Microsoft XBOX (XBox One X / Project Scorpio) - Prerelease News and Rumours

[Rikimaru]

Xbox Scorpio may deliver on Bill Gates’ promise of the console as powerful PC.
It's been more than 10 years, but Bill Gates commented that Xbox is a PC.
http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/7/15222066/xbox-scorpio-powerful-pc

Jaguar CPU makes it a weak PC. Tablet like weak.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Jaguar CPU makes it a weak PC. Tablet like weak.

And for the vast majority of people using a PC for web, email, Office, music and movies, it's more than enough processing power. 90% of the time I'm a computer at home I'm using a Macbook with passively-cooled 1.2Ghz CoreM dual core processor.

 

[Clukos]

Jaguar CPU makes it a weak PC. Tablet like weak.

That is irrelevant, the Scorpio is not a new console. It's Xbox One on steroids, it's not supposed to run games at double the framerate (even though some GPU bound titles can definitely go that route). It's supposed to run Xbox One games at higher res, more stable framerate and with some extras added, like the Ps4 Pro. And it also plays "unpatched" Xbox One games better than the Pro does by forcing x16 AF.

 

[Jay]

for a performance mode, let's say 1080p, if a game was 30fps, in general how much more percentage bump to cpu would it need to hit 60fps? Obviously for cpu limited games.

I know all engines, and games are different.
must be a few benches out that gives indication, maybe games with unlocked frame rate.

it probably doesn't, but would be nice if cpu was fast enough to do it.

 

[Clukos]

for a performance mode, let's say 1080p, if a game was 30fps, in general how much more percentage bump to cpu would it need to hit 60fps? Obviously for cpu limited games.

I know all engines, and games are different.
must be a few benches out that gives indication, maybe games with unlocked frame rate.

it probably doesn't, but would be nice if cpu was fast enough to do it.

Depends on the game, and how the engine is optimized. Also, some games might be locked to 30 fps but the real performance is somewhere between 40-45 fps, so the jump from that to 60 isn't as big. One recent example of how a 30 fps console game needs a very fast CPU on PC to run anywhere near locked 60 fps is Forza Horizon 3, extremely single core perf reliant, to hold 60 fps at all times you need a 7700k overclocked to around 5Ghz.

 

[Rikimaru]

And for the vast majority of people using a PC for web, email, Office, music and movies, it's more than enough processing power. 90% of the time I'm a computer at home I'm using a Macbook with passively-cooled 1.2Ghz CoreM dual core processor.

Look what I quoted: "promise of the console as powerful PC."

Some sites freeze my browser on i5-6600 @4.5GHz

 

[fehu]

Some sites freeze my browser on i5-6600 @4.5GHz

That one that ends with win!

 

[Jay]

Depends on the game, and how the engine is optimized. Also, some games might be locked to 30 fps but the real performance is somewhere between 40-45 fps, so the jump from that to 60 isn't as big. One recent example of how a 30 fps console game needs a very fast CPU on PC to run anywhere near locked 60 fps is Forza Horizon 3, extremely single core perf reliant, to hold 60 fps at all times you need a 7700k overclocked to around 5Ghz.

the reason for the higher fps is so the min is 30.
that's why personally I like dynamic res, don't need to sacrifice so much to make sure your min fps is hitting it mark.
I'm not sure if pc forza horizon is an outliner or not.
may be easier to compare for sake of discussion ps4 & 4pro as they are based on similar tech, and so unlocked frame rate should give good indication of how well the up clocked jags are performing.
trouble is that could cause people to drag thread down, so may require its own thread or something.

ms is saying Scorpio is for the 4k, the hardcore gamer etc.
the thing is, a very big percentage of the hardcore would prefer 60 fps, even if it meant sacrificing resolution.

 

[AlNom]

That is irrelevant, the Scorpio is not a new console.

Well, mind you, the context of the article is based on an extremely old quotation from Bill Gates. The rest of the article is rather naff with the author trying to connect dots with the OS heritage.

So.... I wouldn't pay much attention to this article.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Look what I quoted: "promise of the console as powerful PC."

Some sites freeze my browser on i5-6600 @4.5GHz

Powerful is both relative and subjective. The CPU need be only as powerful to achieve what the user wants to to do. Sorry your browser freezes, mine doesn't.

 

[liolio]

On the matter of the "custom Jaguar cores I wonder if they could have steal part of Ryzen design, namely the memory subsystem that connect cores (I will include L1&L2 for Ryzen) to the L3 (and then memory) or something really close. I don't think serious work on the core (I include the L1 in jaguar) is that likely.
So I could see MSFT having broke Jaguar quad core clusters with their local share of the L2 and got rid of thelong latency between the two share of L2. We could be facing a proper eight cores cluster not the dirty patchwork of two quad core we've been served with both the PS4 and the XB1.
They could also increase the amount of L2 but even having 4MB of L2 usable in any amount by any core without any penalty may improve performance and usability.
Core may be able to pull more bandwidth out of the L2 (assuming the L2 and the interconnect was the limiting factor here) and more from the memory too.

EDIT
I did not read the article properly... two ugly custom clusters...

 

[mrcorbo]

for a performance mode, let's say 1080p, if a game was 30fps, in general how much more percentage bump to cpu would it need to hit 60fps? Obviously for cpu limited games.

I know all engines, and games are different.
must be a few benches out that gives indication, maybe games with unlocked frame rate.

it probably doesn't, but would be nice if cpu was fast enough to do it.

Worst case, ~100% increase in instructions per second, achieved with some combination of higher clocks and higher IPC, with ~100% increase in memory bandwidth available to the CPU and ~50% reduction in latency.

 

[Cyan]

This pretty much sums it up. More than $399 would be cringe worthy but at $399, they seem to have hit it just right.

yes, 399$ is the key I think. They learnt it with the Xbox 360 and they learnt it the hard way when Phil Spencer was booed after he announced the price of the Xbox One, and not only the jeer, but the silence of the people afterwards. If the price is not right...another too hard generation looms.

 

[Cyan]

Those measures are so exact one surmises they plan to use Xbox One casing. Probably save money too.

I would have liked some nice aggressive new form factor to distinguish Scorpio in a vacuum, but price trumps that as well. All is forgiven at 399.

this picture sums it all up about what Scorpio is. Those features at 400$.., it's a good deal

if you could also use it as a PC....

 

[Clukos]

if you could also use it as a PC....

It wouldn't be great as a PC because of the unbalanced design(same with the Ps4 Pro). As a PC the CPU would stick out like a sore thumb more than it will as an Xbox One+ machine.

 

[BRiT]

Lets not turn any of the Scorpio specific threads into a general Price of Console vs PCs even if it is for Scorpio. That topic belongs in its own thread, and we've had that discussion multiple times before. We know the discussion this time won't be any different from the earlier ones. One huge mess with a lot circular talk.

 

[Cyan]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...-motorsport-on-project-scorpio-the-full-story

"This is us. This is ForzaTech running 60 frames a second, 4K," Tector says proudly. "We're still running with settings that we would have used in Forza 6. Since it's Xbox, we're using EQAA, so it's like a 4:2 EQAA. That's the actual GP utilisation so we're only using 60 per cent of the compute to get to this. Importantly, I know I've just said it's like a Forza 6 set-up, but this is also including 4K content, so all of our build system - we've got authored assets for this set of the models, cars, tracks everything. We pushed it through and made sure the 4K textures were flowing through."

"The crazy story here is that we've gone over our PC ultra settings and for everything that's GPU-related, we've been able to max it - and that's what we're running at, 88 per cent," says Tector, pointing to the utilisation data at the top of the screen. Right beneath it is the anti-aliasing setting - 4x, or rather 8:4x using the Radeon EQAA hardware AA.

 

[BRiT]

Don't we have a thread dedicated to mixed messaging? If so, can this conversation be moved to there?

Yes we do: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...or-how-i-learned-to-loathe-pr-spin-off.58143/

 

[rokkerkory]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...-motorsport-on-project-scorpio-the-full-story

"This is us. This is ForzaTech running 60 frames a second, 4K," Tector says proudly. "We're still running with settings that we would have used in Forza 6. Since it's Xbox, we're using EQAA, so it's like a 4:2 EQAA. That's the actual GP utilisation so we're only using 60 per cent of the compute to get to this. Importantly, I know I've just said it's like a Forza 6 set-up, but this is also including 4K content, so all of our build system - we've got authored assets for this set of the models, cars, tracks everything. We pushed it through and made sure the 4K textures were flowing through."

"The crazy story here is that we've gone over our PC ultra settings and for everything that's GPU-related, we've been able to max it - and that's what we're running at, 88 per cent," says Tector, pointing to the utilisation data at the top of the screen. Right beneath it is the anti-aliasing setting - 4x, or rather 8:4x using the Radeon EQAA hardware AA.

Awesome thanks for this... seems like more and more details / articles / videos will be coming out relatively soon too. Some choice quotes from the article that caught my eye:

Turn10's Forza data helping to shape the h/w:

We were really able to help prove that out... Our part in it - and an important part for us, because it's a two-way thing - we wanted to make sure that the hardware was going be able to do what we wanted, what we had as a vision, what we wanted in Forza next, but we also wanted to make sure that however it's being proved out, that the promise was solid, that the model made sense to us."

Additionally, by working directly with the Xbox hardware team, Turn 10 is able to provide invaluable developer input, way ahead of time. "Importantly it feels like the right stage to be at, especially this early. It's like, we can evaluate it early before other studios get it and before they all have to go through that process as a group," enthuses Tector. "We can do it as a first party and help prove out the platform because we're not only trying to make the platform the best one for us, we're trying to make it the best one for all game developers."

Awesome that s/w and h/w are getting so close tied together as they two cannot be created from just a single point of view. Also 4k assets only adding 1% of additional gpu overhead? wow

 

[BRiT]

Gamasutra Game Developer Breakdown thread is located over here: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...n-of-microsoft-xbox-scorpio-2017-04-12.60025/

The article will be published on Wednesday, so look forward to that. Thanks to @Ike Turner and @BadTB25 and the others for pointing this out.