Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[mosen]

I can't speak to the rest of your post but I can categorically state that the display planes have nothing to with 4K and the problem of nasty cheap monitor ASICs. That problem is going away over time, there are already high end 4K screens with 4k @ 60hz support, and isn't relevant for the consumer market anyway. The consumer HDMI 1.4 standard only supports 3840×2160 (4K Ultra HD) at 24 Hz/25 Hz/30 Hz or 4096×2160 at 24 Hz (thanks Wikipedia!). So your PS4 and your tv are just not fit for 4K gaming right now.

For 4k @ 60hz you need a good monitor w/DisplayPort 1.2 and you can have a single rendering surface that is your entire display. As of now we deal with the tiling by faking 2 displays using a dual monitor setup that is streamed over a DisplayPort MST which is a nightmare as no-one remembered to add a 'hint bit' to MST that says 'this display is upper left' so on reboot a MST array is likely to spray your desktops everywhere, very annoyi

Even upscaling to 4K on GPU have noting to do with display planes?!

===============

How big is the chance of that 2MB (or 4MB?) of eSRAM between two CPU clusters being for CPU-Assisted GPGPU? I accidently found this article which AMD sponsored and co-authored:

Updated @ 04:11 Some further clarification: Basically, the research paper is a bit cryptic. It seems the engineers wrote some real code, but executed it on a simulated AMD CPU with L3 cache (i.e. probably Trinity). It does seem like their working is correct. In other words, this is still a good example of the speed-ups that heterogeneous systems will bring… in a year or two.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...md-cpu-performance-by-20-without-overclocking

And then it reminds me of this leak that didn't come true:

Spoiler

Is it possible?!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Even upscaling to 4K on GPU have noting to do with display planes?!

XB1 cannot output 4k at anything higher than 24 fps - The HDMI 1.4 spec doesn't support 4k output for videogames. You also don't need to upscale to 4k on the console as the TV is going to upscale 1080p to 4k, which is why Sony didn't bother.

 

[mosen]

XB1 cannot output 4k at anything higher than 24 fps - The HDMI 1.4 spec doesn't support 4k output for videogames. You also don't need to upscale to 4k on the console as the TV is going to upscale 1080p to 4k, which is why Sony didn't bother.

For now you'r right, HDMI 1.4 spec doesn't support 4k@60fps but maybe in future it be able to support 4k@60fps since HDMI 2.0 is compatible with existing connectors & category 2 cables, but it needs hardware and/or firmware upgrades.

Does HDMI 2.0 replace HDMI 1.x?
No, HDMI 2.0 is built on top of HDMI 1.x and any device that wants to implement HDMI 2.0 must first implement HDMI 1.x as a baseline requirement.
Is HDMI 2.0 backwards compatible with HDMI 1.x?
Yes, all HDMI versions are fully backward compatible with all previous versions.
Does HDMI 2.0 require new connectors?
No, HDMI 2.0 uses the existing connectors.
Does HDMI 2.0 require new cables?
No, HDMI 2.0 features will work with existing HDMI cables. Higher bandwidth features, such as 4K@50/60 (2160p) video formats, will require existing High Speed HDMI cables (Category 2 cables).
Can my existing HDMI 1.x devices be upgraded with HDMI 2.0 features?
Currently, there are no provisions for doing such an upgrade. Because of the new enhanced feature set, any such conversion would require hardware and/or firmware upgrades. If there are such conversions, it would come from the manufacturer. Please check with them directly.

http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_0/hdmi_2_0_faq.aspx#120

Microsoft also stated that XB1 supports both native and upscaled 4K.

 

[Lalaland]

Your own post quotes the FAQ highlighting that HDMI 1.4 devices will not be getting 2.0 the clock generators and everything else that goes into 4k @ 60hz are just not there in PS4 and XB1. Both of those devices do 'support' 4k but only for 24/30 hz media display (which depends on how you define 4k). Gaming at 4k is a next-next gen feature not for the consoles we have today.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

For now you'r right, HDMI 1.4 spec doesn't support 4k@60fps but maybe in future it be able to support 4k@60fps since HDMI 2.0 is compatible with existing connectors & category 2 cables, but it needs hardware and/or firmware upgrades.

You're suggesting MS designed the display planes to incorporate 4k scaling and output for 4k games without there being any means planned to upgrade the console to HDMI2? Note:

Currently, there are no provisions for doing such an upgrade.

1.4 is not designed to be upgraded to 2.0. If it happens, it'll be engineering magic that the HDMI Forum didn't plan for. So without any means to get 4k games from the console, MS went ahead and put in 4k support anyway because in the future, they'll add 4k out?

Microsoft also stated that XB1 supports both native and upscaled 4K.

I don't know where you're going with this. XB1 is struggling to get 1080p games. You think it's going to be producing 4k games which PS4 can't support? Neither console is capable of 4k games (save maybe noughts and crosses). And upscaled games to 4k is redundant because the TVs support upscaling of 1080p. Upscaling only matters in games because devs can render to targets not supported by the TV which is why scalers are included as an optimisation. If TVs were good at accepting arbitrary resolution inputs, there'd be no need for any scaling at all, save dynamic scaling.

XB1 probably supports a 4k native interface for people with massive screens who want XB1 controls, which'd be pretty cool, but 4k games area non-event.

 

[mosen]

Your own post quotes the FAQ highlighting that HDMI 1.4 devices will not be getting 2.0 the clock generators and everything else that goes into 4k @ 60hz are just not there in PS4 and XB1. Both of those devices do 'support' 4k but only for 24/30 hz media display (which depends on how you define 4k). Gaming at 4k is a next-next gen feature not for the consoles we have today.

You're suggesting MS designed the display planes to incorporate 4k scaling and output for 4k games without there being any means planned to upgrade the console to HDMI2? Note:

1.4 is not designed to be upgraded to 2.0. If it happens, it'll be engineering magic that the HDMI Forum didn't plan for. So without any means to get 4k games from the console, MS went ahead and put in 4k support anyway because in the future, they'll add 4k out?

I don't know where you're going with this. XB1 is struggling to get 1080p games. You think it's going to be producing 4k games which PS4 can't support? Neither console is capable of 4k games (save maybe noughts and crosses). And upscaled games to 4k is redundant because the TVs support upscaling of 1080p. Upscaling only matters in games because devs can render to targets not supported by the TV which is why scalers are included as an optimisation. If TVs were good at accepting arbitrary resolution inputs, there'd be no need for any scaling at all, save dynamic scaling.

XB1 probably supports a 4k native interface for people with massive screens who want XB1 controls, which'd be pretty cool, but 4k games area non-event.

Read this:

There's some confusion right now as to whether HDMI 1.4 products (like all current Ultra HD TVs) can be upgraded via a simple downloaded firmware update. Sony is saying its products can do this, but HDMI.org says that's not universal. From HDMI.org: "Currently, there are no provisions for doing [a 1.x to 2.0] upgrade. Because of the new enhanced feature set, any such conversion would require hardware and/or firmware upgrades. If there are such conversions, it would come from the manufacturer. Please check with them directly." Emphasis mine.

Since the specification and bandwidth are based on the HDMI hardware chips inside the products, getting these chips to do more than they were initially designed to seems a challenge, and that's likely why HDMI Licensing is hedging. The group is not saying it isn't possible, just deferring to the manufacturers.

http://www.cnet.com/news/hdmi-2-0-what-you-need-to-know/

I'm simply saying that it could be a possibility and I didn't say that PS4 can't support 4K for games Yoshida says:

"The official answer is that the PS4 supports 4K output but for personal contents, like photos or videos. Not games," Yoshida said. "PS4 games do not work on 4K."

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/23/4359450/xbox-one-will-support-4k-output-resolution-and-3d

Maybe he's referring to HDMI 1.4 restrictions not PS4, I don't know.

Did you read the second part of this post?

 

[Lalaland]

Read this:


http://www.cnet.com/news/hdmi-2-0-what-you-need-to-know/

I'm simply saying that it could be a possibility and I didn't say that PS4 can't support 4K for games Yoshida says:


http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/23/4359450/xbox-one-will-support-4k-output-resolution-and-3d

Maybe he's referring to HDMI 1.4 restrictions not PS4, I don't know.

The CNET article is a classic of the 'rephrase the Press Release' school of journalism and adds nothing to the conversation. Where you see scope for getting HDMI 2.0 in the ambiguous phrasing of a standards organisation, I see the same legalistic bumph I read everyday that basically means 'No'. Standards organisations speak in vague terms like this as they can't afford to annoy any of their member organisations that include the companies that make display ASICs, some of which may indeed only require a BIOS bump to receive 4k @ 60hz.

My own experience is from the PC OEM side and it is quite clear from talking to our product people that 4k ASICs are a real pain to source at the moment. On the transmission side validating the wider data buses and traces necessary to pump all that data and the higher costs are non-trivial (and why true DP1.2 support is hard to find). When Yoshida is basically confirming the original thesis that 4k support is media only we can call this a dead issue unless firm announcements show up.

Even if they did add HDMI 2.0 support why? As ShiftyGeezer pointed out both consoles have a hard time sustaining 1080p/60 let alone 4 times the pixels. If all the HDMI 2.0 support amounts to is scaled 1080p where is the advantage over the displays built in scaler?

 

[mosen]

The CNET article is a classic of the 'rephrase the Press Release' school of journalism and adds nothing to the conversation. Where you see scope for getting HDMI 2.0 in the ambiguous phrasing of a standards organisation, I see the same legalistic bumph I read everyday that basically means 'No'. Standards organisations speak in vague terms like this as they can't afford to annoy any of their member organisations that include the companies that make display ASICs, some of which may indeed only require a BIOS bump to receive 4k @ 60hz.

My own experience is from the PC OEM side and it is quite clear from talking to our product people that 4k ASICs are a real pain to source at the moment. On the transmission side validating the wider data buses and traces necessary to pump all that data and the higher costs are non-trivial (and why true DP1.2 support is hard to find). When Yoshida is basically confirming the original thesis that 4k support is media only we can call this a dead issue unless firm announcements show up.

Even if they did add HDMI 2.0 support why? As ShiftyGeezer pointed out both consoles have a hard time sustaining 1080p/60 let alone 4 times the pixels. If all the HDMI 2.0 support amounts to is scaled 1080p where is the advantage over the displays built in scaler?

Clearly I'm not the expert here so I have no definitive answer to all of your question and I have nothing to say about your experiments in this area because of my lack of knowledge, but there could be one answer to your last question.

If all the HDMI 2.0 support amounts to is scaled 1080p where is the advantage over the displays built in scaler?

From Shifty's mouth:

And upscaled games to 4k is redundant because the TVs support upscaling of 1080p. Upscaling only matters in games because devs can render to targets not supported by the TV which is why scalers are included as an optimisation. If TVs were good at accepting arbitrary resolution inputs, there'd be no need for any scaling at all, save dynamic scaling.

Maybe someone wants to render his/her game higher than 1080p and lower than 4K, scalers will help in this situations.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Bottom line, what I am taking away is that native 4K Ultra HD console games @ 30 / 60 FPS will only become possible with the next generation of consoles, namely PS5 | XB4 in the 2018 ~ 2020 timeframe. Not with the Xbox One or the PS4.

 

[betan]

Bottom line, what I am taking away is that native 4K Ultra HD console games @ 30 / 60 FPS will only become possible with the next generation of consoles, namely PS5 | XB4 in the 2018 ~ 2020 timeframe. Not with the Xbox One or the PS4.

Hardware iterations within a generation can provide support for different output resolutions, though considering the invariants (GPU, CPU), there may be little value for gfx-wise non-trivial games.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The CNET article is a classic of the 'rephrase the Press Release' school of journalism and adds nothing to the conversation. Where you see scope for getting HDMI 2.0 in the ambiguous phrasing of a standards organisation, I see the same legalistic bumph I read everyday that basically means 'No'. Standards organisations speak in vague terms like this as they can't afford to annoy any of their member organisations that include the companies that make display ASICs, some of which may indeed only require a BIOS bump to receive 4k @ 60hz.

My own experience is from the PC OEM side and it is quite clear from talking to our product people that 4k ASICs are a real pain to source at the moment. On the transmission side validating the wider data buses and traces necessary to pump all that data and the higher costs are non-trivial (and why true DP1.2 support is hard to find). When Yoshida is basically confirming the original thesis that 4k support is media only we can call this a dead issue unless firm announcements show up.

Even if they did add HDMI 2.0 support why? As ShiftyGeezer pointed out both consoles have a hard time sustaining 1080p/60 let alone 4 times the pixels. If all the HDMI 2.0 support amounts to is scaled 1080p where is the advantage over the displays built in scaler?

You may want to rethink all of that...

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/sony-update-201311283477.htm

And I imagine Sony won't be the only ones offering upgrades to HDMI 2.0 on HDMI 1.4 devices.

In other words, standards adoption is a slow process. Any manufacturer planning on supporting HDMI 2.0 in a device before the standard is officially ratified has a reasonable chance of including the hardware required if the standard proposal is far enough along that it is only likely to see minor changes before being officially ratified. However, since the standard isn't official yet, they have to launch it as the current standard (in this case HDMI 1.4) rather than the proposed standard (in this case HDMI 2.0).

Things like this happen all the time where a product is released only with support for existing standards and later upgraded to the newer standard that was in the adoption process while the product was being developed via a firmware or software update.

Will Xbox One get an update to HDMI 2.0? Maybe. Will the PS4 get an update to HDMI 2.0? Maybe.

Then again maybe not.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rurouni]

The upgraded HDMI on those Sony TVs is using the lesser version of HDMI 2.0 (2.0b). It uses the same bandwidth as HDMI 1.3/1.4 (10.2Gbps). It can achieve 4K@60Hz, but it uses 4:2:0 8bit only. Not that I care though. For previous HDMI standard, it is either 4:2:2 or 4:4:4. So by dropping to 4:2:0 they could achieve 60Hz over 10Gbps connection.

 

[dobwal]

Current XB1 and PS4 consoles don't support 4K above 24hz, but thats not saying future XB1s and PS4s won't. The 360 initially lacked HDMI support.

I have had to replace my consoles (not branded Nintendo) at least once every gen. If I do end up with a 4K TV before this gen dies, I would rather have my consoles handle the upscaling versus allowing the TV to handle that duty.

 

[kotakaja]

Microsoft Will Do opening Keynote @ISCA 2014 , Exactly 1 Week After MS E3 Keynote
ISCA = International Symposium on Computer Architecture

Insight into the MICROSOFT XBOX ONE Technology

Dr. Ilan Spillinger, Corporate Vice President, Technology and Silicon, Microsoft

Previously, during a six-year tenure with IBM, Dr. Spillinger served as a distinguished engineer and vice president for advanced processor design. In that role he was responsible for development of all Power Architecture-based processors at IBM: server processors, embedded processors, and client-driven solutions. Prior to that, Dr. Spillinger was a principal engineer and manager of the architecture team in Intel Israel, responsible for the definition of x86-based low-cost and low-power microprocessors, specifically the first Intel mobile processor in the Intel Centrino roadmap. Spillinger holds a D.Sc. and M.Sc. in electrical engineering from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and joined Microsoft in 2007.

http://cag.engr.uconn.edu/isca2014/program.html

 

[upnorthsox]

Spillinger holds a D.Sc. and M.Sc. in electrical engineering from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and joined Microsoft in 2007.

It's been a long time now since he worked at IBM.

 

[Babel-17]

I was wondering, just now, if it would be a good idea for Microsoft to include, on the product refresh, a better scaler.
Presumably that wouldn't have any impact on compatibility and it could be marketed as improving the IQ of video upscaled to 4K panels. But what might help Microsoft is that perhaps such an improved scaler would put games that are rendering at lower resolutions on the Xbox One, as compared to the PS4, in a better light.

Even as just a marketing bullet point it could improve sales.

 

[Scott_Arm]

What's wrong with the scalar they have now?

 

[Babel-17]

Afaik it's generally regarded as good and Microsoft is proud of it. However, it seems Microsoft is losing a lot of sales based, at least in part, on the perception that games look better on the PS4. In some cases this claim is based on the game being rendered at a higher resolution than that of the Xbox One.

As an observer, I'm wondering if being able to scale games to 1080p better than is done now would be of an advantage. Scaling video up in a great fashion has always been a selling point for expensive hardware. Maybe we are well along the path of diminishing returns with that but afaik discerning consumers still look at that feature when considering a purchase.

 

[Boxercide]

No. Just no.

 

[Scott_Arm]

X1 and PS4 probably already have good scalars with little room to go in improvements. I'm not an expert on scalars, but I don't think there's anything out there dramatically better. You certainly wouldn't be able to make aliasing disappear.