GRcade

Photek wrote:

andythevillan wrote:Received email from MS service unit that my replacement Series X is dispatched. Very quick 48hr turn around time to replace my faulty machine thought it would be a couple of weeks at least

I'm surprised by that too, I mean they are fast enough generally but I presumed with the console shortages it'd be longer. I wonder if they know the percentage that are faulty and keep replacements to facilitate that number?

twitter.com/Chris_Dring/status/1357746541893742594

On February 17, Xbox fans are going to have some very interesting content on the channel. I can't say more until that day. Thanks to Xbox for giving me early access so I can prepare my coverage in advance!

Until February 17 at 6:00 p.m. I cannot speak, but it will surely leak earlier due to the bulk of days left. But come on, I think it is VERY top for Xbox Series.

abcd wrote:Is this exciting news?

I can't tell if I should excited or not? I suppose it beats staring at a wall all day.

Xbox development boss teases ‘exciting’ platform updates: ‘This is just the beginning’

Jason Ronald says his team is currently updating Quick Resume, Broadcasting and more

Xbox’s platform development boss has teased “exciting” new features coming to Series X and S, stating that what’s been released so far for the console is “just the beginning.”

Speaking on the latest official Xbox podcast, director of program management Jason Ronald said that these new platform announcements would be made as early as “over the coming months.”

Director of programming Larry Hryb added that “there’s a lot coming… we can’t really say too much” and teased that, “I think that we’re going to have [Jason Ronald back] on sooner rather than later.”

Ronald said: “As a team, we’re just really excited by this initial response from fans all around the world. At launch, we say it all the time internally, this is really just the beginning. We’ve got a lot of really exciting things that are coming down the pipeline over the coming months and over the coming years.

He added: “We’re also partnering really closely with key game developers from all across the industry to really take full advantage of all the next-gen capabilities that we put in the Xbox Series S and Series X.

“We really are excited as we get further into the year and closer to this holiday to start sharing more of the details about what’s in development, and how you can really take advantage of these next gen platforms.”

The platform development boss said his team had taken an extended break following the launch of Xbox Series X and S last November, and that he saw it as an opportunity to “lean back and just listen to the community and listen how people are using the consoles, what they’re excited about, areas that we can improve.”

“Now that the team is back, we’re starting to release a series of updates,” he said.

“One area that we really focused on was at launch, we had to disable quick resume, on some titles in the launch window,” he explained. “The team’s been working really hard to be able to re-enable those titles so that people are getting that great, quick resume experience on all the titles that people are playing.

“In other areas like we’ve seen reports of things like controller disconnects as an example. That’s another area that the team’s really been investing in to make sure that you’re just getting that best in-class experience on the Xbox Series X and Series S.”

Ronald went on to reveal that some areas the Xbox platform team were focusing on were missing features on the Xbox app, and giving Series X and S users more control over Quick Resume.

“So over the coming months, we’re going to be updating the Xbox mobile app to add things like Achievements. And then other areas that we’re really focused on. As we think about the console experiences, we’ve listened to the feedback about improvements of broadcasting as an example,” he said.

“Another thing is the sharing experience and the quality of things like game DVR. And then I mentioned earlier about enabling quick resume for even more titles since launch. We’ve also seen the feedback about people want more understanding of how quick resume works and more control over the experience.

“These are all areas that are really high priorities for us, as we’re looking at future updates over the coming months and you’ll be able to start seeing some of these experiences in the Insider rings really soon.”

This week at ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference), Microsoft presented a talk titled ‘Xbox Series X SoC: A Next Generation Gaming Console’, with hardware engineer Paul Paternoster presenting. The 30 minute presentation covered a lot about Microsoft’s latest console processor, most of which was a repeat about what we saw at Hot Chips in August last year, however there was a new element in this presentation talking about how the console design team balanced acoustics, power, thermal performance, and processor yield, discussing where the hotspots in the design originate and where the performance/power targets of the final silicon were optimized.

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Graphics Keynote: Delivering the New Generation of Gaming Graphics
New consoles and graphics cards usher in a new wave of more immersive video games. In this session, we will cover the latest innovations to our graphics platform, making it easier for game developers to push the limits of graphics on both PC and Xbox with DirectX, HLSL, PIX, HDR, and more.​

Accelerating DirectX Innovation
The DirectX team has been working on a way to change the game for developers who want to be on the bleeding edge of graphics. We're finally ready to show the world how we're pushing the envelope with an exciting new update.​

Tier 2 Variable Rate Shading in Gears
This talk will discuss the usage of Variable Rate Shading in Gears 5 and Gears Tactics. Our implementation targets zero perceptual drop in visual quality, works seamlessly with dynamic resolution, and runs across Xbox Series X|S and PC. Performance improvements will be discussed as well as how VRS was tuned to work across different rendering passes. We will also discuss some challenges and integration tips that can be applied to any game engine.

Denoising Raytraced Soft Shadows on Xbox Series X|S and Windows with FidelityFX (Presented by AMD)
With raytraced visuals bumping rendering quality even higher than ever before, a significant amount of fine tuning is required to maintain real-time performance. A typical way to achieve this is to trace fewer rays, and to make sense of the noisier output that method delivers. This presentation will explain how the AMD FidelityFX Denoiser allows for high-quality raytracing results without increasing rays per pixel, and deep dives into specific RDNA2-based optimizations that benefit both Scarlett and PC.

Introduction to Real-time Ray Tracing with Minecraft (Presented by Nvidia)
This talk is aimed at graphics engineers that have little or no experience with ray tracing. It serves as a gentle introduction to many topics, including “What is ray tracing?”, “How many rays do you need to make an image?”, “The importance of [importance] sampling. (And more importantly, what is importance sampling?)”, “Denoising”, “The problem with small bright things”. Along the way, you will learn about specific implementation details from Minecraft.

Xbox Velocity Architecture: Faster Game Asset Streaming and Minimal Load Times for Games of Any Size
The new Xbox Velocity Architecture in the Xbox Series X|S consoles enables developers to re-imagine how to build their games. By combining a super-fast SSD, hardware decompression, and the new DirectStorage functionality, game developers have tools to develop immersive experiences with a minimal load time for users. This session will review the benefits of the Velocity Architecture and show a real-world example.

DirectStorage for Windows
Microsoft is excited to bring DirectStorage, an API in the DirectX family originally designed for the Velocity Architecture to Windows PCs! DirectStorage will bring best-in-class IO tech to both PC and console just as DirectX 12 Ultimate does with rendering tech. With a DirectStorage capable PC and a DirectStorage enabled game, you can look forward to vastly reduced load times and virtual worlds that are more expansive and detailed than ever. In this session, we will be discussing the details of this technology will help you build your next-generation PC games.

What's New with High Dynamic Range in DirectX Games
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is part of the gold standard for the newest generation of graphically rich games. In this talk, you'll learn about our ongoing work to improve DirectX's HDR support on PCs. We are helping to solve the problem of HDR display ecosystem variability, providing best practices for optimizing your native HDR implementations for displays, and working on exciting new technology to extend the reach of HDR PC gaming.

Next Gen Immersive Audio: Spatial Sound and Project Acoustics
This presentation will explore how we can take immersive audio to the next level in our games. By taking advantage of platform features, technologies and next gen hardware offerings, developers have the ability to bring deeply immersive audio experiences to their games, without sacrificing resources to accomplish it. We will look at Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, Advanced acoustic technologies such as Project acoustics, the possibilities of ray traced reflection techniques, and tie it all together with the promises of Series X/S audio HW processors.

How to Build a Time Machine: Compensating for Latency in Streaming Games
Game Streaming presents opportunities to bring your game to new players and devices. This talk will cover ways to make your game stand out by mitigating streaming latency. Along the way, we'll cover time machines, coyotes, and saving the world.

twitter.com/jronald/status/1369696666278711298

Monkey Man wrote:

twitter.com/jronald/status/1369696666278711298

Think it only happened to me once but hopefully fixed for others.