First, earlier in the month Microsoft revealed a whole mountain of information on everything most of us wanted to know about the Xbox Project Scorpio’s functional hardware and software specs. What those unveiled specs for the Scorpio showed was a device that easily offers the most powerful console gaming specs anyone has yet seen in a consumer device of this type. Furthermore, with Microsoft’s reveal of the Project Scorpio’s specs last month we also learned that the new console for late 2017 will be fully and dynamically backwards compatible with Xbox One, Xbox One S and even Xbox 360 games. This will be the case in a way that will not only let older HD games play smoothly on the device but also noticeably improve their performance on 1080p and 4K TVs through several new Scorpio technologies.
Now thanks to reporting from Windows Central we get at least a partial frozen glimpse of the sorts of graphics we can expect for native 4K gaming in the Project Scorpio. According to what we know, Microsoft recently held a private presentation in which Scorpio programmers showcased the full capacities of the console to some of the company’s gaming partners. These stills capture both native 4K gaming and the visual improvements that will be possible for Xbox One games on 1080p TV displays.
Here are some of the still shots and we have to admit that they look great, though it would be so much cooler to actually see some full native 4K gaming video action of the Scorpio at work for once.
Left: Xbox One at 1080p, Middle: Scorpio at 4K on a HD display, Right: Scorpio at 4K native.
Left half: Xbox One at 1080p. Right half: Project Scorpio at 4K on a 1080p display.
The differences between some of the following images will be a bit difficult to discern if you’re viewing them from a conventional HD display but we assume that they will be distinctly noticeable when the Scorpio goes into action on the consumer market among gamers running the console through their native HDR 4K TVs or running older games on the device to their 1080p TVs.
It’s worth noting again that viewing these images on a normal 1080p display as the still shots they are won’t really demonstrate the powerful effect on graphics that the Project Scorpio is capable of. Furthermore, the following still shots only work to show resolution differences between graphics running on 1080p displays and 4K displays with the Scorpio and the Xbox One. The full gaming experience on a capable display would look considerably more impressive, especially when we consider the massive 6 teraflop GPU of Microsoft’s newest console.
If the still shots above aren’t enough, This image below of a ladybug should demonstrate some of the Xbox One/Scorpio differences a bit more. The insect has been partly rendered in 4K with Xbox One processing power (left side of the image) and partly rendered with major improvements in textures and 3D geometry like those the Scorpio is capable of.
We’re expecting the Microsoft Project Scorpio to launch during the holidays near the end of 2017 and when it does users will get to enjoy some truly massive enhancements to resolution, textures, geometry, color and 3D rendering. These effects will be at their absolute best for 4K TV owners but even buyers of the Scorpio who use it on 1080p TVs are being promised some serious improvements with the Scorpio’s tremendous specs.
Then of course there will also be added benefits like the console’s full HDR power, 4K gaming DVR capacity, 4K UHD Blu-ray playback and expected audio support specs among other goodies.
Story by 4k.com