Digital Foundry Exclusive Xbox Scorpio Reveal

[Horizon]

Rare isn't what it used to be. There is no real caliber to that studio anymore. Go back over the last 12 years and look at the games they've made. Oh boy... some real high caliber stuff right there. The Killer Instinct reboot wasn't even developed by them. A lot of studios with long histories have closed down even when people thought it would never happen for one reason or another. Microsoft isn't going to keep a studio that's draining them of money and hasn't managed to produce or continue a legitimate hit franchise in over a decade. It wouldn't be like Sony closing Naughty Dog after a bad game.

I think you probably already missed the press highlighting Microsoft's failures when it was discovered that suddenly about 8 of their studios don't even exist anymore. This wouldn't be anything shocking. The sudden closure of Lionhead and Press Play when they were both in the middle of a project was already enough to bring to light the issues within Microsoft's internal studios, not to mention Twisted Pixel exercising its right to leave the company before the closures even came to light. Preceded further back by Bungie's departure, which brought forth a whirlwind of speculation and rumors. Closing Rare isn't going to be any bigger of a deal than any other closure. It would just be another victim.

I think you're grossly overestimating how much people care about Rare at this point. A lot of people have predicted Rare's imminent closure. Hell, there were people who were more surprised Lionhead got closed first. I was one of them. Microsoft's first party is already looked at as nothing more than Forza, Gears, Halo, and Minecraft. It's a popular thing among the community in general now to say that if you're not making a hit franchise for Microsoft, you're gonna get closed. If that happened to Rare tomorrow, you would mostly get a lot of "see... told ya".

I agree with you but RARE was one of their first studios they bought, it was to signal their intent in the gaming industry. To shut them down would signal their intent on putting less focus on gaming plus people are far more nostalgic about RARE than Lionhead or Press Play. It would not just be Xbox fans annoyed but also Nintendo and general gamers as a lot of people want to see them be free and make the games they want to make. But yeah if SOT bombs then i don't think many would be surprised if they got closed too.

[nnodley]

MS can probably allow 4k textures via DLC like it happens in PC.

4k native will happen only for few games like Forza.

Yeah thats what they were saying on gaf about having packs for them.  But a lot of the delusional ones seem to think that scorpio will get literally all effects and textures at ultra/4k along with 4k native res.  I just can not see that happen at all.   At least this new thread about Anandtech breaking down the specs and the actual possibilities and compromises is level headed and most people aren't spouting the BS of getting performance of the best graphics cards out there: Anandtech breaks down Scorpio specs + predictions - NeoGAF

That shame will come back though in that thread eventually.

Anandtech with their very well put together initial take on the Scorpio specs.http://www.anandtech.com/show/11250/...tails-revealed
 Take note of the last point especially, very interesting as I havent see any other outlet raise it.
 On CPU cores

AMD technically has several cores potentially available for Scorpio: Excavator (Bulldozer-based, as seen on 28nm), Jaguar-based (also from 28nm) or Zen based (seen on 14nm GF). While the latter is a design that has returned AMD to the high-end of x86 performance computing, offering high performance for reasonable power, a Zen design would be relatively quick turnaround from a consumer launch a month ago. Because of the time frame, even if Microsoft could go for Zen in the Scorpio, this would increase the base cost of the console by redesigning the cores on 16nm TSMC.
 In the Digital Foundary piece, Microsoft stated that the CPU portion of Scorpio has a 31% performance gain over the Xbox. This isn't IPC, this is just raw performance. Moving from Jaguar to Zen would be more than 60%, and actually the frequency difference between the 2.3 GHz in Scorpio and 1.75 GHz in Xbox One is exactly 31%. So we are dealing with a Jaguar-style core (although perhaps modified).
 That being said, this is a ‘custom’ x86 core. Microsoft could have requested specific IP blocks and features not present in the original Jaguar CPUs but present in things such as Zen, such as power management techniques. Typically a console shares DRAM between the CPU and GPU, so it might be something as simple as the CPU memory controller supporting GDDR5. So instead of seeing Zen coming to consoles, we’re seeing another crack at using Jaguar (or Jaguar+) but revised for a smaller process node to keep overall costs down – and given that the main focus on a console is the GPU, that’s entirely possible.

 

GPU

Now there is a bit of nuance here, as AMD’s GPU architecture is offered piecemeal: the shader cores, the memory controllers, the display controllers, etc are all separate blocks that can be mixed and matches. This is how the PS4 Pro uses just parts of Vega. So it’s entirely possible that there are other bits and pieces in Scorpio that are newer than Polaris, however the all-important shader cores and ROP backends clearly point to Polaris.
 Diving into the specs a bit deeper, we do have the clockspeeds and configurations for both the GPU and the memory. Scorpio’s GPU is a 40 CU (2,560 SP) wide design – a bit wider than the Radeon RX 480 – which is a rather extensive upgrade over the original Xbox One. Ignoring clockspeeds for the moment (more in a sec), just the CU count itself is 3.33 times the 12 CUs in the original XB1. Similarly, Microsoft has doubled the number of ROP backends from 16 to 32. The ROP change is badly needed in order for Microsoft to reach their 4K goal, and it has been a pretty universal suspicion that the original XB1’s 16 ROPs were a big part of the reason that major multiplatform games tend to go with 900p instead of a native 1080p.
 Meanwhile on the clockspeed front, the new GPU is clocked at 1172MHz, giving Microsoft 6 TFLOPS right on the dot. This is a 37% clockspeed increase over the original XB1, and a 28% increase over the XB1S, which received a slight clockspeed bump of its own. These clockspeeds are well within the range of what the Polaris architecture can offer, and while not as conservative as Sony’s design choices, should still be reasonably power efficient, though I’m very much interested in seeing what total power consumption is like.
 More importantly, combined with the much wider GPU, the impact to the various throughput metrics is staggering. Shader/texture throughput will be 4.58x the original XB1, and ROP throughput will be 2.75x. Microsoft had a very large gap to close from the original Xbox One if they wanted to do 4K, and they have certainly put together a design that is equally large to help close that gap. However with that said, with performance that, on paper, is slightly ahead of a Radeon RX 480, I expect we’re still going to see some compromises here to consistently hit Microsoft’s 4K goal. 6 TFLOPS often isn’t enough for native 4K at current image quality levels, which means developers will have to resort to some clever optimizations or image scaling.

 

Memory subsystem

What makes things especially interesting though is that Microsoft didn’t just switch out DDR3 for GDDR5, but they’re using a wider memory bus as well; expanding it by 50% to 384-bits wide. Not only does this even further expand the console’s memory bandwidth – now to a total of 326GB/sec, or 4.8x the XB1’s DDR3 – but it means we have an odd mismatch between the ROP backends and the memory bus. Briefly, the ROP backends and memory bus are typically balanced 1-to-1 in a GPU, so a single memory controller will feed 1 or two ROP partitions. However in this case, we have a 384-bit bus feeding 32 ROPs, which is not a compatible mapping.
 What this means is that at some level, Microsoft is running an additional memory crossbar in the SoC, which would be very similar to what AMD did back in 2012 with the Radeon HD 7970. Because the console SoC needs to split its memory bandwidth between the CPU and the GPU, things aren’t as cut and dry here as they are with discrete GPUs. But, at a high level, what we saw from the 7970 is that the extra bandwidth + crossbar setup did not offer much of a benefit over a straight-connected, lower bandwidth configuration. Accordingly, AMD has never done it again in their dGPUs. So I think it will be very interesting to see if developers can consistently consume more than 218GB/sec or so of bandwidth using the GPU.

 

[the-pi-guy]

-343 -Halo
-Turn 10-Forza
-Rare-Games
-Mojang-Minecraft
-The Coalition-Gears

Yep...
And on Rare:
Raven said enough.

Rare isn't what it used to be. There is no real caliber to that studio anymore. Go back over the last 12 years and look at the games they've made. Oh boy... some real high caliber stuff right there. The Killer Instinct reboot wasn't even developed by them. A lot of studios with long histories have closed down even when people thought it would never happen for one reason or another. Microsoft isn't going to keep a studio that's draining them of money and hasn't managed to produce or continue a legitimate hit franchise in over a decade. It wouldn't be like Sony closing Naughty Dog after a bad game.

I think you probably already missed the press highlighting Microsoft's failures when it was discovered that suddenly about 8 of their studios don't even exist anymore. This wouldn't be anything shocking. The sudden closure of Lionhead and Press Play when they were both in the middle of a project was already enough to bring to light the issues within Microsoft's internal studios, not to mention Twisted Pixel exercising its right to leave the company before the closures even came to light. Preceded further back by Bungie's departure, which brought forth a whirlwind of speculation and rumors. Closing Rare isn't going to be any bigger of a deal than any other closure. It would just be another victim.

I think you're grossly overestimating how much people care about Rare at this point. A lot of people have predicted Rare's imminent closure. Hell, there were people who were more surprised Lionhead got closed first. I was one of them. Microsoft's first party is already looked at as nothing more than Forza, Gears, Halo, and Minecraft. It's a popular thing among the community in general now to say that if you're not making a hit franchise for Microsoft, you're gonna get closed. If that happened to Rare tomorrow, you would mostly get a lot of "see... told ya".

[Aura7541]

I wonder if Phil's trip to Japan will actually amount to anything other than Scorpio patches for multiplat Japanese games.

[Legend]

Yeah thats what they were saying on gaf about having packs for them.  But a lot of the delusional ones seem to think that scorpio will get literally all effects and textures at ultra/4k along with 4k native res.  I just can not see that happen at all.   At least this new thread about Anandtech breaking down the specs and the actual possibilities and compromises is level headed and most people aren't spouting the BS of getting performance of the best graphics cards out there: Anandtech breaks down Scorpio specs + predictions - NeoGAF

That shame will come back though in that thread eventually.
GPUMemory subsystem

I didn't know that about their memory bandwidth, but at least that's not too problematic. XBO needed devs to optimize for the ram setup in order to get good results, while with this devs only need to optimize to get great results.

[Kerotan]

I remember when console at launch was at least on par with high-end PCs. 4.2TFs or 6TFs are mid-end PCs with RX480.

Yeah but games are starting to reach that limit.  The ps5 could launch with 1000TF but the games wouldn't look any better then if it launched with TF.

There's only so close we can get to the limit and the law of diminishing returns etc.  There's very little point launching equal to a high end pc because it will be a rip off and the games won't get a boost worthy of the extra cost.

[ethomaz]

I didn't know that about their memory bandwidth, but at least that's not too problematic. XBO needed devs to optimize for the ram setup in order to get good results, while with this devs only need to optimize to get great results.

I believe MS choose this type of bus because they needs about 250GB/s for GPU while the rest will be used by CPU... that is why I believe the issue Anandtech listed with the same bus in old GPU that uses all the bandwidth won't be a issue for Scorpio.

[the-pi-guy]

Yeah but games are starting to reach that limit.  The ps5 could launch with 1000TF but the games wouldn't look any better then if it launched with TF.

Nah, disagree there are benefits even graphically yet.  Framerate, resolution.  
Even ignoring graphics, there's lots of reason for upgrading.  AI, physics, and a lot more.  

There's only so close we can get to the limit and the law of diminishing returns etc.  There's very little point launching equal to a high end pc because it will be a rip off and the games won't get a boost worthy of the extra cost.

The cost of high end consoles is a bit of a different issue.  It's just much harder to get powerful consoles that rival PCs.
Those were crazy times by comparison.

PS2 even was beyond high end PC, believe it or not.

[Legend]

Nah, disagree there are benefits even graphically yet.  Framerate, resolution.  
Even ignoring graphics, there's lots of reason for upgrading.  AI, physics, and a lot more.  
The cost of high end consoles is a bit of a different issue.  It's just much harder to get powerful consoles that rival PCs.
Those were crazy times by comparison.

PS2 even was beyond high end PC, believe it or not.

Back then it was expensive to even have any sort of home PC. Nowadays I think a larger percentage of cost can go into graphics.

[the-pi-guy]

Back then it was expensive to even have any sort of home PC. Nowadays I think a larger percentage of cost can go into graphics.

This gives me an idea!  

[Raven]

I agree with you but RARE was one of their first studios they bought, it was to signal their intent in the gaming industry. To shut them down would signal their intent on putting less focus on gaming plus people are far more nostalgic about RARE than Lionhead or Press Play. It would not just be Xbox fans annoyed but also Nintendo and general gamers as a lot of people want to see them be free and make the games they want to make. But yeah if SOT bombs then i don't think many would be surprised if they got closed too.

I would say that Microsoft's significant reduction of its internal studios down to a mere handful with many of the studios they had not producing a single title for Xbox One was indication enough of Microsoft's intent. I don't think Microsoft cares about nostalgic Nintendo fans or the kneejerk reactions of gamers who won't care about Rare's closure even a week after it happens. They're not going to keep what they consider to be a lackluster studio just to avoid "angering" a bunch of people who haven't even played a Rare game in ages. Not to mention, the IPs won't cease to exist. Just the studio that originally created them that doesn't even make them anymore. Microsoft would probably point that out if they felt they had to. Pretty much everyone who made Rare what it was moved on years ago. Even if Rare did go free, no one should expect them to be what they were. Save tens of millons of dollars by dropping a poorly performing studio or keep spending that money because you're worried about people who weren't buying your product anyways?

[Horizon]

Yeah but games are starting to reach that limit.  The ps5 could launch with 1000TF but the games wouldn't look any better then if it launched with TF.

There's only so close we can get to the limit and the law of diminishing returns etc.  There's very little point launching equal to a high end pc because it will be a rip off and the games won't get a boost worthy of the extra cost.

I was discussing this with my girlfriend recently that due diminishing returns games from this gen will still look amazing in 10 years time. Horizon in 10 years time is still going to look unbelievable and play well but you compare that to the original Assassins Creed which came out in 2007, even that game probably still holds up to play now visually and animation wise is decent. All games this gen should look graphically amazing and graphics should no longer be the difference but it should be all about the games now.

[BananaKing]

I was discussing this with my girlfriend recently that due diminishing returns games from this gen will still look amazing in 10 years time. Horizon in 10 years time is still going to look unbelievable and play well but you compare that to the original Assassins Creed which came out in 2007, even that game probably still holds up to play now visually and animation wise is decent. All games this gen should look graphically amazing and graphics should no longer be the difference but it should be all about the games now.

the turn to pysically based rendering means things are going to look pretty good and realistic from now on. tech, tech and tools will improve but we reached a point where things look good for 3D in general, not just games. there is still a lot of way to go, and eventually Horizon and Uncharted 4 will look dated. but it will take a longer while to do so.

[the-pi-guy]

I don't think Horizon or Uncharted will ever become dated like a lot of PS2 games did.  

[Dr. Pezus]

I don't think Horizon or Uncharted will ever become dated like a lot of PS2 games did.  

They most likely will. Certainly in terms of their gameplay at least.
Both could have better graphics too, if we're being honest. We just don't see it well because we haven't had games that look better.