Red Dead Redemption runs at native 4K resolution on Xbox One X

By Asher Madan
published

Red Dead Redemption looks better than ever on Xbox One X.

A few days ago, Red Dead Redemption received an Xbox One X upgrade which increased the resolution of the game. The title originally launched on Xbox 360 in 2010. Today, Digital Foundry analyzed the new version and concluded that it ran at native 4K resolution on Microsoft's newest console.

Digital Foundry confirmed the resolution and improved effects in a video.

It's the first time this game's visuals have been improved since its release in 2010 on Xbox 360, where X hardware pushes the resolution from 1280x720 to 3840x2160. Add in 16x anisotropic filtering, and a tighter lock at 30fps, and this ranks up there as one of the most satisfying reprisals of Xbox 360's back catalogue.

It's great to see that classics like Red Dead Redemption are effectively receiving free remasters for Xbox One X. The added anisotropic filtering and stable frame rate greatly enhance the experience. Hopefully more Xbox 360 games will be upgraded for Xbox One X down the line.

Red Dead Redemption takes you on an epic journey across the dying West. When federal agents threaten his family, former outlaw John Marston is forced to pick up his guns and hunt down the gang of criminals he once called friends. Players experience Marston's journey across the sprawling expanses of the American West and Mexico as he fights to bury his blood-stained past and seek a new future for himself and his family.

Red Dead Redemption is currently available for around $20 at various retailers.

Keep an eye on WindowsCentral.com/Gaming for all the latest in Xbox and Windows 10 gaming, accessories, news, and reviews!

Asher Madan
Asher Madan

Asher Madan handles gaming news for Windows Central. Before joining Windows Central in 2017, Asher worked for a number of different gaming outlets. He has a background in medical science and is passionate about all forms of entertainment, cooking, and antiquing.

16 Comments
  • Curious - I note you guys always talk about games for Xbox running at 'native' 4K resolution. From a PC perspective (I have no console and never have done as I started with a Sinclair ZX81 and never looked beyond the home computer since) native would refer usually to the resolution capabilities of the display, but I guess you don't mean that because it wouldn't make much sense as we're talking Xbox capability, not display capability. So, in this sense, what does native mean?
  • Native means that it doesn't use any kind of dynamic resolution or checkerboard
  • AndyCalling, wow the old Timex Sinclair... that is going back a ways. :-) Yahia said it right -- it refers to the rendering of the 4k image. So all 4k games send a series of 4k images to the display, but some are not actually rendering 4k worth of pixels per image. The rendering engine knows the underlying image at a quality high enough to do it at 4K (which separates this fundamentally from upscaling, where there is not any information to improve the image), but the graphics hardware can't render all the pixels needed to actually display in 4k at the rate it has to send them to the display (typically 30 or 60 fps) Instead, the effect is like taking the 1080p image and multiplying each pixel into four (two vertically and two horizontally), but then perform an anti-aliasing effect (selecting intermediate color for the new pixels) so that the extra pixels at least have a smoothing effect and making edges look less jagged. This description is actually backwards -- because checkerboarding starts with the higher resolution and uses a smart down-scaling to reduce the pixel calculations, but it's probably the easiest way to visualize what it's doing. Getting a bit past my personal knowledge on this, I think the dedicated hardware for 4k checkerboarding built into both the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X gets a bit smarter by actually comparing frames and using the changes over time to use the effect reduce blur. In the end, checkerboarding yields a 4k image that is noticeably better than upscaling, but not as good as true, native 4k where each pixel is calculated individually.
  • It means 2160p. We use "native 4K" because the PS4 Pro uses checkerboard rendering and upscaling most of the time but for some odd reason it's advertised as "4K". The image quality 2160p rendering offers is much better than anything checkerboarded, upscaled, etc.
  • This exactly ^^
  • Give this treatment to Lost Odyssey, please!
  • I want that too!
  • I'm curious about how they do this with 8+ year old games. Simple as just re-rendering everything, output 2160p? A feature on how these games are being updated from 720p to 4k would be an interesting read.
  • I'm curious as well
  • I imagine is pretty simple as games are coded via information about the polygons (position, size, etc). As opposed to fixed pixel counts. (Think vector image vs bitmap image).
  • Its no different than getting a blu ray of a movie that was made in the 70's. Hell you can even get wizard of oz or gone with the wind movies getting close to 100 years old on blu ray that look pin sharp
  • Awesome!
    I picked up the game for £1, pre-owned 🤣.
  • That's an insanely good deal. Where did you get it?
  • Pity the poor me, playing this game on a PS3. :(
  • looks and runs super duper.
  • so to get the enhancement do i have to set my device to download the 4k copys of games or would this just install? i dont want all my games upgreated i dont have a 4k tv.