One of the promotional screenshots for the XBOX One X on the official website.
Is It All About Resolution? - I Would Say No.
The internet has been going crazy over the final specs and release details for the XBOX One X (XOX).
There are certainly a lot of pretty screenshots to see - particularly in the promotional materials but even assuming it can maintain true 4K gaming resolutions in practice the question remains of how important this is for most home users?
4K TVs are still not common and most users will be sitting at quite a distance from the TV - in many cases the difference from the resolution change will not be apparent.
This is something that sites like Ars Technica have covered in articles detailing their initial (hands on) impressions. What matters more to me personally for a smooth gaming experience is high and consistent frame rates.
Most consoles seem to have trouble with this - from what I understand the XOX is aiming to be more consistent in these respects but it still seems pretty poor when compared to PC games.
Most of the video footage I have seen still has that characteristic "jumpiness" and general lack of smoothness that we see on other consoles. Even when we see more consistent frame rates they still look comparatively low.
I don't think this is due to poor video compression because I have seen it in multiple videos.
PC Frame Rates
PC gaming is moving to higher frame rates and new technologies like Freesync and G-Sync mean that uneven frame rates can be accommodated more efficiently.
There isn't really an equivalent with TV technology yet.
For one thing TV technology has not really devised a standard for accepting frame rates above 60, let alone measures to deal with variable frame rates.
Whilst many TVs generate higher refresh rates than 60 Hz to smooth out motion and reduce judder(via interpolation and other smoothing methods), they don't actually accept higher refresh rates (and hence higher frame rates).
There is little push for this right now anyway since the higher refresh rates are not really necessary for movie watching or regular TV - in fact they can make things look worse and less film-like.
I suspect it will happen eventually, but the push will only come from the gaming industry (not Hollywood).
What I Would Like - A Consistent (Preferably Locked) 60 FPS
That said I would be happy to get a solid 60 frames per second on consoles - something that any modern TV can handle with ease.
It would also be attainable for the newer variants of the consoles if they stuck to 1080p resolution.
It would create a much more realistic and responsive experience - particularly in certain types of games (e.g. racing and fighting games).
For the games that I have compared on my PC versus the console equivalents, even a locked 60 frames per second makes a huge difference irrespective of the resolution.
So the question is why don't we have someone who is making a console that sets that as a baseline?
Why don't Microsoft or Sony concentrate on a base frame rate of 60 FPS for all games? I think it is down to marketing.
Obviously they can't force developers to meet this, but my feeling is that by moving to 4K gaming so soon, they are in a sense sabotaging and reducing the likelihood of this ever happening.
Even top end PC gaming rigs have difficulty with smooth 4K gaming rates so it seems a bit premature.
I think the reason for this is numbers. Most people don't understand what 60 FPS gaming is or why it matters. On the other hand 4K is something that is a lot easier to market and is growing in the public consciousness.
It doesn't matter if it is real 4K or if not - it is more of a promotional exercise - much like megapixels on cameras and phones.
Conclusion
I do hope we get change on this at some point.
I have been waiting for smooth 60 FPS gaming as long as I have been a console gamer!
I remember how amazing it felt when one of the Ridge Racer games on the original Playstation ran at a full 60 FPS. It seemed to be a glimpse of the future.
My fear is that when we get the next batch of consoles they will ignore the frame rates again and aim for 8K gaming! It seems to be one of those things that I will be waiting for forever.
What do you think? Am I the only one who cares about it? Will it ever happen?
Thank you for reading
