Red Dead Redemption is now playable in native 4K at a locked 30 frames per second thanks to a newly announced Xbox One X enhanced update. Red Dead now runs with 9x its original pixel, lending unprecedented levels of environmental detail to Rockstar’s epic Western.
You can the difference it makes for yourself in the video below. I’m only watching this on a poxy 1080p monitor and it looks leaps and bounds better, so I can only imagine how crisp Red Dead Redemption is looking on a 4K TV with a One X. One day I’ll be able to get a 4K display and actually see what the fuss is all about.
Red Dead wasn’t the only beneficiary though, as a handful of other 360 games were also given the 4K treatment free of charge.
Xbox One X Enhanced Xbox 360 Games
- Red Dead Redemption
- Portal
- Darksiders
- Gears of War 2
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
- Sonic Generations
A few of these games will be playable on PC at high resolutions already of course, but for now few, such as Red Dead Redemption and Gears of War 2, this is the best these games have ever looked. Gears of War 2 looks every bit as good as the Gears of War Ultimate Edition remastered, but this time it’s just a free upgrade, as it arguably should be. It’s still overwhelmingly brown, but resolution bumps can’t save everything.
Original Xbox Backwards Compatibility
In terms of backwards compatibility for the original Xbox, Microsoft’s been quiet for a year, but last night back compat finally got some loving. A grand total of 19 Xbox games are going to be coming to the Xbox One this month, all of them featuring 4K support for the first time ever. On the original Xbox One and the S, they’ll be playable at 1080p, while the Xbox One X will support native 4K plus downsampling for 1080p TV owners.
Boy, do some of these games take me back. I’d hazard a guess the biggest one is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which will now be playable with a controller and natively at 4K. There are plenty of other greats in here too though, including the criminally underrated Full Spectrum Warriors, the excellent SSX 3, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and a drool-worthy list of Star Wars titles that includes the likes of Republic Commando and Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.
The only one I don’t actually recognise is Breakdown, but it looks as if this may have been some sort of cult hit that passed me by at the time. It’s a first-person action game with an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat that rips off The Matrix in the most overt way possible. Looking at the footage, this looks like exactly the sort of C-tier game I need in my life.
Original Xbox games releasing on April 17:
- Blinx: The Time Sweeper
- Breakdown
- Conker: Live & Reloaded
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- Hunter: The Reckoning
- Jade Empire
- Panzer Dragoon Orta
- SSX 3
Original Xbox games releasing on April 26:
- Destroy All Humans!
- Full Spectrum Warrior
- Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
- MX Unleashed
- Panzer Elite Action: Fields of Glory
- Star Wars Battlefront
- Star Wars Battlefront II
- Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
- Star Wars Jedi Starfighter
- Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
- Star Wars Republic Commando
Not a bad list of games, all said and done, and Microsoft's doing a great job at breathing new life into older games in a way which competitors like Sony really aren't. Being in second place naturally means updates like this are free, but it does the Xbox One to build up a fearsome catalogue of classics.
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PC Specs
Isn't this them just trying to compensate for a lack of exclusives.
I like the idea of them doing this but I do feel that they need to do more work on bringing their own, modern, titles.
PC Specs
Just gotta wait for RPCS3 guys to do a little more work and we'll have this on PC too :D
PC Specs
and way better too
PC Specs
xbox 360 uses heavy fxaa or what i never remember it that bad on ps3
PC Specs
AA on X360 is so BAD
PC Specs
Yet Rdr looked better on xbox than ps3. Even the AA looked better there.
PC Specs
Well it's more to do with resolution than AA.
Also the article says "Red Dead now runs with 9x its original pixel." This means it ran at 720p on the Xbox 360.
720p = 921,600 pixels. 4K = 8,294,400 Pixels. This is of course assuming a ratio of 16:9. You get the amount of pixels by multiplying the width by the height.
8,294,400 / 921,600 = 9
Another way this can be done is so,ply making a image that is 4K in size and enabling the grid in GIMP and setting the cell-size to 1280x720. You will see 3 rows with only 3 cells in each. 3 x 3 = 9.
PC Specs
They can enhance for xbox but can't make a port for PC great!
PC Specs
to be fair, microsoft basically does all the work for these backcompat games.
PC Specs
Rockstar can't port the game to PC because they never intended it to be a PC game. They wrote the code solely for consoles. I think one of the devs said that the code was so jumbled, that trying to port it to PC would be harder than making the game entirely from scratch again.
Guess we'll just have to live with playing the game once the RPCS3 team have made it stable enough.
PC Specs
This made me curious as to what N64 and PS1 games would look like at 4K.
PC Specs
They'd probably look okay but N64 games would still have those horrible ass low-res textures
PC Specs
The textures can be modded you know.
PC Specs
Give it a go then!
PC Specs
You didn't know that? Of course I don't know how the modding works, but I do know that for dolphin you don't modify the ROM directly. I read about it but never personally did it.
PC Specs
That said I typically don't mod games, unless it is a TES title and even then it's mostly gameplay mods. Though Skyrim could use a facelift. Not absolutely needed to enjoy the game tho.
PC Specs
Quite weird that someone downvoted every one of your posts lol, wonder what their problem was.
Anyway, I've taken a look at that, Banjo Kazooie looks quite a lot better...
PC Specs
My guess is that someone disagrees that textures can be modded (though you can't really disagree with facts) or disagrees with the idea of modding period.
Perhaps they have something against emulators, or something against me. I feel like I have made some enemies on this site.
PC Specs
Sleep with one eye open!
PC Specs
Is that even possible?
PC Specs
I do it accidentally sometimes, not recommended. And it looks creepy.
PC Specs
sleeping with eye open is more of a micro sleep not full on muscle relaxing which should close ur eyes in rem state
PC Specs
Wow, that looks really good. I still want it on pc....
PC Specs
Yeah, its really annoying to see an article here that starts with the words "Red Dead Redemption..." and it has nothing to do with the pc release...
PC Specs
Nothing incorrect about the title is there?
PC Specs
Honestly, I don't see this game coming to PC anytime soon if ever. Probably better off playing it on the PS3 emulator once the framerate issue is sorted out.
PC Specs
In RPCS3, we trust.
PC Specs
Hey man, I'm just being honest with ya. :3
PC Specs
Or just play it on a console you can get for about £60 new lol, people can't be that desperate