New Xbox One X benchmarks reveal how well existing games perform at 4K - report
The Xbox One X is much more powerful than a standard Xbox One, that much is clear. But it's how this power is being used is what's interesting.
In order for Microsoft to demonstrate how powerful the Xbox One X is, the platform holder showed benchmarks of existing Xbox One games running at 4K on the new console to developers.
This process allows developers to estimate just how far they can push visuals without compromising the resolution, not to mention show off the performance capabilities of Xbox One X with even the least amount of work put into the ports.
These benchmarks were shared during Digital Foundry's visit to Microsoft earlier this year, when it revealed the specs of Xbox One X. The site notes, however, that Microsoft did not provide the data afterwards, which means they had to be sourced from developers who attended similar briefings.
In the video above, and in a lengthy piece on the site, Digital Foundry goes over benchmarks from nine titles. Note that the games mentioned weren't named, but the site is speculating based on the information available for each one.
This data is generated by PIX - Microsoft's performance analysis tool, based on GPU frame-time captures. Using that, Digital Foundry managed to deduce the frame-rate. Starting off with Forza 7, the game uses 77.8% of the GPU power in the original Xbox One, which enables it to run at 1080p and 77fps. That's not the actual frame-rate of course, as the game is targeting 60fps, but it's what the GPU allows.
The same build, running in native 4K on Xbox One X, uses 65.9% GPU power for 91fps. Similarly, Gears of War 4 is at 84.1% GPU utilisation for its 30fps frame-rate target at 1080p. At 4K on Xbox One X, the game uses 78.1% of the GPU power and has a few frames to spare.
Keeping in mind that these simple ports are well unoptimised, and the fact they aren't even utilising any Xbox One X-specific features, the data is very impressive and shows just how much powerful Xbox One X than the base model. With that said, the data represents "out of gameplay" information, and not actual metrics from the games running on the hardware.
Nonetheless, the information could help us extrapolate what form the upgrade patches will take for games like Gears of War 4 and others that are due to get them later this year. It also helps show off how different developers choose to utilise the GPU power.
The Xbox One X is out in November.