MLiD w/ NX Gaming (Broken Silicon Podcast; Gaming-Centric Edition)

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

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They don't usually do a gaming-centric edition of the podcast (or certainly a console-centric one), but this is one of the exceptions, with NX Gamer as the guest. Giving it a listen right now, but there are some pretty interesting talks here so far.

-PC spec requirements for current gen-exclusive console games might be impacted by the lack of sufficient PC I/O setup compared to the consoles​

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-Infer that the difference in performance for both Hogwarts and Dead Space on PS5 vs Series X are down to different design goals between Sony & Microsoft, and Sony putting more resources and focus on programming & design pipelines focused on a very specific closed box spec that is heavily gaming-focused.​

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-Tom has heard some really troubling word on Starfield development from contacts, but won't get into specifics for now. Suggests that some of the Zenimax/Bethesda layoffs of recent are tied to the development issues with Starfield. NX Gamer has heard similar.​

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-Both feel that 4K30 being the only option for Starfield on Series X is due to the game being CPU-heavy​

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-Speculate that IF either company is forced to increase price in the US, Microsoft would likely be the first​

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-Infer that Sony may lower PS5 price down to pre-increase levels with the rumored Revision D PS5 model (to launch in September)​

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-NX Gamer is of the opinion that MS's publisher acquisition strategy revolves around getting the market away from competitors and owning the content so that it can be leveraged in Game Pass​

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[UPDATED]​

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-NX Gamer is bearish on mid-gen Pro refreshes; for Sony, cites them not really wanting to do a PS4 Pro to begin with, Sony not wanting to fracture their console market, increase in costs. Is slightly more bullish on an Xbox Series Pro mid-gen refresh, but feels that's changed due to Xbox market performance the past year​

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-MLiD thinks MS could do a Pro upgrade for Series X that increases RAM to 20 GB, increases RAM bandwidth by maybe 50%; NX Gamer & MLiD speculate on a hypothetical Series S upgrade that could be introduced to bridge the S & X, and phase out the S & X replaced with an S upgrade with more performance and a price between the current S & X​

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-MLiD & NX Gamer say that MS have probably shifted to 6nm for Series S by now, but could be sitting on systems because the channels are stuffed with the current (older) Series S units on 7nm. And retailers would not put in more orders until current stock clears (I think @KiryuRealty 's mention of MS selling hardware to retailers for upfront payment and not buying back unsold stock would also compound this and have them sit on 6nm Series S systems if they've actually made the shift to that node).​

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There's a lot more but those are some main points from the first hour. The rest of the video is focused on PSVR2, Meta Quest 3, 6nm Series X & PS5 Pro speculation, Switch 2 and Steam Deck. So yeah, very gaming-heavy episode, I thought some of y'all would be interested to give it a watch/listen.

 

[John Elden Ring]

Both feel that 4K30 being the only option for Starfield on Series X is due to the game being CPU-heavy

More like being a buggy mess

 

[Deleted member 417]

-PC spec requirements for current gen-exclusive console games might be impacted by the lack of sufficient PC I/O setup compared to the consoles

-Infer that the difference in performance for both Hogwarts and Dead Space on PS5 vs Series X are down to different design goals between Sony & Microsoft, and Sony putting more resources and focus on programming & design pipelines focused on a very specific closed box spec that is heavily gaming-focused.

-Tom has heard some really troubling word on Starfield development from contacts, but won't get into specifics for now. Suggests that some of the Zenimax/Bethesda layoffs of recent are tied to the development issues with Starfield. NX Gamer has heard similar.

-Both feel that 4K30 being the only option for Starfield on Series X is due to the game being CPU-heavy

Cerny is once again vindicated in the decisions and designs He made. When talking to devs in regards to designing the PS5, they all wanted more throughput, as they saw that as the bottleneck going forward. That's the reason Cerny and Sony went for fewer TF but more throughput for a balanced system.

Cerny helped Sweeney design UE5 around the same concept of pushing more through at a faster rate, than just beefing up everything with no thought or planning.

It will be interesting to see how PC and Xbox handle UE5 games going forward. Once thing is for sure though, over the next 12 months, PS5 will have the best looking games in the industry and some of those games will look even better in VR2. Even a cross-gen game like Horizon beats almost everything on the market.


Thanks for posting the video though. It's interesting information!

 

[anonpuffs]

Just a reminder to take anything Tom (MLiD guy) says with a handful of salt. Not to say he's always wrong, but there's often speculation passed off as solid info. His interview guests are usually excellent though.

 

[Old Gamer]

MLiD is not exactly consistent with his information. Hardly the worst out there though.

 

[Remij]

MLiD is a fucking clown who doesn't know shit... and Michael isn't much better.

Keep inferring chaps

 

[Umar]

What does he say about the MGS remake?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Cerny is once again vindicated in the decisions and designs He made. When talking to devs in regards to designing the PS5, they all wanted more throughput, as they saw that as the bottleneck going forward. That's the reason Cerny and Sony went for fewer TF but more throughput for a balanced system.

Cerny helped Sweeney design UE5 around the same concept of pushing more through at a faster rate, than just beefing up everything with no thought or planning.

It will be interesting to see how PC and Xbox handle UE5 games going forward. Once thing is for sure though, over the next 12 months, PS5 will have the best looking games in the industry and some of those games will look even better in VR2. Even a cross-gen game like Horizon beats almost everything on the market.


Thanks for posting the video though. It's interesting information!

Personally I think PC will be fine at the end of the day, at least for users willing to upgrade their hardware. Minimum spec for 9th-gen only games is probably going to upset some of them for a while, but even many of the stubborn will upgrade their hardware if need be. They always do.

Xbox is more up in the air, partly because MS still mandate native versions of games for the Series S. As long as they do that, the Series S will always limit the ceiling for what can be done on Series X and even MS 1P games on PC because the Series S floor is much lower than any floor Sony would have to deal with this gen.

Not every 1P game is going to need the full power of Series X, obviously. But games that may want to use that compute power for things besides higher resolutions or framerates are going to have an albatross in the Series S around their neck. I think Series X's own quirks are going to also rear their ugly head as the gen goes on; even compressed, the SSD bandwidth is going to be much slower than PS5's and more advanced SSDs that release in the market the years to come. Their memory I/O solution is also, frankly, inferior to PS5's when it comes to the hardware grunt.

Microsoft's solution for the I/O was to more hardware-agnostic and relatively easily scalable across multiple hardware specs and configs. But that has its share of problems, as you'll always need some amount of hardware overhead beyond a console's I/O subsystem (such as, especially, PS5's in this case) to match that performance. Because IIRC, DirectStorage might be a rewrite of the file I/O for PC, but its benefits scale depending on a user's SSD, CPU, GPU & RAM configurations. It lowers a lot of the hardware brute-forcing that was previously required, but can't eliminate it altogether.

And, IMO, I don't the Series X has the hardware overhead that matches well enough with it's I/O subsystem abilities, to really keep up with what PS5's I/O subsystem will be able to do as more current-gen only games (particularly exclusive ones) start to roll out. Or, it can maybe match a decent amount of that I/O efficiency, but at the expense of other advertised advantages, because other parts of the system will have to do trade-offs.

But yeah man, Cerny and his team are great minds, and whatever team of AMD engineers they worked with (Sony & MS worked with different, isolated AMD teams but those two AMD teams still provided resources on the whole general RDNA2 architecture to both the Sony & MS teams) as well.

Just a reminder to take anything Tom (MLiD guy) says with a handful of salt. Not to say he's always wrong, but there's often speculation passed off as solid info. His interview guests are usually excellent though.

For sure. But like you said, I particularly like when he gets industry guests on the show.

The insights they provide is great and Tom does tend to ask real questions so that guests can either share insightful information on some part of the industry, or provide thoughts on where parts of the tech market may be going from the POV of someone actually working in it (or has a ton of experience working in it, if they're retired).

What does he say about the MGS remake?

Still gotta watch the rest but from what I've seen so far, not too much .

 

[Deleted member 417]

Personally I think PC will be fine at the end of the day, at least for users willing to upgrade their hardware. Minimum spec for 9th-gen only games is probably going to upset some of them for a while, but even many of the stubborn will upgrade their hardware if need be. They always do.

PCMR will have to upgrade more than their graphics cards this time though, I can see that getting very expensive and even after all of that, they lack the software integration that PS5 has.

Xbox is more up in the air, partly because MS still mandate native versions of games for the Series S. As long as they do that, the Series S will always limit the ceiling for what can be done on Series X and even MS 1P games on PC because the Series S floor is much lower than any floor Sony would have to deal with this gen.

Not every 1P game is going to need the full power of Series X, obviously. But games that may want to use that compute power for things besides higher resolutions or framerates are going to have an albatross in the Series S around their neck. I think Series X's own quirks are going to also rear their ugly head as the gen goes on; even compressed, the SSD bandwidth is going to be much slower than PS5's and more advanced SSDs that release in the market the years to come. Their memory I/O solution is also, frankly, inferior to PS5's when it comes to the hardware grunt.

Microsoft's solution for the I/O was to more hardware-agnostic and relatively easily scalable across multiple hardware specs and configs. But that has its share of problems, as you'll always need some amount of hardware overhead beyond a console's I/O subsystem (such as, especially, PS5's in this case) to match that performance. Because IIRC, DirectStorage might be a rewrite of the file I/O for PC, but its benefits scale depending on a user's SSD, CPU, GPU & RAM configurations. It lowers a lot of the hardware brute-forcing that was previously required, but can't eliminate it altogether.

And, IMO, I don't the Series X has the hardware overhead that matches well enough with it's I/O subsystem abilities, to really keep up with what PS5's I/O subsystem will be able to do as more current-gen only games (particularly exclusive ones) start to roll out. Or, it can maybe match a decent amount of that I/O efficiency, but at the expense of other advertised advantages, because other parts of the system will have to do trade-offs.

IF Xbox was going to continue, the S would become a streaming console, the series X would be discontinued and a 1x style series console would be released. Very few people know that the 1X isn't an upgraded Xbox one, but is almost entirely a new console, from form factor to GPU to RAM, but MS sold it as a mid-gen refresh. I wouldn't put it past them to try it again.

However, they run into 2 major problems; 1) They don't understand the industry or what their studios need, so could never provide them with a console that matches their, let alone competes with the best studios', needs. 2) VR2 drops today/tomorrow. No matter how well Microsoft catch up, even if a new console comes out in 6 months and runs Starfield at 4k120 with ray tracing and the best graphics ever seen, they are still on the backfoot because of VR. The shills will downplay VR2 and say it will fail because they NEED it to fail. If it doesn't, and it becomes the place to play, then it really is game over for Xbox

But yeah man, Cerny and his team are great minds, and whatever team of AMD engineers they worked with (Sony & MS worked with different, isolated AMD teams but those two AMD teams still provided resources on the whole general RDNA2 architecture to both the Sony & MS teams) as well.

IIRC Cerny worked directly with Lisa tsu (spelling) (Top AMD woman) because she knew/had a deal with Cerny that he would tweak the AMD cards and give them access to top tech, if they cut Sony a deal. We have seen Cerny create industry standards during the PS4 gen and it wouldn't surprise anyone if he did it again with AMD.

It's part of the reason the whole 'PS5 Isn't RDNA2' fud came out, because it wasn't RDNA2. Cerny took parts off of RDNA 1.5 and buffed them up, parts from RDNA 2 and tweaked them and even brought forward some tech from RDNA 3 (or at least parts that would be standard). All MS got were off the shelf RDNA 2 parts. So when they saw that Cerny had bits from RDNA 1.5 that he wanted to tweak to fit the throughput design he was going for, MS thought Sony had cheaped out. In reality they made a custom solution.

 

[Dabaus]

Conversation about console gaming starts around 41 minutes but time stamps are in the description. Pretty interesting overall I thought.

Moores law is dead is channel that mainly dwells on pc and pc tech in general but he does occasionally talk about consoles. Him and his host talk about how the ps5/series consoles have performed so far, mgs remake still in development (seemingly for ps5) and how starfield is having trouble development wise. They also weight in on the activsion blizzard deal and ps vr2.

 

[Shmunter]

Seems Sony betting on not using silicone on VRS was the right bet with so many other technologies like DRS, Image reconstruction, PS5 Geometry engine a lot more efficient due to early intervention, etc….

And that’s just the beginning…..enjoy

 

[Bodycount611]

really hope we see MGS remake soon.

Also wow, they are really down on the acti deal and the future of xbox.

he even says starfield is a complete dumpster fire behind the scenes... xbox cancelling projects behind the scenes is why they had no games in 2022, xbox winding down, MS going 3rd party seems to all be in the cards.

this is really worrying stuff.