Xbox Explains Various Improvements for Backwards Compatible Titles
One of the features for the Xbox Series consoles that many are excited for is the backwards compatibility. It’s not just because we can then clear out our old consoles and never use them again (although that’s a big perk). It’s also because for probably the first time on console, the Xbox Series will play games better than on their original platforms. A couple of weeks ago, Digital Foundry found the practical application of this with older titles performing better on Series X than on Xbox One X. Now, Xbox has gone ahead and talked about this.
In a recent post, Peggy Lo explains that all backward compatible titles will be able to access the full powers of the Xbox Series consoles. None of the hardware is downclocked or anything. Of course, many of these titles won’t take full advantage of the new hardware, but the performance will probably be the best possible with higher and steadier framerates and higher resolutions.
Also, the hardware allows for Auto HDR which will vastly improve the visual quality of games. All games will automatically gain HDR enhancements with the developers needing to do nothing and players don’t have to worry about any additional latency or hit to their performance.
If that’s not enough, the backward compatibility team has been hard at work using the Heutchy method to improve the resolution of games from 360p or 720p up to 1440p on the Series S and 4K on the Series X. This comes with improved texture filturing including 16x anisotropic filtering. The goal is not just to let you play your old games, but to let you get more out of those old games.
Finally, the team has been working developing new methods to effectively double framerates. This will only work on select titles, but it’s pretty promising. One of the games is Fallout 4 and you can watch the video of the framerate getting the pump on an Xbox Series S!
The Xbox Series consoles will launch on November 10.