The Xbox One X Review: Putting A Spotlight On Gaming
by Brett Howse on November 3, 2017 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Consoles
- Microsoft
- Xbox One
- Xbox
- Xbox One X
Additional Gameplay Footage
We've only had a few days with the console, but we have had a chance to try out some of the games. Using the Xbox Game Capture features, some gameplay was captured to get a sample of some of the performance and quality gains could be made with the Xbox One X. The Game Capture does compress the video though, so it is not as pristine as it would be while playing, and it also converts the HDR video to SDR to allow for the proper colors to be seen when you share the clips, although if you look at the following clips, it doesn't do a great job with the transition to SDR from HDR.
Not all of the games are yet ready for the Xbox One X yet though, with only a handful that have the Xbox One X Enhanced logo ready to go for the review. Gears of War 4 was one of the games, which we showed some images of earlier, and there were a couple more ready as well, including Disneyland Adventures.
Although it may seem like a game that wouldn't stress a system, in 4K and HDR, the textures and high resolution made an impact. Here's a quick video of the intro of this game on both the Xbox One, and the Xbox One X.
Disneyland Adventures on Xbox One
Disneyland Adventures on Xbox One X in 4K HDR
One thing you notice playing the game is just how much more sharp everything is, especially things in the background. The castle comes into focus much earlier on the Xbox One X version of this video. As with Gears of War 4, there's still some issues with coloring on the HDR converted video. If you are doing a lot of gameplay capture, it may be best to set HDR to off. Also, there's a small hiccup at the start of the Xbox One X video, as the game is just finishing loading. This doesn't appear to happen once that load is complete.
Here's another clip from Forza Motorsports 7, which is one of the launch titles for 4K and HDR, but as of this review, the 4K support is not yet added, so this will be a demo of playing a title without the Enhanced option available. This is from the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, on the Curva Parabolica.
Forza Motorsports 7 on Xbox One
Forza Motorsports 7 on Xbox One X
Even though the 4K support is not there, the game does support HDR, which improves the look of the game quite a bit, even though you can't see it in the SDR converted video. Forza is a pretty lean engine, so the developers are targetting 4K60 for this title. The aliasing of 1080p content in this game is pretty strong, so it will benefit a lot from the 4K update when it arrives. When it's available, we'll post another clip to show the differences.
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dugiebones - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
I wonder how it will stack up with a $500~ prebuilt PC/steam machine ...Ryan Smith - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
Right now very favorably due to the high price of PC video cards.alistair.brogan - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
Yeah people are asking 400 dollars Canadian for a USED gtx 1060 6gb. This is priced very competitively in Canada for sure, just 599.Sad a little about the lack of Ryzen, will affect future proofing, but this is so much better than the first xbox one.
silverblue - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
I imagine a custom Ryzen APU would be ideal, though as Jaguar has eight independent cores with their own FPUs, I don't think a 4C/8T replacement would suit... that would mean swapping out four real cores for four logical ones.alistair.brogan - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
There is a strong case to be made for building an i3-8100 system for your living room instead of buying an Xbox One X, to get strong 60 fps support.But memory prices, gpu prices, and a Windows licence are all too expensive. 12GB GDDR5 must have cost Microsoft a pretty penny.
jschubart - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
You can get an OEM Windows Pro license for about $15. Or you can just install SteamOS. Even then, it's not easy to get it under $500. Best bet would be to find one on Craigslist or eBay for cheap and upgrade the video card and maybe the power supply.Hrel - Sunday, November 5, 2017 - link
None Sense, you can go on Ebay or Amazon and get slightly used, perfectly flawless, computer components from one generation ago and build something for $400 that would blow this out of the water. Not to mention you have to pay a special fee to play video games online, on top of the internet.trivor - Tuesday, November 7, 2017 - link
More so than most, I am leery about paying for used electronics as there isn't any way to measure how much use and abuse they have. In order to make an apples to apples comparison you really need to compare "Brand new PC" to "Brand new XBox One X". If you want to wait you can probably get a discount on a used XBox One X. Even so, building a system that can compete with this (which only works if you have the 4K TV) is going to be difficult even if you use "used" components. This is a very high quality device that will bring ultra hi-res 1080P games (all graphics enhancements) or 2160P games with frame rates between 30 - 60 fps. In many cases an enhanced 1080P game can look as good or better than a 4K game. If you're a high level gamer looking for the best the $499 is a bargain.mr_tawan - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
I think the Ryzen SOC would goes to the next gen instead.Samus - Friday, November 3, 2017 - link
Seeing how AMD seems to have a lock on console APU's/SoC's I would bet real money the next consoles will be based on Zen cores with a Vega GPU. Microsoft, Sony, and historically Nintendo, all seemed pretty comfortable working with AMD.Of course, the switch is obviously nVidia Tegra-based, so who knows about Nintendo...and if they will even make a performance console again...