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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Alexvrb - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
Ah yes metacritic, the arbiter of what games I am allowed to enjoy- no wait, **** that. PC has tons of bad-arse titles especially cool indie slash small dev games that will never see the light of day on Switch. I play games that suit me, even ones not everyone loves, and thus end up in the 80s or whatnot. For me, that game might be a 99.scbundy - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
This isn't an Xbox Two. Not a new generation, so there won't be any exclusive XbX games. Everything has to run on the Xb1 as well.That's also why they stuck with Jaguar, makes the whole thing easier, nobody needs to patch their games. It was explained in the article.
tipoo - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
They're updates to an existing generation...Childer - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
Are you really sure its a Polaris based GPU ? I think it's not, it's the same GCN version as the original XBox.Ryan Smith - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
It's a bit of a hybrid because it taps features from multiple generations (not to mention features specific for MS). But as far as the core GPU architecture is concerned, Polaris is the closest analogue. It has features introduced in GCN 3/4 such as delta color compression, which involve significant upgrades to the ROPs and texture units.Raniz - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
It'll be interesting to see how sales stack up against the PS4 Pro and when Sony will respond with a new PS4 (it's likely already under development). I'm guessing the timing of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X means that they'll keep leapfrogging each other going forward with the performance crown switching sides every time either one releases a new console.I can't decide if this is good or bad - it'll be hard not to upgrade to the next PS4 once that hits in a few years (going by the 3 years between PS4 and Pro it should hit in 2019) but at the same time I already have a PS4 Pro. Maybe I can justify it by making the Pro a birthday present for my nephew...
scbundy - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
I can't imagine Sony is going to make a third tier for this generation.MonkeyPaw - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
From what I’ve seen Sony will likely do the PS5 next. Technically, they also have 3 models, PS4 launch, PS4 Slim, and PS4 Pro. Slim just didn’t offer any improvements other than a smaller footprint, lower power draw, and a slightly revised controller.I suspect Sony will respond with PS5, and considering AMDs dominance in the APU area, it will be a Zen+Vega like we see in Raven Ridge.
scbundy - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
I'd agree with thatRufnek - Monday, November 6, 2017 - link
If Sony does release a new PS4 console it is more likely to be a PS4 Pro+ Slim with UHD drive and HDMI 2.0 with a PS5 in 2020 or 2021.