Support NeoGAF

[Daneel Elijah]

Epic Publishing gives you the money to make your game, then you do a 50/50(this can be negotiated) revenue share until you have paid them back, after that the profit is yours.
Epic Publishing has no say in direction the game goes, all they provide is money.....I dont think they even print disks for you, or atleast I have not seen any games theyve printed a disk for.

Once Remedy is out from this deal they can go to 505 or whoever to publish Quantum Break 2, main thing with this deal was money.
I think Alan Wake was still a question mark IP so shopping it around was probably hard, Epic agrees you obviously take the deal.....but if you want to be on Steam you either get out from under the deal somehow or use another publisher.

So more like a bank than a partner. I can see that being bad with the exclusivity on a smaller storefront making getting out of it a lot harder than it should be if all the PC market was available. Thanks.

 

[Heisenberg007]

So if the series s has compromised the quality then the SX/PS5 version would be native 4k/60fps right? And of course with the max settings that offers PC version.

It is just not resolution and framerates. It is also about the overall vision: game mechanics, ambition, features, and more.

We'll never know if a game had crazy ambition and vision, for example, regarding destructibility and gameplay mechanics around that destructibility, but had to be scaled down because they were working with the lowest common denominator, Series S, that couldn't pull it off.

 

[Krathoon]

When does Alan Wake 2 come out anyway? I still have not finished the previous games.

I am at a point now that I might as well just play the sequel and maybe go back the the other games later on.

 

[shamoomoo]

Not sure if you're trolling, but I'll bite.

It's more complicated than that - MS enforces feature parity between the Series X and Series S, and also against the PS5.

Nintendo, as far as I'm aware, has no such requirements.

Also,the switch is an older console in comparison to the Series S and devs are not required to launch their games on the switch. That dude is buggin'.

 

[shamoomoo]

So if the series s has compromised the quality then the SX/PS5 version would be native 4k/60fps right? And of course with the max settings that offers PC version.

I'm not sure about Microsoft but where was it promised games were all going to be 4k at 60fps? Also,you don't need 4k to run games at max settings.

 

[BennyBlanco]

So if the series s has compromised the quality then the SX/PS5 version would be native 4k/60fps right? And of course with the max settings that offers PC version.

This is a UE5 game with advanced raytracing. It will likely be 720p or less in the performance mode on ps5/series x.

Feels like these games are only including a 60 fps mode to avoid the backlash.

 

[adamsapple]

The work they did on the Series S version is what led to there being a Performance mode on SX and PS5, Thomas said so pretty directly in the video.

Looks like the work is benefiting all console owners.

This is a UE5 game with advanced raytracing. It will likely be 720p or less in the performance mode on ps5/series x.

Feels like these games are only including a 60 fps mode to avoid the backlash.

Alan Wake 2? It's not UE, It's Remedy's own Northlight engine.

 

[mrcroket]

It is just not resolution and framerates. It is also about the overall vision: game mechanics, ambition, features, and more.

We'll never know if a game had crazy ambition and vision, for example, regarding destructibility and gameplay mechanics around that destructibility, but had to be scaled down because they were working with the lowest common denominator, Series S, that couldn't pull it off.

Except than cpu are pretty much the same on both consoles, and graphics always can be scaled down. All you are talking are cpu related things.

 

[adamsapple]

The game looks fantastic, but we don't really know that they didn't make compromises.

This is the thing with underpowered "anchor" consoles. We will never know what the vision would have been if their baseline was higher. We'll only get to see the final version and we can make a judgment whether it looks good or not.

But we will never what it could have been, and whether they did or didn't make compromises on their original vision -- which could have been way more ambitious for all we know.

You don't have to wonder about it, Thomas pretty clearly says that the game was envisioned as a 30 FPS game on console so they can maintain their visual vision, and later he says they only really started Series S optimization back in May, which means it wasn't really a factor through the development of the game.

 

[Heisenberg007]

You don't have to wonder about it, Thomas pretty clearly says that the game was envisioned as a 30 FPS game on console so they can maintain their visual vision, and later he says they only really started Series S optimization back in May, which means it wasn't really a factor through the development of the game.

1) Again, not talking about resolution and frame rates.
2) Not talking about Alan Wake 2. Talking about all Gen-9 games in general.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Except than cpu are pretty much the same on both consoles, and graphics always can be scaled down. All you are talking are cpu related things.

No, the CPU is clearly constrained. Combined with the lower GPU and RAM, it puts restrictions on what the console can do. Otherwise, why would so many games be missing 60 FPS modes on Series S? You're going by on-paper specs.

 

[ChoosableOne]

 

[mrcroket]

No, the CPU is clearly constrained. Combined with the lower GPU and RAM, it puts restrictions on what the console can do. Otherwise, why would so many games be missing 60 FPS modes on Series S? You're going by on-paper specs.

Because to have a 60fps, series s would have to reduce the resolution under 720p in some games.

 

[adamsapple]

1) Again, not talking about resolution and frame rates.
2) Not talking about Alan Wake 2. Talking about all Gen-9 games in general.

Using this as a reference, and generally how games are made, specific console level optimizations re generally the last part of the dev cycle, so, again, I don't think it's fair to say Series S has potentially limited any games vision. TBH this generation so far has just been the same as last generation with FSR and some games having RT here and there. It's not like we've seen any kind of notable paradigm shift in the kind of games being made.

The last big one that I can think of where it truly felt like a game that couldn't be possible on hardware before it was Dead Rising.

 

[Black_Stride]

When does Alan Wake 2 come out anyway? I still have not finished the previous games.

I am at a point now that I might as well just play the sequel and maybe go back the the other games later on.

This is a UE5 game with advanced raytracing. It will likely be 720p or less in the performance mode on ps5/series x.

Feels like these games are only including a 60 fps mode to avoid the backlash.

This is NOT a UE5 game, its northlight but it is using advanced RayTracing.....on PC.
Itll likely be the new benchmark game rivalled only by Cyberpunk.....here is to praying its as parallelized as CP2077 so we dont get CPU bottlenecked.

P.S: Control on console only used RT reflections, I highly doubt the console version of this game is gonna be using anywhere near the full wormage of what this engine can do.

 

[Chronicle]

It’s going to be a really weird couple of years for you when the Switch 2 comes out and becomes the low end target.

Silly Rabbit. Switch is for kids!

 

[Hudo]

Still sad that they named the woman "Saga" and not "Sega". Missed opportunity.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

What a polite way to say it was a pile of shit where they had to put their hands deep into to get some results.

 

[SportsFan581]

Just kill the forced parity with the Series X (which has begun) but other than that

The moment that the they stopped forcing their catalog of software to be available across both machines in a feature complete way (with the exception of non essential modes like the 60fps and splitscreen and things like that) is the day the Xbox dies, period. Wanting one is wanting the other, they've sold too many of the XSS to not ensure that it is fully supported.

A new great game coming to Xbox, but not for the Xbox you bought, isn't a good sales pitch.

 

[mrBarrelNut]

Alan Wake II will be an amazing next gen experience... on PC with high-end Nvidia GPU. On consoles, not so much.

 

[Flutta]

They kind of handicapped themselves. They will always have to make a version that runs on the lesser console.

Hopefully, Microsoft does not drop it like a hot potato like they did with the Kinect.

Even if they wanted to they can’t. A lawsuit storm would happen. Also it’s the console that sold the most out the two. I think the split was 80% for S and 20% for X or something in those lines.

They knew what they were doing and that was to handicap this whole gen. But it backfired and that’s a good thing.

 

[Flutta]

Using this as a reference, and generally how games are made, specific console level optimizations re generally the last part of the dev cycle, so, again, I don't think it's fair to say Series S has potentially limited any games vision.

You say anything to please your corpo lords don’t you? Even if it makes you look like a clown.

That’s dedication right there. You never cease to amaze me. Ma man. What a Ledge!!

 

[adamsapple]

You say anything to please your corpo lords don’t you? Even if it makes you look like a clown.

That’s dedication right there. You never cease to amaze me. Ma man. What a Ledge!!

Thank you, but I don't deserve this praise, I didn't say anything Thomas from Remedy didn't say himself in the interview.

Remedy didn't even begin Series S specific optimization until May.

So it's kinda unrealistic to say that it impacted development across the last couple of years.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

The moment that the they stopped forcing their catalog of software to be available across both machines in a feature complete way (with the exception of non essential modes like the 60fps and splitscreen and things like that) is the day the Xbox dies, period. Wanting one is wanting the other, they've sold too many of the XSS to not ensure that it is fully supported.

A new great game coming to Xbox, but not for the Xbox you bought, isn't a good sales pitch.

We have already seen it with BG3 and now that genie is out of the bottle and that’s what I mean by forced parity is different modes not dropping a game altogether

 

[SportsFan581]

We have already seen it with BG3 and now that genie is out of the bottle and that’s what I mean by forced parity is different modes not dropping a game altogether

Understood. I only brought that angle up because I think MS would have to tread very, very carefully in this area.

I don't think the 60fps modes were ever in the bottle, as we've had games capped at 30fps from the very beginning. As for the split-screen in BG3 I guess we'll have to see if more games get released that run into that problem, I doubt it will be too much of an issue though since BG3 is the only one 3 years in. I don't think much has changed at all on the licensing end. Time will tell.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I don't understand the issue. There are people playing Cyberpunk with a 3060 and nobody gets angry at them.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I don't understand the issue. There are people playing Cyberpunk with a 3060 and nobody gets angry at them.

The issue is that if 3060 didn't have the required power, CDPR could just drop it. Or the 3060 user could just select 720p with the lowest settings, run the game at 18-20 FPS, and just let it go thinking "ah, my PC isn't powerful enough; I need to upgrade."

That's not an option for CDPR or either Series S users.

CDPR has to release a functionally acceptable game on Series S (if they're releasing on Xbox Series X), and Series S users will expect that the game will run perfectly fine when they boot it up. They also don't have settings to tweak and make it better in case it doesn't.

That means CDPR has to design its game with Series S in mind. So the PS5 and Series X versions are just suped-up versions (higher res, frames, and better settings) of the Series S version of the game.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

The issue is that if 3060 didn't have the required power, CDPR could just drop it. Or the 3060 user could just select 720p with the lowest settings, run the game at 18-20 FPS, and just let it go thinking "ah, my PC isn't powerful enough; I need to upgrade."

That's not an option for CDPR or either Series S users.

CDPR has to release a functionally acceptable game on Series S (if they're releasing on Xbox Series X), and Series S users will expect that the game will run perfectly fine when they boot it up. They also don't have settings to tweak and make it better in case it doesn't.

That means CDPR has to design its game with Series S in mind. So the PS5 and Series X versions are just suped-up versions (higher res, frames, and better settings) of the Series S version of the game.

Well CDPro would never drop the 3060 because it's the most sold GPU. They don't make videogames for the 5% of people with a 4080/90.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Well CDPro would never drop the 3060 because it's the most sold GPU. They don't make videogames for the 5% of people with a 4080/90.

That wasn't the discussion. You were discussing a hypothetical scenario. And Cyberpunk 2077 runs just fine on a 3060 in reality.

 

[Lysandros]

I was looking through the /r/games post on this same matter and noticed a different AAA dev chiming in with their experience working on the Series S for an upcoming major UE5 title. The OOM acronym they used in the reply means out of memory.

As i always say even XSS' whole GPU power including massively lower geometry and fill rate capabilities is lower in the problem list. I really don't understand why some posters are still focusing in floating point operations so much. The main problem of the machine is the RAM amount first and its bandwidth second.

 

[Lysandros]

No, the CPU is clearly constrained. Combined with the lower GPU and RAM, it puts restrictions on what the console can do. Otherwise, why would so many games be missing 60 FPS modes on Series S? You're going by on-paper specs.

In other words the already insufficient 224/56 GB/s pool constrains the CPU usage which can consume up to 40-50 GB/s of bandwidth by itself. With the added contention cost the bandwidth available for the GPU can drop to really pitiful levels.

 

[Heisenberg007]

As i always say even XSS' whole GPU power including massively lower geometry and fill rate capabilities is lower in the problem list. I really don't understand why some posters are still focusing in floating point operations so much. The main problem of the machine is the RAM amount first and its bandwidth second.

Especially we've already seen the shortcomings of relying so much theoretical floating-point operational capabilities.

 

[BlackTron]

Even if I agree Series S is holding back next gen games. Report it with real facts not this cringy twisted bait. Like Xbox doesn't have enough authentic negative news without having to contrive shit

 

[FireFly]

In other words the already insufficient 224/56 GB/s pool constrains the CPU usage which can consume up to 40-50 GB/s of bandwidth by itself. With the added contention cost the bandwidth available for the GPU can drop to really pitiful levels.

In terms of fillrate, compute and texture rate, the Series S is ~83% of the 5 TF RX 5500 XT, which has the same 224 GB/s available and performs at the standard 1.25X multiplier vs GCN parts. If we subtract 50 GB/s for the CPU on the Series S that would put it at 174 GB/s, giving it 78% of the 5500 XT's bandwidth. So it has slightly less bandwidth available relative to its performance. But that doesn't account for the improvements in color compression AMD made with RDNA 2.

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Devs really love the Series S.

This is a One S you imbecile.

 

[OceanGaming]

.

 

[Black_Stride]

That screenshot just tricked me into pre-ordering

if you ever need to justify why you have a GPU thats worth its weight, i have a game for you, and its not CP2077 and its not Portal RTX, its Alan Wake 2.


I can already predict the meltdowns cuz now we will see the gap between 7900XTX and 4090.


P.S Series S in the corner doing its best......dont bully it.

 

[SlimySnake]

As i always say even XSS' whole GPU power including massively lower geometry and fill rate capabilities is lower in the problem list. I really don't understand why some posters are still focusing in floating point operations so much. The main problem of the machine is the RAM amount first and its bandwidth second.

I’ve been saying this since launch. The series s is not performing like it’s 4 tflops spec suggests. Every 4k game on Xbox runs at 1080p on the Xss. The gpu is acting like a 3 tflops gpu. It should be around 1296p if it was 1/3rd the power of the xsx.

If you put ps5 in the mix, it’s performing like a 2.5 tflops rdna 2 gpu. The 1.45 ghz clock speeds along with the ram bottlenecks are severely holding it back.

And that’s just the resolution, literally every game also pairs back visual settings beyond cutting resolution by 3/4th.

 

[FireFly]

I’ve been saying this since launch. The series s is not performing like it’s 4 tflops spec suggests. Every 4k game on Xbox runs at 1080p on the Xss. The gpu is acting like a 3 tflops gpu. It should be around 1296p if it was 1/3rd the power of the xsx.

If you put ps5 in the mix, it’s performing like a 2.5 tflops rdna 2 gpu. The 1.45 ghz clock speeds along with the ram bottlenecks are severely holding it back.

And that’s just the resolution, literally every game also pairs back visual settings beyond cutting resolution by 3/4th.

You only see around a 3X performance improvement when moving from 4K to 1080p across all titles: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-7800-xt/31.html

And in many (most?) cases the XSX version is running below 4K, so developers have a choice between cutting resolution further or lowering settings. The 1440p marketing was just marketing.

 

[crackajack]

[...]The OOM acronym they used in the reply means out of memory.
[...]

Devs who "constantly" get to OOM situations never would have shipped a game for PS360 (or N64, PS1, SNES) with a mindset that the HW can even be a problem. The HW is the fixed foundation to work with, you either work with that or you don't at all, but getting OOM is solely any devs failure because he creates the variables that make it exceed a defined known limit.

As this dev here says RAM is abundant on PC, and now also kinda on console, so many/some (other) devs seem to have unlearned (or are too young to ever need to know) how to make a game on machines with small memories. As though Valhalla, Metro, RDR2, Mafia remake did not run acceptably on PS4One, or Uncharted, Gears, GTA, Remember Me did not run on PS360 etc etc. I think I get why Indies need brute force methods to get their game running, just look at the short credits, but any slightly bigger studio should have the expertise to optimise their game to the point where they are exactly one step below OOM from start to finish. That's were you are supposed to be, to fully utilize a machine. On XSS but also on PS5 and XSX. XSS does not hold anything back, devs not able to dive into the depths of any targeted machine are.

 

[mckmas8808]

This thread is also going to get closed.
The mod wont even have to type a new reason for closing, they can just copy paste:
Dial it back on the clickbait titles misrepresenting what the developer has said.

Why cant you guys just quote what he said:
The GPU is an issue, the memory is a big problem


On Topic:
Since the other thread got closed.
Who gives a shit about the Series S except Series S owners?
All i care about is Full RT.......this game is def gonna be another benchmark title like Control.

Everything in this scene is so grounded, it almost looks offline.
I pray I have enough GPU power free to DLAA this game for some clean clean AA with full Raytracing.
I play at 1440p before you ask.

This is a video game forum. Most of us care about this conversation.

 

[mckmas8808]

4TF's has always been it's weakest part..
Saying ram is silly especially when many of its games are lower resolution and textures.

A dev is telling you the RAM matters too. So why push back on that? Clearly, he knows what he's talking about.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

A dev is telling you the RAM matters too. So why push back on that? Clearly, he knows what he's talking about.

Sounds like a double whammy

 

[Ge Os]

Devs: We hate working with Series S, its soo weak.
Also devs: We got this game to work on nintendo switch, we're soo cool!

* looks at MK1 on Switch *

 

[Physiognomonics]

The work they did on the Series S version is what led to there being a Performance mode on SX and PS5, Thomas said so pretty directly in the video.

Looks like the work is benefiting all console owners.



Alan Wake 2? It's not UE, It's Remedy's own Northlight engine.

Sure the same way cross-gen (PS4 / PS5) dev lead to games having a 60fps mode on PS5. Do you think forever cross-gen development is good for developer creativity?

 

[adamsapple]

Sure the same way cross-gen (PS4 / PS5) dev lead to games having a 60fps mode on PS5. Do you think forever cross-gen development is good for developer creativity?

Bad analogy, PS4 is cross-gen, Series S is the same gen.

Alan Wake 2 is not happening on PS4/XBO gen.

 

[Lysandros]

In terms of fillrate, compute and texture rate, the Series S is ~83% of the 5 TF RX 5500 XT, which has the same 224 GB/s available and performs at the standard 1.25X multiplier vs GCN parts. If we subtract 50 GB/s for the CPU on the Series S that would put it at 174 GB/s, giving it 78% of the 5500 XT's bandwidth. So it has slightly less bandwidth available relative to its performance. But that doesn't account for the improvements in color compression AMD made with RDNA 2.

XSS doesn't have a discret GPU, it has an APU. You are not accounting the disproportionate cost of memory contention which is additional to CPU's 40-50 GB/s. Higher the CPU utilisation lesser the bandwidth available to the GPU, that is the dilemma which is not a problem for 5500 XT with its exclusive pool on PC.

 

[FireFly]

XSS doesn't have a discret GPU, it has an APU. You are not accounting the disproportionate cost of memory contention which is additional to CPU's 40-50 GB/s. Higher the CPU utilisation lesser the bandwidth available to the GPU, that is the dilemma which is not a problem for 5500 XT with its exclusive pool on PC.

How is this cost to be quantified?

 

[Lysandros]

I’ve been saying this since launch. The series s is not performing like it’s 4 tflops spec suggests. Every 4k game on Xbox runs at 1080p on the Xss. The gpu is acting like a 3 tflops gpu. It should be around 1296p if it was 1/3rd the power of the xsx.

If you put ps5 in the mix, it’s performing like a 2.5 tflops rdna 2 gpu. The 1.45 ghz clock speeds along with the ram bottlenecks are severely holding it back.

And that’s just the resolution, literally every game also pairs back visual settings beyond cutting resolution by 3/4th.

Except there is not such a thing as "acting like X. Tflops GPU". Luckily we (most of us) don't feel obliged to measure anything and everything with such a variable and unreliable GPU metric. It's a mere a contributor among many other, it's not holy.

 

[Lysandros]

How is this cost to be quantified?

We of course can not give an exact figure but just to give an idea from PS4, the same mechanism should apply to XSS both being HUMA/APU designs.