NOVEMBER 2020 PCWorld 103out into higher and lower resolutions, all the
way to 3200x1800 pixels. I didn’t really
notice any issues with this on the built-in
display, but the lack of manual resolution
adjustment confined the game to a small
corner of an attached 4K display. I can’t say
whether Chrome OS was responsible for that,
though the Chrome OS itself ran as you might
expect, filling the entire 4K display. Finally,
Chrome OS tried to force the audio output
through my monitor’s disabled speakers,
rather than the Chromebook’s.
CONCLUSION: AN
UNEXPECTED BONUS FOR
CHROMEBOOKS
Any PC elitist used to 90 fps on a 1440p
display will turn up their nose at cloud
gaming, and rightly so. But for someone used
to tweaking and fiddling with resolution and
visual settings on an “ordinary” PC, cloud
gaming isn’t bad at all. And that’s basically the
point: there isn’t a way for someone with just
a vanilla, day-to-day PC to enjoy the best of
what Microsoft’s Game Pass Ultimate has to
offer, because there’s no comparable
Windows 10 app yet. Until there is, you have a
choice: Squint at your phone or use a
Chromebook.
We know you didn’t buy a Chromebook
as a gaming PC. But surprise! Most
Chromebooks run Android, some run Linux,
and now most will be able to play Xbox
games. That’s a really nice bonus for a device
most people simply picked up to help their
kids get their schoolwork done.With some fiddling (or possibly a
different Chromebook) I think that I
could get the Xbox Game Pass app to
render correctly on my external display.
But the app shoved my game into the
upper left-hand corner by default.