The Verge (Lockhart): "We understand that includes 7.5GB of usable RAM, a slightly underclocked CPU speed, and around 4 teraflops of GPU performance."

Started by Legend, Jun 26, 2020, 03:01 PM

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Legend

The Verge (Lockhart): "We understand that includes 7.5GB of usable RAM, a slightly underclocked CPU speed, and around 4 teraflops of GPU performance." | ResetEra

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www.theverge.com   Leaked Microsoft document hints at second next-gen Xbox  Microsoft has still not publicly acknowledged its Lockhart plans   www.theverge.com www.theverge.com    
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The leaked document also mentions a Lockhart profiling mode. Sources familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans tell The Verge that this special Lockhart mode is part of the Xbox Series X developer kit. The devkit, codenamed Dante, allows game developers to enable a special Lockhart mode that has a profile of the performance that Microsoft wants to hit with this second console. We understand that includes 7.5GB of usable RAM, a slightly underclocked CPU speed, and around 4 teraflops of GPU performance. The Xbox Series X includes 13.5GB of usable RAM, and targets 12 teraflops of GPU performance.  Click to expand... Click to shrink...  
I think this info is new, so new thread. Or not new, but confirmation. Lock if necessary.

 regards to price:

  

Legend

What the heck is the point of this?

If all xsx games need to support lockhart, it will hold things back. Not for most games but for some.

If xsx games do not need to support lockhart, then MS will have 3 unrelated systems on sale at the same time.

the-pi-guy

What the heck is the point of this?

If all xsx games need to support lockhart, it will hold things back. Not for most games but for some.

If xsx games do not need to support lockhart, then MS will have 3 unrelated systems on sale at the same time.
I think the hope is
XSX: 4K gaming
XSS: 1080p gaming

It probably won't work out that way...  

I expect MS to discontinue the Xbox One this year.  

kitler53

Jun 26, 2020, 04:28 PM Last Edit: Jun 26, 2020, 04:32 PM by kitler53
What the heck is the point of this?

If all xsx games need to support lockhart, it will hold things back. Not for most games but for some.

If xsx games do not need to support lockhart, then MS will have 3 unrelated systems on sale at the same time.
MS has been lobbying developers hard for years now that games should be developed with "dynamic resolution". 

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/9afems/digitalfoundry_tech_focus_dynamic_resolution/


its a very PC-centric solution to hardware of various specs for games developed in a very "last gen" methodology.   in that regard lockhart (and win 10 support) makes a lot of sense, it's a natural extension of this classic approach to game development.

it will be an interesting here to see if the benefits of the ps5 architecture blows up MS entire plan or if the shear volume of PCs and xboxs will defeat innovation.  I personally think that MS will demand lockhart support and thus hold back game development.   developers will hate it but i'll bet they do it.   going ps5 exclusive is just losing too much of the market and 3rd parties really are moving more towards that "scalability" approach to not only support something like lockhart but also mobile.


Featured Artist: Vanessa Hudgens

Legend

MS has been lobbying developers hard for years now that games should be developed with "dynamic resolution".  

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/9afems/digitalfoundry_tech_focus_dynamic_resolution/


its a very PC-centric solution to hardware of various specs for games developed in a very "last gen" methodology.   in that regard lockhart (and win 10 support) makes a lot of sense, it's a natural extension of this classic approach to game development.

it will be an interesting here to see if the benefits of the ps5 architecture blows up MS entire plan or if the shear volume of PCs and xboxs will defeat innovation.  I personally think that MS will demand lockhart support and thus hold back game development.   developers will hate it but i'll bet they do it.   going ps5 exclusive is just losing too much of the market and 3rd parties really are moving more towards that "scalability" approach to not only support something like lockhart but also mobile.
Dynamic resolution isn't specifically helpful for lockhart imo. It's a useful tool that has been popular since before the xbox one released, but it only helps with one bottleneck.

For example if this info is real, xbox one x has more usable RAM and could have a higher max dynamic resolution even if it doesn't hit it very often.


Scalability is a very real thing and the majority of games will have no problem supporting lockhart. It doesn't hold back all next gen games, it just holds back specific next gen games. I'd just expect better specs in this thing if it was mandatory.



I think the hope is
XSX: 4K gaming
XSS: 1080p gaming

It probably won't work out that way...  

I expect MS to discontinue the Xbox One this year.  
If that was their goal, I'd expect more ram. Say a next gen game averages ~6gb for cpu side ram and ~6gb for gpu side ram. If it drops everything on the gpu by 75%, you get exactly 7.5gb. That works great.

But what about literally any game that uses more ram that doesn't scale with resolution? How is the game supposed to be ported without decreasing quality. Would players be happy if games on Lockhart feel last gen with cut content?

the-pi-guy

The whole Lockhart just makes little sense.

Legend

The whole Lockhart just makes little sense.
Remember when xbox one x was supposed to do this?

Games would be be on xo and xox. Then they'd be on xox and next gen. Then they'd be on next gen and next gen pro. It was the death of generations.


Yet this is like an endorsement of generations.


Lockhart SHOULD be xox but instead an xox v2 is needed with a next gen ssd.


It just seems like a complete misfire. Maybe xox should have released 1 year earlier and lockhart should have released in 2019. Then it'd feel a bit more natural.

Mmm_fish_tacos

Sounds like the very thing that killed sega.

Legend

I've slowly been realising I've been developing the indie Crysis of this generation  :P

BananaKing

What will happen to Lockhart when games decide to go 1800p or 1440p on XSX or PS5.

We have seen devs this gen and the previous one forgo the highest resolution possible at times to hit performance targets or have a certain look. And with the price of going from 4k to 1800p negligible, and 1440p very low, I believe more devs will be tempted to do so

That unreal demo was 1440p, if devs decide to use that tech (which a lot will) and they cant hit 4k on PS5 and XSX. What will Lockhart do?

I simply don't see how a 4tf machine will do 1440p with next gen graphics, lighting and assets. Even 1080p will be a struggle most of the time

the-pi-guy

With XSX it kind of feels like they would expect 10 GB for GPU and 3.5 GB for CPU. (Their GPU optimized™ RAM).

A 75% GPU reduction would put it at 2.5GB plus 3.5GB for CPU work.  With 1.5GB for flexibility.

The issue is, that's all very idealistic. It really puts a hard limit on what you can do with the CPU, even if you can scale all the GPU work.

Legend

With XSX it kind of feels like they would expect 10 GB for GPU and 3.5 GB for CPU. (Their GPU optimized™ RAM).

A 75% GPU reduction would put it at 2.5GB plus 3.5GB for CPU work.  With 1.5GB for flexibility.

The issue is, that's all very idealistic. It really puts a hard limit on what you can do with the CPU, even if you can scale all the GPU work.
Plus with SSD streaming, shouldn't that push most games towards using more RAM for CPU work? Traditionally a game might need 10gb for textures, models, frame buffers, and compute buffers but with super optimized streaming you'd just need a small amount of ram for the current textures and models on screen ala super textures. That means next gen games could use a smaller percentage of available memory for GPU tasks and a smaller percentage of that memory would scale with resolution.

At the moment it feels like a complete mistake to not have 12gb of ram instead of 10gb.

DerNebel

Jun 28, 2020, 12:33 AM Last Edit: Jun 28, 2020, 06:21 AM by DerNebel
What the heck is the point of this?

If all xsx games need to support lockhart, it will hold things back. Not for most games but for some.

If xsx games do not need to support lockhart, then MS will have 3 unrelated systems on sale at the same time.
I've been thinking that since the moment this thing was first rumoured. For some reason people have gradually started reacting very defensively to this idea, often dismissing it entirely because "the Lockhart will just run the game at 1080p and everything else will be the same". I don't buy that shame and already see this machine becoming a massive headache to devs by the midway point of next gen.

Legend

I've been thinking that since the moment this thing was first rumoured. For some reason people have gradually started reacting very defensively to this idea, often dismissing it entirely because "the Lockhart will just run the same at 1080p and everything else will be the same". I don't buy that shame and already see this machine becoming a massive headache to devs by the midway point of next gen.
Almost every community nowadays is confident in their position, regardless of what it may be. Makes meaningful discussions pretty hard  :P

I think the majority of games will be fine on lockhart. Scale resolution, scale textures, decrease draw distances/lod distances, decrease particle effects, remove raytracing, and the majority of games can function on it even if the results aren't that pretty.

The harder part imo are games that do anything unique. GPU compute, simulations, raytracing exclusive features, procedural worlds, vr, etc. are much harder to scale and might require full reworks.


I think Microsoft is stuck in a sort of paradox. If Lockhart support is optional then there is no problem for devs. It'd just be like PC games with high minimum requirements. Yet if lockhart support is optional, how does Microsoft market this thing? It's almost like there are three competing consoles for next gen, all with pros and cons.

the-pi-guy

Lockhart's existence in general is super weird.  

1.) It's a hard sell. Considering how weak it is, it has to be quite a bit cheaper to be remotely worth selling.  

2.) MS has completely ignored its existence.  At this point MS is pretty much the only one not talking about it.  

2a.) And this is super weird compared to series X.  MS has been talking about SX for almost 2 years, and yet if the August rumor is true, it'll be 3 months between announcement and launch. The only console with a shorter turn around that I know of is the PS4 Pro.  

3.) The specs make it an even harder sell.  Depending on how MS goes about it. You either have games that can't run on the XSS, or if they require relative feature parity, it seems like PS5 would get a better version.  Pretty much the best case scenario is that devs have to do more work and get their games to run.  



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On a related note, it's also super weird that MS announced monthly news and apparently literally missed their first month of that news.