The Microsoft Xbox One video game console has seen a resurgence during the holiday season after the company temporary slashed the price to $349.99. However, the console might experience another type of revival, and that is where gaming performance is concerned.
According to a new report, Microsoft has given increased CPU performance to video game developers via a new SDK. It is not yet known how much a bump in performance this is, but it should be significant enough to help developers meet at least some of their targeted goals.
Microsoft made this possible by releasing the reserved seventh CPU core as the company continues to backtrack on its decisions made in 2013. These decisions include the Kinect taking up precious CPU and GPU performance, all of which would have been better used by video game developers.
The Xbox One is a machine with eight CPU cores, but only six were used for developing video games. Microsoft reserved the other two for Kinect and operating system-related tasks, but now the seventh has been freed up, and we are wondering if the company will consider giving developers access to the eighth core in the future.
This new improvement in performance could be one of the main reasons why some multiplatform games performed better on the Xbox One rather than on the allegedly more powerful PlayStation 4. If this is the case, then Sony could option to allow developers access to the seventh core of its own console. For those who are unaware, both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have the same CPU, and both launched with six usable cores, and with two reserved.
Microsoft overclocked the CPU in the Xbox One, so it should allow for better performance over the PlayStation 4.
From what we've come to understand, developers should have access to up to 50 percent or 80 percent of the power of the seventh CPU core. This wouldn't allow games to run at 1080p, but certain aspects of a game should render faster.
As the software company prepares to launch DirectX 12, an update to its graphics API, we are expecting another big SDK update before the end of the year. However, we should point out that DirectX 12 is not expected to deliver tremendous performances where the Xbox One is concerned, but it should do wonders for PC gaming.
