Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[liquidboy]

You said the durango cpu flops is actually more than double, can you state the exact amount?

No use stating anything, ive seen people speak out correct predictions/figures only to be drowned out by sony fanboys/ms haters..

I'm just gonna stay silent for the most part and let things play out!

P.S. the people that say ... X is not possible ... are people living in the past!

 

[Strange]

A leak of a possible name

Xbox ∞

No comment on the name itself. But the resemblance with Windows 8... well...

Update: high possibility of being fake, but anyway, for the record.

 

[upnorthsox]

You said the durango cpu flops is actually more than double, can you state the exact amount?

That's spread across 3 SoCs though.....

 

[Bagel seed]

That's spread across 3 SoCs though.....

Misterxmedia/cteam and his followers at work again?

 

[Arwin]

Xbox ∞

That name has been floating around for a long time already. But personally I think it would be a great name - the only downside would be how to follow up on it (infinity 2? xbox beyond?), unless you don't think you'll need anything afterwards of course, and the old idea that this is the last generation and everything will move to streaming services from here on out.

 

[AlphaWolf]

To Infinity and Beyond. Cross marketing with Toy Story 8.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That name has been floating around for a long time already. But personally I think it would be a great name - the only downside would be how to follow up on it.

Infinity +1. Surely you learnt that in Grade school?

 

[BRiT]

To Infinity and Beyond. Cross marketing with Toy Story 8.

More like cross marketing with Halo Infinity multiplayer.

 

[french toast]

I'm not qualified to answer that. My understanding is that games aren't that cache sensitive, but the game I remember reading that about was quake, so my info is a little dated

Cheers...I remember resding around here that xbox PPC cpu was a little cache starved. ..just got me wandering. ..

Maybe this patent is relevant.

http://www.google.com/patents/US20120272011

A method for refining multithread software executed on a processor chip of a computer system. The envisaged processor chip has at least one processor core and a memory cache coupled to the processor core and configured to cache at least some data read from memory. The method includes, in logic distinct from the processor core and coupled to the memory cache, observing a sequence of operations of the memory cache and encoding a sequenced data stream that traces the sequence of operations observed.

The first figure is a gaming console along with a dev kit.

Cheers interesting read

Yeah mining their patents might be a good idea. I found all sorts of neat info on their display planes and Kinect 2.0 and other stuff doing as much. I found these...might be good reads. Not sure.

1) Reduction of memory latencies using fine grained parallelism and FIFO data structures: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN/8239866

2) PROCESSOR CACHE TRACING: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=20120272011.PGNR
3) LAYERED TEXTURE COMPRESSION ARCHITECTURE: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090315905

Yea I found the memory latency patents the most intriguing. ..possible with virtualisation..something speculated about durango...interesting.

I've been a big follower of MS and its people for a long time, especially the patent side of things ...

I've got a nice collection going over here : https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=1E3F9E1E2F8BC994!179

I'm a dev that uses there stack every day and code for .NET/Win32/DirectX/Silverlight/WPF/WinRT/WinJS as well as HTML/CSS/JS ...

I've written apps/games for WP8/WIN8/XBOX as well as for there older OS's

I follow their stuff closely from a developers perspective and I know that MS have so much cool stuff going on where they are creating a closer synergy between HW/OS & SW than ever before ... A lot of people just don't get the transformation going on in MS..

Xbox is just the first real place this is going to show off in with new designs/chips etc.. because they truly own everything from end to end.. BUT its the first step of many where they are going to bring there bottom HW designs to the entire ecosystem!!

All the haters are going to hate BUT MS are really really innovating at the moment..

p.s. I really love the "WEDGE LIGHT" stuff they're doing , hint hint illumiroom

Awesome! Any cool links about lumiroom you can share would be much appreciated. .hasnt got a lot of love around here so far but I personally see it as being potentially ground breaking.

I think it will be a mid life kicker in the same way project natal was...I dont think illumiroom will be launching this year. .microsoft wouldn't have spoilt the surprise other wise.

 

[AlphaWolf]

More like cross marketing with Halo Infinity multiplayer.

I'm not sure they will be able to work Buzz Lightyear into the halo story line.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm not sure they will be able to work Buzz Lightyear into the halo story line.

Well, Cortana is gone now, so MC needs a new sidekick.

Regards,
SB

 

[Xenio]

P.S. the people that say ... X is not possible ... are people living in the past!

it's the same thing that a lot of people is saying, the specs are true and accurate for its time but now simply old, hinting that they were changed
and the reaction is always "this is a fanboy dream" or "wishful thinking" or "damage control"

your statement perfectly match to what superdae and others says, without breaking NDA's, we are talking about old specs yes or not?

 

[astrograd]

it's the same thing that a lot of people is saying, the specs are true and accurate for its time but now simply old, hinting that they were changed
and the reaction is always "this is a fanboy dream" or "wishful thinking" or "damage control"

Yup, or they mock the additional kit as being thought of as 'secret sauce'. I personally think the specs are legit and up to date (though this recent news of CPU differences is an exception to that perhaps). I think there may be more to the Durango architectural agenda than ppl were initially assuming though and that is what explains much of the disconnect between standalone GPU specs and suggestions from insiders/dev that the new consoles are quite powerful and pretty close in overall performance.

Btw, I don't recall superDaE actually saying the specs were wrong. He only said they were old (and they were).

 

[expletive]

Yup, or they mock the additional kit as being thought of as 'secret sauce'. I personally think the specs are legit and up to date (though this recent news of CPU differences is an exception to that perhaps). I think there may be more to the Durango architectural agenda than ppl were initially assuming though and that is what explains much of the disconnect between standalone GPU specs and suggestions from insiders/dev that the new consoles are quite powerful and pretty close in overall performance.

Btw, I don't recall superDaE actually saying the specs were wrong. He only said they were old (and they were).

Yeah I believe the point he's (liquid boy) making is that MS has been investing heavily on the software side of the rendering pipeline, and feel the advancements they've made are significant enough to patent them (sounds like he agrees). Durango is the hardware thats purpose built to plug into all these advancements and as a whole software/hardware system cannot be compared to what we know or expect from the PC space in terms of IQ or performance.

Further, I'm still not clear on how developers can judge the performance of Durango without having final hardware, given how custom it appears. Are all these developer comments based simply on equivalent specs of PC counterparts + the general "in a closed box system" multiplier?

 

[(((interference)))]

That's spread across 3 SoCs though.....

Yeah, i'm afraid liquidboy doesn't know anything scently...

He's been harping on the misterxmedia/cteam Mars + Venus SoC bs for a while now, look at his post history,

 

[Rurouni]

Apa bit off topic, but if the next Xbox is named infinity, then the next Playstation should be named beyond.. Imagine the console discussion in the future...

 

[astrograd]

Yeah I believe the point he's (liquid boy) making is that MS has been investing heavily on the software side of the rendering pipeline, and feel the advancements they've made are significant enough to patent them (sounds like he agrees).

I do agree with him that if all this extra kit was commonplace as some folks love to assert then MS wouldn't have patented their implementation and feature set (display planes, DME's, other stuff).

Further, I'm still not clear on how developers can judge the performance of Durango without having final hardware, given how custom it appears. Are all these developer comments based simply on equivalent specs of PC counterparts + the general "in a closed box system" multiplier?

Probably no way to really tell. My bet is they were briefed on what to expect somewhat, hence some of them suggesting the consoles will have very close performance (in spite of standalone GPU specs).

Didn't the Yukon leak indicate a growing element of cloud based gaming. Sony is purportedly using its Gaikai for back compat. Plus many rumors about network connectivity being a requirement (activation codes, download only, etc.) Bungie's new Destiny game apparently requiring online access even for single player. This past gen is 8 years old now, how long with the next be? Wonder if a future transition to more cloud based play and computing has factored in to defining hardware requirements for this gen.

Rumors suggest Sony will use Vita as an extension/controller to stream PS4 games to remotely. MS seems to be going a lot further though, basically doing what PS4 and WiiU do in that space but to a variety of devices at once that don't need to be specialized (smart phones, tablets, computers...not special handheld hardware). My bet is they also allow for non-gaming media streaming similar to SlingBox, whose inventor is now VP of Xbox. So there may be remote streaming in the household and possibly streaming of cable box content (and XBL stuff too?) with the console acting as a server from your home.

There are a lot of things MS can do with an always online, Kinect connected device. They sound like they want to use cloud stuff for searching databases, which could be built leveraging that always online Kinect device. Lionhead/MS wanted to do that for Milo's AI tech a while back. I imagine there could be some pretty crazy things companies could do with cloud computing/databases for games.

But yes, the Yukon leak suggested MS wanted to make Durango the last console you ever buy by leveraging full scale cloud gaming in 2015. How reality actually shakes out may be quite different though. Some very influential folks within MS seem to expect cloud computing to be superseded soon by full scale distributed computing within 5 yrs or so. Now THAT would be something special.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

See the Sea Islands ( or Canary islands or whatever next AMD gen is ) ISA manual changes from actual Southern Islands posted here:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1708222&postcount=1082

Those changes are practically describing Durango´s CPU-GPU behaviour with ESRAM.

 

[Cjail]

I am confused.
For weeks SuperDae have been saying that Kotaku would have published a reliable article about Durango with his info and last week this come out.
Also there is this.

 

[XpiderMX]

I am confused.
For weeks SuperDae have been saying that Kotaku would have published a reliable article about Durango with his info and last week this come out.
Also there is this.

There is an article about Durango based on SuperDaE info: http://kotaku.com/5982986/we-know-all-about-the-next-xbox-from-someone-who-says-theyve-got-one

EDIT: Who is SuperMTW? a clon account of SuperDaE?