Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

What I don't understand is why they bothered using the Source engine at all, if they had to do so much rewriting.

Let me find the article, but from what I read, they chose the source engine because it ran portal 2 so well on the ps3/360.

yep here it is.

http://www.slashgear.com/titanfall-playstation-3-edition-discovered-in-production-code-18317309/

I 'm guess this game was suppose to originally be on the xbox one, 360, ps4, ps3 and pc haha.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I dont know, hardly a ringing endorsement. I do think those that make the One architecture sing in later years will definitely be the ones that crack the ESRAM.

Forward+ rendering with a tile distribution size optimized to the ESRAM size!

 

[shredenvain]

Let me find the article, but from what I read, they chose the source engine because it ran portal 2 so well on the ps3/360.

yep here it is.

http://www.slashgear.com/titanfall-playstation-3-edition-discovered-in-production-code-18317309/

I 'm guess this game was suppose to originally be on the xbox one, 360, ps4, ps3 and pc haha.

I believe in that Eurogamer article that was just linked they stated that when they chose the source engine they didnt have any intention of making the game for the Xbox one. I think it is in the part where they talk about the Pc version. They state that they had to rewrite so much of the engine they hate to call it the Source engine. They had to add in 64 bit support and Dx11 into the engine.

 

[Barbarian]

Forward+ rendering with a tile distribution size optimized to the ESRAM size!

I don't remember seeing any research showing Forward+ performing better than Deferred at 1xMSAA.
At higher MSAA perhaps, but let's be honest, Titanfall might be the only game using MSAA on Xbox One (and might not be for long if they patch in FXAA).
MSAA just doesn't make a lot of sense given the limited ESRAM.
One can argue for "tiling" of course, but we all know how popular that was on X360 where MSAA was really for free.

 

[Dave Baumann]

There was some stuff I recall to have seen. It seems that For NVIDIA deferred shading (at 1x) is better while for AMD Forward+ is neutral to positive. This could become a technique that may be adopted more in the future as, at worst, it is neutral to both platforms and makes MSAA more attainable.

 

[Starx]

Expect "fairly large improvements" to graphics as devs master the GPU and ESRAM

http://www.totalxbox.com/73607/1080...er-over-time-assures-microsoft-hardware-boss/

 

[Lalaland]

"The hardware is basically baked, and what comes next is people discovering better software techniques to take advantage of it, especially in the ordering of the data so it flows through all the caches correctly, and I think there's a lot of opportunity there," said Multerer. Of the Xbox One's ESRAM - a slab of super-fast RAM that works in tandem with the console's eight GB of DDR3 RAM - he added that "this is where tuning your data set becomes super important."

"Expect time and familiarity to function in a linear fashion just like last time"

Of course we expect a lot of the issues to clear up over time, especially as devs get more familiar how to bundle data to work better with the available memory setup as on PS3 with it's SPU caches. The questions we all have are what issues are down to the memory layout and the need to optimise for that specifically and how much is down to the different GPU setup. I wasn't expecting much more given it's an interview with OXM and anyway the real meat is likely in the SDK changelogs, have those ever been publicly available for any platform?

 

[McHuj]

That almost reads like "we don't know, someone will find a good use for it". I think the onus is on MS to demonstrate new rendering techniques that this setup allows (if any). I would have thought that would have fallen out of the R&D for the project.

 

[3dilettante]

There are some generally known directions that are the next step for initial optimization, but there's going to be some good ideas that only come about after people have a chance to iterate on the platform.

There are limits to what can be done for software at the beginning of a generation. Many have cross-generational requirements, and I think much of the software at release has existed for longer than the chip it has to run on.

There are fundamental technical and physical challenges afflicting all of computing that the eSRAM was made to address, so I don't think Microsoft has to spell out every way that having on-die memory can be useful.

 

[kots]

http://www.totalxbox.com/73607/1080...er-over-time-assures-microsoft-hardware-boss/

When his conclusion is "Part of it is learning how to tune, part of it is I think a very legitimate question of quality of pixels versus number of pixels, and of course both are interesting" i think it's pretty obvious.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

You're on the right track ...

Theres an NDA which will come up on the 20th ...

The improvements are such that it warranted a leap to DX12 not Dx11.3x ..

It took a while for the Software to catch up with what is already shipped in the HW..

Willing to take a guess at the NDA you suggest expires today?

 

[Cyan]

It seems like the Xbox One is going to get lots of games with Global Illumination. :smile2:

Courtesy of Lionhead, who licensed it to the UE4 engine.

Video from March 22th 2014 showing Global Illumination with Light Propagation Volumes running on Unreal Engine 4:

 

[HTupolev]

What does that have to do with XB1 in particular?

 

[Pixel]

What does that have to do with XB1 in particular?

He has to phrase it in that way because this is the Xbox One hardware tech thread.

Lionhead studios is a subsidiary of Microsoft.

 

[Ike Turner]

What does that have to do with XB1 in particular?

Nothing...irronically the screenshot he posted doesn't even showcase GI w/LPV (it' simply baked Lightmass..). Furthermore, the GI implementation is available to anybody using UE4 on any platform..

 

[Scott_Arm]

Seems unlikely Lionhead would develop tech they wouldn't actually use. Unless they're making PC games, seems likely this tech would head to X1.

 

[AlNom]

Seems unlikely Lionhead would develop tech they wouldn't actually use. Unless they're making PC games, seems likely this tech would head to X1.

Given that LPVs have been used for just sunlight bounce (i.e. CryEngine 3/Crysis 2+), it's maybe not a bad fit for Fable where previous games all featured a day/night cycle - I suppose it'd take too long for them to just bake a bunch of times( and blend between them in-game..).

 

[Ike Turner]

Seems unlikely Lionhead would develop tech they wouldn't actually use. Unless they're making PC games, seems likely this tech would head to X1.

Yeah and on PS4, PC, Mobile etc... It's part of the UE4 source code and in no way exclusive to X1 as Cyan's post was making it sound.

 

[liquidboy]

UE4 "Light Propogation Volumes" - I came across this a couple of days ago and its really nice, had a go of it ... If anyone wants a go heres some nice easy steps to enable

https://forums.unrealengine.com/sho...ble-Light-Propagation-Volumes-GI-WIP-AND-BETA

 

[Scott_Arm]

Yeah and on PS4, PC, Mobile etc... It's part of the UE4 source code and in no way exclusive to X1 as Cyan's post was making it sound.

I never said it was exclusive. Lionhead will only make games for Microsoft, so it's unlikely they'd develop and share code into UE4 unless they intended to use it. I'm sure other games on other platforms will take advantage of the code now that it's available.