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In Theory: Does Kinect-free Xbox One mean more power for games? [DIGITAL FOUNDRY]

M

mocoworm

Member
Fantastic article from Digital Foundry. Read it all. It's long but worth it.

In Theory: Does Kinect-free Xbox One mean more power for games? - Yes, says Digital Foundry, but it may not close the gap.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-does-a-kinect-free-xbox-one-mean-more-processing-power-for-games

EUROGAMER said:
Bundling Kinect with every Xbox One came at a price - and not just a financial one. Similar to PlayStation 4, two of the Xbox One's eight CPU cores are reserved for system functionality, but the Microsoft console's resources are further restrained by the way 10 per cent of its graphical power is allocated mostly for dealing with Kinect inputs. In the wake of the camera-free console announcement, will those resources now be returned to developers? And how much will it improve the games we play?
Click to expand...

Speaking with Digital Foundry, Trials Fusion lead graphic programmer Sebastian Aaltonen also cautioned on judging the new consoles based on their first-gen software, suggesting that better things are coming:

"Launch games never show the true long-term potential of the consoles. Locked 60fps is a very hard goal for any launch title. Developers needed to start programming their next-gen engines before they have access to the final hardware. Lots of educated guesses must be made, and hitting them all right isn't easy," he said.

"In our case we started at 720p on both next-gen consoles, because we wanted to ensure that our gameplay programmers could fine-tune the game mechanics and physics using a build that was running smoothly. Hitting our target frame-rate (60fps) was more important for us than hitting a certain resolution at the beginning of the project.

"At the end, we got very close to platform parity between the next-generation consoles. Both consoles are running the game at locked 60fps, with identical shader and effect quality and with identical content (textures, models and levels). Rendering resolution is the only difference between the platforms. PS4 renders at slightly higher 1080p resolution than Xbox One (900p)."
Click to expand...

"Microsoft has announced that DirectX 12 has several efficiency improvements over DirectX 11. It seems to be a very well-designed API. As a long-time console developer, I love to get my hands dirty with the low-level resource handling and data synchronisation also on PC. This will allow developers to create games that will never drop frames. On current high-level PC APIs, you can get unexpected stalls, because the GPU driver chooses to do memory reallocation or transfer some data unexpectedly though the slow PCI Express bus," Aaltonen says, also pointing out that Xbox 360 games also saw big improvements over the course of time, as Microsoft opened up the graphics hardware to more adventurous developers.

"Xbox 360 got a big boost from the low-level graphics API. We managed to hit up to 10k draw calls per frame (at 60fps) in Trials Evolution using the low-level Xbox 360 graphics API, as discussed in our earlier interview. We are eagerly waiting to get our hands dirty with DirectX 12. It's definitely possible that Xbox One will also get a performance boost from a new low-level API."
Click to expand...
 
B

backbreaker65

Banned
Why are people forgetting that 8% was giving back a few months ago. It's not 10% now it's more like 2%. Why is this getting lost in the discussion?

EDIT: I stand corrected it was talked about but no wasn't acted upon. So what will they do with Kinect when you buy it, is it just for games? and not for Snap Multi Media functions? So I don't think 10% will not be giving back more like 5 to 8 percent.
 
O

Opus Angelorum

Member
Xbox One software will get better from a technological standpoint, but it will come down to a range of factors - the most dramatic of which has little to do with Kinect. Development sources indicate that the DirectX driver is improving rapidly, but developers' increased familiarity with the hardware is also paying dividends - a state of affairs exemplified by the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which even in its pre-production form offers a 50 per cent resolution boost over its 720p predecessor, while also incorporating a wealth of new rendering technologies
Click to expand...

I think this is the most important part.
 
U

USDF

Banned
backbreaker65 said:
Why are people forgetting that 8% was giving back a few months ago. It's not 10% now it's more like 2%. Why is this getting lost in the discussion?
Click to expand...

Dat spin , before we hit E3 the masses will believe there is actual secret sauce being released and there is parity between the two systems now
 
H

Hanmik

Member
why talk about early gen games in an article about a kinectless XboxOne getting more power..? will Wii-U and PS4 games not look better later on..?
 
B

Bundy

Banned
codhand said:
it may not close the gap?
Click to expand...
It will never close the gap, because the hardware of the XBone is simply weaker.
Giving back some "blocked" performance (because of Kinect) of an already weaker hardware won't close the performance gap between the two consoles.
I think even Digital Foundry knows that ;-)

The Xbone software/tools are getting better later on (DX12) and the PS4 software/tools are getting better later on.
The power/performance gap will stay and there is nothing MS can do about it.
 
G

gruenel

Member
backbreaker65 said:
Why are people forgetting that 8% was giving back a few months ago. It's not 10% now it's more like 2%. Why is this getting lost in the discussion?
Click to expand...

Did they really already give back 8%? I thought they were just talking about it but haven't actually implemented it yet.
 
P

pixlexic

Banned
I may have read the article wrong but it never says the xbone will match the ps4 .. Just get better as time goes on.
 
D

def sim

Member
The 8% was not given back, AFAIK. Last word was from respawn, no? Something along the lines of looking into raising Titanfall's resolution if the Kinect reserve was given back. It's mentioned in this article, as well.
 
H

Hanmik

Member
gruenel said:
Did they really already give back 8%? I thought they were just talking about it but haven't actually implemented it yet.
Click to expand...

I WANT THE 8% BACK THAT YOU TOOK FROM ME...........!!!!

(when did they ever take anything..? they released a console with certain specs, and would possibly be able to free up more ressources later on, they never TOOK anything )..
 
B

backbreaker65

Banned
Hellshy. said:
I remember it being a thing they were looking into and nothing more nut I could be wrong. Do you have a link?
Click to expand...

Oh, I stand corrected, I thought it was a done deal.

So what will they use the Kinect for then? if you purchase it? Voice commands only? So I'm think they will not get the full 10% maybe it is the 8% that will be giving back.
 
H

Hoo-doo

Banned
That second quote from the Trials developer has absolutely nothing to do with the so-called power increase that the kinect-less Xbox will provide.

It's the same "the gap will get smaller over time" we've been hearing since launch.
Most of the sources used in the article are also comments received from PR around launch or shortly thereafter. They have little correlation to the title of the article.

Sounds like complete speculation on Leadbetter's part.

The only "current" information in the entire article is the quip made by Yusuf Mehdi that current things "could change".
I don't think anything that Mehdi says is to be taken at face value at this point.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
backbreaker65 said:
Why are people forgetting that 8% was giving back a few months ago. It's not 10% now it's more like 2%. Why is this getting lost in the discussion?
Click to expand...
Because it was not given back. A few months ago there was a performance increase and many assumed it meant the reserve was down, but it wasn't. MS is in talks to remove it, though.
 
B

Bgamer90

Banned
backbreaker65 said:
Why are people forgetting that 8% was giving back a few months ago. It's not 10% now it's more like 2%. Why is this getting lost in the discussion?
Click to expand...

They didn't do that yet and even if they did, none of the games that are out right now (or are coming in the next 4+ months) would be made with it in mind.
 
U

USDF

Banned
Right I want percentages now !

So this 2% of 10% how does that relate to the percentage of performance gulf between the two and in terms of percentages what does this mean ?
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
the answer should be no, and if the answer is yes then it means MS have shit tools.

Even if you have a kinect attached, if a developer is making a game that doesn't require gesture recognition, skeleton tracking or voice recognition, then that power reserved for Kinect should be available for the devs to use. I believe MS were already talking about this a few months ago.


If that power is being reserved if your game isn't using it, then thats just a bad setup and should be addressed regardless of what MS are doing with kinect bundling.
 
B

Bgamer90

Banned
USDF said:
Right I want percentages now !

So this 2% of 10% how does that relate to the percentage of performance gulf between the two and in terms of percentages what does this mean ?
Click to expand...

It's a 10% GPU reserve on the Xbox One for Kinect. Apparently 2% of it is for voice, while the other 8% is for motion control. Games that don't use motion control shouldn't have to suffer, hence why there has been talks about them giving up that 8% for them.

I do wonder though how this will impact the ability to stream video of yourself playing a game when using the twitch app (well, that is if they will do it).
 
G

gruenel

Member
Hanmik said:
I WANT THE 8% BACK THAT YOU TOOK FROM ME...........!!!!

(when did they ever take anything..? they released a console with certain specs, and would possibly be able to free up more ressources later on, they never TOOK anything )..
Click to expand...

Don't be deliberately obtuse, you know what we are talking about :p
 
U

USDF

Banned
Bgamer90 said:
It's a 10% GPU reserve on the Xbox One for Kinect. Apparently 2% of it is for voice, while the other 8% is for motion control. Games that don't use motion control shouldn't have to suffer, hence why there has been talks about them giving up that 8% for them.

I do wonder though how this will impact the ability to stream video of yourself playing a game when using the twitch app (well, that is if they will do it).
Click to expand...

There are not enough percentages in this answer to satisfy my thirst
 
JimiNutz

JimiNutz

Banned
The most important thing for MS is that the gap isn't too large. If it's literally 900p vs 1080p and frame rate, textures, lighting etc. are near identical then it's only gonna be an issue for the most hardest of hardcore gamers (which is surely a small percentage of the overall market).

Even for relatively hardcore gamers like me (as in someone that actually reads a posts on forums) 900p vs 1080p is a non issue.

If they can keep the differences marginal then it's all gonna come down to games, games, games.
 
iceatcs

iceatcs

Junior Member
Bgamer90 said:
From my understanding, it has actually also been stated by devs who make Xbox One games (months ago).
Click to expand...

Yep 2 core reserve from CPU. But I'm quite positive there is nothing do with the GPU.

Even 900p vs 1080p is still big gap. Much bigger gap than PS3 vs 360.
 
N

nynt9

Member
Ah, yet another "minor software improvements to the Xbox One somehow vastly improve its performance despite the bottleneck being hardware (mainly ESRAM); and somehow this will let it catch up with the PS4 because the PS4 software never gets better!" article! At least come up with some original spin MS/gaming journalists.
 
A

Ateron

Member
The gap will remain throughout the generation,as you can't make up better hardware from thin air. Tools will improve,that much is certain, but as developers will be able to extract more from the x1, the same applies to ps4. It's not like Sony will sit on their asses and do nothing to improve the tools. That and the fact that the os footprint will certainly be diminished - as it seems a little bloated for now- releasing more resources for the devs.
 
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