The scalability and evolution of game engines *spawn*

[Deleted member 11852]

He basically wish Microsoft to fail next generation maybe like this they can have less effort to do on Xbox Series S,

So why are you posting this biased ranting maniac's tweets here?

Having developers from high profile dev companies complaining so publicly about your budget console strategy is not ideal.

It well known how lazy devs are are, I am surprised they mustered up the energy to tweet at all! Which means, they're probably not real devs. Real devs would be too lazy too tweet this.

 

[iroboto]

You are missing the point. If the XSS with it's RDNA2 based GPU is faster than the X1X, why is it limited to running X1S titles, just faster? Why does it not run X1 games at X1X settings and resolution? Maybe because they actually cannot guarantee that it would be a good experience? Because the XSS is actually not as powerful as you all make it to be, despite the feature set? id developers are already taking jabs at XSS smaller and more importantly slower RAM on Twitter, saying that dropping resolution is not enough.

If you're running BC, the games will try to force in more into RAM than XSS has. So the only way that would work is for a recompile that doesn't exceed the memory allocation. If you're just asking like straight shot if it could run X1X settings, the answer should be yes, but without some slight modifications, there's no way it would work unfortunately. I don't think MS is interested in redoing all their X1X variants.

 

[JPT]

So why are you posting this biased ranting maniac's tweets here?



It well known how lazy devs are are, I am surprised they mustered up the energy to tweet at all! Which means, they're probably not real devs. Real devs would be too lazy too tweet this.

I have a confession to make, I am an OG lazy dev, in fact I am so lazy I do not even do development, I run a small tech company instead. And I concur with all other lazy devs griping.

 

[Rurouni]

Well, maybe just because x-patches than have to be rewritten because of the lower memory size. The size wouldn't be a problem if the game was optimized for the SSD but those a backcompat games, so developers will likely not put another enhancement patch out.

With enhanced xb360 BC titles I would predict that MS could "just" rework the "emulator" and it should work. But the question is, if they would really do it for the budget machine.
Also ist shouldn't be a problem for MS to use other things for xb1 games like AF and maybe AA. But games with dynamic res should profit day one from the better hardware.


But you totally ignore that when assets get created, they are always created in different quality steps, so objects that are far away from the camera have a lower quality. You can just use those assets instead of the highest res ones and save much memory.


btw, in relation to the xsx the xss has much higher bandwidth (because of lower asset quality -> smaller sizes) to the ssd, so it may use a smaller overall buffer. And than their SFS on top of that ... well if it realy works out.

Yes, I'm aware that you can lower assets, but how much lower are we talking about? For example, current gen, even at 1080p, could benefited from higher quality textures. So what do you do on XsS where it should have no problem having higher quality textures but because of the RAM limitation, it is now going to use current gen quality assets? Or because of wanting to show a more next gen look, it will use higher quality assets compared to current gen at the expense of 10GB limitation, which will affect XsX since if XsS is using higher quality texture, then all XsX could do to differentiate is using those ridiculously sized texture employed in PC space which have almost zero impact on normal game play run and only there because they can.
Of course the storage system on next gen consoles will definitely help, but still my point stands. I can use high quality textures on my 580 8GB GPU, I would be content if a system as powerful as XsX use similar asset quality (especially textures) as my GPU. XsS of course should have no problem with that same assets, which is exactly the problem. Do you optimize your game for XsS and scale up (which is easier but probably will not be utilizing XsX to the fullest) or optimize for XsX, and simply because of XsS have lesser RAM (not because it can't work with that level of quality), you lower the asset quality?

Also like someone (and I also have mention it on another post), a game like Dreams if it is made for XsX it probably won't run on XsS without having more constraint on what you can do.

And there is also ray tracing. A game with ray tracing will use more ram than without ray tracing and with XsS lower RAM, will it limit the ray tracing usage on XsX (also the much lower ray tracing unit on XsS doesn't help).

 

[Xbat]

The big misconception in my opinion is that pc don't really scale down they scale up.

Like saying look this game running on a 2080ti can run on a gtx 970 but with worse settings. Yes it does but if that game was made for a 2080ti as the minimum spec it would look a hell of a lot better than most games today and it probably wouldn't work well on a 970.

 

[Allandor]

Yes, I'm aware that you can lower assets, but how much lower are we talking about? For example, current gen, even at 1080p, could benefited from higher quality textures. So what do you do on XsS where it should have no problem having higher quality textures but because of the RAM limitation, it is now going to use current gen quality assets? Or because of wanting to show a more next gen look, it will use higher quality assets compared to current gen at the expense of 10GB limitation, which will affect XsX since if XsS is using higher quality texture, then all XsX could do to differentiate is using those ridiculously sized texture employed in PC space which have almost zero impact on normal game play run and only there because they can.
Of course the storage system on next gen consoles will definitely help, but still my point stands. I can use high quality textures on my 580 8GB GPU, I would be content if a system as powerful as XsX use similar asset quality (especially textures) as my GPU. XsS of course should have no problem with that same assets, which is exactly the problem. Do you optimize your game for XsS and scale up (which is easier but probably will not be utilizing XsX to the fullest) or optimize for XsX, and simply because of XsS have lesser RAM (not because it can't work with that level of quality), you lower the asset quality?

Also like someone (and I also have mention it on another post), a game like Dreams if it is made for XsX it probably won't run on XsS without having more constraint on what you can do.

And there is also ray tracing. A game with ray tracing will use more ram than without ray tracing and with XsS lower RAM, will it limit the ray tracing usage on XsX (also the much lower ray tracing unit on XsS doesn't help).

RT => with Crysis remastered, even xbox one X and PS4 Pro use Ray Tracing for some reflections. On the lower end console this is just a question of how many objects can get reflected. Simple as that.

The other thing, you always need your assets in different quality-steps. Your create them with or without a lower end target. Just don't load the higher quality assets and you save much of your memory.
Textures, rendertarget, shadow maps, RT, GI ... all relies heavily on resolutions and can be easily scaled back until it fits. I really don't see a problem in current gen graphics on the budget console (well it will get better, because of higher overall performance). Therefore it is a low budget console and more people may just buy one because of the lower pricepoint.

The only problem I see is if somebody really invests much memory into game logic. But we haven't seen this on in the current gent (512 -> 5(,5)GB ) so I don't expect this in the next gen. So this case is still irrelevant.
Also many indy titles show that graphics aren't that important. Most times it is the style.

On PC, main memory is most times just used, to faster stream in resources for the GPU (by copying from main memory to GPU-memory) and cache some other stuff. Gameplay logic footprint is really, really low.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

It is curious that its only negative comments from some devs that are posted here while positive comments from other devs are somehow ignored/avoided.

Where are these positive comments on the SeriesS that you speak of?

All non-negative comments I've seen so far are the ones from Coalition that appear in the SeriesS reveal, but that's a PR video with a 1st-party dev talking about the console. He's not even expected to be honest in what he's saying.

 

[goonergaz]

Where are these positive comments on the SeriesS that you speak of?

All non-negative comments I've seen so far are the ones from Coalition that appear in the SeriesS reveal, but that's a PR video with a 1st-party dev talking about the console. He's not even expected to be honest in what he's saying.

Too many to link - it'd take the site down

 

[function]

I can understand that memory quantity is going to make life more complicated next gen, but the reason MS have done this is to make next gen accessible to customers who would otherwise be locked out. For $299 XSS is pretty amazing.

Saying that this console shouldn't exist, and having a sweary whine on Twitter, is to imply that people who can't spend $500 on a console shouldn't be catered for.

That said, I do wish MS would have put another 2GB on the XSS. Very do-able with their clamshell arrangement, and probably less than $20 more on the BOM. Easy for me to say though - I don't have to justify a billion dollar decision to anyone.

 

[AlNom]

That said, I do wish MS would have put another 2GB on the XSS. Very do-able with their clamshell arrangement, and probably less than $20 more on the BOM. Easy for me to say though - I don't have to justify a billion dollar decision to anyone.

The odd thing to me is that you would think MS would have surveyed developers about these specs about whether they'd be adequate.

 

[Lalaland]

I hesitate to ascribe any motivation to a multi-billion dollar corporation beyond becoming a bigger multi-billion dollar corporation, in that light the desire to to take a majority of the console market share is motivation enough. Given the technical and market factors they pointed to during HotChips it was never going to be possible to gain both a price and a performance advantage in a single device the way Sony had last gen (itself a goal MS conceded by walking onto the football pitch in tennis gear) and thus we see a two device strategy.

That is not to discount the win for the consumer that flows from MS choosing to invest to try and win on both metrics rather than picking just one. I don't know anyone presented with a choice by a 3rd party that means more work for them who wouldn't be somewhat pissed off. Ultimately it is what it is, devs learned to deal with ESRAM, split RAM pools on PS3, etc, etc, and if nothing else it's going to make for interesting DF and market share analysis for the next few years, although I hope the entire team invests in some asbestos phone cases until the fanboi wars die off a bit.

 

[chris1515]

So why are you posting this biased ranting maniac's tweets here?



It well known how lazy devs are are, I am surprised they mustered up the energy to tweet at all! Which means, they're probably not real devs. Real devs would be too lazy too tweet this.

Because he is a dev, an angry dev but other dev says exactly the same things but being more polite and some dev of Doom Eternal one of the biggest third party title and considered as one of the best on technology side.

Digitalfoundry told at the polite version is devs does not like Xbox Series S maybe off the record some called it a piece of "censored".

Maybe the dev doesn't like the Xbox Series S and the fact the minimum specification are now Xbox Series S and not PS5.

EDIT: I hope more game devs will be as lazy as Id software.

 

[Allandor]

The odd thing to me is that you would think MS would have surveyed developers about these specs about whether they'd be adequate.

You can be sure, that they did that.
The Problem with the price is just GDDR6 is expensive. GDDR5 is still expensive and didn't drop in price. So the only alternative is to use less memory.
And we don't know if MS already subsidize the console. For a all digital console they could surely invest a bit money there to up the specs. But I guess if sony comes with an aggressive PS5 pricing, the price will go down to $249 in no time.

But just look at the new nvidia cards using GDDR6 memory. Again only with 8GB+ and only the card for ~$1400 gets 24GB. No 16GB cards there, instead they are trying to get the "SSD memory acceleration" to the PC.
It really seems we have a problem with to expensive fast memory there.

 

[BRiT]

The odd thing to me is that you would think MS would have surveyed developers about these specs about whether they'd be adequate.

Maybe they did, but it was all within their First Party Studios. They delivered lower latency and higher throughput NVME. Perhaps that's also what drove SFS to minimize memory capacity needed for textures. In the end Microsoft figured 1.5x the memory capacity for games was enough for next gen:
One S 5 GB -> 7.5 GB Series S
One X 9 GB -> 13.5 GB Series X

 

[see colon]

The odd thing to me is that you would think MS would have surveyed developers about these specs about whether they'd be adequate.

They may be trying to leverage their other technology to offset the material cost of the console. SFS, I/O speeds from the SSD and compression, etc... They've talked about these things supplementing the RAM and lowering the need for more with Series X. Assuming this is true it must also be true for S. Furthermore, they are pushing towards a consoleless future with Xcloud. What better way to drive people to that service than selling them a box that is almost obsolete at launch (according to it's critics) and in a few years time forcing them to stream the AAA games. It's digital only, right? The customer must have acceptable internet.

 

[AlNom]

They may be trying to leverage their other technology to offset the material cost of the console. SFS, I/O speeds from the SSD and compression, etc... They've talked about these things supplementing the RAM and lowering the need for more with Series X. Assuming this is true it must also be true for S.

True, but the thing is that the same RAM-saving optimizations would be applied to both, no? So it's still looking at a 6GB differential to make up with mostly graphical tweaks.


edit:
At the same time, I'm not sure what a recent snapshot of memory layout looks like for a current gen game.

If we think of the sort of gameplay experiences that are prevalent on current gen, I'm not so sure it'll be that much different next-gen just because it's a race to the bottom for budgets (darwinism if you will).

It might be more of a problem for creating an exclusive that really pushes gameplay data, whatever that may be, beyond what current generation's 5GB RAM allows if they had 2.3x the amount if that makes any sense.

 

[Silenti]

For those asking for positive comments from a dev. The following is 41 tweets long, but it is certainly positive.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1304003862894989312

 

[BRiT]

For those asking for positive comments from a dev. The following is 41 tweets long, but it is certainly positive.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1304003862894989312

Obligatory Twitter Thread unrolled link -- https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1304003862894989312.html

 

[chris1515]

The odd thing to me is that you would think MS would have surveyed developers about these specs about whether they'd be adequate.

Because they don't care probably. The most important things is to have a 299 consoles and the strategy to have the cheapest console and the most powerful one. Everything is compromise. If Xbox Series S is a success, all devs will target it.

Everyone do compromise. On Xbox Series X they could have gone with 20GB of RAM without a slower pool of memory but it was more expensive. For PS5 they could have gone with better GDDR6 module and memory bandwidth but the PS5 cost would have rise.

 

[chris1515]

For those asking for positive comments from a dev. The following is 41 tweets long, but it is certainly positive.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1304003862894989312

lol Gavin Stevens, the guy who release no games. Again we have very serious source with Xbox Series S|X devlkit.

The phantom indie devs...

EDIT: At least this is more credible and postive too.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1303348461782421504