Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[taisui]

I would beg to differ, Bink is good solely on the basis of compressed size and even at that I thought I read that h264 beats it. THe IQ off bink is awful with macro blocking a go go on anything daring to move at more than a snails pace across the screen.

Sure...then I don't see why there's any point talking about the performance of a crappy codec as if it matters

 

[Lalaland]

Sure...then I don't see why there's any point talking about the performance of a crappy codec as if it matters

I agree with you that the performance of this crappy codec really is indicative of bugger all, I just hope the IQ for the n msec it does use is miles ahead of what Bink 1 delivered

 

[Deleted member 86764]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...l-release-console-discussions-horses-and-rust

Who let you in, miSTARX? Surely you've got to give up on this 'hidden GPU' nonsense by now?

 

[Boxercide]

Whats that idea?

They are going to have the XBOne be a PC/Win 8 device. You can hook up a keyboard and mouse and run W8 apps.

 

[LightHeaven]

Except that's not what the architects had said, they specifically refers to the CUs in the context of graphics. Decoding is gpgpu ops which scale with the CUs, just because the numbers look aligned doesn't imply that they are related.

the bottleneck of the system is always the slowest part, hence the name, "bottleneck," in this particular case, the Juguar CPU is the weakest link, so it doesn't matter if you have more GPU power, the whole system can only compute as fast (or slow) as the CPU can.

So, you are actually agreeing with me XD

Their claim was:

"Everybody knows from the internet that going to 14 CUs should have given us almost 17 per cent more performance, but in terms of actual measured games - what actually, ultimately counts - is that it was a better engineering decision to raise the clock. There are various bottlenecks you have in the pipeline that can cause you not to get the performance you want if your design is out of balance."

"Interestingly, the biggest source of your frame-rate drops actually comes from the CPU, not the GPU, Adding the margin on the CPU... we actually had titles that were losing frames largely because they were CPU-bound in terms of their core threads. In providing what looks like a very little boost, it's actually a very significant win for us in making sure that we get the steady frame-rates on our console."

I said, contrary to what DrJay24 commented, that this particular benchmark falls back in what Ms claimed. And judging by what you said now, you actually agree, perhaps you though I was using this example to over generalize or something like that, sorry if it was the case.

The only thing it cements is that in one specific implementation of a video codec / player that most likely isn't even taking advantage of the extra cu it doesn't matter.

It couldn't be farther from cementing anything.

My comment was specifically in the context of DrJay24's quote, and we both were talking about specifically about this video codec.

He said that this shows how Ms was wrong and more CUs make for a better gpu, and I said that this bench doesn't show that because part of their claim was that everything has to be balanced, and this falls back to it.

Must be why AMD makes 30CU cards. Of course it scales, just like CUDA cores scale. How they scale is the only real question. 12 in no magic number, unless you consider die space, heat and cost.

Who's making that claim that you can never get more performance if you go beyond 12 CUs? Of course you'll have a performance increase, the point is that you need to scale other parts of your design too, being too much ALU and then being bound by something else that is far slower is not an ideal scenario.

Putting 30 or even more CUs on Xbone and Ps4 wouldn't increase performance linearly with the CU count, it might help, but there are more effective ways to get performance up.

 

[taisui]

It's already establish that the MSFT architects words were taken out of context and made into a false claim, there's no need to beat the dead horse.

 

[liolio]

Whats that idea?

They can cast lightning from their hands, hence "wow you can do that"
As for "why they are not saying", it is because it is not yet the time to reveal their true identity.

Spoiler

private joke aside, and thinking of the upcoming GDC presentations about where Direct x is headed, as well as the background of the guy, a PC guy, I would put my odds on "MSFT can run Xb1 games on PC" that if the proper API is installed.
Though the reverse is not true, you can't run PC games on Xbox.

I wonder if it could also explain why MSFT went through the length of virtualizing the GPU. In the description of their upcoming presentation they state " You asked us to bring you even closer to the metal and to do so on an unparalleled assortment of hardware". That sounds an awful lot like what Google could have said before introducing renderscript.

MSFT may want the same API on a wide range of CPU and GPU including from the mobile world.
I'm pulling things out of my ass it may not make sense but may be the combo driver/directx would run in the virtualize gpu/device and be (CPU) ISA agnostic, it could act like google renderscript. May be virtualization could help ignoring the difference in the memory model between X86 and ARM CPU.

Either way the next direct x could be completely virtualized and include the CPU part of the code completely, like renderscript. It would have a performance overhead but developers, assuming the hardware is potent enough, would develop only one version of the game for winphone and RT as well as PC.
Another option is if they plan to launch a game streaming service.

Why MSFT use an hypervisor and 2 different OS for durango is still a mystery for me /I don't understand the benefits vs the overhead looking how how well Windows deals with many contexts/threats, manage memory etc.

 

[zaskaraska]

Whats that idea?

Hi, my first post, guys

I think MS could runing PCgames in ONE. Obviously, not all games: if the game have a ONE version, it won't run.

It's my bet.

 

[TheWretched]

I don't think so... it's bad from all perspectives for MS. Loss of money (no licensing fees), less secure (running unverified code on the console) and opens up a lot of "bad" possibilities for hackers.

 

[-tkf-]

My comment was specifically in the context of DrJay24's quote, and we both were talking about specifically about this video codec.

.

Then maybe it should have been written differently?

doesn't this cement MS' implication that more CUs != more framerate?

It's common knowledge that you need the software to take advantage of hardware. Which Bink2 apparently doesn't do. Microsoft claiming "balance" as an excuse is just that, an excuse. Maybe in their case with slow ram and cumbersome Esram it's actually more "true" than in the case of the PS4.

Bink2 doesn't cement anything.

I understand the choices they made and why they have to say the things the say, but it doesn't make it true (nor false actually)

 

[zaskaraska]

I don't think so... it's bad from all perspectives for MS. Loss of money (no licensing fees), less secure (running unverified code on the console) and opens up a lot of "bad" possibilities for hackers.

Loss of money? MS would earn money in every PCgame sold. I'm talking about windows games with no version on ONE, for example, past gen games (bioshock trilogy, dead space, etc) It would be a WIN-WIN SITUATION for MS.

Less secure, hackers? Not if the game run like an app on iOS.

I think it would be a unique, killer feature.

 

[-tkf-]

Loss of money? MS would earn money in every PCgame sold. I'm talking about windows games with no version on ONE, for example, past gen games (bioshock trilogy, dead space, etc) It would be a WIN-WIN SITUATION for MS.

Less secure, hackers? Not if the game run like an app on iOS.

I think it would be a unique, killer feature.

What you are suggesting is a Digital only feature where PC developers can "re-compile" their PC games for the One and sell it via the XBOX Live store? It would without any doubt give the PC developers an easier access to the Platform.

But tell me, why should the big MP titles bother with a specific XBOX One edition when they could just "compile" a mediocre PC version that isn't optimized (yes i am guessing here)..

 

[liolio]

Loss of money? MS would earn money in every PCgame sold. I'm talking about windows games with no version on ONE, for example, past gen games (bioshock trilogy, dead space, etc) It would be a WIN-WIN SITUATION for MS.

THe XB1 has its trick like the scratchpad, I would think that the most convenient way to run PC games would be to ignore the scratchpad while doing so. Performances would not be great, PC games love fast CPU, GPU could be performances could be ok.

Overall I think that it is not a WIN-win situation for MSFT, their main business is Windows so it would be more like a win-WIN situation.

 

[zaskaraska]

What you are suggesting is a Digital only feature where PC developers can "re-compile" their PC games for the One and sell it via the XBOX Live store? It would without any doubt give the PC developers an easier access to the Platform.

But tell me, why should the big MP titles bother with a specific XBOX One edition when they could just "compile" a mediocre PC version that isn't optimized (yes i am guessing here)..

No, I'm talking about insert DVD, retail pcgame, in ONE, and run a specific app to play the pcgame.

The new, big multiplatform games, couldn't run this way due its performance would be very poor. ONE need optimization, etc.
But for many past gen games, they would be run smoothly (obviously, not like they could run in a top PC, but the performance should be ok in most cases).

 

[-tkf-]

No, I'm talking about insert DVD, retail pcgame, in ONE, and run a specific app to play the pcgame.

The new, big multiplatform games, couldn't run this way due its performance would be very poor. ONE need optimization, etc.
But for many past gen games, they would be run smoothly (obviously, not like they could run in a top PC, but the performance should be ok in most cases).

Now, if Microsoft is able to pull this off with a solid performance (on older titles, yes) and with a robust system to handle all the different aspects of save games, windows versions, installation partitions, copy protection, languages etc, essentially a XP/Vista/Win7 emulation, i would be a happy camper. I own plenty of old disc based PC games
That would be a very cool feature and one which the competition can do nothing against, except maybe do the same for old PS1/PS2 games. Which would eat into their "HD" relaunches for profit.

I am high 5'ng this possibility, but i am skeptical of new games.. but lets keep the hope alive

 

[liolio]

No, I'm talking about insert DVD, retail pcgame, in ONE, and run a specific app to play the pcgame.

The new, big multiplatform games, couldn't run this way due its performance would be very poor. ONE need optimization, etc.
But for many past gen games, they would be run smoothly (obviously, not like they could run in a top PC, but the performance should be ok in most cases).

Say they get the OS/API/Drivers thing working, I think that the issue is CPU performances, especially for older games that were not multi-threaded (or poorly)
I could see issues too wrt "proprietary networks", I lack a better name: think Origin, Battlenet, etc.

At the core I think MSFT is more interested in having people using Windows than Xbox.
If they can run Xb1 games on PC (with proper specs) it is a win by it-self. it would allow them to use different hardware down the line which in turn may allow them to save more money than doing a dumb shrink of the system.

 

[zupallinere]

Say they get the OS/API/Drivers thing working, I think that the issue is CPU performances, especially for older games that were not multi-threaded (or poorly)
I could see issues too wrt "proprietary networks", I lack a better name: think Origin, Battlenet, etc.

At the core I think MSFT is more interested in having people using Windows than Xbox.
If they can run Xb1 games on PC (with proper specs) it is a win by it-self. it would allow them to use different hardware down the line which in turn may allow them to save more money than doing a dumb shrink of the system.

Running Xbox games on a PC would be pulling back from the ONE strategy a bit. If I could run Ryse on a well spec-ed machine why get the Xbo ? I mean folks are complaining about having a kinectless sku imagine this being an Xbo-less sku ??

 

[liolio]

Running Xbox games on a PC would be pulling back from the ONE strategy a bit. If I could run Ryse on a well spec-ed machine why get the Xbo ? I mean folks are complaining about having a kinectless sku imagine this being an Xbo-less sku ??

Hence that is why they would not say it, it could be misunderstood.
I don't think that a low end machine would run Ryse nicely.
I don't think that any random machine would do a good job running the XB1 games.
That is not really the point, it seems that MSFT has a new DirectX down the pipe that will provide pc gaming the same advantages (~) performances wise consoles have benefited from for ever.
But indeed the new directx will allow for competent lower end gaming HTPC / STB.
Super low end STB/htpc may also benefit from the slashed license fee for Windows 8.

The fact that XB1 games could somehow run on a "proper PC" could just be a side effect of MSFT putting together a new lower level API and wanted to deploy it everywhere.

I personally see no point in running XB1 games on PC, I'm more interested in PC gaming getting better and cheaper.

Another possibility is that my guess is wrong

 

[Rangers]

They can cast lightning from their hands, hence "wow you can do that"
As for "why they are not saying", it is because it is not yet the time to reveal their true identity.

Spoiler

private joke aside, and thinking of the upcoming GDC presentations about where Direct x is headed, as well as the background of the guy, a PC guy, I would put my odds on "MSFT can run Xb1 games on PC" that if the proper API is installed.
Though the reverse is not true, you can't run PC games on Xbox.

I wonder if it could also explain why MSFT went through the length of virtualizing the GPU. In the description of their upcoming presentation they state " You asked us to bring you even closer to the metal and to do so on an unparalleled assortment of hardware". That sounds an awful lot like what Google could have said before introducing renderscript.

MSFT may want the same API on a wide range of CPU and GPU including from the mobile world.
I'm pulling things out of my ass it may not make sense but may be the combo driver/directx would run in the virtualize gpu/device and be (CPU) ISA agnostic, it could act like google renderscript. May be virtualization could help ignoring the difference in the memory model between X86 and ARM CPU.

Either way the next direct x could be completely virtualized and include the CPU part of the code completely, like renderscript. It would have a performance overhead but developers, assuming the hardware is potent enough, would develop only one version of the game for winphone and RT as well as PC.
Another option is if they plan to launch a game streaming service.

Why MSFT use an hypervisor and 2 different OS for durango is still a mystery for me /I don't understand the benefits vs the overhead looking how how well Windows deals with many contexts/threats, manage memory etc.

Or, it could just be Fortaleza

 

[dobwal]

No, I'm talking about insert DVD, retail pcgame, in ONE, and run a specific app to play the pcgame.

The new, big multiplatform games, couldn't run this way due its performance would be very poor. ONE need optimization, etc.
But for many past gen games, they would be run smoothly (obviously, not like they could run in a top PC, but the performance should be ok in most cases).

Yeah, I can see this being a relevant feature. But I would extend the ideal over indie titles. Dev on the PC and it works on the One. Only big budgeted AAA games would require porting efforts.