Is 8K gaming on the Xbox Series X worth it?
As we should know by now, the Xbox Series X video game console from Microsoft supports 8K gaming. The question is, should gamers who can afford to go out and purchase monitors or televisions with support for 8K?
8K gaming on the Xbox Series X
Now, while it is possible to play games at 4K on the newest console from Microsoft, we are willing to go out on a limb to say it is not yet worth the time and effort to own an 8K output device. At the moment, there aren’t many games on the Xbox Series X that can go up to that resolution.
Furthermore, the ones that can aren’t pushing the console graphically, nor are they delivering gameplay that is out of this world.
Very difficult for PCs to render games in 8K
At the moment, 4K gaming is the new talk of the town. Microsoft has been pushing this since the Xbox One X, but only a handful of titles actually managed to hit that milestone. And that is not a surprise because not even the most expensive commercial gaming GPU can push games at 4K at a steady 60 frames per second.
So, if the more powerful gaming computers are having issues with rendering the most demand games at 4K resolution, then obviously, 8K is a no. With that in mind, what chance does the Xbox Series X have? Relatively minuscule if you ask us.
The sacrifice of framerate when 8K is active
Most gamers will tell you that frame-rate trumps resolution any day of the week, which is one of the main reasons why 8K doesn’t make sense as of right now. A lot of games have serious problems running at a clean 60 frames-per-second when in 4K; therefore, one can only assume these same titles would suffer significantly in 8K.
Not only that, but the push to have games in 4K seem to have reduced impressive graphics in games in favor of the higher resolution. The same goes for 8K, and even more so if developers want to have a steady 60 frames per second.
Best to scale video games to 8K
If developers really want their games to be played in 8K resolution, their best bet is to upscale the titles instead. Yes, there will be slight differences when a game is upscaled, but if you’re just playing and not looking out for minor issues with rendering, then chances are you won’t notice a thing.
Seeing as only a tiny percentage of gamers own 8K TVs, we doubt many developers will support 8K upscaling. However, things could change in the coming years as more people feel the need to invest in higher resolution that surpasses 4K.
In conclusion
At the end of the day, 8K does not make sense for the Xbox Series X or any other video game console or PC, for that matter. The GPU and CPU resources aren’t available yet, although we expect PC gaming to tackle 8K long before consoles.
So, if you really want to play your favorite games in 8K, then consider a Windows 10 gaming PC because as the years go by, things will change in your favor.
