Prey and Dishonored on Series X | S: FPS Boost is not just about 60fps

prey

Prey and Dishonored on Series X | S: FPS Boost is not just about 60fps

As part of its celebration of the acquisition of Bethesda, Microsoft’s second wave of FPS Boost titles for Xbox Series consoles sees the delivery of some dramatic updates to classic titles from its newly assimilated publisher. The big hits Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 will receive Digital Foundry treatment in due course, but to start, we wanted to revisit Arkane Studios’ Dishonored Definitive Edition and Prey. These are both brilliant games, but are also somewhat sub-optimal in their original console incarnations. FPS Boost dramatically transforms both – and what’s fascinating is that it’s not just doubling the frame rate that is critical to improving the experience. Notably, FPS Boost goes further than one might expect, to the point that, with Prey in particular, I feel that we are close to the remastering territory.

We’ll start with Prey – an immersive simulation that I happen to classify as one of my favorite games of 2017, but also a release that I just couldn’t play on the previous generation’s consoles. A combination of performance issues, input lag issues and some lengthy load times were very draining – and why would we go through this when the PC version is much better?

Let’s first get the statistics out of the way. The game runs at 900p on the Xbox One S, with a resolution that rises to 1440p on the One X (which also gets a push in the draw distance and improved reflexes). These pixel counts persist in Serie S and X respectively, but obviously, with FPS Boost enabled, all performance problems are solved, both next generation machines deliver perfectly at 60 frames per second, punctuated only by some stutter in the checkpoints. But increased performance is only part of the equation – there is a similar improvement in input lag, comprehensively addressing one of the biggest problems with the previous generation version.

As for the loading times? Well, one minute and 15 seconds of waiting on Xbox One S is reduced to just 13 seconds on Xbox Series machines. Prey is a game that is all about exploration, and especially towards the end of the game, moving around the map is frequent and essential. What was irritating and unacceptable on Xbox One is now much better. FPS Boost is changing the game for this release, bringing it much closer to the PC experience. Prey is on the Game Pass right now, and let’s say that if you have a new Xbox console and haven’t tried it before, it is highly recommended. My only regret is that the Series S is still locked to the One S 900p standard when it is clear that the console can do much more, but regardless, the improvement here compared to the One S is still spectacular.

I also wanted to check out Dishonored Definitive Edition, which we reviewed for the first time in 2015 and which is – to be honest – a real disappointment. First released at the end of the PS3 / Xbox 360 era, an update of 60 frames per second seemed inevitable for PS4 and Xbox One, given the low hardware requirements on the PC, but it was not meant to be and the port it was extremely poor. There are some persistent problems with the game running on Xbox Series consoles, but it’s still a huge improvement – and again, it’s not just about the frame rate. Yes, 60 frames per second is the goal, but interestingly, even the Series X cannot fix the target well. The UI elements that appear on the screen cause stutter, but even beyond that, there is a feeling that something is not right.

But the improvement is still huge, whether you’re playing on the Series X or S, but what really caught my attention here was the huge improvement in loading times. In my tests, extended waits are reduced to just a few seconds – it’s an overnight improvement! It remains to be seen how the Xbox Compatibility Team managed to do this, but it’s easily the biggest boost to load times I’ve seen – and I wouldn’t be surprised if key data is cached in memory to facilitate these massive reductions in load times. . Again, change is transformative. Dishonored is a game about experimentation, about challenging the impressive AI. This implies many deaths and reloads, a tortuous process in the systems of the previous generation that is not a problem at all thanks to FPS Boost. In addition to the performance hiccups, the only real problem is the lack of support for the Xbox One X, which means that both Series S and Series X are at the original 1080p resolution. Still, the game remains fantastic, again, it is available on the Game Pass and is worth checking out.

Clearly, the big advantage here is that FPS Boost is actually more than just a doubling of performance. Reducing input lag is a knock-on effect of improving frame rate, but there is a feeling here that the Xbox Compatibility Team is doing more to reduce load times than might be expected. And taking into account the storage speed limitations of an issue for Fallout games, it will be interesting to see how they work in their new FPS Boost reissues. We will check this out soon, but here and now these titles look renewed and with a fresher air, I highly recommend them.

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