Microsoft gives Xbox Series S devs more memory to improve graphics performance

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft is giving more control over the console's memory. The new kit frees up more memory for developers so they can play more games, and it also increases the performance of certain games.

Hundreds of additional megabytes of memory are now available to the developers of the Xbox Series S. Graphics performance can be improved in memory-constrained conditions by giving developers more control over memory.

Microsoft's larger and more powerful Xbox Series X console ships with far more power than the $299 Xbox Series S. Developers have to work with a lot of memory on the Series S as Microsoft only has a small amount of memory for OS tasks.

The memory constraints for the Xbox Series S make it difficult for developers to make games that work well. Microsoft's improvements could help reduce the amount of time it takes to develop a game for the Xbox Series S.

There was an issue where graphics virtual addresses were being allocated considerably slower than non-graphics virtual addresses, which means Xbox games can now take better advantage of other recent memory enhancements. There will be improvements to performance in some games running on the Xbox Series S.