Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[anexanhume]

DVR functionality or something?
I don't think an HDMI receiver is allowed to decrypt it and record it, that was the whole purpose of HDMI, after all. Maybe to record the output of personal devices, but that's equally crazy, they all have a data file to copy.

Maybe it allows to "chain" multiple boxes, so it can do what Sony did with GT5 on PS3, Only one box runs the game, but each box is rendering a part of the view. Having an HDMI IN would allow the box to combine them into a single output. That would satisfy hardcore gamers with money. That would make the "multiple SoC" and "Like a super computer" rumors much less crazy

No telling, but there's no doubt Microsoft wants to be king of the set top boxes. If you might want to do it with your TV, they want the xbox to do it.

 

[Rangers]

DVR functionality or something?
I don't think an HDMI receiver is allowed to decrypt it and record it, that was the whole purpose of HDMI, after all. Maybe to record the output of personal devices, but that's equally crazy, they all have a data file to copy.

Maybe it allows to "chain" multiple boxes, so it can do what Sony did with GT5 on PS3, Only one box runs the game, but each box is rendering a part of the view. Having an HDMI IN would allow the box to combine them into a single output. That would satisfy hardcore gamers with money. That would make the "multiple SoC" and "Like a super computer" rumors much less crazy

Maybe it's like the GAF mod just said, the PS724 next gen is already out, you just have to buy a PS3 and 360 and connect them to unlock it

 

[fellix]

I really hope the ESRAM contains the ROPs and addition logic with very high internal bandwidth like the 360 setup and isn't just a scratch pad.

Xenos' ROPs needed that huge BW, because they were unable to compress/decompress data, thus providing simplified design for eDRAM integration. If Durango GPU is a more conventional design, the reduced BW shoudn't affect it.

 

[sir doris]

Would HDMI in be Kenetic video?

 

[Bagel seed]

That would satisfy hardcore gamers with money. That would make the "multiple SoC" and "Like a super computer" rumors much less crazy

Damnit, why did you say that?? Now they're coming...

Compress (and SCALE DAMMIT!) those render-to-textures as you copy out of embedded ram. Then you can laugh in the face of main memory bandwidth for infinite detail!

Sounds interesting. Can you elaborate on this render-to-texture?

 

[Averagejoe]

sony is going to have to reserve at least one core for os, right? or are they magic?

we know durango has a dedicated audio chip? does orbis? if not, maybe there goes another 1-3 cores...

Didn't Orbis also have extra hardware.?

To help with physics and other stuff,i also don't think sony will loss 2 more cores just for sound.

 

[McHuj]

Xenos' ROPs needed that huge BW, because they were unable to compress/decompress data, thus providing simplified design for eDRAM integration. If Durango GPU is a more conventional design, the reduced BW shoudn't affect it.

Thanks. Did not know that.

 

[Mianca]

Do you think it could be a modified gcn 2?? After all microsoft would have access to the best shader technology amd could muster..and if that means less die size = more profit..

The entire setup reeks of some kind of new tile based/deferred rendering approach along the lines of what makes the PowerVR GPUs so very efficient.

It would also be very scalable (integrated into a PC GPU card, it would basically push crossfire scaling to 100% and solve any micro stuttering issues). It would be the end of huge monolithic GPU chips as we know them.

 

[AlNom]

Do you think it could be a modified gcn 2?? After all microsoft would have access to the best shader technology amd could muster..and if that means less die size = more profit..

Unless I missed something, we don't really know what GCN2 is supposed to be. *shrug*

 

[LightHeaven]

lherre seems to agree with what's been posted, more or less.

I think the DME will let tiling be easier to perform than it was on 360. That way the 32mb shouldn't be a limit as much as you'd think. With deferred engines seemingly being the norm nowadays they've probably made it in a way that multiple framebuffers won't be as troublesome to manage.

I remember some dev here in b3d that at the time worked in Lionhead, but afterwards moved to sony who said that the tiling extra cost could be avoided with memexport but no one went that route because it would be a pain in the ass to implement... Giving the current DX11 pipeline what among the lines of memexport could be useful to a gpu these days?

 

[Alexct]

If the rumor is true,MS is digging the grave alone.Rely entirely on multimedia,TV,etc... in a complex market like Europe it's crazy.
MS could get good results in USA but not in the rest of the world.

 

[BRiT]

What can the 32MB esram really do?

Anything the DDR3 memory can do but faster. We haven't heard of anything limiting the esram functionality wise like the XB360 has, so it's prob safe to assume it's just a faster memory pool.

 

[ERP]

Would HDMI in be Kenetic video?

No I'd imagine that it's there to allow video pass through, for DVR functionality, I'd guess the general vision is for 720 to be on offering base functionality like Kinect control even when just watching TV.
With "seamless" switching between entertainment options.

 

[DJ12]

DVR functionality or something?
I don't think an HDMI receiver is allowed to decrypt it and record it, that was the whole purpose of HDMI, after all. Maybe to record the output of personal devices, but that's equally crazy, they all have a data file to copy.

My point was no one would make up it had a hdmi in lending validity to the 'leak'

 

[liquidboy]

Sony will have a lite version, this is the design for MS's lite version. Its also what will go into OEM brandable products.

The lite version for both Sony and MS is what comes out this year. The 'Next' versions, the powerful ones, will be based off the lite design BUT with extra SoCs..

Lite in 2013
Next in 2014

 

[babybumb]

i noticed our friend aegies commented on neogaf

http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=46705958

This aegis dosent operate in reality. Dont expect much from this magic sauce

 

[MrFox]

Sony will have a lite version, this is the design for MS's lite version. Its also what will go into OEM brandable products.

The lite version for both Sony and MS is what comes out this year. The 'Next' versions, the powerful ones, will be based off the lite design BUT with extra SoCs..

Lite in 2013
Next in 2014

I want to believe.

 

[Fafalada]

I am assuming that the three purple blocks are connecting to both CPU and GPU, though not sure.

Well with proposed relatively low-compute power CPU, maybe "blitter" block is there to magic-out super-efficient GPGPU

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Anything the DDR3 memory can do but faster. We haven't heard of anything limiting the esram functionality wise like the XB360 has, so it's prob safe to assume it's just a faster memory pool.

I was referring more to it's size? How does this split pool config and it's combined aggregate bandwidth compare to a single large pool with the same bandwidth?

 

[AlNom]

Xenos' ROPs needed that huge BW, because they were unable to compress/decompress data, thus providing simplified design for eDRAM integration.

But that only helps with MSAA, no?