By Yesterday Microsoft unveiled loads of new info about the Xbox Series X in a blog post from Xbox head Phil Spencer. We learned a lot: among the headline advances in the next generation of Xbox are 12 teraflops of processing power, variable rate shading and hardware-accelerated DirectX Raytracing.
All of which you'd be forgiven for greeting with a very vacant stare and a slow nod. "Good," you'd say to Phil Spencer after he'd finished his spiel, trying to work out if he said 'teraflop' as a joke. "That sounds really good Phil. Nice one."
It's a bit of a techno-word salad, and you're understandably a bit nonplussed. Let's break it down.
What's a teraflop?
It's a unit of graphic processing power. More teraflops means better graphics, basically.
So... what's a teraflop?
'Flops' is a near-acronym of 'floating point operations per second', and the more points a graphics processor can draw per second, the more polygons it can move around the screen at once. A teraflop means it can handle a trillion flops.
And that makes the Xbox Series X a lot more powerful than the last generation?
Yes. Because the new Xbox is "powered by our custom designed processor leveraging AMD’s latest Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures," Spencer says, it's twice as powerful as the Xbox One X and eight times as powerful as the original Xbox One. That means "higher frame-rates, larger, more sophisticated game worlds, and an immersive experience unlike anything seen in console gaming." More teraflops means more polygons and more responsiveness.
Right. And variable rate shading?
All pixels are equal, but some are more equal than others. Variable rate shading means that rather than using computing power on all pixels at the same time, power can be directed toward particularly important objects or characters. "This technique results in more stable frame rates and higher resolution, with no impact on the final image quality," Spencer says.
And the other thing? The raytracing?
Hardware-accelerated DirectX Raytracing is basically about boosting the realism of physics within games, and making them feel more like they exist in the real world. It sharpens up acoustics, lighting, reflections, and that sort of thing.
Right. Are there any other tech advances to know about?
Quite a few actually. Revamped solid state drive storage means everything will run much more quickly and smoothly, a new Quick Resume feature means you can jump into and out of games without waiting ages for everything to load back up, and dynamic latency input will make the controller feel more responsive. Plus! You'll be able to play games from way back on the Xbox Series X, including your stack of classics from the original Xbox. Anything else?
This isn't the same Phil Spencer that does Location, Location, Location is it?
No.
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