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

[Mr Puggsly]

SvennoJ said:

Mr Puggsly said:

I think my previous post kinda addresses things you're touching on.

I am not sure about deforamable terrain in open world games. Is that a RAM issue? Can't SSDs help with streaming that data? I think we need to wait and see how games handle that and what specs are stressed. Don't expect it to be a big focus in average game design either.

We've already seen games in previous gens handling gamea that remember items that moved, doors that have been opened, any NPCs that dead, etc. And it would stress memory, but that was less of an issue in the 8th gen given memory given a massive increase.

Weather impacting gameplay is more of a game design issue I think. Forza Horizon 4 for example could instantly change the weather and have it impact how cars control. Or a storm could appear in recent Gears games that impact physics and player movement. Innovative game design could happen on 8th gen specs still.

If next gen games are static, it might just be a design issue, not specs. These new could do content even more ambitious than AC Unity with ease.

You're still thinking inside the box...

With weather affecting the world I mean forming puddles, mud, flowing water inside deformable terrain. Popolous a new beginning style tornadoes creating havoc on you or your opponent. Fires being permanent. Crackdown type destruction (as in the original trailers, not what came of it). You can store that on SSD but you still need enough RAM to avoid slow down with so many things to update.

I'm looking forward to living worlds, not better textures. However procedural texture generation also requires memory. Memory was certainly an issue in the current gen, for example https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/04/the_outer_worlds_was_held_back_by_console_memory_budgets. The start of last gen it was already seen as a bottleneck https://wccftech.com/crytek-8gb-ps4xbox-ram-surely-fill-act-limiting-factor/

Current gen games weren't static by design, it's necessity. And it looks like next gen is in the same boat. Still waiting for the resolution race to be over before games can advance in interactivity and dynamism.

Again, the enviornment changing form and allowing water to realistically flow around it is more CPU and GPU intensive. But thank you for elaborating.

According to MS the Crackdown destruction was CPU intensive. Probably too demanding even for current gen CPUs.

So Outerworlds struggled with 8th gen RAM limitations, but it also works on Switch? Impressive. I guess what I was really trying to say is 8th gen has plenty of open world games with lots of activity and the Series S specs overall can expand on that significantly. Especially if the SSD can alleviate stress on RAM and quickly load in signifcant data given its apparently 40x faster.

That article about Crytek from 2014 shows you are grasping at straws. For two reasons, that studio has sucked this generation and games have become significantly more impressive on 8th gen hardware since 2014. Seriously, don't bother with crap like that.

Developers primary focus will be to keep making tradional games with improved visuals and maybe increase the scale. What you are asking for is more like tech demos that developers probably aren't aiming for.

But since Sony 1st party is not hindered by Series S, maybe they will develop this amazing project you have in your head.

Last edited by Mr Puggsly - on 15 November 2020