Devs react to the Xbox Series S specs
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
- Status
I don't think that has an S|X version confirmed at this time.
It would just be running on BC at this point.
True, but it's still very late in the day to have an SDK that builds against that target and let's you run profiling tools.
Mind you, we've already seen a load of footage of games running on the series s and they looked great considering the resolution target so clearly it isn't a big issue for some developers.
My biggest concern is how it will handle games that max out the Series X RT capabilities, it'll be trying to make up for the CU differences while also trying to use those same CUs to Trace rays, even if it were magically able to just Ray Trace, it's theoretical maximum is still only 69 rays per clock if the texture units do absolutely nothing.
What are they going to do? Not allow studios to release their games on series X? Giving free console exclusives to Sony? That is something that would hurt MS a lot and i don't know if they would recover from that.
I imagine that shooting for the moon and then realizing that the weaker console can't do what you want it to just slows down development and causes you to compromise your design. These things need to be planned out in advance.
Was specifically referring to the SSD.
PC's will have SSD's fast enough to port PS5 games, in fact, they'll be/are available this year.
The Series X doesn't have that option, so it'll always be limited to the speed of it's current SSD. If a dev designs a game around the PS5's SSD, it'll have to be gimped on the X. That's just a fact.
Again, not visually speaking, the X is still more powerful. A game designed for the X though will always be possible on the PS5, but with visual setbacks (upscaled resolutions/blurrier RT effects etc.), but it'll still run - It'll only run worse.
By contrast, it might not run at all on the X.
Dude they got the current gen Witcher on the damn Switch. It will be just FINE.
"Mom, Fortnite is running at 120fps but it looks like the ray tracing fx isn't as good as it could be, and the textures aren't even 4k, like they cut some corners to get it running on this $300 console... :( "
Seems like a mixed bag of reactions from devs, which I think is understandable. It's essentially more work to squeeze the most out of both platforms.
They all seem mega impressed by it from a consumer standpoint though. Xbox's strategy is in full effect now, dominate the low end and the high end.
They all seem mega impressed by it from a consumer standpoint though. Xbox's strategy is in full effect now, dominate the low end and the high end.
Unless Microsoft allows for games to only work on the Series X (which I highly doubt), the only way to skip developing for the XSS is to skip the Xbox platform all together.
Is there any possibly that the S comes out and it doesn't suck for multiplats?
Well, Microsoft would threaten that yes, and every developer/publisher would listen and make a Series S version. You're simply not gonna see games skip the Series S but release on the Series X, it would cause an insane shitstorm aimed at Microsoft.
Given that every generation has had 1-2 years of cross-gen games, I can't see this happening.
Devs and pubs arent going to skip out on free money.
I was just thinking about this a couple of days ago, wondering if the only difference between both skus was going to be just resolution.
This doesn't sound too promising really
This doesn't sound too promising really
Not really, the performance gap is about the same as Switch and Xbox One this gen... unless you think the Switch runs all multiplats really well...
The RAM situation is about what I expected when I first saw the specs, but I trusted other voices claiming that it was solely downgraded to adjust for lower target resolution. I'm actually super curious to read up on this; is there a detailed write-up of how increased resolution actually affects VRAM? I'm assuming it's a bunch of uncompressed pixel buffers, but my notepad math isn't adding up that well.
Yeah no shit, hence my second paragraph which you conveniently edited out 🙄
This is my thinking as well - while these are valid concerns, many of these impressions don't appear to be informed by time with the hardware.
I imagine MS knew from the start that two separate SKU's would raise these questions and they'll have approached this carefully.
Studios will ship their games on XSS just fine, developers don't decide where the games they develop release on, that is up to executives and they don't care if they can't push graphics to their limit.
Eh, I dunno, everything is late in the day when developing launch titles and getting things. To me, that seems more than sufficient because at that point you've planned for it and you're doing cleanup and optimization to validate things work as you expected with enough time to clean it up. The whole idea here is it shouldn't be a huge amount of work or hindrance to the developer so I don't see a problem here with the time frame.
Unless it's a massive success, I wouldn't be shocked if many took that approach.
I mean this isn't ever going to be an option. Series S will have a much larger install base then X, publishers aren't going to abandon Series S or Xbox because of some Devs disagree with hardware specs. Astonished that you even mentioned it tbh.
That means the Xss is a quad core Zen at 1.6ghz, 3TF, and 8GB ram with 100GB/s bw.
It's simple, devs won't do that, they won't "max out the Series X RT capabilities". They'll design a model that works for the XSS at whatever resolution they're targeting, scale up for XSX and then adjust effects to maximise use of resources there. Not only for RT, but for any load that doesn't scale neatly with resolution (GPUs do a lot more than push pixels).
Down-porting is always much harder than up-porting, given the choice devs will always go for the latter.
More like lots of kids/people who are super excited to get a next gen console this year when they otherwise would have had to wait for a price drop on the PS5/Series X
"Jimmy, Sarah. It's been hard for everyone, what with the pandemic, the recession, and us both losing our jobs, but we thought to get you a big treat for Christmas. We were only just able to afford it but because of a very nice payment plan, and because you've both been so amazing this year, we could get it for you! Go on, open it!"
The two children excitedly rip the wrapping paper from the box sitting underneath the Christmas tree. It's an Xbox Series X with 24 whole months of Game Pass Ultimate!
Their excited faces turn to disappointment.
Then anger.
"What the fuck is this, Mom? Dad? What the fuck is this?" exclaims Jimmy. He had only just learnt to swear that October.
"This is some pure shite," says Sarah. "Don't you know that the Xbox Series S has lower RAM than its Series X counterpart and will, therefore, reduce the baseline minimum spec developers have to create their games around in the future? Frankly I don't think you even considered the potential ramifications of this purchasing decision. If only you had listened and, perhaps, loved us enough, you'd have bought the console which won't completely ruin the rest of gaming for everyone."
"Look, we're sorry; we can get a refund..." the mother cries.
"OK, Boomer," Jimmy screams.
"Timmy next door got a 3080! I hate you!" Sarah shouts as she slams the front door; a last farewell before moving to greener pastures.
Pretty much seemed like his entire doing.
Other people who are more credible on the topic seemed to offer better insight without throwing gas on the fire.
Poor guy.
So, all multiplatform games are held back by the S? No devs are going to try to push the X or the PS5 because they don't want to over-burden the S?
It scales well if you have good hardware, yes. The game target good hardware, which is fantastic. But that's not the norm on PC.
The information is wrong.
But honestly don't matter that much, the difference between CPUs is negligible(for the 3 machines).
Imagine that back in 2013 Sony released a console with 0.8TF and 6G of ram at 249 and named it the PS4S.
Scaling means the game being able to run fine in both bad and good hardware.
A lot of optimization will go into the other versions, but yes, fundamentally, yes. You'll only see full hardware for PS5 and XSX being targeted for first-party stuff, likely.
Has AMD revealed how or what is their HW accelerated Ray tracing? In terms of the architecture? Do they have dedicated CUs?
I'm just wondering how's the RT performance between the Series S and X
I'm just wondering how's the RT performance between the Series S and X
You literally said it's ridiculous to question or contest developer concern and then you continued to question and contest their concern haha.
My understanding is that the X IS MS's Pro console. PS5 Pro will likely be 20TF based on their patent filed in Jan 2019.
Remedy is as we speak working on CrossfireX, a cross-gen Xbox game releasing this year. There's also no way a studio like ID Software isn't working on next-gen Xbox stuff as well.
Game is listed as Xbox One & Xbox Series X on the Xbox website and is "Optimized for Series X".
Would it have been smart to target 480p at that point in time? Is it smart to target 1080p/1440p at this point in time? Bear in mind only ~50% of households have 4K tvs in UK and US.
- Status