Xbox One X Significantly Improves Halo 5: Guardians Visual Quality, Full 4K 60FPS Capable

Halo 5: Guardians was a marquee Xbox One game when it released back in 2015, but it has come back into the conversation as one of the platform's highlights with its Xbox One X enhancements. As they always do, Eurogamer's Digital Foundry did a full-fledged analysis on how the games runs, from its resolution and visual effects to how the framerate holds up.

The game uses dynamic resolution scaling to make sure it maintains a consistent, silky-smooth 60 frames per second. Unfortunately, this meant sub-1080p resolution (sometimes as low as 810p) on the original Xbox One during most scenarios. The result was an often blurry image that obscured the finer details in the game. However, the Xbox One X enhancement negates most of that compromise.

While Halo 5 does hit full 4K (2160p), dynamic resolution means the game won't run a constant resolution since the target framerate remains 60 FPS. However, author John Linneman says, "Halo 5 does a much better job in sticking closer to its optimal pixel count, with smaller skirmishes and less crowded areas all delivering native 4K." The game adjusts the pixel counts of the X and Y axes individually, and Digital Foundry was able to record resolutions like 2816x1584 and 3360x1890.

An oddity between the patched and unpatched versions of Halo 5 on the Xbox One X was also pointed out. The console has the ability to implement anisotropic filtering on its own, and when the game is unpatched, the One X does this. You can read our full breakdown of anisotropic filtering, but it essentially makes angled surfaces and textures in the distance much clearer. Dynamic resolution allows the game to run a constant 1080p when unpatched since the console has enough power. But with the 4K enhancement patch, anisotropic filtering is dropped, likely due to GPU resources focused on rending the highest resolution possible.

There are a handful of other things to note about Halo 5. Shadows are essentially untouched and have an odd-looking pop-in effect. A few FPS hitches occur due to loading assets during transitions in some sections, and it's a bit more prominent when running the game off an external drive. Those with 1080p displays will get supersampling, which downscales a high-resolution image for a finer image that helps eliminate jagged edges.

If you want the full breakdown of how Halo 5: Guardians runs on the Xbox One X, you can read through Digital Foundry's full analysis or watch their video below. And if you haven't played the game yet but thinking about jumping in, check out our Halo 5 review in which GameSpot's own Mike Mahardy awarded it an 8/10 when it originally released in 2015.