DECEMBER 2020 PCWorld 123Forza Horizon 4,
whose low-light
visuals look
amazing), but it’s still
an unexpected
benefit.
Microsoft did
make visual
improvements
specifically for the
Series X hardware,
which are supposed
to be accompanied
by an “Optimized for
Series S|X” badge in
my games list. (I
never saw those
badges on my
console, though my console downloaded
additional patches and I saw visual differences
in games like Forza Horizon 4.) Let’s not
ignore DirectX Raytracing support, either—it’s
commonplace among Nvidia’s RTX GPUs, but
now consoles have this capability, too.
Sure, PCs will deliver higher framerates
and possibly even better-looking visuals...but
for a lot more money. There’s a reason why
1080p and 1440p PC gaming is still a thing—
because anything more is expensive.
QUICK RESUME IS
REALLY COOL
You know how games play on a PC: You click
to run them, there’s a launch sequence with
The load times can be so quick—just a matter of seconds—that Quick Resume
will put you in a game before you know it.the developer, and perhaps an introductory
cutscene; you begin playing; and when the
game is over, you save and exit out of the
application. Selecting a new game means
repeating the process.
Quick Resume is perhaps the biggest
advantage the Xbox has over a PC, and it’s as
transformative as adding an SSD is to a laptop
or desktop. (It’s perhaps telling that the Xbox
Series X and S are the first Microsoft consoles
to include an SSD, putting Series X load times
on a par with those of a PC.)
Instead of shutting down a game and
loading a new one, the Xbox OS saves the
state of the game, so you can skip all of the
introductory sequences and simply jump in.