Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2020]

[Arwin]

Watching a DF live stream with John and My Life in Gaming right now, very interesting. Call of Duty looks pretty good, supports RT or 120fps modes, supports the triggers and is quite pretty.

He also just mentioned several developers have indicated the Xbox SDK is still rough in light of Alex’ Watchdog findings and that Alex will also be the one doing Valhalla.

 

[thicc_gaf]

The lead was probably PCs with mostly Nvidia cards.

That might explain the paper launches for the RTX 30 series we've been seeing; the devs are taking all the cards!

 

[Unknown Soldier]

This is a nonfactor, because I haven't seen any indications that Series S has held back X. So no, this is false.

So because it hasn't shown any limitations in the first week of it's life, it will never have limitations?

Ok! Understood.

As I understood it when the initial rumours came out, the XBSS was supposed to perform like the XBox One X i.e. 4K at 30fps. Can the XBSS do 4K 30fps because I haven't seen any games on it run at 4K 30fps.

If you can, please post links to reviews of it running at 4K 30fps so I can read/see it. Wait, didn't Forca 4 run at 4K something on it? Will need to go have a look.

But then again in my post I was talking about next-gen games running at 4K 60fps and not last gen games.

 

[Shortbread]

Anyone know if PS5 was the lead platform for the next-gen versions? Hearing that its devkits have been more mature than the Series systems, that would at least suggest it was the lead platform, which in addition to the difference in devkit maturity would play an impact on the differences we're seeing, imho.

Can't say, but Microsoft has marketing rights I believe? Anyhow, as Microsoft GDK toolsets will get better, so will Sony's SDK's tools. Hence, third-party game parity being the most likely outcome for the next 3-4 years.

 

[mpg1]

So because it hasn't shown any limitations in the first week of it's life, it will never have limitations?

Ok! Understood.

I still don't get these "Series S will hold it back" arguments. It's the same architecture with a scaled down GPU/Memory.

How is any different than how it works with a PC? Are 2080 owners held back by 2060 owners?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You cant expect a huge performance gulf with the same architechture when the power consumption is basically the same. The question is why XSX is not using more when the GPU is bigger?

The slower clockspeed means each unit within the GPU will consume less energy per cycle than the PS5, however, there are far more units in the XBS-X that this roughly evens out.

Because the XBS-X doesn't have a capped power limit, they likely used a clockspeed that was far enough away from the knee of the power curve that it has some room to "breathe" if some bit of code pushes the silicon especially hard. OTOH - PS5 is likely power capped just before the knee of the power curve starts to curve sharply upwards.

Basically the XBS-X is lower on the power curve but with more units. Hence, similar power usage.

Regards,
SB

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I still don't get these "Series S will hold it back" arguments. It's the same architecture with a scaled down GPU/Memory.

How is any different than how it works with a PC? Are 2080 owners held back by 2060 owners?

Because the XBSS was supposed to have the same performance as the XBox One X. See my revised post above. Not going to type everything out again.

Also, didn't I read somewhere what the XBSS hits 900p in some game. Where did I read that now?

It also highlights another issue: if 4K Series X equates to 1080p Series S in some cases, what happens when X uses dynamic resolution scaling? In the case of Watch Dogs: Legion, it seems that the DRS range is 900p-1080p

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/xbox-series-s-review-digitalfoundry

If that's not showing its limitation, you can call me a fool.

 

[Shortbread]

So because it hasn't shown any limitations in the first week of it's life, it will never have limitations?

Ok! Understood.

As I understood it when the initial rumours came out, the XBSS was supposed to perform like the XBox One X i.e. 4K at 30fps. Can the XBSS do 4K 30fps because I haven't seen any games on it run at 4K 30fps.

If you can, please post links to reviews of it running at 4K 30fps so I can read/see it. Wait, didn't Forca 4 run at 4K something on it? Will need to go have a look.

But then again in my post I was talking about next-gen games running at 4K 60fps and not last gen games.

PS5 and XBSX are the flagship systems this generation, which means game developers will target those specs first. And more than likely, those game engines (especially from third-party developers) will scale accordingly to other platforms, i.e., Series S.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Because the XBSS was supposed to have the same performance as the XBox One X. See my revised post above. Not going to type everything out again.

Yes, similar but not the same. Depending on what is being pushed it's either slightly slower or faster, sometimes a lot faster if the CPU was the limiting factor. It also has less memory which caps its effective resolution compared to the XBO-X. This, however, was deliberate to target a lower price point and lower resolution.

However, nothing can make the XBO-X match the XBS-S in the upcoming generation as it just flat out does not have the capability of next gen consoles. In this regards, the XBS-S is basically exactly the same as the XBS-X, just cut down to be similar to the GPU power profile of the XBO-X but with a CPU power profile more closely aligned with the XBS-X or PS5.

Regards,
SB

 

[Unknown Soldier]

PS5 and XBSX are the flagship systems this generation, which means game developers will target those specs first. And more than likely, those game engines (especially from third-party developers) will scale accordingly to other platforms, i.e., Series S.

Sure, I understand that. But as I said in my post, the XBSS has limitations. At least that's how I see it. You can argue otherwise but it still looks like a limitation to me.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

However, nothing can make the XBO-X match the XBS-S in the upcoming generation as it just flat out does not have the capability of next gen consoles. In this regards, the XBS-S is basically exactly the same as the XBS-X, just cut down to be similar to the GPU power profile of the XBO-X but with a CPU power profile more closely aligned with the XBS-X or PS5.

Regards,
SB

Sure, again I understand that. But when it's DRS hits 900p, don't you think that it's hitting some kind of limitation somewhere?

 

[Shortbread]

Sure, I understand that. But as I said in my post, the XBSS has limitations. At least that's how I see it. You can argue otherwise but it still looks like a limitation to me.

Well yes, there are limitations because it was designed to be a $300 box. But this has nothing to do with XBSX strengths and/or gaming development. But, let's get back on topic though...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Sure, again I understand that. But when it's DRS hits 900p, don't you think that it's hitting some kind of limitation somewhere?

It's obviously going to fare slightly worse relative to the XBO-X in games designed around the previous generation if the game's engine is GPU limited or memory limited. The memory means that it can't effectively target the same resolutions as the XBO-X.

The GPU limit will be based on how well the old code scales to RDNA2. While RDNA2 provides significant uplifts in IPC compared to past architectures from AMD, it's variable on a per title basis. It's always higher, but you won't always get enough of an uplift to erase the raw TFLOP discrepency.

Basically, in titles that see less performance increase from using a RDNA 2 based GPU versus GCN based GPU, we'll see those games will likely perform slightly worse than XBO-X in GPU limited scenarios. OTOH - for games that see a larger increase from using a RDNA 2 based GPU versus a GCN based GPU, the XBS-S should perform slightly better.

And once games start to leverage more RDNA 2 and/or XBS specific GPU enhancements, then the XBO-X will have no hope of keeping up in GPU limited scenarios.

Regards,
SB

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Well yes, there are limitations because it was designed to be a $300 box. But this has nothing to do with XBSX strengths and/or gaming development. But, let's get back on topic though...

Oh, it's designed to be a $300 box, funnily enough at the same price point the XBox One X was at when discontinued.

So it's not hard to see why people would think it would replace the Xbox One X with similar performance and resolution and yet it doesn't from what I have seen. The only thing that it seems to do better than the Xbox One X is it's loading speed and quicker CPU. Does the Xbox One X hit 900p in game? Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any reviews of the Xbox One X and Legion.

I will YT/Google.

Oh! I have seen videos of the XB-OX with Legion. It looks impressive. For some reason I forgot.

So as per the video performance wise.

1. XBSX
2. XB-OX
3. XBSS
4. XBO

 

[Unknown Soldier]

And once games start to leverage more RDNA 2 and/or XBS specific GPU enhancements, then the XBO-X will have no hope of keeping up in GPU limited scenarios.

Regards,
SB

Sure, but in the here and now (always wanted to say that) the XBSS is lagging behind the console it's replacing in price and performance.

So back to my OP post that got attacked. It shows that the XBSS has a limitation. Again, you can argue there is no limitation, but as per my understanding as a consumer of graphics/performance/price etc. it's a limitation.

 

[Shortbread]

Well not like AMD had any PC cards available, that we know of.

I can't remember which AnandTech article, but most major game developers will receive early reference cards (3-6 months out) towards meeting an highly anticipated game release, even if that card isn't available during the game launch, and regardless of another GPU manufacture having marketing rights towards that particular game.

 

[BRiT]

the XBSS is lagging behind the console it's replacing

That would be the One S, the former entry level system.

 

[VitaminB6]

Oh, it's designed to be a $300 box, funnily enough at the same price point the XBox One X was at when discontinued.

So as per the video performance wise.

1. XBSX
2. XB-OX
3. XBSS
4. XBO

In Watchdogs XBSS supports RT, where the One X does not. RT on one and not the other makes it hard to compare performance.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

That would be the One S, the former entry level system.

Is the One S selling at $300? Last time I had a look it wasn't. Last time I had a look the now discontinued XB-OX was.

Oh, I understand it's the entry level console for the new generation, I just find it funny that MS is still selling the XB One(the last time I had seen) while selling the XBSS.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

In Watchdogs XBSS supports RT, where the One X does not. RT on one and not the other makes it hard to compare performance.

Fair enough. Is there a way to turn off RT on the XBSS? Can you not install the XB One X version of the game on XBSS and do a performance comparison of the games?