Following the recent addition of 37 FPS Boosts to backwards compatible games on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, director of project management Jason Ronald confirmed that the program was essentially being put on hold for the time being, explaining that "we're kind of finding where some of the limitations of our current technique is."
Yesterday, Ronald took to Twitter to clarify his comments, stating that "if we are able to develop new methods to further enhance backwards compatible titles we will pursue them", but otherwise it seems pretty unlikely:
In his initial comments on the Iron Lords Podcast, Ronald highlighted that the team had tried many titles that tended to work "great" with FPS Boost, but then a game-breaking bug was unfortunately discovered late into the game.
It might be end of FPS Boost for now, then, but the final batch of additions to the program have gone down a treat, with Digital Foundry recently calling the likes of Sonic Generations, Mirror's Edge and Gears 3 "a match made in heaven".
How are you feeling about the state of FPS Boost right now? Let us know in the comments below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 31
That's a shame i would love to see AC Origins get a boost..
@Bmartin001 I’m actually hoping Ubisoft updates that one. They provided one for Odyssey so fingers crossed that they’re working on one for Origins as well.
Dollars to doughnuts that this is due to the asinine practice of tying games physics, AI, and even things like time of day, to the frame rate.
That in turn leaves you with everything being doubled like enabling 60fps on the original Dark Souls back in the day. Enabling 60fps left everything in the game the same EXCEPT: durability damage was doubled. So every swing of your weapon made it break down twice as fast.
Sonic Generations is making me very happy, right now, so it's all right, guys. Good job !!
Seriously, the game was upped to 4K on Xbox One X, and now to 60 fps on Series X... which basically makes it a proper remaster.
I had the game on 360, I can tell you all that this is definitely not the same game !!
I have to buy All Star Racing Transformed, too, even if the rez was kept to 720p (ouch).
Well they have a done a good job now time to move onto future projects rather than tinkering with old games. Maybe some new stuff would be nice.
I dont believe they cant fpsboost dishonored2. They literally own the source code.
@I_want_avowed There's no way I can believe that they can't. The "expansion" Death of the Outsider is boosted, and that would obviously run on the same engine and such, so it's like they just somehow forgot to do it and won't bother going back to do one game.
I took criticism for basically saying that on here before, but I'll say it again because there's no reason why Dishonored 2 is not boosted by now. I've changed my tune on the last crop of titles, as there are quite a few I'm interested in after going through the list again and watching some videos on YouTube where some of them are also enhanced from back on the One X, so some are 4K/60 now. That's game changing, and I give Xbox a lot of credit for their FPS Boost and enhancement work on old titles, but it's still frustrating and disappointing that an obvious game to receive the treatment it already should have won't because they are done with it for now.
@Dezzy70 I'd rather have the platform holder working on platform tech that can enhance many/old games rather than having the studios working on remaking the same games over and over. If only it could universally work for everything!
@I_want_avowed @KilloWertz especially with a first party title I'm sure they tried it and it didn't work. They'd need to actually patch the game for that. If it were popular they would but..... It's an arkane game...
Fps boost is about using the Os to genetically boost it. If the game breaks because they tied game logic to the frame rate it's a no go. So Bethesda would have to release an updated Dishonored 2 patch. But with the err... Questionable sales if an arkane game putting time into that instead of redfall doesn't seem likely.
Hmmm, could it be that FPS Boost bought them some time until proper next gen exclusives started landing? And now, it doesn't make business sense/money to invest further in it?
It is all just business in the end, big corporations ain't "preserving gaming history" from the goodness of their heart..
Very well done. Being able to play skate 2 again with two other people that grew up with it was amazing. If they can develop a new system to even bring more over would be much appreciated. No other console publisher is doing this work.
@NEStalgia
I would rather have them all working on new games with new experiences made for my series x power and tech.
But seems those old days of new generation have slightly gone.
@Dezzy70 The group working on fps boost and the like is the platform group, not the studios, though. If they weren't working on fps boost they'd be working on new ways to turn the Xbox into a DVR again, not new games.
We never did get Jet Set Radio Future...
@NEStalgia
Who knows maybe they could work on dashboard improvements etc. making it full HDR now it’s 4K.
but they must some game development as they were working on fps boast etc. so they could help code something in a game.
Still don’t get why no dishonored 2.
They did death of the outsider and it’s a standalone expansion of D2. Weird.
AC: Origins might a boost from Ubi themselves since they did it for Odyssey but I’m not holding my breath
I have little doubt that they tried Dishonored 2. You have to remember that these FPS Boosts are working with literally NO change to the code itself. So owning the code or not doesn’t matter. Something probably broke when they tried boost on it.
Maybe Arcane programmers themselves can try to tweak the code at some point.
@Bmartin001 that would be amazing, far and away my favorite assassins creed title.
@Dezzy70 Dashboard maybe yeah. Though PS5 owners seem upset with the HDR dashboard implementation saying it messes up something it other. Double edged sword maybe. But they definitely wouldn't be working on games. The fps boost etc is entirely os, and that group only works on the os and firmware stuff.
Move onto the next round of Back-Compat: Actual other systems. Sega seems like the ideal candidate.
@NEStalgia id rather remakes. Look at ff7 remake.. thats way cooler than 60 fps port of the old game
@NEStalgia But that's not the issue. You're not wrong about how it all works with FPS Boost, but this is a case where it legitimately doesn't make any sense when the game's standalone expansion is boosted but not the regular game. How can it break the full game but not the expansion?
Man I would love to see bo3 get enhanced graphics or higher fps I love the zombies mode on that game
@LastKing318 Both deserve praise. FF7 Remake is one of my favorite games of the last console generation, but Xbox deserves a lot of credit as well for making a lot of old games basically completely new with FPS Boost and even some getting a resolution boost as well. Old Xbox 360 games like Fallout 3 and Sonic Generations being 4K/60 now is nuts (obviously there are several others as well).
@KilloWertz good question... We don't know what doesn't work though. Sounds like they had a lot of cases where the whole game works and then the final boss glitches out because something in it is tied to frame rate. Might be that the expansion happened to not do that. Or that it does but not anywhere they tested. Maybe. Could be one gimmick in one location of the game that didn't work when boosted, so it gets cut.
I think the next realistic step for the program is probably ML Upscaling.
I think actual FPS Boost is out the window now without touching source code of games, which is down to developers and not Xbox.
To me it says that Dishonoured 2 was NOT completely playable with the FPS boost - that doesn't mean that the Developers couldn't spend time creating and optimising a patch for the game to run it 'natively' at 60fps - but whether they do or not, time will tell. I'd assume the developers are more interested in their next project rather than spending time on an 'old' game that still runs via BC.
These games are capped to 30fps and its not a simple thing to just 'double' the frame-rate and expect everything to still work as intended. You could end up with the whole game running twice as fast - like FF on a movie. Everything could be twice as fast - movement, enemies, etc - might be great for speed runners! What they are essentially doing is halving the 'game' speed and doubling the Frame Rate so that you move the same distance every 2 frames instead so that everything 'works' as it should. All it takes is for some aspect anywhere in the game to not 'work' as intended to scrap any chance of bringing that FPS boost.
You have to remember that this is all done 'externally' without access to the games code. Its not like they can go in and tweak the way the game runs natively. Its amazing that they have been able to add any FPS boost at all without access to the source code...
Would be nice to run the final image through some AI upscaling in the future so that every game could get a resolution boost. I know 60fps is 'better', but I am OK with playing many of these games at a locked 30fps as that is significantly better than playing those games on their native hardware. As fondly as you remember the old games, they were rarely ever a 'locked' 30fps with numerous games barely hitting 30fps at all. The locked 30fps is still a much better, smoother, more consistent experience!
@KilloWertz @I_want_avowed Sadly it's pretty obvious they tried using their FPS boost method - which the game is unaware of, it still thinks it's running at 30 - and something breaks. There's no reason not to do it otherwise.
I'd love Dishonored 2 at 60fps more than most - I've already re-played the other games with FPS boost and it's wonderful - but I can accept that it's something they tried and it didn't work.
Do I think it is impossible? No, of course not. But not without an unreasonable amount of work, or changing the main source code, which their FPS Boost method isn't doing.
I hope Arkane themselves might provide a patch if we keep on at them though! EDIT: Especially as it's the only one in the series. Might link this thread at them on Twitter to let them know there are at least a few of us that care.
"Enhancing games from the past is difficult"
It's also the only reason I bought your game system.
I'm really happy with what we already have from FPS boost and backwards compatibility. I just hope Xbox will keep these enhancements going forward into any future console release. Series S/X should not be the last console that we can play old XB1, 360 or OG games at 60fps.
@CaptainCluck I think we always will have the back compatibility for all future Xbox (PC/Cloud would probably take over), since Xbox Original and Xbox 360 is running in a virtual machine on Xbox One/Series
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