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Digital Foundry: Heard that Xbox Series S Is A "Pain" For Developers Due To Memory Issues
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
- Start date
- Opinion Hardware
- Status
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
It's pretty simply why. They knew they needed a cheaper box to get the casuals in early. They counted on soccer moms, casual madden, cod and fifa players, and kids to not know the difference between tflops. Hence the deceptive 1440p vs 4k marketing that we all knew was misleading.
The goal was to sell as many boxes as possible and they knew $500 xbox consoles dont sell. They were right and now Xbox is outselling the PS5 in recent months. Probably related to the stock situation but I am convinced that 60-70% of the xbox sales are series s sales.
It's all about market penetration and they thought a $300 console no matter the sacrifices to the user experience would be good enough. I wouldve personally had them release a 10 tflops $399 console like the PS5, or an 8 tflops machine and eat up the $100 loss instead of passing it on to the consumer. The tflops to dollar ratio is revealing. $75 per tflop vs $40 per tflop for the XSX. They wanted the casual audience but werent willing to eat up the cost themselves. An 8 tflops machine wouldve been perfect for 1080p while 12 tflops xsx targeted 1440p.
yamaci17
Member
yes they can
Some of the games that were released in 2021-2022 cannot run on non-Directx 12.0 GPUs.
You can observe that GTX 960 with 2 GBs of buffer renders 13 frames in the exact same scene where 960 with 4 GBs of buffer renders 32 frames. They have the exact GPU core, only the buffer amount is different. This is a typical example of VRAM amount bottlenecking the capability of the GPU. IT can be averted
a) If developer specifically employs techniques to lower VRAM usage under such situations
b) If you accept very low resolutions and very low textures
That's the part where problems arise. No dev will ever give "special care" for 2 GB VRAM GPUs on desktop space. They, instead, expect you to take the bullet and use the lowest textures they provided. Do they "tune" these textures? ABSOLUTELY not. They look like... dogshit. I'm pretty sure most devs just us a "generalized" method to dumb down textures to save some space on VRAM. That's about it.
Just because a game runs on a GPU, it does not mean that it runs ideally. Consoles are fixed hardware, so games must run ideally. They must look decent, acceptable and presentable. What happens with 2 GB GPUs is that you can get a non-decent, unacceptable, non-presentable texture quality.
The below picture depicts what you have to endure to run RDR 2 on a 2 GB old and frail GPU (or in the case of GTX 960 and 760, gimped purposefully.)
You can run this game on such old and "weak" 2 GB GPUs, but its not ideal. This is not a product you can "serve" to your customers. That's the part where the "pain" comes from. You simply cannot make a game run like this on Series S. Everyone would go crazy. Therefore, it's a pain. You would need to create a special set of textures and game data to accommodate for lower amount of budget. As you can see below, 2 GB GPUs are not being cared for. If Rockstar actually tried, I can assure you, even 2 GB GPUs would have a decent image quality somehow. But instead, it is a blatant attempt for people that have weak GPUs.
in short: you cannot make textures look like on the left to accomodate for series s. on PC, some people can accept that "weak" GPUs. if you think this is a solution, its not. aside from that, as i have said, some games will refuse to run on very old dx 11.0 GPUs (kepler, gtx 700 series)
if you ask my honest opinion, i'd say most devs going forward from 2017 "skipped" 2 GB GPUs. when textures look like this, you can say it is skipped. if a console had 2 GB VRAM, they would find ways, hacks, tricks to make it somehow work. But yes, that is the part where "pain" starts. So they don't go through a "pain" process to make the games look decen/okay for 2 GB GPUs. instead they just push some shitty low res textures and call it a day.
Why I am giving these examples? Almost all 4 GB GPUs you can find is stronger than a ps4. naturally, most of them ran the game much better than a ps4 without being a "weak" link.
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S0ULZB0URNE
Member
When trying to make games comparable at a reduced resolution to a machine that has over 3x the TF power (3.97 vs 12.1) its the biggest elephant in the room.
You’re posting this in a thread where it’s specifically said that the biggest pain post is the VRAM size?
Did you even bother to read the OP at all?
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
Oh man I loved that movie when I was a kid (Head of State with Chris Rock and Bernie Mac)
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
Sure did and I'm saying it's not as big of a issue as the huge computational gap.You’re posting this in a thread where it’s specifically said that the biggest pain post is the VRAM size?
Did you even bother to read the OP at all?
Man, this is filled with so much (deliberate) misinformation.
“$500 xbox consoles don’t sell”
“70% of xbox consoles sold are the Series S”
“Casual gamers and folks who don’t know the difference are the ones being sold on the Series S”
Meanwhile the Series X is selling very well, and demand isn’t even satiated at the moment. Plus most serious gamers who own the Series S are pleasantly surprised how solid the experience is.
Ah, well.
How many games have you developed? Do you own a Series X/S devkit?
Bernd Lauert
Banned
I don't work at Mojang so idk. Fact is it can't run even on XSX, so blaming XSS makes no sense.
DarkMage619
$MSFT
Haven't seen too many people speculating on positive outcomes. I also thought Alex wasn't to be trusted so it's interesting people seem to believe him now. I also thought DF was anti-Sony so I'd like to see how this narrative helps MS in any way. Lots of shifting around.I think it should be pointed out that DF said devs stated XSS was a pain. They didn't say it made game development impossible. In the video, John also speculated that this may help XSX and PS5 versions in some ways.....
Schmick
Member
I don't get it either. Alot here are quoting devs stating the memory limitations but have never quoted a dev specifically say that the XSS will hold back a game. Because that's real reason the concern is there right?This. I have both the series x and S... And I have no problems with the S. Images looks slightly blurrier, textures not as good, and frame rates slightly lower (although I would say the average casual player wouldnt notice that much difference) . I wasn't expecting anything else. It's a useful console for my casual games or when I just want a quick blast of something and the other TV Is being used.
I don't get the literal hate for this console. If you want a next gen console with all the bells and whistles.... Don't buy it
It's quite simple. If you want the higher image quality, higher res, Ray Tracing and higher FPS you go for the higher tier consoles. If neither of the the above bother you in the slightest than the XSS becomes a viable option.
The XSS provides a fantastic opportunity to many families out there who are looking for a budget games console.
kyliethicc
Member
Pretty sure Nintendo’s success influenced them, too.
Wii and Switch both sold big, yet are a gen behind the respective PlayStation in terms of resolution and tech.
They want to compete with Sony on the high tech box front, but they clearly want to be like Nintendo as well.
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
You can't get blood from a stone.
4TF's is 4TF's is 4TF's
Topher
Gold Member
Haven't seen too many people speculating on positive outcomes. I also thought Alex wasn't to be trusted so it's interesting people seem to believe him now. I also thought DF was anti-Sony so I'd like to see how this narrative helps MS in any way. Lots of shifting around.
Meh.....I don't agree with those takes on DF, but this isn't coming from DF or Alex. They are simply relaying what devs have told them.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Stop gaslighting. He is just repeating the same thing we heard before launch, during, and till this day from various sources. Everyone knows he's a PCMR graphics whore (and most PCMR are MS/Xbox adjacent by proxy in their biases). He never made that a secret now or in his past on Gaf or Ree with his 'Dictator' account posts. He bias trolls like the rest of us.
It's not the source of this Series S information, it's the pattern of it.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
They should unionize, and have 3 Sippy cup breaks every 15 minutes for 20 minutes each in a 6 hour work day. Air-conditioned chairs and a personal masseuse in their cubicles as well.
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yamaci17
Member
"slightly" is an exaggeration. difference can be huge. sub 1080p resolutions are not optimal for temporal anti aliasing solutions. a minimum of 1440p is required to maintain somewhat of a decent image quality.This. I have both the series x and S... And I have no problems with the S. Images looks slightly blurrier, textures not as good, and frame rates slightly lower (although I would say the average casual player wouldnt notice that much difference) . I wasn't expecting anything else. It's a useful console for my casual games or when I just want a quick blast of something and the other TV Is being used.
I don't get the literal hate for this console. If you want a next gen console with all the bells and whistles.... Don't buy it
Jayjayhd34
Member
They set what minimum specs they need to per game rising when it will need to . The series S will have same specs the entire gen.
PC gaming has evolve anyway as direct storage is going be required near future meaning lot of people are going to have upgrade.
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If you say so but then you would have to admit that MS completely bullshitted you and DF then at least. You know because everyone knows consoles can't do that raytracing so how did we all fall for it.
They had your boy "throttling Austin" playing the demo
Exactly. That's the point. On PC a dev can just increase the minimum requirements if they hit a bottleneck. On Xbox they have to release for Series S if they want to release on Xbox.
Given that Series S will make up a substantial part of Xbox Series sales, why would any dev even want to skip the Series S when it means they’ll get less money?
Of course devs will say it takes extra work to slim textures down and manage memory on the Series S. But there’s no real indication that it’s an insurmountable challenge.
Oh they won't, that's the problem. Otherwise they could go PC/PlayStation exclusive. But money speaks, so we will have gimped third party games further down the road, unless MS loosens the mandate on native XSS versions and is ok with streaming only for some games.
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Nydius
Member
In at attempt to chase dollars and market share, Microsoft purposely released an inferior spec console as "next-gen" which will have the result of extending cross-gen fuckery on Xbox platforms for the life of the generation.
Instead of the typical 18-24 month window of cross-gen issues, developers will always have to deal with a lesser device that its more casual-targeted user base misbelieves is a digital-only Series X with a lower price tag. That doesn't just affect the owners of the Series S, it affects the owners of ALL Xbox platforms. Or as one tweet on the topic I saw recently said, and unfortunately I cannot find it to link to it: "Min spec matters."
Those users are going to find themselves left behind pretty quickly when developers finally move on and begin pushing the capabilities of the Series X and PS5. And they're going to have severe buyer's remorse when the bulk of new games are "Optimized for Series X | S" (which will require the SSD) and they discover they have no choice but to go spend another $200+ dollars on the Seagate Expansion Drive just to have anything resembling adequate storage space. Sure, they could buy a mechanical USB drive as cold storage but you really think that demographic is going to want to sit there waiting forever to transfer 100+GB files back and forth between a mechanical HDD and the internal SSD?
It was a cash grab that will affect all Xbox owners.
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
DF found that the Series S version of the Matrix demo drops significantly BELOW 533p. We might be looking at 360p-480p here. Metro exodus dropped to 512p. I doubt Series S owners care about resolutions, but people do buy consoles with the expectation that it is up to current gen standards. 533p wasnt even acceptable in the PS360 era.
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IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Honestly I can see where the Control dev was coming from when they said Series S should actually improve.. not "get worse."
Early gen means cross-gen, means engines build for asset streaming from a 5400 RPM HDD...
If you take the same exact game and dramatically increase how often and how fast assets are streamed that can directly reduce the amount of RAM needed. Of course this can also free up room for "more stuff in RAM" (which makes it not the exact same game) but the point still stands.
Series S w/asset streaming and lower quality assets/less density should do better on "next gen" games than cross-gen ones.
Early gen means cross-gen, means engines build for asset streaming from a 5400 RPM HDD...
If you take the same exact game and dramatically increase how often and how fast assets are streamed that can directly reduce the amount of RAM needed. Of course this can also free up room for "more stuff in RAM" (which makes it not the exact same game) but the point still stands.
Series S w/asset streaming and lower quality assets/less density should do better on "next gen" games than cross-gen ones.
Bogroll
Likes moldy games
Just wondering What would you say was acceptable in that era?
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
720p. DF made their name outing every single PS3 game that was 640p or below. I remember people dismissing MGS4 because it was 640p.
Bogroll
Likes moldy games
So 900p-1080p Xb1 and PS4 era I presume and yet we have 1080p and below in some Ps5 games and maybe XSX of the top of my head.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
I think 1080p is low but if you cant tell then its fine. With the Series S version I can clearly see giant chunky blocky artifacts. it is not acceptable IQ. Something like DriveClub and Batman AK look terrible on a large 4k screen despite being native 4k but a good solution like matrix with TSR is fine.
Series S is not able to overcome its raw pixel counts no matter what upscaling they use.
Bogroll
Likes moldy games
But it can be played on a smaller screen and it doesn't look so bad. I've played Metro Exodus on a 55" and the outside areas I was a bit wow that's too blurry. I played on a 40 or 42" I think and it was a lot better.
nominedomine
Banned
720p?
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Bogroll
Likes moldy games
There is no correct answer.
nominedomine
Banned
I played a lot on PC that gen and even big console games like RDR had terrible IQ in those years.
I'm fine with 1080p but anything below that is really rough and always was (once we moved from CRTs at least).
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
I havent had a 40 inch tv since maybe around 2012. It's been all 55 inch for me and while the 1080p 55 inch hit the jaggies in DC and Batman AC rather well, the 4k sets i own exposed their poor IQ immediately. I am not lying when I say they are unplayable. I tired playing Horizon on PC at 1080p, Anthem and other unoptimized games on PC at 1080p to hit 60 fps and they were just too grainy at that resolution.
On the other hand, DLSS 1440p games look fine. Matrix demo which is 1080p internally looks fine. So if Series S has to use FSR 2.0 or TSR to get it to look good on bigger 4k screens that are fairly common right now then ok, but scaling from 1080p to 4k is one thing, scaling from 512p to 1080p isnt ideal.
At least not on larger 4k sets, I will take your word for it looking better on a smaller 40 inch screen.
Why in the world would the devs need to adjust for the Series X?
No it won’t. It’s got the key CPU and SSD improvements that mark next gen. GPU and memory difference means you get a lower resolution, possibly reduced effects and lower texture quality…but you’ll still get a competent looking next gen game that won’t hamper the limits being pushed on the Series X.
And yet there’s zero indication that anything on the flagship consoles was held back because of the Series S.
I wonder what the argument will be when the minimum spec becomes the next gen Switch?
I don’t imagine any Series S owner will end up being ‘left behind’ since the hardware will last all gen. Plus the ‘capabilities’ you cite are pretty much the CPU and SSD. Which the Series S pretty much matches the flagship console.
This is an illogical point, since theres probably going to be enough space for 3-4 SSD optimized game on the console…and that’s probably fine for many people.
Of all the cutbacks to complain about, storage has to be least. Because I can’t imagine justifying more than 500GB on a low cost console. Cutbacks on GPU power and VRAM are way more constraining.
They aren’t selling these at any significant profit, so not sure how you can call this a ‘cash grab’
It seems to be a savvy decision to introduce a low price console that could boost subs and cater to a market that’s price sensitive.
And yeah, it WILL affect all xbox owners. Most likely by increasing the userbase for xbox series and making the platform more attractive for third party development.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yep. RDR on PS3 looked really bad. COD Ghosts was blasted for running at 720p on the X1 at launch. It was definitely unacceptable and future cods all came in around 900-1080p after that backlash. MS even forced Crystal Dynamics to run Tomb Raider at 1080p which caused a lot of issues with framedrops because the GPU wasnt powerful enough to render a fancy looking next gen game at 1080p.
Point is MS and third party devs all knew resolutions mattered. And that 720p last gen was unacceptable.
cireza
Member
Pretty hard lesson they are already learning, being able to supply a constant amount of Series S while they are struggling with Sony to supply the more powerful Series X and PS5.
No doubt they are regretting their decision !
Developers will adapt. That's how it works.
Bogroll
Likes moldy games
It's about expectations. I don't play my SS and expect anywhere near the quality of my SX or PS5. It really is that simple.
Bogroll
Likes moldy games
I understand. I was a resolution snob at one point and it was hard for me to go back to 1080p, it looked so jaggie and blocky. But I must have adjusted back somehow.
Matsuchezz
Member
All the people knew that even those whom like to lie to themselves knew it. That crap is cheap but it is crap. If you like subpar experiences you buy the series s.
Lognor
Banned
The PS3 was a pain the ass to develop for. Sure, most multi platform games played worse compared to the 360 but it still got all the games. Maybe the series s is a pain in the ass to develop for. Devs still aren't going to exclude it. They can't. Too bad!
Hoddi
Member
Keep in mind that PPI/DPI matters more than the physical resolution. A 27" 1080p monitor has the same PPI as your 55" 4k TV and if you view both from the same distance then they will be equally sharp/blurry. The only difference is that the TV is 4x bigger.
I also kinda disagree about the 1080p Matrix demo looking good enough on 4k screens. I'm sticking with my old plasma TV for this gen and it looks vastly better on that than it does on my 4k LCD. Same goes for other 1080p native games like Returnal.
Trogdor1123
Member
Love my series s. Hope it keeps getting better
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Man ive played Matrix on my PS5 and then on my 3080 at native 4k and while native 4k clearly looks better, the PS5 version looks perfectly fine on my LG CX. I will try playing it on my LCD and see if it looks bad.
Returnal looks fine too.
What tv do you have? I have heard that the Sony x900h has a blurry 4k 120 hz implementation so maybe thats what making those games look blurry?
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