The newest Xbox Series S GDK update will finally give developers one thing they’ve requested for a while: more RAM. Microsoft’s Game Dev channel on Youtube has uploaded a June 2022 video (which is unlisted at the time of this writing) explaining improvements that the console maker has made to Xbox Series devkits. And this includes the ability for developers to access more memory, which is great news for games that are coming down the pipeline.
How the Xbox Series S GDK update will bring improvements to gamers
The full video, though presented in simpler language, can still be a bit obtuse for those unfamiliar with the tech side of game development. But in general the improvements made to memory allocation will help developers bring out the best performance out of the Xbox Series S.
As explained in the presentation, “hundreds of additional megabytes of memory” will allow Xbox Series S developers “more control over memory, which can improve graphic performance in memory-constrained conditions.” The update also fixes a problem where “graphics virtual addresses were being allocated considerably slower than non-graphics virtual addresses.”
In early May this year, Digital Foundry had “heard from multiple developers that Xbox Series S is a pain.” This was surprisingly not due to the console’s CPU or GPU power, but because of its memory constraints. So these new GDK improvements should let developers breathe a sigh of relief for creating games releasing on both Xbox Series S and X platforms.
The June 2022 update also comes with various improvements for PC game development such as auto-synchronized cloud saves and the ability for developers to debug packages and test games in a retail environment. This will help games be consistent across PC and Xbox platforms. In addition, the new API will give developers tools to manage how storage affects a player within a game.
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