Xbox Series S

yup.

Like an xbox one x. MSFT hyping this as a 1440p next gen console seems... off to me

The console is 4 TF. If you thought that this was a 1440p 60 fps console on most titles, you probably thought that the One X would be a 4k 60 fps title as well.

Like anything else being sold, you have to look past the first page of the brochure.
 
Anyone know if you can plug a USB optical drive into this? Also, for older gaming support, can you use a USB drive for storage?

I only have a 1080p TV, so if I can make this work and save a couple hundo that'd be cool, although I'm perfectly fine with spending more for legacy gaming if that's the way things do.
 
Anyone know if you can plug a USB optical drive into this? Also, for older gaming support, can you use a USB drive for storage?

I only have a 1080p TV, so if I can make this work and save a couple hundo that'd be cool, although I'm perfectly fine with spending more for legacy gaming if that's the way things do.

You cannot plug in a USB optical drive. You can use a USB drive to store and play Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games, as well as store (but not play) Series games (including games that have gotten a Series specific version like Watch Dogs or AC).
 
You cannot plug in a USB optical drive. You can use a USB drive to store and play Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games, as well as store (but not play) Series games (including games that have gotten a Series specific version like Watch Dogs or AC).

No XBOX 360 HD DVD support??!

Here is a review of the system from digital foundry:


A little disappointing on some of the support for older titles. X360 era games should be able to run at the same 9x upscaling as the Series X, even with the weaker hardware. One S games should get a much bigger boost as well, ie 4x upscaling at 60 fps.

Other than that, it seems like a solid machine for casual gaming.
 
Borderlands 3 looks to be the most impressive Series S showing yet and hopefully a sign of things to come.

The first few games that Digital Foundry tested had the Series S running at 1080p 30 fps or sub-1080p at 60 fps. Given the same game, these results were always worse than the One X.

Here the game runs a solid 60 fps at 1440p dynamic on the Series S while the One X ran 30 fps at 1800p dynamic or a very unstable 60 fps at 1080p.

 
Grabbed one for $400, which is about $70 over retail (9% tax).

Not terrible but the first time I bought something over retail so it feels a bit crummy. Coming from an Xbox one, it should be a nice boost. I will see once I am done with the local transfer.

The internal drive is small, but I still managed to get 2 esports plus a few AAA titles in there. Best Buy had external wd black game drives on sale so I picked up a 5 TB for $130.
 
Great so far. Man this thing is small, and no power brick. If you factor that in, it's about 1/3rd the size of a my XB1 making it great for travel.

Silent as well, averaging 70w on Apex Legends.
 
Really cool backwards compatibility frame rate doubling (and even quadrupling!) of some older games.



3 out of the 5 games were only coded for One S, so they will be in the 900/1080p range. That said, going from an unstable 30 fps to a locked 60 fps really brings life to some of these older games.

It sounds like they didn't even have to touch the game code so hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of this. So far, the Series S has been a great home arcade console. I've spent the last month or so playing Xbox 360 games that I missed the first time around.
 
That has always been a perk of the PC that I'm glad to see on consoles. Higher FPS can make huge differences in the visuals and enjoyability of older games.
Sony obviously isn't doing it the same way, but the PS4 games that got PS5 boosts feel almost brand new. Especially if you're coming from a normal PS4, rather than a Pro.
Playing improved versions of older games is huge.
 
That has always been a perk of the PC that I'm glad to see on consoles. Higher FPS can make huge differences in the visuals and enjoyability of older games.
Sony obviously isn't doing it the same way, but the PS4 games that got PS5 boosts feel almost brand new. Especially if you're coming from a normal PS4, rather than a Pro.
Playing improved versions of older games is huge.
Too bad Bloodborne doesn't see any improvements on the PS5. I hope that it will some day, but I am doubtful it will ever happen.
 
Even more games enhanced with FPS boost, now totaling 97:
https://majornelson.com/fpsboost/

While hardware backwards compatibility has been the rage for the last few generations, let's hope software forward enhancability is implemented for most games made today.

It should be too hard either - XSX: 4k 30 fps High Quality and/or ray tracing or 60 fps lower settings or lower res / XSS same but at 1080p.

Simply have it coded to run 60 or 120 fps with HQ and RT in the future
 
Even more games enhanced with FPS boost, now totaling 97:
https://majornelson.com/fpsboost/

While hardware backwards compatibility has been the rage for the last few generations, let's hope software forward enhancability is implemented for most games made today.

It should be too hard either - XSX: 4k 30 fps High Quality and/or ray tracing or 60 fps lower settings or lower res / XSS same but at 1080p.

Simply have it coded to run 60 or 120 fps with HQ and RT in the future
Interesting that Death of the Outsider gets 60 FPS, but Dishonored 2 isn't listed.
 
FidelityFX looks to be coming to Series X|S. This advanced upscaling would work great for Series S owners using 4k TV.

No word on Sonys console yet. I can't imagine it would be too hard for them to implement as well, then again, they still don't have Freesync on their new console.
 
FidelityFX looks to be coming to Series X|S. This advanced upscaling would work great for Series S owners using 4k TV.

No word on Sonys console yet. I can't imagine it would be too hard for them to implement as well, then again, they still don't have Freesync on their new console.

This could honestly be a game changer for the Series S. If it looks as good and works as well as DLSS 2.0, anyway. It could bring visual parity between the two systems, just one native 4k and the other up scaled... Which would make the series s really impressive for the size.

I wonder if they'll have a way to implement it on a system level.
 
A well developed game but the Series S does a great job with Doom Eternal running 1440p60 or close to 1080p120

Notably, this is the first console game to use VRS.

 

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Crowdfunding: xScreen portable display turns the xBox Series S into a gaming laptop (sans the battery)​


https://liliputing.com/2021/07/crow...-s-into-a-gaming-laptop-sans-the-battery.html

Man, this is the sort of thing I would have killed for when I was in grade school.
 
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I don't get it... what is the point of this if there's no battery that actually makes it portable? Just buy a small monitor and set it next to the console lol...

Yar, a search on Amazon shows a lot of products that offer the same capability (but more universal console support). I guess the xScreen looks more seamless than the others. Still, I think I'd take a universal 'velcro-style' product or just one of those mobile screens with a back pack.

https://www.amazon.ca/Sentinel-Port...e+monitor+carrying+bag&qid=1626309839&sr=8-40
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Series X|S get MS flight simulator with impressive results. The X runs ultra like presets at 1440p upscaled to 4k while the S runs Medium like presets at 1080p.
 
New Halo is looking impressive on Series S as previewed by DF:


Surprisingly, Series S ran the best of all the consoles as it held 120 fps very well hanging around 720p and sometimes scaling below. The Series X had alot more jitters, though it was pushing 4 times as many pixels. At 60 fps mode Series S|X ran without a hitch respectively targeting 1080p and 4k, scaling back as needed.

Every time the Series consoles were capable close to 120 fps, the One X|S could usually do at least 30 fps. Here, they both struggled to do even that meaning that the Zen 2 CPU had a solid 4x advantage over the Jaguar CPU - evidence that priority went into the new consoles.

Overall, the game looks to be alot of fun.
 
Update to an old thread but a good look at the impact of the Series S after 2 years.


It's not the console we wanted, but after 2 years of hard economic times, it's the console we needed. I saw an ad on GameSpot that they will begin selling them for $250.

While never a 1440p, console, it still does well at 1080p and new FSR implementation only enhances the experience.

More 40 fps compatible games would really benefit this console as well on more demanding titles.
 
I think Microsoft underestimated the memory and bandwidth requirements of newer games a bit, even at 1080p.

Going from 4k to 1440p or even 1080p, really doesn't reduce memory requirements that much and having less than half the bandwidth of the Series X (560 vs 224 GB/S) really makes texture implementation tough.

Had the console been a simple 12 GB (10 GB useaable) running closer to 400 GB/s, adjusting for the Series S would have been a much simpler resolution reduction.

While running 1080 at 60 fps on the Series S vs 1440p at 30 fps on the One X a few years ago seemed like an expected tradeoff early on, we are seeing embarrassing scenarios in some games where the Series S runs 1080p 30 while the One X can muscle through 1440p 30 fps.

4 TB of RDNA is every bit as good as 6 TB of Polaris in the One X but having a reduction in bandwidth and memory size (12 GB, 326 GB/s) of the One X seems like they went a bit to cheap there.
 
It's baffling that Microsoft had the balls the call a console weaker than the Xbox One X a "next gen" console. It shows how developers are largely not interested in getting games to run well on the Series S.
 
It's baffling that Microsoft had the balls the call a console weaker than the Xbox One X a "next gen" console. It shows how developers are largely not interested in getting games to run well on the Series S.
That's what i was on about when it first got announced. It's not next gen, it's holding the entire generation back(well mainly xbox). I have one, it sucks.

Saw on twitter yesterday that a new game coming is 1080p30 on the series s. What a joke.
 
It's baffling that Microsoft had the balls the call a console weaker than the Xbox One X a "next gen" console. It shows how developers are largely not interested in getting games to run well on the Series S.
In fairness, the One X was a beast and sort of mid-gen. Its still far more powerful than a Switch and game developers bend over backwards to make their games run on that thing as it sells about 5x more than the consoles.

Still, $50 extra worth of hardware would have made a huge difference while still being accessible to those on a tight budget. Oh well.
 
Id software, sega, techland to name a few.
Id Software? That's bethesda
Sega? You mean sonic frontiers... a single game
Techland? You know Dying Light 2 is a cloud game. It's just a streaming video. OOOOh the poor devs must have worked a weekend(single) on it.


No real relevant studios work with the switch, because it's not powerful enough to work with any modern engine.
 
Id Software? That's bethesda
Sega? You mean sonic frontiers... a single game
Techland? You know Dying Light 2 is a cloud game. It's just a streaming video. OOOOh the poor devs must have worked a weekend(single) on it.


No real relevant studios work with the switch, because it's not powerful enough to work with any modern engine.

Doom for Id. There are alot of 3rd party games shown on digital foundry that push the bounds of what that console should do and, yeah, in no way is it a "weekend job".

The point is that the Switch is miles behind the series S Also, game developers still make games somewhat playable on lesser pc hardware. What games do you specifically thing the Series S held back development?
 
According to Sega's communication about Frontiers is that it should be running at 60fps, but a bug is causing it to remain at 30fps. They released a 'workaround', but according to DF it didn't work.

I dunno about the Series S holding back development, if anything, I think it's the porting to the previous gen that's the main culprit for underwhelming next gen releases.

I do agree that at minimum, the Series S should have been an upgrade over the One X in every area. I got to wonder if simply bumping the RAM on the Series S would have diminished the majority of the dev complaints.
 
According to Sega's communication about Frontiers is that it should be running at 60fps, but a bug is causing it to remain at 30fps. They released a 'workaround', but according to DF it didn't work.
Sonic runs at 30fps, 480p undocked.



It's basically 2023.... 480p.
 
It is not easy to imagine if I game would run a 1080p-120fps or 1600p+ at 60fps that would have that much of an hard time to run at 900p-60fps on the S series.

Game with performance issue seem to have much deeper issue going on then something caused with supporting the S, at least it a tier of difference than when they had to suppor 256mb ps3-xbox 360 when having 32 times more ram (8 gig) was the norm or trying to release Cyberpunk on the jaguar PS4.

Flight Simulator run quite well on the Series S after all (the latest CoD seem to run at lock 60fps liek a charm, but those CoD devs have so much money and oiled machine to a single title that it is maybe unfair has a comp) and I could be wrong but no game with series S issue run that well on the rest.

If the game had to support the 1060 6gig for the PC market (still a very popular level of performance), how big an issue running at low FPS at a low 900p on the 8gig of fast ram Xbox S should be ?
 
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Sonic runs at 30fps, 480p undocked.



It's basically 2023.... 480p.
I think the Series S was suppose to run at 60 fos, not the switch.

Interesting graph showing how important bandwidth is on one of the newest AAA title. These are Basic settings which shouldn't be to far off from console.

Ignore AMD 6000 series as I think Infinity cache is really helping, but look at the dismal performance of the 3050. Bandwidth seems to be more and more important, especially on the low end (relative to gflops).

The 8 GB 3050, which has the same bandwidth as the Series S, gets demolished. The 6 GB 2060 manages to crush it by 30% and the 4 GB 1650 super is not far behind which has just slightly lower bandwidth.

Screenshot_20221116-225346_YouTube.jpg
 
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