Microsoft Pulls a Fast One with E3 Xbox One Demos

[btarunr]

With its focus on on-demand entertainment at the expense of gaming prowess, Xbox One didn't impress gamers at E3, who instead flocked to Amazon to pre-order their PlayStation 4, which not only features faster hardware, that could translate to better visuals in gaming, but is also a whole 20 percent cheaper ($499 vs. $399). At E3, Microsoft tried to pull a fast one. It set up several gaming stations allegedly powered by Xbox One, where gamers could play unreleased Xbox One games using the new Xbox One controller, just to get a feel of how rich and smooth the graphics really are. Some of them fell for it, others didn't. When these peeping toms didn't find the screens wired to an Xbox One main unit, they yanked open the cupboards below, only to find a full-fledged Windows 7 gaming PC.

How full-fledged you ask? Keen observers across the forumscape made out a rig powered by an Intel LGA2011 processor, which could at least be a Core i7-3820, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 700 series reference design graphics card, which could at least be a GeForce GTX 770. Such a system would obviously give you a rich and smooth gaming experience.



Microsoft Xbox One features a custom-designed application processor by AMD, which combines eight 64-bit x86 cores based on the "Jaguar" micro-architecture, with a GPU that packs 768 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, and a unified quad-channel DDR3-2133 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. This memory is cushioned by a large 32 MB SRAM cache on-die. In comparison, Sony's PlayStation 4 features a custom-designed application processor, too, which features the same CPU portion, but a bigger graphics core with 1,152 stream processors, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 8 GB of RAM, which can be used as both main and graphics memory. On top of all that, the PlayStation 4 is $100 cheaper, at $399.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Jetster]

That is hilarious

 

[THE_EGG]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL reminds me of the whole VLC video playing gameplay at one of Intel's press releases (at least I think it was intel IIRC).

 

[de.das.dude]

there are not ethics profession anymore.
and yeah the PS is going to be the one for a lot of people XD specially after this.

just the fact that sony is using GDDR5 over the crappy DDR3 is reason enough to believe that sony is going to be atleast 20-30% better performing.

 

[naraku]

LOL! Could you be more desperate?

 

[newtekie1]

I posted this in the other XboxOne thread.

So when Microsoft said they would show the games at E3, what they really meant was that they would show PC games at E3, and the actual games will likely look insanely worse.

Hmmm...I seem to remember a game company that just got sued for releasing a game that looked a lot worse than the demos they showed...is Microsoft on the same path? I sure hope they get slapped with a huge lawsuit.

just the fact that sony is using GDDR5 over the crappy DDR3 is reason enough to believe that sony is going to be atleast 20-30% better performing.

That and the fact that Microsoft decided to cripple the GPU in the Xbone by cutting out 1/3 of the shaders.

 

[15th Warlock]

This only underscores how much this "next" generation's specs are rooted in PC architecture, what makes this really offensive is the hypocrisy of MS and the fact that these workstation's specs are based on Intel and Nvidia hardware when both MS and AMD proudly announced their partnership when creating the Xbone.

Nvidia must find this very amusing

 

[de.das.dude]

This only underscores how much this "next" generation's specs are rooted in PC architecture, what makes this really offensive is the hypocrisy of MS and the fact that these workstation's specs are based on Intel and Nvidia hardware when both MS and AMD proudly announced their partnership when creating the Xbone.

Nvidia must find this very amusing

this is so true... and yet people keep on wanting to have consoles.
i Really dont get whats so alluring about a console. the way things are now, the consoles are just like PCs, with a diff operating system, and no keyboards and other peripherals XD.

for 400$ you can build a pretty decent gaming rig!

 

[newtekie1]

this is so true... and yet people keep on wanting to have consoles.
i Really dont get whats so alluring about a console. the way things are now, the consoles are just like PCs, with a diff operating system, and no keyboards and other peripherals XD.

for 400$ you can build a pretty decent gaming rig!

Agreed, and Xbone is supposed to even be running on the Windows kernel, so it basically has the same OS.

But a lot of console gamers have this opinion that PC gaming costs too much and believe that you constantly have to upgrade to keep playing PC games.

 

[15th Warlock]

this is so true... and yet people keep on wanting to have consoles.
i Really dont get whats so alluring about a console. the way things are now, the consoles are just like PCs, with a diff operating system, and no keyboards and other peripherals XD.

for 400$ you can build a pretty decent gaming rig!

Unfortunately, as long as some exclusives are released for consoles only, there's no other way you can enjoy great games like Forza, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Mario, Zelda, and Gran Turismo among many others

 

[de.das.dude]

i think that is going to change soon. GTA 4 was ported. and now even the consoles use the same hardware. so im pretty sure some braniac will figure out a way to bring those here.

 

[btarunr]

But a lot of console gamers have this opinion that PC gaming costs too much and believe that you constantly have to upgrade to keep playing PC games.

PC gaming costs $200.

The average household already has a ~$300 desktop. Mate that with a $200 GTX 660 or HD 7870, and buy a $25 wireless gamepad if you must; plug it to your TV over HDMI. Sure, that PC will bottleneck the card, but it would still be faster than any next-gen console.

 

[silapakorn]

There's no pride left in Microsucks these days.

 

[Jstn7477]

The octo-core 1.6GHz low power CPUs that these new consoles are using seem laughable at best. Sure, they are probably a lot better than the current generation consoles, but considering many of the games I play are hindered even by my 4.3GHz 4770K at 120Hz refresh rate due to them using 2-4 threads max and hitting 1-2 threads extremely hard, it doesn't seem to bode well for the consoles unless game devs magically create super duper multi-threading solutions for their games or they can better exploit the consoles. Yes, I know that consoles will only run at 60 FPS max if you are lucky and that makes them have less CPU overhead compared to my system, but with the somewhat lackluster multi-threading support I see in most of the PC games I play, I think devs are going to have to improve things a lot to run on 8 low power cores.

With all the past negative publicity and now these demos that are essentially fake because they aren't run on Xbone hardware, I have no idea why MS still believes everyone thinks highly of their console.

 

[Ikaruga]

I'm keep saying, when it comes to gaming, you need Intel and Nvidia

sony is going to be atleast 20-30% better performing.

While I agree that the Ps4 is a more appealing machine for gamers (I don't even have a TV, so Xbox1 would give no extra for me anyway), I would like to state that that 20-30% is more like 15-25% at best, which is not really an advantage in console terms. 95% of the gamers will not even understand (let alone notice) that they are looking at a 30-35fps game instead of a 42fps one, they never did with former systems ("Xbox360 vs Ps3" or "GC vs PS2", etc), and they will never will until the industry starts using some kind of a new display device (oculus rift, project into the brain, new eyes from Chiba or whatever;>). So this is actually an area where Microsoft could save up some to lower production costs, and they indeed did.

Again: please don't get me wrong, I agree that the PS4 is the better system, so this is just my "two cents" to the subject

 

[newtekie1]

PC gaming costs $200.

The average household already has a ~$300 desktop. Mate that with a $200 GTX 660 or HD 7870, and buy a $25 wireless gamepad if you must; plug it to your TV over HDMI. Sure, that PC will bottleneck the card, but it would still be faster than any next-gen console.

I totally agree, but some people just won't listen. Heck, my APU can match the PS3 and Xbox360 in visual quality.

While I agree that the Ps4 is a more appealing machine for gamers (I don't even have a TV, so Xbox1 would give no extra for me anyway), I would like to state that that 20-30% is more like 15-25% at best, which is not really an advantage in console terms. 95% of the gamers will not even understand (let alone notice) that they are looking at a 30-35fps game instead of a 42fps one, they never did with former systems ("Xbox360 vs Ps3" or "GC vs PS2", etc), and they will never will until the industry starts using some kind of a new display device (oculus rift, project into the brain, new eyes from Chiba or whatever;>). So this is actually an area where Microsoft could save up some to lower production costs, and they indeed did.

Again: please don't get me wrong, I agree that the PS4 is the better system, so this is just my "two cents" to the subject

True, but what the do notice is visual quality. And once the games get to the point that they have to start sacrificing visual quality to keep a smooth frame rate console gamers tend to notice, especially on games that are multi-platform.

 

[Novulux]

According to the developers, it was their choice to do this, not Microsoft's.
twitter.com/mrwilford/status/345934979324334080

 

[YogurtMaster]

You all all newbies. This is what happens at E3 at every launch. Xbox 360 was launched at E3 running on Power PC Macintosh computers.

I love how everyone is trying to turn this into bad news. The amount of ignorance is staggering. There is more ignorance and scare tactics than actual facts.

Welcome to E3 guys. Try to do some research first before putting out some article that is meant as a scare tactic instead of understanding that this is how alpha development kits can be used. Yes, the article was true to a certain extent and a lie in another, but this is standard "INDUSTRY" stuff for a console launch. You use alpha development kits to create the games. You get hardware that is close to the final hardware so developers can actually create their game. So they were running the game on hardware that is Alpha dev kit compliant.

I am sad that you guys put together computers and you should be on the up and up on this stuff and now you are just as ignorant than anyone else.

I have been to actual E3 shows (3 of them), I used to live in LA and I worked for a media company in Marina Del Rey and I would receive passes every year.

Sorry for coming down on you guys, but half of the info going on the Internet is just a bunch of crap. I don't work for Microsoft, but I am their target Market so I understand what they are trying to achieve here and a lot of people are too judgmental and just pilling up crap that either isn't true, isn't the full truth, or just crap like this because of the lack of understanding.

 

[newtekie1]

According to the developers, it was their choice to do this, not Microsoft's.
twitter.com/mrwilford/status/345934979324334080

It doesn't really matter who made the decisions, the fact is still whoever made the decision knows the Xbone is too weak and are trying to make the games look better than they are going to be when they are running on the actual system.

You use alpha development kits to create the games. You get hardware that is close to the final hardware so developers can actually create their game. So they were running the game on hardware that is Alpha dev kit compliant.

BS. This isn't an alpha kit, this hardware isn't anything close to the final hardware. Try doing some research yourself. Yes, at previous E3's alpha kits that were PCs with similar specs to the final devices were used, but in this case they were not using developement kits and the specs aren't anything close to the final specs of the device, the PC specs are way beyond what the actual console will be. Sony, on the other hand, demoed all their games on actual dev kits, not jacked up PCs.

 

[dj-electric]

Why on god's green-ish earth people are suprised Microsoft used PC to show PC-hardware based console games? I'd do the exact same thing, with AMD GPU though :X

 

[btarunr]

Why on god's green-ish earth people are suprised Microsoft used PC to show PC-hardware based console games? I'd do the exact same thing, with AMD GPU though :X

Then use an A10-6800K and HD 7790. See if games at 1080p are nearly as smooth.

 

[YogurtMaster]

It doesn't really matter who made the decisions, the fact is still whoever made the decision knows the Xbone is too weak and are trying to make the games look better than they are going to be when they are running on the actual system.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. The Alpha dev kits were using similar components. The game will look the same. It's a common practice in the INDUSTRY!

You guys are killing me with your ignorance. This happens at EVERY LAUNCH E3, it is standard stuff.

They are not trying to trick anyone. E3 is at a weird time of the year when the code is not finished or even near finished. All the developers are still working on the game while E3 is going on, they just needed to provide a stable branch of code and probably used a development kit or a pseudo development kit to run the code.

Every person here should

1) learn how to code games
2) Should go behind the scenes at E3 and find out what is really going on behind the curtains.

E3 is really an awkward time for developers because they are still using old hardware and still providing either demos to take time out of coding for the game for weeks to just provide a simple demo that may not be in the final game and is on old pieces of hardware.

 

[dj-electric]

Then use an A10-6800K and HD 7790. See if games at 1080p are nearly as smooth.

OR, they could use the FX8350 with an HD7970 Ghz instead of going and exposing all Intel+NVIDIA systems.
It's this "when the moment of truth stikes" kinda situations

 

[newtekie1]

Why on god's green-ish earth people are suprised Microsoft used PC to show PC-hardware based console games? I'd do the exact same thing, with AMD GPU though :X

The surprise is the power level of the hardware used. Just think of it like this, you see your friend playing the latest high end game on his shiny new GTX780, all the settings are maxed so the game looks really good. So you go buy the game and when you start playing it on your HD7850 and you have to run everything on medium, so it doesn't look nearly as good. That is what Microsoft is doing here. They're showing everyone the games on GTX780s when the final console will be a 7850, there is no way the games will look as good. Kind of makes all the Xbone game coverage from E3 useless since we still have no clue what the games will actually look like.

 

[alwayssts]

That and the fact that Microsoft decided to cripple the GPU in the Xbone by cutting out 1/3 of the shaders.

Trade-offs in design for the questionable choice of 'flexibility of platform' (ie Kinect etc) for a given price is one thing, but I think the intelligent argument is against the SRAM choice. Because it is on-die, combined with the rest of a decently robust APU, yields are supposedly and understandably terrible resulting in a change in GPU clock from 800mhz (1.2288TF) to rumored to be as low as 600mhz (but I would reckon is closer to 650-725mhz for 1TF) was required. My guess on the range is because of the fact the OS uses ~10%, if not more now, of the GPU essentially minimizing the the overhead advantage versus a PC making it quite literally half the GPU platform of the PS4. It's something similar (granted inherently different) to 7770 versus 7870. It's also quite obvious from the size of the box the thing runs hot (which would also make sense if they were trying to maximize crappy yields).

Everything about the thing just screams flat-out sad/disastrous from a gaming POV. I don't blame anybody for not demoing on dev kits.

While you can laugh about a demo system running a high-end PC, I will laugh when in the very near future retail APUs provide more real-world gaming performance. While it's questionable if the next-gen beyond 28nm for AMD and 22nm for Intel will provide a better gaming platform than the PS4 (I would guess it will be the target they are aiming for in a couple years), it's not a question with the xbox. Imagine people showing a xbox game simulation at E3 2014 using a 64-unit Intel APU running at somewhere close to 3x clock or (more realistically) a 512sp AMD AMD APU running at 1.5x clock... perhaps twice that count (128 Intel/896 AMD) a year later needing half the clock. Assuming there is adequate bandwidth/buffer (Crystalwell/GDDR5/DDR4) it's conceivable, if not inevitable, and really kind of pathetic.