Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [2018]

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Phil’s off hand tweet may imply the next Xbox will Support DXR. I guess it could mean anything. At the very least it implies the platform will support DXR, that makes for a very interesting thing in the PC space if halo 6 and future exclusives support it.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/977260569311891456

But if it means next gen Xbox hardware then I suspect we won’t be seeing a new Xbox for a while, 2021 likely. Phil would have known about DXR for a while likely before Scorpio was released, it’s likely been on the dx12 roadmap for a long time and they knew about dx12 before 2013. I suspect this is just one long roadmap for them. I don’t see MS responding to an early Sony console if that happens in 2019.
 
Well of course it will - it's part of the DirectX spec now! DXR and DML will be present on the next DirectX box. Hardware support will probably be whatever GPU features augment it. Addition of RT hardware (PowerVR like) is an unknown, but it seems a better idea now.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Well of course it will - it's part of the DirectX spec now! DXR and DML will be present on the next DirectX box. Hardware support will probably be whatever GPU features augment it. Addition of RT hardware (PowerVR like) is an unknown, but it seems a better idea now.
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Yea I guess the hesistent part of Me is declaring what’s those technologies will be. I’m not really sure to be honest, I imagine the technologies revealed today are far very introductory steps towards improving performance with Ray tracing and denoising. In 3 years time either there is a reasonably priced mainstream solution or they will skip it for the gen following. At $399 I have some doubts of how much they can get away with in 3 years time.

More flops, memory, cpu, and now the addition of tensor cores? Ehhhhh. Would the developer market be mature enough to commit to silicon real estate in 3 years for this?

Feels like 6-8 years to see DXR to be mainstream among the developer community

Just looking at FL12_1+ feature set, haven’t seen that been in use yet either. And it’s been available since maxwell.
 
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iroboto said:
Feels like 6-8 years to see DXR to be mainstream among the developer community

Just looking at FL12_1+ feature set, haven’t seen that been in use yet either. And it’s been available since maxwell.
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It used to be that any tech in a console was used. Now I guess with everything being so multiplat and homogenised, any feature the other's don't have won't be used, or will be stuck on top with minimal involvement. One console with RT hardware that the other(s) don't have will just get RTd reflections instead of screen space and that's it. :p
 
iroboto said:
Yea I guess the hesistent part of Me is declaring what’s those technologies will be. I’m not really sure to be honest, I imagine the technologies revealed today are far very introductory steps towards improving performance with Ray tracing and denoising. In 3 years time either there is a reasonably priced mainstream solution or they will skip it for the gen following. At $399 I have some doubts of how much they can get away with in 3 years time.

More flops, memory, cpu, and now the addition of tensor cores? Ehhhhh. Would the developer market be mature enough to commit to silicon real estate in 3 years for this?

Feels like 6-8 years to see DXR to be mainstream among the developer community

Just looking at FL12_1+ feature set, haven’t seen that been in use yet either. And it’s been available since maxwell.
Click to expand...
It looks like AMD doesn't really have hardware DXR yet while Nvidia will support with Volta+. I suspect publishers want to see DXR hardware on PC for a while before committing to use on a console, especially if it is costly to implement both DXR and non-DXR rendering in a game and/or software DXR is massively slow. XBox One 2 hardware DXR, even if well implemented, might be largely ignored by devs from a practical standpoint and end up as mostly wasted silicon. So yeah, Xbox One 3 sounds more reasonable.

The other unknown is that traditional rasterizing is looking really good and only getting better so how will RT compare with similar cost hardware?
 
dten said:
It looks like AMD doesn't really have hardware DXR yet while Nvidia will support with Volta+. I suspect publishers want to see DXR hardware on PC for a while before committing to use on a console, especially if it is costly to implement both DXR and non-DXR rendering in a game and/or software DXR is massively slow. XBox One 2 hardware DXR, even if well implemented, might be largely ignored by devs from a practical standpoint and end up as mostly wasted silicon. So yeah, Xbox One 3 sounds more reasonable.

The other unknown is that traditional rasterizing is looking really good and only getting better so how will RT compare with similar cost hardware?
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Yea. It’s an interesting discussion piece for Microsoft here, and it seems better setup for later than sooner.

Part of it is, DXR like all other features operate in a flag based system allowing code to branch depending on what setup the user has. And in this instance PC becomes this perfect place to pilot DXR as a bolt on during this transition period.

Whenever I think about MS I always go back to the service and subscription model. Reacting to Sony seems fairly distant for their goals here.

If they can get their exclusives onto PC with DXR pushing the envelope, the likelihood that we will see more game pass subscribers will increase. So on top of cross play and all the new MS Xbox exclusives for a nominal monthly fee they can also see tha DXR features being put to use here.

The question becomes how long or when it is appropriate to commit to hardware acceleration on console to move the baseline up furthering the appeal of game pass for PC and Xbox customers.

This idea coupled with cloud based game streaming with game pass, perhaps they can also support DXR games over streaming even if your hardware can’t support it.

All interesting thoughts, lots of challenges to address
 
But I thought the future was software rendering on the CPU...? Tim Sweeney said so in what, 1998? Surely that future will be here any day now!

:p
 
Ray Tracing coming soon to playstation.........................................june 2035.

Won' take much for Sony to produce an AMD system on 7nm with true 4k gaming as a goal by 2020-2021. No point bringing out anything sooner if it cannot reach that goal imo.
 
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DieH@rd said:
IMO, I would rather that AAA devs stick to HQ CBR and save rendering resources for larger/detailed gameworlds.
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I agree to a point but if you were a marketing department what would be the easiest feature to sell?

Funny enough ray tracing would be a massive boast for a sales department. Even if its use was very limited in application. Remember the days of the nvidia toy story boast?
 
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borntosoul said:
I agree to a point but if you were a marketing department what would be the easiest feature to sell?
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The CB solution, it will give a more detailed static image. Why else are so many game 30fps not 60 ;)

CB also resolved to a 4k image being output, it is not like interlaced where only part of the frame is being sent to the TV. I doubt most people know, understand or care. Call it what it is, 4k.

Digital Foundry the experts have been known to miss call these reconstruction techniques and they are relatively new, fast forward a few years and it will be even better especially at full 4k where artifacts will be even smaller.

I say throw in resolution scaling as well, smooth framerate and be ready for BC and or mid gen refreshes. Win win.
 
This Mid life refresh was all because of 4k output support. I dont beleive either Sony or ms wouldve bothered if it were not in the midst of the 4k t.v rollout. Btw l personaly prefer a more detailed world with better textures than resolution.
 
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