Xbox Series X [XBSX] [Release November 10 2020]

As far as I know, there is also a hardware compression unit. But I really don't know why they need it. If a game is paused and saved into memory, they could use the CPU that is not used in that moment by the game. But it might need a little bit longer.

 

It's worth noting that compressing is usually much more expensive than decompressing:

But it's possible to choose to sacrifice compression ratio for a reasonable compression time, such as the transparent compression in many file systems including NTFS. I've never heard them talking about a hardware compression unit, if they indeed have one, Quick Resume may be the only usage.

I'm rather inclined to believe they employ some compression for Quick Resume too, since Control: UE and Gears 5 are both optimized for X|S games, they should use all the available memory, yet Quick Resume can resume them in 3.5 seconds...

 

I also noticed that XSX encodes game recordings in HEVC(H.265) and AAC. I flipped through their Hot Chips slides, turns out X|S SoCs have hardware decoders for VP9 and Opus but not encoders.

 

Probably just never included details about the media block as it's not directly game related.
But can de/encode media in hardware.

 

Not sure if I understand what you're saying but here the relevant slide:

 

Sorry not sure what you meant then, as it said on there vp9 encode and decode under legacy.
I don't know about opus, why would it need to encode it?

 

The 4k/8k AVC and HEVC/VP9 HDR decode is in addition to the legacy 480p/1080p decoders, hence the"+" sign.

 

It only mentions VP9 decoding, not encoding. PS5 for example encodes audio recording in Opus (when you select WebM as the output file format), but I guess for audio AAC is efficient enough.

 

Sorry, mis read it.
It encodes avc and hevc.
As for audio encode, probably whatever RDNA2 is capable off.
As you say aac is probably considered good enough though.

 

Likely PS5 uses VP9 and Opus captures because it's a free format.

 

Ah is that so. I find it funny that Apple devices play XSX recordings perfectly out of the box, while on Windows 10 you need to buy the encoder (albeit it's very cheap) or use 3rd-party software, thanks to HEVC.

 

Series X available on Amazon UK. Mine's arriving tomorrow, yay!

edit: it's out of stock again. I used Stock Informer to setup an alert in case anybody else here is still looking.

 

i hope you havent played ori2 yet

 

Is there a way to filter out places like Ebay or StockX from the notification list? Those two places are always listed as in-stock but at a 50% to 100% mark-up.

 

There always seems to be stock on eBay and StockX but Stock Informer never seems to generate notifications. I think it's only bona fide retailers. Stock on Amazon UK held for about ten minutes best as I could tell. The notification email includes the exact time sent, e.g.

Just to inform you that Amazon currently have online stock of Xbox Series X Console and Game Pass Ultimate (3 Months Subscription) for £482.98.

PLEASE NOTE – Emails are not always received or read immediately. This email was sent 19 May 2021 09:35 at which time the stock information contained in this email was correct. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes the case that stock can run out by the time you have read this email.​

 

I will be sorely disappointed in you if you don't immediately play Ori and the Will of the Wisps it is so Gdamn gorgeous. I'm planning another playthrough here soon just to see how much better it'll look on my C9 OLED. And then, if graphics cards on PC ever become available or even affordable again, I'll play it again once I can do 120 Hz.

I'll only forgive you if you haven't yet played Ori and the Blind Forest and want to play that first.

Regards,
SB

 

Agreed 100%!

 

Ha! Now that you mentioned it, I must take my turn at endorsing Ori 2!

I think the only reason preventing Ori and the Will of the Wisps from being everyone's GOTY last year is just that it's 2D, and game journalists seems to favour big AAA narrative based game.

The levels and mechanisms are so well designed, the visual is beautiful and the music are joyful. If you play it on XSX you can choose to play 6K supersampled to 4K xor 120 Hz, either way it looks glorious.

To those who don't have an Xbox, you should play it too, it's also available on Switch and it's should be able to run on just about any modern PC.

 

Its next in my games queue as soon a Assassin's Creed Odyssey is finished. I loved the original Ori so really looking forward to trying this out in 21:9. Unfortunately on an older GPU so only 60fps and sub 4k for me.

 

this so much this. Whatever you are planning to play with your new XSX hold on and start with ori2. It’s just jaw dropping. Beautiful experience the fluidity of motion, snappy controls, gorgeous visuals and audio is soooo good. Playing .... no not playing experiencing ori2 for the first time on big screen with hdr and 4K is just something else. It’s like watching beautiful piece of art coming to life before your eyes.