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

[Jubei]

switch is a pretty bad comparison, nintendo never talked about the specs or customization to the gpu. in fact DF kept on repeating that it will be slightly modified tx1. the only interesting thing about the specs is how the cpu works with the gpu, if the customization is the real deal, we should see most games with a 60fps option, there is no real point for the heavy customization they talk about on the cpu, if it's just running xbone games at a more stable frame rate.

I wasnt talking about DFs articles but rather the speculation on forums regarding secret sauce being inside it. But if we are talking about DFs article regarding Xbox, look up their 2013 article on the XB1. A lot of hyperbole and customizations that mattered very little in practical terms. They called the XB1 CPU a customized Jaguar back then aswell

Before it was about Zen + Vega and now when that was crushed, its about customizations to the CPU that will give it Zen performance to hold 60fps in most games. I remain sceptical

 

[BRiT]

I dont think anyone ever said Zenlike performance, just cpu work offloading (to the customized Command Processors) as described in the current DF articles and Videos.

Edit: unless you figure a Zen is needed for 60fps performance.

 

[babcat]

The way I see it is what would you rather have:

A) The same old Xbox One S hardware for another 3 to 4 years
B) The same old CPU and 5GB of Ram with 36 CUs for another 3 to 4 years
C) The Xbox One Scorpio system with all the improvements for CPU, Command Processors, 40 CUs, 328 Gbps of 8GB of Ram for another 3 to 4 years

There is no choice D.

I would rather have the ordinary XBox One (not even the S) for another 3 to 4 years.

It's absolutely revolting in the console world to provide marginally improved consoles. One of the key benefits of buying a console is the fact that you know each generation is a leap and you won't have to be continually upgrading hardware like people do in the PC world. Sony and Microsoft have released consoles that are not a generational leap and do NOT offer any revolutionary technology. I would rather them release NOTHING for 3 to 4 years (until 5nm is available) than launch consoles that don't have exclusives and are simply designed for one specific purpose: to increase resolution.

This makes me wish horribly that another console would enter the market that would use some kind of revolutionary concept. For example, maybe one with a powerful NVIDIA GPU, embedded CPUs, and a ray tracer chip?

 

[Jupiter]

Seems to be a 30fps console because of the Jaguar CPU which is not that interesting. A console with 1080p/ 60fps and much higher graphics settings in multiplatform games as the PlayStation 4 Pro would have been more spectacular. Native UHD will perhaps be possible in titles like GTA V in high graphic settings. For Ghost Recon Wildlands, it would not even be enough for ultra graphics in 1080p30fps. GPU, CPU and memory would limit. Many of the video games that can be rendered in UHD will have a massively weakened graphics. Therefore UHD can hardly be regarded as a great achievement.

When it reaches 1*1 UHD pixelmapping it will mostly only be usually through a technique like checkerboard rendering or temporal filtering. UHD Checkerboarding renders only 50% of native UHD. On the PlayStation 4 Pro this is achieved in games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Tomb Raider. The Scorpio is not so much faster and such games will still not be rendered in native UHD. This console will rather be able to render the 1800p PlayStation 4 Pro Checkerbard games in 2160p checkerboard.

 

[babcat]

The trade-offs are significantly more nuanced than just higher resolution textures to take advantage of more than 8 GB of memory. How are you going to store that texture data? If we double the size of textures we'll soon be looking at 100+ GB games. 8 GB will already represent likely a 50-100% increase in memory you could use for textures compared to 6 GB (remember memory needs to be used for things other than just textures). 12 GB of game memory (16 GB total) would likely triple or quadruple the memory available for textures. If we used all of that to maximize texture quality we could potentially be looking at games in the 150-200 GB range.

How are you going to load that data into memory in a speedy and efficient way considering that affordable mass storage (large enough to store multiple 100+ GB games and cheap enough for a console) devices aren't going to be advancing significantly without a breakthrough in storage technologies? HDD's are currently at an impasse WRT increasing area density. SSDs are vastly more expensive in cost/GB. Other storage technologies are even more expensive.

Without relevant breakthroughs in mass storage technologies, chasing more memory is a fool's errand, IMO.

Higher resolution, IMO, allows you to do more interesting things with regards to processing and displaying pixels than just a simplistic increase in texture resolution.

Regards,
SB

I say use Blue Ray discs with a faster (maybe 6X speed) hundred gig capacity, increase the amount of RAM for developers from 8 to 16GB, and use multiple game discs for different segments of long games. There are tons of solutions that can be used to allow a console to have the same capacity to display full 4K textures.

 

[babcat]

To the guys who are worried about if 8GB is enough, remember developers can start applying dxt5 compression to textures like modders do to games 4K uncompressed Ultra textures and give you a gorgeous 4K texture that looks 99.9% identical to the lossless texture and fit it in that memory. They may finally have a motivated to do this somewhat simple task for Scorpio games ( a task that pc game modders can do).

Do you have an example of a dxt5 texture and a 4k uncompressed texture that I can look at to see if I can spot any visual differences with the naked eye?

Also, how much space does dxt5 compression save?

 

[Jay]

Before it was about Zen + Vega and now when that was crushed, its about customizations to the CPU that will give it Zen performance to hold 60fps in most games. I remain sceptical

Crushed? Maybe your reading other forums and posting here by mistake?

I've only seen people post what they think it will have and what they expected, only a couple people seem to be emotionally invested in it to be crushed or elated either way.

As a tech forum we (or at least myself) like to hear what's in it and what effect if any it will have, it's not about secret sauce or trying to massage feelings or something.
We have been told there's more articles to come, they mentioned some things in passing, we just want to hear more about it before saying things are definitely one way or another.

 

[babcat]

Why do you perceive this as a problem? Doesn't Horizon do just fine with only 5.5 GBs available? I am under the assumption that checker board rendering doesn't alleviate the pressure textures place on the VRAM. If Horizon can readily make use of 4K textures on hardware with less CPU/GPU performance, bandwidth and RAM, then why would 4K textures be a problem with Scorpio's available 8 GBs running at 326 GB/s?

The PS4 Pro doesn't claim to be able to do native 4K. If the Scorpio is claimed to be a true 4K console, it should be able to use true 4K textures. Also, since Horizon is truly 4K, it is checkerboarded, I'm not sure they use 4K textures for everything.

If I were to buy a Scorpio when it is being marketed as a true 4K consoles, I don't want to buy it and EVER hear a developer said, "we couldn't use all the 4K textures we wanted at full quality because of reason x, y, or z."

 

[Jubei]

Crushed? Maybe your reading other forums and posting here by mistake?

I've only seen people post what they think it will have and what they expected, only a couple people seem to be emotionally invested in it to be crushed or elated either way.

As a tech forum we (or at least myself) like to hear what's in it and what effect if any it will have, it's not about secret sauce or trying to massage feelings or something.
We have been told there's more articles to come, they mentioned some things in passing, we just want to hear more about it before saying things are definitely one way or another.

You are reading into things i never said. I dont mean anyone was personally crushed, i mean the speculations about it having Zen + Vega were shot down by the announcement, i dont put it into an emotional context

DF did not milk the Pro information like this, they were invited to meet Cerny and then they revealed all. So im not sure what you are basing this on that they have witheld key information so they can drag it out

 

[bunnybug]

I wasnt talking about DFs articles but rather the speculation on forums regarding secret sauce being inside it. But if we are talking about DFs article regarding Xbox, look up their 2013 article on the XB1. A lot of hyperbole and customizations that mattered very little in practical terms. They called the XB1 CPU a customized Jaguar back then aswell

Before it was about Zen + Vega and now when that was crushed, its about customizations to the CPU that will give it Zen performance to hold 60fps in most games. I remain sceptical

I'm not saying that's the cpu customization is not hyperbole, it's just too early to to tell. from what i understand only dx12 games can take real advantage of it.

I don't think it's logical to compare it to zen, but with the huge power increase in gpu, and even a small boost in cpu compared to ps4 pro, it's possible that games will have a 1080p/60fps option, ps4 pro is already doing it on a few titles.

 

[babcat]

Crushed? Maybe your reading other forums and posting here by mistake?

I've only seen people post what they think it will have and what they expected, only a couple people seem to be emotionally invested in it to be crushed or elated either way.

As a tech forum we (or at least myself) like to hear what's in it and what effect if any it will have, it's not about secret sauce or trying to massage feelings or something.
We have been told there's more articles to come, they mentioned some things in passing, we just want to hear more about it before saying things are definitely one way or another.

I'm not crushed, but I'm dissapointed. I was hoping that Microsoft would add SOMETHING significant to the Scorpio to truly set it apart from the PS4 Pro. However, we now know there is NOTHING to brag about whatsoever in the Scorpio. Puny weak CPU, barely improved barely 6TFlop GPU, only a few more gigs of RAM. The only vaguely interesting revelation is the optimization they are talking about. However, I doubt that the optimization will do a lot to improve performance by more than 10-20% of a stock GPU/CPU combination. If they had went with a 7TFlop or higher GPU, making this closer to a true generational leap, I'd be less dissapointed. Instead, they strived to keep the Scorpio as mundane as possible.

 

[Jay]

If I were to buy a Scorpio when it is being marketed as a true 4K consoles, I don't want to buy it and EVER hear a developer said, "we couldn't use all the 4K textures we wanted at full quality because of reason x, y, or z."

Have you got any reason to believe that 8GB isn't enough for 4k assets for a console?

Be interesting to read, I've seen some breakdowns for 1080p usage but not 4k with 4k assets.

 

[babcat]

Horizon doesn't use 4K textures. It uses the same textures as the OG PS4.

I was pretty sure that the game didn't use all 4K textures. Are you sure it uses only the same textures of the OG PS4? If so, then jumping to 4K textures would create a larger memory requirement.

 

[babcat]

Have you got any reason to believe that 8GB isn't enough for 4k assets for a console?

Be interesting to read, I've seen some breakdowns for 1080p usage but not 4k with 4k assets.

I just remember reading some articles about texture usage in 1080P games for PS4 that used 1080P textures. I remember that they were using gigabytes of textures. If you multiply this for 4K, I think you could end up in a situation where 8GB is not quite enough without lowering the resolution of some or using compression.

 

[Jubei]

I'm not saying that's the cpu customization is not hyperbole, it's just too early to to tell. from what i understand only dx12 games can take real advantage of it.

I don't think it's logical to compare it to zen, but with the huge power increase in gpu, and even a small boost in cpu compared to ps4 pro, it's possible that games will have a 1080p/60fps option, ps4 pro is already doing it on a few titles.

I dont think Pro runs any game at 2x the framerate of the original PS4 though. Nier runs 900p/60 so Pro runs 1080p/60. I dont think latency improvements and CPU offloading will allow a game like RDR2 to run at 60 fps while the other consoles max out at 30 fps. That would require a fair improvement in CPU horsepower

 

[Jay]

DF did not milk the Pro information like this, they were invited to meet Cerny and then they revealed all. So im not sure what you are basing this on that they have witheld key information so they can drag it out

They said it themselves that they have more articles and videos to come, that's what I'm basing it on.

Depends what you call key information doesn't it. The key information is what they have given. The rest would be more of a deep dive into specifics, if that's what they give us.
e.g. what are some of the customisations made, if they have been told obviously.

The point is I don't know what they have for their follow up articles, and so will wait and see, hopefully it won't be weeks out. As I said before, their follow up articles could be about how nice and shiny the soc looks for all we know

 

[fehu]

Now that we have the soc's size and exploded view of the whole console, what can be the size of the entire console?
It looks at least as small as the S

 

[Jay]

I just remember reading some articles about texture usage in 1080P games for PS4 that used 1080P textures. I remember that they were using gigabytes of textures. If you multiply this for 4K, I think you could end up in a situation where 8GB is not quite enough without lowering the resolution of some or using compression.

Remember you wouldn't be storing all textures at 4k in memory, say only the lod 0 to lod 3 ones, I don't know, it would obviously be different for type of game, if it's 60fps, open world etc.
Streaming will be needed, but that's already pretty much the case.

Probably not as simple as saying 1080p requires x amount so 4k requires 4x the amount, it just wouldn't be coded that way.

 

[bunnybug]

I dont think Pro runs any game at 2x the framerate of the original PS4 though. Nier runs 900p/60 so Pro runs 1080p/60. I dont think latency improvements and CPU offloading will allow a game like RDR2 to run at 60 fps while the other consoles max out at 30 fps. That would require a fair improvement in CPU horsepower

I dont think Pro runs any game at 2x the framerate of the original PS4 though. Nier runs 900p/60 so Pro runs 1080p/60. I dont think latency improvements and CPU offloading will allow a game like RDR2 to run at 60 fps while the other consoles max out at 30 fps. That would require a fair improvement in CPU horsepower

infamous: second son, no man's sky, and snake pass achieve double the frame rate of ps4 version, few other games attempt this but only reach 45fps-55fps.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

My take is that it seems that MS used a relatively small amount of hardware/metal more than the PS4 Pro (10-20%?) while getting 40-50% more power. That seems like a nice win.

This was my thought initially.
Although I can't find any clear measure of the Pro's SoC, I read the Slim's SoC had 57% of the original PS4 size, making it 348mm^2*0.57 = ~200mm^2, and the Pro's SoC is 30% larger than the Slim's, so I guess around 260mm^2.
Scorpio's SoC is 360mm^2, so it's a 35-40% larger than the Pro's (8 more CUs and 50% more memory channels didn't come cheap). It also spends 50% more on GDDR5 memory.
(These are very rough numbers and I'd greatly appreciate if someone could find some more credible source for the Pro's SoC size)

In the end, it just looks like the increased expenditure is just on pair with the increased performance. But the presence or lack of 2*FP16 throughput may decide that. DICE is claiming a 30% upgrade in total performance from making use of 2*FP16 throughput in Andromeda, and if Scorpio doesn't have that functionality then its performance adva could shrink more than what the numbers initially suggest. For games whose developers make heavy use of FP16, obviously.

One could also think the extra 4GB could make a lot of difference, but I really don't see any developer complaining about lack of RAM in the other consoles, or lack of available RAM in the PS4 Pro. Seems that the biggest reason those 12GB are there is because Microsoft wanted a larger 384bit bus to guarantee full compatibility with the Xbone games that used the ESRAM in full-duplex, and for that the practical choice was either 6GB (obviously not) or 12GB.
The fact that Microsoft is blasting a whopping 4GB for the OS and 1GB on the dashboard actually makes me think they're having a hard time figuring out what to do with all that RAM.

In the game, "The Division" NVIDIA claims that users with less than 6GB of VRAM may not receive the highest quality textures at all times.

nvidia is right in the sense that in most current PC games, 8GB are needed to avoid bottlenecks caused by VRAM amount. But this is in the PC world, where developers themselves are starting to acknowledge that VRAM usage has been getting unnecessarily bloated and they're working on solving that.
Consoles don't have this problem though, because each game developer can better fine-tune RAM allocation.

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

The nvidia GTX 1050 uses superior GPU tech compared to the GTX 980 Ti.
The GTX 980 Ti has superior performance compared to the GTX 1050.

Now you know the difference. Consider yourself enlightened.

No it doesn't. Or rather it does, but only because the language is a little ambiguous.

No, it's not ambiguous. It's just wrong.
The sentence is, quoted:
"Scorpio is set to receive support for Dolby Atmos for gaming, Dolby Atmos for headphones plus a Microsoft proprietary format called HRTF, developed by the Hololens team."
Anyone who doesn't know what HRTF is and has basic english understanding will read that HRTF is a proprietary Microsoft format developed by the Hololens team.
And this is simply not true. HRTF is an acronym that is universally used to define Head-Related Transfer Functions.
In English.
In German.
In French.
In Japanese.
In Korean.

There's a number of different ways that the sentence could be written without making it wrong. Just to name some:
- plus a proprietary format called "Microsoft HRTF"
- plus a Microsoft proprietary format that uses HRTF
- plus a HRTF-based proprietary format from Microsoft


The way it was written just shows that Leadbetter probably doesn't know what HRTF is.
And that's okay, it's a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. Richard Leadbetter doesn't have to know everything about Scorpio and sound formats are obviously not his forte.

What I don't get is this general eagerness to dogpile on the person who pointed out of this mistake.

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

And why is there a white knight crusade in this thread to protect each and every sentence, word and comma that comes out of DF?
In the very same post I pointed out the HRTF mistake, I also complimented DF for releasing an article with substance.
But OMG did he just dare to write two negative sentences about Digital Foundry?! BRING OUT THE PITCHFORKS!!