Do you think there will be a mid gen refresh console from Sony and Microsoft?

[function]

Basis for comparison should be the original Xbox, not the XB1X which was, again, built specifically for the purpose of high resolution gaming. The Series S is basically the opposite of that, built for lower resolution gaming, so differences in general pixel-pushing power doesn't matter much.

More to the point, everything devs complain about with the Series S tends to come almost completely down to its memory setup. That's the problem. The GPU itself is ok so long you accept that it's more of a 1080p machine than a 1440p machine.

I actually think the bus width is okay for the Series S - it's a heck of a lot of BW by AMD APU standards and half of the PS5's BW. OS use of the "extra" clamshelled 2GB might cost a little extra, but overall it seems fine for a 4TF RDNA 2 part.

10GB was definitely a mistake though. An additional 2GB giving a GPU optimal 224 GB/s across 8GB and a slower 112 GB across 4GB wouldn't have hurt performance any more and might even have helped - get those slower accesses out the way faster.

A bit of me misses the lightweight Xbox 360 OS. 32MB and it could handle saves, voice, friends and all the core stuff. There was no buffered video or anything, but it did mean that almost all of your games console was doing the game you were playing. It might be a good idea if developers could chose to drop to say 1080p dash and video saves on their Series S games to free up memory (assuming they can't).

 

[Seanspeed]

I actually think the bus width is okay for the Series S - it's a heck of a lot of BW by AMD APU standards and half of the PS5's BW. OS use of the "extra" clamshelled 2GB might cost a little extra, but overall it seems fine for a 4TF RDNA 2 part.

10GB was definitely a mistake though. An additional 2GB giving a GPU optimal 224 GB/s across 8GB and a slower 112 GB across 4GB wouldn't have hurt performance any more and might even have helped - get those slower accesses out the way faster.

A bit of me misses the lightweight Xbox 360 OS. 32MB and it could handle saves, voice, friends and all the core stuff. There was no buffered video or anything, but it did mean that almost all of your games console was doing the game you were playing. It might be a good idea if developers could chose to drop to say 1080p dash and video saves on their Series S games to free up memory (assuming they can't).

224GB/s of bandwidth is pretty pathetic for a 'next gen' system, even just for 1080p gaming. My 6TF GTX1070 has 256GB/s and is not suitable for 1080p/60fps in demanding next gen games. Things will get worse for Series S over time because of this. I expect it to start missing 'performance modes' more and more.

 

[function]

224GB/s of bandwidth is pretty pathetic for a 'next gen' system, even just for 1080p gaming. My 6TF GTX1070 has 256GB/s and is not suitable for 1080p/60fps in demanding next gen games. Things will get worse for Series S over time because of this. I expect it to start missing 'performance modes' more and more.

I doubt the Series S will run out of bandwidth faster than it runs out of processing power. Series S games dropping performance mode will do so primarily IMO because they lack the power to push enough pixels for an acceptable 60 fps mode (or because the developer doesn't deem it important enough).

At 224 GB/s the Series S has more BW per TFLOP than PS5 or Series X. Going to a 192-bit bus would have added a lot of extra die area, increased power draw, increased board cost and impacted yields while not doing a whole lot to improve performance. 128-bit is fine for the relatively modest GPU in the Series S. It's about as balanced as you could get for that APU.

Your GTX 1070 is probably also running out of processing power as fast or faster than it's running out of bandwidth. You could probably test it by doing some memory overclocking benches. In my experience memory overclocks have added rather less to performance than core overclocks, though my PC GPUs may have been better provisioned for BW than console APUs with their more acute tradeoffs.

 

[BitByte]

Basis for comparison should be the original Xbox, not the XB1X which was, again, built specifically for the purpose of high resolution gaming. The Series S is basically the opposite of that, built for lower resolution gaming, so differences in general pixel-pushing power doesn't matter much.

More to the point, everything devs complain about with the Series S tends to come almost completely down to its memory setup. That's the problem. The GPU itself is ok so long you accept that it's more of a 1080p machine than a 1440p machine.

The Series s is not a 1080p machine but a sub 1080p machine. The Series X and Ps5 are already barely holding onto 1440p and are trending towards the 1080p line in the latest releases. There’s no way the series s is a 1080p machine. In the pc space, people recommend the 6700xt or 4060 for 1080p. I expect as more next gen games get released, we should see ps360 cod level resolutions on the series s. We already saw it with metro exodus.

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

Thankfully, reconstruction techniques make lower native resolutions less of an issue. Coupled with the fact the Series S will mean MS can launch a portable with a solid library, I think its resolution limitations should become worthwhile should MS launch such a portable.

That said, such a small amount of memory coupled with the split memory system was not a wise move. The X360 generally trounced the PS3 because it was easy to extract performance. Cerny repeatedly spoke of time to triangle with the PSVita and PS4. A slightly tricky memory system coupled with 6GB less was always going to make dev's lives more burdensome.

 

[BitByte]

Thankfully, reconstruction techniques make lower native resolutions less of an issue. Coupled with the fact the Series S will mean MS can launch a portable with a solid library, I think its resolution limitations should become worthwhile should MS launch such a portable.

That said, such a small amount of memory coupled with the split memory system was not a wise move. The X360 generally trounced the PS3 because it was easy to extract performance. Cerny repeatedly spoke of time to triangle with the PSVita and PS4. A slightly tricky memory system coupled with 6GB less was always going to make dev's lives more burdensome.

Maybe DLSS makes lower lower native resolutions less of an issue but DLSS for me is not usable at resolutions below 1440p, ie reconstructing to 1440p. Even then, it's very noticeable that the image is being reconstructed. FSR, TSR, etc look just as bad imo. The image artifacting, ghosting, blur at times look worse that just seeing the base resolution.

 

[Nesh]

The Series s is not a 1080p machine but a sub 1080p machine. The Series X and Ps5 are already barely holding onto 1440p and are trending towards the 1080p line in the latest releases. There’s no way the series s is a 1080p machine. In the pc space, people recommend the 6700xt or 4060 for 1080p. I expect as more next gen games get released, we should see ps360 cod level resolutions on the series s. We already saw it with metro exodus.

It's difficult to define something as sub or 4k. If you dial up everything outside of resolution you will have to sacrifice resolution to maintain performance. There is no limit on how much a dev wants to dial up things. There are different trade offs between res, performance and what's displayed on screen. Devs might balance everything for a 4k, smooth performing, visually appealing game, or overshoot one of them at the cost of the other two.

If you cram up everything to Ultra in a game that is too ambitious, and want 60 fps or even 120fps of course your res is going to nosedive.

The Series S is certainly underpowered, but it serves as an afterthought for most devs and for MS. Optimising for X and PS5 first, downgrading on Series S.

 

[Subtlesnake]

224GB/s of bandwidth is pretty pathetic for a 'next gen' system, even just for 1080p gaming. My 6TF GTX1070 has 256GB/s and is not suitable for 1080p/60fps in demanding next gen games. Things will get worse for Series S over time because of this. I expect it to start missing 'performance modes' more and more.

The 5500 XT had the same 224GB/s of bandwidth, despite having theoretical rates 20%-25% higher. Accounting for the bandwidth consumed by the CPU, the bandwidth ratio should be similar. The 1070 is considerably more powerful than the 5500 XT even, so the Series S is not expected to be in the same league.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

i think the most negatively vocal people about the XsS were the Xbox fans (it's holding us back etc...), not much the PS fans.

Anecdotally, this has not been my experience.

It's weird have people have different takes. I mentally tune out randoms on the internet given few are posting from an unbiased position and many are ostensibly platform warriors. My recollection (easily googled), is the first anxiety abut Series S was coming from developers and Microsoft were trying to counter that narrative even before Xbox Series launched. Yet quite a few developers have - unusually - gone on the record quite of lot, and others have spoken in confidence with DF.

Developers like Remedy, who have been very closely aligned with Microsoft in the past, have spoken about the difficulties Series S creates.

There is this oft-repeated narrative that PlayStation 5 versions of multi-platform games generally perform closer to Series X, a console with a more powerful APU, because it's the lead platform and gets more optimisation. I think it's equally likely that Sony and Microsoft consoles get roughly the equivalent resource but for Xbox Series that's spit across two consoles tuning two performance profiles. Putting more powerful in your console has never created a problem, the worse case scenario - as we saw with many PS4 Pro and Xbox One X games - is that the capabilities never rally get tapped to their fullest potentials.

 

[see colon]

It's weird have people have different takes.

That's because it isn't a scientific survey, just 2 people having different experiences in relation to people's opinion about Series S. For me, the most vocal critics of Series S have been Playstation fans using Series S as a slight against Series X. People I see who are interested in an Xbox usually don't even complain about Series S' performance. It's the lack of optical drive and 512GB storage that are the main pain points.

 

[Seanspeed]

I think it's equally likely that Sony and Microsoft consoles get roughly the equivalent resource but for Xbox Series that's spit across two consoles tuning two performance profiles. Putting more powerful in your console has never created a problem, the worse case scenario - as we saw with many PS4 Pro and Xbox One X games - is that the capabilities never rally get tapped to their fullest potentials.

Interesting thought.

 

[Nesh]

That's because it isn't a scientific survey, just 2 people having different experiences in relation to people's opinion about Series S. For me, the most vocal critics of Series S have been Playstation fans using Series S as a slight against Series X. People I see who are interested in an Xbox usually don't even complain about Series S' performance. It's the lack of optical drive and 512GB storage that are the main pain points.

For the performance you get with that price it is certainly a nice deal. But indeed the optical drive absence and the low storage is a turn off for me.
I dont see how a PS fan can use Series S as a slight against series X. Series X is what it is.
We did get though from the developers of Baldurs Gate 3 how Series S was a headache which was delaying the Series X version. That could be a sign that the Series S may be causing some trouble in general for Series X, and potentially for PS5, as developers on one hand must have a good version for PS5 and X, but also make sure that S has parity in features and plays around as good as X.

 

[iroboto]

For the performance you get with that price it is certainly a nice deal. But indeed the optical drive absence and the low storage is a turn off for me.
I dont see how a PS fan can use Series S as a slight against series X. Series X is what it is.
We did get though from the developers of Baldurs Gate 3 how Series S was a headache which was delaying the Series X version. That could be a sign that the Series S may be causing some trouble in general for Series X, and potentially for PS5, as developers on one hand must have a good version for PS5 and X, but also make sure that S has parity in features and plays around as good as X.

RE: BG3 - Xbox was a planned second release, they were never prioritized for release this year.
When google dropped their exclusivity with them, PlayStation picked up the marketing for them and obtained a major advantage in development priority. Even series X version isn’t coming for a while. (There is no dx12 version of BG3, and DX11 would not be good use of the hardware)

Series S has some issues fitting things in, but it’s really more of a discussion of getting everything to fit in a small timeline. If they released the Xbox edition when they planned to, late 2024, they likely would have developed series S version as they intended without any controversy.

 

[Nesh]

RE: BG3 - Xbox was a planned second release, they were never prioritized for release this year.
When google dropped their exclusivity with them, PlayStation picked up the marketing for them and obtained a major advantage in development priority. Even series X version isn’t coming for a while. (There is no dx12 version of BG3, and DX11 would not be good use of the hardware)

Series S has some issues fitting things in, but it’s really more of a discussion of getting everything to fit in a small timeline. If they released the Xbox edition when they planned to, late 2024, they likely would have developed series S version as they intended without any controversy.

Baldur's Gate 3 developer explains Xbox delay is due to split-screen

More patience is needed.

dotesports.com

"While console exclusivity is usually a reason for a lack of a particular title on a platform, or a launch delay, that does not apply to Baldur’s Gate 3. Instead, the issue relates to split-screen on Xbox Series X.

Explaining the issue on Twitter, Douse confirmed the issue was “a technical hurdle” as they continue to try to get split-screen working on the Series S—and the split-screen feature cannot be removed as they are “obliged to launch with feature parity.”"

 

[iroboto]

Baldur's Gate 3 developer explains Xbox delay is due to split-screen

More patience is needed.

dotesports.com

"While console exclusivity is usually a reason for a lack of a particular title on a platform, or a launch delay, that does not apply to Baldur’s Gate 3. Instead, the issue relates to split-screen on Xbox Series X.

Explaining the issue on Twitter, Douse confirmed the issue was “a technical hurdle” as they continue to try to get split-screen working on the Series S—and the split-screen feature cannot be removed as they are “obliged to launch with feature parity.”"

Xbox didn't think highly of 'second-run Stadia PC RPG' Baldur's Gate 3

In a 2022 email chain ranking new games to potentially add to Game Pass, Xbox wrote off what's become one of 2023's biggest games.

mobilesyrup.com

Interestingly, Baldur’s Gate 3 was listed low among the likes of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The reasoning, according to the chart, was that Baldur’s Gate 3 was viewed as a “second-run Stadia PC RPG.”

They never had any faith that it was ever going to be released this year. Second run is code for post timed-exclusivity because quite frankly that exclusivity was owned by Stadia.

To move the release timeline up for Xbox, they dropped the co-op mode on Series S. That isn’t the same as giving Larian a full year to release the game proper on Xbox.
If you followed BG3 on PS5, it still was riddled with performance issues as well. Even on PC, they are still far from resolving all of their bugs.

They are a small studio, they don’t have the resources to make everything at the same time equally.

TLDR; features for all games are constantly removed and descoped to make release dates. I think there has to be some nuance between saying Series S is incapable of split screen do to its hardware spec, and actually having enough time to properly implement the feature.

 

[Seanspeed]

They are a small studio

450+ people is full on AAA.

And I'm not sure the claim is that Series S just *cant* do splitscreen, but clearly the hardware limits are pretty serious as this doesn't seem to be just some small undertaking. It is obviously not just a case of the feature being low priority and letting it slip. It took quite a long time with the issue being very known and public(so probably known a good bit before this internally) before MS relented and allowed them to release without it on Series S.

 

[iroboto]

450+ people is full on AAA.

And I'm not sure the claim is that Series S just *cant* do splitscreen, but clearly the hardware limits are pretty serious as this doesn't seem to be just some small undertaking.

Full on AAA is Ubisoft. And EA.
450 employees versus 20K and 13.5K employees.

It’s not really comparable.

 

[Remij]

Again, they almost do themselves a disservice when releasing these mid-gen upgraded consoles and remastered games at higher resolutions. It absolutely dilutes the impact coming from one gen to another... and as these jumps in power become smaller and smaller, eventually people will NOT be satisfied with what the "next generation" is bringing.. and it will hit them hard.

Eventually they're going to have to cut BC off.

 

[Seanspeed]

Full on AAA is Ubisoft. And EA.
450 employees versus 20K and 13.5K employees.

It’s not really comparable.

What's not comparable is entire major publishers versus a game studio, come on dude. smh

And just cuz there's some extreme studios like at Ubisoft with 800+ people doesn't mean anything less is suddenly not AAA anymore and you know it. 450+ is firmly, undeniably AAA. If it's not, then you'd have to argue there's only a handful of AAA studios in existence, which is absurd.

The idea that you think some plucky indie dev could create a game with the scale and presentation values of Baldur's Gate 3 is similarly absurd.

Please dont waste a bunch of our time trying to stubbornly argue that 450 people is a 'small' studio dude. Seriously.

 

[Seanspeed]

Again, they almost do themselves a disservice when releasing these mid-gen upgraded consoles and remastered games at higher resolutions. It absolutely dilutes the impact coming from one gen to another... and as these jumps in power become smaller and smaller, eventually people will NOT be satisfied with what the "next generation" is bringing.. and it will hit them hard.

Eventually they're going to have to cut BC off.

I think it wasn't as big of an issue with last gen to this gen cuz there was still very large improvements possible with CPU and storage and all that, but yes, this could definitely be a much bigger problem next gen. Maybe we'll be surprised, but so far, it's seeming like next gen machines will likely just be evolutionary improvements from what exists now and there's not any sort of 'game changer' new capabilities on the horizon. It's why I really think next gen machines should be pushed out til like 2029 or even 2030 if that's what it takes.