Xbox One architecture

Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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Seems people haven't really reported on here about how the Xbox One CPU architecture isn't what everyone first thought it was.

MS recently during a non-gaming conference went into great detail about the architecture behind the CPU and GPU. Most of it is beyond me but from what I can gather MS have done a serious amount of work themselves on the CPU and GPU.

More or less, the console is a lot more powerful than everyone first thought. Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain it better. But here is a link to one of the many articles going into it:
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/164934-xbox-one-bus-bandwidths-graphics-capabilities-and-odd-soc-architecture-confirmed-by-microsoft
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  • kendogukkendoguk Posts: 13,800
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    Because if it actually is more powerful then it's a good thing and can't be used as something to slag MS off.
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    I will quote someone from the Neowin forum, not sure how true this is but it may also mean developers can easily take full advantage of all the clever CPU work it can do.
    Sony doesn't provide a high level optimized coding language for the graphics, opting instead since they don't have experience or comeptence in making this, to give developers low level access, much harder to use, requires devs to themselves code for the hardware and find out how to optimize their code for the hardware. most/all 3rd party devs will never do any optimizing, this wll be left to first party devs. Eventually I guess Sony will do what they did with the PS3, release a brand new SDK and coding tool kit for the PS4 4 or so years down the line when they get around to making it and a high level optimized language for it. and you'll see another bump in graphics form 3rd party devs then.

    MS has their Xbox one optimized version of DirectX. the whole SDK and language is high level and easy to use,on top of that, it's already pre optimized for the hardware, so developers don't need to worry about special programmign tricks to make use of the ESRAM and the 4 channels of ESRAM memory and the 3 channels of DDR3 ram and the 15 special processors and all this. The SDK and DirectX will do this all for them, while for some, there is ready made functions they can just drop in the code where appropriate.
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    kendoguk wrote: »
    Because if it actually is more powerful then it's a good thing and can't be used as something to slag MS off.

    Well it does certainly appear to be more powerful than first thought according to the articles that are popping up, it has taken a lot of people by surprise.

    The initial problem was again the MS PR dept. They just released the basic machine spec and didn't go into more detail. So people just compared the specs with the PS4 and used real-life PC hardware as the base for determining the PS4 is 40% more powerful.

    Yet it seems MS have done a lot of work to the CPU and GPU so they really can't be compared to anything on the PC as it's so different.

    They didn't need to explain this during the E3 conference, but could have put out a press release after so smart people could have worked it out instead of letting this 40% figure fly about for months.
  • Flawed-TacticsFlawed-Tactics Posts: 3,488
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    kendoguk wrote: »
    Because if it actually is more powerful then it's a good thing and can't be used as something to slag MS off.

    You may have spoke to soon.....

    Someone is bound to come in and completely dismiss this lol
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,743
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    Red Arrow wrote: »
    Well it does certainly appear to be more powerful than first thought according to the articles that are popping up, it has taken a lot of people by surprise.

    The initial problem was again the MS PR dept. They just released the basic machine spec and didn't go into more detail. So people just compared the specs with the PS4 and used real-life PC hardware as the base for determining the PS4 is 40% more powerful.

    Yet it seems MS have done a lot of work to the CPU and GPU so they really can't be compared to anything on the PC as it's so different.

    They didn't need to explain this during the E3 conference, but could have put out a press release after so smart people could have worked it out instead of letting this 40% figure fly about for months.
    The 40% figure comes from the computational performance given by both parties, it wasn't done using normal PCs as a base point.

    So pre-upclock the Xbox One was capable of 1.23 TFLOPS, and post-uplock from memory I think it is now 1.31 TFLOPS.

    The PS4 is capable of 1.84 TFLOPS.

    As you heard Mark Cerny discuss back in February the PS4 is a super-charged PC, and likewise so is the Xbox One.

    If either shoved a stock Jaguar in they'd be dead in the water. A conventional PC CPU has to perform an array of tasks but with a console the idea is you tailor your hardware to the needs.

    Nothing disclosed has made the Xbox One more powerful than was already known, really what they've shown is more of how you go about leveraging the power it does have.
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    chopoff wrote: »
    Nothing disclosed has made the Xbox One more powerful than was already known, really what they've shown is more of how you go about leveraging the power it does have.

    Yet, many sites going into great detail over this are discussing it is a lot more powerful than first thought. That while the numbers game show the PS4 as being way more powerful, with the new knowledge of the internal workings now released the Xbox One closes the gap.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,743
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    Red Arrow wrote: »
    Yet, many sites going into great detail over this are discussing it is a lot more powerful than first thought.
    Then they're confused or originally thought they just shoved a stock APU in there :P

    As I say - they've shown what they've done to make utilising the power as geared to game development as possible so that they can get closer to the theoretical performance (the 1.23/1.31 TFLOPS figure).

    It is kind of like traffic management. You could argue that it makes it more powerful by virtue of the fact that it can do things in the best way - but in the context of the 40% PS4 advantage it doesn't.
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    I agree, in a way. The point most of them are making is that people just look at raw numbers and assume that higher is better. But look at CPU's these days, a higher GHz doesn't always mean it's better.

    The recent news of these new features from what I can gather seems to suggest that while the GPU isn't as powerful, the rest of the system is incredibly clever and can make up for the lower performance of the GPU.

    So yes, the PS4 may be capable of more TFLOPS, but that doesn't mean it's 40% more powerful it seems.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,743
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    Red Arrow wrote: »
    I agree, in a way. The point most of them are making is that people just look at raw numbers and assume that higher is better. But look at CPU's these days, a higher GHz doesn't always mean it's better.

    The recent news of these new features from what I can gather seems to suggest that while the GPU isn't as powerful, the rest of the system is incredibly clever and can make up for the lower performance of the GPU.

    So yes, the PS4 may be capable of more TFLOPS, but that doesn't mean it's 40% more powerful it seems.
    No, it does make it 40% more powerful. That part is science, you can't alter that.

    However, much like the MPG quotation your car manufacturer will give you, that is only when a set of circumstances are met.

    To use your GHz example even - if you took a single core, single thread CPU clocked at 3GHz then took one of the latest Intel CPUs geared up with many cores and threads but clocked to a lower speed it would not outperform on a task designed to only utilise a single core and thread, but making something to utilise the design features of the latest CPUs allows you to do more than one thing at once and have your operations complete quicker.

    And by the way, the PS4 has pretty much identical optimisations, too. Key among them here is that both consoles are doing some pretty neat things with memory in terms of how both CPU and GPU access them.
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    chopoff wrote: »
    To use your GHz example even - if you took a single core, single thread CPU clocked at 3GHz then took one of the latest Intel CPUs geared up with many cores and threads but clocked to a lower speed it would not outperform on a task designed to only utilise a single core and thread, but making something to utilise the design features of the latest CPUs allows you to do more than one thing at once and have your operations complete quicker.

    So does that not go against your point? If the developer utilizes these new design features wouldn't that improve the performance?
  • He4rtHe4rt Posts: 5,379
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    One console has a more powerful GPU while the other makes use of off loading to custom processors while having a weaker GPU.

    Unfortunately, until the consoles are released, no one really knows how this is going to effect games.

    At the moment its a bit like saying 'my car is faster than yours' just because mine has more raw horsepower. Not until we put them on the track against each other will we see a difference.

    At the end of the day, the Xbox one is (on paper) around 10x more powerful than the 360 a console thats pumping games out like the new GTA. People who are looking to upgrade to the next gen should be very happy, i know i am.
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    Just to add, using CPU example. Say the PS4 was the more powerful single core CPU, and the X1 was the slower CPU but has all these "extra" features. In a straight fight using nothing but there basic features the PS4 would win as it's faster (able to compute more TFLOPS).

    But if a developer makes use of the extra features, while the amount of TFLOPS doesn't improve, wouldn't the overall performance of the console improve as these extra cores are being used as they were designed for?

    So while in terms of TFLOPS it's still 40% faster, wouldn't the overall performance of the console improve. I mean calculating the power of a console isn't solely based on the amount of TFLOPS it can compute, right?

    This all reminds me of the Cell processor. One side claiming their console is more powerful than the other, while the other side claiming that once the developers can understand the new processor it will win. :p
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,743
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    Red Arrow wrote: »
    Just to add, using CPU example. Say the PS4 was the more powerful single core CPU, and the X1 was the slower CPU but has all these "extra" features. In a straight fight using nothing but there basic features the PS4 would win as it's faster (able to compute more TFLOPS).

    But if a developer makes use of the extra features, while the amount of TFLOPS doesn't improve, wouldn't the overall performance of the console improve as these extra cores are being used as they were designed for?

    So while in terms of TFLOPS it's still 40% faster, wouldn't the overall performance of the console improve. I mean calculating the power of a console isn't solely based on the amount of TFLOPS it can compute, right?

    This all reminds me of the Cell processor. One side claiming their console is more powerful than the other, while the other side claiming that once the developers can understand the new processor it will win. :p
    Spot on, you've got it.

    Only warning I add to you is, the PS4 also has these enhancements you speak of.

    To our knowledge it hasn't got some bits the Xbox One has, but likewise the Xbox One doesn't have some bits the PS4 has.

    Quite fitting you bring up the Cell. They had some insane claims for the PS3 in terms of performance, but ultimately we ended up with a bit better graphics than the 360 when people tried to take advantage of the unique PS3 features.

    Even our Lord and Saviour Mark Cerny described it as a struggle and a test!
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    OK cool, that makes sense in my mind now :p Thanks chopoff.
  • gamercraiggamercraig Posts: 6,069
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    chopoff wrote: »
    Spot on, you've got it.

    Only warning I add to you is, the PS4 also has these enhancements you speak of.

    To our knowledge it hasn't got some bits the Xbox One has, but likewise the Xbox One doesn't have some bits the PS4 has.

    Quite fitting you bring up the Cell. They had some insane claims for the PS3 in terms of performance, but ultimately we ended up with a bit better graphics than the 360 when people tried to take advantage of the unique PS3 features.

    Even our Lord and Saviour Mark Cerny described it as a struggle and a test!

    (Falls to the floor in a worship position)
  • BigFoot87BigFoot87 Posts: 9,293
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    Sure, the PS4 is 40% better. But how will that come across in games compared to XB1? 40% better frame-rate? 40% better textures? 40% more enemy bots on screen?

    I don't think that the difference between PS4/XB1 is going to be that great, not on screen anyway. I can see cases where the resolution on XB1 games will be dropped a little compared to PS4, but not to the extent that games are '40% better'. Either way, regardless of console, the games will look great.
  • gds1972gds1972 Posts: 6,613
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    chopoff wrote: »
    Spot on, you've got it.

    Only warning I add to you is, the PS4 also has these enhancements you speak of.

    To our knowledge it hasn't got some bits the Xbox One has, but likewise the Xbox One doesn't have some bits the PS4 has.

    Quite fitting you bring up the Cell. They had some insane claims for the PS3 in terms of performance, but ultimately we ended up with a bit better graphics than the 360 when people tried to take advantage of the unique PS3 features.

    Even our Lord and Saviour Mark Cerny described it as a struggle and a test!

    I don't know on paper how much more powerful the PS3 is compared to the 360 the end products were mostly pretty close in terms of gameplay and graphics.

    All I know is at this moment in time no one can say how the upcoming generation will ultimately compare even though the PS4 is more powerful on paper.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,743
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    BigFoot87 wrote: »
    Sure, the PS4 is 40% better. But how will that come across in games compared to XB1? 40% better frame-rate? 40% better textures? 40% more enemy bots on screen?

    I don't think that the difference between PS4/XB1 is going to be that great, not on screen anyway. I can see cases where the resolution on XB1 games will be dropped a little compared to PS4, but not to the extent that games are '40% better'. Either way, regardless of console, the games will look great.
    Different elements of a game use different elements of a console, so for example the PS4 has massive advantages compared to the Xbox One for the parts typically used for textures, but for other things there will be a more level playing field.

    Remember though that multi-plats have to make a business decision on if it is financially beneficial to spend time on tailing a game.
  • brangdonbrangdon Posts: 14,090
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    Red Arrow wrote: »
    The recent news of these new features from what I can gather seems to suggest that while the GPU isn't as powerful, the rest of the system is incredibly clever and can make up for the lower performance of the GPU.
    Remember also that Sony gave their GPU more power than they think the games can use for graphics. They hope games will use the spare power for other things - physics, AI etc. Figuring out how to do that well will take a while. In the short term, the PS4's extra power may not make a difference because it may not get used.

    (I also get the impression Microsoft have been winning on PR here. They keep coming out with new hardware and system articles, talking about how things are improved. Arguably that actually means they were behind the curve on getting their system finished.)
  • Red ArrowRed Arrow Posts: 10,889
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    brangdon wrote: »
    Remember also that Sony gave their GPU more power than they think the games can use for graphics. They hope games will use the spare power for other things - physics, AI etc. Figuring out how to do that well will take a while. In the short term, the PS4's extra power may not make a difference because it may not get used.

    (I also get the impression Microsoft have been winning on PR here. They keep coming out with new hardware and system articles, talking about how things are improved. Arguably that actually means they were behind the curve on getting their system finished.)

    How did you come to that conclusion? :confused:

    Just because they're only now talking about the system in more detail doesn't mean they are "behind the curve".
  • brangdonbrangdon Posts: 14,090
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    ^^ They aren't just talking about it. They've made changes to the software and the hardware.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 198
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    WOW - Hearing rumours that AMD have Microsoft under an embargo till the 29th September where they can reveal that Xbox One has a SECOND GPU.
  • jokerzjokerz Posts: 1,353
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    Aj_Whiles wrote: »
    WOW - Hearing rumours that AMD have Microsoft under an embargo till the 29th September where they can reveal that Xbox One has a SECOND GPU.

    Oooh lovely possible Crossfire Goodness!!!!!
  • BigFoot87BigFoot87 Posts: 9,293
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    Aj_Whiles wrote: »
    WOW - Hearing rumours that AMD have Microsoft under an embargo till the 29th September where they can reveal that Xbox One has a SECOND GPU.

    Source?
  • Flawed-TacticsFlawed-Tactics Posts: 3,488
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    BigFoot87 wrote: »
    Source?

    No source, it's a rumour, but there is plenty of chatter all over the net about it.
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