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Developers will have the option to release 4K updates for existing Xbox One games running on Project Scorpio, Xbox chief Phil Spencer has said, and the console may offer a more consistent image quality to games that currently implement a dynamic resolution.
Highlighting Halo 5: Guardians as a title that could benefit from Scorpio’s additional power, Spencer explained to GamesIndustry.biz that Xbox One games that use a dynamic resolution will “effectively… run at its maximum resolution the whole time”.
“There are games that were written on Xbox One, and we continue to evangelize this tech of dynamic scaling – Halo 5’s a good example – when Halo 5 runs it wants to max out at 1080p/60 frames per second or highest resolution/60 frames per second,” he said. “As scenes get more complex, the vertical resolution will shrink… to keep the 60 frames per second.
“When that same game’s running on Scorpio, because of the compute capability, it’s effectively is going to run at its max resolution the whole time. And so you will see advantages like that when your Xbox One games are running on Scorpio. So that’s why we continue to talk to developers about dynamic scaling because I think as compute capability goes up on the hardware, they kind of get it for free.”
Spencer’s comments suggest that Scorpio will automatically improve the image quality of games that use a dynamic resolution without the need to release a title update, simply due to the power of the console.
Besides Halo 5, DOOM, The Division, Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Witcher 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 all use dynamic resolution scaling on Xbox One.
The console won’t automatically make Xbox One games run in native 4K, though, Spencer adds, although developers will have the option of releasing 4K updates.
“Now, it’s not going to make Halo 5 run with 4K pixels,” he continued. “The frame buffer is not a 4K frame buffer for the game. But it will run more solidly. And certain developers might go back and decide if they’ve built a 4K version for PC already for some of their games, they might go back and decide to enable a 4K version for the Scorpio Xbox when it launches.”
Project Scorpio is due to go on sale in holiday 2017.
Those looking to jump into the Xbox One family sooner might be tempted by the 4K capable Xbox One S, which promises to be the cheapest way to access UHD Blu-ray movies and 4K streaming services.
Pre-order the limited edition 2TB Xbox One S now(?)
Source: gamesindustry.biz
