The Xbox One X Review: Putting A Spotlight On Gaming
by Brett Howse on November 3, 2017 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Consoles
- Microsoft
- Xbox One
- Xbox
- Xbox One X
Additional Gameplay Footage
We've only had a few days with the console, but we have had a chance to try out some of the games. Using the Xbox Game Capture features, some gameplay was captured to get a sample of some of the performance and quality gains could be made with the Xbox One X. The Game Capture does compress the video though, so it is not as pristine as it would be while playing, and it also converts the HDR video to SDR to allow for the proper colors to be seen when you share the clips, although if you look at the following clips, it doesn't do a great job with the transition to SDR from HDR.
Not all of the games are yet ready for the Xbox One X yet though, with only a handful that have the Xbox One X Enhanced logo ready to go for the review. Gears of War 4 was one of the games, which we showed some images of earlier, and there were a couple more ready as well, including Disneyland Adventures.
Although it may seem like a game that wouldn't stress a system, in 4K and HDR, the textures and high resolution made an impact. Here's a quick video of the intro of this game on both the Xbox One, and the Xbox One X.
Disneyland Adventures on Xbox One
Disneyland Adventures on Xbox One X in 4K HDR
One thing you notice playing the game is just how much more sharp everything is, especially things in the background. The castle comes into focus much earlier on the Xbox One X version of this video. As with Gears of War 4, there's still some issues with coloring on the HDR converted video. If you are doing a lot of gameplay capture, it may be best to set HDR to off. Also, there's a small hiccup at the start of the Xbox One X video, as the game is just finishing loading. This doesn't appear to happen once that load is complete.
Here's another clip from Forza Motorsports 7, which is one of the launch titles for 4K and HDR, but as of this review, the 4K support is not yet added, so this will be a demo of playing a title without the Enhanced option available. This is from the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, on the Curva Parabolica.
Forza Motorsports 7 on Xbox One
Forza Motorsports 7 on Xbox One X
Even though the 4K support is not there, the game does support HDR, which improves the look of the game quite a bit, even though you can't see it in the SDR converted video. Forza is a pretty lean engine, so the developers are targetting 4K60 for this title. The aliasing of 1080p content in this game is pretty strong, so it will benefit a lot from the 4K update when it arrives. When it's available, we'll post another clip to show the differences.
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Lolimaster - Sunday, November 5, 2017 - link
Not Vega. Navi + Zen3 cores @7nm+ (probably a 6cores/12threads APU).Rufnek - Monday, November 6, 2017 - link
*cough*.Try to keep in mind they have to plan the consoles 3-5 years in advance. The next consoles will likely be a low power Ryzen (v1.5+) with a low power Vega (v1.5+). The .5 is for low power, smaller circuit refresh, the + is for specialized items in the CPU/GPU.
Hixbot - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
I'm also disappointed with the CPU on Xbox One X. In my opinion the biggest flaw with PS4 and Xbox One is the CPU performance. A developer needs to sacrifice alot to hit 60fps, because of the poor CPUIf Xbox One X leveraged a Ryzen based APU, it would have been a 100% CPU performance increase, which would have been enough to push games that were CPU limited to 30fps to 60fps.
The 30% CPU overclock on the Xbox One X will not be enough to boost 30fps games to 60fps.
Frankly the massive GPU upgrade will allow much higher resolutions, in which is something I'm not really interested, but will not allow better framerates on CPU limited games, which is much more important to me.
InlineV - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
It is worth noting that DirectX draw calls are no longer CPU bound. That function has been integrated, at the hardware level, into the GPU. That mitigates a potential bottleneck. Arguably, it is one of the most interesting innovations in the One X. It may never make it into commodity PC hardware but it would be significant if it did.dogen1 - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
Technically the Xbox one already had this feature, or part of the same feature built into the GPU command processor.tipoo - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
The article says it's still split with the GPU command processor and the CPU, but that the more powerful CP this time allows more functions to move to it.Alexvrb - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
The CPU isn't going to hold it back in gaming. Also, this custom SoC was in development for some time before they ever started cranking them out. Redesigning it for Zen cores would have delayed it until sometime next year... and for what? More CPU horsepower isn't going to magically net them 60 FPS in gaming scenarios which are largely GPU-bound. Plus it would further complicate backwards compat (frankly I was shocked the lack of eSRAM didn't hurt them more in that department).Can't wait to see an in-depth look at all the interesting little custom bits. See InlineV's post. I want to read more about additions like that.
franzeal - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
You'd be wrong. There are plenty of games (Assassin's Creed Unity a glaring example):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJmWsgFl6kA
StevoLincolnite - Saturday, November 4, 2017 - link
Digital Foundry has done a good game breakdown already. The CPU most certainly is a hindrance.Rufnek - Monday, November 6, 2017 - link
Digital Foundry reads like a fluff piece. Very disappointed as I tend to lean on their technical reviews.Want an actual review of good & bad and questions still unanswered... then read this.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/xbox-one-x-...