We are just over four months before the launch of the next generation consoles by Microsoft and Sony, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. With the final units still far from our hands, we wonder which of the different approaches used by Microsoft and Sony will prove to be more successful.
For example, while Microsoft chose to keep the clock rates of its console fixed, Sony chose to use variable frequencies for both CPU and GPU, a decision that made the PS5’s TFLOP 10.28 figure feel misleading according to our own Hardware colleagues. It only refers to the ‘best scenarios’ when there is no downclocking involved.
In a new interview published on the Spanish site Xataka, the Director of Program Management for Xbox Series X, Jason Ronald, said that Microsoft could easily have used the same approach to reach a higher theoretical TFLOPS figure, but that would have made it difficult for the developers optimize their games.
We focus on optimizing the developer experience to deliver the best possible experience for gamers, rather than trying to ‘hunt’ down certain record numbers. We have always talked about constant and sustained performance.
We could have used forced clocks, we could have used variable clock speeds – the reality is that it makes it more difficult for developers to optimize their games even though it would have allowed us to boast of higher TFLOPS than we already had, for example. But you know, that’s not what’s important. The important thing is the gaming experiences that developers can build.
The Microsoft executive also suggested that the simple I / O speed of the Xbox Series X (which is lower than that of the PlayStation 5, according to official specifications) does not tell the full story.
Things go beyond the numbers that we can share or not. Sampler Feedback Streaming (SMS) allows us to load textures and makes the SSD act as a multiplier of physical memory that is added to the memory that the machine has.
We also have a new API called Direct Storage that gives us low-level direct access to the NVMe controller so that we can be much more efficient in managing those I / O operations.
It will be some time before we can see for ourselves which approach turned out to be most fruitful. Still, until then, stay tuned to Wccftech for information on upcoming next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony.
