That’s according to a new Digital Foundry analysis, which notes that because Xbox Series S has less RAM than Microsoft’s highest-end current-gen console (10GB vs 12 GB), it’s “almost a forgone conclusion” that its backwards compatible games will be drawing upon the less powerful Xbox One S versions.
The $300 / £250 Xbox Series S was revealed earlier this week and will target running games at 1440p, with support for ray-tracing, 120fps and 4K upscaling. The console has virtually the same CPU as the $500 Series X, but a less powerful GPU, less memory and no disc drive.
Within the current-gen ecosystem, Xbox One X versions of games are able to leverage the console’s additional power for higher resolution, improved texture filtering, and expanded colour detail. One X offers similar improvements when running compatible Xbox 360 titles.
However, because of Series S’s memory deficit compared to One X, it likely won’t be able to run Xbox One or 360 games with the current-gen console’s enhancements, it’s claimed.
“I think this is something that maybe had not been considered by some folks,” Digital Foundry’s John Linneman said. ”If you’re playing an Xbox One game [on Series S], it’s not going to be the Xbox One X version of the game. You’re not going to get the 360 4K backwards compatibility or things like that.”
DF editor Richard Leadbetter added: “I’m not sure that’s been officially confirmed but basically if you think it through rationally, there’s no other way it can be done.
“The Xbox One X has 9GB of system memory available to titles. The Series S has 8 [and] I’ve seen some reports that it’s actually 7.5GB. Regardless, with either configuration, it’s still lower than the Xbox One X, so I think it’s almost a forgone conclusion that the backwards compatibility will be drawing upon Xbox One S as opposed to Xbox One X.”
However, Linneman notes that the games running in Xbox One S mode should still perform better on the Series S, thanks to its improved performance over the low-end current-gen machine.
In its Xbox Series S reveal video published this week, Microsoft showed how the next-gen console can leverage its CPU – which is virtually the same as the CPU in the more powerful Series X – to run Xbox One’s Gears 5 at 120fps on compatible televisions.
It also showed how Series S’s SSD can drastically improve load times when running Xbox One titles.
“It may be be running backwards compatible games in Xbox One [S] mode, but because the GPU is so much more capable, and knowing what we know about how backwards compatibility works, you should actually still be able to clean up performance issues,” Linneman said.
“So games that maybe struggled on Xbox One S – either the dynamic resolution was overly-aggressive, with slowdown and things like that – conceivably they could actually run noticeably smoother on this machine.”
Microsoft has boasted of many backwards compatibility enhancements for its high-end Xbox Series X console.
The $500 machine is capable of increasing the resolution of selected older games up to 4K and doubling their frame rates from 30 fps to 60 fps or 60 fps to 120 fps, Microsoft has claimed, with all the heavy lifting carried out at a system level, meaning no extra work is required by developers.
Backwards compatible titles also see significant reductions in in-game load times, while Xbox Series X’s Quick Resume feature works with new games and can be enabled for older ones.
On Xbox Series X, legacy games will also be improved with HDR support via a new reconstruction technique which enables the platform to automatically add HDR support to games “with zero impact to the game’s performance.”
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Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/xbox-series-s-likely-wont-be-able-to-run-xbox-one-x-content-its-claimed/
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