Current Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [post GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

I'm probably going Amazon and Argos this time. There is an Argos about 10 minutes walk and the appeal of picking my console up is immense. Every console I've ordered from Amazon has arrived after 4pm and it's not great watching that bloody truck trundle around London, you are delivery 139, you driver ???? is on delivery 7. Arghhhh!

 

The rumours state that lockhart has still the fast SSD. And with it even more bandwidth available than the series x which must load the higher rest textures etc ... but well I don't think SSD bandwidth will be that much of a game changer like some state. SSD latency will, but bandwidth .. I don't think so.

It would make sense to reduce the OS footprint. Like recording your sessions. I really don't think this feature is heavily requested on a lower end console. Screenshots, yes but videos ... I really don't think so.
But lets just say it has 7.5 GB available:
- reduces render target (saves bandwidth memory not so much)
- lower texture resolutions (greatly saves bandwidth and memory)
- lower shadow resolution
- maybe no RT (saves memory & bandwidth)

And still only data that needs to be in memory is loaded via SSD. So I really have no problem with the reduced capacity even with xbox one x in mind which had 12 GB. Yes it would not run xbox one x enhanced games because the memory might be missing but this is the low-end console.
If MS is generous they will still increase resolution (e.g. doubling pixel count) to run BC games because the GPU is more than capable of running this things. Even more texture detail should not be a problem like x-enhanced xbox 360 titles. But x-enhanced xbox one games could get a problem, unless they can somehow enforce even older game just to load the higher res textures and get rid of some things no longer needed somehow without patching xbox one games.
But I really don't think that this is needed. They will just straight of run the xbox one game and it will be ok.

Overall the OS might just not need the big memory footprint the xbox one OS needed, because it can load everything fast from the SSD. Even code from DLLs must not be persistent in memory as it can load fast enough from the SSD. Only the real important stuff has to still be in memory.

For the segment Lockhart is focused on price is most important.

 

Really considering Xbox All Access or ordering direct from Microsoft. Got to spend all that Microsoft Rewards money somehow.

Tommy McClain

 

Yea immediacy is pretty big deal for me as well and if they can get loading between multiple titles under 6 seconds is something undeniably better than waiting for shaders to compile.

Typically people wait for longer time slots to play because loading itself is so long. Instant resume and instant loading is a godsend to just jump in go and get out.

 

It's not so much where, but how I get it. The original PlayStation I picked up in store, when I was almost 30 my mum, who knew I wanted one but also knew I stupidly failed to pre-order one found a PS2 somewhere in London even though there was a massive European launch shortage - mums are mums regardless of your age! The only consoles I have pre-ordered at a B&M store were PSP, PS3 and PS Vita. PS4, PS4 Pro and Switch were all delivered by courier but I just hate watching the courier drive around London all day with my new tech especially as I tend to be on the tail end of every route unless I snag a rare pre-9am delivery. Waiting for deliveries is thew worst!

 

Any opinions on Lockhart, Xbox Series X and PS5 RAM?

 

I like your logic from an engineering perspective, but I just cannot justify it on the price perspective.

In order for Scorpio to make any sense, they desperately need to cut costs anywhere they can, and high-speed RAM is one of the very largest line items. Unless they come out with some weird wide but slow setup, I think most people here will be very disappointed with the RAM amount.

Like, I expect there to be more, but I would not be shocked by 8GB. MS can still sell it on the basis of having a fast drive and all the new tech that makes texture streaming more efficient, so it will probably be able to beat a 12GB 1X in visuals, at least if things are fudged a bit.

 

Oh thank god. It is not just me. We live at the convergence of 3 different cities, 3 different zip codes (postal codes) and technically these are private streets. Meaning not kept up by the city. The addresses around here are just weird and items constantly get delivered to the wrong home. It is not uncommon to see FedEx, Amazon and UPS trucks circling around looking for the proper address. I have literally chased them down in the snow waiting for something to arrive during the Holidays.

Mothers.... Mine drove 2 hours, each way, to another city to buy me a sports team jersey for Xmas. I still have it in a box in the closet. Thing is worth who knows how much today (30+ years later) and I have no interest in risking it by wearing it.

 

They have it. Anything in particular that you're looking for?

I always thought they would be budget constrained for memory, so having an NVME for the main backing store eases any restrictions there.

 

How do you guys think Lockhart RAM will be set up? Similar to Xbox Series X? More similar to PS5 as in having chips with the same size? What are each setups advantages and disadvantages?

 

Start reading from this post onwards in the Lockhart thread @ https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2145755/

 

To be honest I’ve just been going to John Lewis, unannounced, and I always came out with everything I needed. Last time was 2 Pro’s, no questions asked.

 

Copied from elsewhere:

I was speculating on a 128-bit bus, 224GB/s (14Gbps), which is about where PS4 Pro ended up for bandwidth per flop.

That leads to a mixed RAM density to achieve 10GB in clamshell, but in this case, the OS would mostly reside on the upper GB of both of the 2GB chips (rumour was 2.5GB OS), so there wouldn't be a need for game developers to consider two pools of bandwidth. i.e. 8GB at 128-bit, 2GB at 32-bit (OS eating up the latter section entirely and a bit of the 8GB).

edit:

10GB could also be done with mixed densities on a 192-bit bus for 336GB/s, but I suspect that would be overkill for something that was originally targeting 4TF.

Just my 2 cents.

 

You’d think that due to the lack of XSX exclusives that the price sensitivity would be more on the XSX side - it’s what’s making me struggle, especially with the potential to get an XSS and upgrade later to XSX.

Game midnight launches say hi
I love the whole launch atmosphere, getting home and having a play on my shiny new toy!

 

This could be very interesting prove out how useful sampler feedback is.

If this was profiled in hardware on the X and they believe so much texture data was never used them by having it hardware implemented could they save that space and fit an X title into 7.5gb?

Edit: if this is in place a more useful implementation for Microsoft would be in the Xcloud, running 4 Xbox One S instances could be achieved with lower memory overhead. The 20gb devkit spec may be sufficient? This would be a bottom line saving that seems too good to miss if possible.

 

I guess it depends on what you're looking for. I feel the same way about PS5 right now. At certain price point, both consoles are instant buys whether the software is there or not. Once it hits the price point that goes beyond impulse purchase, I'm going to wait for specific titles to come out first before buying.

 

I know what you’re saying, but XSX doesn’t offer anything that Xbox One X can't other than faster loading and nicer graphics. PS5 will offer that plus some exclusives and a controller with new and unique functionality.

 

MS bought many studios. I'm sure they'll bring a good number of exclusives too.

 

Who knows, maybe they continue multi-platform releases. I really doubt it, but they are known for making some odd decisions.

 

Yea but that applies to a lot of titles. Mainly cyberpunk and other titles I enjoy for me. MP games always have shelf life. The controller thing I don’t care for. PS5 exclusives will still be a little thin for a while unless I’m looking to play the PS4 catalog. Which is what I want to do, but BC details are thin.