Microsoft Studios |OT3| I thought they were supposed to be sold off by now

Poodlestrike · Nov 26, 2018

People really don't know how engines work and it really shows every time this conversation comes up. Unreal 4 is *the* engine on the market right now for a ton of very good reasons. MS has absolutely no incentive to try and build out a multi studio proprietary engine when Unreal exists - its pretty much all downside. You get versatility, power, ease of use, and maybe most importantly, all the open source improvements made to the engine by the wider community, so all three of those keep getting better.

Dyashen · Nov 26, 2018

I don't see anything wrong with UE4. If anything, the tech sharing from UE4 has made some MS games really stand out from the rest. I do think that The Initiative might be doing their own engine, but i can see why some devs would stick with UE considering the types of games they wanna make.

matimeo · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
Just don't see stuff on Unreal pushing any boundaries. Unreal and Unity are familiar but they don't compete for top tier visuals. I'd argue Coalition pushes the engine more than any dev and Gears graphics don't compare to top tier stuff on PlayStation. Sony's teams figured out how to push tech and share their game engines amongst each other. As long as this goes against Microsoft's strategy, expect the best looking stuff to always be on PlayStation even if the next Xbox is more powerful.

Microsoft is conceding the graphics crown for the foreseeable future if they rely on Unreal.

That's less a technology thing and more a culture and priority thing. Sony is a content first company and their culture has been built around that. They prioritize creative in development in all phases including recruitment. This leads to games with really strong art and creative direction and at times poor performance.

MS is a engineering culture. Engineering values different things. T10 is an engineering led studio. Performance is number one for them.

MS tends to have far fewer full time creative staff members and less time (MS is also management driven) compared to Sony studios.

I think the recent acquisitions are an attempt to bring in fresh creative blood which is often hard for MS to recruit and retain. It should also give the core studios some breathing room.

Deleted member 19924 · Nov 26, 2018

Gears 4 to Gears 5 is like a generational leap graphically, it stacks up to Sony's stuff quite nicely.

Bunkles · Nov 26, 2018

Trup1aya · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
I didn't say it didn't look good. Doesn't stack up to any of Sony's AAA games visually. That's despite Sony's games being more open with wider landscapes.

I think that's just because Sony has the best console hardware.

Since Sony doesn't have any inhouse AAA made using UE4, we are stuck comparing GoW to Multiplatform UE4 games, and that really isn't a fair comparison.

Deleted member 19924 · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha

I think you're really undercutting the game's visuals, it looks fantastic in every way. The character models in particular are incredibly detailed.

Trup1aya said:
I think that's just because Sony has the best console hardware.

Since Sony doesn't have any inhouse AAA made using UE4, we are stuck comparing GoW to Multiplatform UE4 games, and that really isn't a fair comparison.

Days Gone is being made in UE4.

SuikerBrood · Nov 26, 2018

Doesn't Gears prove that technical skills are more important than the engine that's being used? Gears 4/5 and Sea of Thieves are both pretty games in their own way. While a game made on the same engine like State of Decay 2 doesn't look all that great.

Budget, skills and time seem more important here.

Trup1aya · Nov 26, 2018

Flux said:
Days Gone is being made in UE4.

OH yeah! Good point! And it looks pretty damn good

Deleted member 4761 · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
Just don't see stuff on Unreal pushing any boundaries. Unreal and Unity are familiar but they don't compete for top tier visuals. I'd argue Coalition pushes the engine more than any dev and Gears graphics don't compare to top tier stuff on PlayStation. Sony's teams figured out how to push tech and share their game engines amongst each other. As long as this goes against Microsoft's strategy, expect the best looking stuff to always be on PlayStation even if the next Xbox is more powerful.

Microsoft is conceding the graphics crown for the foreseeable future if they rely on Unreal.

What?
Horizon 4 already is the most beautiful game this gen with RDR2.
Gears 5 and Halo Infinite too.
Also, the Engine alone don't make a game beautiful. Engines are set of tools for devs to put their visions to life.

Studios can share some things too, like Sea of Thieves water ( Unreal ) with Forza Horizon ( ForzaTech ).
Also, some of the Unreal Engine things are from Microsoft studios, like Dynamic GI from Fable.

Forcing devs other engines ins't a good idea.

matimeo · Nov 26, 2018

UE 4 like UE3 before and Unity can be heavily customized. So you still can't do an out of box comparison because rarely is any big game shipped without modifying the engine in various ways these days.

I worked on a game made in Unity once and we decided Unity's default text rendering was really bad at that time so engineering replaced their text renderer.

OneBadMutha · Nov 26, 2018

matimeo said:
That's less a technology thing and more a culture and priority thing. Sony is a content first company and their culture has been built around that. They prioritize creative in development in all phases including recruitment. This leads to games with really strong art and creative direction and at times poor performance.

MS is a engineering culture. Engineering values different things. T10 is an engineering led studio. Performance is number one for them.

MS tends to have far fewer full time creative staff members and less time (MS is also management driven) compared to Sony studios.

I think the recent acquisitions are an attempt to bring in fresh creative blood which is often hard for MS to recruit and retain. It should also give the core studios some breathing room.

Fair points. I'm not a dev and can't speak with any credibility on the issue but eyeball test regarding Unreal suggests it's never going to push the boundaries in tech. Whenever I hear something is made using Unreal, I assume middle of the road visuals. Gears 4 is the one exception but I still don't put it in the elite class of visuals this gen.

Zappy · Nov 26, 2018

matimeo said:
That's less a technology thing and more a culture and priority thing. Sony is a content first company and their culture has been built around that. They prioritize creative in development in all phases including recruitment. This leads to games with really strong art and creative direction and at times poor performance.

MS is a engineering culture. Engineering values different things. T10 is an engineering led studio. Performance is number one for them.

MS tends to have far fewer full time creative staff members and less time (MS is also management driven) compared to Sony studios.

I think the recent acquisitions are an attempt to bring in fresh creative blood which is often hard for MS to recruit and retain. It should also give the core studios some breathing room.

I don't agree. MS have been hamstrung because they offer some of the best terms and conditions to their staff in the industry and have had internal cost pressures - meaning for a number of years Xbox was squeezed hard. Sony were putting most of their eggs into the PS basket.

Its not a cultural thing. Or creative vs engineering thing. Simply an issue of resources. Sony have had very large studios produce a number of average titles before getting something that was pretty good. They've maintained large studios and also been in a better position in terms of IP ownership (or at least claim to IP) than MS have this generation.

MS are now sorting that with their acquisitions and increasing the size of individual studios. If there is any distinction its that Sony have generally had a laser focus on "cinematic" style games and MS have put far less emphasis in this area - instead generally focussing on gameplay. One might say that was not entirely through choice but we shall see in the coming years. Personally I don't really want MS to change what they are doing, just to ensure they give games and studios adequate budgets, resourcing and time to get their creative visions built. I think they are on the path to that now.

pswii60 · Nov 26, 2018

SuikerBrood said:
I do think Gears looks better than what we've seen from Infinite. Wasn't that impressed with the 'tech demo' to be honest.

Infinite tech demo was running at a locked 60fps, the size of the world and draw-distance at that framerate was very impressive.

matimeo · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
Fair points. I'm not a dev and can't speak with any credibility on the issue but eyeball test regarding Unreal suggests it's never going to push the boundaries in tech. Whenever I hear something is made using Unreal, I assume middle of the road visuals. Gears 4 is the one exception but I still don't put it in the elite class of visuals this gen.

Ah yes it's easy to assume.
With any out of box solution in tech you do get some predictable outcomes which is why you may choose that solution in the first place however you can modify things.

I think you would be surprised at what's possible with Unreal. It's used for more than gaming these days.

I think you just prefer the art direction in Sony games. It's high quality and is executed well. Tech doesn't matter as much as the people and the culture.

For a long time people thought nothing artistic or performant could come out of Unity yet Cuphead did just fine. I'm sure they modified that engine but they also had a very strong creative vision and made sure they had the time to fully nail it as it was a priority to them.

MS tends to be technically driven and gameplay is the first layer of creative with some pull. The focus on multiplayer and replayability tend to trump art direction at times. Hopefully that will continue to improve as MS aquires more creative talent to help influence culture.

Oluasc Horizon is an example of a creative led culture as T10 handled many technology based things for them allowing them to focus on the creative. They also were not part of MS and built more like a typical studio when it came to creative staffing compared to T10.

SuikerBrood · Nov 26, 2018

pswii60 said:
Infinite tech demo was running at a locked 60fps, the size of the world and draw-distance at that framerate was very impressive.

Fair point.

Raider34 · Nov 26, 2018

Oluasc said:
NVMe slot please

That would be clutch

Klobrille · Nov 26, 2018

Ghost_Messiah said:
Klobrille - Is there any credence or implication to Sega being in this image? Are you implying they're being considered by Microsoft for an acquisition just as IO Interactive are - or just joking? Super curious given MS visited Sega in Japan last year and there were a swirl of rumours at the time indicating Sega could be bought out. Would love for you to comment on this one dude so please do.

Only stumbling block could be cost given Sega is tied to Sega Sammy Holdings and would thus be super expensive - but could still be possible?

Come on haha ... It was a joke obviously ;) There even is a freaking Burger King logo ...

zedox · Nov 26, 2018

Klobrille said:
Come on haha ... It was joke obviously ;) There is a freaking Burger King logo ...

Burger King has recieved an LOI...confirmed.

OneBadMutha · Nov 26, 2018

I should clarify myself since I'm getting quoted a lot on a topic in which I have no experience with. Lol

I work in tech but not anything related to game development. Today we're seeing tools that automate a lot of the grindy, time consuming stuff. Basically a drag and drop can replace hours of coding. You can do things today with one person that would've taken many people a lot more time to do 5 years ago.

These monster AAA teams are heavily made up of people who do nothing but code. If you can make coding and testing far more efficient, devs can spend more time on the stuff gamers notice.

For example in my inudstry, sometimes the dev isn't giving the end user the best product they can think of. A lot of times they dream up much better solutions but have to compromise based on time. New advances in tools are creating efficiencies that are allowing devs to output stuff closer to what they dream about.

Back to game development...I see no reason why this wouldn't be applicable in the game industry where so much time is coding and testing. I went chasing squirrels with the Unreal engine. I think it goes beyond Unreal engine or Unity. Stuff I'm talking about could even compliment those existing engines. I've never used them so I wouldn't know how flexible they are.

Deleted member 19924 · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
Fair points. I'm not a dev and can't speak with any credibility on the issue but eyeball test regarding Unreal suggests it's never going to push the boundaries in tech. Whenever I hear something is made using Unreal, I assume middle of the road visuals. Gears 4 is the one exception but I still don't put it in the elite class of visuals this gen.

Honest question, have you actually watched the Gears 5 trailer? Comparing graphics from other exclusives and outside of GoT's models looking quite bad, I'm not seeing a huge difference.

hmqgg · Nov 26, 2018

UE is not bad, and, it supports DXR.

christocolus · Nov 26, 2018

Zappy said:
I don't agree. MS have been hamstrung because they offer some of the best terms and conditions to their staff in the industry and have had internal cost pressures - meaning for a number of years Xbox was squeezed hard. Sony were putting most of their eggs into the PS basket.

Its not a cultural thing. Or creative vs engineering thing. Simply an issue of resources. Sony have had very large studios produce a number of average titles before getting something that was pretty good. They've maintained large studios and also been in a better position in terms of IP ownership (or at least claim to IP) than MS have this generation.

MS are now sorting that with their acquisitions and increasing the size of individual studios. If there is any distinction its that Sony have generally had a laser focus on "cinematic" style games and MS have put far less emphasis in this area - instead generally focussing on gameplay. One might say that was not entirely through choice but we shall see in the coming years. Personally I don't really want MS to change what they are doing, just to ensure they give games and studios adequate budgets, resourcing and time to get their creative visions built. I think they are on the path to that now.

I bet with the increased budgets and resources, we might start seeing more 1P build their own engines like 343i.

zedox · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
I should clarify myself since I'm getting quoted a lot on a topic in which I have no experience with. Lol

I work in tech but not anything related to game development. Today we're seeing tools that automate a lot of the grindy, time consuming stuff. Basically a drag and drop can replace hours of coding. You can do things today with one person that would've taken many people a lot more time to do 5 years ago.

These monster AAA teams are heavily made up of people who do nothing but code. If you can make coding and testing far more efficient, devs can spend more time on the stuff gamers notice.

For example in my inudstry, sometimes the dev isn't giving the end user the best product they can think of. A lot of times they dream up much better solutions but have to compromise based on time. New advances in tools are creating efficiencies that are allowing devs to output stuff closer to what they dream about.

Back to game development...I see no reason why this wouldn't be applicable in the game industry where so much time is coding and testing. I went chasing squirrels with the Unreal engine. I think it goes beyond Unreal engine or Unity. Stuff I'm talking about could even compliment those existing engines. I've never used them so I wouldn't know how flexible they are.

Game development is different from "normal" software development. Where there is still a lot of automation involved and automated testing involved, not all of it can be transferred over. Tools are just that, tools...but they can only do so much creativity wise.

I can use a paintbrush to make painting... But sometimes I need to use my hand to make it just right.

Zubalon · Nov 26, 2018

Flux said:
Honest question, have you actually watched the Gears 5 trailer? Comparing graphics from other exclusives and outside of GoT's models looking quite bad, I'm not seeing a huge difference.
Your right Gears 5 looks up there with the best of Sony, but people have so ingrained that MS first party are not as capable they won't see it even after DF proves it to be so.

Kiekura · Nov 26, 2018

Flux said:
Honest question, have you actually watched the Gears 5 trailer? Comparing graphics from other exclusives and outside of GoT's models looking quite bad, I'm not seeing a huge difference.

I think these CGI trailers or cutscenes are not the best way to compare graphics. They do look ridiculously good, specially Gears and TloU 2.

Best way to compare graphics is actual gameplay and yes Gears looks awesome I am sure it will be one of the best if not best looking game of 2019

OneBadMutha · Nov 26, 2018

matimeo said:
Ah yes it's easy to assume.
With any out of box solution in tech you do get some predictable outcomes which is why you may choose that solution in the first place however you can modify things.

I think you would be surprised at what's possible with Unreal. It's used for more than gaming these days.

I think you just prefer the art direction in Sony games. It's high quality and is executed well. Tech doesn't matter as much as the people and the culture.

For a long time people thought nothing artistic or performant could come out of Unity yet Cuphead did just fine. I'm sure they modified that engine but they also had a very strong creative vision and made sure they had the time to fully nail it as it was a priority to them.

MS tends to be technically driven and gameplay is the first layer of creative with some pull. The focus on multiplayer and replayability tend to trump art direction at times. Hopefully that will continue to improve as MS aquires more creative talent to help influence culture.

You make some good points and are a lot more credible on this than me so I'm going to relinquish my assumptions. I think I'm mis-applying logic from my industry to gaming and went chasing arguments that weren't why I brought it up to begin with.

I think the real lift to the industry isn't so much having a few games looking better than Gears 5...but rather how can more teams with under 100 devs hit that visual bar more frequently with their own personalized art style? If InXile can hit that level of visual fidelity within a two year window, won't that have a drastic impact on the perceived quality of games?

Bunkles · Nov 26, 2018

Klobrille said:
Come on haha ... It was a joke obviously ;) There even is a freaking Burger King logo ...

Big Bumpin' 2 on Scarlett?

matimeo · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
I should clarify myself since I'm getting quoted a lot on a topic in which I have no experience with. Lol

I work in tech but not anything related to game development. Today we're seeing tools that automate a lot of the grindy, time consuming stuff. Basically a drag and drop can replace hours of coding. You can do things today with one person that would've taken many people a lot more time to do 5 years ago.

These monster AAA teams are heavily made up of people who do nothing but code. If you can make coding and testing far more efficient, devs can spend more time on the stuff gamers notice.

For example in my inudstry, sometimes the dev isn't giving the end user the best product they can think of. A lot of times they dream up much better solutions but have to compromise based on time. New advances in tools are creating efficiencies that are allowing devs to output stuff closer to what they dream about.

Back to game development...I see no reason why this wouldn't be applicable in the game industry where so much time is coding and testing. I went chasing squirrels with the Unreal engine. I think it goes beyond Unreal engine or Unity. Stuff I'm talking about could even compliment those existing engines. I've never used them so I wouldn't know how flexible they are.

Game development already has tools teams. You should read up more on game development in general. You also should know being in development no one likes to sink money into tool sets. It's often seen as a sunk cost you never get back and tools have to constantly be maintained.

Tools team are often heavily understaffed as well as technical art teams. I think nowadays the mass of people needs is less engineering and more content making and content integration. Gameplay and art is highly iterative.

Look at Ubisoft teams , mostly content creators. Engineering is often needed to continue to help creative iterate and optimize and help prototype new ideas.

Gaming is a bit different than other tech roles. It really is a technical art and engineering doesn't get to just hyper focus on one thing most of the time. It's also a business of specialists so each area is unique in skills required so it's rare you have 100 developers writing code on one game at the same time imo, usually that's over a time period where people leave, get replaced, help on other things etc.

Bear and bird · Nov 26, 2018

Klobrille said:
Come on haha ... It was a joke obviously ;) There even is a freaking Burger King logo ...

With Splinter Cell being MIA, Sneak King Returns by IO Interactive will have to do.

gremlinz1982 · Nov 26, 2018

matimeo said:
That's less a technology thing and more a culture and priority thing. Sony is a content first company and their culture has been built around that. They prioritize creative in development in all phases including recruitment. This leads to games with really strong art and creative direction and at times poor performance.

MS is a engineering culture. Engineering values different things. T10 is an engineering led studio. Performance is number one for them.

MS tends to have far fewer full time creative staff members and less time (MS is also management driven) compared to Sony studios.

I think the recent acquisitions are an attempt to bring in fresh creative blood which is often hard for MS to recruit and retain. It should also give the core studios some breathing room.

I think it might just be a time issue for the most time. Look at how long games like God of War, Gran Turismo Sport, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4 were in development for. How long it has taken for them to get to a point where they can release The Last of Us II.

Microsoft's internal studios have rarely had that amount of time ranging from found and a half years and beyond to come out with games that really push the boundaries as consistently.

OneBadMutha · Nov 26, 2018

zedox said:
Game development is different from "normal" software development. Where there is still a lot of automation involved and automated testing involved, not all of it can be transferred over. Tools are just that, tools...but they can only do so much creativity wise.

I can use a paintbrush to make painting... But sometimes I need to use my hand to make it just right.

Ah...this is true. But what if you were using your paint brush on the things where individuality was most important but being able to automate other stuff at a much higher quality?

Think of how samey most things look in an open world game. What if tools advanced to where landscapes, sky, water, different textures for building materials, etc could not only be more automated but also be more distinct and detailed looking through that automation? What if we got to a point where less important NPCs that fill the world could be automated yet still all look completely different from each other with high visual fidelity. I think those types of things can happen with advances in tech. Not just the automation...but automation that doesn't look automated.

No matter how big the team or how much money they get, resources still have to be prioritized and allocated according to what's most important to the game designers and artists. Key is making the things that are not prioritized happen efficiently without reduction in quality.

zedox · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
Ah...this is true. But what if you were using your paint brush on the things where individuality was most important but being able to automate other stuff at a much higher quality?

Think of how samey most things look in an open world game. What if tools advanced to where landscapes, sky, water, different textures for building materials, etc could not only be more automated but also be more distinct and detailed looking through that automation? What if we got to a point where less important NPCs that fill the world could be automated yet still all look completely different from each other with high visual fidelity. I think those types of things can happen with advances in tech. Not just the automation...but automation that doesn't look automated.

No matter how big the team or how much money they get, resources still have to be prioritized and allocated according to what's most important to the game designers and artists. Key is making the things that are not prioritized happen efficiently without reduction in quality.

Yes, that can be done but the only problem with that is games tend to be unique. AI and automation can help with some things like you said (and some games do, using stock stuff) but what sets games apart is being different.

Look at No Man's Sky.. Different worlds based on automation... But it each world still still has the "No Man's Sky" world "look" to it. That's what would happen. Uniqueness costs time and money. We will get to that point in automation where humans can't tell the difference but that's a far ways away from now.

SpinierBlakeD · Nov 26, 2018

Chettlar said:
30 to 60 is so objectively not a minor upgrade I don't know where to begin. It is so much more difficult and requires significantly more power to do.

It might be a significant leap technologically. But visually I don't think it makes much of a difference.

Deleted member 19924 · Nov 26, 2018

Kiekura said:
I think these CGI trailers or cutscenes are not the best way to compare graphics. They do look ridiculously good, specially Gears and TloU 2.

Best way to compare graphics is actual gameplay and yes Gears looks awesome I am sure it will be one of the best if not best looking game of 2019

These are in-engine cutscenes that are most likely real time, so they're definitely a fair way of comparing the game's visuals. The Gears 5 trailer also had gameplay snippets which looked equally as good IMO. Overall, TLOU 2 still looks quite a bit better than anything Xbox has (ND are technically amazing) but I don't think the difference between Gears 5 and TLOU 2 is big at all, UE4 is a capable engine in the right hands.

matimeo · Nov 26, 2018

zedox said:
Yes, that can be done but the only problem with that is games tend to be unique. AI and automation can help with some things like you said (and some games do, using stock stuff) but what sets games apart is being different.

Look at No Man's Sky.. Different worlds based on automation... But it each world still still has the "No Man's Sky" world "look" to it. That's what would happen. Uniqueness costs time and money. We will get to that point in automation where humans can't tell the difference but that's a far ways away from now.

Yup that stuff is constantly being worked on in the background usually by research teams first then production teams will often build on the work research teams have done.

Results are usually mixed. Watchdogs 2 developers talk about this in how they tried to automate NPC behaviors in relation to the player. Hitman developers used machine learning and talk about hiccups they ran into.

OneBadMutha you should look up GDC tech talks. Industry is using automation, AI, machine learning in many ways. There are also great talks on pipelines and tools work being done. GDC is one of many places the industry shares and learns from each other.

OneBadMutha · Nov 26, 2018

Flux said:
These are in-engine cutscenes that are most likely real time, so they're definitely a fair way of comparing the game's visuals. The Gears 5 trailer also had gameplay snippets which looked equally as good IMO. Overall, TLOU 2 still looks quite a bit better than anything Xbox has (ND are technically amazing) but I don't think the difference between Gears 5 and TLOU 2 is big at all, UE4 is a capable engine in the right hands.

I think one of the areas that Sony's 1st party are elite and head and shoulders above the industry (in addition to art and detail) is animations. Gears and Halo animations aren't bad or embarrassing by any stretch...but when you see Sony's first party games, no comparison. What's interesting is that even Insomniac, not known for animations, had great animations in Spider-Man.

Animations go a long ways to bringing a world to life. Hoping that Ninja Theory can spread their expertise.

OneBadMutha · Nov 26, 2018

matimeo said:
Yup that stuff is constantly being worked on in the background usually by research teams first then production teams will often build on the work research teams have done.

Results are usually mixed. Watchdogs 2 developers talk about this in how they tried to automate NPC behaviors in relation to the player. Hitman developers used machine learning and talk about hiccups they ran into.

OneBadMutha you should look up GDC tech talks. Industry is using automation, AI, machine learning in many ways. There are also great talks on pipelines and tools work being done. GDC is one of many places the industry shares and learns from each other.

Good stuff! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I will look it up. I find this captivating.

Raide · Nov 26, 2018

Do we think Scarlett will do anything DXR or is it too early for the tech?

Still a Gray Area · Nov 26, 2018

OneBadMutha said:
Just don't see stuff on Unreal pushing any boundaries. Unreal and Unity are familiar but they don't compete for top tier visuals. I'd argue Coalition pushes the engine more than any dev and Gears graphics don't compare to top tier stuff on PlayStation. Sony's teams figured out how to push tech and share their game engines amongst each other. As long as this goes against Microsoft's strategy, expect the best looking stuff to always be on PlayStation even if the next Xbox is more powerful.

Microsoft is conceding the graphics crown for the foreseeable future if they rely on Unreal.

We're normally on the same page but I have to disagree with this. Gears 4 hit 1080p on Unreal before even Epic did. TC even added to the engine. Gears 4 looks great on a 1.2TF machine and as a 4k showcase, it's ridiculous. The 1X version didn't get the proper DF treatment so a lot of people slept on what The Coalition accomplished.

hmqgg · Nov 26, 2018

Xbox will support ray tracing.

zedox · Nov 26, 2018

Raide said:
Do we think Scarlett will do anything DXR or is it too early for the tech?

I think it will happen in the Scarlett lifecycle...but it could easily not happen either...I do think that Ray Tracing is the next step for graphics in gaming to go though and consoles need something to make that "jump" more visual. We shall see though, it's not a guarantee that it happens.

OneBadMutha · Nov 26, 2018

Still a Gray Area said:
We're normally on the same page but I have to disagree with this. Gears 4 hit 1080p on Unreal before even Epic did. TC even added to the engine. Gears 4 looks great on a 1.2TF machine and as a 4k showcase, it's ridiculous. The 1X version didn't get the proper DF treatment so a lot of people slept on what The Coalition accomplished.

Yeah I'm backing off from my initial comment. Lot of hyperbole and lack of context from what I said. People have made better points.

That was before my extra large cup of coffee. Now that I've had my coffee, I feel a lot less hyperbole coming on. Lol

bsigg · Nov 26, 2018

hmqgg said:
Xbox will support ray tracing.

There's nothing in AMD's known/leaked pipeline that signals that it will.

As we have found out with Nvidia, it's going to take specialized chips to handle the incredible amount of data that needs to be processed to make it run at an acceptable rate and there's nothing from AMD that looks to be doing that barring some crazy announcement at CES or some other event.

hmqgg · Nov 26, 2018

Why not ASIC ;)

hmqgg · Nov 26, 2018

Which designed by MS and some vendors.

matimeo · Nov 26, 2018

Still a Gray Area said:
We're normally on the same page but I have to disagree with this. Gears 4 hit 1080p on Unreal before even Epic did. TC even added to the engine. Gears 4 looks great on a 1.2TF machine and as a 4k showcase, it's ridiculous. The 1X version didn't get the proper DF treatment so a lot of people slept on what The Coalition accomplished.

Yup. But it's also important to note Gears has a strong style that whoever is driving Art at the time really pays homage to. You can refine that style but people who aren't drawn to it just won't be. Many people don't really understand purposeful art direction and styles and how that relates to execution no matter the tech stack.

I think MS top franchises can often fall into this bucket for many people.
Definitely heard similar things about Forza as well over the years. Forza Motorsport has a new Art Director who should be settled in so it will be interesting to see if FM sees some distinct style changes in future releases. Just changing how you handle lighting can change the look and feel of a game.

zedox · Nov 26, 2018

bsigg said:
There's nothing in AMD's known/leaked pipeline that signals that it will.

As we have found out with Nvidia, it's going to take specialized chips to handle the incredible amount of data that needs to be processed to make it run at an acceptable rate and there's nothing from AMD that looks to be doing that barring some crazy announcement at CES or some other event.

Only thing I have to say in regards to this is that Microsoft also designs specialized chips and one of them being AI chips that the company as a whole wants to incorporate. What does NVidia use to help with their Ray Tracing efforts? Deep Learning (aka AI). I'm not saying it will happen at launch, but I am saying that Microsoft has already put resources into gaming AI (for different uses), Direct X Raytracing with working with NVidia, and AI chips and promising to setting the bar for consoles, and also knowing that both Sony and Microsoft are doing their own custom designs on AMDs chipset leads more credence than one can assume that they are working towards that. Maybe not to the level of a 2080Ti Ultra settings...but maybe low or between low or mid. It may be a mid-gen thing but who knows if they try to launch with it, I don't think it is out of the question but a midgen would be more likely (hence why I said Scarlett lifecycle).

Also...AMD won't let NVidia have the raytracing spotlight forever (not saying that they are gonna be like, hey we have RT cards now). But we shall see what happens. I do think that RT is the next step (such a old step being the next step...lololol) in graphical fidelity. It's also something that people can tell the difference in on a youtube video (vs say 4K).

ResilientBanana · Nov 26, 2018

bsigg said:
There's nothing in AMD's known/leaked pipeline that signals that it will.

As we have found out with Nvidia, it's going to take specialized chips to handle the incredible amount of data that needs to be processed to make it run at an acceptable rate and there's nothing from AMD that looks to be doing that barring some crazy announcement at CES or some other event.

Wouldn't it still be really late in the console development phase to include such a chip? Taking on a new chip would change the Architecture of the system I would assume. I would have to guess that the Xbox Scarlet X might get something like this, but not the Xbox Scarlet. Another option would be Ray Tracing from the Cloud as there has been a significant amount of research for it, but who knows. I would love ray tracing, but I don't think we will see that done well for another 5 - 10 years

bsigg · Nov 26, 2018

zedox said:
Only thing I have to say in regards to this is that Microsoft also designs specialized chips and one of them being AI chips that the company as a whole wants to incorporate. What does NVidia use to help with their Ray Tracing efforts? Deep Learning (aka AI). I'm not saying it will happen at launch, but I am saying that Microsoft has already put resources into gaming AI (for different uses), Direct X Raytracing with working with NVidia, and AI chips and promising to setting the bar for consoles, and also knowing that both Sony and Microsoft are doing their own custom designs on AMDs chipset leads more credence than one can assume that they are working towards that. Maybe not to the level of a 2080Ti Ultra settings...but maybe low or between low or mid. It may be a mid-gen thing but who knows if they try to launch with it, I don't think it is out of the question but a midgen would be more likely (hence why I said Scarlett lifecycle).

Also...AMD won't let NVidia have the raytracing spotlight forever (not saying that they are gonna be like, hey we have RT cards now). But we shall see what happens. I do think that RT is the next step (such a old step being the next step...lololol) in graphical fidelity. It's also something that people can tell the difference in on a youtube video (vs say 4K).

I do think we'll see Microsoft working to get it in the Xbox at some point and solely from the AMD standpoint, we know they're behind and have stated they don't want to talk about ray tracing on a consumer level until it's possible on their entire lineup of cards. It's a bit disheartening when you consider how far behind AMD is in general on GPU performance compared to Nvidia. Like you mentioned, it's very possible Microsoft is building an additional chip similar to the RT Core for the next line of Xbox consoles. With their involvement developing DXR, they would know pretty intimately what they need to have in order to make ray tracing a reality on consoles and in a way that makes it worth it for developers to lean on the tech and it not be too much of hassle.

hmqgg said:
Why not ASIC ;)

hmqgg said:
Which designed by MS and some vendors.

It's possible that Microsoft, while working on DXR in general, was working on something like this for the Scarlett but it's nothing something I would be expecting.

ResilientBanana said:
Wouldn't it still be really late in the console development phase to include such a chip? Taking on a new chip would change the Architecture of the system I would assume. I would have to guess that the Xbox Scarlet X might get something like this, but not the Xbox Scarlet. Another option would be Ray Tracing from the Cloud as there has been a significant amount of research for it, but who knows. I would love ray tracing, but I don't think we will see that done well for another 5 - 10 years

I would think so but it would depend on what Microsoft was planning from the beginning. I keep going back to Nvidia because they're the first company to get the tech to consumers in a tangible way but they say their development of the RT Core is something that has taken years so it's very possible Microsoft has been planning something very similar since they broke ground on the X and what was to follow the X.

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