Digital Foundry has a Series S video up

I mean I wish the Series S could outperform the Xbox One X in all scenarios. That would be cool, and it’s slightly disappointing that it’s not the case. But you know… it’s the budget console that is explicitly designed to not play games in 4K. So, fairly understandable. Anyone who really cares about that aspect is in the audience for the Series X in the first place.

That’s exactly the point, we are not the audience for the Series S. That’s why, the rest is mainly noises to me.

2 Likes

I mentioned this on Era but we need to remember the One X was a top tier console that only released in 2017 for $499. The Series S is releasing 3 years later at $200 cheaper. Microsoft still has to work within, you know, physics and basic economics. Compromises had to be made and 4K gaming was it. However, in basically all other areas the Series S has the One X beat and that is impressive for reasons I have given.

MS did consult devs, but also did more than that. Devs genuinely dunno how their engines perform moment to moment in their games in terms of stuff like RAM utilization at the granular level. MS’s tools let them track that stuff and let computers analyze it, which is much more useful for their tech development and decision making than just hearing devs tell you what they think they want.

1 Like

Era not gonna care

3 Likes

yeah, it’s simple.

Games running on 4K this gen won’t run the same 4K profile on the Series S because the Series S is aimed at 1440p and can’t accomodate for all the games that were built using the now obsolete paradigm of texture streaming and all the shit that took up extra memory that shall no longer do, at least to the same extent. The problem is exactly that the current gen paradigm of handling textures was very set in stone and took up lots of memory, whereas games moving forward will be acommodated by Velocity architecture to specifically optimize the game for the lower target resolution on the Series S, but in doing that has to leave behind the versions of the games that were specifically made for a higher resolution output.

Tomb Raider will run on the Series S like on the One S without the X enhancement modes.

If you care about the X enhancements for OG, 360 and One games (like I do), then you have to buy the Series X.

That’s the plan for me! Still, I’d be interested in a bit of digging why any X enhanced modes barring 4k wouldn’t work. VM emulation constraints? Full block for Smart Delivery to do it’s BC thing? Doesn’t matter in the end, but I never did grow too far out of the “but why” stage of my life in areas of interest.

Because the One X has more RAM available than series S. So for new games it’s not an issue, but for the BC enhancements it would need them all re coding for a smaller RAM pool.

Ahh so understood. I was under the impression that 4k upscale would be a checkerboarded render. Makes sense if even upscale isnt actual 4k textures. Either way it was also confirmed that there will indeed be Series S enhancements to said titles so there’ll still be some type of upgrade. People need to relax and stop trying to find excuses to shame Xbox it’s getting old now.

Literally every single time any xbox news comes out there’s something negative to be said I’m over it

1 Like

So no XVA or SFS is being added to BC profiles that we are aware of? If not . . . Why? :grin: (Rhetorical). I’d love to see some BC magic like that if auto HDR etc. are being added. Not the 4k resolution, but all the other available X enhancements.

they never do except this Era :blush:

Because you’d need to recode…you can’t just add things in.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a ‘Enhanced for Velocity Architecture’ initiative from Xbox soon.

I think I’m still in for an S on release and an X later down the line. I love that little consoles design and I think it will suffice for the first year or two. Even tho it’s slightly dissapointing that there won’t be enhancements on XOne titles aside from faster loading and more consistent framerate, I still think it’s totally worth to upgrade from X1X to S. The faster loadtimes alone are worth the upgrade lol

Yes, but again I’d be curious how involved that would be. If the RAM of the XSS is the concern, and they expect to sell a lot of XSS consoles, it wouldn’t seem like a terrible waste if the can adjust the X1X profiles so all but the resolution fits in. Unless the other XSS enhancements I read the rumors on would accomplish the same.

Thought experiments on maximizing their new hardware is all.

Thank you for your feedback, though!

If the Series X is capable of 4K streaming, will we be able to play games in 4K through the xCloud?

Basically, will we be able to use the Series S to stream games being played on a Series X?

One X has more RAM and the necessary bandwidth for 4k. Series S memory bandwith is slower, so that can be a problem for games on One X profile.

Sampler Feedback Streaming is a pretty extensive technology and has to be deeply integrated in the engine of a game and can’t just simply be forced like better texture filtering or higher resolution.

But all games on Series S will have faster loading times than on One S or One X. Maybe even faster than Series X if they use lower resolution textures on Series S.

That’s a constraint I’ve missed in the presentations. With the high level explanations, I was pondering if the SSD as virtual RAM could accommodate this rather than a deeper recoding. That definitely clarifies why the bandwidth becomes a constraint.

Thanks!

I think the thread on Era for this has broken the record for the number of concern trolls.

2 Likes