Microsoft is allowing Xbox Series S developers to increase the console’s memory, giving them more space to access games and boost the performance of some titles.
The company’s Game Dev team sent out the June Game Development Kit on Thursday, bringing with it the gift of additional memory for developers to allocate to the Xbox Series S. In the video detailing the new features that come with the kit, seen below, the team explains that the hundreds of megabytes will help developers “improve graphics performance in memory constrained conditions.”
Developers have been suffering from the Xbox Series S’ memory constraints since its 2020 launch. The console comes with only 10GB of RAM, while its more expensive twin, the Xbox Series X, carries just 16GB of RAM. However, the operating system for the Xbox Series S consumes only 2GB of RAM, leaving only 8GB of RAM for developers to contend with.
Digital Foundry pointed out the Xbox Series S’ memory constraints in its May episode of the DF Direct Weekly podcast, confirming the developers’ frustrations with it. They heard from those developers that the limited amount of memory the console gave them was a bigger issue than its CPU and GPU power.
Their complaints about memory constraints boiled down to resolution. The graphics hardware for the Xbox Series S doesn’t pack as much power as the Xbox Series X in the first place, generating a visual output of only 1080p, if not 1440p. The Xbox Series X runs games 4K resolution, with a maximum of 8K resolution.
While Microsoft didn’t give the exact number of megabytes that would free up the memory space in the Xbox Series S, any little bit goes a long way for developers.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.