NGGP: NextGen Garbage Pile (aka: No one reads the topics or stays on topic) *spawn*

[Silent_Buddha]

Some info (no specs) from Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5982986/we-know-all-about-the-next-xbox-from-someone-who-says-theyve-got-one

So, depending on whether there's any truth or merit to what they are passing on from this guy, there's some interesting things there.

Kinect 2 being able to now track the neck, middle torso, thumbs, and fingers (as a group, not individually) is pretty interesting. I'd imagine the additional neck and torso points are just to improve tracking of the head in relation to the body as well as the upper torso in relation to the lower torso. So basically just there for additional accuracy in motion tracking. The thumb and fingers on the other hand open up more gaming opportunities.

The play as you install, if true, ends up giving you the best of old school console instant play combined with PC game loading superiority without any drawbacks (other than the probably slowish notebook HDD).

Being able to background and suspend a game allows for easier family gaming. Dad playing his game but is between checkpoints when his wife insists she needs to get her fitness workout in or kids come in wanting to have a quick game with daddy? No problem.

Of course, as with any pre-release rumors and leaks. Take it with a large does of salt.

You really don't see it.?

Durango is moving to 50GB disc,imaging installing big games on your HDD,how fast it will fill,and guessing that Windows 8 or variable will be pre installed it will not be 500GB per say,hell it never is even without windows.

There is a reason why is build in and you even need the camera to be connected at all times,i think normal controller will be secondary like the normal controller on Wii U.

For voice command you don't need a camera all you need is a good mic.

They even have the same diagram,and SuperDae claimed new specs info on Durango from the Kotaku article.

How fast the game installs is irrelevant if the Kotaku information is correct.

What's more, this installation can take place automatically, while you're playing the game. Durango titles can be designed in "sections," so that you can pop your disc in, start playing and, in the background, the rest of the game will install.

So, play the game while it installs. It is the best of both worlds. Some games on PC have tried to do this (Diablo 3, for instance). Start playing immediately like traditional consoles while at the same time have the superior level loading times of an HDD installation. All the benefits, and none of the drawbacks.

For voice commands for a living room console where multiple people might be playing, just a microphone won't be good enough. Why do you think both Sony and Microsoft are working on multiple microphone arrays. It allows the system (at least with Kinect) to pinpoint the speaker. Thus allowing multiple people to potentially issue voice commands.

You could, of course, just require everyone to wear a headset while playing party games, but that would turn a lot of gamers off. It's one thing to wear a headset when you're playing all by yourself. It's a completely different thing in a party type of atmosphere with multiple people.

Regards,
SB

 

[XpiderMX]

One of the reasons you believe the 360 is so "powerful" is because it doesn't (well it does, but not the way you're referring to) multitask. The devs can rely on the fact that the CPU cache is all theirs, this allows them to design algorithms that are _much_ more efficient than on a general purpose PC.

If multitasking is like the cell phones, it is not a "real" multitasking, games (and apps) can use most resources because there is not "multiple apps" running at the same time.

 

[xJumPeRJumPzZ]

Sadly Durango looks like a no buy for me. I dont need or want Kinect at all.

 

[Blazkowicz]

amd kabini has 4 jaguar cores with 2 CU of gcn cores . what if orbis has 2 kabini and 14 gcn gpu ?

That'd be three GPUs?
a lot of duplicated silicon (or triplicated)

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If multitasking is like the cell phones, it is not a "real" multitasking, games (and apps) can use most resources because there is not "multiple apps" running at the same time.

It will most likely be multitasking as done in Windows 8 Metro UI. Which allows for various program states when a program is in the background. Assuming the rumor is true.

Regards,
SB

 

[XpiderMX]

It will most likely be multitasking as done in Windows 8 Metro UI. Which allows for various program states when a program is in the background. Assuming the rumor is true.

Regards,
SB

I guess it is very similar to cell phones way, as in Android, an App can have the focus (current app in screen), but there are some different "states" for an app, and most are "low resources".

 

[Xenio]

some hint of the realworld durango's performances:

Our source even claims to have played some Durango games, describing the graphical leap from current-gen console gaming like going from playing Halo 2 on an original Xbox to playing Crysis on a powerful PC.

damn, the jump from 360 is THAT big for the FIRST generation/launch games? as from xbox1 to crysis highend level on a powerful pc?

 

[Ruskie]

some hint of the realworld durango's performances:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1705627&postcount=687

Take that with a grain of salt.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

damn, the jump from 360 is THAT big for the FIRST generation/launch games? as from xbox1 to crysis highend level on a powerful pc?

That is clearly, evidently, total BS. XB to monster PC is a factor of a 100 fold increase; more even. Someone looked at some pretty screens and got blown away, and then made a totally unjustified, hyperbolic comparison.

 

[Betanumerical]

Could someone please answer a question I had in another thread.

On modern GPU such as that in Orbis / Durango how much GPU time would it take to upscale blend 3 buffers together ?. I'm trying to workout if orbis could do the display panes at reasonable speed.

 

[DJ12]

some hint of the realworld durango's performances:



damn, the jump from 360 is THAT big for the FIRST generation/launch games? as from xbox1 to crysis highend level on a powerful pc?

Quite why SuperDAE would have actual games when I'm sure Microsoft have him on every single blacklist they have available.

 

[pjbliverpool]

The play as you install, if true, ends up giving you the best of old school console instant play combined with PC game loading superiority without any drawbacks (other than the probably slowish notebook HDD).

This has actually been a possibility on the PC since at least the start of Games for Windows. It was actually on of the feature MS were trying to push for GfW certified titles and Halo 2 implemented it if I recall correctly.

Unfortunately it was just about the only game that did.

 

[Xenio]

Quite why SuperDAE would have actual games when I'm sure Microsoft have him on every single blacklist they have available.

He have access to dev kits and software, the dev kit that he sells are complete, so it's not so hard that he have seen something in development, even if I think this is an exageration

Someone looked at some pretty screens and got blown away, and then made a totally unjustified, hyperbolic comparison.

I agree with you, but I'm really curious to see what devs and lucky men are looking at

 

[XpiderMX]

He have access to dev kits and software, the dev kit that he sells are complete, so it's not so hard that he have seen something in development, even if I think this is an exageration

Are SW1313 and/or Watch Dogs something like Halo 2-> Crysis? I don't think so.

 

[Xenio]

Display panels http://www.vgleaks.com/durango-display-planes/

The three display planes are independent in the following ways, among others:

They can have different resolutions.
They can have different precisions (bits per channel) and formats (float or fixed).
They can have different color spaces (RGB or YCbCr, linear or sRGB).
Each display plane can consist of up to four image rectangles, covering different parts of the screen. The use of multiple screen rectangles can reduce memory and bandwidth consumption when a layer contains blank or occluded areas.

The display hardware contains three different instances of various image processing components, one per display plane, including:

A hardware scaler.
A color space converter.
A border cropper.
A data type converter.
Using these components, the GPU converts all three display planes to a common output profile before combining them.

The bottom and middle display planes are reserved for the running title. A typical use of these two planes is to render the game world at a fixed title-specified resolution, while rendering the UI at the native resolution of the connected display, as communicated over HDMI. In this way, the title keeps the benefits of high-quality hardware rescaling, without losing the pixel-accuracy and sharpness of the interface. The GPU does not require that all three display planes be updated at the same frequency. For instance, the title might decide to render the world at 60 Hz and the UI at 30 Hz, or vice-versa. The hardware also does not require the display planes to be the same size from one frame to the next.

 

[Betanumerical]

Display panels http://www.vgleaks.com/durango-display-planes/

The three display planes are independent in the following ways, among others:

They can have different resolutions.
They can have different precisions (bits per channel) and formats (float or fixed).
They can have different color spaces (RGB or YCbCr, linear or sRGB).
Each display plane can consist of up to four image rectangles, covering different parts of the screen. The use of multiple screen rectangles can reduce memory and bandwidth consumption when a layer contains blank or occluded areas.

The display hardware contains three different instances of various image processing components, one per display plane, including:

A hardware scaler.
A color space converter.
A border cropper.
A data type converter.
Using these components, the GPU converts all three display planes to a common output profile before combining them.

The bottom and middle display planes are reserved for the running title. A typical use of these two planes is to render the game world at a fixed title-specified resolution, while rendering the UI at the native resolution of the connected display, as communicated over HDMI. In this way, the title keeps the benefits of high-quality hardware rescaling, without losing the pixel-accuracy and sharpness of the interface. The GPU does not require that all three display planes be updated at the same frequency. For instance, the title might decide to render the world at 60 Hz and the UI at 30 Hz, or vice-versa. The hardware also does not require the display planes to be the same size from one frame to the next.

So the display planes don't do the final blending of all the buffers the GPU does ? Meaning that the display planes upscale data convert between colour spaces and then get the GPU to blend the final 3 buffers together ?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So the display planes don't do the final blending of all the buffers the GPU does ? Meaning that the display planes upscale data convert between colour spaces and then get the GPU to blend the final 3 buffers together ?

Not enough information on how it is implemented in hardware.

It would seem to imply that there have been modifications to the GPU in order to facilitate this. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point in pointing it out as something special.

Then again, it could just be the person relaying the information doesn't fully understand what he knew and it actually is a separate block that isn't part of the GPU.

And this is all assuming he knows something.

Regards,
SB

 

[bkilian]

Could someone please answer a question I had in another thread.

On modern GPU such as that in Orbis / Durango how much GPU time would it take to upscale blend 3 buffers together ?. I'm trying to workout if orbis could do the display panes at reasonable speed.

Depends on the size of the buffers, how much of each buffer is being blended, the quality of the upscale, etc. It's an unanswerable question without making some assumptions.

Let's assume we have scaled and normalised colour and pixel spaces, and we have three 1080p 32bit buffers to mix, For each pixel, it's two FMADDs, so it's 8 million operations per blend, or 497 MFlops, or 1/2 a GFlop. Essentially a rounding error on a single CU. So the blend of three panes is cheap.

Normalising the buffers is probably about the same order. Let's call it another 1/2 a GFlop.

A high quality scaler is a reasonably heavy calculation. In the example given, only two of those panes would be scaled. Let's say we're using a bilinear scaler, that's 9 ops per pixel, coming to ~2GFlops. For bicubic, we get about 8GFlops.

That's simplified, and I may be missing some stuff on the scaling front, but it looks like it would take about 5-10% of one CU, assuming two buffers are always scaled, and we're operating at 1080p60.

 

[Xenio]

So the display planes don't do the final blending of all the buffers the GPU does ? Meaning that the display planes upscale data convert between colour spaces and then get the GPU to blend the final 3 buffers together ?

how do you come into this conclusion?
the article says that gpu support 3 planes, not that gpu does anything else

anyway the most relevant thing in my opinion is the part in red
there can be a good advantage because the use of multiple screen rectangles can reduce memory and bandwidth consumption

 

[Betanumerical]

how do you come into this conclusion?
the article says that gpu support 3 planes, not that gpu does anything else

anyway the most relevant thing in my opinion is the part in red
there can be a good advantage because the use of multiple screen rectangles can reduce memory and bandwidth consumption

It says there combined and blended on the GPU right in the article