Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@ThePirateCaptain Switch is easy. A row of games with no "junk" associated (glares at PS4), a "rest of your library button" at the end (copied from PS4, but it's ok for a less digitally driven platform.) And everything else in a row of buttons at the bottom. Settings, controllers, store, news. Very clean and concise. Limited maybe, but clean as a UI. I did like WiiU/3DS's though. So touch screen driven though.

PS4, yeah....it's just oddly laid out. They love long rows of things to scroll through and layered menus. Basically every aspect of bad UI design they seem to intentionally use.

@NEStalgia Ah, okay. I can see how you made the comparison now. But then we could call a lot of games Arkham-like, or even something before that Batman game, because QTE chains were already a mainstay in many games, so it's not specific to one or the other.

As for backward compatibility: there's no caveat for one game or the other. Like the article that I linked to (which is from Microsoft itself) says, ALL backward compatible OG Xbox titles on the Xbox One have a 4x increased pixel count on the standard Xbox One and the One S, and a 16x pixel count on the One X.

That's also why I wondered about your comment, because I already specifically mentions how it applies to the S, which is also the question that BlueOcean had. And all necessary info is in that link, hence me saying you could have saved yourself the trouble, because you added nothing new to what I already said, no offense though. Just wondered why you posted that, after I've already given a complete answer...

@ThanosReXXX If it were just QTE, I'd call it a Sony game

Nah, it's the whole battle loop of being surrounding by enemies to take turns attacking and you have to counter their attack, to get your attacks in, round robin, and THEN do the QTE takedown. The style, or at least tight application of it, is just so iconic to Arkham series. It may not be the only but it's the most prominent and arguably the best use of that formula. Still the Roman backdrop makes it very cool.

With BC, that's for the general improvements, but not the "XBox 1 X Enhanced" branded ones specifically. They never tell you WHAT they enhanced, maybe they just mean the baked in enhancements after all, but I get the feeling it's using PC textures and such where maybe it's not on the S? AC and KotOR are definitely using PC textures on X...(and are X Enhanced games)...but I don't know if they also do on S or if that's just part of the "X Enhanced" line.)

@NEStalgia I also don't think they're adding extra textures. It's not like with the current gen titles, that there's specific 4K texture packs available for the appropriate model Xbox One. For OG Xbox games, it's just up-rezzing/upping the pixel count, and on a number of titles, the frame rate is either bumped up or made more stable. Like how on the X, Forza Horizon 3 is all of a sudden 60fps, where it is 30fps on the S and original Xbox One.

Just check that article I linked to, it has all the relevant info, and even several comparison videos. And considering the age of the article, there will probably be an updated version of that as well, containing more titles and perhaps even more detail on what has recently been added to backward compatible OG Xbox titles.

@ThanosReXXX IT might be the FPS bump then. The really aren't clear what "XBox One X Enhanced" means on a BC title.

@NEStalgia I did some searching on the matter, and even on compatible Xbox 360 titles, there's no added textures. Same thing as OG Xbox, with a bonus anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.

Our friends at Eurogamer did an in-depth article on it, taking the Xbox 360 version of Red Dead Redemption and putting it through its paces on the X.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-red-de...

Halfway down the page, there's a small black window with six thumbnails that has a "launch comparison tool" link in it. Interesting stuff to look at. It shows up close what the exact differences are.

On a side note, and more in general for other people that might also be wondering if the purchase of an Xbox One X is warranted if you haven't got a 4K TV yet, then this article, that I also came across just now, is a good and definitive answer:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/20/16340160/microsoft-xbox-on...

Long story short: the answer is an absolute yes. Thanks to a nifty little thing called super-sampling, which down-scales a 4K image so it can display on a 1080p screen, except it does so while retaining all the other benefits, so the image is still considerably better than a native 1080p image. Pretty darn interesting and useful info, if you ask me...

Yes, Xbox One X is absolutely worth getting. The 4K is just one of its benefits but even on a 1080p you get the extra definition by supersampling. Even more important to me is the performance boost, shorter loading times and enhanced visuals. Some games look much better and all of them have better performance on Xbox One X.

I guess I am just use to the PS4 UI, of course I don't use a PC on a daily basis either and the last Windows I used was Windows 7.

@NEStalgia
The Switch UI is simple and clean. I don’t really have a problem with it, but it does feel like a step back to me. Part of it is also the lack of music on the menu.

@BlueOcean Enhanced loading times? Wow, X loading times are awful on the internal drive. I can't imagine the S! Though part of that is the 4k textures are ever so much more to have to load! My PS4 Pro seems to load faster off even the same model external 2.5" drive, but that may just be Sony first party magic, I haven't compared, say Deus Ex. But X1X can use faster speeds on external drives than PS4. There's a WORLD of difference going from the internal 2.5" 5400RPM drive to an external 7200RPM drive with large cache. Forza Horizon 3 goes from like 1.2 minutes to about 30 seconds. We're talking Lego City Undercover WiiU vs Switch edition If I were to redesign the X1X the only thing I'd change is replace the small form factor with an internal 7200RPM drive, and a user replaceable bay.

@Tasuki Bonus points for being able to get used to the PS4 UI I've had a PS4 since launch day and still find it maddening. I've become used to how to work around it without much thought, but I still wince at the poor design. The sheer number of settings that are spread across panels.....adding an external HDD? If you go to storage, you won't find it but you'll find instructions to instead go to USB Devices->Storage to add it, then come back to Storage to actually look at it..... X1 it just pops up when you plug it in, you can choose to format it, it tells you when ti's done, and you'll be able to manage it from system->storage. PS4 adds important settings like "boost mode" for PS4 Pro in some obscure features menu not associated with other similar settings, and it defaults to "off" (why would you NOT want to use boost mode? Imagine a setting on X1X that says "yes I'd like to enhance XBox games" and it defaults to off? Same thing. And the "notifications" panel for downloads (and it only shows one unless you expand it even if 3 are downloading at the same time) made no sense on day one. Scrolling to the end to see all your games also kind of bugs me (though Switch suffers from that too.)

Though what you said about PC makes sense. X1 follows a Windows-like usage flow.....mostly because it's Windows The XBox button is the "Start" button, and everything you use is on the Start menu. The "My Games and Apps" button takes you to your whole catalog ("My Computer"), and MOST functions are found on a context menu from the Guide Button ("right click menu"). The "Home" screen is almost a login screen more than a desktop. You really just use it to "resume" your game when you start up and never really touch it any other time, favoring the "start menu" and your library/settings screens (the inverse of PS4/Swith where the home screen is arguably Windows 8.0 like in taking over your whole screen for the "start menu")

@ThePirateCaptain I suspect lack of flourish is to preserve battery life in handheld and keep it touch friendly (and keep it uniform in handheld and docked modes.) WaraWara Plaza was fun but took FOREVER to load. But it has a simple shop button, settings button, controllers button, and doesn't put anything between you and your library. It lacks flash, but the excess flash is half of what breaks PS4's menu.

@NEStalgia Oh, the S is pretty darn fast. Especially coming off of the Xbox 360. It starts up quick from being powered on, and going into a game is all but immediate, so no slowness there at all. So, I think it's pretty safe to say that it is indeed the 4K assets. No wonder as well, since some of these can easily add between 10 and 20 GB to any one game...

@ThanosReXXX X1X Startup into the game from instant-on is fast, but man those games load so slow when switching games or loading a save. Horizon 3 is pretty awful from cold start on the internal. AC:O is kind of painful every time you die. But Sea of Theives is a whole other level of slow. (I've heard GTA:V is the worst of all at almost 2.5 MINUTES to load.) (It's all quite fast from an external fast drive though.) I just moved my 2.5" 4TB external to the PS4Pro, and got the second fast one for the X. It took like 5 hours to copy everything from one to the other and it was only 37% full!

@NEStalgia Well. so far, I haven't noticed any annoying waiting times in Forza Horizon 3 or any other game that I've played. Then again: maybe I'm just more patient or not too bothered by it all...

And like I said: the Xbox 360 is pretty damn slow compared to the One S, so coming from that console, the S already feels like a MASSIVE improvement.

I also can't remember my friend, who actually does have an X, complaining about the speed either, so I guess it also depends on personal sentiments/patience or maybe you've got unlucky with a bad/slow drive. Don't know if there's any difference between the US and EU models, but I'm not excluding any option, no matter how unlikely it may sound at first.

@NEStalgia I only use the internal HDD for apps, I use a 4TB 2.5" Seagate for games and I have noticed shorter loading times compared to S in most if not all games. I read an article that explains that revolutions are not so important in modern HDDs but having an extra disc (3.5") and other facts (cache, etc.) may be. I can only recommend what I know that is fine and I recommend my 2.5" Seagate external HDD.

Funny that you mention PS4 because the longest times I usually get are on MGS V on the launch model, I am glad I finally beat it. I assume that Pro is faster because it doesn't get higher definition textures.

@ThanosReXXX My experience is similar to yours and your friends'. The loading times on X are shorter than on Xbox One S and PS4 in same games. One of the things I also love and I don't know if I mentioned is that my X is silent while my PS4 sounds like a hairdryer.

@BlueOcean Haha, guess Sony and Microsoft switched roles in that respect then, huh? I never even noticed how loud my Xbox 360 really was, until I got the Xbox One...

I should put this in the PC thread since that is where I'm playing it but that thread doesn't see a lot of action in general.

The combat in Vampyr sucks (as does the level design) no pun intended. Remember Me has better combat than this so I can't give them the "they aren't used to action games..." pass. I want to like this game, but I'm starting not to care. Especially since I'm not running around murdering people as the game wants you to.

@ThanosReXXX You're just patient. And I"m very much not. I'm also spoiled by Switch and you are not That might be a bigger deal. South park on Switch kills me with those load times too..... But next to PS4 the load times are also long on X1X (from the internal drive, and considering 4k textures vs PS4Pro usually not having them.)

IIRC they just use a bog standard 5400RPM 2.5" drive....nothing special, nothing different than PS4 comes with. I have read somewhere that did bench tests that PS4 Pro's internal hard drive loaded faster than X1X's internal drive, however PS4 Pro's USB bus is sluggish so X1X pulls faster speeds from external drives.

@BlueOcean Yeah, internal was slow, and a WD My Passport was ok but still slow compared to my FireCuda (SSHD.) I did replace the 4TB My Passport 2.5" with a 3.5" Toshiba X300 6TB....GamePass now...need the space!

Yeah, PS4 OG was SLOOOOWWWW to load, and extremely loud. Pro is much much faster to load and smoother performing overall even if most games look no different But 1X 4k textures are presumably the major bog down in speeds. I got the Pro mostly for the load times, actually

@NEStalgia No, man... it's the other way around: it's YOU. I, my friend, and BlueOcean here, all think it loads much faster, and YOU are the only one having issues with it, so look to thy self...

I was even almost about to clock some games on my S with a stopwatch, but then I thought to myself that I wasn't about to go and do something so crazy, seeing as I'm more than satisfied with how it runs and works, so I really don't give a rat's @ss if one system is 20 seconds faster than the other or not. Those minor differences aren't going to ruin my life in any meaningful way, so I'm not even going to bother myself by getting annoyed over it, because that would make me put energy into something completely futile...

Then again, I actually already kind of expected you to be dissecting such stuff in a console, seeing as you're also quite involved with all the minutiae of audio and video related settings and performances.

Say for example that we would both buy the same console at the exact same time, then by the time you would finally be ready tweaking all that stuff, I would probably already have finished my first game...

As for the difference between the One X and the Pro: methinks that having to load only checker-boarded make believe faux-4K textures that aren't even a fourth in size compared to what the X offers, is probably the main reason, because both in hardware and in ACTUAL 4K content, the X is by far the superior system.

On a side note: I don't know if it comes across, but I'm kind of p**d off, so if that's the case, don't take too much offense, but I've had a REALLY bad day. This afternoon, I got a security alert from my Gmail account all of a sudden, on this PC, the one I've been using for more than 4 years now, with the same damn browser and all, and for whatever reason it made me doubt my security (coming up with a weird IP address that had logged in to my account, one that I didn't recognize), and as such, I chose to change my password.

For some reason, it didn't stick or didn't get validated, and now I'm locked out of my own account. My private account, under my own real name, that I also use for business purposes, until Google sees fit to reset my password, or even (hopefully) help me out with it in the first place.

The on screen message that I got is that it usually takes between 3 and 5 days. I had to give them my other email, my anonymous one, that I use on here, and on other, non-work related sites that I'm on, in order to be able to receive updates and a "reset password link" once my request is validated.

Now I'm stuck waiting for it to hopefully all turn out right again. Five friggin' days max of not being able to email, NOT having details to partners, customers, numerous accounts and so on! I'm probably going to have to wade through dozens upon dozens of emails in my inbox if the issue gets resolved.

And that is assuming that it actually gets resolved in the first place, seeing as I'm just a one man company, so if I can't convince them that the account belongs to me and that I really need all that info and all those emails back, then I have a MASSIVE problem... Ugghh... I don't even want to think about that.

Even typing this is already stressing me out again, and I was just at the point of being a bit more relaxed again, after the initial outrage I felt this afternoon. So, I'm going to quit now, before I'm going to assault something or someone...

Have we had any indication of when more 360 games will be added?
I'm still wondering why none of the FF13 games have been added. I assumed Squenix were doing a remaster trilogy but we've heard nothing and it doesn't seem like something that would take several years.