Xbox One X

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Everyone is embarrassing at some point in their life, it'd be good to remember that and move on.
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https://news.xbox.com/2017/10/06/bringing-middle-earth-shadow-of-war-to-life-4k/amp/

Bringing Middle-earth: Shadow of War to Life in 4K
3 days ago
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Next week Middle-earth: Shadow of War will launch on Xbox One and Windows 10 as an Xbox Play Anywhere title, sending us back to Mordor to fight all manner of orcs and other fantastically evil creatures. But it’s this Fall when the Xbox One X hits store shelves that we’re most looking forward to our return to Middle-earth.

Not only has the game grown in scope from the 2014 classic by taking the central innovations of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and extending it to the larger game world, but it will be Xbox One X Enhanced with 4K and HDR (high dynamic range) support when the console launches on November 7.

In a recent visit to Monolith Productions in Kirland, WA, we heard from Michael de Plater, Design Director and Matt Allen, Lead Software Engineer talk through the game’s increased scope and scale of Shadow of War and how Xbox One X has helped close the development gap from creative vision to reality. In that, whatever vision is intended is traditionally compromised due to hardware limitations.

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“We have our own internal engine that we’ve been developing for close to 20 years,” explains Allen. “One of the cool things about having your own tech is that when a product cycle comes around we’re pretty much set up to hand it over to the graphics guys and say, ‘Hey, let’s get this up and running.’ ”

As you might imagine, there are many sub-groups that work together to bring a game to life. One of those are the content creators who, as Allen describes, make the content and don’t care which platform it’s coming to — that aspect of the game is ported over to all the platforms. It’s in this phase that most of the content is made at incredibly high resolution, and is then traditionally chopped down in scope to fit on other systems.

“So now when we get 4K and HDR, the character guys, for the most part, they can now see most of the pixels they’re actually making,” Allen says. “Obviously with HDR the color space opens up and there’s a lot of balancing there. Specifically, the lighting guys had to do a lot of work around how lighting got balanced.”


“But because it’s all physically based rendered, all the lighting values are real world lighting values,” Allen continues. “And since we’re using real world ranges, it was just tweaking it to make sure that, in HDR, that this is the range we wanted. Having some competing HDR set ups made some of the initial work more difficult, but since we settled on HDR 10 we’ve been able to dial things pretty quickly.”

The other element that starts to come up, as described by Allen, is that once you go 4K it’s hard to go back to 1080p SDR (standard dynamic range). Our initial demo as guided by Michael de Plater was of gameplay was in 4K on powerful gaming PC fueled by an NVIDIA Titan.

In our demo, we saw Talion march his army on a controlled stronghold, which is truly impressive in size and scope. Middle-earth: Shadow of War is definitely heading in the right direction to capture the awesomeness like the battles we saw in the films, in particular the Battle of Helm’s Deep from “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.”

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As the demo concluded, it was then when we truly saw the wow factor when gameplay was switched over to the Xbox One X. It was the subtle level of complexity to the scene from that on the high-powered PC. It was easy for us to discern the difference, as the two versions were switched back and forth, and we could only imagine how dramatic this would have looked if switched between 4K and 1080p.

4K on the PC is awesome, and once you’ve been playing for a while in 4K it’s difficult to go back to something smaller (resolution),” Allen continues. “We got the same feeling of awesomeness when we finally got HDR up and running on the Scorpio (Xbox One X). This is the exact same level, in 4K, but 4K HDR on the Scorpio.”

Not only are games like Shadow of War looking great on Xbox One X, but the development tools that the team has grown accustomed to building on Xbox One are like that of Xbox One. Thanks to that, they could get Middle-earth: Shadow of War up and running in 4K HDR in such a short period of time — a day to get the game up in running and then the next day or two to pretty it up. Putting icing on the cake, as Allen describes.

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It’s this aspect of development on the system that should not be underestimated. Yes, Xbox One X will help make games look fantastic. But the fact that the tech itself is so powerful, the creative vision can now be translated even closer than ever to what is finally delivered upon a game’s completion.

“When a character artist is modeling something, it’s millions of triangles. We could run a couple of those… but not the entire army,” says Allen. “Those guys build stuff and you can only really see it in renders and Maya but not in real time. So, by now, having advanced machines that are spitting out 4k and that full range, they can see very similar things in Maya and in MAX Design Studio that they can now see in the engine.”

Allen walks us through what some of those higher details are in in Shadow of War, but they’re not for the faint of heart. We’re talking deep, clear cut scars on Orcs, or maggots moving around on their skin. Truly a gruesome level of detail (which is also totally awesome).

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“There’s always people pushing tech forward, like film, and there’s a lot more overlap between games and film than five years ago,” says Allen. “But film still gets to render ‘offline’ where games are using more of what film is using in trying to get it to work in real time, and assembling these elements in real time. Obviously, film pushes rendering technology, but we’re building these things, like the Nemesis System, characters… these are things only a game can do for you.”

Indeed, there is that balance between super high resolution and fidelity that will only improve over time, making our games even more realistic, and helping designers see more of their creative vision come to life with fewer technology constraints. And the next phase of seeing the scope of games grow will begin November 7 upon the release of the Xbox One X. And we can’t wait for it to get here.
 
So once you go 4K hdr it is hard to go back...
Go 4k or go home
4k or bust
If you like it better put 4K on it..
4K Jose?
This kitchen was made for dancing.
 
Thought we could download the 4k upgrades now? Saying I have no games but I've got at least 7 that I know of
 
They aren't ready for all games yet. Still rolling out.
Luckily, I'm prepared with a 4TB external drive....though likely I'll prefer to have the "best" 4K asset games on the internal drive which is supposedly 50% faster than the standard X1 drive. The 4TB will have to hold all of the half a$$ enhanced stuff/non-enhanced stuff.

One more Benjamin to go for me. Probably just pay off when I pick up though. Bring on November!
I hear that...I have an envelope in my desk drawer with cold hard cash that I'm keeping away from my wife's grabby hands (stupid shared bank account). I ordered it online from MS so I'll deposit it in the bank a few days before the console releases so she won't feel that $535 being ripped from her grasp!
 
http://www.gamesradar.com/8-ways-xbox-one-x-will-make-your-gaming-life-better/

8 ways Xbox One X will make your gaming life better
By Leon Hurley 4 days agoNews

Come November 7 the Xbox One X will be here, bringing with it one of the most powerful collection of inside bits currently available in any console. Six teraflops is probably the number you hear mentioned the most, but what does that actually mean and how will it all make your gaming life better? Sheer brute force alone? That helps, for sure, but let’s see what else Microsoft's new box will be able to do to improve your world.

The Xbox One X will make games better because it knows how to use the power
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That six teraflop number keeps getting thrown around but what does it actually mean without disappearing into technobable? Well, teraflops is a measurement of computing power which is easy enough to understand. Without explaining anymore, all you really need to know is that the Xbox One managed 1.31 teraflop and the Xbox One S sits at 1.4 teraflops. So, look at your current Xbox and imagine that but a little over four times more powerful.

Read more
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With the raw power of Xbox One X, Microsoft has a shot at getting back on top.

But all that power is nothing without a little finesse, which is where the clever stuff comes in. There’s 12GB of RAM for example. Think of this as what the Xbox can hold in its brain without needing to load anything else in. More = good, as is the ability to access it faster and the X can read this memory roughly 150% faster than the S.

In terms of power the Xbox One X is not far off a pretty good PC then, but it’s specifically tuned for gaming, unlike a more general purpose computer. Everything from the latency of its CPU cores, to the code its GPU runs, is honed to make games run as fast and smoothly as possible.

4K is going to be the norm and games will look *amazing*
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You might not have a 4K TV but you might want to think about it. All that power inside the Xbox One X means it’s probably harder not to use the ultra HD resolution. Check out the list of Xbox One X Enhanced games and you’ll see plenty are on the way. And the one thing that’s almost unanimous? 4K. Frame rates vary, with a locked 30FPS the most common option but that pin sharp resolution dominates the games that’ll use the Xbox One X to its fullest. Similarly HDR, or high dynamic range is on X ways Xbox One X makes games better almost every Enhanced game. That means colours and contrast will look better - blacker blacks and so on.

But even old games will look great
While Microsoft are big on pushing 4K, even games played at 1080p will benefit. Firstly the Xbox One X will use a thing called supersampling to make things look amazing - even if you don’t have a 4K screen the Xbox One X will render out a 4K image and then downscale it to 1080p. That creates a muchsharper image with fewer jagged lines and obvious pixels.

Here’s a couple of images to demonstrate what that look like:

1080p
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1080p (supersampled)
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Every game will run better too
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As well as looking better, most Xbox One S games currently use a dynamic resolution scaling where the game scales its graphical output according to how much processing power is needed. Something might render at 900p when things are quiet, but pull it back down to 720p when lots of processor heavy things are going on - explosions, particle effects, enemy AI etc. The Xbox One X’s power means it won’t have to do that and will run dynamically scaled games at full throttle. So no drops in resolution or framerate. Even backwards compatible stuff will benefit.

There will be more graphical options
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One of the things that’s been revealed as Xbox One X enhanced games have been revealed is that some have more than one graphical setting. There’s only a few so far but it suggests you’ll have more freedom in the future to choose how you play. For example, Rise of the Tomb Raider will let you choose between a true 4K mode at an unlocked 30fps, an ‘enriched’ mode that’s 4k output (scaled up from a lower resolution) with an improved framerate, or a locked 60fps at 1080p. Gears of War 4 also has a varied output, although you can’t choose. In that case it has a 4K/30fps output for Campaign and Horde modes, and 4K/60fps for Versus. Xbox One X will give you more opportunity to pick what you value more: really high, locked framerates or ridiculously pretty, high resolutions.

Games will load faster
It’s easy math here: the Xbox One X is almost obscenely overpowered, and can shift data around a lot faster. That means games won’t take as long to do whatever it is they do when the little wheel spins. Microsoft has promised faster loading times and Assassin’s Creed Origins’ director Ashraf Ismail has talked about the Xbox One X being “faster.” Middle Earth: Shadow of War design director Bob Roberts also talks about minute long loading times reduced to seconds when moving from normal Xbox dev kits to the X.

You’ll have better, and easier, game capture and screens
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As well as playing games in 4K and 60fps, you’ll be able to capture at those resolutions as well directly on your Xbox One, using a new HEVC codec that also includes HDR. As well as recording at the same quality you’ll be playing at, there’s a new retroactive screen capture feature that will record your ‘screen’ as a short video so you can scan through it frame-by-frame for the perfect shot.

It’ll (hopefully) save your hard drive
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4K games are big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big until you download 100GB of 4K Forza Motorsport 7. Microsoft has a plan though and are working on something called “Intelligent Delivery.” It’ll use the Cloud to store Ultra HD textures and assets and only put what you need on the Xbox’s hard drive when you need to use it. It’ll cut down on space - handy as games are only going to get bigger (and prettier) as time goes on.
 
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Gears 4 shows up in my X Enhanced Games and is 97GB, does that mean the 4K assets are downloaded? cant remember how big the game was before
 
Gears 4 shows up in my X Enhanced Games and is 97GB, does that mean the 4K assets are downloaded? cant remember how big the game was before

That sound like 4K alright. I think Gears 4 came in around the 30gig mark.
 
I wonder, can one DELETE 4K content if they don't want it? I know, stupid question. But say I have Gears 4, which I have already played and I have it installed, but I don't have any intentions of playing the game again anytime soon, but I leave it installed. I have no use for the 4K assets, which means I don't need the extra 60gb of content downloaded.
 
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I wonder, can one DELETE 4K content if they don't want it? I know, stupid question. But say I have Gears 4, which I have already played and I have it installed, but I don't have any intentions of playing the game again anytime soon, but I leave it installed. I have no used for the 4K assets, which means I don't need the extra 60gb of content downloaded.

Pretty sure you can
 
Cancelled my Amazon pre-order for Scorpio having paid off the one I have on order at GAME.

26 days left.....cold turkey is killing me. Missing Destiny 2 like crazy...
 
So, I'm guessing I have to wait for the Xbox console update to get the 4k updates? I'm not in the preview program. Hopefully it drops soon. Would really like to get that stuff downloaded.

I do like how I can basically just plug the same drive into my new X and be good to go.

It is so hard to not play Forza 7 but I've been good so far. Really want to enjoy the game in 4k.
 
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