Rumor: Xbox "Lockhart" specs leaked, is $300

[Mr Puggsly]

Otter said:

Mr Puggsly said:

You're basically suggesting Series S shouldn't exist just incase some developers want to make an experimental project that uses essentially all the resources on cool lighting.

People argue 4K is a waste of resources when 60 fps should be a focus. I would argue ray/path tracing is also a waste when it makes a simple game like Minecraft 1080p/30 fps.

However, this same Minecraft demo could theoretically work on Series S at a low resolution. Maybe 600p? With some sort of image reconstruction it could be acceptable.

What this video demonstrates is this tech isn't practical quite yet. Not used like this atleast.

It's not like we need ray tracing for developers to raise the bar visually. It's more like an option and something that will used in ways that are less resource intensive. For example, some games may just use it for reflections which is less demanding.

MS said 4K/60 fps is the target for Series X. I expect the same for many games

And I'm sure they set 1080p as the target when developing Xbox One yet look at how third party developers (99% of the console releases) use it. Ultimately Microsoft do not have a say in how their hardware is used. The only demonstration of ground upXSX content and not ports (Hell Blade 2) is a video consciously rendered at 60% of 4k at 24fps. Its not necessarily realtime but it's just funny because its from a 1st party themselves and no one cared to critique it yet suddenly everything has to be native 4k60fps? 

And no. I'm basically saying this exact principle we see here in the ray tracing demo will apply to other graphical features and ambition down the road. What the video clearly illustrates is that MS see's 1080p as a respectable resolution to show a game off in whereas several pple thought anything 1080p is unacceptable (MS already stated "4k" for them doesn't have to be native). If the minecraft demo was running at 600p, they probably would not have shown it. Also I'm not sure 600p can be reconstructed into quality image for a standard 42" display.

Summary is not that S shouldn't exist incase a developer wants to build a game around ray traced lighting, but S shouldn't exist because it takes freedom away from how developers use the Series X hardware.  Doesn't matter whether its ray tracing or other graphical detail. Alternatively Series S eventually starts hitting 720p and maybe lower. Or requiring games to be extensively optimised to run at higher resolutions which is a developer resource drain. The other thing is consumer expectations. I'm not sure S would be able to suppport many ray traced features at acceptable resolutions, this has to be made clear to consumers otherwise I think many will feel cheated if it becomes a common feature which S owners can't have but all they thought they were missing out on was 4k.

But that's just my feeling on it, I understand the want for a cheap entry level system but given the length of intended cross gen. I don't think it's necessary. In any case there is the PS5 with no weak version if developers want to work without the concern of how the game will look on a much lesser GPU. This just gives them more reasons to make PS5 exclusives.

The simplicity and logic behind S is dependent on the idea that developers will hit all their next geb ambitions alongside native 4k (or something close to it). I don't see that as a reality and my concern is not what happens next year, but what happens in 4 years. Anyway enough speculating on specs, we'll have to wait and see 

I get the impression MS didn't think every game needed to be 1080p. Especially when you consider Ryse and Dead Rising 3 didn't even attempt to get there. In retrospect, its evident X1 should have had more GPU power.

I don't get what your point is about Hellblade 2 is. Nor does it really matter.

You're missing two points. Few if any developers are going to push the Series X hardware so hard that the resolution is 1080p. But even if they do, the Series S could still support these projects at a lower resolution and maybe some tweaks to other graphics settings. Essentially I disagree with your premise Series S shouldn't exist because some hypothetical project could look bad on that hardware.

Question, do X1 users feel cheated because Ark looks and runs awful on base X1? Nope, its currently the 11th most played game on Xbox. With that said, if people get a visually underwhelming experience on Series S they might keep playing anyway. Even though its blurry, terrible performance and aggressive screen tear. Hence, people willing to buy a cheaper box will tolerate things you might not. This is an example of you being out of touch and missing the point.

Most developers already design games with various levels of GPU power in mind. So tweaking settings for Series S and Series X would be easy. Virtually any modern game ported to PC (99% of games) has resolution and graphical settings to tweak. Again, if the disparity is just GPU power than reducing resolution should be an easy solution for many games.

Games don't have to hit 4K Series X to work well on Series S. A sub 1080p game could be acceptable on Series S, they could use image reconstruction and dynamic resolutions to improve the average presentation. Lastly they could tweak graphics settings if necessary to boost resolution, as we've seen for decades.

There is no point in going in circles. Lets just wait and see.