Eitherway... Games for Windows Live! Isn't a legitimate excuse. Just remove it (And patch all the older GFWL titles too) and sell more keys on Steam. Microsoft is just being lazy, they deserve the criticism on this front either way.

I fired it up not long ago, performance wise it's not something unexpected, it had semi-decent frame pacing so it still controlled okay... I mean if we were to look at Halo 3 that had terrible framerates and poor framepacing which meant the controls felt extremely floaty... But the game still played fine for that era, obviously it's a far better experience on the Xbox One, just like Half Life 2 was a far better experience on the Xbox 360.

Either way, I feel like this is side stepping my actual point... That improvements in hardware capability tends to open up the possibility of new gameplay mechanics... The original Xbox was a showcase for this... Shadowing and Lighting took big strides thanks to programmable pixel shaders... And a few games actually leveraged this, can you guess which?

The CPU was also the best of the generation which enabled games like Elder Scrolls Morrowind and Half Life 2 on console.

The PC tends to run with better, more expensive visuals, that's not free.
It's like comparing SSAO that many consoles games used which is lower quality, less memory and GPU intensive than HBAO... The PC's hardware does get used extensively you know.

Oblivion uses 512MB~ of memory on Xbox 360... When I re-engineered the shaders, polygon reduced allot of the assets, reduced texture resolution, I was running the game on only 128MB of memory on PC... Does that mean the Xbox 360 is less efficient? No. It's just pushing better visuals.

At one point though the PC was running a more memory intensive Operating System, especially with the advent of Vista, even when we shifted from the 9x to NT kernels... But since the 8th gen, that is no longer the case where the Xbox One and Playstation 4 reserve a few Gigabytes for OS/background duties.

Plus we have more and larger caches, it wasn't unheard of for graphics drivers at one point to duplicate the GPU's vram in system memory, Intel was notorious for this which became a significant issue when Aero came about... But over time the PC does get more efficient and it's no longer the case.

The PC is slightly less efficient, but not a generational difference. Again... Read above.

Keep in mind that PC games using 4GB in 2013 is being compared to games that would use 5-6GB on the 8th gen... But was probably still pushing out higher visuals. - That doesn't make consoles less efficient, it's just resources being used differently.

I am aware that the 7th gen had a lot of open world games, never said it didn't. - Heck the 6th gen had a heap of open world games, but it wasn't the norm like it was in the 8th gen, especially from outlets like Ubisoft.

Not really.

Just because Ashes of the Singularity... A PC exclusive that leverages all the CPU time you can throw at it tanks a low-end, last generation CPU, doesn't make the PC significantly less efficient, it's a different use of resources.

The FX 6300 is more than capable of playing the majority of multiplats just fine... Shit. I can run the vast majority of multiplats on a Core 2 Quad from 12 years ago... That's a 7th gen equivalent CPU. - Jaguar hasn't pushed up the CPU bar all that much in the last decade on the gaming front... It's simply a shit CPU.

Even Digital Foundry recognizes the limitations of AMD's Jaguar... So why don't you?

We will wait and see.

Although the gaming industry is extremely mature at this point... And big publishers don't like to make allot of gambles and would thus rather push out yearly releases from reliable franchises...

However, I would imagine there would be some experimentation that will happen on the Physics, Particle and A.I. side of the equation next gen, maybe something like Supreme Commander on console with actual decent A.I?

On the graphics side, because we don't know much about the Ray-Tracing implementation going on in next-gen, the CPU might be employed to assist in culling or some-such. - Can only speculate though.

Crackdown 3 was a colossal failure, the Xbox One just didn't have the hardware resources to achieve what their original advertised vision entailed.

Destruction isn't a new concept, Red Faction has been doing it for ages, Battlefield has been doing it for ages, it's a known quantity.

However the processing that goes into such a scheme is significant... And the scope that the original idea for crackdown 3's showcase meant that the cloud was a necessity because Jaguar was simply not up to the task.

Jaguar was the only option this generation. AMD was not in a good place on the CPU side of the fence... Which is a reversal to where they are now, where their GPU side is where they are dropping the proverbial ball.

But what improvements have we seen this generation over last generation on the CPU side? We are seeing larger multiplayer maps with more people, we are seeing more extensive use of physics based particle effects. - But considering how marginal the CPU improvement Jaguar brought to the gaming table over the 7th gen was, I think developers have done well with the hand they were dealt.

When consoles rely on PC technology and use only low-end and mid-range components, there is only so many options available I guess.

It will only assist loading if there is heavy scripting, unpacking, decompression and procedural generation and so on going on during the initial load phases.
The main limitation for load times is the last century optical and mechanical disks.

I absolutely agree... It seems it's been the path they are heading towards anyway... But considering I have every Xbox console and 500+ games, I wouldn't be against the idea, but I refuse to use the Windows Store... So I would prefer it to be a stand alone application.

The reverse could also happen where PC games operate on Xbox... We saw some hints towards that with the App side of the equation this generation, with even some emulators popping up on Xbox and some games implementing a store-front for mods and so on.

But that is also a double edged sword... It will mean there is less incentive to pick up an Xbox console... One of the reasons why I even bothered with Xbox was due to a couple of games like Halo and Fable.. They were day 1 purchases which made me jump on the Original Xbox... They did get PC releases later though, but by that point I was invested.
That meant the Xbox 360 and Xbox One were must-have purchases on day 1.

At this point though I have gaming devices for every area of the home, the Xbox One X in the lounge room for couch-gaming, Nintendo consoles in the bedroom for gaming in bed, PC and Playstations in the games room.

And a Ryzen notebook for gaming when away from home/traveling long distance... My platform of choice is of course the PC.

Anywho, yeah, it's quite ironic that the the last time a Halo game launched an Xbox console, with the original game, it was very much a showcase for the capabilities of next gen hardware that simply couldn't have been replicated on the hardware of the prior gen. And I can't help but feel that a Combat Evolved that was multiplat with N64/PS1 tier hardware would not have been the classic it became as its signature sophisticated AI and huge levels just wouldn't have been possible. 

Would it though?

I just don't see the incentive for people to buy Xbox anymore. The Xbox One has been out for 5 years, and it's sold only 45 million. The OG Xbox was out for 4 years and sold only 24 million. The Xbox One is pushing into six years now, and has only sold just under double that? It's almost on par sales percentage wise. Especially considering nearly all of their exclusives are available on PC now... why would anyone really spend the money on a new Xbox when they can just play all of those games on a PC? Reasons I'm saying this is because all my friends that are into gaming are either playing on a PS4 & switch, just a PS4, or sold their consoles and built gaming rigs. Halo is a massive franchise, but it's been in decline since Bungie handed the reigns over to 343. I'm stoked for the new Halo and intrigued as always, but I really don't think it would be in anyones interest at Microsoft to make Halo a Scarlett exclusive. It would hurt their pockets way too much given how dismal their sales were this generation, and it would be a huge disservice to all of the people that bought Xbox's and have been waiting for 3 years for this game. I really don't think Scarlett will be big either. I see it as a stepping stone for their transition into game streaming. I truly believe Scarlett will be the last physical console that Microsoft puts out. They've proven unable to topple Sony, and they have a new competitor with a giant load of money and developer support behind them (Google).

Heh, you finally understand my point about Fable 3. I already said it should be patched to remove the GFW crap as other studios have done. The thing is GFW is a pain in the ass on modern PCs, it may not even work for many people without extra work. So delisting Fable 3 actually makes sense to me until they decide to patch it or make a new port, whatever the plan is.

Halo 3 on 360 didnt run as bad as HL2 on OG Xbox. I dont understand that comparison. But I agree OG Xbox was a rad console of the time for decent PC ports.

So youre suggesting console games require less memory because theyre stripped down? Im not sure if that holds water, but okay. I think we're agreeing the console versions are atleast more efficient.

If open world games are more common now, I feel its more of a game design choice, not specs per se. I mean Skyrim and GTAV are still somehow impressive compared to many newer games.

I already said the Jaguar CPUs have limitations. I just dont think they've been fully utilized for unique experiences either. I just dont feel developers were really interested in pushing CPU in a way that really affected gameplay. There wasnt really a Hydrophobia or Red Faction Guerilla tech show case this gen, although Just Cause 4 was impressive.

But even with the cloud, Crackdown 3's destruction wasnt impressive. Hence, it seems just creating that experience was difficult. Was it a hardware issue or did the original plan not really work at that scale? We can only speculate.

I believe storage medium, CPU, RAM and GPU play a role in speeding up load times. For example, games load considerbly faster on X1X versus base hardware even with the same external HDD.

Precisely.
I mean the Nintendo 64 could have replicated the indoor environments of Halo to a degree... But once you landed on the Halo ring and stepped outside for the first time and seeing the pixel shader, bump mapped surfaces and long draw distances, you knew the hardware has opened up something new on the gameplay front... And because of such propelled Halo as a massive franchise in gaming.

Different devices for different rooms.
I am primarily a PC gamer, but will use consoles in the living/games/bedrooms.

Often I will buy a game I really really really like more than once to be able to play on all my platforms.

I couldn't care if Games for Windows Live is there or not. Just sell the damn game. That is my point.

Halo 3 ran like shit on Xbox 360... Mostly because of it's poor frame pacing. Did it run as bad as Half Life 2? No. You would hope not with more capable hardware.

After playing the game at 60fps on the Xbox One X, it's unplayable on the Xbox 360 though, lets not beat around the bush, the controls feel floaty because of the poor frame pacing.

That era was notorious in how it was unable to have solid 30fps with good frame pacing in general, thus Half Life 2 fell well within expectations of the era.
Even the generation prior before that, games would often dip to 10fps like in Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64.

If you can point to a console game that has equivalent ultra-PC settings and fits within the consoles DRAM with full resolution+ramerates... Go for it.

Specs have enabled it.

Skyrim and GTA5 had a ton of resources thrown at it to make them viable on 7th gen, GTA5 was the most expensive game ever made at that point... Those costs significantly drop on 8th gen as the hardware is far more capable for open-world titles.

Game development has shifted since the 7th gen, there is less incentive for developers to build games that are "different and new" and instead rehash old formulas that sell and make money.

In saying that, Jaguar isn't a generational jump over Cell/Xenon... It's an increase sure, but not a catastrophically large one like what we will see next console generation with 8x Zen2 cores.

The cloud has fundamental limitations governed by the laws of Physics.
Crackdown 3's destruction just wasn't ready for this generation of hardware... Hence Microsoft's attempt at leveraging the cloud... That is the point I am getting at.

What you believe is ultimately redundant.

The GPU doesn't play a role in speeding up load times, it doesn't accelerate memory transactions in general.

The CPU can assist in decompression, procedural generation, unpacking, draw calls and so on and can thus influence load times rather substantially.

The Ram can play a massive role as it's the pool of memory that all other processors tend to communicate with... But usually you are loading data into the Ram... And that isn't where the bottleneck tends to lay.

The biggest benefactor to load times is of course the hard drive... The Xbox One X, whilst still using a shit internal 5400rpm hard drive, at-least featured a drive that was substantially faster than the terrible drive in the launch Xbox One... We are talking 40-60MB/s better in transfer rates here, that's not insignificant.
Burst reads also saw an improvement thanks to the increase in SATA speeds, which means the data in the Hard Drives Ram can be read at 600MB/s.

Which is why external hard drives reduce load times regardless if you have an Xbox One, Xbox One S or Xbox One X, especially 7200rpm drives with their reduced seek times allowing improvements in random reads/writes across the board.

The Xbox One X just takes things a bit farther as it's CPU can assist with everything else that I listed prior... But you can bet that the storage medium is the bottleneck for load times... Ask any PC gamer who has moved to a fast nVME SSD from last century's archaic, slow, spinning rust.

At present, Halo Infinite seems to still be officially slated as a cross-gen release for both the Xbone and their upcoming next-gen console codenamed Scarlet.

Do you think MS would be better off going all in and making it a next gen exclusive so that the game is not held back by the weaker specs (especially CPU) of the Xbone, or should it remain a cross-gen release?

I should clarify something about hardware. I feel the 6th gen, primarily Xbox, was big turning point for game design. I feel that's when ideas and visuals of Halo, Half Life 2, open world games and many other styles of games could be executed without looking like a mess, having poor draw distance or other technical problems that really compromise gameplay. I feel a lot of modern games could still be enjoyable even built around OG Xbox specs, but I don't feel that way about N64 per se. I'm not looking to have a debate on this, but that's a response to people who keep bringing up PS1 or N64.

I'd say its fair to be critical of MS for not selling Fable 3. I also don't really care. I should have said that from the start. The problem is I was explaining MS's decision and I understand it, whether I PERSONALLY like it or not. Maybe you thought I was attacking you for having been critical of MS. Its really a stupid discussion and I feel people who want it should simply pirate it.

I know poor frame rates were pretty standard in the 5th, 6th and 7th gen. I just consider them playable, not fine. Halo 3 didn't run that bad, so we just disagree there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SygMunkVEzc

I don't feel GTAV was an expensive game to create just because its a technical marvel. Its also an incredibly ambitious game, simply designing a game like that is expensive. The attention to detail and game mechanics certainly take time to design, its not just specs.

I really feel you're confused about my thoughts on the Jaguar CPUs. I'm really saying they could create ambitious experiences and even achieve 60 fps when the GPU wasn't pushed too hard. For example, MGSV was an ambitious game but still hits 60 fps. You're arguing about the hardware compared to other hardware, I'm simply looking at what was achieved in practice.

We agree the Jaguar CPUs were an increase in power, but there wasn't many impressive attempts to leverage it for unique experiences.

In regard to Crackdown 3's MP, I feel the limitation was the developers when it came to designing that experience. Not the X1 or the cloud. At some point they probably determined it was a waste of time and just threw something together.

My main point was load times can improve via upgrades to other specs even if you use an old rusty HDD. In a nutshell, you agreed with me.

I could increase my load times further with a external SSD, but loading in general is already noticeably faster even on my same old 2.5 external HDD.

Also, in regard to GPU I was really saying a video card upgrade can improve load times in a game that's struggling with an underpowered card. Maybe for memory reasons or whatever, it does impact load times.

I mean. I don't disagree. But even during the 5th gen, consoles like the Nintendo 64 started to stretch out towards being open-world, mostly thanks to the carts having such high read-speeds which allowed for streaming of assets super effectively...

The fact that Nintendo 64 games look like ass today on the graphics front is besides the point.

The Original Xbox though had more in common with the 7th gen than the 6th gen on various technical fronts, it just needed more DRAM to let it breathe some more, 128MB would have made a big difference... In saying that, developers leveraged the internal mechanical drive for streaming, which is what made Morrowind entirely possible with it's heavy scripting and streaming... That game would have been impossible on the Dreamcast, Playstation 2 or Gamecube... And that is my point from the get go, that more capable technology opens up new possibilities.

Piracy is never an option in my opinion.

Digital Foundry and myself disagrees.
I was a day 1 owner of Halo 3, heck it's the sole reason I owned an Xbox 360... And frame pacing was always an issue as that kind of issue was non-existent on PC games unless you were running multiple GPU's... Which became a really documented issue that AMD solved with Southern Islands... So frame pacing is not a new thing to me.

Whilst the framerate is okay for an Xbox 360 game, the framepacing was terrible...

www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-what-works-and-what-doesnt-in-halo-the-master-chief-collection

But you can't ignore the fact that allot of R&D had to be invested in order to showcase the title in the best possible light on anemic hardware.

The 8th gen has made development easier and reduced costs on various fronts.

But yes, in general a game like that tends to be expensive.

Doesn't matter what was achieved, Jaguar is still a terrible CPU... It wasn't even great on it's release, nor was it's predecessor on PC.

If developers have achieved something great on such hardware... That is a testament to their development pipeline rather than the intrinsic hardware itself.

Indeed. Jaguar has less "theoretical" flops than Cell, which many (even on this forum) chalked to Jaguar being inferior to Cell. - But flops isn't everything.
Cell only beats Jaguar when Single Precision Floating Point with Iterative Refinement was being used... Where-as Jaguar can maintain it's performance regardless of situation... And absolutely dominates Cell and Xenon in integer capabilities.

But, it's still not a great CPU, it's an improvement over 7th gen, but still not a great CPU. - Jaguar is a very small, cost effective core, more so than Bulldozer or Stars, so it was really the only viable option for the 8th gen from the start... The 9th gen however is going to be leveraging another very small, cost effective core... Ryzen.

The developers were a limitation, but with a protracted development cycle I would have hoped they would have put all their ducks in a row so to speak.
Props to Microsoft for not rushing the game out with a reduced "cooking time" though.

The lack of hardware did limit the ability for fully physics based destruction to be done locally... Not even the Xbox One X could achieve it with a degree of fidelity that would impress, 9th gen and the PC could do it though.

Well... I wasn't exactly intending to disagree.
Just taking up a contention point of the GPU improving load times.

Even a faster GPU doesn't tend to improve load times, that's not where the bottleneck lays... Because even a low-end GPU like the Geforce 1050/Radeon 540 has more bandwidth than system memory... Plus the bottleneck to shifting data to the GPU tends to be the PCI-E 3.0 16x 16GB/s of bandwidth anyway... Before that it's the devices system storage.

The GPU doesn't hardware accelerate memory transactions generally... Ram, CPU and SSD/Hard Drive/Interconnects are what generally limits you... With device storage being the single largest culprit which SSD's have rapidly started to resolve.

I clarified any confusion during our Fable 3 discussion, but you kept pressing. Give it a rest, I generally expect better from the mods. It wasn't even a discussion to win.

Half Life 2 on Xbox didn't run fine, but it certainly ran. Performance was the worst aspect of that port and makes it a difficult version to revisit.

You missed the point in regard to RAM. While 5GB certainly is not a ton of RAM for games, but the RAM requirements for PC gaming stayed relatively stagnant. Hence, modern games haven't seem to hit a wall due to struggling with RAM limitations like previous gens did. Even the Switch is doing impressive games like Witcher 3 with even less RAM, albeit struggling with textures.

I don't feel the disparity in specs between base X1 and X1X are significant enough. Therefore anything that could be developed to take full advantage of the X1X at 1080p/30 fps, should be able to scale back relatively easily for a base X1 if they mostly scale back GPU heavy effects. It seems like almost most 8th gen games can work on Switch because the specs disparity just isn't big enough, even if there are minor compromises. The example you gave for Wolfenstein 2 on Switch is mostly aesthetic and was likely done to boost performance. Anyhow, we all know the X1X's primary focus was making X1 games look and play better, which at the very least it certainly does that. Sometimes the disparity is so big it seems like the games were developed for X1X specs, Soul Calibur VI for example looks bad and loads horribly on base hardware.

Open world games were pretty common last gen as well. The big difference this gen is more online open world stuff. I imagine RAM was helpful for that but they still existed on last gen.

Well there isn't much a debate to have on Ashes of Singularity, maybe its complex AI is incredibly demanding, maybe its an optimization issue. I do see video of a FX-6300 running the game relatively poorly, but it runs. I mention that because that CPU in practice seems to give similar performance to consoles.

Oh lord... let me elaborate. I feel the Jaguar CPUs in the current consoles have shown great potential. For example, I'm playing Gears 4 (Gears 5 soon), Forza Horizon 4 and other titles that stick relatively close or stay at 60 fps. There are also games that did a good job hitting 60 fps on base hardware like Forza, GT, MGS, Halo, BF, CoD (some better than others), etc. In my mind, that's pretty good for CPUs people call trash. Either way, I can't deny there is CPU bottleneck in many games that make hitting 60 fps impossible. However, GPU was also limited for high quality visuals/effects, high resolutions (900p-1080p) and 60 fps at the same time.

People often say it was the CPU that was too limited in the 8th gen, but GPU was also a culprit. Because even when CPU bottleneck wasn't a primary issue for 60 fps, it still takes a lot of GPU power to achieve 60 fps with high visual fidelity. Limited GPU power is why dynamic resolution is common in 60 fps games.

In the next gen however, we seem to agree bottleneck on CPU shouldn't be an issue for 60 fps. Also, resolution at 1440p-4K will become even more common. Essentially the compromises needed for 60 fps become less work. For example, the X1X offers more 60 fps content because it has a little extra CPU power and they can drop the resolution (and effects) to reduce GPU bottleneck. Hence, less work to hit 60 fps means more games should (WILL) offer it.

I clarified any confusion during our Fable 3 discussion, but you kept pressing. Give it a rest, I generally expect better from the mods. It wasn't even a discussion to win.

Half Life 2 on Xbox didn't run fine, but it certainly ran. Performance was the worst aspect of that port and makes it a difficult version to revisit.

You missed the point in regard to RAM. While 5GB certainly is not a ton of RAM for games, but the RAM requirements for PC gaming stayed relatively stagnant. Hence, modern games haven't seem to hit a wall due to struggling with RAM limitations like previous gens did. Even the Switch is doing impressive games like Witcher 3 with even less RAM, albeit struggling with textures.

I don't feel the disparity in specs between base X1 and X1X are significant enough. Therefore anything that could be developed to take full advantage of the X1X at 1080p/30 fps, should be able to scale back relatively easily for a base X1 if they mostly scale back GPU heavy effects. It seems like almost most 8th gen games can work on Switch because the specs disparity just isn't big enough, even if there are minor compromises. The example you gave for Wolfenstein 2 on Switch is mostly aesthetic and was likely done to boost performance. Anyhow, we all know the X1X's primary focus was making X1 games look and play better, which at the very least it certainly does that. Sometimes the disparity is so big it seems like the games were developed for X1X specs, Soul Calibur VI for example looks bad and loads horribly on base hardware.

Open world games were pretty common last gen as well. The big difference this gen is more online open world stuff. I imagine RAM was helpful for that but they still existed on last gen.

Well there isn't much a debate to have on Ashes of Singularity, maybe its complex AI is incredibly demanding, maybe its an optimization issue. I do see video of a FX-6300 running the game relatively poorly, but it runs. I mention that because that CPU in practice seems to give similar performance to consoles.

Oh lord... let me elaborate. I feel the Jaguar CPUs in the current consoles have shown great potential. For example, I'm playing Gears 4 (Gears 5 soon), Forza Horizon 4 and other titles that stick relatively close or stay at 60 fps. There are also games that did a good job hitting 60 fps on base hardware like Forza, GT, MGS, Halo, BF, CoD (some better than others), etc. In my mind, that's pretty good for CPUs people call trash. Either way, I can't deny there is CPU bottleneck in many games that make hitting 60 fps impossible. However, GPU was also limited for high quality visuals/effects, high resolutions (900p-1080p) and 60 fps at the same time.

People often say it was the CPU that was too limited in the 8th gen, but GPU was also a culprit. Because even when CPU bottleneck wasn't a primary issue for 60 fps, it still takes a lot of GPU power to achieve 60 fps with high visual fidelity. Limited GPU power is why dynamic resolution is common in 60 fps games.

In the next gen however, we seem to agree bottleneck on CPU shouldn't be an issue for 60 fps. Also, resolution at 1440p-4K will become even more common. Essentially the compromises needed for 60 fps become less work. For example, the X1X offers more 60 fps content because it has a little extra CPU power and they can drop the resolution (and effects) to reduce GPU bottleneck. Hence, less work to hit 60 fps means more games should (WILL) offer it.

Even the PS2 impressed with GTA3, in some ways that was more impressive than Morrowind. 5th gen was more experimental with some very notable 3D games, while the 6th gen was really delivering ambitious ideas like open world games with many NPCs or vehicles, etc.

Well I put up a link showing Halo 3 actually runs good on 360. If you wanna see genuinely bad frame pacing then look at Halo Anniversary on 360.

The Jaguar was still quite cabable, not arguing how it compared to other CPUs. I really dont believe more capable CPUs would have had a significant impact this gen in regard to game design.

Better specs didnt mean every studio was suddenly creating products as impressive or as polished as GTAV. Again, I'm.sure much of the budget really went into creating that massive game in general.

I feel the MP experience Crackdown 3 did get was rushed in the end, it was a new project thrown together. While the single player of Crackdown 3 was probably completed long prior. If anything, the extra development helped it become a more technically polished.

Again, just pointing out improving other specs helps with load times, even before jumping to SSD.