So when do we get performance/ optimization updates?

The console industry has always perplexed me, in terms of updates...and now, even more so with Microsoft's commitment to release updates more promptly. Every month a feature is either added, tweaked, moved and/ or re-tweaked. Most features I do not use,
as I am just a "core gamer" and I don't do too much of the social/ TV stuff. So, while I praise Microsoft for adding...things(?), I'm always perplexed about the lack of performance updates and just general enhancements to the OS. Meanwhile, I can go to a PC
game website, or Nvidia/ AMD's website and find monthly driver/ patch releases that brings new enhancements, fixes and performance boosts. Sure, the Xbox One had a 10% GPU lift update, but that's not a general optimization/ enhancement made to drivers and/
or OS, but something a developer can choose to exploit...or not. It doesn't magically make hardware perform more smoothly. We get DX12 sometime around Christmas of 2015, so do we just give up on hardware optimizations until then? I'm getting tired of seeing
monthly updates about chatting, streaming , TV and other stuff I don't really use, but rather how these updates affect the quality of gaming.

My Xbox One sits at my PC desk, connected to a monitor...I don't need Kinect, TV features, or media hub functions.

:)

 

Is MS aiding devs. to patch performance/ Resolution post June SDK for previously released launch titles like TitanFall or Dead Rising 3?

I've been reading about how developers such as Blizzard and Bungie have been looking into the latest June SDK to get better performance and visuals for parity. Do you think MS Engineers will try to get some of the older games (launch titles) to take advantage
of the boosts in performance so they can also benefit from better optimizations equating to better experiences?

 

is a 500GB HDD really enough, this game was going to take up 60% at 290 GB!

@Burnin, you do know that Extrenals are not supported at launch right? also I read the article on Killzone and the main reason for that size was duplication of data for optimization in performance. I think 40 - 50 GB is completely reasonable for this generation
and we will probably start seeing the size get bigger as the Devs start utilizing more of the machines power.

 

I believe there will be a Day One update for Destiny that will optimize the graphics for that title as a result of the 10% Reserve being untethered to the Kinect.

 

[quote user="Graelock"]I'm always perplexed about the lack of performance updates and just general enhancements to the OS. Meanwhile, I can go to a PC game website, or Nvidia/ AMD's website and find monthly driver/ patch releases that brings new enhancements,
fixes and performance boosts.[/quote]That's not how consoles work. Console games are built to a fixed point in time, to a fixed performance bar. That won't change. That's the point of consoles.

You
will see no update to existing game performance coming from a general system update.

Not entirely sure why you have an Xbox One,
then. You really wanted to play Forza 5?

 

Your first point would be a pretty crappy policy and like your second point, is not true. The point of a console is that they are all the same hardware and so programming does not have to be done in such a loose and tolerant fashion as to make it compatible
across multiple hardware configurations. On console, performance enhancements are still made, just not very frequently. For example, when the memory footprint of a console's OS shrinks from 70mb to, say, 46mb or lower(using last generation as an example),
some developers may choose to go back and re-update their games based on that now, free memory. Microsoft and various articles of recent have even reinforced that notion by indicating that the 10% GPU lift is out there for the taking and games/ developers
that wish to take advantage of that, may now see increased resolution as a result. I believe Call of Duty went back and ramped their resolution from 720p to 900p, in fact. So, the question is; "Since we know that developers have an option to utilize software
enhancements/ updates, when is Microsoft going to make more of those? There's no such thing as a perfect API, a perfect driver or perfect OS...everything is a work in progress, coding can always use more tightening up and efficiency enhancements, as to reduce
latency and resource usage.

 

...and the whole point of this generation of Xbox(from Microsoft's perspective) is supposed to be the increased level of readiness in updates e.g. "more frequent features, updates and enhancements to the gaming experience" So far, we've just seen features
added and tweaked around such as streaming, snap-to functions, Skype, voice chatting and achievements. I've seen nothing from the "core" OS/ hardware perspective...there were rumors about new driver tweaks sometime back in March...but that never surfaced....only
the recent disconnecting of Kinect...there are still scaling issues too, and crushed black that occur when scaling from anything that is not 720p. They fixed the crushed black issue that occurred when scaling from 720p, but unfortunately games also scale from
900p, 962p and every resolution in between 720p-1080p

 

[quote user="Graelock"]Your first point would be a pretty crappy policy and like your second point, is not true.[/quote]Really? Go get out your copy of Perfect Dark Zero from the 360 launch. Try playing it. It plays as badly now as it did in 2005. Same is
true for the original Saints Row. Same is true for Assassin's Creed on the PS3.

Console games don't get magically better because of a system update. There isn't enough "in the middle" to make that happen at this point in time.

There are no system-level
changes that alter the framerate or resolution of a game after it ships.

That has no impact on games that shipped
prior to the changes.

They could waste time doing that, yes, or they could prepare the next game in a franchise. That's a per-developer choice. There
is a fee associated with certifying an update on Live. It's a non-trivial cost that will result in little benefit.

You'll need to cite a source to back that
claim. Even if it's true, that's a per-game change, not a system-update change.

Those are developer-side changes. If you want to keep track of developer-side changes, follow better news
sources or become a developer. Developer information is NDA'ed, so it's not like they just spew it all out there every week. There's also a big difference between making application-level changes and making fundamental changes to low level parts of the system.
Expecting monthly changes is unrealistic.

 

The driver tweaks and optimization are occuring on the development side...(SDK)

 

Like it or not, Ice Storm is on the money. One only needs to look back at the 360's history of game side performance 'boosts' to see how it works. I've pointed this out several times in other threads.

Look at any 360 launch game and then >> to a game near the end of it's generational life cycle. GOW >> GOW3. Mass Effect >> Mass Effect 3. Both of those are prime examples. There may have been some UI changes to the console during that time span, but as
Ice pointed out, GOW didn't improve in any way. Nor did Mass Effect.

However, GOW2 and finally GOW3 saw substantial improvement in many ways, graphically being the most prominent. There were no huge, ground breaking console side hardware updates during this time. The improvements happened on the game's/dev's side as they
became more and more experienced with, and better able to utilize the hardware that was already there.

If you want to see notable 'leaps and bounds' improvement in performance and graphics, then you're just going to have to be patient and wait for games that are, and will be, in development now and in the (hopefully) near future as devs become more efficient
with the hardware.

 

This is as much about developers optimization of the game software as it is about Microsofts optimization of the Xbox One's software.

You're unlikely to see any drastic improvements over past games. You'll just see them in future games instead as it has always been in console game development.

 

When the OP stated that DX12 likely wouldn't come until Christmas 2015, I almost cried... I thought it would be coming much sooner than that.