Back Compat Titles Will Receive Resolution & Performance Boosts On Xbox Series S

There was a little bit of disgruntlement last week when Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox Series S would only run the Xbox One S versions of backwards compatible games, but as revealed by Digital Foundry, the console will actually apply many resolution and performance benefits to older titles as well.

The outlet recently spoke to Microsoft about the new features, confirming that original Xbox titles will get a 3x boost to resolution on both axes (games targeting 480p on the original Xbox will hit a maximum of 1440p on Series S), while Xbox 360 games will receive a 2x2 resolution multiplier (native 720p up to 1440p).

Meanwhile, Xbox One games will benefit from Auto HDR, increased resolutions in titles that use dynamic resolution scaling and improvements to texture filtering quality, along with more stable performance at target frame-rates for CPU-limited games.

And finally, select older games will also see their frame rates doubled on the new consoles. Here's what System Architect Andrew Goossen had to say about this feature:

"We designed the Series S to enhance the Xbox One S games in a way that the Xbox One X can't do. We made it easy for existing Xbox One S games to be updated to run with double the frame-rate when played on Series S as well."

"And in terms of the performance, the Series S provides well over double the effective CPU and GPU performance over the Xbox One, making it pretty straightforward for the games to do this. And in fact, the Series S GPU runs the Xbox One S games with better performance than the Xbox One X."

Microsoft says it's working with developers to double frame rates (from 30fps to 60fps or even 60fps to 120fps), and it will have "more to share about specific enhancements in specific titles closer to launch."

The Xbox Series X will obviously benefit too, including with Xbox One X enhancements to existing games.

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[source eurogamer.net]