The Xbox One is More Powerful Than You Think

Did you know the Xbox one's CPU is actually more powerful than the PS4? It's just the graphics card that has less gflops of computing power; but you know what? Xbox has DirectX 12. This will let developers utilize the beefier CPU of the Xbox while reducing the strain on the GPU.

It's almost as if Microsoft knew this would eventually happen because at the last minute they decided to put in a more powerful CPU.

You may be wondering:

"What will the Xbox One be able to do with DirectX 12 and how??"

Well here's what you will see have an increase:

• Draw distance
• Frame Rate
• Light sources
• Big performance gains

How is this possible, you may be thinking.

It's all down to How DirectX 12 works. Normally with DirectX 11 the CPU cores could only talk to ONE GPU core at a time. This is why even with multi threaded games you still would have core 0 at max power while the others would be much, much lower. Now with DirectX 12 all the CPU cores and GPU cores can communicate all at once, thus utilizing all the power of all the cores if needed (see graph below) This will be a tremendous gain in speed which translates directly into a frame rate bump; and a slight reduction to stuttering. 

Less calls to the cores means a better draw distance because you don't have to wait for each gpu to start rendering it. They can all be rendering it at once because the CPU will be telling all the GPU cores to start rendering at once.

Here's a big one though: light sources. Photo realism in video games hinges on light sources, scattering light, and diffusing light. With directX 11 developers are stuck with only 4 light sources! That is insane! Developers have some tricks to get the most out of that, but 4 isn't even close to enough for photo realistic games. That's where DirectX 12 comes in. DirectX 12 will give us "Limitless light sources" according to Anandtech.

DirectX 12 will give the Xbox One a HUGE performance increase. Some sources say 30% some say 50%. They are going off of one thing or another that DirectX 12 is and not looking at the whole picture. DirectX 12 is a huge leap in performance and we don't know exactly how much better our games will be but I can tell you getting games to 60fps will be easier, games will look stunning, and Xbox owners will be very satisfied.

For more info check out these videos by THE RED DRAGON:

Windows 10: One OS To Rule Them All

Windows 10 is truly the most amazing operating system EVER. It will not connect all your devices, but it will marry them together using what they call continuum. This is great because now you will be able to use your computer, tablet, and even your phone in the same exact way for every one of your apps. The UI looks the same because it IS the same. This has MASSIVE rippling effects on all your devices. Now you can connect a mouse and keyboard to your tablet of phone and use it as a desktop! How? Because they ARE desktops.
The same goes for your PC. if your shrink down your window size, the program will shift to the smaller screen view (phone view). Your monitor could potentially augment having multiple phones on one monitor!

You might be asking well what does this have to do with gaming? Simple: your Xbox One and Hololens will have windows 10 so you could use them like a gaming device, PC, Tablet, or Phone. It is the exact same code for EVERY device. This also means that you can play your videogames on whichever screen you want; console, PC, tablets, and (with Tegra X1) phones.
This is great news for anyone who has a TV and a monitor because now you can play your games on whichever screen you want.
The new DirectX 12 will also give the Xbox One a slight bump in graphics. This is due to more efficient manipulation of the CPU and GPU, as well as giving developers access to resources that were locked off in the previous versions of DirectX. So The graphics bump will only happen depending on the game engine used, and the developer's abilities.

This is only the beginning though. In the near future you will need only ONE device for work, home, and play: your phone.
Nvidia has already proven to us that you can use a phone for full-fledged video games. Now Microsoft has proven that you can use your phone as a desktop. So EXPECT to see an all in one phone announced in 2016 and I can promise you I will cover it on this blog...stay tuned.

Phones Are Video Game Worthy?!? What is next for 2015?

Phones will very soon be top tier game worthy. The Unreal engine 4 demo, used for the launch of the Xbox ONE, was used again for this PHONE GPU CHIP!

Are you starting to connect the dots on this chip to the most current gaming news? Recently Windows has released their plans for cross buy and cross play between the Xbox ONE and windows 10. This is probably A part of the reason to release Windows 10 as a free upgrade. Imagine playing a game on your Xbox and your friend says, "Hey come over. HALO party at my place." What that use to mean was unplugging your whole setup and hooking it back in at his house. What that could mean now is you just walk in with your phone and a controller. Game parties are going to be able to be bigger than ever.

You might be thinking that that is just preposterous! Phones cant be as fast as a big console. That is where you would be wrong. The X1 uses 1/10th the watts to achieve the same performance as an Xbox ONE; as proved by the Unreal 4 demo.

In fact, the X1 be used to create a console that is BETTER than the Xbox ONE. Snail Games has proved this with their release of the OBox (AKA Online Box). 

At the end he said the OBox can play games at 4K right now, and the Xbox currently cannot (though they shipped with an HDMI 2 cable capable of 4K, so that is something they want to be able to do). But the X1 is even better than than just 4K, because Nvidia says it can do 4K at 60hz (FPS).

This means that if developers were to put their games on the current consoles and the OBox, the OBox would have the best resolution and frame rate!! (excluding PC of course)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT...