Digital Foundry got the leak of a new Microsoft document, which it has been verified with Xbox developer sources. According to the leaked document, Project Scorpio does not have ESRAM, but it will be 4.5 times as powerful as Xbox One’s.
“ESRAM remains essential to achieving high performance on both Xbox One and Xbox One S,” the whitepaper reveals. “However, Project Scorpio and PC are not provided with ESRAM. Because developers are not allowed to ship a Project Scorpio-only SKU, optimising for ESRAM remains critical to performance on Microsoft platforms.”
We acknowledge that developers may not wish to spend all of the additional GPU resource of Project Scorpio on resolution, and this is not mandated,” the paper says. “To make the best games possible, developers will inevitably spend GPU resource on other quality improvements such as higher fidelity shadows, reflections, texture filtering and lower draw distances. Another option developers might consider is frame-rate upscaling – running graphics at 60Hz but the CPU at 30Hz and interpolating animation.”
“Half-resolution rendering is typically used for transparencies and screen-space effects, SSAO, SSR, and perhaps even shadow accumulation, global illumination and non-important local lights,” the white paper reveals. “On Project Scorpio, a half-resolution effect rendered at 1080p and bilaterally up-sampled to 4K could look as good or better than the same effect rendered at full resolution on Xbox One. For example, on Xbox One, the effect is produced at full resolution, say 900p, but on Project Scorpio, the effect is produced at 1080p, which is half resolution.”