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

Umm.. did you post the wrong link? This doesn't appear to have anything to do with XDK and GDK!?!

 

I mean, I didn't actually know at the time there was this 'midway' kit that allowed BC titles to easily patch on X/S to upgrade the games to support higher level options like VRR and 120fps. And this is very much confirmation that developers are doing exactly this as a stop gap until they work on a full port.

 

Im really not worried that a GPU like the 6800 (XT) will last a very, very long time. At double the theoretical power, more memery then consoles have for vram, more advanced features and IC will no doubt help that.

Actually a 6800 might be a very good choice despite lacking in RT/DLSS tech. I mean, you get more performance then the consoles in all games basically, higher settings at that, and most likely somewhat better RT too with that card. An RTX product just goes a step further then that (RT and DLSS, better native 4k perf).

 

If you read about their 'Optimized For Series X|S' explanation it sort of insinuates that this is not the case.

https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/games/optimized

Valhalla is listed as an 'Optimized for Series X|S' game

Of course there can be varying degrees of 'optimized'. But it does sound by Microsoft's explanation that it isn't some hybrid Xbox One game.


Edit: well it states this

These include new titles built natively using the Xbox Series X|S development environment as well as previously released titles that have been rebuilt specifically for Xbox Series X|S.

then this

The Optimized for Xbox Series X|S icon means the developer has done the extra work to take full advantage of the unique capabilities of Xbox Series X|S.

So it's somewhat confusing

 

Fixed it for you / Microsoft.

 

Did you also miss the fact that the quote above is all about the Development Kit? As far as I know, the development kit and final console specs are different. I have seen many a development kit look way different to the final customer product. Hell, MS was using PC hardware as development kits(ala Halo).

Well there's no doubt that the dev kits still seemed to have optimizations needed, it still doesn't mean the user end product shown in Dec 2019 and March 2020 to DF and others was not near or the final customer production product. I mean if they were still trying to develop the final user product in June 2020 and then having to get the assembly line ready to build the final product so that they have enough final units for launch in Nov(or in your case the rumours you heard about August 2020 that being two months), I find it hard to believe. Especially in these Covid time which would have complicated things even more.

I would think MS and Sony would have had the assembly line designed finished and near ready for production in the Feb to April time frames, then had to do tests to confirm that units made from the assembly line were up to specs, then in June/July timeframe started the production of the final product.

There was news that Sony had a new Assembly planet in production that could generate a PS5 every 30 secs. That's 2 console per minute. 2x60(hour)x24(day)x30(If fully robotic and running 24/7) = 86400 units per Month. Now if they had 10 of these plants working(as far as I understood the report, this was the first production plant that did 30 secs per unit, not sure how many Sony actually has producing PS5), that's 864000 units per month. So if they started in June, then up until October there were be almost three and a half million units built. Then at that point they would have to start shipping said units to the different countries etc. By Nov that number increases to over four million units.

Now I know the Xbox looks easy to assemble, but how much have they really produced per minute because I haven't seen any numbers thrown about. So I will stick to the magic 30 sec per unit number I used for the PS5, which we know is speculative since not all production facilites used by Sony could deliver a PS5 every 30 secs yet the numbers shown and the numbers Sony was touting by March 2021 (seven million units) seem to corrolate. So either Sony have more production facilities or they have converted at least ten to produce PS5 every 30 seconds.

I would suggest the same for MS production plants.

That leaves me to doubt that MS was still planning changes to the final XBSX design in June 2020 as you seem to suggest.

In my opinion, MS and Sony would have had to have completed the final end user product design by latest March/April 2020.


*edit* Seems the 30 sec production of Sony's consoles was actually for the PS4 units. Would they have been able to convert the production for PS5 and still have had 30secs per unit?

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7361...aystation-console-every-30-seconds/index.html

That would suggest that if there's one console built every minute, 20 production facilities would have to be built to get to the same amount I mentioned. Do Sony and MS have 20 or more production facilities around the world?

 

No. I explicitly said DevKit in my first post. Maybe you missed that?

https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2176951/

 

Awesome, that's cleared up then.

I would still say the rumours you heard about the release of the Series X was complete BS.

 

What does hardware have to do with software? You suspect that the Xbox had to have finalized software and hardware before june for production sake?

We didn't even get reports that eSRAM bandwidth on the Xbox One had basically doubled until 3 days before July 2013 well after MS initial presentation and e3 when they could have been marketing 204 GBs instead of 102 GBs with the gamers around the world paying attention.

Its not like it matters anyway. The Xbox One's always DRM wasn't removed until a day one patch. And that had far greater consequences (DRM would shut down the Xbox after 24 hours without an online connection) than day one patching in this day and age.

 

If you read my post, you would notice I seperated the two i.e. they are two seperate distinctions as per what I had highlighted from the initial post I was quoting.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2176979/

 

I agree. But it's not marked. We have no real way of knowing how much effort was placed to the port.
All my game icons on my screen, any title that has been patched to take advantage of some features of X|S will have the X|S icon on them.
There is no way for a player to actually know how much has actually been done just because the badge is there.

So without someone explicitly telling you what they did, we really don't know which path they went. I'm not saying this as to make up for their performance losses or anything. That's a separate topic. I'm just saying, we have no method of knowing whether the developers opted for a full port or a stop-gap patch without their explicit commentary on it. The icon is the same.
ie: this line from their marketing is false:

Rocket League, Halo MCC, CoD Warzone, Forza Horizon, Sea of thieves all have the X|S icon.
But so do Gears, AC Valhalla, Watch Dogs, and DMC5.

They don't clearly all take full advantage of the hardware. The stop gap kit is quite literally, a patch job. If you look at how large the 'optimized for X|S list is' you'd honestly think you'd have a lot of games to show off your new hardware with.

 

Read through a few pages quickly on here. Are we saying there's a possibility that XBSX is running launch games in BC mode?

 

Right I agree that we don't know how much work is actually done on optimization but technically speaking it sounds like if a game has the "Optimized for Series X|S' icon it's not in BC mode.

 

Extremely unlikely; DMC5 and Watchdogs have RT effects

 

Technically speaking, I don't know if that's true.
I'd like to believe that's true, but there's not enough information. Star Wars Squadrons, CoD Warzone, Halo MCC and others are all technically running BC mode. But they do so with full access to the GPU, the mid-gen patch enables them to patch the games to allow for additional features like VRR and 120fps support. So it becomes a straight forward patch of just clicking these check boxes on for instance. That could also mean smaller game sizes, and SSD supports as well. If we take Sea of thieves for instance:




So ... ? That stop gap GDK seems to be able to do a lot of stuff here. Sea of Theives is also smaller now.
Resolution bumps
Load Times
Smaller Game sizes

SWS: Does the same thing.
Improved resolution
Improved frame rate
Improved lighting

COD W + MW
120fps modes

“Enabling 120Hz on Xbox Series X|S is a minor patch, but enabling it on PS5 requires a full native port due to how backwards compatibility is implemented on the console, and unfortunately wasn’t possible due to our focus elsewhere,” explains Psyonix in a statement to Eurogamer"

So do we technically know which titles are running BC mode and which aren't? You don't right?

 

You need to look at File Info of the game to see if it's using "XboxOneGen9Aware" or not. Then we need to know what is and is not available in that mode. The original XDK was strict Xbox One family. Here's four different games, Gears 5 and Sea of Thieves has "O4SX|S" label, while Gears4 and Gears 3 do not.

Gears 5
AppModel: GDK
Gen: Scarlet
ConsoleType: XboxGen9
Applied: Xbox-Anaconda

Sea Of Thieves
AppModel: XDK
Gen: Durango
ConsoleType: XboxOneGen9Aware
Applied: Xbox-Scorpio

Gears 4
AppModel: XDK
Gen: Durango
ConsoleType: XboxOne
Applied: Xbox-Scorpio

Gears 3 (Xbox 360 Title)
AppModel: XDK
Gen: Durango
ConsoleType: XboxOne
There is no Applied metadata.

 

Thank you, I'm going to do some checking Ori will be my target

Forza Horizon 4
AppModel: GDK;
Console Type: XboxGen9
Applied: Xbox-Anaconda

COD Warfare:
AppModel: XDK; Gen; Durango
ConsoleType: XboxOneGen9Aware

Ori and the Will of the Wisps:
AppModel:XDK; GenDurango
ConsoleType:XboxOneGen9Aware
soo.. ^^ this is 6K or 120fps support

This is going to be fun. Going to check them all now.

Does anyone have an Xbox Series X;
and owns AC Valhalla, Dirt 5, and DMC 5, Watchdogs?
I'm pretty confident it's GDK, but for the heck of it, I'm curious to see if someone else tried stretching it.

I may even make a spreadsheet tracking this.

 

Ori #2 has O4SX|S badge.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps [#2]
AppModel: XDK
Gen: Durango
ConsoleType: XboxGen9Aware
Applied: Xbox-Durango;Xbox-Scorpio;Xbox-Lockhart;Xbox-Anaconda

Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition [#1.5]
AppModel: XDK
Gen: Durango
ConsoleType: XboxOne
There is no Applied metadata.

Ori and the Blind Forest [#1]
AppModel: XDK
Gen: Durango
ConsoleType: XboxOne
There is no Applied metadata.

 

Would XDK games be aware of GPU optimal memory (on XSX) ?

 

I would think developers have to be aware of that in the same way they have to know about esram.

On Xbox one there are no pools just a contiguous allocation so a single asset, most likely a buffer can span both esram and ddr3. Developers need to know where thoes addresses are allocated and allocate accordingly.

Given the relative similarly of series memory Vs esram I assume they have done the same.