Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[ProjectNatalFan]

To be fair the quote is pretty open ended and we do have Corrine Yu leaving MS recently for Naughty Dog and in one of her Twitter post she specifically talked about getting to the metal as a reason for the move. I fully expect optimizations but Kinect isn't going to be free either. Its highly likely that MS will focus more on Kinect and UI integration and less on graphics since that is their strength this time around. They'd be better off spending those resources developing apps and tools instead of trying to get back GPU reservation anyway.

Its kinda hard to keep up with the talking points, graphic differences are minimal and don't matter and 12 months later we have more GPU resources for better graphics.... Much of the press and public and this point is repeating their POV best to just move on.

well Im assuming more power will be tapped. How it will be done like I said is a mystery. Sometimes you find ways. I remember people calling it "magical math" when the esram bandwidth 133 theoretical news came about. I take Microsoft at face value, they are one of the best software companies out there and I believe they will in fact give devs access to this time slice like Goosen implies. Here is the full article http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...unlock-more-gpu-power-for-xbox-one-developers if you would like to read. Maybe the options would be to let the devs disable snap and Kinect features? I don't know, but judging by his statements I don't think that's the case.

 

[ProjectNatalFan]

also from that article is this....
In addition to asynchronous compute queues, the Xbox One hardware supports two concurrent render pipes," Goossen pointed out. "The two render pipes can allow the hardware to render title content at high priority while concurrently rendering system content at low priority. The GPU hardware scheduler is designed to maximise throughput and automatically fills 'holes' in the high-priority processing. This can allow the system rendering to make use of the ROPs for fill, for example, while the title is simultaneously doing synchronous compute operations on the compute units."

It sounds like QOS to me. I think Microsoft is finding ways to exploit the xbox one and I wouldn't be surprised if the full 10 percent is available.

 

[Betanumerical]

also from that article is this....
In addition to asynchronous compute queues, the Xbox One hardware supports two concurrent render pipes," Goossen pointed out. "The two render pipes can allow the hardware to render title content at high priority while concurrently rendering system content at low priority. The GPU hardware scheduler is designed to maximise throughput and automatically fills 'holes' in the high-priority processing. This can allow the system rendering to make use of the ROPs for fill, for example, while the title is simultaneously doing synchronous compute operations on the compute units."

It sounds like QOS to me. I think Microsoft is finding ways to exploit the xbox one and I wouldn't be surprised if the full 10 percent is available.

do not expect the entire reservation to go away, some of it is for kinect.

 

[ProjectNatalFan]

do not expect the entire reservation to go away, some of it is for kinect.

well I guess until we get more details we will not know. All I know is that sometimes people say things are impossible are actually possible. Ive seen it in my field telecommunications with the onset of B8ZS and QOS. I hope we hear more about this and how the options work and if its full,or a slice of it. I will take goosens words as is and I wont further speculate about how they do it. If bkilian says different than I would believe him. That guy is a genius

 

[Betanumerical]

well I guess until we get more details we will not know. All I know is that sometimes people say things are impossible are actually possible. Ive seen it in my field telecommunications with the onset of B8ZS and QOS. I hope we hear more about this and how the options work and if its full,or a slice of it. I will take goosens words as is and I wont further speculate about how they do it. If bkilian says different than I would believe him. That guy is a genius

doing the processing requires the GPU, no way around it. Some of it will always be there as long as snap and kinect are required.

 

[ProjectNatalFan]

doing the processing requires the GPU, no way around it. Some of it will always be there as long as snap and kinect are required.

well who knows what options they will implement, I think the article would have said that if it wouldn't be the full 10percent. when Goosen says In addition to asynchronous compute queues, the Xbox One hardware supports two concurrent render pipes," Goossen pointed out. "The two render pipes can allow the hardware to render title content at high priority while concurrently rendering system content at low priority. in regards to the reservation that reminds me of QOS or quality of service. Now I sometimes reference my telecom experience to this, maybe not applicable, but at one time a 64kb channel could only used for voice and or data, then they came up with QOS and that enabled you to prioritize the data in such a way that both data and voice can follow over that 64kb pipe. Now is that what they might be doing here? I don't know, maybe its something as simple as negating snap and Kinect and you will be alerted that you cant use those features during the game and its disabled? I don't know, but I do think the xbox one will definitely be getting more power which prompted me to ask about Titanfall 1080p.

 

[Rangers]

If you can read that and think the reservation is going away, I don't know what to tell you. Devs will never get access to more than what is left over after "maintaining full system functionality". The quote doesn't even confirm a reduction, just "more options" which could mean as little as more customizable use of the system level Kinect capabilities.

It actually is 100% clear cut they will be offering up more of the GPU to developers. Also if you think like the entire internet that the competition reserves no GPU for OS "I dont know what to tell you".

It wouldn't shock me at all if XBO GPU OS reservation is less than the other two "next gen" consoles. It does more, but MS has a history of being more efficient in these areas. Of course we will never know, leaving lots of room for wishful thinking, but the games speak for themselves.

 

[BRiT]

*AHEM* Can we please keep this thread to the Technical nature? Please, lets leave the vague interpretations of general comments to the other thread. Also, let's not turn this into a versus thread. Thanks!

 

[Betanumerical]

well who knows what options they will implement, I think the article would have said that if it wouldn't be the full 10percent. when Goosen says In addition to asynchronous compute queues, the Xbox One hardware supports two concurrent render pipes," Goossen pointed out. "The two render pipes can allow the hardware to render title content at high priority while concurrently rendering system content at low priority. in regards to the reservation that reminds me of QOS or quality of service. Now I sometimes reference my telecom experience to this, maybe not applicable, but at one time a 64kb channel could only used for voice and or data, then they came up with QOS and that enabled you to prioritize the data in such a way that both data and voice can follow over that 64kb pipe. Now is that what they might be doing here? I don't know, maybe its something as simple as negating snap and Kinect and you will be alerted that you cant use those features during the game and its disabled? I don't know, but I do think the xbox one will definitely be getting more power which prompted me to ask about Titanfall 1080p.

They physically cannot give up the entire reservation, what you keep quoting is not a standard part of GCN but it is only something to give quicker response times to the OS allowing it to do overlays and what not quicker. This is does not get around the requirement for processing power to do the kinect calculations and render the snap'd application, how do you propose they do both of those? magic?.

 

[bkilian]

well I guess until we get more details we will not know. All I know is that sometimes people say things are impossible are actually possible. Ive seen it in my field telecommunications with the onset of B8ZS and QOS. I hope we hear more about this and how the options work and if its full,or a slice of it. I will take goosens words as is and I wont further speculate about how they do it. If bkilian says different than I would believe him. That guy is a genius

Whut?

As regards reservation, 360 had GPU reservation and PS3 had GPU reservation. Any modern console will have a GPU reservation. On the XB1, the reservation is about half of the entire capacity of the 360 GPU, so it's easy to believe there's a lot of room for improvement. It'll never get down to 0 though.

 

[ProjectNatalFan]

Whut?

As regards reservation, 360 had GPU reservation and PS3 had GPU resarticle thon. Any modern console will have a GPU reservation. On the XB1, the reservation is about half of the entire capacity of the 360 GPU, so it's easy to believe there's a lot of room for improvement. It'll never get down to 0 though.

Ok I thought maybe they came up a way to open up the reservation by an exploit. I dont get that article tho. Will be interesting to know the options he is referring to. If it was downsizing the reservation I dont know why they wouldnt just say that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Ok I thought maybe they came up a way to open up the reservation by an exploit. I dont get that article tho. Will be interesting to know the options he is referring to.

Disabling certain features in certain games, perhaps. We've seen that happen with other devices, where OS level features aren't all supported on some games. 'Considering options' is a more flexible way of saying, "We may reduce overhead in future in some ways, none of which we're particular about at the moment because we've really got far more important things to worry about like a new product launch and getting all the current and short-term OS features working." If he said, "We'll downsize the reservation," then that'll invite the response, "Why did you make it so large to begin with? Why no downsize it now?"

 

[ProjectNatalFan]

Disabling certain features in certain games, perhaps. We've seen that happen with other devices, where OS level features aren't all supported on some games. 'Considering options' is a more flexible way of saying, "We may reduce overhead in future in sit sme ways, none of which we're particular about at the moment because we've really got far more important things to worry about like a new product launch and getting all the current.nd short-term OS features working." If he said, "We'll downsize the reservation," then that'll invite the response, "Why did you make it so large to begin with? Why no downsize it now?"

I guess they cant open a can of worms by allowing a dev to disable snap and kinect for more power because then wont most devs just ask for it in games? That kinda defeats their visions Of the console with snap etc. If thats the case I dont know why they would even comment on it since its pretty well know that all consoles have this reservations. Also dont understand why he references the cu's and the prioritizing. I dont get it, but i see what bikilian and yourself are saying.

 

[Zachriel]

The comment regarding freeing up resources from the OS really isn't anything secret or special and was done on consoles last gen.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Sony-PlayStation-Game-Console-RAM,news-5933.html

Just as Developers will learn how to get the most out of the system, so will the os software engineers.

Dan Greenawalt commented recently that they were using 100% of the available resources in Forza 5. This doesn't mean games won't get better, as they will learn how to use those resources more efficiently. As a result if they were rebuilding Forza 5 from scratch now and wanted to create exactly the same experience it could probably be done using less resources as they find new ways to optimise their code.

This is how they will (more than likely) push Forza 6 even further. Game developers will constantly want to be pushing the experience for years to come without necessarily knowing now what they will want to create or be expected to create. So as quickly as they are freeing resources up they will consume them by pushing the bar further.

On the OS side they have a much better idea of what their user experience needs to be. So in this case optimising their code can result in freeing up resources and giving them to the game allocation.

 

[onQ]

Has this been posted yet? The video from the Xbox One Hotchips presentation.

http://youtu.be/IZ-S3Trhg7Y

SoC talk start around 38:00.

 

[LightHeaven]

Has this been posted yet? The video from the Xbox One Hotchips presentation.

http://youtu.be/IZ-S3Trhg7Y

SoC talk start around 38:00.

Thank you for the link!

I only watched the first part, but I think I was able to grab a few details I didn't see mentioned before:

- The SoC design was driven to hit a determined performance target, with the lowest cost and power consumption possible. And the SoC should be able to provide system services and apps in parallel if games. To comply to all these they came up with lots of on die memory and a shared two dimensional memory controller shared by the gpu and the specialized processors.

- About half of the 5 billion transistors are for the 47MB of on die memory.

- They didn't customize the jaguar cores themselves. They modified the memory controllers, so the jaguar cores can better cope with the high coherent bandwidth memory.

- They also haven't customized the gnc cores themselves. Their modifications were made to the graphics and compute commands processors. They were modified with the following requirements:
* Minimize CPU overhead
* Minimize the time it takes for the gpu to receive commands from the CPU
* Work with high coherent bandwidth.
* Optimize GPGPU

- The specialized processors and gpus share a single two dimensional memory controller. That controller has two paths from the DDR3 ram: One coherent at 30GB/s, and one not coherent that can get the full 68GB/s. They say that controller is the main reason why xbone can run apps alongside games. It sounded like a QoS system is in place, but he never said it explicitly...

- Coherency with the CPU is made on a page level. If a page is marked as coherent there's no need to copy any data between the processor and CPU, you just have to pass pointers. A coherent page can be used by the CPU, gpu or any of the specialized processors that share the gpu's mmu.

- The audio processors were designed by MS itself. It performs operations that would require more than a jaguar core, but being much smaller and consuming way less power than what a jaguar core would. The calculations to determine the audio source position used by Kinect are done in these processors.

 

[Jwm]

@bkillian - what is going on with the X1 audio? Netflix won't output the center channel with 5.1 audio, popular 5.1/7.1 headphones will not work, etc. Do you still have any insight on this, it is rather annoying but at least the game audio is fine (aside from headphones).

I tried last night for hours to rewire my system to route the HDMI into the AVR, but that proved later to be a waste of time as it won't pass-through protected audio so I was still stuck with two-channel headphones.

On a side note I really need a 50' Kinect 2 extension cable so it will work as intended. I saw mono-price is working on this at least.

 

[bkilian]

@bkillian - what is going on with the X1 audio? Netflix won't output the center channel with 5.1 audio, popular 5.1/7.1 headphones will not work, etc. Do you still have any insight on this, it is rather annoying but at least the game audio is fine (aside from headphones).

I tried last night for hours to rewire my system to route the HDMI into the AVR, but that proved later to be a waste of time as it won't pass-through protected audio so I was still stuck with two-channel headphones.

On a side note I really need a 50' Kinect 2 extension cable so it will work as intended. I saw mono-price is working on this at least.

No clue, sorry. When I was working on it, it was basically a skeleton, the stuff you're talking about wasn't even on the horizon yet.

How do your headphones connect? I must admit complete ignorance on the part of multichannel headphones.

 

[Jwm]

No clue, sorry. When I was working on it, it was basically a skeleton, the stuff you're talking about wasn't even on the horizon yet.

How do your headphones connect? I must admit complete ignorance on the part of multichannel headphones.

Optical - it is the fake Dolby Headphone processing but it works well enough for when I can't have the full AV equipment on. I wanted to try a pair that had true 5.1 inputs for each wire, but the price to review ratio was not high enough.

 

[hesido]

- About half of the 5 billion transistors are for the 47MB of on die memory.
...
- The specialized processors and gpus share a single two dimensional memory controller. That controller has two paths from the DDR3 ram: One coherent at 30GB/s, and one not coherent that can get the full 68GB/s. They say that controller is the main reason why xbone can run apps alongside games. It sounded like a QoS system is in place, but he never said it explicitly...

Dat transistor budget, eaten up by the on die memory.. Evident from the die shots, but it's something that they probably had to, after going with DDR3.

A nice 30GB/s coherent mem read, btw..