Xbox Wire: Xbox Series X|S are the only next gen consoles to have full RDNA2

For those of you who are interested in the XSX Tech Deep Dive, I posted that in the HotChips thread but it won’t hurt anyone being posted here.

This is the full Xbox Series X System Architecture Conference at Hot Chips 2020. Speakers are Jeff Andrews & Mark Grossman, Microsoft.

Full Xbox Series X System Architecture Conference

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I have to agree with this. Moderating console wars rhetoric is important and appreciated, but it’s important to not take it too far and stifle conversation. This is an xbox centric thread but based on a comparison of features for both platforms. I fail to see how comparisons between the two platforms would be off-topic or irrelevant.

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I bet Sony worked with AMD on clockspeeds and maybe stuff with caches perhaps. And MS worked with them on RT and VRS, separate from their collab on DX12U feature implementation.

Exactly my point from earlier. When MS themselves make this statement…

“Xbox Series X|S are the only Next-Gen consoles to support full RDNA2”

… then they are flat out telling you they have something their competition (PS5) doesn’t. To say that it’s pointless to compare to PS5 goes contrary to MS’s own statement.

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Nice! Thanks for posting this! Didn’t realize we had the actual video of the event available!

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You’re welcome. I made a special thread for it if you wanna discuss about it later

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I agree with the others. The comparison is an inherent element of the thread by the very nature of the thread. That should be distinct from console warrior rhetoric, though.

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Times like this are when I wished I had a machine to be able to switch how things are and see the reactions. When something good about Xbox gets rumoured and it turns out not to be true you wouldn’t stop hearing about it for days and sometimes weeks, when the shoe is on the other foot it’s always the “oh it’s not that bad” “we didn’t want that anyway” or just crickets.

I still have the days of all the arguments and videos how the Series X was going to be weaker and TF matters the most when the other console was rumoured to be 13.3TF. Soon as the specs came out TF becomes a meaningless metric and the new thing is all about I/O speeds, the thing that the other console has better, you can see the pattern.

It’s the constant HAHA your favourite console has bad news rub it in thing that pisses me off and causes this insane cycle that causes both sides to do it and I think this all started with the 900p v 1080p debate at the start of the gen.

I’m enjoying this sort of news because of the crazy fanboys will be trying to scatter to find something bad about it. Like I’m not gonna go say PS5 is the worst console ever because it’s not supporting full RDNA2 but I am going to mock people who said PS5 was RDNA 3 and Series X was 1.5 and doesn’t have RT, but that probably makes me part of the problem too.

I just wish people would stop saying stupid shit and spreading false information or always turning a positive thing into a negative thing, because this is just always going to be a cycle.

I believe in generations! /s

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SFS is Xbox console-only. Not on PC as of yet. The other features are on PC too though, as ya noted. And some are also on PS5 directly or with an alternative tech, just not all. :slight_smile:

No problem, I agree it’s an exciting time for Xbox HW design at the moment. It’s great to see MS with a focus on the right areas and also investing in the latest tech that meets their timelines rather than aiming lower to cost save. A much different place to where we were in 2013.

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Agreed. Nothing bad in comparing two pieces of hardware. Specially when they are priced the same and launching at same time.

Many people get defensive thinking that suddenly there prefered platform is in danger. Which obviously not the case.

I have big smile on my face knowing Xbox is full RDNA 2 but PS5 not. But i have also accepted that PS5 SSD i/o ahead of XSX.

No one called anyone names, no insulting and no abusive words used. Until we have decoram, no harm in discussing advantages and disadvantages of the hardware.

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I’m not big into the in depth details of Nvidia cards, I just went by what they say on their DX12U page (where it’s included) :).

Maybe that reference only applies to the 30xx range?

The most interesting thing

L3 is different - AMD NDA on it

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It isn’t included there. SF is included, as is the ability to stream with SF (not using hardware). SFS is SF+texture filtering hardware to smooth over page faults. The texture filtering hardware is Xbox only so far.

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Yup! Sometimes it’s not about saying PS5 is weaker but about mocking people who said i/o will make PS5 ahead of Xbox.

But i personally believe that this needs to be ended.

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There three terms actual.

  1. Direct storage API

  2. Sampler feedback

  3. Sampler feedback streaming

1 and 2 are present on PC and Xbox.

But 3 is only present on Xbox

Your reasoning is sound, in theory, and that was indeed Microsoft’s stated goal for Xbox One X, so it’s easy to see where you’re coming from. Here’s the thing, though - that’s not really how it went down. Xbox One X did not end up offering games at Xbox One (S) levels of visual quality, only with four times the resolution. Instead, it usually delivered increased rendering quality in addition to the resolution increase - increased not only past the Xbox One (S) standards, but past PS4 and even PS4 Pro rendering settings.

Go back to the old DF videos, and that’s a common conclusion when it comes to things like shadow quality, ambient occlusion, reflections, textures, texture filtering… You’ll also often hear them say how Xbox One X is “punching above its weight”, and what made that possible is - well, a combination of factors, but mostly the fact that it was a well rounded system that eliminated as many bottlenecks as possible, given the hard limitations (primarily the weak Jaguar CPU cores). So when Cerny said that they didn’t aim for native 4K for PS4 Pro because delivering that at PS4 levels of rendering quality would’ve required an 8 TF GPU, that was mostly a PR excuse for the masses, because a smart guy like him would definitely know that’s not really the truth (instead, they wanted a cheaper console, and they wanted it out in 2016).

I do agree that Series S could surprise a lot of people, however.

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I think the main reason sony omitted some RDNA2 features is cost, as Albert penello as said in other forums everything from clock speed, cu cound and hardware features attribute to cost.

The design of the PS5 is more cost conscious. Sony are not like Microsoft and can make longer term bets, having as little a loss as possible on hardware is very important to sony. You can see this reflected in multiple areas of the PS5 strategy (like $70 games, not willing to compete with gamepass, cost cutting in hardware). Dont get me wrong cost is also an important factor for Xbox, but I dont think its as big as a priority, and from leaks its seems sonys penny pinching is not having such large returns in comparison to xboxs more “spared no expense” approach.

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I want to add that VRS and mesh shaders are not DX12 ultimate exclusive terminology.

If Sony has implemented VRS and mesh shaders they have about two weeks to reveal it before launch.

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Let’s see if they update their official site…