Microsoft Scorpio

[Chindie]

Rumours seem to suggest Microsoft will make some sort of announcement about this this week.

I shan't hold my breath but it'll certainly be interesting if they do. They completely **** up with the Xbox One, lessons learnt? Will they manage to actually get the message on point after the disastrous mudding last year at E3? Will be obscenely priced? Etc etc.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Chindie

[villa4europe]

there was a rumour last week that their e3 presentation this year was going to be games games games so it would make sense for them to have a separate hardware showing

[hogso]

Speculation that this will be demoed with Forza, which will surely look insanely good. Of more interest though is the rumour that RDR2 will also be used to show it off. Now that really could be special.

[Daweii]

As anything hardware based this will live or die not on its price, but on its content.

Microsoft's issue is they don't have much content, at least not content people are that excited for. PlayStation 4 Pro is selling well largely because Sony are in the prime of their console life. Sony have never, and I mean never had a content launch in a singular year as strong as 2017 is shaping up to be. Yes the PS2 had some stellar years, but 2017 is stacked and it's all in Sony's favour. The current exclusives release list for Xbox One in 2017 can be counted on one finger (Halo Wars 2) now there is chance for Sea of Thieves, Forza 7 and Crackdown 3 but they have no release date yet and that's an issue. Xbox Scorpio could be the most powerful console ever made, but without games who is buying one? Yes you could buy one to play all the Xbox One games at likely more stable frame rates, but what about the games that push the hardware? There is nothing currently and with nothing there comes no reason to buy one.

I am looking forward to seeing Xbox Scorpio, but I am more interested in what games they have planned to leverage this hardware as without that what's the point? 

[sharkyvilla]

[villa4europe]

i think they're getting another console exclusive...cities skyline is coming, really good game, shame my work laptop couldnt cope once the city started growing

[Chindie]

Confirmed hardware reveal on Thursday. Some teasing that the reveal is going to excite people.

[Daweii]

18 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Confirmed hardware reveal on Thursday. Some teasing that the reveal is going to excite people.

Reveals always excite. It's not until people digest what they just saw and heard do they decide if it was truly cool or average.

I'm hyped for the Scorpio reveal. Whether I will give a shit 24 hours later is yet to be seen. 

[Chindie]

Indeed.

But i think the suggestion is the details will be tantalising.

The problem will come initially in how much they charge for it, (which I'll be surprised if they announce on Thursday). It is dead on arrival if they get this wrong.

And if they haven't learned anything from the Xbox One launch and tried to push the anti consumer stuff again. Or the awful initial reaction at E3 last year which just confused everyone.

[Chindie]

On paper, it's pretty powerful at first glance.

Expect a sobering price.

[PieFacE]

Looks good to me, building DX12 into the CPU (or whatevever they have done) reducing CPU load by 50% seems like an incredibly good idea. 

Not sure how this works for games that aren't DX12 though? 

Shame there wasn't really any game footage, and the game they seemed to focus on was Forza which could hit 1080p/60fps on Xbox One. Would have been interesting to see BF1 demo'd on it. 

i'm guessing, £430-450 at launch. 

I'm guessing MS are trying to make the Xbox the place to go for anyone who generally just plays multiplatform games. Seemed to work well for them in the 360/PS3 era.

The Xbox first party games are looking a bit lonely but I'm not seeing much from Sony either which interests me. Apart from Horizon, there isn't much that has really interested me. Hoping E3 will be good for Xbox with the announcement of some more 1P games, 

Edited April 6, 2017 by PieFacE

[Stevo985]

So what is this, for the layman?

Is this a "Next gen" console, or is it to the Xbone what the PS4 Pro is to PS4

[villa4europe]

its what ps4 pro is (albeit more powerful)

im sure they've said no exclusives, they're chasing the PC looks prettier all that matters are amazing graphics american gamer and id expect MS are still doing quite well in that market

as others have alluded to though they simply dont have the games right now, paying £450 (?) for a scorpio and £600-1000 for a 4k TV just to play a shinier version of forza? not for me

but then my opinion of the pro is exactly the same too

Edited April 6, 2017 by villa4europe

[PieFacE]

As someone who already owns a shiny 4k TV I love the idea of playing BF1/Halo in 4k. 

If that's even possible. Hopefully this machine will do it. 

[Daweii]

1 hour ago, PieFacE said:

Looks good to me, building DX12 into the CPU (or whatevever they have done) reducing CPU load by 50% seems like an incredibly good idea. 

Not sure how this works for games that aren't DX12 though? 

It'll likely have a small effect though likely not all that noticeable.

Most Xbox One games are DX12 as the console shifted to a DX12 process early into the consoles life, but we need to see more about how Microsoft plan to go about "old games" on Scorpio.

Phil Spencer has said in the past that on games that use a variable frame rate any boosts to hardware will yield better performance. That said many games are locked, so I suppose it will again come down to how easily Microsoft can convince developers to create "Scorpio Mode" patches to unlock the frame rate. As we have seen on PS4 Pro though most developers don't give a shit about "Pro Mode" patches so it may be that old games just won't benefit from Scorpio much just like they don't benefit from PS4 Pro much. 

We'll likely hear more at a reveal event or E3. As it stands though expect this to be huge for games that have a variable or uncapped frame rate, but unexciting for the majority of old games. 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Daweii

[villa4europe]

1 hour ago, PieFacE said:

As someone who already owns a shiny 4k TV I love the idea of playing BF1/Halo in 4k. 

If that's even possible. Hopefully this machine will do it. 

I wouldn't play halo on any tv, I've had gears of war 4 since first week of December and still not opened it

BF1 I can imagine looks amazing in 4k

theres just not the tv content to justify it at the moment, if anything I'm going backwards and relying on the firestick for the majority of what I watch

the tv and Scorpio are the same though, if I didn't own one and was in the market for one then I'd futureproof myself and get the top one, upgrading though? I simply don't play the xbone enough as it is, I'm sat here thinking cuphead will probably be the only xbone game I buy this year, if ea access was on PS4 I'd sell it

[Daweii]

Okay so now that the dust has settled this is what I know about the system codenamed 'Scorpio'.

• The CPU is a custom 8-core AMD chip based on the current Xbox One CPU though it runs about 30% faster.
• The GPU is a custom AMD chip that is 4.6 times more powerful the than GPU in the Xbox One. (1.8 times more powerful than PS4 Pro) 
• The system will be shipping with 12GB of high speed GDDR5 memory although 4GB will be reserved for the system.
• The system will ship with a 1TB HDD that connects to a 50% faster bandwidth bus to assist with streaming 4K assets and textures.

Currently the system is performing well under current test conditions.

As of right now only one game has been tested on the Scorpio which was Forza Motorsport 6. At a native 4K using the same exact settings as the base Xbox One game Scorpio managed a solid 60FPS, but the more impressive part is it only needed to use 66% of the GPU to do it. The same game was then tested again at PC ultra graphics and Scorpio still managed a solid 60FPS at a native 4K (Scorpio used 88% GPU this time). The takeaway is Scorpio barely breaks into a sweat running games at a native 4K, and even at the highest settings the engine can muster it is the engine that taps out first the GPU still has the overhead for more. 

Now I will add that Microsoft chose Forza Motorsport 6 deliberately as it is the most optimised game on Xbox One, but the results are still very promising.

Though I hear some of you cry "what about us without 4K TV's" well Microsoft have you covered. Microsoft are committed that unlike PS4 Pro all improved Scorpio modes for games must be available regardless of the display used. So even at 1080p if the game allows you to bump up the graphics, run at 4K and downscale for superior image quality or even run at higher frames rates you can.

Microsoft are also committed to making sure Scorpio improves every single Xbox One and Xbox 360 game played on the console. Microsoft have stated that whether a game gets a Scorpio Enhanced patch or not they will run better as they will still have access to the full power of Scorpio. These are some of the benefits that could come of this;

• More stable frame rates.
• Less or no screen tearing.
• Maximum resolution at all times in variable resolution games.
• Nicer looking textures.
• Faster load times

All of this will also cross over to Xbox 360 titles. Microsoft have been sure to state that allowing this level of improvement for Xbox One/360 titles has not been easy to engineer.

Overall Scorpio looks to be a masterpiece of engineering. This is Microsoft firing on all cylinders the same Microsoft that ushered in the original Xbox and Xbox 360 into the world, rather than the Microsoft that ushered in the TV! TV! TV! focused Xbox One. There is still a big cloud hanging over the Scorpio due to the lack of upcoming software, but if Microsoft can get this system some great launch titles (Sea of Thieves, Crackdown) and prove that games like Red Dead Redemption 2 are vastly better on Scorpio then there is promise. E3 will be huge for Microsoft as they need to show off the software that will be selling the Scorpio come November 2017, get that right and regardless of price this console could do well.

[Davkaus]

Not only is Forza well optimised, racing games tend to be some of the least demanding games out there. It's promising, but given the GTX 1080 struggles with 4k at 60fps in a lot of titles, this is certasinly not something that should be expected across the board.

Let's see how it gets on if they try and throw The Witcher 3 at it  

Edited April 7, 2017 by Davkaus

[Daweii]

49 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Not only is Forza well optimised, racing games tend to be some of the least demanding games out there. It's promising, but given the GTX 1080 struggles with 4k at 60fps in a lot of titles, this is certasinly not something that should be expected across the board.

Let's see how it gets on if they try and throw The Witcher 3 at it  

I don't think we can use PC as a rule for how hard 4K is to do.

PC isn't a single purpose platform. PC is an amalgamation of parts, of infinite hardware configurations and that creates infinite potential for performance to be wasted or under-utilised. Most GPU's in most PC games are only as good as the drivers that get released to maximise performance in said game, but even with an up to date driver the performance can be lacking for a multitude of reasons which hinders 4K on PC. 

'Scorpio' is a single purpose platform within an ecosystem of two consoles. Yes developers do have to consider that games coming out in November will still have to run on Xbox One, but the new system will be treated as a new console and the games for it will be optimised for that console 100%. All consoles punch above their weight as they are single purpose devices. It doesn't surprise me that 'Scorpio' is doing 4K 60FPS with the equivalent of an OC'd RX 480 when to achieve the same in Forza Apex on PC you need a GTX 980Ti or higher. 

I adore PC gaming, but the very nature of how PC's are put together is what is making 4K on PC so hard to do. If PC's were exactly like consoles we would have cracked 4K years ago. 

PS. The Witcher 3 on Scorpio would be a nice test. I have a feeling it would do it just fine provided some of the over the top settings are turned off like the hair effects. Those hair effects are insane even on a 1080Ti 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2017 by Daweii

[LakotaDakota]

To me it just seems a strange time to release it. 4 years into the xbox one cycle, a Year after a redesigned slim & pretty much 50% price drop with slight power boost & 4k blu-ray playback it just seems a little unnecesary and i am talking as someone who has 2 xbox one S consoles & PS4 already hooked up to 4k TV's. I will more than likely buy one anyway (didn't bother with the PS4 pro as there didn't seem to be a great deal of difference although if that had a 4k blu-ray drive i may have) but can't help but think they would have been better off waiting 18 months or so and launching a proper new console with exclusives rather than just making stuff a bit shinier for those that want it.