The Xbox Series S might be tiny and far less powerful than its bigger brother, but its graphical capabilities are nothing to scoff at. It is still a next-gen console, after all. And with this new update, Microsoft wants its tiny Xbox console to be even more graphically impressive than it already is.
A Microsoft Xbox Series S home video game console, taken on October 27, 2020.
As reported by GameRant, the tech giant is giving Series S developers more memory to work with when developing games for the tiny, all-digital console. By "giving more memory," we mean freeing a bit of the system RAM and expanding its developer-usable amount from just 10GB. Microsoft plans to do this via the June Game Development Kit, which is available now.
Here is an unlisted YouTube video from the Microsoft Game Dev channel:
Allocating more memory for games on the Xbox Series S could help improve overall visual quality by improving performance in certain games. Here's how. Memory in a computer system or gaming console like the Series S serves as a sort of super-fast storage for game data to be loaded in and rendered into the screen.
RAM is way faster than even the fastest SSDs in terms of temporarily storung and pulling critical game data. And every piece of data needed to display what you see on your screen in real time gets stored in that RAM. In the case of the Xbox Series S, more RAM (even just several hundred megabytes more) can translate to better visual quality and game performance as a whole.
Microsoft didn't specify just how much memory they're giving the Xbox Series S as a result of optimizations. But any addition should be welcome for developers, considering how they've always felt that optimizing games for the tiny console is limited by the memory. According to The Verge, the main reason that games on the smaller Series S don't look and perform as well as those on the Series X is almost entirely due to a lack of memory.
For now, though, don't expect that games on your Series S will immediately look and perform better. Like with everything else, it will take time before improvements show up.
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The Xbox Series S Is Still No Slouch
So many people are ignoring the Series S simply because games don't look and run as smoothly on it as on the Series X. But they're not really looking at the bigger picture there, because Microsoft's tiny all-digital console is a mighty gaming system for its price.
Living room with a Microsoft Xbox Series S home video game console alongside a television and soundbar, taken on October 27, 2020.
The Series S was designed to render games as high as native 1440p, with the lower resolution being 1080p. It supports up to 120Hz refresh rate, meaning easy-to-run games like Fortnite can run at silky-smooth frame rates in very sharp resolutions. You can get all of that for a price of $299 or even less if you go secondhand, as the Xbox Series S can be had for basically dirt cheap.
For the performance you can get at a sub-$300 price point, the value of the Series S is almost impossible to beat. Try to build a comparable 1440p/120 FPS gaming PC for that much, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anything.
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