Xbox General discussion **No Order Chat Here**

ozmo

ZiabR wrote: »

EDIT - Microsoft have just confirmed the price of the expansion cards is €250. Pre-Orders starting soon. I'm not going to bother with one for now, maybe in a few months.

Seems Seagate have one for $220 - so if Seagate can make them then its not locked down to only Microsoft branded ones and we might have a few more companies making them at lower prices at a later stage.
Hopefully 1T stretches further now they don't have to do that many duplicated assets thing they need to with current gen.

https://uk.pcmag.com/controllers-accessories/128765/seagates-xbox-storage-expansion-cards-really-do-cost-220

sniper_samurai

ozmo wrote: »

Seems Seagate have one for $220 - so if Seagate can make them then its not locked down to only Microsoft branded ones and we might have a few more companies making them at lower prices at a later stage.
Hopefully 1T stretches further now they don't have to do that many duplicated assets thing they need to with current gen.

https://uk.pcmag.com/controllers-accessories/128765/seagates-xbox-storage-expansion-cards-really-do-cost-220

Seagate are the one's making them and are in control of pricing. They're the exact same.

Seagate converted 1:1 from dollar to pound instead of the now usual dollar to euro conversion.

djan

djan wrote: »

Currently have a One S and with games struggling to run at decent resolution/fps and looking to upgrade. How would the 1tb One X second hand compare to getting the Series S? Price wise the X would come in cheaper and with double the storage (albeit much slower) . Will the alleged performance gain of the new S be significant enough to offset the lower storage coupled with a higher price?

Amazon were selling refurb One X for around €200 a few days ago.

At that price I would buy it over the Series S.

I wouldn't buy either in reality, i'd buy the Series X right now. But if you twisted my arm to spend only 200-300, i'd get the One X for €200, get your fun out of it, keep saving and eventually upgrade to a Series X.

My logic is that in the short term (next 6-12 months) the Gamepass library is still going to be mostly current-gen. You'll get a lot of fun out of a One X, games will run great, at €200 it's done most of it's depreciation (in the short term).

drunkmonkey

sniper_samurai wrote: »

Seagate are the one's making them and are in control of pricing. They're the exact same.

Seagate converted 1:1 from dollar to pound instead of the now usual dollar to euro conversion.

Is there a usb port you can just plug in your own storage like the one x..

sniper_samurai

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Is there a usb port you can just plug in your own storage like the one x..

Yes. You can store any game on a usb hdd, you can also play any game playable on the One from it. You won't be able to play Series S|X games from a usb hdd though.

McDermotX

250 blips for the Seagate Expansion Card on MS

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ie/p/seagate-storage-expansion-card-for-xbox-series-x-s/940j83pk147r/4lm4

murpho999

A storage card for around half the price of the console. Forget it.

If I run out of space I'll just keep active games on SSD drive and library on external hard drive of just delete. As I can always download them as required.
So just a little bif of management and I'll be fine.

I'm sure in future there'll be other expansion cards available from other manufacturers and more sizes. So I'll wait for that.

marcbrophy

Look, the way it works is, these drives read at such a quick speed that there's no need for duplication of assets across the install directory.

These 70Gig games current gen, will suddenly be 25 or 30 Gig next gen.

Be careful about the allure of buying extra storage, until you see how quickly you get through the inbuilt storage first

Of course there's always people like me who have 8TB extra storage hooked up to my 1X

Homelander

I don't think the One X vs Series S is that simple either, the Series S will run the base games with other enhancements, just not at native 4K.

Because the CPU in it is so radically better than the One X, there are probably quite a good few games will run at way better framerates on the Series S.

Personally I would prefer the Series S for that reason (and it's a next gen console to boot), others may not care.

scottigael

Series S will run everything the series X can, just at a lower resolution 1440p and less graphical fidelity id definitely get it over the One X as a game pass machine

fifth

Just preordered the expansion card. I think it's going to be great to have a super fast storage device like that, pricey yes, but I want to enjoy games on the best console out there, so I'm going all in.

djan

scottigael wrote: »

Series S will run everything the series X can, just at a lower resolution 1440p and less graphical fidelity id definitely get it over the One X as a game pass machine

That's what I was thinking but as another posterentioned the One X enhanced games won't run on it so this gen games will run same as One S, which is pretty bad..

Vyse Remastered

murpho999 wrote: »

A storage card for around half the price of the console. Forget it.

If I run out of space I'll just keep active games on SSD drive and library on external hard drive of just delete. As I can always download them as required.
So just a little bif of management and I'll be fine.

I'm sure in future there'll be other expansion cards available from other manufacturers and more sizes. So I'll wait for that.

I would be of the same mind. There's only a handful of games I actively play. It might be something I invest in in the future but certainly not to begin with.

Homelander

djan wrote: »

That's what I was thinking but as another posterentioned the One X enhanced games won't run on it so this gen games will run same as One S, which is pretty bad..

No, they won't. The console will be able to add all sorts of enhancements, it just won't be 4K.

It will still look better than the One S and the framerate will be miles better.

djan

Homelander wrote: »

No, they won't. The console will be able to add all sorts of enhancements, it just won't be 4K.

It will still look better than the One S and the framerate will be miles better.

Ah OK, as long as it can play at min 1080p at 60fps I'm happy out

Tipsy McSwagger

So it definitely looks like Doom Eternal is coming to Game Pass Oct 1. I held off on buying it as I wanted it on the Series X, delighted now I don’t have to buy it.

ZiabR

Homelander wrote: »

No, they won't. The console will be able to add all sorts of enhancements, it just won't be 4K.

It will still look better than the One S and the framerate will be miles better.

Be careful there, you are not correct. Series S/X wont be able to add all sorts of enhancements to titles that have not and will not be optimised to make use of the velocity architecture. I have mentioned why in a previous post.

ZiabR

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Is there a usb port you can just plug in your own storage like the one x..

Yes, 3 USB ports and yes you can just plug your HDD in from your One X.

Homelander

ZiabR wrote: »

Be careful there, you are not correct. Series S/X wont be able to add all sorts of enhancements to titles that have not and will not be optimised to make use of the velocity architecture. I have mentioned why in a previous post.

No, you are mixing up "Enhanced for Xbox One X" specifically, with general improvements.

The Series S will run Xbox One games better than the One S. It is not true to say that games on the Series S will be the same as the One S.

Take for example Apex Legends. On One S, this runs at 720-1080P dynamic with 30-60fps.

One Series S this will be solid 1080P 60fps locked.

Xbox Series S brings its additional horsepower to bear in improving the experience of Xbox One S titles instead. This is more limiting in some respects (a game hard-coded to run at 900p will not run any higher on Series S, for example) but the new console benefits from increased resolutions in games that use dynamic resolution scaling, as well as improvements to texture filtering quality.

Obviously, running games from solid state storage reduces loading times significantly, while the Auto HDR feature we've seen running on Series X also features on Series S - all games should present nicely on HDR screens, whether they natively support high dynamic range or not.

It's a feature I personally can't wait to test. Finally, it goes without saying that CPU-limited titles should also deliver more stable performance at target frame-rates.

However, there is one more feature that Microsoft has only mentioned in passing - and now we know more details, we're excited by it: the idea that select Xbox One titles will run at double the frame-rate on the new consoles, including Series S.

"We designed the Series S to enhance the Xbox One S games in a way that the Xbox One X can't do," system architect Andrew Goossen tells us. "We made it easy for existing Xbox One S games to be updated to run with double the frame-rate when played on Series S as well. When games are updated, existing games can query to determine whether they're running on the new console. And in terms of the performance, the Series S provides well over double the effective CPU and GPU performance over the Xbox One, making it pretty straightforward for the games to do this. And in fact, the Series S GPU runs the Xbox One S games with better performance than the Xbox One X."

Homelander

Unless your argument is that developers will ignore that ability, but for the AAA games of course they will update them to take advantage of the Series S.

NeitherJohn

Don't forget the automatically added HDR.

Hurrache

ZiabR wrote: »

Be careful there, you are not correct. Series S/X wont be able to add all sorts of enhancements to titles that have not and will not be optimised to make use of the velocity architecture. I have mentioned why in a previous post.

It can add HDR as far back as original Xbox titles, and HDR makes a great difference.

Edit, beaten to it.

wes

marcbrophy wrote: »

Look, the way it works is, these drives read at such a quick speed that there's no need for duplication of assets across the install directory.

These 70Gig games current gen, will suddenly be 25 or 30 Gig next gen.

Be careful about the allure of buying extra storage, until you see how quickly you get through the inbuilt storage first

Of course there's always people like me who have 8TB extra storage hooked up to my 1X

The install size of Demon Souls is like 60 GB:
https://www.millenium.gg/news/20291.html

Also the Spidey games as well are pretty big. The smaller size thing doesn't appear to be the case .

Varik

wes wrote: »

The install size of Demon Souls is like 60 GB:
https://www.millenium.gg/news/20291.html

Also the Spidey games as well are pretty big. The smaller size thing doesn't appear to be the case .

The games for the new consoles will also have much larger rez textures, and probably a bit more variety when they can get them so quickly off the SSDs without having to reuse one with a different shader effect.

Not to mention the audio, the PS3 blu ray disc compared to the 360 DVDs were mostly filled with uncompressed audio, and now this gen both consoles are taking audio seriously again.

ZiabR

Homelander wrote: »

Unless your argument is that developers will ignore that ability, but for the AAA games of course they will update them to take advantage of the Series S.

Yes, this is exactly what I was saying in my previous post. I don't see all AAA developers going back to 2-4 year old games to update them to make use of velocity.

Of course, some of the games that are still current and making large amounts of money will be updated/patched but we don't have any indications as to what studios will spend the money and time to go back over games to optimise them for the Series S/X.

By default Series S runs current-gen games in One S 'profile'. Which for many games means locked 30fps and 900p.

Games which struggle to hit 30fps on One S will be a solid 30 on Series S. Games with dynamic resolution will not drop the res as much - however this dynamic res is often capped at 900p.

It has the oomph to run games much better if they are given a Series S specific patch/profile. Not a lot of work is required. Presumably many games will receive this patch. However judgement should be reserved until devs actually announce what will/won't be patched, and what kind of timeline. I would expect every major first party title to get a patch.

ZiabR

ZiabR wrote: »

Yes, this is exactly what I was saying in my previous post. I don't see all AAA developers going back to 2-4 year old games to update them to make use of velocity.

Of course, some of the games that are still current and making large amounts of money will be updated/patched but we don't have any indications as to what studios will spend the money and time to go back over games to optimise them for the Series S/X.

Well we know Bethesda etc will :-)
I'd imagine there will be some sort of incentive for 3rd parties to optimize games when bringing them to game pass.

Fingleberries

ZiabR wrote: »

Yes, this is exactly what I was saying in my previous post. I don't see all AAA developers going back to 2-4 year old games to update them to make use of velocity.

Of course, some of the games that are still current and making large amounts of money will be updated/patched but we don't have any indications as to what studios will spend the money and time to go back over games to optimise them for the Series S/X.

Also, Microsoft may be able to update the game profile in the emulator on behalf of a title, with no input needed from the developer.

Jason Roland on Digital Foundry wrote:

"In some cases, for more service-based games or games that are still have active communities, it'll actually be easier for the developer to do it," says Xbox director of program management, Jason Ronald. "And then in other cases, we may be able to do things at our level, on behalf of the title, similar to how we've done it in the past. These are all things that we're actively working through as we get closer to launch and we'll have more to share about specific enhancements in specific titles closer to launch."

Microsoft interview with Digital Foundry

MrStuffins

Basil3 wrote: »

I have very little sympathy for people that are stupid enough to confuse One X with Series X. If you're spending that kind of money, surely you do at least a tiny bit of research.

This is extremely harsh. A lot of the time it's some kids ignorant ma who is making the order. Not everyone's ma is as savvy as you'd like them to be. Confusing "One X" with "Series X" is very understandable and is not the fault of the mammy, it's Microsoft being idiots!

Here's an example:

Back a few years ago, my ma wanted to watch the Oscar-winning, Steven Spielberg movie "Lincoln". I had a media player that I attached to my mother's TV and I had hundreds of movies on there. I added Lincoln, showed her how to use it briefly and went out.

When I came back, I asked her what she thought of the movie. She wasn't very impressed! She was confused as the lead actor looked nothing like Daniel Day Lewis and really questioned the historical accuracy of the movie.

Having not watched it yet, I asked "What part in particular?"

Her reply: "Well......... what was with the vampires?"

She had, of course, watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter!

Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Auto-HDR is done at Microsoft's level...

“In partnership with the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, Xbox Series X delivers a new, innovative HDR reconstruction technique which enables the platform to automatically add HDR support to games,” explains Jason Ronald, a partner director of program management for the Xbox platform team. “As this technique is handled by the platform itself, it allows us to enable HDR with zero impact to the game’s performance and we can also apply it to Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles developed almost 20 years ago, well before the existence of HDR.”

In fact, frame unlocks seem to be done at Microsoft's level and not the developer...

"Microsoft is also planning to improve and preserve some older games that run on the Xbox Series X by upping framerates. “The compatibility team has invented brand new techniques that enable even more titles to run at higher resolutions and image quality while still respecting the artistic intent and vision of the original creators,” says Ronald. “We are also creating whole new classes of innovations including the ability to double the frame rate of a select set of titles from 30fps to 60fps or 60fps to 120fps.”


https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/28/21272937/microsoft-xbox-series-x-automatic-hdr-support-framerates