Digital Foundry Microsoft Xbox Scorpio Reveal [2017: 04-06, 04-11, 04-15, 04-16]

[Deleted member 13524]

There's a proprietary MS HRTF spatialiser, iirc

The format was literally named Microsoft HRTF

You both know the wording in the article clearly suggests something else entirely...

Nowhere do they claim to have invented the command processor. They just claim to have made some optimizations. Nothing looks particularly out of line here.

I think the criticism is being based on Leadbetter's enthusiastically overblown description of the command processor in the video, claiming it's a new big thing.
I believe his words were something like "this means hardcore business".
Yeah well it was hardcore business 4 years ago when the original consoles debuted.

isn't FP16 mandatory in recent gpus ? Why would it be absent from Scorpio ?

The feature being referred is packed math, or each FP32 ALU being able to make 2*FP16 operations (as long as it's the same operation).
It's found on the TX1 (Switch), PS4 Pro and Vega GPUs.
No word on whether it's present in Scorpio or not.

I honestly thought it was pretty obvious it would be in the new console. Turns out it's not.

OK you are inferring a lot from the article that just isn't there. You are also saying the GPU tech is inferior to Ps4pro without any real facts to back that up.
How in anyway do you except inferior GPU performance from a machine that clearly has an advantage in CUs and clock speed compared to the pro. That really sounds like a case of bias to me.

And you are inferring a lot from the post that just isn't there.
"Inferior GPU Tech" != "Inferior GPU Performance"
You made up the "inferior performance" part all by yourself, and then proceeded to make bias accusations.
Good job!

Plus what have we seen from Pro in real world performance? Checkerboards for all basically, you get a checkerboard and you get a checkerboard and you get a checkerboard... Whereas Microsoft is talking explicit native 4K.

Which is much more of a compromise than checkerboard ever was, especially for a 6 TFLOPs GPU...
All this "true 4K gaming" marketing is probably coming to bite them in the ass later on, either because the games won't render at true 4K or the console will be missing out on IQ/framerate for blindingly chasing the true 4K render.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You both know the wording in the article clearly suggests something else entirely...

No it doesn't. Or rather it does, but only because the language is a little ambiguous. I read it exactly the same as the others - MS has it's own proprietary tech, which happens to be called HRTF. That doesn't suggest MS invented HTRF.

Seriously, some people are just out to bitch at DF it seems.

 

[BadTB25]

And you are inferring a lot from the post that just isn't there.
"Inferior GPU Tech" != "Inferior GPU Performance"
You made up the "inferior performance" part all by yourself, and then proceeded to make bias accusations.
Good job!

So when you imply inferior GPU tech you're not implying inferior GPU performance? The more you know I guess.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

So you want to infer based on your doubt which is again ... nothing?

We will have to wait for evidences/more articles about GPU features.Pity.

So when you imply inferior GPU tech you're not implying inferior GPU performance? The more you know I guess.

6 tflops will be always faster than 4,2. Come on!.But in a tech forum users use to prefer the exotic, efficient and elegant side of things.Thats why Kyro will be always adored and why Maxwell architecture with its tile rendering is such a good chip that performs better than chips with greater raw computing performance (and why we are waiting Vega with its improvements and tile rendering can catch up at last).

 

[BadTB25]

6 tflops will be always faster than 4,2. Come on!.But in a tech forum users use to prefer the exotic, efficient and elegant side of things.Thats why Kyro will be always adored and why Maxwell is such a good chip.

No issues there. I just have a problem with inferring that the tech is inferior without knowing the details about how this GPU compares with the GPU in PSPro. Not enough here to make any kind of inference IMO.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

No issues there. I just have a problem with inferring that the tech is inferior without knowing the details about how this GPU compares with the GPU in PSPro. Not enough here to make any kind of inference IMO.

and neither enough to make not inferences.We will have to write about what we have or not write at all. I would have loved Scorpio to have Zen, and then I would have been cheerleading it and probably been accused of bias from other posters.In fact i criticised Sony for going Jaguar in PS4 Pro.If tomorrow Sega launches Dreamcast 2 with a Core I7 with a Pascal GPU i will applaud them for sure.The same if tomorrow DF announces Scorpio has a blitter processor inside.

 

[BadTB25]

and neither enough to make not inferences.We will have to write about what we have or not write at all.

What kind of BS is this?

There was a clear statement made----it's on the person that made the statement to back it up. "It's like saying we don't know anything about the next iphone, but clearly it's inferior tech since we don't know enough about it"---come on man!

 

[Love_In_Rio]

What kind of BS is this?

There was a clear statement made----it's on the person that made the statement to back it up. "It's like saying we don't know anything about the next iphone, but clearly it's inferior tech since we don't know enough about it"---come on man!

we dont know anything after an article exclusively talking about specs?.Ok.

 

[BRiT]

More reply bans issued, especially for throwing out baseless claims of bias against media sites and other users.

 

[Rangers]

Which is much more of a compromise than checkerboard ever was, especially for a 6 TFLOPs GPU...
All this "true 4K gaming" marketing is probably coming to bite them in the ass later on, either because the games won't render at true 4K or the console will be missing out on IQ/framerate for blindingly chasing the true 4K render.

Agreed really. The good thing is they are not bound to anything. You have X Flops (in this case 6) and you can do whatever you want with them in the end. It's more about positioning right now. They seem to really want that 4K positioning/marketing.

 

[Ike Turner]

It's called "Windows Sonic for Headphones". It's in the Win 10 Creator's Update, too (along with the Atmos stuff, though that wasn't available yet last I checked). I haven't messed with it yet, though. Good to see SHAPE being carried forward and utilized for something more gamers will be able to appreciate.

Dolby Atmos via HDMI is enabled by downloading Dolby's Access UWP app from the store. Atmos for Headphones is coming soon too (option is currently greyed out).

 

[mrcorbo]

Dolby Atmos via HDMI is enabled by downloading Dolby's Access UWP app from the store. Atmos for Headphones is coming soon too (option is currently greyed out).

Yeah, when I looked the Dolby App wasn't available in the store yet.

 

[rumaki]

Can 't wait to see this thing run games.

 

[iroboto]

Agreed really. The good thing is they are not bound to anything. You have X Flops (in this case 6) and you can do whatever you want with them in the end. It's more about positioning right now. They seem to really want that 4K positioning/marketing.

If they hit native 4K for all their games go forward would it be wrong ? Would people not appreciate 4K ultra? I thought that was why people spent money on big video cards? When did the goal post move?

 

[Jay]

I'd heard that it's supposed to be same size as the x1s or maybe even smaller, but i didn't give it to much credence, but it does seem to be the case.

not a very good data set but it's all we got is the forza tech test with 4k assets.
we knew that resolution demands doesn't scale linearly but I'm really surprised by the overhead that was left, without optimization.
Is there anything in polaris or vega that would give those sorts of performance without having to be specifically coded for?
if i had heard that and was told it was vega i would've still been impressed, fact it may not be vega based makes me wonder how there's so much power to spare. (as i said i appreciate only single game)

would've been nice to know cpu usage also.

 

[BadTB25]

I'd heard that it's supposed to be same size as the x1s or maybe even smaller, but i didn't give it to much credence, but it does seem to be the case.

I'm sure someone will take the pic of the motherboard and do some detective work to figure out the length and width of this thing soon.

 

[Rangers]

I've been thinking a bit about how MS got to 6TF. It wasn't how I expected, I expected something like 64 CU's at ~900mhz since we've all been conditioned to expect low console clocks.

It occurs to me maybe this was about cost? By going with a narrower GPU clocked high, you save on die size. You also take a hit on yields.

You'd think you then pay more for cooling possibly canceling out the benefit, but I wonder if you end up netting savings. 360mm^2 die seems pretty svelte.

Or I wonder if it was more driven by AMD not sure they would have more than ~40 CU's parts available in time for 2017 launch?

Just difficult to say all around. The apparent lack of Vega is puzzling.

 

[MrFox]

Centrifugal Fan
A supercharger-style Centrifugal Fan rapidly pulls in and compresses air to deliver maximum cooling with minimum noise.

PR went batshit crazy here. Supercharger-style to describe a centrifugal fan, WTF? High static pressure at low rpm is the goal, compression itself is a side effect, i.e it must counteract flow resistance, and the drawback is precisely that it DOESN'T sucks air as rapidly (lower CFM at the same rpm and diameter, specially backward slanted blades)

But the rest of the sentence is true, max cooling for minimum noise, and a lot of MS fanboys should feel shame for their claims against blower fans.

Shame... Shame... Shame....

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Augh, I just spent way too much time in my day to read this, but had to since it's the first real details we've gotten about Project Scorpio.

What I'm wondering, is. If the GPU is still Polaris with customizations, how much power is Project Scorpio going to consume? I know that it being on TSMC and with a more mature fab process, power use will hopefully go down, but Rx480 was already consuming significantly more power than the entire launch XBO. Which then makes me wonder if some of the customizations to the GPU might be around lower power consumption (again, assuming Polaris which it may or may not be).

Also, disappointed if it is indeed just an evolution of the Jaguar cores. That will mean that regardless of how powerful the GPU is, CPU limited games still won't be able to hit 60 FPS. Although perhaps that isn't as bad depending on just how much CPU time was being spent on draw calls meaning more CPU time can be spend on other game related tasks.

And back to RL stuff before I get yelled at.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

PR went batshit crazy here. Supercharger-style to describe a centrifugal fan, WTF? High static pressure at low rpm is the goal, compression itself is a side effect, i.e it must counteract flow resistance, and the drawback is precisely that it DOESN'T sucks air as rapidly (lower CFM at the same rpm and diameter)

But the rest of the sentence is true, max cooling for minimum noise, and a lot of MS fanboys should feel shame for their claims against blower fans.

Shame... Shame... Shame....

Actually, I for one am hugely disappointed by this move.

Regards,
SB