The Park Dev On How DX12 Could Benefit Xbox One Games, Will Widen The Gap Between PS4 And X1 CPUs

Joel Bylos, Creative Director at Funcom [the team behind The Park] has shared his thoughts on DirectX12 and how it can possibly improve games performance on Xbox One.

[Hoffmann]

Thanks for this great article Mr Rashid Sayed that will truly enlighten many of us about the upcoming gap between the performance of games on the Xbox One and the Playstation 4.

Errr, since it was requested a couple of times lately, here is the /s

Happy Weekend everyone

[OB1Biker]

And the 'GAP' Between PS4 And X1 cpu will WIDEN.
Wow...../s
No offence intended to xbox fans but its just like gamingbolt ; the headline is usually enough so you don't even need to click.

[rdgneoz3]

Same song and dance as when they had the kinect power being available to devs and then "da cloud!"

[never4get]

"DirectX12 is not a magical panacea", it should be. It's not fun watching a race between consoles, where there's one console so far ahead, it's kinda lonely when competition so far behind.

[Griever]

More secret sauce articles... and by gamingbolt... It has already been made clear several times that Xbox One already has much of the DX12 improvements from the begining and the impact will be minimal. Dont these "journalists" get tired of spreading all these baseless rumours and BS? Just a few days ago it was all about the "Xbox One Polaris," a supposedly much more powerful Xbox One that would leave PS4 in dust. It later turned out to be just a code name for Netflix on Xbox One and had been there ever since launch.

Cloud computing? Stacked GPUs? Hidden components? Polaris? DX12? When is all this Xbox One secret sauce finally going to materialize?? We are already almost half way through the generation if we consider 5 years the normal lifespan of a console generation.

The Xbox One is weaker than PS4 so what? Its a fact so why not just accept it and enjoy the games instead of always looking forward to some secret sauce that will "unleash the hidden power?" The Xbox One has become a great console and offers great exclusive games with more to come. Isnt that enough? These rumours only mislead gullible fans and fuel fanboy wars.

[Khaotic]

Who cares im having fun with the games i play. So much negativity others must not be having the same experience i am having.

[lastking95]

the kinect free up improved games and cloud has been working.....good point, dx12 should have some impact.

Serious question why do some ppl call cloud and an api secret sauce? Lol why are ppl so intimidated?

[AndrewLB]

Wait... so you're saying the Xbone doesn't have a faster CPU than PS4?

It is widely known that while the PS4 has a faster GPU, the Xbone does indeed have a more powerful CPU. Even the developer of Planetside 2 talked about the PS4's CPU being a bottleneck which prevented it from fully utilizing the the GPU. http://wccftech.com/planets...

[Why o why]

Griever

Spot on fella

[kraenk12]

@andrewLB

Both CPUs are identical...the only thing MS did shortly before launch was increase the core frequency from the 1.6 the PS4 still has to 1.75 GHz, when they realised their GPU was 33% less powerful. They were able to do that because the X1's cooling is over engineered in order to prevent another RROD problem.

[TheCommentator]

@ Kraenk

Nick Baker, an XB1 engineer, talked with Digital Foundry specifically about how they had to customize their CPU cluster because there hadn't been an 8 core CPU before. If MS had to customize a solution then so did Sony, therefore they are going to have to be different in some ways. Matter of fact, the chipworks shots of both motherboards independently verify that there are extra chips on the XB1's Jaguar cores not present on Sony's.

[AliTheSnake1]

I swear every week for the last year and a half there has been a new article about DX12's capabilities or how DX12 can benefit xbox one.

[rainslacker]

Actually, the headline is usually framed in such a way that the actual quote is taken completely out of context, and does not give any indication of what the dev actually said or meant.

Clicking the article is about the only way to really see what was said, and I guess some credit should be given for them at least doing that.

OTOH, just because these devs are giving these quotes, sometimes good, does not warrant giving gamingbolt a click for their obvious click-baiting, and inability to have an interview that doesn't involve pitting the consoles against one another.

So many other interesting things they could ask and report on that may give them some credibility, but I guess they're getting the clicks. Heck, if I was the dev being interviewed, I'd want the headline to be about my game or something, not my thoughts on the console's power.

[awi5951]

NO direct x 12 is like amd mantle it increases amd multicore cpu perfromance up to 40 percent. Most games untill now only used 1 core to 80 percent and very little of other cores. Direct x 12 spreads the work better over the other cores.

[GameNameFame]

AndrewLB

Wow you are just twisting and ignoring facts here.

-cpu difference is few percent. GPU difference is 40%

-PS4 has back up 2nd CPU for OS. It frees up more CPU for gaming.

CPU difference is literally negligible compared to GPU... unlike some offset pro and con bs you are painting.

Awi

Lol. On PC ,yes. Consoles no. It already has low level API and can control individual cores unlike PC.

[MegaRay]

Finally you start add /s. I was worried about your bubbles buddy.

We should have a "grown up" +bub xD

[Hoffmann]

#PsychoPower

[Sunny_D]

I always check to see if it's a Gamingbolt article. Why? Because then I know to never click it open and give them hits.

[Liqu1d]

You can tell from the title alone.

[butchertroll]

How the gap between PS4 And X1 CPUs will widen if PS4 versions of the game has better framerate performance ( SW : Battlefront, Fallout 4 ( after latest patch ), Just Cause 3, Assassins Creed : Syndicate and so on )?

The thing is that both CPUs in Xbone and PS4 are effectively identical. The XBone's is clocked a bit higher which should give it a clear, if small advantage. Problems for Xbone CPU are : the "multi-OS stuff" is in reference to the fact that Bone runs an XBox OS as a virtual machine, but it's also running Windows in another VM, and there's a third OS that makes all of that happen. That creates a lot of overhead on the system that makes it less performant than PS4, even at a slightly higher clock.

If DX12 will somewhat help the Xbone's CPU, so Sony will push PS4's CPU. They've already allowed FULL 7th core for devs and PS4 also doesn't have so much overhead on CPU like Xbone.

[rainslacker]

PS4 runs a similar set up of hypervisors controlling VM environments, with a single OS to control the 2 main OS's. 360 ran the same way, and PS3 had an additional HV but it wasn't an intermediary like the other three, but there for copy protection.

However, because of the way it's set up, the two do not interfere with one another when it comes to resources, because the resources are allocated and set, and can not be changed by the developer. Sony has a way to access some OS functions and resources for developers to take advantage of, and while I can't say for sure, I wouldn't doubt that MS also does this since their WinOS is pretty well integrated into their gaming software.

For the most part, from what I've read, the allocated resources are near identical in terms of memory, and the use of a hypervisor intermediary between the VM's allows for there to be no noticeable impact on the gaming functions since those resources are already set in stone.

[stuna1]

Xbox 1 Super Sayan God Mode incoming! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

PS4 I will never forgive you....

[Necr0philiac]

@Khaotic
@lastking95
Well said. I hope at least that some of the haters on this site are as passionate for playing games as they are at downplaying the system they don't own. Some come off sounding scared of the future.

[Khaotic]

To this day i still dont understand the whole "mines so much better than yours arguments". Or the "yours is never going to be as good as mine".

[frostypants]

Obscure dev? Check.
Flamebait? Check.

Yep, it's FailingBolt. Again. CLOCKWORK. And yet they STILL aren't banned from N4G. What the hell will it take? HipHopGamer was banned for less.

[ShadowKnight]

Especially for the PC! I've seen articles that say DX12 won't really help console's that much. And don't underestimate the PS4 API. Glad this is just an opinion piece.

[kraenk12]

That's so true...the PS4's API is already closer to the metal than DX12 and Sony doesn't stop improving, so advancements will be made on both sides.

[rainslacker]

It'll help X1, just not to the extremes that some people want to state. It actually uses a new rendering pipeline which is pretty efficient compared to the release API. However, many things in DX12 were already present in DX11.X which was shipped with the console. If I had to speculate, I'd say the release version was built from what they were working on with DX12, and was put in place to allow the use of certain hardware features which were needed to improve the system. These features were BC to DX11 which allowed for a streamlined implementation, however most of the early code did not take great advantage of the new functions available in DX11.X.

@kraenk

The Xbox version of DX12 is pretty close to the metal. It's a different implementation of DX from the PC version, and that's why the improvements that will come to PC won't be seen as much on the console, because they already existed. It's just necessary to get more power from the hardware that is weaker in consoles compared to PC's.

That being said, even on PC it's not going to be perfect, but the things it's bringing should have been brought a long time ago, but the chip makers, MS, and IIRC some OpenGl people never actively pursued it for some reason. People have not been getting all the power from their GPU's for over a decade now, but most of that went unnoticed when it was talked about because people were so excited for DX12.

[IRetrouk]

it says in the article that the xbox has a better cpu than the ps4, but it doesn't, its the same cpu in both although the xbox one is clocked slightly higher, other than that, interesting read.

[Dudebro90]

Wouldn't it being clocked higher make it better...

[IRetrouk]

thats not what the author states and i think you know that, its not a better cpu its the same, its just clocked 0.15 ghz higher than the ps4s,

[nitus10]

Yes and no. It really depends on what the CPU is being used for.

Without repeating what I wrote previously, hardware performance is dependent on the integration of CPU, Memory and input/output (I/O) which includes storage (disks), peripheral such as a controller and of course graphics. Included in all that are the interconnects between all of them which normally is the motherboard.

In the case of a console the hardware is normally fixed for the life of the console so the only thing that can change is the firmware and software which can be designed to make more efficient use of that hardware.

[Apex13]

Reddurt Re-read what you wrote and then the comment made after. It will make everything clear lol.

[NeoGamer232]

Clocking it higher makes it faster. Faster is better for CPUs.

There is no way to sell it otherwise.

[IRetrouk]

nobodys saying its not faster, the point was that both consoles use the same one, the author was stating that the xbox one cpu was a better one.

[PistolsAtDawn]

Pretty much what everyone is expecting DX12 will do...not necessarily make games run at a higher res or anything (although at times it MAY have that "side-effect")....it 's mostly about allowing the X1 to do more things with more draw calls. It's also interesting to see how aspects like PIX will help Devs take better advantage of eSRAM...esp mixed in with making the CPU faster/more efficient.

[ForzaGT]

Well said

[Ricegum]

By the time we see any real evidence of DX12 in action this generation will be more or less over lol. This DX12 is such crap, the differences will be negligible on Xbox One.

@pistols

It's common sense.
Okay, let's say if the improvements aren't negligible, what third party developer is going to utilise this?

Don't YOU be blinded.

[PistolsAtDawn]

Your bias has you blinded. Sounds like you're saying more about what you WANT to believe rather than any real facts. What games are you developing?

...so then you're saying PSVR won't show anything till the end of the gen? Why are you so willing to believe introducing a whole new piece of hardware with support is completely do-able, but a new API isn't?

[Stogz]

@pistolsatdawn calling others out for being bias?? Lol! This fanboy...

[Necr0philiac]

@Stogz
and what would you be?

[nitus10]

Both the PS4 and XB1 are designed to output up to 1080p and 60fps which is the standard for pretty much all HDTV's. Even the PS3, XBox360 and the WiiU can support this.

It is up to the game developer to trade off graphical effects and resolution to frames per second. Some games look and play better (ie. FPS's and Racing) with a high frame rate with a trade-off being a lower resolution and/or detail. Other games such as RPG's and Action/Adventure aim more for 30fps and a more detailed 1080p output.

What is annoying in any game is when you see slowdown or even stuttering (stops for a fraction of a second).

[2cents]

I would really just like to see a DX12 developed game running on X1 to see how we benefit. It should have nothing to do with the PS4, it would be nice to simply have details, information and results all for the benefit of gaming on the X1, NOT how it will beat the PS4 or be more powerful than the PS4. We should just leave the PS4 out of the conversation so that we can actually be happy of some potential improvements coming to the X1.

Mixing positive information with console wars always muddies the waters.

[rainslacker]

You will see the improvements. Not to worry. As a generation progresses, or game development in general, new ways are found to do things which are more efficient and allow for things not through possible with even the supplied API's. That's just how game programming is, it all builds off what was done before, and programmers are a bunch that take good ideas and use them, and often improve on them for their own needs. Sometimes it even happens by accident, but hey, it's what it is.

Every generation sees better looking and performing games as it progresses, and this one will be no different, regardless of what platform you prefer.

DX12 will be a part of all this, along with OGL and it's variants, but the biggest improvements will come from the developers themselves as they go about finding more efficient ways to do things either based on the API's, or just because the API's aren't efficient enough for them so they circumvent it completely...in which case, those things will be added to future API's, and the cycle will continue.

[The_Eternal_one]

😯 Oh God this stuff again. Why don't people just give it a rest already.

[Ricegum]

Because Microsoft need something for fans to keep holding on for, so that they stay interested. It's funny how after all these years and all of these broken promises Microsoft have made some Xbox fans continue to believe in this stuff.

[Kiwi66]

Except in this case it wasn't Microsoft who said it so you're jumping the gun a bit aren't you

[Gwiz]

Is third- party going to put in the effort though?I can see this happening on PC,not sure about the X1 though.

[Ricegum]

Bingo.

[XanderZane]

Porting DX12/Win10 PC games to the XB1 won't be very hard wince Win10/DX12 are also on XB1.

[Ferrethat22]

PS4's CPU is aided by its GPU tho

[IRetrouk]

why so many disagrees, what you said is correct, all it takes is a google search to find out how each system works.

[nitus10]

Both of you are correct but you do have to remember this is not a technical site.

Keeping it simple a computer be it a console, PC or even a smart phone is the integration of CPU, Memory and I/O. Get one of them wrong and the overall performance goes out the window.

[jessionpc]

How come every time I see an article from GamingBolt, I feel like it was written to anger adolescents into fighting in the comments?

The last few months I've started enjoying my own, "game". I look at flame baiting articles and ask myself before I check, "is it GamingBolt?".

Oh well... Not like my comment is any more useful.

[kenwonobi]

You mean just bring it back to normal at the very most? Didn't Sony just unlock the 7 th core? Making any more gap discussion irrelevant because they now have extra cpu gap to play with? Anyhow let's just forget those things for sake of flame article.

[joeorc]

"Didn't Sony just unlock the 7 th core?"

Yep, officially unlocked.
News was official Via :
Sony itself also.

[guyman]

Gamingbullt at it again.

Dx12 isn't going to make a game that the xbox one could only previously run at 30 fps, run at 60 fps, not even 40, not even 35. It will assist in those games on the xbox one (face the facts, there are a lot of them) which could only run at 30 fps at 900 p to achieve the same 30 fps at 1080p. Games like sunset overdrive, battlefront, ryse, etc. ran at 900 p or lower. Dx 12 will free up resources to allow games such as those to run at higher resolutions at 30 fps I.e to be on par with ps4 which has a far superior GPU ( which is why we see 1080 30 fps games far more often on the ps4)

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

I wouldn't call the PS4 gpu far superior, it's main advantage over the XB1 gpu is the number of ROPs.

[IRetrouk]

actually if you do a google search you will see that ps4s gpu has more of everything not just rops.

here, will save you a search,

XB1
1.310 TF GPU (12 CUs)
768 Shaders
48 Texture units
16 ROPS
2 ACE/CE/ 16 queues

PS4
1.84TF GPU ( 18 CUs)
1152 Shaders
72 Texture units
32 ROPS
8 ACE/64 queues

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

@IRetrouk I have seen those same over and over again, I already known about the spec. Also the 1.31 teraflops on the XB1 gpu is taken before the overclock, The Xb1 gpu would be closer to 1.4 teraflops. Making the XB1 cpu in terms of teraflops about 77% as powerful as the PS4 GPU.

[IRetrouk]

all i can say to that reply is wow.....

you said main advantage was rops, i proved that the whole gpu is better not just one part and you come back at me with a load of crap like that? get outta here you are obviously drunk.

[rainslacker]

The CPU and GPU are two distinct processors inside the APU, which is just a housing for two seperate processors. The CPU had a clock increase, but the GPU stayed the same speed.

The TF number is for the GPU only, not the CPU. The X1's CPU is 15% faster at it's core speed, which equates to being able to process approximately 10-12% more processes per second due to processing completing faster, however, even though it has more process cycles per second, it doesn't mean the rest of the system is set up to be able to capitalize on that increase.

I won't wager a guess as to if the set up of the overall system will be able to utilize that increased clock because I don't know, and I'd suggest you probably not try to rationalize it, because you don't know either. All I know is that a 15% increase in speed on a desktop PC is pretty marginal at best, and hardly worth spending money for back when 15% was a typical difference in speed.

I will say that it doesn't hurt, and probably does see a benefit, but not 15% more benefit, and nowadays, CPU bound is not a common thing for AAA titles, because CPU bound is terribly inefficient for modern game programming techniques. I do know why this is the case, and I also know that you do not know why this is the case, so again, probably best not to try and rationalize it to me, because I can dismantle your tech arguments faster than you can think of them.

Texture units, Shaders, and ROPS are three pretty big things when it comes to graphics rendering, and having more queues means data doesn't have to be transferred as often meaning faster access by the GPU.

All those things are what make the PS4 have a pretty big GPU advantage over the X1, because it means more can be done with less fuss, and ultimately, the X1 is set to never be able to achieve more than it's hardware can handle, whereas the PS4 can already handle more than the X1 max theoretical spec with it's current API. Ponder on that last part for a bit.

In fact, if anyone from Gamingbolt reads this, ask some dev that actually knows something if that last part is true on your next click-baity interview. Will make for an interesting headline I'm sure.

[Lennoxb63]

For some reason, a dev would rather add months to a year to their dev time than use DX12.

[lastking95]

ppl make me sick I swear lol. The fact ppl don't know what an api is and does and think it's nothing or something super powerful makes me facepalm.

Dx12 is much better than dx11. The xbox one cpu will be more efficient with dx12. Adding it won't suddenly boost games. It's gonna help devs with development. X1 has a better cpu than ps4 and yes dx12 should widen the gap even if it not by a ton. How many time do me and phil have to say this? It'll be an improvement but it won't be massive. Power difference between the two console aren't huge. X1 owners aren't missing anything and ps4 owners aren't missing anything. It's not a big deal.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

You ever notice when people talk about the console power difference they only mention the GPU and ignore the CPU?

[IRetrouk]

you realise the cpus are the exact same right? the xbox ones cpu is clocked 0.15ghz higher, i wouldnt be using that as some sort of bragging point lol would you?

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

@IRetrouk the XB1 CPU also has more OPS 48 vs 16 .

[IRetrouk]

why are you counting all 8 cores for the xbox but only 4 for the ps4???

[rainslacker]

You bring up a good point. People don't seem to understand what an API is, or what exactly it does.

So

API: A set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software and applications(textbook right there).

Technically, the API has nothing to do with the hardware interface. This would be the function of a device driver

Device Driver: A program which allows hardware to interface with the application layer

The application layer is what the API connects to to interface with the hardware.

So, to keep it brief, an API is at the very least two layers removed from the hardware.

It's really as simple as that.

What about PC one may ask. Well that's a good question. On a PC, the device driver interfaces with the OS layer, and the OS layer interfaces with the Application layer. DX12 on PC removes the OS layer, thus becoming low level. The OS layer never existed in consoles, because when OS became a thing, it was handled through a hyper-visor, thus being completely removed from the game's application layer, although the OS layer can interact through the hypervisor to allow certain functions to be performed...like game saves or connecting online.

Anyhow, The protocols themselves can be set up to be more efficient, which is the case with DX12...in particular the rendering pipeline, and for the X1 it's ESRAM interface protocols, but the API itself is there to facilitate the handling of these things so developers don't have to.

The drivers behind the X1 are what will show an actual hardware improvement, because those are what interface the hardware with the application. So far, MS has said nothing on if the drivers included in the X1 are improved, or if they are still using what's been there since launch...although I'm sure tweaks have been made.

It's not different than a PC in this case. With a console though, sometimes these drivers can be circumvented to allow the application to directly access the hardware, although it's not typically a "safe" way to handle hardware calls, and it's better to use the API to allow the compiler to isolate the application from the hardware by at least one level of abstraction....even if just a basic intermediary. Even on consoles, I don't believe it's possible to have complete unfettered access to the hardware.

[lastking95]

@Iretriuk who TF is bragging? oh look console war warriors again. I don't give a s### which is more powerful I enjoy my console and can't see a difference between the two, take your fanboy mess else where. It's still overclocked making it better. That's like two ppl racing with the same car but 1 has a slightly juiced up engine and someone saying it's gonna be a tie. No, one has a slight engine advantage and it also depend on the drivers skill(api)

[IRetrouk]

ok first, i wasnt talking to you was i?
second, fanboy? ok so check my gamercard on xbox live, last game i played was fallout 4, if im such a fanboy why would i choose tp play it on xbox one???
third, rain up there destroyed your whole post.

[lastking95]

It was for you no one should be bragging period and the fact you bring up bragging rights only starts mess.

[kainslayer]

dx12 will only make a difference in cpu bound games so yeah thats strategy moba and other 360 on par graphically capable games sorry to ruin your secret sause but gpu bound games will allways and as allways play better on ps4 i mean 90% off the time not incluiding ms backed and ubishaft titles so there is your answer.

[Ruggadagod]

Once a console is shipped, there not much a company can do to improve it's performance. After that it goes on a game-by-game basis that's it.

Whatever Microsoft is saying is lies. If Sony said the same it would be lies too.

[xasz]

It was a dev that said this. Not Microsoft.

[Ruggadagod]

It doesn't matter.

[xasz]

@ShinnosukeRFD

"It doesn't matter."

So this statement not being true doesn't matter?

"Whatever Microsoft is saying is lies."

...because they haven't said anything.

[kingdip90]

Isn't rashid Mr x media?

[IRetrouk]

is he??? i thought the dude gave up on all the secret sauce crap after he was owned by the internet lol.

[Mrveryodd]

Why???

[Bobafret]

What if the Xbox One was more powerful than the PS4? I wonder what the arguments would be like.

[muzikjunkie80]

it would be the same as when the original xbox was more powerful than the ps2 "its all about the games" etc but back then the performance gap was huge thats why the xbox could run games like half life 2, chronicles of riddick, doom 3 etc while those games were not possible on the ps2, but we wont see that happening on the xbox one as the performance gap is hardly noticable. i own both systems and while ps4 does have an advantage in some games i have not once thought "this game wouldnt be possible on xbox one"

dont understand all the hate for the xbox one tbh as its a very good console and delivers exactly the same gaming experience the ps4 does and has equally as good games. i dont care about it being slightly lower spec as long as they keep bringing good games to it im happy.

[ScorpiusX]

Cool

[Artemidorus]

Trollingbolt on form again. N4G on the down hill with this website and that clown Patcher.

[jokerisalive]

Another Gamingbolt article about the mystical 'Secret Sauce' for XB1...if anything it adds an air of drama and comedy at the same time because people in the know understand this is just alot of hot air while others in denial grasp at any bit of info like this to try and make them feel so much better about their system of choice. At the end of the day both systems are good for what they are and have their fans regardless but NO amount of secret sauce will erase the hardware advantage the PS4 has on the XB1. Period. Keep the Sauce articles flowing Gamingbolt the world is always in need of some good humor.

[sadsatan]

but... but... secret... sau...ce

[SynestheticRoar]

Gamebolt why.

[jznrpg]

N4g.com needs to add a delusional button for the people that believe that DX12 will magically add another gpu to boost the power of xbox1. They have already said it mainly makes it easier to port xbox games to pc.

[lastking95]

You're clearly insecure, not one person here has made that statement lol. They're just consoles bruh.

[LastcenuryRob]

From what I can gather DX12 will help the system push what it can do more efficiently maybe allowing a little more on screen and possibly increasing the frame rates a little. If that's the case it won't be huge but may be enough to make a difference to those who use it. We shall see.