
Microsoft unveils full Xbox Series X specs with 1TB expansion cards - ajay-d
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21152487/microsoft-xbox-series-x-specs-features-storage-cards-load-times-ray-tracing
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Someone1234
If games consoles supported Mouse & Keyboard, I'd legitimately switch to them
as my main gaming machine. The hardware and value propositions are definitely
"there."

Obviously controllers work extremely well for certain game types, I even use
them on PC when the game calls for it, but I won't be convinced first person
shooter-like games (with or without integrated "aim assist") are a good
controller experience.

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tus88
Pretty sure that would make them PCs.

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yjftsjthsd-h
Are they not PCs now?

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NikolaeVarius
They don't really support generic software

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magnat
Serious question: what's the reasoning behind naming scheme of Xboxes? Only
serious, non-ranting explanation I've found [1] is that they're rebranding it
back to just "Xbox", which somehow makes even less sense.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/microsoft-only-using-
xbox-...](https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/microsoft-only-using-xbox-name-
going-forward-2019-12)

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dx87
It sounds like they're moving to the same naming scheme as cars, where a
"Toyota Corolla" is basically the same, but has additional features or
performance if you buy a new year model. Supposedly the new Xboxes are no
different than consumer computers, so I could see games having a "runs best on
Xbox 2021 or newer" label. Also, I remember that the "XBox 360" got its name
because they didn't want "XBox 2" to be competing with "Playstation 3".

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s_dev
So consoles have entirely given up on the market and just become branded PCs?

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Analemma_
Basically, yes. The PS5 is also going to be just an x86 Ryzen machine with the
same AMD GPUs you'd get in a PC.

This is sort of disappointing from a technology nerdery perspective, but after
years of game developers struggling with bespoke weirdness like the PS3 Cell
chip, I imagine they're welcoming the change. It also makes it much easier to
handle backwards-compatibility, which most gamers treat as non-negotiable
these days.

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ericflo
One difference is the large amounts of GDDR6 on the APUs in these upcoming
consoles, which is not something PC CPUs typically have access to. (It'll have
to share that memory for both graphics and compute though, so not a pure win.)
I think that just that memory architecture difference alone could lead to some
interesting performance characteristics compared to contemporary PCs.

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gok
I'm surprised how little RAM they're giving it. The amount available to the
game is only increasing by 50% over the Xbox One X. I think developers are
going to struggle to squeeze the proposed visual improvements. If Sony gives a
more meaningful RAM boost in the PS5, developers are just going to ship their
cross platform games at lower quality on Xbox Series X.

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mikewhy
They may have something in mind for that? This is from the article on
xbox.com:

> Enter Xbox Velocity Architecture, which features tight integration between
> hardware and software and is a revolutionary new architecture optimized for
> streaming of in game assets. This will unlock new capabilities that have
> never been seen before in console development, allowing 100 GB of game
> assets to be instantly accessible by the developer.

[https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/03/16/xbox-series-x-
tech/](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/03/16/xbox-series-x-tech/)

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rasz
better known as swapping to disk

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exdsq
8k at 120fps is an exciting prospect. I just looked and you can buy Samsung
TVs that are 8k for £2000. By Christmas these might even hit an affordable
price amount.

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corysama
8k AND 120fps. I think the proposal is 8K@60, 4K@120.

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exdsq
Ah... still, 8k@60 is exciting.

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skohan
How big does a display have to be for 8k to be meaningful? It seems like you
hit a point of diminishing returns with resolution: in terms of resource
requirements (GPU, VRAM etc.) the cost goes up parabolically, and beyond a
certain point it seems really hard to tell the difference.

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saberience
It has to be huge...

From: [http://carltonbale.com/does-4k-resolution-
matter/](http://carltonbale.com/does-4k-resolution-matter/)

"What the chart shows is that, for a 84-inch screen, 4k resolution isn’t fully
apparent until you are at least 5.5 feet or closer to the screen. For a “tiny”
55-inch screen, you’ll need to be 3.5 feet or closer. Needless to say, most
consumers aren’t going to sit close enough to see any of extra resolution 4k
offers, much less 8k."

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swalsh
Would these specs be good enough to support some kind of VR system similar to
the index in the future?

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mrguyorama
Something like the PSVR or original Vive would work, but the Valve Index
requires much more pixel pushing power

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intsunny
> Developers will be using the overall 16GB of memory in two ways: there’s
> 10GB for fast GPU optimal memory, 3.5GB for standard memory, and 2.5GB
> reserved by the OS.

2.5GB for the OS? Can someone explain why an OS needs that much?

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coldpie
> Can someone explain why an OS needs that much?

Because modern software development is a joke.

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derision
Misplaced aggression. Consoles are still one of the most heavily optimized
platform. The OS is doing a lot more these days those - voice chat, playing
music, background downloads, etc etc

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sudosysgen
That honestly doesn't need 2.5GB. On my Linux machine I can run a web browser,
KDE, Telegram and Pacman on barely over 800MB.

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close04
But can you do voice chat, play music, background downloads, live streaming
and game streaming (to another device), etc.? Because a console has to do it
all real-time, without crapping out, and without any future possibility of
upgrading the RAM.

Your comparison is like saying you can do a 305Km F1 race in a Fiesta with
less fuel than an F1 car. I ran everything you listed (short of Telegram but
how much can that need?) on 64MB of RAM 20 years ago. And to be fair, I can do
it now in well under 500MB. But it won't run Xbox loads properly.

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sudosysgen
Yes, yes I can. Pacman does background downloads, Spotify does music
streaming, Telegram does voice chat. Firefox does the rest. Mind you, that's
the amount of memory when I'm doing it all at once. You won't be listening to
music, using the browser, downloading updates and streaming at the same time.

Game streaming and live streaming are done in hardware by the GPU through
accelerated encode. System memory is only really used for sending it to the
network.

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machiaweliczny
Props for full backwards compatibility. Are they simply using VM?

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deltron3030
They should support Win10 on it, given the graphics power and X86 hardware it
could be a nice little workstation for gamers who also do some 3D stuff.

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Koshkin
All they want you to do is (apart from giving away your privacy) to buy $59.99
games.

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warrenmiller
Yeah but can you Hackintosh it?

