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[ManaByte]

Phil Spencer: Das Mega-Interview zu Project Scarlett, PC Gaming und mehr

60 neue Spiele, eine neue Xbox-Konsole (Project Scarlett), Cloud-Streaming, neue Spiele-Abos und vieles mehr - Microsoft verkündete auf der E3 2019 jede Menge Neuheiten. Unser US-Korrespondent Roland Austinat setzte sich anschließend mit Phil Spencer zusammen, um mit Microsofts Spielechef tiefer...

www.pcgameshardware.de

When designing Project Scarlett, we made sure that games emulated on Xbox One today will continue to work. In other words, Xbox and Xbox 360 titles that run on Xbox One today will also work on Scarlett. And our goal is to make all Xbox One games playable on Scarlett. Oh, and your Xbox One or Elite controllers will also work with the next generation.

Thanks to their speed, developers can now use the SSD practically as virtual RAM. The SSD access times come close to the memory access times of the current console generation. Of course, the OS must allow developers access that goes beyond that of a pure storage medium. But then we will see how the address space will increase immensely - comparable to the change from Win16 to Win32 or in some cases Win64.

Of course, the SSD will still be slower than the GDDR6 RAM that sits directly on top of the die. But the ability to directly supply data to the CPU and GPU via the SSD will enable game worlds to be created that will not only be richer, but also more seamless. Not only in terms of pure loading times, but also in terrain mapping. A graphic designer no longer has to worry about when GDDR6 ends and when the SSD starts. I like that Mark Cerny and his team at Sony are also investing in an SSD for the PlayStation 5 ...

And the engines and tools can implement corresponding functions. Together we ensure a larger installed base - and developers will do everything possible to master and support the programming of these hardware capabilities. I don't have a PS5 development kit, I don't even think our Minecraft team did. But it will be exciting to see how the industry will benefit from the comprehensive use of such solutions.

PC Games Hardware: Does the aforementioned statement 4x refer to the complete console when the performance increases?

Phil Spencer: No, that's a CPU-only statement. It would also be a little too simplistic to refer to the whole system as much as I would like to, because so many components flow into it. Let's take the Xbox One X: when it was developed, the memory bandwidth was the bottleneck. It had to be large enough to supply the GPU with content without idle times. We could have launched the console a year earlier, but waited a year for all 6 of the GPU's TFLOPS to be ready.

Our primary goal at Scarlett was to improve the console's graphics capabilities and GPU. Primarily because another goal was to integrate a CPU into the system that can keep up with the GPU. Unlike PCs, historically consoles were "arm wrestlers" with a strong arm - the GPU - and a weak arm - the CPU, which does nothing more than change the frames calculated by the GPU as quickly as possible, often with a maximum of 30 fps.

Now we're talking about 120 Hertz or variable refresh rates. Because if the timing of the game loop - i.e. the core routines of a game - corresponds to the refresh rate, this reduces the input latency and thus ensures a smooth game experience. And that largely depends on the CPU and the memory bandwidth. That's why you have to see a statement like "Scarlett is x times faster than Xbox One X" a little more differentiated.

Scarlett supports 120 Hertz or variable refresh rates and 8K. But will we see games in 120 Hertz with 8K resolution? Sure, that would work, but then you have to do without other things when playing. Our job is to give developers a number of tools and give you, the player, a choice.

 

[Amaranty]

Minimum 60 fps dream is still possible? TV pixel response time has gotten so fast lately with 4K TV's that 30 fps motion looks quite bad.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Can E3 get here any sooner please? We are probably looking at 3 months minimum before either company (Sony/Microsoft) reveal more meaningful details of their next gen console. I say 3 months... Microsoft has already said they will likely do a full reveal of the console before E3, but that could still mean late May or even the 1st week of June. Will be nice to have to the specs finally out in the open and then we can focus on the games.

 

[Lort]

The gddr ram “that sits ontop of the die”? They using stacking to put the ram ontop of the apu?

 

[ManaByte]

The gddr ram “that sits ontop of the die”? They using stacking to put the ram ontop of the apu?

He means since the RAM is literally right next to the CPU it’ll still be faster than the SSD.

 

[Lort]

He means since the RAM is literally right next to the CPU it’ll still be faster than the SSD.

Yeah i was thinking may have been a google translation issue lol

 

[ethomaz]

SSD speeds is close to actual console RAM speeds?

Bullshit.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

 

[PontiusFeeb]

And then the Series-S won't be able to do any of that, so developers have to figure out two versions.

 

[Achillias]

Best decision of Microsoft was to promote Major Nelson. Since then the Xbox brand is doing a lot of right. With the Xbox X and S. Focusing on raw power and being the " most powerful console", and for the people not interested in that they still can get a decent console with the One S to game on. I really like the One X, third party games did looks the best on it. No doubt the series X will deliver as well.

 

[ethomaz]

Best decision of Microsoft was to promote Major Nelson. Since then the Xbox brand is doing a lot of right. With the Xbox X and S. Focusing on raw power and being the " most powerful console", for the people not interested in that they still can get a decent console with the One S tovvame on. I really like the One X, third party games did looks the best on it. No doubt the series X will deliver as well.

But it is a Phil interview

 

[Achillias]

But it is a Phil interview

Phil and Larry have the same vision.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I’m telling you, the SSD and I/O setup in these machines are going to be the single largest performance and design leap for gaming than just slapping on more flippy floppies.

 

[Mista]

SSD speeds is close to actual console RAM speeds?

Bullshit.

But if it was said for the PS5 I don’t think you would’ve said “bullshit”

 

[TheFarter]

E3 will be epic.

 

[Mista]

E3 will be epic.

Hopefully yes. I want both of them to go wild

It’s the perfect place after all

 

[DeepEnigma]

But if it was said for the PS5 I don’t think you would’ve said “bullshit”

I would hope he still would have, the rumors from Sony’s patent have their SSD I/O at up to 25GB/s. While that is 5-6 times faster than anything on the market, it’s still hundreds of GB/s short compared to RAM bandwidth.

If you have 24GB or less of RAM, you can fill it up in a second or less, and utilize it with optimizations in mere nanoseconds, which is a massive improvement over any SATA or PCIe setup, and blistering compared to a mechanical.

Even if it was just an optimized PCIe4.0, that will still be a major leap. I’m really excited for these SSD setups, lol.

 

[Derktron]

And then the Series-S won't be able to do any of that, so developers have to figure out two versions.

I wonder if it's that hard for those who develop for PC hardware.

 

[ethomaz]

But if it was said for the PS5 I don’t think you would’ve said “bullshit”

Bullshit.

Even comparing with the “slow” DDR3 on Xbox One the SSD solution won’t be nowhere close lol

That is how bullshit his claim is.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Whatever MS did to make the 360 easier to develop games for the series x needs to do the same.

 

[LittleBusters]

Best decision of Microsoft was to promote Major Nelson. Since then the Xbox brand is doing a lot of right. With the Xbox X and S. Focusing on raw power and being the " most powerful console", and for the people not interested in that they still can get a decent console with the One S to game on. I really like the One X, third party games did looks the best on it. No doubt the series X will deliver as well.

Some people find Major Nelson to be huge cringe and bad for the XBox brand. He's basically the type that you say OK Boomer and ignore.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Bullshit.

Even comparing with the “slow” DDR3 on Xbox One the SSD solution won’t be nowhere close lol

That is how bullshit his claim is.

I think he’s just getting his PR frequencies crossed with being told that the RAM no longer has to wait forever for mechanical drives to feed it. That things can happen in mere nanoseconds now.

Some people find Major Nelson to be huge cringe and bad for the XBox brand. He's basically the type that you say OK Boomer and ignore.

 

[The Alien]

This is gonna be a f'ing awesome year for gaming:

I can't remember the last year of a gen ending so strong (TLOU2, Doom Eternal, Ori 2, Cyberpunk, Ghosts of Tsushima).

Then throughout the year we'll have next gen console announcements. Both Sony and Microsoft are likely to hold conferences before E3. Then we actually have E3.....then likely another conference before launch at end of year (XO20, etc.) to show off the consoles.

 

[base]

Bullshit.

Even comparing with the “slow” DDR3 on Xbox One the SSD solution won’t be nowhere close lol

That is how bullshit his claim is.

Its the same as with 8k 120fps. I wonder if we ever see 60fps in 4k in all games.

 

[JORMBO]

I like that my 3 XB1 controllers will carry forward. Controllers cost so much nowadays so that saves a bunch of money at launch. And since they use AA batteries instead of an internal one they work as good as the day I bought them.

 

[quest]

Its the same as with 8k 120fps. I wonder if we ever see 60fps in 4k in all games.

Probably not some development team will find reason to do 30fps. There will almost be an absolute in gaming like that. Hell these could be 50tf devices and developer could do a shit ton of RT and 30fps.

Solid interview people really expect Phil to understand this stuff like cerny is funny. He made a few mistakes happens nothing intentional just layman mistakes.

 

[kraspkibble]

SSD speeds is close to actual console RAM speeds?

Bullshit.

Right? Unless the memory is running very slow.

The best SSD out today can not go beyond 5Gb/s.

Ram at 3200mhz ddr4 is about 25.6Gb/s.

Even if they ran at 1600mhz it would still be faster at 12.8Gb/s.

So the only way this statement holds true is if AMD somehow has pcie 5.0 ready and is letting them use it in the consoles.

And yes I would have said this about PS5 too. in fact I HAVE. The simple fact is that SSDs, as great as they are, are just not fast as RAM. I'm not pulling shit out my arse ... Go check for yourself. Actually...here are sources:

Ddr4 specs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR4_SDRAM#JEDEC_standard_DDR4_module

Pcie 4.0 speeds:

PCIe 4.0 vs. PCIe 3.0 SSDs Benchmarked

High performance storage is in transition as the industry is beginning to adopt the PCIe 4.0 standard. In this roundup, we'll be taking a look at the...

www.techspot.com

 

[Shmunter]

And then the Series-S won't be able to do any of that, so developers have to figure out two versions.

This is the primary concern. Games being developed for the gimped system and just slapped onto the enthusiast model with little to no effort. Not taking advantage of the higher baseline, the path of least resistance is always the path most taken.

MS potentially not only limiting the gen for themselves, but also for the competition. Don’t release a gimped model MS!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Can't wait to play Pacman at 8k/120 fps.

 

[Jad-Just_A_Dale]

But if it was said for the PS5 I don’t think you would’ve said “bullshit”

From the interview:

Thanks to their speed, developers can now use the SSD practically as virtual RAM. The SSD access times come close to the memory access times of the current console generation. Of course, the OS must allow developers access that goes beyond that of a pure storage medium. But then we will see how the address space will increase immensely - comparable to the change from Win16 to Win32 or in some cases Win64.

From Anandtech on the Xbox One

Die size dictates memory interface width, so the 256-bit interface remains but Microsoft chose to go for DDR3 memory instead. A look at Wired’s excellent high-res teardown photo of the motherboard reveals Micron DDR3-2133 DRAM on board (16 x 16-bit DDR3 devices to be exact). A little math gives us 68.3GB/s of bandwidth to system memory.

Fastest in the wild ssd speed that I can find is showing a max rate of 2.5 GB/s. Unless you want to compare it to the Switch, which still beats it at 1600 Mhz or 25.6 GBs bandwidth, the original Xbox One has the slowest speed memory.

UserBenchmark: Sabrent Rocket 4 NVMe PCIe M.2 2TB SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-2TB

Samsung 970 EVO SSD Review: The 64-Layer Refresh

Samsung has an answer to competitor's 64-layer flash. Today we see if Samsung can take back the mainstream NVMe performance lead.

www.tomshardware.com

Note he's stating access times. To give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he's referring to the actual speed in which the soc can initially touch data in the ssd vs the ram? If so, that could possibly be very close based upon how it's engineered, but unless they have actual ram class memory there for the cache (esram, hbm, ram, etc) it doesn't matter. The rate of speed for transferring any amount of data won't be that high. Unless the gpu/cpu can truly use it like ram, it's not going to matter if it can touch that area of storage because the read/write speeds will be what slows it all down. Intel is working on some storage stuff that basically allows for huge amounts of a ram-like component to retain memory after powering a device down. That will not be in the next-gen of gaming consoles. They could solder the ssd to the motherboard and come up with a custom interface, but they would need to be wizards to get read and right speeds high enough to meet that claim.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Whatever MS did to make the 360 easier to develop games for the series x needs to do the same.

The 360 was just as easy to develop games for as the Xbox One, actually a bit harder no doubt being PowerPC vs x86. The only reason it was praised for ease of development is due to what the alternative was in the PS3.

The funny thing is this system which was great to develop for then became a problem with the Xbox One because they suddenly had to code around the eSRAM. The irony being on the 360 they had to code around the eDRAM so it was essentially the same. The only reason people suddenly started knocking the Xbox One for development was because in the PS4 Sony had the easier platform to develop for.

It's not that the Xbox One was hard to develop for, it was easier than the 360, it was just no longer the easiest so developers bitched. They're whiney as shit anyway so who cares really.

 

[JLB]

And then the Series-S won't be able to do any of that, so developers have to figure out two versions.

we dont even know if a series s is a thing...

 

[Kagey K]

we dont even know if a series s is a thing...

That doesn’t stop them ever. A Rumor is fact until it isn’t.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

A Rumor is fact until it isn’t.

Here's a rumor for ya: Phil Spencer and his team made up the leak to gain much needed momentum for the Next Gen War.

THIS IS NOW A FACT.

 

[Kagey K]

Here's a rumor for ya: Phil Spencer and his team made up the leak to gain much needed momentum for the Next Gen War.

THIS IS NOW A FACT.

You got it wrong Sony made up the leak so that now MS has to commit to 12 Teraflops. That is the new fact.

anything other then that is a factoid.

 

[MaulerX]

Bullshit.

Even comparing with the “slow” DDR3 on Xbox One the SSD solution won’t be nowhere close lol

That is how bullshit his claim is.

You're too narrow minded.

Their solution might be something that has been alluded to already. And that's that the SSD, in all likelihood, will be hardwired to the main board. It's why they used the term "virtual RAM" and thus the reason why more than 16GB of Ram is not really necessary. It's also the reason why they'll be able to put multiple games on standby.

The drawback is obvious. You will absolutely NOT be able to get the same performance and speed from an external HDD.

 

[CyberPanda]

Cool interview. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Moses85]

Can somebody explain me, why we discussing a 6 mont old interview?

 

[Kagey K]

Can somebody explain me, why we discussing a 6 mont old interview?

It’s Gaf and somebody posted a thread?

 

[Moses85]

It’s Gaf and somebody posted a thread?

IDK haven’t searched in the Forum but also I can not find any new Info in the interview.

 

[Kagey K]

IDK haven’t searched in the Forum but also I can not find any new Info in the interview.

Report it then.

 

[McRazzle]

IDK haven’t searched in the Forum but also I can not find any new Info in the interview.

The interview was posted in German on a German website, as a result it went unnoticed for 6 months, and the GDDR6 stacking is definitely new info.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I would hope he still would have, the rumors from Sony’s patent have their SSD I/O at up to 25GB/s. While that is 5-6 times faster than anything on the market, it’s still hundreds of GB/s short compared to RAM bandwidth.

If you have 24GB or less of RAM, you can fill it up in a second or less, and utilize it with optimizations in mere nanoseconds, which is a massive improvement over any SATA or PCIe setup, and blistering compared to a mechanical.

Even if it was just an optimized PCIe4.0, that will still be a major leap. I’m really excited for these SSD setups, lol.

To be fair to Phil, I think he is comparing the time/latency it takes to access a page in RAM in the current consoles vs a page in SSD in the new consoles. He may be right, but it would likely have nothing close to the same bandwidth.

He is kind of a master of implying more positive things than actually said and minimising negative connotations of what needs to be said in other cases.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

 

[Mista]

Bullshit.

Even comparing with the “slow” DDR3 on Xbox One the SSD solution won’t be nowhere close lol

That is how bullshit his claim is.

We will see if it’s true or it’s a lie soon I guess

 

[ethomaz]

We will see if it’s true or it’s a lie soon I guess

That is definitively lie you don't need to see soon lol

Even Switch RAM has 10x faster access time than the fastest SSD in the market.
Let't not talk about current gen consoles that have at least 3x (XB1) and 7x (PS4) faster access time RAM than Switch.

Even the tech is not here... Zen 2 PCI-E 4.0 doesn't support his claim... SDDs tech can't reach these speeds.... etc etc etc.

 

[iHaunter]

The gddr ram “that sits ontop of the die”? They using stacking to put the ram ontop of the apu?

I don't think it's an APU. GPU isn't embedded into the CPU, it would cause too many performance issues.

 

[Max_Po]

Day 1 even if only third party better multi ports.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

This is the primary concern. Games being developed for the gimped system and just slapped onto the enthusiast model with little to no effort. Not taking advantage of the higher baseline, the path of least resistance is always the path most taken.

MS potentially not only limiting the gen for themselves, but also for the competition. Don’t release a gimped model MS!

MS will only shoot themselves in the foot by doing that. Sure, third parties will look the same-ish on both consoles, but Sony will then have free reign to make their exclusives look better than MS'.

I don't think the two console rumour is true

 

[DeepEnigma]

To be fair to Phil I think he is comparing the time/latency it takes to access a page in RAM in the current consoles vs a page in SSD in the new consoles. He may be right, but it would likely have nothing close to the same bandwidth.
He is kind of a master to imply more positive things than actually said and minimise negative connotations of what needs to be said in other cases.

Yeah, I noticed more context after and that definitely makes sense. The access times will be instantaneous compared to what we are used to now with slow SATA I/O setups and mechanical drive latency. Virtual ram can now be used more efficiently for less demanding tasks to free up your main system RAM to be pumped with more heavy lifting. Especially when pre-caching comes into play.