# Xbox one x really 4k?



## Carsomyr (Sep 2, 2018)

Are games really in 4k on the xbox one x? 
I hear it's certain games. But even then I hear all this talk about dynamic resolution 

Can you give me some wisdom on the matter please?


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## mtcn77 (Sep 2, 2018)

Well, it uses checkerboard rendering. That results in 2K 'shading'. The imaginative ways in which consoles use this 2K-shaded basis into 4K-antialiased basis is what constitutes the eponymous 4K-rendering.
Like, for instance, aliased edges may suck at non-4K, or rendering in supersampled mode increases shader details. These are some of the ways in which the hardware renders better output - since shaders are 'unified' it does not matter to the hardware whether you use it to render more vertexes(geometry), or pixels(shading), or even filtering(HRAA-CLUT). Personally, I'm expecting a bilateral filter option along with a 2xAA mode in the near future. We are well-into Gaussian blurring era, it is only a matter of time until bilateral-recovery antialiasing becomes commonplace.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 2, 2018)

Some games are native 4K others are basically upscaled


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## Deleted member 67555 (Sep 2, 2018)

^
What they both said...Games that aren't all that much are 4K and the ones that are are 2k with multisampling at 2x which technically is a 4k render if you twist the definition enough.


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## qubit (Sep 3, 2018)

Yes, it does output a true 4K signal and graphics rendering, but the answer is a little more complicated than that.

It's possible to have a game render at a full 4K like on a PC. However, because the console is only about as powerful as a "midrange PC", which is a bit of a nebulous metric to say the least, it can't do so without the framerate tanking a lot of the time. Therefore, while the physical signal to the TV/monitor is 4K, the rendering engine will usually do something lower, like 1440p, 900p etc to maintain a decent framerate. Since frames take different amounts of time to draw, the rendering engine resolution will change dynamically with the scene to keep the framerate up.

The PS4 Pro does something similar, but has less horsepower, so usually renders at 2K with checkerboard rendering unless the game is really light on the graphics load. Might as well just do 1080p instead, I guess.

Really, there's no way out of having a high end PC to do 4K properly...

Hope that clarifies it!


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## Vayra86 (Sep 3, 2018)

Realistically the consoles lack the grunt to push true 4K unless you play Tetris.

Resolution =/= render quality. It's just a number of unique pixels on screen. How they are used = render quality. And the consoles, even the new ones, cannot truly render *native* 4K. There is always trickery involved, some obvious, most of it less obvious, but always visible if you know what to look for. And as time passes, you will. I still vividly remember the massive differences in IQ on my PS3 depending on the game. Some stuff was in native render res and some was scaled to death (Fallout 3, hi).


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## Vya Domus (Sep 3, 2018)

Either they run at some sub-4K resolution and are up scaled by usual means or they use checkerboarding where the horizontal resolution is halved and a special upscaling method is used.

Few run at native 4K and even if all would run at 4K it still wouldn't have been very impressive since they are almost all capped at 30fps.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 3, 2018)

NTM2003 said:


> As a Xbox one x owner most games are in 4k most ain't most games I've played on it runs 4k on HDR if your TV supports it. Your Xbox 360 games are not in 4k there 1080p. It also plays 4k movie disk and streams 4k movie's and tv shows. That depends on how fast your internet is. I've been really happy with my xbox one x. Most bad reviews are Sony fan boys I own all 3 platforms I like them all.


What 

No most games are not 4K. And not even a lot support HDR.

And no the Xbox 360 is not 1080p. Half of the 360s library is 720/900p with few at actual 1080p.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 3, 2018)

NTM2003 said:


> I own the thing I know what it does


And that means what exactly ?

I own the OG Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and PS4 Slim

Just because you own it means fidelity squat when developers themselves release the information on what the games run and at what FPS.


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## cucker tarlson (Sep 3, 2018)

watch digital foudry videos on youtube, they have excellent analysis of console games. x1x usually runs 3200x1800 at 30 fps IIRC but it does 1920x1080 60 fps pretty well.


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## qubit (Sep 3, 2018)

cucker tarlson said:


> watch digital foudry videos on youtube, they have excellent analysis of console games. x1x usually runs 3200x1800 at 30 fps IIRC but it does 1920x1080 60 fps pretty well.


I tell you, I'd rather have 1080p at a smooth 60fps than a stuttery higher resolution any day. This includes a steady 30fps which shows judders all over the place and looks awful.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 3, 2018)

qubit said:


> I tell you, I'd rather have 1080p at a smooth 60fps than a stuttery higher resolution any day. This includes a steady 30fps which shows judders all over the place and looks awful.



Yeah, but 4k is the new hotness buzzword, and most casual console gamers only want the new hotness.  The console could be rendering the game at 720p at 15FPS, just upscaling to 4k, and your average console gamer would constantly brag about how great it looks on their 4K TV.


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## qubit (Sep 3, 2018)

newtekie1 said:


> Yeah, but 4k is the new hotness buzzword, and most casual console gamers only want the new hotness.  The console could be rendering the game at 720p at 15FPS, just upscaling to 4k, and your average console gamer would constantly brag about how great it looks on their 4K TV.


Yeah, cuz bigga numbahz iz betta!  That's marketing for you.


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## cucker tarlson (Sep 3, 2018)

I think consoles should target something in between 1080p and 4K at 50 fps.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 3, 2018)

cucker tarlson said:


> watch digital foudry videos on youtube, they have excellent analysis of console games. x1x usually runs 3200x1800 at 30 fps IIRC but it does 1920x1080 60 fps pretty well.


Xbox One X also has the option of 1440p @144Hz and FreeSync over 4K


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## mtcn77 (Sep 3, 2018)

2K 'shading' is actually good, in the sense it compromises texture quality like -2x AF loss. Edge details are 4K. Texture wise, you are held back much earlier by the texture bandwidth(8n reads from memory per texture AF filtering level) than rendered pixels. Nvidia overcame this somewhat through compression, however they didn't make the distinction - people kept bickering about the texture quality.


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## Mr.Origami696 (Sep 18, 2018)

I have also an Xbox One S besides my multi use desktop. I found it very convenient to set the S with 1080p resolution + HDR (where HDR automatically shows up on titles like Mass Effect Andromeda) but leaving the full 4K on video contents (including Blu Ray disks).

I think that those systems (X too, maybe?) are able to fully intend the 4K on video output only. The 3D rendering side, as someone said, it works in a tricky way due to the possible dynamic resolution scaling factor. I noticed also, that few games have dynamic v-sync on/off in order to save frame rates. It is pretty much visible from anyone is accustomed on solid PC hardware 

By the way, I usually play on my LG 43UJ701V Silver, a mid level Smart TV with a lot of interesting features. Check it out here if interested.


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## Mighty-Lu-Bu (Sep 18, 2018)

jmcslob said:


> ^
> What they both said...Games that aren't all that much are 4K and the ones that are are 2k with multisampling at 2x which technically is a 4k render if you twist the definition enough.



I would say a vast majority of games are 1440p and then upscaled to 4k, but there are some native 4k games out there.


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## king of swag187 (Sep 18, 2018)

The vast majority of games are still 720P-1080P but at a faster framerate and the built in scaler locked to its limit for most of the time. Games specifically optimized for it are run at 1300p-1500P on average, most are still 1080P but with better visuals/higher FPS, which I prefer. Even the base Xbox One can theoritcatlly support higher FPS than 60, but Microsoft locks it at 60 for some odd reason. Its not like games could push over it anyways, with the garbage Jaguar CPU. If only the went with a 8 core Intel of the time....


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## ShurikN (Sep 18, 2018)

Vayra86 said:


> Realistically the consoles lack the grunt to push true 4K unless you play Tetris.
> 
> Resolution =/= render quality. It's just a number of unique pixels on screen. How they are used = render quality. And the consoles, even the new ones, cannot truly render *native* 4K. There is always trickery involved, some obvious, most of it less obvious, but always visible if you know what to look for. And as time passes, you will. I still vividly remember the massive differences in IQ on my PS3 depending on the game. Some stuff was in native render res and some was scaled to death (Fallout 3, hi).


Not quite true.
Xbox One X plays almost all enhanced older games at native 4K, and as for modern titles, here's a list I dug up form Digital Foundry articles. All the titles are native (locked) 4K:
Shadow of the TR
Forza Horizon 4 (and I believe most XBOne Forza games)
No Mans Sky
Far Cry 5
Crash Bandicoot
Metro Exodus
Destiny 2
Hitman


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## king of swag187 (Sep 18, 2018)

Of course it can run "enhanced" 360 games at 4K, the base consoles could as well if Microsoft allowed them too.
As for the aforementioned games, they run at a stuttery 4k30fps low-medium at best. It's just not a truly playable experience, and you're better off at 1080 60FPS


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## Vayra86 (Sep 19, 2018)

ShurikN said:


> Not quite true.
> Xbox One X plays almost all enhanced older games at native 4K, and as for modern titles, here's a list I dug up form Digital Foundry articles. All the titles are native (locked) 4K:
> Shadow of the TR
> Forza Horizon 4 (and I believe most XBOne Forza games)
> ...



Resolution may be the same amount of pixels, but the render quality can be far lower, and the ingame graphics settings are definitely not 'high'.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 19, 2018)

king of swag187 said:


> Of course it can run "enhanced" 360 games at 4K, the base consoles could as well if Microsoft allowed them too.
> As for the aforementioned games, they run at a stuttery 4k30fps low-medium at best. It's just not a truly playable experience, and you're better off at 1080 60FPS


I don’t get where you get stuttery from. Yes some games are 30 FPS and higher would be better but even at 30 FPS it is very smooth with no hiccups. I have no issues playing on the Xbox One X and my 4K TV. And your average console gamer wouldn’t even know the difference. 



Vayra86 said:


> Resolution may be the same amount of pixels, but the render quality can be far lower, and the ingame graphics settings are definitely not 'high'.


Possibly but it still produces a great quality image


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## Vayra86 (Sep 19, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> I don’t get where you get stuttery from. Yes some games are 30 FPS and higher would be better but even at 30 FPS it is very smooth with no hiccups. I have no issues playing on the Xbox One X and my 4K TV. And your average console gamer wouldn’t even know the difference.
> 
> 
> Possibly but it still produces a great quality image



30 FPS being 'smooth' and 4K being a high quality image. Let's just agree to disagree. You don't miss what you don't (or rather: can't) have, I guess.

Try playing this game and play around with render quality settings and you can see how easy it is 'to put 4K' on a box and not say a damn thing about actual quality









Render scaling has been introduced precisely to make 4K playable on low end hardware. When you put it on medium/low, it really is comparable to 2005 graphics, ie internal 720p rendering and texture quality.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 19, 2018)

Vayra86 said:


> 30 FPS being 'smooth' and 4K being a high quality image. Let's just agree to disagree. You don't miss what you don't (or rather: can't) have, I guess.


Yes a stable locked 30 FPS with no dips can indeed be smooth 

And yes 4K does produce a higher quality image even with lower details 

And what do you mean don’t or can’t have 

I have gamed on 4K on PC with my previous rig and 1440@120Hz. So yes I can tell the difference 

Consoles are much better optimized than PC. So with 30 FPS on a console there’s no overhead unlike PC which in turn can introduce stutter which isn’t all ways caused by the 30 FPS. You have many variables that can cause stuttering frame times, Over VRAM limit, inconsistent clocks, background activity etc

Consoles don’t run into those issues.


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## Papahyooie (Sep 19, 2018)

4k does not automatically mean a higher image quality. Not even close. If the internal resolution is 720p, you've got a 720p image, no matter what the output resolution is.


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## Vayra86 (Sep 19, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> Yes a stable locked 30 FPS with no dips can indeed be smooth
> 
> And yes 4K does produce a higher quality image even with lower details
> 
> ...



I agree that it takes more hardware and sometimes tweaking to get a stutter free experience on PC - but all that really takes is some *effort*. Consoles cut that out and offer only what they give out of the box. Its an old discussion, but the fact remains that console hardware is significantly weaker and the results echo that - consistent low framerate feels sluggish all the way through; and the console games offer many examples of frame dips and stuttery behaviour. That started with PS3 and it hasn't ended. Drops to 25 or 20 fps are not uncommon. In addition, consoles suffer from input lag through Vsync and low framerate - easily *10-15x* more than you have on PC.

As for optimization, that really isn't so true except for CPU performance and the reality is that consoles _need_ that optimization or they suck even harder. The GPU doesn't magically push more pixels.

With can't have, I mean that consoles just don't have the options to go faster.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 19, 2018)

Papahyooie said:


> 4k does not automatically mean a higher image quality. Not even close. If the internal resolution is 720p, you've got a 720p image, no matter what the output resolution is.


Well for the Xbox One X non of the games are 720p vs the OG Xbox One which is 720/900

Most are either native 1080p, 1440p, SuperSampled 4K, or Native 4K


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## Vayra86 (Sep 19, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> Well for the Xbox One X non of the games are 720p vs the OG Xbox One which is 720/900
> 
> Most are either native 1080p, 1440p, SuperSampled 4K, or Native 4K



Is the plank really that thick with you? Did you watch the video? It focuses on render quality as opposed to resolution. Resolution tells you exactly nothing.


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## Armagg3don (Sep 19, 2018)

It is undeniable that the xbox one x has a very austere hardware and low level, so it can not run a real 4K native of quality.

And that running at 20-30fps seems to me a little more than embarrassing experience.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 19, 2018)

Vayra86 said:


> I agree that it takes more hardware and sometimes tweaking to get a stutter free experience on PC - but all that really takes is some *effort*. Consoles cut that out and offer only what they give out of the box. Its an old discussion, but the fact remains that console hardware is significantly weaker and the results echo that - consistent low framerate feels sluggish all the way through; and the console games offer many examples of frame dips and stuttery behaviour. That started with PS3 and it hasn't ended. Drops to 25 or 20 fps are not uncommon. In addition, consoles suffer from input lag through Vsync and low framerate - easily *10-15x* more than you have on PC.
> 
> As for optimization, that really isn't so true except for CPU performance and the reality is that consoles _need_ that optimization or they suck even harder. The GPU doesn't magically push more pixels.
> 
> With can't have, I mean that consoles just don't have the options to go faster.


But we aren’t talking about a PS3

We’re talking about the Xbox One X which has a GPU close to a RX 480 which can indeed run the resolutions which are mentioned and it does help with the to the metal software


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## Armagg3don (Sep 19, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> But we aren’t talking about a PS3
> 
> We’re talking about the Xbox One X which has a GPU close to a RX 480 which can indeed run the resolutions which are mentioned and it does help with the to the metal software


As a matter of frequency, the xbox one x's iGPU is closer to a 470 than a 480.
In addition, the console carries a literally toy CPU.

What do you think that gives for a quality native 4K?
Please, let's be serious.


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 19, 2018)

Armagg3don said:


> As a matter of frequency, the xbox one x's iGPU is closer to a 470 than a 480.
> In addition, the console carries a literally toy CPU.
> 
> What do you think that gives for a quality native 4K?
> Please, let's be serious.


But we’re talking about consoles here where the CPU isn’t the biggest factor in its performance unlike PCs


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## Papahyooie (Sep 19, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> Well for the Xbox One X non of the games are 720p vs the OG Xbox One which is 720/900
> 
> Most are either native 1080p, 1440p, SuperSampled 4K, or Native 4K



Internal resolution =/= output resolution. Your "native" resolutions you listed are NOT what the game is rendering at, basically ever. You're doing exactly what people in this thread are making fun of you for... You're assuming that just because it outputs at that resolution, that the game is actually rendering at that resolution, when in reality it's probably 900p or maybe 1080 if you're lucky.


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## king of swag187 (Sep 19, 2018)

What magical factor allows the Xbox one's CPU to not bottleneck, aside from some optimization? All the games are based of a X86-X64 architecture running DX11, and the CPU bottleneck is still very present


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 19, 2018)

Papahyooie said:


> Internal resolution =/= output resolution. Your "native" resolutions you listed are NOT what the game is rendering at, basically ever. You're doing exactly what people in this thread are making fun of you for... You're assuming that just because it outputs at that resolution, that the game is actually rendering at that resolution, when in reality it's probably 900p or maybe 1080 if you're lucky.


Link 


king of swag187 said:


> What magical factor allows the Xbox one's CPU to not bottleneck, aside from some optimization? All the games are based of a X86-X64 architecture running DX11, and the CPU bottleneck is still very present


Exactly optimization. With proper optimization you can allievate the potential bottleneck of the CPU and use more resources from the GPU


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## Papahyooie (Sep 19, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> Link



Link what? The definition of dynamic resolution?


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## Armagg3don (Sep 19, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> Link
> 
> Exactly optimization. With proper optimization you can allievate the potential bottleneck of the CPU and use more resources from the GPU


But the architecture is the same (x86-x64) so there is no magic here, just "optimizations" that are nothing more than visual degradations to make people believe that xbox one x runs to "4k".

In any case, even if the cpu was not a bottleneck, don't forget the igpu, which is also not something to brag about.


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## R-T-B (Sep 19, 2018)

Papahyooie said:


> Link what? The definition of dynamic resolution?



I think he means establish your claim that it's used like you claim.



Armagg3don said:


> which is also not something to brag about.



Maybe, but in the XBox One X it at least isn't really that poor, either.


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## ShurikN (Sep 19, 2018)

You people are talking as if the image quality in 4K on the "X" is in PlayStation 2 territory.
When in reality it's usually between PC's high and medium settings.


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## R-T-B (Sep 19, 2018)

ShurikN said:


> When in reality it's usually between PC's high and medium settings.



A pc almost never downscales the actual resolution like that.  4k on PC is always 4K.  Image quality is a different matter.


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## ShurikN (Sep 19, 2018)

R-T-B said:


> 4k on PC is always 4K.


And if the game has native 4K on Xbox, it's always 4K


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## R-T-B (Sep 19, 2018)

ShurikN said:


> And if the game has native 4K on Xbox, it's always 4K



That's a rather big if, being the point I think.  But true.


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## ShurikN (Sep 19, 2018)

R-T-B said:


> That's a rather big if, being the point I think.  But true.


What do you mean a big if. I just posted on the first page list of newer games with native 4K.
If demanding titles such as some of those can run native 4K, with image quality seen in third party titles like Tomb Raider, then the point is made.
And the whole point I was trying to make is that, most of the people here stated Xbox one X can't run native 4k. It can. Easily.
Then suddenly it's not about 4K, it's image quality. That TR demo looks mighty damn good with image quality apparently a bit below PC's highest setting.
And I'm guessing first party titles can maintain a solid 60fps while doing everything mentioned above. Like Forza 7, which matches PC highest settings, native 4K, and 60fps.


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## R-T-B (Sep 19, 2018)

ShurikN said:


> What do you mean a big if.


I simply meant it's a very small percentage of the full game library.


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## mtcn77 (Sep 19, 2018)

R-T-B said:


> A pc almost never downscales the actual resolution like that.  4k on PC is always 4K.  Image quality is a different matter.


Nyquist limit is the same on pc and console, both. You cannot output a 4K image on any device, the signal cutoff frequency half the size of actual resolution undermines that. Either pixel-fuzz, or high-frequency artifacting will be rendered which by the way, HFA is worse since it is directly scaled to the image a.k.a. staircase effect.
This is the case until the time when box filtering is replaced with a non-frequency-loss filterer.


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## Vayra86 (Sep 20, 2018)

Durvelle27 said:


> Link
> 
> Exactly optimization. With proper optimization you can allievate the potential bottleneck of the CPU and use more resources from the GPU



Fine. Links - bad performance:

https://www.google.nl/amp/s/www.pol...12/17227946/god-of-war-ps4-pro-60fps-4k-1080p

Resolution

https://www.techradar.com/news/doom...ative-4k-resolution-ps4-pro-doesnt-come-close

And what render scale means was already explained several times. 

Again, thick plank is thick... please dont say optimization again, its a weak argument and barely supported by data - back when consoles ran PowerPC and exotic hardware you could say this. Today they run the same API as a PC...


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## Durvelle27 (Sep 20, 2018)

Vayra86 said:


> Fine. Links - bad performance:
> 
> https://www.google.nl/amp/s/www.pol...12/17227946/god-of-war-ps4-pro-60fps-4k-1080p
> 
> ...


So to prove a point you posted a performance link for the PS4 Pro when the whole discussion is about the Xbox One X which is also Loren powerful than the PS4 Pro

And the 2nd link still didn’t prove your point of the Xbox One X running at 720/900p


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