Microsoft Consoles and Updates

[mfnick]

2 hours ago, bellow said:

Yes, it's the SSD. I did enjoy those benefits for a while when I had my S

Ah shit I forgot you had a S for a while so you already know the benefits. Yea, apart from some games being 4k60 instead of 4k30 there’s not going to be much to surprise you when you get a SX. That high frame rate at that level of fidelity is really nice though. 

[shinymcshine]

Odd question - but I've been playing on the 360 a fair bit recently - then went to buy Spec Ops The Line today.

 

I eventually found it, having to search by name then scroll through past many other similarly titles things (or not so similarly titled things), demos and wallpapers to find the game - which, as denoted on the thread is currently on sale £3.99 - so after updating payment details it very slowly downloaded (no idea why it was so slow, but I recall many years ago that Games with Gold use to take ages too, despite a decent internet connection).

 

Anyway - my question is - doesn't the 360 have a marketplace storefront page / or even one that highlights games on sale ?

 

I couldn't find anything like that, instead ended up doing name search which despite stating the "game" filter drop-down was selected, still returned "all media". I'm assuming that since I've been hooked up to Xbox Live for the best part of 6 months again I'm on the latest version - noting I've only got a basic account now if that makes any difference (wasn't worth keeping Gold).

 

I know its a legacy machine now - but seems to be a glaring omission (or perhaps just a huge oversight by me...)  

[mfnick]

Anyone got a Series S?

 

I basically use my old One X as my racing game machine with a proper wheel set up. Now I’ve got the option to swap it for a Series S so get the fast loading, better frame rates, future game compatibility etc. Only have a 1080p screen for it and that won’t change so 4k not needed. Just got a couple of concerns. 

 

How quick is the transfer between external HDD and internal? The 512gb worries me. Basically 2 Forza games and Dirt Rally 2 with DLC and it’s nearly full. 
 

Does the cross save between systems work as seamless as it does between the Series X and One X - as in it just does it without me thinking about it?
 

Any other negatives users here have found? Apart from drive space and lack of disc drive?
 

 

[bellow]

Remember, I was confident about not needing a series X because of my nice big 1080p telly, which promptly went tits up the same week my S arrived!

 

Plus, if you like older games (like me) the S only offers one S enhancements, which, on my new 4k screen, I disliked so much I returned the console.

 

Space on the harddrive didn't bother me to be honest. And crosssaves work flawlessly.

[Cyberpunk]

I'm still running an OG Xbox One, 500GB model, which I upgraded with a 1TB USB hard drive a couple of years ago. My only problem with it is when I play Cyberpunk 2077, the load times are so long. If I die during a mission, and get the "Flatlined" screen, I actually grab my phone while it's loading to kill the time. 

 

I'm going to invest in a Series X at some point. There's this subscription service that Microsoft do where you get the console, Xbox Live, and Gamepass for a set monthly cost. I think that'll be my best bet. I don't have a 4K TV, but my Xbox One is the only Blue-ray player I own. So if I get the Series S, I'd have to keep my Xbone in the living room just to play Blue-rays and DVDs.

 

As for Gamepass, I've had Ultimate since last March, and use it quite a lot. The PC part isn't as good as the console part in my opinion. But Microsoft included  EA Play in it recently, and that effectively doubles the console games you can play.

[mfnick]

35 minutes ago, bellow said:

Remember, I was confident about not needing a series X because of my nice big 1080p telly, which promptly went tits up the same week my S arrived!

Not sure of your set up but wasn’t that your main one? This is just a secondary console just for racing games. I’ve got a nice big main 4k OLED which I’ve got a SX set up too for all my 4k nice shit needs. If my 1080p spare tv failed I’d just buy another dead cheap 1080 set I think. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I don't know much about it but the thing bellow mentions about the Series S only offering the BC capabilities of a One S is weird and confusing to me. I think MS are pretty bad at messaging the capabilities of these systems, you'd expect the BC on Series S to match One X

 

People say GPU naming schemes are bad, MS is way worse

[mfnick]

I think the Series S basically can’t do 4k on BC games like the One X and SX can. But like I say 4k isn’t a issue.  Rather have the fast frame rates and loads and future proof but I will have to fuck about moving stuff between hard drives pretty often. But if it only takes 10 minutes to do doesn’t sound too bad. 

[mfnick]

My head still struggles with that though too lol. The Series S is more powerful yet the One X can run games at a better resolution. Surely that extra power means it should be able to run old games at 4k still even if it’s not set up to for present/future stuff. I just don’t get it. It’s more powerful so why can’t it?!? 

[bellow]

9 minutes ago, mfnick said:

I think the Series S basically can’t do 4k on BC games like the One X and SX can. But like I say 4k isn’t a issue.  Rather have the fast frame rates and loads and future proof but I will have to fuck about moving stuff between hard drives pretty often. But if it only takes 10 minutes to do doesn’t sound too bad. 

Ah, but there's the rub. Take hellblade, for instance. You'd think you'd get the 60fps option you get in the enhanced one X version, recognizing that the machine won't offer the enhanced graphics option. But no. You just get the (virtually) bog standard version. Very disappointing, and the main reason I sent mine back - that I'd gone next gen, while playing one of my favourite games of the last gen in its worst iteration.

[mfnick]

Wow, I didn’t know that. Hmm, going to have to check the type of games I’d be playing on it now then. I didn’t think that’s be the case at all. Thought they’d all run at better framer are just at worse resolutions - but fine on my screen. Thanks for heads up.

[one-armed dwarf]

23 minutes ago, Nag said:

One X is aimed at 4k gaming, Series S isn't... thus no One X upgrades.

 

As for the the whole naming thing, if people can get by with how Apple and Samsung name their phones this is easy.

I mean mfnick puts it well up above but to me it doesn't make much sense at all. You'd expect that a system which is made to handle next gen stuff would have enough GPU muscle to power through those old games at higher resolutions. Like playing Half Life 2 at 4k is probably less demanding than The Medium at 900p or whatever, if you get me. 

 

I don't know anything about phones or their naming schemes, I just buy a new phone when my current one is running like shit or I want a better camera lol.

 

Like lets just say I wanted the best possible system to play old xbox games on except not a Series X, the choice doesn't seem very evident. Better processor on series S but arbitrarily limited to 1080, or 4k support on a system with a weaker processor and HDD. 

 

I'd not be too surprised if somebody mods the Series S to just do 4k gaming of 360 games at some point and for it do it flawlessly. On the flipside if it can't it doesn't bode well for the future performance of the system surely.

[mfnick]

So been looking a bit more into this now after Bellows post as I assumed the games would just run better on the Series S - yep I think the messaging has been a bit shit too now. 
 

Basically the Series S has a far better CPU which can do all the new RDNA 2 ray tracing stuff as well as technically run games better. But the RAM and GPU are actually worse than in the One X. So to make use of the extra CPU power the developers actually have to do some work to make BC games run better on there compared to the One X which basically uses the extra GPU and RAM to brute force games into higher res and frame rates without much extra work compared to the effort required in utilising the extra CPU power to make them run better. 
 

That’s how I’ve read it anyway -https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.windowscentral.com/xbox-series-s-more-powerful-xbox-one-x%3famp

 

@bellow Did you find that info on a site regarding games like Hellblade? Or did you just find it out due to the option being missing on yours? I’m just wondering if your site (if there is one) had a list or something where it shows games which run better on One X compared to Series S as I’m struggling to find any that compare the 2 annoyingly. Surprised it’s not mentioned more to be honest. I’d be well pissed if I did the swap without knowing beforehand. 
 

Edit - just thought I’m probably better googling difference between One S and One X for BC games if the Series S uses the One S versions. 

[bellow]

I downloaded it from gamepass and it looked like shite, even compared to a launch PS4. Same with all other older games I tried like gears 2 or Alan wake, which look so much better on the one X I have now (which I bought to tied me over until the XSX becomes freely available).

 

To be honest, it's ok for what you want, a secondary unit. But I wouldn't advise it for anyone who plays games enthusiastically enough to be a member of a forum like this. No matter how much @DisturbedSwantries to convince you to buy one.

[mfnick]

1 minute ago, Nag said:

ie a locked 30fps games won't magically become 60fps.

Yea completely, but sounds like even then it basically just needed the cap lifting and little too extra work for most games - as long as it wasn’t too demanding a game already. Whereas getting it running at higher frames on the Series S means actually doing a fair amount of work to utilise the CPU to make up for the lack of GPU and RAM.  That’s how I read that post anyway. 
 

7 minutes ago, bellow said:

To be honest, it's ok for what you want, a secondary unit.

See I’m not sure now though. If the frame rate goes from 60 to 30 on one of my racing games it’s already useless and far worse - until new games come out which are built with S and X and mind. You say they looked worse than base PS4 too- was that even on your 1080p screen? May not be worth the swap at all. 

[bellow]

So, 2 games I had on my PS4 which I was eager to see perform on my lovely new next gen Xbox, Hellblade and Outer worlds.

 

Both looked and played worse, even on my 1080p.

 

Machine returned to Microsoft store.

[bellow]

An interesting rumour is doing the rounds about a software update designed to 'break' locked 30 FPS code in older games and force them up to 60 FPS with no input from the Devs of individual games.

 

Might have an effect on what @mfnick seems to want from the S.

[mfnick]

That sounds great. As long as it works with the S. Going back to the article I mentioned before it sounds like brute forcing only works with the One X and SX. The S requires actual work to make it run better with that CPU. So not sure if this would solve it on the S. I may be completely wrong though. Hope so. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Some Lost Odyssey discussion going on in some parts. But I saw this and found it interesting

 

 

LO has notoriously shit loading times which make an already slow paced game even more lethargic but that SSD does help. But it also shows IMO why masking slow loading with lengthy transitions like at the start of this battle sequence is a pretty bad idea cause you know the Series X could get to the action much faster than they show here.

 

[Maryokutai]

You can't blame them for not having the foresight of SSDs being a thing at some point and a console two generations later being backwards compatible though.

 

Like you say it's always been a slow-paced game and if someone has trouble adapting to this rhythm I doubt it's the right game for that person anyway. Still good to see the non-animated loading times are almost inexistent on Series X. Surprisingly short on Xbox One as well. I really should play this again at some point, absolutely loved it back when it came out. The soundtrack was phenomenal too.

 

Totally off-topic, but while I'm thinking of Mistwalker, The Last Story desperately needs a HD remaster as well.