In February of 2021, Microsoft announced that the Backwards Compatibility Program would be adding frame rate boosts to certain games. For the uninitiated, Frame Rate Boost is a feature on Xbox Series X|S that allows older games to run at double or sometimes quadruple the frame rate of the original release. It has been a wonderful feature that is breathing new life into and even fixing some old titles.
During their 20th Anniversary Event, Xbox announced that 37 games would be receiving frame rate improvements including the original Assassin’s Creed, Dead Space 2, the entire Gears of War saga, Mirror’s Edge, Sonic Generations, and more, bringing the total of frame rate boosted games to 134 games across Xbox One, Xbox 360, and the original Xbox.
With that said, there are no more plans to bring frame rate boosts to anymore titles. Xbox Director of Project Management, Jason Ronald, explained why there are no more plans at the moment on The Iron Lords Podcast explaining that it was a technical challenge in the way they were achieving this feature.
We’re always looking at new ways that we can enhance titles, whether it’s resolution increases, frame rate improvements, things like Auto HDR. I’ll say right now, with the existing technique that we have with FPS Boost, we’ve tried plenty more than [the 130 FPS Boosted titles] and in some cases the vast majority of the game works great, but then we find a game-breaking bug 80% of the way through.”
“We’re going to continue to look for new opportunities and new ways that we can enhance titles, but we don’t have anything in the immediate future… Right now, I think we’re kind of finding where some of the limitations of our current technique is.”
It’s remarkable that Xbox was able to do this to so many games without breaking them and anything more would be a cherry on top of the already amazing feature set that the platform utilizes. You can see all of the games that utilize Frame Rate Boost here.
My Take
The Xbox has done a remarkable job in making my old games feel new again, whether it’s running Gears of War 2 at 60 frames per second, getting that resolution boost in Halo 3 in The Master Chief Collection, or seeing that auto HDR in Resident Evil. Even if this is the end, the Backwards Compatible Program has made many older titles new again for a new generation. I am looking forward to revisiting more favorites or playing new old games for the first time on my Xbox Series X.
Source: The Verge, Major Nelson Xbox Blog
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