Microsoft develops '' X-Engine '' tools for first party developers

[MrFloopy]

I don't want Microsoft to waste their time developing game engines. That's what we do, and we will do it better than they will.

What I do want is clear, detailed documentation, stable development tools that are fast and enable the highest possible productivity.

If they have some advice, sample code or technical information that will help me do my job better then great, I'll take that too.

In my opinion, any time I spend grappling with poor documentation, buggy or obtuse tools, is time I am NOT spending making a better game.

 

[Brad Grenz]

I think I liked it better the first time MS tried this when it was called DirectEngine. Of course they abandoned it and it became Lithtech, but Monolith still made some cool games with it!

 

[patsu]

That's what we do, and we will do it better than they will.

I like your spirit.

I think MS can complement developers' effort by exploring more risky or far out development. The result should be useful to all the developers too.

What I do want is clear, detailed documentation, stable development tools that are fast and enable the highest possible productivity.

If they have some advice, sample code or technical information that will help me do my job better then great, I'll take that too.

In my opinion, any time I spend grappling with poor documentation, buggy or obtuse tools, is time I am NOT spending making a better game.

Very sound feedback here. Godspeed. [two thumbs up]

 

[Statix]

That 1 gig of RAM is going to result in a LOT of misleading prerelease footage of games. When you have twice the amount of memory as can be handled by a retail Xbox, that lets developers show early, in-development footage of games that have a lot of awe-inspiring value to them before the final necessary technical cuts and optimizations are made to fit the game into RAM (larger draw distances and environments, and greater texture detail).

 

[NRP]

You're a "glass is half empty" kind of guy, aren't you Statix?

 

[grandmaster]

NDA or not I've never heard about this "X-engine". Either it's a secret project and still in development or this story is all fabrication.

Probably worth quoting this really. And if Microsoft were going to write some high performance libraries a la EDGE, calling it an "engine" would be more than a bit cheeky.

This "Sony have got this so MS are developing that" style of versus argument isn't really the way the companies themselves do business, but it is the way of the internet fanboy!

 

[AlNom]

That 1 gig of RAM is going to result in a LOT of misleading prerelease footage of games. When you have twice the amount of memory as can be handled by a retail Xbox, that lets developers show early, in-development footage of games that have a lot of awe-inspiring value to them before the final necessary technical cuts and optimizations are made to fit the game into RAM (larger draw distances and environments, and greater texture detail).

....and marketing doesn't already do this to an extent

 

[deepbrown]

NDA or not I've never heard about this "X-engine". Either it's a secret project and still in development or this story is all fabrication.
Usually Microsoft distributes all their know-how via the XDK docs and the accompanying samples.
EDGE-like high-performance code for X360 would be a good idea actually. If there's any truth to this, I'd love to find out more.
Natal SDK and/or hardware if truly being distributed are probably reserved for Epic and Bungie and the likes, since I haven't even heard the mention of anything coming our way via the official channels (us being third party developer working on mainstream license titles).

...

Despite our source being adamant that Microsoft had put together an engine for Xbox 360 developers, we are personally under the opinion that it is instead a collection of powerful development tools. This would make the relation to Sony's PlayStation 3 Edge Tools more relevant, since an engine can in fact be more restrictive, which is something Sony caters for with their PhyreEngine.

The significance of development tools are still the same (if not more so) and we'll continue to refer to the initiative as Microsoft's X-Engine, since this appears to be what developers refer to it as.

I think the X-Engine might just be a nick-name among some developers. Not necessarily Microsoft.

 

[NRP]

Well, so far we have a few devs who have never heard of it. Smells like BS.

 

[liolio]

Well, so far we have a few devs who have never heard of it. Smells like BS.

Well... actually the all thing smells like BS
This is the rumour they post the day after.
http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/formats/xbox360/rumour-project-phoenix-xbox-720-and-x-engine-$1306788.htm

 

[Arwin]

That 1 gig of RAM is going to result in a LOT of misleading prerelease footage of games. When you have twice the amount of memory as can be handled by a retail Xbox, that lets developers show early, in-development footage of games that have a lot of awe-inspiring value to them before the final necessary technical cuts and optimizations are made to fit the game into RAM (larger draw distances and environments, and greater texture detail).

Actually I'm wondering if the 360 is the only console that DIDN"T yet have a debug kit with twice the memory of the retail console. I thought this was standard practice, and this news really surprised me.

You don't at all need extra memory to fool your audience, as has been shown countles of times. Remember that the editor of the Unreal engine has an option in the designer to render screens to evaluate your art, that can look a whole lot better than the game eventually will, for instance. And you can always do a photo-mode style thing even in your game engine, where you do a type of rendering that spends way more than a few frames just outputting one screen. Many of these things are standard practice, especially to create art and screenshots for magazines.

 

[assen]

If Microsoft provide a bare-metal, low level access to the hardware, they will gain a little now by having slightly better titles, but will lose a lot in the long term by making backwards compatibility much harder in the next generation. If I was them, I would weather the killzone-loving comments in the next years, them laugh all the way to the bank when I launch the next gen with 1000 BC titles, keep selling $99 Arcades and receive cheap titles from smaller studios for the 360 for years.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

I think if this is something about it is about a new xbox coming next year with Natal. the 1 gb rumour match the new xbox upgrade to 1gb rumour. In this situation from a market point of view it would be a winner point for Microsoft taking into account that the new system would be "upward" compatible with the Xbox 360 games, increasing AA, and filters. Natal will need processing power and memory and this gets on also with the rumours hinting the cpu would pass from 3 to 6 cores.
This is a win win situation for Microsoft. Nintendo will have to launch its Wii HD in 2010 or 2011 as the DVB television signal will be mandatory in many european countries for 2010 -no more analogic signals-. Here for example shops and local governments are giving discounts for your old SD tv machines. People will start looking at HD sources more than now ( i supposse this christmas will be a good time for blu ray sales ) and Nintendo must be there, more now that has lost its "momentun" with the "waggle" wars. And in this situation Microsoft can kill three birds from a shot:

- Sink Sony more as Sony is the only one of the three that i can´t see launching a new system until at least 2012. People with a PS3 that is a graphics whore will jump to MS.

- Bring some "waggle" casual market from Nintendo to Natal.

- Bring again many hardcore graphics whores from the PC space as the new system would allow to cope with Arma 2 or Crysis PC counterpart level of graphics.

I think its estrategy would be to make games with two level of graphics details: one for 360 and one for Natal. Everybody would be happy.

There have been many hints about this lately: Ballmer´s messing it up in his speech, ATI saying "wait to see next console graphics"', next ATI RV840 chip being very little and suitable for consoles, this news about X-engine, and so on. But above all i think Microsoft now believes in itself and his "momentun". They will go for their plan, the one they have since the first Xbox: dominate our living rooms.

Think about one thing for a moment: wouldn´t it be ironic that in this supposse 10 years cycle in which 360 and PS3 should last until 2015 a Wii HD launched in 2011 would be the graphics king for 4 years ?.
I think Microsoft won´t let it be nor graphically better nor "waggle"-ly better one month!!.

Or i could be completely wrong!!.

 

[ShadowWolf64]

I think if this is something about it is about a new xbox coming next year with Natal. the 1 gb rumour match the new xbox upgrade to 1gb rumour. In this situation from a market point of view it would be a winner point for Microsoft taking into account that the new system would be "upward" compatible with the Xbox 360 games, increasing AA, and filters. Natal will need processing power and memory and this gets on also with the rumours hinting the cpu would pass from 3 to 6 cores.
This is a win win situation for Microsoft. Nintendo will have to launch its Wii HD in 2010 or 2011 as the DVB television signal will be mandatory in many european countries for 2010 -no more analogic signals-. Here for example shops and local governments are giving discounts for your old SD tv machines. People will start looking at HD sources more than now ( i supposse this christmas will be a good time for blu ray sales ) and Nintendo must be there, more now that has lost its "momentun" with the "waggle" wars. And in this situation Microsoft can kill three birds from a shot:

- Sink Sony more as Sony is the only one of the three that i can´t see launching a new system until at least 2012. People with a PS3 that is a graphics whore will jump to MS.

- Bring some "waggle" casual market from Nintendo to Natal.

- Bring again many hardcore graphics whores from the PC space as the new system would allow to cope with Arma 2 or Crysis PC counterpart level of graphics.

I think its estrategy would be to make games with two level of graphics details: one for 360 and one for Natal. Everybody would be happy.

There have been many hints about this lately: Ballmer´s messing it up in his speech, ATI saying "wait to see next console graphics"', next ATI RV840 chip being very little and suitable for consoles, this news about X-engine, and so on. But above all i think Microsoft now believes in itself and his "momentun". They will go for their plan, the one they have since the first Xbox: dominate our living rooms.

Think about one thing for a moment: wouldn´t it be ironic that in this supposse 10 years cycle in which 360 and PS3 should last until 2015 a Wii HD launched in 2011 would be the graphics king for 4 years ?.
I think Microsoft won´t let it be nor graphically better nor "waggle"-ly better one month!!.

Or i could be completely wrong!!.

Natal doesn't need any extra hardware to run as all you do is hook it up to your 360 and thats it.MS isn't releasing a new next gen xbox but instead is relaunching the 360 with natal.Its actually a rebirth of the console.I believe Halo Reach is going to be released at the same timeframe as Natal and that would make an amazing "launch title" for the rebirth of the 360 platform.I believe that MS offering Edge like tools for 360 developers is a great thing as it allows them to graphically push the machine harder like Sony devs have been doing with the PS3.

In my humple opinion, I believe Halo Reach is going to look graphically amazing when released.Bungie easily has the skills to do so and I firmly believe they accomplish that goal.Halo Reach is going to be blow us all away...

 

[grandmaster]

What is the actual point in a slight, incremental increase in power in a "new" 360? As I mentioned in my Eurogamer piece last week, in at least two different criteria, GTA IV is often 20 per cent "better" on 360 than it is on PS3 (res, frame rate) but that doesn't make it a 20 per cent "better" game and neither will it give MS sufficient sales to make the upgrade cost-effective. GTA IV on 360 wouldn't have lost a single sale if the 2xMSAA it features was removed from the game as it has been in the PS3 build.

Additionally some might argue that the current 360 already has a sales and price advantage over its closest competitor, making any kind of upgrade even more redundant.

 

[liolio]

I think that by looking at the site oerall it looks more like they are trying to ride the Ms messy PR wave and get some clicks. Till further or more reliable informations I will ignore their talk.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

What is the actual point in a slight, incremental increase in power in a "new" 360? As I mentioned in my Eurogamer piece last week, in at least two different criteria, GTA IV is often 20 per cent "better" on 360 than it is on PS3 (res, frame rate) but that doesn't make it a 20 per cent "better" game and neither will it give MS sufficient sales to make the upgrade cost-effective. GTA IV on 360 wouldn't have lost a single sale if the 2xMSAA it features was removed from the game as it has been in the PS3 build.

Additionally some might argue that the current 360 already has a sales and price advantage over its closest competitor, making any kind of upgrade even more redundant.

A simple RV840 would make Xbox 4 times better ( at least 1 teraflop agains 210 gflops ). Take into account that Xenos was 180 mm2 and RV840 is that also. That´s much to fight with. I would like to see the comparations between Crysis 2 in PS3 and new Xbox you would make.

And it would be a real full hd also. A good bullet point.

Besides both versions could coexist if MS plans on making two levels of details in games. It is not difficult as most Xbox games have their PC version and the most recent games´high level of detail would be the new xbox managed version and 360 the low-medium one.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think if this is something about it is about a new xbox coming next year with Natal. the 1 gb rumour match the new xbox upgrade to 1gb rumour.

It's just for debugging! Chances are the '1GB XB360' rumour started when someone learnt the RAM in the devkits was being increased to 1GB but didn't understand what that means, and instead believed and communicated the whole XB360 line was getting a boost. Putting it another way, the point to adding more RAM in devkits than final console is to add some working space. This is normal practice and the current XB360 devkit with 512 MB is unusual and a mistake. Putting out a 1GB devkit for a 1GB console would be repeating that mistake.

What is the actual point in a slight, incremental increase in power in a "new" 360?

Just copying Wii? Some exec could have said 'hey, it worked for them' and convinced the rest of the department to run with the idea of a new gen of hardware being cheap to make, though of course I don't subscribe to that theory.

 

[NRP]

What is the actual point in a slight, incremental increase in power in a "new" 360? As I mentioned in my Eurogamer piece last week, in at least two different criteria, GTA IV is often 20 per cent "better" on 360 than it is on PS3 (res, frame rate) but that doesn't make it a 20 per cent "better" game and neither will it give MS sufficient sales to make the upgrade cost-effective. GTA IV on 360 wouldn't have lost a single sale if the 2xMSAA it features was removed from the game as it has been in the PS3 build.

To be blunt, the overwhelming majority of Internet forum dwellers have no clue about business realities, and as a result they tend be rather cavalier with other people's money (MS' in this case).

 

[Statix]

....and marketing doesn't already do this to an extent

Marketing? You mean like bullshots, with their ~5000x FSAA? Yeah, that's bad too, but the graphical bonuses inferred by this extra bit of devkit silicon, this extra 512 megs, extends into gameplay video and live gameplay demonstrations as well, which is even more impactful and misleading. That's because most people have learned to take company-released screenshots with a grain of salt, but still regard live gameplay demonstrations as 100% proof of how the final retail game will look (note that I said MOST people, not the more vigilant among us).

As a fan of the Far Cry franchise ever since the original on PC, I remember looking at tons of prerelease footage and trailers of Far Cry: Instincts on Xbox 1 showcasing some really large, wide-open levels and draw distances, all of which were completely and inexplicably cut from the retail game. I'm talking about full levels/maps that were nowhere to be found in the retail copy, for the life of me. I can't help but think that some of those huge levels couldn't technically fit into the RAM of a retail Xbox, only on a beefed-up devkit, and were only made for the express purpose of being displayed in trailers and conventions for hyping purposes.