On their new podcast, Digital Foundry has revealed some interesting details about the Xbox Series S. According to them, the developers are having a difficult time making games for the consoles. It is highlighted that multiple developers have stated that the Xbox Series S is a pain at times.
Lazy devs complain.
They just want to run Xbox Series X code and texture assets and add a resolution toggle. I'm sure there are better solutions to better use the hardware than dumping into RAM textures with resolution so high that they're useless. Bandwidth is also lower than Series X, so even if the RAM was the same that wouldn't be a good idea, would just introduce a considerable bottleneck on the lower spec console.
They're lucky they have 10 GB and not 8 GB.
When Devs dump last gen they should jump this too. It will hold back the entire gen. Although at least post exclusives won't be held back later this Gen.
The biggest bottleneck for last gen is still not GPU, but CPU and Bluray/HDD streaming.
Although of course they'll be happy to have 4 TFlops as a lower denominator, but that's not where the generational gap happens.
They won't "jump it", CPU-wise and down to GPU features there's no reason to. And it's probably selling well enough to ignore too. Plus, I don't think Microsoft would allow it, just like you never had an exclusive game for PS4 Pro, Xbox One X I'm sure you won't have Xbox Series X exclusives.
They'll find a way like most of the time . But it probably take more time to optimize on series S .
You guys remember how Skyrim's dawnguard dlc on PS3 got delay because it dont have enough ram ?
PS3 was a clusterfuck in a memory deprived generation. 256 MB for CPU and 256 MB for GPU (with part of it being reserved for framebuffers) meant cold sweats to anyone trying to push it in a multiplatform environment.
Imagine if PS5 was 8 GB CPU and 8GB GPU. RAM wouldn't be enough against Xbox Series X as videogames typically need more memory in the graphics department.
Developers are always complaining about memory. If they could choose, consoles would have at least 64 gigs of RAM so they don't need to optimize. PC players should be well aware of this.
Precisely. But platform agnostic assets also means they're not using the hardware accurately.
Hence, a Xbox Series S with the same RAM as X seems a bad idea because it would enable them to be lazier. Then they would complain that the performance was unstable and tanked with 8192x8192 textures.
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I like this quote:
David Mickner, multiplayer designer at Infinity Ward, who says that the Xbox Series S’ lower specs “will serve as a bottleneck.”
LOL, being lower spec is a bottleneck. It's called lower denominator. And yes Xbox Series S is the lower denominator this generation until Switch 2 comes along, is worse and has less RAM. But that was evident from the minute it was shown.
Axel Gneiting: Also "it always scaled on PC" is nonsense. Every AAA game in the past decade or so has their assets made once so they run on min spec. Increasing sample counts a bit here and there for high settings isn't what you could truly have done with more power. Min spec matters.
Yes, and Switch runs bellow spec, batch converting most assets into lower resolution ones. You know, like they did on PS2, PS3, Xbox One... and now PS4 for as long as the transition takes to PS5 exclusives. Platforms they consider to be under their "lead platform" experience.
This is whining over nothing.