• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

[Digital Foundry] Xbox Series X Complete Specs + Ray Tracing/Gears 5/Back-Compat/Quick Resume Demo Showcase!

CyberPanda

CyberPanda

Banned
rofif said:
what does that even mean. cpu and gpu clocks don't matter in the slightest
Click to expand...
It means good things.

Also:

news.xbox.com

Xbox Series X: What’s the Deal with Latency? - Xbox Wire

Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘latency’ as “the quality or state of being present and capable of emerging or developing but not now visible, obvious, or active.” And now that I’ve finally gotten to use that hackneyed writing trope in my career, let’s dive into what latency means in the world of...
news.xbox.com news.xbox.com
 
Mista

Mista

Banned
Xbox-Series-X_2020_03-16-20_005.jpg

Xbox-Series-X_2020_03-16-20_006.jpg


Xbox-Series-X_2020_03-16-20_009.jpg


  • Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) – As part of commitment to responsiveness for the next generation of console gaming, Xbox Series X supports Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) with capable displays. ALLM automatically enables your display’s lowest latency mode when you start playing. This functionality exists on Xbox One consoles today.
  • Backward Compatibility – At Xbox, we’ve made a promise to compatibility: you can expect thousands of your favorite games across four generations of gaming, your Xbox One gaming accessories, your Xbox gaming legacy, and industry-leading services like Xbox Game Pass to work with Xbox Series X. Backward compatible games will benefit from the power and performance of Xbox Series X, resulting in steadier framerates, faster load times, improved resolution and visual fidelity. Fans and game creators can feel confident they will be able to play and create the best version of their games on the Xbox Series X.
  • DirectML – Xbox Series X supports Machine Learning for games with DirectML, a component of DirectX. DirectML leverages unprecedented hardware performance in a console, benefiting from over 24 TFLOPS of 16-bit float performance and over 97 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of 4-bit integer performance on Xbox Series X. Machine Learning can improve a wide range of areas, such as making NPCs much smarter, providing vastly more lifelike animation, and greatly improving visual quality.
  • DirectStorage – DirectStorage is an all new I/O system designed specifically for gaming to unleash the full performance of the SSD and hardware decompression. It is one of the components that comprise the Xbox Velocity Architecture. Modern games perform asset streaming in the background to continuously load the next parts of the world while you play, and DirectStorage can reduce the CPU overhead for these I/O operations from multiple cores to taking just a small fraction of a single core; thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better physics or more NPCs in a scene. This newest member of the DirectX family is being introduced with Xbox Series X and we plan to bring it to Windows as well.
  • Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) –Another innovation we are making to reduce latency for Xbox Series X is Dynamic Latency Input (DLI). With DLI, developers can more accurately synchronize the player’s input with the game’s simulation and render loop, even further reducing input latency while playing the game.
  • GPU Work Creation – Xbox Series X adds hardware, firmware and shader compiler support for GPU work creation that provides powerful capabilities for the GPU to efficiently handle new workloads without any CPU assistance. This provides more flexibility and performance for developers to deliver their graphics visions.
  • Hardware Accelerated DirectX Raytracing (DXR) – From improved lighting, shadows and reflections as well as more realistic acoustics and spatial audio, raytracing enables developers to create more physically accurate worlds. For the very first time in a game console, Xbox Series X includes support for high performance, hardware accelerated raytracing. Xbox Series X uses a custom-designed GPU leveraging the latest innovation from our partners at AMD and built in collaboration with the same team who developed DirectX Raytracing. Developers will be able to deliver incredibly immersive visual and audio experiences using the same techniques on PC and beyond.
  • Hardware Decompression – Hardware decompression is a dedicated hardware component introduced with Xbox Series X to allow games to consume as little space as possible on the SSD while eliminating all CPU overhead typically associated with run-time decompression. It reduces the software overhead of decompression when operating at full SSD performance from more than three CPU cores to zero – thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better gameplay and improved framerates. Hardware decompression is one of the components of the Xbox Velocity Architecture.
  • Intelligent Delivery – Microsoft’s developer facing technology to reduce the size of game installs. Intelligent Delivery empowers developers to only install the pieces of the game you need, thereby minimizing the amount of content that needs to be installed or downloaded to the SSD.
  • Latency – Latency refers to responsiveness of the console and controller, including the time it takes for your input to be registered by your console and then displayed on your screen. Reducing latency results in a more connected and immersive experience. Xbox Series X will be our most responsive console ever featuring ultra-low latency with advanced technology that minimizes latency at every stage of the gaming pipeline so that you instantly see the impact of your actions on the screen.
  • Mesh Shading – Mesh shading will enable developers to dramatically improve the performance and image quality when rendering a substantial number of complex objects in a scene. As an example, mesh shaders could enable the player to experience asteroid belts and fields of flowers in more pristine detail without seeing a loss in performance.
  • Native Resolution – Native Resolution is an Xbox Series X backwards compatibility enhancement for select Xbox One games that allows them to render at native 4K even if they weren’t originally designed for 4K.
  • Optimized for Xbox Series X – Games built using the Xbox Series X development kit and designed to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X. These include new titles built natively using the Xbox Series X development environment as well as previously released titles that have been rebuilt specifically for Xbox Series X. They will showcase unparalleled load-times, visuals, responsiveness and framerates up to 120 frames per second.
  • Parallel Cooling Architecture – Parallel Cooling Architecture is the name of the innovative system design used to cool Xbox Series X. Building a console that delivers four times the processing power of Xbox One X in the most quiet and efficient way – something that is critically important with all the extra power of our next generation console – led to its unique vertical design.
  • Project Acoustics – Incubated over a decade by Microsoft Research, Project Acoustics accurately models sound propagation physics in mixed reality and games, employed by many AAA experiences today. It is unique in simulating wave effects like diffraction in complex scene geometries without straining CPU, enabling a much more immersive and lifelike auditory experience. Plug-in support for both the Unity and Unreal game engines empower the sound designer with expressive controls to mold reality. Developers will be able to easily leverage Project Acoustics with Xbox Series X through the addition of a new custom audio hardware block.
  • Quick Resume – A new feature powered by the technical capabilities and the innovative Xbox Velocity Architecture in Xbox Series X, Quick Resume enables players to seamlessly switch between multiple titles and resume instantly from where you last left off.
  • RDNA 2 – The custom designed processor in the Xbox Series X leverages RDNA 2, the latest next generation graphics architecture from our partners at AMD. RDNA 2 provides a significant advancement in performance and efficiency as well as next generation graphics features such as hardware accelerated raytracing and variable rate shading.
  • Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS) – A component of the Xbox Velocity Architecture, SFS is a feature of the Xbox Series X hardware that allows games to load into memory, with fine granularity, only the portions of textures that the GPU needs for a scene, as it needs it. This enables far better memory utilization for textures, which is important given that every 4K texture consumes 8MB of memory. Because it avoids the wastage of loading into memory the portions of textures that are never needed, it is an effective 2x or 3x (or higher) multiplier on both amount of physical memory and SSD performance.
  • SDR to HDR Conversion – With Xbox Series X, existing Xbox games, including recent titles within the ID@Xbox program, that don’t already have native HDR support will get the next-gen treatment. Xbox Series X is able to leverage an innovative HDR reconstruction technique to enhance existing SDR games with no work from developers and no impact to available CPU, GPU or memory resources.
  • Smart Delivery – Smart Delivery is a new technology introduced with Xbox Series X that will ensure you always play the best version of the games you own for your console, across generations. All Xbox Game Studios titles that are optimized for Xbox Series X, including “Halo Infinite” will support Smart Delivery, providing the best available version for whichever console you choose to play on. For example, this means if you purchase the Xbox One version of a supported title, we will identify and deliver the best version of it to your Xbox One, as usual. If you decide to jump into the next generation with Xbox Series X, we will automatically provide the Xbox Series X optimized version of the game at no additional cost if and when it becomes available. Smart Delivery is available to all Xbox developers.
  • Spatial Audio – Spatial Audio delivers deeply immersive audio which enables the player to more accurately pinpoint objects in a 3D play space. With full support for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Windows Sonic, Xbox Series X has custom audio hardware to offload audio processing from the CPU, dramatically improving the accessibility, quality and performance of these immersive experiences.
  • TFLOPS (Teraflops) – TFLOPS (or “teraflops”) stands for Trillion Floating-point Operations Per Second and is a measure of raw mathematical performance of a GPU. While Xbox Series X delivers 12 TFLOPS of 32-bit float performance, two times that of the Xbox One X, the architectural efficiency improvements brought by AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture plus our next generation features such as Variable Rate Shading (VRS) and hardware accelerated DirectX Raytracing means that Xbox Series X will deliver well over twice the effective graphics performance of Xbox One X for games.
  • Variable Rate Shading (VRS) – Variable Rate Shading increases GPU efficiency by concentrating shader work where it’s most needed and reducing shader work in areas where it won’t be noticeable. With minimal developer effort, VRS significantly improves GPU performance resulting in more stable and higher resolutions and frame rates with no perceptible loss in visual quality.
  • Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) – Variable Refresh Rate is a new addition to HDMI 2.1 which enables capable displays to refreshed as fast as the console can render images, thereby eliminating tearing, increasing smoothness, and reducing latency. We have been working with the industry’s leading TV manufacturers to ensure the display ecosystem is ready for the features we are bringing with Xbox Series X.
  • Xbox Series X Storage Expansion Card – Built in partnership with Seagate, this 1 TB custom storage solution expands storage capacity of Xbox Series X with the full speed and performance of the Xbox Velocity Architecture Previous generation Xbox titles can still be played directly from external USB 3.2 hard drives. However, to receive all the benefits of the Xbox Velocity Architecture and optimal performance, Xbox Series X, optimized games should be played from the internal SSD or Xbox Series X Storage Expansion Card.
  • Xbox Velocity Architecture – The Xbox Velocity Architecture is the new architecture we’ve created for the Xbox Series X to unlock new capabilities never-before seen in console development. It consists of four components: our custom NVMe SSD, a dedicated hardware decompression block, the all new DirectStorage API, and Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS). This combination of custom hardware and deep software integration allows developers to radically improve asset streaming and effectively multiply available memory. It will enable richer and more dynamic living worlds unlike anything ever seen before. It also effectively eliminates loading times, and makes fast travel systems just that: fast.
  • Xbox Wireless Protocol – One of the first points to reduce latency is within the communication between your controller and your console. By bringing our existing high-bandwidth, low-latency wireless protocol on the Xbox One family of devices to Xbox Series X, we’re able to not only reduce latency in your gaming experience but also ensure all of your existing Xbox One gaming accessories will be compatible with Xbox Series X.
  • Zen 2 – The custom designed processor in the Xbox Series X leverages AMD’s latest Zen 2 CPU architecture. Zen 2 provides a significant advancement in CPU performance delivering more than 4 times the performance of an Xbox One X.
  • 120 Frames Per Second – With support for up to 120 frames per second (fps), Xbox Series X allows developers to exceed the more traditional 60 frames per second in favor of heightened realism and more precise controls for fast-paced action.
Click to expand...
 
Spukc

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
o'dium said:
For now, yes. Later on more will be licenced, and sizes will increase, but for now you need to make sure the performance targets are hit. You can't just stick any old drive in these machines.

What were you expecting on Sonys machine, exactly? Both will go this route, its the only way.
Click to expand...
stop defending this sheit.

it's shit. And it's bloody obvious they do this to undersell the xbox x series and get money back in these cards,
 
Last edited:
sircaw

sircaw

Banned
its all great but what i really want to know is what the price is.

looking at those parts i am afraid to say this looks like an extremely expensive machine. There is no way that can go for 600 bucks.
 
Stuart360

Stuart360

Member
A little downer about 'only' 16gb of ram. I mean it would of been fine for me if all 16gb was available for games, but it looks like the OS will use a smaller amount than expected i suppose.
Overall though, a BEAST.
 
Gavin Stevens

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
Spukc said:
stop defending this sheit.

it's shit. And it's bloody obvious they do this to undersell the xbox x series and get money back in these cards,
Click to expand...

No its about performance targets, actually. Nothing to do with making money. Yeah, I'm sure MS will put a healthy bit on the cost of them, that's true. But the speeds and quality of these drives is essential to the running and performance of the systems. Yes, systems. PS5 will be the exact same way. Google the PSP memory card situation for more.
 
Shantae

Shantae

Banned
DutchDirectness said:
Proprietary external storage :messenger_grinning_sweat:
Click to expand...
Yeah, this right here is what might make me hold off on any new generation console. I saw this shit coming as soon as we were hearing about SSDs being in these things. Games this generation are already too fucking big, and this thing being backward compatible would mean that my internal storage would be full on day one. I don't wanna deal with that bull shit.
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
Only potential sticking points are the split memory pool and the 1TB HDD. In light of the expandable storage being proprietary the 1TB looks even worse.

But apart from that it looks really really impressive.
 
Last edited:
Shin

Shin

Banned
$499
Wi-Fi AX/6 is missing and AC is in a 2x2 setup (cost saving) die size is only* 360mm2 and memory is only* 16GB.
They definitely learned a lot from X and it shows, it's a well balanced machine with the bandwidth to support it's hunger.
Reading the specs sheets corners had to be cut and it shows (not surprising just apparent to me as I was writing the sheet).
 
iJudged

iJudged

Banned
Spukc said:
stop defending this sheit.

it's shit. And it's bloody obvious they do this to undersell the xbox x series and get money back in these cards,
Click to expand...
lol and external SSDs? cmon man stop looking at it from such a negative perspective. I for one have a good 4tb external SSD that i will be using :D
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
o'dium said:
No its about performance targets, actually. Nothing to do with making money. Yeah, I'm sure MS will put a healthy bit on the cost of them, that's true. But the speeds and quality of these drives is essential to the running and performance of the systems. Yes, systems. PS5 will be the exact same way. Google the PSP memory card situation for more.
Click to expand...

When anything is proprietary the goal is to make money. It's just how it is. It's not a good thing now and never has been.
 
Gavin Stevens

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
Quite an important thing to note from the video:

The Division 2State of Decay 2 SSD tech demo there? It used no additions or modifications at all. It wasn't made just for this video, it was a simple example of an "untouched" BC game running on the new system. So even though there will be people comparing it to Spiderman... Don't.
 
Last edited:
Spukc

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
o'dium said:
No its about performance targets, actually. Nothing to do with making money. Yeah, I'm sure MS will put a healthy bit on the cost of them, that's true. But the speeds and quality of these drives is essential to the running and performance of the systems. Yes, systems. PS5 will be the exact same way. Google the PSP memory card situation for more.
Click to expand...
Listen i am not stating SSD's are bad for gaming. It's one of the biggest jumps we can have. Finally getting rid of slow hdd's.
But this is not the way to go.
Who is talking about sony ? Stop this console war bs
 
Last edited:
Stuart360

Stuart360

Member
iJudged said:
lol and external SSDs? cmon man stop looking at it from such a negative perspective. I for one have a good 4tb external SSD that i will be using :D
Click to expand...
I'm confused, why is external drives a problem for some people?. Isnt it better to have that option than not?. Were people expecting 4tb SSD's or something?
 
F

Flick

Banned
Spukc said:
stop defending this sheit.

it's shit. And it's bloody obvious they do this to undersell the xbox x series and get money back in these cards,
Click to expand...
lol no, show me something with the same speed and size. also, it supports external HDDs, so where is the issue here?
 
Last edited:
McHuj

McHuj

Member
GHG said:
Only potential sticking points are the split memory pool and the 1TB HDD. In light of the expandable storage being proprietary the 1TB looks even worse.

But apart from that it looks really really impressive.
Click to expand...

First part could be an issue, for the latter you'll have expansion cards which I'm sure will go grow beyond 1TB in the future. My understanding it's the same performance as the internal SSD.
 
Shantae

Shantae

Banned
Stuart360 said:
It will be fine. You dont need 20 games installed at once. One of my SSD's is only 120gb and i have 4 AAA games and 2 AA games installed on it currently.
Click to expand...
Actually I do? I want all my shit installed at once, because it's my shit. Even buying physical games requires this storage since this last generation, and a lot of gamers own a lot of games. Maybe I'm not playing them all at once, but you know when the mood strikes me and I want to play one of my random games, I don't want to wait 2-3 hours for a fucking install and update because these machines always take that long even when playing off a disc now.
 
Gavin Stevens

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
Spukc said:
Listen i am not stating SSD's are bad for gaming. It's one of the biggest jumps we can have. Finally getting rid of slow hdd's.
But this is not the way to go.
Who is talking about sony ? Stop this console war bs
Click to expand...

It wasn't console war BS. It was simply stating that what exactly are you expecting Sony to do? Allow any old HDD to be hooked up? This is how its got to be, because the drives speeds are integral to both systems performance specification.

You yourself stated it as an xbox thing: "it's shit. And it's bloody obvious they do this to undersell the xbox x series and get money back in this cards,"
 
Last edited:
GaviotaGrande

GaviotaGrande

Banned
o'dium said:
Quite an important thing to note from the video:

The Division 2 SSD tech demo there? It used no additions or modifications at all. It wasn't made just for this video, it was a simple example of an "untouched" BC game running on the new system. So even though there will be people comparing it to Spiderman... Don't.



Usually mate I would agree with you. But for these new systems, they sorta rely on this. So for now, at launch at least, this is the lesser of two evils (the other being NO expansion at all).
Click to expand...

Can you please post link? I can't find The Division 2 video. Thanks!
 
D

Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
Mista said:
1TB won't do anything with todays game sizes and patches honestly
Click to expand...
Game sizes should be smaller (according to Cerny). When games were created for HDD, they had a lot of duplicates of the same files and textures because HDD was so slow in reading it. Thanks to SSD, they can read it immediately, which is why they don't need those copies.

"If you look at a game like Marvel's Spider-Man," Cerny says, "there are some pieces of data duplicated 400 times on the hard drive." The SSD sweeps away the need for all that duping—so not only is its raw read speed dramatically faster than a hard drive, but it saves crucial space. How developers will take advantage of that space will likely differ; some may opt to build a larger or more detailed game world, others may be content to shrink the size of the games or patches.
Click to expand...

Source
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Can't decide

Can't decide

Member
Should be pretty decent specs for a while.
I was a little surprised at the clock speeds particularly on the CPU, that will have plenty of grunt. I would have hoped for a bit more and better memory than that though.
 
F

Flick

Banned
GHG said:
When anything is proprietary the goal is to make money. It's just how it is. It's not a good thing now and never has been.
Click to expand...

not if there nothing comparable available right now, or show me something with the same speed and size and same heat dissipation.
 
F

Flick

Banned
o'dium said:
It wasn't console war BS. It was simply stating that what exactly are you expecting Sony to do? Allow any old HDD to be hooked up? This is how its got to be, because the drives speeds are integral to both systems performance specification.

You yourself stated it as an xbox thing: "it's shit. And it's bloody obvious they do this to undersell the xbox x series and get money back in this cards,"
Click to expand...

yeah I think he just doesnt understand that there is nothing else they can use with the same size, and same speed etc. Microsoft didnt have any choice here.
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
if there is something that i hate about modern console is the fact that 6 fucking gb or ram are for the os...
just gimme a lighter ui with less bullshit that 99% of gamers never use and squeeze all the ram into the gaming performance to make the console a little bit future proof.

i mean they are jumping from current 6-7 gb of gaming dedicated ram in the current console to 10 gb of gaming dedicated ram for the next gen...isn't a little jump or i'm reading wrong?
 
Last edited:
Gavin Stevens

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
DutchDirectness said:
OK, I get it. It's State of Decay 2, not The Division. :messenger_winking:
Click to expand...

Sorry, I cocked that up, thought it as the Division 2 haha. Will edit my post.

Actual quote:

"First of all, even without really tapping into the strengths of the velocity architecture, just running old xbox games from ssd offers a huge time save in terms of loading times. As you can see here as we boot up state of decay 2 running on xbox one x on the left and series x on the right. Just to stress, there is no series x port of the game , this is the series x version, loading faster."
 
Last edited:
iJudged

iJudged

Banned
Spring of Life said:
Actually I do? I want all my shit installed at once, because it's my shit. Even buying physical games requires this storage since this last generation, and a lot of gamers own a lot of games. Maybe I'm not playing them all at once, but you know when the mood strikes me and I want to play one of my random games, I don't want to wait 2-3 hours for a fucking install and update because these machines always take that long even when playing off a disc now.
Click to expand...

what would satisfy you? 5TB?
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
JohnnyFootball said:
Sony got what they wanted, which was to get MS to show their cards first.

Now the ball is in Sonys court and those are going to be some mega tough specs to beat.

Congrats to MS. They didn't fuck around.
Click to expand...
sony can't change anything substantial at this point, if the speaks are far weaker they are relatively fucked.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

[Digital Foundry] Persona 3 Reload - 4K 60FPS with Ray Tracing on PS5/Series X
Analysis Review
10
2K
Mr Moose replied
Minecraft has been rated for Xbox Series X/S
Rumor Hype
3
833
64bitmodels replied
Digital Foundry: F1 23 – PS5 vs Xbox Series X/S vs PC – Is Ray Tracing on Console Viable?
23
3K
Darsxx82 replied
Front Mission 2: Remake will be releasing April 30 on PS4, PS55, Xbox One, Series X|S, and PC (Demo available later today on Steam)
News Trailer
23
1K
Crayon replied
Microsoft internal emails show Xbox executives reacting to the strengths and weaknesses of the PS5 tech specs
2 3 4
171
14K
JackMcGunns replied
Top Bottom