Xbox Owner Claims Series X 'Issue' Causes Games To Run 5% Slower

The world of Xbox is full of interesting stories, and we came across a particularly unique one recently in the form of a Reddit post from an Xbox owner complaining that their Xbox Series X games were running 5% slower than intended.

The reason? According to them, it seems like they're suffering from a system clock issue:

"I have two XSX and one of them runs consistently slower by 5% in a game because the system clock timing is off. I don’t know if the cause is the crystal oscillator or CMOS battery. I searched for hours and did not find anyone with this problem. Is this a widespread XSX issue no one noticed?"

The Redditer went on to explain that they tested this by going to the Microsoft Edge browser and then using the TestUFO website, which revealed that their slower Xbox Series X was supposedly running at 63 FPS and 63Hz, rather than the expected 60FPS and 60Hz. According to them, "this is consistent with a slow clock".

They also pointed out that King of Fighters XV's training mode was indicating there was an issue when counting frames, and their system clock time on their slower Series X "will drift by 2 minutes in 40 minutes".

"My system clock time will drift by 2 minutes in 40 minutes. I restarted both and the system clock synchronized over the internet to 10:00 AM. Twenty minutes later one was 10:20 and the slower 10:19. Twenty three minutes later one was 10:43 and the slower 10:40."

"King of Fighters XV, a new fighting game, has a training mode that shows how many frames you hold a direction or button. The game counts fewer frames on the slow XSX if I hold and release a button down at the same time on both XSX. For example, the normal XSX shows I held a button down for 100 frames and the slow XSX shows 94 frames. Character idle animation and menu transitions run noticeably slower. If I reset a character on both XSX, the idle animation on the slow XSX will drift behind the normal XSX."

A weird issue, then, but there's plenty of reason not to panic. We haven't seen anyone else report the same thing as this Redditer as of yet, so it certainly doesn't seem to be widespread, and it appears more likely that it's a simple hardware defect more than anything else. The person in question has been trying different things to see if they can figure out the cause, but ultimately this might just be a job for the team at Xbox Support to figure out.

We'll keep an eye on it though, and let you know if we get a proper conclusion. In the meantime, maybe give the TestUFO website a try for yourself, and let us know if you come across the same problem in the comments below.

"I want to see if anyone else is affected and if there’s an easy fix instead of waiting 16 business days for repair or a refurbished replacement."

Have you had a similar issue like this? What do you think is the cause? Tell us!

[source reddit.com]