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What is it about the Xbox Series S that worries developers?

Bankai

Bankai

Member
its-hard-to-fly-when-something-is-weighing-you-down-quote-1.jpg
 
T

Topfuel

Member
gow3isben said:
Those suits at Microsoft just took a shit on next gen in their greed for both price and power. They always talked about how they wanted to do away generations and here is their shitty plan. It has been proven time and again how weak base consoles limit what can be done to stronger consoles. The SeX will never reach its full potential. Looks like Sony exclusives will be the only true representation of next gen. Buy more developers Sony! Secure more 3rd party exclusivity! Developers please boycott having to deal with this shitty machine so it gets removed from the market!
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Angry?
 
Stuart360

Stuart360

Member
Whitecrow said:
The power gap is too big to just make the same game at lower resolution.
A lot of assets will need to be different between platforms, and that's a fucking hell.
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The XSX has 3 times the horsepower of XSS, and 4k needs roughly 4 times the horsepower over 1080p. If anything, the XSS at 1080p has more pure power than the XSX at 4k. Hense why Microsoft are highlighting 1440p for S, and not 1080p (i still think most games will be 1080p on XSS).
Fact is the developers of the console are the ones saying same effetcs, same settings, at a lower resolution. So either they are flat out lying, or they no more than the armchair devs on here.
 
MarkMe2525

MarkMe2525

Member
Kumomeme said:
not comparable since that port considered wizardy level of stuff. Not anyone can do that and there reason the devs handled the port get praised alot.
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I'm sorry but you have not convinced me it's not comparable. Am I supposed to take you on your word?
 
cireza

cireza

Member
Having to actually work ?

This only worries backwards developers that can't work on more than one hardware at a time, like Atlus.

They should maybe try to embrace the current world and market ?

It isn't a problem for developers to absolute not optimize their work for both docked/handheld for Switch, but it is now a problem for Series S/X ? lol
 
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MarkMe2525

MarkMe2525

Member
Physiognomonics said:
Well it was a full port by a whole team. Do you think multiplat developers will dedicate a team to make the Lockhart version of their game ?
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Yes, they will have a dedicated team that works on the Xbox conversion. The api will handle most of the work and then they can go in and tweak to smooth trouble areas, you know, like every other multi-platform game.
 
Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
From Dirt 5 technical director - David Springate (the game is cross-gen and coming to Xbox One/PS4/XSS/XSX/PS5).
majornelson.com

702: Dirt 5 and the power of Xbox Series X - Xbox's Major Nelson

majornelson.com majornelson.com
So anytime new hardware comes out, it's usually a very, very painful experience. When hardware shows up, it's usually half finished or it's crashes a lot, and the API that the programming tools that we use, then usually not finalized or even worse, they can suddenly change halfway through development. And so suddenly you're having to pivot really quickly, but actually Series X has been a very smooth experience. So Microsoft has developed something that they called the game development kit, which is a new replacement. And actually it's going to be utilized on original Xbox One and Xbox One S and Xbox One X.
And that's how everything is going to be developed together, a unified product development all the way from Xbox one up to Series X, but making the most of the hardware features across the board. But there are actually benefits to that as well, so an Xbox one game that was developed before now, could now to perform better if it was made with the new game development kit. And it also has the ability to make use of low latency input, which really, really important for a racing game.
...
But all in all, development on Series X has been more of the same, but just allowing me to stop and say, "Okay, my day to day toolset has not changed that much. It's still that familiar Xbox one experience, but now I get to make the most of all of the new toys."
...
In fact, it's the best thing. I don't want new tools after make the most of the experience that I already have. I want to make the most of understanding how to get to the hardware, not having new tools blocking me from getting in the way of getting to that hardware. So having familiar tools, having a familiar interface, super important. So it's been a really smooth transition for us at Cheshire studio making the fudge.
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-Arcadia-

-Arcadia-

Banned
As a technical producer, he could simply see trouble in terms of supporting too many platforms, extra debugging and work, etc.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be that there’s an inherent problem with the S. Or maybe there is. We should be careful of reading too far into such a vague statement in either direction.
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
MarkMe2525 said:
I'm sorry but you have not convinced me it's not comparable. Am I supposed to take you on your word?
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I’m not sure what you are trying to agree because ports are hard to do and have a lot optimizations and big fix work.
It is not a free change the resolution deal lol

So a port just shows how trouble it is to work in different platforms at the same time.

Like other dev said... it is now 10 instead of 9 platforms they need to work on.

More work, more time, more costs... which dev will be happy with that?
 
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MarkMe2525

MarkMe2525

Member
Portugeezer said:
I thought we were taking about potential developer concerns.
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Well that's one of the topics being discussed in here, my response was I don't care if it takes more work. Games take a lot of work, nothing new.

In my industry new products come out and you know what, it takes a lot of work to be able to understand said product and find a way to entice customers to purchase it. I don't think anyone gives a shit if my job is hard or not, I took the job.
 
Humdinger

Humdinger

Gold Member
Interesting to hear about the memory constraints and what that might mean.

I'm thinking we will probably have to wait a couple of years to know. All of MS's games will be held back by the Xbox One for the next couple years, and most multiplatform titles will be held back by being cross-gen. In order to really make a judgment, we have to have games that are only produced for next-gen (XSX, XSS, PS5).
 
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MarkMe2525

MarkMe2525

Member
ethomaz said:
I’m not sure what you are trying to agree because ports are hard to do and have a lot optimizations and big fix work.
It is not a free change the resolution deal lol

So a port just shows how trouble it is to work in different platforms at the same time.

Like other dev said... it is now 10 instead of 9 platforms they need to work on.

More work, more time, more costs... which dev will be happy with that?
Click to expand...
I get what you're saying, ultimately if the platform shows that if they put the work in and they sell a bunch of copies, they make lots of 💰. If the publisher and developers see money to be made, they will do what is necessary. I don't think this is something as consumers we should be concerned about.
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
MarkMe2525 said:
I get what you're saying, ultimately if the platform shows that if they put the work in and they sell a bunch of copies, they make lots of 💰. If the publisher and developers see money to be made, they will do what is necessary. I don't think this is something as consumers we should be concerned about.
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Yeap but there is a catch here... no publisher/dev will increase the dev time or budget to work in a addictions platform.

A yearly CoD will release in time no matter if 8 or 10 platforms.

So how they manage that? Crushing work, non-fixed bugs, half-finished games, etc.

So yes indirectly it affects consumers.

In a dream world devs should get more more time and budget to work in more platforms but that is not what usually happens in gaming industry.
 
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N

NickFire

Member
Shrap said:
Everyone saying "it is designed to have the same visual fidelity as the Xbox Series X just scaled down in resolution" has no idea.
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Maybe in their world each generation's graphical improvements were just resolution. Everyone is just playing pacman and mario in 4k 120 fps, and 8k 60 fps.

Honestly, everyone taking the position that its just gonna be scaled down X games seems to miss the goal posts by a mile to me. The undeniable reality is that everything has to be designed to run on 4 TF if it will release on X. There may be some lighting differences, etc., but there will not be a single game that can't run on 4 TF. It's application of the Fortnite BR model to hardware. I'd say Fortnite in general, but for some reason StW never made it to switch. Seems like sometimes you can't downscale enough.
 
MarkMe2525

MarkMe2525

Member
ethomaz said:
Yeap but there is a catch here... no publisher/dev will increase the dev time or budget to work in a addictions platform.

A yearly CoD will release in time no matter if 8 or 10 platforms.

So how they manage that? Crushing work, non-fixed bugs, half-finished games, etc.

So yes it affects consumers.
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I could see that being a concern. That's scenario brings up two points for me. One being that it is on the publisher if they want to release a half assed game. Which in the short term hurts customers but in the long term hurts their cred with the fans.

Secondly, a lot of these concerns are going to be contingent on the tools that Microsoft are providing. I do realize people in this thread are just speculating, but as of right now it is unfounded as we literally have not seen how the games are going to run on the Xbox platform and if the developers actually making these games are running into serious issues. IIRC the only devs I have seen comment on this or ones that are not developing games on the Xbox platform as of yet.

The dust will settle and we will have a clearer picture of the situation in due time.

Edit: My intuition tells me there is a reason why Microsoft was determined to get VRS, SF, and ML supported at a hardware level in these consoles. The whole idea behind those technologies are to allow these machines to punch above their weight.
 
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P

Physiognomonics

Member
MarkMe2525 said:
Yes, they will have a dedicated team that works on the Xbox conversion. The api will handle most of the work and then they can go in and tweak to smooth trouble areas, you know, like every other multi-platform game.
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So they will create another full-time job team just for for the console that will have the less owners ? This won't happen. No, they'll keep the same number of people and they'll just put less time in the others version.

This is how game development works. We have seen this for instance in the last Trials Rising from Ubisoft. More versions meant much less polish on each versions compared to their previous game.
 
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MarkMe2525

MarkMe2525

Member
Physiognomonics said:
So they will create another full-time job team just for for the console that will have the less owners ? This won't happen. No, they'll keep the same number of people and they'll just put less time in the others version.

This is how game development works. We have seen this for instance in the last Trials Rising from Ubisoft. More versions meant much less polish on each versions compared to their previous game.
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No that's not how game development works, that's why I didn't say literally anything that you just paraphrased me saying. They don't have to create a new team, they use their existing teams. The same teams that already do game conversation like literally every other port ever made, but you are acting like that is outlandish.
 
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J

jaysius

Banned
Journey said:
Change title from "DEVELOPERS" to "CONCERNED TROLLS"




Armchaid devs on the other hand.... :rolleyes:
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Jesus Christ gaf turned the word “concerned” from a real word into an “easy out” for fanbois in a day or so, this is a new record for taking a word from its original meaning and turning it into eye AIDS.
 
danielJackson

danielJackson

Banned
tronied said:
It's been designed to target the same visual fidelity as the XSX but at a lower resolution. Where's the problem?

If MS have done their job right and allows devs to determine whether it's an XSS or XSX based on a simple flag, there should be no issues at all.
Click to expand...

If all games are 4k or nearly 4k on xsex, there is no major problem.

If games in the future run 1080p-1440p on xsex, see the problem?

It forces devs to 4k on xsex or sub 1080p on xses, that is the problem.

Difficult to drop resolution if it is already lower than 4k but upscaled, without going to 540-900p territory or really low visual fidelity.

MarkMe2525 said:
They put Witcher 3 on the Nintendo switch. 3gb of slow ass ram.... It's going to be ok
Click to expand...

This kind of proves my point.

Lets imagine that xbox one is xsex, switch is xses and witcher is really demanding+high fidelity next gen game

Graphically demanding Witcher 3 is running 1080p on "xsex", so devs had to make it look like pure shit + have super low res on "xses"
 
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MarkMe2525

MarkMe2525

Member
danielJackson said:
If all games are 4k or nearly 4k on xsex, there is no major problem.

If games in the future run 1080p-1440p on xsex, see the problem?

It forces devs to 4k on xsex or sub 1080p on xses, that is the problem.

Difficult to drop resolution if it is already lower than 4k but upscaled, without going to 540-900p territory or really low visual fidelity.
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VRS, ML upsampling, Direct storage, Sampler feedback. All technologies implemented at a hardware level. There is a reason Microsoft waited for AMD to be able to implement them into their SOC.

Your claim about devs being forced into resolutions is what is referred to as a strawman argument. You make an assumption which you would have no possible way of actually knowing, and then continue to make claims based off of said assumption.
 
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Dr Bass

Dr Bass

Member
tronied said:
It's been designed to target the same visual fidelity as the XSX but at a lower resolution. Where's the problem?

If MS have done their job right and allows devs to determine whether it's an XSS or XSX based on a simple flag, there should be no issues at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's how software works. Set a boolean flag and everything just works!

There is obviously going to be work needed to get everything scaled properly and ensure as close performance between the two as possible. After watching the video I can't help but think the Series S is the system they care the most about by far. The X is just there so they can say they aren't losing a GPU power competition. They are basically going to take a loss on the X (and most likely the S) and hopefully subsidize it all via the S with no disc, hoping people buy lots of games and sign onto Game Pass. Though I can't help but wonder why someone who was price conscious and buying the S would then be ok with not being able to buy cheaper discs that go on sale, are used, etc. I can't wait to see this all play out.
 
N

NT80

Member
Stuart360 said:
Well the beard guy in the S Reveal vid says its very easy for devs to downscale from XSX to XSS, and has been designed in that way.
I'm sure most devs will be fine with this.
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Not saying he's wrong but what do you expect the beard guy who works for Microsoft to say in a vid that's promoting the XSS? I'd be far more interested in what some of the high end independent developers think if there able to speak freely on this. I don't want them aiming for native 4K on XSX and PS5 too much if it's going to be so wasteful.
 
P

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
AgentP said:
The GPU more or less scales with the graphic options (less pixels, draw distance, worse shadows, etc.) but the memory bandwidth is less clear. While the image buffers will be smaller, everything else is the same. The models, assets, etc. all have to be moved around in memory and is the same on both S and X, so we have a bottleneck on the S. You might see 60fps on X and 30fps on S.
Click to expand...

RT & Geometry
GPU has less CU’s, less bandwidth, and a lower clockspeed than XSX’s equivalent. RT performance is affected by all three and in and of itself is less resolution dependent than one might think (think secondary rays). Still sure, reducing resolution further frees other CU’s.

Lower clockspeed also affects shared components such as L1/L2 cache bandwidth, ACE’s for async compute and RB’s (filtrate), geometry engine and primitive units (clipping, culling, triangle to pixel coverage rasterisation)

CPU & RAM
CPU is also clocked down by about 200 MHz. 3.6 GHz with SMT disabled and 3.4 GHz with SMT enabled (so less than PS5’s “peak” with SMT enabled).

RAM only has 8 GB running at “full” speed (still about half of what you have on the XSX) and a lot less bandwidth is available for the remaining 2 GB (slower than Xbox One S’s DDR3 main RAM).
p7AscHg.jpg


Reference diagram about RDNA GPU’s (40 CU’s):

ObKs9JF.jpg
 
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LeftThumbstick

LeftThumbstick

Member
Or, they're just not so great developers? Pretty unprofessional too might i add as someone who works in a big name like Remedy to be shit talking what is a big source of their income. As someone who likes to mess around with code and small game dev, i'd just be fucking excited to work on new hardware, like overly excited.
 
RoboFu

RoboFu

One of the green rats
LOL whats funny is the concerned trollers are basically admitting that the xbox series s going to be the leader.
Its the only way that any of this could be even remotely true.
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
Grinchy said:
I feel like this idea that a developer can spend all of its time creating the best X version possible, and then one day just click a "Lower resolution for S version" button is so naive it borders on stupidity.

But hey, I am not a software engineer. Maybe it's as easy as forum posters claim. And maybe this console didn't just become the starting point for all 3rd party development for the entire new generation.
Click to expand...

No, even though you're not a software dev you're right. It's not as simple as pressing a button, it never is when building something with multiple configurations in mind.

Not all workloads scale with resolution, it's a simple fact. The slower (and less) ram has the potential to hold the system back in ways that can't be resolved by simply dropping the resolution to 1080p.

Interesting times ahead, we are in uncharted territory where people are celebrating the potential of stagnation. Never thought I'd see the day but here we are.

Best case scenario is that devs treat it like they have the OG Xbox One for the latter part of this generation - it's an afterthought and it gets shit ports.
 
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Ar¢tos

Ar¢tos

Member
Poor devs, same development time and budget, and now they are forced to do the ultra boring optimisation and debugging work for yet another platform.
I don't think the issue ever was if things scaled or not, the issue is if devs can accommodate another platform for their games (well... They will have to).
For crossgen games they to optimize and debug for Ps4, Ps4pro, Ps5, X1, X1S, X1X, XSX and XSS (not to mention pc and switch).
I wonder if devs are forced to support the XSS in order to release for the XSX?
(all this is thinking more of smaller devs)
 
Dr Bass

Dr Bass

Member
Here is a question for people who are liking the S.

Given the current state of GPUs, are you happy with this being the baseline for all Xbox games (once they start supporting the "One" line of course) for the next 5- 7 years?
 
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