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Discussion Xbox Helix (Magnus SoC) thread

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marees said:
magnus & medusa premium have similar CPU counts

so effectively he is saying that X2 is magnus & S2 is medusa premium
Click to expand...

Helix home console is Magnus SOC + AT2.

His post mentions AT3 and AT4, so these would be two extra SKUs, not one.


Medusa Premium's SOC is different than Magnus' SOC. It should be a bit bigger as well, considering there's an extra Zen6, 2x Zen6LP and probably a bit more L3 cache.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
Helix home console is Magnus SOC + AT2.

His post mentions AT3 and AT4, so these would be two extra SKUs, not one.


Medusa Premium's SOC is different than Magnus' SOC. It should be a bit bigger as well, considering there's an extra Zen6, 2x Zen6LP and probably a bit more L3 cache.
Click to expand...
the first party console is only AT2. not AT3 or AT4
That is why they insisting on performance lead

considering that magnus & medusa premium have similar cpu performance, Microsoft's partners (lenovo, asus et al) would release medusa premium as a steam machine competitor (this will not have back compat to old xbox games unlike magnus/helix)

AT3 is a different beast altogether. no idea if Microsoft would want to combine magnus (or medusa premium) iod/cpu with AT3
 
marees said:
the first party console is only AT2. not AT3 or AT4
That is why they insisting on performance lead

considering that magnus & medusa premium have similar cpu performance, Microsoft's partners (lenovo, asus et al) would release medusa premium as a steam machine competitor (this will not have back compat to old xbox games unlike magnus/helix)

AT3 is a different beast altogether. no idea if Microsoft would want to combine magnus (or medusa premium) iod/cpu with AT3
Click to expand...
Medusa Premium would be a waste for a Steam Machine competitor IMO. It would also run the risk of being a lot more expensive despite not being all that much faster in rasterization if it was paired with LPDDR5X (as it probably will in its default FP10 packaging).

Medusa Premium should be mobile-friendly enough to put inside whatever comes after the Xbox Ally X at a higher premium.
A Steam Machine competitor in 2027 would be better off with a cheaper SoC (e.g. Krackan or single-CCD Granite Ridge) paired with e.g. a Navi 44 16GB.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
Medusa Premium should be mobile-friendly enough to put inside whatever comes after the Xbox Ally X at a higher premium.
Click to expand...
MDS-P will be both. a succesor to rog ally X & also a steam machine competitor

the current steam machine is DoA at 4K due to 8gb vram

plus rdna 5 upscaling of 3nm MDS-P will be order of degree better than 6nm mobile navi-33
 
marees said:
helix X (magnus AT2)
helix S (medusa premium AT4)

https://twitter.com/x/status/2030648609696616519
Click to expand...

So I'm hearing through grape vines that "Magnus" is not Xbox. It's an OEM chip for high-end experience. This makes sense because you'll need to leave the top end tier to the OEMs in order to a. Not make them mad. b. Having a HW option in traditional console price range.

Whoever raised CPU die + AT3 is spot on. The 1st party console to come in at traditional console price ranges. $699 or below. 60-80% performance of a PS6 at similar prices but offering ability to play PC games. This aligns with Phil's comment about $1000 consoles not growing the market. Xbox will provide the baseline console/handheld and OEM will scale it to the high end.

Someone check the numbers but AT2 is leaked to be 48CUs (44 enabled), GDDR7? Should reach around 30 teraflops fp32.
 
Last edited:
bkilian said:
So I'm hearing through grape vines that "Magnus" is not Xbox. It's an OEM chip for high-end experience. This makes sense because you'll need to leave the top end tier to the OEMs in order to a. Not make them mad. b. Having a HW option in traditional console price range.

Whoever raised CPU die + AT3 is spot on. The 1st party console to come in at traditional console price ranges. $699 or below. 60-80% performance of a PS6 at similar prices but offering ability to play PC games. This aligns with Phil's comment about $1000 consoles not growing the market. Xbox will provide the baseline console/handheld and OEM will scale it to the high end.

Someone check the numbers but AT2 is leaked to be 48CUs (44 enabled), GDDR7? Should reach around 30 teraflops fp32.
Click to expand...
AT3 as xbox would make sense

but MLID didn’t leak anything on such a possibility
 
This was posted elsewhere, but it belongs here:

/v/ - Xbox Helix Development Portal - Video Games - 4chan

Xbox Helix Development Portal - "/v/ - Video Games" is 4chan's imageboard dedicated to the discussion of PC and console video games.
boards.4chan.org boards.4chan.org

Supposedly, some dev decided to share the FAQs page for Helix.


- 32GB of GDDR7
- Windows Mode (with optional Win11 Helix optimized for Magnus+AT2) or Game Mode
- Windows Mode is Windows through and through, Game Mode is closer to current Xbox experience
- Game Mode will get Epic and Steam launchers / stores
- Windows Mode gets free online. Game Mode needs subscription for online.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
This was posted elsewhere, but it belongs here:

/v/ - Xbox Helix Development Portal - Video Games - 4chan

Xbox Helix Development Portal - "/v/ - Video Games" is 4chan's imageboard dedicated to the discussion of PC and console video games.
boards.4chan.org boards.4chan.org

Supposedly, some dev decided to share the FAQs page for Helix.


- 32GB of GDDR7
- Windows Mode (with optional Win11 Helix optimized for Magnus+AT2) or Game Mode
- Windows Mode is Windows through and through, Game Mode is closer to current Xbox experience
- Game Mode will get Epic and Steam launchers / stores
- Windows Mode gets free online. Game Mode needs subscription for online.
Click to expand...
hopefully GDC will confirm details, so that people are not left confused due to speculations !!
 
a clarification on the UWP nonsense that is floating around

https://twitter.com/x/status/2031840127111274966

This is going to shock console warriors, but most multi-platform games are developed on PC first, and then scaled down to the consoles. Square just shattered dreams when they confirmed that’s how they’ve made the entire FFVII trilogy. But to port to console they need a console dev kit.

What Xbox showed at GDC is something they’ve been working towards since the first Xbox. A single development environment. Now they don’t need to move the game from a PC to a dedicated Xbox dev kit. They can develop one game and then choose to output it as either an Xbox console release or PC (or both).

It’s like going to File -> Save as -> Xbox or File -> Save as -> PC.
Click to expand...
 
Cross-Platform Game Services Are Now Free For Every Xbox Title

Every Xbox Game Now Comes With Free PlayFab Services​

Launch your game on Xbox and enjoy cross-platform services for all your players, available now.


During GDC this week, Xbox introduced Foundation Mode, a new option that gives Xbox creators access to PlayFab's core game services across platforms at no extra cost. Any game that ships on Xbox can use PlayFab for all of its players, no matter where they play, and developers don't need an Azure subscription to get started.

connecting backend services across multiple platforms can mean complicated onboarding, separate accounts, and a lot of engineering work, and PlayFab is that complete backend platform for live games.

Foundation Mode covers a single unified player account that works across Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic, and mobile. It also supports cross-platform game saves, player profiles, and player statistics. On top of that, it includes social and multiplayer features like friends lists, leaderboards, real-time voice and text chat, lobbies, and matchmaking, and developers can also manage live services, in-game economies, and other backend systems all in one place.

Foundation Mode has entered public preview for new titles planning to launch on the Xbox Store. To enable it, you can request access by following the steps described here. A migration path for existing titles is expected to be available by mid-2026.

Learn more about PlayFab

80.lv

Cross-Platform Game Services Are Now Free For Every Xbox Title

Launch your game on Xbox and enjoy cross-platform services for all your players, available now.
80.lv 80.lv
 

Leaked and Rumored Specifications​

The following specifications have been reported primarily by hardware leaker Moore's Law Is Dead, who has been the main source of Xbox (and PlayStation)

MLID estimates that Magnus delivers roughly 5-6× the rasterization performance of the Xbox Series X and up to 20× the ray tracing performance. In desktop GPU terms, approximately RTX 5080-level in rasterization and potentially around RTX 5090-level in ray tracing.

Official Info​

  • Next-Generation DirectX and GPU Architecture: Microsoft confirmed that Project Helix is co-designed for the next generation of DirectX. One of the headline features is support for Work Graphs, the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature that allows the GPU to generate its own workflows in real time, eliminating a key CPU bottleneck present in current-generation hardware. In practice, this should allow for substantially more complex world simulations and physics.

wccftech.com

Xbox Next "Project Helix" - Everything We Know About Microsoft's Upcoming Console

Here's everything confirmed or leaked about Microsoft's Project Helix next-gen Xbox: specs, release window, and price estimates.
wccftech.com wccftech.com
 
marees said:
Cross-Platform Game Services Are Now Free For Every Xbox Title

Every Xbox Game Now Comes With Free PlayFab Services​

Launch your game on Xbox and enjoy cross-platform services for all your players, available now.


During GDC this week, Xbox introduced Foundation Mode, a new option that gives Xbox creators access to PlayFab's core game services across platforms at no extra cost. Any game that ships on Xbox can use PlayFab for all of its players, no matter where they play, and developers don't need an Azure subscription to get started.

connecting backend services across multiple platforms can mean complicated onboarding, separate accounts, and a lot of engineering work, and PlayFab is that complete backend platform for live games.

Foundation Mode covers a single unified player account that works across Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic, and mobile. It also supports cross-platform game saves, player profiles, and player statistics. On top of that, it includes social and multiplayer features like friends lists, leaderboards, real-time voice and text chat, lobbies, and matchmaking, and developers can also manage live services, in-game economies, and other backend systems all in one place.

Foundation Mode has entered public preview for new titles planning to launch on the Xbox Store. To enable it, you can request access by following the steps described here. A migration path for existing titles is expected to be available by mid-2026.

Learn more about PlayFab

80.lv

Cross-Platform Game Services Are Now Free For Every Xbox Title

Launch your game on Xbox and enjoy cross-platform services for all your players, available now.
80.lv 80.lv
Click to expand...

costs nothing to create an xbox version(& you end up saving some money on crossplay between steam & PlayStation)

imagine you have PlayStation version & steam versions
now you pay cross-platform services (running on azure servers) cost for both

but if you port steam version to xbox (3 or 4 clicks + testing) then entire infrastructure becomes free !!

https://twitter.com/x/status/2032018775814410467

https://twitter.com/x/status/1968455655322276112
 
this is an excellent spot by MLID

Helix games are NOT PC games
the deployments are still different for both PC & Helix. it is the development environment that is unified now.

basically you develop the game on a PC (like it has always happened). when it comes to deployment you then choose target as PC or Helix. it is like saving a word or powerpoint as pdf. 98% of work is unified. last 2% varies for PC vs console

for handhelds, you have to do some extra validation/customization

now for something huge. porting this to series X (or S) involves extra dev work — which was not needed for Helix.
so many many games might be available only for Helix (& not for series X or series S)

finally more work for cloud streaming — but here daddy Microsoft might give a helping hand with playfab etc. basically xcloud & azure is the largest avenue for game expansion for Microsoft — & you can expect them to assist devs to port to the cloud

20260311_085610.jpg

https://twitter.com/x/status/2032471997297430789

https://twitter.com/x/status/2031840127111274966
 
marees said:
Of course, "Helix" won't be the name of the next-gen Xbox system itself. Microsoft uses a variety of codenames for its projects of all shapes and sizes. Previously we've had
  • Manhattan for DirectX
  • Midway for OG Xbox
  • Durango for Xbox 360,
  • Scorpio for the Xbox One X,
  • Anaconda for the Xbox Series X, and
  • Lockhart for the Xbox Series S.
  • We also had Kennan for the Xbox Ally handheld range last year.

www.windowscentral.com

Xbox just dropped the Project Helix codename and confirmed new hardware

Microsoft's next-gen Xbox console comes into focus, as Asha Sharma re-affirms commitment to first-party hardware.
www.windowscentral.com www.windowscentral.com

(my guess is Xbox Series X2)
Click to expand...
TIL

Manhattan — not an area in new york but the project for nuking Japanese
Midway — a pacific battle in world war 2 where the Japanese were defeated
 
marees said:
Helix games are NOT PC games
the deployments are still different for both PC & Helix.
Click to expand...
I don't think people were expecting the games to use exactly the same binaries. PC versions will have the typical settings screens where people can set various quality settings, resolution, etc.
Helix in Xbox mode should have just a couple of presets like quality vs. performance, VRR and HDR toggles an little more.

They'll probably still be essentially the same code and assets.
 
Beyond just Gaming Copilot, I want to see what XDNA 3 and its 110 TOPS can actually do for game-specific features.
 
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