Xbox 360 Direct3D Performance Update *changed

[Arctic Permafrost]

Firstly, I want to thank you, MasterDisaster, you know why.

We already know X360 is a special thing, like a flower blossoming, as it will certainly become more and more beautiful over the time. Looks like MS is going to give new tools to the developers, tools they need to access the full power that is already there (via XNA update, guys also get ready for, presumably, the Fall update of the dashboard)

"From xboxyde forum:

Okay I went up there directly left of the sony booth you had the Microsoft one which had games for windows running crysis and many other things such as flight simulator X (which looked like crap and had terrible fps) and further down there were some 360s which had fear and stuff like that, but I wasn't concerned with all of that. I asked the Microsoft employee if anything at this event had directx 10 even installed on it and he said no none of it. I asked him about unified shaders with the 360's gpu he says a lot of people asked him the very same question all of the days he's been at the event, but all he could say on the subject is that there will be a VERY important update going out to developers relating to the 360's videocard which developers have been asking for since launch he couldn't give a date on this.He says long story short developers have the 360 gpu, but they don't REALLY have acess it until these updates go through"

I would like to thank Wayne_Rooney too, very much indeed, for the many, stimulating contributions he has made (that's why I got this info).

 

[Arctic Permafrost]

I am not an expert or a techie, but I've got this from someone who is a XNA betatester (thanks Maxima).

Using Direct3D 10: Getting the Most from Your Direct3D 10 Engine
Effects 10: Driving the New Effects System
Exploiting Direct3D 10: Advanced Techniques Using Direct3D 10
Advanced Lighting and More from Microsoft Research
Xbox 360 Direct3D and GPU Performance Update
HLSL Shader Compiler Update for Xbox 360 and Windows
Under the Hood: Revving Up Shader Performance
Seven Ways to Skin a Mesh: Character Skinning Revisited for Modern GPUs
HDR the Bungie Way
Cross-Platform Graphics Engine Development
Designing Multi-Core Games: How to Walk and Chew Bubblegum at the Same Time
Multi-Core Memory Coherence: The Hidden Perils of Sharing Data
Supercharging I/O: Hard Disk, DVD, and Memory Unit
Memory Management Internals: Allocation Strategies for High Performance
Power Debugging: Nasty Bugs and How to Find Them
Taming the CLR: How To Write Really Fast Managed Code
Windows Performance Topics for Games
Xbox 360 CPU Performance Update
Developing Games for Windows and Xbox 360: Stories from the Trenches

Full Service Audio: A Comprehensive Guide to Tools, Libraries, and Services for Audio on Xbox 360 and Windows Vista
The Fundamentals of Audio Rendering on Xbox 360 and Windows Vista
XMA Implementation and Aesthetics (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Compression)
Using the Top Rear Left-of-Center Low Frequency Speaker: How Multi-channel Audio Works on Xbox 360 and Windows Vista
Distributed Composing: Managing Audio Collaboration and Cross-Platform Deployment for XACT Projects
An Analytical Study of Audio Implementations for Existing Windows and Xbox 360 Titles

Adding Camera-Based Gesture and Face Tracking to Games
Making Your Game Sound More Cinematic
Extensible .NET Tools for Game Development - Guidelines and Lessons Learned
An Overview of Voice Recognition Implementation
Meshing AGEIA and Granny
Combining Different Middleware Solutions to Create a Customized Platform
The Convergence of AI, Physics and Animation
The Dos and Absolutely-Do-Nots of XLSP: A Middleware Perspective
Advanced Tools and Techniques for Shipping Your Game On-Time
Creating a DirectX 10 Shader Authoring Sandbox Using SOFTIMAGE|XSI
The State of the (Audio) Nation: A Conversation with Leading Audio Content Middleware Solutions

 

[Guden Oden]

I believe there's a duplicate (and equally overblown) thread about this very thing in the console tech forum.

In any case, it's pretty much a case of taking something such as this, and turning it into something such as THIS!

Loada hullabaloo about maybe not nuttin, but not the earthshattering revolution it's being trumpeted to be in that forum post.

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Second post stuff

Hmmm, yes, I do believe you should be introduced to:

Gamefest!

 

[Arctic Permafrost]

I believe there's a duplicate (and equally overblown) thread about this very thing in the console tech forum.

In any case, it's pretty much a case of taking something such as this, and turning it into something such as THIS!

Loada hullabaloo about maybe not nuttin, but not the earthshattering revolution it's being trumpeted to be in that forum post.

Perhaps, but there are still a bunch of Xenos' features developers haven't used yet (memexport, tesellator, tiling, GPU enslaving Xenon, etc). They are not taking full advantage of the GPU hardware features.

If they already did, we must've heard of it, and we have not. I wouldn't be suprised at all if MS has squeaked out even more performance by refining the XNA+dashboard.

Xbox 360 is a GPU-centric console.

 

[Arctic Permafrost]

Hmmm, yes, I do believe you should be introduced to:

Gamefest!

I suppose I should merely point out that I've already read that topic, but someone wrote a summary of the event wich I find easy to read -concise information-.

 

[22psi]

CPU and GPU upgrades? hmm

 

[Rolf N]

I know this is going to hurt some people's feelings, but one of these days it needs to be said at least once.

If there needs to be a software update to tweak the load-balancing characteristics of Xenos, it can only mean that the thing is fundamentally broken.

Unified shading's key benefit is automatic load balancing. Shuffling around of compute resources on the fly, at any time, which specifically has to include mid-batch. Software can't do this. The hardware must manage itself. If it doesn't do that, the effort is wasted. If Xenos doesn't do that, well, that's ... bad.

 

[Chris123234]

CPU and GPU upgrades? hmm

No.

 

[22psi]

No.

I meant performance update sorry hehe

 

[babcat]

What if they had some heat concerns in the past so they did not fully enable all of the GPU pipelines or even aspects of the CPU? Now that they have the heat issue handled better they might activate them?

 

[mckmas8808]

I meant performance update sorry hehe

No! Ask the question again and you will get the same answer.

 

[22psi]

No! Ask the question again and you will get the same answer.

What do you mean? I am not expecting some magical upgrade to boost the 360's power to uber status or something rediculous. But I am just interesting in what all this means, aren't you?

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

I'm not sure what you two are debating, but there certainly were performance updates, at least in the form of enabling better and more extensive control for developers to generate better code, better performance analysis tools, API updates and so on.

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

If there needs to be a software update to tweak the load-balancing characteristics of Xenos, it can only mean that the thing is fundamentally broken.

Unified shading's key benefit is automatic load balancing. Shuffling around of compute resources on the fly, at any time, which specifically has to include mid-batch. Software can't do this. The hardware must manage itself. If it doesn't do that, the effort is wasted. If Xenos doesn't do that, well, that's ... bad.

I think we and several others agree on the same point: unified shading should just work, period.

Latency hiding and the ramifications of certain architectural choices certainly fit into their own section, however, and in that sense, compiler, api, and driver updates are very much common to tweak things so that performance improves.

 

[Cobra101]

Wow.

Downloadable video cards.

 

[Nesh]

Wow.

Downloadable video cards.

Doanloadable video cards?

 

[Guden Oden]

Perhaps, but there are still a bunch of Xenos' features developers haven't used yet

Yeah, so what?

That doesn't mean there is anything that hasn't been 'yet revealed', as the topic subject line says. We've known about these features for a long time now, before the 360 was launched in fact, they're not new, and programmers have had access to them before now as well. Just because they're getting (better) integrated into microsoft's software libraries doesn't mean it suddenly is new stuff. Quite the opposite.

 

[AlNom]

I don't suppose they'd try downloadable updated executables for 360 games ala the BC updates, would they?


(not that I'm saying they should be in the habit of that ala patches and "early" release schedules)

 

[Dave Baumann]

Its not necessarily true to say that every single feature that is part of the hardware is exposed in the API from day one - far from it in fact, the API is evolving all the time and more functionality will be exposed as that happens. Bear in mind that the article here was taken very much from the hardware perspective and I point out that not everything is necessarily exposed through the software.

Besides, the Gamefest presentations do seem it indicate some reasonably interesting updates in terms of what can be done automatically via the tools MS are providing.