14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has offered some more details about the controversial Xbox One ESRAM, which, if used correctly, can help games easily reach a resolution of 1080p and a framerate of 60fps, although in practice it's been causing the exact opposite effect.
The Xbox One came out alongside the PS4 last November and, unfortunately for Microsoft, Sony managed to fit into its console some more powerful components, such as faster RAM, which have given its device an advantage.
What's more, Microsoft opted to use an innovative but complex 32MB of ESRAM that should, in theory, give the console its own advantage.
In practice, however, quite a few developers have complained about the confusing nature of the ESRAM and some studios, like Respawn Entertainment, have said that the ESRAM is keeping games from reaching the golden 1080p and 60fps standard.
Microsoft, however, begs to differ, and in a recent BUILD panel held by Xbox One Team Partner Development Lead Frank Savage it explained the ESRAM in depth.
"ESRAM is dedicated RAM, it’s 32 megabytes, it sits right next to the GPU, in fact it’s on the other side of the GPU from the buses that talk to the rest of the system, so the GPU is the only thing that can see this memory," Savage said, via DualShockers.
"And what it does is that it gives you very very high bandwidth output, and read capability from the GPU as well. This is useful because in a lot of cases, especially when we have as large content as we have today and five gigabytes that could potentially be touched to render something, anything that we can move to memory that has a bandwidth that’s on the order of 2 to 10 x faster than the regular system memory is going to be a huge win."
Savage exemplified a potential use for the ESRAM with a racing game. The sky, since it doesn't change so often, can be fit in the somewhat slower regular RAM, while the actual car mechanics or physics can be handled by the much faster ESRAM.
When you use this model and take full advantage of the other Xbox One hardware, then Savage is confident that any game can reach a 1080p resolution and a 60fps framerate, especially when it's all about the visuals.
"This is how you get to 1080p, this is how you run at 60 frames per second… period, if you’re bottlenecked by graphics."
It is possible that, over time, game developers will get more comfortable using the ESRAM, but for now the games for the Xbox One continue to lag in terms of performance.