Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[GrimThorne]

Phil Harrison said fairly recently that it is all about having the best games and not gigaflops and teraflops, and he also mentioned some interesting tidbits about the console, saying it is still unfinished, both the hardware and the OS.

Okay, not that I'm trying to nitpick over what he' saying, BUT............when you say gigaflops and teraflops don't matter because it's all about the games. Doesn't gigaflops and teraflops become important to developers because THEY are all about the games?

And who exactly is Harrison talking to? Gamers who won't actually be working on any hardware, or developers who will tell you that they appreciate any added performance they can get?

And as you just said, he then comes back at us by mentioning that things are unfinished and that they can "upgrade" (obviously through software) the Xbox One.

“The other is that any time that you ask a developer – including, by the way, our own internal studios – in the run up to launch of a console you’re going to get a slightly nuanced answer because the operating system’s not finished, the performance of the machine’s not locked, and as you may be aware we can increase CPU and GPU capability on Xbox One,” continued Harrison. “So I think it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from that based on pre-launch unfinished hardware and unfinished operating systems.

Nov 22nd is right around the corner, the time for playing hide and go seek with your platform's specs has past. Whatever they're planning they better do it fast.

 

[Rangers]

Okay, not that I'm trying to nitpick over what he' saying, BUT............when you say gigaflops and teraflops don't matter because it's all about the games. Doesn't gigaflops and teraflops become important to developers because THEY are all about the games?

And who exactly is Harrison talking to? Gamers who won't actually be working on any hardware, or developers who will tell you that they appreciate any added performance they can get?

And as you just said, he then comes back at us by mentioning that things are unfinished and that they can "upgrade" (obviously through software) the Xbox One.




Nov 22nd is right around the corner, the time for playing hide and go seek with your platform's specs has past. Whatever they're planning they better do it fast.

They've revealed all the specs. Even moreso than Sony (they gave us CPU clock which Sony has not).


What Harrison means by still improving hardware I dont know. Is it somehow possible they're still contemplating enabling 2 CU's (or have but haven't announced it)? By far the most likely scenario is he was just referring to the the past upclocks in the present tense. That or a cloud reference. Or mixed metaphors with improving drivers.

 

[GrimThorne]

They've revealed all the specs. Even moreso than Sony (they gave us CPU clock which Sony has not).


What Harrison means by still improving hardware I dont know. Is it somehow possible they're still contemplating enabling 2 CU's (or have but haven't announced it)? By far the most likely scenario is he was just referring to the the past upclocks in the present tense. That or a cloud reference. Or mixed metaphors with improving drivers.

Well that's what I'm talking about, not hardware specs. They dropped hints all summer long about how the Xbox One's specs would "change over time", but they never clarify whether it's through the cloud, drivers, clocks or all the above.

 

[taisui]

Well that's what I'm talking about, not hardware specs. They dropped hints all summer long about how the Xbox One's specs would "change over time", but they never clarify whether it's through the cloud, drivers, clocks or all the above.

I think Harrison should just shut it. His track record isn't exactly believable IMO. He was the one that started the whole conversation on how the "loaning game" would be at "full price," and I don't recall him faring any better when he was with Sony a few years ago.

 

[Grall]

What Harrison means by still improving hardware I dont know. Is it somehow possible they're still contemplating enabling 2 CU's (or have but haven't announced it)?

How would they do that when they've been permanently fused off at the fab already...?

He's a spinning PR top. Pay him no mind whatsoever just like you do with all such people, no matter who they work for.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Phil Harrison said fairly recently that it is all about having the best games and not gigaflops and teraflops, and he also mentioned some interesting tidbits about the console, saying it is still unfinished, both the hardware and the OS.http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...-Harrison-Its-Not-The-Gigaflops-Its-The-Games

There's only one way that can be true, and that's if they release the console throttled to lower than capable performance (reduce clocks, switch off cores), and then enable its full capability later. And why on earth would anyone do that?! It's just PR hogwash. Okay, maybe we'll see something like freeing up some DSP time for games to use which could sort of count as improving the hardware relative to what the games see, but what he suggests is otherwise proof of madness. Improving the OS to make it more efficient is nothing like increasing the CPU and GPU capability.

 

[BRiT]

Please leave the business concerns and plans out of this thread. Also, stop with the completely false numbers. They don't belong in this technical thread.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's also worth pointing out that this thread is pretty much come to a close, seeing as we have specific details on the machine from the people who designed it. I think there's a question of compute implementations and whether there are any major customisations. Otherwise there's nothing more to say, and any pointers to more or different hardware are going to be bunkum.

 

[Jay]

It's also worth pointing out that this thread is pretty much come to a close, seeing as we have specific details on the machine from the people who designed it.

Well......
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...unlock-more-gpu-power-for-xbox-one-developers

Glad you said close

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The changing of the firmware to free up GPU and CPU cycles otherwise withheld from games has nothing to do with determining the hardware inside the console. The hardware is a known quantity. OS and FW changes don't belong in this discussion.

 

[Jay]

Fair enough but I found things like the fact that it time slices gpu reservation rather than a fixed allocation new and pertinent to this thread.
Would technical news/discussion/etc be put in the thread in the parent forum thread?
Guess so actually...

 

[Arwin]

At least we can wait until after the weekend, right? As that's when the full interview is posted.

 

[mosen]

Uh oh.

I think people had already forgotten about that GPU reserve. Actual GPU power at lauch 1.18TFLOPS

GPU reserve isn't only for snap mode?

 

[dumbo11]

GPU reserve isn't only for snap mode?

AFAIK the GPU reservation is mostly for kinect skeletal analysis.

The quirky bit is the time-slice nature of the reservation... I guess this helps reduce kinect latency, but it's still surprisingly "crude".

 

[McHuj]

I imagine that if they ever want to do things like a video (party) chat overlay they'll have to reserve some of the GPU so the game has a certain guaranteed resources.

 

[upnorthsox]

Fair enough but I found things like the fact that it time slices gpu reservation rather than a fixed allocation new and pertinent to this thread.
Would technical news/discussion/etc be put in the thread in the parent forum thread?
Guess so actually...

Not sure I understand what you're refering to, can you quote the part where it discusses time slicing?

 

[bkilian]

AFAIK the GPU reservation is mostly for kinect skeletal analysis.

The quirky bit is the time-slice nature of the reservation... I guess this helps reduce kinect latency, but it's still surprisingly "crude".

Crude how? It is exactly how the 360 does it's system reservation too.

 

[Grall]

Crude perhaps if it reserves time slices even for games that don't actually use kinect input.

 

[Betanumerical]

Crude perhaps if it reserves time slices even for games that don't actually use kinect input.

It has to for OS level kinect functionality doesn't it?.

 

[dumbo11]

Crude how? It is exactly how the 360 does it's system reservation too.

Yes, and logically it's definitely the best way of solving the problem.

But it just feels like these consoles have umpteen features to mitigate stalls/chokepoints, and this feels like someone intentionally stalling the pipeline?

Not sure what I was expecting though, as it is a pretty good solution.