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Engadget: Why Baldur’s Gate III is an accidental PS5 console exclusive

Topher

Gold Member
That system memory usage is pretty high as far as I can tell (rarely play on PC these days) so I assume it's the culprit rather than the VRAM.
Does that memory usage include OS and other processes running outside of the game itself?

Edit: *meant to quote your earlier posts with your own screenshots and numbers
Yeah, that's total system RAM usage, not just the game. We know the game can run with 4 GB VRAM based on the system requirements. But definitely seems to me that that doesn't leave enough for all the other stuff going on.

My PC already uses a lot of RAM with the stuff I have running, but we can look at the delta when starting the game.

Here is my PC idle after reboot.

TqAc9Bi.png


Now with the game running, but very little going on. Game running at 900p, low settings.

scjJWfp.png



And here it is with split screen.

2nWNDoW.png


So that right there is a 5 gig variance from system at idle to running with split screen and again, very little going on. Just in the opening area with no NPCs around.

XSS simply doesn't have enough memory to handle split screen as things are. Larian devs are going to be true wizards if they can get it to work.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
As opposed to..

Anyone paying attention to this kind of shit already knows why Larian didn't release at the same time?

lol

Seems like a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario.. but just outright not having a major game come out w/i it's PS5 launch window, for no reason other than a minor feature... seems way more damned.

What you are asking for will break the doors open for other devs to do the same. MS can't afford for that to happen. They can't allow exceptions.
 

twilo99

Member
XSS simply doesn't have enough memory to handle split screen as things are. Larian devs are going to be true wizards if they can get it to work.

Indeed, they will probably figure it out but it will be costly in terms of visuals for sure..

That dark mode task manager is very nice... might be time to upgrade to Win11 lol

6GB on boot is pretty lean for Windows..
 

Topher

Gold Member
Indeed, they will probably figure it out but it will be costly in terms of visuals for sure..

That dark mode task manager is very nice... might be time to upgrade to Win11 lol

6GB on boot is pretty lean for Windows..

Really? That seems like a lot to me. I do like the new UI.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Indeed, they will probably figure it out but it will be costly in terms of visuals for sure..

That dark mode task manager is very nice... might be time to upgrade to Win11 lol

6GB on boot is pretty lean for Windows..
It's worth it, IMO.

Everything feels much faster and snappier if that makes sense.
 
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avin

Member
It seems each instance of the game has a RAM footprint, and splitscreen in BG3 then doubles that footprint. I can't tell what is the size of that footprint, but I think it would differ depending on how much of the world was being tracked in game, and in different areas depending on how much was going on.

I'd guess the solution requires Larian to somehow decrease the size of world that's being tracked, or otherwise simplifying that world. But that doesn't sound like a small effort, and it sounds hellish to do that and have the game play the same.

If any of that is correct, I'd guess it'll be a while before we see this on Xbox.

avin
 
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BouncyFrag

Member
My XSS is taking this pretty hard. Lots of guilt and shame. It knows I would have been getting BG3 on my ps5 anyways so that helps take out a bit of the sting. Not committing to renewing my gamepass sub or preordering Starfield outright isn’t going over well too…
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
I don't get people complaining, it's true lol, no matter the reasons.

At least this is the worst possible scenario, MS couldn't predict that the single one feature that nobody did for years due to how memory hungry it is and because online multiplayer normalized, was gonna be done in a game this gen :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Other games releasing put PS5 and XSX on their knees at 1080p or less so they got bottlenecked before XSS was even a factor, so I don't expect this to repeat, let alone becoming a norm.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I don't get people complaining, it's true lol, no matter the reasons.

At least this is the worst possible scenario, MS couldn't predict that the single one feature that nobody did for years due to how memory hungry it is and because online multiplayer normalized, was gonna be done in a game this gen :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Other games releasing put PS5 and XSX on their knees at 1080p or less so they got bottlenecked before XSS was even a factor, so I don't expect this to repeat, let alone becoming a norm.
8GB of slow RAM impact game design more than just this one feature (which is a popular one in their games) in 2023 and beyond.
 
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twilo99

Member
Really? That seems like a lot to me. I do like the new UI.

For a modern version like that.. yeah, I would say so, considering you probably have a few things running at start up too

I guess the xbox version of windows does run on ~2GB of RAM, but that one is obviously missing a lot of features.
 

StereoVsn

Member
That's not Sonys fault though. They shouldn't have made the policy the way they did. Maybe they were more flexible from the beginning this wouldn't have happened.
It's not, but this is why Larian isn't dropping the feature only from Xbox, because MS won't allow it. It's same way with Sony to MS. This is fairly standard stuff.
 

StereoVsn

Member
I don't get people complaining, it's true lol, no matter the reasons.

At least this is the worst possible scenario, MS couldn't predict that the single one feature that nobody did for years due to how memory hungry it is and because online multiplayer normalized, was gonna be done in a game this gen :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Other games releasing put PS5 and XSX on their knees at 1080p or less so they got bottlenecked before XSS was even a factor, so I don't expect this to repeat, let alone becoming a norm.
There was one little game that had similar issues. Called Halo Infinite. 😉
 

"Titles for Xbox 360 must ship at least simultaneously with other video game platform, and must have at least feature and content parity on-disc with the other video game platform versions in all regions where the title is available," it reads.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole

"Titles for Xbox 360 must ship at least simultaneously with other video game platform, and must have at least feature and content parity on-disc with the other video game platform versions in all regions where the title is available," it reads.
And this game isn't shipping for months after the PS5 version on Xbox.

The idea of a parity clause where the "out" is to just not release the game seems pretty backwards to me.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
It seems each instance of the game has a RAM footprint, and splitscreen in BG3 then doubles that footprint. I can't tell what is the size of that footprint, but I think it would differ depending on how much of the world was being tracked in game, and in different areas depending on how much was going on.

I'd guess the solution requires Larian to somehow decrease the size of world that's being tracked, or otherwise simplifying that world. But that doesn't sound like a small effort, and it sounds hellish to do that and have the game play the same.

If any of that is correct, I'd guess it'll be a while before we see this on Xbox.

avin

If the bolded is correct, then you can say bye-bye to Xbox getting this game.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
It goes against all basic logic to disagree that weaker hardware won't hamstring stronger hardware. Of course that's what happened.
Exactly.

We've had evidence of this for several console generations...

It's explicitly why next gen consoles usually have better specs than their last gen cousins. This applies to phones, gpus, cpus, etc.

Thinking the specs of the Series S wouldn't cause issues compared to the specs of the PS5, XSX was madness.

But hey, if cross gen lasts the entire generation, problem solved.

8GB of slow RAM impact game design more than just this one feature (which is a popular one in their games) in 2023 and beyond.
On one hand we want games to move forward with game design, but some want it with asterisks. Asterisks on top of other asterisks.

I get the feeling some don't care because of some type of brand loyalty.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I don't get people complaining, it's true lol, no matter the reasons.

At least this is the worst possible scenario, MS couldn't predict that the single one feature that nobody did for years due to how memory hungry it is and because online multiplayer normalized, was gonna be done in a game this gen :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Other games releasing put PS5 and XSX on their knees at 1080p or less so they got bottlenecked before XSS was even a factor, so I don't expect this to repeat, let alone becoming a norm.

We all said this would happen years ago.....


  • Repeats the disinterest from developers for lockhart, says it will have significantly less ram, he has heard developers saying the GPU is basically PS4 Pro level, but the CPU and SSD should improve it beyond that, still developers dont want to be forced to work on lockhart and feel that the SKU will hamper next gen games.
  • says that he has heard of the PS5 launch games, and that they are PS5 only, will probably make an article about it in the future
  • didnt hear about what MS's games, but assume they will target xbox one, PC and Scarlett, like Halo Infinite
Saw it on a resetra forum, "Modiz" was the poster for the summary.

We’ll see (and if this is true). It feels like Microsoft might be better off shipping a cheap Project X-Cloud box as their mainstream outreach.

If it really is that underwhelming, it could be a significant anchor. I don’t have anything against the idea of a cheaper version for mainstream audiences, but it needs some kind of parity.

My hold up is, is it REALLY next gen if its significantly less powerful than the PS5/Anaconda? It seems like a very unnecessary half step, especially with xbox one x existing.

The MS "next-gen" console that's supposed to be cheaper than Scarlett, but for 1080p TVs and less only. It's stupid.



To save money. Yes, again it's stupid.




Do you think MS has any idea what it's doing? We all have to admit that this is stupid right?


This thread is 4 years old!!!!!! We knew this would happen.

 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Exactly.

We've had evidence of this for several console generations...

It's explicitly why next gen consoles usually have better specs than their last gen cousins. This applies to phones, gpus, cpus, etc.

Thinking the specs of the Series S wouldn't cause issues compared to the specs of the PS5, XSX was madness.

But hey, if cross gen lasts the entire generation, problem solved.


On one hand we want games to move forward with game design, but some want it with asterisks. Asterisks on top of other asterisks.

I get the feeling some don't care because of some type of brand loyalty.
Oh, you know damned well the narratives would flip flop on both sides. Down to Phil Spencer whining to the media that Sony is holding tech and game design back moving forward.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
We all said this would happen years ago.....











This thread is 4 years old!!!!!! We knew this would happen.

Ok we have one single case of a very singular type of development. Where are the other cases? Because as far as I can see both bigger consoles reach their own limit before XSS starts meaning something
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
I own a Xbox Series X and S, I would be totally fine for games to skip on the S as long as it's known from the get-go. The X is in beside our lounge TV, hasn't been used since the end of 2021 with Halo Infinite.....the S is in my 4 year old son's room and he jams Minecraft on it . I think it feels like the proper use for it....like a cheaper side machine: you can't expect it to be a workhorse.

This problem is going to keep rearing it's head too......as PS5 gives no fucks about parity, any games that try to make use of the architecture will struggle on the S.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Ok we have one single case of a very singular type of development. Where are the other cases? Because as far as I can see both bigger consoles reach their own limit before XSS starts meaning something

Halo Infinite.

According to Sean Baron, Halo Infinite's local co-op had years of work put into it, but 343 Industries kept running into problems "from a technical perspective" that would cause crashes, glitches, and other issues. Baron doubled down on the fact that 343 Industries couldn't commit to getting Halo Infinite split-screen "from an 80% quality to a 100% quality" because the amount of effort required is too hard to gauge. Something that Baron points to as an issue outside the technological ones is the certification Halo Infinite would need to run local co-op for all the platforms that the game is available on which would present their own challenges as well.

 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
Halo Infinite.



Yeah, it might be because of the S as it might not, considering how troublesome that development was.

if Halo issue was the XSS, MS should reconsider that specific feature out of the parity clause, as basically nobody make split screen gameplay anymore it shouldn't affect 99% of in development projects.
 
Yeah, it might be because of the S as it might not, considering how troublesome that development was.

if Halo issue was the XSS, MS should reconsider that specific feature out of the parity clause, as basically nobody make split screen gameplay anymore it shouldn't affect 99% of in development projects.
Wishful thinking. It is the ram that is the problem. 8Gb of ram is what we had last gen. It wouldn't be enough for current gen once cross-generation games stop being made.

For two console generations the consoles were close enough to each other that we could sort of forgetting about hardware differences for third party games. Now Xbox made the decision to change that, and they have to take the consequences of this.
 

Mr Moose

Member
Ok we have one single case of a very singular type of development. Where are the other cases? Because as far as I can see both bigger consoles reach their own limit before XSS starts meaning something

“Our heavy investment in pushing our new graphical features and our complete overhaul of the rendering engine unfortunately made split-screen really difficult to implement and is also not going to be in for launch,”
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Wishful thinking. It is the ram that is the problem. 8Gb of ram is what we had last gen. It wouldn't be enough for current gen once cross-generation games stop being made.

For two console generations the consoles were close enough to each other that we could sort of forgetting about hardware differences for third party games. Now Xbox made the decision to change that, and they have to take the consequences of this.
We already have current gen only games running on S without issues. Split screen is the one thing that's been an issue though since it's not a graphical feature that happens to be very heavy on memory.


“Our heavy investment in pushing our new graphical features and our complete overhaul of the rendering engine unfortunately made split-screen really difficult to implement and is also not going to be in for launch,”
Yeah, split screen, always that feature. MS should allow devs to skip that single feature in the parity retirements.
 

damidu

Member
why do you guys think larian would be ok to release their game without a feature they deem important, even if ms ok’s non parity. they can’t just order them to cut features left and right as they see fit, like they do to the studios they gobbled.
there is nothing for them to do but wait.

too bad they tried to con people repeatedly by singing “same game, lower res” tune.
they already fucked people over on that premise with multiple games missing whole graphics features, performance modes.
i bet there is a law suit waiting to happen just from that. and now this.
all these for a console that not even selling.

yeah head’s would roll for stuff like this in a functioning division.
 

Portugeezer

Member
The full details are redacted but it encompasses their general 3rd party publisher license agreement:


oiU625E.jpg


That was from their agreement with 704games who make the nascar heat games.
I don't think that covers PS5 parity, unless they have a marketing deal I don't see how they could ask for that from every game.

It also says Simship with competitive platforms (which definitely means PS5), which is already not happening.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly

“Our heavy investment in pushing our new graphical features and our complete overhaul of the rendering engine unfortunately made split-screen really difficult to implement and is also not going to be in for launch,”
Did they announce forza has on track raytracing for series x? I doubt it has enough power to do it in split screen to be honest, but I don't know shit about their engine and how it works lol
 
why do you guys think larian would be ok to release their game without a feature they deem important, even if ms ok’s non parity. they can’t just order them to cut features left and right as they see fit, like they do to the studios they gobbled.
there is nothing for them to do but wait.

too bad they tried to con people repeatedly by singing “same game, lower res” tune.
they already fucked people over on that premise with multiple games missing whole graphics features, performance modes.
i bet there is a law suit waiting to happen just from that. and now this.
all these for a console that not even selling.

yeah head’s would roll for stuff like this in a functioning division.

They did it with Steam Deck. My guess is if they were allowed they would just cut it out of the Series S version.
 

Riky

$MSFT
Did they announce forza has on track raytracing for series x? I doubt it has enough power to do it in split screen to be honest, but I don't know shit about their engine and how it works lol

Exactly. We're seeing exclusive games running at 720p and can't hit a solid 60fps but people expect Series X to do 4k 60fps with in gameplay RT and a massive increase in physics simulation......in split screen? Not happening. Turn 10 are amazing but that's a stretch.
 
And this game isn't shipping for months after the PS5 version on Xbox.

The idea of a parity clause where the "out" is to just not release the game seems pretty backwards to me.
Does MS still have the negotiating power to demand a parity clause?
This isn't the xbox360 gen. PS5 has the higher ground.
 
Does MS still have the negotiating power to demand a parity clause?
This isn't the xbox360 gen. PS5 has the higher ground.

Microsoft owns the platform. They can just tell Larian they can't release it unless both the XSS and XSX have the same features.

But of course they can't stop Larian from releasing on PlayStation. Which is what happened here.
 
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