Halo Infinite Beta Really Struggles On Older Consoles, According To Performance Report

Halo Infinite had its first technical beta over this past weekend, giving players a chance to try 343's anticipated shooter for the first time. The multiplayer matches were staged across three maps with a variety of different types of bots, giving a brief but not overly extensive view of the game with a build that its developer says is already months old at this point. Digital Foundry has used this limited test to gather some initial findings on the performance of Halo Infinite across all its platforms, with some surprising results.

First and foremost, the game runs exceedingly well on current generation hardware. The Xbox Series X and Series S both manage to maintain frame rate targets of 60fps, while both run well in 120fps modes, too. The Series X exhibits some oddities at times with judder present at high frame rates, even with Variable Refresh Rate enabled. These don't exist on the Series S, however, which means it might not be due to the console's CPU, but rather something on the GPU front.

Things aren't as peachy on the older generation consoles. The Xbox One X does an admirable job maintaining a 30fps target while aiming at higher resolution gameplay, but the Xbox One S struggles to match that frame rate target even with aggressive dynamic resolution scaling. It's a method of playing that will likely make you consider an upgrade, with Digital Foundry expressing some curiosity as to how this will play out in the more visually-demanding single-player mode.

In terms of resolution, Halo Infinite scales according to the frame rate target, which means you can expect a target of 4K when playing at 60fps and around 1440p when at 120fps on the Xbox Series X. Digital Foundry notes that this isn't locked at the best of times, with the Series X hovering around 1800p at 60fps and between 1080p and 1440p at 120fps. The Series S aims for 1080p in both its frame rate modes, and only really needs to dip drastically when targeting 120fps. With this target, it generally hovers around 720p, but can dip as low as 540p at times, which is quite noticeable.

The Xbox One X also aims for 4K, which is afforded by the limit of 30fps. The Xbox One S sits in the same boat with regards to frame rate, but still manages to dip as low as 540p in terms for resolution to maintain it. And considering it struggles to keep that locked, it's not a positive showing for the weakest console that Halo Infinite is set to launch on.

Of course, these results are exclusive to the content available in the technical test, which 343 Industries has stressed is not final. It means improves could (and likely will) come before launch, but also that the findings might not identically translate to the single-player component which features more AI and additionally demanding visual features, such as a dynamic time-of-day system. 343 is also planning to host at least one more technical test before launch.

Halo Infinite launches this holiday on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. Like all other Microsoft Studios titles, it will be on Game Pass at launch. Halo Infinite's Multiplayer will also be free-to-play at launch.