With the recent news Xbox will finally see ports of Final Fantasy 7 Remake (because Square likes money), there’s a few interesting tidbits from a recent interview the developers have shared with Windows Central, particularly in regards to the Xbox Series S specifications.
We’ll focus firstly on the specs of the Series S, then go over some of the other big items in the teams discussions with Windows Central.
“In terms of hardware specs, I would say the Xbox Series S is actually quite solid in terms of spec. We didn’t come across much of a processing challenge, but many of the challenges were more memory related.” said Naoki Hamaguchi, Square Enix, Game Director.
Optimization is something we were strongly cognizant of as we worked on the PC version as well. For Final Fantasy 7 Remake, we took some of the philosophies found in Nanite for Unreal Engine 5 and created our own solution for Unreal Engine 4. We were successful in delivering stable graphics there, and gain Steam Deck verification as well. We have been pretty proud of what we were able to achieve, even on lower spec systems.”
Now, there’s a few interesting points here: the Xbox Series S and X are largely identical in much of their core tech, with their CPUs based on AMD’s Zen 2 IP (8 Cores / 16 Threads). The CPU’s versus a modern desktop or laptop are now older (Ryzen 9000 uses Zen 5) but even so, they’re still the same as both the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles use, so developers would target a wide ecosystem.
For the GPU, it’s RDNA-2 class, the Xbox Series S has 20 CU, running at 1.565 Ghz providing about 4 TFLOPS of performance. The Xbox Series X meanwhile offers around 3x this FP32 number, due to 52 CU running at 1.825 GHz. So then, the CPU simply isn’t the problem, and the GPU can (largely) be ignored as a limitation for most stuff because resolution targets are shifted.
The ‘thing’ which seems to be the main point of contention for developers is actually the memory, with the Xbox Series S featuring 10GB of RAM and the Xbox Series X 16 (the same as the PS5). Some of this memory is of course reserved for OS functionality, but several developers have cited issues with the Xbox Series S consoles, with a few titles being Baldur’s Gate 3 and perhaps the most infamous one Blackmyth.
There were some rumors and reports Microsoft had initially intended to place 12GB of RAM in Lockheart (a google around will show the specs from 2019 or so), and the rest of the specs were pretty accurate. Whether Microsoft cut the RAM due to BoM costs or the rumors were wrong, who is to say. Regardless, the Xbox Series S has proven to be a capable machine in its own right; and I’ve a few friends who’re casual gamers who use their Xbox Series S consoles as they simply wanted a cheap machine to play games on.
How much the memory has been a limitation though has been hotly debated online – and of course really and truly, there’s no singular answer. Because not only does developer familiarity have a large part to play in this (and quite honestly, time to optimize since we’ve seen games time and time again run like garbage across basically all platforms), but also the type of game has a lot to do with it too. A small indie game or a fighting game are a very different thing versus a large, open world environment for example.
Hamaguchi also reveals that his favorite entry in the FF series is Final Fantasy 6 and also said this about the FF7 trilogy and its plans.
“We decided to construct Final Fantasy 7 Remake as a trilogy,” Hamaguchi explains. “If we were to totally align with the original, and replicate it exactly, I believe that would still appeal to players. But because it became a larger trilogy, we felt there was a necessity to change things up and try different things, to maintain interest across each part, and pique player’s curiosity.
I understand that there are differing opinions regarding choices we have made for the Remake series, but I think as a whole, as a developer, I do think that these were the right decisions to make. I can’t comment yet on [Final Fantasy 7 Remake] Part 3, but I am also a big fan of the original Final Fantasy 7. I am someone who played it when it first released, too. I believe that the direction that we are taking the series will ultimately satisfy fans who are eagerly awaiting its conclusion.”
Thanks to Windows Central.
