Had it planned to release this year then absolutely not since the new system wouldn't release until next year but by the sounds of it, the new entry in the franchise could coincide with the release of the new system by late next year so it doesn't make any sense to keep the X1 in the release schedule anymore since it'll be a very quickly depreciated platform after that ...

Could be parity, can't say and also I would agree texture itself wouldn't take much more work. But "4K" is the word of the moment so they will prefer to also have the marketing covered whenever possible. And without being a specialist I can at most image that perhaps the texture (that would need to be a change of all of them) needs some adjustment on other parts to keep it from hitting fps.

Halo has always had a degree of artistic charm, backing that art with advanced visual effects would be a good thing... In saying that, some of the effects Infinite is pushing is pretty damn great as it is, done a ton of analysis on the trailers that have been presented so far.

It does have a few rough edges though, depth of field transitions irked me somewhat for example, but that's a small gripe for a game that hasn't even been released yet.

I do actually agree to a degree. I am just trying to quantify Microsoft's choices.
But it would be no more of a negative effect than supporting the Xbox One/Xbox One S/Xbox One X when Scarlett launches.

We don't know how the SSD is going to be implemented yet either... I would assume external mechanical storage will continue to be a necessity next-gen, so games will likely continue to be built with that in mind.
The SSD will bolster streaming, but other than that no real optimization needs to be done.

The evidence has already been presented for Halo 3 having frame pacing issues. - Unless you are suggesting that digital foundry is lieing?

Frame pacing issues can occur even when you have a locked, solid, frame rate.

For example back when I was running with quad Radeon 7970's, AMD was notorious for it's crossfire frame-pacing issues.
I could have a locked 60fps, 1440P, but the game felt terrible to handle. - Why? Frame pacing.

Let me break it down. (Although if you are willing to ignore evidence, you will likely ignore this as well.)

You have 30 frame per second, locked. - That means a frame gets rendered every 33.3ms.

So in the span of a second you have 30 frames each with their specific render times:
Frame 1: 33.3ms
Frame 2: 33.3ms
Frame 3: 33.3ms
Frame 4: 33.3ms
Frame 5: 20.3ms
Frame 6: 43.3ms
Frame 7: 33.3ms
Frame 8: 33.3ms
Frame 9: 33.3ms
Frame 10: 33.3ms
Frame 11: 33.3ms
Frame 12: 33.3ms
Frame 13: 23.3ms
Frame 14: 13.3ms
Frame 15: 43.3ms
Frame 16: 43.3ms
Frame 17: 43.3ms
Frame 18: 33.3ms
Frame 19: 33.3ms
Frame 20: 33.3ms
Frame 21: 33.3ms
Frame 22: 33.3ms
Frame 23: 33.3ms
Frame 24: 33.3ms
Frame 25: 33.3ms
Frame 26: 33.3ms
Frame 27: 33.3ms
Frame 28: 33.3ms
Frame 29: 33.3ms
Frame 30: 33.3ms

That is still 30 frames per second, but some frames get drawn sooner, some others later in that allotted recorded second, aka. Frame pacing.
Anandtech has also broken it down fairly well here which might educate you a bit better on the topic than what I have done, although it pertains to crossfire specifically, the same issue can occur outside of that.



https://www.anandtech.com/show/7195/amd-frame-pacing-explorer-cat138

Well. It was an early 8th gen multiplatform title, so to be expected.
Many early 8th gen games look terrible now, especially on Xbox One with it's terrible hardware.

Supporting X1/X1X is very different than a low end/stripped down Scarlett. If a low end Scarlett were to exist, that may become a baseline for developers. If there is only one Scarlett, the high end model, that becomes the lead hardware for Scarlett development.

While X1/X1X ports doesn't necessarily need to affect games that use Scarlett as the lead. Developers would simply have to strip those games down into functional products for 8th gen specs. But this is assuming MS will keep bringing AAA games to X1 after Scarlett launches.

Alright, you're saying Halo 3 has frame pacing issues that evidently isn't reflected in frame counters. Okay, that's fine. Perhaps the frame pacing issues that really bothers people is what you see in Halo Anniversary on 360.

I think we can blame the lack of polish in GTAV being from early hardware optimization.

The transition to the 9th gen is going to take years... Just like the transition from 7th to 8th gen... Many games just looked like enhanced 7th gen titles early on.
So for years, the base Xbox One will be the baseline for developers on Scarlett.

A lower-end Scarlett would still be a step up and won't be the baseline until that transition was entirely completed.

Now to state that developers will build games for Scarlett as a lead platform and strip them down for the Xbox One/Xbox One S/Xbox One X, but not a lower-end Scarlett is a pretty bold claim, one that I can't adhere to.

Will be interesting to see how Microsoft supports the 8th gen devices once Scarlett is on the Market, I am hoping for a quick cut-off.

Correct, because the frame time variances happens far to quickly for frame counters to typically log.

Frame pacing issues also occurs in Halo: Anniversary on 360. - I think it just feels more pronounced on Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST because of the way the buffering systems are set up. (Which were a necessity for some rendering aspects.)

Back during Halo 3's heyday, I didn't really care though, it was a fantastic title that I sunk hundreds of hours into and had a blast in it's multiplayer... And it was a visual showpiece for the platform with it's HDR lighting, tessellated water effects, long (for the time) draw distances and so on... But going back to it doesn't feel great, it's a better experience on Halo: The Master Chief Collection with it's 60fps lock.

That is a testament to the MCC collection as a package though and why any Halo fan should pick a copy up over the original releases... Unless you are a purest.

Well we have to assume its gonna take years for developers to really squeeze the potential out of new machines. Engines will improve, it seems developers adopt more advanced effects over time, etc.

I dont necessarily see it as the transition from generations takes time per se, I see it as trends in development changes. I mean early, mid and late gen content has looked very different on 7th and 8th gen.

Its evident that around 2013-2014 games were already using the 8th gen consoles as the lead. Cross gen games of that period remind me of Switch ports. It was simply obvious the 7th gen ports were getting muddy and compromising resolution more than usual, but also pushing more advanced lighting/shadow techniques.

I don't know if X1 and PS4 will be treated as lead platforms for AAA projects, perhaps more on the CPU and RAM. They could do that while still pushing graphics because that scales more easily.

Its worth considering X1 and PS4 support could deter some studios from making ambitious experiences that absolutely require 9th gen power. However, I also feel developers are interested in pushing GPU more than CPU. I just don't feel CPU has really been a very limiting factor on gameplay most developers are trying to create.

I'm suggesting if a low end Scarlett did exist, that could be treated as the baseline for Scarlett software optimization. If there is only one Scarlett and it has more cutting edge specs, that becomes the baseline Scarlett optimization. In comparison games are optimized for X1, not X1X.

I took another look at that Halo 3 video from VGTech and youre right. What youre referring to is a slight judder that may not even happen in some places, it actually is reflected in that video. When most games have frame pacing issues its constant which makes the experience feel rough. Halo 3 in comparison is nothing like that, so I didnt consider it frame pacing.

People might play 360 versions of Halo for MP stuff like playlists, crossplat for 360 and X1 users, fire fight modes from ODST, achievments, maybe forge stuff, etc. Some of that may seem minor but 360 versions have activity.

I'll just say that if MS focus baseline on X1 while sony dump it and go for PS5 (after the release of Death Stranding, TLOU2 and Ghost of Tsushijima all games that haven't been announced are already being made for PS5 and with time to have releases on the first year) the gap on the games will be pretty big and the bloodshed won't be pretty.

Just speculation and nobody thinks the 8th gen hardware is gonna go completely unsupported when 9th gen consoles launch.

Even if some games are built to function on a X1, they could still have vastly superior visuals and performance on Scarlett and maybe add features for the CPU disparity. It could also be the opposite where games are built for Scarlett but a scaled back port for X1 is feasible.

Of course. That goes without saying.

The trends in development are typically enabled by new baseline hardware. - We see it on the PC every time the consoles finally catch up in regards to technological feature sets.

PC was dabbling in Tessellation back in 2010, but it wasn't a mainstream tech feature in games/engines until the 8th gen dropped years later with the hardware feature sets to support it. - I mean we can go back farther to when the PC first started dabbling in Tessellation back when the Playstation 2 was on the market...

Not really. Some games were using the 8th gen as the leed, but it was certainly not the norm.
But titles like Call of Duty: Ghosts and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare were clearly being held back by 7th gen rendering paradigms as evident by their texturing, lighting and shadowing.

Titles like Dragon Age: Inquisition, Battlefield 4, Assassins Creed: Black Flag and so on had some of it's rendering roots clearly stuck in the 7th gen as well with 8th gen enhancements. - Basically what the PC had been doing for years prior.

Even a game like Dead Rising 4 whilst taking advantage of the increase in CPU headroom on the Xbox One, still had allot of it's technical visual underpinnings in the 7th gen, Capcom didn't really build the game and engine from the ground up to take advantage of the new hardware on a graphics front, they took the old Forge Engine instead to expedite development, which makes business sense, but not an ideal way to show off brand spanking new hardware.

It wasn't until the shackles of the 7th gen was removed that games started to come into their own visually...

CPU tasks can scale as well.
Many CPU-tasks can be toggled off and on just like graphics settings.

Heck some graphics effects are very CPU heavy as well.

Pushing GPU has always been the status quo, graphics is what you can easily represent in a trailer or on a poster to help sell your title.

The CPU has most certainly held us back for the last few generations... During the 7th gen we saw some titles leverage the CPU to do things like decompression duties... If it was more capable, then Virtual Texturing would have probably been more impressive.

The 8th gen we have higher character counts, better CPU driven physics and so on, but on a simulation level things haven't really progressed significantly as the jump in CPU capability was not a catastrophic one, only so much Jaguar can do.

We are doing less graphics work on the CPU these days in general though, for instance we aren't using the CPU for Anti-Aliasing or Blur filters anymore... And even Particle effects are being GPU accelerated, so that CPU time has been spent elsewhere.

Once the middleware and game engines catch up they will take advantage of it, but it's going to take a few years, just like with the transition from 7th to 8th gen and 6th to 7th gen... That doesn't mean games on newer hardware won't look and run better, far from it.

It will be interesting to see how the Playstation 4 Pro and Xbox One X go in regards to the comparisons between 8th and 9th gen in graphics comparisons.

A low-end Scarlett wouldn't be a baseline if developers are still targeting the Xbox One/Xbox One S and Xbox One X, Playstation 4, Playstation 4 Pro and low-end PC's.

It will become the baseline once those devices have been phased out.

Either way... A Low-end Scarlett doesn't seem to be happening anyway, anymore. - So the point is moot.

You are better off playing the Xbox 360 versions on the Xbox One via backwards compatibility most of the time.

Although, last time I tried Reach (That was allot of patches ago) it was almost unplayable on the base Xbox One, the frame pacing and frame rates made it unplayable.
In saying that, it was never a perfect experience on the Xbox 360 either... I would assume it would be a much better experience now though, especially on X hardware, it's probably been a few years since I gave it a spin.

PC versions of games during the 6th and 7th gen software often had effects that simply couldn't be duplicated on consoles. Hence, developers were raising the bar on high end gaming PCs even while supporting vastly inferior consoles. People often blame consoles for slowing down gaming visuals, but developers have the option to push visuals on PC even while supporting consoles. A recent example is PC software experimenting with ray tracing.

CoD Ghosts looked like a 7th gen game, there was just some added effects for 8th gen. Battlefield 4 is one of the most impressive looking games on 7th gen, it also had to be relatively low overhead to achieve 60 fps on 8th gen. Dragon Age Inquisition looks like trash on 7th gen, that's exactly the type of game that wasn't using 7th gen as the lead. AC4 was obviously built for 7th gen, not a debate.

I think you mean Dead Rising 3, not 4. Also, that was clearly a horribly optimized game for launch reasons but developers were also struggling with X1 hardware early on. They surprisingly turned that into a game that stuck to 30 fps over time.

I actually played Thief and The Evil Within on 360, they're functional but you can clearly tell they were really built for 8th gen. I think its possible early 8th gen games were using less demanding engines, like stuff that works on 7th gen because they were getting their bearings on the new specs.

I think we agree 8th gen specs can be lead while still allowing support for 7th gen, just depends on the route developers go.

Maybe we can blame consoles for not pushing CPU in games harder, but I just don't think that was a focus of many games.

For a game like Halo Infinite, I think we'll get a big disparity between base X1 and X1X. Sound like Gears 5 is really being built to take advantage of X1X. For most other games though, I think it will be the same. Base hardware is the focus and mid gen upgrades add polish.

While crossplat software of 8th and 9th gen is being done, perhaps developers might use some aspects of 8th gen as a baseline, like CPU to make sure a game can function on 8th gen. But visually games can still treat 9th gen as the lead, as in just make the 9th gen versions much more visually impressive and add extra effects, high quality assets, etc. There are many examples of this in crossplat years of previous generations.

I remember the 360 version of King Kong looked stunning because it used higher quality assets and effects along with glorious HD resolution. It looks terrible now, but that made the generational leap evident even while using an ultimately 6th gen game. That's kinda my point from the start, Halo Infinite can show a generation leap even if X1 is the lead. We don't know if MS is doing that though, might just focus on 4K and increase effects settings.