Game Sizes Will Be Around 30% Smaller On Xbox Series S Than Xbox Series X

That's a considerably smaller file size. Big if true!

30% smaller install with a 50% smaller SSD LOL - at least that also means they can get more games on an Expansion Card too. Wonder what happens though if you put an Expansion from a Series X into a Series S or vice versa?

@BAMozzy they’re the same, right?

In canada the price is 599 vs 379. I wanted a series s but the exchange rate pushes me towards an x. For instance in canada a ps5 is 629. Can I download the 1080p files on a series x?

@sixrings You’ll probably find textures will be in 4K but it will output a 1080p image on a 1080p TV. You’ll see benefits.

@Friendly they are 'not' the same in the sense that the Series S is a '1440p' console and the Series X is a 4k console. That 'difference' is why games will be 'up to' 30% smaller because they will be using 'lower quality' textures for up to 1440p where as the Series X will be using Higher Res because they have considerably more pixel density.

Because of Smart Delivery, the game installs the textures based on the console you are installing to. Therefore, if you install on a Series S, you get the 'lower' textures so would that mean if you then put your expansion into a Series X, the game plays with lower textures or installs the higher textures too making the game file size 'bigger'?

With the lower RAM size and much lower bandwidth too in the Series S, if you have high quality textures from the Series X, if it doesn't install the lower quality versions, you will run into issues with transferring them to RAM and the GPU too may struggle to process the image because its much 'larger' in terms of Data size. If it has much larger file size textures embedded into the image, that takes longer to process and will affect VRAM too...

So yes they are the same in the sense that they will play the same games etc but NO they are not the same - not in terms of hardware. The CPU is clocked a bit lower, the GPU has far fewer cores, clocked slower and a third of the overall computational power and the RAM is quite a bit lower too with much lower bandwidth...

@sixrings If you are playing on a 1080p TV, the game will still run as if it was connected to a 4k TV but you will get a super-sampled 1080p image out.

As 4k has 4 pixels for every 1 at 1080p, super-sampling takes those 4 pixels from 4k and decides what the 'best' fit will be for the 1080p image. Because it has 4 samples to base the colour of the pixel, it can be an improvement over a standard 1080p resolution.

@roe Are you being sarcastic?

What I expect to happen is that if you play on both consoles, the internal SSD would just install either the higher or lower textures based on the console you are playing on. Therefore, the same game installed on the Series S would take up less room on the 512GB Series S.

However, if you install to an expansion card, the game will install the textures based on the console you installed it from. Then if you use that Expansion in the other console, it would install the other textures too meaning that it would be a larger file size overall as it would have both the Series S and Series X textures.

It may be better to install games that do take advantage of this on your internal drive on both systems and any game that doesn't, install on your external SSD.

However, this is my speculation and until MS comments, its just speculation. The issue seems to be more about going from Series X to S as the Series X would still run - albeit with lower res textures if the higher res ones are not installed. The Series S on the other hand would run into issues of memory bandwidth if you tried to run higher res textures than its designed to cope with...

Of course, if you don't use an External SSD and swap cards between the two series, its irrelevant as the game would install the high res texture version to the Series X SSD and lower res textures to the Series S SSD automatically anyway...

@BAMozzy yeah, I didn’t phrase it correctly, i meant the SSD memory cards that you put in the back of the console. Are they the same?

But thanks for the layout of the differences though! Appreciate it.

@BAMozzy thanks for explaining/do you know if halo mcc is being optimized for the xsx and xss

@TheNewButler you shouldn't have to download different versions - the game code would be the same - its just the texture packs.

Shadow of War on Xbox One X has an optional High Res Texture pack you can install for example but obviously that makes the game file size much larger as you have both the 'regular' textures and the high res versions too. If you have that on an external HDD and move between XB1S and XB1X, it just uses the appropriate textures for each because they are BOTH there.

With the next gen, part of the advantage of smart delivery is that it doesn't clog up the storage with 'unnecessary' files. If you are playing on Series X, you don't need the lower res textures and don't need the higher res textures on Series S so they are not installed. You could also only install the language pack you play the game in. If you speak English, you don't need the Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese etc languages so they take up storage space - you could just install the English language pack.

European game sizes are often larger than the US versions because the EU has more language packs installed and that's another area that they can save space thanks to Smart Delivery.

Its all about installing 'just' the files you need for the system you are playing on...

@BAMozzy Maybe when going from Series S to Series X, the lower resolution assets are automatically replaced with the higher resolution assets via download. The same happens when switching back to Series S from Series X - the high resolution textures are replaced with lower resolution assets automatically?

Like maybe there is some kind of file in the game folder that says what version is currently installed (X|S) and if that installed version matches the current platform, nothing happens, but if they don't match it deletes the old asset packs, and then goes out and redownloads the appropriate version of the files and then flips the flag to current installed version.

That's the only way I can think for this file size thing to work.

Hopefully, game file sizes are already decreased with the new SSD format since only the required files are needed. Games might be 10 - 20% smaller just from the switch to SSD, and then the games are up to an extra 30% smaller on Series S. That should help with the 512GB SSD, right?

@AkashTheGod99 Currently, there has been no official announcement about a Series S/X enhanced version of Halo MCC - at least nothing that I have seen or heard.

However, if you do have these and are planning on purchasing a Series S or Series X, you can play these via BC and no doubt get some benefits by doing so (maybe faster loading, more stable frame rates etc) because of the extra GPU/CPU performance and data throughput. Something else it may offer is HDR too on games that were not HDR before.

One thing you may want to consider though is that if you buy the Series S, you will not be getting the XB1X enhanced versions via BC - and that goes for all X enhanced BC games. However, some games, like Gears 5 and Forza Horizon 4 will be enhanced for next gen anyway.

Basically, if you buy a Series S, its BC with XB1S so plays all the games it does with the same options etc. If you buy a Series X, you its BC with the XB1X so plays all the games the X does with all the same options (like 4k, 60fps modes etc). I know that technically, the library is identical, but obviously some games, inc OG Xbox/360 games were enhanced for XB1X and offered multiple modes and other enhancements. Some of those unlocked frame rate/dynamic resolution games could really benefit most....

@GamingFan4Lyf That would really be a pain. When you switch between consoles, you don't want to wait for the texture pack to install EVERY time. If you have to wait the first time, its perhaps acceptable but if you have to do it every time, that's just annoying.

It makes much more sense to have both versions installed if you are going to be swapping back and forth between consoles. If its just a one off, ie you take your external SSD to a friends house who has a different model to you, you can easily delete the other texture pack at a later date to free up size.

Smart Delivery would or should not not 'delete' or overwrite the other texture pack. Even 'intelligent' AI would realise that you are perhaps someone with 'both' series Xbox consoles and that you need 'both' packs installed to swap external SSD's seemlessly (as in not having to wait to download the relevant textures each time).

If you own Both and swap an external SSD between them, then your file sizes will be bigger as a result - at least that's what I speculate...

You also have to remember that the game file sizes can be much smaller anyway with smart delivery and the SSD's. You don't need multiples of the exact same textures/assets because they are used in different areas and it takes too long to find each individual one. Its easier to find and download the 'block' of textures/assets for that area. You don't need to have various different quality versions based on distance either as Mesh Shading does the same thing essentially so you don't get that point where you step forward and the quality suddenly pops in and step back and a low quality version replaces it - you just need the high quality version. You could even reduce sizes by only installing the language pack you use, delete the campaign after playing it and just have the MP installed etc...

Of course, that's if Devs take full advantage of these features and we may still have 'residual' behaviours as we transition to next gen. They would still need to make multiple quality versions and have multiples of the same assets for current gen so it depends on how well optimised the game is for 'next gen' hardware.

@TheNewButler Going into the finer details of Smart Delivery hasn't yet been discussed and I admit I have speculated a bit based on the information we have been given so far. I don't know whether you would be asked to install the texture pack for Series S/X if you swap between consoles with an Expansion card. If you install to internal though, it will automatically install the relevant texture pack

I can't see it being different to how games in the past have handled situations where 'different' textures have been available. Shadow of War on Series X had an optional Texture pack you could download - you didn't re-download the high res version of the game or replace the lower res texture pack, it was an 'extra' block of textures that increased the overall file size. Battlefield 3 on 360 had a high res texture pack on a separate disc (it was on one bluray on PS3 and not an optional install) that you installed to your HDD - even if you ran the game from disc. It was optional on 360 because some owners had the Arcade 360 with just 4GB storage and the texture pack was 8GB so they had to make it optional so those gamers could still play the game.

Smart Delivery is about installing 'just' the relevant files to the relevant console. Therefore if you install on Series X, it will only install the high res versions and only the lower res versions on Series S. If you use an External SSD, it would initially install the texture pack based on the console its being used on and, I assume, if you then swap that External into the other console, it would need to install the other texture pack.

It would be a lot more manageable because you can then go into your Storage and delete files that are no longer required - for example, if you no longer need the Series S texture pack, you can delete just that block instead of deleting the whole game and reinstalling the Series X version. The game code is the same, its just the textures that are different. Its like I can take my external HDD from my XB1X and plug it into my Series S and games, like Shadow of War, work - I don't have to reinstall the lower res texture pack or have install the Shadow of War XB1S version - the game knows its running on the S and any options and textures the X uses are not available or used.

@bambozzy thanks a lot

It seems that Microsoft has organised Smart Delivery pretty well, it's not just "free remasters" but optimising the version you are playing on whatever console you are playing on. You don't have to worry about anything.

I was wondering about this and I'm happy to see it's true! Quantum Break is almost double the size on the OneX vs the other systems and that always bugged me. Yet another reason I'll be going with a Series S over an X

@LX_FENIX Quantum break has a lot of FMV....it's actually 4k video versus FHD video files, so, yeah, it's huge.

@NEStalgia for sure but other games are like that too, it was just the first one that came to mind

Wait, I don’t have a 4k tv YET, so playing with the Xbox Series X on a standard tv uses gb’s needless, could configuring the output device result in smaller install files too?

Games might even be smaller than 30% compared to current generation, if the devs take their time to flag assets accordingly.

Right now many games end up getting double asset count, so they can run One X enhancements, but still having One S low res assets.

My understanding is they are talking about Series S games being smaller than Series X games, but as it stands, Series X games will already be smaller than One X/S games.