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

For years xbox gamers have said "I cant hear it / it is silent". So series x is loudest modern xbox then, or gamers have been lying?

In reality there is no silent console with moving parts, even switch can be heard from 2-3m away docked, on normal silent room.

So this report is probably non-biased and current gen XBOXs are noisy as are ps4s.

Also without data of his gaming room, it is hard to tell how loud it is. If he sits far / close or have noisy aircon or not = could be quiet, or loud system

You can go look at sound tests for all the Xbox One systems, but the 1X runs around 20-25db. I can't hear this when I play. It's not out of the realm of possibility that the Series X is even quieter.

Tommy McClain
 

I've only started to look at the Verge report (still weird reading non-negative MS articles on the Verge, they used to be of the opinion that MS was the root of all evil in the world). Anyway, I noticed that Warframe was in the list. On PC, Digital Extremes have slowly been compressing their texture data with Oodle Texture, likely a combination of preparing for the next gen consoles as well as reducing the size of the resident textures (they are estimating roughly half the size of the pre-Oodle Textures).

Being able to see it in action finally gives a way to quantify just how lossy Oodle Texture compression is, and I have to say at least for me, it isn't noticeable. So that's good news for next gen games which are likely to use Oodle compression or some other similarly lossy compression tech.

I do wonder if this is made it into the console version yet. The entire game hasn't yet been converted (they are doing in multiple stages since each stage requires downloading roughly 6-7 GB of data). If so, it might help explain why Warframe exhibits better load times than some of the other games. Then again, it might not have made it there yet as patches for console Warframe lag PC by 2 weeks generally (sometimes more if they have bugs they want to address).

If those load times don't represent Warframe with at least some of the new texture conversions, then load times are likely to significantly decrease soon after XBSX gets into consumer hands. And that's just work on the texture compression, there will likely be engine changes as well either at launch or shortly after launch to bring it in line with native XBSX games.

Regards,
SB
 
Last edited:
Anyway, I noticed that Warframe was in the list.

Thanks for sharing the interesting information about Warframe. I took a mental note to keep an eye on it's development.

I'm sure there will be quite a few next-gen updates for games with active player bases. That can only bring more goodies. I hope a few of the writers are gearing up for doing a prolonged look after next-gen console improvements. They should start with measuring current game install sizes and loading times. Then take sampled updates on release day, then 3 and 6 months later.

I haven't looked at all the write-ups today, but I'm hoping at least one of them does comparison with using external USB SSD, just so I don't have to do quick napkin math by comparing to my OneX External SSD loading times.
 
Does this make sense?
Why does "quick resume" need to have its own (and enormous) block of data if the games are installed in a SSD? Why can't the system fetch the data directly from the game's installation files?
You're saving all your memory and all registers etc.
You're looking at 16GB per title stored up to 6-12 titles can be in quick resume.
 
You're saving all your memory and all registers etc.
You're looking at 16GB per title stored up to 6-12 titles can be in quick resume.

So you're saying they're dumping the whole RAM from the gaming session?
That still doesn't make sense. For starters, the game won't be using the whole 16GB of available GDDR6. I don't know how much it's allocated for the OS but it's definitely not zero.

Also, why would it be any faster to load the data from this dedicated block of "quick resume data" than fetching from the game's install? Seeking times on a SSD should be negligible.
 
Does this make sense?
Why does "quick resume" need to have its own (and enormous) block of data if the games are installed in a SSD? Why can't the system fetch the data directly from the game's installation files?

I'm just the messenger. Probably should ask @Dictator or Microsoft, but @iroboto has a plausible answer.

Tommy McClain
 
Does this make sense?
Why does "quick resume" need to have its own (and enormous) block of data if the games are installed in a SSD? Why can't the system fetch the data directly from the game's installation files?

To expand on what Iroboto said. The installed game data doesn't store:
  • Exact position of every NPC on your screen at the time you switch to another game.
  • If an NPC is in mid dialog, where in the dialog they are at.
  • If a bush or leaf is being blow around, where it's location is at that exact moment in time.
  • Position of all animals.
  • If you were in combat, the location of all the bodies, dropped weapons, blood decals, etc. etc.
  • Much much more.
Basically the game install on disk doesn't contain the current world state, including any active shaders, physics calculations that are ongoing, time of day, etc.

Even a comprehensive save file (like a Skyrim save file) only contains a tiny (absolutely miniscule) fraction of this data.

But you could load up the world data and assets from disk, I imagine hearing some people say, and then combine that with a save state. Sure, but then you'd have to do all the processing and rendering of that world data that you just loaded from disk which means significantly more time until the game is ready to be played. The world state as it resides in memory at the time the game is swapped contains all of that information already including the next frame being rendered.

Regards,
SB
 
So you're saying they're dumping the whole RAM from the gaming session?
That still doesn't make sense. For starters, the game won't be using the whole 16GB of available GDDR6. I don't know how much it's allocated for the OS but it's definitely not zero.

Also, why would it be any faster to load the data from this dedicated block of "quick resume data" than fetching from the game's install? Seeking times on a SSD should be negligible.
You don't know what the game is doing. Different engines do different things. They can be writing decals over textures, building textures at run time etc. It's just safer overall.
 
Isn't this similar to how cell phones implement resume by tombstoning? Xbox One was already doing this for 1 game & 3 or so non-gaming apps. Series X just turns it up to 11?

Tommy McClain
 
Does this make sense?
Why does "quick resume" need to have its own (and enormous) block of data if the games are installed in a SSD? Why can't the system fetch the data directly from the game's installation files?

It makes perfect sense.

As the forum has discussed before, the Quick Resume functionality is essentially a Windows Hibernation file(s) for the game or application in question. It's done this way so every single game and application supports it without requiring software patches by the developers of software from Nov 15, 2001.

Supporting a newer quick-resume functionality would make things faster while requiring less storage space, but that requires developer effort. Considering there are some games that wont see next-gen updates, I'm glad Microsoft provides a fully encompassing solution going all the way back to original Xbox titles.
 
It makes perfect sense.

As the forum has discussed before, the Quick Resume functionality is essentially a Windows Hibernation file(s) for the game or application in question. It's done this way so every single game and application supports it without requiring software patches by the developers of software from Nov 15, 2001.

Supporting a newer quick-resume functionality would make things faster while requiring less storage space, but that requires developer effort. Considering there are some games that wont see next-gen updates, I'm glad Microsoft provides a fully encompassing solution going all the way back to original Xbox titles.


So it's holding a 8GB-12GB Windows Hibernation File for each previous-gen game being played through BC, and not necessarily for new games. Ok I can get that.
Still, holding what seems to be over 150GB of storage just for that seems excessive.

Are people really going to ever have 11 different hybernations to resume from? Wouldn't it be better to have that option to the users?
I'd rather have an additional 100GB for game installs and 3 or 4 hybernation files (which is already on the safe side.. I probably wouldn't use more than 2).
 
So it's holding a 8GB-12GB Windows Hibernation File for each previous-gen game being played through BC, and not necessarily for new games. Ok I can get that.
Still, holding what seems to be over 150GB of storage just for that seems excessive.

Are people really going to ever have 11 different hybernations to resume from? Wouldn't it be better to have that option to the users?
I'd rather have an additional 100GB for game installs and 3 or 4 hybernation files (which is already on the safe side.. I probably wouldn't use more than 2).

We're starting to get into first-world problems here. It's an early reservation here. Easy to reserve the max now & cut back later then to add it back later down the road when internal hard drive size start increasing.

Plus, there's always external USB3 storage you can add on the cheap. Most Xbox One owners probably already have a drive they can just connect.

Tommy McClain
 
So it's holding a 8GB-12GB Windows Hibernation File for each previous-gen game being played through BC, and not necessarily for new games. Ok I can get that.
Still, holding what seems to be over 150GB of storage just for that seems excessive.

Are people really going to ever have 11 different hybernations to resume from? Wouldn't it be better to have that option to the users?
I'd rather have an additional 100GB for game installs and 3 or 4 hybernation files (which is already on the safe side.. I probably wouldn't use more than 2).
The reserved space may not be for OS and quick resume alone. Xbox hard drives are encrypted (for DRM purpose), those space could be for checksums or journal or something for data integrity.
 
Back
Top