Xbox One and Xbox 360 games will benefit from improved frame-rate, faster loading times, more on Xbox Scorpio
Xbox Scorpio will improve the performance of existing Xbox One, and even backwards compatible Xbox 360 games.
Now that everyone knows what's going to be inside of every Xbox Scorpio, it's time to take a look how that will translate to better-performing games. Specifically: existing Xbox One and backwards compatible Xbox 360 games.
As reported by Digital Foundry, Microsoft's approach to forward compatible games is different than Sony's. In Sony's case, the manufacturer went with the simpler way of clocking down PS4 Pro hardware to be identical to PS4 to prevent any compatibility issues.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is opting for a more challenging approach, in part due to how different Xbox Scorpio's architecture is to Xbox One's. Theoretically, this could allow existing games to take advantage of the the full power of Scorpio, sort of like how it works when upgrading PC parts.
This won't turn 30fps games into 60fps, the report stressed, but it will greatly improved titles with variable frame-rate, such as Project Cars. What benefits Microsoft guarantees is the removal of torn frames, for instance, which can be achieved just by the console's sheer power.
Titles with dynamic resolution will reach and maintain their maximum possible resolution, but not beyond that. Texture filtering will also be greatly improved, and Microsoft promised all first-party titles running on Scorpio to have full anisotropic filtering.
The full power of GameDVR will now support older games, meaning 4K60 will be offered when capturing footage, without affecting the game's performance. Even though most existing Xbox One games cap at 1080p, they will benefit from the improved bitrate.
Loading times will be faster as well, thanks to the increase CPU clock speed. More interestingly, Microsoft claims it has improved hard drive speed, a 50% improvement in bandwidth, designed for 4K textures. The larger ram pool available (8GB vs 5GB on Xbox One) helps in this regard, too.
You can read the rest of the article at the link above for more about how Microsoft is preparing for inevitable compatibility problems these boosts may cause to some games.