Whereas it’s not essentially the most {powerful} console on the market, the smaller and extra inexpensive Xbox Series S has been a giant hit for Xbox. However reportedly, some devs have felt the pressure of getting larger, extra superior video games to work on the console and in response, Microsoft is liberating up some reminiscence to assist enhance the tiny console’s efficiency.

As noticed by The Verge, Microsoft is hoping to make the Xbox Series S a bit extra {powerful} by liberating up some reminiscence and letting builders entry that further reminiscence if wanted. In a video explaining this new developer-focused replace, Microsoft says that it’s unlocking “lots of of extra megabytes of reminiscence” and that it will, in idea, give studios extra management over the best way to use the console’s restricted reminiscence. Microsoft says this “can enhance graphics efficiency in memory-constrained situations.”

To be clear, this isn’t like Microsoft quadrupling the ability of the Series S. Neither is this Microsoft flipping some secret change to let the console begin operating video games at 8K and 240hz or something wild like that. As an alternative, the quantity of reminiscence devoted to non-gaming features within the $300 Series S is being tweaked.

Whereas the extra {powerful} Xbox Series X console has 16GB of RAM the cheaper Xbox Series S has solely 10GB. However earlier than this replace, devs solely had entry to 8GB of that reminiscence as Microsoft reserved round 2GB for the console’s OS. Now devs can have just a few hundred further megabytes of reminiscence, which might assist some video games run a bit higher transferring ahead.

The Xbox Series S has all the time been positioned by Microsoft as a less expensive, less-powerful, however nonetheless succesful next-gen console choice. And it’s confirmed to be a very talked-about piece of {hardware} since releasing alongside the beefier Xbox Series X in 2020. Hell, I already had an Xbox Series X and I ended up shopping for one. It’s develop into the primary method we play video games in our lounge, excellent for Fall Guys and Fortnite. However for extra intense video games it might probably wrestle, requiring reducing down on framerate or decision. This has reportedly led to some points and frustration from devs attempting to get sure video games operating on the lesser machine.

A recent example of a game performing differently on Series S is the Evil Dead game, which launched without a 60fps performance mode on the cheaper machine. Resident Evil Village also limits the game to solely 45fps at 1440p and 30fps if you happen to flip ray tracing on.

Hopefully, just a few further ins and outs of reminiscence can assist devs engaged on Xbox ports not really feel as hamstrung by the weaker Xbox Series S.