Microsoft Builds A Mountain On The Farm To Beat Sony

Xbox-Scene News

Microsoft Builds A Mountain On The Farm To Beat Sony

Microsoft is still thinking that their 'Cloud-Power' will make XB1 beat the PS4

So much so, they are investing close to $1 Billion dollars (plus some nice tax credits also) to build what is being called 'Project Mountain' over in Iowa, home of their XBOX ONE Cloud Data Center

Microsoft has of course recently backtracked on their DRM, but they are still aiming towards making the XB1 'Cloud-Power' with games like TitanFall and Forza 5 already stated they need the Cloud of 300,000 servers to make your gaming experience amazing, more then what the lonely 360 can ever do, and you have heard the statements for ever XB1, there is 3 more in Cloud waiting for you, and with the Cloud it makes the XB1 10x more powerful then the 360, and this is going to be marketed more and more by Microsoft as they take aim at Sony to try to win this next-gen console war, and in doing so they are also spending a ton of money close to $1 Billion bucks!

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Microsoft is counting on what it's calling "Project Mountain" to help Xbox One beat PS4 from Sony. Project Mountain is a massive data center to be based in West Des Moines, Iowa. The Des Moines Register reports that the Iowa Economic Development Authority Board has approved $20 million in tax credits for Project Mountain. Microsoft will initially invest $700 million in Project Mountain and later on push it to $1 billion. Christian Belady of Microsoft said, "The expansion supports the growing demand for Microsoft's cloud services." The project represents "our latest in efficient data center thinking."

Microsoft had earlier said that Xbox One would be supported by more than 300,000 cloud servers. Now we know that these cloud servers are part of Project Mountain.

Parts of Microsoft's strategy can be gleaned by an interview with Matt Booty, General Manager of Redmond Game Studios, published in Ars Technica. Booty said, "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. 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."
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Of course this means even tho the XB1 no longer 'needs internet to play games', if they push this Cloud on most game titles, you will still be connected 24/7 while you playing them, and what about 'lag' as the servers are all in one place, what if you gaming from Aussie-Land, or if there is not enough servers available for new 'hot title', or launch problems like SimCity, will Microsoft massive amount of dollars be able to solve all these problems that normally come with Cloud-Powered apps!

News-Source #1: Microsoft builds a mountain on the farm to beat Sony (via) Forbes

News-Source #2: Microsoft Builds A Mountain On The Farm To Beat Sony (via) 360Crunch

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Xbox One memory performance improved for production console

Xbox-Scene News

Xbox One memory performance improved for production console

Microsoft tells developers that ESRAM bandwidth is up to 88 per cent higher

Microsoft have told developers they have improved the performance of the internal 32mb ESRAM greatly in console that are launching, so even XB1 with its GDDR3, might now be faster then PS4's GDDR5

This chart showing the PS4 peaking at 176gb/s compared to the early XB1 devkits running at 102gb/s is no longer true, as now Microsoft claims they been able to boost the speed of the ESRAM in production consoles (the ones you going to buy this holiday season) and the top speed in theory is now 192gb/s, making the XB1 now faster with its cheaper/slower GDDR3 then the PS4 with its direct (no embedded cache to help it out) and more costly GDDR5 but normally faster.

Of course this is all peak theoretical throughput, it all depends on how good the developer is to be able to code their main graphics loops that need the high-bandwidth graphics speed like shadowmaps, lightmaps, depth targets and render targets to fit all with 32mb of space, Killzone developers claim they need 800mb of space, so 32mb is nothing, but still this boost in internal top theoretical speed can be usage if you know all the specs. and tricks of the system, so I can see exclusive games like Halo or Titanfall working with this to make their games look outstanding on the XB1 compared to the PS4, whereas multi-console games, the developer will most likely just default their engine to usage the slowest of the two systems, now being the PS4, instead of re-coding custom graphics elements that can improve the game's overall look just for the XB1 release.

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Well-placed development sources have told Digital Foundry that the ESRAM embedded memory within the Xbox One processor is considerably more capable than Microsoft envisaged during pre-production of the console, with data throughput levels up to 88 per cent higher in the final hardware.

Bandwidth is at a premium in the Xbox One owing to the slower DDR3 memory employed in the console, which does not compare favourably to the 8GB unified pool of GDDR5 in the PlayStation 4. The 32MB of "embedded static RAM" within the Xbox One processor aims to make up the difference, and was previously thought to sustain a peak theoretical throughput of 102GB/s - useful, but still some way behind the 176GB/s found in PlayStation 4's RAM set-up. Now that close-to-final silicon is available, Microsoft has revised its own figures upwards significantly, telling developers that 192GB/s is now theoretically possible.

So how could Microsoft's own internal tech teams have underestimated the capabilities of its own hardware by such a wide margin? Well, according to sources who have been briefed by Microsoft, the original bandwidth claim derives from a pretty basic calculation - 128 bytes per block multiplied by the GPU speed of 800MHz offers up the previous max throughput of 102.4GB/s. It's believed that this calculation remains true for separate read/write operations from and to the ESRAM. However, with near-final production silicon, Microsoft techs have found that the hardware is capable of reading and writing simultaneously. Apparently, there are spare processing cycle "holes" that can be utilised for additional operations. Theoretical peak performance is one thing, but in real-life scenarios it's believed that 133GB/s throughput has been achieved with alpha transparency blending operations (FP16 x4).

The news doesn't quite square with previous rumours suggesting that fabrication issues with the ESRAM component of the Xbox One processor had actually resulted in a downclock for the GPU, reducing its overall capabilities and widening the gulf between graphical components of the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. While none of our sources are privy to any production woes Microsoft may or may not be experiencing with its processor, they are making actual Xbox One titles and have not been informed of any hit to performance brought on by production challenges. To the best of their knowledge, 800MHz remains the clock speed of the graphics component of the processor, and the main CPU is operating at the target 1.6GHz. In both respects, this represents parity with the PlayStation 4.
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Of course again this late sudden change in retail production versions over earlier devkits, will most likely be too late to improve 'launch games', but developers working on titles releasing in 2014 like Titanfall, will now have time to get newer devkits from Microsoft, and fine-tune their engines to make full usage of the very fast ESRAM speeds, so as the next year rolls along we will more able to visually see which system is better, welcome to round 2 of XB1 vs. PS4, the next-gen battle for top graphics is on!

News-Source #1: Xbox One memory better in production hardware (via) EuroGamer

News-Source #2: Xbox One memory performance improved for production console (via) 360Crunch

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Announcing the Spider X360 Drive PCBoard

Xbox-Scene News

Announcing the Spider X360 Drive PCBoard

'Free Your Live On Xbox 360 Slim LiteOn'

We got news today for new kind of replacement board for Xbox 360 Slim called 'Spider X360' which enable usage of burned 'backups' similar to the TX LTU2 boards

We recently got a short PR from SpiderX team, in regard to their new replacement board for Xbox 360 Slim owners:

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Description:

* This Drive Board provides the option to run DVD backups of your owned games.
* You'll able to play all your backups (XGD1, XGD2, XGD3 Xbox and Xbox 360 DVD formats) even on Live
* Compatible with Lite-ON DG16D5S or Hitachi DLN10N 0500/0502!!!
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And here is couple of screenshots showing you how the PCBoard fits in place:





For more info, check out their official site linked below.

Official Site: SpiderX360

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Microsoft Backtracks On Drm And 'always-online'

Xbox-Scene News

Microsoft Backtracks On Drm And 'always-online'

Not just an Rumor, its been confirmed by multiple sources, including Microsoft themselves

The previous posted ToS regarding 'used games', 24hr check-in, and other DRM lockdowns is set to be changed shortly by Microsoft, after weeks of PR backlash, and Sony poking at them!

Oh My God... --- Is it true... -- Yep, it seems Microsoft has decided to listen to the feedback on XBOX ONE, and is ready to make changes to their previous DRM lockdowns, and checkins, the rumor has been fast spreading across the 'net so much, that some sites are down, and Microsoft themselves is busy updating their Xbox Wire site:

* No more always online requirement
* The console no longer has to check in every 24 hours
* All game discs will work on Xbox One as they do on Xbox 360
* An Internet connection is only required when initially setting up the console
* All downloaded games will function the same when online or offline
* No additional restrictions on trading games or loaning discs
* Region locks have been dropped

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Update on June 19, 2013: As a result of feedback from the Xbox community, we have changed certain policies for Xbox One reflected in this blog. Some of this information is no longer accurate - please check here for the latest.
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Sorry this news item was posted earlier this week in the 'forums', as our XS front-page news interface was broken, now that is is fixed, we are linking it to the forum thread, reason for old news today, which is still good news that Microsoft listen to feedback and made the Xbox One now worth buying as it does not lockdown our discs or need always-internet.

News-Source: Microsoft backtracks on DRM and 'always-online' (via) 360Crunch

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JungleFlasher v0.1.96 (Beta 323) Released

Xbox-Scene News

JungleFlasher v0.1.96 (Beta 323) Released

A new version of JungleFlasher has been released

More Support for Xecuter LTU2 Hardware

Changes:

• Support for Xecuter additional LTU2 files for DG-16D4S support
• Added extraction for DG-16D4S serial info from original drive at KeyCR time for LTU2 and LTU1

Download: (Via Mediafire)

Official Site: JungleFlasher

News-Source: JungleFlasher v0.1.96 (Beta 323) Released (via) 360Crunch

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RUMOR: Microsoft Making Positive Reddit Comments

Xbox-Scene News

RUMOR: Microsoft Making Positive Reddit Comments

And voting down ones that are not 'positive' towards their new XB1

Just like the rumors of EA playing games with sites after SimCity launch, now a Reddit poster claims she has seen Microsoft employees doing massive 'reputation management' on social sites

A recent poster on Reddit by name of 'mistysilver' has created its own shitstorm of comments so much so that Reddit had to step in and remove her post, as she claimed that Microsoft employees are doing massive downvoting of negative XB1 comments, and voting up positive ones and making their own positive comments. -- These same rumors happen before with EA and their DRM-Locked SimCity!

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While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of the employee's screens:

"I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own. I couldn't make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One," Silver reported.

"Reputation management" is the term social media marketers use to "pose as happy customers" on social media sites. They upvote/downvote and make comments.

In the last year or so, Reddit has become a prime target for reputation management, Misty Silver says.
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BusinessInsider contacted Microsoft regarding this rumor and of course M$ claims they have no knowledge of it happening, but since this 'mistysilver' appeared Reddit ended up with their own shitstorm and as such had to remove her post and provided this update regarding the rumors:

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Microsoft told us, "There is no coordinated or sanctioned effort by Microsoft employees, or anyone paid by Microsoft, to unduly influence Reddit or other online forums."

Shortly after, the content of Misty Silver's post was removed, but the comment string on the post is still there (and it's hilarious).

We reached out to the moderators and asked why it was taken down. Redditor airmandan, the moderator from the /r/gaming subreddit, told us:

"We have not been contacted by anyone at Microsoft. The post that was removed consisted entirely of speculation and unfounded allegations. There is no rule against posting such in /r/gaming. However, the result of the post has been a completely out-of-control freight train of people posting personal information (in violation of Reddit rule 3) and engaging in vote manipulation (in violation of Reddit rule 2). If our users need to have a session of two-minutes'-hate, they will have to do it in a way that doesn't violate two of reddit's five only rules at the same time."
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News-Source: RUMOR: Microsoft Making Positive Reddit Comments (via) 360Crunch

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PS4/Xbox One tech spec comparisons 'meaningless'

Xbox-Scene News

PS4/Xbox One tech spec comparisons 'meaningless'

'It's not going to matter,' says Xbox product planning boss Albert Penello

Comparing the 'meaningless' technical specifications of Xbox One and PS4 is a pointless endeavor, argues Xbox product planning boss Albert Penello

Yesterday, we published the news that came in regarding the fact developers for XB1 have been told that the 32mb embedded memory bandwidth has been increased from 102GB/s on the early devkits, to now 192GB/s on the retail production consoles.

But an Microsoft Exec spoke out today against all this 'tech specs' compare wars of XB1 vs PS4, he says its no longer 1990, this next-gen era is no longer in the days of 16bit vs 32bit anymore.

He said, people have now moved on past all this 'tech specs' comparing shit, it will really all come down to the great GAMES that we will have for our XB1 console and of course (again) the added power of our CLOUD!

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"The problem is that Sony decided to go out and publish a bunch of numbers, which are in some ways meaningless," he told OXM. "Because this isn't like 1990, when it was 16-bit versus 32-bit."

Penello went on to lash out at Sony's use of 'off-the-shelf' parts for PS4.

"As a matter of fact, they actually go out and they talk about how proud they are about their off-the-shelf parts. Our guys'll say, we touched every single component in the box and everything there is tweaked for optimum performance," he boasted.

"For me, I'd rather not even have the conversation, because it's not going to matter," Penello went on, playing down any real-world benefits to be had from tech spec differences.

"The box is going to be awesome. The games are going to be awesome. I heard this exact same argument last generation and it's a pointless argument, because people are debating things which they don't know about. They're not [head silicon engineer] Nick Baker or [corporate vice president of IEB hardware Todd Holmdahl], and I'm not [lead PS4 architect] Mark Cerny, so why are we having this discussion?" argued Penello.

"I feel like our games and experiences are going to be every bit as good, if not better, technically - on top of all the magic we're going to add with the instant switching, and the power of the cloud."
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News-Source: PS4/Xbox One tech spec comparisons 'meaningless', says Microsoft exec (via) 360Crunch

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XBMC4Xbox v3.3 Released

Xbox-Scene News

XBMC4Xbox v3.3 Released

The XBMC4Xbox team is proud to announce the release of XBMC4Xbox 3.3

Many improvements have finally been added to XBMC, including better support for those that have upgraded their original Xbox consoles to the full 128mb of RAM that Microsoft only allowed on devkits

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Improvements include:

* New default Confluence Lite skin.
* DVDPlayer improvements.
* Updated VFS and Cache.
* Improved 128MB Ram support.
* Built-in support for recently added videos/music for skins (without the need for Python).
* Updated MythTV support.
* Better out of the box support for universal / Microsoft Media Extender remotes.
* Password Manager for Samba shares allowing different usernames/password per share.
* Skinning improvements.
* Scraper updates.
* Various other code / library updates and improvements.

Big thanks to all those who have helped with this, including JezzX for Confluence Lite and XBS for his work porting it over to XBMC4Xbox. Thanks also to the developers at the XBMC project, as the majority of features were backported from their code base. Thanks to Dom, Jan, Kozz, Temhil, XPhazer and XMan as well as others over at the XBMC4XBox Forum for their help with scripting, code testing, moral support and help running things.
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News-Source: XBMC4Xbox v3.3 Released (via) 360Crunch

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