Xbox Series X impact on PC gaming

Deleted member 679 · Mar 17, 2020

dampflokfreund said:
BTW, I know a lot of "PC will get better parts after the consoles are released" talk will come up. Let's just say this: I think it's important to view it from a perspective of people who just upgraded their PCs. People don't have money to buy a new GPU or CPU every year.

But why? Anyone who just upgraded their PCs with high end parts right before a new console generation came out is very likely exactly the kind of people who do have money to buy a new GPU or CPU every year.

Anyone who upgraded out of necessity and only got mid tier parts at most would not expect next gen performance out of their builds anyway.

The impact will be the same as every console generation: increasing the base requirements.

Crayon · Mar 17, 2020

You'll have to upgrade to play the latest aaa games. Truly unprecedented.

icecold1983 · Mar 17, 2020

Xeos said:
You don't even believe that yourself. 7nm nvidia will dominate any amd card.

i dont know what nvidia 7nm will do, if ampere will be 7nm, or if ampere will even launch its midrange gpus this year.

c0Zm1c · Mar 17, 2020

PC gaming isn't just about performance. In every respect it's about choice; performance is just one of many choices the PC affords its users. If Microsoft wanted their new console to have a real impact on PC gaming then they would need to do much more than just make it really powerful. It would need to be a fully customisable machine, just like a PC. It's not going to be that so I think things will continue as they always have done.

345 · Mar 17, 2020

of course it's going to have an impact. my PC (6600K/GTX 1080/16GB/4TB HDD) is certainly more powerful than most gaming PCs out there today, it plays everything perfectly well at high/1440p right now, and yet i straight-up don't expect it to run next-gen games acceptably.

the switch to SSDs and actual legit CPUs in consoles is going to make a lot of people have to do total rebuilds. i'm going to do that in 2021 after the next nvidia gen is here.

this wasn't the case when the PS4 came around. there was no transcendent leap in CPU performance, nor a paradigm shift in storage tech. if you built a good PC in 2012 you were probably set for 1080p/60 until very recently (RDR2 etc) — or if you weren't, a simple GPU upgrade would've done it. that's not going to cut it this time.

BlacJack22 · Mar 17, 2020

Metalmucil said:
Yeah, having just re-dsicovered PC gaming in all its glory, I am eager to see what happens over the next year. My thing is this, I just want 1080/60. So, based on XbX specs, and since we know consoles will most likely be all about 4k/30 (come on, we all know they will go for glitz over frame rate again, its inevitable) What am I gonna need to run XbX/PS5 games at 1080 60 maxed out? Equivalent? Half? Double? I will be following the next year very closely.

1080p/60fps on new gen games will need no more than a 2070. Honestly at that resolution you'll probably get pretty far with a 1080, but it will be hard to know for sure until the gen releases.

EatChildren said:
I agree with all of this, but unfortunately there is a category of very vocal, obnoxious gamers who side up with PC and have absolutely warped, disorted expectations for and understanding of the hardware they spend a lot of money on. You're right in that a vast majority of us are quite happy for the industry to be pushed forward, but yeah; I'm speaking exclusively of that group that do not understand the hardware they seem to have money to buy, and end up upset and whiny when a new generation happens to pressure hardware performance.

I mean, you see it here every now and then, when there's talk of a new AMD/Nvidia card, with questions like "But can it do 4K @60fps?". Questions that are arbitrary and, in the PC world, have no concrete answer at all. It's all relative.

EDIT: That's why I cited the 20XX series. There's people out there who went and purchased a 2080 or 2080 TI, spending considerable money, and have whined that the RT performance is "poor". Entirely because enabling RT doesn't let them hit a consistent 60fps @ 4K in all games. It's absurd.

I got ya now. For some reason I misread your posts intent, my mistake. I agree completely.

BlacJack22 · Mar 17, 2020

*Double post*

Kormora · Mar 17, 2020

Aren't most games in the first few years going to still target PS5/Xbone?

This probably won't affect PC gaming anyways. If anything, I probably won't be even buying an xbox and I'll just stick with pc ports since xbox stuff is now all on pc.

LordDraven · Mar 17, 2020

mods on PCs always provide a unique option for PC users

Polyh3dron · Mar 17, 2020

Jadax said:
I don't see how it would affect PC gaming tbh - right now most people have 16gb ram (even though games don't use that much), people use m2 1TB ssd commonly, ryzen zen 2 latest is already running at that clock or better, and with zen 3 about to release PC gaming will be ahead.

it'll affect PC gaming greatly. once all consoles require games to run from SSDs, that means their PC ports will also finally take full advantage of SSD bandwidth. right now there are very few PC games taking advantage of them.

Martinski · Mar 17, 2020

It might have some impact on me since im thinking of getting this one and avoid upgrading another cycle of PC parts. The older i get lol, the more i prefer to just couch game.

Vimto · Mar 17, 2020

Its about time consoles got their shit together and started pushing the baseline up.

Nuclear Muffin · Mar 17, 2020

All Series X does is legitimise the PC as a gaming platform.

Series X is literally a fixed spec PC; right down to the ITX case and multiple suspend saves.

Series X isn't even really a console anymore.

Berto · Mar 17, 2020

What year is this? 2006? Is PC going to die? :(

Irrotational · Mar 17, 2020

Skimmed the thread...so.many replies are focussed on hardware, and how pc and/or console will "crush" the other...quite sad.

IMHO big changes to GAMING I see coming:-

1. Faster load times for everyone, now everyone has fast drives.

2. Ray tracing and shiny lighting for a lot of people, may take a couple of years for majority of games to use it

3. More interesting ai, and "other stuff" as everyone finally has a decent CPU.

The transition as in previous gens, will be soft as people switch from current to next gen and from non-rt cards to RT cards.

ss_lemonade · Mar 17, 2020

ResetEraVetVIP said:
Exactly this. My pc is a razor blade 17 pro with a 2080 Max q (it competes with the next gen consoles) and Series X is better in some areas and worse in others.

In what way is the Series X worse? I always thought that the 2080 Max Q was something that was between a desktop 1070 and 1080 in performance.

I have a 1080 Ti and that paired with a 3700x still cannot hold 60fps in Gears 5 at native 4k, while it seems like the Series X port is doing just that at even higher(?) than PC ultra settings so that sounds very impressive to me.

Vuze · Mar 17, 2020

Same es every console cycle? It will push the baseline, people will eventually upgrade their machine and that's about it.

Alexandros · Mar 17, 2020

I think that these threads appear before the beginning of every console cycle because Era members who mainly play on console are used to the hard cut-off at the end of a generation. On PC developers don't stop releasing games for existing hardware as soon as something new comes. Graphics options exist for a reason. So people with gaming PCs today will continue to play PC games for years and they will upgrade when they want better performance, not because they want be able to play games at all. That cut-off point will be gradual and way into the future. XSX will probably have higher performance than older gaming PCs but again, in the PC space the appearance of newer and more powerful hardware is nothing new. It happens every six months, there's always something more powerful on the horizon and prices are always dropping.

fourfourfun · Mar 17, 2020

It doesn't compete with it necessarily, but it is a nice "out" for people fed up with the user experience of PC gaming.

Vimto · Mar 17, 2020

Nuclear Muffin said:
All Series X does is legitimise the PC as a gaming platform.

Series X is literally a fixed spec PC; right down to the ITX case and multiple suspend saves.

Series X isn't even really a console anymore.

Its a device mainly for playing games, its literally a console.

It doesnt have full windows 10 so its not a fixed spec pc, it traded the productivity with custom hardware/software dedicated for games.

Simuly · Mar 17, 2020

Remember this is not releasing until end of this year. Over 6 months time minimum. By that time both AMD and Ngreedia will have released new lines of cards, with most of the top SKUs above 12tflops.

daninthemix · Mar 17, 2020

Ultimately I hope this is a good thing for PC, with any technology gaps rapidly plugged by new products (storage, GPU, CPU).

It's an opportunity.

Deleted member 11276 · Mar 17, 2020

Bad news for PC: No new information on DXR 1.1 and mesh shading on Game Stack conference: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/games/blog/save-the-dates-game-stack-live-schedule

Before that, they planned to unveil the improvements of DXR 1.1 and mesh shading in this conference. Now it's vanished. Urgh I was really really excited to see how DXR 1.1 can bring improvements to Raytracing on PC....

EvilBoris · Mar 17, 2020

AUTODRAFT DAMMIT

GhostTrick · Mar 17, 2020

Rion said:
And that's absolutely fine. I own a 2070 equipped gaming PC myself which I use for exclusives.

My point was for $500-600, Series X is an incredibly powerful PC like box which would cost you over a grand to mimic. If you want to go way beyond what it's capable of (doubling next gen only 30fps games on PC) then you will be talking absolutely crazy money.

Call me back when I can access my 1000 games or so library, my emulators, all my controllers, arbitrary resolution and framerate for older titles without intervention of the devs and free online.

And then we can discuss about "there's no reason to choose that over this".

Pottuvoi · Mar 17, 2020

dampflokfreund said:
- Mesh Shading. So this was a surprise for me. Mesh shading allows for significantly increased geometry detail with high framerates and low CPU usage. However, only Turing supports this and apparently, according to Star Citizen developers, it's not an easy switch between older shading methods and mesh shading. Could this mean GPUs that do not feature mesh shading will suffer in next gen games?

It is replacement for old vertex/geometry/hull pipeline which has slowly grown from DX7 to what is currently used.

Due to this you need to rethink and rewrite the part you want to use it for to use meshlet based pipeline.
This means that in PC you will have to code and keep updating 2 paths on with and one without support. (Unless you want to reduce users to Turing and later hardware..)
You can use it for justs some cases though, so games might first use it for some specific areas, like particles or scattered objects on ground etc.

Pixel or compute shaders used for lighting shouldn't need rewrite.

Nice video on subject. (mostly about recreating dx tessellator pipe in mesh shaders.)

Applications of Mesh Shading with Dx12 | Siggraph 2019 | NVIDIA

on-demand.gputechconf.com

Includes talk in previous link, but first has more indepth information on other uses and pipeline in general. (Needs login.)

https://developer.nvidia.com/siggraph/2019/video/sig918

Stickman · Mar 17, 2020

Everything, even MS 1st party games is multi plattform now and MS-games will even support X1 for a while. It will take a long time until games truly utilize all of these new features and even longer until they require them to even run. Developers won't just limit their customer base like that.
The only thing i can see happen relatively quickly is that games will require an SSD to run off.

leng jai · Mar 17, 2020

tobibreit said:
Everything, even MS 1st party games is multi plattform now and MS-games will even support X1 for a while. It will take a long time until games truly utilize all of these new features and even longer until they require them to even run. Developers won't just limit their customer base like that.
The only thing i can see happen relatively quickly is that games will require an SSD to run off.

If anything requiring an SSD will be the last thing to happen because it won't be possible until they stop making cross gen games.

orava · Mar 17, 2020

We will very likely see mid end PC hardware overtake the series x before its even released. For example, AMD already announced their low power zen 2 based mobile apus that have CPUs much better what is in series x. Judging by the hardware configuration of the console, the next lineup of GPUs will also be very powerful. 12TF class will very likely be the new mid level performance class. Most of the advertised new features will be on PC's too.

Price is of course a huge factor. The console is not going to be cheap either and most people aren't going to jump in instantly. Most PC gamers definitely aren't going to to switch. There are other better options for them.

On software side, we will see higher system requirements again for some games and that's it. Enough people already have PC's that can easily handle these games and we still have long time until the games and the new consoles release. In that time, PC gaming will grow and improve even more.

Jacobson · Mar 17, 2020

PC gaming won't be affected.

Alexandros · Mar 17, 2020

Rion said:
My point was for $500-600, Series X is an incredibly powerful PC like box which would cost you over a grand to mimic.

See, this is what I don't understand in these discussions. Why would I want to mimic the Series X?

leng jai · Mar 17, 2020

What people forget is that Microsoft already said they will be making cross gen games for basically the first 2 years and you can put money that most third party developers will be following suit. The only true next gen exclusives early in will be the first party Sony games so there really is no reason for a PC gamer to rush it and upgrade their CPU any time soon.

If anything the ideal time to upgrade would be around 18 months to 2 years after the consoles launch. By then we should have clear idea of what type of CPU will be required to get through the gen and cross gen will be phased out.

Twenty Three · Mar 17, 2020

There are still types of games that are ill suited to console, or are never ported (like the Total War series etc), so even if the specs have high end parity, it doesnt make the pc market redundant

JahIthBer · Mar 17, 2020

icecold1983 said:
by years end, no i dont think you will be able to buy a XSX matching gpu for 400.

$300 is when it gets debatable, but $400 is likely going to be a 56 CU RDNA 2 from AMD, so basically a better binned SX GPU. Who knows about RTX 3000 line but it should be a big leap.
I expect from AMD it will be RDNA 56 for $400 & $500 for the RDNA 64, then "Big Navi" 80 CU for close to a grand.

Alexandros · Mar 17, 2020

VonResetlitz said:
There are still types of games that are ill suited to console, or are never ported (like the Total War series etc), so even if the specs have high end parity, it doesnt make the pc market redundant

Even for multiplatform games the console experience isn't the same as the PC one. The difference between being able to customize your experience to your liking and leaving everything at the hands of the developer is a fundamental one.

kiguel182 · Mar 17, 2020

I was thinking of getting a mid range PC soon and now I'm a bit concerned if a Ryzen 5 will be enough.

I don't mind having a PC and an Xbox so I'll probably can still have a Ryzen5 build but it seems a lot of money of something that's kinda underpowered from the start. Altought it would still be useful for what I want from it.

Oh well, choices choices

Pryme · Mar 17, 2020

leng jai said:
What people forget is that Microsoft already said they will be making cross gen games for basically the first 2 years and you can put money that most third party developers will be following suit. The only true next gen exclusives early in will be the first party Sony games so there really is no reason for a PC gamer to rush it and upgrade their CPU any time soon.

If anything the ideal time to upgrade would be around 18 months to 2 years after the consoles launch. By then we should have clear idea of what type of CPU will be required to get through the gen and cross gen will be phased out.

PC games are usually ' cross gen' with compatibility From a 2080ti down to the likes of the GTX 970. Doesn't stop people from buying newer graphics cards or developers from pushing visuals on new cards.

'Cross gen' doesn't just mean 'uprezzed current gen games'. You're getting far better effects, Better frame rate, higher resolutions and much faster loading times.

a game that shows up only on a next gen console will not necessarily run and look better than a game spread across console generations and optimized for both.

Tovarisc · Mar 17, 2020

kiguel182 said:
I was thinking of getting a mid range PC soon and now I'm a bit concerned if a Ryzen 5 will be enough.

I don't mind having a PC and an Xbox so I'll probably can still have a Ryzen5 build but it seems a lot of money of something that's kinda underpowered from the start. Altought it would still be useful for what I want from it.

Oh well, choices choices

If Corona doesn't delay schedule then AMD is releasing new Ryzen CPUs towards end of the year.

Druida · Mar 17, 2020

Rion said:
And that's absolutely fine. I own a 2070 equipped gaming PC myself which I use for exclusives.

My point was for $500-600, Series X is an incredibly powerful PC like box which would cost you over a grand to mimic. If you want to go way beyond what it's capable of (doubling next gen only 30fps games on PC) then you will be talking absolutely crazy money.

It's simple as in the past Nvidia, AMD will have to adapt to the market.
Nvidia did it with the 8800gt, AMD did it with the 797,0 at launch it cost 500€ in 2013 it was lowered to 280€ .
Today the Ryzen 2700 costs € 150.
etc
At launch of new machines will be the moment to do comparisons.

MBABuddha · Mar 17, 2020

If you bought/upgraded a PC with upper-mid range specs in the last 12 months: you'll be good for a while.
If you buy an XBX in the fall: you'll be good for a while.
Like some posts had mentioned I think the only immediate, tangible advantage of XBX over PC in the next 12-18 months is that Xbox Game Pass selection is still better than PC.

leng jai · Mar 17, 2020

Pryme said:
PC games are usually ' cross gen' with compatibility From a 2080ti down to the likes of the GTX 970. Doesn't stop people from buying newer graphics cards or developers from pushing visuals on new cards.

'Cross gen' doesn't just mean 'uprezzed current gen games'. You're getting far better effects, Better frame rate, higher resolutions and much faster loading times.

a game that shows up only on a next gen console will not necessarily run and look better than a game spread across console generations and optimized for both.

The difference is when cross gen is still a thing games will still need to be designed to work on Jaguar CPUs and old hard drives. The most easily scalable stuff is GPU power because you can always up the resolution and a bunch of extra effects on top without altering the fundamental design of the game. So even if someone on PC had an oldEr graphics card they can always just keep playing at 1080p and reduce some detail to maintain acceptable performance.

When the console games start using the next gen CPUs and SSDs as the baseline then that's what PCs with older CPU with 6 threads or less will and no SSD will have to upgrade because when those things are bottlenecks you basically can't do anything setttings wise to get fix performance. When you're CPU limited you pretty much can never get your frame rate past a certain point no matter what resolution or settings you use.

Jaded Alyx · Mar 17, 2020

EvilBoris said:
U wot mate?
It's not an ITX case and where can you do full suspensions for multiple games in windows?

You totally messed up that quote tag, as well as quoting the wrong person

Druida · Mar 17, 2020

leng jai said:
When the console games start using the next gen CPUs and SSDs as the baseline then that's what PCs with older CPU with 6 threads or less will and no SSD will have to upgrade because when those things are bottlenecks you basically can't do anything setttings wise to get fix performance. When you're CPU limited you pretty much can never get your frame rate past a certain point no matter what resolution or settings you use.

For several years, SSDs have been part of gaming configurations for PCs and for some time now Nvmes are proliferating.

Bosch · Mar 17, 2020

Evodelu said:
Bosch, weren't you saying that XSX would be 10TF?

Yes. And u think for 4k res 10-12 is a big diff? Ok... I'm glad is 12. But new gpus will come when this launch.

EvilBoris · Mar 17, 2020

Jaded Alyx said:
You totally messed up that quote tag, as well as quoting the wrong person

I really did.

Skyfireblaze · Mar 17, 2020

I'm leaning myself out of the window and say that atleast for general gameplay performance a regular 500mb/s SATA SSD will stay fine on PC for the time being and the DirectStorage in the XBX shouldn't cause PC games to become "literally" unplayable on regular SSDs like Star Citizen is on HDDs for example. Most improvements come from the random-access time and not from the raw throughput speed.

Alexandros · Mar 17, 2020

leng jai said:
When the console games start using the next gen CPUs and SSDs as the baseline then that's what PCs with older CPU with 6 threads or less will and no SSD will have to upgrade because when those things are bottlenecks you basically can't do anything setttings wise to get fix performance. When you're CPU limited you pretty much can never get your frame rate past a certain point no matter what resolution or settings you use.

That will be a few years down the line, by then better-than-console hardware will be available for entry-level prices.

Yarbskoo · Mar 17, 2020

I'm fairly confident that my 9700K and RTX 2080 will be more than capable of playing upcoming games, even if it means not getting the full 4K/144Hz experience. I'm not too proud to drop settings.

ILikeFeet · Mar 17, 2020

I'm more curious as to what it'll take to get console level of performance at 1080p. That's where the money's at

Dictator · Mar 17, 2020

Direct Storage, is also coming to PC. Of course.

Xbox Series X impact on PC gaming

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