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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Xbox Series Velocity Architecture detailed

drkohler on 14 July 2020
shikamaru317 said:

Let’s dive deep into each component:

  • The custom NVME SSD in Xbox Series X is designed for consistent, sustained performance as opposed to peak performance.
  • Assuming a 2:1 compression ratio, Xbox Series X delivers an effective 4.8 GB/s in I/O performance to the title
  • We added a brand new DirectStorage API to the DirectX family
  • Sampler Feedback Streaming is a brand-new innovation

So instead of just posting another PR fluff piece, you could have commented on the key information hidden in all the PR speak:

1. If the ssd is designed not for peak performance, what are the actual, measured average transfer rates? Still waiting for actual numbers..

2. Obviously the same wishful PR speak, complicated by multiplying two peak numbers together. Again, I want to see actual, measured average transfer rates.

3. And this runs on the Zen2 cores. So what is the actual, measured penalty for this (including all side effects like possibly bombing cpu caches)?

4. Yeah, really. Nobody ever figured out that one should only load data that is actually used. What software lab geniuses are we talking about here? This has been done on the AppleII (for obvious reasons) 50 years ago.



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DonFerrari on 14 July 2020

Good detail, very similar to what Sony have done, but don't seem to mention direct access that doesn't go through the I/O for some functions.
Also they abused a little on mixed PR adjectives that are verified not true.
@drkohler
1. The 2.4 is the performance design, not peak, cold, etc, it is always 2.4
2. Yes the multiplying of peaks can be ignored, 2.4 is the speed, everything else will vary based on the application
3. No it doesn't use Zen2 cores, he is explaining that the decompression block perform an activity that would use otherwise use many Zen2 cores (PS5 have the same with their I/O and decompression)
4. Loading only the texture only when required and at the detail needed isn't that old. Remember that because of the HDD speed a lot of stuff needed to be already loaded on the RAM (even when not showing) what was avoided was rendering what isn't seem. So now with faster SSD and new techniques the texture isn't even on the RAM before needed and also it will load at the level of detail it is needed.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Trunkin on 14 July 2020

Sampler feedback streaming sounds promising to me. It sounds like it's entirely software based, which means any improvements it brings could theoretically also be brought to PC, right?



vivster on 14 July 2020

I wonder what's wrong with the consoles' GPUs when all they're talking about is the storage.



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DonFerrari on 14 July 2020
Trunkin said:
Sampler feedback streaming sounds promising to me. It sounds like it's entirely software based, which means any improvements it brings could theoretically also be brought to PC, right?

It still needs a fast I/O to really make it happen I guess. But yes probably can be done in the PC, seems like an API feature.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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hinch on 14 July 2020

2-3x bandwidth. So lets say 2.5x multiplied effect of an average of the 2.5Gb/s SSD. We're looking at around 6Gb/s I/O. Pretty nice stuff.

Looking forward to seeing Direct Storage for PC.



hinch on 14 July 2020
shikamaru317 said:
hinch said:

2-3x bandwidth. So lets say 2.5x multiplied effect of an average of the 2.5Gb/s SSD. We're looking at around 6Gb/s I/O. Pretty nice stuff.

Looking forward to seeing Direct Storage for PC.

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me like MS is claiming:

  • 2.4 GB/s (base SSD speed) x 2 (decompression)= 4.8 GB/s
  • 2.5x effective I/O increase (Sampler Feedback Streaming)= 12 GB/s

By comparison, Sony is claiming:

  • 5.5 GB/s (base SSD speed)
  • 8-9 GB/s decompression speed (PS5 has dedicated decompression hardware, same as XSX, so that CPU resources aren't wasted on decompression, though it seems like their decompression multiplier is less than the 2x that MS is claiming for XSX)

If the above is true, MS will have the advantage on texture streaming, assuming of course that Sampler Feedback Streaming works as advertised, and assuming that Sony doesn't have a similar technique in the works for only loading partial mipmaps into the RAM at just the right time. However, even if SFS works as advertised, it will only help with texture streaming, it won't help with load times. Sony will still have the load time advantage since their SSD is faster and they also have dedicated decompression hardware, PS5 will be able to load games at 8-9 GB/s, compared to 4.8 GB/s for XSX.

Nah I don't think so. On the Microsoft's website they explain the effect from raw throughput which is 2.4 GB/s.

This innovation results in approximately 2.5x the effective I/O throughput and memory usage above and beyond the raw hardware capabilities on average. SFS provides an effective multiplier on available system memory and I/O bandwidth, resulting in significantly more memory and I/O throughput available to make your game richer and more immersive.

Found a explanation from Gaf from a member 'Ascend'

"It's not unknown. We have 2.4 GB/s raw, and 4.8 GB/s compressed. On top of that, you have this multiplier. So in practice, you would be getting 12GB/s equivalent throughput of doing things raw. I made a post about this quite a while back.

Edit: After reading through the link on MS website, it seems that it is above the raw throughput, not the compressed throughput. So the 12GB/s is incorrect, and it is indeedn 2.4 GB/s * 2.5, which gives you 6GB/s. Still fine. I guess I over-speculated about a few things back then ^_^

Edit2: Hm... I'm doubtful again.

This innovation results in approximately 2.5x the effective I/O throughput and memory usage above and beyond the raw hardware capabilities on average.Must we interpret that as 2.5x above the 2.5GB/s, or, 2.5x above the 4.8GB/s, because, the compression is also hardware, so that means it should be 2.5x above 4.8GB/s. The word 'raw' can be interpreted to mean all hardware, or specifically the raw throughput of the I/O."



hinch on 14 July 2020
shikamaru317 said:

So if the decompression tech on XSX can only be used for reducing load times and not for texture streaming, I would assume the same is also true for PS5, it also won't be able to use it's decompression tech to further increase the speed of texture streaming. In which case we would have 2.4 GB/s x 2.5 (SFS)= 6 GB/s for texture streaming on XSX, compared to 5.5 GB/s for texture streaming on PS5 (assuming for course that Sony hasn't came up with a similar technique to SFS, which they might have).

Either way, it's looking like both are going to be capable of truly impressive texture streaming. PS5 will for sure have an edge on load times since it's SSD is so fast, but we're still looking at a massive load time decrease over current gen on XSX.

For sure will be a huge boost from last gen.

Pretty exciting tech all around and games in 9th gen will definitely benefit from considerably higher I/O. Higher quality textures, assets and vastly improved load times. With machine learning it can go even further.



DonFerrari on 14 July 2020
shikamaru317 said:
hinch said:

2-3x bandwidth. So lets say 2.5x multiplied effect of an average of the 2.5Gb/s SSD. We're looking at around 6Gb/s I/O. Pretty nice stuff.

Looking forward to seeing Direct Storage for PC.

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me like MS is claiming:

  • 2.4 GB/s (base SSD speed) x 2 (decompression)= 4.8 GB/s
  • 2.5x effective I/O increase for textures (Sampler Feedback Streaming)= 12 GB/s

By comparison, Sony is claiming:

  • 5.5 GB/s (base SSD speed)
  • 8-9 GB/s decompression speed (PS5 has dedicated decompression hardware, same as XSX, so that CPU resources aren't wasted on decompression, though it seems like their decompression multiplier is less than the 2x that MS is claiming for XSX)

If the above is true, MS will have the advantage on texture streaming, assuming of course that Sampler Feedback Streaming works as advertised, and assuming that Sony doesn't have a similar technique in the works for only loading partial mipmaps into the RAM at just the right time (which they might). However, even if SFS works as advertised, it will only help with texture streaming, it won't help with load times. Sony will still have the load time advantage since their SSD is faster and they also have dedicated decompression hardware, PS5 will be able to load compressed game data from the drive at 8-9 GB/s, compared to 4.8 GB/s for XSX.

I don't think you should be multiplying both even more expecting 500% real world performance of that. First texture isn't the only thing that is being streammed, second those two multipliers would probably be best case scenarios. It is more probable that it is 2x higher due to compression for some files and reaching 2.5 for texture.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

KBG29 on 14 July 2020

Anyone know the difference between Partially Resident Textures and Sampler Feedback Streaming?

PlayStation Shader Language already supports Partially Resident Textures, which I from what I understand, is very similar to what Xbox is doing with SFS.



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