Native 4K Abandoned For Killing Floor 2 On Xbox One X Due to Frame Rate Issues

It’s probably something we’re going to hear a lot of in the months and years ahead, despite Microsoft’s marketing of the Xbox One X — a third party developer has abandoned trying to reach true 4K resolution on the console due to the inability to also have a consistent framerate.

There was considerable framerate drop at 4K resolution on Xbox One X

Tripwire Interactive recently announced that Killing Floor 2 would be heading to the Xbox One and would be receiving enhancements for the Xbox One X. Unfortunately, those enhancements do not include native 4K resolution and Dave Elder of Tripwire had this to say in recent comments on the matter.

“Killing Floor 2 runs at native 1800p, fixed resolution (no checkerboarding) on Xbox One X. We did experiment with true 4K rendering, but the frame rate drop was a bit too significant. 1800p provides the optimal balance between visual quality and performance in Killing Floor 2.”

Regardless, it does sound like the Xbox One X version of the game will be the best version available on consoles. Using the additional power of the Xbox One X allowed Tripwire to hit a fixed resolution on the machine, compared to checkerboarding techniques used on the PlayStation 4 Pro version of the game.  Elder also said that the game runs at a higher frame rate on the Xbox One X than on the base Xbox One.  He also revealed that the new Xbox One X will be using Ultra textures and feature increased resolution for things like shadow maps and shadow draw distance.

Microsoft has been walking a fine line in describing the Xbox One X and its capabilities since E3. With marketing words like “True 4K and Ultra 4K” being used interchangeably with Native 4K, Microsoft’s message is confusing to the average consumer. It’s expected that Microsoft’s first party games and studios will hit Native 4K resolutions with solid framerates on the Xbox One X. As for the demanding third party AAA titles, it wouldn’t be incredibly surprising if we hear more and more quotes like this one from Tripwire.

Killing Floor 2 is slated to arrive on the Xbox One on August 29th.  The Xbox One X is due out on November 7th, though Microsoft has yet to begin taking pre-orders for the “world’s most powerful console.”