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Google translated breakdown of recent ‘leaks’:

Xbox Scarlett: the surprise of Ray Tracing?
April 28, 2019 Twins
Our Teraflops, GPU and Megahertz stories are not finished yet!
We propose a small detour, an article 2 bis, with a focus on a specific element (before the 3rd and last part about the CPU and RAM, to appear a little later).
This detour was added to our article forecasts following a leak, particularly interesting and unexpected that came to us last week (thank you Astal for the info!).
Why would this leak be more interesting than another?

The amount of "leakage" is increasing exponentially as E3 approaches. Without being absolute experts, we can quickly get rid of "false" and "probable". You will see, this "leak" is one of the most credible we had to dissect. Which does not mean that error is not possible.

First of all: it fits perfectly with our own calculations made in part 2 (11.3 vs 11.17 Teraflops). And overall the totality of the information communicated seem all consistent and compatible with each other.
They seem sufficiently to take into account the constraints of cost, production or heat dissipation required in a console chassis.So, we are talking to you about it.
And today, we will look at something that we did not see coming! In reality, hardly anyone has seen this "mini bomb" coming.Neither the so-called "specialized" press, let alone the one that talks about "8K" without even asking questions, nor some technical experts like Digital Foundry who hoped but did not think that achievable in a console price controlled.
This element is a so-called "RCC" chip.
The surprise of the next generation named RCC?

imageone.png

Yes, we are basically chatting with Ray Tracing . The famous light management process absolutely stunning and absolutely resource-hungry.
On reading this leak, a revelation: Mark Cerny gives a little more weight to this strange presence of RCC chip ...
The lies of Mark Cerny.
You've probably seen it like us, Sony has launched very formally its communication on the future Playstation. It is the engineer of the PS4, the PS4Pro and thus of the PS5 which reserved his first words on the site WIRED . A lot of elements are revealed, without (and it is normal at this stage) too much to say.
This man is Mark Cerny, big manitou hardware at Sony. Very sincerely when the gentleman opens his mouth, we have learned to be wary. To mislead Microsoft, he did not hesitate to say that 8 Teraflops minimum were necessary to make the native 4K, or that the PS4 Pro could deploy 8.4 TF (in the case of a general calculation in 2 × 16 bits rather than 1 × 32 bits: this is not totally wrong, but no game is developed totally like this and he knows it).
Reading his PS5 interview was a moment of absolute mistrust for us. Is right. Cerny explains that the PS5 SSD will be faster than the best PC SSDs of the moment.Yeah. That on his PC, with an SSD, it takes 15 seconds to switch from Word to Excel (What?!) Or that it is a "dozen" years that we find SSD hard drives in PCs " entry level ". A lot of little lies accumulated in sum.
We can seem a little hard, but when we know that Sony has let the site WIRED evoke of itself the 8K ... We laugh a little laugh.
Then comes the engineer's statement regarding Ray Tracing . The color is displayed, the PS5 can do it . (1/2)
 
(2/2)
The process is so greedy on PC, we say that it is an announcement effect, a triple headline A can never handle it properly.
Just take a look at Nvidia, where the arrival of Ray Tracing is in pain. The loss of performance (falling fps and / or limited resolution) was close to 45%: Ray Tracing activated on Battlefield V with a RTX2080 , all the same.
Fortunately, things are getting better and performance losses have been reduced (unless they are mistaken they are around 30% today, depending on the games, the level of Raytracing requested, and the optimization of the game).
Paradoxically, one of the most beautiful demo of Ray Tracing comes from Minecraft: and we realize, again, that the resources that the process requires (in "High" level) are important, which impacts quite concretely the resolution and / or fps of the game (config PC close to the One X: 720p / 30Fps - Config PC HDG of the moment: 1080p / 60Fps);
Result, with all these elements, we had quickly ranked this story of Ray Tracing in the same bag as the 8K: arguments straight out of a com plan to create the illusion to the publIc.​

Let's get to the point! These handwritten documents are a mine of information.Some areas have been blackened as if to hide some key details. The visible elements, however, are sufficiently numerous and precise to be considered and analyzed.​
i_wtxv2k.jpg
One of the pages of the leak: Lockhart SoC (left) and Anaconda (right)
As you can see in this picture, it is a diagram of the Lockhart's System on Chip (SoC) and the Anaconda model, usually consisting of a CPU, a GPU, and a memory controller.
And there, housed on the left side, 1 to 2 chips "RCC" are grafted on the SoC , depending on the model.
We wonder for a few seconds, and the little light bulb in our heads lights up (it's rare but it happens!) These are chips " Raytracing Compute Chiplet " deploying 1 Teraflop each according to the document.
The Lockhart would benefit from an RCC chip , while the Anaconda would have two.
The interest will be appreciable in both cases. The developers will be able to use these chips without coming "to type" in the "11,17 Teraflops" of your Anaconda. The latter having 2 Teraflops available for Ray Tracing (among others).
Note that you can not really add the Teraflops together. We will not be able to say that this Xbox has 13.17 GPU power Tflops. That would not be very honest (but marketing voices are impenetrable, is not it, Mr. Cerny?)​
In short, yes, our future consoles would have every chance to handle Ray Tracing in hardware! BOOM!

And it's a (small) revolution! At AMD, there was a tendency to state, even recently, that it was "too early" to see Ray Tracing management directly integrated into the US brand's GPUs .
The semiconductor manufacturer's officials then invoked their wish to wait for the Microsoft DirectX12 API to be updated with the DXR (DirectX Raytracing), to finally get really into the race for high-end or new generation GPUs. managing the Ray Tracing.
But then, a conclusion is necessary. If we rely on the presence of a Navi GPU in our future Xboxes, knowing that they will be the last built under the GCN architecture (see part 1 ) and if we take into account the declarations of "AMD, we did not imagine for a moment that the management of Ray Tracing in hardware would be possible (the engraving in 7nm of Navi helping a lot to this result).
At best, we thought of a software management of the process, which would have been disappointing in a sense (partial Ray Tracing), but never to such a scenario of chips dedicated in hardware. We were the first to calm the enthusiasm of some enthusiasts on this subject, to avoid false hopes and disappointments. The surprise is all the more beautiful.
This leak is definitely surprising, because no one saw coming this AMD acceleration on the subject.
Microsoft x AMD
In fact, there is a great collaboration between Microsoft and AMD that has been put in place, about Ray Tracing . The tandem work would have started 4 years ago, underwater, and very clever one who claims to have been aware at the time.
Thus, AMD would have let Nvidia pull the media coverage on him with his "RTX GPU" between late 2018 and 2019. Letting believe that they were a little behind and almost overwhelmed on the subject of Ray Tracing. It was far from being the case if these dedicated chips are confirmed!
Conclusion: 2020 will be the year of Ray Tracing for AMD , whether on consoles (Xbox Scarlett and PS5) or on PC (Navi 20).

The functionalities of RCC chips

By the way, these RCC chips are not irremediably intended to make Ray Tracing: they can be used to make " 3D sound " or even " physics "!
"Physics" ? A few weeks ago, a rumor about the presence of a chip dedicated to physicsin the next Xbox, you remember? Was it actually an RCC chip? Possible. The thesis takes a little more thickness as to its veracity.
Better still, this corroborates Mark Cerny's statements on the subject of Ray Tracing .He also evoked the management of 3D sound on the "Playstation Next" with the "Ray Tracing technique".

The other elements to take into account.

As the Ray Tracing part is well underway, let us take a quick look at the rest of the information available on this document:
i_wtxv2k.jpg

We observe that :
- The Lockhart would have 6 GDDR6 memory chips at 2GB each or 12GB . Not to mention 4GB of DDR4 (not visible on the diagram) dedicated to the OS and applications .
- the Anaconda version would have 12 GDDR6 memory chips at 2GB each, ie 24GB. Again, 4GB DDR4 would be at work for the OS and applications . We will come back in more detail on this subject of the RAM in our 3rd part!
- In both cases, Microsoft would use the same GDDR6, the same Zen 2 CPUs, the same RCC chips and the same type of GPUthe whole being simply divided by two (excluding CPU).

An ingenious production for a foolproof cost control?

When you see what the Xbox Anaconda has in the guts, it's almost hard to imagine that the price of 499 € is possible .According to this leak, apart from the 28GB of RAM (24 + 4), the 2 RCC chips, the 11.17 TF of the GPU, we note the presence of 2 hard drives (one to 512GB SSD, the other 2TB HDD). Hard to imagine the same price as a One X launch in 2017.
vfxnokdp.jpg

But who says difficult, does not necessarily say impossible.
Always relying on documents, we are told a clever system to avoid losses during production.
As the table shows, 4 elements make up the "Scarlett" range:
  • A dev kit
  • XCloud servers
  • An Xbox Anaconda
  • An Xbox Lockhart
In part 2 , we talked a lot about Compute Units (CU) . And this is where the production genius begins. Exactly as expected, the Xbox Anaconda will benefit from 60 CU on its GPU (as well as xCloud according to the document). The dev kit would be 64 CU and the Lockhart 30 CU.
How to know ? The document does not mention it!
Indeed, the person at the origin of this leak does not evoke the number of CU present on each model. Not very important, we can do it ourselves:
We have to repeat the calculation we had done in part 2, namely:
60 (CU) x 64 x 2 x 1455 (Mhz) = 11.17 Teraflops .​
And now, we have our CU number. You must add 4 CU to the dev kit or 64 CU to get the 11.92 TF shown on the chart. 64 CU is the maximum possible on the GCN architecture of AMD (on which Navi depends).
Microsoft will order its 64 CU Navi GPUs from AMD. Some chips can leave the production line with less than 64 CU. We had seen it previously, and that is generally why a console manufacturer provides a margin of error (here of 4 CU).
Concrete example: even if the GPU comes out of the factory with 62 CUs active, it will remain usable for an Anaconda at 60.
Several cases then arise to limit the dry losses:
  • If the GPU comes out at 64 CU : it will be able to benefit the dev kit in priority (and / or to the rest of the range, by disabling the surplus CU if necessary)
  • If the GPU comes out between 60 and 63 CU : Microsoft will be able to use it for its Xbox Anaconda and for its xCloud servers, both being at 60 CU.
  • If the GPU comes out below 60 CU : No loss again, since it can be used in a Lockhart at 30 CU (by massively deactivating the CU not useful.Beware, this point does not mean that Microsoft will not order for as many GPUs directly in 30 CU)
  • If the Lockhart GPU comes out under 30 CU : well ... no solution: trash.


Initially we had articulated our predictions and calculations for the next Xbox around the sacro-saints CPU, GPU, RAM and other HDD: elements that are found at all times and that can be projected.
Today, we touched the subject of Ray Tracing that we did not imagine at all this way. RCC chips can go further. The "glass ceiling" in terms of raw power reaches its almost current limit on console with more than 11 Teraflops (under GCN architecture obviously). The other solution to climb even more in the tower would have been a dual GPU , but for obvious reasons of cost and production, this scenario is impossible.To overcome this, the introduction of RCC chip is new and makes sense. It leaves the raw power of the GPU (11.2 Tflops) free for its usual work by unloading Raytracing calculations. In this, the next Xbox would be more surprising in its capabilities than we thought!
If all this is confirmed, have no doubt about the exceptional character of your future Xbox. The "Monster" has not finished roaring.
 
Google translated breakdown of recent ‘leaks’:

Xbox Scarlett: the surprise of Ray Tracing?
April 28, 2019 Twins
Our Teraflops, GPU and Megahertz stories are not finished yet!
We propose a small detour, an article 2 bis, with a focus on a specific element (before the 3rd and last part about the CPU and RAM, to appear a little later).
This detour was added to our article forecasts following a leak, particularly interesting and unexpected that came to us last week (thank you Astal for the info!).
Why would this leak be more interesting than another?

The amount of "leakage" is increasing exponentially as E3 approaches. Without being absolute experts, we can quickly get rid of "false" and "probable". You will see, this "leak" is one of the most credible we had to dissect. Which does not mean that error is not possible.

First of all: it fits perfectly with our own calculations made in part 2 (11.3 vs 11.17 Teraflops). And overall the totality of the information communicated seem all consistent and compatible with each other.
They seem sufficiently to take into account the constraints of cost, production or heat dissipation required in a console chassis.So, we are talking to you about it.
And today, we will look at something that we did not see coming! In reality, hardly anyone has seen this "mini bomb" coming.Neither the so-called "specialized" press, let alone the one that talks about "8K" without even asking questions, nor some technical experts like Digital Foundry who hoped but did not think that achievable in a console price controlled.
This element is a so-called "RCC" chip.
The surprise of the next generation named RCC?

imageone.png

Yes, we are basically chatting with Ray Tracing . The famous light management process absolutely stunning and absolutely resource-hungry.
On reading this leak, a revelation: Mark Cerny gives a little more weight to this strange presence of RCC chip ...
The lies of Mark Cerny.
You've probably seen it like us, Sony has launched very formally its communication on the future Playstation. It is the engineer of the PS4, the PS4Pro and thus of the PS5 which reserved his first words on the site WIRED . A lot of elements are revealed, without (and it is normal at this stage) too much to say.
This man is Mark Cerny, big manitou hardware at Sony. Very sincerely when the gentleman opens his mouth, we have learned to be wary. To mislead Microsoft, he did not hesitate to say that 8 Teraflops minimum were necessary to make the native 4K, or that the PS4 Pro could deploy 8.4 TF (in the case of a general calculation in 2 × 16 bits rather than 1 × 32 bits: this is not totally wrong, but no game is developed totally like this and he knows it).
Reading his PS5 interview was a moment of absolute mistrust for us. Is right. Cerny explains that the PS5 SSD will be faster than the best PC SSDs of the moment.Yeah. That on his PC, with an SSD, it takes 15 seconds to switch from Word to Excel (What?!) Or that it is a "dozen" years that we find SSD hard drives in PCs " entry level ". A lot of little lies accumulated in sum.
We can seem a little hard, but when we know that Sony has let the site WIRED evoke of itself the 8K ... We laugh a little laugh.
Then comes the engineer's statement regarding Ray Tracing . The color is displayed, the PS5 can do it . (1/2)
Lol, wtf? We laugh a little laugh....
 
I wonder what kind of games running on next gen Xbox we can expect to see next year at E3. We'll see Halo Infinite for sure, but that game Is being built around the X hardware, isn't it? I definitely hope we get to see something that truly takes advantage of the next gen hardware but I do wonder if it isn't too early to expect that?

I doubt they can show off Fable, or the game The Initiative is working on. Guess we'll have to wait and see. I definitely expect the competition to show of a next gen only game, Sony will likely show Guerilla's new game probably and hopefully MS too.
 
I wonder what kind of games running on next gen Xbox we can expect to see next year at E3. We'll see Halo Infinite for sure, but that game Is being built around the X hardware, isn't it? I definitely hope we get to see something that truly takes advantage of the next gen hardware but I do wonder if it isn't too early to expect that?

I doubt they can show off Fable, or the game The Initiative is working on. Guess we'll have to wait and see. I definitely expect the competition to show of a next gen only game, Sony will likely show Guerilla's new game probably and hopefully MS too.

I wouldn't count on seeing any real games yet, probably some tech demos or next gen target render type of things but actual gameplay probably will be held for when the console is officially revealed since it's just way too early to have anything real ready to show yet. I just hope Ubisoft doesn't pull another watch dogs on us.
 
I wonder what kind of games running on next gen Xbox we can expect to see next year at E3. We'll see Halo Infinite for sure, but that game Is being built around the X hardware, isn't it? I definitely hope we get to see something that truly takes advantage of the next gen hardware but I do wonder if it isn't too early to expect that?

I doubt they can show off Fable, or the game The Initiative is working on. Guess we'll have to wait and see. I definitely expect the competition to show of a next gen only game, Sony will likely show Guerilla's new game probably and hopefully MS too.


Forza tech demo for sure
 
I wouldn't count on seeing any real games yet, probably some tech demos or next gen target render type of things but actual gameplay probably will be held for when the console is officially revealed since it's just way too early to have anything real ready to show yet. I just hope Ubisoft doesn't pull another watch dogs on us.

Probably, but IMO they have to show SOMETHING significant gameplay-wise.
Halo and Gears are obvious, but with Sony not being there, and last year being largely about studio acquisitions and the promise of new game development, they’d lose a major opportunity if they didn’t show something new/unexpected.
 
Probably, but IMO they have to show SOMETHING significant gameplay-wise.
Halo and Gears are obvious, but with Sony not being there, and last year being largely about studio acquisitions and the promise of new game development, they’d lose a major opportunity if they didn’t show something new/unexpected.

They'll have a ton of 3rd party games and they'll likely have Gears again since that's coming this year, no need to rush something that you can't honestly show off because a next gen game likely isn't going to be looking it's best this far out. They already showed that kind of meh engine thing last year for Halo, I would save actual gameplay for next year when Sony will likely be back at E3 and MS will need something big to show to go along with the new console. They could still show halo for the X1X and get plenty of attention for that, no need to show what will likely be a much different looking next gen version of the game that won't be out for a year and a half. The dev kits this far out still need a lot of revisions and there is no doubt that next gen versions of games are probably still a bit rough and not truly representative of the quality they can show next year, if they show something now and it doesn't blow people away it will backfire.
 
They'll have a ton of 3rd party games and they'll likely have Gears again since that's coming this year, no need to rush something that you can't honestly show off because a next gen game likely isn't going to be looking it's best this far out. They already showed that kind of meh engine thing last year for Halo, I would save actual gameplay for next year when Sony will likely be back at E3 and MS will need something big to show to go along with the new console. They could still show halo for the X1X and get plenty of attention for that, no need to show what will likely be a much different looking next gen version of the game that won't be out for a year and a half. The dev kits this far out still need a lot of revisions and there is no doubt that next gen versions of games are probably still a bit rough and not truly representative of the quality they can show next year, if they show something now and it doesn't blow people away it will backfire.

I agree it’s a gamble. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show ‘in-engine’ trailers, or something that’s supposed to show what the final product will supposedly look like. Sony especially has used that tactic successfully, although it is 2019 and people are a bit more observant about these things now.

MS is still far behind Sony, and after fixing so many mistakes from the X1 launch, the last major thing is ‘lack of exclusives.’ With Sony not there to take attention away (although I’m sure they will announce something around that time), all eyes, and expectations, will be on MS.

They need to show something. They showed the studios, they’ve had a year, and most likely Sony is going to go big with showings next year with the PS5 launching, whether they are at E3 or not.

So this this their time. Besides lots of stuff from Halo and especially Gears, I expect a little something, and maybe some things further along than expected, from every studio they’ve acquired.

They have to at least get people excited about new games, and this is their golden chance. Risky to show a game earlier in development, but if they don’t show some significant stuff, the internet will crucify them.
 
I agree it’s a gamble. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show ‘in-engine’ trailers, or something that’s supposed to show what the final product will supposedly look like. Sony especially has used that tactic successfully, although it is 2019 and people are a bit more observant about these things now.

MS is still far behind Sony, and after fixing so many mistakes from the X1 launch, the last major thing is ‘lack of exclusives.’ With Sony not there to take attention away (although I’m sure they will announce something around that time), all eyes, and expectations, will be on MS.

They need to show something. They showed the studios, they’ve had a year, and most likely Sony is going to go big with showings next year with the PS5 launching, whether they are at E3 or not.

So this this their time. Besides lots of stuff from Halo and especially Gears, I expect a little something, and maybe some things further along than expected, from every studio they’ve acquired.

They have to at least get people excited about new games, and this is their golden chance. Risky to show a game earlier in development, but if they don’t show some significant stuff, the internet will crucify them.

Yeah they've both shown things too early and I think they've both learned their lesson there, MS used to be good about that but early this gen they went crazy with CGI announce trailers etc and that stuff came back and bite them too.

I just don't think there is a need to blow their load a year and a half out,, anything they gain at E3 will die out long before next E3 so they would be better off showing actual games next year when they can make a real impact, announcing them now only to have nothing to show will make next year less special IMO. They can show the new Halo running on the One X and this year and then next year show what it looks like running on Scarlet.

With Gears coming this year it would be a shame to not focus on that and put too much attention on something that's just talk right now. I think they'd be fine doing what they did with the One X, just a quick little video talking about what's coming and leave the big stuff for next year when they can actually show games running on it.
 
They'll have a ton of 3rd party games and they'll likely have Gears again since that's coming this year, no need to rush something that you can't honestly show off because a next gen game likely isn't going to be looking it's best this far out. They already showed that kind of meh engine thing last year for Halo, I would save actual gameplay for next year when Sony will likely be back at E3 and MS will need something big to show to go along with the new console. They could still show halo for the X1X and get plenty of attention for that, no need to show what will likely be a much different looking next gen version of the game that won't be out for a year and a half. The dev kits this far out still need a lot of revisions and there is no doubt that next gen versions of games are probably still a bit rough and not truly representative of the quality they can show next year, if they show something now and it doesn't blow people away it will backfire.

There is no way they aren't showing Halo...
 
There is no way they aren't showing Halo...

Oh for sure but show it on the One X, don't make some BS in engine trailer saying it's on the next gen machine, no way anything is ready to show yet.
 
I agree it’s a gamble. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show ‘in-engine’ trailers, or something that’s supposed to show what the final product will supposedly look like. Sony especially has used that tactic successfully, although it is 2019 and people are a bit more observant about these things now.

MS is still far behind Sony, and after fixing so many mistakes from the X1 launch, the last major thing is ‘lack of exclusives.’ With Sony not there to take attention away (although I’m sure they will announce something around that time), all eyes, and expectations, will be on MS.

They need to show something. They showed the studios, they’ve had a year, and most likely Sony is going to go big with showings next year with the PS5 launching, whether they are at E3 or not.

So this this their time. Besides lots of stuff from Halo and especially Gears, I expect a little something, and maybe some things further along than expected, from every studio they’ve acquired.

They have to at least get people excited about new games, and this is their golden chance. Risky to show a game earlier in development, but if they don’t show some significant stuff, the internet will crucify them.
Don’t expect exclusives. I suspect every game will also play on Windows PC.
 
It sounds like you guys didn't properly read my message, haha ;)

I said E3 next year. No way are we going to see next gen games this year at E3 but next year a few months before the next Xbox releases..... I really wonder what we can realistically expect from the new studios. You can bet your ass on it that Sony will have a game or two to fully show the power of the PS5, not that hard when you have so many studios too. But I really hope MS will too. I'm sure Halo will look amazing but sadly it isn't a game fully built for the next Xbox.

I honestly have no idea what MS will show to showcase the power of the next Xbox, but I'm pretty sure Sony will have at least one brand new game to fully show the potential of PS5, along with games like Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding and probably a improved The last of us 2, assuming it releases this year on PS4.
 
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