Topic: Xbox Series S Game Optimisation

Hi All

If you have any info on any of the Xbox Series S game optimizations pop them in here I am curious about Watch Dogs Legion myself. So far we have info for Yakuza Like a Dragon, Fallout 4 the Falconeer.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2020/10/the_falconeer_has_a_120...

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2020/10/yakuza_like_a_dragon_le...

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2020/10/fallout_4_runs_at_doubl...

@graysoncharles Ah yes thanks! just added it.

Dirt 5 also runs at 120fps (or at least has 120fps mode) although don't know the resolution or graphical settings needed to achieve that.

The thing is, these 'optimisations' are only focussing on two aspects - resolution and frame rate. If the Series S has to drop some of the visual settings below the other consoles just to hit a 'higher' resolution and/or frame rate, that doesn't really tell the whole story.

For example, if the Series X is offering PC 'ultra' settings and delivering a locked 4k/60 but on the Series S, Ultra settings don't run at 1080/60 without drops to resolution/frame rate, so they turn down shadow quality, resolution quality, draw distance, Ambient Occlusion quality, crowd density, foliage density etc and in doing so manage to bump the resolution up to 1440/60 with some dynamic resolution scaling to keep it stable, is that 'good' just because its 1440p or maybe could of dropped a just 1 setting or two down and got a locked 1080/60 is that better?

That's hypothetical and I doubt devs would have to make that many downgrades to push 1440p but you have to be realistic, the GPU is less than 'half' the size and slower too so the overall is that it ends up being about 1/3rd and 1440p is a little under 1/2 the size. I know its not exactly scale that you would need half the GPU to deliver Half the resolution but with fewer cycles per second and half the GPU size, it will need to turn some settings down comparatively and will be interesting to see how well it handles RT. Look at the Series X metrics on Minecraft DXR when DF looked at that - how do you think a Series S will do - maybe it won't even come to Series S (or any Series console if Series S can't cope) - that was only 1080/30 on Series X btw so what do you think a GPU with ~1/3rd would do...

To be fair Minecraft DXR was a full Path Tracing demo, most games will only use hybrid of Ray Tracing solutions as an “economical upgrade to traditional rendering, not a complete replacement” atleast for the foreseeable future.

@Senua I know - but can you see Minecraft DXR running on a Series S when it runs at 1080/30 on a Series X? Certainly not path traced so that would have to be scaled right back

With just 20cores (compared to 52) how do you think its going to cope with hybrid uses of RT too. Essentially, the Series X could allocate 12 Cores to RT effects and still have 40cores (twice that of the Series S and running faster) like an overclocked RX 5700 XT and obviously still render games better than that would and add RT on top. So how do you think the Series S would do? Drop the quality of RT down to use maybe 8CU's and use 12CU's? So you reduce the quality of RT, have fewer rays, fewer bounces being slower too, and maybe settle for a quarter of the resolution?

All I was saying is that resolution and frame rate are just 2 metrics that don't tell the whole story. 4k is 2.2x the pixel density whilst the Series X has 3x the GPU power in the 'same' architecture. That means the Series X can essentially do 4k with extra visual enhancements or to put it another way, the Series S would need to turn down some visual settings below that of the Series X to hit 1440p - and therefore, just focusing on resolution doesn't really tell the story. Also you may find that games may say 1440p but use Dynamic Resolution and drop further and more frequently.

I don't think its a big deal - if you are buying a Series S, you can't expect to have the best Visual Quality and for many, they may still be plugging into 1080p TV's too so resolution isn't exactly going to be high on your priority list.

I know full well that Minecraft DXR is fully Path Traced - the most expensive form of Ray Tracing possible but that alone poses the question of how that can come to Series S at all considering it requires a Series X just to run at 1080/30 - if it comes to Consoles at all. If a GPU with 3x the performance is needed for 1080/30, how much downgrading is needed to run on Series S - no Path tracing? If they go the Hybrid route, what can they offer or more to the point, what won't be on offer?

All I was trying to say is that you also want to know what other 'differences' are devs having to do to offer those metrics. Dirt 5 devs intimated that some settings would be lower on Series S to deliver 1440/60 compared to Series X 4k/60 mode(s) so I think its about being realistic. Not belittling the Series S, its already showing its punching above the XB1X and certainly above a PS4 Pro so RDNA2.0 is showing it advancements and improvements over GCN. I just don't think that target resolution or frame rates tell the story. What I would want to know is what else has had to be turned down from other versions to push the resolution up a bit or if they are using the same settings, how does the game actually run? are they using Dynamic Resolution Scaling? Unlocked Frame Rate? if so, how closely does it hold that resolution? a few drops in intense situations or only hit that resolution when you look at the sky?

The fact that its using lower quality textures will help of course with rendering and post processing time/budgets but I would still want to know more than just target resolutions/frame rates - but maybe that's just me. Like I said, I doubt many can be that bothered about the visual quality - as long as its not 'terrible' (which I doubt) and runs smoothly, I am sure people will be happy...

Has there been confirmation on how Forza Horizon 4 and FM7 will run on the Series S?

@redd214 No confirmation at all as far as I am aware. The only thing I have read is that FH4 is 'expected' to run at 1440/60 and as far as I am aware, Forza Motorsport isn't getting any upgrade on next gen so 1080/60 on Series S like the base Xbox One version and 4k/60 on Series X.

Playground did mention some of the improvements they were able to do on Series X and no doubt some, if not all, will also be included with the Series S - albeit at a lower resolution.

@BAMozzy awesome, thank you for answering!

@graysoncharles Not necessarily. The Series S is NOT using High Res Textures because its NOT running at 4k - its a waste of RAM and Bandwidth to stream textures that are higher res than than the game is actually running at. Because the textures are NOT high res, they are much smaller file sizes and therefore do not need the bandwidth either.

The Series S is built around targetting 1440p - the Xbox One X was built around targetting 4k with 4k textures, needing more space in RAM to keep them and high bandwidth to stream them in. The PS4 Pro is a '4k' console with just 5.5GB of RAM allocated for gaming and 216GB/s bandwidth, the Series S has 8GB at 226GB/s for roughly the same resolution as Most of the games ended up at ~1440p anyway. It missed out on the 'high res' texture pack for Shadow of Mordor for example

You are also forgetting about the fact that MS has the Velocity Architecture and Series S games will be able to take advantage of Sampler Feedback Streaming too - meaning that ONLY the textures that are in view - not the textures that are obscured by other objects or on the other side of objects are not streamed in. Sampler Feedback Streaming also enables only a part of the texture to be streamed in - not the whole texture file. Textures are used to fill a polygon and only a small part of the whole file is visible. 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. That is like needing 2-3x more RAM without it.

MS has also demonstrated that with ML, they can use even lower quality textures (thus even smaller file sizes and less need for high bandwidth) and use AI upscaling (a bit like DLSS) to make textures look much higher res than they are.

Point is, the Series S has more RAM and more Bandwidth (albeit slightly) than the PS4 Pro did, not targetting 4k so won't be using higher resolution textures, has the Velocity Architecture with Sampler Feedback streaming to reduce the amount if unnecessary texture streaming and space required, only streaming part of the texture file, can use ML Upscaling too so the RAM bottlenecks you think it may have are eradicated.

Its NOT using the same textures as the Series X its using lower quality versions that are much smaller in size so doesn't need to match it on he quantity or bandwidth of the RAM

If I can get most games at 1080p 60 or 1080p 30 with ray tracing I will be happy. I expect to see a least one or 2 Series S games run some form of raytracing since it has been advertised as a feature for Series S.

@Darylb88 I am sure it will deliver games with Ray Tracing - especially if you are happy with 1080/30. Not to say that the Series S couldn't offer some 1440/30 or 1080/60 - maybe even 1440/60 with RT depending on the game and complexity, how well optimised it and the engine is etc.

If you look at a PS4 for example as that seems to hit 1080/30 with 7yr old GPU - at 1.84TF - then something with a lot more resources as well as much better performance per TF to keep it simple, I can't see why it wouldn't. As far as I am aware, its got the same 'cores' - albeit fewer - as the Series X so it has the Hardware Acceleration for RT. Its using DirectX 12 Ultimate - so has the same DirectX Raytracing. It has everything that the Series X offers in that regard.

Some game developers can use Software too for Raytracing - as you can see from Crysis on Current Gen - its just more 'expensive'. When they talk of cost, its usually in terms of time and/or resources. It can take quite a bit of time to 'trace' the rays, and calculate how the light will bounce etc so it can be 'too' expensive to implement as it will take them out of their 'frame time' budget. They can use that time to push the visual quality up in numerous other ways, maybe even cut the frame time in half to give higher frame rates.

Anyway, I would be surprised if games don't offer RT on Series S but do on Series X. My comment was regarding Minecraft specifically as that is the most 'expensive' use of Raytracing - its not a 'hybrid' option (ie a mix of traditional methods with some RT added to refine it) and as such, it was seen running at just 1080/30 on a Series X so I question whether that would run on a Series S - at least in HD. That appears to be the exception (although there is a version of Quake II on PC is fully Path Traced) so I doubt we will be seeing a AAA complex realistic looking game using full path tracing during this generation at all.

@BAMozzy I would take 1080 30fps so I could at least check out the feature. If Series S doesn't offer raytracing in a least a game or 2 after advertising it then that will be disappointing and some of my trust would be lost.

@Kefka2589 Yeah I guess we will find out on Nov 10th. MS has stopped any kind of marketing for Series S. It's all about the Series X now.

I have NO DOUBT that the Series S will offer Ray Tracing support in games. It has the same architecture with Hardware Accelerated RT capability and will use the same DirectX 12 Ultimate API with DXR (Direct X Raytracing) as well as Mesh Shading, Variable Rate Shading (VRS), etc etc.

Of course the Series X and PS5 have more GPU cores, more RAM etc but they are targeting a higher resolution and need those cores to render larger images and process them, need more RAM for higher resolution textures etc.

By comparison, a base PS4 has 18cores (with a weak CPU and less RAM as well as being slower). Its also running at just 800mhz - nearly half the number of cycles per second on architecture that is not as efficient. Without considering the architectural improvements, running twice as fast means it can complete twice as many floating point operations per second. The CPU isn't handling decompression or Audio processing - neither is the GPU so it has big advantages there too which are bottleneck/frame time limiters on current gen. The reason I am talking about the PS4 is because that offers the 'best' visuals and performance of the base consoles. The difference between the Series S and Xbox One S is much larger - that had just 12core GPU. The RAM in the Series S is more than the PS4 Pro and 8GB is faster than the 5.5GB the Pro has for games. The Pro runs at 911Mhz (Slower than the 1565Mhz of the Series S) and we already have some idea on the advantage the Series S has despite fewer Cores - Yakuza only runs at 1080/30 on Pro but 1440/30 on Series S - that's a 1.78x increase in resolution.

Granted the Series S may not be able to match the visual settings of a Series X or PS5 - maybe not at 1440p because it doesn't have the Cores or the speed - but doesn't mean that it won't get Raytracing. It may mean that fewer rays are used, fewer bounces or maybe they opt to drop the resolution a bit more so you don't need as many rays anyway. They can tweak many of the visual settings too - many of which you may not be able to tell the difference at lower resolutions anyway. Point is, MS built the Series S as a 1440p version of the Series X and no doubt the scale down from 4k to 1440p was factored in at a 'hardware' level. That's how they came up with the specs they did - why they decided on the RAM and GPU, the CPU is just 200mhz slower, but I still expect that difference is related to lower resolution and the reason its not scaled down as much is because a lot of the tasks are still the same regardless of resolution - same AI/NPC counts, same physics, hit detection, controller input instructions etc etc.

Therefore, I do not expect devs in general to offer RT on Series X but not in Series S. My one concern was based on 'one' game tech demo (Minecraft DXR) which on a Series X was only running at 1080/30. IF they do intend to release Minecraft DXR to Console with FULL Path tracing as demonstrated on Series X, I struggle to see how it could also release on Series S - maybe at 720/30 using the same 'scaling' would make it possible. That's also not counting ANY optimising and improvements the Devs may of been able to do since that 'demo'.

Games like Watchdogs will support Raytracing on BOTH series S and X - AC:Valhalla though will probably not as no mention of RT support on ANY console has been confirmed. Ubisoft haven't mentioned RT at all with that game.

If you are 'concerned', then wait until the Series S and X are out, wait until DF compares a game like Watchdogs on BOTH systems and see if there is any 'significant' differences, more than just the resolution drop. I am not expecting anything more than a 'subtle' difference that you wouldn't notice in game-play and only noticeable in a 'still' shot when analysed side by side - maybe 'medium' shadows compared to high for example - but with a lower resolution, it may not make much of a difference at all...

I would like to know if there will be enhancements to Doom Eternal? As I have ordered this along with the series S.

@BazzaRFC From what I can find, they have stated Doom Eternal will be getting a Series X & PS5 upgrade. Whilst I can't find conformation about the Series S specifically, I would expect it to get some upgrade too.

Until any upgrades comes though, you can still play via Backwards Compatibility. It will run with the Base Xbox one specs - so 900p/60fps but I would be surprised if drops resolution like the XB1S does. The PS4 Pro can run at 1440/60 with higher settings (although does drop below 1440p) so I would expect Id Software to boost Doom Eternal to at least 1440/60 on Series S when they finally upgrade the game for next gen - as well as boost some of the visual settings too...