Perhaps the biggest new piece of information from the podcast was an ability for the Xbox Series X to resume games where they left off when it is rebooted. Yes, this is similar to the feature on the Xbox One that allows users to resume games. However, the Series X will support the tool across multiple games when the console is rebooted. This means gamers will be able to switch between games and pick up where they left off. “I had to reboot because I had a system update, and then I went back to the game and went right back to it,” reveals Hryb in the podcast. “So it survives a reboot.”
Specs
As mentioned, Microsoft offered a look at what specs and features are coming to Xbox Series X earlier this week. The console will have a CPU and GPU pairing based on AMD’s Zen2 and RDNA 2 architecture. This shows how far console tech has come since the Xbox One arrived in 2013, Microsoft says the new console will boast 12TFLOPS. That’s around eight times more GPU power than the OG Xbox One delivered. Microsoft has also confirmed there’s a solid state drive (SSD) in the Xbox Series X, marking its first console departure from HDDs. Furthermore, the Series X will also have support for HDMI 2.1 and as we already knew, will allow 120fps gaming for the first time on console. Other notable specifications of the console include Auto Low Latency Mode and Variable Refresh Rate. Microsoft also pointed to a feature called audio ray tracing but did not provide more information. During the podcast, Jason Ronald expanded what ray tracing will bring to the Xbox Series X. “With the introduction of hardware accelerated ray tracing with the Xbox series X, we’re actually able to enable a whole new set of scenarios, whether that’s more realistic lighting, better reflections, we can even use it for things like spatial audio and have ray traced audio,” explains Ronald.
