Unveiling their plans and vision for the next generation Xbox to developers at GDC, Microsoft has confirmed a number to technical details about Project Helix, as well as set a target to deliver alpha dev kits to developers starting in 2027.
The presentation by Xbox VP of Next Generation Jason Ronald, as reported by Game Developer, reconfirmed that Project Helix will play both Xbox console games and PC games.
The next generation hardware will once again feature a custom AMD-based system on a chip, and is being developed in tandem for the next generation of DirectX, with enhanced ray-tracing performance and various machine learning techniques to upscaling and rendering. Ronald says that the new chipset will “bring intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline.”
Here’s the bullet points from the most revealing slide:
- Plays your Xbox console & PC games
- Powered by custom AMD SOC
- Codesigned for Next Generation of DirectX
- Next Gen Raytracing performance and capabilities
- GPU directed work graph execution
- AMD FSR Next + Project Helix
- Built for next generation of neural rendering
- Next generation ML upscaling
- New ML Multi-Frame Generation
- Next gen ray regeneration for RT and path tracing
- Deep texture compression
- Neural texture compression
- DirectStorage + Zstd
Some of these points are quite interesting from the broader perspective of where AMD GPU hardware is heading, which will also be seen in the PlayStation 6. For ML upscaling, Xbox is able to collaborate and iterate on top of the work that AMD and Sony are making with Redstone – the basis for FSR 4 and the new PSSR – and it’s been known for a while that the company is working to replicate Nvidia features for multi-frame generation (using ML for creating multiple interstitial frames between fully rendered once to improve smoothness), as well as improved ray regeneration to help resolve a key issue with path tracing over low quality reflections.
However, Ronald highlighted the GPU directed work graph execution as a way to help reduce CPU bottlenecks, allowing for more complex world simulations and interactivity, which has typically been reliant on the CPU to direct the work. This and the promise of deep texture compression – specifically neural texture compression combined with the speed of DirectStorage and the Zstd algorithm.
However, some might be a little disappointed in, not just Microsoft’s direction, but the direction that game graphics have taken in general over the past decade. As alluring as path tracing has been for realistic lighting, reflections, illumination and more, it’s all coming at an astronomical cost for the amount of die space and performance, forcing heavier reliance on temporal upscaling, both for the overall game resolution and for the fidelity within an image.
Ronald acknowledges this, saying “This is really designed for that next generation of neural rendering techniques. Whether that’s neural materials. Whether that’s generated images. Or even if you think about things like the latest ML (machine learning) based upscaling techniques or super resolution techniques.
“You think about brand new ML based multi-frame generation. There’s even new capabilities, such as a brand new ray regeneration technique that’s really designed to deliver high performance ray tracing for both real-time ray tracing and path tracing.”
Newer iterations of ML and neural tech – note he’s not calling it AI – will be massively improved over what’s possible on base PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, but next gen will continue to lean heavily on these techniques.
As for a timeline, Ronald explained that Microsoft will begin to send alpha versions of the Project Helix hardware to developers at some point in 2027. That would suggest the final console might come to market in 2028, allowing for time for the hardware to finalise, and for developers to more broadly take advantage of it.
Source: Game Developer
