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

[BRiT]

Bits of this article are now being focused on by other websites, namely the Shadow of War folks talking about Xbox One X development.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...mes-that-unite-people-rather-than-divide-them

Matt Allen, director of Technical Art at Monolith (which is working on Middle-earth: Shadow of War), also talks up the impact of 4K gaming.
...
"So our engine has a pretty cool layer, where the content guys just go and make incredibly high res stuff. 8K face textures for the orcs, 16K body textures... millions of triangles on the models. And there's a layer that says: I'm going to do this so it works on a low-end PC, and I'm going to do this for PS4 and Xbox One'. So that means when a more powerful system comes out all we have to do is tweak that layer, because the content guys are making stuff we still can't show.

"From a content standpoint, it didn't take long to get it working. From an engineering standpoint, because it shares a lot of DNA with Windows 10 - and we are already running on Windows 10 - it took our engineering director about a day to get it running on the original Scorpio kits. It wasn't perfect; there were edge cases, so it involved a bit of tinkering, but it was not a lot of extra work.

 

[AlNom]

if MS is convoluted for people to understand today, when M/KB arrives (UWP Support only at first) and apps start to carry over, say, "office" things get whacky awesome confusing, traditional models are broken, makes it much harder to figure out what the console is bringing to MS.

Kinect voice to text for Office, when?

 

[iroboto]

lol I can't say nothing more We can have a discuss on MS complete strategy in another thread when we hit //Build 2018

 

[mpg1]

The Battlefront II listing on the Xbox Store shows support for 4K, HDR and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate):

https://www.windowscentral.com/star-wars-battlefront-ii-4k-xbox-one-x

So this all but confirms Xbox One X support. However, I find it weird that VRR is listed as a feature at the game level...I would have assumed this would operate on a system level. In other words, it would just work if you have a freesync monitor and your framerate dips...

 

[AlNom]

So this all but confirms Xbox One X support. However, I find it weird that VRR is listed as a feature at the game level...I would have assumed this would operate on a system level. In other words, it would just work if you have a freesync monitor and your framerate dips...

Devs might want to have a toggle if they have some custom setup for adaptive sync or if they also use triple buffering for the 99.9999% of people playing. Well, that's maybe the normal case, just like on PC with in-game settings vs driver forced shenanigans.

 

[mpg1]

Devs might want to have a toggle if they have some custom setup for adaptive sync or if they also use triple buffering for the 99.9999% of people playing. Well, that's maybe the normal case, just like on PC with in-game settings vs driver forced shenanigans.

So there would be an option for a person with a VRR display to toggle off v-sync if they wanted? Because I'm not sure why you'd ever need to toggle VRR itself on/off?

 

[AlNom]

Yes, I'm talking about how the game handles V-Sync.

 

[iroboto]

The Battlefront II listing on the Xbox Store shows support for 4K, HDR and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate):

https://www.windowscentral.com/star-wars-battlefront-ii-4k-xbox-one-x

So this all but confirms Xbox One X support. However, I find it weird that VRR is listed as a feature at the game level...I would have assumed this would operate on a system level. In other words, it would just work if you have a freesync monitor and your framerate dips...

Damn. lol. Really re-thinking buying a TV this year and waiting for VRR TVs.

 

[BRiT]

Yup, holding out for HDMI 2.1 sets for 2018 here.

 

[wco81]

Yup, holding out for HDMI 2.1 sets for 2018 here.

Some on AVS speculate it may be 2019 sets.

The 2018 sets are being designed and tested now, for CES showing.

The 2.1 spec may not be formally ratified.

 

[iroboto]

Some on AVS speculate it may be 2019 sets.

The 2018 sets are being designed and tested now, for CES showing.

The 2.1 spec may not be formally ratified.

that's legitimately painful. I suppose if developers start releasing 1080p variants with VRR, some customers may just go the monitor/freesync route instead and wait 2-3 years for a proper 4K set.

 

[iroboto]

the MS store version of the same screen.

 

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

Gears Of War 4 shows now HDR, 4K and VRR, too.

QB for Xbox One X showcase: http://www.gamersyde.com/news_xbox_showcase_quantum_break_one_x-19527_en.html

 

[Scott_Arm]

Quantum Break would be perfect for HDR. No mention of it. Just 4k.

 

[BRiT]

The list of xbox one x enhanced games has expanded to over 130 titles.

Preorders for Xbox One X plebeian edition starts today, first up in Europe then the rest.

https://news.xbox.com/2017/09/20/xbox-one-x-pre-orders-now-available/

https://majornelson.com/2017/09/20/...ver-130-console-pre-orders-now-available/amp/

 

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

https://twitter.com/x/status/910489221374324741

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...reak-on-xbox-one-x-really-deliver-4k-gameplay

True 1080p mode:

However, even if the code does not improve, there is another option. Dipping into the settings, we spied a 1920x1080 resolution option, alongside the default 3840x2160. It's curious because the latter doesn't natively resolve true 4K (temporal reconstruction is in effect, after all). However, the former does seem to operate at a native 1080p. We only played this mode for a few moments, but the captures suggest that it's a full 1920x1080 with temporal anti-aliasing, but no reprojection from prior frames. Our emphasis with the limited time available was to grab as much 4K video as we could, but logically, the 1080p mode should offer rock-solid performance. It's rendering just 56 per cent of the 4K mode's base resolution, and no GPU cycles are deployed on reconstruction. Those hoping for an unlocked frame-rate or even 60fps will be disappointed though - the title's standard 30fps cap is in full effect on both modes.

 

[Clukos]

Some comparisons in RotTR using the latest DF footage, PC maxed (with VXAO) vs X1X native 4k mode:

X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_1vozv5.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_1e5lpf.jpg

X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_2zrbue.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_20lbrw.jpg

X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_31hyj5.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_3vdawi.jpg

X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_4fgx4s.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_4mdzxn.jpg

X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_59pzn3.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_5wmlli.jpg

X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_6col82.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_6k9yoa.jpg

X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_7o3x7p.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_712ani.jpg

 

[Jay]

how does native 4K mode compare to enhanced mode?

 

[Scott_Arm]

how does native 4K mode compare to enhanced mode?

Enhanced is checkboard rendering and includes some more visual improvements from the PC version, but I can't remember what.

 

[Riddlewire]

Some comparisons in RotTR using the latest DF footage, PC maxed (with VXAO) vs X1X native 4k mode:
...
X1X: https://abload.de/img/x1x_4fgx4s.jpg
PC: https://abload.de/img/pc_4mdzxn.jpg
...

Question for someone with more knowledge of jpeg compression than I possess:
Should those two file sizes be so different?
The image content is essentially identical. The resolution and color depth of the files is the same.
Imagemagick reports both were saved at Quality:99.
But one file is 2.75 times larger than the other.