Xbox One's extra features may be bringing down its gaming quality

Lately, Call of Duty Ghosts has had their guns pointed at the Xbox One – or at least that is how many people around the web have felt. With news that Microsoft’s Xbox One won’t be running the game at native 1080p, and instead a lower 720p, there is question of how the console will be able to handle gaming in the next 5-10 years (the predicted lifespan of the unit). Eurogamer decided to sit down with the developers of the upcoming Call of Duty and see what their explanation is.

Mark Rubin, one of the developers, sat down and explained that the problem had to do with the console’s Operating system. He explained that when using the memory and CPU, it is important to know what portions are in use and not being used internally for the operating system’s background features. Infinity Ward must work around allocations given to it by the system itself.

Multitasking

In regards to why the upcoming hit launch game for the console is running in 720p on the Xbox One and 1080p on the PlayStation 4, Rubin says he can’t “point to one particular case”. He stated that Infinity Ward tried to make the best decision for each console to obtain 60 frames per second.

When asked whether or not the result of the lesser frames on the Xbox One was due to the PlayStation 4, Rubin did not give an exact answer. He simply stated, that they wanted each console to achieve 60 fps and that due to the system’s allocation – Xbox One landed at 720p. He did note that they had it running at 1080p, but the frame rate was not “in the neighborhood we wanted it to be [60 fps]”.

In the end, future updates that help to relocate system resources may be the solution for Xbox One, but the extra side features and multitasking may be pulling the console down when it comes to full 1080p HD gaming.

For now – are extra features, like multitasking, worth a downgrade in game quality?

Source: Eurogamer

Michael Archambault