Series S vs Series X (resolution, performance, etc.)

[Mr Puggsly]

SvennoJ said:

Mr Puggsly said:

1. The Series S has less RAM, but its also going to use less RAM than PS5 and Series X by having lower quality assets and resolution, these two things combined can account for a significant amount of RAM. So the impact of less RAM isn't quite certain yet.

2. One X wasn't designed to innovate. The additional RAM helped with resolution and higher quality assets when developers opted to put them in.

3. Series X and PS5 are generally going to target 1440p+ and maybe 60 fps. With that said, Series S could opt for dynamic 1080p, lower graphics settings and even 30 fps if necessary. AC:Valhalla opted for reduced resolution and performance to maintain 9th gen visuals. Meanwhile DMC5 just disabled RT for Series S, while Watch Dogs compromised resolution with RT. There are many options developers have, kinda like when tweaking a PC game's settings.

Ram also puts a limit on world size and how dynamic/interactive a world can be. That's where the innovation is that will be held back by the the existence of a console with less memory. For example Minecraft, it works on everything, but not the full fat unlimited world experience. Different editions all have different limits on number of active 'actors' and world size. Fine for different systems, yet here game play parity is assumed to be a must.

You can't solve everything with lower resolution and assets and the fact remains, 8GB is zero progress from the current gen. XBox One had 6GB of RAM available to games (started as 5GB, got an extra GB to use later), Series S has 8GB available for games (or 7.5GB, some sources say the OS uses 2.5GB) so there is some more room. However https://gamingbolt.com/xbox-series-s-ram-is-a-major-issue-several-devs-speak-out-about-memory-bottleneck

16GB is already too little of a generational 'leap' imo. This gen should have had 24 GB total if it's going to last for another 7 or 8 years. 16GB is enough for higher assets and higher resolution, leaves very little for more complex dynamic evolving worlds.

My hope is developers can make good use of the SSD to expand working memory, like FS2020 can run on my 16GB laptop thanks to a 20GB pagefile on SSD. When the pagefile was on my hdd I went down to 2fps and total lock ups, oopsie. It still stutters, the game prefers 32GB system ram, but only crashes once every other day now after disabling the HDD pagefile, forcing windows to only use the SSD.

I hear ya, but what I am saying is the first compromises Series S would have to make is lowering asset quality and resolution. RDR2 on PC for example uses about 3-4GB more VRAM when in ultra vs low settings. Then lowering resolution can save about 1GB depending how low the resolution goes. My numbers might not be entirely accurate by the way.

Anyway, I am suggesting developers don't have to build for Series S' 8GB per se. You have to consider 9th gen games are already using many GB on textures, certainly more then 8th gen did.

Hence, the Series S will probably have texture quality that resembles 8th gen when memory is being pushed. While Series X and PS5 are expected to go well beyond that.

Now I am not arguing Series S memory will never be a problem. I am only arguing higher end machines will use more RAM just on visual polish. Some Series S games are considerably smaller as well because of the lower quality assets.

Minecraft is for machines that vary wildly in RAM. Vita, 3DS, PS360, X1, PS4, etc. Several platforms mentioned have less than 1GB of RAM. So not a great example.

World complexity also depends on how efficiently menory is used. I mean 7th gen games like Skyrim and GTA5 have impressive worlds using a fraction of memory 8th gen has.

I am a tad confused how much memory 8th gen consoles used. I've read PS4 used 4.5GB. X1 used 5GB, maybe a little more. Eitherway, multiplat games were bulit for whatever PS4 had. So saying 8GB is zero progress is incorrect. Series S still has several GB more along with SSD to stream data quickly.

So I agree that memory could be an issue, I think there should have been less compromise. But I am also considering Series X and PS5 are expected to use considerably more RAM just on visuals. Maybe the SSD could also help in some cases.