One of the most exciting new features of the Xbox Series X is raytracing. This real-time lighting technique can help make scenes more realistic and is a technology that will shape gaming in the coming years. However, it’s incredible hardware intensive, so some gamers will want to turn off raytracing on the Xbox Series X to improve performance.
Can you turn off raytracing on the Xbox Series X?
Players can choose to turn off raytracing on the Xbox Series X, at least sometimes. Unlike PC raytracing, which always has a toggle in a title’s settings, not every game gives players the option to turn raytracing off. It’s up to developers to decide whether or not this is an option.
Many Optimized for Xbox Series X|S games have multiple performance settings. However, with labels like “Quality” and “Performance,” these modes are vague on what they actually do. Sometimes, but not always, modes that tout higher performance will drop resolutions and turn off raytracing to increase framerate. However, we haven’t encountered a game yet that allows players to turn off just raytracing specifically.
Unfortunately, consoles still haven’t caught up to PCs when it comes to the amount of visual settings players can tweak. For some, this is part of their appeal. After all, it’s easy to get in and play when there are only a few general settings to choose from. However, it’s disappointing to many gamers that the number of settings available hasn’t increased alongside the new consoles’ power and feature set.
Perhaps as fewer cross-generation games come out, developers will give players more granular options when it comes to visuals. Even choosing between performance and quality settings on consoles is a relatively new trend in the industry, so it will likely evolve as time goes on. For now, players will have to keep their fingers crossed as turning off Xbox Series X raytracing can only be done on a game-by-game basis currently.
