holding to utilize effectively.

 

[liolio]

Right, it's definitely more flexible. But nonetheless it requires more hand holding to utilize effectively.

I don't see why, my understanding is that it is easier to deal with actually, not too mention that relatively to the target resolution devs have more room.

I would be surprised if the command a devs actually uses to set a render target in the esram or elsewhere are more complex. you don't have to shuffle things around and so on. or can pass whereas it is mandatory on the 360. And I'm not sure the 360 on its own dump the content of the edram into the main RAM, unexpectedly... what I mean it doesn't handle it-self either.

Imo all that is close to fud, the point of the whole setting is to be more convenient and flexible to use than the 360. Now people wants to describe it as something crazy complicated, that is pushing quite a bit.
Now it could be a while before devs uses more complex scheme (as describe by the lead architects like have a render partially in the scratchpad and in the main ram) but that says nothing about the system be tougher to deal with than the 360, and I don't think it is. ROPs, Shader cores can read for wherever they told whereas on the 360 is different it requires hand holding (moving things around).

 

[liolio]

Don't be so melodramatic. I'm sure devs who wrote XB360 engines will have no trouble writing an engine that runs on XB1. However, devs writing engines that work well on PC and PS4 will face different design and implementation considerations on XB1 - they won't be able to port their PC engine across and see great utilisation of the hardware. Ergo, we could see a situation where devs do have issues in creating ports for XB1 even thought the hardware design isn't particularly complex or exotic itself until they learn best practice is managing cross-platform engines.

Hum I don't think he is, stating that devs would not use the esram is, at worse you can fit a g-buffer in it, and spill the rest in the main ram.
It is also pushing it to say that actually Durango should be tougher to deal with than the 360. I mean the esram is part of the same virtual memory space as the main ram, ROPS and shaders can read from both.
Now it is not as straight forward as massive pool of fast memory but that is a different matter.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Cross platform discussion here

 

[XpiderMX]

A good news:

EDIT: Native resolution in both platforms.

 

[warb]

- The upclock
- The discussion about freeing up the 2Compute Units used for OS instant snapping and Kinect on the gpu for games
- Ignoring e3 XO devkit videos and BF4's e3 dual 7970 debacle, now with actual hardware the fact so few videos are being shown of Xbox One 3rd party titles
- Penello now dancing around directly answering the question whether XO CoD:G is 1080p

....makes me wonder if something is going on.

Why would Panello be first to talk about the specifics of someone elses game?

It was 1080p according a EG developer interview from a few months ago.

 

[XpiderMX]

No response from IW makes me think that the game is really 720p.

 

[AlphaWolf]

No response from IW makes me think that the game is really 720p.

Perhaps they just have better things to do (like getting the product to market) than respond to questions from frothing fanboys?

 

[Grall]

Perhaps they just have better things to do than respond to questions from frothing fanboys?

Yeah, lack of evidence is NOT in of itself evidence. Classic logic fallacy, this one.