Xbones incapabilty of 1080p games analyzed(32MB dedicated V"ram")

[Humbug]

It's terrible. The 360 does 720p... And it's almost 10 years old. There have been miniscule performance increases from the smaller manufacturing processes over time, but that's it.

The performance increases is actually very significant. But it is being consumed by larger textures, bigger maps, more polygons, tessellation and other things. Basically the devs know it is more powerful and are thereby target more complex scenes. If their only target was 1080p 60fps then they could dumb down the graphics to achieve that.

 

Sony and Microsoft are selling underpowered hardware

Actually for the price they are selling overpowered hardware.

[Murdoch]

What you are forgetting is the fact that microsoft is selling 800 $ of hardware for 400 (or 500, I'm not sure)$, and those 400 get you a much better experience than an equivalently priced PC. In fact, it quite is comparable to a 800 $ PC. And it will run all of the games for many years to come (if it doesn't RROD every 3 months, hehe). 

Don't get me wrong, I much prefer PC as a platform, but you just can't claim the new consoles are inadequate. 

 

I wasn't broadly stating that all new consoles are inadequate. If you look at the context of what we are discussing, I said that having to lower resolution to maintain a decent framerate, is a concession that the hardware resources available for gaming on the Xbox One are inadequate. We could talk all day about whether 1920x1080 is the standard they should be aiming for, personally I find it very surprising that all games aren't running natively at 1080, flagship games, exclusives, aren't achieving this. It's not some arbitrary resolution we're talking about here, it's been a standard for multiple years now, the vast majority of people are gaming on 'Full HD' TVs or monitors. What exactly is 'next gen' about a console that can't match the resolution TVs have been running at for 5+ years. 

 

To your point about about Microsoft selling $800 worth of hardware for $400, I'm not sure where you're picking these figures from. It has been common in the past for Consoles to be sold initially at a loss, but that simply didn't happen this cycle. Here's a forbes article that discusses the margins pre-launch.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/09/06/at-500-microsoft-says-the-xbox-one-will-break-even-or-make-a-profit/

 

Selling at an initial loss is actually a better long term strategy for the console market, and it's been successful in the past. It ensures better longevity, these companies know that manufacturing costs will drastically reduce over time as efficiency improves, and tech moves on. But they will make their money by selling games at a premium, and over the longer term be able to turn a profit on the hardware too. Microsoft have gotten themselves into a situation where on a gaming level their tech seems dated before they've even got started, This seems to largely be down to their vision of creating a 'media centre' console and not a pure gaming machine, which is all well and good, but possibly a huge mistake, considering all you need for a 'next gen' media centre experience is a smartphone + a  smart TV or $30 dongle.

[kuddlesworth9419]

WHy didn't they just use DDR3 for RAM and GDDR5 for VRAM. That way they wouldn't have F*ucked anything up.

[Stereo8]

WHy didn't they just use DDR3 for RAM and GDDR5 for VRAM. That way they wouldn't have F*ucked anything up.

Cost cutting.

[KakaoDj]

INTERNET FIGHT 

 

[Rassilon]

All that "MUCH more powerful", yet the end result is the Xbox One counterparts that run games in 720p. Let me put that into perspective. I played Unreal Tournament on my Athlon 1 Ghz and Voodoo 5 computer in 2000 at 1024x768. Indeed, that is a 4:3 resolution, but a slightly higher vertical resolution than 720p. Also, UT99 has much simpler graphics than Xbox One can produce, indeed.

But the most offending stat of all is that we have been playing "720p" games since 1999. It is currently 2014. 15 years later, Linus chimes in and says "Resolution isn't everything."

Unbelievable.

You could probably run a game that looks like unreal tournament on the xbox at 1440p60. Actually maybe higher.

[LAwLz]

This has already been posted, and the 32MB eSRAM is not the same as VRAM.

Oh and the stuff the sniper elite developer said about the 32MB not being enough (most likely what they use as a source) is kind of bullshit. The real reason why it doesn't do 1080p yet is because developers are too lazy to optimize properly, and because the Xbone is pretty crappy as far as the CPU and GPU goes.

[s3ns3]

the xbox is a huge ugly slow and overpriced thing. microsoft is to blame 

[kuddlesworth9419]

Cost cutting.

Well it's bitten them in the balls hasn't it. I predict this gen will last 3 years and then they will be forced to make new consoles. That goes for the PS4 as well. This time they will need to make them actually powerful and make a loss on them to start off with. That is the only way that console gaming will thrive. Either that or make innovative and interesting games for once.

[Guest]

Im not that mad about 720p if the quality is dramatically increased.

it is always accompanied with lower frame rate and less aa

[Guest]

This has already been posted, and the 32MB eSRAM is not the same as VRAM.

Oh and the stuff the sniper elite developer said about the 32MB not being enough (most likely what they use as a source) is kind of bullshit. The real reason why it doesn't do 1080p yet is because developers are too lazy to optimize properly, and because the Xbone is pretty crappy as far as the CPU and GPU goes.

It's resource allocation and poor hardware don't defend them

[deathjester]

The specs from anandtech.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7528/the-xbox-one-mini-review-hardware-analysis/2

 

They are both mobile x86 budget computers with "unified ram", that the new DirectX, Mantle (which runs DirectX shaders), OpenGL can do on our PC's with VRAM/system ram. 

 

The PS4 has more then twice the system bandwidth which means a lot since these CPU's are pretty weak. 

 

The PS4 has a GPU more then 1/3rd more powerful, 1.84 TFLOPS to 1.31. PS4 is like a AMD 7850, Xbox One is between a 7790/7770 and is also on a underclock and has DDR3 Vram with a SRAM cache. In addition the Kinect reserve is subtracted from that 1.31. The new SDK will get it closer to 1.31.

 

PS4 runs a low level OpenGL. Xbox a low level DirectX. Anyone thinking that a SDK can close the gap is insane. To pull the same resolution and FPS they will have to sacrifice graphics quality/settings.

 

The ESRAM is not a thing they are unfamiliar with. They used EDRAM on the Xbox 360. They can catch up (to a point, they aren't doubling their bandwidth with optimization and catching up to the PS4) on bandwidth, but not graphics output. Titanfall which will run at 4k on a single GTX 780Ghz edition (beats a Titan), should SCREAM how weak the GPU is in the Xbox One (has to run at 800p).

 

This guy made a good video from console insiders, former developers saying the problem will probably be worse in the future not better. These devs and insiders to not have to sell games to both console owners so they can be HONEST.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCE2AfLtRHA

 

As far as a media machine. Eurogamer tested the PS4 and Xbox One as media machines. The PS4 was the superior streaming/upconvert media player.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-ps4-vs-xbox-one-which-is-the-better-media-player

 

Also the new 750Ti can run Titanfall at 1080p at 60 watts.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/149-nvidia-gtx-750-ti-unveiled-plays-titanfall-better-than-xbox-one/1100-6417813/

 

People who have a silly Dell computer with a weak power supply can put a 750Ti in their machine and blow away an Xbox One.

 

In addition game developers now favor the PS4 in N/A where the Xbox was much more developed for. Why? Because they are both very easy to develop for (they are Pc's now), unlike the PS3 which was a pain to develop for, and the PS4 has the superior PC hardware. PC of course is the big favorite with 52 percent. This is an IGN article though so it is skewed towards consoles.

 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/18/more-self-published-self-funded-games-coming

[werto165]

squirrels dont have this problem. 

http://imgur.com/gallery/WdbhSRX

[Connor DB]

It's terrible. The 360 does 720p... And it's almost 10 years old. There have been miniscule performance increases from the smaller manufacturing processes over time, but that's it.

I got my 360 doing 1080p, it's in the settings

[BernardoSLR]

I got my 360 doing 1080p, it's in the settings

 

EDIT: Now seriously, that is upscaling not native resolution. I know I was harsh but that was your first post!

[LOST TALE]

I don't disagree, 1080p is better always, but 720p done well can be good too.

 

they're all shit, human retina visual brain evolved MASTER RACE reporting in.

[ThreePinkApples]

Yeah, it is sad that it can't do 1080p, it really should

 

But one thought I haven't seen her

The developers are focusing on better graphics rather than 1080p, because better graphics is much more noticable than resolution (720p compared to 1080p that is, I think most people today would really prefer 1080p over 360p than graphics improvements)

And it seems they have taken the choice of lowering the Xbones resolution to keep the overal graphics as close to PS4 as possible.

Personally I think that is the better choice. 

If everyone had 100" screens and sat 3 feet away, then I think I would want 1080p over better graphics, but hey, that's not the case!

 

Microsoft obviously did a mistake with choosing hardware for Xbone, but they couldn't know exactly what Sony was planning, if they did, they porbably would have pushed for a little better hardware than the PS4