What do you mean ‘full RT’? There will likely be a few simpler games that do path tracing but I never said that would be the norm (it’s likely require simple textures to take the load off of the TMU’s so RT can use them). I’m saying GI, shadows and reflections won’t be faked the way they are today but will instead use RT for those effects by the end of the cycle and that this will be the norm for actual next gen games (not current gen games that get remasters or bolted on RT modes).
I don’t think there will be any game, not one game that doesn’t fall back on SSR in some instances on console this gen. You simply aren’t going to get full RT reflections even, let alone lighting and shadows. Therefore the option for devs to omit these RT calculations on Series S will remain.
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I doubt that will be the case. We shall see! 
Note that ML denoising (which MS has called out specifically for use in Xbox games being made) can literally quadruple RT performance all on its own.
Also, for the sake of discussion even if you were right about legacy lighting tech being left in, you still wouldn’t end up with XSS missing out on those features commonly, ya know that right? Devs won’t feel any need to turn them off. Anything the XSX can do targeting 4k, XSS can do targeting 1080p (it has headroom across the board beyond this actually). Don’t let the first batch of cross gen or stuff made on immature dev tools fool ya.
Well there are a few things that I’ve heard that makes me think this will be the case for some games. Firstly RT performance doesn’t scale linearly against CU count. In other words higher CUs increase performance more than a simple linear relationship. Secondly the memory bandwidth is the main barrier right now for devs because again this doesn’t scale linearly with resolution.
My overall opinion is that we will see less RT as the gen goes on across all console systems. Simply because the AMD hardware is limited in its RT performance and even on the NVIDIA PCs of equivalent performance there is a limit to what can be achieved. My guess is devs will prioritise other stuff. For example BF6 - Battlefield being one of those graphical showcases usually sound like they are prioritising bigger maps and more players. Can’t see them being able to use RT much on console. Just one example.
Perhaps but going based on this then means that developers/publishers won’t fully take advantage of the Xbox Series X hardware and that would be a massive shame. Since developers/publishers need to give more time anyway due to Covid, I would hope that they take the extra time on top of that to fully take advantage of the Xbox Series X.
It’s a different situation this time around compared to a mid-gen refresh. This time all boxes on the market for next gen systems have RT, new I/O tech that drastically improves RAM utilization, SSD’s, good CPU’s and various RDNA2 features common with PC’s, etc. And XSS/XSX have ML. XGS will certainly pump out games tapping into these features, even ones bespoke for Xbox. How far 3rd parties take it depends on the uptake of SFS imho (the only major feature specific to Xbox consoles).
The (imho) biggest difference b/t the consoles by far is the ML capabilities on Xbox and while PS5 could be expected to hold adoptions of ML, every single game on Xbox for the most part will be on PC too where DirectML can be leveraged anyhow. So I bet PS5 will just be left out in the cold while Xbox/PC’s get ML solutions. That really depends on dev tools maturing though (not just GDK but also middleware like Unity, UE, etc).
The ‘concern’ many seem to have online surrounding XSS holding things back is very misguided and relies on ignoring the target resolution difference the XSS and XSX. XSS is just an XSX designed to run on 1080p TV’s, and all spec decisions were made with an eye towards stripping out stuff ya just don’t need if you know the consumer is gaming on that kinda TV. No need for 4k textures, hence the game doesn’t need them on the SSD nor does it need them in RAM, so smaller SSD and less RAM and less RAM bw was chosen. Only gets 1/3 the TF’s since ya don’t need to be using as much compute for 1/4 as many pixels (room to spare here).
Since third parties also release their games on PC, would it be possible to max out a PC version of a third party game and then port it to Xbox Series X after scaling and optimizing?
No ps4 pro or x1x centric games were made cause those consoles were just meant to push more pixels and no real new tech was used. Wasnt anything else behind it it was just a beefed up xbox one and ps4.
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All else equal, RT perf scales directly and linearly with CU’s, but often things get in the way of the ‘all else being equal’, like BW as ya mentioned. BW should scale linearly with pixel count, no? If not, why not? Also, take note that 0 games have been built ground up for RT at this point (released games I mean). Stuff bolted onto Control or Metro or BF1 or other titles is a totally different set of circumstances and we should not be looking at those to gauge how AMD/Nvidia’s RT handles things on engines that aren’t out in the wild yet with ground up RT built into them thoughtfully. Games will be using RT+ML denoising to drastically improve RT perf likely within a year or two at most. That will be commonplace.
BF6 focusing on big maps and destruction (which they always do…?) is probably not going to affect their RT adoption. They were among the first to use RT on PC. I’d be shocked if next gen versions of BF6 don’t have RT.
^^^This. The intention quite literally was X1/PS4 games for 4k TV’s, so they needed more RAM for higher detail textures, more BW for streaming those textures in, etc.
PC’s never, ever get properly maxed out. They are always held back by consoles and other PC configurations. It’s not just the brute force that matters, but the tech baseline. That’s why even PC games start seeing drastic improvements in visual when new consoles come out and hit their wave 2 stride. When that happens, the tech baseline that the artists can rely on jumps and they have enough time to work with the dev tools and some experience beyond the launch window to really get ambitious. That never happens in any abrupt way in the PC space without consoles pushing things forward, since there aren’t ‘generations’ of tech on PC in the same way as consoles. There’s far more gradations on the PC side.
RYSE looked better than any PC game when it launched on X1. I still remember PC gamers telling me how X1 would never look better than Crysis 3… >.>
The art is what matters and that is dependent on tech baselines. You could have a 20 TF GPU running Half-Life 1 and it still will look fugly by today’s standards because the art was built for a rig from 1998 and not 2021, so polygon limits were strict, texture res was super low, lighting models were archaic, physics was janky as were anims, etc.
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Real world shows different but anyway…
I hope yay are right but I read these overly optimistic predictions every generation and they almost always end up being a bit wide of the mark.
I will be amazed if 128 player BF6 manages to use RT on console in any meaningful way for a game that demands a solid 60FPS unless they really drop the res to 1080p. Even then I’m doubtful. And that would absolutely be an example where series S wouldn’t run RT in that way.
You have a next gen game built bespoke for next gen consoles on mature dev tools?
…
Loading Times:
Key effects missing in reflections:
Key effects missing in fog:
Resolutions
Lowest resolution on Series X was 1800p and on PS5 was 1080p.
Rare occasions of screen tearing on PS5 not present on other versions.
Just a reminder that it was a patch to improve backwards compatibility and it is not an actual next-gen version of the game.
All hail Microsoft’s solution to backwards compatibility!
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@ElPutoXD GET THE LIST.
I will ask to wait. This seems to me the Dirt 5 situation. Things are really strange on PS5. Patch being botched is more probable.
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I don’t think he needs to wait. Even if there’s a few bugs that get corrected on the PS5 version, it’s pretty clear it won’t reach parity with the SX version because of how the PS5 handles backwards compatibility.
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I would have been faster but it was hard to find that gif in a format that XboxEra would accept.
Add it, don’t add it, I don’t really care.
I think he already added it earlier.
I’m just funning.
I’ve never played Division 2, and I still probably wont.
I got burnt out on Division 1, and shlooters just aren’t for me.