Topic: The everything Xbox thread

Exclusive to PS5 because it can't run on a PS4, because it uses next gen techniques like ray-tracing, graphical fidelity is also much higher. Why isn't it a next gen game?

Because it uses the same current-gen engine and current-gen assets, it's a remaster of PS4 DLC/spinoff for PS5 but it could run on PS4 without ray tracing.

@BlueOcean Sure, but Flight Sim could run on an Xbox if they downgraded it, so I don't see your point.

I just curious, why newest Xbox machine cannot read previous Xbox games by Disc based and must used licence update to play ?
The idea maybe sounds fantastic but it just only for majority rated 18+ games that being played by Xbox gamers, never have a chance for casual / shovelwares / not so popular Xbox games get licence update due to various issues from licensing (Rhythm games, licensed franchise games, etc) until games popularity.

Wii U with Disc based emulating can play DDR wii games without licence update.
Why don't Microsoft use Disc based compatibility ?
Licence update only give opportunity for hardcore gamers by majority, not giving opportunity for me and casual gamers that tend to play unpopular games.
From so far i heard about Xbox series X, i still didn't see any reason to consider Xbox series X. Xbox 360 E was the only one model that gave me one last chance to enjoy casual & Kinect games on Xbox 360.

@Anti-Matter Because the 360 is fundamentally different from the Xbox One and Series X. They can't read 360 games. There is no native backwards compatibility, and therefore it's not possible.

@BlueOcean My PS4 has never sounded loud. If yours does, it probably means you have dust clogging the console.

Odd, I have quite a few 360 games both physically & digitally that I play on my XB1 .... @Octane

@BruceCM I never said you can't do that?

I'm missing what you're talking about, then ... I wouldn't know about or really be concerned with the details on just how it works & I'm not sure exactly what anti's asking, then

@BruceCM He is asking why can't the Xbox One Console play or install the games directly from the 360 discs.

Just excuses to state that he is NOT interested in Xbox One.

Miles Morales is more of a next gen game than Flight Sim, Flight Sim is a XB1 game.

Oh, right ... & I dunno about the kinect part, which may be the games he's most into, either, so there's that, I suppose

@BruceCM Wii U van basically play any Wii game without Nintendo having to put effort into it, because it can play Wii game natively (i.e. the Wii U is essentially a more powerful Wii, both share the same architecture: PowerPC).

He wants that kind of BC on Xbox One for 360 games. But that's not possible since Xbox One can't play 360 games natively (Xbox One is x86, and the 360 is PowerPC). So Microsoft has to port/emulate all the 360 games. They have to offer digital versions to those who own the 360 games. This means they effectively have to "sell" the games again through their store (well, they're free, but you get my point, they have to distribute them), and in order to do so they need to obtain the rights of those games. This is especially troublesome for games that make use of licensed music (e.g. the DDR games), and those will probably never be supported on Xbox One for that reason.

Hope this makes any sense.

@DarthNocturnal I would define it as recognising instead of reading. Reading the full disc and playing it off the disc or installing the game is impossible indeed.

LOL That doesn't even make sense. Spider-Man is using exactly the same engine and assets as the PS4 version.

What are you talking about? There is no Xbox One version of Flight Simulator.

@Dezzy I think Golden Eye is given credit for pioneering something that it didn't pioneer, it was more a part of the first wave of a sea change that was happening in general. Within that same 18 month period, Unreal, Half-Life, Quake II, and several other story focused shooters emerged. They didn't copy Golden Eye, they were all in development simultaneously. It seems like it was just the first to come out of the gates out of a general industry shift in that direction. In a way Quake was the one that set the ball rolling. While the narrative wasn't much more developed than Doom was, and existed mostly in the user manual, it was the first shooter to go out of its way to really have more immersive environments. Hexen/Heretic built on that and probably set the stage for more of a story driven shooter. Golden Eye gets a lot of praise in the console world, but Half-Life is the one that really cemented a more narrative, immersive approach in shooters (limited though it was.)

@BlueOcean I know reviews of this monitor were basically "if you're buying for HDR, don't, monitor HDR isn't impressive at this point, etc. etc." VESA 400 gets a lot of flak but usually it comes down to two things. First is local dimming. Few monitors have full array dimming, and heck even few TVs have full array dimming - many have edge lighting and that can be worse than no local dimming at all. OLED of course is the "real final phase of HDR", because every pixel can be dimmed individually, so in that regard, OLED inherently has the best HDR result, and it's sort of a tech designed for OLED first and foremost. But what amazes me is that it still looks darned good even with no local dimming. There's a significant improvement in a lot of areas with HDR enabled. It may not compare to what a C9 does, but it's a very nice upgrade. 10-bit color is, I think they key here more than just "wow, contrast!". The gradations are significantly more distinct, which is a big part of the HDR wow. (The other complaint of the monitor is, IMO related to Windows 10's terrible HDR support, which isn't an issue on consoles, even the Win10 based X1. They talk about bloom and crush which I'm not experiencing at all, and a "graininess" to bright screens which I'm also not experiencing. I suspect that's win10 related. )

The other big complaint about monitor HDR is the lack of contrast at 400nit brightness versus 600, 800, or 1000 nit brightness not being "true" hdr. My retinas are burning out at 400nits. I'd need sunglasses to watch 1000 nits.....I may need to reduce the backlight even if it harms contrast so it's less than 400!

So I know HDR can be better, but up close there's only so far you can go and not injure yourself. This is really beyond that threshold already. Short of OLED monitors (that more or less don't exist yet) and short of high refresh rate 120+ monitors (which currently cost god-money at 4k) I'm pretty pleased! (No HDMI2.1, of course. No monitor actually exists with that yet.)

But my one issue is Freesync. It's not a monitor problem. It works perfectly fine, actually, if I connect X1X directly to it. Nice feature! My problem is with the horrendous state of HDMI from the beginning. People that plug a console or BD directly into a TV don't have much problem. People like me with complex HT signal chains have tremendous problems, and the idea of a "versioned connection" was moronic 15 years ago, and it's still moronic today. They should have had new connectors entirely whenever they changed rather than "1.2, 1.4. 1.8, 2.0, 2.1". HDMI has been a mess from day 1 and it keeps getting worse because they keep introducing these new versions all the time with more "features". From 1950 to 2005 we didn't have new connection versions with new features. Now every 3 bleeding years they reinvent the wheel. If you plug a console into a TV you don't care. If you have an HT signal chain you have to replace $2500 of equipment and in-wall wiring every time they change this garbage! And the pro-AV-HT world is worse. Every switch is a $1200 piece of gear and it's always a generation behind at the start. Seriously, all the Fleabay $50 switches with Chingrish manuals handle 4k60 at least. The $1800 pro installer stuff? 4k30, still.

I have a signal chain that takes the consoles, BD, Roku, etc and switches them - and a splitter to send the audio into the amplifier, because that was an early HDMI 1.2 device before we knew they'd be replacing it all the time, and it's a good amp. Amps are a lifetime, or near lifetime purchase....but not with HDMI! So the audio has to be split out from the HDMI. They go into the actual RP TV from there, one split goes to the amp for audio, and one split goes into a repeater/booster that goes into the in-wall wiring that pops up in the back behind the couch - that feeds a 4x2 matrix that feeds and switches up to 2 monitors for 2 users, and an old-ish but fun front projector (who cares if it's 1080, it's 120". ) - I also have to have audio extractors back there because it feeds the headphone amps/wireless headphone sets from the switched feed to the monitor(s).

So every time they 'upgrade' HDMI, I need to replace the switches, repeaters, extractors, matrixes, and potentially in-wall wiring.......... That's like $1500+ of upgrades just to change the signal version.

Herein lies the problem. My 4k UHD switches.......drop the signal when I send 4k. It's apparently not 4k at all but the auto switching worked wonderfully and it reports EDID as 4k. I replaced one of them - even found one that supports Freesync! That one actually does support it.....it works. BUT it doesn't extract audio. I can not find ONE single splitter, repeater, matrix, or audio extractor that actually does support Freesync. One of them tells the X1X that it does via EDID copy, but if I enable it I lose the signal. Most of them don't even tell the X1X it's supported even with EDID copy. And the switch that DOES support freesync, unfortunately doesn't support autoswitching for X1X. It works for PS4, but for X1X if I put it in sleep mode, apparently the HDMI signal never shuts off, X1X sends a keep-awake. So while the old switch (and displays) detect it's off, this switch is sensitive and detects the signal uninterrupted so it never knows the X1 turned back on. So I have to manually switch (or use a switch that doesn't support Freesync.)

But then I can't find ANY audio extractor that supports freesync, or any splitter that supports freesync to send to another extractor that doesn't.

Now, I thought I had the perfect plan: I'd use the Toslink/optical audio out on X1 and PS4 and then use an extractor on Switch, and then have a SECOND switch to switch optical audio. But new problem: XSeX won't have an optical port! So then I'm back to having to use an HDMI extractor.....that doesn't support Freesync......

So right now, if I don't build an optical solution that works for X1 but not for XSeX, there's no way I can have Freesync AND audio other than the sucky in-monitor headphone out. Any device to get audio I put in front of the display will lose signal if I send Freesync. If I connect straight to the monitor it works with Freesync fine (or with that one switch that supports it), but then I don't have audio (or at least, have degraded audio rather than sending it to the quality audio setup. Perfect visuals or perfect audio - one or the other.)

Maybe (maybe) HDMI 2.1 switches/extractors/repeaters will support it? Problem is: They don't exist yet. And it will be years until a large number of affordable signal equipment exists that does (and probably at least 2 years that a bunch of 100% Chinesium devices claim they do but actually don't.....)

So while Freesync on the display does work properly and gloriously, it doesn't appear that there's actually a way to make it able to be USED if you're using it with any other equipment, including audio equipment. That same issue would plague me even with a fancy C9 or CX, albeit I could at least use the one switcher I found into it and use its own audio out......but that doesn't help split it two ways. If XSeX would support DisplayPort maybe it would be better....

Urgh! I hate HDMI!!

That said, only XBox supports Freesync. PS4 doesn't....I'm not sure that PS5 will (I would think but I don't know, I haven't heard.) And Switch of course doesn't. And for XSeX, I imagine locked 30/60fps will be much more common, so maybe Freesync is really of minimal value, anyway. It's only important if fps changes frequently and is not 30/60.

But it frustrates me that I have a great feature I can't actually use because the equipment in between just doesn't support it.

RE PS4: Yeah the OG PS4s with the contact switches did have a problem randomly ejecting. The Slims and Pros have physical switches and don't have that problem. Touch controls have always had a problem with false positives....it was a silly choice.

And yeah, the display cutting out randomly is the issue I had (with the Pro) - 2 years ago it would also beep with the "disc eject, but no disc inserted" beep sound when it happened. Then I had moved the console around and reoriented it and it was magically better. When I turned on 4kHDR it started doing it again (but without the beep.) SO FAR replacing the cable seems to have fixed it, so the current issue may be a cable issue, not a console issue. The cable I was using, I know I've had 3 others die (one of them was cutting out the signal from my Roku to my TV all winter long....I couldn't figure out the problem. I thought my switches were the issue, I thought connectors with the issue. I thought the 15 year old pieces were the issue. I spent months fidgeting with them, and it seemed like the port on the 15 year old swtich was the culprit. Then it got worse and worse, and eventually I figured out it was the 2 year old cable......same model I had on the PS4. I don't know that the old "beep and cut out" issue was related or not, but that somehow went away when I reoriented the machine. (knock wood....)

Halo 1: There's a LOT of parts in Halo one that you're in a building and it all looks the same and you have to go deeper. Truth and Reconciliation (Convenant ship), Assault on the Control Room (ring control room), The Library (a.k.a. Doom 2), and then doing it all again in reverse, now with 100% more Flood!

Even Halo 3 and ODST aped that style a bit. I'm hoping Infinite scraps that design choice. It's annoying and makes levels feel like unrelenting slogs.

Also, Knack II is awesome. I love Knack II. Octane thinks I'm nuts and everyone hates on Knack, but honestly it's one of the most fun games of the generation IMO. It may not be "great" but it's just plain fun.

@Octane "It's going to be a much better experience on PS4, because only PS4 can provide the actual sound effects of a jet engine."

ROFL!

@Octane "Exclusive to PS5 because it can't run on a PS4, because it uses next gen techniques like ray-tracing, graphical fidelity is also much higher. Why isn't it a next gen game?"

That's funny, Trails of Cold Steel III is a native 4k game that uses an engine made by Sony, and has lots of features like high quality textures, shadowing, etc. How can it run on Switch? Because they turned the geometry down and turned the more cumbersome graphical effects off, that's how. Insomniac isn't a fly by night studio....they know how to do this. It's not rocket science, it's called modern game engines. Just because you add graphics effects to a game doesn't mean they are required to run, otherwise PC gaming would probably not be able to exist.

@Anti-Matter Different CPU architecture. GCN, Wii, WiiU all used IBM PowerPC, so they could load and execute code on the same disc. PS4 and PS5 are both X86 and are backward compatible (but PS3 was a unique CPU which is why it can't.) It's literally, physically impossible for X1/XSeX to execute the PowerPC code on the 360 discs....it was compiled for a different processor architecture.

So they have to actually compile the game for the x86 processor like it's a whole new game, but they let you have it for free if you bought the older PPC version. It's actually a DIFFERENT game, rebuilt for a different platform because they can't actually physically run the same software. But they give it to you free with a single purchase.

It would be like getting the PS4 version of a game when you buy the Switch version, for free. Two different machines that need the games to be built specifically for it. It's not really "backwards compatibility" - you can't actually run PPC software on an X86 CPU. They're just rebuilding the game for x86 and giving it for free to everyone who bought the game originally. True "BC" would be nice, but actually emulating RISC CPUs would take a ton of power, and even PCs would struggle with that.

@Ralizah What model PS4 do you have? The launch ones were obnoxiously loud. I have 3 of them in the house....every one of them is loud. The Pro is also excessively loud, but based on sound, it might take an extra hour or two for a direct flight to Rio. X1X is nearly dead silent.

@Grumblevolcano "Flight sim/MM" - Flight Sim could be as much a next gen game as MM if they duct taped some more ray tracing into it, declared it required to run, and dropped all other versions from release. Funny how "we won't make it available on another machine even though we could if we just disabled some vfx on that version" now means "it's a next gen game!"

@DarthNocturnal It can read the headers on the disc, it can't execute binaries on the disc - different architecture, instruction set, and execution order.

@NEStalgia Original model purchased in 2014 or so. Rarely, if ever, hear the fans.

@Ralizah Maybe yours just has a dead fan and it's overheating. It's not exactly a rare statement that OG PS4 or PS4 Pro is very loud and throws a ton of heat.

@NEStalgia It has had a dead fan and been overheating for six years now without the system shutting down, damaged components, etc.? C'mon now.

Fans have to work over time when a system is clogged with dust. It's nothing new.