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Already introduced on the sidelines of the presentation of the Xbox Series X at the start of the year, Xbox today returns in more detail to the enigmatic Xbox Velocity Architecture, a set of hardware and software technologies making it possible to bring the Xbox Series X into a new era of optimization. It's through a short babbling video and an interview with Jason Ronald, director of Xbox program management, given to IGN , that we learn more about the three components of this Xbox Velocity Architecture and of what it means for developers and players.
NVME custom SSD for much faster loading
The first component of Xbox Velocity Architecture, the customized NVMe SSD. Already widely detailed and the subject of the main comparison with the competing PS5, Xbox returns to the speed of its SSD of 2.4 GB / s of raw data, 40x faster than what is found in the Xbox One X.
What is noted again in the speech is that jason Ronald repeatedly insists on the consistency of this figure. Indeed, Xbox does not communicate there on a peak of performance as the likes to compete, but on the possibility of the Xbox Series X to provide a constant bandwidth of 2.4 GB / s of raw data, and 4.8 GB / s of compressed data. This is a point that could not be more important for developers than being able to count on such constancy of performance whatever the support and the use that is made of it to fuel their games and their vision.
Dedicated hardware decompression for even faster
This consistency is notably made possible by a completely new data decompression system. Made of a new algorithm and dedicated hardware, specifically designed for the processing of textures that occupy most of the data, the system operates in parallel with the CPU which it would have consumed up to 4 cores if the latter had had to take it over.
Importantly, this texture-specific decompression, called BCPack, is purely and simply added to the more general data decompression capabilities based on the already widespread LZ library. A nice optimization therefore allowing to remove any bottleneck and supposed once again to allow developers to let go of the horses.
Sampling Feedback Streaming for texture optimization
This is a very strange term that hides the secret sauce of Xbox. The Sampler Feedback Streaming (or SFS) is the function that will allow each of the first two components of the Xbox Velocity Architecture to reach their full potential and allow developers to realize their vision without compromise.
This feature is the result of analysis by Xbox engineers regarding the use of textures in games these days. Huge quantities of textures are in fact loaded into memory today for only partial use by the GPU, which would often use less than a third, and this in quantity or resolution because part of texture is masked by an element of the decoration or very distant from the point of view of the player (thus not needing to be displayed at its maximum definition). The SFS comes to allow developers to “cut” the textures so as to load only the useful part or the level of definition necessary depending on the position of the player in relation to it. Thus, compared to the average memory usage observed by Xbox engineers.
3 in 1: what to remember from Xbox Velocity Architecture
Thus, compared to the functioning of our current consoles made of hard disks, non-dedicated decompression systems and textures loaded in unnecessary memory, the Xbox Velocity Architecture of the Xbox Series X would increase by 2.5x the efficiency of the SSD and the amount of memory. Xbox teams also had to develop new programming interfaces to take advantage of this new power. Last figure for the road, these hardware and software performances allow a game to access more than 100 GB of data when it needs it.
...... What's Xbox Velocity Architecture on Xbox Series X
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NVME custom SSD for much faster loading
The first component of Xbox Velocity Architecture, the customized NVMe SSD. Already widely detailed and the subject of the main comparison with the competing PS5, Xbox returns to the speed of its SSD of 2.4 GB / s of raw data, 40x faster than what is found in the Xbox One X.
What is noted again in the speech is that jason Ronald repeatedly insists on the consistency of this figure. Indeed, Xbox does not communicate there on a peak of performance as the likes to compete, but on the possibility of the Xbox Series X to provide a constant bandwidth of 2.4 GB / s of raw data, and 4.8 GB / s of compressed data. This is a point that could not be more important for developers than being able to count on such constancy of performance whatever the support and the use that is made of it to fuel their games and their vision.
Dedicated hardware decompression for even faster
This consistency is notably made possible by a completely new data decompression system. Made of a new algorithm and dedicated hardware, specifically designed for the processing of textures that occupy most of the data, the system operates in parallel with the CPU which it would have consumed up to 4 cores if the latter had had to take it over.
Importantly, this texture-specific decompression, called BCPack, is purely and simply added to the more general data decompression capabilities based on the already widespread LZ library. A nice optimization therefore allowing to remove any bottleneck and supposed once again to allow developers to let go of the horses.
Sampling Feedback Streaming for texture optimization
This is a very strange term that hides the secret sauce of Xbox. The Sampler Feedback Streaming (or SFS) is the function that will allow each of the first two components of the Xbox Velocity Architecture to reach their full potential and allow developers to realize their vision without compromise.
This feature is the result of analysis by Xbox engineers regarding the use of textures in games these days. Huge quantities of textures are in fact loaded into memory today for only partial use by the GPU, which would often use less than a third, and this in quantity or resolution because part of texture is masked by an element of the decoration or very distant from the point of view of the player (thus not needing to be displayed at its maximum definition). The SFS comes to allow developers to “cut” the textures so as to load only the useful part or the level of definition necessary depending on the position of the player in relation to it. Thus, compared to the average memory usage observed by Xbox engineers.
3 in 1: what to remember from Xbox Velocity Architecture
Thus, compared to the functioning of our current consoles made of hard disks, non-dedicated decompression systems and textures loaded in unnecessary memory, the Xbox Velocity Architecture of the Xbox Series X would increase by 2.5x the efficiency of the SSD and the amount of memory. Xbox teams also had to develop new programming interfaces to take advantage of this new power. Last figure for the road, these hardware and software performances allow a game to access more than 100 GB of data when it needs it.
