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Digital Foundry: the complete Xbox One architects interview

What is happening? So much death, this is less of a thread, and more of a funeral.

This thread reminds me of:

HolyGrail004.jpg
 
Actually haha, I expected that reaction to be fair. For the record I don't believe anything on his site, I wouldn't of used that picture had it not had the tweets from the IGN editor which was the point of the post. If I could of found them separately then I would of used them but that was just easier.

Scott (the IGN editor who made those posts) was pretty ignorant though. He thought that dev kits were the same thing as pc's. Pretty funny actually.
 
Scott (the IGN editor who made those posts) was pretty ignorant though. He thought that dev kits were the same thing as pc's. Pretty funny actually.

Not that old chestnut again.

The dev kits (alpha) would of been PCs up until the point the factories started producing the final or production same models.
 
I heard Sony came to their office the next day with retail PS4s =P


That's how it happened. Mark Cerny sneezed, handed the tissue to some developers to look at and BAM the next day a stork delivered a crate.

And that's how Naughty dog had Ps4 back in 1997.
 
Not that old chestnut again.

The dev kits (alpha) would of been PCs up until the point the factories started producing the final or production same models.

it is pretty amazing though how much of a lack of understanding re: the industry the comment suggested that dude had. Which is alarming considering his job.
 
I see. I was not aware of those. Would the ESRAM add any power consumption if any at all?

Thanks for the info. This is why I love tech threads. I'm studying Computer Engineering and could use as much info as I can get.

Power = Voltage * Current.
The voltage on a circuit is typically set to a specific number. So let's say the voltage across the GDDR5 chip is set to 5V. If the transistors need to switch more often, it will draw more current even if the voltage across the chip is constant. That should increase the Power used as well.

Source: my limited knowledge from Electrical Engineering courses before I quit the program years ago. Someone more in tune with this stuff could probably explain it better and more accurately than I am able to.
 
Lol how can you have so much self control?

Its more fun watching things unfold 8) I don't generally have time to comment all the time, but I'd certainly like to chime in on things. Like I say, there are a lot of characters on here who I really like listening to. Metal Murphy and Nib are 2 examples.
 
The only issue I have with this overview of the state of affairs is that it effectively justifies even the irrational and overly critical reactions to things. General wariness is smart and justified, but that's different from the ways I see people dismissing useful information because they're predisposed to dislike it by association. And by dismissing, I mean avoiding wholesale, while continuing criticism based on what they assume is taking place. I'm not talking about trolling, since that happens regardless (the volume shifts around, and its annoying, but that's a different dynamic). People who "contribute" by saying things like "Leadbetter? Haha, didn't read" aren't doing anything to help these conversations. Not taking a source at face value is one thing, but if so many people can't be bothered with engaging the claims being made (whether the result is useful information or catching misinformation), the "filter" of discussion isn't taking place.

My concern is that this filter, in terms of the conversations in the lead-up to the Xbox One, isn't working like it should. Legitimately impressive games, ideas and implementations are being dismissed, often with the same contempt as the bad policies, flat tone and misleading marketing communications. If the enthusiast contingent of gaming can't be bothered with sending appropriate signals (in the sense of recognizing and appreciating the things we tend to like in gaming), then it should be no wonder that communication coming from the other side of the fence sounds so tone-deaf; This is exactly how Sony must have felt in 2007, when they were working their asses off to cater content and features on their platform, and gamers were too busy plugging their ears, shouting "LOL CRABS! HEY GUYS, REMEMBER ENEMY CRABS?" I found that period frustrating, because I saw Sony reacting and shifting faster than they ever had, and their audience ignoring it the whole time. Our feedback, good or bad, matters if we want content that fits our desires. I feel like I've seen Microsoft react fast enough that they have my attention again, and I don't need people to agree with that, but I won't defend people burying their heads from new information because they disliked old information when it's been shifted in response to what they supposedly wanted.

You're absolutely right about the once bitten, twice shy element at play here. People dismissing the negativity toward Microsoft would be well served to think of it in those terms. My issue comes from the mixture of crocodile tears and a community accepting petty and lazy reactions to things in the hobby we all like.

More directly on topic: The tech advantages of the PS4 compared to the XB1 shouldn't be downplayed. That sort of gap hasn't harmed content creation in the past, but it's absolutely given a perk to those playing on the more powerful platform. A less expensive and more technically proficient system has an incredible competitive advantage, as far as I'm concerned. Even if that added power were incremental, in the long run.


Big post but I wanted to quote the whole thing because it was so good.

I agree with you completely, but I just don't think we are able to take that step back and look at things more clearly. Maybe after launch? Even things like this interview - which I found really interesting - just become war zones. It'd be great to try and pick through the comments and understand more about how Xbox works, and why certain things were chosen. it looks like a balanced system, but even that word is now tainted and immediately compared to Ps4 as though balanced = on oar with PS4
 
Can we have a list of false Xbox One prophecies, so far I've got:

Dual APU Setup
Upgrade 8 GB RAM to 12 GB of RAM
Secret dGPU hidden from developers
Secret Sauces
GDDR5's latency problems make it inferior to DDR3
Cloud Enhanced Rendering

I don't think a platform has ever launched with such an overwhelming sense of delusion.
 
Can we have a list of false Xbox One prophecies, so far I've got:

Dual APU Setup
Upgrade 8 GB RAM to 12 GB of RAM
Secret dGPU hidden from developers
Secret Sauces
GDDR5's latency problems make it inferior to DDR3
Cloud Enhanced Rendering

I don't think a platform has ever launched with such an overwhelming sense of delusion.

There were big rumors about a PPU (for physics) in the Nintendo Revolution back then.
 
Can we have a list of false Xbox One prophecies, so far I've got:

Dual APU Setup
Upgrade 8 GB RAM to 12 GB of RAM
Secret dGPU hidden from developers
Secret Sauces
GDDR5's latency problems make it inferior to DDR3
Cloud Enhanced Rendering

I don't think a platform has ever launched with such an overwhelming sense of delusion.

Cirque de Soleil balancing to imply similarity to the "unbalanced" PS4.
 
Source? I don't think it has any GI implemented. I keep going through their presentations and videos looking for source on the GI claims, but it goes back to KRT00. So I'm not to sure that they even have any. Because I don't even know where HE got his info from.

If there's no dynamic GI it'll most likely be baked. Even baked GI looks significantly better than none. They don't appear to want everything to be fully dynamic, they use lots of baked shadows in the city scenes for example.
 
So... an interview with an anonymous DICE rep has been posted on Portuguese site ene3, talking about hardware differences between the consoles and more. I don't want to make a thread because I don't know if this site is legit, so take it with a grain of salt.

gamepur.com (or Google?) did a (really bad) translation:
- It is recognized by itself the difference between the new consoles regarding their hardware? The game will be visible this difference?
We are still in a process of adaptation and what I can say is that it's such a big difference in practice as one that is on paper, but in the long term, developing the tools we have and knowing the best hardware, this difference may increase depends many factors that currently are not being counted.
It's faster to achieve the performance goals we want a more powerful Harware, is called brute force and get them to achieve a higher technical level without even walking to lose time optimization, on the other side and use our engine concrete features each of them the best we can but we still have much to do until the game is ready, is all I can say.

- Attending to differences between them, which is more complicated to develop?
Honestly I do not think it's complicated to develop for any of them. Both are excellent tools, the features are very similar to PCs but still there is a lot of customization within the machines made by both brands. The console from Microsoft is the one that is more personalized and requires a greater initial period of habituation, but in our case, and specifically with our engine has become easier to achieve good levels of opitmização it.

- What is your favorite console between the two?
The PS4! Simply because I can buy it locally in my country.

Source: http://www.gamepur.com/news/12342-b...are-differences-easy-development-and-fav.html
Original source: http://ene3.pt/entrevista-a-um-developer-da-dice/
 
Give me some of that opitmização.

Sounds like google did the translation, not the other site ;)

I'm curious, is it really saying that the difference is as big as it is on paper and potentially increasing, or that it is NOT as big as on paper? You never know with google translate.

Anonymous source, too.
 
Can we have a list of false Xbox One prophecies, so far I've got:

Dual APU Setup
Upgrade 8 GB RAM to 12 GB of RAM
Secret dGPU hidden from developers
Secret Sauces
GDDR5's latency problems make it inferior to DDR3
Cloud Enhanced Rendering

I don't think a platform has ever launched with such an overwhelming sense of delusion.
There has been loads of nonsense regarding Xbox one Specs for sure, including posters (not naming names), posting complete and utter crap about downgrades!
 
So... an interview with an anonymous DICE rep has been posted on Portuguese site ene3, talking about hardware differences between the consoles and more. I don't want to make a thread because I don't know if this site is legit, so take it with a grain of salt.

gamepur.com (or Google?) did a (really bad) translation:


Source: http://www.gamepur.com/news/12342-b...are-differences-easy-development-and-fav.html
Original source: http://ene3.pt/entrevista-a-um-developer-da-dice/

According to this translator : http://imtranslator.net/translation/portuguese/to-english/translation/
- We are still in a process of adaptation and what I can say is what is not such a big difference in practice like that that is in the paper, but in the long term, when there are evolving the tools what we have and knowing better the Hardware, this difference will be able to increase, it depends on many factors that at this moment are not being written up.
 
Would be great if PortugueseGAF could clear it up ;)

Edit: Bing translate also says "it's not such a big difference in practice as that which is on paper"
 
A little better translation:

It's recognized by you the difference between the console relative to their hardware? will that difference be visible in the game?

We're still in a process of adaptation and what I can say is that it isn't such a big difference on practice like the one in the paper, but in the long term, evolving the tools we have and knowing the hardware better, that difference can increase, it depends on lots of factors that aren't being accounted at this time.
It's faster to reach the performance objectives we want in more powerful hardware, it's called brute force and we can reach a superior technical level without wasting time optimizing, on the other hand in our engine we use characteristics of each console the best we can but we still have a lot to do until the game is ready, is all I can say.


Regarding the differences between them, which one is harder to develop for?

Honestly I don't think any of them is hard to develop for. Both have great tools, the characteristics are similar to PC but they still have a lot of personalization in them.
Microsoft's console is the one with more personalization and the one that requires a bigger habituation period, but in our case, and specifically with our engine, it became easier to achieve good levels of optimization with it.

Is that optimization related to something special?

The use we make with our DX 11.1 engine and we have been working in that implementation with Microsoft, allowing a better managing of the CPU among other, more technical, characteristics.
 
Can we have a list of false Xbox One prophecies, so far I've got:

Dual APU Setup
Upgrade 8 GB RAM to 12 GB of RAM
Secret dGPU hidden from developers
Secret Sauces
GDDR5's latency problems make it inferior to DDR3
Cloud Enhanced Rendering

I don't think a platform has ever launched with such an overwhelming sense of delusion.

Balance
"uncomfortable" GDDR5 - I think this may be heat FUD? not sure what angle they're playing at.
SHAPE!
14+4 FUD - actually repeated by MS in interviews wtf?
ROP's stop counting after 16
 
I doubt any of the DICE reps would openly admit the disparity, especially after how DICE devs criticized the Xbone and subsequently had to delete their tweets.
 
Balance
"uncomfortable" GDDR5 - I think this may be heat FUD? not sure what angle they're playing at.
SHAPE!
14+4 FUD - actually repeated by MS in interviews wtf?
ROP's stop counting after 16

What?

Surely they just meant that with their bandwidth, fillrate etc any more ROPs would not have any additional effect anymore. Now if they said this was the case for everything then it's FUD.
 
Balance
"uncomfortable" GDDR5 - I think this may be heat FUD? not sure what angle they're playing at.
SHAPE!
14+4 FUD - actually repeated by MS in interviews wtf?
ROP's stop counting after 16

Your missing all the Xbox one Downgrades!
 
Can we have a list of false Xbox One prophecies, so far I've got:

Dual APU Setup
Upgrade 8 GB RAM to 12 GB of RAM
Secret dGPU hidden from developers
Secret Sauces
GDDR5's latency problems make it inferior to DDR3
Cloud Enhanced Rendering

I don't think a platform has ever launched with such an overwhelming sense of delusion.
Balance
"uncomfortable" GDDR5 - I think this may be heat FUD? not sure what angle they're playing at.
SHAPE!
14+4 FUD - actually repeated by MS in interviews wtf?
ROP's stop counting after 16
I sit far away from the TV
SHAPE is the equivalent of ~400 gigaflops
15 processors .. wait add the 8 cpu cores, the 768 alus and it's actually closer to 1000!
Performance doesnt scale with CUs after 12
1080p60fps
Upclock means no yield issues with ESRAM
 
What?

Surely they just meant that with their bandwidth, fillrate etc any more ROPs would not have any additional effect anymore. Now if they said this was the case for everything then it's FUD.

They and their mouth pieces have spoken consistently about >16 ROP's only being for above 1080p with the implication the PS4 will never have a higher res than 1080p, using specific examples to show a high Bandwidth coleration using specific BPP to make their point. Disingenuous at best.

Your missing all the Xbox one Downgrades!

Sorry Buddy I only know 2 "downgrades" and they were just form xb1 fanboys getting carried away with themselves then being brought back down to earth. If you want to talk about xb1 downgrades, you'll have to source that yourself.

Nick Baker said:
How we count to 15: [we have] eight inside the audio block, four move engines, one video encode, one video decode and one video compositor/resizer.

Andrew Goosen said:
"Xbox One has a conservative 10 per cent time-sliced reservation on the GPU for system processing. This is used both for the GPGPU processing for Kinect and for the rendering of concurrent system content such as snap mode,"
 
So, as far as things go what I have noticed is that Microsoft is actually stating that their hardware is in the right "balanced" and for that reason the differences between PS4 & X1 will be minimal. Their statements give me a vibe that what only matters is what they think and that developers will be forced to cut corners or forced to use features in order to come close to PS4 games.

Whilst Sony has made their hardware powerful enough to provide the flexibility developers need to find the right "balance" for their games without any imposition from Sony themselves.

Does this sound about right?

By the way, I am almost sure that Cerny was the first to actually say the word balance before MS started spouting it out.
 
Sony + Cerny : super charged pc ... 1.8 gflops ... dev friendly ... balanced ...

MS : TV NFL!!! Kinect ..

Gamers: meh ...

MS: Always on! digital sharing

Gamers: WTF.

Sony: Youtube viral video time.

MS: Good lord holy preorders ... yeah no my bad meant this actually.

Gamers: okay

Sony: Looking in preorder money whoo hoo .

MS: God damn it I want some of that Sony mojo ... lets see what can I copy ... Cerny ppl seem to like him ... aaah balanced

True story. :P hehe ... But yeah as people have pointed out dont really think there will be super significant differenced in launch multi platform titles. But yeah def 2 3 years down the line we should see differences. I also feel sony first party will really push the GPGPU compute ... seems similar to cell techniques in reverse (offload to gpu rather than cpu) but im no expert. ..
 
They and their mouth pieces have spoken consistently about >16 ROP's only being for above 1080p with the implication the PS4 will never have a higher res than 1080p, using specific examples to show a high Bandwidth coleration using specific BPP to make their point. Disingenuous at best.

If say game x is supersampled from 1440p to 1080p does the ROP have anything to do with that? Can we expect the Xbox one to only have this at a lesser degree?

I point this out because IIRC flower is being ported to PS4 and has 1080p resolution. I think I remember them trying to supersample stuff so the game looks better. Probably some kind of AA.
 
They and their mouth pieces have spoken consistently about >16 ROP's only being for above 1080p with the implication the PS4 will never have a higher res than 1080p, using specific examples to show a high Bandwidth coleration using specific BPP to make their point. Disingenuous at best.



Sorry Buddy I only know 2 "downgrades" and they were just form xb1 fanboys getting carried away with themselves then being brought back down to earth. If you want to talk about xb1 downgrades, you'll have to source that yourself.

I just can't be bothered to source, but the downgrade rumours were certainly not from posters I would regard as Xbox 1 fanboys. Way thu go though!
 
If say game x is supersampled from 1440p to 1080p does the ROP have anything to do with that? Can we expect the Xbox one to only have this at a lesser degree?

I point this out because IIRC flower is being ported to PS4 and has 1080p resolution. I think I remember them trying to supersample stuff so the game looks better. Probably some kind of AA.

Yes, Supersampling at 1440p would essentially be the same as running at 1440p, as far as the required pixel fillrate would be concerned, so ROP's would certainly help. Personally, I expect to see some 2-D indie games with lower bandwidth requirements running at well above 1080p.

I just can't be bothered to source, but the downgrade rumours were certainly not from posters I would regard as Xbox 1 fanboys. Way thu to go though!

Ahhh the downclock due to yield rumors. I see now, but yes other than that I'd say the Majority of "downgrades" were actually realizations.
 
Yes, Supersampling at 1440p would essentially be the same as running at 1440p, as far as the required pixel fillrate would be concerned, so ROP's would certainly help. Personally, I expect to see some 2-D indie games with lower bandwidth requirements running at well above 1080p.



Ahhh the downclock due to yield rumors. I see now, but yes other than that I'd say the Majority of "downgrades" were actually realizations.

There has been no downgrades with regards to hardware from the initial VG leaks specs, in fact there's been nothing bar upgrades for both the clock of the GPU and CPU. I have no idea what downgrades you are referring to. I hope you see my point from Thuways post you quoted an added to. To use a well used PR term here, for balance the downgrade "delusions" should have been added by the original poster, especially as he was well established with the complete and utter bollocks those rumours always were.
 
There has been no downgrades with regards to hardware from the initial VG leaks specs, in fact there's been nothing bar upgrades for both the clock of the GPU and CPU. I have no idea what downgrades you are referring to. I hope you see my point from Thuways's post you quoted an added to. To use a well used PR term here, for balance the downgrade "delusions" should have been added by the original poster, especially as he was well established with the complete and utter bollocks those rumours always were.

What? I said there were no downgrades, If you have a problem with Thuways post you should take that up with Thuway not me. I'm a little confused to be honest. I used the term "downgrades" in quotes because they are not downgrades only realizations to crush the Outside of reality, dreams of xb1 fanboys. There have been no actual downgrades.
 
What? I said there were no downgrades, If you have a problem with Thuways post you should take that up with Thuway not me. I'm a little confused to be honest. I used the term "downgrades" in quotes because they are not downgrades only realizations to crush the Outside of reality, dreams of xb1 fanboys. There have been no actual downgrades.

Ah sorry Skeff, got what you were saying now.
 
I think it was the Guerilla devs.

super charged PC architecture.

Yeah, when they were talking about 'no' bottlenecks in the system.

Cerny too:

At the same time we have to balance that out with a rich feature set that they can use in the later years of the hardware. The hardware has to grow over time. That’s why I refer to it as a super-charged PC architecture – there’s more in it than what you find in a PC.

There are all these customisations, such as what we did to the GPU and other parts of the system to ensure that they would really be these systems that programmers could dig into in year three or four of the console life-cycle.

Even indies are used to balance :P

While that five-year development cycle is likely to include AAA titles, smaller indie games are also a huge part of the PS4 ecosystem, with Cerny saying that “they act to balance out [AAA games]” because “variety of is experience is key to PlayStation 4. I think we’re going to see an incredible variety on PS4.”

http://www.*************************/2013/07/12/mark-cerny-on-the-ps4-hardware-theres-more-in-it-than-what-you-find-in-a-pc/
 
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