Support NeoGAF

[Caayn]

What other consumer products are companies allowed to sell without the buyer being allowed to know what is in the product they are buying? People know what's in their phone or car when they buy it. I cant think of any product where the contents and capabilities of the product are kept secret from the customer. When I buy a videocard for my PC I know whats in it. Nvidia doesnt say to me "hey it's a GTX 670. Were not going to tell you whats in it though. Just give us your money and trust us it's really powerful."

Whole thing comes across as kind of shady and it should probably be illegal.

No. Do you have the complete spec list of your TV Tuner, housephone, E-Reader or TV?

 

[Can Crusher]

I have feeling you'll have to be looking for the GPU specs in gaf thread, not unlike that of the Wii U.

MS isn't gonna open their mouth.

 

[Ushae]

For having much weaker specs than the PS4, I will say that the Xbone's games don't look much if any different than something we'd see on the PS4. Ryse and Forza 5 looked absolutely spectacular from a visual standpoint.

I agree, the only game that did look superb and demonstrated no slowdowns was inFamous. A lof of the X1 games just looked incredible. Only the hardcore will care about the specs, everyone else will look to the games.

Software sells hardware.

 

[Noid]

X One might be weaker but the games looked great at e3 IMO. Why does Forza 5 look so much better than DriveClub? There was so much pop ups and slowdowns in PS4 games....

Pre-baked Static world lighting and static weather in Forza. Having dynamic everything is much more demanding.

 

[beast786]

For having much weaker specs than the PS4, I will say that the Xbone's games don't look much if any different than something we'd see on the PS4. Ryse and Forza 5 looked absolutely spectacular from a visual standpoint.

Forza 5 should look better, it's basically a port of Forza 4. no dynamic lighting , no day and night cycle , no weather, crappy damage etc....

Ryse looks great

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

I've got your back, man. That was DigitalFoundry's detective work that gave us the CU count and TFLOP figure.



This is why I said that come November, we'll have to rely on teardowns to get the rest of the specs.

That link is pretty much all we ever needed to know.

 

[SniperHunter]

Pre-baked Static world lighting and static weather in Forza. Having dynamic everything is much more demanding.

I didn't see any dynamic effects in DriveClub, the game just looked like ass compared to Forza 5

 

[travisbickle]

X One might be weaker but the games looked great at e3 IMO. Why does Forza 5 look so much better than DriveClub? There was so much pop ups and slowdowns in PS4 games....

What do you want people to say?

Your question should be why does one unfinished game look better than another unfinished game?

And the answer is because it does, but that may change.

 

[stryke]

Software sells hardware.

Thanks Captain Obvious.

 

[Chumpion]

HSA may slightly increase the set of problems GPU compute is applicable to, but it does not solve the main challenge of rethinking algorithms (and obviously it does not invalidate Amadahl's law).

I wouldn't call the advantages of fine-grained scheduling and unified memory "slight". But if you already know what algorithms will be invented in the coming years, then more power to you.

 

[Sid]

For having much weaker specs than the PS4, I will say that the Xbone's games don't look much if any different than something we'd see on the PS4. Ryse and Forza 5 looked absolutely spectacular from a visual standpoint.

Then show me one game running on the Xbox One which looked as good as Second Son or Killzone.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

MSFT will continue to pimp the cloud and use big words of some devs to prop itself up while we know most of the spec.

 

[Noid]

I didn't see any dynamic effects in DriveClub, the game just looked like ass compared to Forza 5

If you watch the game play videos from driveclub at e3 you can see the sun setting during the race. I have faith the game will look stellar by launch and then each race has the possibility to look/play differently, even on the same track. A forza track will always look the same, every time. It will probably look great, but no surprise rainstorm halfway into the race or 24h endurance race with smooth sunrise-day-sunset-night transitions.

 

[BruiserBear]

If you have great news to share, you don't keep it a secret. This same logic should be applied to anything we never heard exact details about regarding the Xbox One. The family sharing for example.

 

[shinobi602]

Then show me one game running on the Xbox One which looked as good as Second Son or Killzone.

I can't really compare to those games since I haven't seen an open world first party game from Microsoft yet, nor a first party FPS yet.

I can definitely say though that when I saw Ryse for the first time, it impressed me just as much as Infamous or Killzone. Visual spectacle looked downright jaw dropping.

 

[Dictator93]

So, presumably the Xbone has worse GPU and worse RAM than the PS4? Is there anything it has an advantage in?

It may or may not be quieter.... that is about it!

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

What other consumer products are companies allowed to sell without the buyer being allowed to know what is in the product they are buying? People know what's in their phone or car when they buy it. I cant think of any product where the contents and capabilities of the product are kept secret from the customer. When I buy a videocard for my PC I know whats in it. Nvidia doesnt say to me "hey it's a GTX 670. Were not going to tell you whats in it though. Just give us your money and trust us it's really powerful."

Whole thing comes across as kind of shady and it should probably be illegal.

I dunno about being illegal but when you have already taken hits for not being consumer friendly due to DRM, not revealing specs only adds to the perception. Microsoft is screwed in a sense anyway they go about this.

 

[strata8]

Ryse and Forza 5 looked absolutely spectacular from a visual standpoint.

Ryse seemed like a 360 title only recently repurposed for the XB1. Like a weird mix of next gen and last gen. Some parts of it were jaw-dropping, but other bits... I dunno.

The only developer I'm really looking forward to see is 343.

 

[McHuj]

Xbone's specs won't change throughout its lifecycle. They're not going to change the type of memory inside the unit, especially if you're talking cost reductions, since the price of the units should go down and not stay steady at $500.

As far as bandwidth and latency, 128-bit 4.266 DDR4 and 256-bit bus 2.133 DDR3 are the same. Specs as far as performance and the software remain the same.

The benefit are a simpler board design, more power efficiency, and using fewer components and components that will be mainstream in 5-6 years.

 

[infinityBCRT]

So, presumably the Xbone has worse GPU and worse RAM than the PS4? Is there anything it has an advantage in?

As other people have mentioned, I fully expect it to be quiet and run relatively cool compared to the PS4. Also the whole multitasking stuff seems to be way more thought out on the Xbox One-- where apps are given dedicated resources and can run side by side with games. MS didn't show any compelling use cases for this stuff, but I imagine in practical use it will be awesome. For example, I'd love to be able to be watching a hockey game on NHL GameCenter, but then between commercial breaks and intermissions, switch over to a single player game and play that. Or even play my game with the hockey game snapped to the side of the screen.

Skype seems to be replacing Xbox Live Voice Chat-- if so, then I also can just pull use my iPhone and earbuds to talk to my friends instead of pulling out a proprietary headset. And even if I'm not gaming but want to party chat with my friends, its possible I could do that (assuming it is using real Skype)

 

[shinobi602]

Is Ryse 1080p or 720p?

Digital Foundry confirmed it's 1080p.

 

[badb0y]

Means nothing. Either the final kit can run 1080p 60 fps or it can't.

If the Xbone can run it at 1080p 60 fps, the PS4 can run it as well. In fact it would probably be running higher than 60 fps unless the developers puts a hard lock on the fps.

 

[GameSeeker]

It's too early to draw graphical comparisons between Xbone games and PS4 games, as no games have shipped. The good news is we will only have to wait 5-6 months to be able to draw our first conclusions.

But do keep in mind that the GPU difference between the Xbone and PS4 is real and substantial. As many of the technically minded folks on GAF, B3D, Digital Foundry, etc. have noted, the Xbone GPU is comparable to a AMD 7770 graphics card and the PS4 GPU to a 7850 graphics card. There are hundreds of PC benchmarks that compare the 7770 vs. 7850. The difference is not at the 5-10% level where it wouldn't matter. The difference in fps can range from 40-70%. That kind of performance difference is noticeable. Over the life of the consoles, that performance difference will manifest itself in the game software in noticeable ways.

 

[Sid]

Ryse seemed like a 360 title only recently repurposed for the XB1. Like a weird mix of next gen and last gen. Some parts of it were jaw-dropping, but other bits... I dunno.

The only developer I'm really looking forward to see is 343.

Yup,Forza I can get behind but Ryse' visuals? hell naw.It looked like a cross gen game.

 

[nelsonroyale]

I can't really compare to those games since I haven't seen an open world first party game from Microsoft yet, nor a first party FPS yet.

I can definitely say though that when I saw Ryse for the first time, it impressed me just as much as Infamous or Killzone. Visual spectacle looked downright jaw dropping.

Ryse has some nice visuals, but the game betrays its kinect origins at ever instance. In terms of player control etc, I would put it in the same category as something like Beyond at the moment. It is weird, it looks like a kinect game. In some ways I think they should have stuck with that, or instead, built the core from the ground up. The game isn't that impressive to me overall.

 

[shinobi602]

Ryse has some nice visuals, but the game betrays its kinect origins at ever instance. In terms of player control etc, I would put it in the same category as something like Beyond at the moment. It is weird, it looks like a kinect game. In some ways I think they should have stuck with that, or instead, built the core from the ground up. The game isn't that impressive to me overall.

I was speaking strictly in terms of visuals and nothing else though.

 

[Windom Earle]

I agree that it's too early to make proper comparisons. So far I do think that PS4 has an edge with Infamous and Killzone though. Ryse looked like a 360 game with some added effects. IQ was nothing to write home about either.

So far I haven't seen anything truly groundbreaking on either console despite maybe the Sorcerer Demo and the legendary Deep Down presentation.

 

[shinobi602]

Wow, it's hard for me to believe some of you are saying Ryse looks like a fancied up 360 game.

As soon as the gameplay started I was floored by the visuals...the lighting, the fire and smoke effects, the details on the soldiers...looked incredible to me, even though the actual gameplay looked like shit.

 

[Espada]

I agree that it's too early to make proper comparisons. So far I do think that PS4 has an edge with Infamous and Killzone though. Ryse looked like a 360 game with some added effects. IQ was nothing to write home about either.

So far I haven't seen anything truly groundbreaking on either console despite maybe the Sorcerer Demo and the legendary Deep Down presentation.

I'll believe Deep Down is a game when I see Ono playing that thing. Otherwise that was pure cutscene material.

Lower heat output/power consumption. Microsoft has said the Xbox One SoC has a TDP of 100W and I'd estimate the PS4 SoC at ~140-150W.

Why would a console with the same laptop/tablet processor, fewer transistors, and reduced frequency memory draw as much power as a PS3 Phat? The reasons both companies went with these APUs are the following: They're cheap, easy to power, and easier to cool than the discreet CPUs/GPUs on the market now.

 

[strata8]

Why would a console with the same laptop/tablet processor, fewer transistors, and reduced frequency memory draw as much power as a PS3 Phat? The reasons both companies went with these APUs are the following: They're cheap, easy to power, and easier to cool than the discreet CPUs/GPUs on the market now.

They're just rough estimates.

XB1
2 4-core Jaguar modules @ 10W = 20W
1 7770-class GPU = 80W
Total = 90-100W (matches Microsoft's numbers)

PS4
2 4-core Jaguar modules @ 10W = 20W
1 7850-class GPU = 130W
Total = 140-150W


The TDP is usually the maximum amount of power/heat the chip will output. So the power usage will be less during gaming. The OG PS3 consumed 210W, but that's total system draw so not directly comparable.

 

[Durante]

I don't believe PS4 will draw even remotely as much power as PS3 did at release.

I wouldn't call the advantages of fine-grained scheduling and unified memory "slight". But if you already know what algorithms will be invented in the coming years, then more power to you.

Well, I did not do that. I said it slightly increases the set of problems GPU compute is applicable to. FWIW, I described an algorithm that would benefit from unified GPU/CPU memory access back in 2007 when I worked on GPU compute, I'm well aware of the advantages. This does not change the fact that I believe they are being overstated by people with an agenda.

 

[specialguy]

They're just rough estimates.

XB1
2 4-core Jaguar modules @ 10W = 20W
1 7770-class GPU = 80W
Total = 90-100W (matches Microsoft's numbers)

PS4
2 4-core Jaguar modules @ 10W = 20W
1 7850-class GPU = 130W
Total = 140-150W


The TDP is usually the maximum amount of power/heat the chip will output. So the power usage will be less during gaming. The OG PS3 consumed 210W, but that's total system draw so not directly comparable.

There's more than just the SOC which Microsoft said at 100 watts. If that was even accurate.

RAM, Kinect itself, tons of USB ports, drives, the fan...some fudge room...does the motherboard itself consume power?

I would just, pulling it out of my ass, guess the XB1 PSU might be rated as high as the 360 at launch. ~200 watts or whatever it was.