Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[Deleted member 11852]

And again, the X360/PS3 is irrelevant in this discussion of a rolling generation. Developers wouldn't be required to support them, although they'd have the option to if they wanted. They'd need to have support for the consoles that released after the X360/PS3. While it wouldn't have 8 GB of ram, it'd likely have come with between 2-4 GB of RAM. The current gen consoles released with over double the amount of ram available on high end GPUs at the time (7970 had 3 GB) and 4-8x the memory of the GPUs they were directly correlated with (7770 had 1 GB and 7870 had 2 GB). GPUs at the time had between 256 MB to 1 GB of memory although 1 GB was very rare.

Pleas stop obsessing over the 360/PS3. I use it as an example where old technology hits a point that devs can't do what they want. Black Flag was on 360/PS3 and just a year later Unity was not. Lots of cross-gen games quickly became a compromised mess on the older consoles. Even if there was hardware performance profile in-between 360/PS3 and One/PS4 you still have the same issue of not being able to maximise the hardware in the device for anything other than visuals. You wouldn't have got Unity on a console with 2Gb or 4Gb RAM.

Speaking of memory. You have to include system memory in your calculations. Greater than 83% of PC's on steam have more than 4 GB of system RAM. Greater than 98% of users have 1 GB or more of VRAM. Greater than 55% have 2 GB or more of VRAM.

I am talking about system memory. I don't know what figures you're quoting but they aren't system RAM. Steam shows 19.94% have 4Gb, 9.56% have 3Gb, 5.95% have 2Gb and 1.08% have 1Gb or less. So that's more than a third of Steam hardware unable to play Watch Dogs 2 (6Gb system RAM minimum requirement) and almost 1 in 5 can't play games where 4Gb is the minimum.

AC: Unity is also perhaps the worst (or best) posterchild of this. As it is by far the worst optimized and worst performing title (along with the first Watchdogs) released so far this generation on PC.

But who cares because we're talking about consoles. But if you like, consider Doom which was a decent PC version and requires 8Gb RAM.

 

[Jay]

Pleas stop obsessing over the 360/PS3. I use it as an example where old technology hits a point that devs can't do what they want. Black Flag was on 360/PS3 and just a year later Unity was not. Lots of cross-gen games quickly became a compromised mess on the older consoles. Even if there was hardware performance profile in-between 360/PS3 and One/PS4 you still have the same issue of not being able to maximise the hardware in the device for anything other than visuals. You wouldn't have got Unity on a console with 2Gb or 4Gb RAM.

The trouble is you say to stop obsessing over the 360/ps3, but then you use the example of ac unity a year later dropping support for the 360/ps3.
A year later, but 10 year old hardware.
And to add to that totally different architecture, which means the amount of work to support them is much higher, even if it was possible.
I don't think anyone is saying that older tech will always be supported either, just that it is possible to scale engines especially if the underlying architecture is the same, in this case x86 & DX. Assumption is that it will use that going forward, if it changes then that's a whole different situation. (like 360/ps3)
Due to the change in architecture, your not scaling and maintaining one engine, and the cost and compromises of doing that may out weigh the benefits of the larger user base, even if it is possible.

So it's hard not to mention/seem obsessed with 360/ps3 when you use it in the examples the way you have.

Using ac unity as an example, could it have been done on 4 year older console prior to x1 based on x86 & DX, with amount of memory for that fictional console?
I suspect the answer is yes.

It will end up being up to the studio to set base level support for a rolling generationless console. Imo.
Pac man = x1 +
Crysis 4 = Scorpio 2+

 

[one]

Using ac unity as an example, could it have been done on 4 year older console prior to x1 based on x86 & DX, with amount of memory for that fictional console?
I suspect the answer is yes.

Out of curiosity, how does the PC version of AC Unity run on the PC with that spec?

 

[Jay]

Out of curiosity, how does the PC version of AC Unity run on the PC with that spec?

no idea, how does it run on x1 or ps4 spec (including jaguar level cpu, and memory)?
that would need to be taken into account in that kind of interpretation of level of performance.

 

[iroboto]

@goonergaz sometimes I wonder if people are reading threads and deciding, hey this is a great topic to write an article about
anyway, this article displays your points well, and vice versa, I also think touches on what we've been trying to communicate on here. If you can't beat them at exclusives, pivot to where you can be successful. If it's third party, then pivot onto third party. It's quite possible MS may only be focusing on having a stronger 3rd party experience in 2017.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/22/1...-one-switch-zelda-horizon-scorpio-first-party

Discuss!

There have never been more third-party releases, and many of the best-selling games appear on multiple platforms. And yet in 2017, exclusives seem as significant to a hardware’s success as ever before.

Highly hyped Microsoft exclusives like ReCore, Quantum Break, and Halo Wars 2 have been released to semi-positive reviews, but the company has been mum on sales. The few critically lauded Xbox One exclusives, like Halo 5: Guardians or Sunset Overdrive, have quickly faded from the spotlight. Worse, some of Xbox’s biggest franchises have struggled to match the sales of previous entries.

Exclusives aren’t everything. Nintendo's inability to get mainstream third-party releases on its hardware has made its wares into a secondary console for many customers — hardware people buy after they purchase a console that runs Madden and Grand Theft Auto. Where does that leave Microsoft in the current living room landscape? Without unique games, the Xbox One is a slightly less powerful, definitely less popular PlayStation 4.

This is where it would be nice for the story to pivot, but things just aren’t that sunny for Microsoft. In addition to the onslaught of big titles that just got released as PS4 exclusives, the company has also announced Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, The Last of Us Part II, the upcoming God of War sequel, Insomnaic's Spider-Man game, Kojima’s Metal Gear follow-up Death Stranding, and Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, all of which will only be available on Sony's console. Nintendo obviously has Fire Emblem and a massive Mario game on its slate, but at least is trying to attract more widespread games — who’d have thought that a Nintendo-built console would ever run Skyrim? But Microsoft has surprisingly few announced big-name exclusives: Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, and State of Decay 2, and a pair of indies in Below and Cuphead.

Of course, it is possible Microsoft is just operating in a stealth mode until it can use E3 and Scorpio as a chance to reboot? Sure. Xbox head Phil Spencer commented in a recent blog post that Microsoft is “committed to delivering even more exclusive games for both Xbox One and Windows 10 this year than we launched in 2016.” But then the question becomes whether Microsoft can really announce a slate of exclusives at E3 that will be ready for the Scorpio launch in the fall?

Microsoft would have a new take on the idea of exclusivity: it might not have the most or best exclusives, but with Scorpio and crossplay, it could become the best place to play everything else. And considering most of the best-selling games each year are third party, it’s perhaps not the worst strategy.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I am talking about system memory. I don't know what figures you're quoting but they aren't system RAM. Steam shows 19.94% have 4Gb, 9.56% have 3Gb, 5.95% have 2Gb and 1.08% have 1Gb or less. So that's more than a third of Steam hardware unable to play Watch Dogs 2 (6Gb system RAM minimum requirement) and almost 1 in 5 can't play games where 4Gb is the minimum.

I'm going to guess you didn't know this, but click on the line with System Ram, it'll expand with percentages for varying capacities of RAM. You can add them up yourself (or subtract the lower amounts of RAM as I did) to see where I got those numbers. You'll note that yes, 4 GB of RAM comprise 19.94% of users. 8 GB of RAM comprise 34.22% of users. 12 GB or more of RAM comprise 21.08% of users. And there are users with 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 GB of RAM. IE - greater than 83% of users have 4 GB of RAM or more.

Whooops, now I see what's wrong going back and re-reading the post. It should be greater than or equal to. My bad on that if that is what you were referring to. Apologies for the confusion, if so.

As you correctly note, only 62.6% of Steam users would be able to meet the minimum specs (it'll actually run on less). That's actually not far off consoles owners. I'm willing to bet that people that own and game on an X360/PS3 comprise more than 40% of the current Playstation and Xbox console install base. The other link I posted shows that many modern games will run on a 5870, despite the minimum requirements only supporting GPUs 2 generations newer at a minimum. In fact, AC: Unity will likely run on a 5870, although probably not well. It wouldn't be much more work to get it running acceptably on 4+ year old hardware (which the 5870 is) at the time it was released without compromising what it currently does.

And that's ignoring the other point I made using PC GPU statistics. That among Steam users that are analogous to console users (IE - midrange GPUs and up), the percentages go up dramatically in the level of hardware they own. IE - the more into core gaming they are, the more likely they will have upgraded within the past 4 years. PC gamers upgrade hardware vastly more frequently than console gamers. The same people still using X360, PS3, and PS2 (I know some families that only have a PS2 and Wii) are the type of people that on PC still haven't upgraded to something newer. IE - they have limited desire or need for anything newer whether because they aren't core gamers or because they no longer game a lot on those platforms.

The message being that core gamers as a whole will upgrade more frequently. Especially if, instead of a mandate to not exceed the visuals of the previous generation hardware, the mandate is only to support the previous generation of hardware without a regression in graphics IQ on the previous generation of hardware compared to past releases on said hardware.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Whooops, now I see what's wrong going back and re-reading the post. It should be greater than or equal to. My bad on that if that is what you were referring to. Apologies for the confusion, if so.

Yup. The amount of RAM in PCs running Steam is demonstrably low compared to current gen consoles. Not that it's relevant.

And that's ignoring the other point I made using PC GPU statistics. That among Steam users that are analogous to console users (IE - midrange GPUs and up), the percentages go up dramatically in the level of hardware they own.

And you have to igore the state of PC GPUs because they're not relavent in consoles. PC games are not habitually using compute on GPU because it's a much more challenging proposition to pull off on PC. You have two RAM pools seperated by a slow local bus. Interchanging general processing on an 80x86 core quickly with compute on the GPU is far easier on a console. because the APU was designed with this in mind. And number of GPUs with adequate compute support in PC land is pretty damn sparse and the cost to GPU performance and further saturation of the local bus already trying to feed the GPU fast enough.

There is no useful correlation that can be found by looking at the state of things on PC, it's a different setup.

no idea, how does it run on x1 or ps4 spec (including jaguar level cpu, and memory)?

It doesn't.

 

[iroboto]

Yup. The amount of RAM in PCs running Steam is demonstrably low compared to current gen consoles. Not that it's relevant.

yea. I was going to say a lot of humble bundle games. Anyway. All PC games are meant to run on PC. But not all
PCS are designed to run games. That doesn't stop people from installing steam though. Consider steam streaming for instance.

And you have to igore the state of PC GPUs because they're not relavent in consoles. PC games are not habitually using compute on GPU because it's a much more challenging proposition to pull off on PC. You have two RAM pools seperated by a slow local bus. Interchanging general processing on an 80x86 core quickly with compute on the GPU is far easier on a console. because the APU was designed with this in mind. And number of GPUs with adequate compute support in PC land is pretty damn sparse and the cost to GPU performance and further saturation of the local bus already trying to feed the GPU fast enough.

There is no useful correlation that can be found by looking at the state of things on PC, it's a different setup.
It doesn't.

Small litmus test. But
Haswell E corei7 Are only 384GFLOP. And we run a massive amount of havoc physics on it.

Could you really ideally run 1.5 TF of physics on GPU? That would be equivalent to 4 of those CPU full tilt?

And what of the state of phyX and havok on GPU compute? Is it not moving towards that state for pC ?

 

[goonergaz]

@goonergaz sometimes I wonder if people are reading threads and deciding, hey this is a great topic to write an article about
anyway, this article displays your points well, and vice versa, I also think touches on what we've been trying to communicate on here. If you can't beat them at exclusives, pivot to where you can be successful. If it's third party, then pivot onto third party. It's quite possible MS may only be focusing on having a stronger 3rd party experience in 2017.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/22/1...-one-switch-zelda-horizon-scorpio-first-party

Discuss!

This is the problem MS have with exclusives IMHO, there's very little new. Look at their biggest exclusives - one game that goes all the way back to OXB (Halo) and one that has already had 4 (I think) versions on XBO (Forza). Both franchises have been flogged to death - and anything new is half-hearted (IMHO). The other thing is how 'exclusive' are the titles? QB - on PC, Tomb Raider? Timed. Just because exclusives are not selling XBOs does not mean exclusives are not important. As stated, where would Ninty be without them? Also, last gen MS had some 3rd party deals in place where that has been reversed this gen.

So (IMHO) last gen when Sony was putting a lot of effort into exclusives to make up for the XB360 performance gap and 3rd party deals have born some great fruit which seems to be getting better than ever. Then this gen they plugged the 3rd part gap (both performance and deals) so they've enjoyed (by Scorpio release) 4 years of being top dog. Scorpio seems to fill in the performance gap only (at this stage that's all we know). We can also see that with them cancelling anticipated titles that their view on exclusives has gone even more sour.

 

[iroboto]

This is the problem MS have with exclusives IMHO, there's very little new. Look at their biggest exclusives - one game that goes all the way back to OXB (Halo) and one that has already had 4 (I think) versions on XBO (Forza). Both franchises have been flogged to death - and anything new is half-hearted (IMHO). The other thing is how 'exclusive' are the titles? QB - on PC, Tomb Raider? Timed. Just because exclusives are not selling XBOs does not mean exclusives are not important. As stated, where would Ninty be without them? Also, last gen MS had some 3rd party deals in place where that has been reversed this gen.

it may be an entirely different story if those games had the quality and momentum of the recent exclusive releases.

Flogged to death isn't an issue. Ie All first party Nintendo games have been around forever. The issue is that the games just weren't as good as people wanted them to be.

If halo had the best FPS campaign ever made it could be an entirely different outlook for the franchise. It didn't wow anyone with its graphics. It certainly has the best MP for FPS on console. Some folks would have everyone believe that the enemies are boring etc. But looking at the main sellers, you're shooting at boards that don't fire back and they are all human, so that doesn't make any sense.

Titanfall 2 was a great FPS across the board and it still doesn't get what it deserves. The market is... weird? Lol I dunno. Quite a struggle for MS to get their breakout game for this console generation. I would be confused to believe that MS will not get a single breakout game this gen, but if this gen ends soon that's entirely possible.

 

[BRiT]

I was just going to discuss TitanFall2 and its amazing Single Player Campaign that everyone acknowledges and yet its sales are pathetic even with normal pricing now 50% to 60% off.

As for everyone talking about exclusives on Sony, there is only 1 exclusive that has my interest and that's the brand new Horizon Zero Dawn. All the other Sony exclusives are just as washed out as the MS exclusives. So exclusives don't substantially matter on all sides. Well except for Nintendo but thats because their consoles have no third party titles to run and are always second fiddle to MS or Sony.

 

[chris1515]

I was just going to discuss TitanFall2 and its amazing Single Player Campaign that everyone acknowledges and yet its sales are pathetic even with normal pricing now 50% to 60% off.

As for everyone talking about exclusives on Sony, there is only 1 exclusive that has my interest and that's the brand new Horizon Zero Dawn. All the other Sony exclusives are just as washed out as the MS exclusives. So exclusives don't substantially matter on all sides. Well except for Nintendo but thats because their consoles have no third party titles to run and are always second fiddle to MS or Sony.

It is your opinion for exclusivity. For TitanFall 2 bad choice of release date and exclusivity of the first one are the explanation for bad sales...

 

[Jay]

This is the problem MS have with exclusives IMHO, there's very little new. Look at their biggest exclusives - one game that goes all the way back to OXB (Halo) and one that has already had 4 (I think) versions on XBO (Forza). Both franchises have been flogged to death

From what I heard recently Halo 5 is still doing really well, and the community is strong (swear I heard it's even growing), and it's been out for over a year. Biggest complaint I've heard is about the story, but mp is supposedly stella.
Forza is more a brand with 2 separate franchises beneath it.
Forza horizon 3 seems to be rated as one of the best racers of all time. And if you only like the horizon games then you have to wait 2 years for the next one, same with motorsport. Maybe it's a branding issue and not calling both Forza would change some peoples view?
Anyway, my point is that I wouldn't say either halo or forza has been flogged to death if the quality of the product is good, and people are enjoying them still.
Are they still huge console sellers? May be not as big as in the 360 days (not many exclusives seem to be), but they still do move machines.

The other thing is how 'exclusive' are the titles? QB - on PC, Tomb Raider? Timed. Just because exclusives are not selling XBOs does not mean exclusives are not important

The term exclusive is definitely changing for Ms, there's both negatives and positives, and I suspect they hope to ride out the negatives with the positives being much bigger. I.e. Xbox and windows exclusives, xplay & xbuy etc. Their messaging and communication isn't that good usually, even though out of all 3 companies there the ones that communicate the most. I don't won't them to stop, I want them to get better. It's like their XB OS, it's like they say and do things before they have it all right and straight in their own heads, and fluff the communication because of it.

We can also see that with them cancelling anticipated titles that their view on exclusives has gone even more sour.

I'm not sure this signifies their lack of commitment, just that a game with a troubled development ended up getting canned very publicly.

I would argue (and I fully appreciate this is IMO) that Xbox has done well with exclusives so far this gen, many hasn't shone as well as they could have.
Sony has done what 360 did near the end of it's life, lots of marketing deals. I'm not implying this is bad either, although I think a nice balance is good to have, and that's what this year seems to be for Sony.

MS/Phil seems to think marketing deals shouldn't matter to people, well the fact of the matter is that it does. And perception is reality sometimes, rightly or wrongly. It gives the impression that Sony has many exclusives/playstation games. Some people thought that destiney was exclusive.

I think Sony is much smarter launching the games when they do, early part of the year, out side the big 3P blockbuster season.
MS should do the same, that would also, flesh out the whole year, do you really need exclusives at that time of year when so many 3p games are coming out anyway?

 

[iroboto]

It is your opinion for exclusivity. For TitanFall 2 bad choice of release date and exclusivity of the first one are the explanation for bad sales...

the first one being exclusive shouldn't have had an effect on it's sales for the second one, unless you're telling me all Sony folks are overly bitter AF users. Then it _could_ explain why MS is doing so poorly LOL.

 

[iroboto]

From what I heard recently Halo 5 is still doing really well, and the community is strong (swear I heard it's even growing), and it's been out for over a year. Biggest complaint I've heard is about the story, but mp is supposedly stella.
I would argue (and I fully appreciate this is IMO) that Xbox has done well with exclusives so far this gen, many hasn't shone as well as they could have.
Sony has done what 360 did near the end of it's life, lots of marketing deals. I'm not implying this is bad either, although I think a nice balance is good to have, and that's what this year seems to be for Sony.

MS/Phil seems to think marketing deals shouldn't matter to people, well the fact of the matter is that it does. And perception is reality sometimes, rightly or wrongly. It gives the impression that Sony has many exclusives/playstation games. Some people thought that destiney was exclusive.

I think Sony is much smarter launching the games when they do, early part of the year, out side the big 3P blockbuster season.
MS should do the same, that would also, flesh out the whole year, do you really need exclusives at that time of year when so many 3p games are coming out anyway?

Halo 5 also got hurt pretty badly by Destiny imo. It's basically Halo... but the RPG version of it. And it was undoubtedly highly addictive. They followed the same format all the way through, heck the races even feel the same. It had no story LOL. anyway, it's combat design was really well done, so I can see why people are hooked, it's MP needs work though, gear has way too much of a factor on that game.

For H5:
It's MP is stellar, it's why the population continues to grow. I hope they have a DLC to resolve issues within the game. I don't want 343i to have Halo 6 primed until 2019/2020. I would prefer them to work on another game, perhaps in the Halo Universe, sure, but we don't need another FPS to replace the quality fps that Halo 5 is. It's setup to last a long time (60 fps, tight controls, good movement etc), it just needs a new coat of paint, and some solid DLC to return to roots for it's SP.

 

[AlNom]

I would prefer them to work on another game, perhaps in the Halo Universe, sure, but we don't need another FPS to replace the quality fps that Halo 5 is.

Too bad they wasted Buck on Team Osiris. They could have done ODST 2 that explained his Spartan status along with making a game around the various custom armour & weapon designs they've been pooping out since they took over.

 

[iroboto]

Too bad they wasted Buck on Team Osiris. They could have done ODST 2 that explained his Spartan status along with making a game around the various custom armour & weapon designs they've been pooping out since they took over.

lol you mean spartan suits aren't everyday wear?
They have more types of armor than we have fashion.

 

[Jay]

It's MP is stellar, it's why the population continues to grow. I hope they have a DLC to resolve issues within the game. I don't want 343i to have Halo 6 primed until 2019/2020. I would prefer them to work on another game, perhaps in the Halo Universe, sure, but we don't need another FPS to replace the quality fps that Halo 5 is. It's setup to last a long time (60 fps, tight controls, good movement etc), it just needs a new coat of paint, and some solid DLC to return to roots for it's SP.

That's an interesting thought.
Halo 5 on Scorpio using the pc forge engine.
Release a H5 DLC, maybe even a side mission in Halo wars 2 since they've had the actors around.
Maybe $15-20?

Get a fresh new halo game for Scorpio launch. That would probably go down pretty well at E3, although, I'm not sure how people would feel about halo content not featuring chief at the moment.

 

[ProspectorPete]

Xbox 360 for a few years had the most exclusives

Haswell E corei7 Are only 384GFLOP. And we run a massive amount of havoc physics on it.

Could you really ideally run 1.5 TF of physics on GPU? That would be equivalent to 4 of those CPU full tilt?

And what of the state of phyX and havok on GPU compute? Is it not moving towards that state for pC ?

How many PS4 games had 2 Haswell E core-i7s full tilt running physics over the Xbox One version?

 

[iroboto]

Xbox 360 for a few years had the most exclusives


How many PS4 games had 2 Haswell E core-i7s full tilt running physics over the Xbox One version?

none that I know of.

The point isn't about PS4 or XBOX, but the technology itself. I'm debating whether in the next set of console generations, if developers would offload huge amounts of physics processing from the CPU to the GPU. If PC is not capable of doing this without some form of integrated processor and PCIE becomes a bottleneck, how would PC be able to keep up with GPGPU?
It doesn't make any sense. I don't think not having HSA is the bottleneck here for GPGPU.

It's an awkward observation if we assume PCIE is the bottleneck; by default PC will become the bottleneck for games go forward in next gen because of no HSA? I just have a hard time believing that.