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

[function]

I'm curious how they even cut 1GB off the OS Reservations for Series X. I would love to see a memory map of how much is used and for what purpose. Also curious about the other side, as they have not aid how much their games can use.

I dont think it was from the applications, as Series X still supports having apps run while gaming, that's how they support Streaming or playing music. Possibly shrink some of buffers?

I was thinking mostly about the base unit as it will be the most desperately short of memory in a cross gen world. I get the impression a lot of X1X games don't use all the memory as asset quality is often the same.

Shrinking dash buffers would probably be one to achieve it savings - capping out X1X at 1440p, and doing the same for the recording buffer might work. And disabling more memory consuming apps might be another. If you did it on a game by game basis e.g only cross gen games pushing the limits do it, I think most customers would be quite understanding.

X360 managed to have very basic apps and a very low res dash popup in only 32MB. I know things have to be a lot different now, but I do think that if you're prepared to compromise you can get below 3GB, especially on X1.

 

[Jay]

You could be right, but on the other hand I don't think the X1 has been struggling particularly because of memory but rather because of power (and the ddr3 bottleneck). Releasing more memory wouldn't really help for PS4 games where the X1 is using smaller buffers anyway, so you might as well make the dash faster to switch into. MS have cut an an awful lot of chaff since launch (Kinect, snap etc), but the OS reserve has never reduced. Infact it's as big as on X1X which buffers 4K video streams!

I meant struggling in general including dashboard.

But the texture/assets are 99% of the time the same as ps4. Just rendered at lower resolution. I'm not sure how much smaller the render targets would be, and how much space that would save. Especially when factoring in shuffling data around for esram.

I just don't think they would be able to reduce the OS footprint any further.
They've cut back everything over the years to try mitigate and get any kind of leg up over the ps4.

 

[orangpelupa]

If they went barebones like Nintendo, the dash could be less than 1MB.

 

[cheapchips]

If they went barebones like Nintendo, the dash could be less than 1MB.

Just a scrolling list of game names. Job done!

 

[fehu]

Microsoft would find a way to require 2GB just for that too.

 

[Ronaldo8]

Microsoft would find a way to require 2GB just for that too.

And they will termed it a "lean" and "optimised" OS in the bargain.

 

[JPT]

I always thought XB OS was quite lean at least compared to PS

 

[fehu]

I was joking, at the moment on my one x is not bad, the problems came from moving inside the store or buying something.
For a lot of years has been terrible tho.

 

[see colon]

Just a scrolling list of game names. Job done!

Homescreen just looks like an everdrive.

 

[Michellstar]

Microsoft would find a way to require 2GB just for that too.

Nah, 640 KB is enough, isn´t it?

 

[milk]

I can't overstate how little respect I have for the fact both ps4 and xbone OSs take 3 full GB. There is no acceptable excuse for that beside shameless sloppiness.

 

[eastmen]

I can't overstate how little respect I have for the fact both ps4 and xbone OSs take 3 full GB. There is no acceptable excuse for that beside shameless sloppiness.

I don't think the OS itself takes 3GB i think its so other programs can also be running. Like if you want to stream to twitch you need to insure you have the resources for that to run

 

[milk]

I don't think the OS itself takes 3GB i think its so other programs can also be running. Like if you want to stream to twitch you need to insure you have the resources for that to run

I get it. Still sloppy though.

 

[BRiT]

I get it. Still sloppy though.

I wouldnt so much say its sloppy on the side of Microsoft as they had the design feature target of running apps alongside the game and ability of quickly switching between 3 to 4 of them. Now this is based on my experience, but... I am surprised that Sony had as much or more reserved for their PS4, considering they never offered Snap / SideBySide functionality.

I think you said this earlier, but if they cut back on some of the functionality on Xbox One, like limit it to one streaming app and one music app, and one game they could probably free up some more memory to ease transition to nextgen.

I still want to know how memory is allocated on NextGen use, like X Megs for dashboard program code, Y Megs for transcoding Buffer, Z Megs for IO and decompression buffers, etc.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I get it. Still sloppy though.

Isn't 1.5 GB of that for the video capture? The last 15 minutes is constantly recorded on PS4.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But it is popular and of value to lots. To game sales too as streaming and videos is part of the marketing. I don't think you could ever get it back now for use with other stuff and next gen will also have a reservation. Video quality also sucks, heavily compressed 720p, so perhaps even more will be dedicated to it?

 

[BRiT]

Video quality also sucks, heavily compressed 720p, so perhaps even more will be dedicated to it?

Microsoft virtualized the display controller for the Series X which has benefit of lower latency video streams. This could also allow for higher quality encoded streams and perhaps with lower resource usage too.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They'll be able to use h.265 too, but 4K video data? They're liking to need a good chunk of RAM dedicated to this feature.

 

[orangpelupa]

Isn't 1.5 GB of that for the video capture? The last 15 minutes is constantly recorded on PS4.

I think nowadays you can change it to 60 minutes max

 

[BRiT]

I think nowadays you can change it to 60 minutes max

Length of video doesn't matter so long as what you have already processed is written/flushed to storage media. It doesn't need to keep more than a second or two of video in memory, mostly only enough to process between key-frames.