THUMBS
03-24-2014, 10:23 AM
Provisional Microsoft calculations were inaccurate, according to new report
The Xbox One Messaging Carnival continues with the discovery that Microsoft may have underestimated the new console's technical prowess, according to a report published by Digital Foundry. Citing a number of Xbox One developers, the site claims that the machine's embedded static RAM may crunch almost twice as much data a second as initially suggested.
We were previously told that the ESRAM could handle around 102 GB a second. The real maximum figure could be as high as 192 GB a second - no inconsiderable jump. I'm going to lapse into both direct quotation and technical jargon now, so if that kind of thing rubs you the wrong way, skip to the second pair of scare quotes.
"According to sources who have been briefed by Microsoft, the original bandwidth claim derives from a pretty basic calculation - 128 bytes per block multiplied by the GPU speed of 800MHz offers up the previous max throughput of 102.4GB/s," reads the piece.14352It's believed that this calculation remains true for separate read/write operations from and to the ESRAM. However, with near-final production silicon, Microsoft techs have found that the hardware is capable of reading and writing simultaneously. Apparently, there are spare processing cycle "holes" that can be utilised for additional operations.
"Theoretical peak performance is one thing, but in real-life scenarios it's believed that 133GB/s throughput has been achieved with alpha transparency blending operations (FP16 x4)."
What could this mean in practice? More complex, higher resolution textures, for one thing. Read our mammoth Xbox One guide for more on the specs while I chase Microsoft for a comment.
The Xbox One Messaging Carnival continues with the discovery that Microsoft may have underestimated the new console's technical prowess, according to a report published by Digital Foundry. Citing a number of Xbox One developers, the site claims that the machine's embedded static RAM may crunch almost twice as much data a second as initially suggested.
We were previously told that the ESRAM could handle around 102 GB a second. The real maximum figure could be as high as 192 GB a second - no inconsiderable jump. I'm going to lapse into both direct quotation and technical jargon now, so if that kind of thing rubs you the wrong way, skip to the second pair of scare quotes.
"According to sources who have been briefed by Microsoft, the original bandwidth claim derives from a pretty basic calculation - 128 bytes per block multiplied by the GPU speed of 800MHz offers up the previous max throughput of 102.4GB/s," reads the piece.14352It's believed that this calculation remains true for separate read/write operations from and to the ESRAM. However, with near-final production silicon, Microsoft techs have found that the hardware is capable of reading and writing simultaneously. Apparently, there are spare processing cycle "holes" that can be utilised for additional operations.
"Theoretical peak performance is one thing, but in real-life scenarios it's believed that 133GB/s throughput has been achieved with alpha transparency blending operations (FP16 x4)."
What could this mean in practice? More complex, higher resolution textures, for one thing. Read our mammoth Xbox One guide for more on the specs while I chase Microsoft for a comment.