Microsoft talks about Xbox One’s internals, while disclosing nothing

Eight cores, six operations per CPU cycle, and 200GB of bandwidth. But does it mean anything?

 

The Xbox One is full of technology, and after its big reveal Microsoft talked a little about what's going into the console, giving some tidbits of info about what makes it tick.

Hardware

Microsoft says that the Xbox One has five custom-designed pieces of silicon spread between the console and its Kinect sensor. It didn't elaborate on what these are. There's a system-on-chip combining the CPU and GPU, which we presume to be a single piece of silicon, and there's at least one sensor chip in the Kinect, perhaps replacing the PrimeSense processor used in the Xbox 360 Kinect, but what the others might be isn't immediately clear. Possibilities include audio processors, on-chip memory, and USB controllers.
One of the key questions about the AMD-built, 64-bit, 8-core SoC is "how fast is it?" At the moment that's unknown. Microsoft claims that the new console has "eight times" the graphics power of the old one, though some aspects of the new system are even more improved; for example, it has 16 times the amount of RAM.
The SoC has a PC processor heritage. It includes features that have become standard in PC processors, like power gating to allow idle cores to be powered down, and dynamic frequency scaling to allow light loads to use a lower clock speed. Like AMD's forthcoming codename Kaveri processors that are shipping in PCs later this year, the CPU and GPU share coherent access to the system's memory, making it easier to develop software that splits workloads between the two processors.
Some performance numbers were given for the CPU and GPU themselves but these cast more shadow than they do light. Microsoft claimed that each CPU core can perform six operations per cycle. The CPU is believed to be using AMD's Jaguar core, but typically this would only be described as able to handle four operations per cycle; two each of integer and floating point (though even here counting operations is complicated; the floating point operations could use vector instructions such as SSE2, in which case one operation would result in four actual computations, potentially giving eight per cycle for floating point alone).
This arguably leaves a shortfall of two operations per cycle. One possibility is that the cores have been customized somewhat, which allows more instructions to be issued per cycle. On the face of it, this seems a little unlikely; it'd be a significant change that would have considerable implications on the design of the rest of the chip. Another possibility is simply that the counting is a little unusual and that the extra two operations are one store and one load. This would be consistent with how leaked documents (or, if one prefers, unsubstantiated but apparently accurate rumors) described the processor: two integer operations, two floating point operations, and two memory operations per cycle, which may well be the same number and mix of operations as handled by the standard Jaguar core.
For the GPU, Microsoft claimed 768 operations per cycle. This is again consistent with leaked information.
What Microsoft didn't specify, of course, was the number of cycles per second each processor runs at, so we still have no basis for actually assessing the device's performance.
Similarly, the company claimed that there was more than 200GB of bandwidth within the system. Again, the number had no context or clarification and if rumors are to be believed, it suggests some rather creative accounting: 68 GB main memory bandwidth, 102GB bandwidth to an embedded SRAM buffer for the GPU, and 30GB bandwidth between the CPU and GPU. While that does add up to 200GB, there are no two parts of the SoC that can communicate with each other at 200 GB/s. The fastest link is believed to be the GPU read performance, which can aggregate across the main memory and SRAM buffer for 170 GB total.
The Kinect system has also been upgraded. Perhaps most importantly of all, it should work a lot better in small rooms. The field of view is described as being 60 percent wider and this translates to being able to stand 3-4 feet closer to the sensor. That's a substantial improvement, which is just as well since the Kinect will be mandatory equipment.
The new Kinect is all around better. It can track six skeletons, up from 2, and capture 1080p video. Low-light performance will also be improved, as it can see infrared. Microsoft says that this will allow Kinect to gauge things like your level of engagement in a game. We speculate this means that it might be able to see, for example, that your cheeks are flushed in response to emotional involvement and investment in the game.

Software

Brief details were also given of the software side of things. The Xbox One is described as running three operating systems. There's a long-running Windows 8-based operating system used for running applications, browsing the Web, Skype, and similar roles; a second operating system for running games; and a hypervisor that virtualizes the hardware and switches between the two. The long-running partition is also used for some system management tasks, such as running the Kinect software portions and performing matchmaking while you watch a video.
This hypervisor is based on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform but simplified to remove extraneous features that are irrelevant to a games console; the software is specialized because it runs fixed-role, fixed operating system virtual machines.
The application partition boots when the system is turned on and runs persistently, even when in-game. This is what enables things like Snap view, where apps and games or TV run side-by-side. The game partition, in contrast, gets rebooted each time a new game is started.
To ensure high-speed switching between the operating systems, each virtual machine draws to its own (virtual) screen all the time. The hypervisor can switch between screens essentially instantly, allowing fast task-switching.

The mystery box

Microsoft claims that the session gave a lot of detail about the new console. And in some ways, it did. There were lots of isolated pieces of information, without much context. The company simultaneously told us something about the Xbox One's performance and told us nothing. It tossed out some numbers for people to talk and argue about (because God knows the console platform warriors certainly need more ammunition) while ensuring that those same numbers mean absolutely nothing. The Xbox One may have been revealed, but many facets of its capabilities and power remain mysterious.

How the Xbox One draws more processing power from cloud computing

Ars also talks to Microsoft about the integration of Kinect and RAM allocation.

 

UPDATE: The original version of this story misstated the 300,000-server capacity for Xbox One's cloud computing architecture as 30,000 servers. Ars regrets the error.
While Tuesday's Xbox One presentation answered some questions about Microsoft's upcoming system, it left just as many or more unsettled. Luckily, Ars got a chance to sit down with General Manager of Redmond Game Studios and Platforms Matt Booty to try to get more answers. While he wasn't able to answer some of the most pressing questions about the system, he was able to dive deep into some of the technical details.
Our first question had to do with the 300,000-server cloud architecture that Microsoft says the Xbox One will use to help support "latency-insensitive computation" in its games. What does that mean exactly, and can laggy cloud data really help in a video game where most things have to be able to respond locally and immediately?
"Things that I would call latency-sensitive would be reactions to animations in a shooter, reactions to hits and shots in a racing game, reactions to collisions," Booty told Ars. "Those things you need to have happen immediately and on frame and in sync with your controller. There are some things in a video game world, though, that don't necessarily need to be updated every frame or don't change that much in reaction to what's going on."
"One example of that might be lighting," he continued. "Let’s say you’re looking at a forest scene and you need to calculate the light coming through the trees, or you’re going through a battlefield and have very dense volumetric fog that’s hugging the terrain. Those things often involve some complicated up-front calculations when you enter that world, but they don’t necessarily have to be updated every frame. Those are perfect candidates for the console to offload that to the cloud—the cloud can do the heavy lifting, because you’ve got the ability to throw multiple devices at the problem in the cloud."
Booty added that things like physics modeling, fluid dynamics, and cloth motion were all prime examples of effects that require a lot of up-front computation that could be handled in the cloud without adding any lag to the actual gameplay. And the server resources Microsoft is putting toward these calculations will be much greater than a local Xbox One could handle on its own. "A rule of thumb we like to use is that [for] every Xbox One available in your living room we’ll have three of those devices in the cloud available," he said.
While cloud computation data doesn't have to be updated and synced with every frame of game data, developers are still going to have to manage the timing and flow of this cloud computing to avoid noticeable changes in graphic quality, Booty said. “Without getting too into the weeds, think about a lighting technique like ambient occlusion that gives you all the cracks and crevices and shadows that happen not just from direct light. There are a number of calculations that have to be done up front, and as the camera moves the effect will change. So when you walk into a room, it might be that for the first second or two the fidelity of the lighting is done by the console, but then, as the cloud catches up with that, the data comes back down to the console and you have incredibly realistic lighting."
Does that mean that Xbox One games will feature graphics that suddenly get much more realistic as complex data finally finishes downloading from the cloud? "Game developers have always had to wrestle with levels of detail... managing where and when you show details is part of the art of games," Booty said. "One of the exciting challenges going forward is a whole new set of techniques to manage what is going to be offloaded to the cloud and what’s going to come back.”
And what about those times when a gamer doesn't have an active Internet connection to make use of the cloud's computational power? Microsoft has confirmed that single-player games don't have to be online to work, but all this talk of cloud computing seems to suggest that these games might not look or perform as well if they don't have access to a high-speed connection.
"If there’s a fast connection and if the cloud is available and if the scene allows it, you’re obviously going to capitalize on that," Booty told Ars. "In the event of a drop out—and we all know that Internet can occasionally drop out, and I do say occasionally because these days it seems we depend on Internet as much as we depend on electricity—the game is going to have to intelligently handle that." Booty urged us to "stay tuned" for more on precisely how that intelligent handling would work, stressing that "it’s new technology and a new frontier for game design, and we’re going to see that evolve the way we’ve seen other technology evolve."

Requiring the Kinect

 

Microsoft talks about Xbox One’s internals, while disclosing nothing

Eight cores, six operations per CPU cycle, and 200GB of bandwidth. But does it mean anything?

 

The Xbox One is full of technology, and after its big reveal Microsoft talked a little about what's going into the console, giving some tidbits of info about what makes it tick.

Hardware

Microsoft says that the Xbox One has five custom-designed pieces of silicon spread between the console and its Kinect sensor. It didn't elaborate on what these are. There's a system-on-chip combining the CPU and GPU, which we presume to be a single piece of silicon, and there's at least one sensor chip in the Kinect, perhaps replacing the PrimeSense processor used in the Xbox 360 Kinect, but what the others might be isn't immediately clear. Possibilities include audio processors, on-chip memory, and USB controllers.
One of the key questions about the AMD-built, 64-bit, 8-core SoC is "how fast is it?" At the moment that's unknown. Microsoft claims that the new console has "eight times" the graphics power of the old one, though some aspects of the new system are even more improved; for example, it has 16 times the amount of RAM.
The SoC has a PC processor heritage. It includes features that have become standard in PC processors, like power gating to allow idle cores to be powered down, and dynamic frequency scaling to allow light loads to use a lower clock speed. Like AMD's forthcoming codename Kaveri processors that are shipping in PCs later this year, the CPU and GPU share coherent access to the system's memory, making it easier to develop software that splits workloads between the two processors.
Some performance numbers were given for the CPU and GPU themselves but these cast more shadow than they do light. Microsoft claimed that each CPU core can perform six operations per cycle. The CPU is believed to be using AMD's Jaguar core, but typically this would only be described as able to handle four operations per cycle; two each of integer and floating point (though even here counting operations is complicated; the floating point operations could use vector instructions such as SSE2, in which case one operation would result in four actual computations, potentially giving eight per cycle for floating point alone).
This arguably leaves a shortfall of two operations per cycle. One possibility is that the cores have been customized somewhat, which allows more instructions to be issued per cycle. On the face of it, this seems a little unlikely; it'd be a significant change that would have considerable implications on the design of the rest of the chip. Another possibility is simply that the counting is a little unusual and that the extra two operations are one store and one load. This would be consistent with how leaked documents (or, if one prefers, unsubstantiated but apparently accurate rumors) described the processor: two integer operations, two floating point operations, and two memory operations per cycle, which may well be the same number and mix of operations as handled by the standard Jaguar core.
For the GPU, Microsoft claimed 768 operations per cycle. This is again consistent with leaked information.
What Microsoft didn't specify, of course, was the number of cycles per second each processor runs at, so we still have no basis for actually assessing the device's performance.
Similarly, the company claimed that there was more than 200GB of bandwidth within the system. Again, the number had no context or clarification and if rumors are to be believed, it suggests some rather creative accounting: 68 GB main memory bandwidth, 102GB bandwidth to an embedded SRAM buffer for the GPU, and 30GB bandwidth between the CPU and GPU. While that does add up to 200GB, there are no two parts of the SoC that can communicate with each other at 200 GB/s. The fastest link is believed to be the GPU read performance, which can aggregate across the main memory and SRAM buffer for 170 GB total.
The Kinect system has also been upgraded. Perhaps most importantly of all, it should work a lot better in small rooms. The field of view is described as being 60 percent wider and this translates to being able to stand 3-4 feet closer to the sensor. That's a substantial improvement, which is just as well since the Kinect will be mandatory equipment.
The new Kinect is all around better. It can track six skeletons, up from 2, and capture 1080p video. Low-light performance will also be improved, as it can see infrared. Microsoft says that this will allow Kinect to gauge things like your level of engagement in a game. We speculate this means that it might be able to see, for example, that your cheeks are flushed in response to emotional involvement and investment in the game.

Software

Brief details were also given of the software side of things. The Xbox One is described as running three operating systems. There's a long-running Windows 8-based operating system used for running applications, browsing the Web, Skype, and similar roles; a second operating system for running games; and a hypervisor that virtualizes the hardware and switches between the two. The long-running partition is also used for some system management tasks, such as running the Kinect software portions and performing matchmaking while you watch a video.
This hypervisor is based on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform but simplified to remove extraneous features that are irrelevant to a games console; the software is specialized because it runs fixed-role, fixed operating system virtual machines.
The application partition boots when the system is turned on and runs persistently, even when in-game. This is what enables things like Snap view, where apps and games or TV run side-by-side. The game partition, in contrast, gets rebooted each time a new game is started.
To ensure high-speed switching between the operating systems, each virtual machine draws to its own (virtual) screen all the time. The hypervisor can switch between screens essentially instantly, allowing fast task-switching.

The mystery box

Microsoft claims that the session gave a lot of detail about the new console. And in some ways, it did. There were lots of isolated pieces of information, without much context. The company simultaneously told us something about the Xbox One's performance and told us nothing. It tossed out some numbers for people to talk and argue about (because God knows the console platform warriors certainly need more ammunition) while ensuring that those same numbers mean absolutely nothing. The Xbox One may have been revealed, but many facets of its capabilities and power remain mysterious.

Xbox One: Microsoft focuses on managing content, not gaming

PERSPECTIVE
At this morning’s Xbox One reveal in Redmond, Wash., the new “Call of Duty” game received an extended preview and a new game titled “Quantum Break” was given a giant promotional push. But the biggest star of Microsoft’s news conference to showcase  its Xbox 360 successor was a film director, one who spoke only via a pre-filmed video.
Steven Spielberg, it was divulged this morning, will executive produce an original “Halo” television series based on the popular video game franchise that’s long been tied to the Xbox ecosystem.
“For me, the ‘Halo’ universe is an amazing opportunity to be at the intersection where technology and storytelling meet,” Spielberg said, adding that he’s been interested in games since the era of “Pong” and that they have now evolved, technologically speaking, to a point where interactive storytelling is at its most compelling.
Details of the series, like much of the content for Xbox One, won’t be revealed until a later date. How it will play with upcoming “Halo” games is also tabled until the future. But that was indicative of Microsoft’s ambitions for Xbox One, which aims to further blur the lines between games, television, film and Internet content.
It wasn’t new games or new ways to play them that dominated today’s conference, but rather ways to integrate a gaming device and gaming technology such as the motion-based Kinect into our family rooms. You turn the device on by saying, “Xbox on.” You find out what is on ABC by asking the machine. Or, if you prefer to game, just say “game.” You can also jump into a game while watching a movie simply by using hand gestures,  a process Microsoft has dubbed “snap mode.”

The new Xbox One console, sensor and controller. (Microsoft)

The idea of using a game system as a sort of Trojan Horse to take over the living room is nothing new. The PlayStation 2, for instance, was released in 2000 with DVD playback capability. Last year, Wii U aimed to fully integrate TV and Web functionality into the machine.
Some have worked better than others — I’m happy utilizing the Wii U format for services such as Hulu, and using the Wii U’s Gamepad as a TV remote is a nice bonus now and again, but as someone without a cable subscription most of the add-ons are superfluous. It’s simply quicker to access what I want when I want without using the game system (or in the case of my home Xbox, without needing a Xbox Live subscription).
Xbox One hopes to make cross-media functionality easier than ever before by working closely with your cable box and incorporating a retooled Kinect that better recognizes movement and voice into the console. What’s more, today Microsoft said Xbox One essentially runs three operating systems, making jumps between games, Skype apps, movies, the Web or television happen instantaneously on the same screen (or by accident, depending on what Xbox trigger words you say, although Kinect upgrades are promised to have pitch-perfect voice recognition).
Examples shown illustrated how users could split their screens to use Skype while watching TV or playing a game. Partnerships with the NFL will bring more Web content onto the screen and it looks as if users can search for movie times or scroll through TV guides without having to leave a film or a game. By connecting with your cable box, the Xbox One, in theory, will more powerfully and seamlessly allow for mergers of online, linear and interactive entertainment.
These are all nice features but until the Xbox One is in our living rooms we won’t really know how beautifully they all intersect, although the 8-core x86 processor, 8 gigabytes of system memory and a 500 GB hard drive will certainly help. Unlike Sony’s PS4 announcement, which emphasized sharing content and better accessing games through streaming, Microsoft today tried to pitch the Xbox One as part game machine and part smart TV overlord, seeking to house all the distribution channels we use for entertainment in one ecosystem. And tools like Smartglass automatically pair the game console with compatible smartphones and tablets, so these portable devices can interact with the TV as a remote control

A view of the movies screen on the new Xbox One. (Microsoft)

Whether that excites you or not likely depends on how dependent you are on your current multi-screen setup — TV, laptop, tablet, etc. — and how comfortable you are talking to your TV. Or if you agree with Microsoft that the family room has become “too complex” (I think it’s pretty simple, personally.) Or, finally, how comfortable you are with the fact that the Xbox is always listening to you, since its operation is keyed by certain voice commands such as “Xbox on.”
Microsoft has already tried to squash any privacy concerns, but since Xbox One’s “advanced noise isolation lets Kinect know who to listen to, even in a crowded room,” it can hear you. Suddenly it seems rather meta that Ubisoft’s upcoming game “Watch Dogs,” based on a premise of listening to civilians by hacking personal devices, is coming to Xbox One. And it’s important to note that unless the Xbox One has DVR capability it may still be an accessory for most people.
While the current iteration of Kinect is a bit sloppy — it’s more or less useless in my small living room, in which the TV is about five feet from the couch — Microsoft went out of its way to show that new advancements will ensure its usability has improved. It is so powerful that it can supposedly read a heartbeat, which may sound odd but should make for more accurate fitness games.
What the presentation was lacking were specific examples of what the Xbox One is supposed to do best — offer an enhanced gaming experience — though one of the most exciting bits of news today was that Microsoft Studios is currently developing eight original titles to release within a year of the Xbox One launch.
In the words of Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer, “The groundbreaking tech at the heart of Xbox One will broaden the landscape and canvas for the storyteller.” Hopefully. More content — and content that isn’t a sequel or tied to an already known brand — is good news indeed, especially considering that Microsoft, like Sony, made the mistake of not ensuring the system is backward compatible.
Most of the games shown this morning were sports-related, and the sports did indeed look impressive, although it’s unknown whether what we saw was actual game play. Spencer did single out “Quantum Break” from “Alan Wake” developer Remedy, which looks to integrate lots of live action content into its game play.
It seemed a little bit like a TV show and a little bit like a game, with a young child who has the ability to seemingly plug-in to other’s minds and send players into the graphic world of the game. No doubt this is  what Spielberg, whose name was tied to LucasArts classic “The Dig,” means when he talks about the intersection of interactivity and storytelling.
Ultimately, when it comes to the question of whether to invest in a new game system (no pricing info was divulged), it’s the stories that matter and not the voice commands that can switch on a split-screen.
Oh, and more Spielberg and “Halo” doesn’t hurt

Call of Duty: Ghosts' new engine shown off

7 things we know about Call of Duty: Ghosts

We all knew it was coming. The Call of Duty series hasn't missed a beat with its annual releases, and Activision wasn't about to skip a year now. Call of Duty: Ghosts has been revealed at the Xbox One unveiling, and it's confirmed that developer Infinity Ward is bringing us the next installment in the series. The Modern Warfare title is being dropped, giving birth to a new subseries for the next generation of games.
We've gotten a few details about the game from the Microsoft press conference, but there's still plenty we want to know. With the recent announcement, there is more than enough information to get us excited for the next Call of Duty release, and definitely enough to get us speculating on what the game will include. This is everything we know and everything we want to see in Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Microsoft storms the living room with Xbox One

Microsoft is hitting the reset button on the Xbox, unveiling a new version of the console Tuesday that the company is aiming at rivals both old and new.
Microsoft portrayed the third-generation Xbox as a device that could take a central position in the entertainment lives of consumers. That space has become intensely competitive with similar consoles unveiled recently by traditional gamemakers Nintendo and Sony as well as an array of games, movies and other content from Amazon.com, Netflix, Google and Apple that can be displayed on the living-room TV.
Microsoft’s latest console can stream live television, though officials were coy on the details. It will make video calls over Microsoft’s Skype service. And it will offer new, exclusive content — including a television series produced by Steven Spielberg, based on the company’s “Halo” video game series, and a partnership with the NFL that will provide fans with live access to their fantasy football stats.

Xbox One Will Not Function Without Kinect Attached

Xbox's UK marketing director has said that without Kinect connected, Xbox One will not function.

by Keza MacDonald

May 21, 2013

After a Microsoft-hosted London event around the Xbox One reveal, Xbox's UK marketing director Harvey Eagle has said that the console will not function without Kinect connected.
"Kinect does require to be connected to Xbox One in all cases, yes," he said. Asked whether the Xbox One will accommodate people who perhaps play in their bedroom rather than their living room, Eagle replied: "Yes, absolutely. We use the living room almost as a moniker - that's where we assume the best screen is in the house. But if you like to play in any other room in the house, the Xbox One will deliver the same quality of experience whatever the environment."
As anyone who's ever tried to play with Kinect in an enclosed area knows, the current technology simply doesn't support it - which means that Xbox One's new Kinect sensor must be significantly different if it will work in any room in the house.