shikamaru317 said:
Agreed. Hopefully they either abandon the project soon, or increase the specs to maybe 7 tflop and only slightly less RAM than Anaconda. If they bump it up to 7 tflop and only like 2 GB less RAM than Anaconda it should be powerful enough to meet the 1440p target that MS set for developers on Lockhart, with no other graphical downgrades compared to the Anaconda version. Will be alot easier for developers if all they have to downgrade is the resolution, too much work if they have to downgrade more than resolution to get a game to run on Lockhart. Ideally though, they should drop Lockhart entirely, and just release a discless version of Anaconda, and subsidize it in order to hit an attractive price point that is $100 less than the disc drive Anaconda. They can make back what they lose on the subsidized console with the higher profit margin on digital game sales. Another reason why Lockhart is a terrible idea: if we get mid-gen upgrade consoles, which Sony is already hinting at for PS5, developers will have to support 3 different Xbox consoles with different specs; Lockhart, Anaconda, and whatever the codename for the mid-gen upgrade console will be. Devs will absoutely hate having to support 3 different Xbox's with different specs. Just release a discless Anaconda instead of Lockhart Microsoft. |
Yea, I don't see how they are going to get 1440p out of the Lockhart, with a much weaker GPU and "significantly less" RAM, unless there is an incredible amount of scaling down in almost every aspect of the game. My guess, though, is that they want to at least hit 1440p because 1080p will seem like last gen. And with MS forcing them to make games on it, they will most likely use it as the base for development and then just add some bells and whistles on it for the Anaconda.
That has a big drawback, though, because it will end up being like the PS4/XBO vs Pro/X. What I mean by this is that for the most part, the games are the same, usually just higher res overall, with maybe better textures and a couple of added effects. There usually isn't an increase in things like geometry. Now, if a game could be made only for the X and Pro, the graphics could be pushed even harder. Of course, when it is mid-gen HW, it's obvious why they shouldn't do that.
This also brings up the problem that MS is worried about having their launch games play on XBO/X, as well, which could create the same problem. There is no way they are going to be able optimize their games to run at their fullest on all 4 consoles. On the other hand, Sony is going to be showing what next gen has to offer, because they are focusing on pushing the HW out of the gate with PS5 exclusives not having to run on PS4.
Now, people can talk about scalability all they want, but those lower/higher quality assets and lower/higher poly models don't just create themselves. Obviously it's a bigger deal than they want to admit if devs are complaining to Jason Screier about it.
