The Xbox Series X Review: Ushering In The Next Generation of Game Consoles
by Brett Howse on November 5, 2020 9:00 AM ESTGameplay Analysis: Gears Tactics
Although already released on PC (and even part of Ian’s CPU benchmarking suite) Gears Tactics will be available on Console on November 10th, making this a console launch title for the Series X|S. Although it will also be available on Xbox One, the title has been enhanced and improved visually, much as Gears 5 was, with higher framerates and likely better textures as well.
One of the first noticeable differences between the Xbox One X and Xbox Series X versions of the game is the options page. The Xbox One X allows you to choose a Performance or Quality mode, trading off visual fidelity for framerate, but the Xbox Series X asks you to make no such sacrifice. In fact, it does allow you to set the framerate on the cutscenes to 30 FPS, matching the Xbox One X, if you prefer the more “cinematic” choice, or 60 FPS.
Gears 5 Cutscenes
Gears Tactics includes cutscenes that are not rendered on the fly though, so these ones are visually identical on both consoles, and both run at 30 FPS.
The rendered cutscenes do swing up to the 60 FPS mark on the Xbox Series X, as expected. Unlike Gears 5 though, there does not seem to be any texture differences between the two consoles in the cutscenes.
Gears Tactics Gameplay
On the Xbox Series X, players are treated to a 60 FPS version of the game rendered in 4K, unlike the Xbox One X which is limited to 30 FPS. The framerate was very smooth on the Series X.
As a new title for launch day, fans of the Gears franchise will finally get a chance to try this strategy version of the game, and without a doubt, the experience is definitely enhanced on the new console, with higher framerates across the board.
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lefenzy - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Both MS and Sony consoles are very impressive. How do they manage to put 8-core zen 2 plus high-end graphics and solid state storage into a $500 console? Are both manufacturers losing money on each unit?Sub31 - Friday, November 13, 2020 - link
Yes- consoles are loss leaders.versesuvius - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
"solid-stage storage" ?madseven7 - Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - link
tell me a phone with 16GB of ram, AI, that can play at 2k on a 65" screenAlexvrb - Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - link
"a much smaller 4 TFLOP GPU, which is not even as powerful as the Xbox One X from 2017"Technically the final performance is roughly equal. 4 RDNA2 TFLOPS is comparable to 6 GCN2 TFLOPS. The problem is the reduced total memory means for CURRENT titles, they have to run an upscaled version of the Xbox One S game.
For new titles specifically built with the Series S in mind (and possibly existing titles with a major update), they can use the SSD and DirectStorage to produce titles with graphics at least on par with what a One X can do. The Zen 2 cores are also a massive improvement over the ancient Jaguar cores.
vol.2 - Friday, November 13, 2020 - link
There are obviously no more game consoles. But this "generation" is significant in that it is overtly marketed as incremental upgrades. I guess the switch is still pretending with it's in-between size and semi-portability, but there isn't anywhere Nintendo can go from there. Either they continue to upgrade the switch and make the form-factor their differentiator, or they do the same thing as Sony and MS and just overtly make and sell computers that are simply locked into their own game title ecosystem.CoderScribe - Saturday, November 28, 2020 - link
Great review, please now do PS5, since that's what most of us will actually be playing and has more interesting architectural quirks for analysis.