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[Endless Fluff]

What i mean is that u can drag and drop games from SSD towards a bigger HDD storage. 200gb downloads are going to obnoxious for people with data caps or bad connections with only 1tb which probably only has 800gb in the real end or around that. Basically a local backup drive.

This is what a a lot of PC users do with there SSD's. They copy past there game directory towards a HDD and drop it back when they wanna use it again.

So basically for xbox series X games. This will eliminate the storage problems directly out of the gate for many people, specially with sizes going to balloon probably entirely next gen.

yes and it supports that, you apparently don't see the tweet from John I posted but he says this

They do but not for Series X games. You can attached a USB drive and use it to play all BC titles (XO, 360 and Xbox) and you can backup Series X games on the USB drive. It's not fast enough for actually playing games, though - have to install to SSD.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It supports that. In fact, you can use your external HDD to play Xbox One/360/OG Xbox games. Only Series X games require the SSD

Well, better than nothing. I don't want to bother redownloading games for the rare case I want to play some random game.

if room runs out on the internal SSD and an external SSD, I guess hoarders can still play games off an HDD, But without Series X perks. I guess toss all the non-essential games to the HDD.

Or go through the time to transfer it to the SSD first.

 

[Flintty]

Yes sir

Yes USB 3.2 external drives will be supported for BC games and store series x games. Then you can move the series x games to internal when you want to play.

Then I’m ok with this

 

[Kenpachii]

yes and it supports that, you apparently don't see the tweet from John I posted but he says this

Ah nice ty they thought about it. so storage issue's are solved then. good shit. Microsoft really thought this one out. 1TB ain't going to be a issue even remotely then.

 

[48086]

"Without hardware acceleration, this work could have been done in the shaders, but would have consumed over 13 TFLOPs alone," says Andrew Goossen. "For the Series X, this work is offloaded onto dedicated hardware and the shader can continue to run in parallel with full performance. In other words, Series X can effectively tap the equivalent of well over 25 TFLOPs of performance while ray tracing."

What does that mean?

It means that RT isn't included in the 12tf. So, after RT is enabled, there is still 12tf of GPU available for devs.

 

[JokerMM]

gotta say this is up there with the grey switch as one of sexiest pieces of hardware i've seen

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

edit

my bad, misread external storage info

overall thought

bottom line for me: this is amazing and if the PS5 is even CLOSE then we all win next-gen

much higher CPU clock than I expected

 

[longdi]

I hope they will go back to the memory cards razer blade model to sell the console at $499. Otherwise, i cant see the box for anything less than $599.
What a beast.
Surely an exclusive game will make PC games look bad this year.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

It’s incredibly intriguing to say the least. While I would still use PC for primary platform, I could see this somewhere in the house for couch gaming.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I wonder how much the 1TB expandable stowage sticks (or whatever) will cost? I assume these will match the nvme speed?

 

[GaviotaGrande]

I wonder how much the 1TB expandable stowage sticks (or whatever) will cost? I assume these will match the nvme speed?

My guess is 149 $/EUR.

 

[Portugeezer]

Why not tease and quick resume Halo Infinite, we know these last gen games will load quicker. Either way, we're looking at around 6 seconds, so probably 8 seconds for next gen games whoch

Then I’m ok with this

Same, does anyone have an idea of how long it will take to transfer 100GB from an average HDD to the SSD?

 

[Thavash]

Holy Moly ......

 

[Coolwhhip]

It all sounds very impressive, doubt Sony can pull all these things off.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Im clearly missing a lot of information, but I can accept that the Series X and PS5 will not be able to run games off of an external HDD. Completely OK with that, but I refuse to accept that we can't download and temporarily store them on one and then transfer the games over to the SSD when ready to play.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

that’s State of Decay, right? Does it really take that long to load on an X? That’s a long ass loading time

 

[psorcerer]

• DirectStorage – DirectStorage is an all new I/O system designed specifically for gaming to unleash the full performance of the SSD and hardware decompression. It is one of the components that comprise the Xbox Velocity Architecture. Modern games perform asset streaming in the background to continuously load the next parts of the world while you play, and DirectStorage can reduce the CPU overhead for these I/O operations from multiple cores to taking just a small fraction of a single core; thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better physics or more NPCs in a scene. This newest member of the DirectX family is being introduced with Xbox Series X and we plan to bring it to Windows as well.
• GPU Work Creation – Xbox Series X adds hardware, firmware and shader compiler support for GPU work creation that provides powerful capabilities for the GPU to efficiently handle new workloads without any CPU assistance. This provides more flexibility and performance for developers to deliver their graphics visions.
• Hardware Accelerated DirectX Raytracing (DXR) – From improved lighting, shadows and reflections as well as more realistic acoustics and spatial audio, raytracing enables developers to create more physically accurate worlds. For the very first time in a game console, Xbox Series X includes support for high performance, hardware accelerated raytracing. Xbox Series X uses a custom-designed GPU leveraging the latest innovation from our partners at AMD and built in collaboration with the same team who developed DirectX Raytracing. Developers will be able to deliver incredibly immersive visual and audio experiences using the same techniques on PC and beyond.
• Hardware Decompression – Hardware decompression is a dedicated hardware component introduced with Xbox Series X to allow games to consume as little space as possible on the SSD while eliminating all CPU overhead typically associated with run-time decompression. It reduces the software overhead of decompression when operating at full SSD performance from more than three CPU cores to zero – thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better gameplay and improved framerates. Hardware decompression is one of the components of the Xbox Velocity Architecture.
• Mesh Shading – Mesh shading will enable developers to dramatically improve the performance and image quality when rendering a substantial number of complex objects in a scene. As an example, mesh shaders could enable the player to experience asteroid belts and fields of flowers in more pristine detail without seeing a loss in performance.
• Project Acoustics – Incubated over a decade by Microsoft Research, Project Acoustics accurately models sound propagation physics in mixed reality and games, employed by many AAA experiences today. It is unique in simulating wave effects like diffraction in complex scene geometries without straining CPU, enabling a much more immersive and lifelike auditory experience. Plug-in support for both the Unity and Unreal game engines empower the sound designer with expressive controls to mold reality. Developers will be able to easily leverage Project Acoustics with Xbox Series X through the addition of a new custom audio hardware block.
• Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS) – A component of the Xbox Velocity Architecture, SFS is a feature of the Xbox Series X hardware that allows games to load into memory, with fine granularity, only the portions of textures that the GPU needs for a scene, as it needs it. This enables far better memory utilization for textures, which is important given that every 4K texture consumes 8MB of memory. Because it avoids the wastage of loading into memory the portions of textures that are never needed, it is an effective 2x or 3x (or higher) multiplier on both amount of physical memory and SSD performance.
• Spatial Audio – Spatial Audio delivers deeply immersive audio which enables the player to more accurately pinpoint objects in a 3D play space. With full support for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Windows Sonic, Xbox Series X has custom audio hardware to offload audio processing from the CPU, dramatically improving the accessibility, quality and performance of these immersive experiences.
• Variable Rate Shading (VRS) – Variable Rate Shading increases GPU efficiency by concentrating shader work where it’s most needed and reducing shader work in areas where it won’t be noticeable. With minimal developer effort, VRS significantly improves GPU performance resulting in more stable and higher resolutions and frame rates with no perceptible loss in visual quality.
• Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) – Variable Refresh Rate is a new addition to HDMI 2.1 which enables capable displays to refreshed as fast as the console can render images, thereby eliminating tearing, increasing smoothness, and reducing latency. We have been working with the industry’s leading TV manufacturers to ensure the display ecosystem is ready for the features we are bringing with Xbox Series X.

All the cool things.
Goes exactly as I have predicted.

 

[iJudged]

• DirectStorage – DirectStorage is an all new I/O system designed specifically for gaming to unleash the full performance of the SSD and hardware decompression. It is one of the components that comprise the Xbox Velocity Architecture. Modern games perform asset streaming in the background to continuously load the next parts of the world while you play, and DirectStorage can reduce the CPU overhead for these I/O operations from multiple cores to taking just a small fraction of a single core; thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better physics or more NPCs in a scene. This newest member of the DirectX family is being introduced with Xbox Series X and we plan to bring it to Windows as well.
• GPU Work Creation – Xbox Series X adds hardware, firmware and shader compiler support for GPU work creation that provides powerful capabilities for the GPU to efficiently handle new workloads without any CPU assistance. This provides more flexibility and performance for developers to deliver their graphics visions.
• Hardware Accelerated DirectX Raytracing (DXR) – From improved lighting, shadows and reflections as well as more realistic acoustics and spatial audio, raytracing enables developers to create more physically accurate worlds. For the very first time in a game console, Xbox Series X includes support for high performance, hardware accelerated raytracing. Xbox Series X uses a custom-designed GPU leveraging the latest innovation from our partners at AMD and built in collaboration with the same team who developed DirectX Raytracing. Developers will be able to deliver incredibly immersive visual and audio experiences using the same techniques on PC and beyond.
• Hardware Decompression – Hardware decompression is a dedicated hardware component introduced with Xbox Series X to allow games to consume as little space as possible on the SSD while eliminating all CPU overhead typically associated with run-time decompression. It reduces the software overhead of decompression when operating at full SSD performance from more than three CPU cores to zero – thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better gameplay and improved framerates. Hardware decompression is one of the components of the Xbox Velocity Architecture.
• Mesh Shading – Mesh shading will enable developers to dramatically improve the performance and image quality when rendering a substantial number of complex objects in a scene. As an example, mesh shaders could enable the player to experience asteroid belts and fields of flowers in more pristine detail without seeing a loss in performance.
• Project Acoustics – Incubated over a decade by Microsoft Research, Project Acoustics accurately models sound propagation physics in mixed reality and games, employed by many AAA experiences today. It is unique in simulating wave effects like diffraction in complex scene geometries without straining CPU, enabling a much more immersive and lifelike auditory experience. Plug-in support for both the Unity and Unreal game engines empower the sound designer with expressive controls to mold reality. Developers will be able to easily leverage Project Acoustics with Xbox Series X through the addition of a new custom audio hardware block.
• Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS) – A component of the Xbox Velocity Architecture, SFS is a feature of the Xbox Series X hardware that allows games to load into memory, with fine granularity, only the portions of textures that the GPU needs for a scene, as it needs it. This enables far better memory utilization for textures, which is important given that every 4K texture consumes 8MB of memory. Because it avoids the wastage of loading into memory the portions of textures that are never needed, it is an effective 2x or 3x (or higher) multiplier on both amount of physical memory and SSD performance.
• Spatial Audio – Spatial Audio delivers deeply immersive audio which enables the player to more accurately pinpoint objects in a 3D play space. With full support for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Windows Sonic, Xbox Series X has custom audio hardware to offload audio processing from the CPU, dramatically improving the accessibility, quality and performance of these immersive experiences.
• Variable Rate Shading (VRS) – Variable Rate Shading increases GPU efficiency by concentrating shader work where it’s most needed and reducing shader work in areas where it won’t be noticeable. With minimal developer effort, VRS significantly improves GPU performance resulting in more stable and higher resolutions and frame rates with no perceptible loss in visual quality.
• Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) – Variable Refresh Rate is a new addition to HDMI 2.1 which enables capable displays to refreshed as fast as the console can render images, thereby eliminating tearing, increasing smoothness, and reducing latency. We have been working with the industry’s leading TV manufacturers to ensure the display ecosystem is ready for the features we are bringing with Xbox Series X.

All the cool things.
Goes exactly as I have predicted.

fck thats pretty impressive

 

[Aidah]

I'm impressed. A device like this would make console gaming much more respectable, at least for a while. Price remains. Feels much less compromising than a typical console, definitely built with that mentality. Interested to see real world performance. Never going to buy this though.

 

[Flick]

Im clearly missing a lot of information, but I can accept that the Series X and PS5 will not be able to run games off of an external HDD. Completely OK with that, but I refuse to accept that we can't download and temporarily store them on one and then transfer the games over to the SSD when ready to play.

but you can?!
With series X you can connect a regular HDD and then:

- directly play One, 360 and OG Xbox games.
- Backup Series X Games and move back if you want to play them.
Not sure about PS5 though

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

“Nvme expandable storage card” from the video

 

[Shin]

Dat CPU speed though, 3.8GHz!

Watching the video and reading up now...
My mind is blown by the CPU speed, shit is seriously amazing.

 

[M1chl]

I did not expect that much, I have to say I am really impressed.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

For 499 this will be a steal, I’m still expecting higher

next gen is gonna be fucking awesome

 

[SenjutsuSage]

892GB/s of memory bandwidth. Holy shit.

 

[Steve.1981]

SeXbox looking good.

The only thing that's bothering me about the next gen consoles is that all digital folk like me will need to install on the console itself, or buy an new external SSD (or card) for next gen games. It's going to add a bit more expense on top of buying the boxes in the first place. But I do understand that there's no other way forward and in the long run it will be a small niggle, not a deal breaker in any way.

Can't wait to see more PS5 info. MS seem to be going all-in this next gen. Should hopefully push Sony to raise the bar again.

 

[GymWolf]

No new game reveals...….Still 16GB seems low to me for a next generation, XBONEX already had 12.....What's more is that 10GB alone is Optimal/High speed....Almost reminds me of the GTX 970 situation……..2.5GB of lower speed memory for the OS means the OS and swapping features may lag on top of the games, but then we also see 3.5GB of lower speed memory that can be utilized by the devs, I dont think this is ideal and may bring with it some bottlenecks….

i was thinking the same thing about the different speed type of rams and the 970 stuff back in the day, well at least microsoft is clear from the start compared to nvidia...
it's probabyl to maintain the price around 500 dollars, isn't?

 

[Skyr]

Dat CPU speed though, 3.8GHz!

Watching the video and reading up now...
My mind is blown by the CPU speed, shit is seriously amazing.

It's good that this bottleneck from current gen has been dealt with. I hope this will have a positive impact on enemy AI and Physics. Progress on that has been very lackluster this gen.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

It's good that this bottleneck from current gen has been dealt with. I hope this will have a positive impact on enemy AI and Physics. Progress on that has been very lackluster this gen.

if anything, it feels like AI has regressed this gen, maybe I’m too harsh

 

[Romulus]

I feel like watching this that Microsoft knows someone on the inside of the PS5 development, and they know its too late to make big changes.

 

[Shin]

Memory chips used in Series X: https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/dram/gddr6/K4Z80325BC-HC14/
Interestingly the 16 Gbps chips went into mass production (was in Sample stage not too long ago) - https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/dram/gddr6/K4Z80325BC-HC16/

 

[Bladed Thesis]

Im clearly missing a lot of information, but I can accept that the Series X and PS5 will not be able to run games off of an external HDD. Completely OK with that, but I refuse to accept that we can't download and temporarily store them on one and then transfer the games over to the SSD when ready to play.

Like five posts above your post it says you can do that...

 

[Smaller than Atom]

Just hype! Wow this box looks amazing. I really hope the ps5 is in this neighborhood.

 

[Shin]

Just hype!

It really is, I'm so damn excited about this console, they really knocked it out of the park in terms of engineering.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

but you can?!
With series X you can connect a regular HDD and then:

- directly play One, 360 and OG Xbox games.
- Backup Series X Games and move back if you want to play them.
Not sure about PS5 though

Then there is nothing for anyone to be bitching about. If it was a 250GB SSD then yes it would get annoying going back and forth. a 1TB SSD should hold a good 10 games at minimum. Plenty of options for people who dont play one game at a time.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Inside Xbox Series X: the full specs

This is it. After months of teaser trailers, blog posts and even the occasional leak, we can finally reveal firm, hard …

www.eurogamer.net

However, even basic ports which barely use any of the Series X's new features are delivering impressive results. The Coalition's Mike Rayner and Colin Penty showed us a Series X conversion of Gears 5, produced in just two weeks. The developers worked with Epic Games in getting UE4 operating on Series X, then simply upped all of the internal quality presets to the equivalent of PC's ultra, adding improved contact shadows and UE4's brand-new (software-based) ray traced screen-space global illumination. On top of that, Gears 5's cutscenes - running at 30fps on Xbox One X - were upped to a flawless 60fps. We'll be covering more on this soon, but there was one startling takeaway - we were shown benchmark results that, on this two-week-old, unoptimised port, already deliver very, very similar performance to an RTX 2080.

2 weeks, unoptimized port, performance matches RTX 2080.

 

[Stuart360]

if anything, it feels like AI has regressed this gen, maybe I’m too harsh

I think you're being fair. In fact Metro Exodus has the worst AI i have seen in many years.

 

[mekes]

Ah yes. Those videos gave me that good upcoming console release feel. Very nice videos with loads of good content. Great job from DF and the Series X continues to look very impressive.

 

[spartan30gr]

Good job microsoft.

 

[thelastword]

Im clearly missing a lot of information, but I can accept that the Series X and PS5 will not be able to run games off of an external HDD. Completely OK with that, but I refuse to accept that we can't download and temporarily store them on one and then transfer the games over to the SSD when ready to play.

I'm pretty sure that should be possible...….Hope it's not only through restore backup......

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Inside Xbox Series X: the full specs

This is it. After months of teaser trailers, blog posts and even the occasional leak, we can finally reveal firm, hard …

www.eurogamer.net

2 weeks, unoptimized port, performance matches RTX 2080.

The Gears 5 XsX footage in the DF video looks stunning

 

[NOLA_Gaffer]

Ideally the system would be intelligent enough to store games that haven't been played in some time on the slower USB external storage and move them over to the internal/external SSD whenever you launch it up and keep it in there until cycled out due to inactivity.

That way you can plug in a beefy external USB drive and still get the benefits of the SSD tech.

 

[ManaByte]

So not only did they reveal the full detailed specs, but they gave media hands on with the hardware.

Guess we're going to get another logo from Sony soon, right?

 

[GymWolf]

It's good that this bottleneck from current gen has been dealt with. I hope this will have a positive impact on enemy AI and Physics. Progress on that has been very lackluster this gen.

IA is still in the hands of devs, if they don't wanna waste time in advanced ia, a powerfull cpu is basically useless.
and we all know that ia don't sell many copies...

 

[TBiddy]

I get that the XSX comes with 1 TB SSD. Is that internal memory or does it come with a memory card?

 

[Shmunter]

I get that the XSX comes with 1 TB SSD. Is that internal memory or does it come with a memory card?

Arcade version won’t have the ssd, you’ll need to buy it.

Lol, jokes from the good ol days.

 

[GymWolf]

I think you're being fair. In fact Metro Exodus has the worst AI i have seen in many years.

i'm waiting for tlou2 like the saviour of this gen IA performance , but after the reveal gameplay of tlou and the final version, i'm not really putting much faith on them...

 

[Tripolygon]

Beastly specs. Now we await Sony to reveal. Anything less than 10TF will be disappointing to me depending on price.

 

[thelastword]

i was thinking the same thing about the different speed type of rams and the 970 stuff back in the day, well at least microsoft is clear from the start compared to nvidia...
it's probabyl to maintain the price around 500 dollars, isn't?

Yes the upside to it of course is that are upfront, but it's still a problem I forsee when devs get ambitious and start using more VRAM...….We tend to forget that these consoles are no longer 1080P machines, they will be pushing 4K and 8K......Also pushing high textures whilst pushing high rez is a Vram fiend.....Just check how many times current RTX cards need to lower texture resolution to get better framerates and less stuttering....

These consoles are not only going to push high resolutions, but Raytracing as well...….The demands are much higher, it's when lots of high speed Vram is needed most....

 

[SenjutsuSage]

""Mesh shading allows developers to completely bypass those fixed function bottlenecks by providing an optional alternative to the existing parts of the GPU pipeline. In addition to performance, mesh shading offers developers flexibility and memory savings. Mesh shading will allow game developers to increase detail in the shapes and animations of objects and render more complex scenes with no sacrifice to frame-rate." "

I think a certain launch title is definitely using this.