Should Halo Infinite drop Xbox One and go Scarlet exclusive?

[Mr Puggsly]

Pemalite said:

Mr Puggsly said:

I'm saying the compromises made for a low end Scarlett could negatively effect game design. Especially if games can be optimized around SSD but have build for a standard HDD as well. I just get the impression a low budget option stopped making sense because model would have to strip too much.

I do actually agree to a degree. I am just trying to quantify Microsoft's choices.
But it would be no more of a negative effect than supporting the Xbox One/Xbox One S/Xbox One X when Scarlett launches.

We don't know how the SSD is going to be implemented yet either... I would assume external mechanical storage will continue to be a necessity next-gen, so games will likely continue to be built with that in mind.
The SSD will bolster streaming, but other than that no real optimization needs to be done.

Mr Puggsly said:

I really dont feel Halo 3 has a frame pacing issue. Its generally detected on frame counters by constantly jumping above and below 30 fps. But I get your point, you dont feel its smooth. We will end on that.

The evidence has already been presented for Halo 3 having frame pacing issues. - Unless you are suggesting that digital foundry is lieing?

Frame pacing issues can occur even when you have a locked, solid, frame rate.

For example back when I was running with quad Radeon 7970's, AMD was notorious for it's crossfire frame-pacing issues.
I could have a locked 60fps, 1440P, but the game felt terrible to handle. - Why? Frame pacing.

Let me break it down. (Although if you are willing to ignore evidence, you will likely ignore this as well.)

You have 30 frame per second, locked. - That means a frame gets rendered every 33.3ms.

So in the span of a second you have 30 frames each with their specific render times:
Frame 1: 33.3ms
Frame 2: 33.3ms
Frame 3: 33.3ms
Frame 4: 33.3ms
Frame 5: 20.3ms
Frame 6: 43.3ms
Frame 7: 33.3ms
Frame 8: 33.3ms
Frame 9: 33.3ms
Frame 10: 33.3ms
Frame 11: 33.3ms
Frame 12: 33.3ms
Frame 13: 23.3ms
Frame 14: 13.3ms
Frame 15: 43.3ms
Frame 16: 43.3ms
Frame 17: 43.3ms
Frame 18: 33.3ms
Frame 19: 33.3ms
Frame 20: 33.3ms
Frame 21: 33.3ms
Frame 22: 33.3ms
Frame 23: 33.3ms
Frame 24: 33.3ms
Frame 25: 33.3ms
Frame 26: 33.3ms
Frame 27: 33.3ms
Frame 28: 33.3ms
Frame 29: 33.3ms
Frame 30: 33.3ms

That is still 30 frames per second, but some frames get drawn sooner, some others later in that allotted recorded second, aka. Frame pacing.
Anandtech has also broken it down fairly well here which might educate you a bit better on the topic than what I have done, although it pertains to crossfire specifically, the same issue can occur outside of that.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/7195/amd-frame-pacing-explorer-cat138

Mr Puggsly said:

GTAV on PS4 and X1 was not really built to take advantage of the new specs. I was playing the X1 version for the first time recently and was disappointed.

Well. It was an early 8th gen multiplatform title, so to be expected.
Many early 8th gen games look terrible now, especially on Xbox One with it's terrible hardware.

Supporting X1/X1X is very different than a low end/stripped down Scarlett. If a low end Scarlett were to exist, that may become a baseline for developers. If there is only one Scarlett, the high end model, that becomes the lead hardware for Scarlett development.

While X1/X1X ports doesn't necessarily need to affect games that use Scarlett as the lead. Developers would simply have to strip those games down into functional products for 8th gen specs. But this is assuming MS will keep bringing AAA games to X1 after Scarlett launches.

Alright, you're saying Halo 3 has frame pacing issues that evidently isn't reflected in frame counters. Okay, that's fine. Perhaps the frame pacing issues that really bothers people is what you see in Halo Anniversary on 360.

I think we can blame the lack of polish in GTAV being from early hardware optimization.